Skillful Death

by Ike Hamill

  The squirrel turned towards him and chattered.

  Dom threw his rock.

  The squirrel ran off before the rock left Dom’s hand.

  “I have to find a way to catch that squirrel,” Dom said.

  “Can you throw the rock faster?” Diki asked.

  “I don’t think a rock will do it.”

  Dom returned to their campsite and picked through the possessions he had brought with them. They ate breakfast as he sorted through some bits of metal, hide, and string. His mind pictured a loose idea, but his fingers seemed to know exactly what they were doing. He created a complex snare on a tether. Should the squirrel enter from any direction, the snare would tighten on it.

  With Pemba, Dom had often tried to catch mice and rats in the village. They’d return the next day to find their bait taken and their traps empty. Dom tied his snare to a heavy rock and picked out two plump nuts to use as bait. He took his snare back to rock.

  While Dom made two more snares, Diki scouted the area for more squirrels. Their work consumed the morning. Diki wanted to go back and check on the first snare, but Dom wouldn’t let her.

  “We have to wait for the end of the day,” he said.

  “But what if the squirrel is caught now, and gets away?”

  “Then we will try again tomorrow. We don’t want to scare the squirrel.”

  “What will you do if we catch one?”

  “We’ll take it to the monk,” Dom said.

  “But what if it’s not dead yet?”

  “Then we’ll help it along.”

  To pass the afternoon, Dom and Diki walked down into the plain, collecting nuts and seeds. In the distance, they saw more bobbing heads of big white animals near the river. Dom boosted Diki into a plum tree, and she climbed as high as she could, looking for plums. The ground was littered with blossoms, but the fruit hadn’t come in yet.

  They returned up the hill at sundown. They went first to their campsite, where they’d left their bag stowed on top of a tall rock. The bag was on the ground, but seemed otherwise unmolested.

  Dom asked Diki to kindle a fire and heat water for tea while he checked the traps.

  “I want to see the snares,” Diki said.

  “I better go alone,” Dom said. “What if there’s a squirrel in a snare that’s not quite dead. You wouldn’t want to see that.”

  “Okay,” Diki said.

  If she had insisted, Dom would have brought up the bird. Diki had found an injured bird in Denpa’s back yard and tried to nurse it back to health. As the bird grew weaker, Diki lost her stomach for injured animals and begged Dom to take over. The bird died under his care, and Diki said she didn’t want to see injured animals ever again.

  Dom’s first snare was empty. The nuts were gone. Dom moved the snare to the other side of the boulder and set it up again. This time he left three berries and placed them with even more care.

  He had trouble finding the second snare. They’d left it next to a cluster of three rocks where Diki had spotted two big squirrels. Dom had set it up close to what he believed was an entrance to their den. He hunted in the failing light, but couldn’t find the snare. Eventually, he tripped on the tether. The rope trailed under a boulder. When Dom pulled, he found his snare and a big fat asphyxiated squirrel. Dom wrapped the squirrel in a rag and put it in his bag.

  The third snare was nowhere near where they’d set it up. He wouldn’t have found the snare, except the squirrel who had dragged it away was chirping an alarm call. Dom followed the sound and in the twilight found the tangled rodent still trying to make an escape. Dom crushed its head with a rock and added it to his bag.

  “Did we get any?” Diki asked, back at the fire.

  “Yes. Two.”

  “Two! That just leaves one to get,” Diki said. “Did you set up the snares again?”

  “I left one set up, but I’ll put the other two back out in the morning. I think these squirrels sleep at night.”

  When they’d eaten, and Diki was comfortable next to the fire, Dom took the squirrels over near the little creek. In the moonlight, he dug his knife into the first body and immediately wished he’d moved farther away from camp before gutting the squirrel. Out here they could have wolves, and bears, and even big cats, roaming the night. He didn’t want to draw them too close to his campfire.

