Summer 2007

Burgess
Ann Minoff

On hot days Ralph hunts small birds. The younger brother, Willy, carries the .22 scope and a leather sack over his shoulder. He knows enough not to speak. Just keep up, Willy. Come on. Ralph lips the cool sweat from his face.

Willy sees the red-tailed hawk first, swinging down from the sky like a kite. He stops. Then, Ralph. Their daddy's said, "Never kill a predator. It's like killing a piece of the land." But Burgess isn't there. He hasn't been around for days, not since he said he would be driving into town. Ralph stretches his shooting hand to Willy and has to look hard before Willy gives him the .22. Willy shakes his head. Ralph cradles the end of the rifle into his shoulder and pulls the trigger. Willy slams his hands over his ears but he can still hear the sound of the red-tail falling from the sky.

Ralph chortles, his tongue pulled between his teeth. He usually aims for the throat, but it was hard to see this time. He needs to know if he made a clean kill. Anyone can shoot, Burgess has taught them. It's making a clean kill. That's the point of it. The tall, wild grass releases a swell of early evening flavors. He turns to hand the gun to Willy, but Willy is gone. Ralph corners his eyes between the trees toward the house. Damn you, butt fuck! Damn you! Go on, run. Run, while you can.

Burgess has always worshipped the woods and mountain ridge behind the house. Here he camps and smokes and sits on the granite rock and boulders, talking to the boys about the meaning of things. Every month or so the three of them sleep outside, high on the ridge. The boys are too young at first to notice more than the cold and the cramped size of the sleeping bag and tent they share. One night it rained so hard the stakes loosened. The tent collapsed on top of them. Lightning flashed and the autumn thunder shook the dark clouds above their heads. Barrels of cold rain fell over the collapsed tent. Still inside the sleeping bag, Willy's arms and legs were shaking. The cold had sunk into his bones, and he wanted to go back to the house.

Burgess told Willy, "You stay inside until the tent is back up."

Burgess made Ralph get up and go outside. He made him watch how to do it right. Burgess methodically re-staked and re-tied the tent clips. Willy felt black mud sliding beneath him. The smell of earth and worms poured through the nylon weave. He heard Burgess whistling like they were at a picnic, as if the day was long, but it wasn't, not even close.

Ralph crowded back inside the newly risen tent and kicked Willy with his boot. Willy moaned.

Burgess smacked Ralph hard. Ralph cried out. "I didn't see him, Pa. I didn't."

Before his eyes fell shut, Willy smelled the cold, the rain roaring over their heads. Everyone fell into a dreamless sleep like the dark of night it was.

Oh, God. Run, Willy!

Run toward the house! Their old, familiar house. Fat gray stones apron around the front just behind the long-faced porch Willy and Burgess painted-no, whitewashed-last spring.

"Now, don't get any paint on those stones. Those stones were set during the Revolutionary War. That's a fact."

"Yes, sir. That's a fact."

"Are you mocking me, boy?"

"No, way. I am not, Pa. Not at all."

Willy runs under the pockmarked boulders of the upper ridge, past mountain lion tracks and small hills of brown and green pine needles, wild buttercups, and the wide sleeves of Douglas fir. He doesn't want to hear the laugh at the end of every shoot. He knows Ralph smells the bird first.

Willy's lungs begin to stick. The lining feels like it's inside out, as if hundreds of small, insignificant knives are pricking the delicate membrane. He gasps for air, but it won't go in, not when it's tight like this. He stops, bends over, wiping the sweat from his face. Slow down, Willy, or you'll faint and drop out of the sky like that red-tail.

He pushes himself up and scrambles beneath the cedar fence for their grazing meadow, making stands of wild daisies float up from the earth beneath the weathered wood. Willy lifts his head. He's almost there. On the other side of the meadow the cows are clustered at the north end, where the grass tufts remain thick and rich. They bellow softly, making sounds like a woman. Willy rushes down the softened dirt path that leads from the bottom of the grazing meadow across a pebbled road-the road Burgess matted and trucked into existence by himself years ago so he could drive in his red pick-up from the paved county road to their house without cutting a tire in half.

A mile away, Ralph has picked up the leather pouch and walked into another meadow. The wind is pulling the grass back over his tracks. He stands over the red-tailed hawk and smells the air. A circle of red pools beneath his feet, hot and cool at the same time. If it's clean, he might dry it out. No. Couldn't do that. Burgess and his damn rules. Ralph smiles, slowly moving his hand over the dead body. The bird almost breathes. The brown feathers graze his skin so softly lying somewhat damp against the body. Just a few minutes ago, they surrounded the same soft body climbing the sky. He lifts the body and smells the back of the head.

