by Lisa Hannett
“Arright, I s’pose,” he says with a modest shrug, fooling no-one. At the doe’s heart is a perfect red hole, the shot clean, dead-on. Ain’t nobody could of done better.
“Bagged hisself a wild turkey too,” Rud chuckles, pulling the flask from his vest, swigging the joke.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Perch says when he waggles the bourbon her way. Tipping it back, she drinks ’til there ain’t a drop left. “I’ll get us a top-up,” she says, dashing inside for the cask and glasses, leaving the men to string up the carcass from the garage’s eaves. When she gets back out, the deer’s hanging from its hind legs, black velvet muzzle brushing the gingham blanket laid below to sop blood.
Mose whistles and sings while he separates the doe from her hide. Working from heels to neck, he whisks the sharp blade downward fast and skillful, shuffle-footing round the creature. The pelt peels away in one whole piece, not a nick in sight. As he hunkers to make the final cuts, the skin flops onto him from above. Snorting, he stands with arms outstretched, does a little spin. Proud as any king in a fancy new cloak.
“Fucking idiot,” Ruddy says, flinging a gob of entrails at him from the waste. Turning to Perch, he says: “Get that grill hot as Hades, darlin. Won’t be long now.”
While Mose takes a hose to the naked deer, Rud bags the liver, packs it into an ice-filled cooler in the pickup’s tray. Then he winches the garage door open, helps lug the venison inside for ageing. With Perch looking on, the two of them pours bucketloads of salt onto the hide. Folds it all up. Lobs it onto the gritty pile already in the truck, ready for carting off to Butcher’s Holler.
“Earth to Perch,” Mose says, snapping his fingers. “Stop yer gawking, girl. I’m starving.”
“I reckon,” Perch says quiet-like, squinting at the pickup. Ain’t checked in there yet, she thinks, crossing over to the fire. After popping a barbecue grill on the coals, she pours them all a fresh glassful while it heats up. Another drink sees them through ’til Rud’s charred the doe’s heart in the fire. He turns it for a minute or three on the grate, then serves it up while the meat’s still tender, each hunk soft as the riverbed.
Perch gulps her share without hardly chewing. Refills her glass between bites. Rye-rinses the liquid iron and warm ash from her mouth.
* * *
“Mose,” Perch whispers, prodding his shoulder. “You awake?”
The moon’s dunked its bloated belly below the clouds, silvering the trailer, the pickup, the mud and grass yard. The two men snore like hell in their lawn chairs, legs outstretched, boots resting on the fire-pit’s cooling stone edges. Squatting on a polished stump beside him, Perch watches the man what’s kept her all these years. His gob open, throat vibrating a fine ruckus that ain’t neither words nor song. Irises flicking to and fro behind his closed lids, looking everywheres for some dream worth catching.
“Mose,” she says, jabbing again.
He scowls. Twitches like he’s been skitter-bit.
Giggling, Perch pokes a few times more, just to see him writhe.
“You awake,” she asks, louder now. Thinking, if he’s this dead to the world, she oughta take advantage. Only one place left to check for her skin, and it’s parked right over there ...
“Hmmph,” Mose snorts. Shifts position. Gives his gut a good itching. As his fingers scritch, the hem of his shirt inches up to rib height. The hair showing there’s thick and dark as always, but in this light the skin underneath looks paler than ever, a ghostly blue-white glowing through the curls. Except-- Perch leans closer. Narrows her eyes at the smudges of colour, the distinct lines. Riffles her nails across his navel as though she were picking lice. Except there?
Can’t see shit through all that fur. She lurches to her feet. Looks around ’til she finds the knife Mose used on the deer earlier. Fetches it. Gives it a rinse with the hose. Gotta thin the forest to see what’s lurkin in the undergrowth.
Careful as a surgeon, Perch places the cold steel above Mose’s bellybutton and starts scraping. Three swipes and she’s certain. Twin fishes is swimming round that dark whirlpool. Oh yes, there they is: sweet little Pisces. Mama’s gift to her favourite mer-girl. Her very own special gift.
Hers.
Not Mose’s.
The blade rasps. Stealing my skin ain’t enough? Now you gots to have my ink, too? Perch keeps shearing ’til there ain’t no doubt. Not one speck. There it were, plain as soot, scrawled across Mose’s belly. Proof of his wrongdoing.
