by Doyle, Brian
Ayo. Da. Evet. I am trying to say yes in every language there is to cover all possible bases and eventualities. I am going to say yes so many times and in so many ways there will never be a question henceforth about it. Bai. Kyllä. Avunu.
Avunu?
That’s from India, I think. Or Japan? No, Japanese is hai!
Richard, how do you know all this?
I have been studying to say yes for two years. In case the chance ever came up I wanted to be ready.
You are the strangest person I ever met.
Merci. Danke. Grazie. Arigatō.
I love you more than I can say. More than I understand.
Yes.
We’ll have to work out a lot of things.
Yes.
I am a puzzle and a conundrum and a thunderstorm.
Avunu. Hai! That is so true. That is so …
But you are no picnic, either. You are a wilderness. You have a head like a rock.
Ginny, he says, dropping all his masks so suddenly so thoroughly it’s a wonder they didn’t bounce off the boulder and plop into the river, Ginny, I want to see and hear you deeper than anyone else ever does, ever. I want to watch you grow and ache and deal with stuff and laugh and cry and nurse your sons and get old and lose your temper and laugh so hard you pee. Avunu, yes, I do. I say yes. Hai! Let’s go for it. Let’s just promise to try like hell and work out the details and problems as we go. You want to try like hell, too, Virginia Mary Moss?
Yes, she says, and she starts to cry. Hai!
Hai! says Mr. Douglas. My feet are freezing. Let’s go sit by the fire and kiss for the rest of the day. Dave can take care of the store. Nice kid. Hai!
54
ON ANY ONE DAY ON WY’EAST, one million living beings lose their lives. They die, are killed, are shredded, fade out, are gulped, expire, decease, pass from this plane, cease to function, demise, commence decomposition, transition to the next stage, initiate cellular breakdown. This is the way it is. Some live a day, and some live a thousand years. Some are smaller than this comma, and some are taller than you can measure with your eye. Some are serene and eat sunlight and rain and do not slay their neighbors and do not battle for supremacy and sex and speak a patient green language. Others are vigorous and furious and muscular and speak the languages of blood and bone. This is the way it is. They are all brothers and sisters in time and light and water and weather. They change, they morph, they evolve, they go extinct, they sink back into the earth from which we all came and shall return. This is the way it is. It may be that every death is mourned, though most go unremarked, and every day’s million deaths causes a million other hearts to sag. Who is to say that is not the way it is?
And here is one death today: the fox who ate Martin’s brother, the fox who waited in the darkness with only her eyes flickering, the fox with the canter recognizable by trappers, the so-called Rhododendron Fox, the fox called ghost and dream and fiction by men who heard the stories but never saw her once—that fox is hunting at dusk and picks up the scent of marten. A marten is a meal, and the trail smells like two marten, which would be a meal sufficient and then some for her new kits also. She follows the two marten. As far as she can tell from the scent trails, one marten is a female in estrus, and the other a male with prospects. She suspects that the female in estrus is scouting for dens and burrows in which to eventually give birth. She ponders the implications of this for a moment; marten kits are delicious bits of meat and much easier to catch than adult marten, who tend to fight savagely when attacked. Yet marten kits are not born until late winter or early spring, and the fox is hungry right now, and her new kits are hungry right now, so she follows the two adult marten into the deepening dusk.
* * *
A gray fox can climb trees and run along branches and leap from branch to branch, much as a marten does. The gray fox occasionally dens in trees, as marten do. A gray fox is lightning fast in bursts, as a marten is. The gray fox hunts night and day, altering patterns depending on season and available crops, much as marten do. But a gray fox is longer and taller and heavier than a marten—a large marten might weigh three pounds, where a large gray fox might weigh twenty pounds—and thus the gray fox, given the chance, catches and eats the marten, despite the marten’s liquid speed and incredibly quick reflexes. The percentages are not with the marten, you might say. The marten may elude the chase; the fox may miss his or her strike; the marten may lead the pursuing fox into a situation more dangerous to the fox, like a hunter or a hound or a highway; but in general, a fox intent on catching and eating a marten or two has an excellent chance of doing so and history on its side.
But not this time.
