Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR:

THE BISON

Rueben looked on feeling pathetic for the animal, or simply dazed at the closeness of it in the closeness of its dying state. For several minutes he weighed whether to start blasting it again. It warn't long before he heard Leonard's white mare, and stood up. Leonard eventually rode up the pass, his horse jostled, and Leonard steadied the old mare and put her on all fours and within the hour found Rueben. He dismounted and petted his horse, kissed her on the neck and went to the back and retrieved and 3 foot ax. Rueben looked unto Leonard.

"What are you going to do?" –Leonard

"What am I supposed to do?" –Rueben.

"Well, what did David do?" –Leonard.

"What?" –Rueben.

"David, when he faced Goliath." –Leonard.

"He took five smooth stones kilt him." –Rueben

"No, he hit him on the head while on the run with the first stone and then he hurried up and chopped his head off." –Leonard said handing Rueben the ax.

"Ya that's right. So what?" –Rueben

"Well go chop your giants head off, point is it aint gunna be kilt with a few more stones." –Leonard

"Why not you stand on one side and I'll stand on the other?" –Rueben

"Why for?" –Leonard

"So he doesn't thrash around. You keep the ax; I'll run a knife in his neck." –Rueben gave Leonard the ax.

"Alright." –Leonard

And Rueben took out a long knife and Leonard took the ax and eyed the animal laying on all fours, laboring to breathe and bleeding, and perhaps dying a slow death, incapacitated nonetheless. They approached the animal together taking off their coats, and the animal war, for the most part, a silent victim. Leonard went up around the other end. Rueben went up the near side and saw the two entry holes and one probably hit the lungs and he figure the animal war suffocating as it looked casually into his eyes. Leonard eyed up the backbone and went to work as if at the stump of a mighty tree as he held the ax handle. Rueben walked around the other side with his knife.

"Leonard" –Rueben called over the animal.

"Ya?" –Leonard.

"You have him steady?" –Rueben

"O ya, he's plenty steady alright, downright inert." –Leonard.

"Right, I just meant if you had the ax on him. He's plenty wore out." –Rueben.

"Ya, he's awful tired for some reason." –Leonard said and looked down the length of the body of the bison catching something on the hind end that drew his attention away.

The animal war defeated before. Rueben pusht down the neck firm and Leonard took to the neck on the opposite side of the bison with his ax as the blood spilt unto the white snow and sacred hills and unto Rueben's hands as he steadied the bison by the horn. The animal tried to kick up when it started losing its blood and Leonard pusht heavy into the animal and lost himself against it and it rocked sideways and Leonard groaned to his soul.

Leonard twisted his back away from the animal, but still had to push into it. He gasped and threw down his ax and leaned back into the animal, holding himself under his left arm. Rueben pusht on his side and called out: "Can you get out of the way? Come over here and let's knock him over."

Angst-ridden Leonard war silent, working on his side of the animal, his right hand covered in his own blood, confused. Rueben held his side unaware, and called out again. Leonard war pushing fierce, but silently in pain as the animal wrestled around and into the erth as if to dig its grave. Leonard called his brother's name. Leonard tried to respond, but he couldn't get up the breath. He'd start up but couldn't start, and he couldn't stop either like he had the wind knocked out of him and could neither breathe in or out and he wanted to breathe, but he couldn't start up with new life. His side warn't punctured too bad, but he took quite the body blow. The animal seemed to be falling his way, and Leonard had to keep it upright.

Rueben languid, come around to Leonard and Leonard looked as though he had a mighty thorn in his side.

"What? You quit talking on me?" –Rueben said curiously aware something were wrong at the sight.

Leonard stared at him with large helpless eyes showing the struggle to push by pointing his thumb. Rueben walked up to his brother and pushed on the beast. Leonard stayed leant up against it and breathed out a tiny breath. Rueben put his, all his might, into his shoulder and put his shoulder into the bison. Leonard war able to turn and face Rueben. Rueben war squat a few inches for leverage and the two were eye level. Leonard looked Rueben in the eye and Rueben asked if he could push and Leonard nodded and Rueben and Leonard pushed and the animal fell over to the side. Rueben caught Leonard before he tumbled with the animal and Rueben caught his brother's blood on his hands.

Rueben war silent red in his face, and Leonard war whiter than any fuller could make a sheet. Rueben put his arm under Leonard's right arm and took on his weight, Leonard walked with Rueben down to the horses. Rueben set Leonard up not far from the animal and went and grabbed Leonard's coat and draped it around him, and Leonard whispered he war alright. So Rueben come back to the bison with an assortment of knifes and went to work on the animal alone in the midafternoon. Leonard looking very stoic with that thorn in his side, watching his brother carve the large animal in front of him.

Leonard started, but couldn't start much again as Rueben worked at cutting out the groin and entrails away. Rueben flung the groin back at Leonard as a joke, and turned smiling at Leonard. Leonard looked down at the herniated groin.

"Fetch a pail of water and be useful will ya?" –Rueben.

"30. Handbreadths. High." –Leonard

"What?" –Rueben

"30, handbreaths, high, and you'll take, two handfuls, of flesh." –Leonard .

"It warn't 30 handbreaths high." –Rueben

"Then how high war it?" –Leonard.

"Couldn't say." –Rueben.

"Then you couldn't say it warn't 30." –Leonard.

