Clouds moved low and ragged across the sky, casting shadows against the snow. A gale blustered out of the north, rattling the boughs of the trees lining Main Street. The broken skeletons of storefronts caught and crafted the wind into a thin howl, moving some of the elders waiting on the boy and his father to cross themselves.
They milled about in a bent, gray mass. Hands tortured by swollen joints cupped cigarettes to be lit; a few talked in low, anxious tones about the missed harvest. Winters were growing longer and colder, moving across the land like the slow assuredness of old age taking the body. Snowflakes settled on ancient flannel and leather shoulders. A few squinted into the dull gunmetal sky, weary of a storm dogging the heels of the previous one.
“He’ll hafta be quick about this’n,” Jeremiah Rose said, from around a cigarette. Ash fell on his paunch of a belly as he spoke. “Almighty in’t pleased with the hold-up.”
Two cones of light cut through the falling snow. The tortured growl of an engine could be heard above the wind.
“Here’s Billy,” Patty Heffron said, pulling her scarf tighter around the sagging wattle of her neck. She was Billy Herbert’s neighbor and recognized the sound of his old Ford.
It came lumbering up to the crowd a few minutes later. A squat, balding man in torn overalls and rubber knee-boots stepped down from the dirty cab. Thick, curly hair covered his body like a coat. Bill was a familiar sight, and easy to recognize; a cleft palate dragged his lip into a constant snarl.
“Ethenin, tholks,” he said, and the old-timers did well to hide the usual swell of pity that accompanied hearing and watching the man speak. Beads of drool ran down his stubbled jaw with each labored forming of the words.
“Hullo Billy,” they said to him, their eyes moving from his unfortunate face to what was on the truck’s flatbed. He went to work on untying the straps which held it in place. It was covered with a grimy, oil-stained sheet. Two men from the crowd came forward, and, grunting, the three managed to heave the thing from the back of the truck to the snowy ground. It landed with a thud. From within came the thin scribble of claws on metal.
The men stepped back––made suddenly aware that it was, indeed, an occupied cage they had just handled––and rejoined the small crowd, which allowed for more space between themselves and the men than before.
Bill walked around the truck with a rifle slung across his shoulder; it was long and a lusterless black in the snow-haze. He stroked the dark length of it, casting furtive glances at the gathered crowed as if for signs of approval, or envy.
“Ith Malloy and hith thon comin?” he asked, still admiring the rifle.
“They’re due any time now, Billy,” Patty Heffron said, smiling at him.
So they waited, aware of the frantic scraping coming from the covered cage before them. Claws clicked metal as the thing inside paced. It would go on for long moments and pause, as if weighing the futility of the act, and then begin again.
Thick curtains of snow fell now, bringing an early close to the day. The frigid wind kicked up, moving the crowd to draw closer together, shivering into their threadbare coats. Above them, a dead streetlight creaked and dangled with each gust.
“They might’ve been held up,” Paul Janowski ventured, after some minutes had passed. “Plentya bandits on the roads these days.”
“I’m sure they’re doing just fine,” Patty Heffron said. “Delayed by the storm, is all.”
As she spoke, two figures materialized from out of the swirling twilight. Billy Herbert went to his truck for a gas lantern, and in the flickering orange glow the townsfolk beheld Abe and David Malloy. David clutched his father’s hand, wide eyes taking in the scene.
“Glad you could finally join us,” Jeremiah Rose said, lighting another cigarette on the dying stub of the old one. “Sure took yer time about it.”
Abe Malloy spat. “Five miles in’t what it used to be,” he said, adding, “‘specially with a little guy.” He ruffled David’s hair. The boy smiled uncertainly at him. “And the only working truck in town’s driven by a goddamed retard. I make do with my own legs, expect no more of anyone else here.”
Billy flushed, still looking away. He held the rifle close.
“You watch what you say about him!” Patty Heffron shrilled. An uncomfortable silence fell. Abe shrugged, reached into his pocket for cigarettes.
“I din’t come here to pussy ‘round Billy Herbert,” he said. Looking at the man, Abe said: “Gimme the gun.” When Billy looked away and didn’t move, Abe Malloy walked up to him and took the rifle from his hands.
Billy studied his feet, hands in his pockets, defeated.
Abe turned on his heels and walked to his son, hunkering down before him.
“You remember what we talked about?” He asked.
The boy looked from the rifle to his father’s face, lip trembling.
Abe, without turning around, said: “Do it.”
Billy, eyes still downcast, shuffled over to the cage and pulled away the sheet.
David caught his breath; the crowd sighed together.
“Outdid himself this time,” Paul Janowski said, nodding his head towards Billy.
The cage held a wolf. Lean muscle rippled like waves beneath its mottled gray fur as it paced, hackles bristling, eyes never resting, its yellow gaze moving out past the bars of the cage to regard the onlookers.
David had never seen a thing more beautiful. He noticed that it favored one leg; the other looked chewed and raw, and oozed pus.
Looking to the back of Bill Herbert’s truck told the reason why; a steel-jaw trap was amidst his things.
