by Roy Kesey
They all stand there in the heat, staring into the big empty space where that last note disappeared. Garrett wipes the sweat off his face with a handkerchief. He’d cried at the real funeral, but now he squares up, snaps a salute to show the nephew what’s what, and pats his brother on the shoulder. Blaine closes his eyes. He’d needed this. Garrett is glad they’ve done it, and glad it’s time to go home.
–Could you do that again? asks the nephew.
Garrett sticks his hands in his pockets, waits for Blaine to tell the kid to go fuck himself and buy the record, but instead Blaine looks at the nephew with not much of anything in his eyes.
–I’m sorry, says the nephew. I just kind of lost my concentration there for a moment. Would you mind doing it again?
Blaine shrugs, nods, puts the horn back to his lips. The first couple notes are okay. Then he hiccoughs and goes flying into reveille, a million miles an hour and as loud as he can play, and now he’s on his knees, hacking at the grass with the bugle and screaming at their son of a bitch of a father to wake the fuck up.
Which is kind of what Garrett was afraid of.
He yells at Blaine to knock it off but his brother keeps at it. There’s grass in his hair and dirt clods flying all over. The bugle’s bent up pretty bad, and the nephew is backing away, his hands out straight from his sides. Garrett runs, throws himself forward, lands full on his brother, two-hundred forty pounds of ex-Marine crashing down but Blaine locks his arms and arches his neck, won’t bend for anything. Garrett gets a hand on his brother’s wrist and an arm around his waist, and they hover like that for a second. Garrett goes for a crossface but Blaine spins out from under him and all the way around, works Garrett into an arm bar. Just like that, it’s Garrett who’s got his face in the grass and Blaine who’s asking if he’s had enough.
–Get off of me.
–You give?
–Get the fuck off of me you fucking wingnut.
–Not until you give.
Garrett throws an elbow back but now Blaine’s got him in a cradle, rolls him hard and stacks him.
–Fucking give, motherfucker.
Garrett gives, and Blaine lets go.
–You’re getting old.
–We’re all getting old. I’m just getting there first.
Blaine laughs, lies back in the grass, and Garrett flops beside him. He looks out at the lake and the dry hills on the other side. Then he remembers the nephew. The kid’s in a crouch maybe twenty feet away, staring.
–That was fascinating, says the nephew.
–You want fascinating? says Garrett. I’ll show you some fascinating.
He goes to get up but Blaine catches his arm.
–Not in a bad way, says the nephew. In a good way.
Blaine brushes the grass out of his hair.
–Welcome to Fallash, Aaron. How was the drive over?
–Not bad. Forty-five minutes or so.
–Ukiah changed any since you left?
–Not a bit.
Garrett picks up an acorn, tosses it at his father’s headstone, misses, picks up another. His father was a drunk, distant and shaky but never mean no matter what Blaine might think. Garrett misses him a little bit more than he’d thought he would.
He tosses the second acorn, plunks the headstone just off-center, and wonders where they’ll go next weekend, him and Blaine. Someplace up high where things will have cooled off a bit—Hull Mountain, maybe. They had good luck there year before last, saw a nice three-point and a monster four with eye-guards like daggers, missed them both but came home with decent forked-horns. His buck was a little heavier, field-dressed almost ninety pounds, but Blaine’s was definitely—
–Have a seat, says Blaine. It’s free.
–Thanks, says Aaron.
He comes over and sits down but still looks uncomfortable, skinny legs bent at sharp angles. He picks at the soles of his tennis shoes, looks again at the headstone. Garrett brushes off his hands. Maybe they’ll stop by Belinda’s, get a couple of those triple-cheese omelets.
–So what were you doing in Europe? asks Blaine.
–The Baltics, actually.
–Okay, the Baltics.
–Lithuania, actually.
Blaine squints and Garrett shakes his head.
–Research for my thesis. There’s this painter, Mikalojus Čiurlionis. I’ve got a book over at the house if you guys are interested. He worked with pretty dull colors for the most part, but the paintings are this crazy mix of symbolism and Modernism and—
Aaron looks up.
