FICTION
STEPHANIE DUPAL
STEPHANIE DUPAL
A DEATH IN THE LORD'S COUNTRY
I imagine my son Peter on that God-hewn ledge of rock, slick with rain or morning dew or a wetness borne from humid weather. I imagine him leaning forward to cast a line in running water, hoping for fish, there silvering in schools, darting in long circles beneath him through the current. I imagine him waiting, a glint of sun blinding him at an angle. He steps back and baits the fish with a lure of light, line drawn and thrown from his hand. Then he sees prey and advances to the edge, barefooted, feeling with his toes the coolness of water, the strength of rock, his own immortality while pulling up the fish he will whack with swift benevolence, to kill it with one stroke. He’s brought with him a pail, and he places the fish at the bottom, careful not to mar its scales, so he can later show his prize to his mother. She will lay the fish on a metal sheet, douse it with what little oil she keeps in the cupboard with her dried herbs, then sprinkle a careful ration of salt from a lidded crock she keeps high in the pantry so the younger children don’t lick and plunge their fingers in the crystals. They all crave a jolt of taste on their tongues, even the sting of salt.
I see Peter biding his time, pinching a metal hook between his lips. He inspects a long line knotted from frequent mending, pulls sections taut to test their hold. Then he harpoons a worm on the hook he’ll cast away from him, this time, to his right, near the eddy of the tide pool, where larger fish gather to chase a swarm of insects flying low. The temperature rises. He takes off his shirt, one that used to belong to me and that was passed down to him because nothing he owns fits. The shirt is badly patched and ill-fitting because he is over six feet tall at seventeen, but he likes to put it on all the same because wearing my clothes means that he is now a man and not a boy. And perhaps, I like to think, he is reminded of me or what he remembers of me.
Peter, bare chested, rolls up the cuffs of his pants. He picks up the line again and flings it high above his head where it catches in the tangled leaves of a heavy branch that touches water. He shimmies up the trunk and down the branch, which creaks under his weight, but he is cautious, splaying his body long and flat while he unravels the line. He tugs once and a green leaf falls below, carried away by the current. He watches its progress until he can no longer see it. Peter, there perched on the branch, his legs curled like river snakes, stops to look at the white bead of sap forming where the leaf snapped. He touches it, understanding this milky wound as elemental, part of a tree that is whole and alive and holding him over the swell of the creek. With the fishing line wrapped around his wrist, lure in his left palm, he climbs down the tree as he’s done countless times before. His arms and legs are dirtied from the bark, so he sits at the edge of the tide pool, splashing himself clean. He puts his feet and hands in the current, feels the motion of water passing through his fingers.
Then he stands, too quickly, his body slipping backward, and the last thing he sees is the beauty of the branch that cradled him, bowing from earth to water in an arc of light.
When his body had tumbled downstream with swimming fish, moving away from the homestead faster as the creek widened to river, Ruby and Agathe went looking for him. They found the fish he’d caught, the foil of its eye a jewel looking skyward to the north star. The shade of woods blanketed with silence my wife and her friend but for the rush of creek water, the sound of sluicing ringing in their ears.
And that’s when Ruby knew.
I was in Vermont then with Charlie, shoveling muck from horse stalls, shearing those wool-heavy sheep, hauling wet hay bales and breaking them up to cover newly-planted seed. I don’t know if my boy hit his head and lost his breath while I held the shears or the shovel, but I do know Charlie was already hankering for that farm’s red pail after working all winter and spring for little pay. He liked the wooden handle, the size of the bucket, the galvanized feel of the metal, sturdy yet light. He planned to pilfer that pail while a half-country away, trying to help his mother feed the family, my boy lost his footing and then his life. And all that remained of Peter on that ledge of rock was my shirt and a small fish in a pockmarked pail that no one would ever covet.
