ࡱ> VXU \bjbjVV :j<<T8/KjgggggBBBOJBBBBBggBggvBgx{H0;;;LBBBBBBBBBBBBBB;BBBBBBBBB : THE TRANSFORMATION OF ACTEON By Michelle Yost Jack raked his lean, muscular hands over the landscape for anything he could eat. He tightened his suspenders as his stomach moaned with tinges of hunger and exhaustion. He had seen no game for at least two days. He had hitchhiked this far from the rail station, and was now fending off the slow shades of hunger that wrapped and chilled him. The calloused hands beneath his stomach felt the rifle, ached to find something in the naked woods. He was an expert hunter, but even in the shade of twilight, the moment when vixen and bucks littered every meadow, he saw no stirring of movement, as if the forest itself had taken a large gulp of air, leaving a vacuum of silence. Autumn had plucked its penny colored leaves out of the trees fingers, like a bandit as it left the forest stillborn. Silently, Jack traced himself back to the trail, continuing on, a lonesome traveler dancing to the lonesome traveling tune he hummed, tailor-made around his aura like a vast shadow show. The lingering tune hung on the wind like fresh clothes on the line. The mockingbirds jumped at his approach, shocking their echoes out of their chorus, enveloping the woods in confusion and despairing catcalls. The woods loomed thicker there. Pines tugged and scratched at Jacks pluming beard. His eyes lidded heavily, predatory and nocturnal, catching the moonlight swinging down like a pendulum to guide him. The path was caked in velvety light. Crystal lights traveled in the sky like ships at sea reflected in the empty above. At the edge of the pine grove, a clearing sunk into the forest floor. Captivated, Jack stood with eyes adapting to the space, transposing the clearing to trajectory. At least four deer scuffled down in the clearing. They were all large does, pulsing tails bouncing before hidden berries and treasures. He considered them with ageless eyes, commanding their full weight to calculate the respective qualities. Where there were some, there were more, like any species. In the trenches, Jack would have shot first and asked questions later, but Jacks slow reaction due to his unexpected embrace of the clearing allowed the four does to pick immediately a new, strange, sudden and unwelcome scent. They were does. You werent supposed to kill them. They were to make more. Jacks stomach gurgled in response to his head. They leaped away, but they were too slow for Jack. Jack bit into the crisp air with his rifle and gave the deer the hunters kiss. The deer went down. It had been a clean shot at this range, through its spine as it jumped. Its plumb body fell haphazardly, nestled itself in the leaves and veins of trees; her beaded black eyes fluttered shut as her heart ripped and crumbled. She tried to straighten herself, fighting the now swelling fever of the bullet. They always fought to get to water. She made it a foot and a half before she tipped, unable to lunge herself any further. Roots tripped her on the way down, and her nerve endings jumped for the last time. The forest seemed to cradle her, blood sopping up the copper, dark mess of leaves. Gutting and skinning the thing was no task at all for Jack. He set to work, keen hunger overwhelming the snicker of guilt in the back of his head as he sighed for her and set to work. Patience was key. He cut out the organs, pausing to notice the liver. He held it tenderly, messing his hands as he studied it, the sun faded like a blister through the trees. Her warm blood ached on his hands, as if burning him. He was just imagining things. Building a fire, he startled the clearing with smoke. He ate all he could, her flesh heating on the fire. He wished now that he had a can of beans to accompany his venison. The relief of his hunger drove him into sleep as he curled the blankets around him like he had on cold nights in Europe. As he drifted into the dream world, he thought he caught a sideways glimpse of two beady black shining eyes in the clump of trees on the other side of the fire. In the morning, he fought against the climb of the hill, watching dark heaps of smoke billowing from below. The valley cracked with the sounds of the engines. Turbines thrummed under the thick edifice of late September sky. Coal mines mimicked towns below as the thick, rising benediction of an aching sunlight fought against the smoke. Fog obscured the sight of the strong men who dug deeper in the hillside to reach the coal, buried within cavities of Earth. Jack loomed through the mist, untangling pine trees. The clouds of smoke knit together and smelled of oil. Even the fog was stained as dark and sweltering as the caverns below. He missed the sweet smell of the orchards, the saplings budding fruit. Industry coughed fire on the land and all left of the orchards were buried under soot and the stench of bent-backed, sweating men carrying picks and helmets. The pealing rumble of trucks had torn and ripped this once evergreen Eden away. All that was left was a mouthful of dust and decay. Jacks lips shrugged away prayers for the decimated land as he had once shuddered off home. He thought suddenly of his mother washing him while the laundry was cleaning. Soap nuts caking the clothes and her scrubbing him, struggling. But now she was dead and nothing