All Things Left Wild

by James Wade

  He pointed at the men, and the all of them did commence with returning his cry. They howled and barked and screamed out until the false line between man and beast was overrun with savagery. Grimes smiled and held out his hand and the he-wolves quieted and he looked at them again.

  “My sons,” he said. “My brothers.”

  He bent down and squatted above the dirt and was slow in doing so. He moved his hands overtop the ground in long sweeping motions. He patted the soil, then plunged his hand beneath its surface and came up as if being brought forward by some wave, the earth falling through his fingers and down his arm.

  “The moon rises full. A light for believers and nonbelievers alike. All turning to the night sky with straining necks and searching eyes. Not unlike those who came so long before us. Such creatures, these distant kindred of the first men, such frightened vessels of an assiduous evolution from which their own forebears were molded and shaped. And to the moon, whole and blood and immortal, they did turn. Panting, shrieking, snarling. And all of it some unknown edict of a strange need not met. This moon, this other world where spirits roamed or demons lurked. This glowing godhead, birthing a great light upon the darkness. This astronomical despot to which all the stars paid homage. This moon, and with it the madness of being, the species-altering desire to understand. And still the wolves howled.

  “With revolutions came a straighter stance, but with each answer a swell of questions new. And with each path taken, a foundation poured atop a divergent future. The flow of knowledge compounding on itself, continually engineering an outcome no more likely to occur than another. And always some moon to stand against the midnight, to illuminate that not yet discovered. Men were drawn to power, to purpose, to the re-creation of self. A misstep not foreseen by the natural fibers of selection. Human domination of the earth brought forth a great many improbabilities.

  “If the earth were to tell the story of men, it would need only a matter of minutes, perhaps even seconds, and there would be nothing left to say.

  “All this, and then there is us. And what then is our purpose? What is our charge? The story of this country is still being written. Written by the land and the men who control it. Written by machines and the men who own them. Written by the bankers and lawyers and the politicians they install. But what’s left for us, gentlemen? Where, in all the chaos of industry and greed, do we have our say? It will be here, brothers. It will be here that we lay the foundation of a new world. A world where voice is given to the voiceless. A world where our children’s children will not be forced to carry the loads of some higher class upon their backs.”

  The men howled and yelled and began to shed their clothes until they were, to a man, as naked as their ancestors. I’d never seen the like.

  I didn’t join them. Instead, I crept away from the fire and back to the camp and thought of Sophia until I fell asleep.

  I dreamt that night of a great black horse, a stallion coated so dark it shined even in the twilight, and no man could ride it as it was bound always to be free and with that freedom came all the knowledge and pain of this world and the worlds before. And in the dream I knew the horse. I knew its shape, there, the moon upon it, and each desire in its heart was also in mine. I could feel the battle everlasting between isolation and love, and in such fighting there are no victors save madness and uncertainty.

  The horse reared and whinnied and stomped, its soul fracturing from within as the earth once did and perhaps will again. It raced down from atop a stretched mesa and into an endless and shadowed valley, and as it ran its muscles pressed against their skin in flexed masses of gluteus and vastus and femoral strength, and from its nostrils spewed breath heavy and salient upon the night air. And wherever the horse ran, I somehow followed, my own breathing labored and unworthy, until at last we stopped as one and stood in silence, looking out at the country before us with eyes undecided.

  I felt my chest rise and fall and with the coursing of my new lifeblood there came both suffering and strength. The tissue beneath my skin tightened and I could feel some unseen aggravation which sought to magnify every awareness within my broadening bones. I shuddered and jerked and turned my head upward toward the infinity of the stars and my front two feet raised and kicked as I screamed for all things forgotten and all those left to come.

  30

  Randall awoke before the day and Charlotte and for a while he stood with his coffee and leaned against the frame of the door as if he were a picture and in the picture he watched them sleep and the old woman snored and the smallest child stirred and in the unsure daze of sleep he searched with his hand for something known only to him—a memory perhaps. His fingers found Charlotte’s hair splayed black across the once-white pillow and his hand rested there and he moved no more.

  Tad was the next to wake and sat up and looked about the cabin in confusion and at the bedrolls strewn across the wood floor and he blinked his eyes and found Randall and nodded and Randall nodded back. He poured the boy a cup and Tad pulled on his boots and coat and they walked together to the barn to see about the animals.

  “Hell no, you ain’t leaving us here with that crazy old bat,” Tad protested. “She’s meaner than any rattlesnake ever slithered cross the ground. She’s liable to put Pumpkin in the barn if he goes to pitching one of his fits, and you know he will.”

  “I can’t have the two of you getting hurt or killed if things go sideways. I can’t have it happen to one or the other, for that matter.”

  “That ain’t fair in no way or shape.”

  “Maybe not. But it’s not meant to be.”

  The tears welled in Tad’s eyes.

  “Hey, c’mon now. We’ll come back and collect you once all this business is taken care of. We shouldn’t be but a few weeks—if that.”

  They began to fall.

  “I killed one of ’em,” he cried. “I shot him and shot his horse too.”

  “I know you did, son.”

  “I killed one of ’em, and now you won’t let me come with you.”

