approaching. My stomach tightened; I was sick again. I lay my head against my knees in defeat, pretending to sleep; dutifully I chained my mind back to the prison-yard wall. I was sorry to do it, to be forever playing the villain in my own brain. I raised my head and nodded grimly at my friend. “Saw you wander off alone,” he said kindly. “Thought I'd come over.
"This reminds me,” he said settling down on a nearby rock, “of the story of the two brothers who went out to Crippler's Field to hunt.” I confess I was stunned. He must worry that I'm seriously adrift of our mission, I thought, if he's hauling out this old corrective.
I kicked my boot heel against the rock and knocked free the pressed tread of snow. He said, “Do you know Crippler's Field—it's about an hour's walk from the train station, just beyond the city limit? It's where the good hunter died at the hands of his very own brother . . .” I nodded. He went on. Somewhere in the city was my dissatisfied little boy, wishing powerfully for sweets, for me—a boy presumably afflicted by that mix of the wishful and the indifferent so characteristic of the young.
One evening, we were crowded around a low fire on the overhunted ridge. In the cold silence of the wintry woods, we were telling each other familiar tales to pass the time. A light snow was coming down. Men who had families talked about their children. I sometimes talked about Ben in an obligatory way. “He's a good boy,” I'd say in a voice that had become so dead and dispiriting I was amazed it passed muster with the other men. In truth, if I thought of my son that winter, I tended to remember him as a lazy, greedy animal who ate and slept, and then attacked me suddenly with questions: “What does it do, where does it come from, why is it crying, will it fit in my room?"
Of course I used to attack my own father in just the same way. There's a friendly pain that halts self-investigation—but it's only a matter of time before we discover that we can plumb the depths of one another and easily forget that pain in others. When my father came home from the war, he made a show of picking up his old pleasures to reassure us, but I could see that he was a changed and damaged man, and when other ideas got the better of him, he simply walked off to be alone until he could master his feelings. I trailed at a distance, tracking him through the woods. I considered that Ben might someday hunt me in the same way, catching my shadow moving among the trees, forever trying to please me, to see me, to keep me. I felt I would do almost anything to stop him from following me through life—
We heard an alien sound—the animal-expert footfall of an Enemy soldier moving through the ice-glazed darkness beyond our campfire. We stopped talking. We heaped the fire with snow, and we fanned out into the forest. My blood was pounding in my ears as I crept across the eerie luminescence of the snowfield alone.
From the dark ridge, I aimed my rifle into the woods—a cavern of tar-black air even in the moonlit night. Then I spotted them—my enemies crouched among the trees; I watched the white fog of breath leave the black silhouettes of their heads. God, why wouldn't they just leave us alone, let us live in peace? I could hear the boots of my commanding officer crunching stealthily through the snow, closer and closer. I knew what he would make me do. I decided to run. I hurried, unseen, down from the ridge and crept along the trampled path. I wanted to be left alone, and to leave others alone. All night I tried to make my way down the other side of the dark ridge, toward the water. I had noticed a ship anchored offshore that morning. Ours? Theirs? Something else entirely? I hardly cared—so long as I could be anywhere else, do anything else.
I woke the next morning in a cave of pines, feeling sick: I was a deserter, a coward. What if the Enemy had bided his time and then slaughtered my fellow soldiers in their sleep,
"This reminds me,” he said settling down on a nearby rock, “of the story of the two brothers who went out to Crippler's Field to hunt.” I confess I was stunned. He must worry that I'm seriously adrift of our mission, I thought, if he's hauling out this old corrective.
I kicked my boot heel against the rock and knocked free the pressed tread of snow. He said, “Do you know Crippler's Field—it's about an hour's walk from the train station, just beyond the city limit? It's where the good hunter died at the hands of his very own brother . . .” I nodded. He went on. Somewhere in the city was my dissatisfied little boy, wishing powerfully for sweets, for me—a boy presumably afflicted by that mix of the wishful and the indifferent so characteristic of the young.
One evening, we were crowded around a low fire on the overhunted ridge. In the cold silence of the wintry woods, we were telling each other familiar tales to pass the time. A light snow was coming down. Men who had families talked about their children. I sometimes talked about Ben in an obligatory way. “He's a good boy,” I'd say in a voice that had become so dead and dispiriting I was amazed it passed muster with the other men. In truth, if I thought of my son that winter, I tended to remember him as a lazy, greedy animal who ate and slept, and then attacked me suddenly with questions: “What does it do, where does it come from, why is it crying, will it fit in my room?"
Of course I used to attack my own father in just the same way. There's a friendly pain that halts self-investigation—but it's only a matter of time before we discover that we can plumb the depths of one another and easily forget that pain in others. When my father came home from the war, he made a show of picking up his old pleasures to reassure us, but I could see that he was a changed and damaged man, and when other ideas got the better of him, he simply walked off to be alone until he could master his feelings. I trailed at a distance, tracking him through the woods. I considered that Ben might someday hunt me in the same way, catching my shadow moving among the trees, forever trying to please me, to see me, to keep me. I felt I would do almost anything to stop him from following me through life—
We heard an alien sound—the animal-expert footfall of an Enemy soldier moving through the ice-glazed darkness beyond our campfire. We stopped talking. We heaped the fire with snow, and we fanned out into the forest. My blood was pounding in my ears as I crept across the eerie luminescence of the snowfield alone.
From the dark ridge, I aimed my rifle into the woods—a cavern of tar-black air even in the moonlit night. Then I spotted them—my enemies crouched among the trees; I watched the white fog of breath leave the black silhouettes of their heads. God, why wouldn't they just leave us alone, let us live in peace? I could hear the boots of my commanding officer crunching stealthily through the snow, closer and closer. I knew what he would make me do. I decided to run. I hurried, unseen, down from the ridge and crept along the trampled path. I wanted to be left alone, and to leave others alone. All night I tried to make my way down the other side of the dark ridge, toward the water. I had noticed a ship anchored offshore that morning. Ours? Theirs? Something else entirely? I hardly cared—so long as I could be anywhere else, do anything else.
I woke the next morning in a cave of pines, feeling sick: I was a deserter, a coward. What if the Enemy had bided his time and then slaughtered my fellow soldiers in their sleep,
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