Northern Lights (32 page)

He waited awhile. Then he prodded the corpse with the bough to be sure.

Then he took up the dead woodchuck by the tail. It was dead and heavy. It surprised him. It was thick and heavy and entirely dead.

He laid it out on the snow and rested. When he was ready, he covered the blood with some snow and took the animal by the tail and walked to the shed.

Harvey was still sleeping.

Perry added wood to the fire, then laid the animal on the floor, then used the knife to slit it down the middle. He tried not to think about what he was doing.

Mechanically, he cleaned out the guts and scooped them up and carried them outside. Then he went to work on the hide, slipping the knife under the fur and pressing down and pulling with his other hand, stripping the hide upwards as though pulling off a nightshirt, the animal going naked and the eyes wide open and glaring. The flesh underneath was red. There was not much of it. When he had the skin over the animal’s front haunches, he closed his eyes and sawed off the head. Harvey woke up and asked what the awful smell was. Perry told him he’d killed the woodchuck, his eyes still tightly shut, grasping the knife with both hands as he sawed off the head. When it was done, he scooped the hide and head on to a newspaper, wrapped it up and buried it in the snow.

“A woodchuck?” Harvey said.

“I killed it.”

“A woodchuck?”

“Yes. What’s wrong?”

Harvey laughed.

“What’s wrong?”

“You’re going to
eat
it?”

Perry shrugged. He cleaned the knife on newspaper and cut the meat into quarters. The animal’s blood had already seeped into the floorboards. The meat was warm. There was not much of it.

“You’re going to
eat
it?”

“I guess I am.” Perry looked up and grinned.

Harvey laughed and coughed. “Do you … do you know a woodchuck is a fucking big
rat
, that’s all? Did you know that? Just a rodent.”

Perry grinned. “No. I didn’t know that. You better be still. How’s the fever?”

“Better. I think it’s better. How the devil did you do it?”

“I went hunting,” Perry said.

“What?”

“I went hunting and killed a woodchuck.”

“You went hunting for woodchucks?”

“For anything.”

Harvey rolled up and laughed until the cough started, and then he coughed and the bunk creaked. Perry gave him water to drink.

“Well, how did you do it? How did you … kill it?”

“It was just there. I was on the way back and there it was in the snow. Guess it was tired or something. It was pretty deep in the snow and it couldn’t move, I guess. I just clubbed it.”

Harvey laughed into another fit of coughing. “You killed a bloody woodchuck! Some gourmet hunter. Personally, personally I
hate
woodchuck. Don’t touch the stuff.”

“I guess you’ll eat some though.”

“Thought woodchucks hibernated or something.”

“Not this one.”

Perry got the fire high, then let it draw down to a tight flame, then he put the meat on. He made coffee and watched the meat fry. He was content. He wanted a cigarette and some music. He whistled one of his favorite pop tunes, watching the meat fry, feeling good. Mostly luck, he thought. Purely lucky to find it. Then he thought awhile longer and decided it was part luck and part something else. He wasn’t sure what. Something else. He’d gone out to hunt. He’d gone out and had some luck and the meat was frying. When the animal was brown, he pulled the pan out and washed off their tin plates. He was content and whistling, and the room smelled of roast chicken. He woke Harvey and helped him to the table and they ate the meat and drank the coffee and afterwards Harvey went to sleep while Perry cleaned the dishes and had more coffee and sat the rest of the day in the dusty sunlight. He was exhilarated, proud, content and warm. He sat and watched the sunlight fade through the open door.

Later as he lay in the bunk above Harvey, he tasted the meat for the first time. It was a strong and wild aftertaste, making him hungry all over again, and he lay in the dark remembering the woodchuck, wondering how much wood … how much wood would a woodchuck chuck … how much would the woodchuck chuck if the woodchuck could chuck wood, or how much wood would the woodchuck chuck if the woodchuck could chuck wood, then saying it aloud as a kind of game, over and over, tumbling the rhyme out fast and without a stutter. “How much?”

He was up with dawn, boiling water and making coffee and seeing after Harvey. He spent the day inside, going out only once to gather wood and urinate and fill the two kettles with snow. That evening he heated water and washed himself. He
stood naked before the stove. Sloshing water over his face, he scrubbed hard. He washed his beard and hair and then the rest of him, taking a lot of time and enjoying it. He did not like the white look of his skin, but all the old fat was gone and he was proud of himself, pleased at the idea of being positively skinny for the first time he could remember. He washed his legs and feet, then brought the kettle up and let his genitals float free in the warm water. Then he let the fire dry him.

