As he drew his second arrow the bow split apart above the grip. Arrow, string, half the bow fell loosely over his arms.
“Ooooh!” the old people sighed. “The wood was too old,” the old man said. “It all dries up and it got no give to it.”
“I’ll get you another one,” Hurley said. They shushed him up, said it wasn’t any good, that nobody could cock it anyway. But later when he drove his Drive-Ur-Self Chevrolet down into Leah for groceries and the mail, he stopped in at Follansbee’s hardware store.
Old Follansbee remembered him from the times he and Mary had come up to ski, possibly not from the earlier time when Follansbee was a young man working in his father’s store and Hurley was a boy.
“Do for you?” Old Follansbee’s bald head (once covered with black, bushy hair, parted in the middle) gleamed softly, approximately the same color and texture as his maple rolltop desk.
“I’d like to buy a bow—and some arrows,” Hurley added in order to specify what kind of bow he meant. In Leah he had always been constrained to come immediately to the point. The old man led him to the sporting-goods corner where rifles and shotguns, fish poles and outboard motors, knives, rubber boots, decoys, and pistols lay in cases, on counters, or were hung on racks. He remembered this part of the store and the objects he had fallen in love with as a boy. No girl had meant as much to him at fifteen as had the beautifully angular lines of a Winchester Model 06, .22 pump. He even remembered the model number, but from this distance he wondered how a number could have meant so much.
He tried out a few of the pretty, too modern bows until he found one that seemed to have the same pull as the one he had broken.
“That one’s glass,” Old Follansbee said. “My boy says it don’t want to break.”
“Glass? It’s made of glass?”
“Correct. Strange, ain’t it? What they can do these days? You’ll want some arrows, did you say?”
He bought two arrows. When he’d pulled the one out of the barn it came apart in his hands, split all the way up the shaft. He decided to replace it with two, even though he knew the New Hampshire way was to resent such prodigality. He bought a leather arm guard and finger tabs; then he saw the hunting arrows. The slim, three-bladed heads suggested Indians and his youth. The target arrows, beside them, seemed to have no character, no honest function. He bought two hunting arrows, and under old Follansbee’s suspicious, conventional eye, a bow-hunting license, feeling like a child who had spent his Sunday-school money on a toy.
At the post office he found a joint communique from his worried children. “We have decided that it would be best…” the words went. He sent two identical telegrams: Having wonderful time. Tend your business. Love, Dad. They all believed in the therapy of youth—in this case, grandchildren. He couldn’t think of a way to tell them that he loved them all too much.
Nana and the old man walked with him as far as the ledges at the top of the wild orchard, careful in their white tennis shoes. Nana stood splay-footed on the granite, queen of the hill, and surveyed the valley and the advancing forest with a disapproving eye.
“I see Holloways is letting their north pasture go back,” she said, shaking her head. She had seen whole hills go back to darkness, and many fine houses fall into their cellar holes. She turned toward Hurley accusingly, he being from the outside and thus responsible for such things. “You got to pay money to have them take the hay!”
“Tell me it’s cheaper to buy it off the truck,” the old man said. “But I told them it don’t grow on trucks.” He stood beside his tall wife, in his baggy pants and old mackinaw. His new tennis shoes were startlingly white. “I call this the hill of agony,” he said, winking at Hurley.
“You see where the deer come down to eat our garden?” Nana said, pointing to the deer trails through the apple trees. “We tell the game warden to shoot. Nothing. They hang bangers in the trees. All night, bang, bang! Nobody can sleep.”
“Neither could the deer. They stayed up all night and et my lettuce,” the old man said. He laughed and whacked his thigh.
“You shoot me a nice young deer,” Nana said. “I make mincemeat, roasts, nice sausage for your breakfast.”
He had tried to tell them that he didn’t want to shoot anything with the bow, just carry it. Could he tell them that it gave a peculiar strength to his arm, that it seemed to be a kind of dynamo? When he was a boy in these same woods he and his friends had not been spectators, but actors. Their bows, fish poles, skis, and rifles had set them apart from the mere hikers, the summer people.
