Haints Stay (3 page)

“Okay,” said the boy.

Brooke watched him a moment. Then the boy said, “I’m ready,” and they
rose up and loosed their stones from their slings.

The boy missed entirely, but Brooke’s stone made contact with the larger
of the two and when the creature stumbled, stunned, a few feet down the incline,
Brooke took off. He collapsed onto the stunned animal, gripped its jaw, its
shoulder, twisted and snapped some hidden, necessary part. Everything about the deer
went still, then it kicked, shuttered, and went still again.

“We’ll eat,” said Brooke.

“I won’t eat it,” said the boy.

Brooke was sawing the skin from the kill, its legs spread and tied to two
separate trees. Brooke shrugged and placed the knife beneath a long length of
flesh.

“Then you’ll die,” said Brooke.

That night they heard men on the road. Voices in the
dark. The boy woke first. He trembled and rubbed his body beneath the shirt Brooke
had given him, which the boy hadn’t put on, but chose instead to lay over himself as
a blanket.

He heard laughter from several men and a single struggling voice.
Grunting and squealing just a little, breathing in spurts.

“I think someone’s found us,” said the boy.

Brooke and Sugar did not stir.

“Brooke,” said the boy. “Sugar. I think someone’s — ”

And Brooke was up. He was quiet, moving, sifting through his bag. His
hand withdrew clutching a piece of metal that shone silver in the moonlight. Brooke
disappeared then, into the trees. Sugar, the boy suddenly noticed, had vanished
too.

As the voices approached, the boy scrambled toward a large dark tree and
crouched down on the side opposite their apparent approach.

A limping body scrambled into their campsite, knocking their empty cans
with its feet and tripping into the bundles of their supplies. It struggled to lift
itself with two skinny arms but four men were suddenly upon it. They dragged it from
amongst the supplies and blankets, out to an open spot of grass, faintly lit from
the light above. There, they proceeded to kick and strike at the body without a word
between them. One stepped back to grab a slick bundle of deer meat from the food
pile and bring it down upon the struggling body with something like a laugh, cough,
or wheeze. The bundle burst and the boy could hear the meat spilling out and into
the grass, then their kicking and stepping on it as they moved about.

“It’s meat,” said a voice.

“Did we kill him ?” said another.

“It’s animal meat,” said a third.

“Is he dead then ?”

The body was no longer struggling, but the boy could make out the chest’s
movement from several feet away. It breathed like a man asleep, long, deep breaths
punctuated by only a moment of stillness.

“He’s not dead.”

“It’s a campsite.”

“Who’s here ?”

“No one.”

“The blankets are warm.”

One man held Sugar’s blanket to his face, smelling and then rubbing it
against his cheeks.

“It’s a woman,” he said.

“Let me,” said another voice, grabbing the blanket and pressing it to his
face.

“Where is she ?”

“Got to be near.”

The beaten man began to rise again, lifting himself on two skinny arms
then pushing off from the dirt and setting out to run while bent at the waist,
clutching his gut as the loose bits of deer fell from him and back into the
grass.

“He’s up,” said a voice, and pursued him.

The one holding the blanket wrapped it around his waist and tied a
knot.

“It’s mine,” said a voice.

“Get after him,” said the one with the blanket, and within moments, they
set upon their pursued.

They had him down again, pressed against the earth. This time, a knife
was drawn. One of the shadows set to sawing at the
howling body, and
it writhed for a moment before settling back into the ground like a dark, dull piece
of landscape.

The boy was shivering, watching them remove pieces of their kill and set
them in what must have been pockets or pouches he could not see. They disassembled
their kill, much like Brooke had disassembled the deer — hungrily, without
hesitation, but with pride.

“Gather what food they have and whatever else is useful,” said a voice.
“Count the blankets.”

The three other men set upon the camp while their apparent commander
continued to saw at the body before him.

“Two blankets,” said a voice, “and tamped down earth evidencing a third
body somewhere.”

“Warm ?”

“All warm.”

“Women ?”

“One woman and something small.”

“A child.”

“A family.”

“They’re hiding then. Still here somewhere.”

“Are you still here ?” The voice was yelling, turning its way through the
darkness.

Something within the boy wanted to cry out. He curled his lips inward and
held them together with his teeth. Something was working its way up and out of him.
He felt out of control and desperate, as if he were about to die. If he made a
sound, they would be upon him. If they stepped any more in his direction, they would
feel his presence and be upon him. If they discovered him, no one would save
him.

“Hey,” yelled the voice. “You.”

“Set their things into a pile and burn them. If they’re on
the run, whatever it is they’re running from will appreciate the help.”

The three men gathered Brooke and Sugar’s belongings into a pile. Onto
the pile they poured something that occupied the boy’s nostrils and brought water to
his eyes. The pile took flame and two of the men grabbed the carcass of their
mutilated catch and dragged it behind the two other men, who were now making haste
before them.

Brooke and Sugar’s few belongings burned, and the boy released into a
small pile at the base of the tree behind which he had been hiding. He breathed and
breathed and breathed again, imagining the four men appearing suddenly again and
gripping him by the hair and dragging him out, out into the darkness where he would
vanish completely and be no more.

Brooke and Sugar appeared then at his side and Sugar lifted him. They
moved from the rough fire spilling out onto the grass and crackling throughout the
woods. They walked and the boy shook. Soon the woods were blue with the oncoming sun
and they were in a landscape that looked no different than what had come before,
other than its absence of fire, its relative quiet and the new light born from
between the branches of the trees.

“They took our food,” said Brooke.

“They were locusts,” said Sugar.

