Carcass

R. Boon

11/26/13//12/8

Carcass

            Dragging the deer carcass uphill on the gritty road, muttering every few steps, Daniel, old Daniel, he muttered to himself, struggled against the weight.  He snarled at his three dogs, who followed too close, pulling on a dangling leg or bit of hide, pulling the wrong damn way. 

            He stopped in the middle of the road, tugging at his torn coat, wriggling cold toes through the holes in his shoes.  “Damn headhunters.”  Saw off the antlers, leave the rest.   And no sense.  “No sense,” he shouted at the dogs, who danced back and then resumed tugging at the carcass.  Take the antlers, gut the old boy, hault him miles and miles, slung ‘im in a ditch.  He forced a few deep breaths.  “Damn 8 foot ditch, too!  Lucky I could drag him downstream to get a better slope.”  He looked down at the deer, its head hanging limp, and said to the deer, “last year, one carcass lasted the dogs all winter.  They were wrestling over one piece of hide in April.  We appreciate you stopping by for us.”

Daniel flexed his cold fingers, looked out at the stars, a cold, cold night.  “Look up there, Cory,” he said to a young dog.  “See the trail we’ve moved?  There over to there.  These damn constellations change so fast.”  He turned back to the deer.  “Thanks, by the way…”  He shifted the weight.  “Been 12,000 years we’ve been at this round here, and you never get any lighter.”  He cocked his head, listened at the presence, that sound in the grasses, crashing through the hard frost, the hooves of ten thousand generations, echoing just at the edge of the last great ice.

He didn’t notice the truck til the dogs started in, barking and growling.  The truck stopped dead middle of the road, headlights full on him and the carcass.  Daniel let the carcass drop and signed the dogs to run off into the fields.

Two young guys got out of the truck, engine still running.  The driver hung back at the edge of his open door.  The passenger, a young guy, trying hard to be a redneck, boots and jeans and flannel shirt and cowboy hat, ran round toward him and said, “What the fuck, old man?  Where you going with our deer?”

            Daniel lifted up his ball cap, ran a hand through his hair, shook loose the greasy gray strands that hung a couple foot down his back.  “Your deer, is it?  Gutted and throwed in a ditch?  Horns took off, and not a bit of the meat?”

            The driver called out, “Ryan, it don’t matter.  We’re done with it.  Let’s get out of here.”

            Ryan yelled back, not turning his face away from Daniel.  “Ain’t the point, is it, Hal?  This old fuck thinks he can pick up anything he wants.  Don’t have to even have a gun, or sit out in the cold waiting.”  He pushed up next to Daniel, only the deer carcass on the ground between them.

            Daniel glared back at him.  “So you got a tag for this, or just out killing anything you find?  You kill just for the trophy?”

            “Not any of your business, old man.”  He fumbled one hand at the back of his jeans, where the pistol was tucked into his waist.  “You some kind of government-fucking-agent?  Huh, old man?  You some sort of fed?  Gives a shit about all the little bunnies?”  He stepped forward, over the carcass, pushing Daniel back.

            “Ryan, it ain’t worth it.  Let’s get some more beer, go look up Suzy,” Hal called out.  He took a step closer, rubbing his hands, tucking them under his arms.

            Daniel heard the low growls out in the darkness, and let out his own low growl to warn the dogs back.  He leaned closer and stared into Ryan’s eyes, then breathed out slow and heavy, the mist coming up around both of them.  “Yes, the old give and take,” he muttered, and let Ryan see the ghostly herd around them, the spirits of the millions that once thundered these hills.

            Ryan lurched back, stumbled over the carcass.  He pulled the pistol as he hit the ground and shot into Daniel’s side.  Blood dripped on the carcass, which stirred to life and enfolded Ryan inside the hollowed out rib cage.  His arms became the deer’s forequarters, his legs the deer hindquarters.  His head joined through the deer’s neck.  A great rack of horns, 20-point at least, grew back on the mutilated head. 

The stag, Ryan, struggled to his feet and tried to struggle away.  He ran toward Hal, trying to ask what had happen.  Strange bawls and grunts came out instead of words.  He pushed forward.

“What the fuck?  What the fuck?” Hal called out, scrambling back toward truck. 

Ryan moved at him too fast, goring Hal again and again, til Hal fell back, twisting on the ground in pain.  The dogs came in from the field, barking, and Ryan, the stag, ran out to join the ghostly herd.

Daniel came over, looked at Hal on the ground, and shook his head.  He stepped into the truck, put it in neutral, and let it roll back cockeyed into the ditch.  “Come on, dogs, let’s get home.  I need to heal up.”  He whistled, and walked up the road.

            Only two dogs followed.  Daniel turned, and saw Rachel nuzzling Hal.  She lay down beside him and put her head on his chest.

            “Ah, no.  This one?  Really?” said Daniel.  “He’s pretty far gone.  And likely a shithead, just like his buddy.”  He whistled again.  Rachel put a paw on Hal’s chest.

            Daniel sighed.  “Fine, damn it.”  He stepped back down the road and knelt beside Hal.  “Ok, get off him,” he said to Rachel.  He rubbed his own bullet wound, til his hand was coated with blood, and then rubbed his hand into Hal’s wounds.  He shivered, with the sudden loss of heat moving out of him.  He stood up and watched the recovery, the wounds closing, Hal’s body shifting.  He whistled.. 

            “Come on,” he called to his four dogs. “Cory, Justin, Rachel, Hal.”  They all started back up the hill.  “Sorry ‘bout that deer.  Maybe the next carcass will stay put.”


© 2013, Robert E. Boon