Shandi Mitchell - Under This Unbroken Sky

Teodor quietly, carefully raises the rifle and takes aim. The larger coyote paws at the snow. It sidesteps, exposing its flank but blocking a clean kill. Both dogs sniff curiously, timid. Teodor can see a dead rabbit at their feet. He steadies his arm, his eye. He has a clear shot on the smaller coyote. He cocks the trigger. The click is earsplitting. The coyotes rear around, teeth bared. But they don’t flee; they hunker their heads and close ranks. The larger one snarls a warning. Hackles ridge their backs and bristle around their necks. Back off , they warn. This is ours .

Teodor takes aim between the larger dog’s eyes. It spits a fury of threats, its teeth gnashing with each snap. The smaller coyote grabs the rabbit and tries to drag it off, tearing the pelt. It grabs again, tugging at the weight. It hops backward, its right front leg slapping the air, a stump where there should be a foot.

Teodor takes a step forward, trying to get a better shot. The larger coyote whips around, grabs the carcass, and jerks it up, grasping for a better hold. The pelt slides off as if it’s been skinned. Teodor sees a limb. His mind grapples with the shape. The hindquarters? The hare’s leg? Pink, blue… a hand. Tiny, perfect fingers.

Teodor fires, not aiming. The shot explodes in the snow. He is screaming, lunging over the wall. The small female with the missing foot clamps down on the bundle and drags it over the snow. The large male charges after her, unhinges its jaw, and shovels the carcass to the back of its throat. They race for the woods. Teodor ratchets the bolt, emptying the spent shell. He fishes for the bullet in his pocket, jams it into the chamber. He flounders through the snow, drops to his knees, takes aim, unable to steady his hands. Fires.

The crack of the gunshot ricochets across the prairies. The coyotes keep running, Teodor’s howls chasing them relentlessly.

AT THE FIRST SHOT, MARIA IS ON HER FEET. SHE HEARS Teodor’s shouts and she is racing for Myron’s room. By the second shot, she has shaken him awake and is pulling on her coat. Her children file out of their rooms, frightened by their mother’s flurry. Katya and Ivan are already sniffling. Myron pulls on his pants and sees that the rifle is gone. They can hear a coyote howling, howling. Katya starts to cry, wants her mama not to go. Maria yells at them to stay in the house and she is out the door, running across the field, not thinking what she will do when she gets there. Myron chases after her, his fingers fumbling to fasten his coat.

“ANNA!” TEODOR SCREAMS, HAMMERING THE DOOR WITH the butt of the rifle. “Open the door!” He kicks at the latch. The door shudders and heaves. “Anna!”

Lesya and Petro jump awake, not recognizing the crazed voice screaming through the door. “Let me in!” From the glow of the woodstove, Lesya sees her mother sitting at the table, dressed in her cloak, a puddle of melted snow at her feet, her hands clasping her stomach. The door sways on its hinges. “Anna!”

The children cower in their bed. “Mama?” Lesya cries. The door frame cracks. Petro jumps down from the bed and grabs a log to wield as a weapon. He shrinks into the corner. “He’s going to kill us,” he whispers.

Teodor tosses aside the rifle and batters the door with his fists. “Open the door,” he sobs. “Anna…” He batters against the splintering wood, not feeling the pain. The wooden latch jumps, shimmying free with each pounding.

Lesya hobbles to her mother. Her bad foot folds under her ankle and she falls against the soapbox cradle. Empty. “What have you done?”

The door crashes open and Teodor is across the room in two strides; he overturns the table separating him from his sister. Anna doesn’t flinch.

He grabs her by the collar and drags her to her feet. “Why?” He wants to kill her, he wants her to feel what he feels. He drives her against the back wall. “Why?” She doesn’t struggle, she looks beyond him, unafraid. Teodor slams his fist into the wall beside her head and they both know there is nothing more he can do. “Why?” he begs.

“She died,” Anna says, her voice small and grieved.

Teodor doesn’t believe her. He searches her eyes, knowing it can’t be true. Her eyes are calm, peaceful. He looks to Lesya. Blue-gray eyes. Frozen eyes, cracked ice, dripping sorrow. Tell me. Lesya looks to the ground. She does the only thing she can. She nods.

Teodor exhales a broken keen, his head drops to Anna’s breast, and he clings to her mantle, sobbing like a child. Anna strokes his hair. His cries fill her empty belly. She died , she tells herself. She died the moment she was conceived.

“Don’t cry,” she tells him, just like she told her. “She’s safe now.”

Teodor pulls away, not wanting to be touched by the same hands that laid a child in a snowbank. He would have buried her. He would have made a coffin. She. She. She. A girl. Nameless. He backs away, stammering, “I’m sorry.” Sorry for the baby, sorry for the little boy hiding in the corner, sorry for the little girl with the crooked foot hiding behind her hair. Sorry that he will never speak to his sister again.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Anna challenges his burning eyes. Accusing. Judging. Condemning. “Don’t look at me!” Teodor walks out the door, picks up the gun, and heads into the night.

Anna follows him to the door. “She died!” The shrill words sound hollow and unconvincing. She chases after him. “She died!” She wants him to understand. She wants him to see that they’re all just ghosts. “She was already dead!”

But he keeps walking, leaving only his footprints to betray he once existed. Anna stops chasing him, knowing he’s never coming back.

“It’s my land.” She hurls the words. “I want you off my land!”

MARIA AND MYRON MEET TEODOR COMING UP FROM Anna’s on the far side of the stone wall. Maria throws herself around him. She clings to him, praising all that is holy that her husband is all right. Teodor gently loosens her arms.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” he tells her.

“I heard the shots. I heard a coyote. Did you kill it? Did it get away?” Talk to me.

Teodor hands the rifle to Myron. “You should be in bed. We should all be in bed.”

Teodor leads them home. Tch-tch-tch .

“Did you find the rabbit?” Maria persists.

He takes six steps before answering, “There was no rabbit.”

He doesn’t speak again until they are about to go inside the house. “Go on in,” he tells Myron. “I want to talk to your mother.”

He walks to the twin boulders and sits down on the seat of snow. He looks up at the sky. Maria takes a seat beside him.

The same stars are shining down. The dog is still chained; the little bear is safe. The air smells the same. The fields look the same. It should all be different, he thinks.

“There was no rabbit…” Teodor begins.

MAMA IS CRYING IN BED. TATO IS SPEAKING LOW. THE FIRE is burning too hot. Katya swallows down another piece of Christ. The hard, dry dough sticks to the roof of her mouth. She gags. Pushes it back in. Its hardness clumps in her stomach. She chips off another piece and forces it in. She won’t stop until she has eaten every bit of him.

THE TEMPERATURE HOVERS JUST BELOW FREEZING. The sun has shone hard and insistent for the last three days. Blue endless sky, blinding white fields. The rabbits are running; birds descend, scavenging seed; mice scramble over and under drifts; cats pad across the banks, their ears tuned to what’s under the snow. All the life that has been hiding scurries into the world with a heady exuberance, an insatiable lust, to gorge and stockpile. Chickadees herald winter’s short reprieve. Come out, come out , they call. We’re alive. We’re alive.