F.N.G

Chapter 1 – Present Day-2

“Tell me about being over there, gramps.”

“Hot. Rained all the time. Dirty.”

He looks at me out the corner of his eye, gets into his jacket, drops a tip on the table.

We'll do the hunt. I'll shoot him coming out of the woods.

~ ~ ~

Ten miles to the woods, past barnyard lights, a dead buck beside the road, antlers in the air. Country music, heater fan whispers against the windshield. The horizon has begun to bleed gray, a line across the white fields like a moustache. Seth lights a cigarette, rides smoking with his window cracked. I can smell the g*n oil from the back seat.

I wonder if the old farmer is awake.

The barn has a very small room in it, barely warmed by a kerosene heater we can smell when we pull open the door. He's there, waiting in a chair that looks like home to mice, beat-up faded fabric, it's missing most of one arm.

“Morning.”

Wearing a dirty hat with a drawing of a tractor. There's a gap between two bottom teeth big enough to drive the tractor through. His whiskers are a week old. The hair growing in his ears is the color of smoke, but the rest of his hair is new snow. The two ratty coats over a pair of overalls look too new to be his.

“Seen ‘em moving?”

“Not much, too warm to rut, I think. Who's this young fella?”

“My grandboy. He's been here before.”

“I forgot. I forget everything but how to put my pants on, and mostly don't take them off at night anymore. Piss in a thunder jug like I did growing up.” He smiles. “Saves my septic tank a little, wintertime. Lonesome, just me and my cats.” Crusted face, think skin barely covering his long jawbones.

Walking towards the woods, the sky light is more than a line, less than a ribbon. No sound but our canvas pants legs and the crunch of boots on snow. He's just a silhouette, a guy walking with his g*n ready.

I could shoot now. A twelve-gauge slug is the size of a roll of nickels, pure lead. If I get him in the leg somewhere it'll break the bone. The closer to the barn the better, but I can't let the old man see. I'll let him get ahead of me, halfway across this field, about where we are now. I'll trip, my g*n will go off.

The first real color comes on a straight line through a break in the trees, pale blue. My dad was a big strong man but when I see that blue light I get the feeling that he's here, small, sitting in my lap. Like a cartoon where a guy's conscience is on his shoulder.

Seth and I have talked about how we watch the edge of daybreak spread along the ground. Red squirrels scurry, dance, chatter, bother the peace. A female cardinal moves through the tree tops, the coo of ground doves comes and goes like a mantra. Then, a doe and two fawns cross the creek. My heart races. She's big, the fawns are yearlings. If I shoot her they'll hang around awhile, then run away, on their own. She stands a moment, moves enough to put a tree between us, changes direction, stops. The snowflakes and the fawns’ spots look about the same size. I tap my barrel on the stand and she's gone, short tail up, a white flag that the fawns follow up the hill.

Train whistle a mile away. The wind stings the tips of my ears, blows cold through my wet diaper. A few brown leaves lie on top of the snow, red squirrel trails scrawl dotted lines from stumps, downed limbs, burrows. I meet Seth's footprints a hundred yards from my tree: giant splotches, evenly spaced. Never leave perfect tracks again. He'll limp. If it's not a good shot, he might only leave one footprint.

He's sitting on a stump, orange hat puffed up on his head, g*n leaning beside him. A hawk sails the wind at the tree line. The wind finds the hole between my hat and coat, makes my eyes water, bowls into my diaper, feels like my crotch is packed with snow. Agent Orange. I finger the trigger, check the safety. My hands are cold, legs shaky. I don't look at him. Fifty feet away I stop. He's looking at me but I don't look at him. I check my trigger housing, where I put my right thumb, the choke setting, the grain pattern in the stock. I feel the g*n's weight, its shape.

Through one eye, through the sights, I see him smiling. Then he sits up straighter and his arm moves towards my g*n. Left foot? Right? His trouser legs get fat above the camouflage boots. One is iced up, like a great big white earring. Target below, the end of his foot.

“What are you doing?”

“Million dollar wound. Hold still.”

“Wait!” He gets up.

“Let me put my foot on the stump.”

I let a breath out, glide the safety on. Then I switch it back.

“What?” I keep the g*n up, but I look at him.

His face looks like it never had a smile. He points at me.

“I want to be the one to say I won't go.”

He pulls the silver dollar out, flips it, catches it, repeats. I watch it turn in the air between us. I expect my dad to appear, to snatch it.

His scream comes from somewhere so deep there's no voice to it. From the air itself. I can't look at his foot, to see if I maimed him.

