Only the Dead (4 page)

The flock of birds now flew over to a tree farther away. How long had he been standing here, thinking about his parents? Maybe a couple of minutes. But that wasn’t good. It had broken his concentration. He started walking again, but the thought of his father and the songbirds soon returned, along with the memory of the day when his mother told him the story. Afterward they had stopped at a rest area because her knees were starting to ache. And there . . . down by the lake . . . Lance had seen the back of a man sitting near the water. Apparently his mother hadn’t noticed him, even though she was standing right next to Lance. An Ojibwe Indian. He didn’t belong in the same world as Lance and his mother. And yet Lance had seen him. He looked as if he’d wandered out of a black-and-white photograph from sometime around 1900. And Lance knew who he was. It was Swamper Caribou.

A shot rang out in the woods. It came from the correct direction. Andy had fired a shot. Lance raised his rifle to chest level and stared at the clearings down by the river. If his brother had missed, it was conceivable that the deer might turn around and run back, away from the gunfire. In that case, it would pass very close to where Lance was standing. But if his brother had brought the deer down, he would soon call on his cell to say so.

But nothing else happened. No deer came bounding past, no more shots were fired, his cell phone didn’t start vibrating. Andy must have missed, and then the deer took off in another direction.

Lance lowered his rifle and began walking again, on the alert the whole time. Maybe Andy had hit the deer but didn’t kill it. Sometimes merely wounding an animal couldn’t be helped. Soon he’d reach the power line. Before he got there, he had to call Andy to warn him, but for the next few minutes he could still focus all his attention on the hunt.

He enjoyed the supremely goal-oriented nature of hunting. The fact that everything he heard and saw was important. That each step he took, and the way he moved, counted. That everything had significance. And yet almost nothing happened. Maybe he saw a flock of nuthatches. Maybe he heard a pinecone fall. An entire day could pass in that fashion. It was almost like experiencing a great, liberating nothingness. But then all of a sudden, in the midst of that nothingness, a deer might be standing there, on alert, its long ears moving like remote-controlled antennas. Then it all came down to a few seconds of deliberate action. As if all of existence had been kneaded into a compact little ball. And when he fired, he also shot a hole in that ball, and then everything once again resumed its usual dimensions. Although not quickly. It was true that it took time. But slowly the day would return to normal. Gradually his hands would stop shaking from adrenaline. The deer would lie there, steaming on the ground.

He got out his cell and phoned his brother.

“Yep,” said Andy.

“Was that you shooting?”

“Yeah, but it was moving at a helluva speed. I missed. Was it you that flushed it out?”

“I don’t think so. I was driving really cautiously, so . . .”

“Have you noticed anyone else in the area?”

“No.”

“Me neither.”

“Well . . . regardless . . . I’ll be there soon.”

“Okay,” said Andy and ended the call.

Lance picked up his pace, no longer trying to move quietly. Soon he reached the clear-cut for the transmission line, which was mostly low shrubs and heath-covered ground. He walked forward and then stopped in the middle of the open landscape as he looked for Andy, but he didn’t see him. The high-voltage lines hummed overhead. For a moment he wondered where the power line came from. He realized he’d never asked himself that question before, no matter how many times he’d looked at it. It was just a power line, buzzing with energy. He had no idea where it came from or where it ended.

“Hello?” he shouted, raising one arm in the air.

His brother had to be able to see him, standing out here in the open. The transmission line clear-cut was well over a hundred feet wide, stretching as far he could see in both directions. There wasn’t even a bush that reached much higher than his knees. He must stick up like a lighthouse.

“Hello?” he shouted again. Still nothing but silence all around him.

Vapor issued from his mouth in a thick cloud each time he exhaled. He noticed that it was also rising from the neck of his jacket, from his warm body under the Gore-Tex. He thought about the buck that he’d aimed at yesterday, how the steam had risen from its body as it stood there in the rain on the other side of Copper Pond. He should have shot it; then he wouldn’t have needed to come out here to the woods with Andy today. But it was too late now.

