Among the Wounded: Conclusion

To read part 1 click here.

To read part 2 click here.

To read part 3 click here.

To read part 4 click here.

To read part 5 click here.

By the end of the week the survey team had completed their transect. Two nights in a row Jeffrey had come into the woods to undo the work they had done. On the third night instead of flags and survey stakes he found blazes cut into the trees themselves. He sat alone in the woods that night and felt them die around him. The trees were still there, but something had slipped from the forest, and from him. He felt a hollowness envelope him where wholeness that had been building through the summer.

At last, sitting on a log in the darkness, the arrow-straight line that cut through the forest and into him only ten feet away, he understood the significance of his encounter a few nights before. The animals had come to him on the last night they could. He imagined those spectral creatures, the soul of these woods, wandering restlessly through the suburbs, pushed further and further away until they could  find no place to go. The forest—through its animals—had come to him to say a final farewell.

The men worked for two weeks straight, even on Sundays, and then the woods were quiet again. When at last the men were gone he walked into the forest and went to a giant beech tree growing along the side of the creek. He leaned against the tree that he imagined to be the oldest in these woods and rested against the smooth bark, his eyes closed.

It occurred to Jeffrey that some ceremony was needed. He thought at first that he might simply set fire to the woods and watch them burn. Let them die by the hand of someone who loved them, he thought. He lacked the courage to take such a risk. Maybe the subdivision would not be built this year and he could spend the winter in the woods, tracking and painting.

Instead he decided on something simple, something that involved ritual, that offered back to the woods nothing physical, but rather something spiritual. He would bathe in the creek. He knew that on his own he could not find the coyote’s pool. He needed one of the forest’s emissaries to lead him to that haunt. He settled for his favourite bend in the creek where a deep pool formed on the outer bank. He walked to it and slipped down the bank onto the gravel at mid-channel.

He slipped his shoes off with his toes, pulled his shirt off and unbuckled his belt. Jeffrey pulled off his jeans, then his underwear, and looked around self-consciously. He felt the wind dance over him and thought of the cougar and the way it moved through the forest. Stepping into the water, he sank up to his waist. It pulled him in. Jeffery sat down and closed his eyes, letting his body sink into the flow. He sat on the gravel on the bottom, the water closing in over his head and felt the push of it on his chest and on his face. When he stood again the water streamed off him. A few leaves stuck to his chest. He put his hands on the bank and looked down into the pool. He stood still long enough that the ripples in the water quieted and he could see a wavy reflection of his face, the forest swaying above him. In the reflection it appeared that there was no delineation between him and the forest.

There was nothing left to separate them. No distinction remained.

A shout shattered the moment. It came from behind him, from the direction of Upper End Line. He heard another and thought that maybe the workers had returned and seen him. Then came the heavy sound of many feet running, crashing through the woods. His clothes lay in a pile near his feet and he bent low to grab his pants. The sound of footsteps intensified and to his astonishment an animal that looked like a cross between a moose and a deer bounded from the woods and landed heavily in the creek bed. The animal stumbled on the loose gravel and rocks only twenty feet downstream from him, but managed to stay upright. It was bigger than a deer and had a dark tan hide—almost red—and a great spreading rack of antlers that made Jeffrey think of pictures of reindeer he had seen in books about northern Europe. In the blink of an eye it bounded up the five-foot bank of the leaving Jeffrey holding his breath.

He hunched there for no more than a second when a shrill shout pierced the air. From the trees two men jumped into the creek, one of them falling and rolling and getting to his feet so quickly he appeared to be a circus performer. The other hit the creek running and bounded out the other side before Jeffrey could focus on him. They were followed by two more men in rapid succession, each one leaping from the woods into the creek, splashing across it with powerful bounds. He managed to fix in his mind an image of the four men. They all appeared to be completely naked. If they wore anything it must have been the same colour as their skin. They had long dark hair that looked like dark wind flowing from their heads.

Jeffrey could swear that they were all carrying bows and arrows.

He stood in the water, his pants in his hand, and looked at the place where two seconds before a woodland caribou had thundered across, pursued by four men intent on killing it. When a fifth man jumped into the water Jeffery had pulled his pants on. The man looked at him and Jeffrey saw that he was only a boy, no older than he was. The two stared at each other across the water. Then the boy smiled and stepped to the bank and leapt up it. Jeffery slipped on his shoes and started up the side of the creek. In a moment of deja-vous, the boy turned quickly to look at Jeffrey struggling up the bank. The two locked eyes again. The boy looked at him as the coyote had, taunting him. And then he was gone.

Jeffrey reached the top of the bank in time to see the dark back of the boy disappear through the woods. Without thinking, he began to run. He felt the strength in his legs propel him forward, dodging trees and jumping roots. The woods passed in a kaleidoscope of light and colour. He caught sight of the boy ahead, darting through the trees, running steadily. It came as no surprise that he passed the place where the woods should have ended, but did not. Instead of running into the neighbouring subdivision he passed beneath maple and pine. He ran for ten minutes this way, then twenty. All the while he could hear the shouts of the men and could see the boy just ahead of him.