* * *
As dusk gave way infinitesimally to dark, the two marten made their way first through a vast clear-cut and then briefly along a logging road and then down a sharp slope and through what a human observer might call a small foul city of incredible garbage—the detritus of an entire civilization, splayed and dumped and tossed and moldering in a little dell into which everything thrown down the slope from the road ended up smashed together in a pile fully twenty feet high adamant with stench and stink. There were hundreds of old tires in every size from child’s wagon to bulldozer. There were hundreds of smashed jars and bottles that had once contained beer, whiskey, mayonnaise, rum, jelly, jam, oil, petroleum jelly, cream, gin, soda, and pretty much any other substance you can imagine. There was an entire mobile home in pieces. There were bits and parts of cars and trucks and bicycles. There were televisions dating back more than seventy years. There were parts of cows and pigs and dogs and cats and birds and goats and llamas. There were guns and knives and half an assault rifle. There were diapers and records and compact discs and cassette tapes and false fingernails and two bathtubs. There were computers and computer printers and cords and coils and hammers and spatulas and bullet casings and mattresses and do we need to go on? Why would beings throw garbage into the homes of other beings so that the animals who lived there must leave, and the plants who live there are choked to death by weight and darkness and chemicals, and the whole foul mess will be there for a thousand years like a lurid sin until the blessed day when a shiver in the earth from Wy’east grinding its teeth drops the whole awful mound into a sudden crevice, never to be seen again?
* * *
The female marten had seemed intent on a certain target or idea as she and Martin came down through the clear-cut and through the garbage pit, and soon it was evident to Martin what it was she sought—a tremendous fir tree standing nearly in the middle of a creek, approachable only by deft footwork along a ridge of boulders leading to it like a road of rocky teeth. Halfway up the ancient tree was a spacious hollow in which Martin thought he could smell the faintest scent of bees. But whatever residents the hole had housed were long gone, and Martin understood that his companion was choosing this as her home—the den in which she would give birth to their kits. For a while, she allowed him to explore the space and investigate the infinitesimal scents of other former tenants; he thought he could smell red squirrels and perhaps also an owl, although that scent was so very faint that it might be only the record of a one-time visit, perhaps to eat the squirrels.
Suddenly, according to some mysterious decision in her part, she drove him out, and he backed hurriedly out of the hollow and down the tree to the boulders. A minute later, she joined him, and they leapt back toward the forest. Both were hungry, and Martin was sure he had seen not one but two birds’ nests near the garbage pit. They had also passed near a huckleberry thicket, and no marten in summer passes up huckleberries, given the chance.
One nest was empty, though, and the other contained nothing but broken eggshells, so Martin led his companion toward the berry bushes; but just as they crossed a small clearing crowded with ferns, the fox struck.
* * *
The ambush is an ancient and effective technique, because it entails surprise, which means unpreparedness, which usually means death or injury leading unto death. In almost all cases o
f violent combat, across all species, he or she who sustains the initial injury loses the battle, being drained of energy and force, not to mention essential liquids. Yet evolution or time or a fitfully merciful creator or some unimaginable referee interested in competitive balance and the persistence of infinitesimal chance also arms all beings with a quiver of intuition or extrasensory perception or awareness beyond the range of understanding—we do not have good words for this, but it is indeed true, as you well know, because you have experienced it, and have been startled and intrigued by it too: a premonition of impending trouble, the sure knowledge that someone is looking at you though you cannot see the stare, the certainty that there is someone behind you though no sign or signal was given.
And Martin had this gift in spades, partly because he had made his way alone in the world from a very young age and had survived in part by cultivating and trusting this mysterious gift—more times than he could count, he had leapt away from disaster at the exact right moment or struck a killing blow in the dark without clearly seeing his prey. He had also been given something like a gift of geometric calculation and was already, not even two years old, a master at gauging a chipmunk’s desperate direction, a squirrel’s final leap, the dart of a fish in a pool. And as we already know, he was also given gifts of unusual size and … what word should we use here? Courage, bravery, fearlessness, defiance—don’t they seem a little too human as labels to describe Martin’s unusual attitude? If we spoke marten, as it were, perhaps we would know the word for what drove Martin in the next few minutes, but without that word, we will have to just account what happened.
