Over the Darkened Landscape - By Derryl Murphy Page 0,64
settles into a fitful, painful sleep. He lies there mumbling, twisting his arms or his body now and again, but still enough that the father can step away from him and take a drink himself.
I’m sitting now, head leaning forward as I fight off exhaustion. So tired that I almost miss the next thing the father says.
“You’ll have to go get Walker.”
It sinks in, and my head snaps up. I stare at him, trying to decipher if I heard what I think I did.
Pete shakes his head. “Uh-uh. I ain’t goin’.”
“You have to. We’ll need a witness for when the Constable can come up.”
“Nothin’doin’.”
His father stands from the floor, looks down at Swede. “It’s eight miles to their cabin. If you won’t go, then I’ll do it.”
Pete’s eyes are wide with fear now. “Uh-uh. I ain’t stayin’.”
His father runs his hand through his hair. I can see him fighting to be reasonable with a scared boy, but angry that he can’t do more. “All right, then. We’ll hitch up the dogs and both go. You get out there and get them ready while I try to clean up a touch.”
Pete dresses himself for the weather and is out the door in a shot. I try to watch the father as he wipes things up and then stokes up the fire, but the heat and the ordeal are making me drowsy. I feel my head tilt forward, and then lose sense of time.
I hear the door of the cabin slam shut, start awake realizing that they must be leaving. Dogs are barking again, this time with excitement. I’m sure they are going to my cabin, or near it, and so I jump and go to the door, wrestling into my mitts, hoping they can give me a ride back.
A hand grabs my ankle, and I stop mid-stride. Looking down, I see that Swede has a hold of me.
“I’m dying,” he whispers, the damage done by the bullet making him barely intelligible; I can see his tongue flapping behind the hole in his cheek. “Sit with me, angel. Keep me company.”
I don’t know what to say or do for several seconds, but the receding sound of the dogs snaps me out of it. “What did you call me?”
He moans. “Angel. I saw you just before I pulled the trigger, when you weren’t there before. God sent you,” he inhales, shuddering. “God sent you to stop me. Too late. My fault. Please sit with me while I die.”
Stunned, I sit on the floor.
“Talk to me,” he whispers, eyes rolling back so he can see me.
“About what?” Foolish question, but I feel at a complete loss about what to do right now.
“Heaven.” He tries to smile.
I shake my head. “I’m sorry, Swede. I don’t know anything about heaven. I’m not an angel, I’m just a man who got lost in the Arctic. I thought I was going to die.”
He grunts. “Angel, man. My fault for not seeing you.” He starts to cry now, sobbing like a child feeling true loss for the first time. “I’m sorry, Boris. I should have been there, shot him before he shot you.”
One last breath, and then he’s still.
And God help me, I still have to piss. But I’m deathly afraid to leave this cabin, afraid I won’t be able to get back in. Gingerly, I remove Swede’s hand from where it remains laying on my foot, stand up and sway unsteadily for a moment, then spot the piss can over on a stump in a corner.
This operation takes more energy than I would have imagined, and so when done, I add more wood to the fire and then curl up on the floor.
The door slams open, letting cold and daylight into the cabin. I roll over and sit up too fast, my head swimming.
“Jesus, the stove’s still hot,” says the first one in the door, Pete’s father. Pete is right behind him, and then two other men, both slowly peeling off their winter gear as they stare down at Swede’s body.
“He’s dead for sure, now,” says the taller of the two. He pulls back his hood and unwraps his scarf, and I blink, thinking It can’t be.
The slighter one behind him does the same, and I gasp, knowing him not only from pictures, but from an older face, one that stood the tests of time for longer than this one. Matt Walker.
Grandpa.
He looks to the other man, obviously Mike Walker, his father, my great-grandfather. A man who died