Ernie and Joe
1896 – Outside of Silt
The sunlight shining on the yellows, oranges, and reds of the maple leaves makes the entire mountain seem like it’s been set ablaze. The creek in the valley below is blanketed in billows of whites and greys that more closely resemble smoke than mist. The view from Ernie’s property on the top of the hill looks stunning in the early autumn. The beauty of the scene before the two men is lost on Ernie and Joe who have been waiting the better part of the morning for the mist to burn off. The mist, as if in defiance or sheer spite, seems to have thickened instead, further delaying their plans to go deer hunting.
The hounds at Ernie’s feet are struggling to sit still, their forepaws dancing in anticipation of today’s hunt. Joe is struggling to sit still as well, having walked the length of Ernie’s front porch several times over, however, nothing about Joe’s movements could be confused for dancing. Ernie’s cleaned his shotgun twice now and is fiddling with supplies. He isn’t sure if it’s the whistling whine of the waiting hounds or the constant symphony of creaks and moans coming from the floorboards as Joe paces that prompts Ernie to action, either way, he is ready to go. His patience for beast, man, and mist is at its limit. He also promised the Missus that he’d get her a deer before she returns from her sister’s place, he is running out of time, and he’d hate to disappoint her.
Ernie isn’t a man to take unnecessary risks, but he isn’t a man to go back on his word either and decides he’s done waiting, mist be damned. He tells Joe it’s time to head out and is about to let the hounds loose. Before he can give the command an explosion tears violently through the valley nearly knocking the men off their feet and sending the hounds into a frenzy. Several shingles fall to the ground protesting the sudden disruption to an otherwise still morning. Ernie looks at the gouge in the ground surrounding the shingles, marking where they’ve made their final resting place, and mutters “What the hell was that?”
“An explosion, I think,” Joe says after a minute’s consideration.
Ernie looks at him in disbelief. “Gee, do ya think? Of course, it was an explosion, there is nothing in the valley that should have exploded like that.” Ernie knows the only places in that direction are a few patches of houses, the town of Silt, and its coal mine. Nothing in the surrounding areas should have made that much noise and all of them are too far away for an explosion to be felt here. He’s never heard of an explosion caused by firedamp shaking the shingles off of houses before and doesn’t imagine it’s going to start now.
“You wanna check it out?” Joe asks hopefully.
“Hell no, I don’t ‘wanna check it out’,” Ernie says in a mocking tone. “Nothin' good is gonna come from stickin' our noses where they don’t belong,” he says firmly and sets about trying to calm the hounds.
Joe seems a little disappointed, but that isn't Ernie's problem. This is the kind of place where nothing much happens, and that usually means the good stuff, but nothing happening also means the bad stuff. The sudden shift in expectations about what kind of place this is seems to make Joe curious, it has the opposite effect on Ernie. He wants to go back to five minutes ago before this became the kind of place where things happen and the only things he had to worry about were fixing a few loose floorboards and keeping his promise to his wife. He tells himself that the Missus would be furious if he spent time poking around in the woods after some noise when he had deer to hunt and shingles to fix.
Ernie takes a few minutes to calm the hounds then he and Joe set off, in the opposite direction of the explosion. Nothing in Silt means anything to him and he intends to keep it that way. He's sure there will be plenty of deer up the creek too, and that's where he intends to look, assuming the explosion didn’t scare them all away. Ernie discovers that the explosion made his life harder and easier in equal measure. The shingles may have been moved by the blast, but so has the mist. He notes that the explosion also stripped all but the most stubborn leaves from the branches in the trees bordering the valley, with only the trees nearest to the mountain's top still retaining their dignity. Another act of good fortune, it should be much easier to spot the deer as they eat by the water’s edge if there are no leaves to hide them.
Ernie gives the command and sets the hounds loose. They scramble down the hill towards the creek and begin baying almost immediately. Ernie can't believe his luck, even with the time they burned through this morning they'll have a deer more quickly than expected. They carefully make their way down the slope making it about halfway before being overcome by the stench. It smells like rot, both sickeningly sweet and rancid. Ernie grumbles to himself and Joe is doing his best not to gag. Ernie isn't going to let a little bit of a smell stop him, not when the deer is so close. The men continue on their way, Ernie covering his mouth and nose with his sleeve and Joe trailing behind him trying his best to take small breaths, limiting the amount of the vile smell they inhale.
They are nearly to the bottom when Ernie realizes he can no longer hear the hounds baying. "Something isn't right," Ernie says, he immediately regrets opening his mouth. As foul as the air smells it tastes even worse. His stomach rejects the offering choked down as he sucks in air and hears Joe retching behind him. Ernie hears one of his hounds whimpering in the distance and attempts to call them back with a quick double whistle, no deer is worth losing his dogs over. He fights a wave of nausea as he waits for his hounds to give up their chase. Bracing himself for the acrid taste that's become the whole of the valley he inhales and shouts "Come" to his hounds. This time when the bile comes up from the depths of his stomach, he can't contain it and vomits on the ground.
Ernie's never been one to react to the sight of blood but the amount that frees itself from his body when he throws up is enough to rattle him. He decides no hound is worth the price of his own life and turns to climb up the slope. A short distance away Joe is slumped on the ground behind him, his body is limp and heavy when Ernie tries to help him up. He knows Joe is beyond helping and returns his focus to the slope headed toward his house. Ernie’s body feels as heavy as Joe’s had, turning his journey from minutes into what may as well have been miles. As Ernie's legs fail him, he switches to a crawl, his fingers leaving gashes in the dirt where he's tried to pull himself forward. He thinks about how upset his wife will be when she sees he hasn’t kept his word and finds shingles on the lawn. He hopes she knows he tried.
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