Wilderness

by Lance Weller

  Four ill-healed claw marks that could have come from anything in that country—bear or cougar, raccoon, skunk, or barbed wire—raked its left thigh. The long fur behind one leg was dizzied into a mat the size of Abel’s heart that did not allow the dog to unbend it. Abel sighed and rocked back on his heels, speaking quietly to the dog, looking the rest of it over.

  The dog watched him and did not growl when Abel wiped his knife off on his pants leg, then cut free the mat. He set the knife down and tossed the fur into the fire, where it crackled softly, and presently the dog climbed stiffly to its feet. It gentled its leg to the ground as though unsure yet whether to trust it. Abel nodded and praised it and the dog stood looking at him for a long time. Then it limped over to the half-open shack door, looked over its shoulder at Abel, and went into the dark to lie down beside his cot. Abel followed and eased shut the door against the cold. Lying down, he let his hand dangle until he could twist his fingers into the soft fur behind the dog’s ears. He spoke to it a long time that night. And finally, just before sleep, Abel breathed deeply and said, “I’ll be goddamned if it don’t smell like wet dog in here now.”

  Abel smiled broadly to remember the moment and felt himself slip slowly to sleep.

  The afternoon of the next day found him in an old field that stretched a half mile in every direction. A Swede’s homestead from years ago, but the ground had been too boggy to support his claim—not farm or outbuilding, let alone any sort of crop. Old timbers dressed greenly in scissor-leaf lay abandoned in dry, waist-high grass that shivered and clashed softly in the wind. The sky was gray with clouds but rainless yet. Upon the air was the brass taste of winter, the sharpness of a coming cold snap. The forest began again on the far side of the field—a green wall cut with brown trunks and shadows. Abel thought for a moment he could hear them somewhere in the field ahead or in the darkness beyond, but a great weariness settled over him, and he covered his face with his hands as though in despair. After a time, he went to an outcropping of stone where the old Swede had thought to build a wall near the center of the field where there grew a bent apple tree. Abel picked a few pieces of spoiling fruit that still, improbably, clung to the branches, and settled upon the stones to rest.

  He broke the apples open in his hands. The meat was soft and orange and smelled winesweet. Abel pushed the pulp off the cores with the pad of his thumb and ate the cores, then spat the seeds to the side. The Indians had given him a water skin, and he rinsed his mouth and cleaned the fronts of his teeth with his tongue, then spat and took a long drink. The water was cold and sweet, tasting of rain. After a while, Abel closed his eyes.

  He dreamed a dream of empty houses. He dreamed of ancient stones, cold and moss-covered. He dreamed of a yellow woman whom he knew well, and when he opened his eyes again, he rose and went on.

  When they finally bedded down, neither stood guard. After a while, Abel rose from the blowdown and by starlight checked the pistol the Indians had given him. It was an old Adams .32 pocket revolver with but half a grip and a dangerous-looking dent in the barrel. Abel swallowed quickly to ease the itchy burn at the back of his throat. He turned the single bullet out onto his palm, squinted through the chamber, blew it clear, then replaced the bullet and snapped the cylinder back. “All right,” he said softly. “You checked it. You did that, so there ain’t no cause to go checking it again.” Abel took a deep breath and crept through the blowdown toward the red glow of their coals.

  When he was close, Abel stopped just without a little box-shaped patch of moonlight, filtering silvery and fine through the canopy. He crouched and listened to them at their slumber—snoring and sighing and soft whimpering. Abel put his hands into the moonlight and broke open the gun to check it once more. Satisfied, he put it back, and the parts clacked softly as he fumbled in the dark. The old man stilled, and he waited a moment to see if they would stir before he continued.

  It was very cold now; his breath steamed and rose through the trees like moss vapor in the morning sun. Abel clutched the broken grip where the metal was jagged and tried to control his breath, to ignore the thin, high, icy itch at the back of his throat. He could smell himself, root-sour and fusty, speaking of fear and sickness and age and anger and hurt. He went slowly forward once more, and only stopped when he saw the dog’s eyes glowing redly from across the burned-down fire.

