Stillbird
Page 13
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One crisp autumn afternoon, Abel decided to go hunting, but he knew better than to suggest it to Charles, who had been treating him like a child now, ever since the woman had disappeared. It occurred to Abel that perhaps she had turned herself into an animal in the forest. The old Indian women were said to be able to do that, just like the witches in the stories from home. He’d even dreamed that he had wounded a doe and when he went to get her, she had already changed back into the woman, and he had carried her home and nursed her wound gently. It had hurt him to wake up that morning, because his dream had been so happy and peaceful at last. All his waking hours he felt an ache in his heart and his throat that made it hard to swallow food or talk without crying. No wonder his son treated him like a child. He simply did not understand love. He didn’t know how to explain it.
So Abel left quietly with his bow and arrow and stalked her in the woods, and he found a doe and stood quietly, holding his breath, hoping she would not catch his scent. Slowly, slowly he raised his arm and took aim and let fly the arrow and hit her in the shoulder. The doe ran and he lost sight of her and had to stalk her again, sniffing the crisp air for the scent of blood, which he barely detected over the sweet wood smoke that wafted far into the forest from his home. Then he saw her standing quite still at the mouth of a cave, staring at a bobcat that had been attracted by the scent of her blood, and he watched as the cat killed the doe with his heart turned to stone, fearing that it was the woman the cat killed. He dreaded to see the cat mangle and devour the flesh of the magic animal, but he couldn’t move and watched in wonder as the cat moved away without so much as touching her flesh. Abel began to move quietly and slowly toward the cave to examine the doe, but the cat came back and guarded her prey, and Abel understood he would be safe if he backed away, and he did and then ran home, his heart beating faster and faster, near to bursting. And then he was ashamed. He should have had faith, and the wood fairies would have protected him. The cat was a magic animal also, an evil witch, he was thinking in his child’s mind, gone back now to that time he could never set right.
“Where have you been, father? I was so worried when I came down and you were gone. I’ve looked and called everywhere.”
“I went hunting the woman, but I didn’t save her. I was a coward and lost faith, and now she’s dead and there is nothing I can do but bear my shame.”
“Father, what are you talking about? What did you see and where did you go? How do you know that she is dead?”
“She turned herself into a doe, and I shot her with an arrow in the shoulder, just to wound her, not to kill her, and I would have brought her back home, but a mountain lion killed her, and I was afraid and ran home without her. She was at the entrance of a cave, and I am sure she has been living there, a woman by night and an animal by day. These Indians are magical like the fairies back home. Did I never tell you the stories?”
“Yes, father, you told me the stories, but we didn’t believe those stories.”
Then Charles noticed that his father looked beyond sad when he said he didn’t believe in the stories, and he gently led his father to bed and promised to help him find the cave the next day. He sat by his father’s bed and watched over him, until he was sure his father was asleep, and then he got up quietly to leave, but his father’s voice called him back.
“Did I ever explain to you my love for your mother? Did I ever tell you how it was?”
“No, father, you never told me that.” And Charles’s heart sank, thinking what love had led to.
“It was like a story, too. A story I just remembered. I know I never told you this story, because I just remembered it now, but my mother told me this story a long time ago, before my brother was born. I’ll tell you the story and you’ll understand how I loved your mother.
“It was a story about a young Highland king who went to the forest to play games of strength with a fairy king and because he won, he got to take the fairy king’s daughter as his wife, and then he won a horse that could fly, as you know those stories are full of horses that fly like the wind, faster even. But then he lost, and the fairy king made him promise to bring him something, a special sword, I think, and the flying horse helped him, because the horses in those stories could also talk, you know, and he took the sword to the king, but while he was gone on this adventure, a giant came and took his wife, whom he loved so much. Now that I think about it, that young king must have been like my brother, Jamie. You never knew Jamie of course. He died the night you were conceived. That shocks you doesn’t it? Did you know that your mother was married first to my brother? Well, I guess I am like the giant in the story. The poor giant that no one knew anything about. In the story, they kill the giant and everyone is glad about it. But the giant had a soul. He kept it hidden in a special place, and that was the second part of the story. How they killed the giant by finding his soul.”
Abel fell silent then, almost asleep with weariness, and Charles went closer to him and put his hand on his father’s forehead and told him to sleep now and they would talk about the story tomorrow. But his father said no, he would finish the story now, just let him doze a moment, so Charles waited, and his father closed his eyes and rested, but spoke slowly and finished the story about the giant’s soul.
“The young king was able to find his bride where the giant had hidden her in a large cave, because his horse helped him, a fairy horse, you know, and when he got there, the giant was gone and the other horses there hid him beneath their legs. Oh, then there was more that I won’t tell you, how the giant would come home each night exhausted and feed the horses who would bite and kick at him, and how he would tell his woman that had he but had his soul in his body, they would have killed him. Each night he would tell her that, and she would ask him where his soul was, and he would tell her something different, but finally he told her the truth about where his soul was hidden. I remember this, because when I was little I thought it was so funny. I didn’t really understand the story then, you see. The poor giant’s soul was hidden in an egg inside a duck, which was in the belly of a sheep, and the sheep was buried beneath a rock in the cave. We laughed, my mother and I, when she told this part. And she told it well, long and making quite a play of it. So when the giant was gone, the young king and his beautiful fairy wife dug up the sheep, which ran from them, but the king called a dog, who caught the sheep, and they cut it open and found the duck, who flew away, but the king called a hawk, who caught the duck, and they cut it open and found the egg, which rolled into the river, but the king called an otter, who brought them the egg, and the fairy wife broke the egg, and that broke the soul of the giant, who died somewhere out there; somewhere, no one knew where or cared. He never came back and the young king and his wife were glad. So, you see, my love was like the giant’s soul, hidden, so well hidden, but now it’s been broken, and I am dying. You can see that can’t you?”
“We’ll find her father, I’ll help you. We’ll make amends, I promise.”
But Abel didn’t hear his son’s promise, because he was already sleeping the deep, sound sleep of total exhaustion.