The Wilding (14 page)

“Not that kind of sick. Allergic sick.”

His father heaves a sigh, but upon studying Graham—the redness of his eyes and the black smudges beneath them—his face softens. “You know what’s good for allergies?”

“Pills?” Graham says.

“No. Coffee.”

Graham has a Pendleton blanket wrapped around his shoulders and he draws it a little tighter when he squats next to the fire. “Coffee tastes like dirt puke.”

“Well, this is different. This is cowboy coffee.” He waits for Graham to ask for an explanation, and when he doesn’t, he gets one anyway. “A pot of water. Three cups of coffee grounds. Boil for an hour. Drop a bullet in. If it floats, it’s ready.”

“Really?”

“No. Not really.” He takes an old sweatsock and holds it tightly over the mouth of a tin mug, and then, with his free hand, removes the kettle from the grill and pours. The black and grainy coffee filters through the sock and fills the mug. “But it’s strong.”

For breakfast they fry up a pan of bacon and boil a pot of beans and sop up the grease with a bag of wheat bread. When finished, they sit around for a few minutes, rubbing their hands fondly over their bellies like women in their final trimester. Justin’s father pours himself another mug of coffee and uses his knife to stir it, though he has put nothing in it, preferring it black. He removes the knife smoking from the mug and sets it on the log next to him and raises the coffee to sip.

He then breaks their daze when he turns to Graham and asks, “You know anything about guns?”

“Not really.” Graham digs a hole in the dirt with his shoe and covers it back up. The tense look on his face seems expectant of another lecture.

Justin’s father finishes his coffee and sets down the mug and slaps his hands on his thighs and rises from his seat. “I’ve got a gun I want you to take a look at.”

He vanishes into the tent and when he reappears he carries a box of shells and a brand-new .30-30 lever-action rifle. It is crafted out of walnut and blued steel. He sits down next to Graham with the rifle laid across his thighs, smoothing his hands up and down the length of it.

He explains that this particular gun, the Model 94, once known as the Model 84, has been around for 110 years. “And still going strong.” His voice takes on an exasperated tone when he says there are those out there who feel it isn’t a powerful enough gun, those who had taken it hunting and either missed or wounded an animal and then immediately gone to trade it in for a .243 or some other high-stepping number. “I suppose it’s easier to blame the gun than to admit you’re a lousy shot.” He pats the stock. “But this gun works and it works well. It was my first gun. It was your dad’s first gun.”

There is something about a lever-action carbine, he says. Your meat tastes better—your trophy looks handsomer on the wall—when you hunt with it. He stands up and demonstrates how the rifle comes easily to the shoulder without you having to think about it. “See? It points naturally. It’s light. It’s handy. It’s easy to shoot. It’s got a real light recoil but plenty of punch.”

Whenever he speaks of guns his voice takes on an almost professorial tone, carefully explaining intricacies his audience can appreciate only distantly. The terms he uses must make little sense to Graham, but the boy listens eagerly and stares with an enchanted expression on his face, as if the rifle were a long shapely leg capped by a red high heel.

Justin’s father explains that it was chambered for several other cartridges more powerful than the .30-30, such as the .38-55, the .32 special, but he prefers the Barnes 150-grain flat-point X bullet. It has a deep hollow-point designed to expand at .30-30 velocities. “Let me tell you something,” he says when he opens up the box of shells and hand-loads the magazine. “This will penetrate like there’s no tomorrow.” The shells slide in and the breech closes with an oiled snap, the sound teeth make when biting air.

He holds it out to Graham and Graham stands up and licks his lips and wipes his palms on his knees before taking it. The weapon is strange to him—but gives him immediate confidence. Justin can see this in the widening of his eyes, the straightening of his posture. Justin remembers the first time he held a gun. The feeling—the power, the lurking pleasure of the cold metal fitting into his warm hand—is unforgettable.

“Do you like it?” Justin’s father says.

“I do.”

“Good.” The skin around his eyes crinkles like tissue paper. “Because I bought it for you.”

Graham says, “No way,” and a second later so does Justin, only with a different emphasis.

Graham turns to him with the rifle gripped tightly in his hands. “Come on, Dad. Don’t be such a—” He meets Justin’s eyes easily, his stare ugly and powerful. Justin is surprised by his reaction. He is one of those children who eats his vegetables when told to, who shuts off the television after his program ends, who never asks for more than his allowance. To hear such a challenge makes Justin feel momentarily off-balance.

