Chapter Twenty–Three
IT WAS AS COLD AS THE frozen north. Lucas dreamed of young Peter in his arms on the ship while Duvall shouted from somewhere out in the darkness.
—WAKE UP –
The deer’s head nestled close to Lucas, whispering deep lulling secrets buried fathom’s deep in Lucas’s slumbering brain in a voice that sounded just like Peter.
“Lucas, teach me, and we learned together and the food ran out and the graves we’d dug in the snow opened up and the bodies disappeared but the cook did not ask no questions. The crew ate hearty and the skipper says polar bears but it weren’t no bears.”
The dead deer kept whispering and Lucas kept hearing Peter’s voice.
“Teach me, we are hungry, let me taste you.”
Soon Lucas lost the strength for the skin game and the two of them, man and boy, lay
