The Mercy Journals Read online

  Dad hired a guy with a backhoe to make this field; he had the idea of putting in his own driving range. I don’t think he ever sprang for the net, but Leo and I remembered him whacking cheap balls into the forest and me yelling Fore! and Leo yelling Skin! The first time one turned up when we were working in the field, I was confused, thinking I’d uncovered some kind of tuber or egg that was going to hatch something, and I just couldn’t remember what.

  Digging up the old golf balls dredged up other stuff from the distant past. When we were kids we used to play with Mom’s pile of sea soil for her garden. We used her gardening trowel and I’d fill Leo’s dump truck with my backhoe and Leo would drive it over somewhere and make a big pile. We made encampments out of sticks and stones and staged battles with plastic soldiers Mom got at the dollar store. We played with those soldiers for days without getting bored.

  Once we stole my sister Lucy’s Barbie from her bedroom. She never used it. She was practically still a baby. It must have been a gift from someone. When we first took the doll, we pretended Barbie was driving the truck, but that lasted about a millisecond. We stuck her pointy legs in the dirt and ran her over with the truck and the backhoe. The sea soil had plenty of worms and we watched in fascination as a worm slid over her nipple-less breasts and disappeared into the ground beneath. This triggered some kind of frenzy in us and we pulled her legs and arms off and threw the parts into the bushes.

  Our sister died not long afterward. We both felt like we’d called forth some kind of horrible voodoo spell with the destruction of the Barbie and for a long time that guilt shadowed our sadness.

  Looking back, I think we never felt quite as easy with each other after that.

  After Lucy’s death (our parents told us years later that it was inoperable brain cancer), my father was sharp with Leo and tensed whenever he came into the room. And I remember Leo started flinching when our mother hugged him, like he didn’t believe her anymore, or like she was trying to imprison him, or he knew he didn’t deserve it.

  We’ve settled into a rhythm. The three of us go to the field after breakfast and work hard until mid-afternoon. Parker shows up around eleven with water and food and surveys what we’ve done, checking out where the sun is reaching. She takes a hoe and plants seeds where we’ve worked and stakes poles with shiny material to discourage birds from eating the seedlings. When she finds a slug she pierces its body with a sharp stick and we all find something humorous in her pregnant viciousness.

  We cleared the field. We ploughed it quickly a second time, unsettling any weeds and grass that were starting to lay roots again. We’re half-way through planting carrots, tomatoes, spinach, garlic, potatoes, and onions. Parker wants us to plant some wheat to keep her seed base strong. With all the rain, drainage is our problem, not irrigation.

  Every night we sit down for dinner tired and happy. Last night, though, there was a moment. Griffin reached out and touched Parker’s cheek while she was talking and she just kept on talking like it was normal. Leo noticed.

  Leo’s moved onto “organizing” the sideboard in the living room. The floor’s covered with old bills, chipped crockery, printouts of grade-twelve English lesson plans, a Nintendo Game Boy, boxes of photos of relatives from Mom’s side. I cannot imagine Leo cares about any of it.

  You looking for something? I ask.

  He stood up. I’m wondering where a few things are. He held his hands oddly, with the thumb and forefinger of one hand pincering the webby flesh between the thumb and forefinger of the other.

  Like what? I looked around.

  He squeezed harder.

  A thought entered into my head. I asked him, The will?

  He shifted his grip so his thumbnail dug into the flesh of the other hand.

  Whatever they wrote, I said, it won’t make any difference now. There aren’t even lawyers for this stuff anymore.

  He released his hand. That, he said slowly, would be what you would say. Of course it won’t make any fucking difference to you. Why would it? I want to see what our parents said. What difference does that make to you?

  Leo showed up at breakfast this morning with something weighty in his coat pocket. It clanked against the table when he sat down. We stopped eating and looked at him.

  What?

  What’ve you got? I asked.

  A tool.

  What tool?

  A wrench.

  A wrench?

  I found it in the attic.