  It growled, low and deep, ancient in intent, and Abel made a quick, soft shushing sound and the dog fell silent. The old man crouched and let his eyes adjust to the glow of the fire shivering up the tree trunks and paling red the darkness beyond. The dog’s legs were tied fast, and a heavy rope was looped tightly around its neck and secured to a tree. It was muzzled with strips of knotted cloth, and a white scrim of drool decorated its underjaw. The dog raised its head to peer at Abel. He made a sign and it settled once more, ears raised.

  Abel stepped into the clearing. There was a high burning in his chest and he could feel the action of his heart at work. Above, the stars glittered like fool’s gold, and beside the coals the two men slept. Abel eased out the knife the Indians had given him, trod softly around the perimeter of their camp, and crouched beside the dog to cut away its bonds. He cut the rope from its neck but left its muzzle bound for the quiet it gave. Because it could not help it, the dog’s tail began to work, sweeping through the ferns once and twice before Abel clutched hard at the loose flesh at the back of its neck and stilled it with a glare. The dog calmed, and Abel nodded, then ran the backs of his fingers over its cheek. He nodded again and jerked his chin toward the dark, and the dog turned and disappeared into the shadows.

  The old man pressed his lips together and breathed. He looked at the two men where they lay reddened by coal light. The Haida slept with his face starward, and even in sleep his lips framed a soft, cruel smirk as though his dreams well satisfied him. The big Indian’s hands lay composed just so upon his chest in the unnatural manner of the dead in their caskets, and his rifle lay beside him. For his part, Willis slept curled on his side. His thin white hands covered the ruins of his mouth as though he were mocking some proverb-monkey, and his eyes and shoulders twitched as though his dreams showed him things he’d not otherwise see. He whimpered softly, and the toes of his wretched boots dug shallow troughs through the dirt.

  Abel moved quietly to the edge of the clearing, then around to where they’d piled their gear, and quickly found his haversack, rifle, and walking stick amongst their reeking equipment. Distantly, he heard the dog barking and frowned and stood stock-still until he was sure the sleepers had not woken. After a moment, he gathered his things and made to turn, but chanced to look starward, where he saw them falling out of the night.

  It was no repetition of the Leonids of ’33 or even the lesser shower after the war, but perhaps some celestial precursor of other, greater star showers yet to come. Long white trails etched flashing across the glassy night soundlessly in cold parabola. They glittered in the old man’s eyes, and for an instant he was a child again, clutching tightly his father’s strong hand in the starlit dark, and then he was a man and young and without anyone at all on the long, lonely trail to the blue Pacific and the forests Out There. And then, just before the long white arcs of light faded and were gone, Abel’s breath caught in his throat and he began to sputter and to gag. He sputtered and gagged, then drew a great, shuddering breath that forced the caution from him along with a cough that rattled from him harsh and loud.

  He doubled over, blood on his lips, and felt strange, damp chunks of matter spray against the backs of his teeth and a tearing within him. Abel spat. He fell to his knees with the pistol falling from his pocket and gone amidst the red-clothed shadows. On either side the sleepers woke and rose.

  The dog came silently out of the forest to the left of the road, and had Emerson not spooked, Glenn Makers might not have seen it at all until it was in the bed of the wagon behind him. As it was, all he did see was a dark shape, low to the ground and swift as he took up his rifle. The wagon creaked to a
stop in the middle of the road as Emerson stamped and blew and rolled his eyes. Makers told him hush and pointed the barrel out at the dark, cursing himself for a fool for traveling after nightfall with Farley’s friends about.

  He stood ready that way and, when he saw and heard nothing, lit a little lantern on the seat beside him and held it over his head. The dog’s eyes flared in the lamplight as it scrambled into the wagon, and Makers saw it for what it was and saw how its mouth was bound, its neck rope-burnt and raw.

  He set the rifle by and stepped into the bed. “That you, Buster?” he asked the dog, and it came to him, whining softly and pawing at its muzzle as Makers took out his knife and cut away the bindings.

  Immediately, the dog began a furious barking. It leapt from the wagon and ran into the forest, then turned and barked and ran back out into the road.

  Makers looked at the dog. He looked up the road and out at the dark forest, and the dog began barking again. Cursing softly, Makers stepped down into the road to follow the dog where it would lead him, then looked to the sky, where the stars were falling by the hundreds.

