Shadows 7 (21 page)

Her heart sneaked into her throat.

God, they'll be just furious!

If anyone was ridiculous, Helen knew that it was herself. Her body wouldn't move. She just did not dare. And maybe part of it too was the trancelike suspension of time and reality—the pond itself, its dying silver luster, its stunned and pale wintry colors that somehow calmed her deeply, though her clenched teeth wanted to chatter like ice in a drink.

Bob's black Lab was in the other blind with them. Even the dog had abandoned her.

Probably curled up warming their goddamned boots . . .

If she had any brains or guts, she would jump up and yell or do anything. She would stomp and demand to be taken back to the city. If she had any courage, she wouldn't mind looking silly, she would not be here at all, she would be in a hot tub somewhere trying for the fourth orgasm, she would make herself get up

right now go on and get up you ninny!

Helen started to stand up. She was going to get up and go slog and slip over to her brother's new Jeep and start the engine and turn on the heater.

And I hope to God they bitch about it . . .

Something honked.

She had half risen, knee joints popping, a grin on her face because of the way her brother and husband would howl at her noise. She stopped rising. Hearing that strange honking sound, she looked into the pinkish sky, scanning the black crowns of treeless oaks and sweetgum.

It honked again.

Looking up now, Helen heard a flapping of heavy wings that beat the cold air, somewhere high above.

The air made a whispering, shifting sound.

Helen gasped. With incredible grace, a large shape was wheeling round against the deep purple-pink dusk. Still high but sliding downward, it came arcing back toward the pond. Her nape was electrified by the sheer majesty of the thing.

"A
goose!"
she heard her husband's voice hiss.

Ducks were hard to lure in, her husband always said. But geese were legendary, once-in-a-lifetime. The shape turned and its wingspan caught the horizon glow. Now she saw the sleek body and incredibly long neck. Its beauty was sensuous, its motions hypnotic.

The powerful wings dropped like great knives as the creature sank swiftly toward the far end of the pond.

Helen was stunned.

It wasn't gray like a goose at all. Its neck was
so
long. She stared because it was like a thing out of a fairy tale book, here in this awful place, coming in. It was white as snow, she saw. It wasn't a goose at all. It was a—

"A . . .
swan?"
came her brother's faint whisper from the opposite blind.

Helen, crouched and peering numbly through the planks and thatch, felt a wave of inner heat. The great bird was more than merely lovely; like a regal being, it swept onto the water. She watched it circle, neck looping and wings folding, swimming toward the duck decoys with their painted eyes.

It honked at the plastic objects and Helen heard a
click,
metallic on the frigid dusk air. She realized what was about to happen. The thought hit her like a little spurt of madness.

"NO!" She screamed, rising awkwardly, twisting; one foot was asleep and she fell and waved in horror? "NOOO!"

With a powerful thrust of wings it lifted. The twin blasts of shotguns boomed. Ears ringing, Helen fell forward out of the blind as if they'd shot her.

"Hey!" shouted Bob, her husband.

"Where'd it
go?"
yelled her brother Harry.

"Shit!" said Bob, running toward the pond.

Helen stood up. The front of her camouflage jumpsuit was heavy with frozen mud. Astonished, in sudden joy, she saw no bleeding white corpse on the water, no feathers floating in the air. Not a trace of the swan or even the sound of beating wings.

The plastic ducks, bobbing on consecutive ripples, were hardly more than black splotches. Night was falling. The Labrador retriever stood between the cursing men while the decoys were hauled in. Helen watched the dog gaze up at the trees; it was shivering, just as she was, and her body was not reacting to the cold.

"Let's haul ass," said Bob.

"Thanks a lot," Harry said, glaring at her. The dog stayed close beside Bob's leg, constantly sneaking looks at the pond behind it.

A few minutes later Helen sat with the dog in the back jumpseat of the Jeep.

"I hope to hell you're happy," bitched Bob. He was pouring Bourbon and Coke in plastic cups, spilling it on his lap. "I just hope you're damn satisfied, Helen."

She said nothing, filled with an inexplicable wonder. She
was
happy, but not satisfied: she wanted to see the swan again.

Beside her the black dog whined, shuddering badly. Muddy ruts leaped up and down in the yellowish cones of the headlights. Naked trees passed in clusters like ancient pillars.