  And kept it in your pocket?

  You never know.

  It’s not a wrench is it?

  No?

  It’s a gun, isn’t it?

  Ooh. You’re good.

  Show her here.

  It was wrapped in a piece of flannel. A Browning Hi-Power 9mm. Unloaded.

  Did you find cartridges?

  Leo ate his porridge. Let me eat my breakfast will you?

  Where did you find it?

  In the attic. I told you.

  So, yesterday?

  He shrugged. When he finished breakfast, he held his hand out for the gun. I didn’t want to give it to him.

  I was lying around after a late afternoon doze watching the sun make shadows on the ceiling and imagining Ruby seeing my new face. The gold-green flecks in her eyes, the corners of her wide mouth turning up. She’d like this new look: same Allen Quincy but topped with oddly angled tufts of hair, a raised, jagged red scar along the hairline, the clear markings of a claw on my left cheek, and the missing bit of lip. I was imagining her walking around the corner into my room when Griffin and Parker came pounding up the back porch stairs and threw open the screen door.

  There’s a dead deer, Parker said.

  A fresh kill, Griffin added. Only part of the chest cavity has been eaten.

  My heart quickened.

  I’m scared, Parker said.

  Of course.

  No, I’m really scared.

  Where is it? I asked.

  Just the other side of the meteor. Parker can’t be outside alone anymore. Not until we know it’s gone.

  I can’t say why, but I was happy. I believed it had to be the same cougar. I felt that she’d come back for me. I wanted to see her again.

  Cougars maintain a big range, I said. It won’t stay long. Besides, they’re shy.

  One attacked you, Parker said.

  A cripple.

  I want the gun, Parker said.

  Have you talked to Leo?

  They shook their heads.

  Cougars come from behind. You won’t even know it’s there. You won’t know what’s hit you. A gun won’t help. A knife would be better.

  I’ll stay with Parker. It won’t attack two of us.

  That boy, I thought, is a sweetie-pie, as my mother used to say.

  I’d like Griffin to have the gun then, Parker said.

  He’s just as likely to shoot you as the cat if it jumps you.

  We were all at the table. Oyster stew. The sound of spoons clinking on bowls. Slurps. Parker told Leo about the kill. The hair stands up on the back of my neck even going to the outhouse, she said. I keep turning around and trying to see into the bushes.

  Maybe stay inside for a couple of days, Leo suggested. It’ll move on once it’s finished the deer.

  It’s probably been here for years, I said. I agree. It’s going to finish its kill and move on.

  Leo looked at me. You think it could be the same one?

  It could be. They range up to 160 kilometres. How far away was our campsite?

  Sixty, seventy kilometres.

  I want the gun until it goes away, Parker interrupted.

  A knife is better, Leo said. I’ll lend you my knife.

  Griffin looked at Parker and said, We probably wouldn’t use the gun, but we’d feel safer.

  Leo spooned a few mouthfuls in while he considered whether to answer.

  I’d feel safer keeping it, he said. If I thought it would be useful, I’d be only too happy. Surely you agree Allen?

 
About the cougar, yes, but I think the pistol belongs to the house and should be left in a kitchen drawer with the cartridges so if any of us need it we can get it. Also I’d like to give Griffin and Parker basic shooting lessons. Without using bullets obviously.

  I’ve come to like having it, Leo said and leaned back on his chair. Does it really matter? He stretched his arms over his head. Who’s going to come here?

  Who knows what’s going to happen. I’d like to give them lessons.

  I can give them lessons. I’m as experienced with this weapon as you.

  No you’re not. I’m a soldier

  You were a soldier. Twenty years go.

  How about they pick their teacher?

  How about we stop talking about this shit.

  He put his head down close to his bowl and spooned the last of his stew in.

  You find what you’re looking for yet? I asked.

  Am I looking for something?

  I threw my spoon in my empty bowl and pushed my chair back. My blood was starting to boil. Nothing like a brother.