He rinsed out a cloth and mopped Harvey’s face. The fever was steady. Perry unbuttoned his brother’s shirt and got it off. It had a wet foul smell.

He clucked, washing his neck and chest. “This feel a little better now?”

“Hello.”

“Hi. You feeling any better?”

“I guess so.”

“That’s it. Sit up and I’ll wash down your back.”

Harvey got up on his elbows and rolled over. “Why aren’t we dead, brother?”

“There. There, how’s that feel now?”

“Why aren’t we dead?”

“I don’t know, Harv. I really don’t know.”

Harvey coughed and laughed. “We’re heroes! We’re heroes, that’s why!”

“There. You’ll be all right now.”

“What time is it?”

“Night. You’ve been sleeping and sleeping. You’ll be better now.”

“I’m sick. I guess I’m pretty sick.”

“Well, we’ll get you washed up and you’ll feel better. You want to sit by the fire awhile?”

Harvey nodded. Perry gave him a hand, got him into a chair and covered him with a sleeping bag. “How’s that now? Isn’t that better?” He pulled off Harvey’s socks and threw them into a corner. “You really stink, you know that? Phew. Here, now put your feet in this water. Kind of hot so be careful.”

Sitting by the fire with Harvey, he had the bloated feeling of contentment again. The shanty seemed familiar, a personal shelter that he’d found and made his own. Except for Harvey’s fluid breathing the only sound was the fire.

After a time, he helped Harvey back into his bunk, then spent the rest of the evening in a chair, his feet propped on the stove, resting, reading some of the old newspapers. It seemed much like home and he fell asleep in the chair. Then he dreamed. He dreamed first about Addie. It was a vague, strange dream without motion or sound. She was drowning. Far out in the lake, she was drowning and grinning at him while he stood ashore unable to move. Later he dreamed about a blackbird. The bird’s wings were spread and splatting the air, attacking with a jagged beak, screeching and attacking, and again he was unable to move.

Then he dreamed of a wailing sound, a wailing screeching sucking sound.

He woke up. The fire was dead and the wailing sound continued. It came to him slowly. It drifted from the dream and into the dark shed and surrounded him, then he was fully awake and listening. He was weak. The shed was dark and the sucking sound persisted. “Harvey?” As if in answer, the sound stopped, leaving a tinny echo. “Harvey?” Then there was silence, a long silence in which he tried to get up. It came again: the wailing and sucking, deep in one of the dreams, gasping sounds, then suddenly he was awake, recognizing it as the sound of drowning.

He sat up. The shed was dark. It was full of the wailing sound, the sound of drowning from his dream.

He yelled Harvey’s name and the room seemed to tumble around him. Yelling, he moved out of the chair, stumbled and scratched himself—a nail or hook or splinter. He yelled Harvey’s name again. He thrust out his hands, groped towards the bunk, feeling his way. Everything was black. The drowning, sucking wailing sound swelled up and the room floundered. “Harvey!” he bellowed. His hands touched the stove. He grabbed the hot iron and held on until it burned him. “Harvey!” he yelled, and the sucking drowning sound came like a flood, and he pushed away from the stove, disorientated, plunging towards the source of the sound. “Harvey, for God’s sake!” He reached out, suddenly realized his eyes were closed, squeezed shut. The sucking sound went even higher. He shivered. He found the bunk. The sucking sound was everywhere, close and far and deafening. He had his arms on Harvey’s shoulders, pulled him up, shook him, and the wailing sound crescendoed.

Still blind, he dug Harvey out of the bag, hauled him off the bunk and laid him on the floor. “Harvey!” he was still yelling, his face down low. Harvey was partly entangled in the bag. Perry ripped it open and reached in. He leaned close and searched his brother’s face. Everything was black and tumbling and the wailing drowning sound was a reverse wind that pulled everything far away. Harvey’s chest sloped in like a valley. “Harvey!” He tried to think. The thinking stopped. He grabbed Harvey’s arms, yanked him towards the stove. “For Jesus sake!” he was yelling, yanking his brother across the floor, pulling him like a rope and getting him to the stove. “Jesus, think,” he was hollering, trying to think. He stopped, dropped Harvey dead on the floor. He found the stove. Still hearing himself bellow, he opened the stove door, reached in with his hands and wrists and arms to stir the ashes
for light. Then abruptly he stopped. He dropped to the floor. He learned over his brother like a lover and put his ear to Harvey’s mouth and listened.

