Devil Tree

by Vernon, Steve

  “I will take the crown off my skull before too long,” Lucas said.

  “You will learn to bend,” Duvall predicted.

  The cabin might have been higher if Duvall’s boy had shown more often than he did. There’d been moments when Lucas thought to point this out to Duvall but he settled for stooping upon the threshold and ducking his head, cursing each time he entered.

  “At least we have a door,” Tamsen said.

  Lucas had labored over that door, carving wooden hinges because the iron set he’d brought now rusted at the river’s bottom. Until he and Duvall hung the damned thing, he propped the door against the front of the cabin and dangled a blanket over the doorway.

  There were no windows. The inside was dark as a cave. They built a rude fireplace and a chimney scarcely high enough to draw smoke. Tamsen hand-dipped crude tallow candles, hanging them from a branch, using fabric cut from her garments for wicks. Lucas laid the candles aside for the winter. They relied upon rush torches, foul, smoky things that made his eyes water.

  Lucas laid a cross hatching of pine boughs upon the dirt as a measure against the soupy mud. The boughs made walking a chancy proposition, especially for a crutch but until the summer dried the mud it would have to serve.

  They were taking root, it seemed.

  2

  “We need more meat,” Duvall said.

  “Where do we get it?” Lucas asked.

  “The boy found droppings on the east side of the valley,” Duvall said. “And pelt scrapings on the bark of a popple tree. There’s at least one good buck grazing down in the belly of the valley. I figure the boy and the hound can flush it towards the river. We’ll wait by the shallow where the deer would figure to cross and bag it.”

  “Why don’t I go and flush it out?” Lucas asked, a little offended that Duvall would think to send a boy and a dog on a man’s mission.

  “You’re pretty spry with that crutch,” Duvall said. “But not that spry.”

  “You’ve got a point,” Lucas said.

  So that’s what brought the three of them out there so early in the morning.

  The morning was damp. The mist clung to the valley like a mildewed blanket.

  “Circle around boy,” Duvall told Cord. “Let Satin catch the scent and bring him this way.”

  The boy headed off, grinning.

  “That’s the most excited I’ve seen him since we landed in this valley,” Lucas said.

  “It does me good to see him that way,” Duvall said, wearing his own grin.

  “Do you think they’ll find the deer?”

  Duvall sniffed at the breeze as if he were part hound himself.

  “They’ll find him just fine,” he said. “The deer ain’t been grown that can shake old Satin. “

  “Are you sure?”

  Duvall fixed him with a hard stare.

  “I’m sure that deer will take off running in the other direction if you keep talking like you are. Now hush. Hunting isn’t about sitting and talking. Hunting’s about waiting.”

  So they waited.

  Lucas slapped an early-rising mosquito who had found a feed on his neck.

  Out in the woods the hound began to bay.

  “He’s found him,” Duvall said. “That buck’ll head straight for the river hoping to shake them in the water.”

  “And we’ll be waiting,” Lucas said.

  Lucas checked the musket again. Duvall had trusted him with it for the hunt and he didn’t want to mess this up.

  The baying grew louder, with a harsh ragged straining quality to it that spoke of the rigors of the chase. Lucas kept the musket pointed straight towards the woods where they figured the deer would come from. His hands shook a little. He licked his lips too frequently. He began to softly pant.

  “Mind, now,” Duvall warned.

  The deer broke into the clearing a short distance to the left of their position. Lucas swung the musket around and snapped off a shot that slammed into the side of the deer’s chest, knocking the beast off its feet. At the sound of the shot, the well-trained hound obediently halted. Cord came running behind, whooping for joy.

  The deer struggled to its feet.

  “Reload, damn you!” Duvall snarled, running for the deer, drawing his hunting knife.

  The deer heaved to an unsteady stand. Lucas could see it clearly now, a great black buck, still gaunt from a winter’s long fast. Blood spilled pinkish-red, splattering its snout. That was a sure sign of a lung shot.

  A slow kill.

  Duvall kept running. He didn’t know what he’d do; couldn’t see what the boy was up to or the godsman. All he knew was something must be done.

