The Healer of Harrow Point (11 page)

The morning of my birthday came. I had never spoken to my father again about whether I would go hunting with him. He talked a lot that week about where to go hunting, what to bring, what the weather might be like, what sort of luck there would be. There seemed to be an unspoken assumption that of course I would be going too.

So, at five in the morning my father came in my room with two bulky parcels.

“Happy birthday, son,” he said.

I hadn't been asleep. I knew what was in the parcels. I knew what was about to happen. I felt powerless. No, that's not right. I wanted to feel powerless. I didn't want to be responsible for whatever happened.

The shotgun was beautiful, like the one I had shot, but even lovelier. It was the perfect size for me, shorter than a normal shotgun, and lighter. Its weight and balance were perfect. The stock was hand-turned, the wood a rich, glowing red, like silk to the touch. I couldn't wait to shoot it. I didn't want to shoot it. I didn't know what I wanted. The other parcel contained my bright orange hunting jacket. It fit perfectly, like I had known it would.

“Breakfast is on,” my father said. He gave my leg a little slap, and left the room.

This is the time, I thought. This is the time when you have to make up your mind. I wished idly that there was a door that led from my room to the backyard. Then I could have simply plunged into the woods and spent the day there, hiding. It was a pointless wish.

I felt flat and defeated. I got out of bed and quite mechanically washed and dressed myself. When I was done I stood in front of my bed and looked at the shotgun lying there, the hunting jacket beside it.

“Well,” I said out loud, to Emma or to myself I do not know. “Anyway, I'm sorry.”

I hefted the gun into the crook of my arm, picked up the jacket, and walked out into the kitchen.

My mother gave me a strange, concerned look, but didn't say anything. My father was cheerful, unusually noisy for him. I half expected him to break into song. My mother was quiet, and I was resolute, grim.

Finally, she placed her hand on my wrist, lightly, and said “You be careful today, okay?”

“He'll be fine,” my father said. “He's just nervous.”

“Of course he's nervous,” my mother said.

“I'm okay,” I said, which may have been my first and only words at the breakfast table.

We were meeting a few men at the firehouse. I stared out the window as we drove along. It was very dark out, but there were lights on in a lot of the houses.

“Lots of people going to call in sick to work today,” my father said with a chuckle. “First day of hunting season—they ought to go on and make it a holiday, have done with it.”

I didn't answer. I was wondering where Emma was. In a way, I was wondering if she really existed. I hadn't seen her in so long. It all seemed like a dream: Emma and Reggie, Abigail and her hip, all the events of the
past few weeks. It all seemed so long ago, so strange and so terribly unlikely. I felt miserable.

The men at the firehouse didn't help. They made a big fuss over this being my first time hunting, and would I have live shells in my gun, and did I know the difference between a deer and a stump? They had a big play argument over what I would shoot first, my foot, or one of them. They made me angry, and embarrassed. I was angry, too, at my father. He had told me that the men knew I was coming that day, but they acted like they had never heard about it.

My pride was hurt. But it was more than that. After weeks of turmoil over whether I would go hunting, my nerves were frayed past the breaking point. Now that I was there with the men, I desperately wanted to be accepted; I couldn't see that their teasing was in a way a part of that acceptance. I couldn't see past my need to be with them, regardless of the cost. I didn't even admire all the men there. My father and Mr. Kyle, yes. But they weren't the ones having the most fun at my expense.

Harmon Williams was a big, loud man who was also a county deputy. I could tell he envied my father, envied his easygoing nature and his popularity. He loved to tease my father, to catch him out in some mistake (which was rare enough), to tell stories on him in ways that they didn't really happen. My father laughed along. He seemed to think Harmon was okay. Harmon was dressed all in camouflage, with black grease paint under his eyes. My father didn't like that; he thought the camouflage could make it difficult for us to see him.

“That's the point,” Harmon said with a laugh. “If you can see me, for damn sure the deer can too.”

“Someday you're going to get a butt full of shot,” my father muttered. He and I were both wearing our huge, bright orange coats.

Harmon brought a 30:06 rifle with a fancy sighting scope, which my father also didn't like. A rifle's range was too great, my father said; if you missed your target heaven knows how far the bullet would travel, or what it might hit. But Harmon would hunt with nothing else. He didn't want to lose a trophy buck because it was too far away for a shotgun to reach.