–And what? says Blaine.
–And late Romanticism.
–I’ll bet it’s fascinating, says Garrett.
Blaine guffaws and Aaron goes a little red.
–Čiurlionis was a major figure, he says. Absolutely fundamental.
–Sounds good to me, says Blaine. You should bring that book around sometime.
There’s a bit of silence, and something’s gnawing at Garrett but he isn’t sure what. He looks again at the hills, the lake, the weathered slats of the cemetery fence, and now he has it—there’s a gravestone missing. His sister Lana should have been buried here too, instead of cremated and stuck in some urn that Aaron’s probably got squirreled away in his dorm room or wherever he lives. He tries to remember whose decision that was, the cremation. Must have been Aaron’s.
Garrett pulls into his driveway, his hands still buzzing from a long day on the dozer, ten hours prepping the east bank of the Eel for a new bridge. He takes a quick shower, gives Blaine a call but gets the machine again. There’s no point in asking about what happened at the cemetery, but it’s Thursday already and they have to sort out the upcoming hunt at some point.
He walks the four blocks to their mom’s house to see if she knows what’s going on, and to pick himself some tomatoes from the vines she’s got out back. He finds her kneeling in the flowerbeds along the side of the house, asks what she’s planting, and she points to the packets—snapdragons, looks like from the picture. He asks if she’s seen Blaine lately, and she stands, wipes the sweat from her forehead, peels off her gloves.
–He called an hour ago. I couldn’t really tell what he was saying. He hung up and I tried to call him back but no one answered, and I was going to go see him but then Aaron came over, drove all that way just to bring me some loganberries. Can you believe those old vines Lana planted are still producing? So I invited him to go hunting with you boys, and he—
–You what?
–Garrett, he’s staying in that house all by himself, and I thought it would be a good—
–There’s no way we’re taking him. For one thing he doesn’t have a license or tags, and—
–He doesn’t have to carry a gun. He can just walk around with you. And besides.
–Besides what?
–It’s what Lana would have wanted.
–How do you know? Nobody ever knew what Lana wanted. Plus he’s probably scared shitless of guns what with—
But of course he can’t finish that sentence, and his mother’s staring at him, and there’s no way around it.
–Okay. But he trips on his laces and breaks a leg, we’re leaving him right where he falls. Does he even have boots?
–I told him he could borrow a pair of yours. He said he had some errands to run, but he’ll be over at your house in an hour or so. Could you stop by Blaine’s first to make sure he’s okay?
Nobody answers when he knocks, but the door’s unlocked. He sticks his head in, calls for his brother. Total silence, all the lights turned off. Garrett walks through the living room, kicks a beer can into a corner, heads to the kitchen and there’s empty bottles everywhere. On the table, though, Blaine’s hunting license and deer tag are sitting on a piece of paper that has Aaron written on the top in wobbly black felt-tip.
So his brother’s off on another drunk and Garrett gets to babysit the nephew by himself. Fucking dandy. At least the kid will be legal, kind of, and that’s something. He sweeps up the
license and tag and heads back out to the truck.
He’s still getting his gear laid out when the doorbell rings. There’s the nephew, shorts and a tank top and tennis shoes, holding a big book. His arms are pale and thin and pimply. Garrett wonders if he could snap one using just his fingers.
–Hi, says Aaron. Is Uncle Blaine here?
–This is my house. Blaine lives in a totally different house.
–I know, but—
–It’s okay. Come in.
Aaron slips past him, sits down on the couch, sets the book on the coffee table.
–Nice place, he says.
Garrett looks around at the dusty fly rods in the corner, the hunting magazines scattered on the floor, the empty milk carton on top of the television. The kid sounded sincere, though. Maybe he meant the heads on the walls. Garrett looks up at the muley he took in Colorado ten years ago. Perfect four-point, long tines, heavy beams, nice and high. Another inch of width and it would have gone Boone and Crockett.
–Yeah, it’s not bad.
Aaron leans back, crosses his legs, uncrosses them.
