Beyond the Fields

The boy felt the remnants of his father, the lasting tremble in his shoulder where the man had shook him awake. Left without a word. Fighting the fog of sleep, the boy felt the weight of the morning, a painful, slow return to wakefulness. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to pull the covers up to his chin and disappear, float off into space. The day stretched out before him like an impossibility, something to be feared.

He listened as his father made his way through the house, his path traced by the ancient creak of weathered floorboards.

Today.

The boy found the floorboards himself, wool socks slippery on slats of oak hardwood. He stood with effort. The discomfort was overshadowed by something else.

Outside he felt excitement take hold of him in waves. A slow rise of what felt like apprehension but sold itself as a trembling, giddy sensation in his stomach. The sun wouldn’t rise for another few hours, the sky black and empty. From where he stood, he could barely see his father walk off beyond the barn, the edge of the building a slanted shadow illuminated a single light post, halfway between them. The house lay to his left, the fields of corn stretched out behind him. Beyond that, the forest.

The gun was in his hand, the heft of it so different from his 22.

30-06. He had fired it enough, his father there beside him, critical and important. He could make the shot. In the dark he told himself that. The boy reiterated the thought with imagery, the collapse of tin cans from beaten up fence posts, the crack and ignition of gunpowder that sent the butt stock shuddering painfully into his shoulder.

He could make the shot.

A sound, the flutter of feathers as they broke the silence of dead air. The boy looked up into the sky, traced the height of the wooden post. The light bulb burnt an imprint into his vision, blinded him for a second. And then he saw the owl, sitting slightly above the bulb, feet planted on the top of the post. A flattened face, white funnels that ended in two black circles of glass. For a moment it was simply an owl, a creature of the night that had stopped off for a second to bathe in the light once again.

But in another second the boy was struck with a strange thought. He watched the owl as it watched him, its eyes unblinking. For a moment, the boy saw himself as a photograph, the shape of his body far below the top of the post, gun at his side and the darkened fields at his back. For a brief moment, the boy saw himself and he saw something to fear. Something to respect. He saw himself as the owl saw him, as a predator.

I can make the shot.

And then the roar of the ATV punctured the sky and the owl was gone, a violent shift to the atmosphere that sent the bird up and away, the flap of heavy wings and then the absence of life in the unflinching sky.

On foot now, the boy focused on very little, energy expended in the way his feet met the ground and the direction of the gun's muzzle. His calves began to ache with the effort of stalking through the undergrowth, each step a slow, penetrating transfer of weight, a desperate dance that gave significance to each snap of a twig, a contrast to the silence.

To lose the outline of his father was to lose a lifeline. He thought of the worst case scenario, his frantic, unhindered footsteps as he rushed to find his father in the abyss. The crash of his body through the brush and the final shout when all else was expended. The utter regret on the father’s face. So he followed his father with aching legs and shaking arms, the pain of his limbs nothing compared to the promise of nothing further.

An hour later, they made it to the tree stand, a battered section of wood raised twenty feet from the ground, the creaky climb too loud, but necessary. The father had built it for himself, a small square of timber that was spacious for him, slightly too small for both of them. And so the boy settled in like an unwanted guest, his prior confidence beginning to wane with the sound of wood as he shifted himself, the awkward closeness between them and the constant thought that he was taking up space. An invasion.

But there was still the shot. The shot could justify all of this. Hope for the future frozen in his brain, the boy perched himself as close to the edge of the platform as he could. A laboured, aching affair. Finally, he settled in enough to take the pressure off his knees, the tightness from his limbs.

Black shifted to grey, a slow creep of dawn making its way through the thick tree trunks and dead underbrush, the colours of autumn beginning to show themselves in orange and yellow foliage. Father and son waited.

It must’ve been midday. The light was high above them. The boy’s stomach grumbled and his bladder felt tight and painful. He refused to piss, terrified of his father’s face as he asked the question, a look of judgement corrupting the peace of their silence. He waited, an one sided contract. When the father moved, the hope rose in the boy’s stomach, only to be extinguished as the man settled down once again. Finally the platform shifted, and the father made his way down the ladder in a slow, one handed descent, his own rifle gripped at his side in a practised, easy manner. The boy took his chance, joined the man on the ground as the sound of piss rang out amongst the leaves.