"Yass, because my ceiling is 25 handbreadths!" –Rueben.

"Your ceiling." –Leonard.

"I have something in my pack. We can carry plenty of the meat, plus it had a hernia you see." –Rueben

"Ya, and wolf already been at it," Leonard took in a shalla breath, "see up on the side?"

Rueben stood a bit looking at the hind end and saw lines from claws in the animal's wholly side.

"Yap, probably a wolf." –Rueben .

"Well maybe he'll be back. I saw a black fox earlier, he might be around too." –Leonard.

Rueben stopped at the words of Leonard and felt a strong urge to say he had seen the wolf, but did not speak up and let Leonard set back to work.

"So you want me to carry 500 pounds with Jo? [the old white mare] Not in any rush to find a town you know." –Leonard.

"Well Ernest, [the brown colt] he innt gonna take 500 pounds: 200, 150 probably. We can't use all the ribs and the big bones. Let something come along and chew at it" –Rueben . "Ya, but." –Leonard

"They's big thick bones to cut through. It takes time, don't it?" -Rueben

"Ya, thou knew not what thou did. Ease up, huh, my side is leaking water and blood." –Leonard

Rueben did not care when his older brother mimicked the Christ, but he just said: "You'll feel better with a hunk of bison steak in your belly tonight, won't ya?"

"I guess you're probably right." –Leonard.

Leonard drew in a breath and attempted to hit a stride again but couldn't start and fell silent and let his brother continue working on the animal. He felt faint, and fatigued and shivered though the day war still warm and bright. It had been a hard knock to his ribs. Rueben come back near Leonard to fetch the saw and Leonard asked if Rueben war ok. Rueben smiled and went back and made a few trip. Leonard called out, "You looke sour."

Rueben continued to his pack and went back to the bison. After a few minutes Leonard got up his strength and set himself on his horse. Rueben stopped momentarily to watch his brother, but then began to load his kill. They took what they could on the two horses and wrapped it in blankets and God's plenty lay on the prairie: young and separated, an offering from the hills and an offering bleeding to the sacred hills.

The animal would surely not last the night and the two men were first upon it and made the kill and no other animal would pass without taking what it could. Rueben warshed his hands in the snow time after time, but the blood war more than he figured and stained his hands; he war warshed in the blood of his kill and Leonard war plenty warshed himself. Leonard told Rueben to cut off the head and take it home and Rueben laughed and set to work on the horns. He took both off and threw one to Leonard who tucked it in his saddlebag. The two did the best they could to load the flesh and saddled up, riding out of the narrow valley.

As they rode out the two were silent, but happy as Jacob and Esua later in life. The two went on and out of the strait of the valley and turned to descend from the stony ground and back unto the plains, but as they went out they went on and they felt weary for the meat they had and the scent and just wanted to get a ways down the path. The cold didn't bother and it war still late afternoon. They rode for an hour or so and stopped to make camp. They bundled the meat in a blanket and put the blanket in the snow to cover up the scent and to keep the meet cold, hopefully freezing it. They hadn't spent any money, but a lot of their supplies war running thin.

Rueben made a fire and Leonard wandered down to the crick to warsh his hands and clothes. When Leonard got down to the stream the air war still and the erth war silent save for the running water. Leonard had a total change of clothes with him, but kept his longjohns and socks as he set downd in the crick.

He looked at his wound in his side. It had mostly just pierced the flesh and war now sealed up. It felt like he had been punched and the flesh around the wound war red, and likely to bruise. Leonard slowly set himself down in the running krick.

Holding the thorn at his side Leonard meditated and started off into space, and then he stood up in his long-johns and repeated dunking himself in the crick several times. Leonard come out of the crick and undressed quickly counting all his clothes as lost, save his hat. He changed into his new clothes from toe to head, back towards camp with plenty of sunlight for his brother to do the same.

Rueben had fixed up camp pretty near and the fire war roaring hot. Leonard couldn't help but smile when he got back and called out: "So we having bison steaks tonight?"

And Rueben grinned and said: "Whatever you can tear off and put in the fire is good enough for me. I better warshup before the sun gets too low. How war the water?"

"Cold." –Leonard .

"Alright, say, how far is it? Won't be dark will it?" –Rueben

"No." –Leonard.

"Well what took ya so long?" –Rueben.

"I war praying." –Leonard.

"Well good thing. And pray the other animals are satisfied with what we left on the hills for them. I don't want them to find what we got." –Rueben.

"You tore the whole hide off the thing. They'll pick his bones through tomorrow." –Leonard.

Leonard hobbled and set in on the meat and took out the cooking kit to start roasting the flesh. After an hour the sunset and shortly thereafter Rueben returned in fresh clothes and the two got ready to eat. Leonard put two cans filled with snow over the fire and after handing Rueben a plate of meat he reached up and grabbed the can whose contents had melted to water.

The two Rockstone boys ate and were happy together under the stars, bright. The moon full and everything around them whirled crazily. They were well on their way, but really had not accomplished much. They had moved themselves across the map, but whatever effect the trip had to this point war internalized and not seen as an aid to the venture at large. It war a full moon and Leonard said he thought it war Christmas. Rueben said the full moon would be on the 18th.

And they watched it and were resolute with dreamy eyes until the hideous howls and snarls of wolves and coyotes cut through the empty air up to the glistening stars.