Northern Lights (29 page)

“No.”

“I was just a kid. You probably don’t remember. The old man got me a new rifle. You remember that?”

“Sort of.”

“He got it for me for Christmas. I remember it. It was behind the tree and I knew it was there all the time, for a week or something, but I never let on because I knew he wanted me to be surprised and happy on the morning when we went down and opened up the presents, so I didn’t let on I knew about it. But I was scared of it. I remember crying upstairs, knowing in the morning I had to go down and open up the gun and look happy, and then knowing I had to go out and shoot it, scared silly. Jesus, that was funny. That was something funny. But I was scared. You don’t know that, I’ll bet. But I was scared and I never let on to him, ’cause I knew he’d think I was ungrateful or didn’t … didn’t love him or something, so I kept quiet. And in the morning, sure enough, it was a rifle. Just a measly rifle, a twenty-two. Don’t you remember that rifle?”

“No.”

“Well, it was a twenty-two. I guess you never got one, but anyhow there it was, and sure enough the old man took me outside with it and we went walking in the snow and out into the woods, Jesus, you can’t believe how scared I was of that fucking gun … This cough … and he showed me how to load it, sticking the bullets into this rod that was under the barrel, the magazine, and he shot it a couple of times to show me how to do it, putting holes in this birch tree. Then it was my turn and he gave it to me, and I just stood there smiling and smiling till I felt like crying, and the old man smiled and seemed to think I was happy, and he told me to shoot it, so I put it up and shot it. I don’t remember hitting anything, but I shot it and pretty soon got used to it so I wasn’t so scared, but all I remember about the whole thing was being scared and shooting it anyhow. Anyhow. So I
told Addie about it and she started laughing and told me to buy a sword or something. Sometimes I do think she’s Indian. I can’t ever decide. What do you think? I think … I think we oughta take her into some hospital and have blood tests made, what do you think? I like her. I told her we ought to get married and she told me pirates are never married. I don’t even know if she thought I was serious. I was serious all right. Sometimes I think you never think I’m ever serious, but I am. You can’t ever know for sure what people are thinking. And sometimes, sometimes people are thinking just the opposite of what they pretend they’re thinking. When the old man died I was pretty sad, but I know you were sad, too, because you were always having run-ins with him, but you were sad. Weren’t you? Don’t have to say. You can’t tell. But that Addie … You see anything? What are you looking for there?”

“Airplanes.”

Harvey laughed and coughed again. “You’re some sensible brother, aren’t you? You are. I guess we’re really brothers, aren’t we? Don’t know what that means, except it means that some of the same things we remember. You don’t remember the rifle I got?”

“No.”

“Well … You really don’t remember it? Guess you just never noticed.”

“Do you remember the time that the old man took us to learn to swim?”

“Sure … Well, no. Sort of. No, I guess I don’t.”

“We remember different things.”

“We both remember the bomb shelter, though.”

“Yes.”

“And I guess we’ll remember this, too.”

“Want some of this hot water?”

“I better have some. I feel okay, though. I don’t mind a bit. I don’t care what.”

The trail slowly bent and they pushed around the bend. More road opened in a long snowflow. The land kept descending. The forest thinned out, and they came to a crossroad. Perry pushed the pole through the snow and it clanked sharply against the road.

“Tar,” he said.

He waited for Harvey. Then again he thrust his pole down and listened to the civilized sharp thud. “It’s tar,” he said.

They rested there, sitting on their rucksacks at the center of the crossroads. It was a real road this time, and Perry studied the map. From the sun, he judged the road to be running northwest-southeast. From the map, he guessed the tar road was one of two, both of which emptied eventually on to the shore of Superior. And he was hungry.

“All right?” he said. He put the map away.

“I’m pretty sick. Can we rest?”

“We can rest. You’re going to get sicker, though.”

“Just awhile. Not long. We’re going to die, I guess. You know that?”

“Yes,” Perry said, thinking it would be just as difficult later on. He was lightheaded himself. Cleareyed and lightheaded. The day was bright as damask steel, tough and swordlike and shining, and he rested against his pack until it was a choice between sleeping or moving on, and he got up and helped Harvey into his skis and pushed off.

