Athabasca

by Harry Kleinhuis

  Cyril had thrown his mitts to the ground and nervously pulled back, and then pushed forward, on the bolt of the rifle. He took a deep breath, relaxed, aimed, and fired.

  Jack was looking at the deer and saw that the shot had reached its mark as expected. What he had not expected after the sound of the gun firing, was the long second of silence, and then a scream of unmistakable terror from Cyril.

  The rifle landed with a “whump” in the snow, its gaping chamber still emitting a trail of smoke from the shot. It fell because Cyril instinctively reached up to cover the throbbing, bleeding wound on his face, before he fell to his knees and then settled into the snow.

  “What happened? What did you do?!” It was a question of fear rather than one of objective enquiry.

  Cyril didn’t answer. He howled in pain and at the horror of tasting the rustiness of his blood. He couldn’t see any of this, because his eyes were still squeezed tightly shut.

  “What happened?” Jack asked again, more quietly now, but no less urgently. Then he saw the bolt of the rifle, back from the breech, where it didn’t belong. He realized then that he hadn’t heard the rifle fire, but explode.

  Jack knelt beside his brother to support him and to see what there was to see.

  “Aaaaaaahhh! It hurts!” Cyril continued to wail.

  Jack could understand that. He saw the blood. He could remember searing pain. “I can’t see,” Jack told Cyril. “Lift your hand and let me see how bad it is.”

  “It’s bad! It feels bad! And it hurts!” Cyril finally screamed. Then he repeated Jack’s question, “What happened?”

  “The rifle misfired or exploded or something.” Jack was going to ask again about what Cyril had done to cause that but decided against it. Cyril’s wound was the immediate problem that needed to be solved. They had to get home.

  “Here,” Jack said, “hold the back of your mitt over it. It’s soft and pretty clean.” Then, more slowly, he asked, “Can you walk?”

  “I think so,” Cyril burbled through his blood. Jack had already begun to lift and steady him.

  There was no alternative. They had to get back to the house. The gun shots would have been heard there, but a hunt only ends when the animal is dressed and dragged back to it. Something that would obviously take time. But in the cold of winter, time passes very quickly when there’s an emergency, or an accident, that needs attention.

  Half-supporting, half-carrying him, Jack led Cyril back through the snow. Twice, they stopped when Cyril seemed to sag.

  “Can you see, Cyril? We’re almost at the house.” Jack kept encouraging his brother.

  He also kept hoping and probably praying. He kept looking at Cyril to see if there was any change. All he saw was blood, some of it congealing, much of it oozing and trickling to the snow beneath them. He knew that none of this was good. His only relief was seeing that Cyril’s left eye seemed to flutter open from time to time. He hoped it was a good sign.

  Just as they got to the house, there was another scream. This time it was from Amelia. She’d been to the outhouse and noticed her brothers struggling back through the snow. Then she’d seen the red and assumed the worst.

  “Mom! Cyril’s been shot!” she screamed through the door, and then ran back out to look again. The sight of all that blood on Cyril’s face and clothing triggered tears and emotions in Amelia and, through the sobs, the question, “What happened?”

  Rose dashed outside to hear Jack’s incomprehensible answer that the rifle had exploded. Together, she and Jack carried Cyril into the house and sat him on a bench beside the table.

  “Well, at least that was a new and clean deer-hide mitt a few weeks ago,” Rose commented, slowly coaxing Cyril to remove the mitt that had been a temporary dressing, so she could begin to assess the damage. Then she helped Cyril out of his jacket and began to issue orders to the other two.

  “Amelia, get some water on to boil. Then fetch me the newest and cleanest sheet. We’ve got to make some bandages. And, oh yes, I’ll need that box with my sewing things.” She pointed with one hand, while slowly and gently probing the area around the wound on Cyril’s right cheek. He whimpered, and instinctively tried to pull away from her touch.

  “Jack, clear the things off the table and help me put him on it,” Rose ordered next, as Cyril’s jacket slid to the floor. It had absorbed quite a lot of the blood.