–So, says Garrett. Looks like it’s going to be just you and me this time around.
–Uncle Blaine’s not going?
–Nope.
The kid picks the book up, sets it back down, glances out the window.
–We’ll be okay, though, says Garrett. What have you got in the way of gear?
Aaron just looks at him.
–Right. Well, no problem, I’ve got plenty for both of us.
He leads out into the garage. The workbench is a mess—cans of powder, boxes of shells and slugs and primers, an old stock he’s been meaning to sand down for years.
–You make your own bullets? asks Aaron.
–Reload the shells is all. Saves some money, and they shoot better than the factory loads.
–Interesting.
Garrett thinks he’s got to get the kid some new words, starts pulling spare stuff off of shelves. He gets Aaron set up—daypack, pocketknife, compass, binoculars, snake kit, canteen, gloves. Couple of granola bars and a packet of jerky. Camo baseball cap, and a wool shirt for early morning.
–I take it you’ve at least got a t-shirt and some pants you don’t mind getting dirty?
–Sure.
–Okay. What else. Boots. What size do you wear?
–Nine.
–I’m a ten, but you wear two pairs of socks and you’ll be fine.
He fetches his work boots from the back stoop. Aaron tries them on, says they’re good and roomy.
–That about does it, except you’re going to need a fire-stick. Follow me.
He takes the kid to his bedroom, opens the far closet, pulls out his keys and opens the padlock, slides the corrugated steel up on its rollers and stands back. He’s got half a dozen rifles, a pair of shotguns, one pistol that shoots fine and another that doesn’t. He reaches to the end of the rack and takes down the smallest rifle. Its stock is scratched to hell but the bluing on the barrel still shines.
–32-20, he says, and hands the gun to Aaron. First rifle I ever owned. First rifle my dad ever owned, for that matter. Not much to look at, but I imagine it still shoots straight.
Aaron hefts the rifle, nods and then shakes his head.
–I’m not actually sure—
–Yeah, I know, but don’t worry about that. Be a good thing to have in your hands in case we run into a bear.
Garrett watches the kid’s face. Not quite the rise he wanted but still not bad—a little sweat on the upper lip, a little pale in the cheeks. He’s never seen a bear on Hull and doesn’t imagine there’ll be any now. He takes the rifle back, removes the bolt and looks down the bore. Clean enough. He hasn’t sighted it in, but it’s not like the kid would be able to hit anything anyway. He slides the bolt back into place, thinks about telling the story of his dad’s first buck, decides the kid should have to earn it.
–I’ll hold onto the rifle, he says, but you can take everything else. You need to be here at 4 a.m. sharp on Saturday. We’ve got some driving to do.
–Okay. And thanks.
–No problem.
They carry the gear out to the living room. Aaron starts arranging things in the daypack, and Garrett asks about the book on the coffee table.
–It’s the one I told you about before. Čiurlionis. He’s a—
–I remember. Mind if I take a look?
–Sure.
Aaron gets back to packing and Garrett pages through the book, stops whenever he sees something he likes. There’s one where these tiny scrawls became indigo monks, and they’re all hunched over and way too far across the ice to make it back to any monastery. It gives him a cold little shiver. Another is pure landscape, but as he looks at it, one of the trees turns into the hand of a climber about to come over the back side.
He looks up, and Aaron’s watching him, a big smile on his face.
–You like them?
–They’re okay.
–There’s this one I really love, says Aaron, and he scoots in way too close, starts flipping pages.
–There, he says.
Garrett looks at it, shrugs. It’s just some blurry flowers, maybe getting rained on.
–It’s called Creation of the World, says Aaron, and points at the title.
–I can read, you know.
–I just—
Garrett waves him off and turns the page. There’s an island in some big lake, just an island at first, a tall jagged bluff in front and the rest of it smooth and tailing away, but there are these two lights, maybe campfires. They’re just where the eyes would be if—then he sees it, the head rising out of the water, the monstrous shoulders, and you just know those eyes never blink.