Jeremiah Rose stepped forward, and a hush fell.
He took the cigarette from his mouth and flicked it away, working his jaw, clearing his throat. “I ken it’s been some twenty-odd years,” he said, speaking slowly, “since the Almighty saw fit to take the world away. Not-a-one of us will ever forget it, s’long as we live.”
All bowed their heads. Some began to weep, and their wails tangled with the wind like a chorus of wayward banshees, sending cold shivers down David’s back. He looked to his father, but found him with his head bowed like everyone else, hard face closed up tight as a trap.
“I had a husband,” Patty Heffron said, stepping forward, smiling through her tears. “And three boys! They were all so tall, and handsome.” Her voice broke, and she clutched the tattered lapels of her coat as if her heart might burst.
“My family,” Paul Janowski said, looking at his hands. “My mother and father, my sisters, my aunts and uncles and cousins. I lost them all, one by one, when the plagues came.”
“My ma,” Bill Herbert said, wringing his hands. “I mith my ma.” Fat tears rolled down his wind-burned cheeks, and he turned away, shoulders heaving.
“My wife,” Jeremiah Rose said simply, in a voice the color of stone.
The crowd stepped forward. Some quavered as they spoke, many scrunched their faces and cried like children, and one or two described what had been with detachment or distaste, but all recounted their life before the end had come, and the bright tableau of memories grew with each new voice.
“Those of us still here,” Jeremiah resumed, after all had said his or her piece, “will continue to do the Good Work, as it was done in the Earliest of Days: With blood and toil, and fear of the Lord our God.
“This,” he intoned, leveling a long, bony finger at the silent animal in the cage, “is our sacrifice, sped t’the Almighty by the youngest of our small flock, as is tradition, so that He may know His faithful still labor for His love.”
He shook out another cigarette, looking to Abe Malloy.
“Your boy ready to do his part?” He asked, half-formally. Abe looked from the caged wolf to his son, grimacing.
“He’d better be. I’m freezing m’rocks off.”
Abe then placed the rifle in David’s small hands. Settling the butt against David’s shoulder, he angled the barrel into the cage.
The wolf stared. It had no fear of men or guns, having lived a life free of both.
Abe found the safety, clicked it off.
“We’ve got to do this, buddy,” he said into David’s ear. “We’ve got to give ‘im up to God, like they do in the Bible. Y’kennit?”
David swallowed. He did not, in fact, kennit. The gun felt wrong in his hands; it made a sick feeling well in his stomach, like he’d drank bad water, and the wolf was looking at him, not his father or the old people or the man with the funny face. Him. There was a light in its eyes that made David’s stomach do flip-flops, and he could have cried to look at its poor leg.
“Y’hear me?” His father asked, a threat in his voice now. They felt the eyes of the elders on them, expectant and hungry for the final stroke of the knife. “Shoot, just like we’re back shootin cans.”
David didn’t answer, eyes fixed on the wolf, thinking how he’d never had a dog.
Abe growled. He put his calloused hand over David’s, moving his finger to the trigger. David knew that anger; his father was not patient.
And when still David hesitated, Abe took the flesh of his forearm between thumb and forefinger and twisted. The pain was hot, brilliant. Tears pricked David’s eyes. He shrank at his father’s voice, still struggling to hold the rifle aright.
“Squeeze that goddam trigger!”
Crying hard, David closed his eyes, shook his head.
Abe placed his finger on top of David’s, squeezed thrice. The reports cracked and echoed, racing down Main Street’s valley of dead buildings like an avalanche.
When it was finished, he took the gun from his son’s clenched hands and tossed it to the snow.
“God’s will b’done,” Jeremiah Rose said, when the echoes faded. He reached into his pocket, found his pack of cigarettes empty, crushed it, and turned away.
Already the crowd began to drift apart, the spell of the rite broken. Most lived within walking distance, and night was falling fast.
Billy bent, picking up his rifle. He dusted the snow and grit from its surface, a sunny smile on his face. He looked up as Patty Heffron approached him.
“Would you give me a ride to my house, dear?” She asked, feeling as she always did at the end of these things: sick from the blood, grief over her memories, and fearful, fearful that all the days of her life would finally rise up and overwhelm her.
“Thure thing!” He said, grinning. He wiped down the gun and placed it in the truck, thick fingers lingering on its black surface.
She wasn’t the girl she used to be; she had Billy help her into the cab. She thanked him with a smile and a pat on the cheek. He was such a good boy.
The same men from before lifted the cage, empty and lighter, back onto the truck’s flatbed.
Billy had forgotten his gas lamp; it still illuminated the scene. The last thing Patty Heffron saw before the truck lumbered past was the Malloy child, head in his hands, crying on the snowy ground. A still gray rise was before him, just beyond the island of light, wreathed in what looked like ink but was not. Looming over him, making the gooseflesh harden on her skin, was Abe Malloy, regarding the child with a look darker than the evening drawing down around them.

BACK TO TOP