Fauna (11 page)

“Okay, I’ll be right there.”

Her escort returns empty-handed.

“Where’s my bike?”

“Don’t worry.” He stands with his hands clasped behind his back, feet slightly apart.

“I’m not worried. I just—”

“What’s up?” Guy comes alone, leaving his hawk behind. Of course he does—as if he’d come wearing it on his arm like a medieval prince. His eyes rest on her with a strange familiarity. “Who’s this?”

She can smell the jacket—warm hide, traces of the animal that wore it originally. That and the aroma of something good wafting out the screen door.

“I found her outside,” the young man says simply.

“Yeah? Well, I guess you met Stephen already. I’m Guy. Guy Howell.”

He holds out his hand. It takes Edal a moment to extend hers in return. His grip is callused, firm. None of the false weakness most men imagine women require.

“Edal Jones. I was just—”

“Edal?” He grins. “You mean like the otter?”

It comes as a bit of a shock. It’s been years since her name has elicited anything more than
That’s different
or
What kind of name is that?
“Yes,” she says, “like the otter.”

“Man, I loved that book.”

She nods.

“I’m named after Lafleur,” he adds. “Nobody ever says it the French way, though.”

She nods again. Why is she like this, shamed by the simplest human exchange? Stephen looks at the ground. They’re not sure what to do with her—she can see it. They’re beginning to wonder when she’ll leave.

“You hungry?” Guy says.

Stephen brightens. “Yeah.”

“I know
you
are—what else is new. I was talking to Edal.”

“Me?” Hungry. For the first time in days, she suddenly is. “I guess so. Why?”

“Why? It’s suppertime, that’s why.” He steps past her to open the screen door. “Come on.”

Edal hesitates for a moment then follows, Stephen falling in step behind. Inside, the smell is even better. She recognizes grilled cheese.

It’s a deep room. Two doors break up the southern wall; one gapes to show a polka-dotted shower curtain, the other—which can only give onto the little bedroom with the bookcase—is closed. A third door divides the northern wall. Painted a bright shade of green, it too stands closed. Beyond it, countertop and cupboards that date back to the seventies, double sink, tall, mustard-coloured fridge. Down the far end, a girl stands at the stove, her back to the room. Pink hair, drooping vest. She looks round, spatula in hand, and scowls.

“What’s she doing here?”

Guy crosses to the sink. “You guys know each other?”

The girl snorts. Guy turns on the tap, reaches for the dish soap and begins lathering up his hands. The frying smell darkens, on its way to burning.

The girl turns back to the pan. “She’s the one who followed me.”

For a moment Edal considers making a break for it. Abandon the bike if necessary, scale the gate. Only Stephen is still behind her—between her and the door.

“I’m sorry, I saw you with the birds …” She falters. “I was curious.”

The girl says nothing.

Guy dries his hands on a dishtowel. “She thinks you’re a cop.”

“What? Why?” No one answers. “Well, I’m not.”

“Fair enough. Edal, this is Lily. Lily, this is Edal. She’s going to eat with us.”

“I only made enough for three,” Lily says.

“Come on,” Guy says lightly, “there’s plenty.”

“Whatever.”

Stephen moves past Edal to wash his hands, drying them on his jeans. Unsure what else to do, she takes her turn at the sink.

“You want to set the table, Stephen?” Guy opens the fridge. “Anybody want a beer? Lily? Stupid question.”

“I’ll have milk,” Stephen says, pulling open a drawer.

Edal dries her hands, resisting the urge to sniff the dish-towel before using it. “Beer’s good.”

Guy tucks the milk carton and two beers between his arm
and his chest. Twisting the cap off a third bottle, he hands it to Lily. She accepts it in silence, keeping her back to the room. He crosses to the table, where he opens the other two, pocketing the caps. “Have a seat, Edal.”

There are six chairs, chrome and vinyl, still the bright cherry red the table must’ve been. Stephen’s laying out four places—plate and bowl, soup spoon and glass. Edal chooses the spot nearest the door.

Still standing, Guy takes a brief swallow of beer. “Where’s Billy?”

