Body – Vox Inaudica

Anne Britting Oleson

Patty had run on ahead. When I finally came upon her in the tiny clearing, she was snuffling about something that lay, a slight mound, in the dead leftover bracken of the previous fall. I stepped toward her, browned leaves gleaming wetly underfoot. I called. She turned slightly and showed her teeth.

I whistled once, hardened my tone to repeat her name, and pointed to the ground at my feet. She came this time, unwilling, cowering close to the ground. She gave a little whine as she neared.

“Stay,” I ordered. She whined again, but did as she was told. I repeated the command, then went to look.

He had been dead a long time. I felt my gorge rise, and looked quickly away from what was left of his upturned face, eye sockets empty, skin torn or worn away to reveal the shocking whiteness of bone. Rather I ran my eyes over his jacket, mud-colored by design or accident, and his jeans. One boot was where it ought to have been, at the end of what had formerly been a leg; the other was some distance away. A long white bone—a femur—extended from it. I whirled away, fell to my knees and vomited.

A bit dizzy, I crawled to a nearby tree stump and dragged myself upright. I kept my head down, my arms across me knees. I had never seen death close up before, and this was death, as far as I could see, in its extreme form. He had been dead a long time. There was not enough there for me to recognize him, even had I known him while he was alive. Even his clothes were indeterminate, generic.

Wade had no idea how long he sat on the stump, head cradled in his arms. He could not bring himself to look again at the dead stranger. Someone from town? He could not remember hearing of anyone going missing over the last several months. Since fall? He wondered how long this stranger had been lying here. Through the winter? Perhaps he had been a hunter, shot accidentally. But no—the stranger wasn’t wearing orange.

When Patty, having waited long enough for his next command, came to his side and poked her wet nose under his hand, he fondled her silky ears and did not reprimand her. She was a good dog, in appearance very much like his first hound, Mary. The hound his older brother Darrell had shot, all those years ago when they’d been kids. Stupid kid, Darrell had been, Wade thought, feeling the old shock and fury. They’d been out all that dismal November afternoon, and sundown was coming on. They’d seen no sign of the buck that had been sighted off and on all summer, nor any of his does. No wonder, the way Darrell was always dragging his heavy size thirteens through the dead leaves, the way he was always sniffling and rubbing his orange sleeve across his nose. Despite being sent home twice, Mary had still stolen out after them, and now, nearly silent, she picked her delicate way through the trees just up ahead, nose to the ground. Which was why it was all the more of a shock when Darrell, tripping over a root or his own feet, had fallen to the ground: the report of the .06 had echoed all around them, and then faded away to uncover the whimper of the dog.

Darrell had gut-shot her. Poor Mary had looked up at Wade with those huge brown eyes, and he closed his own as he put the barrel of his own gun to the back of her head and finished her quickly. While his brother sat blubbering off to one side, he had scraped a shallow trench with his hands and buried his dog the best he could.

“ didn’t have the safety on,” Darrell had said as he moved to Wade’s side. “I could have shot myself.”

For a long moment Wade hadn’t been able to speak. His gun, safety re-engaged, leaned against a tree. Wade had stared at it mutely, at the barrel, at the trigger where his finger had lain; he had felt again the kick when he fired the shot. Wade swung before he thought. The right cross had knocked Darrell to the ground. Wade had picked up his rifle and stalked away toward home.

Now Patty wriggled under his hand, whining a little. “Sit,” he told her, his voice hoarse. He patted his pockets and drew out his cell phone. Surprisingly, there was service. He dialed 9-1-1, gave the dispatcher a report, the words sounding strange and disjointed to his own ears. Then he sat back to wait. Only then did he lift his eyes to the body, where it lay slowly moldering into the damp spring ground. He thought again of Mary and her pain-filled eyes. He thought briefly of Darrell, dead these fourteen years from a drug overdose. Wade wondered how long it had taken this stranger to die out here in the clearing, and what he had thought, staring up into the evening sky, knowing his end was coming—until he saw, perhaps, the first star of evening winking mercilessly down on him.

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