Her vision blurs. You sure, girl? That’s it? Propping her knife-hand against his body, she uses the other to push up his sleeves. For a moment, her gaze swivels down to her own forearms. Only that morning, them pretty dolphins of hers was smiling there--she knows they was--but now they’s gone and vanished, too.
Frowning, she blinks.
Blinks.
Blinks.
Blinks.
Looks up at her husband’s exposed wrist, and seethes.
That there’s a bottlenose poking out that cuff, I know it--
“What you doing, darlin?” Mose sits up so fast, ain’t no chance Perch can get away. She’s good and caught, right there on his lap, groping his clothes, pawing round his nethers. Surprise whooshes out of him. He gapes down at her. Addled, she reckons, with booze. A whuff-whuff-whuffing sound comes out his open mouth. Ain’t laughter. Ain’t his usual trilling. No, it ain’t that. More like anger. She’s trapped, red-handed. That’s what it is. Her hands is all red.
“Oh God,” she says, but He ain’t listening. Not now, not ever. Surely not with Rud snoring to the high heavens, so much louder than Perch’s blubbing. “Oh my God.”
“Darl--” Mose gasps, the knife stuck in his guts, right up to the hilt, the blade so goddamn sharp Perch ain’t even felt it go “--in.”
“Oh God,” Perch says, broken record. “Oh God.” Lightheaded, though Mose’s the one losing blood. Get the gingham sheet, she thinks, picturing him swaddled in it, the blue and white checks catching all that mess. That mess he were making, that mess what he’s made--of everything, again, as always. What a goddamn mess. He yanks out that carvin-stick and it’s like he’s pulled a keg plug. All the juice is glugging from him now, spreading down past his thighs. Perch presses both palms against the wound, pushing down while Mose struggles to stand. Determined to die just as fast and hard as he guzzled, as he sung, as he loved.
“Jinx,” Mose grunts. “Baby--”
“Hush now,” Perch says, ducking under his dolphined arm, offering her shoulder as a crutch. Always thinking of them little birds of his, was Mose. First and foremost--after trapping and skinning and drinking--them kids was in his mind. “Rud’s right there if they need him.”
With their backs to the moon, Mose’s life drips black as Perch shuffles him to the pickup. Scooping the blanket on the way, she tucks it tight round him. Buckles him in, then climbs into the driver’s seat. Keys is already in the ignition, thank Christ, and there’s fuel enough to speed them to Doc’s farm.
“Hang on.” Hands slick on the wheel, she reverses, tires spewing gravel. Doc ain’t but one county over. Close as hell to Plantain. “We’ll make it. We’ll make it.”
They won’t.
Mose is whiter’n Perch long before they reach the turn-off. Breaths rattle into him, foul air wheezes out. In between, that broad chest of his conjures up some frightful unnatural humming. Soon the hold he’s got on her loosens. Soon she can’t hardly hear him through all them sobs. For an instant--one traitorous, hopeful second--she glances at her skinny thighs. Thinks, Soon they’re gonna sparkle.
--Play us a tune, Mose says after a long quiet while. By the Mark. Better yet, I’ll Fly Away.
She clouts the radio ’til it spits noise. Static, mostly, but Mose don’t seem to mind. His head lolls from side to side, a metronome keeping red dirt time. They turn right at the crossroads, away from the Doc’s. Away from town. Won’t be nothing but trouble waiting there now. Instead, Perch follows the Saccattaw’s roughest offshoot. Rolls down the win
dows to blow out the stink Mose is making, and to hear the distant roar of the falls.
--Where we headed?
“Not far,” she says after a minute, insides churning. “Off Chillins Bluff.”
--Reckon yer up for a swim, do ya?
“Could well be,” she says even as her head shakes and shakes. “And you?”
Mose never were one to decline a challenge.
* * *
Hours later, the numb still ain’t wore off.
Cold beyond shivering, Perch sits behind the wheel in the silent, empty pickup. Rat-tails of hair drip on her back, wriggle before her downcast eyes. A puddle seeps from her jeans and thin t-shirt, damping the seat inch by inch. The wet she pulled in from the river don’t quite meet the stain Mose made last night, his deep red soaking clean through the blanket she wrapped him in. For a while, some of that colour were rubbed off on her. Up on Chillins Bluff, she got her scrawny arms good and smeared with it when she wrangled Mose out the passenger side. Since her man weren’t in no mood for cooperating--he just flopped hisself spineless, whump on the ground, the same way Jinx did when throwing a fit--Perch had to grab him under the pits, prop him against her chest and thighs, pull him upright like a farmer set to snip the balls off her sheep. She got right messy while she dragged Mose to where the truck’s beams was pointing, the yellow ‘V’s widening and softening the closer they got to the cliff’s edge. The light there were blurred with mist, the pebbles slick with waterfall spray.
