Deerskin

Snow crunched soft underfoot. A blanket of ice gagged the babble of streams, hemmed pine needles to branches, encased untouchable red berries. Fir and spruce bowed to the rush of wind--their leaves whistled catcalls and applauded still after the gust had disappeared in murmurs of frost.

She had caught me that way, too, with the snap of a pair of stilettos and swish of her too-tight skirt, blinding, as the sun sheers away the snowdrifts.

But the sun always sets.

"Where did you say the deer was, buddy?"

"Just over the trees, Charlie. It's a big'un." Her husband followed like a brow-beaten canine, scrounging for something that would allow him to cling to the shredded remains of his marriage. But Charlie was only a niggling thorn in thoughts that dwelled on the woman.

She had avoided me at first, a deer cautious to the hunter's ungainly footsteps. In time, wine thawed her frostbitten tongue, and we had embraced in my cabin. The sweaty haze of post-coital no-nothing talk drummed in my chest as we held each other, when she had first mentioned Charlie.

"Dang, Bill. Never woulda thought you'd bag one out here. Season's almost over, right?"

"I got lucky," I said. "That, and I waited for hours up in a tree, freezing my balls off, for the right moment."

We had the same interests, Charlie and I. The same taste in women.

I had already dug a hole as deep as I could before my nails scratched permafrost, her name upon my chapped lips, and the black lie of his friendship stinging my eyes in the freezing temperature.

Claustrophobic, emerald boughs extended their spiny arms around us.

My orange hunter's cap brushed low-hanging branches; snow licked my collar and sent a wet stream down my jacket as we ducked deeper into the thicket.

The snowfall kissing my neck was the same as the wintry ones she had gifted me the last night I saw her.

"I'm sorry, Bill," she had said, the fire illuminating her bare chest an orange tint. "I can't live like this anymore."

She leaned over and embraced me, lingering long enough to extinguish the love I had been stoking. In an overstuffed armchair, I sat paralyzed, searching for words my tightening throat wouldn't allow me to speak.

Pausing at the door, a purse over one bare shoulder, down jacket in hand, she smiled like a bounding fawn discovered causing mischief.

"You'll forget."

As she opened the door, a winter blizzard blew the fire low. Her bangs danced on her forehead and snowflakes flecked her dark hair. She left, transforming into a ghost in the night, a single purple hair tie abandoned on my nightstand.

"Here we are, Charlie," I said, pointing to a pit as large as a wild boar, just deep enough to bury secrets, and dappled with crusted dirt on all sides.

Charlie knelt beside it, shaking his head.

Producing the purple ribbon from my pocket, I let it fall into the hole. Charlie stared, bottom lip quivering in disbelief. He reached forward, but withdrew his gloved hand. "Do you remember her name?"

I shook my head. "I buried it here." So many years ago. "With her."

Charlie sighed, moistened clouds of air purling around his cheeks and over his thinning hair. "That's where she's been all these years, then? A ditch in the woods?"

"The forest is vast, and it forgets. But I can't. She's still a memory, even if I can't remember her name." She had wormed inside me, though the years had made her face was a blur and her name a whisper in the reeds. "Your wife was beautiful."

"A mask for the devil." Charlie grimaced and stood.

I pointed to the ribbon. "She got us both good."

Charlie took out his wallet, fumbled with it, and produced a similar purple ribbon. He tossed it on mine.

I took out a zippo, the flame sparking to life with a flick of my wrist. "I told you you'd catch up with her someday."

Charlie just stared at the ribbons, tears welling in his eyes. "I just wanted to hunt deer."

"To hell with the deer."

The flame touched to the ribbons; they burned quick. We scuffed snow over their remains. I didn't feel better, and from Charlie's harried expression, neither did he.

"She wasn't human, Bill." Charlie shoved his hands in his pockets.

I nodded. "Who would believe us?"

Charlie shrugged.

"Same time next year, then." I slapped him on the shoulder as I stepped around him to lead the way back to where my jeep waited, engine running.

"Same time next year, Bill."

He could never know what had really happened to his wife after she left me that night in the cabin. How brown fur had sprouted from her skin as she sprung for the forest. How my fingers trembled as I curled them around the bowstring. How the metal shaft had penetrated her lithe body; how she had dragged blood and bits of brown and white fur to the very spot we had burned the remnants of our memories.

And how, under the moonlight, I had dug a hole and buried her right there, a deer in form, a woman in mind.

The body had long gone. Life continued, though empty and hollow. No matter how many deer we killed it would never be enough, for my hooved angel already lay, frozen, beneath the crystalline ground.

END