Then there was Andy Powell, who carried an old shotgun because it was all he had. Andy was the type of person who never really got the hang of anything. He thought Harmon was a scream. Anything Harmon said, Andy would repeat, at least twice, and laugh like mad. Harmon got more fun out of teasing me than he had probably had in years, and Andy laughed and laughed. Sherman just smiled, now and then, and my father smiled and patted me on the back and shoved my hat around on my head.

Sherman Kyle was tall, thin, and quiet. Next to my father I'm sure he was the best hunter. My father insisted Sherman was the better woodsman, and Sherman just said, “Naw, naw, that's you.” Sherman wore a red plaid shirt and a red plaid jacket and, in deference to my father perhaps, a blaze orange cap. He carried a shotgun, “in case we see some turkey out there,” he said. A rifle's bullet will destroy a turkey,
leaving nothing worth cleaning to eat, where shotgun pellets will not. In truth, I don't think he cared for rifles either, for the same reason as my father, though he wasn't inclined to say so.

The last to arrive was Merwin Powell, Andy's brother, who rolled into the firehouse parking lot about a half an hour late. No one expected him to be on time. Merwin was a big, jowly, slow man who was always late for everything. I had always liked Merwin. His great size and quiet manner somehow felt comfortable and safe for me. But even he started in on me.

“We bringin' the boy?” Merwin asked.

My stomach twisted into a tighter knot; we'd have to go through it all again.

“Yeah, li'l peckerwood here,” Harmon said. “Maybe he can catch him a squirrel.”

“Li'l peckerwood,” Andy said, and guffawed.

“I don't much care to hunt with a young 'un,” Merwin said. “Not in a group.”

“He'll be fine,” my father said. “I've taught him.”

“Yeah, er, tha's fine, but I don't much . . .”

“Probably just shoot a stump!” Andy said.

“... care for huntin' with young 'uns,” Merwin continued.

“A stump, or us!” Andy said.

I was battling back tears. If I cried I would never hear the end of it.

“So where we fixing to go?” Sherman asked. “It's about time we started.”

“I was thinking east, off Highway 6,” my father said.

“There's some good land there, and it's open to hunters.”

“Aw, everyone's going to be up there, Singer,” Harmon complained. “That's no good at all.”

“Too many up there today,” said Andy. “Scare off all the deer.”

“We could go on back to my place,” Merwin said. He had a couple of hundred acres just north of town.

“What 'a you think, peckerwood,” Harmon said to me, and winked at Andy. “You want 'a shoot some 'a Merwin's stumps?”

“I know where there's the biggest buck you ever saw,” I flashed back at him, angry, unthinking, aware only of Andy's raucous laughter. “Up south of Harrow Point. I know where there's a mess 'a deer up there.”

“It's good hunting up there,” Sherman said.

“Won't be many folks driving up that far,” my father said. “You might have hit on the place, Tom.”

I was breathing fast. The men were quiet a moment, and I waited for the terror of what I had done to grip me. I felt hollow, though, and suddenly weak.

“No, I don't know,” I mumbled. “There's probably nothing up there.”

“Naw, the boy's got a good idea, I guess,” said Merwin. “Yeah, I know a way in up there, just a few miles south of Harrow Point. Nice and open. Yeah, son, you got a good idea.”

It was decided. I felt powerless to stop what I had started. We piled into Harmon's beat up old Land Rover and headed up Highway 12 to Harrow Point. My
heart was pounding against my ribs. But the men were happy. They actually complimented me, each of them in his way, on choosing Harrow Point, once we were headed that way. It only took us twenty minutes or so and we were parked, and then unloaded, and then had plunged into the woods.

On any other day the woods would have felt perfect to me. The air was cold but not bitter, the sky overcast, everything still and quiet. We made such a lot of racket, though, the six of us. Merwin and Andy especially seemed to crash along through the underbrush, snapping twigs and crunching leaves. It made me glad. Surely the deer would hear us and run far, far away, to safety.

I was starting to recognize familiar terrain, where Emma and I had walked less than two weeks before. That day seemed years ago. Suddenly we came upon the meadow, Reggie's meadow, and I thought my heart would stop from fear. But the meadow was empty, just the tall grasses and low shrubs, motionless in the still air.

