Nocturnals

by Edited by Bradford Morrow

  The boys infiltrated the woods. The older boy moved fast, crunching through leaves, breaking twigs, and within ten minutes he had found a berm with lengthy shooting lanes and forty, fifty, in some places sixty yards of broken woodland vision. The younger boy moved in a bent-kneed stalking posture. He took a step. He scanned the forest. He took another step. His old sneakers nuzzled down through leaves and twigs and made little sound and little forward progress. He felt very proud when a flight of chickadees passed above him, oblivious and singing.

  They tried to clear their minds, enter total vigilance, exist only in their ears and eyes. Mostly nothing happened. They strained for sounds that did not exist. But occasionally something seemed to be moving through the leaves. A few steps, a pause, a few steps. The older lay on his stomach and scanned the forest through Matilda’s scope. Antlers swam across his vision. Trophies emerged from the woods snorting. He didn’t breathe. His feral pulse unsteadied Matilda’s crosshairs. Breathe. Relax. Aim. Squeeze. He repeated to himself the army acronym their uncle had taught them. B.R.A.S. As in the bra’s coming off, he’d said. When nothing appeared in the older boy’s sights he climbed slowly to his knees to increase his range of vision. Then he saw it: a little pine squirrel making a racket disproportionate to her size. He looked around to be sure no one had seen him. The exact scenario replayed itself with the younger boy sitting on a stump several hundred yards away. He flicked his safety off, then on, then off, then on, damp hands dissolving the salt on Angel’s checkered grip. When he saw the squirrel he fixed the heedless creature in his sights. He flipped his safety off and repeated the same acronym. Bang, he said.

  The sound of the uncle’s rifle moved through the still air like a physical thing and struck each boy in the chest and passed on through swaying trees, tugging a curtain of absolute silence behind it. The boys’ hearts were unloosed in their chests, romping, yammering, catching in their throats, swallowing their vision. They tried to breathe. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Long, slow hunter breaths. They waited with their ears poised, listening for a second shot or the uncle’s distant shout of triumph, but heard only the shot banging around in their memories. Then a crow somewhere began its racket. A squirrel gave a chittering sigh. A new breeze gently woke the branches above them. There was nothing else. Their adrenaline waned. The hour passed.

  The younger boy stood and pissed on a tree because it made less sound than peeing in leaves. He looked at the sky but the November sun hugged the low southern horizon and didn’t really tell hourly time—not to him, not without east-west landmarks. Surely the uncle should have been back by now. Unless he’d hit what he shot at. Tracking, gutting, dragging—they took time. And if he’d only wounded the buck, he could be gone until dark, or beyond. Men in the old stories chased bloody leaves and hoof scuffs for days. The younger boy sat on his stump with Angel propped across his legs. The breeze was strong now and had a chill to it and was dragging a cold, white haze across the sky. He wondered if it was coming from the northeast, a grim and storied direction, but he couldn’t tell. The uncle was probably just fucking with them. He’d fired and looped back to the truck. He was drinking his beers and laughing at them, aware for reasons that they were not that this was no time or place or task at which to persevere. The younger boy considered going back to check but decided against it. The uncle was testing their fortitude, or their patience, or their willingness to put in the time. Unlike the older brother’s, the uncle’s cruelty was rarely without some purpose or moral. Eventually the younger boy remembered to put Angel back on safe. Her metal click was a strange invasion of the woodland quiet.

  When the haze crossed before the sun, the sky at first retained its light and warmth, but soon the tree shadows that had swayed on the forest floor began to pale away, thinning until they were gone, and the air grew steadily colder. The older boy stood and brushed leaves off himself. His watch said it was a full two hours after rendezvous time and he felt another stab of anger toward the uncle. He’d been feeling these off and on since the reprimand at the gate. How else had he been supposed to react? He held Matilda by barrel and stock and did jumping jacks until his mind was blank and he was warm. He told himself in his uncle’s voice to be patient. Standing with Matilda in the crook of his arm he counted to a thousand. Then he did jumping jacks until he was sweating. Finally he let himself walk in his brother’s direction. He moved quietly in his boots, taking a step, sweeping the forest with his eyes, taking another step. He imagined a buck, injured and ragged eyed. He imagined his uncle. The forest seemed to have been woken by the breeze. Leaves tumbling. Ferns bent. Branches clacking. After about fifty yards it occurred to him that creeping up on his armed brother was not a great idea. Fuck it. He stomped back through the leaves toward the truck. He wanted lunch. He wanted to see the uncle sitting on the tailgate, laughing at him, replacing the strange dread he now felt with more shame, more anger, anything. The truck sat empty and forlorn in the grassy road. Its doors were unlocked. He unloaded his rifle but kept a bullet ready in his palm. He pulled his windbreaker over his sweatshirt and looked briefly for the keys, wanting to turn the truck’s heat on, but the uncle seemed to have taken them. Slamming the door, he went around to the truck’s bed where the cooler was. He was unwrapping his sandwich when he heard his younger brother trying to move silently through the leaves.