  Dom bundled up the guts and washed away as much of the blood as he could, and moved his operation down the hill. With little light, he relied on touch to dress the bodies. He didn’t have much experience with gutting squirrels, but his fingers enjoyed the sticky, slimy feel of the warm animals. Dom rinsed his hands and trudged back towards the fire. He imagined a pack of wolves finding the fresh pile of guts. The pack would follow the bloody, dripping trail back to the man and little girl sleeping peacefully. Dom barely slept that night.

  In the morning, Dom and Diki packed everything and Dom carried all their possessions on his back. The berries were missing from the first trap, so they put out fresh bait. They set up the other two traps based on Diki’s suggestions. She had a knack for spotting the squirrels, but also seemed to sense where they might like to live.

  Down on the plain, Dom killed a plump pheasant with a rock, almost accidentally. He was going to throw the rock at a dead limb to knock it down for firewood. Before the stone left his arm, the birds flushed and Dom adjusted his aim. One bird fell to the ground and Dom rushed over to break its neck. Plucking the bird took almost the whole afternoon, and Diki couldn’t bear to watch.

  Dom checked their traps well before the sun had set, and found their third and fourth squirrels. He rushed to clean them and Dom and Diki climbed as fast as they could to reach the cave before sunset.

  The ringing of the bells drew them to the correct cave once again.

  The young man met Dom and Diki at the cave entrance and smiled and nodded while they waited. Eventually, another bell rang, and the old man appeared.

  “I was praying for number three, but he has not taken his step yet,” the old monk said. “Have you found your squirrels?” As he asked, he turned and waved them deeper into the cave.

  “We caught four squirrels and a pheasant,” Dom said. He pulled the small game from his bag.

  “Are they fat?”

  “I suppose so,” Dom said. He held up one of the squirrels, but the old man was still shuffling towards the fire and didn’t notice. The young man approached and took possession of the squirrels. Dom offered the pheasant, and the monk took that as well.

  “I thought the pheasant was for us?” Diki asked.

  “The pheasant was your next exercise,” the old man said, lowering himself to the cave floor, next to the fire. “The things you seek sometimes come to you before you even know you need them.”

  “There are more exercises?” Dom asked.

  “Are there more memories you wish to bind?”

  “Yes,” Dom said. “I have yet to bind any.”

  “Oh? Didn’t you catch and clean those squirrels?” the old man asked.

  “Yes.”

  “On the first day, you said you could not find any squirrels.”

  “Diki found them. I just snared them.”

  “These are the memories you bound. You cannot build a temple on sand. You need to have a firm foundation to bind your memories. That’s what you are working on: the foundation.”

  “My foundation is snaring and gutting squirrels?”

  “Apparently.”

  “You said there would be exercises?”

  “These are.”

  “I don’t understand. We actually can’t stay here too much longer. I have to get back to my business partners, and Diki has friends to play with. Can you tell me the exercises and I’ll do them back home?”

  “You’re welcome to try, but it will not work,” the old man said.

  “Why is that? How can you be so sure? I’m very diligent,” Dom said.

  “Man’s body begins as a wild thing. It is tamed by his soul. If parts of your soul
are unbound, you must return to the wild before you can complete yourself. The bodies in the crypts around you belong to souls which have nearly attained full enlightenment. They understand that to complete their final journey, they must come here, to the wild, to move their soul beyond their body’s wild nature.”

  “Are you suggesting that I have to wall myself up in a cave to remember my youth?”

  “No, binding your memory is much easier that attaining full enlightenment. What you seek requires only that you remember what it is like to live as a feral animal. Catch your own food. Collect seeds, and nuts, and berries. Strip away all the confines of civilization until your body remembers what your soul has forgotten. Then you will bind your memories.”

  “If we stay, what would my next task be?” Dom asked.

  “Go sleep,” the old man said. “When you wake, you will know your next task.”

  Dom and Diki descended as far as they could and then waited for the moon to come up so they could see the rocky ledges. Dom held Diki in his lap and wrapped the blanket around them, but she still shivered in her sleep. When the moon rose, cutting sharp shadows across the mountain, Dom carried Diki back to the fire and rekindled the blaze for warmth. He hadn’t collected enough wood, and by morning, they were again frozen.