  “We’ll come back and get you.”

  “I don’t want to go back. Can’t you see? All he does is drink and beat on me. Can’t you see?”

  The boy cried and Randall took him into his arms and the boy pushed away and shook his head and Randall gathered him up again and Tad buried his head into the man’s shoulder and wept.

  “Can’t you see?” Tad mumbled softly through short, broken breaths, and Randall held the back of his head and quieted him and beyond the barn the sun rose into the world and gave light to things so that they might be seen more clearly and whether they are or not is dependent on the seer and not the sun.

  The woman made them breakfast. She cooked up fry bread the old way: a thick batter spread thinly over the bottom of an iron pan and put to the coals of the kitchen stove. The bottom of the mix would firm up into a crust and she’d distance the pan from the flames and let the loaf raise and bake and the whole house smelled of heartwood pine.

  Randall leaned against the kitchen counter and watched her work. When the bread was done she slid it onto a plate and tossed thick chunks of bacon into the hot pan. The meat and fat sizzled and cracked and cooked down, and the grease popped and spit into the fire. She sang some old song in Spanish as she plated the bacon and walked out into the light of the morning and rapped the pan against a porch post and it rang out in the dull, smothered tones of some woebegone bell.

  * * *

  Randall and Charlotte rode away and Tad refused to say goodbye. The old woman stood on the porch with the child and neither waved, only watched as the two riders grew smaller against the country and smaller still and when they could no longer see them the woman turned to go inside and the boy stayed, staring at what, who could say.

  * * *

  Randall and Charlotte rode into Fort Davis as the snow thawed near midday and a young private with a thin mustache led t
hem to his commander’s cabin and stood outside the door and yelled there was a man and a nigger here to see him. Randall glared at him until he felt Charlotte’s hand on his shoulder, pulling him away.

  They entered the cabin and found it to be one large room. In the front, a bald man of stunted height and exaggerated plumpness sat behind a wooden desk scribbling mercilessly onto a pad. There were papers piled high around him and another young private at his side taking the sheets, folding each into letter size, and stuffing them into envelopes. In the right corner was a military-styled bunk with wounded men on each cot and a medic asleep on a stool. To the left of the makeshift hospital was a row of tables with even more papers and envelopes.

  “If this is about the goddamn pigs, there’s nothing I can do,” the short officer said without looking up. “They’re pigs, they root. I’d get rid of them, but the bacon would go bad before we could eat it and the last thing we need to do is waste bacon.”

  “It’s not about pigs,” Randall said. “It’s about murderers.”

  The man stopped writing.

  “Murderers?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Who’d they murder?”

  “My son.”

  “Goddamn.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Well, my condolences.”

  The man gave Randall a pitied look, then went back to his letters.

  Randall did not move. Charlotte stood near the door.

  The man looked up again, confused.

  “Yes, can I do something for you?”

  “I’d like to know if they’ve passed through this way.”

  “How would I know that?”

  “I have a likeness. Perhaps your men, or maybe your scouts, could take a look.”

  The man stood. He was even shorter than he appeared while sitting.

  “What’s your name, friend?”

  “Randall Dawson.”

  “Where’s your spread, Mr. Dawson?”

  “Sir?”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Longpine.”

  “Longpine.”

  “It’s in Arizona.”

  “Arizona.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay, Mr. Dawson from Longpine, Arizona. Do you know what’s going on across the border?”

  “A revolution of some sort is starting up.”

  “A revolution, that’s right. And maybe you’ve seen some of the anti-­American riots happening all across the state of Texas? There are Mexicans, Mr. Dawson, thousands of Mexicans in this state, and more coming every day. That is the concern of the United States Army, with all due respect, not finding a man who killed a boy in some godforsaken territory out west.”

  “Will you at least look at the poster?” Randall asked, pulling the paper from his pocket and unfolding it.

  The officer glanced at it, shook his head, and handed it back. “Good day, Mr. Dawson.”

  Randall began to say something else but thought better of it and turned to leave.

  “I seen that boy,” a voice said.

  It was so faint that Randall thought it could have come from the back of his mind, but he saw on Charlotte’s face that she’d heard it too. They both turned to look in the corner of the room, where a man had risen halfway from his bunk.

  “Lemme see it,” the man said, softly.

  Randall moved toward him.

  “Hold on a goddamn minute,” the rotund officer said. “That man is not under my command and is to be hanged for treason as soon as he is well enough to stand trial.”

  “If he hasn’t stood trial, how do you know he’s gonna hang?” Charlotte asked, still standing near the door.

  The officer turned to face her.

  “Because he’s a goddamn traitor. That’s how. Rode with the Lobos, which means he’s as good as dead. The patrol that found him should have left him to die in the first place, instead of wasting our resources on an outlaw.”

  Randall handed the man the poster. There were bandages double-wrapped around his throat and a flap of skin from his ear to his neck was badly infected where it had been crudely sewn on.

  “That’s him,” the man said, pulling at his own wrappings to make room for his voice. “That’s the boy who did this to me.”

  31

  The next morning the world turned dark again and the threatening skies lingered for three days, holding the mountains hostage but never producing rain or snow. On the fourth day they were silent no longer.