  I was up first in the morning. I started a fire, milked the goat, and made the oatmeal and tea, then tiptoed into Griffin’s room to wake him up. I don’t know why but I was surprised to see Parker in the bed with him. I wondered how long that had been going on and whether Leo was aware of it.

  I touched his shoulder, mimed that I wanted to talk, and tiptoed out. He came out in boxers, carrying his clothes and shoes, and followed me to the kitchen. I’d never seen his body before. His skin was very pale. His shoulders were broad but the muscle wasn’t defined.

  I want you to show me the carcass, I whispered.

  Sure … Griffin hopped on one foot as his other struggled to find a way through the leg of his pants. Only one problem. Well, at least one.

  Yeah?

  Parker. She doesn’t want to be left alone with Leo.

  I let that sink in.

  Because of the pistol?

  No.

  He did up his pants, then sat down and pulled up his socks. In my mind I replayed overhearing Leo making a move on Parker.

  She doesn’t trust him, Griffin said.

  Sure, bring her, but she can’t make a sound. I want to keep Leo out of it. I want to see the cougar alone.

  We walked quietly, Griffin in the front, Parker in the middle, knives drawn. We filed past the meteor and headed up the slope of the mountain. Griffin sighted the carcass. It had been dragged partially into the underbrush, head and fore hooves poking out into the open. The bone buds of its antlers were just erupting. The eyes were cloudy and ringed with flies. Inside the brambles you could make out the red hollow of the chest cavity with flashes of white bone and tendon and you could see a claw mark on its back. Griffin and Parker both thought it had been moved since the day before. Griffin crouched down, peered into the bush and said that a large portion of the hindquarters had also been eaten.

  I told Griffin and Parker my plan. Griffin was not happy about it. I rubbed myself with dirt and leaves and fir needles—under the armpits, the crotch, and scalp—to minimize my scent and threw a rope over the first branch and secured it. Climbing with the peg leg wasn’t easy, but I braced my legs against the trunk and pulled myself up hand-over-hand until I reached the first branch. I pulled the rope up after me and coiled it, ready for a quick descent. I cut some suckers and tucked them through my belt, then hoisted myself up onto the next branch. The branches higher up were not sturdy enough to hold a cougar’s body. It could only approach from below. I lay down and arranged the suckers to camouflage myself, with Griffin’s help. I had two knives and a whistle. I would’ve appreciated the pistol, but screw it.

  Griffin hovered below, unwilling to leave me alone. I told him I’d faced much worse than a fifty-five-plus kilo cat and it wasn’t going to catch me by surprise this time.

  Why do you want to see it so much? he fretted.

  Curiosity.

  Killed the cat, Parker whispered automatically. You don’t have a death wish do you?

  Make space for the baby? I said and grinned. I’ve got the whistle. If you hear it send Leo with the Browning.

  The light shifted across the forest floor as hours passed. The deer’s head strained away from its neck.

  Mid-morning I was meditating on the neon-yellow-green of new leaves when, from the corner of my eye, I saw the carcass move. Without moving my head I refocused on the deer. The cougar had materialized in the clearing. She could have been the one that attacked me, based on Griffin’s description. Same size, same age, same slack belly. She got the buck by the scruff of the neck and tugged it into the clearing, the muscles on her haunches taut with effort. She bobbed her head a few times, sniffed at the gut, then lay down and ate from the haunch. Presently she yawned and burbled and a young male trotted into the clearing. He came over to her and nuzzled her under the chin until she batted him away. He was followed by two slightly smaller cubs, females I assumed.

  After eating her fill the mother moved a short distance away and lay down where I couldn’t see her. Her offspring moved in to eat, growling at each other when one got too close to the other’s feeding place. The young male finished first and headed toward his mother but soon returned and started to eat right beside one of his sisters, who yowled and flattened her ears but didn’t stop eating. The male didn’t move. His sister swatted him, looking in their mother’s direction.

