Brimstone

by Daniel Foster

  A moment of horror passed before she was up and around the table, shrieking like a mad woman and trying to slap him in the face. Garret cringed into his shoulder so that most of the blows fell across the back of his head and neck, but he didn’t try to get up or move at all. He just took it. It was easier that way. He was so exhausted.

  After a while, Ma’s anger was spent. She stood beside his chair, chest heaving and gasping, the hand she’d used to slap held stiffly at her side, all the fingers straight and together as if her hand was a knife blade rather than flesh and bone. Her ranting had left some spittle on her chin. She wiped it away savagely.

  At some point, Garret had slumped forward onto the table, head resting on his folded arms. The back of his neck stung and his right ear was ringing a bit. He just lay there. He wasn’t thinking. Wasn’t even feeling, for the moment. It was a small, comforting oblivion.

  Sometime later, he realized she had pulled her chair around and was sitting beside him. She was running her fingers through his hair in a motherly way and saying things like, “I know you didn’t mean what you said. I shouldn’t have hit you, because I know you didn’t mean it. I can forgive you for what you said, Garret.”

  Like a man in a dream he stood, moved away from her, and towards his bedroom.

  His rejection stunned her, but only for a moment. The cold hate of a scorned woman covered her face. “What are we going to do, Garret?” She barked at his back. “How much work do you have at the shop, Garret? Don’t you dare walk away from me!”

  He had made it to the hall, but he heard her coming. Jesus, just don’t touch me.

  She grabbed his arm and spun him around. “How much work do you have, Garret? How much!”

  The fact that she had grabbed him flared the anger down somewhere deep, but he was too worn to do any more than pull his arm away from her.

  “Leave me alone,” he said, crossing the threshold into his room.

  She was right on his heels. “How dare you!” she screeched. “You will listen to me and do as you’re told. You are the child, and I am the mother!”

  Garret reached to pull his shirt off, but was immediately embarrassed by the thought of her seeing him. He climbed into bed fully clothed.

  “You answer me, Garret,” she yelled. Then she was on his bed beside him, holding him down with a hand on his chest so she could yell in his face. “What are we—”

  Garret flung her off and onto Sarn’s bed.

  “Don’t EVER touch me again!” The man, the wolf, and everything else in his being erupted, filling his small frame and roaring out his mouth in a voice he hadn’t heard from himself, his Pa, Mr. Malvern, or anyone else.

  “We are staying right here!” he thundered. “This is my house, and Sarn is my brother, and Molly is going to be my wife, and you are worthless. Get out of my bedroom.”

  Scurrying like a frightened little girl, she went.

  He slept.

  Chapter 14

  Garret raced the wind. The pantry at home was empty, but not for long. His pack needed food, and he would provide. It was what he was made for. It was why he was given paws to run, and lungs to breathe deep the frosty air, and teeth to tear, and jaws to crush.

  He had let go of thought miles ago. It was a bothersome thing, not like the smooth clarity of instinct. He became the wind over the leaves. He was the pursuer. The predator. The deer in front of him knew it, too. Its hot scent was awash with fear. It flashed through shadows and around trunks. Its eyes were wide in the moonlight, and as bright as the white tail it held up in alarm. The deer bounded down a ravine and around a boulder. Garret leaped atop it and flung his furry body through the air. He caught himself nimbly on the leaves and powered ahead, having closed the gap.

  His prey faltered as it scrambled to the crest of the slope. Garret could have had it, but he slowed purposefully. The deer was turning to the east, heading back the way Garret had come. His human mind was still hanging on by its fingernails, so he subconsciously knew that the further the deer ran to the east, the less distance he would have to drag it. Thereby, the less damage he would risk to the hide.

  The hide was precious, for some reason. He felt sure of it, though he could no longer remember why. Perhaps it had something to do with its snowy color. Yes, that was it: the brilliant whiteness. But why? Most animals had fur, and whether they did or they didn’t, they all held the same steaming, satisfying meat beneath their skin. The color of the fur didn’t change the taste.

