Only the Dead (14 page)

A memory surfaced. They were sitting in his car outside the house where the Dupree family lived. Mary’s room was on the second floor of her parents’ home. Lance used to drive her home in the evening. This was while they were still just dating. Suddenly Mary said,
“We call the moon in July Ode’imini-giizis. The strawberry moon. Isn’t that lovely, Lance?”
And the strawberry moon had shone big and golden above the treetops.

He could no longer imagine any way forward. He had reached the end of the road. Lance thought about Jimmy. For some reason he pictured his son sitting in the bow of a canoe that was gliding through the water. His face was pale. No one was paddling the canoe; it was moving all on its own, swiftly carrying his son away from Lance. Finally he could see only the boy’s face, like a small pale patch off in the distance. Just as his face was about to disappear, Jimmy shouted something. He was too far away for Lance to make out what he said; it sounded like little more than a bird cheeping. Then the great expanse of water was once more empty and still.

Now he heard it again. His son was calling him from beyond the horizon. Lance opened his eyes and looked up at the threatening icicles above. There it was again, a voice far away. But this was real. Someone was shouting! He tried to sit up, but his body refused to obey. It sounded like someone was calling his name. He tried again, and this time he managed to sit. His head ached, and his teeth were chattering.

Then he heard it loud and clear, right nearby. “Lance!” He tried to answer, but he’d lost his voice. A hoarse whisper way down in his throat was all he could muster. He tried again, but he was incapable of uttering any sound that would carry farther than a couple of yards.

He got up on his knees and grabbed his ice-coated gun. Then he forced himself to stand, at the same time slinging the strap of the rifle over his shoulder. The touch of the ice on his body almost sent him toppling to the ground again, but he couldn’t lie down now. Somebody was here. He took a few hesitant steps, squeezing in between the birch trees. The icicles clinked against each other. No more shouts. That wasn’t so strange, since he hadn’t answered. Besides, it was just a voice he’d heard inside his own head. That was what he now realized, because he knew who the voice belonged to. His father, Oscar. He was the one who had called his name. And Oscar Hansen was with the dead.

Even so, Lance started walking in the direction he thought he’d heard the voice coming from. Soon he noticed a sound he hadn’t heard in a long while. Raindrops striking his hood. Up ahead was the huge, gray surface of Lake Superior.

The sight of the lake should have made him feel relieved, maybe even happy. Because now he knew where he was—except for the fact that the lake couldn’t possibly be here or he would have found it long ago. So he felt as if he’d come upon a different lake. One that looked exactly like the one he knew, with the same expanse of rocks and the same birch forest; yet it was not the same. As if Lake Superior had a twin that he only now had discovered. One that had been waiting for him in a completely different place. And now he had finally reached that other place.

I can’t die now, not when I’ve finally managed to get my frozen underwear and homespun pants back on. It feels like putting on the lake, my clothes are so cold. I drop his arms and lean against the thick trunk of a pine tree. My injured arm is burning hot and throbbing. In front of me flows the black river. All I hear is a faint gurgling sound. The rocks sticking up from the water wear tall hats of snow. In the open space, where the river runs into the lake, the moonlight glitters on the water.

“Thou shalt not kill. That is: We shall fear and love God so that we do no harm to our neighbor nor injury to his body, but rather help him and lend him aid in all jeopardy and peril.”
Is he my neighbor, the man lying there on the snow? I no longer remember why I did it, only that I had to. For me to live, he had to die. I kneel down and lower my hand to the dead face. Let it hover there, an inch above the stranger’s dark skin. Then I touch him. Feel the beaked nose. Place my hand on his forehead. If I can just get him out to the open water and under the edge of the ice, they might never find him. The cross is casting a long shadow. Maybe Knut put up the cross to keep the heathens away. If so, his cabin can’t be far off.

