One by one, he took the birds he’d shot and strung them to his belt, so that soon there were six dangling from his waist. With each, the smell of death increased upon my father—the smell of all things cold: steel, stones, and decay—and with each I seemed to fall farther and farther behind him, until with the last, the bird fell from the sky before the gun fired.
Without a word, my father turned, heading back the way we came. I knew he’d had his fill for the day. As he approached, he grew larger and larger, or I grew smaller and smaller. I’m not sure which. All I remember was that as he passed I felt sure the creature that walked by was a giant risen from the muddy earth and not my father at all. If I had not relieved myself already, I surely would have wet my pants.
The sun was still only halfway to its zenith, its light not yet bringing the warmth I so desired, and all I could think about was the comfort of home. For that reason, I stayed a pace behind my father, matching him stride for stride, even as his own pace increased. He held the Springfield in his hand now, something he only did when he was in a hurry, when he wanted nothing to get in his way. And so I said nothing, but followed, fearing he was trying to lose me, to leave the boy who, like his others, had so clearly already failed him.
And then he stopped and brought the rifle to sight. Following the line of his aim, I tried to locate his prey. For I understood my father well enough to know that it must be a special prey to cause him to change his plan. I remember in that brief instant scanning the horizon for a bear or a cougar—even though I knew there were no cougars, at least not in Wisconsin. But I think I wanted there to be some such animal. I think I needed there to be something grand, something out of the ordinary to save what I knew had already become of this day. Even when I saw the squirrel in the treetop for the second before it fell, I thought it was some strange creature from a dream, a new species never before discovered at the very least.
Stunned, I stood staring at the lifeless body of the squirrel upon the ground. Only when the echo of the rifle’s discharge faded did I try to speak, yet no words came. My father sat upon a log and gestured for me to bring the squirrel to him.
I stood rooted to the ground, no longer frozen as I’d been before, but because I was actually weighing in my mind whether or not to obey him. And then I walked toward the dead animal. I wonder now why my father had the patience at that moment, when he normally wouldn’t have waited two seconds for me. But he waited what must have been a very long time, as I carefully approached the squirrel. The smell hit me first, the same smell given off by the pheasants tied to my father’s waist, a smell that chilled much more than the air that was now, finally, turning warm.
I kneeled down before the squirrel, staring into its black, lifeless eyes, then turned toward my father and stared into his own gray eyes. I thought I had learned his language, but no matter how hard I tried to see into him, I could not understand.
My father met my gaze, gesturing with his hand for me to pick up the dead animal.
I turned again toward the squirrel, my eyes now fixed on the gaping hole in its side, the blood pooling there. I reached out my hand but could not bring myself to grab it. I must admit now I was partly afraid the thing would come alive again and bite me, but it was also the sense that something gravely wrong had occurred and that no matter what my action was I could not change it.
I must have been kneeling there with my hand inches from the squirrel for a very long time because my father appeared suddenly at my side, dropping his handkerchief at my feet.
He thinks I’m afraid, I thought, afraid to stain myself with the blood. I was angry with him for that, and still I took the handkerchief from him, spread it over the squirrel so that I wouldn’t have to see it, picked it up, and handed it to him. He took it in his own hands, placed it before me, and opened the handkerchief.
“Look, Henry,” he said.
I kept my face averted.
“Look,” he said again. “Look closely.”
Slowly, I turned my gaze upon it.
“This is death,” he said. “It doesn’t mean a thing.” Then he clenched the animal in his fist and threw it into the bushes, pocketing the bloody handkerchief after.
I followed my father the rest of the way home, but I no longer studied his back. Understanding was an impossibility. Instead, I kept my gaze upon the ground, scouring the dirt and rocks for a new language, one that would be my own. That search would take me the rest of my life, but I have found it, and it has given me much comfort. Though I have realized only too late, that, like my father, I have enclosed myself in my own dialect, one that is difficult for anyone else to learn. I don’t know why it is that in order to find ourselves we must so often lose that very self to others.