  Hail and snow fell thick from the gray clouds, and two scouts returned to camp with news of meat. A herd of mule deer had been spotted moving through the basin and it was agreed a hunting party should be sent so that the food stores might be filled further.

  “Marcus, take five men and bag as many as you can,” Grimes ordered, and Marcus nodded.

  Tell them you are a hunter. Sophia’s words echoed in my mind.

  “I’ll go,” I said, and perhaps Grimes saw the eagerness in my eyes.

  “No, you stay here. I’m gonna need your help with the horses.”

  I kept my face steady but inside I panicked.

  “Let the boy come down with us,” Marcus said. “He’s a good shot, and them horses ain’t goin’ nowheres.”

  Grimes waved his hand.

  “Fine, go on. Just get down there before they move out.”

  Marcus called for three other men, none who’d rode with us from the Davis Mountains. G.W. was among them. We saddled up and rode into the blizzard.

  We moved down the mountain on a different path than the one we’d taken up and soon we were in a canyon of black rock, the walls sloping up on both sides and dozens of creeks and streams shot out in every direction.

  “That stuff keeps falling,” Marcus said, looking up, “and this is all gonna be one big river ’fore too long.”

  “How far ’til the herd?” I asked.

  “Few more miles through this canyon, then I imagine we’ll fall right into ’em.”

  I nodded and looked for any chance to slip away but the canyon had me pinned and soon we’d be on the deer and I wondered if Sophia had already fled from her grandfather’s hacienda. With the storm still hovering overhead it would be hard to track her no matter how quickly it was discovered she’d gone.

  “When we get down there,” Marcus said to us all, “the horses ain’t gonna be able to run with ’em. So we gotta keep turning the herd.”

  We nodded.

  “But don’t go shooting off in the same direction as the rest of us are riding. Wait ’til they all turn, then shoot as many as you can and we’ll work to turn ’em again.”

  We nodded and rode on and the goldenrods and bigtooth maples shivered in the snow and grabbed hold of the flakes before they hit the ground and piled them there as if protecting the earth, sacrificing themselves for some cause already lost in the blinding white of the storm.

  The breath of the horses spilled from their nostrils as steam and when we emerged from the canyon they smelled the herd, perhaps also sensed the pending action, and their breath came quicker and mine did too.

  The deer were in a field beyond a tree line marking the beginning of a sparse forest on the mountain’s west side and Marcus and one of the men circled around to the far end of the valley to push them further from the trees.

  I waited with the other two men who whispered to one another or maybe they spoke plainly only to have their words reduced to a whisper by the wind as it battered against the canyon walls and spilled out behind us into the frosted valley.

  The herd dotted the field and the distance between lessened them to gray ants moving across spilled sugar as they foraged for the buds and twigs of woody plants. With the winter and the settling cold they would soon stop moving to conserve the energy needed to create life where there is only a shell. Thei
r metabolisms would slow to a necessary crawl. They do what they must to survive, I thought. We all do.

  I knew the hunt was on when the deer stopped moving. They looked up from their various positions and froze, as if they were part of the landscape and always had been. Save for the flicking of their tails they became statues, lifelike tributes to a world passed by and never to come again, left behind and stranded in this new time and place. A few lifted their chins and blew and waited and watched and blew again and then, as if a whip had been cracked upon them, they fled away from the woods and across the valley, the two riders charging hard behind them. They were silent in their stampede, crossing toward us as specters upon the snow. We readied ourselves but before they reached the mouth of the canyon they turned, leaning on some old-world instinct, and moved south along the mountain’s base and we put our horses into a hard charge alongside. Marcus led the way on the outer edge of the field and forced the herd to double back on itself, and as it did the two men with me began to fire. The deer moved together as one and we picked them apart, the meshing of violence and grace told true by the blood spilled bright upon snow.

  When the last of the deer slipped past our closing ranks, we dismounted and spread out across the killing field so that we might harvest the dead as do the reapers in dark stories told by the living.

  We knelt over them like wraiths come to collect souls. I propped the first deer on her back, sliding two large rocks under her shoulders and another under her hips. I pulled the hunting knife from my boot and began behind the hind legs, making a short cut that ran to the pelvic bone and another shallow slit up to the jaw. With gloved hands I grabbed and tugged at the skin until it began to peel away and save the meat from being covered in fur. I flipped the knife and hooked the pelvic cut and drug upward, cutting through the muscle and pulling it up and away from the stomach and intestines. I flipped the knife again at the breast bone and sawed through so I could spread the ribs. Steam rose from the warm body of the dead animal and the snow around us melted and sunk and became a mix of mud and blood. I moved to the anus and cut another hole and tied it off with trimmed cord and hoped it didn’t spill out. I cut the esophagus as far up as I could and used both hands to yank out the windpipe so as not to taint the meat. The entrails came free and fell down to her midsection and I cut away some of the connecting tissue near the backbone and the diaphragm and then rolled her onto one side and let them fall away and then did the same on the other side. I pulled loose the outliers and labored through the cutting of the pelvic bone and splayed apart the once great beast and drug her toward the pack horses as she drained.