  The deer stumbled into a run, heading mindlessly towards the river.

  “Get the bastard,” Duvall shouted.

  The point where it headed was far from the shallows. In its weakened state it would surely sink or be washed away. Either way they’d lose it for sure. The meat Duvall coveted would be lost with it. As the deer splashed over the bank, its weakening strides already taking it out chest deep, Duvall made up his mind.

  Duvall leaped, both arms outstretched like a bird of prey, landing on the back of the wounded deer, catching hold of its tossing neck with his right arm. His left held the knife. He fought to wield it. He felt the deer’s legs bend but not buckle. The buck whipped its head wildly about. An antler tang tore a gouge in Duvall’s left cheek.

  His grip slid on the wet hide and he hit the river. When he surfaced his knife hand was empty. He stood there, coughing up river water as the deer stumbled further into the current. Then, like a cannonball, the boy hit, his knife poised and ready, his weight driving the blade deeply into the bowed shoulders of the deer.

  Lucas fumbled with the musket, trying to reload. He stumbled and jammed the musket barrel-first into the dirt. Duvall splashed towards the deer and caught it by its antlers. The big bastard kicked him hard in the knee. He doubled over, wondering if the brute had broken the bone.

  The boy was the only one in luck. He wriggled forward, crossing his legs about the buck’s neck, trying to squeeze the breath out of its lungs.

  Lucas flailed over, half on his knee, half on the crutch. He leaned against the deer as hard as he could. Duvall twisted the deer’s antlers, forcing its snout under the water.

  The current, as slow and patient as grim death, pushed against the deer’s legs. Lucas worried that they’d be swept away; men, deer and boy. He wondered if he could catch hold of the boy before the current swept them all under.

  But then it was finished as the deer’s dead weight heeled over like a fallen tree. The three of them dragged the buck from the river’s grasp, taking nearly an hour to do so. By the time they’d finished they were shivering from the cold. Duvall built a fire. The three of them frolicked naked about its warming flames in a ragtag victory dance.

  It was Cord who dove back into the river and retrieved Duvall’s missing knife. When he handed it back Duvall grabbed him and hugged hard. It was the happiest Lucas had ever seen the two. His own father was always disappointed with Lucas.

  A part of Lucas wondered just how long this would last.

  3

  Duvall gutted the deer. He laid it belly down to drain the blood. The dirt drank greedily. The mud thickened to a deep ruddy scarlet. Cord sharpened a stick at both ends and made a slice in the rear hocks of the buck. He jammed the sharpened stick into the open wounds while Duvall looped a rope around the stick and slid a smaller branch between the rope and stick to serve as a makeshift windlass.

  Then Cord shinnied up a stout oak tree and tied the free end of the rope about a likely looking limb. With the use of Duvall’s homemade hoist and a few judicious grunts, heaves and curses the two of them managed to hang the deer. They fell to, gutting the beast where it hung, throwing the viscera to the dog and gnawing upon the choicer vitals.

  The meat was fresh, hot and good. They’d pack a chunk of it home to Jezebel and Tamsen, leaving the rest to hang overnight. Tomorrow t
hey would return to skin and quarter it but today they were weary.

  Lucas hung back from the deer butchering. He pleaded ignorance and pretended that the blood made him nervous but in truth he simply hated to intrude upon the close father and son bond that was developing.

  4

  That night, following a feed of venison, Duvall lay in his bed dreaming of the wedding feast. The men and women dancing, beating on drums and buckets and that overturned canoe, the women singing and calling and screaming.

  He awoke with his throat hot and parched. He wished for some of the spruce beer old Eli used to brew but old Eli was dead and gone. He and the valley had seen to that.

  He heard a tapping like a branch rattling against the outside of a house.

  Duvall tried not to listen.

  He tried to resist its call, but it grew too strong.

  He got up.

  He walked to the door.

  Opened it.