–It’s called Stillness, says Aaron.
Garrett snaps the book shut and says, What the hell is it with you and titles?
The kid opens his mouth, closes it, and Garrett claps him on the shoulder.
–I’m just giving you shit. Go home and get some sleep. You won’t be getting much tomorrow.
Aaron slings the daypack over his shoulder, takes up the book, says good-bye and heads out the door toward a blue sedan. It takes Garrett a second to realize that it’s Lana’s old Impala. Who knows, thinks Garrett, maybe this really is what she would have wanted. He wonders what it’s like at the house over in Ukiah. Mostly dusty, he imagines.
Quarter to four on Saturday morning and Garrett’s walking back and forth through his living room. He slows to look at the muley head, and at the four blacktail racks he’d thought good enough to mount. The best of dozens he’s taken. Hundreds of hunts altogether by now, first with his dad if he happened to be sober on a weekend, then with Dad or Blaine, sometimes both, at least up until the big fight—almost fifteen years ago, Garrett showing up for a family dinner to find his mother wailing on the porch, and in the kitchen the two men drunk and swinging, blood on the walls, neither of them saying a word about it afterward.
The old stories are starting to run together in Garrett’s head, or maybe it’s just that he hasn’t slept a minute since Thursday night, that goddamn island rising up out of the water and chasing him around every time he closed his eyes. There’s a quiet knock. He turns on the porch light and opens the door. Aaron’s standing there, all decked out for the hunt except he’s wearing fucking corduroys, and instead of the baseball cap Garrett gave him he’s got on a beat-up cowboy hat the size of a bathtub, ratty old blue jay feather stuck in the band, and on his belt he’s got what looks like a scuba knife, eight-inch blade, should be real useful if they run into any barracuda.
–Where’d you get the hat?
Aaron smiles as he steps inside.
–Salvation Army. Eleven bucks, plus they threw in the feather for free.
–Sounds about right.
Aaron sets down the daypack, hitches his belt, looks around.
–If you’re looking for Blaine, he’s still AWOL.
–That’s what Grandma said.
/> –It’s usually only a couple of days. Anyway. Truck’s already loaded. You have any breakfast yet?
Aaron shakes his head.
–Me either. Too early for Belinda’s, but the truck stop in Upper Lake should be open.
They drive along the waterfront, the lake flat and black. Across town to 29, and north up to 20. At the diner Garrett gets the lumberjack breakfast. Aaron says he feels like fruit and goes with the strawberry waffles. There’s another group of hunters at a far table, nobody Garrett knows, and they’ve got their heads down, eyes on their coffee.
Garrett lowers his voice and explains about the license and tags, how Aaron can’t technically kill anything but it will still be all right if he does—Garrett will tag it but not punch the dates unless they run into a warden, and assuming they don’t he’ll swap his tag for Blaine’s once they get the buck home.
Aaron looks at him like he’s talking about robbing a bank.
–That’s just how it works, okay? It’s close enough to legal. And I’m not going to take any of your meat. If you kill it, you keep the meat, the rack, the works. I’m just trying to keep us out of trouble and not burn my tag if I don’t have to.
When their coffee’s cold Garrett pays and they head back out to the truck. They catch Elk Mountain Road and follow it north, some lights on at the rancheria, a few more at the Forest Service guard station, but mostly just hints of things in the dark—a low hill, a gulley, a drop-off.
–So how far along is your thesis?
–Halfway or so. Another two years and I’ll have it nailed.
There’s a tiny bit of light in the east. They’re behind schedule, and Garrett speeds up as they skirt Lake Pillsbury.
–Ever hear from your dad?
Aaron nods, looks out the window. Lana’s husband hadn’t seemed like a bad guy. He got her settled down a bit, had her doing the books for his shoe store there in Ukiah, but he took off after Aaron left for college, moved south to somewhere, maybe Gilroy? Garrett’s mother said there wasn’t another woman, not as far as she knew. He just couldn’t handle Lana any more. He showed up in Fallash for a day or two when she died, and that was the last Garrett heard of him.