--Reckon yer up for a swim? he said again, lack of blood making him stupid, repetitive. With her throat lumped shut, Perch couldn’t respond just then. Looking away, she scrounged some fist-big stones from the lookout. Tucked some in Mose’s pockets, some up his pant legs, another in his mouth. That one didn’t stop him humming the same ditties, over and over, while she wound the sheet round his boots and legs and fast-cooling body. She snugged it under his belt. Covered his sweet-singing face. Knotted it under his chin to keep it from wagging.
“You first,” she said before kissing the rough fabric where his lips was, kissing it hard. “I’ll catch you up.”
Mose were a sizeable man, a broad-chested bellower, a relentless hunter. There weren’t nothing elegant about him. But as he soared over Chillins Bluff, Perch seen him taper into something truly dainty, smaller than small. She seen something dazzling in that pale checker shroud, the fish-backed angle of his dive, the white roar of his final plunge. Something close to grace.
Now, in the grey light of morning, she can’t quite get her head around what she done wrong.
What else could I’ve done?
While Mose were still sinking, Perch had motored down the bluff to the highway. Quick as the devil, she’d pulled up alongside the low metal railing. Parked so close, she had to scramble out the passenger door. Around back, she bailed out the bundled pelts in the tray and launched them all onto the riverbank.
One by one, she slipped on them skins. Weasel, woodchuck, natural wolf. Fox and deer. Even a Chippewa bear. Some what might of been dogs. Others whose origins she couldn’t peg--these last she wore especially, in case hers was stuffed in there too. Stiff or supple, feral or fine, she swum with them all. Holding her breath near long as Mama--she who were second-best and second-prettiest in the whole of Tapekwa County, and had the gill-marks to prove it--Perch watered them peels for hours. She kept diving ’til they was pruned as rotten apples, ’til each bit of flesh were clean magickless as the rest.
She wore every last one of them skins, but weren’t none of them hers for keeps. Come dawn, her legs was still split right up to her gash. Still she ain’t grown no tail, though Mama swore she would. Could? No, would, goddammit. Still the current hauled her ever shoreward, no matter how hard she kicked the other way. Still she couldn’t swim for shit.
Now he’s gone, she wonders, how long’s it gonna take for that old skin o’ mine to turn up?
* * *
Now parked in the drive outside their trailer, Perch is struggling to get the facts straight. All them skins at her disposal but here she is, still, forever stuck in Plantain. All that water, and she couldn’t breathe none of it. All that splashing and glugging, and still Mose is singing. Loud and lofty as he ever done.
Small wonder the noise ain’t woke Ruddy yet.
But the towman’s slouched in his chair, head back and snoring, fog puffing from his open maw. Frost’s creeping across the grass, whiting everything but the two long tire tracks she made up the drive. Not yet dawn, it’s fair chilly out, but Perch reckons Rud’s got enough meat on his bones and mash in his belly to warm him senseless ’til the sun punches in for the day. Even so, she wishes Mose would pipe the hell down. His jolly, smug warble--more hum and whistle than words--carries across the yard in bursts and snatches. She ain’t got to hear real lyrics to know what he’s chirping. To know she don’t want no-one else singing along.
--Water’s fine, darl.
The tune wrenches her guts, a secret sung in the key of truth.
--Reckon yer up for a swim?
Quickly lifting her shirt, Perch inspects her bare navel. She claws at her dolphinless wrists. Twisting in the seat, she searches for any sign of ink left between her freckles and beauty marks. Finds not a drop. Not a single line.
Mose is got her all her waves. All her fishes. All her swim.
Goddammit, Mama.
Gripping the steering wheel, she rests her forehead on her knuckles. Tears plink from her lashes, happy pennies dropping. Quiet as can be--she don’t want to rouse Rud--Perch leans back and laughs herself sick.
Keep yer skin to yerself, Mama said, but Mose got it anyway.