  The deer pushed through the doorway, dead and not dead, its head hung downwards with its belly slit wide and flapping in the wind like an unfurled sail, its entrails gone and its head a face, an old Indian’s face, and the face had laughed until Duvall had screamed like a frightened child, until Jezebel awoke and asked why he was screaming through an empty doorway.

  The boy would die before the summer.

  And worse.

  Chapter Seven

  April was a month of mud and rainfall. The forest stank of old death and fresh beginnings.

  Lucas preferred to sit outside his new home. He couldn’t stand in the low rear half of the cabin. He built a small wooden bench beside the door and planked out a table, along with two makeshift chairs, more accurately called stumps. These stumps, plus a crude sleeping platform and the crates and chest they’d salvaged from the river, served as furnishings.

  The missing limb pained him the night before and yesterday as well. He sat and watched the iron grey clouds coil about the lip of the valley like steam about a simmering cauldron. He felt a certain perverse pleasure knowing he could accurately predict weather.

  It was good to know his simple magic worked.

  “It will rain soon,” he said to Tamsen, patting the stump of his leg. “Just as I predicted.”

  “I’ll light a fire,” Tamsen answered from the shadows within.

  “Best light it quickly. We’ll need the warmth tonight.”

  The chimney proved as inadequate a draw as he’d feared. Rain sluiced down, extinguishing any fire that burnt therein. He and Duvall would mend that. Meanwhile they laid a fire early.

  He planted his crutch tip in the dirt. He stood, his head bowed from necessity, staring as the first few clots of rain spattered the thirsty dirt. As the downpour thickened he stepped inside and closed the blanket flap, leaving the cabin in near darkness.

  “The evening meal is nearly ready,” Tamsen said.

  He nodded wordlessly, easing himself down beside the fire. He stared at the piece of pine Duvall had used for his leg. Why had he used pine?

  “Easier to cut,” had been Duvall’s explanation.

  Lucas planned to fashion a wooden leg for himself, in hopes of getting around more easily. He stared at the pine leg, just another reminder of his handicap. It was all he could do to resist flinging the hateful thing into the fire.

  He took up his work knife, testing the edge on the hair of his arm. For a moment he played the knife across the thin, bluish veins twisting upon his wrist.

  “How is the new leg coming?”

  Lucas guiltily dropped the knife. “Slowly,” he said, retrieving the blade and taking a half hearted swipe at the wood. “What’s for supper?”

  “Hare. Duvall snared it. Say what you will, the man is a fair hunter.”

  “Better than me,” Lucas said moodily.

  Tamsen wouldn’t grace that comment with an answer.

  “I want to try my luck,” he said. “Once I’m used to this leg.”

  “You should walk more. You’ll need a musket.”

  That was true enough. He’d lost his own in the river.

  Tamsen served the supper.

  “Tasty,” he said. “Is that salt?”

  Tamsen smiled mysteriously.

  “Dumplings would be nice.”

  “I’ll see what I can do about that the next time.”

  He smiled his gratitude and lit the pipe Jezebel gave him.

  “What a lovely pipe,” Tamsen said. “Did Duvall give it to you?”

  “His wife did. It belonged to her first husband.”

  “It seems a good pipe.”

  He grunted in reply.

  “Perhaps yours will float ashore. Have you walked the river lately?”

  “By now a fish is puffing my pipe at the bottom of the river.”

  “You ought to catch it then. A bit of trout would go nicely on my tongue.”

  “Perhaps I might. Surely Duvall has a line I might borrow.”

  “I believe he favors a net.”

  “You talk to Duvall a lot lately.”

  “Who else is there to talk to? The trees?”

  Lucas grunted. Even the small intimacy hinted at by that bit of knowledge bothered his heart.

  “You seem strange these days, my husband. Not half like yourself.”

  “Not half.”

  He picked up the wooden plate and dropped it upon the table, once, twice, watching it clatter and spin. He found himself wondering what it would feel like to smash the plate into Tamsen’s face.

  “Are you well?”

  “My leg pains me,” he lied.

  Tamsen moved closer.

  “It’s been some time since we’ve shared each other’s pleasure.”

  She toyed with the hooks of her blouse.

