Haints Stay Read Online Free

jaw, its
     shoulder, twisted and snapped some hidden, necessary part. Everything about the deer
     went still, then it kicked, shuttered, and went still again.
     
    “We’ll eat,” said Brooke.
    “I won’t eat it,” said the boy.
    Brooke was sawing the skin from the kill, its legs spread and tied to two
     separate trees. Brooke shrugged and placed the knife beneath a long length of
     flesh.
    “Then you’ll die,” said Brooke.

    That night they heard men on the road. Voices in the
     dark. The boy woke first. He trembled and rubbed his body beneath the shirt Brooke
     had given him, which the boy hadn’t put on, but chose instead to lay over himself as
     a blanket.
    He heard laughter from several men and a single struggling voice.
     Grunting and squealing just a little, breathing in spurts.
    “I think someone’s found us,” said the boy.
    Brooke and Sugar did not stir.
    “Brooke,” said the boy. “Sugar. I think someone’s — ”
    And Brooke was up. He was quiet, moving, sifting through his bag. His
     hand withdrew clutching a piece of metal that shone silver in the moonlight. Brooke
     disappeared then, into the trees. Sugar, the boy suddenly noticed, had vanished
     too.
    As the voices approached, the boy scrambled toward a large dark tree and
     crouched down on the side opposite their apparent approach.
    A limping body scrambled into their campsite, knocking their empty cans
     with its feet and tripping into the bundles of their supplies. It struggled to lift
     itself with two skinny arms but four men were suddenly upon it. They dragged it from
     amongst the supplies and blankets, out to an open spot of grass, faintly lit from
     the light above. There, they proceeded to kick and strike at the body without a word
     between them. One stepped back to grab a slick bundle of deer meat from the food
     pile and bring it down upon the struggling body with something like a laugh, cough,
     or wheeze. The bundle burst and the boy could hear the meat spilling out and into
     the grass, then their kicking and stepping on it as they moved about.
    “It’s meat,” said a voice.
    “Did we kill him ?” said another.
    “It’s animal meat,” said a third.
    “Is he dead then ?”
    The body was no longer struggling, but the boy could make out the chest’s
     movement from several feet away. It breathed like a man asleep, long, deep breaths
     punctuated by only a moment of stillness.
    “He’s not dead.”
    “It’s a campsite.”
    “Who’s here ?”
    “No one.”
    “The blankets are warm.”
    One man held Sugar’s blanket to his face, smelling and then rubbing it
     against his cheeks.
    “It’s a woman,” he said.
    “Let me,” said another voice, grabbing the blanket and pressing it to his
     face.
    “Where is she ?”
    “Got to be near.”
    The beaten man began to rise again, lifting himself on two skinny arms
     then pushing off from the dirt and setting out to run while bent at the waist,
     clutching his gut as the loose bits of deer fell from him and back into the
     grass.
    “He’s up,” said a voice, and pursued him.
    The one holding the blanket wrapped it around his waist and tied a
     knot.
    “It’s mine,” said a voice.
    “Get after him,” said the one with the blanket, and within moments, they
     set upon their pursued.
    They had him down again, pressed against the earth. This time, a knife
     was drawn. One of the shadows set to sawing at thehowling body, and
     it writhed for a moment before settling back into the ground like a dark, dull piece
     of landscape.
    The boy was shivering, watching them remove pieces of their kill and set
     them in what must have been pockets or pouches he could not see. They disassembled
     their kill, much like Brooke had disassembled the deer — hungrily, without
     hesitation, but with pride.
    “Gather what food they have and whatever else is useful,” said a voice.
     “Count the blankets.”
    The three other men set upon the camp while their apparent