* * *
The fox, knowing that she would have but an instant’s advantage, struck at the leading marten, thinking that a killing blow there would allow her to spin and attack the second before the second could flee; it was none of her concern which was first on the trail, the male or female—although given a choice, she would kill the male, who offered more meat.
But the first on the path was Martin, and even before the fox launched herself from her crouch in the ferns, he felt … something. Did he hear the infinitesimal quiver of her muscles as she tensed? Did he smell an iota of her slaver in the dark? Had he somehow screwed his senses to an extraordinary pitch, given the darkness and the dense vegetation crowding the trail?
So Martin was ready to dodge, before the dodge that saved his life and that of his companion; but the fox, slashing savagely as it shot past, sliced a long deep wound in Martin’s hip. The fox spun and came for Martin again, but to her shock, this first marten, the large one, was leaping directly at her, and before she could recover, she had been bitten deeply on her snout and slashed so deeply in her right eye that she could not see. She staggered for an instant, and then, incredibly, was attacked again, this time from two directions—the large marten almost under her, clamping its jaws in her throat, and the smaller one tearing and shredding at her right leg, on her blind side.
For the first time in her life the fox was terrified. She had been fearful before, she had been in fights before, she had been attacked before, but never by two animals at once, and never by marten. In her experience, marten fled instantly into the canopy when pursued. Instead her attack had missed, she had lost an eye, she was in screaming pain, and she was now being throttled by one marten and bitten by another. She clawed desperately at the one at her throat and kicked furiously at the one behind, but she could not get her killing jaws into play. Suddenly, her rage gave way to a despairing urge to get away, to shake off these savage little creatures and sprint away and huddle in her den and lick her wounds; but for all she clawed at them, they kept their jaws locked in her, and now her breathing staggered and slowed; Martin ground his jaws deeper and deeper into her throat with a grim fury that only his own death would have quelled; she choked and gagged, and a moment later she died. The marten at her throat, sensing her death, drove deeper and tore her trachea in half before releasing his grip.
For a moment now, the little clearing was silent. The two marten lay exhausted and bleeding; some of the bruised and crushed ferns slowly tried to stand again. Nighthawks flew past, wondering at the three spent bodies below. A beetle detoured around the massive thicket of the fox’s tail. For a moment, not a sound, as if the world held its breath; and then Martin staggered upright and began to lick his companion’s wounds. She did the same for him a moment later, and then, wearily, hungrily, they tore the fox open and ate their fill.
55
WHEN DAVE ARRIVED at the store for work he found a note on the door that made him smile. The last time Miss Moss set foot outside the boundaries of the store during hours of operation was known only to the owls, who knew everything, as Dave’s mom said.
Just as he turned the soup pot back on to simmer, as instructed, Emma Jackson Beaton came in and sat at the counter and asked for soup, and as soon as it was simmering, Dave served her a bowl.
What is this exactly? This is terrific.
I think it’s Miss Moss’s Everything Soup.
This happens every Wednesday? I’ll be back for this. There are things in here I never saw before. I think there’s okra, and I am pretty sure I saw a persimmon. Plus if I am not mistaken there’s antelope in there. This is incredible. Also there’s a chess piece. And a turtle.
Really?
No. Great soup, though.
I’ll tell Miss Moss.
Dave, have I ever told you how much I admire your mom?
No, but I see how you get along. You’re always laughing. Not everyone gets along like that with people they work with.
Your mom is a very wise being.
I know.
Do you? Many teenagers don’t see their parents for who they really are at all. I sure didn’t. I was a jerk to my parents.
Really?
Really really. I left home at seventeen mostly because I knew I was being a jerk but couldn’t figure out how to stop. Are you a jerk to your parents?
Pardon?
Are you?
No. Yes. Well, I don’t think so. Well, I was for a while these past few months. I mean, I really respect them and how hard they work, but they treat me like a kid, and I am a man. Almost. Partly.
At fifteen?
Fifteen and a half.
Is there more of this soup? I think I tasted rutabaga or maybe bear.
