The Healer of Harrow Point (5 page)

I was fascinated and troubled by the things she told me. It seemed to me her power to heal was goodness itself, and yet still I was troubled. I believed everything she told me. For me there was no question of not believing her. I had seen her power with my own eyes, and thought that such power must be wedded to truth. I spent my days in a state of pleased confusion, happy to be friends with Emma, and trying to understand her and the things she said. I suppose in a way I am still working on some of the things she told me.

She was a large woman. Her face was weathered, red, shiny and smooth along her forehead and cheeks. Her eyes were bright and small, set in wrinkled pockets;
they glittered a deep, unsettling blue. Her hair was gray and blond, long and full, and frizzy at the ends, flying everywhere when it was loose, sticking out everywhere when she tied it back, wound tightly to her head. She was not inclined to smile, but occasionally she would grin at something, and chuckle, which was fine. When the weather was at all cold she limped when she walked. She was neither fat nor muscular, but solid, solid through and through. She said she was eighty-three. She said Mr. Nash really was a hundred and two.

“One of the compensations,” she said, and waved her hand vaguely, “of all this, is aging comes a bit more slowly.”

I nodded, as if I understood.

Our long, rambling walks covered the same forest land I had walked many times with my father. My legs were just sprouting that year, and I was always rushing on ahead of her, and being called back.

“Here,” she would say sharply. “Now look at this.”

She showed me the paths the deer took through the woods, where rabbits burrowed at the edge of woodland meadows, ponds where the deer came for water, and the tracks and the droppings of fox and bear. Her teaching reinforced my father's. Then it struck me: one reason I was troubled was because of how similar their knowledge was.

“Well, of course,” she said, when I told her this.

“What do you mean?”

“Thomas, the deer I help go on to die, someday, somewhere. Some die of hunger, some of disease,
some by hunters. I can't reach them all, only a very few. Some die of grand old age. But they all die. Now, here is something important to tell you: I could never kill an animal. I guess I would say I can't even understand how someone could kill an animal, but I won't go on to say that hunters are evil or heartless or savage.”

“But ...”

She shook her head, quite emphatically. “You want a simple world, but don't you see the turmoil inside you? You love your father, and yet now you think his hunting must be evil. But think deeply. Why are you troubled?”

“I ... I don't know.”

“Do you love him?”

“Yes,” I said quickly, and I was sure I did, and yet I ached.

“Why do you love him?”

I didn't know how to answer her. “He's my father,” I said simply.

“Exactly!” She actually smiled, and slapped me on the back. “Now think.”

I could think of nothing else. It was less than two weeks until my birthday. I knew my present was to be a new, cut-down shotgun, and a fluorescent orange hunting coat. I knew that on the morning of my birthday I was supposed to take that new shotgun, load it . . .

I had a sick sense that I would simply go along, too afraid to resist. More than anything I was afraid that I
wouldn't be able to decide, that I would be in anguish until the last minute, until . . . what?

I had this same nightmare, again and again. I would be walking in the woods with my father. I'd point at a deer, turning to tell my father, in a reasonable voice, “You see, I just can't,” and in a blast of smoke and fire the deer would fall. I would realize with horror that I had been carrying a shotgun the whole time, that I had fired. With the logic of dreams I would be once again lying on my stomach in the ravine, watching the deer fall, only now it was I who had shot it. I lay there, sweating, my heart pounding, waiting for Emma to come, to set things right. She never did. The deer lay stiff and cold, its glassy eye staring blankly at its killer. At me.

I wanted to tell my father about the dreams, but I didn't. You have to understand about my father. He had such a commanding presence to me, and yet he was such a friendly, gentle man. He was the hardest person in the world to refuse, to argue with, to disappoint. I wanted to be with him and I wanted to be like him.

Well, of course, I didn't know what I wanted. I wanted to be like other kids, like older boys who went hunting. I could see the logic of it. Many deer die of starvation when they're not hunted. Hunting helps control the deer population. The occasional poachers notwithstanding, the hunting season was closely monitored by the game wardens. I knew all the arguments in favor of hunting. I had heard them all my life.