“I won’t be back tonight unless the weather changes,” he said. The sun was warm on the dry leaves, but the air was crisply cool in the shadows. He said goodbye to the old people, took off his pack, and waited on the ledges to see them safely back to the house below, then unrolled his sleeping bag and rolled it tighter. The night before he had noticed on his geodetic map a small, five-acre pond high in the cleft between Cascom and Gilman mountains. It was called Goose Pond, and he seemed to remember having been there once, long ago, perhaps trout fishing. He remembered being very tired, yet not wanting to leave; he remembered the cattails and alders and a long beaver dam, the pond deep in a little basin. He was sure he could follow the brook that issued from the pond—if he could pick the right one from all the little brooks that came down between Gilman and Cascom.
His pack tightened so that it rode high on his back, he carried his bow and the two hunting arrows in one hand. He soon relearned that arrows pass easily through the brush only if they go points first.
Stopping often to rest, he climbed past the maples into ground juniper and pine, hearing often the soft explosions of partridge, sometimes seeing them as they burst up and whistled through the trees. He passed giant beeches, crossing their noisy leaves, then walked silently through softwood until he came to a granite knob surrounded by stunted, wind-grieved hemlock. To the northwest he could see the Presidential Range, but Leah, the lake, and the Pedersens’ farm were all out of sight. He ate a hard-boiled egg and one of the bittersweet wild apples he had collected on the way. The wind was delightfully cool against his face, but he knew his sweat would soon chill. At two o’clock the sun was fairly low in the hard blue sky—whole valleys were in shadow below.
He took out his map. He had crossed three little brooks, and the one he could hear a short way ahead must be Goose Pond’s overflow. By the sound it was a fair-sized brook. When he climbed down through the hemlock and saw it he was sure. White water angled right and left, dropping over boulders into narrow sluices and deep, clear pools. He knelt down, drank, and dipped his head in and out of the icy water. His forehead turned numb, as if it were made of rubber. A water beetle darted to the bottom. A baby trout flashed green and pink beside a stone. It was as if he were looking through a giant lens into an alien world, where life was cold and cruel, and even the light had a quality of darkness about it. Odd little sticks on the bottom were the camouflaged larvae of insects, waiting furtively to hatch or to be eaten. Fish hid in the shadows under stones, their avid little mouths ready to snap. He shuddered and raised his head—a momentary flash of panic, as if some carnivorous animal with a gaping mouth might come darting up to tear his face.
Following the brook, jumping from stone to stone, sometimes having to leave it for the woods in order to get around tangles of blowdown or waterfalls, he came suddenly into the deep silence of the spruce, where the channel was deep. In the moist, cathedral silence of the tall pillars of spruce he realized how deafening the white water had been. The wind stirred the tops of the trees and made the slim trunks move slowly, but could not penetrate the dim, yet luminous greenness of the place.
And he saw the deer. He saw the face of the deer beside a narrow tree, and for a moment there was nothing but the face: a smoky brown eye deep as a tunnel, it seemed, long delicate lashes, a black whisker or two along the white-shaded muzzle. The black nose quivered at each breath, the nostrils rounded. Then he began to follow the light brown line, mo
tionless and so nearly invisible along the back, down along the edge of the white breast. One large ear turned slowly toward him. It was a doe, watching him carefully, perfect in the moment of fine innocence and wonder—a quality he suddenly remembered—the expressionless readiness of the deer. But other instincts had been working in him. He hadn’t moved, but breathing slowly, put his weight equally on both legs. The light sharpened as if it had been twilight and the sun had suddenly flashed. Every detail—the convolutions of the bark on the trees, tiny twigs, the fine sheen of light on each hair of the doe, each curved, precious eyelash—became vivid and distinct. Depth grew, color brightened; his hunter’s eyes became painfully efficient, as if each needlelike detail pierced him. The world became polarized on the axis of their eyes. He was alone with the doe in a green world that seemed to cry for rich red, and he did not have time to think: it was enough that he sensed the doe’s quick decision to leave him. An onyx hoof snapped, her white flag rose, and the doe floated in a slow arc, broadside to him, clear of the trees for an endless second. He watched down the long arrow, three blades moved ahead of the doe, and at the precise moment all tension stopped; his arms, fingers, eyes, and the bow were all one instrument. The arrow sliced through the deer.