The impact blew it off the stump and the stump is between me and it. Blood coats the jagged top. Some splinters are siren red, blasted back. The snow looks like somebody flung red paint from a brush. He's screaming, trying to breathe so deep too, the scream gets broken into an echo. Arms crossed, he tries to get up from his waist, rolls from side to side on his shoulders, rocking. I throw myself across his arms and chest. He's swallowing his screams like a baby.

I work my way down his legs, still pinning him. Half his boot is blown away, the foot looks whole to the toes. Too much blood, but it isn't important.

I make a tourniquet, use my tracking arrow to wind it tight above the top of his boot. He's puking. I prop his head up; the silver dollar rolls into the puke on his chest, so I clean it in my mouth, then put it back between his chattering teeth.

When he bites, the muscles between his cheeks and jaws get rigid. Both legs twitch. The sun breaks the ridge beam of a barn roof a quarter mile away. The hawk is a feather in the clouds. I smell burning. I put his arms through the sleeves of my coat, tie the sleeves together. Better to drag him that way than to try to carry him.

At first the grain of the wheat stubbles defeats me, but I get him moving. The field is level but for a slight drain towards the barn. I walk backwards and pull him by the jacket. After fifty yards I collapse onto my knees.

“I need a g*n. Lay still while I run back.”

He nods with his eyes open, full of dirt and hunks of straw.

I run. Heavy boots, stubble field. His g*n is beside the stump and mine at the edge of the woods.

There's a blood trail along the impression of my dragging him through the snow. No big spots, but every few feet the snow is red on top, a circle the size of an apple. When I get back, I pant and gasp until I can keep my head up.

“Listen: I'm going to empty your g*n towards the barn,” I warn him. “Maybe the old man will know something is wrong. Don't let it make you jump.” I untie the sleeves so he can move his arms.

I pump two quick ones off and they hit just below the barn. Three more, at the other corner. I wait to see if the farmer comes out. Five more, same place. Nothing. He wants to say something.

“Don't talk.”

A faded green pickup truck is at the curve of the road half a mile away. We look small out here, if the driver can even see us, over the slight hill. I tug to get going again. I turn around to walk forward, holding the coattail in the small of my back.

All at once it's easier. Then hard. Then easier. I look around. He's raising his good knee to push his heel into the ground. We go on like that, him half-stepping to help when he can. My arm muscles begin to throb and I have to stop. I pant, he pants.

The farmer looks like a child, so far away at the corner of the barn. I drop the sling, wave my arms over my head, yell, then scream. He takes a few steps with his cane, away from us, and disappears behind the barn again.

I start shaking, my whole body like a paint mixer. I clench my arms at my waist and squeeze, but my breath only comes in short bursts. I feel faint.

The tourniquet has stopped the bleeding but turned his foot white. The blood vessels at his ankle bone are as big as a pencil, blue rivers on a white map. Two toes are gone. A perfect shot.

“Sthee muh foot,” he burbles, and spits the coin loose, before he passes out.

I want to rest, but he's lost a lot of blood by now. He'll limp. Wear a special shoe, have to explain over and over, live a lie. When I start again I feel him push us along too, a jerky thrust that becomes part of our slow movement. The old man shows again and raises his cane in the air.

“Help! Goddamn it, help! I shot him!” I try to run towards the barn, but I can't.

The farmer's vanished. It's windy and a lot colder now. No shadow, one star on its way down, over a dead tree with a tire swing tied to a low limb, next to the house. I round the corner. He's leaning against the wall with one hand, and on his cane. For a minute it feels like I am here to help him.

“I tripped. Fell.” I lie, “and the slug went through his foot. He's bleeding bad. Where's your phone?” He looks like I'm about to attack him. He doesn't understand.

“Man, my boy's hurt!”

“Eh?”

This morning he heard all right. He looks far off, but we're two feet from each other. The nearest hospital is forty miles away, but they have a helicopter. Just the end of his foot. He's okay. I put my hands below his old chin and look deep into his eyes.

“He is… hurt.”

Somebody was shooting at me,” he says all at once, “Ten times.”

I recognize the thousand-meter stare.

“That was me. Ten shots into the little hill where your barn drops off. Can you hear me?”

“Yup.”

Inside, he wants to sit down.

“No. Where's your phone?”

“Don't work. Girl brought me one last week from charity. Dinky little fucker, no cord.”

“Where is it?”

One of the cats comes through the door and lands on his lap like a balloon. I squat in front of him, shake his knee a little. His clothes stink. The cat's dandelion eyes watch me. He says the phone is on the table so when I go inside I'm looking for a table. The cupboard doors are all open and the counter is covered by stacks of sacks and cans of food, light bulbs, old jackets. The faucet is dripping into a broken bowl in the gray sink.