The Disinherited Read Free

the surface of his vision. Images of Miranda, wearing that blue dress: arms holding Erik high in the air. The bull, panting and sweating, not yet convinced that this was an interesting way to die. “Catch,” Miranda said, and threw him the baby, laughing at the feet kicking out of the diapers and Richard’s outrage. When they used to laugh together it was like sex, without ownership of voice or body. When he wanted her after dinner, he would sit in a particular way, his chair shoved back and his feet up on the table. She was more direct and came to him in the fields and in the mornings. He could still feel the imprint of the bird’s foot on his hand. Toes, partially webbed. Upper surfaces black and corrugated but smooth and cold underneath. He realized that he had misplaced himself, that the log he was sitting on was not supposed to be there, that he had changed direction without knowing it and had circled back towards the lake. It would be impossible to get up. Different currents were moving through his body, claiming the rhythms of his bones and nerves. It would be impossible to get up.
    “Don’t be stupid,” he said to himself. The sound of his own voice startled him: it seemed to have broken apart. He closed his eyes and saw himself lying, without a coffin, in an open grave. He pushed and wriggled, making himself comfortable in the soft earth.
    “Doesn’t he look nice,” Miranda said.
    “Don’t be stupid,” Richard said again, this time more loudly so that his voice sounded stronger. He opened his eyes and looked up to the tops of the trees where the light was filtering through unevenly. He was reminded of the sugar house, his stomach, his father’s cheap cigars. He had tried to take Erik for walks the same way but knew that it wasn’t working.
    “A man can’t die before his time,” his father used to say — a statement not of hope, but of duty. It was uttered in only one context; it was an alternative, when he was tired, to taking Richard to the woodshed. Miranda had tried to prohibit that too.
    She was crying but it was contained. “It was better this way,” she said. “He would have hated to go in a hospital.” Beside her stood Nancy. She was piously clasping a bible in her hands. Erik and Brian peered over the grave, to make sure he was dead, and then drifted away, with Nancy, so only Miranda was left. “Well,” she said, “what are you waiting for?”
    He could feel the moisture between his toes. He took out a cigarette and lit it, promising not to inhale. He looked at the log carefully. There were still marks from the chains. He stood up. He noticed he was hunched forward and he straightened himself, pushing his head and neck until his spine felt centred. His left hand was still in his pocket. He corrected his direction and began walking again. When he came to the path, he dropped the cigarette and pushed it with his foot until the tip was covered with dirt. He kept his eyes up, looking ahead, calculating the distance to the next rise. It had once been a road, but it was ten years since he had driven a tractor or a team over it, and now the alders and aspen were pushing in on it, outgrowing the young maples and being threatened themselves only by juniper bushes. There was no wind but the trees seemed to be swaying, almost fluid. He found that he was holding his arm over his face, to protect himself from snapping branches. To make the kill the matador had plunged the knife into the bull’s neck; a long red antenna had sprung forward, hung over the forehead like a third eye, one that perceived the universe as a punctured spine and a sudden spurt of blood. Richard Thomas stopped. He thought he had heard someone calling his name. He heard it again. He wanted to shout back but could barely raise his voice above a whisper. The bull had slowed down. It wavered past the matador and then sank to its knees. The matador waited until the bull stopped trembling and then walked up to it and cut off one