“Out in the garden.” Lily moves to look out the window. “He’s okay.”

Edal imagines another young man, a twin of sorts to Stephen, digging among the hubcaps and unruly grass. Then remembers the dog.

Lily turns to hand Stephen a plate piled high with browned sandwiches. Following him to the table with a saucepan in hand, she begins ladling out chicken noodle soup. Up close, she smells unwashed.

Guy drags out the chair at the head of the table and sits. “Help yourself.” He nudges the plate of sandwiches toward Edal.

“Thanks.” She takes a half.

“Go on, don’t be shy.”

She takes another. Stephen settles in across from her. Lily sets the pot down on the table and slides into her seat.

“Looks good, Lily,” says Guy. “Thanks.”

“Yes, thank you.” Edal hears herself. She sounds like a permed pensioner, fresh from church, still in her hat and gloves.

“Thanks, Lily.” Stephen finishes his first half sandwich and starts in on a second.

Lily nods and bends to her soup. The sandwiches are perfect, buttery and ever so slightly burnt. Cheap orange cheese, the kind Edal grew up with and no longer allows herself to buy. She can’t remember the last time anything tasted so good.

When the food’s all gone, the companionable quiet persists. Guy leans back in his chair, pushes a hand into the front pocket of his jeans and draws out a Swiss Army knife. Picking with his fingernail, he teases the bone-coloured toothpick from its sheath. It can’t be. Edal searches her mind for when she last saw a man pick his teeth.

Guy practises the polite form of the transgression, covering the lower half of his face with his left hand while he goes to work with the right. Edal looks away, but she can still hear the minute scraping of plastic on enamel—a private, probing sound.

Finally, he lowers his hands. She watches as he wipes the toothpick against his sleeve, like a tiny blade on a whetstone, then threads it back into its slot. He glances up, catching the tail end of her expression before she can wipe it away. It’s in her mouth mostly—at least, that’s where she feels it. A little pinch of judgment. She smiles to cover it, but the smile, too, is pinched.

He pushes back to clear the plates. When she rises to help, he says firmly, “Sit, finish your beer.”

Across the table, Stephen is intent on his milk glass, filling it again to the rim. Lily stands and drains her beer, then heads for the door. It slaps shut hard behind her.

“Is she going?” Edal asks Stephen.

“Just getting her dog.”

Guy piles the plates in the sink and leaves them. Without a word, he crosses to the small bedroom and disappears behind its door.

Stephen drinks his milk in one long, lazy go, watching her over the glass. He wipes his mouth. “You live around here?”

“Not far.” It feels a little mean, holding back when she’s the stranger among them, but Stephen seems satisfied with her reply. Edal inspects her hands. She feels the dog’s arrival in the floorboards, looks up to see two bright eyes in a wall of black, advancing fur.

“Hello, boy.” She holds out the back of her hand. “That’s me.”

“It’s okay, Billy,” Lily says, though he’s showing no aggression—quite the opposite in fact. He’s nuzzling Edal’s fingers as though she’s been handling raw steak.

“Hey, Billy,” Stephen says quietly, and the dog shoves past Edal’s thigh, jostling the table as he tunnels beneath it to lay his chin in Stephen’s lap.

Lily gives them all a wide berth on her way to the fridge. She gets another beer and resumes her seat. It’s clear both she and Stephen are waiting; they sit unnaturally still, like children who’ve been promised ice cream if they’re good.

Guy’s hiding something when he reappears, one hand tucked behind his back. “Everybody ready?” he says.

Lily and Stephen nod.
Ready for what?
Edal wants to ask. Guy flashes her a smile and shows the tattered hardcover in his hand. She looks for a title but finds only the author’s name.

“We started last night,” he says, “but the chapters stand up pretty well on their own.”

“Oh. Okay.”

He’s a better reader than Letty ever was; he even does the voices, shifting subtly from bear to boy, with not a hint of Disney in Bagheera’s liquid panther drawl. Edal closes her eyes and sinks into the story, a willing captive—at least until Mowgli falls into the hands of the Bandar-log.