Again he looked all around, letting his gaze survey a small section at a time, just as he usually did when searching for a deer. That was when he caught sight of his brother on the other side of the clear-cut strip. Partially hidden behind a fir tree, Andy was standing there, watching him.

It’s impossible to cross the creek. I’ll just have to follow it through the woods to see if it gets any narrower. I don’t like this dark forest. I just don’t. Back home we had hardly any forests. The trees that we did have stood far apart. Here it’s nothing but miserable darkness. I start walking along the creek and reach the first of the fir trees. I didn’t know there were trees this big anywhere. If I try to see the tops of them, it’s like the whole vault of the sky comes plunging down on my head. They’re trees and yet they’re something else too. They’re too big to be just trees. I walk in between them. The trunks are so thick it would take at least three men to link hands around them. I hear water running in the dark. That cursed creek! I say. But my words fall straight down to the hard-packed snow. The sounds don’t travel even a few feet in this forest. But I still carry them inside me. There I can think about the old words from back home.

I hear the water but I can’t see it. I have to be careful about setting down one foot in front of the other. Then I fall. I land hard on my side and lie still. I lie there looking up through the tall fir trees. It hurts bad. Way overhead I catch a glimpse of a star. Did I break something? I mustn’t injure myself now. There can’t be more than a few hours left. From the boat shed it’s supposed to be a straight path up to the log cabin where my uncle and Nanette live. But here I lie, with my ribs hurting. The trees don’t look like trees. They disappear up there among the stars. And on the other side of the stars they keep growing to form another forest. There the sky is blue and sunlight glitters on the lake. Tiny glints of sun flash across the surface of the water, almost like sparks from a fire. A fire in the middle of the night. I hear a snap every time a spark flies out into the darkness. Those dry, sharp snaps echo inside my skull. It’s more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen before. It’s red and green and white and yellow. And it crackles as if somebody had tossed tiny pebbles into my mouth.

I try spitting. My mouth is full of those pebbles. It’s almost impossible to spit them out. But then I realize that they’re not really stones. I open my eyes and see that I’ve fallen asleep with my mouth pressed against the crusted snow. As I prop myself up, I tear the skin right off my lips. I scream loudly and put my hand over my mouth. Blood warms my hand. I scream again because it hurts so bad. My lips are still lying on the snow, frozen to the ice. I can’t see them, but I know they’re lying there somewhere. I get to my feet, hunching forward to cradle the part that hurts. I feel warm blood running down my chin and neck. My lips are gone. They’re lying in the snow among the fir trees. My whole face is stinging with frost. I went into the woods in order to cross the creek, and then I fell. That’s what happened. And I fell asleep. Dreamed about another forest, up in the sky. Good Lord, I don’t want to die! Not now. Only a few more hours and then it will be over. Then I will have arrived in America at last. I try to shout the word “America!” But with my bleeding mouth it comes out like the lowing of a cow.

I hear the creek again. The sound is more muted. Could it be that the water is running underneath the ice? It’s only a few yards away, but it’s so dark here. I set one foot in front of the other, moving slowly, one step at a time. The ground is uneven, and it hurts to walk. But then I see the creek! The moonlight reaches all the way down through the trees at this spot. A big patch of light. The snow sinks down into the creek bed and then rises up again on the other side. I can’t see any open water at all. But I know that I don’t dare trudge down into it. If I fall through the snow and into the water, I’m done for. But in the middle I see what looks like a skull sticking up. It must be a rock in the middle of the creek. It would be easy enough to jump across here in the daylight. I’d just need to land on the rock with my right foot, and then I could leap across to the other side.

It’s worse in the moonlight. Then you can’t really see how high or low anything is. But there’s no way to go around. I’ll have to gamble everything on landing on that rock with my right foot. First I have to make sure my knapsack is strapped properly on my back. I try to forget about what’s hurting me. Because it really does hurt. Both my face and my side. But I need to forget about that. Right now all that matters is the creek. Me and the creek. I walk all the way over to the edge, or what I think is the edge, and try to judge the distance, but that’s hard to do in the moonlight. Then I take off from my left foot, launching myself forward with my right leg out. I touch down on the round shape sticking up in the middle of the creek, and instinctively throw my left leg out, not thinking about whether I can do it or not. I just do it, and then I’m lying on the other side, digging my fingers into the hard-packed snow. My knapsack and snowshoes have slid forward and are lying on top of my head. Cautiously I turn onto my side and see that I’ve made it across.

