Sacrament

'Him, a little. Even that was too much. What's your name again?'

'Will - William - Rabjohns.'

'Well ... you'd better come inside, before you freeze your balls off.

CHAPTER II

Unlike the comfortable, well-appointed houses in the rest of the tiny township, Guthrie's dwelling was so primitive it barely seemed habitable, given how bitter the winters up here could be. There was a vintage electric fire heating its single room (a small sink and stove served as a kitchen; the great outdoors was presumably his toilet) while the furniture seemed to have been culled from the dump. Its collector was scarcely in better condition. Dressed in several layers of grimy clothes, Guthrie was plainly in need of nourishment and medication. Though Will had heard that he was no more than sixty, he looked a good decade older, his skin red- raw in patches and sallow in others, his hair, what little he had, white where it was cleanest. He smelt of sickness and fish.

'How did you find me?' he asked Will as he closed and triple-bolted the door.

'A woman in Mauritius spoke to me about you.'

'You want something to warm you up a bit?'

'No, I'm fine.'

'What woman's this?'

'I don't know if you'll remember her. Sister Ruth Buchanan?'

'Ruth? Christ. You met Ruth. Well, well. That woman had a mouth on her...' He poured a shot of whisky into a well-beaten enamel mug, and downed it in one. 'Nuns talk too much. Ever noticed that?'

'I think that's why there are vows of silence.'

The reply pleased Guthrie. He loosed a short, barking laugh, which he followed with another shot of whisky. 'So what did she say about me?' he asked, peering at the whisky bottle as if to calculate how much solace it had left to offer.

'Just that you'd talked about extinction. About how you'd seen the last of some animals.'

'I never said anything to her about Rosa and Jacob.'

'No. I just assumed if you'd seen one you might have seen the other.'

'Huh.' Guthrie's face knitted up as he thought this through. Rather than be seen to be studying him - this was not a man who took kindly to scrutiny - Will crossed to the table to look at the books that were piled upon it. His approach brought a warning growl from under the table. 'Shut up, Lucy!' Guthrie snapped. The dog hushed its growl, and came out of hiding to ingratiate herself. She was a sizeable mongrel, with strains of German Shepherd and Chow in her bloodline, better fed and groomed than her master. She'd brought her bone out with her, and dutifully carried it to her master's feet.

'Are you English?' Guthrie said, still not looking at Will.

'Born in Manchester. But I was brought up in the Yorkshire Dales.'

'England's always been a little too cosy for me.'

'I wouldn't call the moors cosy,' Will said. 'I mean, it's not wild like this, but when the mists come down and you're out on the hills-'

'That's where you met them then.'

'Yes. That's where I met them.'

'English bastard,' Guthrie said. Then, finally looking at Wilclass="underline" 'Not you. Steep. Chilly, English bastard.' He spoke the three words as if cursing the man, wherever he was. 'You know what he called himself?' Will knew. But it would serve him better, he suspected, if he let his host have the moment. 'The Killer of Last Things,' Guthrie said. 'He was proud of it. I swear. Proud of it.' He emptied the remnants of the whisky into his mug but didn't drink. 'So you met Ruth in Mauritius, huh? What were you doing there?'

'Taking pictures. There's a kestrel there looks like it's going to be extinct some time soon.'

'I'm sure it was grateful for your attention,' Guthrie said dryly. 'So what do you want from me? I can't tell you anything about Steep or McGee. I don't know anything, and if I ever did I put it out of my head. I'm an old man and I don't want the pain.' He looked at Will. 'How old are you? Forty?'

'Good guess. Forty-one.'

'Married?'

'No.'

'Don't. It's a rat-trap.'

'It's not likely, believe me.'

'Are you queer then?' Guthrie said, with a little tilt of his head.

'As it happens, yes.'

'A queer Englishman. Surprise, surprise. No wonder you got on so well with Sister Ruth - She Who Must Not Be Touched. And you came all this way to see me?'

'Yes and no. I'm here to photograph the bears.'

'Of course, the fucking bears.' What little trace of warmth or humour his voice had contained had suddenly vanished. 'Most people just go to Churchill, don't they? Aren't there tours now, so you can watch them performing?' He shook his head. 'Degrading themselves.'

'They just go where they can find a free meal,' Will said.

Guthrie looked down at the dog, who had not moved from his side since her reprimand. Her bone was still in her mouth. 'That's what you do, isn't it?' The dog, happy she was being addressed, whatever the subject, thumped her tail on the bare floor. 'Little brown-noser.' Guthrie reached down as if to take the bone. The dog's ragged black lips curled back in warning. 'She's too bright to bite me and too stupid not to growl. Give it to me, you mutt.' Guthrie tugged the bone from her jaws. She let him take it. He scratched her behind her ear and tossed the bone back on the floor in front of her. 'I expect dogs to be sycophants,' he said, 'we made 'em that way. But bears - Jesus, bears shouldn't be fucking nosing around in our garbage. They should stay out there- he vaguely waved in the direction of the Bay '-where they can be whatever God intended them to be.'

'Is that why you're here?'

'What, to admire the animal life? Christ no. I'm here because being with people makes me vomit. I don't like 'em. I never did.'

'Not even Steep?' Will said.

Guthrie shot him a poisonous look. 'What in Christ's name kind of question is that?'

'Just asking.'

'Fucking stupid question,' Guthrie muttered. Then, softening somewhat, he said: 'They were something to look at, both of them, and that's the truth. I mean, Christ, Rosa was beautiful. I only put up with talking to Steep to get to her. But he said once I was too old for her.'

'How old were you?' Will asked him, thinking as he did so that Guthrie's story was changing slightly. He'd claimed only to know Steep; but apparently he'd known them both.

'I was thirty. Way too old for Rosa. She liked 'em real young. And of course she liked Steep. I mean the two of them, they were like husband and wife and brother and sister and fuck knows what else all rolled into one. I didn't stand a chance with her.' He let the subject trail away, and picked up another. 'You want to do some good for these bears?' he said. 'Get out there on the dump and poison 'em. Teach 'em not to come back. Maybe it'll take five seasons, and that'll be a lot of dead bears, but they'll get the message sooner or later.' Finally he downed the contents of his glass, and while the liquor still burned his throat said: 'I try not to think about them, but I do-' He wasn't talking about the bears now, Will knew. 'I can see both of them, like it was yesterday.' He shook his head. 'Both of them so beautiful. So ... pure.' His lip curled at the word, as though he meant its antithesis. 'It must be terrible for them.'

'What must be terrible?'

'Living in this filthy world.' He looked up at Will. 'That's the worst part for me,' he said. 'That the older I get, the more I understand 'em.' Were those tears in his eyes, Will wondered, or simply rheum? 'And I hate myself for it so fucking much.' He put down his empty glass, and with sudden determination announced: 'That's all you're getting from me.' He crossed to the door and unbolted it. 'So you may as well just get the hell out of here.'

'Well, thank you for your time,' Will said, stepping past the old man and into the freezing air.

Guthrie waved the courtesy away. 'If you see Sister Ruth again……'

'I won't,' Will said. 'She died last February.'