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  THE ANCESTOR

  Lee Matthew Goldberg

  Uncorrected Advanced Reading Copy

  Scheduled Publication Date

  August 2020

  Copyright © 2020 by Lee Matthew Goldberg All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any elec-tronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

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  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover design by Zach McCain

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  The Ancestor

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by the Author

  For Dad, and all the ancestors we’ve loved and lost.

  “According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.”

  ― Plato, The Symposium

  “Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.”

  —Ralph Waldo Emerson

  1

  One eye open, the other frozen shut. He knows what an eye is, but that other “I” remains a mystery. Mind scooped out and left in ice. Words slowly return. Blue sky, that’s what he sees. The sun twinkling like a diamond. Tundra, there’s another recalled word. Packed snow on all sides as if the world succumbed to white. The air a powerful whistle. A breeze blows, not a friend but a penance. It passes right through and chills to the core, this enemy wind. Limbs atrophied, no idea when they last moved. Boil of a sun thaws and prickles. Tiny spiders swinging from leg hairs, biting into flesh. He cries out but there is no sound. For it feels like he hasn’t spoken in centuries.

  Back of throat tastes of metal. Blood trapped in phlegm. A cough sends a splatter of red against the stark land, a streak in the form of a smile. When was the last time he ate?

  His stomach growls in agony, a good sign. Organs working, or at least attempting to work. His one eye scans to the left and the right, no sign of anyone, not even an animal.

  No chance for a savior or sustenance.

  He gums his jaw, the first inkling of movement. Aware of his scraggly beard coated in frost. Crystals spiral from his chin, collect in his lap. Now he sees his hands, luckily in gloves except they are a thin brown leather, rather useless. Bones crack as he maneuvers to remove the gloves. Fingers tremble once hit with fresh air and numbness subsides.

  Massages his legs, gets the blood flowing, an injection of life. The spiders accelerate and then relent, toes wiggle, and he sits up. Around his neck rests a notebook and a fountain pen, the tip crusted in flakes. He feels an object in a front pocket and pulls out a silver compact mirror, the back embroidered with floral patterns, ladylike. This is not my mirror, he decides, but then has a more important realization. Who am I? With trembling hands, he brings the mirror up to his face for a glance.

  The reflection of a stranger. All beard save for a few features that emerge. A bulbous but authoritative nose, green eye flecked with gold, a mane of dark hair cascading to his shoulders. Handsome in a grizzled way. Shades of a bear in the roundness of his cheeks and a wolf in his stare.

  “I am…” his lips try to say, but there is no answer. Often one can wake from a dream and the dream seems real for a moment, but a sense of self never vanishes. Whoever he was is long gone, unlikely to return anytime soon. At least while he remains freezing in the wilderness.

  I must make it out of here.

  It’s relieving that he thinks of himself as an “I.” Whoever he is, he is someone. A mother birthed and fed him from her breast. A father taught him…taught him what, exactly? Survival skills? How to hunt? If he had a father worth his while, he’d know how to do this.

  And then, a caterwauling from the depths of his soul, a fawn-in-distress call that plants a trap for curious predators. He knows this sound well, meaning he’s lured prey before.

  His daddy schooled him like a good man should.

  The waiting game. Another call erupts, a coyote’s howl this time. He can recognize the difference. Then it comes to him that he needs to know what to do should an animal appear. He pats down his pockets, no weapon but his fists. And then, the clinking of

  sharp nails against the ice sheet. A majestic wolf, eyes like the sky, shimmering coat the color of clouds. Its charcoal nose twitches; the blood he hacked up in plain sight. He and the wolf lock into a dueling stare, neither wanting to be the first to flinch. A vision of death with baring teeth, or the start of his new life if victorious. The wolf doesn’t give him a chance to contemplate, lunging with a mouth full of saliva. He catches it in a brutal embrace and is knocked off his heels, slamming his back against the hard ground. They skitter down a slick snowcap, snapping at each other like angry lovers. The wolf is relentless, a worthy opponent, a test of wills. He gets the beast in a headlock, trying to crack its neck, but the wolf is too slippery. Breath fumes from other kills circle into his nostrils—

  this wolf has never lost a battle before. Blood splashes, no clue which of them has been wounded. They spin in the snow like a tornado. He makes a fist, jams it in the wolf’s mouth. Teeth scrape against his knuckles as he rams his fist farther down the wolf’s throat, seconds of painful warmth. The wolf heaves, chokes, attempts to chew off his hand, but its strategy is futile. It has only come across other animals, never a human mind that can think steps ahead.

  Now he attempts a headlock again with his left arm, squeezing off circulation. The wolf lets out a whimper that reverberates through his wrist. They lock into another dueling stare, except this time he does not see the many kills of the wolf through its gaze. He visualizes its sadness, its inevitable end. And then, the sound of the wolf’s neck breaking, his blood-soaked fist removed from the back of its throat. Its dead tongue lolling out of its mouth against the icy bed. He pets its beautiful coat, this formidable foe, now a present wrapped with a bow. Delectable to quench his all-consuming hunger.