THE MESMERIST
Killian | Colorado
The mesmerist must have slipped into town sometime during the drizzly night, setting up his tent before dawn. Webb would have already gotten up as the mesmerist pounded in the last stake, he would have finished feeding at Elizabeth’s breast as the mesmerist put on his flowing multi-colored robe, and he would have been playing on the floor beside Elizabeth’s bed while the mesmerist took a dram of whiskey then hid the bottle in the Chinese cabinet in the private room in the back of his tent.
Scarcely able to see in the darkness, which creeps away so slowly these autumn mornings, I enter Elizabeth’s room, searching for the cooing shape upon the floor that is Webb. Finding it, I scoop him up and bound out of the room so that he doesn’t even have time to squeal. Not that it would matter, as Elizabeth will sleep the day away, turning her back to him if he enters the room, only offering her breast if told to by Henry or myself. Webb turned a year last month and gets by just fine on the food we give him.
Together, Webb and I creep into Henry Jr.’s room. I let Webb crawl over Henry Jr.’s face to wake him up. Henry Jr. doesn’t mind; he loves his brother, and most of all he loves the walks we take each morning before school on school days and all morning long on Saturdays and Sundays. Today is Saturday. It doesn’t matter that it’s raining this morning. We’ll even go out in the snow once that comes, and I can tell by the crisp morning air, the way it bites back at you when you try to take a breath, that the snow’s coming soon.
“Where are we going this morning, Uncle Killian?” Henry Jr. asks as he pulls his pants up over his long johns.
“Didn’t you hear that hammering this morning?” I ask, leading them downstairs, ransacking the pantry for food. Henry takes his meals in town or at the mine, and Elizabeth generally doesn’t eat, so finding anything for the children is difficult.
“I thought that sound was the miners,” Henry Jr. replies, his eyes widening as he realizes his growling stomach may have to wait.
“Can’t you tell the difference?” I ask. “The miners’ hammering is muffled, running down through the rock to us from the mountain, but this hammering’s sharp, higher pitched; it’s right here in town.”
Frost sparkles in the frozen mud of Main Street, mud that thaws up just enough to cover your shoes by noon and right over your ankles by two. Mud that will be frozen again by sundown. Henry Jr. is fascinated, stopping often to touch the hoary white, prying a pinch loose to bring it to his tongue, while Webb eyes me from inside my coat, content to look upon my face and stay warm. We walk toward the east end of town, away from the three mountains hovering over our backs, but I feel the trees upon those mountains blazing in the new morning sun, calling me, willing me to wander and lose myself in those hills, as I so often do.
The tent is red and bigger than any I’ve ever seen. Uncle Robert’s voice echoes in my head, what he would say every time Uncle Frank told us of the size of the whale that swallowed him: “Anything bigger than your head, Frank, is certainly not of this world, of that I’m sure!” I call to Henry Jr. as he runs to the tent, but he pays me no mind, and so I run along after him, Webb bouncing in my coat.
A large sign fronts the tent, showing a man dressed in a long, flowing robe of every imaginable
color. The man stands over a woman in a dark blue dress, who is seated in a chair. She looks strange, this woman. Different from any of the women in town. And it’s not because she’s an Indian; rather it’s the way she stares out of the picture. The man in the colorful coat is passing some sort of stick or wand over her head, and the Indian woman stares out like she sees right through the man, right through us all. It makes my skin shiver. Wavy lines stretch out from the stick and run straight into the woman’s head. I can’t read the words under the picture, but I want to know what those lines are doing. They look just like the trees that blaze in my mind.
Just then, a man emerges, appearing identical in every way to the man in the poster, except he has a thick black beard. “Mesmerism,” he says. “The science of the future brought to your sleepy little town today, courtesy of Wellington Taylor.” And with that the man extends his gem-covered hand.
