How it pulled itself up the hill | Edmund Sandoval

You see a deer with a bad hind leg pumping up the hill. It pauses to look at you. Its rear left leg hanging like a dead man strung. There’s frost on the grass. The tree branches and pre-spring buds. You sit outside with your coffee. You take the air. It smells like sugar burning. Smoke from a burn pile. Your neighbor’s. High as a house. Limbs and leaves and broken furniture. Anything. A finger bone. A cinched belt. A mattress stained. It crawls across the ground like fog. White as steam. Mingling with the nightcold air. Pierced by the angling sun. There’s a power line blowing in the breeze. The smoke drifts and thins. You can see the squirrels tasting it and twitching their tails. What’s it mean. Years back, you all lit it up at night. Danced and drank and hooted. The embers floated. Your vision blurred. You can’t remember it right. Were there fires in the hills. There were fires in the hills. Did they wink at each other? Liquid glare and hot. Did you wake naked and bloated? The river skimmed with ice. A dead fish eyeing the sky. Bubbles breaking the surface farther out. The dim murk. The algae gathering. You step into the lawn. The fire wants more. But the ground is cold. Damp. The frost melts. Beads like dew. This is the country, and there’s the town. The water tower shines in the morning light. Steam rises from the bulb of the tank. You can’t see it, but you know the rusted ladder, the broken walkway, the distance to the ground. It’s the wrong time for burning. But your neighbor got the gas can out. Or the kerosene. He sprayed it good, then lit the match. You didn’t think he would do it. He’s early. You’ve got to tell him. This isn’t a call for help. We all know where we stand. Everyone will know. You think of the time in the forest. The way the roots wouldn’t give. How the moonlight was enough. How you bit your nail nervous and tongued the soil grit. You knew then, but now you’re not so sure. You look at your neighbor’s property. The hen house. The shed. The carport. The truck door open. The burn pile pops and creaks. The fire takes hold. Climbs and climbs. The smoke spreads like a slow wave. More are catching its scent, readying their arms, shedding their clothes. You hitch your pants and head over. Your footprints in the grass. The toe box of your shoe dark with damp. The front door open. The house empty. You think back to the deer—the quiet wood. You think back to the deer. How it pulled itself up the hill. Its rear leg useless as a broken hinge. Had you taken the shot? Is that why the look? You cannot know. It hadn’t shown blood. But it would soon be revealed. By your hand. By another. Now wait.

Edmund Sandoval is a writer living in Chicago, IL. His work has appeared online and in print in the minnesota review, The Common, American Literary Review, Superstition Review, Rejection Letters, and elsewhere.