  “Do you want me to make tea, Mom?” Amelia asked.

  “No. Just clean, clear, boiling water. Put more wood on if you have to.”

  Jack helped with the firewood part. It was something he felt comfortable doing. He wondered about the sewing things, but decided it would be best not to ask.

  “It’s clean and it’s a straight cut,” Rose said softly, stroking Cyril’s hair back and out of the way. “Your cheek bone may be broken, though.” She continued looking down at her son for a reaction. “Did you feel anything inside your mouth?”

  There was already a big bruise, and Cyril’s right eye was beginning to swell shut. But he was able to blink and say, “I swallowed a lot of blood. But that seems to have stopped now. Is that good?”

  Rose smiled and nodded. “You’re already starting to heal,” she said reassuringly. Then, to Amelia, “Get the basin ready with water as hot as you can bear. You and I need to get cleaned up for the next part, with lots of soap and water.”

  Cyril was looking at the roof of their house from a position he had never been in before. Jack, however, was looking with some concern at his mom, as she got out some fine thread, cut six or seven short pieces, and then looked for a needle.

  “Now, Amelia,” she said, “boil water in our soup ladle, too, and then put the threaded needle into the ladle, and keep the needle and thread in the boiling water for a minute. Okay?”

  Amelia nodded.

  Then Rose told her son exactly what she was going to do and what he would feel. She told him several times in a slow, methodical tone. Then, four times she repeated the painful task of threading, boiling, and suturing, until all that was left on the swollen side of Cyril’s face was a trace of the gash that the bolt of the rifle had produced. A gash now pulled together by four painful stitches. She smiled down at Cyril’s ashen face. He had accepted the painful procedure because, at the first push of the needle, he had settled into what she explained to Jack and Amelia was a deep sleep.

  “It happens when people are hurt or injured,” she explained through her own tears. “The body avoids further pain by going into a deep sleep, like fainting.”

  As Rose began to clean Cyril’s face, she realized that he would require considerable care for the next few days. She listened to his slow breathing and looked for signs that color might be returning to his face. She also knew that the best place for him would be in his bed. But not stained and soiled, and covered in blood.

  “Jack,” Rose ordered, “take off his shoe-packs. Then bring in extra firewood and build up the fire. Amelia, fill the water pails and put them to heat on the stove. And,” she continued, “when you’ve done that, the two of you go out and bring in that deer before some wolves find it.”

  “Is Cyril all right, Mom?” Amelia asked.

  “Yes,” Rose smiled firmly. “He’ll wake up soon. I’ll just clean him up and put him to bed. He’ll need warmth and rest in order to heal. But you two need to look after that deer before it gets too dark.”

  In the quiet warmth of the little log house, Rose became mother to her little boy lying on the table. Her baby boy, who had tried to prove he was a man. She kept him warm with blankets as she gently removed his clothes and let them drop into the wash tub beside the stove. She smiled and wept, as she realized how much pain he had endured, and how he had tried not to show it. She hoped that in the process of it all, Amelia had been too busy with the medical things to notice that he had wet himself. She hoped that Cyril had not noticed and, if he had, that he might fo
rgive her for looking after him, and putting him to bed in a clean union suit that seemed to have gotten too small for him.

  Rose had put Cyril into bed, and had just added the last of the water from his sponge bath to his soaking clothes, when she heard him stir and moan. She rushed over to sit beside him.

  “It hurts,” he spluttered through clenched teeth. “Am I okay?”

  “You are now,” Rose smiled.

  Cyril tried to look around, but one eye was closed and bandaged over, along with the cut. He seemed confused about what had happened. Rose could see him moving around under the blankets.

  “Where’s Jack and Amelia?” Cyril asked. “And how did I get here?” Then he grimaced in pain at having tried to talk, and the pain continued to burn on the right side of his face.

  “I sent them away to look after the deer.” Then, sensing that Cyril was probably asking about something else, she added, “Jack said he was the biggest buck we’ve ever seen around here.”