Then the woods began to open and the terrain rolled like undulating waves. Jeffery watched the boy pass from the trees into an open meadow and saw sunlight beating down there and as he himself came to the forest’s edge, he stopped.

The men and the boy were pressing the caribou onwards. The animal was clearly tired. The meadow was two hundred meters wide and there was dark green forest on all sides. The caribou made a sharp turn to the left and the men pursued it. They were only fifty feet behind it now. Suddenly from the far side of the meadow three more men rushed from the woods, each brandishing clubs. They were shouting and running straight at the oncoming animal. The caribou turned again, kicking up tufts of sod and turf as it did, the dust rising in the hot, humid air. The animal was now running a course between its pursuers, one group with bows and the other carrying their clubs close to their bodies. The animal headed for a gap in the woods and was only fifty feet away when another group of men broke into the clearing. They ran straight out of the pathway that the caribou was heading for. The caribou tried to stop abruptly, its long awkward looking legs buckling under it. It scrambled to its feet – Jeffrey thought he could see the fear in the animal’s eyes – and turned to bolt, but the men were on it now.

One man struck the animal in the head and another hit it in the back legs. The caribou fell to the ground. Another man deftly drew a long knife from a sheath and slit the animal’s throat. There was no yelling. The animal sagged on the ground and the man who had cut its throat stepped from its back. Jeffery watched them all bow down and then one of the men stood and raised his hands over his head.

Four of them went into the woods and quickly returned with two long poles. The others lashed the animal to the poles and they hoisted it onto their shoulders. The four men carrying the caribou started off into the woods on the far side of the clearing, following the trail that the caribou had been running toward.

At length only the men with bows and the boy were left in the clearing. They seemed to be resting.       After a few minutes they stood and began to walk toward the trail at the far side of the meadow. As they were about to disappear into the forest the young boy stopped and turned. He looked right at Jeffrey, though how he could see him, Jeffrey could not tell. And then he was gone.

Jeffrey sat still awhile. He thought maybe he had come six kilometres. Maybe more. He did not know how he would find his way back. He stood and stepped into the clearing. He walked across its undulating surface and then entered the woods on its far side on a trail.           He did not run, but walked swiftly. He had no desire to overtake the men he was following. He had no appetite to confront whatever it was that was leading him deeper into these woods.

He walked for more than an hour and then the canopy of the dark forest seemed to fall away into nothing. The trail was wide and well-trodden. He came to the verge of the woods and the earth vanished beneath him. He stood spellbound looking over a great river valley. He could see across to the far side of the vale where the woods rose up again. At the centre of the valley he could see, in places where the trees parted, the curve of a river. It was broad and it glistened in the late afternoon sunlight. Next to the river several columns of smoke rose through the trees.

Jeffrey sat down on the path. His jeans were dirty and wet and he wore no shirt. As looked out across the valley he knew that he could name the river, but not the year. This was unlike anything Jeffrey had ever seen, even in the north: wide and lush with waves of trees. The gentle curve of its walls and the way the river sat so snugly at its centre left him with a great feeling of peace. Clouds of birds flew above the glistening water.

There was no six-lane parkway at this valley’s centre, no derelict and dilapidated factories, and no chemicals leaching into the waterway. There was blue above; not a smog tarnished sky. A hawk planed overhead. There was a rolling blanket of forest hugging the earth.

He thought of his childhood along the Nighthawk River, of his father. He imagined what it would be like to fish the waters that lay before him. If he walked into the camp of men and women and children what would their reaction be?

On the horizon, toward the lake, Jeffrey could see clouds beginning to build. A late summer storm was brewing. Thunderheads piling on top of each other were shot through with electricity.

He stood and thought that if he wanted to get home before dark he would have to leave now. With a storm coming he would not make it without getting soaked to the skin. His mother would have already called someone to look for him. They would have found his shirt and underwear in the creek and would suspect the worst.

He thought about his woods; the tiny vestige that hunched amid the turmoil progress. He knew that soon men with machines and good intentions, but who were immersed in their own ignorance, would come into those woods and reduce them to subdivisions with neat yards and carefully planted shrubbery.

Jeffrey thought that he would have to find a place to live where he could run through the woods and feel in his heart the freedom that accompanied such wildness. In one world he would live among the wounded—all of those who had suffered and disappeared from this earth so that one species might prosper.  In the other he might live differently— though he had no idea how—and he would feel what he had felt that morning while watching his reflection in the pool: that the lines between the human world and the rest of creation are thin and he could, if he were willing to make a sacrifice, transcend them.

Jeffrey stood and watched the thunderstorm approach. It rolled in from the lake and blotted out the sun. There was a flash of lightening followed closely by a crack that echoed up the broad valley. But he wasn’t afraid. He was closer to home than he had believed. He straightened up and set off down the path, into the valley below.

Thanks for reading Among the Wounded. This is part of a collection of short stories that I’m seeking a publisher for. I’d love your feedback to help me make my stories stronger. Use the comment form below. You can follow me on Twitter @stephenlegault.