  Dom didn’t know his next task. He only knew that he and his daughter were cold.

  “I wish we kept the squirrels,” Diki said.

  “Are you still hungry? You’ve eaten plenty. I still have some fish in my bag if you’d like that.”

  “No,” Diki said. “Fish is bad luck. I’m not hungry. I wanted the soft fur.”

  The pelts of the ground squirrels were soft and warm. Dom wondered how many he would need to catch to make a warm blanket for Diki. If he could catch enough, how would he sew a blanket? He hadn’t packed any needles or thread. Dom’s mind turned the problem all morning as he made new snares and set them all. Diki sat wrapped in a blanket near the fire, unable to warm up and unwilling to move until she had.

  After feeding his daughter lunch, Dom wrapped Diki up and strapped her to his back, so he could trek to the distant river. The white animals spotted him from a great distance and moved to the other side of the river.

  In the shallows of the river, Dom used his net to scoop up fish, one at a time.

  “Eating fish is bad luck,” Diki said, every time he caught a fish.

  “Who taught you that?” Dom asked, but Diki stayed silent.

  Dom strung several small fish on a piece of string and laid them in the grass while he rinsed his hands. With Diki still strapped to his back, bending over and maintaining his balance was a tricky act.

  A gray bird swooped down and grabbed at one of Dom’s fish. The bird pulled and flapped, but the fish was strapped to the others, so it weighed more than the bird bargained for. Dom lunged and the weight of Diki on his back threw him to the ground. He lay half in the water, half in the river mud as Diki exploded with laughter on his back.

  “I told you! Bad luck!” Diki yelled, as she laughed.

  Dom pushed to his knees. His torso and face were black with mud.

  “Very funny,” Dom said. “But I still have my fish. I’ll be eating delicious fish tonight while you’re having nuts and berries again.”

  “But I will be clean,” Diki said.

  Dom reached back with a muddy hand and felt for Diki’s head.

  “Oh? You will?”

  Diki screamed and thrashed.

  ♣ ♢ ♡ ♠

  Dom slogged back through the tall grass towards the campsite. He wore the mud, figuring it would clean easier once dry. They stopped at a dead tree and Dom unstrapped Diki so she could help him collect firewood. Diki brought Dom long pieces to break.

  “Not this piece,” Dom said. “This one we keep.”

  He held the long piece of wood up to his eye and sighted down its length. It was strong, and straight, and almost as tall as Dom.

  “Why?”

  “This one will make a good spear,” Dom said. He growled and jabbed the long stick towards his daughter. She squealed and dropped her firewood before running away.

  ♣ ♢ ♡ ♠

  They moved their campsite closer to the grass plain, where three big rocks would protect them from the wind. Dom washed his hands and face, but left the mud caked on his robes. Diki complained about the smell, but that’s why Dom kept it. He thought the mud might mask his smell when he hunted with his spear.

  Diki collected nuts and seeds while Dom trekked back up the hill to fetch their snares. He found two more snared squirrels, which he took far away from the camp to gut and clean. He rolled the hides and tied them with a piece of string.

  Back in the village, a man lived down by the boneyard—a ledge where people threw any bones too big to grind. The man collected ash and salt, and somehow processed the bones into a paste to tan hides. Dom had always been curious of the process, but the man was secretive. If you brought him a fresh skin, he would whisk it away and you wouldn’t see it again for several weeks.

  Dom carried the meat in one hand and the rolled hides in the other.

  That afternoon, the fire popped and hissed with cooking squirrel. Off to the side, Dom set up a rack of green sticks and smoked his fish. Diki toasted nuts and sang a song about the purple flowers and the old monk. She collected grass and made a bed between the big rock and warm fire.

  That night, wrapped in his robe, Dom dreamt of sleeping beneath a canopy of lush ferns. In his dream, the fertile earth smelled delicious. He stretched out on the soft earth and took it into his mouth, chewing on the rich loam.

  He woke with the sun.

