He didn’t sleep well. The whiskey had set the cabin and the sound of the crickets spinning slowly around him, and he lay on Caleb’s floor at the center of the sickening swirl and thought yet again about Sarah Fahey’s letter. It had arrived in July, long after Marian had come and gone.
Dear Jamie,
I hope you don’t mind that I’ve written—I got your address from the museum. We parted on imperfect terms, and I feel regret about our conversation. I still believe it is not enough to do nothing, but now that more time has passed, I’ve come to believe it is unconscionable to persuade people who abhor violence, as I think you do, to commit it. I want no part of such a process, even though I understand this war requires numbers above all else. Which brings me to my purpose in writing: I have heard of an opportunity. All branches of the armed forces are seeking artists to document the war. A family friend who’s high up in the navy told me about it, as of course we know many artists, and I mentioned you. My understanding is that you would complete the necessary training to earn your commission and be sent to combat areas but would not be expected to fight. There would be risks, of course, but, if you want, I would be happy to connect you with the relevant people.
I hope you and your sister are well. My brother, Irving, is an officer on a destroyer in the Pacific, and Lewis has joined as a medic. I miss them both horribly.
Sarah
* * *
—
Jamie hadn’t told Caleb about the letter or mentioned it when he wrote to Marian for fear they would tell him this opportunity, as Sarah had put it, was a perfect solution to his dilemma. Nor had he replied to Sarah. He could not disagree with her implication that being a military artist would nominally fulfill his duty, but still he bristled. She didn’t think he could hack it. Millions of other men had simply gone off to war, but she thought he needed a special, cushy assignment. On the other hand, the assignment was something he was plainly qualified for, much more than he was to be a grunt.
He woke hot and dry-mouthed after only a few hours, his heart racing, the smell of coffee hanging oily in the air. Though night still seemed entrenched, Caleb was moving around, cracking eggs, setting a pan on a burner.
They ate in silence. Caleb instructed him to go outside to the pump and scrub with soap so the elk wouldn’t catch their scent so easily. As the darkness faded to indigo, they walked into the woods. For hours, Jamie followed Caleb, a rifle on his back, his head aching and his stomach sour. He didn’t ask where they were going. Clouds of blue mist shifted among the trunks and branches. He tried to step where Caleb stepped, to make as little noise as he did, but Caleb seemed to slither like a snake, with barely a rustle, while he clomped along like a cart horse. A stick cracked under his boot. Caleb glanced back.
“Sorry,” Jamie whispered. Caleb held up one arm. Jamie stopped.
Caleb seemed to be listening, but Jamie, straining his ears, perceived only faint dripping and under that an ambient silence prickling with all the sounds that could not be heard: growing plants, creeping insects, drifting dust. In the war, he knew, such a silence would be tense with the possibility of unseen weapons being lifted and aimed. Caleb took a bamboo tube from his belt and blew through it, making a shrill rising note that ended in a low honk. They waited. In the distance, an elk bugled. Caleb gestured to the left, and they continued on.
By a small pond, Caleb pointed to hoof prints and to mud smeared on the trees by wallowing animals. After a while, he stopped again and knelt with his rifle across his knees. Jamie sat on a cushion of pine needles, his back against a tree trunk. There was nothing to see, only mist. Jamie allowed his eyes to droop closed.
Some time later, Caleb shook his shoulder to wake him. A hard knot of bark was digging into his back, drool slimed his cheek. Caleb pointed into a meadow that had materialized just beyond the trees. Yellow light pierced the patchy fog still hanging low over tall grass. A herd of elk was moving slowly along, grazing: females with knobby legs and mulish ears, the bull at the back, watchful, the dark fur at his neck thick and shaggy like a lion’s mane.
Jamie picked up his rifle. They crept forward to the edge of the trees. “You’ll have a clear shot,” Caleb breathed. “Wait.”
Jamie cocked the gun, bent his cheek to the stock. The bull moved closer. Through the sight, Jamie watched him lift his head, tilt it so the thick branches of his antlers tipped parallel to his back. His black nose pinched and quivered; his eyes showed white at their inner corners, urgent with the rut. “Now,” Caleb whispered.