Her white flag dropped. Gracefully, in long, splendid leaps, hoofs stabbing the hollow-sounding carpet of needles, the doe flickered beyond the trees. One moment of crashing brush, then silence. A thick excitement rose like fluid into his face; his arms seemed to grow to twice their normal size, become twice as strong. And still his body was governed by the old, learned patterns. He walked silently forward and retrieved his bloody arrow, snapped the feathers alive again. The trail was a vivid line of jewels, brighter than the checkerberries against their shiny green leaves, unmistakable. He rolled the bright blood between his fingers as he slowly moved forward. He must let the doe stop and lie down, let her shock-born strength dissipate in calm bleeding. Watching each step, figuring out whole series of steps, of brush bendings in advance, he picked the silent route around snags and under the blowdown.
In an hour he had gone a hundred yards, still tight and careful, up out of the spruce and onto a small rise covered with birch and poplar saplings. The leaves were loud underfoot, and as he carefully placed one foot, the doe rose in front of him and crashed downhill, obviously weak, staggering against the whippy birch. A fine mist of blood sprayed at each explosion of breath from the holes in her ribs. He ran after her, leaping over brush, running along fallen limbs, sliding under low branches that flicked his cheeks like claws. His bow caught on a branch and jerked him upright. After one impatient pull he left it. He drew his knife. The brown shape ahead had disappeared, and he dove through the brush after it, witch hobble grabbing his legs.
The doe lay against a stump, one leg twitching. He knelt down and put one hard arm around her neck, and not caring for the dangerous hoofs, the spark of life, raised the firm, warm neck against his chest, and sighed as he stabbed carefully into the sticking place. Blood was hot on the knife and on his hand.
He rolled over into the leaves, long breaths bending him, making his back arch. His shirt vibrated over his heart, his body turned heavy and pressed with unbelievable weight into the earth. He let his arms melt into the ground, and a cool, lucid sadness came over his flesh.
He made himself get up. In order to stand he had to fight gravity, to use all his strength—a quick fear for his heart. His joints ached and had begun to stiffen. He must keep moving. Shadows were long and he had much to do before dark. He followed the blood trail back and found his bow and one arrow. He limped going back down the hill; at a certain angle his knees tended to jackknife, as if gears were slipping.
He stood over the clean body of the doe, the white belly snowy against brown leaves. One hind leg he hooked behind a sapling, and he held the other with his knee as he made the first long incision through the hair and skin, careful not to break the peritoneum. He ran the incision from the tail to the breast, then worked the skin back with his fingers before making the second cut through the warm membrane, the sticky blue case for stomach and entrails. He cut, and the steamy innards rolled unbroken and still working out onto the ground. A few neat berries of turd rattled on the leaves. He cut the anus and organs of reproduction clear of the flesh, then found the kidneys and liver and reached arm-deep into the humid chest cavity, the hot smell of blood close to his nostrils, and removed the yellow lungs in handfuls. Then he pulled out the dark red heart. Kidneys, liver, and heart he wrapped carefully in a plastic bag, then he rose and painfully stretched. Goose Pond lay just below; he could see a flicker of water through the skein of branches, and there he would make camp.
With his belt looped around the neck and front hoofs, he slid the doe down toward the pond. It was dusk by the time he found a dry platform of soft needles beneath a hemlock, next to the water. The doe had become stiff enough so that he could hang it in a young beech, head wedged in a fork. He spread his sleeping bag, tried it for roots and stones, and found none. The last high touch of sun on the hill above him had gone; he had even prepared ground for a fire when he realized that he had no energy left, no appetite to eat the liver of the doe.
Darkness had settled in along the ground, but the sky was still bright; one line of cirrus clouds straight overhead still caught orange sunlight. Across the silver water the alder swamp was jet black, and the steep hill rose behind, craggy with spruce. A beaver’s nose broke water, and even, slow circles spread across the pond. The dark woods filled with cold, and one of his legs began to jerk uncontrollably. He took off his boots and slid into his sleeping bag.