Even as he started down the new road, he was hungry and very tired. He tried then not to think about it. He thought about the new tar road. He concentrated on it. The new road was
not much different from the logging trail, slightly wider and straighter and more even. It seemed to have a destination. Alongside it, the trees were cut in a sharp and beveled way, as though the builders of the road had surveyed the path precisely and without thought of frills or beauty, cutting it out of the forest in the easiest and straightest and simplest fashion. He thought about it, imagining the road being bulldozed in the summer months, imagined the slow progress, the swath of cut timber, the mashing roar of yellow-painted construction machines and the quick dash of frightened deer, the hunger, he was hungry. It was not a stab any more. He was hungry but he did not feel it. He did not ache from the hunger. There was no pain. His belly felt full, even swollen. The dark place at the base of his brain was numb. He was hungry in a lethargic, purely empty way, fatigued, spent, drained, hollow, weak, ballooned, oxygen-light, emptyheaded, lightheaded, sleepy, sleepy. He tried not to think about it. It was impulsive hunger without sensation, as a baby at birth, hungry from the beginning, and he tried not to think of it. Vaguely, he recalled warnings of extreme hunger. Famine, warning from the pulpit. He tried not to think of it, concentrating on his breathing and the steps and motions of skiing. It was a bright good road. Suffocating. It was a kind of suffocation, the hunger, suffocation without pain or even knowledge, sleep-suffocation far beyond knowledge or feeling. He tried the counting game. Counting days again. The days blended with the trees, each identical to the next, and he lost count and could not remember, and he tried counting only numbers, seeing how long and how far he could go on. He was glad the sensation of hunger was gone. A bad sign, he knew, but he was glad not to have to withstand it. The dull emptiness was better for thinking. He had his wits. He could count. He counted on, the numbers flopping in his head as he counted, physical objects. Some of the numbers
seemed to stick, looming in huge black numerals, and he counted the stuck numbers over and over until they snapped away to be replaced by the next numbers, and he counted to a thousand and kept going, counting on, perfectly in control, his wits intact, beginning to believe he could reach the very end of the numbers, the last number, 1201, 1202, 1203, 1204, 1205, 1205, 1205, 1206, 1207, 1208, 1209, 1210, 1211, 1212, 1212, 1212, 1212, 1213, some of the numbers having a symmetry that made them stick in his brain, and he counted in the growing conviction that one of the numbers would pop before him as the final number, beyond which there would be no further numbers, the red limit, the very edge of the universe beyond which the past started, and he would only have to turn backwards, flowing evenly into the past which was not any longer past, turn to begin counting in the other direction, going backwards until it became a countdown for a great red explosion to send him hurtling head over heels in numbers back towards the edge. He was glad the hunger ache was gone. He had his wits. The trail was now a road, and the road was straight and level, flat and solid as the numbers he counted, flat on the green globular forest.

He came to a minor bend in the road. On the right, a pine bluff was high. On the left, the land sloped sharply down. Partly chiseled into the bluff’s face, the road executed a slow graceful turn, and Perry followed it. Then he realized he was gazing into a black arrow that traced the curve of the road. A black arrow on a yellow sheet of metal. The arrow pointed the way. It seemed a kind of form in his head, along with the numbers, a black arrow on yellow metal that was so compatible with the numbers that he merely nodded at it, as if counting it with all the rest.

Then he stopped.

It was a road sign, a black arrow on yellow metal that
showed the curve of the road, a warning posted for those who came that way.

It was hammered to a shiny silver stake.

He heard Harvey brake behind him.

Perry felt a deep spark, and he was happy and wanted to say something. “Well,” he said.

He looked at the wordless bent arrow.

“It’s a road, all right.”

The sun hovered just over the western trees. As he turned, it settled into the clutches of the topmost branches.

“What do you think?”

“Poachers,” Harvey said.

“What.”

Harvey motioned towards the snow, a few yards beyond the shiny stake. He began coughing and leaned on his poles. “There. Poachers.” It was the carcass of some dead animal. Most of it lay buried. “A deer,” Harvey said. Perry skied to it and brushed the snow off. The hindquarters were completely gone. The carcass was frozen and there was no odor or blood. Without the hindquarters the animal looked tiny, not much bigger than a house dog. The eyes of the deer were like rock.

