For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down

by David Adams Richards

  Jerry smiled. “What do you mean, excuse me?”

  “I mean – hello, Mr. Pillar.” And he put his hand out again.

  Jerry smiled again.

  Ralphie took the small warm hand in his.

  “My young lad,” Jerry said.

  They were putting the boy’s wagon together and Jerry had been out to the shed to get some tools.

  He went back into the kitchen and sat over the wagon, with William standing beside him holding the wheel. Two dogs sat in the corner with their heads on their paws.

  Now and then Jerry would ask William to hand him something, or to take something from him and put it away.

  “Put this in the box,” he would say, or, “Hand me that axle.”

  And silently, and with great interest, the boy watched as his wagon was assembled. Now and then he looked up at Ralphie and smiled.

  “Mr. Pillar’s been to university,” Jerry said, with an inflection of absolute respect, so that his son would also show it.

  When the wagon was finished, Jerry told William to get ready for bed and that he would make toast for a lunch.

  “Got your pyjamas?” Jerry said. “Didn’t your mom send no slippers down?”

  The boy sat at the table, with his eyes resting on Ralphie. His face was delicate, and his small ears stuck out just slightly. He looked very pale, and somehow not entirely of this world.

  After the boy went to bed Jerry came back downstairs.

  “His mother’s a Pentecostal girl – from upriver,” Jerry said. He laughed slightly. Then became serious. “That’s all right though – that’s all right.”

  In the light, and warmth of the stove, Ralphie noticed Bines’ hands. He was always noticing things about him, as if trying to decipher something.

  “You know,” Bines said, enthusiastically, as if Ralphie would like this, “I coulda shot a moose yesterday – I didn’t – didn’t shoot it – no – I said, that’s that, Ralphie Pillar.”

  He smiled again. It was as if he was admitting to a weakness. And Ralphie looked down at his rubber overshoes for a second. Again he felt he had done something wrong in looking away when Bines was speaking of something that was suddenly important to him, but he could not help it. And Bines’ reaction was to look at him questioningly a moment, and then to look away also. Then Bines cleared his throat and tried to think of something else to say. He spoke quietly. “I like children,” he said, after a moment. “Poor little kids – some never have nothin –” he paused as if reflecting on something, as if he realized he had said this before. There was another terrible silence, pregnant in the still house.

  What he wanted to ask Ralphie about was the continents. How many continents were there? Where was Russia? Why was Russia like it was? How many war planes did Russia have?

  And then he asked if there were people from other planets.

  “I don’t know,” Ralphie said, smiling slightly.

  “Well, how many other planets is there?” Bines said.

  “Billions,” Ralphie said.

  Bines said nothing. Every now and again there was a static sound from the other room.

  “What’s that?” Ralphie asked.

  “Police scanner,” Jerry said. “I have to know what’s going on here – my young lad is asking me about the continents and I said, I’ll see about it.” Then he grinned, and said: “I don’t know very much – very much –”

  “Sure you do,” Ralphie said, the way he would lie easily and comfortably with other people.

  Bines answered this by getting up and opening two beer.

  But then he felt embarrassed.

  “When you were in school – I was in Kingsclear. Never learned nothing. My young lad’ll know all of that anyhow – sooner or later – I don’t care about it – but it’ll be good for him – for him anyways,” he said.

  Bines had told his son this story. It was just before Willie went to bed. Bines was sitting, facing his son, with his huge hands folded near Willie’s knees. Every now and then Bines would touch those knees with his hands, and draw them away delicately.

  It was a story about a deer and how it outsmarted a hunter. It was a story of the woods, of gloom and darkness, of autumn ending and winter coming on.

  “This happened a long time ago,” Bines said. “There was an old deer, who had been in many battles in many ruts, and this was its ninth year. It had been cold all autumn, and the trees were naked and raw. Far off it could see smoke from the hunter’s house, rising in the sky. It had lost its strength – this old buck – and kept only one doe, who had a small fawn. The afternoons were half-dark and winter was coming on hard – and the hunter kept coming – the hunters always keep coming.”