I imagine my son Peter on that God-hewn ledge of rock, slick with rain or morning dew or a wetness borne from humid weather. I imagine him leaning forward to cast a line in running water, hoping for fish, there silvering in schools, darting in long circles beneath him through the current. I imagine him waiting, a glint of sun blinding him at an angle. He steps back and baits the fish with a lure of light, line drawn and thrown from his hand. Then he sees prey and advances to the edge, barefooted, feeling with his toes the coolness of water, the strength of rock, his own immortality while pulling up the fish he will whack with swift benevolence, to kill it with one stroke. He’s brought with him a pail, and he places the fish at the bottom, careful not to mar its scales, so he can later show his prize to his mother. She will lay the fish on a metal sheet, douse it with what little oil she keeps in the cupboard with her dried herbs, then sprinkle a careful ration of salt from a lidded crock she keeps high in the pantry so the younger children don’t lick and plunge their fingers in the crystals. They all crave a jolt of taste on their tongues, even the sting of salt.
I see Peter biding his time, pinching a metal hook between his lips. He inspects a long line knotted from frequent mending, pulls sections taut to test their hold. Then he harpoons a worm on the hook he’ll cast away from him, this time, to his right, near the eddy of the tide pool, where larger fish gather to chase a swarm of insects flying low. The temperature rises. He takes off his shirt, one that used to belong to me and that was passed down to him because nothing he owns fits. The shirt is badly patched and ill-fitting because he is over six feet tall at seventeen, but he likes to put it on all the same because wearing my clothes means that he is now a man and not a boy. And perhaps, I like to think, he is reminded of me or what he remembers of me.
Peter, bare chested, rolls up the cuffs of his pants. He picks up the line again and flings it high above his head where it catches in the tangled leaves of a heavy branch that touches water. He shimmies up the trunk and down the branch, which creaks under his weight, but he is cautious, splaying his body long and flat while he unravels the line. He tugs once and a green leaf falls below, carried away by the current. He watches its progress until he can no longer see it. Peter, there perched on the branch, his legs curled like river snakes, stops to look at the white bead of sap forming where the leaf snapped. He touches it, understanding this milky wound as elemental, part of a tree that is whole and alive and holding him over the swell of the creek. With the fishing line wrapped around his wrist, lure in his left palm, he climbs down the tree as he’s done countless times before. His arms and legs are dirtied from the bark, so he sits at the edge of the tide pool, splashing himself clean. He puts his feet and hands in the current, feels the motion of water passing through his fingers.
Then he stands, too quickly, his body slipping backward, and the last thing he sees is the beauty of the branch that cradled him, bowing from earth to water in an arc of light.
When his body had tumbled downstream with swimming fish, moving away from the homestead faster as the creek widened to river, Ruby and Agathe went looking for him. They found the fish he’d caught, the foil of its eye a jewel looking skyward to the north star. The shade of woods blanketed with silence my wife and her friend but for the rush of creek water, the sound of sluicing ringing in their ears.
And that’s when Ruby knew.
I was in Vermont then with Charlie, shoveling muck from horse stalls, shearing those wool-heavy sheep, hauling wet hay bales and breaking them up to cover newly-planted seed. I don’t know if my boy hit his head and lost his breath while I held the shears or the shovel, but I do know Charlie was already hankering for that farm’s red pail after working all winter and spring for little pay. He liked the wooden handle, the size of the bucket, the galvanized feel of the metal, sturdy yet light. He planned to pilfer that pail while a half-country away, trying to help his mother feed the family, my boy lost his footing and then his life. And all that remained of Peter on that ledge of rock was my shirt and a small fish in a pockmarked pail that no one would ever covet.
Stephanie Dupal is a Franco-Canadian writer originally from Montreal. Her work most recently appeared in The Northern Virginia Review, Maryland Literary Review, Broad River Review, and Orca, a Literary Journal. She is the recipient of the 2017 Best Prose Award from TNVR and she was named a finalist for the 2019 Ron Rash Award in Fiction from BRR, for the 2019 Sonora Review Essay Contest, and for the 2019 New Letters Publication Award in Fiction. Two of her short stories were nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is completing an MFA in fiction from Fairleigh Dickinson University, where she is also an assistant editor for The Literary Review. She hopes to publish a novel and a short story collection soon.