was clean anymore. Her funeral would be in two days. Dozers devoured the gorge, hungry only for the coal that lay in the mines. Jack unpacked his tobacco and rolled a neat cigarette, surveying the outline of the town. This was no ones home anymore. This was a dumping hole, a lonely town of widows and alcoholics. Smashing the memories, tucking them hard away into the disguise of his older manhood, he fought back the edging regret that pried his heart. What a waste, he thought, as the cigarette dreamed and built ladders, paler smoke than the towns billowing ash. His stomach began to rumble again, and he thought of the doe, sheathed by forest, dead. Dead and haunting, the doe cauterized his memories as he thought of how he might have only waited. The nearby stream was stained a curdled orange. Fish bobbed there, waiting for the sun to dry out their already empty lungs. Amphibious waste fringed the surface. Mildew strangled the trees, full of disease and fungus. Jacks father had taken him fishing here. That was before the industry caught on to coal. Before he had nodded to the company, sold them his land to catch a living for his soon widow and young boy. His father had taught him to hunt in these woods, stretching for miles, secluding the valley. Then the trains came. He remembered the sacred oaths of his father, to leave the females, the fish and the does alive. He pinched the stirring guilt. Sold his land to the devil! his mother sang. Her soul wrought by iron bellows, complaining as her meager living was squashed by the prices of merely living, hardly getting by. The company controlled everything. When Jack was young, he saw a photograph of two men in his town, grim expressions on their faces. They loved their work, the pride welled from sharing with kinsfolk the same tribulations. I bet a dollar theyre talking about coal, his mother had said, Splains the expression. It was a steep climb for any man down the moutainside. Jack took the long way around, dewy sticks crunching beneath him. He hoped to get to the hotel before the storm hit. The Blue Moon Hotel and tavern lay nestled where he remembered it. Magdalena, the shill-voiced, older woman who owned the place, recognized Jack at one. Well if it isnt old Jack. Sorry to hear about your mother passin, kid. She was a good lady. Jack nodded. Glad to see you made it out of the war alright. Not a scratch on you. Say, got a free arm to do something with this here roof? I dont care to, if youre willing to board me while Im in town. I can offer you more than that, sweetheart. She motioned to the brace of girls who were half her age. Not tonight, Mags. Where you been anyway, Jack thats taken you away so long? He looked grimly down, quantifying the naked, scuffed, scarred floorboards. I took a turn at the devils game, Mags. Turns out he didnt want me. But it puts a lot on a mans mind, so I traveled a bit. I dont talk this much. Youre the girl with the syllables. When that was done, he sent me aback here. Cant really say; things sometimes a blessin turn toward a curse. Magdalena sometimes had a gypsy look about her in her worn and tired eyes. They said there were gypsies in the town, but they were on the outskirts. They stole a couple horses sometimes, and some food. They spoke their gibberish and got by. He wondered if she was descended. Her curly hair had tips of gray. There were chirps in her accent, like rosy welts on her words. He thought her colorful. As a child, she had always called him myopic. Jack had worked a good deal here when he was younger, and Magdalena saw him as much as his own mother, who was dead three days. When he was a boy, he had brought her whatever leftovers from his recent hunt could afford him and she would make the most savory soups. He had heard her speak in a different language, but he never understood. Mags was seventy years old and still managing this place. She said nothing, sharing a knowing look he always resented. Things holding up? Jack asked. Yeah, except this here roof. The coal bastards have us pretty much with our backs against the mountains. But we make do. Room upstairs, third to the left, sweetheart. Thanks Mags. Whos that? a tongue wagged as Jack was halfway up the stairs. Magdalena said, Thats Jack Price, the best hunter in the state, just come back from war. Mother just died. He seems a whole lot more quiet than when I last seen him. I suppose you see some things. Hes here to settle her affairs and move on. The loaded bar was silent. Their glassy eyes held nothing but the sad sorry look of men with nothing but regret and a bottle. There were stains on everything that moved and didnt. The place was a dreary wreck of miners, like washed up, wracked sea men on the shore. It was morning, but they were already in the bars, as their night shifts had ended. The smell of can fires wafted through the shutterless windows, dim firelight poked through the mist. You could hear the hissing boom of the factory, cringe in the lights that never went out. The shadows cast were darker than hells abyss. Stray cats sloped past, making the shadows stretch deeper, adding a violence to them. Jack curled into his room, and fell fast asleep. He would go to the undertaker later. A tabby snuck its scrawny legs across the rooftop outside of Jacks window. Realizing it was evening, he awoke to