Ontogeny

Chapter 5b

     Cowley scratched his beard thoughtfully, pulled out a nit and popped it into his mouth. “At least we've found something to eat,” he said. Spooner gave him a sour look but said nothing.

     “We'd be eating like kings tonight if you were a better shot.” Still no response from the other man. “A yellow faced deer! An actual yellow faced deer and all you had to do was hit it from thirty yards away. How the hell did you ever pass basic training?”

     Spooner looked at him again and shrugged. Spooner was a good shot when he wanted to be, Cowley knew. He'd proved that often enough in the past, in combat. He came to life in battle. A light came into his eye, an energy came into his body. He was fast and deadly, a terror to his enemies. The rest of the time, though, it was as though he walked in a dream. It was as though he just didn’t care about anything.

     “Next time I'll take the shot. I can actually hit a running deer.”

     Spooner gazed out over the arid landscape. It was as though he’d forgotten the other man even existed. Cowley dug another nit out of his beard, popped it into his mouth, and was rewarded by a look of disgust. It was the only thing he could do that brought any kind of reaction from the other man and so he’d been doing it almost continually since leaving camp. The trouble was that he was running out of nits. What would he do when there were none left? I'll leave the last one, he thought. That way, I'll still have someone to talk to.

     Cowley was a man who liked to talk. No sooner had a thought entered his head than he had to communicate it to anyone who happened to be nearby. It seemed to be essential to his thinking processes. If he stopped talking, it was as though his brain stopped working, as if new thoughts could only enter his head if he let the old ones out through his mouth. To be stuck with Spooner, therefore, the most sullen, uncommunicative man he'd ever met, was a kind of torture for him.

     “I think you missed on purpose. I think you want us to starve to death out here. Starving to death is part of your cunning plan for world domination.”

     Spooner glanced down at his feet. He stared at them as if wondering what they were and why they were connected to his body. Cowley wondered whether clouting the man about the head would bring a reaction. If it had been another man driving him crazy like that he might have decided to find out, but there was something about Spooner that freaked him out a little. He gave the impression, somehow, that if he ever did snap out of his mood, if he did start speaking, he might say frightening things. Terrible things. Things that would make them wish he had stayed silent forever. None of the others liked him. Not for lack of trying. They‘d all tried talking to him, tried to bring him out of himself. All without success.

     “Keep your eyes open,” he said. “That deer's still out there somewhere and it won't be the only one. If you see it, just point. I'll take the shot. We can't go back empty handed.”

      Cowley started walking, and after a couple of moments Spooner followed him. “There’re hills over there. Where there’s high ground, there’s water flowing away from it. The deer won't go far from it. Harp and Spence went that way, I know. If there’re deer there, they’ve either caught them already or scared them off, but I still think it's our best shot. We’ll give it another half hour or so, then we should he getting back. It’s getting dark.”

☆☆☆

     As they walked, Spooner imagined himself drawing his pistol and shooting the other man in the back of the head. He knew exactly what it would be like. How the gun would kick in his hand, how a tiny little hole would appear in the midst of Cowley's thick mane of greasy black hair. He knew how his face would disappear in an eruption of red spray, invisible to him from behind except for a momentary mist that would appear around his head like a brief crimson halo. He knew exactly how satisfying it would feel. How good it would be to see him toppling forward. Maybe to his knees first, then the rest of the way to fall face first into the yellow grass with a heavy thump...