“Poachers,” Harvey said again, repeating himself in a glazed way. He sounded like an old man. “They got the antlers, too, if there were any. Leave it be.”

Perry kicked at the carcass. He was hungry, but the animal, what was left of it, did not tempt him. He thought of the deer he’d greeted, then thought of his hunger again. “Can’t eat it, I guess.”

“If you want.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You don’t think you are. You are.”

Perry covered the carcass with fresh snow.

“Poachers,” muttered Harvey. His voice was eaten out.

“Yeah. You all right?”

“I’m sick. Poachers. They take the hindquarters for venison. And the antlers. Use a knife with a dropped point so as not to cut the gutsack while they butcher. Poachers. Then dump kerosene over everything. Keeps the wolves away, kills the scent. I’m sick. I want to take off my coat. I think I’d better take it off, brother.”

“You know better.”

“I’ve got to. This time I’ve got to. Poachers, Jesus.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Jesus.”

“I think we’d better eat some of it.”

“I’m sick.”

“We better eat some of it.”

“Jesus. Fucking wolves.”

“Can you go on awhile?”

“Poachers and wolves. Can you beat that? I’m sick, I am.”

Fine, thin winter light came through in patches. It was high cold light. Perry looked at the buried carcass and the black bent arrow.

“All right then. We’ll go on. All right? I think that’s the right thing. Either that or eat some of this deer. We can find something on it to eat. It’s been frozen. What do you think? It’s not spoiled. Either eat some of the deer or go on.”

“Wolves.”

“Harvey! Leave that coat on.”

“I’m sick. I’m hot.”

“You’re cold. You don’t know it.”

“Don’t know anything. You know everything.”

“Just leave the coat on.”

Harvey’s skis slipped from under him. He fell backwards,
sitting with his knees bent. Perry got him up again. A patch of filtered light caught the yellow metal sign. “All right then,” Perry said. “We’re going to go on now. This is a real road, it goes somewhere. We’re all right now.”

“You don’t know, do you?”

“I know we’re going on.”

Harvey started to grin, then say something, then he coughed. Then they followed the road and the black printed arrow. Perry had something to think about, something new in the carcass of the dead deer, and he skied and thought about how he would have used his knife to cut the carcass, how he would have tied the tarp to their skis, made a lean-to, gone out for wood, built a fire, thawed out the frozen hunk of carcass, roasted it, sat at the fire and eaten full, rested, started fresh. He skied and thought about it, slowly realizing he’d made a great mistake, that he wasn’t thinking at all, that he was moving and losing strength and getting stupid, thinking about the carcass and the deer he’d greeted, thinking how stupid he was, moving along the road, thinking they should turn back and then thinking turning back was worse than not eating. He marveled at how much he could see. Even in the pale winter lighting, even with the light coming through the trees as through a billion smoky prisms. Even without glasses. They should have stopped and eaten the remains of the deer. He skied on, wanting to go back. It was the numbness, the stupidity. The hunger had been numbed, the sensation of hunger, and it had made him stupid. He skied on and still marveled. How stupid, how clearly he could see. There were squares and triangles in the forest, the angles of branches that he could trace with his hands and follow round and round, corner to corner. He could see clearly, how stupid, he could see with his eyes, the bright pale light behind the branches, he could see with his nose and ears, and he could hear the very sound of distance—muffled
and quiet, a hiss originating with the very birth of himself, part pure length and part separation by time.

Behind him, he heard Harvey still talking, mumbling in the voice of an old man.

The road kept going.

At sunset they stopped for a short rest. Perry took the chance to dig through the snow. The road was tar, black and hard.

The moon came up and he decided to keep moving. The road was snow-covered and clear, running in a white streak through the woods.

The moon rose fast. It was white. Clear as a light bulb.

They moved down the road. He was lightheaded. Everything was beautiful and still. The road, the night. He could see clearly. He wasn’t hungry. He felt fine. Everything alternated. He was hungry, then he was fine. He followed the road like a white sleep, a long twisting beautiful white sleep. The moon went higher. It was winter. The stars did not twinkle. The stars glowed steady through the thin atmosphere, the sky was black.