I take it in my own, watching to see if any wavy lines come out of it, wondering if he can control the lines, or if, like me, he opens to the fire whenever and wherever it appears. The man looks at me with a queer eye, murmuring beneath his breath, then grips my hand harder like he wants to pull me into the tent right then and there.
“First show’s at one o’clock,” the man says. “If you have an interest in the modern sciences, I suggest you attend.”
We spend the morning on the porch of Pete Myers’ General Store, and he gives us breakfast along with some licorice if we keep the dogs off his produce. Everyone that comes into the store talks about the mesmerist. “They say he trained with an Englishman,” Lulu Giberson says as she picks up a sack of potatoes and another of onions. “I hear he’s royalty,” Tom Guller says, taking a break from cleaning out his saloon.
By noon, the entire town is standing nearly ankle deep in the mud, waiting for the mysterious stranger to open the flaps to his tent and invite them inside. It’s warm enough now, so I take Webb out of my coat, and we join the crowd. Webb points to the tent, screaming something I don’t understand. The woman must have come out when I wasn’t looking or I would have seen her. She’s shorter than in the picture, and her skin has such deep lines that I wonder if she’s real. Her eyes are the color of her black hair and with the same thickness, like they go on and on. The crowd gasps at the sight of her, and I hear a few voices say, She’s an Indian, a Ute to be sure. I’ve never seen an Indian in person, but I’ve heard tales of Ute camps out beyond the Blue.
“Ten cents,” the Ute woman says, and I don’t know if it’s because I’m surprised she speaks English or because her skin is so dark and furrowed, but I don’t see her mouth move as she speaks.
She sticks out her hand, and, one by one, the townspeople pay their money to enter the tent. When Frank Foote, the last of the townspeople, enters, I turn to go. Although Henry and Elizabeth have plenty of money, I’ve never seen the use of it until now, and don’t have any money on me.
“You go free,” the Ute woman says. “The children too.”
I smile, take Henry Jr.’s hand, and, holding Webb in my other hand, pull back the tent flap. When I look again, the Ute woman is gone.
The inside of the tent smells like the candy jars that line the back counter of Pete Myers’ store, all licorice and peppermint. And curtains hang along the sides of the tent depicting strange scenes. The one closest to me shows birds with baby faces rising into a starlit sky. I’m not sure why it’s so black in the picture as both the sun and the full moon are out.
The crowd is thick and we’re forced to stand in the back, but I’m taller than most anybody in town, so it doesn’t matter to me. Henry Jr. disappears from my side, pushing through legs, dodging feet until he gets to the front of the stage. I set Webb upon my shoulders, so he has the best view in the house, and he squeals with delight.
It’s then that the mesmerist emerges, looking just as I’d seen him earlier in the day, only now he’s carrying some sort of metal wand. The Ute woman follows behind him, holding a tray before her with other things on it, though I can’t tell what they are.
“Ladies and Gentleman,” the mesmerist intones. “You are about to witness the powers of one of the world’s great forces.” And with that he pauses the slightest bit, then says just above a whisper:
“Magnetism.” The Ute woman steps forward.
“My assistant, Antoinette, will give a brief demonstration of this awesome power,” the mesmerist goes on. “Indians, being closer to the earth, are natural conductors of magnetism.”
The mesmerist waves the metal wand over the Indian’s head in a circular motion. I look for the wavy lines but can’t see them. Maybe I’m too far away. The Indian starts to shake and then the mesmerist commands her to dance. She starts jumping around the stage, whooping and hollering. The few ladies in the audience cry out in horror. Even the men seem taken aback, like they’re not used to seeing such sights.
“Stop!” the mesmerist commands, and the Ute woman stops and stands motionless, her gaze vacant as if her spirit has left behind the empty casing of her body.
“I know there are doubters among you,” the mesmerist says, folding up the sleeves of his flowing robe. “There are some out there saying to themselves at this very moment that the Indian is only acting her part, that because she’s my assistant what she does is not real.” A few heads in the crowd nod. But I believe him. I almost shout it but then think better of it.