“Are they coming back ?” said the boy.

“Not on purpose, I imagine,” said Sugar.

“I’d like to kill them,” said Brooke. “I’d like our things back.”

“Our things are gone,” said Sugar. “We’ll acquire new things.”

“Not our deer,” said Brooke.

“Our deer is gone,” said Sugar.

“They’ve got our bundles,” said Brooke.

“Why did you hide ?” said the boy.

“Why did you ?” said Sugar.

“We didn’t hide,” said Brooke. “We waited and watched.”

“Were those men after you ?” said the boy.

“No,” said Sugar. “They were after something else. But now they know
we’re out here.”

“And they’ve got our deer,” said Brooke.

“Will you not be able to let this go ?” said Sugar.

“I don’t think so,” said Brooke. “I’d like to eat. I’d like to avenge our
blankets.”

“Then we’ll return to the site and follow their trail until we overtake
them,” said Sugar.

The smell of the fire was still thick in the air. Its source, easy
to locate. The ashes were wet — drowned hastily with water or urine — but still
smoldering beneath a cool layer. Dew spattered the trampled grass. A bent streak of
grass, mud, and blood led out into the woods.

“They’re very long gone if they’re any kind of travelers,” said
Sugar.

“We’re traveling light,” said Brooke, “compared.”

They poked into the ashes with a branch each and upturned nothing of
use.

The boy was shivering, wet with sweat and dew.

Sugar handed him a pinch of tobacco from his sock and the boy put it in
his mouth.

“You smoke it,” said Sugar, a thin sticky paper pinched between his thumb
and pointer finger.

The boy spat out the threads and scraped at his tongue with his
fingernails. Sugar put away the paper.

Brooke followed the edge of where a body had fallen and
then been dragged into the woods. The streak wound its way through the trees for
as far as his eyes could see. Sugar followed close behind, and then the boy, still
scraping at his tongue with his dirty nails.

They heard the four men before they saw them. The boy clung
involuntarily to Sugar. The men had taken no precaution to go unseen. They were all
laughter and campfire in a clearing. It was barely dusk, nearly nighttime. Brooke
and Sugar did not speak, but separated to trace a half circle, several feet from the
men and their fire. The boy clung to Sugar for several feet before Sugar paused,
gripped the boy’s two hands, and pulled them from his own shirt, detaching him. He
kept one small hand cupped in each of his own. He led the boy by those two small
hands to a tall, wide tree and sat him on its opposite side. Sugar raised a finger
to his lips then released his grip, abandoning the boy to watch the woods opening
out and away from what was about to happen. As Sugar retreated to his post, the boy
watched the open wood for only a moment before shifting to the tree’s edge and
following Sugar’s movements with his gaze.

The boy could not tell for sure, but the four men seemed suddenly
hesitant, maybe even alarmed. They quieted. They glanced about themselves. One held
a knife in his left hand. It had a thin curving blade. Suddenly Brooke and Sugar
were upon them, and Brooke had sunk his thumbs into the eyes of the one with the
blade. He collected the blade and stepped away from the flailing body. Sugar was
sawing through the rigid meat of another man’s gut with a tool the boy could not
make out from where he sat. Brooke took the curving blade then and applied it to the
neck of yet another man, opening him up like a coin purse and
spilling his contents onto the blankets and bundles before him. The fourth man
rose and made for Sugar, who turned to receive the first blow. He was knocked into
the coals of the fire and Brooke came up behind the fourth man and set at slicing
him in the lower ribs and back with the curving blade, over and again. The man had
something horrible about him that did not moan or stutter at the cuts. Instead he
turned to greet the knife with his open palm, to accept it as if it were an
offering. The blade remained in his palm as he drew it from Brooke’s grip. He held
the pierced palm up over his crooked face, and unsheathed the blade from the net of
bone and flesh.

Sugar had batted the coals and ash from his body and was collected then,
lunging toward the man holding the knife and approaching Brooke. The man swung
around and greeted Sugar’s advance. Back and forth he swung to counter the movements
of Brooke and Sugar, who were slowly gaining inches on him. The man then threw the
curving knife with enough force to puncture Brooke’s advancing thigh, and as Sugar
leapt toward him from behind, he dodged the advance and moved forward to recollect
the knife from Brooke’s leg. Brooke howled for only a moment, then watched as the
man moved away to make a safe distance between the three of them. There was blood at
his mouth. Even more at his ear. He was staggering now, soaked in blood down the
back of his shirt and pants. He appeared light and trembling. Brooke and Sugar
watched him like a wounded deer. He was nearly set to bleed out and they would have
him. They waited and the boy watched and the fourth man glanced around the campsite
to confirm that he had lost each and every one of his men. There were bloody piles
and bundles gathered by the bedding. A low fire. The woods were quiet until the man
dropped to his knees. He held the knife out with both hands now,
a bit of slobber at his chin.

“There will only be more men like us,” he said. He coughed and spat. “You
will only kill and kill until you are overcome.”

Brooke stepped forward as if to offer himself up to the man.

“Would you like to stick me one last time before we finish you ?” he
said. He set his good leg out before their kill. He leaned back to smile at Sugar,
who shook his head and plucked tobacco from his sock.

“Don’t be grotesque,” said Sugar, as the man plunged the curving knife
into the bones of Brooke’s foot.

The boy came finally from behind the tree as they were gathering up
the four men’s belongings and placing them in the center of the clearing. They had
leaned the bodies against the surrounding trees and the men sat slumped as if
napping, their chins to their chests, their palms at their sides, opening
skyward.

“Meat,” said Brooke, cinching then letting fall one of the bundles.