Also, there was the hunt itself: the men together, drinking coffee and laughing in the early morning, telling jokes, trying to keep warm. I would watch them out of my bedroom window each winter when hunting season came. They would be hugging themselves against the cold. I would see the frost of their breath as they talked and laughed. They would always start talking in whispers and end up hollering happily at each other, laughing, until they would remember that it was early, and their voices would fall, quiet laughter building more loudly again. Finally, they'd climb into two or three pickup trucks, and rattle away. Late in the day they would return, with more laughter and talk, full of stories of the day.

To be a man was to be with them.

Often, of course, at the end of the day, there would be a deer tied down to the hood of one or two of the trucks. The sight of the deer carcass always filled me with a vague, dark ache: the perfect awfulness of the dead body.

“Coming up on the big day, little man,” my father said the next morning at breakfast.

“Yes sir,” I said, quietly.

He frowned a moment, drank the last of his coffee in a long swallow, smacked his lips, and got up to leave.

“Is everything okay?” he asked. He leaned over the back of his chair, propped on his long, solid arms. The butt of his revolver stuck out from the wide leather holster wrapped around his waist.

“Oh, sure,” I said, and shrugged.

“Great,” he said, his voice flat, his face creased as he peered down at me.

“Well,” he said, and then smiled and ruffled my hair with his large strong hand, and kissed my mother, and left.

“Thomas,” my mother said quietly. “Come on now. You've been gloomy for weeks, and now you're never home. What is it? Is it something at school?” She reached over and squeezed my cheek between her thumb and forefinger. “Come o-o-o-on, you're driving me crazy.”

I hated it when she did that, but I couldn't help but grin as I pulled myself away.

“Do you think ...” I began, and hesitated.

“Sometimes I do,” she said, “if I'm not too busy.”

I rolled my eyes. “Do you think Dad would be really upset, I mean if ... I mean I'm supposed to go hunting with him, I know it's this big thing, this tradition, but . . .”

“Oh, Tommy, what? Just say it.”

“I was thinking, what if I didn't want to? If I just didn't want to go?”

“But that's okay,” she said quickly. “You don't have to. Oh baby, Dad thinks you want to go. It used to be all you'd ever talk about.”

My mother was right about that. Just the year before, all I wanted in the world was a gun of my own. So much had happened to me in the past few weeks; when I was eleven going on twelve I couldn't see how parents might see time differently, might notice some things in their children, remember some
things, and never see the changes as they came.

“I don't know,” I said, and shrugged.

“If you want,” she said, “I could tell him.”

“No,” I said quickly, and I wasn't at all sure why.

“No, I was just thinking.”

It was cold and overcast that day, a bleak, early winter day that suggested snow ahead, short nights, hot chocolate, and days spent hunting.

I walked slowly out through the woods, to find Emma.

“I can't spend as much time with you, Thomas,” Emma told me, after we had walked a while. “Hunting season's coming. I need my rest. Anyway, I have some things I need to do.”

“Things?” I cried, surprising her, I imagine, by how upset I suddenly was. “What things?”

“Oh, the world,” she said, “things. I live in this little motor court and they're painting all the cottages this week. Heaven knows it's overdue, but I have to move some furniture about. And then my granddaughter is coming up from North Carolina ...”

She shook her head. I stared at her. Even though she had told me about her family, it still hadn't really occurred to me that she lived somewhere, that she would ever have anything to do except walk these woods. “You have a granddaughter? How old is she?”

She blew out a breath. “She's, what is she, twenty-six now? She doesn't know about me, about all this.
You know, Thomas, people think I'm just a little bit odd. She wants me to move down near her.”

“Move?” I think I almost shouted this question.

“Oh, there's no question of my moving. No question. There's more I have to tell you; you know so little, yet. What I do here is tied to the land, to where I am. I couldn't move, not now. But I can't explain that to her.”