  “Salt,” Dom said.

  Dom shivered and tucked the blanket tighter around his daughter. Diki pulled her knees to her chest and mumbled in her sleep. Careful not to wake her, Dom pulled himself free and found the rolled squirrel skins. They were already stiff and crunchy. He put them to soak in the creek and then walked the border between the rocky slope and the grass. Somewhere on their journeys, perhaps coming back from a hike, he had seen a white vein in the rocks near where the dirt took over.

  He found it, surrounded by animal footprints trampling the grass, and quickly returned to Diki. Dom didn’t want Diki to wake up alone.

  When Diki rose, she shook off her sleep and ate some breakfast. Dom brought her to the place he had found.

  “Did you figure out your next task?” Diki asked.

  Dom smiled at his daughter. She was already better at remembering things than he was. Soon, she would be able to outsmart him at anything.

  “No. Not yet. We’ll stay another few days, but I’m afraid we’ll have to go home before I figure anything out.”

  “I want to stay here forever,” Diki said.

  “We can’t. What about your aunt and uncle, and all your cousins? I’m sure they miss you.”

  “I see them here,” she said, pointing to her head.

  “Well, you would not want to stay here when winter comes. It would be too cold to stay out here. We would have to go hide in the caves, like the monks.”

  “I don’t want to go into the walls with the dead men,” Diki said. Her face scrunched up with the thought.

  “We won’t. I was just teasing. We’ll go home before the weather turns bad.”

  Together, they dug in the rocks and dirt, exposing the salt deposit. From the tracks, it seemed that grazing animals had used this salt lick extensively. Dom hoped his digging wouldn’t frighten them from coming back.

  Back at the camp, Dom stretched and salted the squirrel pelts, and left them to cure on top of a rock.

  “Why do you put salt on the squirrel skin?” Diki asked.

  “I don’t know,” Dom said. “I think it’s like curing meat. I think it will make them last longer.”

  “Can we build a huge fire tonight?” Diki asked.

  “We can try. Why do you want a big fire?”

  “I want a big fire so we won’t be so cold in the morning. I want to make
it so big that the fire is taller than these rocks.”

  Dom took all their food and supplies and put them in a shallow hole covered by a heavy rock. They left their campsite again, in search of more wood. On their second trip to the dead tree, Diki stopped and put her little hand on Dom’s arm. She heard it first, and then Dom saw it. One of the white animals was close. Dom boosted Diki into the tree and she pointed him in the right direction.

  Dom held his spear at his shoulder and found a path through the tall grass, following the direction of Diki’s arm. The animal snorted as Dom drew near. It’s horns were curled. They were a crusty, rich amber against its white fur. Creeping on the balls of his feet, Dom flanked the animal. He burst from the high grass, ready to strike, but the spear stayed perched on his shoulder. The white animal stared at Dom. Its mouth hung open, and it panted. Blood dripped from its red tongue.

  Dom broke his paralysis and thrust his spear at the animal’s ribs. The white animal jumped forward with the hit. Dom moved with it, trying to drive the spear deeper. The stick separated the ribs and punctured the organs. Deep, dark blood spilled from the gash, and ran down the white fur, dripping from the belly of the animal.

  Growling, Dom jumped on the animal and drove his knife into its neck.

  The animal bleated. Its voice sounded weak and pathetic. Dom cut its jugular and felt the rush of warm blood spill over his hand.

  “Did you kill it?” Diki asked. She appeared from a part in the tall grass.

  “I told you to stay at the tree,” Dom said. “You’ll get lost out here.”

  He straddled the animal and still held his knife to its dead neck. Dom pushed back to his feet and pulled the spear. The tip was stained dark with blood. Dom tried to wipe it on the grass, but the blood was soaked in.

  “Are you going to cook that?” Diki asked.

  “Is it bad luck?”

  “No. Just fish.”

  “I don’t know if the meat will be good,” Dom said. “I think this animal was sick.”

  “So we can’t eat it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s okay. We still have squirrel,” Diki said.