The doe was monstrous, angular against the sky, her neck stretched awkwardly, head canted to one side. The black hole in her belly gaped empty. He drew his sleeping bag up around his face.
If he were twenty again he would be happy. To have shot a deer with a bow—he’d be a hero, a woodsman, famous in Leah. How it would have impressed Mary! She would have said little about it—she went to great lengths never to flatter him; her compliments had been more tangible, seldom in words. He must think of something else. The world was too empty. The cold woods, the darkening water, were empty. He was too cold, too tired to manipulate his thoughts. And the progression of hours began again. Mary’s eyes watched him, deep in sick hollows. How could her flesh turn so brown? Why could he do nothing to stop the pain? She watched him, in torment, her frail body riven, cut beyond endurance. The disease had killed her bravery with pain and left her gruesomely alive, without dignity, whimpering like a spoiled brat, asking for help she should have known did not exist. And he stood by and watched, doing nothing. Nothing. He was not a man to do nothing. Mary, did I do nothing to help you?
He heard, far away, the lonely cry of the Canada geese. He was alone, hidden in the blind night, high on the stony mass of Cascom Mountain.
And then they came in, circling, calling to each other above the doubtful ground. Perhaps they had seen the reflected circle of fading sky, or remembered, generations remembering that geese had rested safely in the high pond and found food there. The scouts came whistling on their great wings, searching and listening. They sent their messages back to the flock waiting above, then planed down, braking, smeared the water with wind and came to rest in a flash of spray. The flock circled down after, careless now it was safe, honking gaily, giving the feeding call prematurely, echoing the messages of the leaders and landing masters. “Come in, come down and rest,” they seemed to call, until everyone had landed safely. Then the voices grew softer, less excited, and only an occasional word drifted across the water.
Robert Hurley lay in the warm hollow of his sleeping bag, where the hours had stopped. He thought for a moment of the doe’s death, and of his knife. The geese spoke softly to each other on the water—a small splash, a flutter of wings, and the resting, contented voices in the deep basin of the pond. As sleep washed over him he seemed to be among them; their sentinels guarded him. When they had rested well they would rise and contin
ue the dangerous journey down the world.
The Skier’s Progress
JAPHET VILLARD has installed himself at the Mountain View, a place he has known through so many of its transitions he sometimes has the illusion that he can see right through walls. Wasn’t there a window right there, a long time ago, through which one could see the ridge of Splitback Mountain? He sits now in the too artfully rough-textured modern lounge, waiting for his daughter Margaret and his grandson Billy. The fieldstone fireplace is new. Wasn’t there a plaster wall right there, with a flue plug big as a dinner plate in it? And painted on the tin was a mountain, in all the primary colors of his youth—an Alp, perhaps, or maybe one of the nearby White Mountains. From this position he is sure he might once have looked straight into the kitchen and caught a glimpse of a deep slate sink.
Now, for all the weathered silver boards someone has taken from old barns, for all the deliberately rustic stone and the hand-hewn beams, a little sign by the door says, “No Skis in Lounge, Please.” How would they have greeted the eight-foot langlauf boards upon which he used to travel snow unbroken by anybody but snowshoe rabbits? Those pure wood monsters with their leather bindings would be museum pieces now—they’d have them up over the mantel to smile at. No steel edges, either—did you need them in that high and virgin deep snow?
But he is no pure sentimentalist for the past. Along with the new skis he bought for his grandson, he has for himself a pair of Head Vectors, whose edges are so sharp they’ll pare your fingernail. It’s been just six weeks since he underwent surgery, though, and he wonders if he will ever be able to use them—if, in fact, he did not simply buy them because they are so beautiful to look at. If he does manage to ski, he’ll take the lifts now, and try not to chide Billy for not wanting to break his own trails, crest to crest. Japh has never been a man to bellyache about the changes in the world; his pride has been to compete, to improve himself.
Leah, New Hampshire Page 3