Back on the platform again and the boy felt fresh, the energy of the lifted pressure in his pelvis. The father reached into his pocket and handed the boy a sandwich, peanut butter, one of the three the boy himself had made the night before. Relief, the cold bread and hardened peanut butter dwarfed by the grind of hunger. They peered into the woods, watched the cut line that traced its way beneath them and out into the forest, a dirt trail that stretched away for hundreds of metres.

A tap on his shoulder.

The boy turned to find another offering, the silver steel of the father’s flask held up to his face. Cold steel in hand now, the boy unscrewed the top, the scent of the clear liquid enough to make his eyes water and his throat crinkle with a sort of inward disgust. But his heart also fluttered with beautiful resilience that justified the taste and the burn and the trauma of the drink.

He swallowed hard, took a breath and forced away the hack that threatened to build up in his lungs. He stared upwards and for a moment, took his mind off the criminal urge to vomit by staring directly into the sun. Through the scattered leaves and exposed branches, the sun gave him solace and forced the threat of weakness from his body. A moment or two later and that weakness was all but gone, the warmth of satisfaction in its place.

All day they sat like that, wordless. The sun settled lower in the sky and the boy felt mixed emotions. He saw the day ending with the shot unfulfilled. He saw the road back to the house, the continued silence that could be construed as respect.

Or absence of anything at all. Because then he saw the day ending with the deer. A carcass strapped to the ATV, perfectly placed shot that put it down in seconds, double lung and preserved meat. He saw the next couple days, when the father and son would butcher it, elbow deep in the blood and meat of the process. He saw the silence that transitioned into instruction, an easy exchange of question and response. He saw the eventual comedy, the jokes they would tell, connections found amongst the carnage of the kill and the carcass and, finally, the dinner table. He saw his mother’s concern turned to ease and a calm spread itself across her furrowed brow.

He saw all of this in a way that he didn’t quite understand. Still, he understood it and he wanted it. And, as the light faded, he wanted the deer.

And there it was. As the light drooped behind the tallest of the trees, the cut line steeped in shadows the deer stepped into view. The boy was hit with adrenaline, a massive dump of exhilaration that was unexpected, unwelcome. Because, with the appearance of the buck, his hands began to shake and the gun felt awkward in his hands. About 75 metres from them, the hulk of fur stepped out into the path, antlers in full view, an elegant gait that stopped for a moment, raised its head and listened to the woods around him.

The father nudged him, hard. It brought the boy back to life, gun up now and into his shoulder. He breathed deep, like his father taught him, tried his best to forget it all, the need and the judgement and the fear of the man’s piercing gaze beside him on the platform. He propped his elbows on his knees, legs crossed beneath him, elbows ground into the meat of his thighs. He traced the body of the buck, found the sweet spot.

Shuddering breath. Fingertip light on the trigger. The deer dropped it’s head, took two tentative steps forward and stopped once again. The boy’s finger drew backwards.

The sky was dark, night returned to shield the corn as the ATV roared its way back in the direction of the house. The boy could see his mother on the porch as they drew closer, arms folded around herself, the scent of cooked meat and boiled potatoes emanating from the open door behind her. She stood there until they were close enough that she could make out the ATV clearly. Then she stepped backwards, back into the house, the door slammed shut behind her retreat.

The father slowed to a stop near the barn, the boy off the back with haste. As the father roared away towards the garage, the boy stood there in the dark, and watched the empty space behind his father’s back, a horrible, twisting sensation in his gut.

Back to the porch, slow steps with empty hands. He thought of the gun, gathered into his father’s arms, unloaded with severe, violent intensity. He thought of the flask, emptied by his father and his father alone, on the way back to the house. He thought of the look, that terrible, empty look his father gave him as the buck disappeared into the woods, a look that matched the empty reverberation of the shot ringing out between the trees.

As he got closer to the porch, he saw a shape sitting on the bottom step. Closer still and he could see the feathers, the weight of a creature of brown and white. He knew what it was before he saw the eyes, closed and invisible in the white sphere of its face. The owl lay on its side, lifeless, a half eaten rat in its beak.

The boy stared at that bird, watched it for a moment. And then a moment longer. And then the stomping feet of his father behind him, the brush of his weight as he disturbed the air, passed by and kicked out at the owl with his boot. The boy watched as the owl careened off the step, disappeared into the bush beyond. And then the boy stared at the door to the house as it slammed shut behind his father, heavy wood into a cracked and weathered frame.