  Up and down a couple more hills they sprinted. The deer was beginning to stagger. Saliva flooded Garret’s mouth. The feast was near at hand. Soon, his pack—his brother and mother—would be fed well for days.

  The deer fell, and Garret slinked upon it to finish their dance, to close the circle so it could begin afresh. Not just to end the old, but to allow it to become new. All Garret’s life, he had walked about the earth on his two awkward legs, seeing, but blind; hearing, but deaf. He had wandered each day through a silent symphony, a living artwork, oblivious to its existence.

  He would end the deer’s life to nourish his own, and that of his pack. It was nature’s own work which he and the deer would complete, written millennia before either of them took their first breath. The predator and the prey, the sun and the moon, the seasons in order: all was a chase, a dance, never of beginnings and endings, but of quiet cycles, endlessly balancing all things, each in its proper way and time.

  But as Garret closed his teeth on the heaving white throat, he hesitated. Something was clawing at his instinctual mind: another mind, making strange sounds and demanding to be heard. Garret took a step back and whined, flattened his ears to his skull as if to quiet the noise within it. The deer struggled through the leaves, falling, quivering like a newborn, stretching its neck away from him.

  Something in the deer’s panic gained purchase on Garret’s mind. He sat back and blinked. He found the loose patch of fur on his shoulder and pulled, dragging the wolfstrap away from himself, even though he didn’t want to let go of it any more than it wanted to let go of him. But it slid obediently away, and the joint-popping change went swiftly.

  Garret sat naked in the leaves. His senses weren’t so quick to change, and his wolf-desires put up a fight, but with effort, he wrestled down the urge to tear into the deer with his teeth. The delicate human sensation of touch returned to his hands. The color returned to his vision, muted blues and blacks of a night landscape, contrasting with the colorless brilliance of the deer’s fur.

  It was an albino deer. The albino deer the local hunters had been talking about for several years. They all wanted it. They all knew the rare fur would be worth many times the meat beneath it. And Garret had nearly savaged the animal with his teeth. He crouched forward on his bare haunches and eyed the animal, which now lay on its side in the leaves, its ribs pumping like a steam engine. He shook his head against the instinctual insurrection which rose and demanded a return to his proper form.

  Christ, is that the way I think of it now? My proper wolf body?

  He knew better than to return to four legs. He’d lose control. He watched the flailing animal and frowned. Well shit. What am I gonna do now, kill it with my fingernails?

  He would have to shift. But I can’t keep control. Garret hugged himself as the shivers set in. It was a cold night. Shit. Double shit.

  He looked at the strap lying beside him. His teeth were chattering. The wolfstrap goes when I tell it to. It only fights me when I don’t really want to change back. So that means it does obey me.

  Garret steeled his mind and picked up the strap. I just have to be sure of what I want, he thought as he settled the strap to his skin. The wolf’s scents and sights took him immediately and powerfully. The desires rushed back. He wrangled with it, but the more he fought, the more he didn’t want to fight it, so the more the wolf took over.

  He lunged at the deer, but brought himself to such an uncertain halt that he fell and bumped his muzzle against it. When his sensitive nose touch
ed the warm body of his food, the wolf in him howled for blood, driving all thought away. All except one.

  Sarn.

  His brother was depending on him. Unlike Garret, Sarn couldn’t eat only meat. Neither did he have warm fur. Without the white pelt, Garret would have nothing to sell to buy Sarn the food he needed. Garret couldn’t let the wolf win. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

  Garret, the young man, stood up inside himself and caught the wolf by the scruff. He grabbed it from the shadows of his heart and wrestled it to a dead lock. The two halves of himself glared in one another’s eyes, and strained against each other.

  Garret knew what it felt like to be a wolf. As a human, he could never have understood, but now he knew what it was to be free, with power and strength and no responsibilities other than to follow his wandering heart. But he loved Sarn. He loved Molly. He remembered the touch of Molly’s lips against his. The warmth of her kindness, the sound of her heartbeat. Garret remembered Sarn’s steadfast love for his family, his sensitivity, his kindness towards all living things. Garret’s pride and defensiveness for both of them, which they deserved a hundred times over, rose up and strengthened him against the wolf.