  He needs the clearest block of ice he can find. Using the wolf’s teeth to carve a fine, translucent, round piece, he creates a magnifying glass. He rubs the dirt away and keeps rubbing until enough moisture flecks off. There’s a bed of whittled grass at the slope he and the wolf ended up in, and he holds the ice over the dry grass, propping it against two logs until a brilliant rainbow prism shoots through and he blows and blows until a fire ignites. He rips off all the breakable branches he can locate to stoke the flames. While it spreads, he procures a rock to blunt out the wolf’s teeth, then uses them for the painstak-ing task of skinning the fur. He does it carefully so a semblance of a coat remains, which he dips into a nearby brook to wash away the lingering blood and sinew. The sun has mostly dipped behind the mountains and he wears the wolf’s coat to mask the chill, then roasts its carcass over the roaring fire, breaking off legs and gnawing while the true flesh still cooks.

  The meat is a godsend to his empty stomach and also an immediate poison that his body rejects by throwing up. He sucks on some ice and the queasiness dimin
ishes. By the time it’s fully cooked, darkness reigns and he feels like a shell. With each chew, he becomes human again, but the loneliness isn’t as easy to fight off. There are souls that feel lonely, he assumes, but at least they have themselves for company. They can rely on memories to help them through cold nights. He searches his mind for a wisp of the past, any nugget, wading through a never-ending sea. The horizon seemingly attainable, but with every stroke just as far away. He’d cry but the tears are frozen in his ducts, one eye still sealed shut.

  When he has eaten enough of the wolf, and his belly distends like a newly pregnant woman, he feeds the fire with more broken limbs and curls up to its warmth, his only confidant in this harsh wilderness, possibly his only companion forever—a lifetime of

  attempting to be caressed by flames and nothing more. He wraps himself tightly in the wolf’s fur, hoping that when he wakes again he’ll know who he is. The nightmare vanished along with the sun rising like a bride’s pretty little hand on his grizzled cheek.

  2

  Travis Barlow knows that the key to hunting caribou is with your head rather than your legs. This has been passed down to he and his buddy Grayson Hucks from their fathers and their fathers’ fathers all the way back to when both families settled in Alaska. The Hucks clan came from Anchorage, migrating from Ireland prior to the Civil War where a ton of brothers met their end before the last surviving one escaped as far north as he could. Travis’s history traces back to his grandfather Papa Clifford, born in Nome but only vaguely knowing where his ancestors came from. Papa Clifford took both boys out early on along with Travis’s brother Bobby, giving them each a 30-06 rifle with heavy bullets to counterbalance the wind. The trick is to observe the movement patterns of several herds before intercepting a suitable ambush point and aiming downrange.

  The boys have been friends for over twenty years now beginning in the schoolyard when they banded together to fight back against a bully that targeted both. Neither was studious and often met the teacher’s questions with a befuddled stare, so this bully labeled them dunces and beat the pulp out of them during recess, alternating between the two until the dunces finally retaliated with loose bricks that nearly killed their tormentor.

  A month of detention later an unbreakable bond was formed.

  While others might use Sundays for religious observance, the caribou hunt has become the men’s church, a better workout than most get and a way to put food on the table. They drive out at the first hint of spring in Travis’s pickup with him at the wheel, some country tunes on the radio, dip tucked in their bottom lips, and two six-packs of ice-cold Molson beer.

  “Shit, I didn’t tell you me and Lorinda broke up,” Grayson says, spitting a glob of brown into an old plastic bottle.

  “What was it this time?”

  Grayson reaches over to shake Travis, causing the pickup to veer from its lane. But there are no other cars on the winding road to the wilderness.

  “You wanna cop to pull us over?” Travis laughs.

  “Can’t pull myself over. And I believe I have it in good with the other fellas in blue in town, so I think we’ll be okay.”

  “Anyway,” Travis says. “So, Lorinda. What happened?”

  “’Munication issues.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, I never talk and she talks too much.”

  “She’s too good for you.”

  “That’s what I told her! And then, she left. She ain’t like Callie.”

  “Callie got her own issues, like any other.”

  “Callie’s carved from gold and you know it.”

  Travis wipes away a grin, knowing his better half is the one who got the raw deal in their relationship.

  “Got to give a girl credit to fall in love with a nose like yours,” Grayson says, cracking open a beer, the froth staining his mustache.

  “My mom always said I had a presidential nose.”

  “Cora’s just too kind. That’s a nice way of saying monstrous.”

  Travis pounds Grayson’s shoulder, hard enough for it to burn. Grayson whaps him back.

  “All right, all right, Gray. Don’t send us off the road.”