“Harvey?” he said, not yelling, a question.

He tried to compose himself. His brain was tumbling. “Harvey?” he said again, still leaning close and listening.

A light froth boiled to Harvey’s lips. His eyes were open. The bad eye glistened; the iris had dissolved in the fluid of the white tissue.

“Harvey?”

The good eye was rolled away and completely gone.

“Harvey, Harvey,” he chanted.

The sucking sound was gone, and the wind was gone.

“Harvey! Jesus sake, Harvey.”

He touched his brother’s chest. It was sunken and shaped like a bowl. It was hard and stiff. He touched Harvey’s throat and it was like steel pipe.

“Harvey! You bull. Jesus sake, Harvey.”

He stopped, peered into his brother’s dead eye.

Then he bellowed again, shuddering and losing sense. He hauled Harvey upright, dragged him by the arms, got him to his feet and held him in a great bear hug. Then he squeezed. He closed his eyes and squeezed, locking his wrists together and squeezing and squeezing and turning dizzy and pressing his brother in a great bear hug, holding him upright and squeezing. He squeezed himself dizzy.

Distantly, disgusted, he heard himself moan. Then he lost strength and Harvey slipped from his arms and fell heavily. “Jesus sake,” he moaned. “Jesus sake, Harvey.” Such a fool, he was thinking, such a foolish fool. Everything was too dark and quiet. “Harvey, Harvey,” he was moaning, grasping his brother’s shoulders and partly lifting him, then losing strength again like a leaking
tire, feeling Harvey slip away, “Harvey, Jesus sake,” hearing the sound as Harvey hit the floor. He was dizzy. He crouched down: “Dear God,” he was saying or thinking, “help me now, help me now.”

He found the mouth and reached in, frightened at what he would touch.

He pulled Harvey’s tongue up and out. Contracting, sliding away like a morning dream, the tongue was wet and slippery and elusive, going away, a piece of wet flesh, but he grabbed it hard and pulled and held it out.

Bacon, he was thinking, almost grinning. Bull’s bacon. He pinched the nostrils and put his mouth to Harvey’s mouth and blew and listened to the wail, a two-note tune that went

He blew and listened to the wail, a two-note tune that went high and higher. He was dizzy. He blew and listened. Huff and puff, he was thinking, you Bull, you poor poor poor bull, breathe Bull. He was sick. He wanted to vomit and sleep, but he covered Harvey’s mouth and blew deep. He did not care. It did not matter. He blew and listened, blew and listened, rising and falling in a dizzy sick rhythm. Harvey’s chest seemed to quiver, and he blew again.

The breast rose up, and he blew again, and Harvey’s chest snapped like a bone breaking.

Perry stopped, rested, waited for the chest to sink again, then he descended and blew hard. He was sick.

“Harvey?” he murmured.

He waited as the breast ballooned up and quivered and slowly sank.

“Harvey. Harvey?” He waited again and the chest did not move, and he leaned down and blew again, forcing respiration and suddenly feeling strong and gaining something from the exchange. Such a bull, he thought, poor thing. Too bad. Harvey’s
chest twitched and snapped again. A bubbling sound came from Harvey’s lungs, a breathing sound, erratic and dumb and startling as misfiring machinery. “Harvey?” he whispered, listening as the sound smoothed and the breathing became languid as through a drunken sleep.

“Harvey?”

Perry lay with an arm around his brother. His face was buried in Harvey’s flannel shirt. He was warm. He had urges to sleep and to vomit, the sleepiness making him sick and the sickness pressing him down towards sleep. He snuggled around Harvey’s warm body. He lay still. The wind was outside. He lay still and listened and cuddled around his brother and listened to the outside wind and Harvey’s breathing and his own breathing, a respiring postlude in three high pitches like a lullaby. He was warm and sick and sleepy. “Harvey, Harvey,” he murmured.

He might have slept. He lay still a long while. But at last he got up and rebuilt the fire and boiled water. Smoothing his brother’s hair, clucking, he washed the red face and beard, got him into the bunk, laid a warm cloth on his brow.

With the last of the coffee grounds, he brewed coffee and held Harvey’s head and helped him drink. “Harvey, Harvey,” he murmured. “Love you, Harvey. I do. You know?” He wiped brown spittle from his brother’s mouth. “You bull, I do love you, you know. There, there.”