Kipling didn’t specify species—in fact he confused the matter by referring to them as both
the Monkey-People
and
the grey apes
—but it’s an Indian jungle, so the Bandar-log are probably langurs. All the same, Edal envisions a different primate, one she’s come to know through her work. Mounted with its long fangs bared, the baboon hangs just inside the evidence room doors, strategically located to give newcomers a scare.

Having entered that room full of oddities, her thoughts are inclined to remain there. As Baloo and Bagheera chase through the jungle after their beloved man-cub, her mind’s eye moves over confiscated grizzly rugs and black bear galls, a dried tiger penis, a leopard-skin coat. When they make an ally of Kaa, the massive rock python, she can see only wallets and handbags, hideous pointy-toed boots. She manages to focus again during the great battle at the ruined city known as the Cold Lairs, but only until Mowgli tumbles down into the abandoned summer house and lands among the hissing hoods of the Poison-People. Why would anyone shove a cobra down inside a bottle and pickle it? More to the point, why would anyone spot such a monstrosity in a marketplace and long to possess it, let alone attempt to smuggle it home?

Edal forces herself to concentrate, if not on the story then at least on the sound of Guy’s voice. By the time the battle
comes to a close, she finds she no longer has to try. The Dance of the Hunger of Kaa is what does it, something inside her
swaying forward helplessly
alongside the hypnotized Bandarlog. She escapes in the company of Mowgli and his creatures, returning to the vivid, living jungle, leaving the evidence room and its dust-covered dead behind.

Guy switches deftly from prose to verse, finishing with the “Road-Song of the Bandar-log.” It’s startling, the quiet confidence with which he sing-songs his way through the lines. By the end of the first stanza, he’s keeping time with the heel of his hand. Soon they’re all beating out the meter—Edal with the tips of her fingers, Stephen open-handed, Lily with a white-knuckled fist.

The fox is light on his feet—soft toes, softer fur between. The roadside gravel bears little mark of his passage, save for the sweet scent of his prints.

Cars come thundering. No longer the downpour roar of early evening, now each rolls out a singular din of its own. He feels their wind in his flank fur, keeps his tail to their stupefying light.

Trot while they deafen you, pause to listen during the lulls. The grass along this particular stretch is worth it, tall and weedy, teeming with food.

There
. The leeward ear finds it first, its partner swivelling a hair’s breadth behind. Incremental adjustments now, flicking, flickering. Another car brings several seconds devoid of sense. Then a clearing, a locking-in.

No mistaking the fat-bodied scuffle of a vole. It’s not far, no more than a tail’s length from the border where the grass begins. The fox tenses, a trembling in his long hind legs. Until now, he’s been a mere facet of the rustling, hundred-scented night. Springing, he becomes a thing entire.

The angle is all: too wide and he’ll land beyond his quarry, too narrow and he’ll fall short of the mark. He registers a shiver in the grass from on high, contracts a fraction tighter at the crest of his pounce. Forepaws and nose lead the jabbing descent. He pins the wriggling, pissing vole, snaps it up in his jaws and tosses it high in the air. Catching it, he tastes the night’s first blood.

It’s a start. The fox’s stomach is small, but a vole is smaller—and when the stomach stretches to its limit, there remains the planned promise of the cache. His territory is dotted with bodies, each deposited in a tidily excavated hole. Covering the dead is a careful business. Push the loose earth in, pausing to pack each layer flat with the nose. A sweep of the whiskers to clear away any sign.

Some caches he will find again by landmarks, others by smell. Of these last, a certain number will lie empty, raided by creatures as bold as or bolder than he. Which is why there must always be more than enough. Why, full or empty, a fox must hunt.

He lifts his nose to find the breeze has turned back on itself, delivering unwelcome news. Coyote. A dog-plain whiff of its urine, and now, not so distant, a waft of its recent scat. How do they abide such a stink? His own slim form creates only pleasing smells—from the vivid scat-spray, to the subtle chin gland, to the flower-scented patch on his tail.

No sense chancing another shift in the wind. When coyotes kill his kind, they kill as humans do, with little or no thought for food. The fox turns neatly in his tracks. His pupils shrink in the sudden glare.