“I want to assure you that the powers of which I speak are just as real as the air you breathe, the ground you walk upon. For the power of magnetism comes from the earth itself. It is bound up with the earth and all living beings upon it.” The mesmerist scans the crowd as he speaks, and then his eyes fix on me. “You, sir, the one with the baby upon your shoulders. Come forward.”
The crowd parts, and I step toward the stage.
“Don’t be shy,” the mesmerist says. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I picked this man because he cares for children and children are a natural fount of magnetism.”
As I step on stage, I see Henry Jr. smiling before me, proud his uncle has been chosen. I’ve forgotten that Webb is still on my shoulders until the mesmerist asks Lulu Giberson to hold him. Webb cries for a minute and reaches back to me until he notices Lulu’s earrings and quickly becomes content.
“Do we know each other, sir?” the mesmerist asks me, then turns toward the audience, waiting for my answer.
“You’re the mesmerist,” I say.
The mesmerist puts his arm around me and laughs while nodding to the audience. “That’s right,” he says. “I am. But had you met me before today?”
“No, sir,” I answer. “I have not.” The mesmerist turns to the crowd, his white teeth sparkling like Lulu’s earrings.
“Antoinette,” he goes on. “Please hand me the conductive fluid.” And the Ute woman brings forth a vial of fluid. The mesmerist talks to the audience as he shakes out drops of the fluid over my head. “The fluid is harmless, but it will aid the magnetic waves, allowing them easier access to this gentleman’s psyche.”
The mesmerist steps to the front of the stage. “Now, witness the power of magnetism.” Then, he walks back to me and waves the metal wand over my head again and again.
I keep looking for the wavy lines, but I don’t see any. So I don’t think anything is happening at first. But then I stretch my hand up to touch a snowflake, and I notice that the roof of the tent is gone. The air shimmers about me, changing shape, as if smoke or haze or steam is flowing about me until all is heavy and thick.
The snow falls, blurring the people until they are gone, and in their place stand trees, thousands of pines covered with the fresh, white flakes. And I know that everywhere it’s time to sleep.
The snow buries me until I am no longer. Wisps of shadow float about me. I know these people. I am sure I know them. I am them. We are flying up like birds from the snow. It’s then we see the wide scar of white down the face of La Nana. The fire inside so many trees extinguished. The wind howls down the freshly made path and carries
a new smell to us, a smell we fear, a smell we remember well—the smell of death. We float closer to the ground, the syrupy air weighing upon our new wings.
We stick close to the snow, following the tracks, and then another smell is carried to us on the howling wind, the smell of a horse gone bad. We know that smell because we helped Henry put down a horse like that once. Its eyes rolling white, like it had forgotten how to live in the dream. Without the bees, the hawk, and the bear, we would forget too. We would lose our distance, our ability to sink between day and night.
We fly low, lost in the smell. The sound of the stillness overwhelms us—like bees in our head. And then the tomb opens, and we see the gaping wound, the sea of white. The tomb opens and trees groan. They bend and break.
The roan stands at the edge of the tomb, gazing into its depths. The horse takes his axe to the only tree left standing, the tree that marked the front yard of his cabin. We float about him and quietly sing. The roan gives no thought to it, or maybe he thinks our song is a trick of the wind. But his daughters come running and rest upon our wings. Death has not changed them so much. Once the tree is down, the roan carves into the bark with his hunting knife.
The night air chills. The moonlight shines upon the newly wrought fiddle in the roan’s hooves. We wait for the sound of his playing, but he has no bow. It’s then he takes her body in his arms. We hadn’t recognized the soft, flickering scent of her, we didn’t notice the spinning gold of her hair with so much death floating on the wind. We cannot see his face as he raises his hunting knife and cuts the hair from her head, but we know it’s not unlike the twisted whine of the coyote. As morning arrives, he fastens the aspen colored hair to his bow and begins to play.
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