and breathed and flexed. The ground beneath me swinging gently, responding to the pull, and I was caught between. A kind of trap on springs and my grandfather in his great bulk tottering somewhere in the darkness, his footfalls landing anywhere.
What can never be understood is time, why a foot falls when it does. My grandfather waiting my entire life, and something in me waiting also.
It seemed possible that I would never sleep again. My mind as clear as the cold air, fully alert, and each moment expanded and nearly infinite. That night longer than all my life before it. No scale or measure in this world can ever be held constant. We are always slipping.
But eventually I heard the pumping of the lantern, Tom risen to cook breakfast, and the trees appeared above me, created in an instant, transformed absolutely from their shadows, made in the light, thousands of needles without true color, yellow-white instead of green, and their heavy cones and branches and the deep etchings of their trunks. All distance gone, the heavens erased. The world flattened.
I could not hear that soft roar of the lantern, a sound I loved, because the spring was too loud in the basin, but I could hear metal on metal, scraping and cutting as Tom worked, and I knew that I had passed into safety. My grandfather would not come for me now. Now the day had begun and we would all hunt together and all else that waited for us would be deferred.
I remained in my sleeping bag, in the warmth, and the breeze rose even though there was no sign yet of the sun. A prefiguring, the air itself impatient for the day. I do imagine the creation like this. A thing awaited, a restlessness.
The light of the lantern not steady but pulsing slowly enough to notice, a different kind of sun. And this camp become its own dwarf universe, separated from the darkness all around. I rose and pulled on my jeans and boots and jacket and hat, my shadow cast enormously against the slope and trees behind. Tom the largest giant of all, one swing of his arm covering my entire region in shadow and then gone again.
I rolled and tied the old sleeping bag and left it under the protection of the fallen trunk. I stepped sideways along the hill, rifle in both hands, that shell still in the chamber, ready, and came at camp from a different direction, close along the spring and its pipe and stream, the sounds of my footfalls covered.
Tom standing at the griddle backlit by the lantern. His camo baseball cap and jacket, mottled dark greens. One hand in his pocket, the other holding a spatula. He looked up and saw me.
Same as any other breakfast, he said. Same as any other hunt. Holding your rifle. But I know the difference.
Tomâs face in shadow but that voice the same as Iâd heard all my life.
You donât get to do something and have it be nothing. Soon as weâre back, Iâm going straight to the sheriff.
Youâre right, Tom, my father said. You should turn yourself in after shooting that man. Itâs the right thing to do. My father on the other side of the table, downhill, his face revealed by the lantern. He had been visiting the dead man, perhaps.
I donât believe I heard you right, Tom said. He turned away from me and the griddle, faced my father.
You heard.
No, I canât have heard you right, Tom said.
Our work here is to collect the evidence, my father said. Iâve put that man in a sack, and Iâve apprehended you, and brought you back with the evidence. Three of us as witnesses.
Youâd do that.
Yes I would.
Youâre sure about that.
Yep. Though maybe thereâs no need for anyone to visit the sheriff at all. That seems better, doesnât it?
Well. Tom turned back to the griddle. First hotcakes are ready, he said. Time to grab plates.
I held my rifle down low, out of reach, and stepped just close enough to grab a plate. Tom put two pancakes on it and looked at me. I was in his shadow and could see his face now, stubbled and
What can never be understood is time, why a foot falls when it does. My grandfather waiting my entire life, and something in me waiting also.
It seemed possible that I would never sleep again. My mind as clear as the cold air, fully alert, and each moment expanded and nearly infinite. That night longer than all my life before it. No scale or measure in this world can ever be held constant. We are always slipping.
But eventually I heard the pumping of the lantern, Tom risen to cook breakfast, and the trees appeared above me, created in an instant, transformed absolutely from their shadows, made in the light, thousands of needles without true color, yellow-white instead of green, and their heavy cones and branches and the deep etchings of their trunks. All distance gone, the heavens erased. The world flattened.
I could not hear that soft roar of the lantern, a sound I loved, because the spring was too loud in the basin, but I could hear metal on metal, scraping and cutting as Tom worked, and I knew that I had passed into safety. My grandfather would not come for me now. Now the day had begun and we would all hunt together and all else that waited for us would be deferred.
I remained in my sleeping bag, in the warmth, and the breeze rose even though there was no sign yet of the sun. A prefiguring, the air itself impatient for the day. I do imagine the creation like this. A thing awaited, a restlessness.
The light of the lantern not steady but pulsing slowly enough to notice, a different kind of sun. And this camp become its own dwarf universe, separated from the darkness all around. I rose and pulled on my jeans and boots and jacket and hat, my shadow cast enormously against the slope and trees behind. Tom the largest giant of all, one swing of his arm covering my entire region in shadow and then gone again.
I rolled and tied the old sleeping bag and left it under the protection of the fallen trunk. I stepped sideways along the hill, rifle in both hands, that shell still in the chamber, ready, and came at camp from a different direction, close along the spring and its pipe and stream, the sounds of my footfalls covered.
Tom standing at the griddle backlit by the lantern. His camo baseball cap and jacket, mottled dark greens. One hand in his pocket, the other holding a spatula. He looked up and saw me.
Same as any other breakfast, he said. Same as any other hunt. Holding your rifle. But I know the difference.
Tomâs face in shadow but that voice the same as Iâd heard all my life.
You donât get to do something and have it be nothing. Soon as weâre back, Iâm going straight to the sheriff.
Youâre right, Tom, my father said. You should turn yourself in after shooting that man. Itâs the right thing to do. My father on the other side of the table, downhill, his face revealed by the lantern. He had been visiting the dead man, perhaps.
I donât believe I heard you right, Tom said. He turned away from me and the griddle, faced my father.
You heard.
No, I canât have heard you right, Tom said.
Our work here is to collect the evidence, my father said. Iâve put that man in a sack, and Iâve apprehended you, and brought you back with the evidence. Three of us as witnesses.
Youâd do that.
Yes I would.
Youâre sure about that.
Yep. Though maybe thereâs no need for anyone to visit the sheriff at all. That seems better, doesnât it?
Well. Tom turned back to the griddle. First hotcakes are ready, he said. Time to grab plates.
I held my rifle down low, out of reach, and stepped just close enough to grab a plate. Tom put two pancakes on it and looked at me. I was in his shadow and could see his face now, stubbled and
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