Page 25 of Shame the Devil
When they were each sitting with their back against a headboard and holding a bottle of beer, Owen said, “This reminds me of my rookie season.”
“Except that we had TV and the internet,” Harlan said.
“Did they have the internet back then?”
Harlan sighed. “Man, the generational stuff is just going to get worse, isn’t it?”
“If you go after the mom? Probably.”
Harlan stopped a second, then said, “It’s one weekend.”
Owen took a swallow of beer. “Yep.”
“See,” Harlan said, “this is the problem with meeting women who’ve got depth. Depth just complicates things.”
“You saying you’renotgoing after her?”
“How can I, if I’m about to tell you that going after Dyma would be a dick move?”
“Because Dyma’s eighteen and Jennifer isn’t? Also—you think I don’t know that? Seriously, bro? She’s in high school.”
“I also think,” Harlan said, “that she spun your head all the way around.”
“It’s not my head that’s confused,” Owen said. “My head gets it.”
“So that’s a no, then,” Harlan said. “On both counts.”
“Yep,” Owen agreed. “That’s a no.”
11
Can’t Sleep. Can’t Sit
There wasnoise outside Harlan’s window. An eerie sound, like a horn.
It wasn’t the freaky near-scream of coyotes. He’d heard plenty of coyotes. He didn’t think it was wolves, either, though he’d sure like to hear those. He listened some more, then went over to the window and shoved it open. The snow swirled in, and the subzero air nearly sucked the breath out of his body. Like playing in Green Bay. Or like playing on his high-school field, in a flat, frozen land where football was the only thing there was. His ticket out.
The sound came again, much louder now, and he recognized it. Owls, two of them, calling back and forth to each other.
He listened a while more, getting colder but feeling better, then shut the window, grabbed the coffee-table book again, and looked them up.
Great horned owls. Dark spirits of the night, according to the Cheyenne. Moving silently with their fluted feathers, seeing in the dark, swooping down on their prey without warning, the horns on their heads symbols of their fearsome power.
Huh. They didn’t feel sinister to him. They just felt powerful. He’d heard them like this once in high school. The dead of winter, when football was over and there was no baseball yet, when he’d linger in the weight room to delay going home. One night, he’d driven up to find his mom out on the porch, her coat on, hugging herself.
She’d said, “Listen.” And he had.
After a while, she said, “That’s a mated pair of great horned owls. You can tell from how deep the sound is, and how strong. No other owl sounds quite like that. They’re calling to each other. They mate for life. Isn’t that a beautiful thing?”
Harlan didn’t say, “Yes.” He wasn’t sure it was such a beautiful thing.
“You hear how the voice near us is higher, and the other one’s lower?” his mom said. “That’s the male. He’s got a bigger voice box. They’re finding each other, telling each other, ‘I’m over here.’ And maybe, ‘I’m heading out again,’ because they’ll be hunting some more tonight. Who knows what else they’re saying? Why do they talk so long? Maybe they enjoy it. Maybe it’s conversation. What do you think?”
“Hey, Joann,” Harlan heard from inside the house, “you planning to get that dinner on the table anytime this century?”
She didn’t answer. She told Harlan, “Some people think that’s a scary sound. To me, it reminds me that spring’s coming. It’s cold and dark and snowy out here, and it feels like it’ll never stop being cold and dark and snowy, but there’s still life all around, under the snow. That’s the good thing about winter. It always ends up turning to spring.”
And then she’d gone in the house to put dinner on the table.