“Don’t be such a what?” Justin says.

“Come on, Dad.”

“Come on, Dad,
nothing.
”

The stare he gets back—a dark forbidding stare—reminds him very much of his father. Justin wonders what has happened to the pale-faced trembling asthmatic of a few minutes ago. His son opens his mouth, as if ready to say something, and then, having thought about it, pinches his lips together in a line.

Justin approaches his father until he stands only a foot from him. “Got something to talk to you about.” His voice has a crack running through it.

“Now?”

“Right now.” Justin tries to drag him—grabbing his shoulder, as solid as wood—but he will move only when he wishes to move, so Justin releases his grip and walks away from camp and into the meadow and waits. Justin hears his father say to Graham, “Better give that back for a sec.” And then, with the rifle in hand, he slowly makes his way through the grass. On the way he stops to pick a flower and smell it before tossing it away.

“You know what you’re doing?” Justin says.

“I’m giving him a gun. You had a gun when you were his age.” He waves his arm as if the memory of Justin—a boy, hunting—lies out there in the woods.

“Yes, but I’m not you and he isn’t me. He hasn’t taken a hunter’s safety course. He doesn’t have his hunting license. And—”

“For Christ’s sake. When’s the last time you saw a ranger out here?”

“And.”
Justin holds up his hand, indicating that he needs to listen. “His mother specified he wasn’t to shoot anything but a picture.”

“His mother,” Paul says through his nose. “You realize you cut your teeth on this sort of thing? Will you listen to—”

His father doesn’t know anything about the trouble with Karen. He doesn’t know that Justin often sleeps on the couch, that Karen often speaks to him through Graham, that Justin often limits himself to touching her shoulder and only when he feels the need to offer a reassuring squeeze or indicate that she ought to move aside so he can grab a glass from the cupboard.

“Look,” Justin says. “Forget her.
I’m
the one who’s going to make the decision about when he’s ready.” Despite his effort to control his voice, it comes out in an almost whining tone that makes the attention in his father’s eyes give place to a dismissive parental stare. “You’re undermining my authority, Dad.”

“You worry too much. You’re a nervous guy.” He smiles and shuts one eye and aims the rifle at the hawk circling above them. Sunlight reflects off the gunmetal and for an instant lights up the side of his face. “Bam.” He hands the gun to Justin and says, “How about you give it to him? Say it’s from both of us.”

“A little late for that.”

“Still. You give it to him.”

He starts back to camp, pausing after a few steps to dig in his pocket. “Here,” he says. “Have a Werther’s Original. It will make you feel better.”

“Thanks.” He absently takes it and unwraps it and puts it in his mouth and then remembers he doesn’t like Werther’s Original.

Graham’s eyes are a pale shade of gray, almost colorless, regarding Justin when he stands before him. “What do you think?” Justin says, running his thumb along the Winchester’s stock, tracing the wood grain, its color like cream ale. “Do you think it’s a good one?”

“Yes,” Graham says, eagerness creeping into his voice. “I think so.”

Justin regards the rifle. Its barrel is twenty-five inches long, a beautiful black that is almost blue, cold to the touch. He checks the safety and wipes a smear of dirt off the muzzle before holding it out.

Graham lets it hang there a moment, his eyes considering Justin. “So it’s okay?”

“Yes. I guess. But let’s not tell your mother about this. Not yet. Okay?”

He takes it gingerly, with two hands. He keeps his grip a moment longer before letting go. Like all weapons, the Winchester has surprising heft—as if something large, a living creature, is contained within it. His arms lower with its weight. “Nice!” he says, letting the word trail out with a hiss. Immediately he holds the rifle to his shoulder and aims down the line of it.

Justin’s father stands a few paces behind him. When Justin turns to look at him, his face crumples up in a smile. He gives the thumbs-up and Justin shakes his head disapprovingly in response, even as he feels a certain excitement for his son.

“How about let’s shoot something?” Justin’s father says and Graham says, “Okay,” and approaches him, ready to hand off the weapon.

“What are you giving it to me for? Your gun, after all.”