I start dragging the Indian across the snow again, leaving a long, wide trail of blood. If anyone comes here, they’ll know what happened. I have to pray to God that snow will fall before any folks arrive. But do I have a right to pray to God for help after I’ve taken a human life? He must have been a wild savage. Someone who worshipped idols. If so, I don’t know whether it counts as murder. I let go of him again. Everything starts spinning before my eyes. The blood on the snow is from both of us. Now the lake rises up like a wall. Stars are falling down on me and inside me. They’re hot as they fall through my chest and stomach. I fall as light as a feather from a very tiny bird. But then I see that I’ve already landed and am lying on the snow. My face hurts. I must have scraped my cheek when I fell. I’m not going to make it. I see that now. I am never going to reach Knut and Nanette. Everything was going so well. I didn’t encounter any particular hardships getting this far, but tonight everything has gone wrong. The last night. Now I’m lying here, probably not very far from their home, and I can no longer get up. The dead Indian is lying next to me. He smells terrible. Is it from the animals he has flayed? There were rows of pelts hanging outside his hut. Or is this just the way savages smell? Now I notice that he smells of shit too. He has shit his pants. I manage to wriggle out my good arm, which I landed on when I fell, and I place my hand on his chest. It takes a moment, but then I feel a faint warmth under my hand. That’s what I thought. He hasn’t gone cold yet. There’s nothing to be scared of, Thormod. The dead can’t hurt you.

Cautiously I crawl closer to him. I lie there, feeling a warmth start to seep over me. It takes awhile, because there’s not much warmth left, but I want what little there is. All I need is a little warmth. I try to climb on top of him, but it’s hard to do because of the pain. I try again, and I manage to place one leg over his leg and haul myself halfway up onto him. But his clothes are almost as cold as my own. I stick one hand under his shirt and touch his soft belly. Instantly I feel sticky blood and warmth on the palm of my hand. The warmth that I want. I take out my knife and start cutting off his clothes. Underneath he’s wearing another thick woolen shirt. I cut through everything, from his neck to his waist, and move the clothing aside so his naked skin is bare underneath me. The hole in his stomach is round and black. After much effort I manage to take off my jacket. Then I roll my shirt up under my arms as best I can. May God forgive me for this sin, but if I don’t do it, I will die.

While something gnaws and stabs deep inside me, like bone against bone, I climb on top of the Indian and press my naked skin against his. I feel his blood on my stomach. The warmth starts flowing into me. I spread out my shirt behind me so that my back is not completely exposed to the cold air. I tilt my head back as far as possible so that my face won’t touch his, but that soon grows tiring. I simply have to lay my head down. Rest against him. And that’s what I do. I lay my head on his shoulder, cheek to cheek, my nose pressed against the scarf he’s wearing on his head.

Something strange happens as I lie here like this. I don’t know what it is, but it feels like a fall, like I’m falling into him. There’s a rushing sound all around me. The whole time I’m falling into the other body that’s lying here, his skin pressed against my skin. I cling to him as I fall into him, or into something that was him only a short time ago, but it’s no longer anyone. The remains of something. I notice that he’s no longer inside his body, which now belongs equally to me, since I was the one who killed him. I crushed his Adam’s apple and his throat. Sat there naked from the waist down, with my naked loins straddling his chest, my manhood erect when I killed him. Now I’m falling into the empty space that is left of him. As I lie here, falling, I can also see myself from far overhead, as if I were once again up there among the stars. I see myself lying on top of a dead man. All around us are the big spruce trees and a vast lake.

From up here I can see how far I am from home. On one side of the ocean I see Halsnøy, so green and beautiful, with the islands of Fjelberg and Borgundøy very close. On the other side is the huge land that I’ve been traveling deeper and deeper into, past towns that didn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen before, not even in my dreams, with trains moving along the biggest rivers and over the longest bridges, horse-drawn carts passing between trees so enormous that you’d think you were in the Old Testament. Farther and farther away from Halsnøy. Until I arrived here. I can see myself far below, near the big lake, only an hour or two from where my uncle lives. I see his log cabin in the woods. Smoke is coming from the chimney. But that is a place I will never reach. I’m just lying there, clinging to the man I killed. Sucking the warmth out of him. A short distance away from us the cross is casting a shadow on the snow. And the rushing sound of my fall continues into the dead man. Soon I will be completely inside him. Trapped inside the other body. Then I will get up and go, and my own body will be left there in place of his.