  Bines looked over at Ralphie and smiled, and Ralphie nodded.

  “The big deer didn’t have no friends. He usually travelled alone. But he saw all the other deer being killed, one by one. And though he gave them other bucks advice – gave them advice – they didn’t follow it.

  “So all the other deer was killed, one by one. But the hunter who tracked him – who tracked the old buck in the snow – was smart as any hunter. The buck knew this, and wanted to keep him away from the doe and her fawn if he could. He was an old deer and the doe was young. So the big buck decided to draw the hunter to himself – and each day the food was more and more scarce, and each day it was colder. And each day it led the hunter farther and farther from the cabin.

  “The puddles were frozen and the trees were naked, and the sky moved all day long –”

  Jerry touched the boy’s knees lightly again and smiled.

  “Every day the hunter would get closer – get closer to the doe. But the buck had a plan, which it had learned from living so long. It would always show itself to the hunter at daylight and lead him on a chase throughout the whole day. The hunter could never catch up to it. At the end of every day when the hunter came to the river the buck wouldn’t be there. The buck always disappeared – and its tracks disappeared, as if it had flowed away.”

  “Where?” the boy asked.

  “The hunter didn’t know – didn’t know. No one did. The hunter too was tired. He was a tired man. Each day he got up earlier. And remember – each day he wanted deer meat for his family. So he was only doing what he had to. Had to do there. Each day he concentrated on the buck – each day he followed the tracks to the river. Each day he found nothing there.

  “And each day his children were hungry, his wife was sick. And each day the hunter was weaker and colder. And each day the big old buck had allowed the little doe and its fawn to live another hour, another night.”

  Jerry looked about the room, and the boy smiled timidly.

  “The buck was old and tired but so was the hunter. The hunter had a bad hand and had wrapped it in his leg stockings. His eyes were fine and could pick out a small bird in a thick bush. He scanned the river every evening. The river was a wild river and had just made ice – a wild river there, but the ice was thin.

  “One day after a heavy snowfall the hunter found himself deep in the woods – the sky had cleared, the stars was coming out – the hunter had been following the buck for many hours. It was hours I guess he had followed the buck that day.

  “There wasn’t a sound when the hunter come to the river.

  “The day was solid and still and he cursed to think he had lost it again. Lost that buck there again. Now the stumps were covered and everything was quiet. Afternoon was almost ended – and night was coming on – and that’s when he saw the doe. She was making her way along the riverbank, and he could just make out her brown hide by a tree. She was coming right toward him. It was almost dark. She hadn’t seen him, and she was leading her fawn toward him up an old deer trail. The fawn behind her.

  “So the hunter felt he must use this chance, and he knelt and aimed and waited. Everything was still. He cocked his old rifle and was about to fire – about to shoot it, you know. But then of course everyone knows what happened.”

  Bines paused
and lit a cigarette. He smiled and touched the boy lightly on the knee once more.

  “What happened?” Ralphie asked.

  Bines drew on the cigarette and looked about.

  “Everyone knows what happened,” Bines said. “It has been passed down from generation to generation to all the smart deer in the woods.”

  “What happened?” Willie asked.

  “The hunter aimed his rifle, and suddenly the ground moved – the ground under him – and the buck come up, from its hiding place under the snow, right under the hunter’s feet – under his feet – everyone knows that – and snorting and roaring ran onto the river. The doe turned and jumped away, and led her fawn to safety.

  “And the hunter made a mistake, mistake there – hunters always do sooner or later – I mean make a mistake there. He was so angry he didn’t think straight.

  “‘I got you now,’ he yelled, and he ran onto the river too.

  “Now, that river could hold the buck, and it could hold the hunter. But it could not hold both together. And the buck turned and stood, waiting for him to come further out. The old buck never moved. And if he was scared he never showed it.

