Over the Darkened Landscape - By Derryl Murphy Page 0,61

into my Sorels.

I mark my position with the GPS, and then I march towards the light, listening to the dogs.

The light has disappeared. I have been walking in what I hope is an ever-shrinking circle for the past half-hour or so, but even that is no guarantee. The cold has affected the batteries and the LCD in the GPS unit, and my last glance at it provided only a blank screen, black draining in a tiny pool in one corner. It should have stayed warm in my pocket, but like everything else, it isn’t working for me any more.

I stop and scan for any sign of horizon, but I see nothing but black and white; in close, distant, who can tell? Too damn stubborn to lie down and succumb, I trudge onwards.

*

The light again, this time sitting still, accompanied by the sound of more dogs and by the report of a rifle shot. I hurry towards the sound, falling once but catching myself before planting my face in the hard snow, getting back up as quickly as I can.

The light proves to be an oil lamp, sitting on the ground. I move out of the wind and into a pocket of relative calm, no snow blowing and seemingly less on the ground. Dogs can still be heard in the distance, but I see none. No sign either of who owns the lamp or who fired the shot.

I stand for a moment, staring at the lamp, bewildered by both the sudden change in weather and by this light, sitting alone in the middle of nothing. And then I hear a sound behind me, and I turn.

He’s a large man, taller than me by a head, broad at the shoulders, dressed in fur and wearing mukluks. He is carrying a rifle, cradling it really, and there are tears in his eyes, glistening in the light of the oil lamp. Long blond hair sticks out from beneath his hood, and his slight beard is moist with half-frozen tears and snot.

Before I can say anything he hefts the rifle, points it straight into the air, pulls the trigger. The blast sets the distant dogs to barking again, and the man joins them in a howl that sounds so much of pain and loss that my gut, even my bowels, tightens up into a desperate knot.

“Joe!” he yells, holding the rifle close to his chest again. His accent sounds Scandinavian. “Help me, Joe! Joe!” The last time he shouts this name he drags it out, turns it into another howl to join the unseen dogs.

I stagger over to him, sure now that I am witnessing someone despondent over something, drunk perhaps, suicidal for sure. “Hey!” I yell, thinking maybe I can redirect his thoughts by getting him to help me. “Can you help me?”

He looks up from staring at his rifle, looks me straight in the eyes. Then he whispers, “Oh, Boris, I miss you so. I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there.” He sobs, wipes snot away from his nose, turning his sleeve stiff and shiny as it freezes. “Murdering bastard,” he growls, and lifts the rifle again.

I move to stop him, try to push the gun to the side, but without even looking at me he pushes me away and as I slip on the snow he slides his mouth over the barrel. “No!” I yell, rolling and scrambling to my feet, and as I rush towards him he looks me in the eyes again, and this time his own eyes go wide just as he pulls the trigger.

The roar of the rifle is muted, and I watch helplessly as the bullet tears open the side of his head, his jaw and cheek and ear vaporizing in a spray of blood and flesh and bone. The rifle slips from his hands and he slowly tumbles backwards, falling to the snow with his arms spread wide. Bits of brain hang from his skull, and the snow there is almost black with the lamp sitting on the ground on the other side of him.

“Jesus,” I say, and go to see if he’s dead, although there can be no doubt, and then the pocket of calm disappears and the storm moves in again, and just like that I can see nothing more than my hand in front of my face, and the lamp seems to have been blown out with this latest gust. I walk ten paces, know that I have gone too far, stop and