though like the soldiers of myth they sprang from the ground itself. He wondered how they found him and thought they may have followed the dust cloud or perhaps like wolves or hounds on a blood scent they could smell the new-turned earth. He threw the tractor into neutral and sat watching as the birds gorged themselves on tiny infant mice he had exposed from under small rocks and glistening worms as long as garter snakes, and crickets and partridge nestlings and even above the pothering of the engine he could hear the gulls scream. There seemed to be no communion among them. They fought over every mouthful, the most successful of them gagging down pieces that would have choked a hyena and in the chaos of screeches there were times it seemed they would set upon one another until one gruesome bird remained, engorged and wallowing through the furrows unable even to raise his bloodied wings to fly.
In the end he told Millimaki that that was how he was able to sleep, when he did sleep. He revisited the field as he lay in whatever darkness waiting for the blessing of that oblivion. In the memory he did not know if it was the same day or simply a day each time that was similar but the sun was bright overhead and unobscured and the den of foxes sat erect and regarded him with the same black eyes and like Harpies the seagulls came planing over the rim of the hills. The gulls were the only things that ruined the picture for him, with their rapacious mouths and their screaming, but they were as much a part of the memory as the plow or the field and he could not parse them out. He tried but they would not go and in the end if he could not sleep it was because of them.
“I close my eyes and put my foot on that one step and even that I can see plain as anything under my boot and then I just ride round and round. It don’t always work but it works better than anything else,” Gload said. His hand came down and he stubbed out another cigarette. His chair squawked as he rose and then all of him was in darkness. “I believe I’ll try it right now.” Shortly from his own chair beyond the cage bars Millimaki heard the slight musical complaint of the cot’s metal latticework and the rustle of clothes or bedding. All along the corridor a chorus of liquid snores, bizarre snatches of dialogue from the fevered drama of mens’ nightmares. Often the names of women, slurred and lubricious pleas for that sweet thing. Hushed fervent promises of violent lovely torment. Millimaki listened, the midnight congress between men and their ghosts in this place as conventional as a heartbeat. He held his wrist up toward the light to read his watch and was amazed to see that an hour had passed.
John Gload said, “Good night, Valentine. You might try my little trick next time you can’t sleep. In that field under the butte or wherever.” He had never told the old man his Christian name. He stood up and stared into Gload’s cage and then went slowly down the hallway, his shadow pooled about his boots.
John Gload counted the slow receding footfalls that had for him in that durance become the tickings of a clock, the regular mesh of gear on gear marking the order of time. He closed his eyes. But in a short time he realized that the gulls that night were particularly active, swarming behind his eyelids in a maelstrom of soiled feathers and beaks stained with gore. So he lay in the plot of darkness now allotted him in the world thinking about the woman who waited for him at home.
THREE
The morning following the night on the dam they drove east six hours to Rapid City to exchange for currency what they had earned from their labors: a trunkload of antique glassware. The young gay man they had kidnapped and murdered had inherited much of the collection and had added to it over a decade, never dreaming the seashell plates and fluted glasses so lovingly arrayed about his dead mother’s house where he lived yet would be the vehicles of his own death.
They
In the end he told Millimaki that that was how he was able to sleep, when he did sleep. He revisited the field as he lay in whatever darkness waiting for the blessing of that oblivion. In the memory he did not know if it was the same day or simply a day each time that was similar but the sun was bright overhead and unobscured and the den of foxes sat erect and regarded him with the same black eyes and like Harpies the seagulls came planing over the rim of the hills. The gulls were the only things that ruined the picture for him, with their rapacious mouths and their screaming, but they were as much a part of the memory as the plow or the field and he could not parse them out. He tried but they would not go and in the end if he could not sleep it was because of them.
“I close my eyes and put my foot on that one step and even that I can see plain as anything under my boot and then I just ride round and round. It don’t always work but it works better than anything else,” Gload said. His hand came down and he stubbed out another cigarette. His chair squawked as he rose and then all of him was in darkness. “I believe I’ll try it right now.” Shortly from his own chair beyond the cage bars Millimaki heard the slight musical complaint of the cot’s metal latticework and the rustle of clothes or bedding. All along the corridor a chorus of liquid snores, bizarre snatches of dialogue from the fevered drama of mens’ nightmares. Often the names of women, slurred and lubricious pleas for that sweet thing. Hushed fervent promises of violent lovely torment. Millimaki listened, the midnight congress between men and their ghosts in this place as conventional as a heartbeat. He held his wrist up toward the light to read his watch and was amazed to see that an hour had passed.
John Gload said, “Good night, Valentine. You might try my little trick next time you can’t sleep. In that field under the butte or wherever.” He had never told the old man his Christian name. He stood up and stared into Gload’s cage and then went slowly down the hallway, his shadow pooled about his boots.
John Gload counted the slow receding footfalls that had for him in that durance become the tickings of a clock, the regular mesh of gear on gear marking the order of time. He closed his eyes. But in a short time he realized that the gulls that night were particularly active, swarming behind his eyelids in a maelstrom of soiled feathers and beaks stained with gore. So he lay in the plot of darkness now allotted him in the world thinking about the woman who waited for him at home.
THREE
The morning following the night on the dam they drove east six hours to Rapid City to exchange for currency what they had earned from their labors: a trunkload of antique glassware. The young gay man they had kidnapped and murdered had inherited much of the collection and had added to it over a decade, never dreaming the seashell plates and fluted glasses so lovingly arrayed about his dead mother’s house where he lived yet would be the vehicles of his own death.
They
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