Dave gets her another bowl, and she closes her eyes and inhales redolent tendrils of steam.
What do you want to do when you graduate high school, Dave?
I don’t know.
College?
My folks want that.
Job?
Maria wants me to be a mapmaker so we can start a map company. She loves maps.
What do you want?
I don’t really know. I like to run. I like living here. Maybe coach and teach, I guess. Although I wouldn’t be much of a teacher. I was a jerk to my teachers this spring, I think. I feel bad about it now. I was rude to Mr. Shapiro.
Why?
Not sure. I just felt … weird.
Weird like?
Like everybody wanted me to be something I didn’t know I wanted to be. You know what I mean?
Yup. Although for me, it was the other way around—I didn’t know I wanted to be something I didn’t know I already was.
Pause.
What? says Dave.
Emma laughs.
Dave, listen, she says. There is no Billy Beaton. There never was. I invented Billy Beaton so I could act married because I was tired of guys asking me out. I like guys, but I think I love a person who happens not to be a guy. It took me a long time to get to there. It takes a long time for people to figure out how to make joy soup, you know what I mean?
I think so.
Ah, what do I know? I just think you are luckier than you know, maybe. Your mom is a very wise woman, and your dad is a kind man, the best kind. You already know your sister is the coolest person ever.
She’s decided to be governor, you know. Dad wants her to try for
president, but she says she doesn’t want to leave the mountain, that she can be governor from here.
I don’t think I was ever so scared as when she was lost.
Me too, says Dave. Me too.
For a moment they are both caught in the blizzard again, terrified, and then Dave says she still won’t talk about that night. She says she knew she would be found and that she knew Edwin would know where to look. She says we should remember that while Mr. Douglas gets credit for the save, it was Edwin who carried him to the right place. She says Edwin is sort of a genius, and he just doesn’t say anything about it, because he’s not a boaster. She says Edwin has a minor ego and doesn’t need the strokes. She says Mr. Douglas is right about Edwin not liking to be wet and there’s an amazing story why that’s so. She says Edwin loves honey because he long ago did something for the honeybees in the city, and now they look out for him and deliver honey if necessary. She says there are about a thousand more stories like that about Edwin, and someday she will write them down if he will allow it.
I’d read that book, says Emma, and just as she pronounces the k in book, the doorbell jangles, and Moon comes in, and Emma buys him a bowl of soup just because.
* * *
Dave’s mom had a name. Sure she did. She had lots of them. She’d been given one at birth by her mother, overruling the one her father wanted to give her (Dandelion!, complete with the exclamation point), and she’d been given her dad’s surname, as was customary in the culture into which she had been born. And then she was given the middle name of an aunt to whom her parents owed a thousand dollars for their mortgage deposit; the name paid the debt. Then she got another name when she was thirteen, as was customary in the religion into which she had been born, and then she took another name when she was nineteen, as the result of an experience with drugs, and then she took a name made up of numerals for a while, as an act of protest against the dehumanizing economic system into which she had been born. Then she was briefly married to a man whose surname she took as her own, as was customary in the culture to which she had been born, but when that man turned out to be a liar and a thief and a stain and a blot on the world, she handed him back his name on the day she concluded their six months of marriage—actually handing it back to him one morning on a piece of paper between two slices of buttered toast, a divorce sandwich—and then again assumed her father’s surname as her own, partly for the peace and safety of being again huddled beneath the long name she had as a child. But when she met Dave’s dad and married him, she did not then accept his surname as her own, as was customary in the society into which she had been born, but adopted her mother’s first name as her new surname, reasoning that she had long worn her father’s name and had once worn another man’s name, and now she would wear her mother’s name as a form of reverence and respect—a decision to which Dave’s dad, as he said to Dave with a smile, could only assent, debate not being part of the program, and your mom’s decision about her names being her own decision, of course, names being personal things and really only labels and bits of sound when you think about it. And besides, I adore her mother, your grandmother, a woman of remarkable grace, so much so that I think I will adopt her name too as a surname, one of these days, if she will let me. I think you have to fill out a form or something and then get it stamped by a butterfly and submit it to your grandmother for review. Something like that.
