Fourteen, Going on Fifteen

There he is, down the end of the garden. He’s encased in ice. That’s a good thing, for now; I never look forward to spring, when he thaws out to bother my mother again.

I don’t know if it will be the same as last year, or the year before that, when he thawed out and made life hard.

It’s already hard, but at least it’s calm at the moment. Ma is watching TV just now, not saying much, but that’s better than when his trap melts and he gets inside again. Like I say, I don’t know if it will be the same this year. It’s only been going on for two years so far. There might not be a pattern. Who knows, maybe he won’t come in this time, after he’s defrosted I mean. Perhaps the peaceful now will go on and on, perhaps at least until I’m old enough to leave.

I think fifteen should be old enough. I’d say I’m mature now. I know that because I know I’m not quite ready to hack it on my own. It will never be easy to get along out there in the woods, but I’m practising my survival skills as much as I can. I can light fires, trap a bunny rabbit, shoot a woodpigeon with my airgun and pitch my tent in a gale. I’m doing it all just like Huck showed me.

Huck’s my big brother. He stepped out aged fifteen. Although he was a bit bigger, a bit smarter than me, I think I could step out come the same age. After all, I’ve been learning survival skills longer than he did before he left, since he started teaching me almost straight away.

I loved Huck. He always watched out for me. He put me in his bedroom closet when the man came inside and started bothering Ma the first time, near three years ago now. He knew the best hiding spots up the woods too, for times when the man had Ma turning the house inside out looking for something. I don’t know what she hunted, but when Huck and me came back down from the woods, grief, the place was a mess.

After a big hunt like that, the man would be quiet for a time, usually. Sometimes he’d just stand by my mother in her easy chair while she looked at the black TV screen. Other times he’d go back outside and wait in the garden. Not frozen in a big block of ice like so many fish on a freighter, of course. This was summertime still, afore he went quiet again and Ma was tranquil.

She would stay still-ish while was around, some of the time. But there’d always be some twitching leg, or hand, or else her eyeballs’d be rolling about all over, like they were zapping the flies that rose up out of the ditch each summer. Most of the time, he had her moving.

When she wasn’t hunting, in the house, naturally: Ma didn’t know how to hunt in the wild, not like Huck and me, he’d have her chopping wood.

They’d be outside the woodshed, axe falling all day and into the dark, more wood than would fit in the woodshed, until I’d yell out the door to Ma to get her to come in and eat some beans or some such supper. The man usually let her, not that I saw him eat a thing himself.

The man never chopped any wood himself, in fact I didn’t see him do much of anything except follow at Ma’s shoulder and a-whisper in her ear. Strange that he had such big arms and a barrel chest; you could see it in the short-sleeved check shirt he always wore. He never changed, even when he went down the garden, and he stayed in that shirt, those blue jeans and those brown boots each winter when he froze up. I can see just now that he’s got the same clothes. I can see him through the ice. I can see his face too, real calm, like he knows all the answers, and nothing’s a mystery to him. I’ve never heard his voice, though. He just talks to Ma, right in her ear, and if needs be, she tells me what he’s said.

When winter comes like now, she doesn’t say much of anything. I think she gets so used to hearing him that when he goes she doesn’t know what to say.

I won’t be like her, is what I tell myself. I’ll be like Huck, when I get to fifteen. I’ll hit the woods, live like a proper Wildman. Maybe I will meet a girl one day, in the woods even. It’s not that I have anything against girls; I just don’t know any, excepting Ma.

The only thing is leaving Ma. She’s got no other kids now. And I don’t think the man is going to help bring along any more. He goes into her room when she goes abed, but I have never heard any of those uh-ah noises that I heard from time to time, long before Pa left. You don’t need tell me about baby-making, Huck told me all about that.

I think Ma’ll do ok without me. The man’s a big bother; he makes her works so hard at chopping logs and hunting for things indoors. That’s why she’s like this in winter I think. She’s having a rest.

Only, sometimes she forgets about eating, and more than once I’ve had to get a bath drawn for her.

She’ll be alright though. She’s a strong lady, and folks don’t argue with her for long. She drove Huck out, after all, when he got too bold. Huck was my hero, but she did right. The boy became a bit of a bully, to be sure. I didn’t mind so much, since he taught me my skills, but a song can’t start telling his Ma what to do in her own home. Winter was still to come, so the man was still there. He whispered and whispered to Ma, and that drove Huck crazy. He flung a pan of boiled potatoes at her, but just got her arm, luck for all of us. That was the last straw, she said, and the man took her out to the woodpile and she grabbed the axe. She didn’t need it: Huck wasn’t that dumb or stupid brave. He knew he could live up the woods, maybe forever, or maybe he’d be able to come home one day.

I don’t think there’s much likelihood of that. There’re wolves and spooks and all up those woods and Huck doesn’t have a gun. I’ve been petitioning Ma for a proper gun for some time, but it looks like I may have to wait for the man to come back to whisper her instructions on that point. It’s winter, so she doesn’t think so much at present.

Accordingly, I’m just waiting for the cursed spring, for the man to thaw out, bothersome though he is. I thought about taking the axe to his frozen tower, but I’m none too skilful with it, and I don’t want to kill the man. It’s only when he’s around that Ma can do anything at all, so I’m relying on him now, to petition her with me for a gun.

So I’ll spend the rest of winter talking to him out here, hoping he hears through the ice, working at persuading him that a boy needs a gun in these woods. I won’t say a word on my leaving when I turn fifteen; the man’d only tell Ma. I’ll say it’s for hunting rabbits and keeping the wolves away. I’d say he can teach me to shoot, but the man only talks to Ma. Still, I can handle the airgun and it can’t be too different.

After that, I’ll pack my tent and sleeping bag and head up the woods. I can leave Ma with the man. Maybe I’ll find Huck out there, and we’ll have us a reunion. It’ll be on my terms, once I have a gun. Me and Huck can be like Ma and the man: a team, working together.

Huck can live in me, but I‘ll call the shots this time. I won’t be a bully, like him or the man: too many bullied become bullies. But I’ll be the leader in the woods. The Wildman leader. That’ll be fair, and that’ll be truly fine.