  “Must we go through this again?” he asked.

  “Tonight it might be different.”

  He reached for her and held her for a very long time.

  “It’s been too long,” she said, spidering her fingers below his belt line. He pushed her away with a rueful chuckle.

  “Steady girl,” he said. “You move too soon.”

  “Not soon enough.”

  She leaned back on her haunches and eased out of her blouse.

  The flicker of the firelight played about her features, echoing in the gentle valley of her breasts. Soon they were naked upon the bit of fusty bedding Duvall gave them.

  This time, he thought to himself.

  He was thinking too much. They futilely pressed their flesh together. His member hung like a cold dead fish, jammed impotently against her downy nest.

  “The leg,” he reassured her. “It will pass.”

  She reached for him. He drew back as if her touch burned.

  “Leave me,” he said.

  She flinched as if struck.

  “Go away,” he repeated.

  She crawled into the darkness, wrapping herself in the lonely warmth of Duvall’s blanket at the farthest side of the cabin. From the darkness Lucas heard her slow tears. Outside the heavens wept down harder.

  He turned his back to her and went to the door flap. He pulled it aside and stood naked in the doorway. He stepped into the downpour and felt it splash across his face, slicking his torso and crawling down his leg. The rain roused an army of goose bumps and shriveled the bit of flesh dangled uselessly between his legs. It stung his eyes, giving birth to tears which he blinked away.

  He saw something in the darkness, moving like a shadow passing between the raindrops – almost a man, almost a deer. He took a step forward. The wind caught the flap from his hand and slammed the water heavy fabric against and through the doorway like some dark skinned invader.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured again and again into the dampening darkness.

  2

  The cloying mud clung to the boy’s every step, sucking at his boots. He quickened his step. The sticky wet plops sounded like his mother and Duvall making the beast. He laughed at the thought of their grunting, straining bodies rolling like pig
s in the mud. He found his way down to the tree. Duvall’s tree as the man liked to call it. Once you have named a thing it is yours.

  “Duvall, I name you pig shit,” he shouted.

  The boy laughed aloud, startling a green flecked starling. He grinned at its flight. It winged away from the tree. He danced a little pig shit dance, squooshing his boots in the mud. A rain pool, almost deep enough to fish in, had formed at the tree base where the earth couldn’t drink fast enough to drain.

  His real father told him of mud trout that grew like seeds within the earth, burrowing through the ground until they came to such a puddle. They’d mate in the mud, lay eggs, and die. He’d never seen such a fish. His father told him their swimming stirred such a cloud of mud that they were all but invisible.

  “Did you ever see one?” he’d asked his father, every time.

  “No, but they’re good eating,” his father answered, every time.

  He missed his father’s lies. Duvall was a bad replacement. The boy was sure Duvall had something to do with his father’s death. There was too much serpent in Duvall’s eyes. He swore one day he’d close those eyes forever.

  A smudge of black flies swarmed about his face. He futilely batted them away. His father would have told him to endure them. Had Duvall been there he would have charmed them with a few great puffs of his strong smelling tobacco.

  Perhaps the man had some use after all.

  The boy stared into the surface of the rain pool, gazing at the reflection of the great pine tree growing into the nether world that lurked below.

  “There was a young man who climbed into a rain puddle,” his father once told him. “He met a water spirit and stole her from her home after slaying a terrible one eyed serpent devil.”

  The boy wished he could walk into a puddle. He settled for glimpses in the murky reflective depths. The rain pools were clouded by the swimming mud trout. The roots that twisted down into the rain pool’s sluggish depths, moved in and out of the forest’s flesh like the veins that crawled across the back of his mother’s work-hardened hands. They sucked greedily at the sky-born moisture. Soon the puddles would be gone.

  He teetered across a larger root to avoid wet feet. He touched the roughened bark, tracing the path of the grain, following the instinct of his flesh. He felt the passage of water crawling through the roots and into the swelling trunk, out and along the branches seeping into each and every erect little pine needle. As the waters pulsed they brought new life to this undying tree god, as it had for more years than his people had walked the earth.