Songs for Dark Seasons

by Lisa Hannett

  None of you’s ever been struck by the notion--even as arrowhead teeth pierce the stupid leg you left sticking out from that edible heap, even as the pain the pain the pain burns up your shin, even as you bite your tongue and play corpse, even as chomping leads to spurting to gulping to slurping and, thank holy Christ, to burping and hiccupping and finally to drunken-loud snoring--y’all ain’t never known that the Ursines ain’t really to blame for your being there, crippled and near-senseless, bleeding out on a dirty cave floor. It ain’t really their fault at all.

  So, no. To answer your question: I ain’t never seen ’em clear-like. Maybe they’re part bear, part pig, part giant. Maybe they have talons or tusks or boar-bristle spines. Maybe they wear children’s skins, maybe they have pelts of gore and shadow and stink. But I do know one thing for certain: they ain’t fiends. They ain’t inhuman.

  They ain’t never devoured one another.

  * * *

  Fact is, Ursines ain’t got any real family.

  They ain’t loyal. They hunt solo or in packs, whatever’s convenient. Between breakfast and bedtime, they rut out of instinct. Boars on boars, sows on sows, sires on siblings; ain’t no boundaries between them, no morals, no lifelong mates. They don’t love, so don’t never get lonely. They don’t need. They hunger, that’s all. So they feed.

  They birth plenty of offspring, but their young don’t stay that way for long.

  All right, out with it: what’s squinting them peepers of yours?

  Hmmph. That some imagination you got there, punkin. Ain’t no parents never come a-calling when our foes is set to rampage. Trust me. When them beasts get a good hunger going, it’s every kid for herself.

  After I got snatched, the Ursines ransacked Big Kalhoun. Wiped out more than half the town before sun-up, snapped up all but a couple of orphans. Of course, I ain’t seen the devastation myself for nigh on a week. While the gold-spitters slunk from their lairs, I stayed behind in the den, a prime brisket stored in their fridge for later. I was in no condition to walk, much less run, but damned if I wouldn’t escape. I could still writhe on my belly. I could slither.

  Slowly, slowly, hugging the dank stone walls, I gained the cave’s mouth, then slid like a tongue over its split lip. Dribbled down the gravel and dirt path, into the woods, to the shelter of crackling undergrowth. Already there was smoke on the air, but what that meant didn’t register. Not then. Feet and paws and hoofs juddered past, so close I should of been trampled, scooped up, hauled back into Ursine maws or dragged down to our rallying camp. Should of been, but wasn’t.

  I always was good at hiding.

  In a prickly hollow, I lay still and senseless while torches were lit far below. While jerry cans were filled with cheap whiskey and gasoline. While rags were stuffed into the tanks’ red plastic spouts. While rifles popped, closer and closer. While shrieks combatted snarls--near, then on, then up the mountainside. While claws and teeth fought bullets. While predators contended with prey.

  The Ursines will forever outnumber us. We can shoot at ’em, we can burn out their dens, but ain’t no chance we’ll defeat the whole army in one go. With sharpened shovels and hatchets, the widows made a good dent in their ranks that night, walloping what shadows had dodged fire and shotgun spray, what gold-growlers had lumbered into camp past the rifle-slung gents. None of the Ursines cared a whit about their fallen kin. They galumphed right overtop of ’em to get at our screamers and snivellers. They trampled any and all bodies into puddles, into muck.

  And yet.

  Even so.

  It ain’t lack of kin what makes you a monster, believe me.

  * * *

  Weapons only do so much in these circumstances, if y’all want my opinion. The smartest fight is the one waged in secret. Wait the brutes out, I reckon. Act by not acting out--not for a good whiles anyway. Least of all when they expect it. Withhold the youngest, tenderest, best part of the feast while Ursines race round stealing, hoarding, glutting themselves dumb on larger, slower treasures. Mind you, there’s bound to be casualties with this approach--ain’t no such thing as a bloodless war--but, with proper planning, with foresight, you can manage it so’s only them what deserves it get snuffed. Might well be we can put right the imbalance what’s been tipping Big Kalhoun off-kilter all this time. Ever since.