  But Cyril was thinking of other things. “You looked after me, didn’t you?” he asked.

  “I did what was needed,” Rose said, leaning down to kiss her boy’s forehead. “And now, I’ll make us some tea. Sweet, the way you like it.”

  15

  It took Jack and Amelia some time to get back to where the deer was. Amelia had a lot of questions. Jack decided to tell her what he could, but only as much as she really needed to know. He knew he was practicing his stories for when he’d really need to explain things.

  “Dad will want to see this,” Jack said. He’d pulled the Ross rifle out of the snow where it had landed. The bolt was back, the breech open, and the spent shell ejected. It looked almost normal. But Jack knew it wasn’t. It couldn’t be, not after what had happened. He remembered the warnings he’d heard. He leaned it against a tree. Amelia was staring down at the deer.

  “It’s just like a rabbit, only bigger,” Jack explained. “You’ve helped Cyril and me with rabbits we snared, remember?”

  “It’s still warm,” Amelia noted. “Is it really dead?”

  “It’s still warm because it’s a big animal. And it really isn’t all that cold out today.” Jack reached down and grabbed a front leg. “You do the same with that hind leg.” He pointed. “We’ll roll it onto its back. It’s too heavy to hang.”

  Jack and Cyril had helped in the field dressing of at least three or four big animals each year. The animal’s antlers acted as props for the front end. Jack left Amelia in charge of the back part.

  “Just spread the legs and pull them down as far as possible,” Jack ordered. “Sit on them if you want, and don’t look at what I have to do.”

  Amelia didn’t look. But she could hear. And she knew what was happening. The smell of more than ten rabbits being gutted all at once wafted over her.

  “Stand on one leg and lift the other one as high as you can,” Jack ordered, and almost gagged as he opened his mouth. He’d cut and split the breastbone and, as the deer rolled, the offal began to fall out and sink into the snow because of its warmth.

  Jack was sweating when he finally told Amelia to help him roll the deer a couple of times, to get clear of the guts and things, that they then covered with leaves and snow. Amelia pretended she was fine, and that she was just shivering because she was getting cold.

  “Now comes the fun part,” Jack said, trying to smile. “You get to pull his coat off. He’s too big to drag back as is, so we’ll just quarter him here and use the hide to drag back what we can manage. Okay?”

  Amelia nodded. “But what should I do?” she asked.

  “Just pull on this rope while I cut away the hide. Pull as hard as you can.” Jack had skinned the front legs, attached one end of the rope to the hide of each leg, and looped the other end around Amelia’s waist. “Pull!” he yelled again and again, while he separated the hide from the fat and carcass beneath.

  A half-hour later, Amelia had pulled off the rubbery hide and Jack was busy with his knife and hatchet, quartering the deer. He placed each piece of the growing pile onto the hide.

  It was well into darkness by the time they could smell the fire of their wood stove, and see the light glowing through the window of the house.

  “This is the last part,” Jack said. “Help me hang the meat in the shed, and then we’ll stretch the hide and tack it to the outside of the shed.”

  Amelia helped without question or protest. She did not want to go into the house by herself. She was worried and afraid of what she might find. She suspected they’d been sent out to get the deer for reasons other than just to save it from wolves or whatever.

  “Is he all right?” Amelia whimpered the question, as tears started to glisten in her eyes.

  The curtain was back, and she could see Cyril propped up in the boys’ bed. Then she ran and threw her arms around her mom.

  “He was so still and white, and . . . ” Amelia’s words tailed off as she sobbed and as Rose drew her to her side.

  “He fainted because of the pain,” Rose said as she stroked her daughter’s hair. “He’s still very sore but he’s okay now. Come and see.”

  Amelia swiped away at her tears, her hands smelling like dead deer, as she walked with Rose over to her brother. “Hi . . . you okay?” was all she could manage, as she looked down at the bandaged head, with one eye trying to smile back an answer.

  “It’s sore,” Cyril wheezed through his clenched teeth.

