The Impaler

was still groggy, the inside of his head still thick and gooey when his grandfather woke him later to head out to the deer stand.

“That stuff you made me drink feels a lot like the medicine,” Edmund said.

“Yeah,” said his grandfather, “but it also feels different though, doesn’t it? And you feel different now after taking that drink, don’t you, Eddie? Different than after you take the medicine. Makes you feel more like a man, wouldn’t you say?”

Edmund couldn’t tell if he felt more like a man, but he did feel pretty calm about going out into the woods to kill his first deer—not sort of afraid, as he had felt before. No, now he felt as if killing the deer was just something he had to do—sort of like he was on a mission, he thought—but at the same time he kept seeing these strange shadows in his head that he knew had to do with guns and being a hunter and “C’est mieux d’oublier.”

“You’ll see what I mean when the time comes,” said the old man.

And even though his grandfather kept saying over and over again how proud he was that his grandson took his first drink like a man, once they settled themselves in the stand Edmund quickly fell asleep. He had no idea how much time had passed when he felt his grandfather’s elbow in his side. And when he opened his eyes, he immediately noticed that the woods had grown darker.

Then he saw it: a single buck in the clearing.

The boy’s heart pounded him instantly awake.

Without a sound, the old man handed him the rifle. Edmund judged the buck to be about fifty yards away, and trained the scope on it steadily just as his grandfather had taught him the previous fall, when he let the boy practice on some wild turkeys that had been poking around the woods at the edge of the farm. Edmund hadn’t been able to hit any of the turkeys, but he and the old man had gone target shooting over the summer, everything in preparation for this moment.

Edmund took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, bracing himself for the rifle ’s kickback—he still wasn’t used to it; it still made the inside of his shoulder ache for days—when suddenly, without thinking, he squeezed the trigger and—Bam!

The buck dropped to the ground.

Claude Lambert snatched the rifle, and the two of them scrambled down from the stand. They closed the distance quickly, slowing down the last ten yards or so and approach- ing cautiously. And just before they reached the buck, the old man handed the rifle back to his grandson. “One more in the back of the head in case he ain’t dead.”

Edmund shot the buck again.

“An eight-pointer,” his grandfather said when they were upon it. “Not bad for your first time. You done that without thinking, Eddie. Like a real hunter does.”

His heart still pounding, Edmund gazed down at his kill.

“Gonna make a nice mount,” Claude Lambert said, more to himself. “I done good making you a hunter. Done good to get your mind straight on things, too.”

He immediately tagged the buck on its ear and motioned for the boy to help him. They turned the carcass over and propped it up on its back, its head resting against a large tangle of exposed tree roots. Then, the old man removed a hunting knife from his belt, knelt down, and began cutting the buck just beneath the breastbone. He worked quickly, using his index and middle fingers as a guide, and opened the deer lengthwise along its belly. Edmund had seen his grandfather field dress deer many times back on the farm, and as he slowly cut away the stomach and intestines, the boy knew the old man was taking care not to puncture the organs and contaminate the meat.

But something was different this time. Edmund could feel it throughout his entire body, vibrating pleasantly and with an eerie sense of calm expectation. It was as if he had watched this scene many years ago in a movie—a movie starring a boy who looked just like him—but he couldn’t quite remember exactly what the boy was about to do.

“C’est mieux d’oublier.”

Now he was watching, but was also being pulled downward to his knees with the boy. He could hear a voice commanding them both—could not hear actual words, but nonetheless understood what the voice was telling them to do.

Then a blink, a rush, a coming together, and Edmund and the boy were one again.

The vibrating was gone, but the calm remained.

And now there was only the buck’s bloody beating heart held out to him in his grandfather’s hands.

“Take it, Eddie,” said the old man. “You know what to do.”

Edmund took the heart from his grandfather and brought it to his lips. He did not pause to ponder its warmth, its wetness, and without hesitation sank his teeth deep into the twitching muscle, tore out a bite, and swallowed.

Chapter 46

When he was grown, Edmund would realize that the hunting trip was not only the last time his grandfather gave him the medicine in secret, but also the last time his grandfather gave him the medicine period. However, over the course of the two years following the hunting trip, Edmund began to wonder why his grandfather never offered him the medicine even after some of his really bad fights. Like the one with the catcher that got him kicked off his junior high school baseball team.

Granted, Edmund threw the first punch, but the catcher had called Edmund a faggot because he didn’t feel like pitching hard that day. Edmund flew off the mound in a fury, but another player stepped in front of him just as he reached home plate, making Edmund’s punch go wild. The catcher, who was a big, fat kid, easily sidestepped their scuffle and tagged Edmund in the face—pushed the other player out of the way and tackled Edmund to the ground. He got in a few more punches before Edmund could connect with one of his own. And surely Edmund would have gotten the best of him had the coach and the other players not stepped in. But be- cause Edmund had thrown the first punch, he was told to gather up his things and never come back.

Claude Lambert had been really disappointed in his grandson for getting kicked off the baseball team. He even went down to the school and tried to reason with the coach, but the coach wouldn’t hear of taking Edmund back. Didn’t matter how good the kid was, he said. That kind of unsportsmanlike conduct simply would not be tolerated.

The old man went on a two-week bender after that. And oftentimes, Edmund would come home from school and find him down in the cellar by himself, the smell of licorice mixed with cigarette smoke wafting up the stairs and that weird French music playing in the background. It had been ages since Edmund had heard that music, and he couldn’t remember ever seeing his grandfather that way—depressed, distant, quiet. Rally seemed to look at him differently, too, and for weeks the two men only spoke to Edmund in spurts of yeses, nos, and maybes.

Eventually, the old man forgave him—never actually said anything, but Edmund could tell by the way he and Rally looked at him normally again. Edmund would get in many more fights that year, but still Claude Lambert never brought the medicine up from the cellar. The boy even went looking for it one night when his grandfather was passed out in the den—something he swore he would never do—but could not find it anywhere. Edmund still got spooked when he went down into the cellar alone, but strangely, not only did he find himself longing for the medicine, but more than anything else, Edmund also found himself longing for the General.

Edmund hadn’t dreamed of the General since even before the hunting trip; hadn’t talked about him with his grandfather since he was a boy and began to wonder if he had ever dreamed of him at all. And so he asked the school librarian about any Civil War battles fought in Wilson. She said she didn’t know of any and told him to look it up in the encyclo- pedia. Edmund did, and discovered that no Civil War battles had been fought in Wilson County ever. The closest one seemed to be the Battle of Bentonville, near the present-day town of Four Oaks—about forty miles away, by Edmund’s calculations, and certainly not close enough to warrant carrying the General all the way to his property.

He asked his grandfather about it.

“I reckon the General must’ve been someone you made up,” the old man replied. “You always had a