Burgess lets Ralph hunt small things-frogs, rabbits, and such. "It's good practice," he tells them. Willy just watches. He doesn't like killing. He doesn't like the smell of it. After a good run, Ralph will skin the rabbits in the kitchen sink. One cut empties most of the inner organs in a single pile. Burgess looks forward to the stew the boys throw together. The flavor of potatoes and meat cooked over a slow flame tastes strong and fresh, like it's supposed to taste.

Ralph didn't get to study much. He was sixteen last year in the 10th grade and meant to graduate until he was caught with a young girl. The high-school principal, and the sheriff, Mr. Wilshire, came to the house and talked to Burgess, and Ralph never went back to school after that. He found a job at the Mobil station in town, changing automobile fluids and filters. Learning the trade, mostly. He smelled of gasoline and car exhaust when he got home. Odd-shaped oil patches on his clothes. At the end of the day Ralph sat in the tub and scrubbed himself with the clothes brush. His room was the straightest room in the house. Nothing out of place. Burgess laughed at him for it, for his peculiar ways.

Ralph stands over the wrought iron bed in Willy's room, clicking his teeth, a cigarette in his left hand. Willy sleeps, clutching the end of the sheet. His lungs still cold and wet from the run through the forest, rale quietly. He smells Ralph's cigarette curl into his nose like a girl's hand. Then he jumps up and rubs his ear. "What is it?"

"Get dressed."

"Why?"

"Shut up, you little fuck. You ran out on me. I hate that. You know I hate that!"

"But you shot a red-tail. Burgess said, never shoot a red-tail."

Ralph grins. "Fuck, Burgess. He'll never know unless you tell."

He grabs Willy's throat and quickly lets go. "Get some clothes on. We're going for a walk."

"Where?"

Ralph gestures for him to be quiet. Smiling, he holds him against his chest and whispers, "Just get dressed."

Willy hurries, except he can't find any socks. If his feet are cold, he's cold. If he's cold his chest tightens and he can't breathe. He looks under the bed. Ralph jerks him into the hall.

"Stop stalling."

"I'm not. I'm looking for a sock."

Ralph grips the back of the boy's arm. Willy feels a band wrap around his neck. He can't breathe as a trail of smoke sputters into his lungs. Ralph holds him, staring at his brother.

Willy mumbles, "I need a sock."

"Get your shoes on. We're going for a walk."

Willy shouts, "Burgess is coming back. He said so. He said he's coming back with my stuff. I need to wait for him."

Ralph loosens his hold. "Willy's stuff. Always about you. Well, maybe he's not. What then?"

"Of course he's coming."

Ralph looks at Willy hard. "You're nothing but trouble for me. Let's go."

Willy grabs his knapsack as they fall out the front door. Ralph, lumbering ahead, lets go of his brother's arm and moves steadily toward the ridge. He looks back from time to time, gesturing with his arm for Willy to hurry up. Willy is in no hurry. He can hear the small birds on the ridge. A male cardinal stands on a branch in front of him. Run, Willy. He stops to pick mushrooms and puts them in his knapsack. A run of wild blueberries catch his attention, and he piles patches of the crushed berries into his mouth. They smell like pie, their dark purple seeds between his teeth like punctuation points. He doesn't see Ralph behind him.

"We don't have time for a picnic."

The five miles of pine trees, wild birds, and red-tail hawks high above the crest of green, bear tracks and trees cut by lightning witness the two brothers marching to the ridge in army formation. They stop at the peak, where three stone caves crown the ridge. One, large-mouthed, dead ends quickly into a cold, wet loop of spider webs; the other two, smaller at the mouth, trail long and deep into the mountain.

Ralph lifts his brother in the air and carries him into the large-mouthed cave.

"Put me down!"

The smell of animal urine and old nests is hanging along the walls. He drops Willy in front of a small boulder at the end of the cave. The ceiling curves from side to side creating a cathedral setting of shadows and dark moist light as Ralph scurries along the back edge of the cave, his hands searching for a spool of nautical twine. He slides his hands beneath a narrow shelf carved into the back by Neolithic ice and wind. There, a spool of rope and a few tools he left are lying behind idly.

Willy asks, "What are you going to do?"

"You should of thought of that when you run on me."

He struggles to get up. Ralph smacks him across the head, and Willy falls back against the boulder, his mouth tasting the damp floor. He watches his dark-haired brother rush to tie him to the rock.

"Don't Ralph. Don't do this. Pa will kill you for sure."

"He's not here, is he?"

Ralph forces the twine around Willy's chest around the rock, around his younger brother's arms back around the rock, and then roughly squares a knot behind the wrists. He rubs his hands on his pants, wiping off the spider dust and sour bear smells.

