In The Garden Of The North American Martyrs Read Free Page A

get it. If we’re not, we won’t.”
    They started back toward the truck. This part of the woods was mainly pine. The snow was shaded and had a glaze on it. It held up Kenny and Frank but Tub kept falling through. As he kicked forward, the edge of the crust bruised his shins. Kenny and Frankpulled ahead of him, to where he couldn’t even hear their voices any more. He sat down on a stump and wiped his face. He ate both the sandwiches and half the cookies, taking his own sweet time. It was dead quiet.
    Â 
    When Tub crossed the last fence into the road the truck started moving. Tub had to run for it and just managed to grab hold of the tailgate and hoist himself into the bed. He lay there, panting. Kenny looked out the rear window and grinned. Tub crawled into the lee of the cab to get out of the freezing wind. He pulled his earflaps low and pushed his chin into the collar of his coat. Someone rapped on the window but Tub would not turn around.
    He and Frank waited outside while Kenny went into the farmhouse to ask permission. The house was old and paint was curling off the sides. The smoke streamed westward off the top of the chimney, fanning away into a thin gray plume. Above the ridge of the hills another ridge of blue clouds was rising.
    â€œYou’ve got a short memory,” Tub said.
    â€œWhat?” Frank said. He had been staring off.
    â€œI used to stick up for you.”
    â€œOkay, so you used to stick up for me. What’s eating you?”
    â€œYou shouldn’t have just left me back there like that.”
    â€œYou’re a grown-up, Tub. You can take care of yourself. Anyway, if you think you’re the only person with problems I can tell you that you’re not.”
    â€œIs something bothering you, Frank?”
    Frank kicked at a branch poking out of the snow. “Never mind,” he said.
    â€œWhat did Kenny mean about the babysitter?”
    â€œKenny talks too much,” Frank said. “You just mind your own business.”
    Kenny came out of the farmhouse and gave the thumbs-up and they began walking back toward the woods. As they passed the barn a large black hound with a grizzled snout ran out andbarked at them. Every time he barked he slid backwards a bit, like a cannon recoiling. Kenny got down on all fours and snarled and barked back at him, and the dog slunk away into the barn, looking over his shoulder and peeing a little as he went.
    â€œThat’s an old-timer,” Frank said. “A real graybeard. Fifteen years if he’s a day.”
    â€œToo old,” Kenny said.
    Past the barn they cut off through the fields. The land was unfenced and the crust was freezing up thick and they made good time. They kept to the edge of the field until they picked up the tracks again and followed them into the woods, farther and farther back toward the hills. The trees started to blur with the shadows and the wind rose and needled their faces with the crystals it swept off the glaze. Finally they lost the tracks.
    Kenny swore and threw down his hat. “This is the worst day of hunting I ever had, bar none.” He picked up his hat and brushed off the snow. “This will be the first season since I was fifteen I haven’t got my deer.”
    â€œIt isn’t the deer,” Frank said. “It’s the hunting. There are all these forces out here and you just have to go with them.”
    â€œYou go with them,” Kenny said. “I came out here to get me a deer, not listen to a bunch of hippie bullshit. And if it hadn’t been for dimples here I would have, too.”
    â€œThat’s enough,” Frank said.
    â€œAnd you—you’re so busy thinking about that little jailbait of yours you wouldn’t know a deer if you saw one.”
    â€œDrop dead,” Frank said, and turned away.
    Kenny and Tub followed him back across the fields. When they were coming up to the barn Kenny stopped and pointed. “I hate that