  The winter has been harsh so Callie forbade any hunting, mostly out of fear for the un-safe roads due to avalanches. The cold months hit Travis harder than usual this year, being out of work and alone most of time with their toddler, Eli. He’d had a difficult time relating to the child as an infant, but now the majority of his days consist of every possible question Eli can ask, most of which he has no idea how to answer. So his bones ache for springtime when he can finally feel free and wind his way up to the Preserve. The sensation of bringing back a caribou for his family to feast on is greater than any drug.

  Though the sun shines and April’s in the air, it’s deceptively cold when they emerge from the pickup, a little wobbly from the beers. They sling their 30-06s around their backs and look for tracks, knowing caribou have glands between their hooves that deposit a scent with each step.

  “Did I tell ya that goods store has been seized for never paying their rent?” Grayson asks, while keeping an eye peeled for any creeping creatures.

  “The one on Platen? No one ever went there. Think it was a drug front.”

  “It was. Anyway, should be cheaper to have the state as a landlord.”

  Travis rubs his goatee, not as a mode of contemplation but to give his fingers something to do.

  “I’m not there yet, Gray.”

  “When will you be?”

  “When I have the kind of funds to make that decision,” Travis says.

  “We need a good fish shack, like a luncheonette. You’ve got all the hungry fisherman who dock their boats and are tired of the Pizza Joint.”

  “Fisherman don’t want to eat more fish.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. If you excel at fish, the word will spread.”

  “Town’s small enough that we don’t need to do much for word to get out there.”

  “So what’s keeping you, buddy?”

  “Diapers are expensive. Yeah, Eli’s still in ’em. Mortgage on the house. Fuck, I still owe my parents from the down payment.”

  “What about Callie’s folks?”

  “They’re pissed enough I stole their girl from California. They ain’t gonna invest in no fish shack.”

  “No Travis’s Tugboat?”

  “That was always a stupid name and made no sense. My name don’t gotta be in it.”

  “There’s always police work,” Grayson says, one eyebrow raised. There’d been a time years ago when Travis thought he might pursue that line, his dad being the sheriff and all, but he never had the calling. He didn’t rebel like Bobby did in the stereotypical way that sons of the law might, but he cares as much about protecting and serving the people of Laner, Alaska as he does dancing (which he hates).

  From the pickup, Travis takes out the proper clothes and gear. KUIU attack pants and guide jackets, insulated gloves, Merino wool sweaters, bandanas, and a neck gaiter. A 65mm spotting scope, binoculars, Havalon Piranta hunting knife, and a license should they run into any parks department officials. They dress in silence, the start of their medi-

  tation. Puffy and snug, they hike up a slope until the pickup is far away but still close enough so they can drag a heavy, dead caribou.

  Travis spies a track first, the indentation of the hoofs sparkling clear. The scents that caribous release draw other herds. This one’s fresh, probably from early this morning since it’s beginning to lightly snow but the track has yet to be covered. Grayson taps his shoulder.

  “Wolves,” Grayson says, pointing into the distance. Sure enough, a pack encircles a thin band of smoke that streams toward the sky.

  Travis nods and aims his gun at that same sky, lets off a few rounds. The wolves spook and scurry away, traveling farther from the sound.

  “Who lit a fire?” Travis asks.

  Grayson shrugs. “Out of range from the binoculars. All I see is smoke.”
<
br />   Travis squints into his own pair but can’t make out anything more either.

  “Probably someone like us gone hunting at the first sign of decent weather.”

  Hunting requires patience and that’s Travis’s favorite part of the sport. His home’s full of noise; he never gets a moment’s peace. Out here, he gets to dive within—only the smacking sound from the dip in Grayson’s lip audible. What he loves about fishing too, except fishing has turned into something more sinister than just a day of serenity. The fish shack has been a dream for some time, one he thought he could bring to fruition.

  He’d been saving all the years he worked at the oil refinery on the outskirts of town, but when he was gutted in a slew of layoffs no one saw coming, all those savings had to be poured into everything but the dream. Life always hit you with a one-two punch, so of course he’d been laid off just as he had a newborn. Callie’s tips from waitressing were barely able to cover formula after the baby refused breastmilk. So fishing makes him sad now as opposed to calm. And he doesn’t think that’ll ever change.

  The caribou arrive as the wind ramps up, making a shot more of a guesstimate. He’ll only get off one or two rounds before the gunfire scares them. Three waddle over to their ilk’s track, caribous rarely traveling in large herds. One could feed his family for almost two weeks between all the cuts. To be a true hunter, you never waste a morsel.

  Maybe Grayson knows Travis needs this so he lets his best friend fire the first shot.

  The bullet slopes down, carried by the burgeoning breeze, and narrowly misses.

  “Again,” Grayson whispers, lining up the dispersing animals in his own scope but allowing Travis another chance.

  Travis fires, the bullet careening right in the ear of one unlucky caribou. The other two take off in distress. After a few rounds, Grayson hits them both. They fall into each other, pressed together like they’re cuddling.