There he leaves him and crosses the craggy head of the ridge. He hates the feel of the hardness of the rock and the yellow-eyed mountain lions, the smell of ash and smoke, the taste of fire in his throat. He sees a bent metal stake at his feet and laughs, throwing it over the rocks below. The wind, brass and frigid, winds around his face. He hears Willy shouting something from the cave and twists, running into the woods at the foot of the ridge. The throaty ka-kaw, ka-kaw of a band of crows flying overhead follows him until he disappears behind the pine trees and green moss.

Two miles deep, Ralph feels hot and dry; the sun pouring through the trees smells like the inside of a room without windows. He's running loose in an old section of the forest Burgess used to work in. Burgess liked to trap bears and whatever else fell in for their pelts and meat. At first, the two boys would sit in a tree, playing, while Burgess dug the holes; he covered them over with tree limbs and heavy brush. Burgess could cover a ditch so good it was impossible to tell where the cover ended and the forest trail began. Eventually they helped him widen a few of the bear traps. They all worked the shovels till the backs of their necks hurt. They shoveled until they were told not to, Burgess walking around checking the depth and size of the head while the boys looked on.

Even though Ralph stares hard at the trail, sure he can tell where one of his daddy's old traps are, he falls in anyway, crashing through the mass of tree branches and torn brush. Years of accumulated forest debris knock his body from side to side, root heads bite into his shins and ankles, as he drops to the bottom. Burgess, you fuck. You got me, anyway. Stunned, he lies motionless. It hurts to breathe. Something must be broken. Working to get his bearing, Ralph knows he has to pull himself out before dark. He touches his leg. Just behind the left knee, a wide-open gash from his thigh down to his calf bleeds into his hands. He wonders what to do, because no one is going to get him out. No one's coming to this end of the woods. He'd better think of something.

Inside the cave Willy opens and closes both hands, each time stretching the twine a little more. Burgess taught him that. I wish you were here, pa. The heat from his sweat softens the threads as he pushes against it. Drops of perspiration slide from his forehead into his mouth. He shakes his head flipping the sweat from his eyes. After an hour, he can squeeze one hand through, then the other. Just enough. Pushing himself away from the rock, he gets up and runs across the ridge, down toward the trees. He stops and looks back at the cave, still smelling the dark interior and animal smells. He rushes forward into the field of evergreen.

Ralph has torn his pants and used the cloth strips around the back of his left leg to stop the bleeding. He closes his eyes, banging the back of his head again and again. Damp and cold. You got me, Burgess.

Willy avoids the main path, just in case. Slow down, boy. He runs the back trail. Ever since Burgess stopped trapping bears, no one bothers to use it 'cause it takes too long to get from the campsite on the ridge back to the house. He remembers to walk behind the larger trees not between them. Willy finds a path of wild berries and lies down in the moss. He has nearly fallen asleep when he hears a strange sound. It's not a bird, more like someone's moaning. Soon, he has drawn closer to the mouth of the trap. Dropping to the ground, he crawls to the edge of the hole when he hears his brother.

Run, Willy. It's Ralph.

Willy runs, jubilant and scared, running from the ridge, from the yelling, from his brother's fists.

If I leave him there, he'll die. But he left me. Who cares if he dies? Burgess will know. Burgess cares. A family of large crows swoops down, cawing through the trees. His breathing narrows.

I can't leave him. He's my brother.

He talks to himself some more before he stops and turns around, trailing back to the ridge, snatching the twine from the cave, talking to himself about his daddy's long-winded discussions on life, on family, their crazy family. Dragging the twine behind him he falls to the edge of the trap and calls to his brother, "Ralph, can you hear me?"

Maybe he's dead already.

"Ralph . . . " Nothing.

"Ralph? Are you there?"

A long silence follows before Ralph rattles, "Of course I'm here, you idiot."

Willy recoils. "I should leave you here."

"Don't leave me Willy. I'm hurt. My leg feels broken. No wait, I can move my toes."

On the way back to the house Ralph leans into Willy on one side and onto a walking stick on the other side so the weight falls on Ralph's good foot. They follow an old cow path. Wild daisies white and pale yellow color their way. Ralph groans from the open wound, his leg swollen and red, the red-tail crushed under his back in the pit.

Willy keeps talking. "We'll be home soon and Burgess will know what to do. He'll fix your leg. He can fix most anything."

Ralph doesn't answer. He looks ahead and sees the house, the white porch curved around the front.

"Let's make that stew for him."

"What for? We don't know when he's coming back?"

The next morning Willy notices the barn doors where Burgess keeps his red truck are half open like someone is inside doing some work. He strolls over to the heavy wood panels faded and dry from years of rain and sun. The wind plays with one of the doors squeaking it open some more. An unpleasant smell roars out from the barn as Willy walks inside. He sees the truck, sees Burgess, his face folded against the steering wheel.

Outside, the night falls, the pond frogs bellow to one another and the wind blows in from the west. He walks back to the house. Smells of cow and summer overwhelm him and the clouds dropping from the sky smell of lavender. It feels like rain.