  This ain’t just a theory, but a work in progress. Here’s hoping we can pull this off, the whole lot of you and me. Together.

  At one point--when the Ursines was sleeping, a blood-hot huddle all round me, and there I was, cold on my back, staring up at the yellow ore on their cave’s ceiling, centuries of stalactites shaped from their putrid breath--my eyes were so blurred with exhaustion, I swore all the gold up there wasn’t stone. Wasn’t honey, neither. No, I thought. Up there was a county’s worth of haloes, one small shining circle for each life folks had ransomed so’s they could stay here in Big Kalhoun. Yep, that includes your folks. And their folks. And mine.

  Why stay, I wondered, knowing the dangers? Surely there were other dig-holes to plunder. Surely there were other, Ursine-free ranges. Why weren’t our folks striking camp there and then, packing up soon as dawn pinked the sky? Why didn’t they put the torch to their dead, say prayers and farewells, and make the swiftest possible tracks elsewhere?

  Why were they still here days later, when I finally stumbled, half-mad with fever and infection, onto Mrs Masterson’s ruined porch?

  Why are they still here now?

  Don’t bother answering. Sixty-odd years it’s taken me to figure it out; we ain’t got that much time left for y’all to reach my conclusions. Soon as the ruckus dies outside we’ll be hitting the road, so I’d better lead y’all straight as I can to the end.

  Just for a minute, imagine yourself out front of the log cabin your great-granddaddy built with his own two hands. Picture them peaks across the valley he settled as more than just great humps of pine-covered rock. See ’em instead as your own personal lock-box, filled to the brim with treasure. Know down to your very marrow that there, right there, is a legacy fit for any of them high-rolling city folk. Believe yourself an adventurer, a pioneer, a trailblazer. Convince yourself security always comes with risks. Look at them mountain troves and decide you can slip in gentle enough--you’re stealthy, you’re resourceful--and you can slip back out again, rich and unstung. Full proud of what you’ve done.

  With pride comes overconfidence. The Ursines ain’t attacked in years ... We’ll mine only the oldest, least-used caves ... Shame about the kids we lost but, heck, we still gots the makings to git us some more ... Plus, now we gots the coin to support ’em ...

  You think I’m exaggerating. How would you know? You weren’t around then. All you’ve got is my word on how greedy we got. How greedy we are still.

  Just to clarify, so’s we’re seeing eye-to-eye on this, by we I mean them.

  All them folks in Big Kalhoun. Razing forests where once upon a time the Ursines slept in peace. Knocking together pretty wooden boxes for all the orphan-breeders to live in. Building a whole town full of people-coops. (Folk laughed when I tunnelled into this here hillside. Nigh impossible to break into, this little hidey-hole of mine, I said back, and still they laughed. We’ll see who’s crazy once the beasts arrive. We’ll see who’s laughing then.) What’s worse, though? Breeders. Folks having more kids, here. In this world, this country, this day and age. Pure selfishness, that is. All they’re doing is cluttering up the landscape with precious dumplings. Tidbits born to distract the Ursines from bigger, more filling mouthfuls.

  Clean the crud out your ears, children. Ain’t no-one else truly cares for your whereabouts. Only me.

  * * *

  This is a real-life telling, not some folk tale; it takes more than three neat parts to unfold. Today y’all are getting four and a bit. Tomorrow? Who knows. We can tell it again on the road, if you want. Embellish and refine it together.

  Don’t worry, now. We’ll make it through fine ’til morning. Mongrels they might be, but only
one Ursine part is hound--and it sure ain’t the snout. They won’t never sniff us out in here. Fact is, their noses are blunt as concrete.

  Their ears, though. Well, we already know how sensitive they are, don’t we just? Top-notch canine. Owl-keen. Good thing these walls of mine are three yards thick, not to mention muffled in turf. Even better: that door there is fit for a fortress. Not much will penetrate it. Not claws, not battering rams. Not some lonesome Nanny’s voice responding to a bunch of children’s wee ramblings. Air will sneak in through the shuttered window, sure enough, but little else will undermine them bolts. We’re well away from the action, darlins. From here, we’d be unlucky to hear the slaughter.