“It’s my gun,” Graham says in a soft voice, as if to himself. He holds the Winchester at his hip and pivots quickly, carving a silver arc in the air when he draws a bead on this tree, then that tree, the hidden threat among them. Justin imagines the dead man collecting his bones and rising up to greet them.

“Come on,” his father says. “We’re going to see what kind of gunslinger you are.” He motions for them to follow him, and they do, out into the meadow, where he instructs Graham to click off the safety and then points at a nearby pine tree with an X spray painted across its trunk. “How about you shoot—”

“Hold on,” Justin says, but neither of them chooses to hear him. The rifle looks so menacing in Graham’s arms, like a snake that might turn on him at any moment, opening up holes from which blood will trickle.

“Shoot that tree,” Justin’s father says. “X marks the spot. Can you do that?”

“I can do that.” Graham takes a long time staring through the sight before he pulls the trigger. Every other sound falls away, replaced by an ear-splitting crack that is lost a moment later in the calm of the canyon. Below and to the right of the tree, the earth splashes up, like mud under the blow of a sledgehammer.

“Holy crap is that loud,” Graham says, putting a hand to his ear and cracking a belly laugh.

Boo runs to the divot and stares intently as if expecting blood to bubble from it. Justin’s father whistles for him to return to his side and then comes up behind Graham and coaches his posture. “Try again. This time brace the rifle to your shoulder. Like this. Now bring your hand forward but not too far forward. And don’t
hold
your breath. Shoot at the
end
of a breath.”

To hear them talking about guns, laughing sadistically—acting like men are
supposed
to act—positions Graham suddenly in a new light, making him seem more mature than he ever has before, a little man. But shouldn’t Justin be the one goading him along, making that happen? Wasn’t he the teacher? With the knack for being alternately stern and jokey in the classroom, inspiring his students?

Again the rifle jumps and the report thunders, expanding and contracting in the space of a second, before rolling away down the canyon—while on the tree trunk a white, pulpy carnation opens up in the middle of the X.

“You’re a natural,” Justin’s father says, clapping his hands twice, before indicating where Graham ought to aim next.

He sends a stone skipping. He knocks a pinecone from a high branch. A stalk of mullein bursts into a pollinated cloud. Each explosion dissolves something or sends something briefly aloft. The coarse scent of gunpowder hangs all around them.

Justin’s father stares then at the tractors parked along the edge of the meadow. At that moment Justin can see through his skull and into the gears of his mind as he considers ordering Graham to blast out the tires and windows. Instead he points to a dirt clod and says, “How about that—”

Gone
before he can finish the thought. He curls his finger into his fist and brings it to his chest, protectively, as if Graham had tried to shoot it. “Jeez.”

He clips a magpie and its wings open and close like a black hand. He shoots a marmot and it scurries a few paces with its sides gushing blood. Between shots he pumps the lever and the smoking brass shells land between his boots.

Low-throated laughter rises from Justin’s father. He loops an arm around Graham’s neck and squeezes him tight in what appears to be half headlock, half hug. “You’re one good kid.”

Justin watches from a short distance and notices the pink flush of his son’s skin, so different from his normal complexion—the pale yellow of an onion—resulting from his spending so much time inside, tapping at the keyboard or Photoshopping his pictures or leafing through a book.

It is almost supernatural, how comfortable Graham seems with the rifle. Justin remembers when he was that age, the long hours he spent in the backyard, stapling paper targets to trees and firing at them until his shoulder darkened to a purple shade of bruise. Back then, he had always tried to obey his father, performing his best imitation of him, without ever pulling it off completely, like a clumsy marionette whose movements are obviously dictated by wires and wood. Graham is different. He is not a mimic. He is a student. He learns what he needs to know by asking questions and listening, like he is doing right now—aim over the target when shooting uphill, hold low when shooting downhill—and Justin worries what this might mean for him—this education—and how he might emerge from it changed.

Justin’s father says, gloating, “You see? And you didn’t even want to give it to him!” He then picks up one of the shells and walks to the tree, the one Graham has shot. A yellow trail of pitch oozes from the bullet hole, sweetening the air. With a stick Justin’s father digs a hole in the ground, maybe five inches deep. He drops the shell in it like a seed. “There,” he says. “To mark the occasion. Now if we come back in ten years, the shell will still be there. It’ll be the same, but we’ll be different.”