  “And when the hunter got close the buck smiled – and the ice broke, and both of them went together – down together into the wild rapids – clinging to each other as they were swept away. And this story was passed down. It’s a passed-down story.

  “Now the end is going to come – in one fashion or another,” Bines said, softly, and again he turned to Ralphie and smiled. “We all know, the end will come. You either face your hunters or run from them.”

  After the boy was asleep Bines began to ask Ralphie questions. He asked about Ralphie’s assets – the shop. He wanted to know how much the computers Ralphie sold cost. He knew Ralphie’s family had been wealthy, and it was a wealth Bines could not fathom.

  “You mean yer dad just bought that sailboat, like that?”

  “Yes,” Ralphie admitted. “Just before he died, he bought a huge sailboat and left it downriver. He never used it. And it rotted. Mom never wanted it, nor would she let me sell it or use it. After much indecision, she gave it to Vera. But Vera couldn’t stand to look at it – Vera thinks all of these things are a part of privilege and doesn’t want them. Besides Vera didn’t like Dad. I may as well tell you that.”

  Bines reflected on this a moment.

  “My old man was a cook on the tug for a while,” he said, nodding. “And I got to go on a ride one day – one day.” He smiled. He then thought of something else.

  He said that he liked Vera, that she was the smartest person he had ever met. “So if she didn’t want to use that sailboat – she must be right,” he said.

  “She’s very bright,” Ralphie agreed.

  Bines then said, “I don’t like Nevin though – he’s said things against me.”

  There was an uncomfortable pause.

  “You wouldn’t bother Nevin?” Ralphie said.

  Bines stared at Ralphie a moment, quizzically.

  “I’ll never bother Nevin – I promise,” he said. “Nevin has a lot of money too, does he?”

  “I don’t think he has very much of anything, any more,” Ralphie said. “He once had about fifty thousand. But I think all of that is gone.”

  Bines was quiet for a moment. Then he smiled. He said he wanted to know why Ralphie played bridge, why was it considered such a good game, and who played it with him. When Ralphie told him why he thought it was the one great card game and the names of some of the people who played with him, Bines said, “I bet you could teach me to play, Ralphie – I could learn. Loretta’d be some surprised at that – me playing bridge.”

  He looked at Ralphie, as if Ralphie should be as surprised and happy at this new idea as he seemed to be. Ralphie smiled, but he know the smile gave him away.

  “So,” Bines said, his tone just slightly less enthusiastic, “when could you teach me?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Ralphie said. “I play on Saturday nights. I’m pretty busy with things – I have new computers coming into the shop – I mean soon. But I could teach you.”

  “Sure,” Bines said, without flinching, “I could come down to see you on Thursday night – and learn to play bridge – and meet yer other friends. I never learned much – I hear it’s a good pastime. A good pastime, anyway.”

  And then he nodded to no one at all.

  In the middle of the night Jerry left the house, and his son. He moved along the road in his truck, and felt the late dark cold upon his skin. The river was silent, ice and gravel in the ditches.

  At 2:00 he was at the house of his friend, Vincent Paul.

  Vincent was still up, sitting in the living room, and one of the women was in the kitchen. There was a young man on the floor in the corner.

  When Jerry came in Vincent looked at his wife. Vincent had a huge beer gut, his hands were huge, and he wore a bracelet on his left wrist.

  Vincent spoke Micmac to the young man in the corner, who looked about suddenly.

  Then the woman said something in a merry, humorous voice.

  For years Vincent and he had been friends, selling moose meat and deer and thousands of pounds of salmon taken from Indian nets the government couldn’t control. Jerry did not care that Vincent slaughtered out of season in the name of moral retribution.

  Jerry sat down on the arm of the couch with the door half-opened behind him. The moon played down on the half-finished house that as yet had no front steps. The light in the kitchen was warm, and some of it splashed on Jerry’s pants. When he spoke the young man stopped laughing. “Have you heard from him?” he said.