  “It probably broke, or severely bruised, his cheekbone,” Rose said. “It will be very sore for him to open his mouth for a while.”

  “This here’s what did it.” Jack had come up behind them and was holding up the Ross rifle. He tapped the bolt that was still sticking out the way it wasn’t supposed to.

  “Is there blood on it?” Cyril managed to ask.

  “It doesn’t look like it.”

  Rose tried to smile and said, “I think his clothes got all the blood Cyril could spare. Now, come away. He needs rest. There’s stew on the stove.”

  “Stew will taste better when that deer becomes part of it,” Jack said. He tried to laugh and looked over to Cyril for a reaction.

  “If he can’t talk, then he can’t laugh, silly,” Amelia stated. She then added that she needed to wash her hands and get rid of the yucky deer smell.

  16

  Cyril’s bandage was off the next day. Rose wanted to check for bleeding. She seemed pleased that there was only some slight drainage from around the sutures. “We’ll leave the bandage off to let the air get at it. It only looks like a black eye and a big bruise,” she said. “Let me know when you want to sit by the fire.”

  Cyril gingerly felt around the right side of his face. His right eye felt itchy, but it was swollen shut. “Mom, can I look at it in the mirror?” he wheezed through his teeth.

  Rose brought the small mirror from the wall, and Amelia hovered in the background, as Cyril explored the damage done by the rifle. “It probably feels worse than it looks,” Rose said. “The swelling should go down in a day or so.”

  “Does it hurt bad?” Amelia asked. “Do you want to play with the kittens? I could get them for you.”

  “Maybe later,” Rose suggested. “And maybe you should go out, too. You could help Jack with some sawing.”

  Amelia didn’t know whether she would like working with Jack. She knew he would want to be boss. “Why do I have to be down below in all the sawdust?” she asked, when Jack told her to pull on the bottom end of the saw.

  “That’s the easy part,” he told her. “I have to be up here to steer the saw in a straight line. You don’t even have to look at what you’re doing. Just pull.”

  “I need a kerchief or something to keep the sawdust off me,” Amelia insisted after her first feeble pull. She ran to the house and emerged looking like an old lady with a shawl around her head.

  Jack laughed and shook
his head. “Pull!” he yelled. “Just pull by hanging on the saw if you want to. I’ll guide it and help by pushing as much as I can.”

  Unlike the crosscut, the rip saw was stiff enough to be pushed as well as pulled. After a hundred strokes, with Amelia’s help, they were making progress. Enough so that, much to Amelia’s relief, they had to stop to reposition the timber they were working on.

  “Hah!” Amelia said, finally able to look up. “We are making progress. I really am helping.”

  “Well, help some more,” Jack ordered. “We need to cut one board each day to keep up with our schedule.”

  He wasn’t all that sure what the schedule was, or just how many boards they would need for the scow. It just seemed like something a boss would say. Two things he didn’t say, however, were that he was surprised that, for being so small and inexperienced, Amelia had cut about as much as Cyril would have in the same amount of time, and that he was getting tired by the time their mom called them in for lunch.

  “We cut half a board,” Amelia announced with pride, shaking the sawdust off herself. “We’ll finish it this afternoon, right, Jack?”

  “Well, maybe. If I have time,” he replied. “I want to set some snares, and there are a few more old traps Dad left behind. I may be able to add to our income here, close to the house.”

  “Maybe Amelia should be your assistant in that, too,” Rose suggested.

  Jack sighed as a way of stating his objections. But he didn’t argue. He’d seen her looking in the direction of the bed where Cyril was sleeping again. He realized the dangers of being out alone in the wintertime, even if it was fairly close to the house. The extra traps were a new addition. They might have to go a bit farther out into the bush to set them.

  17

  By the time Malcolm came back from his own trap lines at midday a few days later, Cyril was able to look after himself again—although his meals were still of the liquid variety. It hurt to move his lower jaw, and his face still felt puffy from the bruising. But, as Amelia pointed out, the bruising did have interesting colors as it healed.