Cross Country Murder Song (5 page)

Don't go too far, he said, his back still to them. They'd taken a ball and walked for a while, before they came upon a clearing that was washed nearly white with sunlight.

How long were we out there until we saw him? asked Karl.

No idea, he replied. They'd been kicking the red ball back and forth, trying to keep it in the air. As the ball went from foot to foot they counted the number of consecutive strokes they managed without letting it fall to the ground.

Twenty-two, he'd said, arms spread wide to give him balance as he held the ball one-legged on the laces of his shoe. He was about to flick it back to Karl when he noticed the look on his friend's face. He could still see that face now, everything circular, his wide eyes, his open, cooing mouth, he couldn't remember him ever looking so young. He let the ball drop to the ground and turned to see the bear cub about twenty feet away. Swaying slightly, rocking gently from side to side, it raised itself up, one paw leaving the ground.

Oh, Karl had said, his mouth dropping open with delight.

He was a beauty, he said. Karl sat across from him, one hand on his stomach as if to quieten the rumbling.

His mother thought so, he said.

They'd both called out to the cub, made petting sounds and walked slowly towards the small, brown animal.

Remember the noise? asked Karl.

Do I, he said.

They weren't sure how long the trees had been moving, but they exchanged startled looks when the thrashing became too violent to ignore. The wall of trees exploded, leaves and branches bursting outwards as if they'd been fed into a thresher. The cub's mother stood between them and her cub: he could see the bubbling saliva on her teeth, her top lip quivering like an angry dog's. They stood very still, but he felt his breath expanding through his body; he wanted to quiet it. He thought it was loud enough to attract the bear's attention. His hands were numb, spreading from the tips of his fingers up to both elbows. If she attacks me, he thought, I won't even be able to cover my face. They'll find me without any of my features. They'll have to identify me through dental records. The only sound was of the bear sniffing the air and the cub giving a grizzled yawn. Then quickly the mother grabbed her cub by the scruff of its neck and shot them both a threatening glance. She retreated backwards with her dark eyes still set on them. The treeline swallowed her up, branches crackled underfoot and then nothing. They stood stock still in the moment immediately afterwards, both (as they admitted to each other later) too scared to move in case any noise might make the mother come racing back to knock them into the air like bowling pins. Then, when they could finally stand the calm no longer, they both turned and ran screaming his dad's name as they went crashing through the woods. The red ball lay half in the sun, half in shadow.

It was dusk when they finally saw the second doe. The forest was darker now and they'd talked about heading back, but had decided on thirty more minutes before going back down to the lake. Any later and they'd be in danger of missing the last ferry to take them across the water and home.

I don't want to spend the night in the truck, he said. We'll freeze our asses off. Karl quietened him with a wave of his hand; he followed his gaze and saw something moving just beyond the next line of trees. Instinctively, they both levelled their rifles and drew a bead on the shadow. He tried to slow his breathing down like his dad had taught him, but the excitement rushed through him and made his heart thud rapidly in his chest.

Hold on there, said a voice. A man, arms half raised, a rifle in one hand pointing in the air, came towards them. It's a little late to be out here, he said – and he wasn't sure if the man with the gun was referring to the season or the time of day. It was late either way, he thought.

We're not DEA. He said without thinking.

No one said you were, said the man with the gun. You look like hunters to me, he said, looking at them like the man in the store had. Any luck? he asked, but he could see that they weren't carrying any prey.

You live up here? asked Karl, though they both knew he did and they both knew he'd come from his barns and his crops nearby, from adjusting the lamps and measuring the yield. Their noise (neither was the stealthy hunter they'd like to imagine) had brought him out here.

Not too far, said the man, and he threw back his hand as if to reveal the gloom behind him for the first time. You be careful, he said, as he turned towards the darkness, it's getting on.

They were now turning into outlines and clouds of ghostly air and as if silently signalling to each other they turned and headed back up the hill towards the plateau and their truck. Neither spoke a word. Then, just ahead of them, the doe appeared; something had caught her attention, something on the forest floor, she was close enough that they could admire the ambivalent beauty in her sad eyes, the streaks of colour in her coat, her bobbed tail. Without thinking, he raised his gun and the shot broke along his barrel, the sound rising and evaporating as the deer fell.

Clean kill, said Karl, rushing forward. I knew we'd get one, he said, though they both knew that wasn't true. They kneeled over the body, Karl reaching for his knife to strip the carcass. He cut away at the coat, opening their bag to collect the meat. A friend of theirs served venison sausages and steak at his bar and anything they brought back guaranteed them a drinks tab running long into the winter. That wasn't why they hunted, though. More than one friend had asked them why they kept making the journey north and though they answered that it was the challenge and the adventure it was neither any more. Hunting brought them together at a time when new responsibilities were gently prising them apart. Each time they came out here it was to their own splendid isolation. The story of the bear cub was one they retold every time and never tired of (their friends had wearied of it a long time ago). Hunting brought them closer to a dead father and to a brother who, though wild, was then still untroubled by jail time or overhanging debts that weighed on them all. Their friendship had been forged in the crack and whip of a rifle's volley, in the animals stilled in their sights.

Karl was on his knees carefully wrapping the meat and placing it gently into the bag lying next to him.

Come on, he said, we'll miss the ferry. And then there was a noise coming through the forest, one they recognised. He felt the numbness in his fingers and the air ballooning through him, expanding in his lungs so he suddenly felt light-headed; his strangled gasps for air were making him mute and unable to move. He saw Karl and then he saw the bear towering above him, black, seemingly taller than the trees that surrounded it. Made of the woods and the night, it raised a giant paw that blotted out the sky and he imagined its claws covered with stars, a quarter moon held in its palm, and then when he looked again Karl was gone. The roaring filled his head, the stench of the doe's guts were in his mouth. He thought about running for the safety of his father's arms, but he knew his father was gone.

Later, when the man with the gun had found him and they'd taken him down from the mountain and across the lake and listened to his delirium-filled dreams of bears cradling the night sky, they'd returned him home to the city. He remembered the doctor at his bed explaining that they couldn't save the rest of his arm, as there was no arm to be saved. The man with the gun had saved his life, he said, with quick thinking and a tourniquet.

He was growing dope up there, he mumbled, and the doctor had looked at him for a moment.

I'm sorry about your friend, he said. He looked down at his shoulder, now a neatly dressed stump.

We were hunting, he said, indicating with a nod where his arm had once been. They didn't find Karl, he said. You see, the bear was hunting too. The doctor said, if there's anything you need and then without looking back he left the room.

Waterloo in the summer was busy with tourists. He took a cab into town, praying that it wouldn't be the driver from their last trip. The plastic awnings were still in place though when someone brought up their history he smiled and nodded. He stayed at the same hotel and the next morning, as he sat on the deck of the ferry admiring the familiar terrace of distant pines and the sun skipping across the dark blue of the lake, the inexhaustible and familiar honking of boarding cars rose up from beneath him. He held the rail with his one arm, sitting with his face set into the breeze as the ferry pulled away across the water and into the past. A passenger caught his eye. Do you mind? she said, indicating the seat next to him. He shook his head and the woman sat down. They were halfway into their journey before she spoke again. Going hiking? the woman asked.

No, he said, patting the bag on his lap. I have a friend over there. He nodded towards the far shore. I'm going to find him.

There was a pause. A good friend? the woman asked.

The best, he said, shouldering his bag as he stood. Within moments he was lost among the passengers filling the deck.