  “No, no,” Vincent said, absorbed as he was in his television program. Jerry hardly ever watched television and had never understood the fascination for it. Just as he had never understood the absorption or the fascination over hockey or baseball.

  Vincent was wearing an Indian emblem about his head, in the new-found politicism that had emerged over the last few months because of aboriginal concerns in Ottawa. And this too seemed to justify a morally hurt expression on his face. But Jerry knew all the ways there were to deceive yourself in order to trample on a friend.

  He took out a pint of rum and shook it, holding it lightly in his hand, first at Vincent, then at the boy, and then at the woman. The woman took a drink. Jerry smiled. Vincent yawned. There is no moralizing like the moralizing of the damned. And Jerry knew this quite well.

  When he got up to go Vincent looked sideways at him and cleared his throat.

  “See you, dere, Jerry – ya, see you,” he said when Jerry left. Out in the dark he heard the boy speak and Vincent’s soft chuckle.

  Jerry smiled as he had learned to do whenever he felt danger or was in pain.

  There was nothing that was not calculated in Jerry Bines. He was drawn to Ralphie now – because Ralphie exhibited traits that he wished he himself had. But in the strangest way he was also naive – he thought Ralphie would not like him. So he had to try to learn how to speak about “important” things, though every time he tried to talk about these things he saw Ralphie become embarrassed, and he didn’t know what to do.

  If anything bothered him, this did. Why did Ralphie look away when he mentioned he didn’t shoot the moose – or when he got him the wheelchairs for the children? He felt, in both instances, he must have done something wrong. He had had to go to Rogersville to get the chairs and spent half the day in the police station because they wondered why he was there. Perhaps this is what Ralphie found out.

  “I like children,” he’d told Ralphie. “I always have.”

  Not only was this true, but he’d thought that this was the ingredient which would clear everything up. But Ralphie, for some reason, didn’t seem to believe him.

  He didn’t know why, so he had invited Ralphie up to meet the boy – but again the same look of being surprised and out of place had come over him.

  He had tried to glean some information about the feasibility study too – a
bout the job consultant position Ralphie had, and late one afternoon last month he went to Moncton and waited on a side street, staring at the lights in an old stone building.

  Then at about seven in the evening a man came out and walked by him. Jerry took a breath, shrugged, and got out of the truck. He grabbed him by the collar and hustled him behind the wall.

  “Don’t be stealing people’s ideas – that’s worse than killin someone,” Bines had said as they moved.

  The man had no idea what he was talking about. He tried to move but Jerry held him firm.

  “You ruined his life,” Bines said. “You stole his ideas and ruined all his work – it all went for nothing – that’s no good at all.”

  “Who, who?” the man said.

  But Bines could not say “who,” he could only leave it at that. And so he did.

  By morning it was snowing softly. It had covered the stumps at the edge of his property and Jerry was looking out the window and contemplating something. His little boy sat at the table eating his cereal.

  Bines was in his pants and T-shirt, which showed him to be far stronger than he looked with his shirt on. There was a frown on his face as he watched the snow coming down and being drawn away in white circular wisps by the wind.

  “Yer mother still go to that church?” he asked.

  “Yes,” William said. William was shy of him also, and he knew this. Though he had never touched the boy or laid a hand on him the boy had heard so many stories about him that Bines would sometimes see his boy shaking slightly when he walked up to him.

  And it didn’t matter if he made him the wagon or got him the sprocket for the bicycle, or, sometimes, though only on occasion, patted his head.

  “I got ya some Freezies on a deal – I got a deal on Freezies – you want a Freezie?” Bines said.

  The boy looked at him a second. Freezies were for the summer, but Bines didn’t consider this.

  The boy nodded.

  “Ya, I got a Freezie for ya,” Bines said, going to the fridge and taking one out of the freezer. He bit it open with his teeth and passed it to his son.