  Dry them tears, sweetness. Stop that sniffling. Clench the quiver out of that chin.

  We’ll be safe ’til it’s over. Safer than houses. Those gunpowder blasts (one hell-cunning diversion, that was, if I do say so myself) did double duty: not only waking the Ursines from their overlong sleep-in, but also throwing them off our sound-trail. Even now, a ruckus of loose boulders and pebbles is avalanching down the mountain’s westernmost face. Directing those terrifying ears away from this humble hideaway. Pointing them, once more, at Big Kalhoun.

  We’ll be safe so long as your folks keep on hollering.

  Keep your voices down ’til theirs give out.

  It’s all right, my darlins.

  Hush, now. Hush.

  I’ve got you.

  I’ve got you.

  Listen as night falls quiet. Listen to me.

  The Ursines are coming.

  They are nearly here.

  And they are hungry.

  Something Close to Grace

  After the mule died, mose scrounged an old pickup off Ruddy Jickson’s lot no more’n a mile down the interstate. Once it might of been a sweet oyster blue, but now the junker’s well-chewed by time. Its rounded panels and fenders is doilied with rust, the paintwork’s red-brown from lid to belly, much like them jugs of sour mash Mose is been known to swig on a homeward drive. Hopeless as sin, that truck of theirs, but Perch were glad enough to see it.

  Ain’t half so good as swimming, she’d thought back then, watching Mose pull up on the gravel out front. Still ... Reckon it’ll go further than the donkey ever done. That poor waste of flesh weren’t hardly able to shoulder groceries from Bisbee’s market, much less a woman grown, nor the four kids Mose’d got on her. But a truck! A truck. Well, now. That there’s a four-wheeled promise of freedom.

  Except, like so many joys Perch is known in her twenty-odd years, this one’s short-lived. With holes wore clear through the floor, handles what don’t open on wet or cold days, and axles hee-hawing to the high heavens, the thing ain’t barely fit for the road. No more’n twice a week, it whines up to the lookout off Chillins Bluff, metal guts rumbling while Perch idles there, watching gallon after hypnotic gallon swan-dive to the Saccattaw river below.

  Once upon a time, she swum them deep wide waters all the way from Tapekwa County to the falls right here in Plantain. That trip would of took most folk half a day by boat, but Perch weren’t most folk. She weren’t. Before she met Mose, she could see clear through silt-choked shallows and frothing rapids alike. She could make it from one muddy bank to the other without once needing to surface. She could hear the currents whisper, and understood what they was saying. Go this way. Go that way. Git away away away ...

  Underwater, she breathed better than ever she did on land. Only when she were fully doused could she enjoy the hint of gills on her neck, the sheer strength of a double-finned kick, the fish blood of her Mama’s kin. Submerged, she were cold powerful. Sleek and firm. Shimmering speed.

  Before Mose, Perch’s very own flippers drove her upstream and down whenever the mood struck. She ain’t never quite achieved Mama’s endurance, nor her perfect tail, nor the school of tiny fish that were always flittin round it--but she were getting close. So close. She were. A few months more and she’d of been ready--oh yes she would of--just a few more months and she could of taken the plunge, could of full-dunked herself into a pool of Tapekwa’s magicked waters, could of turned mer-lady for good if she’d wanted. Before Mose, Perch reckoned maybe she did want it. That legless life. Sun-up to set, she’d splashed around in the drink without ever feeling tired. Or lonely. Or lost.

  Since Mose, though, she ain’t been herself. Now she’s weak as warm piss. Her riverskin’s dried out, hidden in the trailer somewheres. Without it, she can’t go no further than where this sad old pickup takes her. To Bisbee’s when the oats run out. To the gas station on Sunday afternoons so’s she can use the phone box there. To the liquor store when the money tin’s full, or to Ruddy’s private still when it’s rattling--whichever will keep them in easy spirits.

  Eight or nine times in ten, the truck brings them back home safe.

