printer’s low ink. Only the top halves of the sentences were visible, so that it seemed as if they were only half true—seemed as if he himself might be in charge of making those sentences whole, of completing the details of this story.
By the time he boarded the plane home he had flushed the blue and pink pills. He was beginning now to emerge from that gauzy lair.
His boyhood compa n ion Cheeon met him at the gate. Slone saw him there among the colorful others eager to greet family—six feet tall, half Yup’ik, a fixed expression of grief and resolve. He recognized his drab winter clothes, his boots, the strong tobacco scent of him. Black hair pouring from beneath a camouflaged hunter’s cap. His five-year-old daughter was the second child taken from the village by wolves, but he said nothing of this to Slone.
The men did not speak a word, did not clasp hands or embrace, only met each other’s eyes and nodded. Cheeon took Slone’s duffel bag, then handed him a cigarette and Zippo, a bowie knife in a black leather sheath. Slone moved briskly through the airport with Cheeon beside him keeping pace. Once through the double doors he lit the cigarette, fit the knife into his belt at the small of his back, and looked to Cheeon, who nodded the way to the truck across the road in the parking deck.
The temperature was two degrees now and would drop toward twenty below by dawn. His visible breath and the sharp scent of winter—Vernon Slone knew he was home.
For the eighty minutes it took them to arrive at the town’s morgue the men did not speak. Cheeon drove and smoked and smoked again, his window cracked an inch for vent. The raised white scar jutting from the corner of his mouth told of the autumn morning when fishing on the lake in the valley. Fourteen years old, Slone cast his lure, not looking, and hooked him clean through the mouth. A quick yelp and Cheeon grabbed for the line so Slone wouldn’t cast. Slone snipped off the barb with side cutters and threaded out the hook, holding down his laughter as the blood leaked onto their boots and Cheeon cursed him with his eyes and teeth.
This reticence between them, both instinct and ritual, was a lifetime old. Squalling babes the same age, they’d become instantly quiet when brought together, each a balm for the other in some way no one could explain. Bow-hunting elk or deer from adjacent stands in spruce, they’d pass twelve hours in uncut quiet, hand signals between them a superior tongue.
The winter hunt required an uncommon silence when the cold killed the sounds of summer, when ice muffled the earth and caribou a mile off could hear a man move through snow. They passed whole weekends of fishing for king salmon and trout without a single sentence on the river for fear that the fish could hear. All through November nights in their tent they wrapped around one another for warmth and never thought to wonder about an affection this natural.
On the rubber floor mats of Cheeon’s truck: a hammer, a crushed coffee cup, a torn-open box of condoms, cigarette filters fallen from the ashtray, .22 rounds that rolled when the truck turned. His head back against the seat, Slone looked at the roads he knew so well, and as they approached town he searched for changes in storefront windows, in street signs, in front yards, every few minutes sipping from a water bottle Cheeon had handed him. A mother walking along a shoveled sidewalk with her boy—Slone sat quickly forward, turned his head to look at them as they passed. Electricity was everywhere outside the truck window tonight—the illumination of lives. Slone thought about protons, electrons, electrocution.
* * *
They were met in the dim hallway of the town morgue by two detectives, a lab-coated coroner, and by Russell Core, the wolf writer who had discovered his boy two weeks earlier, the one who had last seen Medora Slone. Core and the detectives tried to offer handshakes, attempt a feeble form of condolence, but
By the time he boarded the plane home he had flushed the blue and pink pills. He was beginning now to emerge from that gauzy lair.
His boyhood compa n ion Cheeon met him at the gate. Slone saw him there among the colorful others eager to greet family—six feet tall, half Yup’ik, a fixed expression of grief and resolve. He recognized his drab winter clothes, his boots, the strong tobacco scent of him. Black hair pouring from beneath a camouflaged hunter’s cap. His five-year-old daughter was the second child taken from the village by wolves, but he said nothing of this to Slone.
The men did not speak a word, did not clasp hands or embrace, only met each other’s eyes and nodded. Cheeon took Slone’s duffel bag, then handed him a cigarette and Zippo, a bowie knife in a black leather sheath. Slone moved briskly through the airport with Cheeon beside him keeping pace. Once through the double doors he lit the cigarette, fit the knife into his belt at the small of his back, and looked to Cheeon, who nodded the way to the truck across the road in the parking deck.
The temperature was two degrees now and would drop toward twenty below by dawn. His visible breath and the sharp scent of winter—Vernon Slone knew he was home.
For the eighty minutes it took them to arrive at the town’s morgue the men did not speak. Cheeon drove and smoked and smoked again, his window cracked an inch for vent. The raised white scar jutting from the corner of his mouth told of the autumn morning when fishing on the lake in the valley. Fourteen years old, Slone cast his lure, not looking, and hooked him clean through the mouth. A quick yelp and Cheeon grabbed for the line so Slone wouldn’t cast. Slone snipped off the barb with side cutters and threaded out the hook, holding down his laughter as the blood leaked onto their boots and Cheeon cursed him with his eyes and teeth.
This reticence between them, both instinct and ritual, was a lifetime old. Squalling babes the same age, they’d become instantly quiet when brought together, each a balm for the other in some way no one could explain. Bow-hunting elk or deer from adjacent stands in spruce, they’d pass twelve hours in uncut quiet, hand signals between them a superior tongue.
The winter hunt required an uncommon silence when the cold killed the sounds of summer, when ice muffled the earth and caribou a mile off could hear a man move through snow. They passed whole weekends of fishing for king salmon and trout without a single sentence on the river for fear that the fish could hear. All through November nights in their tent they wrapped around one another for warmth and never thought to wonder about an affection this natural.
On the rubber floor mats of Cheeon’s truck: a hammer, a crushed coffee cup, a torn-open box of condoms, cigarette filters fallen from the ashtray, .22 rounds that rolled when the truck turned. His head back against the seat, Slone looked at the roads he knew so well, and as they approached town he searched for changes in storefront windows, in street signs, in front yards, every few minutes sipping from a water bottle Cheeon had handed him. A mother walking along a shoveled sidewalk with her boy—Slone sat quickly forward, turned his head to look at them as they passed. Electricity was everywhere outside the truck window tonight—the illumination of lives. Slone thought about protons, electrons, electrocution.
* * *
They were met in the dim hallway of the town morgue by two detectives, a lab-coated coroner, and by Russell Core, the wolf writer who had discovered his boy two weeks earlier, the one who had last seen Medora Slone. Core and the detectives tried to offer handshakes, attempt a feeble form of condolence, but
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