  They arced in reflection across the dark panes of his eyes, and his mouth dropped open to see them falling so. He thought there should be sound but could not imagine the uproar that might accompany such a spectacle.

  Then, quickly as they began, the stars quit falling, and the myriad that remained sparkled from all their right places in the western night. Makers tied the reins around a thin alder nearby, then turned to follow the dog just as the sound of gunfire and outraged screaming crackled from the woods not more than a hundred yards away.

  The Haida pushed the barrel of his shotgun against Abel’s temple as tenderly as a kiss. Abel was on his knees, and slow, sick blood dripped from his lip to spatter softly in the springy moss. “Old man, old man, old man.” The Haida sighed. “You should have just died.”

  Willis fisted a hand into Abel’s long hair and lifted the old man’s head. Abel blinked away tears and saw the little man had scooped up the pistol the Indians had gifted him. His eyes widened, and he tongued the red edges of his ruined cheek. In the red light, the little man had a fearsome, scarecrow aspect, and he let go Abel’s hair and stepped back. “Shit, Buddy,” he gurgled. “This man’s sicker’n a dog.”

  The Haida nodded and withdrew the shotgun. “It would be interesting, I think, to watch it take him. To watch him at the end. An interesting thing.” He shrugged and looked up at Willis. “Fuck it. You know what to do with a sick dog.”

  Willis leaned and spat blood onto the coals, where a yellow flame flared and sizzled and died. He thumbed back the hammer of the Indians’ pistol and pointed it at Abel. “Same thing you do to a hurt one,” he said.

  Abel pushed himself up so he was kneeling between them with the coals of their fire warming his right side. He put his palm on his thigh and breathed as best he could for the pain in his chest and held his ruined left arm in such a way as to ease that pain. From somewhere he heard the dog barking. After a moment, he raised his face to stare into the cold, round dark of Willis’s eyes.

  There was an explosion, and Abel felt heat scorch his eyelids and his forehead. There was a scream, and he opened his eyes to see Willis fallen to the side with the Haida bent over him. Their shadows on the pines were monstrous in the lurid light. The pistol lay here and there in so many pieces, and Abel blinked and shook his head to try and rid his ears of ringing. As he pushed himself to standing, he reached into the coals and scooped up a bright handful that sizzled mournfully in his bare palm.

  The Haida stood and swung the shotgun around as Abel flung his hand forward and released the coals. They went hissing starwise through the dark space between them, and the Indian ducked. The shot went wide but not by much, the pellets slicing through the underbrush and thocking loudly into the trees.

  Abel turned and grabbed his haversack and rifle as the Haida broke his own gun to reload. Willis pushed himself to his knees, holding with his left hand the remains of his right, where the exploding pistol had blown it apart.

  Abel had no way to know how far he’d run before he finally fell gasping and sick to the moss, but he reckoned it could not have been far. He could still plainly hear Willis screaming with thick choking sounds as his broken mouth tried to find the proper shape for his pain. Abel lay on his back in the moss with one hand clutching the straps of the haversack and the rifle fallen beside him. He lay with his chin wet and he lay with his heart racing all out of time to the pulse of blood he could plainly feel pounding at his temples.

  And then the dog was there—worrying his neck and ears with its soft, warm tongue—and then another figure, a man who looked him over, swore, and helped him to his feet. He fetched Abel’s rifle, and together they stumbled through the brush. Moonlight came through the forest like the ghosts of trees, and they heard crashing in the brush behind them. A hoarse and maddened shouting.

  They came out of the woods onto the road, and Abel pulled himself up into the wagon bed as it lurched forward. He whistled for the dog to join him and when it did, Abel told it what a good dog it was. Then with his hurt but still expert hand, Abel checked the rifle over, cocked it, and lay the barrel against the backboard to aim out into the dark forest as it passed by along either side. They were moving fast now, up the road, but the road was not good, and as he was jostled about Abel felt what little strength he still had begin to fail him. When he saw there was nothing, and would be nothing, behind them, he lay back.

  “Glenn Makers,” he called out after a few moments.