"If you're such a goddamned bird lover," Bob said, "you should've stayed home."

"What's wrong with the dog?" asked Harry, as if that would be the last straw.

Helen didn't answer them; her mind was too full of the sensual majesty of the swan. The strange excitement of being so near it was unlike anything she'd ever felt before, and she tried to hold on to the sensation. The two men up front seemed bestial, crude; the reflections of their faces glowed on the inner glass, greenish with panel light. She had saved the great bird from their savagery, she thought.

"We'll
never
see another one," griped Harry, who was a CPA. Bob was a tax attorney, like Helen.

"Nobody'll ever believe us, either," said Bob.

"You know?" said Harry. "I could
swear
I hit him."

"Man, I had my bead right
on
that sucker," agreed Bob.

Helen thought she saw a blur of motion far off in the dark. The big Lab stiffened, hackles rising; he growled.

"He's about as frustrated as me," said Bob.

Harry said, "Hit that bastard
twice
with my 12-gauge, and number-four shot ought to penetrate. Shit, and then I kind of just didn't . . . see it."

"Maybe it went right down."

"Sink?" Harry laughed angrily. "Get serious. The big bastard outsmarted us, that's all, thanks to Lady Jane back there. Ducked into the trees carrying our shot loads. Probably some plowboy'll find it frozen like a rock on his back forty in the morning. I
know
I hit it."

The big dog barked, jarring Helen. The men jerked in their seats at the explosive loudness inside the tight Jeep. Bob reached back and slapped the animal's nose. Helen peered into the black trees where the Labrador kept staring.

"How big was that sucker?" said Harry. "To me it looked nearly as big as a man, almost."

"The one that got away," said Bob. "But I'd swear it was huge. There's a five-grand fine for nailing a swan, if you ever see one. That's how big a chance we blew today."

Helen saw a whitish motion disappear behind a black tree. A growl curdled in the Labrador's throat. The dog pushed against Helen and she felt its violent shivering.

"What the hell's wrong with him?" groaned Bob.

"Blue-nuts," suggested Harry. "Wanted that big bird."

The vehicle bounced sharply through a twist of muddy trees. Under Helen's feet some of the duck decoys looked up at her with those lifeless eyes. Suddenly, the Jeep was grinding to a stop, so abruptly that Helen had to grab the dog and the seat, thrown violently forward.

"Look!" whispered Bob.

Harry said something Helen couldn't decipher. To their left she saw a glow. Dimly through icy trees she saw that it was a campfire.

"Damn," said Harry angrily.

Two hunters sat at the campfire on folding camp chairs. A new Jeep the same color as Bob's was parked behind the fire. A bottle of Bourbon gleamed in one hunter's hand and the other held a shotgun. The scene was like something out of an L. L. Bean catalog except for one thing—across the hood of the Jeep, glimmering gorgeously in the periphery of the campfire's radiance, was a large white shape. Even from here she saw what it was. The great white wings were spread open, trophylike, nearly covering the whole hood and fender of the Jeep. A sick heat soured in her chest.

"Damn,"
repeated Harry.

Bob said, "That's our bird!"

The Labrador made no sound now. It was pressed so hard against Helen's side she could hardly breathe. Her fingers clenched the seat top as the Jeep gunned abruptly at a hard angle toward the campfire.

The two hunters there sat undisturbed, gazing serenely into their fire, not even looking up as the vehicle roared up to a halt.

Bob was blustering but Harry grabbed his gun. They piled out of the Jeep. Helen squeezed out behind them. The dog refused to move at all; she saw its baleful eyes full of the glow of the fire. Its fangs were bared and a string of drool hung from its trembling chin.

But she didn't care about the dog. No more than she cared what happened between Bob and Harry and those two men at the fire. Helen forced herself to breathe, her eyes fixed upon the majestic whiteness that seemed to lounge massively across the front of that Jeep. The shapely white head seemed turned toward her, as if watching her with those noble obsidian eyes. Her boots scraped the frozen ground.

"Quite a bird there," said Bob at the fire.

"How you boys doing?" said Harry, beside Bob.

"Find the bird dying, did you?" asked Bob.

Helen stopped and for some reason turned to look at her brother and husband, hearing the odd tone in their voices. The two hunters still sat implacably gazing into their fire, eyes not meeting Bob or Harry.