Something in the stillness of the air, the utter quiet of that moment, brought me up short. It was as if there had been a voice in my head talking non-stop for the past few weeks that had suddenly, abruptly fallen silent. Sherman Kyle had been walking beside me; now he pulled a few paces ahead, his footfalls sounding like small explosions. In the midst of that great silence, without thinking, I knelt down and put my palm, gently, upon the earth. It was alive.

“Danger.” I heard this word, soft as a whisper, fluttering inside my chest.

My head snapped up. I stood, and looked back across the meadow from where we had come.

“Man-child?”

It was Reggie, thirty yards or so behind us. The entire universe stood still. I mouthed the word “run.”

“Go on, son,” Sherman whispered. He was beside me. “You seen him. You go on.”

No, I thought. No.

“No,” I said aloud. And then I yelled: “No! Run, run!” and I ran toward Reggie, waving my arms in the air like some big, crazy bird. I seemed to be running in slow motion. I could see my father, far to my right, his face turned to me, and closer to me, not twenty feet away, Harmon, startled, almost stumbling, but at the same time raising his rifle to his shoulder. I ran harder, trying to shout, but I only covered a few more feet of ground when all at once there was a pop, and a raging, buzzing sound, and I was flying, burning, tumbling, and crashed through the brush, face down in the dirt.

“Oh Jesus, oh Jesus!” I heard.

“I didn't... oh Jesus!” It was Harmon's voice, in a pitch much higher than normal. “I didn't see him!” Harmon was almost shrieking, from some far distance away. Harmon shot me, I thought. Harmon shot me. It took a while for the thought to sink in.

“Thomas!” I heard. It was my father. I wanted to answer him.

I felt so odd. I felt a great burning in my back, only
it was as if it were someone else's back. I was like a balloon deflating. I realized I was cold. I was lying very still and yet I felt like I was running in place, or, no, just that my heart, my body was rushing toward something. I had a mouthful of dirt and leaves, and I couldn't spit it out. The wind was rushing and I was cold. I couldn't taste the dirt.

“Thomas!”

I was looking up at my father. Then there was a great commotion, they were trying to lift me, and half dropped me, and there were sounds, yelling, and they set me down.

“Oh Thomas, why?” I heard. “Why are you here?”

Emma. She was leaning over me, pressing my shoulders to the ground with her hands, looking me at me with great concentration. She looked up and around, shaking her head, her face creased with dismay, the light flying off her hair. I felt I was a tiny spot, miles away from her. I wanted to walk to her, but it was so far; it would take forever. There were some things I needed to tell her. Finally she pulled me up into her arms, holding me, rocking me.

“It's all right,” she said. “My dear Thomas, it's all right.”

She held me and I was almost broken by the pain that burned through me. I grabbed her as tightly as I could. It wasn't just my pain, but hers as well—ours. We seemed in a world apart for just that fraction of time. But then there was another commotion around me, around us; the men were trying to separate us.

I tried to cry out. I felt my head flop backward. I could see my father, poised above us. His hands were on my shoulders, grasping me, ready to pull me from Emma.

“Let me hold him]” I heard her cry. Her voice was raspy, strange.

“We should get him to the truck,” I heard Sherman say. “Now.”

They tried to pull Emma to her feet. She was still holding me. I was clutching her with what strength I had. I tried to say the word “No.” I tried to hold on to her. Emma fell to one knee, cradling me even tighter against her.

“Give me time,” she whispered. “A little time.”

My father was trying to pull Emma and me apart, but for the briefest moment he hesitated. The moment became an eternity. For the first time in my life I saw real fear in my father's eyes. I was willing him to make the right decision. I couldn't speak or move but my heart called to him: Let her hold me. I could see anguish on his face. He was staring into my eyes. How could I make him understand? Finally, his eyes left mine and he looked past me into the trees beyond.

“God help me,” he said quietly.

Then, more loudly: “Let her be. Merwin, give Sherman the keys. Run, bring the vehicle through as close as you can.”

“Can you walk with him?” my father asked Emma.

“Not now,” she breathed. “Soon.”

“Run, Sherman,” my father said sharply.