  “Abel Truman,” said Makers over his shoulder. “You all right?”

  “Passable,” said Abel. “You can probably slow up a little now.”

  “If it’s all the same to you, we’ll keep along like this for a bit.”

  “All right then,” said Abel. His burnt face felt light and numb and his right hand itched, the skin tightening. He looked at the little sacks and packages laying heaped in the wagon bed with him. “You-all layin’ in for winter?” he asked.

  “That’s right,” said Glenn. His shoulders rose to his earlobes as though he felt a sudden shudder, then fell again.

  Abel lay back and quietly panted for a short time. “Well,” he finally said. “Looks like you’ll have plenty. You two must be doing all right up there.”

  “We’re doing fine.”

  Abel nodded and cleared his throat. He sat up and spat over the side. “Ellen ever get better?”

  “She’s just the same.”

  “Well, that’s too damned bad.” Abel began a weary, wet coughing that he soon lost control of. Makers slowed the wagon and finally stopped when Abel vomited over the side. It went on for a time before the old man finally fell back gasping, and Makers started the wagon forward again.

  “You see them stars, Glenn?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Pretty things, them. Pretty things.”

  They went along quietly for a while. Makers wondered if the old man had died until a voice came from the wagon bed. “I brung back your book.”

  Makers spoke to Emerson, and the horse picked up the pace again. “Did you?” he answered after thinking about it a moment. “I’d forgotten you had had it.”

  Abel stirred about in the dark. “I didn’t,” he said softly.

  Again, there was a long period of quiet, and Makers finally stopped the wagon and climbed into the bed to kneel beside the old man. Looking at him, Makers thought again that he was dead until Abel made a soft sound and grimaced in his sleep. Makers got a blanket from his supplies and settled it over him, and the old soldier slept and Makers nodded and got the wagon moving again.

  Chapter Eight

  Like a Distant Storm

  The Wilderness of Spotsylvania, May 7, 1864

  A single raindrop struck his face. A fat drop, filled with springtime promise and tainted now, too, with the smoky pollutants of war, for it had fallen through layers of stale powdersmoke. Risen days past from the solid world below, it pl
unged. The herald of a hard shower coming, as it fell to the dark green world it gathered to itself dust and chaff and particles of violence that threaded invisibly through the dirty air like shuddering ectoplasm.

  The drop smacked against him, pooling neatly at the center of his brow then sliding along his temple, running atop a month’s accumulation of dried sweat and grime and tracing the delicately curved intricacies of his ear before dropping, finally and forever, into the grass, where it seeped into the ruined soil of the Wilderness of Spotsylvania.

  Sherman Grant opened his eyes. He blinked and breathed with his flesh all damp and aching in his joints. Filthy and hungry, badly frightened by the memory of what they’d seen of the fighting the day before, he shook his head to try and dislodge the terrible dreams from his mind’s eye. He tried to forget other, worse things that were not dreams at all but that he would remember always in nightmares.

  He lay on his back in the grass, watching the undersides of dark clouds flowing southward. Carried by high winds, they lay seamed each to each and complex as a Chinese puzzle box whose secrets held blue sky and sunlight. Grant smelled the smells of rain and things burnt, and when a blocky rattling came to him upon the wind, he stood.

  He looked southward toward a dense screen of trees. Dark smoke stood like tilted columns holding up the gray sky. The artillery rumbled again, and he marked its place by sound and distant flashes of light against the low belly of cloud. Like thunder it rolled, like a distant storm a farmer will watch with worry. He wondered where the armies were meeting again and stared south, trying to see beyond the green rim of the forest. He wondered how far they’d gotten before turning on each other again.

  They’d hidden in the woods for three days now, afraid to move for fear of capture or worse. For the first two days and nights they’d heard the sounds of battle issuing out of the dark all around them like nothing either had ever known. Like two animals at each other ceaselessly, they did not stop their fighting for dark of night, merely slackened the pace a little. On the third day the armies moved south. He and Hypatia stayed still as the marching soldiers flowed past. Lights stabbed through the shadows all night long, and the trees filled with the sounds of shouting and the stamping of hooves, the creaking of tack and the clatter of wagon wheels.