  The male eventually stopped eating and skittered toward the trunk of my tree. I worried he was going to climb it—I hadn’t factored in offspring—but he lay down in the shade beneath me and started to groom. I wondered if the movement from my breathing would catch his eye. Eventually a huffing sound came from the mother and all the young stopped and looked at her.

  The carcass moved back toward the bush. She must’ve come round under the bushes to pull it in because I couldn’t see anything. The young disappeared into the bush one after the other. I waited a long time, then lowered the rope down, waited another interval, then eased myself down.

  Walking home I felt emptied out and filled up at the same time. I wanted to return the next day to watch her. I was mesmerized.

  Then I thought of Parker and the baby and Griffin and Leo back at the house without me and sped up. I no longer liked the thought of the three of them there without me.

  The air had lost the last traces of morning damp and the temperature was rising. I got a noseful of ocean as I walked past the meteor onto our peninsula, the incoming tide picking up whatever had died at low tide—crabs, mussels, sea worms—and wafting their scent inland with the breeze. Ravens cawed excitedly. For a moment, as I stood in the warm sun, the world seemed a perfect place. Then the sun started to burn.

  I returned to the kill site the next morning, excited. As I approached I noticed turkey vultures in the trees. The carcass had been pulled out into the clearing and was picked clean. I sat and stared at it until the pressure of the waiting vultures activated my departure. On my return to the cabin, I felt low.

  I came in through the sun porch, lay on my bed, and started writing. The house is quiet. Leo and Griffin are probably working in the field. I’m thinking that the goats and chickens may not escape the cougars’ notice for long. Four top-down predators are four too many.

  Yesterday we discussed what to do about them. Leo was for killing them, but even Parker isn’t enthusiastic about killing a mother and her cubs. Leo pointed out that they’d be full-grown soon. I said that would mean they’d strike out for their own territories, though I had to admit waiting that out didn’t seem like much of a strategy. I reiterated that once the deer was eaten they’d probably leave. If they hung around I suggested we could scare them away. I actually suggested banging pot lids. Griffin took over at that point and said we should at least clear the brush from around the cabin, the goat pen and chicken coop, the outhouse and the kitchen garden, to eliminate hiding places.

  The quiet around here is starting to bother me. I have a feeling of doom again, of things
closing in, hanging by a thread, of this interval being some kind of pivot. I feel that what I do next could have bad repercussions if I fail to read the signs correctly.

  Leo walked in on me as I was writing.

  What’s that?

  I closed this journal.

  He cocked his head. You keeping a list? Naughty and nice?

  What do you want?

  That’s a little hostile, brother. I just came to talk about the cougars. I was hoping that upon reflection you weren’t still endorsing the let’s sit around and do fuck all approach.

  I am.

  Are you nuts? That thing attacked you, a grown man, with other men nearby. You have to believe it could try again. Parker isn’t safe.

  If it’s the same one, Griffin managed to hit her hard with the frying pan, and she came away with nothing. She’s going to think deer are easier prey.

  If. Wouldn’t it be more prudent to eliminate it? Even exciting? Kill the mother and the rest will scamper. I’ve never tasted cougar meat. Cat soup!

  Do you even know who you’re talking to? They’ve got as much right to be here as we do. They haven’t harmed us.

  Oh please. I’m going to vomit. You’re a soldier for fuck’s sake.

  If it’s the same one, it was me she attacked. I decide. I paused. I was a soldier remember, twenty years ago.

  He looked at the journal, deciding if there was any reason to obey me.

  Let me read your book.

  No.

  He looked out the open door. What did you do with your goldfish? I was wondering, what did Mr Pure and Noble do with his pets? Did he flush them down the toilet? Did he risk being busted and give them to someone to look after? Did he abandon them? What would Allen have done with those fish, I was asking myself?

  I gave them to Velma at work. I put the pencil down on the bed, but held onto the journal. Odd you’d wonder.

  Yeah, the things a person thinks about, eh? If those cougars hurt someone you’re not going to feel all fucking Jane Goodall then.