Page 54 - WTP VOl. VIII #6

War (continued from preceding page)
the aged in wheelchairs, his father gazing at him vaguely. In a bright hospital room eleven months ago, his mother’s lined face is exhausted, her eyes looking at him above a plastic mask.
~
There is a long run of gnarled oak trees to either side of the road and then a rise and dip; Baker drives beneath low-hanging branches. Down, down he goes; he feels the descent in his chest, the tar leveling into a small, snowy field. And here, coming up on the left, is a hunter—compound bow in full draw, aiming at something directly across the road. In a moment Bak- er will pass under the point of the man’s arrow, but the hunter does not lower his bow. The insolence— the stupidity and menace—of the raised weapon has Baker slowing, running down his window, shaking his fist, shouting out—“You don’t fire across a ROAD,
"What anxieties, Baker wonders now—what
insecurities and cruelties—must a man have within himself to be soothed by picking up a high- powered gun and blowing an animal away?"
goddamnit—put the bow DOWN.” But the man stays rigid in his pose, stark in his fading camouflage, his dark-red vest.
Baker is up to the hunter now, seeing the stubborn jaw and the arrow and one murderous eye and
an eyebrow arched. Baker shouts, “PUT THE BOW DOWN, YOU CRAZY PRICK—” and there is a quick movement of the hunter’s hand and the arrow-point is growing and the window directly behind Baker explodes—the son of a bitch fired.
~
Baker ducks, puts his foot on the accelerator—if the man was insane enough to release a first arrow, he might well be loading another. Cold air blasts through
the car. Baker bellows in that wind-whistling space, pounding at his dashboard—Goddamned maniac. His sedan swerves over the road. He drives a few hundred yards around two turns, regains himself, slows, pulls the car over. His heart wows in his ears. Tall pines, their lower branches trimmed,
rise all around him, a stone-cold morning quiet, a great darkness to them; far ahead Baker sees the overpass of 202/9, early morning traffic hushing. He turns to inspect his car: his back-left window
is gone, the right pane spidered. On the rear seat, looking like the message of some malevolent alien, the arrow lies among shards of glass—black and white carbon, brass tip.
Baker’s legs, his hands, are shaking. He senses the strange, still-roaming terror of the Other: he imagines the hunter back there crossing the field quickly, mak- ing for the trees. If Baker had a rifle, he would go back and kneel in the snow. He would aim carefully and fire until the man fell. He would keep firing, watching the body jolt with each impact; he would keep taking aim at the body in the snow.
His heart pounds in his temples. That brief disk of sun emerges and stays, bringing white diffuse light that offers a new precision to everything—seats, stick shift, files of schematics and reports and Baker’s i-phone
on the passenger seat. There is an uncontrollable tremor through his hand as he reaches for the phone. He concentrates, taps, holds the phone to his ear, fixes within himself a decision: he will wait here for the police, drive them to where the shooting happened. He will give them the evidence. There will be fingerprints, a serial number: even if the arrow doesn’t have the re- quired name and address on it, Baker will find out who this hunter is—anyone this viciously impulsive, anyone this deranged, needs to be arrested and prosecuted. Baker will destroy the man.
The forest rises all around, a wild, brightening place. He sees the oaks and pines, their bark and branches and needles, in stunning, acute detail. The new light sharpens the contrast of shadows with the pale forest floor. Peter Baker hears the ringing tone stop and the distant connection, then, with civilization; a professional, female voice saying, 911—what is your emergency?
Hurka attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and has published his fiction in numerous literary quarterlies. His memoir, Fields of Light:
A Son Remembers His Heroic Father, was a winner of the Pushcart Editors' Book Award. He teaches writing at Tufts University, and lives in southern New Hampshire.
47