Free Savage Lands by Clare Clark

dust with a sharpened stick so that he might fix its particulars in his head. He observed the pitcher plants like cones of rolled paper, the achechy with its roots rich with red juice like chicken’s blood. It was the job of the women to gather the plants for dyes and medicines, and it caused them great merriment to observe Auguste upon his knees, digging with his fingers in the wet black soil.
    One day one of the women approached him and quietly suggested that he cultivate a garden alongside the village vegetable plots. Her words caused the sharp wings of his shoulder blades to jut fiercely from his back. After that he ventured further into the forest where the women could not see him.
    As for fishing, the savage boys whittled rods and painted plugs and spinners in much the same way that the boys had done in France, but Auguste preferred the method of the elders, sliding one hand into the stream and waiting for a fish to nudge it. He learned to set all of his attentiveness into his fingers while his eyes followed the dragonflies above the water, cutting the air into slices like slivers of coloured glass.
    He had grown accustomed to his solitude by the time the dog took him as its companion. It was a yellow pup with a foxy face and a slouching gait, and when it sniffed about him its brow wrinkled suspiciously. Its ribs protruded from beneath its rough coat. Wild dogs were common in the village, some of them so accustomed to human proximity that they were almost tame, and Auguste paid the creature little heed, expecting it to tire of him and wander away. It did not. It made three neat turns and settled beside him, its nose tucked beneath its hind leg. When at last Auguste rose from the riverbank, the dog rose too, its tail pressed down between its haunches. When Auguste turned to look at it, it looked away, as though pretending its presence was an accident, but when he took a few steps towards the village, the dog followed several paces behind.
    It reminded Auguste of a game his sisters had liked to play. Several times he swung round without warning, and each time he turned the dog was quite still, its white-whiskered muzzle lifted in a posture of alert disinterest. When they reached the village Auguste begged Issiokhena for a little deer meat and held it out to the dog. The dog frowned and did not come closer. Auguste was obliged to throw the meat into the dust at the dog’s feet. The dog snatched it up and fled into the shadows. Auguste waited as the shadows lengthened and thickened, but it did not come back.
    That night Auguste dreamed of Jean and of his sisters. He woke with a heaviness in his chest, listening to the light breathing of the savage children on their skins beside him, and when dawn broke he rose and went out.
    He was almost at the palisades when he sensed that someone was following him. He turned. The dog looked away. Auguste hesitated. Then he thrust his hands in his pockets and walked towards the forest, his tuneless whistle snagging in the rising chorus of songs and shrieks that heralded the day.

S he dreamed about it when he was gone, the images in bright fragments like shards of broken glass catching the light. His gold-flecked eyes in a plump infant face. His long fingers in dimpled fists. A lean, sunburned face and a creamy new one, cheek to cheek, like a slippage in time. His secret smile tucked into the corner of a puckered baby mouth. Plump arms twisted round their necks, making of them a three-headed whole. Alone, night after night, she picked over the pieces, cutting her fingers on their sharp edges, and the wonder of it was as sharp in her as remembered desire. But when at last he came back to her and they lay tangled together beneath the sea-green quilt, his fingers tracing the undulations of breast and belly, she said nothing. She wrapped her arms around him and her legs too, sealing his skin against hers and forcing out the spaces between them. Sometimes, when he slept, she gazed at him,