  Garret didn’t have a clue who he was, but at least he knew what he wanted. He knew what was most important to him, and it was ludicrous to think he could have forgotten it, even for a moment. No amount of freedom, or strength, or power, or anything in this world could take the place of the people he loved.

  The wolf broke the stare-down first, looking away from his human half in submission.

  The mental pressure evaporated, and the relief was so sudden that Garret laughed. It bubbled out of his wolf’s throat, a canine yipping chortle. With it came the first smidgen of serenity he’d felt in a long time. The instincts still raged and frothed inside him, but they would be in his control, as long as he chose to rule them.

  Garret had learned long ago that strength was not a gift. It was not a birthright, nor was it something one could go on a journey to find. Yet neither was it beyond the reach of any man or woman. Strength came only from the inside, which was why Garret was so angry at his parents. Strength was a decision, and they refused to make it.

  They had allowed themselves to be weak because it was easier, each in their own way. Thereby they had injured those they claimed to love most. The wolf was strong within Garret. It seemed huge and overpowering, and like all great challenges, it was made most difficult by his own desire to give in to it. He didn’t know if he should or shouldn’t, he only knew that he couldn’t.

  When Garret realized that, he also realized something else: he didn’t know what right and wrong were. He had never known. Never had a clue. Everyone talked about right and wrong as if they were solid and unchangeable. As if the universe was built on them. Father Bendetti did. So did his Ma and his Pa. Mrs. Malvern, even Mr. Fix. Each of them had “right and wrong” worked out in their own minds, and it sounded proper whenever they explained their reasoning to Garret. But he didn’t see it ruling their lives. Either they were good people on the inside, or they weren’t. What they said about right and wrong didn’t seem to change that.

  Father Bendetti would say it was wrong for Garret to sleep with Molly. He would say it was sin. Ironically, his Ma would agree. But Garret didn’t care how well their reasoning added up, or how good it sounded when they talked about it. He only paid attention to whether or not their lives worked out. Most people’s didn’t. Most people took advantage of and hurt others, or worse, chose to follow weakness, shirk responsibility, and allow others to be destroyed by inaction.

  The more Garret thought about it, the more he wondered if right and wrong existed at all. If they did, they were beyond his reach. He had long ago given up trying to be “good,” whatever the hell that meant. In reality, he was childishly simple. Underneath all his anger and frustration, the only things he really understood were strength and weakness. He had seen them both all of his life.

  For example, he wanted to make love to Molly. She was beautiful and wonderful, and he needed her, and he wanted to make a happy life and home for her. But if he forced her to sleep with him, he would be injuring her. He would be caving to his weakness and taking for himself at her expense. Strength required him not to take anything that she wasn’t willing to give. Strength demanded that he not hurt someone he loved.

  Life worked when people chose to be strong. It didn’t work when they allowed themselves to be weak. That was all Garret understood. He had tried to make the decision for strength many times in his life. Sometimes he failed, but other times he succeeded, so he knew from experience that it was possible to control the wolf inside him. So he would do it. God help him, he would find a way to master the beast. Perhaps his struggles made him unkind at times. Perhaps they made him sharp. He didn’t know what to do about that. He only knew strength was the only way Sarn would survive. The only way Garret would find Molly again.

  So he stood and paced towards the deer, his skin shivering in anticipation of the taste of blood, but his steps measured and slow. It would have to be a head-bite. He would not get to tear into the animal as he wanted, but grasp it by the head and break its neck, preserving all the beautiful fur from the neck down. He would do it, because he was Garret. Whoever that was.

  But then, the Fates intervened. Perhaps they decided Garret had suffered enough for a time. Perhaps they had a moment of genuine compassion. Perhaps they merely overlooked an opportunity to make his life worse. Whatever the reason, the deer’s breathing became hitchy and uneven.