the ceaseless sounds of the factory. There was a fading crackle of coughing men which clung pressingly to night. The devil himself seemed to laugh as the town was swallowed by night and the fires of the industry. Jack crept from his place in the itching staw mat and made his way to the door. Creaking open, the hall outside was motionless. Single wax candles spit little light as he descended. Insomnia was as frequent as aching bones in this town, but no one was up, even playing cards or drinking by himself. Jacks traveling had brought him home, but he found little comfort or familiarity. He might as well have been back in the trench where he might have a least had exhaustion and the smell of dirt and gunpowder to lull him back to sleep. He could still feel the rattle and shake of the train that had vomited his body so close to this desolate valley. He thought about Mags, about her not knowing the seam like gash, still healing, under his waistline. He thought about her weathered but gentle face. He thought about her breasts. Shaking the chill of his bed, Jack withdrew from the hotel, hoping to find somewhere that might have another bite of food to spare. His pockets were empty of any coin. The chapel lights always burned, mirroring the factory. He paced through the wiry streets to its door, which he knocked. When no one answered, he silently picked the lock open and went inside. The solace of this place was still stifled by its suffocating smell of incense, as if trying to ward off the smell of whiskey and overcompensating. He had longed a good time for this silence, this sanctuary. He thought of the deer again, measuring its escape before trying to flee to the nearby stream, to find sanctuary. He had memories of this place: serving as an altar boy, of Father Miles drunken liturgies, the church mothers exchanging gossip. Floorboards creaked quietly under him as he entered, welcoming him with alarm. He had first taken communion here and remembered the wafer on his tongue, how large and misplaced it felt on his inner cheek. The ragged icons, the dirt-stained floor smelled, at least, familiar. He sat alone in the vestibule, harking dawns approach, calculating where his mothers arrangements would be. A creeping sensation woke him from his silent meditation on his mothers funeral. The sensation traveled the length of his forearms and his rigid spine. He opened his eyes, looked up and saw dark, coal splotched eyes. The devil in the rafters of the church arched and unfolded. Grimly draped in shadow, he flexed and rolled his shiny, spindled back and was gone. Jack was startled but stayed still, eyes always primed for the devil to catch him. Jack was sure it was just a bat. He was almost calm, felt his pulse steady, and heard the bats flutter and vex themselves in the nights still. His pulse held true until he heard a small, animal sound, like a gasp. A sudden squeal tore Jack from his seat and suddenly he was staring at a naked, dirty woman whose eyes were wide and beady, black and swollen with surprise. Her arms were buried in the basin of holy water, she was half through cleaning herself with the only clean water in the town. She screeched at him incomprehensibly. As her long, curly, enchanting hair parted, her displayed breast spilled openly into view. She was inexcusably dirty, as if she had rolled out of the coal mine. She clutched herself up, covering herself as fast as he had eyes to see. Jack backed up, equally terrified as she looked, knocking into a pew, nearly knocking the pew out of its resigned, screwed place in the chapel floor. She held a long, silent look at him and fled first, hair whipping around her, grabbing clothing as she ran out the back of the church. He quickly removed himself from the church, shocked adrenaline pumping him out, securely locking the door behind him. Convinced that it was all just a nightmare, he stumbled back to the hotel, crawled into bed and roughly tugged the sheets over him and fell back into sleep, as if in a hurry to escape the dawn. A few hours later, he pulled himself awake and came downstairs for a cup of Magdalenas strong chicory coffee which he promised to pay her for, as he agonized over the details of the previous evening. He couldnt be sure that it was not a dream. Striking hard against him were the memory of the womans supple, malnourished, tarnished breasts peeking out accusatory, her filthy stomach dripping with blessed water. Her eyes, beady like deer, shining like daggers full of surprise and rage. He fought hard to suppress his own blushing shock as the nightmare in the rafters also haunted him. It had been almost certainly a dream to cast away and never speak of, like all of his others, focused on what men dont talk about after coming back from war. Her expression haunted him as he rose on the ladder to fix the split-shingle hipped roof. He thought of the doe-eyed creature with its expression of surprise as the woman. He avoided looking down at the chapel below, mindful of the fact that he would be back there tomorrow, for his mothers ceremony. He dreaded the thought of seeing that woman ever again. It gnawed on him like acid. Dreaded Sunday crept faster as he worked. In the afternoon, he heard hoots from workers in the factory, sudden backfires that jerked him from his concentration. To meet the devil