LITMIR.BIZ

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yourself.”

      And then he sets to collecting wood, piling up kindling. He won’t let Dave search for the wood, but allows him to arrange it, to push the dried leaves underneath. Soon, the fire is taking hold. Dave and Henry sit on either side of it, watching each other above the flames, both stealing expectant glances toward the road.

      “Another thing I’d never do,” Henry says. “One time, a couple years back, winter, a child went missing, you know, and they got everyone they could to go out searching. Five days on my snowmobile, colder than anything.” He stands, adds a chunk of wood, spits into the flames.

      This time, when he offers the snuff, Dave takes a pinch; some of the younger coaches use it, but he never does. Dentists hate it, but he’s only trying to connect with Henry. Melissa will understand that, if she’ll just get here. He spits, tries to adjust the grains of tobacco with the tip of his tongue. In the heat above the flames, Henry’s two heads melt and twist, stretching even higher and then coming back together. Dave wonders if he put on the suit just to show it off; though Henry is probably older than he is, it doesn’t feel that way. And he feels a kind of empathy, also—Henry is waiting for Nancy, and he can’t do anything about it but wait. Nothing’s moving as smoothly as Henry expected.

      “Did they ever find the child?” Dave says. “Did you?”

      “No.” Henry scratches his beard; the soles of his shoes shine in the firelight. “You ever hear of wolf children?” he says. “Like the ones raised by animals?”

      “I don’t think so.”

      “Sometimes wolves will dig a burrow for a lost child,” Henry says, “line it with leaves, sleep in a circle around it to keep it warm. I saw a whole television program about it, these kids. They run around on all fours, sniff everything, lap water out of a bowl. Hardly feel the cold. Skin of their hands and knees gets all thick and horny and they run straight up mountains. Can see better in the night than the day.”

      Dave listens. Swiveling, he looks behind him. He doesn’t believe a word of it, but the possibility of these children makes the space under the trees turn darker.

      “They have these children on the show?” he says. “They have pictures, or what?”

      “Drawings, I guess. Mostly this was a hundred years ago or more.”

      “Of course it was,” Dave says, laughing, then thinks he should have held his tongue. He spits, the tobacco gritty in his teeth, foul in the back of his throat.

      “There was more open space, then,” Henry says. “Thing is, when they got caught, they could hardly ever learn to talk or to sleep in a bed or anything.” The mask is still resting atop his head, a little crooked, the eyeholes empty and dark. “I just wondered,” he says, “if they might have been better off left where they were.”

      “Hold on,” Dave says. “I’m just trying to follow you, here. Are you saying you’d never search for a lost child again, or that this lost child got taken in by wolves, or what?”

      “I don’t know what I’m saying,” Henry says. He smiles, his teeth surrounded by beard. “Maybe if they’re not caught for a couple years, then you should let them go. I don’t know. Maybe I just wanted to tell about the show I saw.”

      • • •

      The combination of hunger, lack of sleep, and the chew—along with the warm beer Henry found in the locker—has left Dave dizzy, almost giddy. He forgets himself, starts in on the questions again.

      “You two together?” he says.

      “What do you mean?”

      “You married or anything?”

      Henry doesn’t answer, and Dave nods in agreement, as if he should have known better. He pulls the sleeping bag more tightly around his shoulders, his feet almost in the fire.

      “Makes sense to me,” he says. “You see all these rich folks coming in, sport-utility vehicles and whatever, out here where they don’t know anything. Can’t blame you. I’d be tempted, too, if I was in your place.”

      “Makes sense to you, does it? You have no idea. You think this is about money?” Henry smiles his smile, crushes the beer can in his huge hand, throws it into the fire. The aluminum buckles in the flames, turns black. The thick, white bed of ashes rises and falls, breathing, sometimes revealing the hot coals beneath. A log collapses. Sparks shoot upward, burn themselves to cinders.

      “I got something to tell you,” Henry says, “just for you to know. This afternoon we were watching everything. We were standing in the trees. We saw the two of you, how you put your shirt under her, and we heard the noises you made, her legs in the air, your bony ass going.”

      Dave doesn’t say anything; he almost hopes Henry will continue, tell him what he and Melissa looked like, pressed together in that clearing, under the sun and sky. “Maybe we shouldn’t have watched,” Henry says. “Probably I wouldn’t have, if I knew you then. We never would have thought of it, if we didn’t come across you.”

      One headlight shines, out on the road. It comes closer, searching for them; they can hear the tires as the truck passes by; the two red taillights slide away, blinking out.

      “What’s she doing?” Henry says. “She knows the way.”

      The headlight reappears, and the truck passes by, slowly, back the other way. Henry stands and checks the halogen lamps, which are still burning brightly, aimed at the road.

      Five minutes later, the truck returns, and veers into the trees, toward them, the one headlight winking as the wheels roll down through the ditch, up the other side. It doesn’t come any closer.

      “Maybe she broke down,” Dave says.

      “No. I can hear the engine. Listen.”

      “Think she wants you to go out there?”

      “Maybe both of us,” Henry says. “I can’t leave you here.”

      “What am I going to do? Run? All I want is to give you whatever you want, whatever that is, and then I want to be together with my wife.”

      “Quiet.”

      “If she wanted us both,” Dave says, “she’d just drive in here again.”

      Henry stands for another five minutes, silent, then sticks a finger in his mouth and throws his dip of chew into the fire. Sliding the lid from the plastic locker, he takes out a thick metal flashlight. He pulls the mask back down over his head, and once again he seems made of leaves.

      “Stay here,” he says, his voice muffled. He almost leaves the rifle behind, then remembers it, and walks away, crossing the beams of the halogen lamps. Fake leaves span the space between his legs, flutter along his shoulders.

      Dave hesitates for only a moment, then stands and backs away, kicking the sleeping bag toward the fire. Underneath the branches of the trees, he bumps into someone, an arm reaching to hold him; it’s the deer carcass, a hoof wrapped around his waist. He shakes it off, steps away, and almost immediately trips over the bloody hide; on his feet again, he stumbles, hands out in front of him, slapping tree trunks as he moves between them. He can’t hear Henry because of the silent fabric, can’t smell him for the charcoal suit, but the beam of the flashlight is clear and true, and no one needs camouflage in the dark. The truck idles, the driver’s door open and the ceiling light on, the whole thing glowing like it’s at the bottom of the ocean. Through the bright windows it’s clear that the cab is empty; perhaps someone is lying in the bed of the truck, or hidden in the dark trees surrounding it. Dave is flat on his stomach, his urge to shout overcome by his desire to let it happen, to watch.

      Still moving closer, Henry strays into, then out of the headlight’s beam.

      “Hello?” he says. “Hello?”

      His voice is caught in the mask, turned back on itself. Standing still, he aims the flashlight at the ground, then slowly switches

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