Split Image - Softcover

I washed my hands with clean snow, removed the silver flask from the man’s back pocket, and sipped the brandy. Skoal. Well, it was done, permanent, eternal. I could not expect to deal with the moral and philosophical aspects now. That might require the remaining years of my life. But at this moment I felt nothing. My act was without meaning, as incoherent and purposeless as a child’s impulsive cruelty to a kitten.

I emptied the flask, wiped it clean, and dropped it into the snow. My knife went back into its sheath. Did I have everything? Each article of clothing, my wallet, wristwatch, the bow and quiver of arrows. Were any buttons missing from my coat? Hat, muffler. Wait—the arrow I had shot into the deer. I must retrieve that. I circled the dead man and saw that the shaft sticking out of the deer was milled aluminum with red vanes. The arrows in the man’s quiver were aluminum with red vanes. Mine were old, of grainy wood, and the vanes were yellow. And now I saw that this deer was smaller than mine and his rack had fewer points. So then, my deerhad run into the brushy country to the north, was probably still there, dead or dying.

It was only ten minutes to ten. Snow was still coming down hard and would last, covering my tracks, the deer, the dead man, the blood, my crime.

The filthy crows mocked me until I vanished from the clearing.