in dreams was never a good omen. He was extra cautious as he pulled down the ladder. He decided to hunt that evening, to get as far away from the snapping metal factory as he could. The factory was now leaving a persistent and precise rhythmic clanging that had nothing to do with the constant ringing in his ears left there from the bombs when they blossomed yards away from him. He knew he would never hear that frequency again. Hunting had always been second nature to him. He had been such a good shot, the army put him in charge of the biggest guns they had. He could still feel the shaking of the thing as it fired round after round after round. He crossed the town into the woods, crouching low, waiting for deer to happen by in the field. He finally saw a large buck, but didnt hit it. He quietly followed its direction, then found it by the orange stream. Taking careful aim, he struck the deer square between the shoulders, four inches blow the neck. The deer immediately went down, crown of antlers arching up to the sky. Returning to the hotel, dragging most of the corpse behind him, he brought it to Magdalena who would take it to the butcher. Thats a prize, Jack. What is that? 12 points? Thirteen, Mags. Thirteen. He smiled, proudly. The inn would eat well that evening. He walked out to have a cigarette, rifle still in his hands. He walked through the throng of chilled folks and their jackets. Men congratulated him as he passed, hearing of his kill, acknowledging him as they hadnt before. The Blue Moon was accented by the moonlight now. The prostitutes were in full force here, and Jack could here their cheap cons and flirtations. They lingered toward the entrance and Jack kept his wits about him and his wallet, filled with the coins Magdalena had graciously paid him. One man passed and asked him, Planning on celebrating? and chuckled. Jack cringed, finding solitude in the alley beside the inn. Jack heard many miners leave with some of them, delighted with their bothering and heavy perfume. He wanted to wretch at their laughter, tasted the stale whiskey on the remainders breath. As he ambled back through them, the youngest dressed in rags more barren than the rest, reached up for Jacks collar. He tried to sidestep the foul smelling creature, and thought he caught a breath of the forest, but the girl had a grip like iron. Couldnt she see he still had his gun? Her gypsy eyes struck his and his mind danced. He shuddered down to his calves. Her eyes were coal smudges, which swallowed him. Hey there sweetheart, she cawed, her voice raspy and dark. Her eyes clamped on his and narrowed in sudden recognition. Jack froze. She was filthy, her arms crusted in the towns collection of clay and dirt. He winced under her powerful sneer. The whore did not let up her grip on his collar. She was stronger than she looked, her hands radiating an iron grip that held the fragile and lean muscled Jack. His hands tightened instinctively on the rifle, which he had not reloaded. Jacks insides seemed to quicken. It was the woman from the church, in flesh and blood, fully clothed, somehow seeming more steady than Jack. His heart galloped and withered inside his chest. Dark rage and disgust poured from her eyes, slow to see, slow to recognize. The prostitutes powerful gypsy stare made him want to curl under his covers and not look out. He wanted to look away, but her stare and rage pinned him like a bear trap. She buried her eyes into his like a falcons talons into a small mouse. He had never felt so sudden a fear and wave of anxiety since the calling of the scouts back in the war. He felt nauseated. He remembered the flash of the horror he had seen in the rafters of the chapel. This was the devil. She released her grip after what seemed a long time. Jack pulled backward and in the blink of an eye, she turned with pride and dignity that remained serious even in her rags, and sauntered away with eerie, violent laughter, a cough and a low chuckle that began and grew to a shriek as she turned the corner. Shaken, Jack staggered backward and tried to compose himself. Nobody had been around, so he walked the opposite direction back to the hotel. He walked across the street, and a murmur followed him. A violent, jolting headache was approaching, and he felt as if the finger of God himself was pushing against his temple. He stumbled as the axe of the headache came crushing down. He held tight to his forehead, feeling like railroad spikes were being driven between his eyelids, burying themselves devil deep into his skull. He felt feverish as the night air began to suffocate him with the stench from the factory and vomit in the street. He could barely hear from the sound of the factory. The rumble was deafening. As he walked across the street, a pick up truck swerved to avoid him, but missed, and hit Jack mid-thigh. Jack felt the tattered muscles unwind and the bones smash. Jacks final thought was seeing and registering of a pair of dirt black eyes from the alley watching him fall and finally vanishing into night. R.J. slammed the door of the truck closed as Jill climbed out the passenger side. Jill ran over to the body, young blonde hair lying in swatches on her back. Blood seeped out. I dont understand, he just ran right out in front of us! 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