by Gary Paulsen
After a time she slept, but it was not the kind of sleep that helps except temporarily, and she knew, even as she went to sleep, that she would probably spend the rest of her life trying not to think about Billy Honcho, which was something she wanted but did not want at the same time; and when she awakened in the night, because she was sinking, just sinking forever all the way down, when she jerked awake she thought first of Billy, and she forced sleep to come again quickly because even the dream, which she knew was coming, even the dream was better than being awake.
Epilogue
It was the same dream, exactly.
The doe was white, and she dipped her muzzle to drink out of the milk-shimmering white of the pool, which shattered moonlight when her nose rippled the surface of the still water.
Drops of silver liquid spilled from her mouth when she raised her head from drinking, and it was all so beautiful and stark and white and still that Janet thought, Oh.
Just oh. And she reached out a hand in the dream to touch the deer, the way she might touch an especially soft and beautiful flower or a piece of delicate lace.
Then the brave appeared.
With the threat that somehow wasn’t a threat, he moved out of the brush and nocked an arrow to his bow and raised the bow and drew the arrow and looked down the shaft, aiming, so that light came from his eyes and moved down the shaft of the arrow out across the pond to the neck of the deer. He was beautiful, too, though in a different way from the deer.
And even as she watched, he released the arrow, and it flew out of the bow down the light from his eyes and out across the still, white beauty of the pond. Like a white line in the moonlight it flew, making and leaving a line of cold fire; it streaked out of the bow and across the pond, and she could see it moving, almost slowly, but with infinite power and deadly intent from the bow and across the pond, leaving no shadow and no sound until it buried itself in the neck of the doe with a soft thwup sound.
The doe arched her neck and back up and over in an agonized torque, a fierce arc of pain and lost life, and she turned to her side and went down gently, the way a ballerina might sink in a death scene, and it was all done quietly so that even the light wasn’t disturbed. And when she was dead and down in the dream, bent and gone the way all things dead are bent and gone, Janet turned in the dream to look at the Indian and accuse him of this ugly thing, blame him; but when she turned, the Indian was gone. Or perhaps he had never been there and was all part of a dream within a dream.
Because in the dream when she turned to see the fallen doe again, it was also gone, or perhaps had never been there; she couldn’t tell.
All that remained was the still white of the pool of water, which was part of the moonlight and part of the dream, and soon that, too, was gone, and there was nothing but sleep.…
GARY PAULSEN is the distinguished author of many critically acclaimed books for young people, including three Newbery Honor books: The Winter Room, Hatchet and Dogsong. His novel The Haymeadow received the Western Writers of America Golden Spur Award. Among his newest Delacorte Press books are The Beet Fields, Alida’s Song (acompanion to The Cookcamp), Soldier’s Heart, The Transall Saga, My Life in Dog Years, Sarny: A Life Remembered (a companion to Nightjohn), Brian’s Return and Brian’s Winter (companions to Hatchet), Father Water, Mother Woods: Essays on Fishing and Hunting in the North Woods and five books about Francis Tucket’s adventures in the Old West. Gary Paulsen has also published fiction and nonfiction for adults, as well as picture books illustrated by his wife, the painter Ruth Wright Paulsen. Their most recent book is Canoe Days. The Paulsens live in New Mexico and on the Pacific Ocean.