  They dangled their legs off the tailgate, eating pastrami and mayonnaise on Wonder Bread. You hear the shot? the younger brother asked. Actually I’m fucking deaf. You think he got something? I think he shot Connor McIntyre’s ghost and now he’s chasing after it apologizing. The younger boy grinned uncertainly. The older boy said, You remember to unload Angel? Safety’s on. If you’re not in the woods, dipshit, then she shouldn’t be fucking loaded. The younger brother waited, feet swinging, until he’d finished his sandwich. Then he jumped down and circled to where his rifle was leaned up against the truck.

  The wind’s bite soon drove them into the cab. They donned gloves and hats but kept the passenger door open so they’d hear the uncle’s shout or rifle. He can’t be lost, the younger brother said. Why not? Do you think he is? The older brother’s watch said 3:15. He slid a Labatt from the torn cardboard behind the seat and opened it. He’s not lost, repeated the younger brother, he knows this place, he’s just testing us. The older brother laughed. That would be a huge waste of a day. For a few minutes he drank, ignoring the younger boy, whose face was a cold grimace, rosy nosed, tight jawed. OK, fine, the older brother finally said. What I think is he wounded a buck. Shot it in the ass or something. Now he’s tracking it down.

  The haze wasn’t haze anymore, it was full-on cloud, thick and cold, and there was very little color left in the world. The younger boy got out and walked up the road. The grass between the wheel ruts bent and whirled. Stubborn beech leaves came whipping from the treetops. When he returned he found his brother sitting with his arms crossed and his eyes closed, imitating the sleep of the unconcerned. The younger brother reached over and pounded on the truck’s horn.

  They honked the horn at intervals, taking turns, one boy pacing up and down the bed of the truck, listening for yells or rifle shots with his hands cupped around his ears, the other in the cab, doors closed for warmth, banging on the horn, counting to sixty, banging on the horn. The truck trembled in the gusts. More than once the boy in the back pounded on the cab’s roof and the other spilled out and they stood frozen, hearing something or not, hearing what they yearned to hear and learning to distrust it. Listen! What? It’s him! What is? They yelled the uncle’s name. They shifted foot to foot, rubbing their gloves together. They made loon calls, hoping the different pitch would cut through the wind. But the wind was many pitched itself now, howling, lashing, stealing whatever sounds they made. Should we go look for him? the younger boy asked. If he’s not back soon, the older boy said. Neither looked at the other. The older boy climbed into the truck and sat there, silent. The younger boy ran in place for warmth. The older boy smashed two
quick bursts onto the horn. Then an endless, keening third.

  They took a northwest compass bearing and entered the woods sixty yards apart, walking fast, ducking, scanning, drifting closer together the farther they moved from the road. They were still hunting. They kept their rifles loaded, stocks to their shoulders, fingers on the guards. The older brother said that they weren’t looking for their lost uncle—they were going to help him drag his deer. But it was different now. There was no need to be quiet. The woods were a living maelstrom and they could barely make themselves heard when they tried. Watch out for widow-makers, called the younger boy.

  They entered a boggy spruce thicket. It was dark in there under the sky of needles, and moving through it was like hacking through the walls of a gigantic nest. After a while the older brother yelled that it was useless. They fought their way together, crawling through tunnels beneath the trees. Both had scratched faces and hands and needles all over their clothes. He wouldn’t be in here, the older boy said. He would if the deer crawled in here to die. It’s too close to the road, you’d hear the truck’s horn from here, he’d have come gotten us. The younger boy said nothing. The older boy knew that you didn’t find people in woods this big, not without a last known location or a specially trained dog. He’s probably back waiting for us, he said, flattening his compass, studying the needle. When he began crawling in the direction of the truck, the younger boy said, Wait, didn’t we come from over there? No, the older boy said.

  The snow began as a thickening of the wind, a dealer of heft and bite. The truck was empty, its seats dusty with snow from the open windows. They walked up and down the road, sheltering their faces. Didn’t the forecast say late night? the younger boy protested. Go complain to the weatherman, dipshit, said his brother. They went a mile in one direction, returned to the truck, went a half mile in the other. In situations like this the hunters in the old stories sometimes repurposed their weapons as guides, beacons, calling their lost friend home. So the boys fired their rifles at the sky. And both felt—alongside their fear—oddly reinforced by this action: happy almost to find themselves in such a storied role. But the heavy weapons bruised their shoulders. And against the noise of the storm the guns sounded feeble. Instead of hitting their chests and ringing in their ears, each shot was more of a thump, like something dropped on a rug in another part of the house. What if he doesn’t come? the younger brother said. We get help. From where? From town. We drive? Sure, said the older brother. Then his face darkened and he shot one of the chickadees. It was a little furry ball perched stoically on a branch until it disintegrated. The younger boy held his hands out in disbelief. He gaped at his older brother, then at the snowy woods, and then he knelt by the red stain in the snow and with his fingers stroked the few remaining downy feathers, the sole reptilian foot. The snow meanwhile couldn’t make up its mind: it drifted thick and peacefully, like it does in snow domes, then it pelted sideways, sharp and small grained, the kind of snow you can’t see through, even when it’s light. But suddenly it was not light. Night fell in the snow like a hammer. The world was shadow blue. Then it was gone. Fuck! the older boy cried. Fuck!