  Garret paused. The deer’s inhalations fell more and more shallow until a pant hissed away, and no more followed. The deer was dead. Its heart hadn’t been strong enough. Garret had run it to death.

  * * *

  When he arrived back at the house, shedding the wolfstrap was hard, but Garret made himself do it. Sarn showed up while Garret was in the barn gutting the deer. Garret had skinned plenty of deer in his life, but in this case, he’d have to be extremely careful not to leak blood on the snowy fur. For a second he wished he’d been raised by a trapper instead of a blacksmith.

  Per usual, he’d hung the animal by a rope from the rafters to skin and butcher it. He was standing back, considering how best to proceed, when Sarn creaked the barn door behind him. Sarn loved animals and Garret knew it. It had been the skunk last week, the reeking opossum the week before that and it would be something else next week. Garret had never teased Sarn about it. Ever.

  But when Sarn saw the dead deer, Garret saw the relief on his face, and Garret knew why. It was meat. They were down to that. Having enough food to eat. Sarn pulled a canvas sack off his shoulder. He didn’t approach the dead animal or feel its white coat as others would have done, but he nodded appreciatively.

  “Brother, you got the white one. Where did you take it?”

  “Just up from Round Rock Gulch.” Garret stiffened as he remembered that there was no mark on the deer’s hide. No arrow wound, no bullet hole. The animal was turning slowly on the rope from where Garret had last handled it. Garret tensed as it turned slowly from one side to the other, revealing both of its unmarred flanks and its clean, but distended neck.

  Oh please, don’t ask me. I can’t lie to my little brother. But neither could he tell the truth.

  Sarn watched in easy silence for a moment, and Garret gave himself a headache staring at Sarn from the tail of his vision. Then Sarn said, “Well, I’ll leave you to it. Oh,” he knelt over the sack. “I’ve been working around for a few days.

  “Really, where?” Garret asked, overly eager for a change in subject.

  “Carsons, mostly.”

  Garret remembered Mr. Carson almost breaking down in the shop, and paying Garret even though he had done no work. Sarn opened the sack. Inside were heaps of potatoes and turnips, and a bit of money laid at the bottom.

  Relief washed through Garret. He knelt beside Sarn. “The Carsons are good folks.”

  Sarn nodded.

  Garret ruff
led Sarn’s hair affectionately. “We’re gonna make a good dinner out of this!”

  Sarn nodded mildly. “I’ll cook this time. I think one of your fried potatoes is still with me.”

  Garret shoved him, but Sarn was getting big. He moved less and less every time Garret pushed him.

  “It’s beside that marble you tricked me into swallowing when I was little,” Sarn added, closing the sack.

  “Kid, are you still in my barn?” Garret asked, getting up.

  “When I get that fried potato back, it’s got your name on it.”

  “Go cook me some dinner!”

  At the door, Sarn turned with a flat expression, then batted his eyes and did a high-pitched, womanly voice. “Oh yes, honey, I’ll do that! And then we’ll play our favorite game: Let’s Look for Garret’s Tiny Weiner. I’m almost sure we’ll find it this time!”

  Garret grabbed a chunk of dried manure and flung it, but Sarn was gone.

  * * *

  The voice sliced through Garret’s mind. You didn’t do this for Molly. You did it for yourself. You’re so afraid all the time, of all kinds of things. You don’t really know how to love anyone. Think about it Garret. Be honest with yourself. You did this for you, didn’t you?

  Garret looked at his own paws, scrabbling uselessly in the leaves. “No. No way. I’m not doing this for me… am I?”

  The pressure in his heart redoubled.

  What do you know of love? Your father was wound up in his own pain. He didn’t care for you or protect you. No one ever taught you to be a man. So what makes you think you are one? What makes you think you can ever be one?

  Garret was drowning in the stench of the creature, crushed by its physical and emotional weight.

  Do you even know why you do the things you do? It asked.

  Garret’s paws had disappeared, replaced by his human hands. He looked at his callouses with increasingly wide eyes. He had no answer.