I could see that she was unhappy, that whatever problems she had with her granddaughter were bothering her. All the same, I was feeling jealous and irritable. I didn't want her to have a family, or a cottage. I wanted her to walk with me, and teach me things.

“So, I'll be a little busy,” she said, wearily.

“Okay,” I said. I looked over at her. I wasn't sure, but I thought she might be crying. It was cold, and my eyes were watering a little.

“Emma?” I asked.

“The world is so vast, Thomas,” she said abruptly. I was certain she was crying. She began to walk, and I scrambled up after her. She walked along, slowly, painfully it seemed. “You can't pick and choose what you want in it: the world comes all in a bunch. You should love what you can and,” she drew in a long breath, “oh me, and try not to hate anything. Please believe me. Sometimes it gets away from me. I wish you could have met Mr. Nash. I don't set a very good example.”

“Well, but, sure you do,” I protested, “I don't understand!”

“Oh, don't mind me. I'm just getting old, Thomas.”

“But you said Mr. Nash was a hundred and two!” I protested.

“Well, Mr. Nash didn't have a husband, and a store to run, and three children to raise.” She shook her head. She was almost smiling now.

“No, he was a wonderful man. I've been Emma for so long ...”

“What do you mean?”

“Hmm? What do I mean? Oh, very little, I assure you. I'm just tired. Weary, is the word. I'm just an old country woman, Thomas, old and worn out.”

There was almost a lilt in her voice now.

“No,” I said, and punched at her arm.

“Hmmph,” she took another deep breath and smiled a rare, full smile. “Listen to me! What a sour old goat. Shouldn't all the world feel sorry for me!” She laughed now, a sound I loved to hear.

“You know,” she said, “I must give you your birthday present a little early.”

“Really?” I said, excited. I certainly hadn't expected a present from her.

“Yes. There's someone I'd like you to meet, before hunting season begins. A few someones. Can you meet me here early tomorrow? We have a long walk.”

“Oh sure! Right after breakfast.”

“Good,” she said. “Good. Bring a little something to eat. And don't mind all my talk.”

That evening I stood in the doorway of my parents' bedroom. My father had called across the house for
me. He was sitting at the end of the bed untying his heavy black work shoes, to change into his slippers.

“Dad?” I said.

“Hey, sport,” he said.

He looked at me, and for a moment nothing was said. He looked like he'd done something wrong, but he couldn't remember what. He looked at me like he couldn't quite place me. When he spoke he spoke slowly.

“Tom, about your birthday, you know.” He took a breath, almost a sigh. “I mean, hey, we could always make some other plans.”

“Mom told you.”

“Ah, well, you know, she was worried about you. And maybe I haven't been paying enough attention lately, with work and all. But Tom, I thought you wanted to go with us.”

He looked at me, searching my face. I didn't say anything. He shrugged.

“It doesn't matter,” he said. “If you don't want to go hunting, then of course that's fine.”

It was the strangest moment for me. For perhaps the first time I could see my father from a little distance, somehow. He was nervous. He wasn't sure what to say. I was amazed, and I hurt, with guilt and with what might have been a kind of fear.

“No, Dad,” I said, my own voice sounding odd to me. “I was only thinking . . . I'm just not sure I could kill something, you know, a deer, a buck. I'm not sure.”

“Oh, well, half the time you don't even get a decent shot at anything,” he said, and chuckled. But then he
looked up at me again. “Tom, I don't know if it will help, but when I shot my first deer ...” He leaned his head back, and smiled from a long ago memory. “It was, let's see, the third time my dad took me hunting, and I remember I shot a small buck, just barely legal; and Tom, you see, I cried that night in bed. Okay? I mean, you don't have to spread it around, tell everyone, but I cried.”

I stood there, four feet away, unable to breathe.

“Anyway, I did,” he said, the words coming quickly now. “I mean, that's all. Does that help any?”

I nodded. “Thanks,” I said. I was too scared to cry.

“Ah, c'mere,” my father said and grabbed me in a quick hug. He ruffled my hair, turned me around, swatted me on my butt, and sent me on my way, more confused than I had ever been in my life.