By the time he reached Guthrie's side the man had managed to turn himself over, and it was clear that he was wounded beyond hope of healing: his chest a wet pit, his gaze the same. But he seemed to see Will; or at least sense his proximity. He reached out as Will bent to him, and caught hold of his jacket.
'Where's Lucy?' he said.
Will looked up. The dog was still at the doorway. She was no longer barking.
'She's okay.'
Guthrie didn't hear him reply, it seemed, because he drew Will closer, his hold remarkably strong. 'She's safe,' Will told him, more loudly, but even as he spoke he heard the warning hiss of the bear. He glanced back in her direction. Her whole bulk was full of shudders, as though her system, like Guthrie's, was close to capitulation. But she wasn't ready to die where she stood. She took a tentative step towards Will, her teeth bared.
Guthrie's other arm had caught hold of Will's shoulder. He was speaking again. Nothing that made much sense to Will; at least not at this moment.
'This will ... not come ... again.. .' he said.
The bear took a second step, her body rocking back and forth. Very slowly Will worked to pull Guthrie's hands off him, but the man's hold was too fierce.
'The bear...' Will said.
'Nor this...' Guthrie muttered, '... nor this...' There was a tiny smile on his bloody lips. Did he know, even in his dying agonies, what he was doing; holding down the man who had come with such sour memories, where the bear could claim him?
Will had no choice: if he was going to get out of the bear's way he was going to have to lug Guthrie with him. He started to haul himself to his feet, lifting the old man's sizeable frame with him. The motion brought a howl of anguish from Guthrie, and his grip on Will's shoulder slipped a little. Will stepped sideways in the direction of the shack, half-carrying Guthrie with him like a partner in some morbid dance. The bear had halted, and was watching this grotesquerie with black-sequin eyes. Will took a second step, and Guthrie let out another cry, much weaker than the first, and all at once gave up his hold on Will, who didn't have the power left in his arms to support him. Guthrie slipped to the ground as though every bone in his body had gone to water, and in that instant the bear made her move. Will didn't have time to dodge, much less run. The animal was on him in a bound, striking him like a speeding car, his bones breaking on impact, the world becoming a smear of pain and snow, both blazing white.
Then his head struck the icy ground. Consciousness fled for a few seconds. When it returned he raised his hand; saw the snow beneath him red. Where was the bear? He swivelled his gaze left and right looking for her. There was no sign. One of his arms was tucked beneath him, and useless, but there was enough strength in the other to raise him up. The motion made him sick with pain, and he was fearful he was going to lose consciousness again, but by degrees he bullied and coaxed his body up into a kneeling position.
Off to his left, a sniffing sound. He looked in its direction, his gaze flickering. The bear had her nose in Guthrie's corpse, inhaling its perfumes. She raised her vast head, her snout bloody.
This is death, Will thought. For all of us, this is death. This is what you've photographed so many times. The dolphin drowning in the net, pitifully quiescent; the monkey twitching amongst its dead fellows, looking at him with a gaze he could not stand to meet, except through his camera. They were all the same in this moment, he and the monkey; he and the bear. All ephemeral things, running out of time.
And then the bear was on him again, her claws opening his shoulder and back, her jaws coming for his neck. Somewhere far off, in a place he no longer belonged, he heard a woman calling his name, and his lazy brain thought: Adrianna's here; sweet Adrianna
He heard a shot, then another. Felt the weight of the bear against him, carrying him down to the ground, her blood raining on his face.
Was he saved? he vaguely wondered. But even as he was shaping the thought another part of him, that had neither eyes to see nor ears to hear, nor cared to have either, was slipping away from this place; and senses he had never known he owned were piercing the blizzard clouds and studying the stars. It seemed to him he could feel their warmth; that the distance between their blazing hearts and his spirit was just a thought, and he could be there, in them, knowing them, if he turned his mind to it.
Something checked his ascent, however. A voice in his head that he knew was familiar to him, yet he could not put a name to.
'Where d'you think you're going?' the voice said. There was a sly humour in it. He tried to put a face to the sound, but he saw only fragments. Silky red hair; a sharp nose, a comical moustache. 'You can't go yet,' the interloper said.
But I want to, he said. It hurts so much, staying here. Not the dying part, the living.
His companion heard his complaints, and would have no truck with them. 'Hush yourself,' he said. 'You think you're the first man on the planet lost his faith? That's all part of it. We're going to have to have a serious conversation, you and me. Face to face. Man to-'
Man to what?
'We'll get to that,' the voice replied. It was starting to fade.
Where are you going? Will wanted to know.
'Nowhere you can't find me when the time comes,' the stranger replied. 'And it will come, my faithless friend. As sure as God put tits on trees.'
And with this absurdity, he was gone.
There was a moment of blissful silence, when it crossed Will's mind that maybe he'd died after all, and was floating away into oblivion. Then he heard Lucy - poor, orphaned Lucy - howling out her heart somewhere close to him. And coming on the heels of her din, human voices, telling him to be still, be still, he was going to be all right.
'Can you hear me, Will?' Adrianna was asking him.
He could feel the snowflakes dropping on his face, like cold feathers. On his brow, on his lashes, on his lips, on his teeth. And then - far less welcome than the pricking snow - a swelling agony in his torso and head.
'Will,' Adrianna said. 'Speak to me.'
... ye ... s,' he said.
The pain was becoming unendurable, rising and rising.
'You're going to be all right,' Adrianna said. 'We've got help coming, and you're going to be all right.'
'Christ, what a mess,' somebody said. He knew the inflections. One of the Lauterbach brothers, surely; Gert the doctor, struck off the register for improper distribution of pharmaceuticals. He was giving orders like a field sergeant: blankets, bandages, here, now, on the double!
'Will?' A third voice, this one close to his ear. It was Cornelius, weeping as he spoke. 'I fucked up man. Oh Christ, I'm sorry-'
Will wanted to hush the man's self-recrimination - it was of no use to anybody now - but his tongue would not work to make the words. His eyes, however, opened a fraction, dislodging the dusting of snow in his sockets. He couldn't see Cornelius, nor Adrianna, nor Gert Lauterbach. Only the snow, spiralling down.
'He's still with us,' Adrianna said.
'Oh man, oh man-' Cornelius was sobbing. 'Thank fucking God.'
'You hold on,' Adrianna said to Will. 'We've got you. You hear me? You're not going to die, Will. I'm not going to let you, okay?'
He let his eyes close again. But the snow kept coming down inside his head, laying its hush upon him; like a tender blanket put over his hurt. And by degrees the pain retreated, and the voices retreated, and he slept under the snow, and dreamt of another time.
PART TWO
He Dreams He Is Loved
CHAPTER I
For a few precious months following the death of his older brother, Will had been the happiest boy in Manchester. Not publicly so, of course. He had quickly learned how to put on a glum face; even to look teary sometimes, if a concerned relative asked him how he felt. But it was all a sham. Nathaniel was dead, and he was glad. The golden boy would reign over him no longer. Now there was only one person in his life who condescended to him the way Papa did, and that was Papa himself.