Mose got it.
He’s got it. On him.
Handed it over my own self. Perch chuckles, swipes the wet off her face. The very day we was wed, I gave it up. Ain’t no better explanation, she reckons. No greater cause for relief. They was man and wife--in God’s eyes and man’s--and so they was united. One body. One flesh.
One skin.
No doubt Mose is had a fine time dallying under Chillins Bluff overnight, laughing at his fool wife, racing the rapids in her best, swiftest fins. Skimming the riverbed. Wave-dancing with them frisky falls. Making wagers with hisself as he plunged and surfaced, guessing how long it’ll take her to add two plus two.
Stifling a snort, Perch revs the truck to life. Only thing for it, she reckons, is to go’on down there and get Mose back. Fish him out. Face his music. Let him shout hisself hoarse at this wrong she done him. Let him froth and rant and curse her straight to hell. And when his hate’s up, when he’s truly set to tear into her--well, that’s when she’ll do it.
It’s over, she’ll say, firm on the Saccattaw’s muddy banks, louder even than the falls. We ain’t one no more. That skin of mine is mine alone.
Gives her a thrill, just thinking on it. The power in her mer-fins peeling away from him quick-smart, all that freedom returning to her ... But Lord Almighty, how Mose is going to holler!
Perch pulls the handbrake. Putting it in neutral, she gets out the truck. Runs up to the trailer. Ducks inside for four last things before heading off.
Mose can’t get that angry with the kids near ... S’pose they come along, a flock of green-eyed buffers? Won’t do nothing but good, she reckons, having them little blackbirds tweeting nearby when she breaks up with him. Sure, they ain’t never flown before, but Perch knows they must have it in them somewheres, just like their Pa. Won’t need more’n a nudge--she’ll floor the gas pedal, give them a real fast run-up to the edge--and they’ll be flapping them wings of theirs in no time.
Hang on, she’ll say as they drive to the lookout. Then she’ll take her foot well off the brake, press the clutch. Shift into first, no need to reach second. She’ll rev the engine good, then --‘Let go,” she’ll say, and they will. All of them.
Ain’t that far to travel off Chillins Bluff, straight down to where Mose is swimming, wearing her own skin. A four second plummet, max. No longer’n the first bar of a f
avourite old song--short and easy as that. Perch could do it with her eyes closed.
The Canary
Ell cried as her pathetic whisper gave out. No, no, no. Jac’s brother Raif clacked his strong beak against her flushed cheek. Pushed. Cawed. Shhhh, gal, shhhh.
Yellow-orange light flickered through the trailer’s one window, parking lot bonfires gilding the crow boy’s near-sharpest edge. His face-blade pressed close, closer. Black feathers glinted on head and shoulders, so close. Springs screeched. Well over six foot, Raif hulked over her. A giant perched by her frozen knees. Leaning in and down and on. Bare from chest to hips, skin smooth as brown toffee, sooted wings folded against his broad back. Muscles hard in his jeans, legs hard, tapering to honed claws. Callused fingers pinning one slender wrist.
Ell sank into Jac’s unmade sofa-bed. Her fine hair snarled to knots. No no no.
Whoops and clanking bottles in the lot outside. The other coal miners croaked, hip-hip-hoorayed, drank to the season’s best haul. Slurred through their beaks for Raif.
Ell scrunched water and snot from her pretty face. Nonono. Hoped to repulse him soft.
Raif held firm, breath hot, reeking of gut. He stared. He pecked.
Ell mouthed okay without meaning it. Surely he could see that. Surely he could tell she wanted to wait. Surely he could feel her quaking, crying like a kid.
No
The crow boy climbed on.
* * *
But that were Raif’s job, weren’t it. Ploughing on when others might stop. Chasing shaft girls like Ell down the mines, rarely waiting for the go-ahead. Spearing after them, danger-fast, nipping their little arses if the pace slowed too soon, too close to the surface, where the veins had long been bled dry. Urging them deep, deeper. Pointing out fissures only slim gals could fit into--cracks too narrow for regular men, much less them with wings spanning twelve foot. Circling as lasses sank into the stink damp, their bright heads gleaming in the near-black. Diving at the first blow of their whistles--Clear! Clear!--then snatching them gals, flailing in their coveralls, and hauling them topside before the dyn-o-mite they laid blew its load.