hunted, they do not hunt. If he had his mother’s brains, he might have called up Chicago and got his own dude to stand him to the trail. But he didn’t get her mind within mind in the parental bargain and he’s chasing blind, running on the fuel of his want. He’s playing his father’s tune, but he doesn’t know it.
Deer Boy has often cogitated upon the subject of what he will do if he finds her. There is not much else to think about. He imagines her. He builds her out of his memory. He runs up to her on puts his hands up on the glass between them. Is she his sister? Some days he thinks yes, some days he thinks no. Deer Boy was born in the mirror. She looks nothing like him. But look at their hands, pressing together, ten fingers to ten fingers. They are the same. They are standing with a mirror between them. They are standing with his mother between them.
Can he cut her heart out? He tells himself yes. The answer is no.
Deer Boy wear long trousers and chaps that hide his legs. When he drinks whiskey he can almost talk straight. He plays cards and bets for information. He bets for stories. When the Ace of Hearts turns over his breath stops. It doesn’t even have to be in his hand. Johnny, you remember when that crazy half-breed bitch shot ol’ pieface Hank out back, right? Those were the days. A man felt alive.
She is a half-breed. She is like him. Deer Boy does not know what her other half is but he wonders if being split down the middle pains her like it pains him.
Deer Boy would like to meet his father. He reads about him all the time. The Dakota rush. The Colorado lode. In his mind, Deer Boy’s father is made of jewels. When Deer Boy gets his legs back, his father will open up his diamond arms and gather him into the glitter. He dreams about this. On the other side of his father’s crystal body, Snow White puts up her hands.
Once, Deer Boy tried to ask his mother why she didn’t just leave him in the mirror. Why am I myself and not some other boy? Why can’t you love what you made?
He spoke backwards. She didn’t understand. She said: you are my price. You are my black deal in the wood.
Deer Boy gets so drunk in Haul-Off he has to be rolled out onto the street. It’s raining dog. He stumbles up the road, his hooves sticking in the mud. The whiskey in him stands at attention. Up ahead of him he thinks he sees her, Snow White, wet and cold, her face on fire with light. She’s standing in the road; a body sprawls next to her. A bullet between his eyes.
I need your heart.
She puts her hands up. Ten fingers.
I’m sorry. I need your heart.
Snow White opens her mouth. Milk flows out.
I just want to be loved. Didn’t you ever want her to love you?
Snow White opens her chest like a cabinet. She takes out her heart. It is a ruby. It is dripping blood. It is dripping light. She looks at him with so much love.
Deer Boy wakes up holding his hat tender as a baby.
Snow White
and the Money Tree
It is around this time that Little Mab Volsky propositions Snow White. Let’s us rob ourselves a bank. Easiest money this side of lying on your back, she says. When a vault busts open it’s like you bust, too. That sweet. That good.
They practice in the woods.
Snow White puts a kerchief over her face and it is a red mask. Little Mab’ll run the show—Snow White can just shoot up the place. They holler at the crick to lie down on its belly, double quick and no funny business. Snow White bags a jackrabbit with a white blaze on his chest like a sheriff’s star. He looked at her crooked. You can’t brook that kind of upfuck. They bash in a rotted stump and get it down to forty-five seconds from first thump to vault open and pillbugs rolling out like dimes.
Little Mab has this to say: “The thing to know about bank robberies is that most fellas who end up blowing dark through some poor soul with a withdrawal slip in his hand wanted to do it before they ever got in the door. They wanted to make a hole in something