Now it’s just a matter of following the creek down to the lake, and then I can keep going like before. But I won’t be able to handle many more creeks. Not with this sharp pain in my side. It hurts terribly now, after jumping like that. I really must have cracked something. Maybe a rib. But that’s not so dangerous, is it? A person can’t die from a broken rib. I get up on my knees. Something scrapes and stabs inside me. But I have to get up. All the way up. I scream, it hurts so bad. I try to scream “America!” but it just comes out the same way, a crazy lowing sound, because my lips are still lying on the other side of the creek.

I start walking toward the lake, going much slower now. Every time I lift my left foot, something scrapes inside me. A broken rib. But I can’t let something stupid like that stop me. Soon I’ll arrive where my uncle and Nanette are living. I pause. Tip my head back and look up. I see a star. The trees are too big to be just trees. I’m being sucked up between them. High above the treetops I don’t feel how much it hurts. My old life is on the other side of the ocean, just like my lips are on the other side of the creek. One day I happened to read a letter from my uncle, about the big lake and all the money that could be made. After that I couldn’t think of anything but America. But I’m not quite there yet. First I need to smell the food cooking and the heat coming from the cabin where Knut lives. Right now I’m sitting on the ground again. I must have fallen. I need to get up and head down to the lake. I’m not going to get any porridge or coffee this way. But I have a terrible pain inside me. I stand up and start walking, groaning out loud with each step I take. Up ahead I can see the lake between the tree trunks. The black water. The moonlight.

IT
HAD
STOPPED
RAINING
. Lance could hear the sound of rushing water being squeezed between the cliff walls in the narrow gap a short distance away, off to the right. The river was still at his right flank, but this was a longer drive than the first, so the chances were greater that a deer might break out of this one. He had no idea where the deer had come from on the first drive. But he had definitely not flushed it out. Regardless, his brother had missed. And from what Andy had said, he hadn’t wounded the deer. They hadn’t found any traces of blood either.

Although it might seem like he was the only living thing here, Lance knew there was plenty of life all around him. Nuthatches, woodpeckers, hazel grouse, hares, and squirrels. There might also be mink and otters along the river. And deer, of course. Yet the landscape appeared utterly dead. Even the birches looked dead as they stood there, leafless and covered with shiny droplets. He didn’t hear a single sound that might be ascribed to a human being or to a man-made object. As soon as he got a short distance away from any houses and roads, the only sounds were the ones that had always been present. Gusts of wind, river water, rain, maybe the snapping of a twig. If he closed his eyes and listened, he could have been the first Frenchman who’d ever set foot in the woods surrounding Lake Superior. He stopped and closed his eyes, shutting out all sight of himself, the modern sports clothing, the rifle with the fiberglass stock. He heard only the roar of the river and the sound of his own breathing. Felt the cold, damp air on his hands and face, noticed the smell of rotting vegetation and wet earth.

He opened his eyes and checked to make sure his cell phone was pressed against his thigh so that he’d notice if it started to vibrate. Then he slowly began walking again. The same wet woods. The same rotting leaves on the ground. The same low-hanging, leaden sky cover.

Why hadn’t Andy answered when he was standing out there shouting in the transmission line clear-cut? Instead he’d stood half-hidden among some fir trees, watching him. It reminded Lance of yesterday, when Andy hadn’t picked up any of his calls.

A blue jay flew out from a spruce tree. A swift glimpse of its iridescent blue feathers and then it was gone, as if it had never been there.

Lance still had a long way to go to reach the big bend in the river where Andy was on post. A long, steep climb. This was a hard drive. Once again Lance felt annoyed with himself because he hadn’t shot that buck yesterday. If he had, he could be sitting at home right now. Not that he knew what he’d be doing if he were, but at least he could have avoided spending the day out here in the woods with Andy.