  But when them wolf-nosed Marshals sniffs the fuel on Mose’s breath--as they did again, night before last--well, that pickup of theirs just ain’t gots the grit to outrun them. Some Marshals gots extra speed in them furry hindquarters of theirs, extra stamina in the shapeshifted tickers pounding inside them. Put them wolves behind a patrol car’s wheel and, sure as shit, they ain’t gonna be slow. The way Perch heard tell of it, the chase that evening were over before them troopers’ cherries even started a-blinkin. A few whoops of the siren and the junker were locked up in the local impound, and Mose hisself in Plantain county clink.

  Once upon a time, Perch would of raced on down to the jailhouse to free him. Faster even than them hound-dog Marshals. Come hell or high water, ain’t nothing would of stopped her. Once upon a time.

  * * *

  Keep yer skin to yerself, girl, Mama always told her. Don’t give it up to just any old someone. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. Ain’t no easy way of getting it back.

  But for a while there, Perch couldn’t wait for Mose to shuck her right out of it. For a while there, he cleaned hisself up right nice when he came a-calling. Black hair parted almost straight, hat in scrubbed hands, yellow silk shirt carrying only a whiff of mothballs. For a while there, she were drunk on the salt-smell of him, on his sweet liquored looks, on being so fiercely chased. For a while there, Mose sure were fierce.

  It weren’t the presents what won Perch over. The posies. The rhinestone brooch shaped like a magician’s rabbit, cute little ears poking out of a gentleman’s hat. The fox-fur muffler Mose’d prepared and sewn hisself. It weren’t the promises of silver--trappers catch decent coin--nor even, eventually, the solid band of gold. It were how hard he loved her, how wild.

  It were the thrill of being known so deep, so close. So often.

  Keep yer skin to yerself, Mama said, but soon Mose had touched every inch of it, from the thin scar at Perch’s hairline to the webs between her fingers and toes. Whenever they was alone--and sometimes even when they wasn’t--he’d palm her bare shoulders, cup her bumps, squeeze her round cheeks, lick the pinkness above and below. The usual, sparrow-twitch of his gaze calmed right down when he looked only at her. With jagged nails, he’d gently trace the dolphins inked on her forearms, the twin fish circling her belly-button, the pretty waves cresting at the base of her spine. He’d take swig after swig then pass along the brown-papered bottle, purpling her neck with love bites as she swallowed and swallowed and swallowed. At last, when both their heads was swimming, he’d burrow into her. He kept at it ’til her belly was full, bullfrogged. So goddamn often.

  Keep yer skin, Mama warned, but by then Mose had already gone and stole it.

  * * *

  Come daybreak, Perch is cracking boiled eggs at the sink when Ruddy swerves round the mailbox at the end of the long drive, Mose’s pickup hitched to his tow-rig. One headlight fights the grey dawn. Its single beam yellows the gravel, the hen-scratched yard, the bonfire pits, the trailer’s corrugated side, the small kitchen window. Perch squints into the glare, looking through her own thin blue silhouette on the glass. Paying little mind to what her hands is doing. After borning this many young’uns, she sure k
nows how to peel an egg. Could do it with her eyes closed.

  Outside, clouds of exhaust mix with tire-spun dust as Rud eases up on the throttle. This ain’t the first time he’s brung the pickup home for Perch--far from it--though she reckons it might be the last. Less than a yard from the front door, he kills the engine. Lumbers out into the haze. Beard a steel wool pelt that scraggles down his chest, splitting around the bulge of his gut. Coveralls spotted with grease, ball-cap brimmed with sweat. A Saint Nick shine on his nose and cheeks. Between draws on a cigarette, he mouths the words to the same tune Perch’s got wailing on the wireless above her stove. If the baby weren’t chirping so, if the kids weren’t yawping, she might even of heard him singing out there.

  “Shhh,” she whispers. The bass in that twang o’ Rud’s always were a comfort, each note twice as deep as Mose’s were high. After the right amount of whiskey, them two struck up some decent harmonies, the older voice ever carrying the younger. Perch tosses a naked egg into a plastic bowl. Imagines herself outside for a spell, soaking in the morning music. “Hush now. Please.”