"Hey," said Bob darkly.

Harry said, "You boys kidding us or what?"

Past a brother she hadn't liked for years, past a husband she loathed, Helen stared directly at the two seated hunters. Bob reached for the one closest to him. Helen saw how clean and crisp the hunter's clothes were, how his skin looked so perfectly smooth and how his eyes weren't looking up as Bob's hand reached tentatively toward his shoulder. Helen looked at the other one and saw an ember that swirled from the fire. It landed on the hunter's unblinking eyeball.

At the edge of the clearing the Labrador yowled and skittered into the dark, baying as it fled.

Harry screamed and Helen gave a giddily crazy little laugh, but Bob made no sound at all, running for the open door of his Jeep.

But a huge white shape was there; Helen saw it descend upon Bob with a beating of wings. Harry staggered backward with a bleating sound in his throat. Helen vaguely heard him fire his shotgun once; she hardly cared.

She had stepped backward toward the fire.

She bumped one of the hunters and he toppled out of his chair. She twisted to look. Still folded in the sitting position, he fell forward uncomplaining into the fire. His serenely gazing face sank into the orange coals, the unblinking eyes and silent lips beginning to burn.

Silvery masses moved in the black trees just beyond the light. Harry and Bob no longer yelled, but she was aware of the faint and distant howling of the fleeing dog.

A silvery shape loomed over her.

The eyes that looked deep into hers were like black living glass. There was nothing on the hood of the Jeep behind it. The great white head swayed on the looping, silken neck and a velvety bill moved with alien curiosity, softly across her face. A flash of heat poured through her body and she knew she would scream now. But she didn't.

Great satin wings enfolded her with the strength of steel cords. Around her in the dying firelight the camp scene was withering, shriveling like skins of deflating balloons, and she saw the face of the fallen hunter melting in the coals like plastic.

The velvety bill probed her collar and found the throat of her blouse and she let herself be silently pressed into the dark.

Love is an obsessive emotion, and an overwhelming one. Once you're caught up in it, you can think of little else but the object of your affection. Back then, if memory serves, it was wonderful and miserable at the same time—now, it's simply miserable. Especially when your lover returns the favor.

Melissa Mia Hall is a poet and photographer from Texas, and she has just completed her first novel.

He knew what she was not long ago. The discovery came upon him with a thrill of thanksgiving, of joy, of release. He dreams of the moment when he will tell her he knows. He lives for that moment. And she will share with him her life.

His hands grip the beer mug unsteadily. He sets it down on the counter and looks at her in the fern-enshrouded corner. Her protruding upper lip gives her a perpetual childlike sweetness. Her wide empty eyes are avoiding his.

She touches her current companion's hand and shakes her head slowly. She laughs and the stranger drinks the rest of his bourbon in one hasty gulp. She murmurs something deliciously low. The companion nods.

David looks at the popcorn kernels in the bowl before him. He cups a few in his palm restlessly. The waiting tonight has become too long and too tense. He glances at them again. Tonight her name is Willo, on other nights it has been Lara, Christine, and others. Tonight her blond hair swings loose around her face, faintly curled and fragrant. Pale, icy, fragile, tall. Her legs cross and recross. The stranger will know them but maybe nothing else. Or he will know everything. David burns with a sudden flame of jealousy. But the stranger doesn't know what she is. And David does. He knows. She only wears gold jewelry. He's never seen her near a cross or a mirror, or during the day when the sun shines hard and bright.

The popcorn kernels are bullets biting into the flesh of his closed fist. He grimaces and throws them back into the bowl. He wishes she'd get it over with. He finishes his third beer and slips down from the barstool. The bar swims with smoke and businessmen afraid to go home. A fern twirls above him and he ducks his head awkwardly. A drunk swipes at him merrily, thinking him a compadre.

"Had a little too much fella, well, let me tell you . . ."

David feigns a laugh and moves toward the door. He goes outside and checks the sky nervously. Still night, no sign of dawn. Of course, he knows it can't be that late. A loving couple jostles him accidentally on their way inside. The woman winks at him and smiles, "Hey, baby." Her boyfriend jerks her closer. David hates them. He stares at the parking lot. Her Mercedes is parked near his Volkswagen. It's more convenient that way.