Soon I’ll be able to walk through the woods as an Indian. But then I can’t knock on the door of the cabin where Knut and Nanette live. They would never let a savage inside. I will have to wander around alone in the forest and feel his shit in my pants. Never be warm again, never be able to eat. I lift my face and see that he is standing next to us. He’s lying underneath me and he’s standing next to us. But he doesn’t look fully alive as he stands there. More like something from a dream. Or is that me? Have I already stood up inside his body? Am I the one standing there? He doesn’t look angry. Instead, he looks like he’s about to cry. Then he slowly starts walking toward the woods. I’m afraid that might be me walking away, and I don’t want to lose myself. But I watch as he disappears over there among the spruce trees.

I open my eyes and look around. It’s so cold. Did I fall asleep? Underneath me is the dead Indian. I no longer feel warm. I try to get up, but my body is so stiff I can hardly move. I’ll just have to stay here and die. The cross is already here, after all. I’m about to give up, but then I remember seeing the world from high overhead. And when I did that, I saw the cabin where Knut and Nanette live. With smoke coming from the chimney. And it’s not very far away. I think I can make it. But first I have to get to my feet. I force my frozen body to move and scream with pain in that white, empty night. Finally I manage to stand up. My legs don’t feel like they belong to me anymore; I can hardly feel them. My body is made of glass. That’s how it feels, as if I’m made of the most delicate glass.

I turn to look toward the cross and the strip of open water. So close, and yet so far away. I’m going to die now, I tell myself. Either that, or I take the Indian and drag him farther. Then I lean down and grab his arms. It feels like I’m leaning out of myself, that my body remains standing upright, while my will or my mind leans down to grab the Indian. Only after I straighten up and stand there, holding his wrists, do I return to myself. It was as if my immortal soul had leaned out of me. I have no strength left, but something else takes over. There is someone else inside me, someone who drags both me and the Indian. Slowly I approach the cross. Maybe I’m sleepwalking. It keeps getting easier. Now my legs are hovering above the snow. I’m gliding through the air. No, I’m lying on my back and looking up at the cross above me. In this place it’s probably not possible to find anything more Christian than that. The Indian went into the woods. I remember that. Or was I the one who stood up inside his body and left? One of us left. That much I know. One of us is out there somewhere.

THERE
WAS
NO
SIGN
OF
LIFE
. Not so much as a duck on the water. No Taconite Harbor to the southwest, with white smoke coming from the electrical power plant. No sounds from the road. The rain was coming down harder, the drops pelting his Gore-Tex clothing. Dusk had started seeping into the vast space over the lake. Soon it would be completely dark, and Lance had nothing to help him except the flashlight in his jacket pocket. It would be life-threatening to walk along the rocks, with only the beam from the small bulb. And the flashlight would be of little use inside the woods, where he’d be able to see only a couple of yards ahead of him.

He’d heard a voice . . . If not for the voice, he would have kept lying on the ground someplace in the birch forest, and that was where he would have stayed. The voice had saved him. But was it a real voice? Or was it just something he’d heard inside his own head?

He decided not to let the lake out of his sight. The last thing he wanted was to end up in the labyrinth of ice-coated birches again. So he kept to the narrow border area between the woods and those treacherous rocks. Here the ground was mostly heath and grass, also covered with ice, but not in big slippery patches, so it was easier to walk.

He soon came to a place where the gently sloping rocks gave way to an abrupt cliff nearly ten feet high, with the woods stretching all the way to the base of the rock precipice. He wouldn’t be able to climb along the cliff. To continue on he would have to go back into the woods, just for a short distance, but he wasn’t confident he’d be able to find his way back to the lake if he did.

The branches of the bowed trees were so intertwined and so laden with icicles that the forest seemed almost impenetrable. Yet he had no choice. This was not a place where he could stay. He looked around. He saw only the gray surface of the water and ice. Darkness was quickly falling.

It was just a slight twitch of a few branches. Something was moving at the edge of the woods, maybe a hundred yards away. He wasn’t sure what he’d seen. It could have been a deer, but it could also have been a person.