  It was time to look for the keys. They flicked the truck’s lights on, headlights and cab lights, and looked on the dashboard, in the glove box, the gas cap. They looked under the floor mats, in the coffee holders, in the tailpipe, the cooler. They swept their hands through the snow on the hood, thinking maybe the uncle had left the keys as their mother did in the cupped space above the windshield wipers. Nothing. No keys. The only things they found were things they wished they hadn’t: the uncle’s cigarettes and lighter, his compass and gloves, his Carhartt coat and heavy rubber poncho. The older brother wanted to know how far they had traveled beyond the McIntyre mansion. Eight miles? Ten? We go there and call for help. Is there a phone? the younger brother said. The older brother didn’t answer at first. Then he said, If not we’ll keep going. We’ll go all the way back to the road. The younger brother looked doubtful and gestured at his own thin clothes. Jeans. Damp sneakers. We can’t do it like this. He has the keys, right? said the older brother. I hope so. And the truck has heat? If you have the keys. The older brother, cold, did an unconscious dance-jog in place. What I’m saying, he said, is he can warm himself if he gets back here.

  They divided the uncle’s spare clothes. The older brother took the Carhartt jacket and advised the younger boy to cut sections off the poncho’s too-long hem and use them to waterproof his socks. They’re already wet. It’ll still insulate them. They each took an extra glove. The younger boy got the extra winter hat. What about his lunch? the older boy said. It’s his. He doesn’t need it. He will when he gets back. He’ll have the truck, he can have a beer and drive to McDonald’s. We’re not eating his fucking lunch. Calm down, dipshit. I am fucking calm! The younger boy pushed at the older boy, who staggered back a foot and then grinned. Looking at his little brother, the older boy saw a child, tense shouldered and helpless in the curling snow, weak, enraging. His face glowed in the truck’s light with snot and tears. No, the little brother said, backing slowly away, I’m sorry.

  The older boy struck him twice, once in the ear, once in the chin, and then the younger boy went sprawling. They weren’t hard blows, not for them, and such fights were themselves a common enough occurrence at home, in an environment with laws, and there the younger boy, smaller, weaker, biding his time, might not have reacted. But they weren’t at home. Home didn’t exist in their minds anymore. They were way out here in the wind and the snow, hundreds of years reverted from the civil concepts with which they’d begun the day. The younger brother dabbed at his ear and looked at his hand. The older brother stood over him. You want some more, scumbag? The younger brother shook his head. He rose slowly, eyes thin with rage, his back and elbows caked in snow. You don’t need to eat, the older brother said, but you’ll be really dragging ass come midnight when we’re still walking. He pried the cooler’s snowy lid open and removed a sandwich in waxed paper and a carton of chocolate milk. When he straightened he found himself staring down Angel’s barrel.

  For a moment he said nothing. Then he said his brother’s name. Put it back, the younger brother said. Is that fucking loaded? Put it back or start fucking praying. Psycho. Do it. You going to shoot me over a sandwich, psycho? All of this was shouted, but heard as one hears whispers: hoarse, faint, threatened by other sounds. The younger brother’s thumb clicked the safety forward, a noiseless gesture in the howl. They stood in the refracted glow of the truck’s headlights, a tiny world of yellow light and rushing snowflake shadows. The younger brother’s wet cheek was distorted against the rifle’s stock. The older brother raised his hands, in one hand the sandwich, in the other the milk. Fine, he said carefully. He gave a fake laugh. You want me to leave them on the seat so he sees we thought of him? The younger boy did.

  They left the headlights on, one last beacon for the uncle, and set off down the trackless woods road, carrying their rifles for confidence. The darkness was absolute. They had no flashlight and there was no moon, no stars. Already some four inches of snow had fallen. Stretches of road had been raked almost bare, but the drifts were sometimes a foot deep. The younger boy used his soft sneakers to feel the road’s grassy center through the snow, and this, the awareness of his feet, was their only guide, their only assurance that they had not strayed. He went first, holding the barrels of their guns, and the older boy followed holding the stocks, and this was how they kept track of one another, walking through blackness, minutes, hours, no idea where they were or how long they’d been there, counting their steps to a thousand, losing count, stumbling, cursing, hating the other when he slipped and the rifle yanked him off-balance, pausing to listen, pausing because there was a light, it was there, right there! The truck’s headlights breaking apart the darkness behind them! But it wasn’t there. Just darkness unbroken. They hollered oaths that scraped their throats dry yet barely registered against the whistling night. They realized, separately but quickl
y, that setting off on foot was maybe a mistake. The older brother pulled his younger brother to him, joining their bodies at the hip and shoulder to block the wind, and removed his glove to light the uncle’s lighter. In the bent and fraying glow, they looked at each other. Shadowy faces. Angry red skin. Mucus frozen on their chins and lips. You want to go back? the older brother hollered. If we go back, he’s dead. So you’re OK? Are you? Fucking dandy. It wasn’t loaded. The older brother said nothing. It wasn’t! I promise. I’m still going to beat your ass when we get home.