•
After the desert there remains a part of Cain that is forever dried and hardened, like a shriveled nut lodged in his mind or heart or belly. When he thinks about it, which is rarely, he feels as if some of his guilt and fury have been scorched away by the sun, leaving only this hard kernel that will remain with him forever. He knows it is there but ignores it as best he can, which is usually well enough to get through the day without trembling, without weeping, without running outside to vomit.
•
Some weeks later Cain is caught in a lashing downpour. He staggers on under the howling sky until he happens upon a hut, open and abandoned.
Inside is musty and dim. The charred remains of a cookfire occupy the center of the floor. There is only one window, small and high up, and no furniture at all. In the roof beams is a nest of jays who squawk and rattle at his arrival. Cain stretches out on the dirt floor, taking care to avoid the cold cinders, and scowls at the birds, whom he half expects to empty their bowels on him until he leaves. He wonders whose hut this is and why it is remote and empty. The world is not so filled with accommodation that people can casually walk away from one house and expect to find another.
No answer is apparent. Cain sups from cold provisions he carries, almonds and dried fruit, hard cheese and olives. Then he rolls onto his stomach—thus has he slept since childhood—and falls into heavy slumber.
He dreams of fire and is awakened by its flicker against his eyelids.
Jerking upright, he takes some moments to realize that the hut itself is not engulfed. Rather, a campfire has been built in the middle of the floor, a small pyramid of logs that chats happily as it is consumed.
—Welcome friend, says a voice like a feather.
There is a figure crouched on the far side of the fire, someone thick draped in rough pelts.
Cain finds his voice.—I’m sorry to have intruded. I’ll go now.
—’Sall right, says the voice. It is a soft voice, breathy, and strokes him like a caress. Somehow it doesn’t suit this husky shadow.—No intrusion, and no need to leave either. I’m proud to call you my friend.
Friend.
It has been a long time since he has heard that word. A sudden feverish flush smites his face. Perhaps this man is mocking him.—Do you know who I am?
The man’s eyes glitter.—Hard to guess wrong with that thing on you, he says, and Cain knows he means the mark.—I’d be a dog to tell you to go. And I ain’t a dog.
Isn’t this a puzzle. Cain sits up properly and squints across the firelight.—Come here so I can see you, he says softly.
The figure draws near, his face lit by garish flames. Little more than a boy, perhaps sixteen years old. His nose is enormous and hangs before him like a predator’s muzzle, a wolf’s perhaps, surmounted by a pair of glittering colorless eyes. His smile carries an air of supercilious contempt for the world and everything in it.
Cain is not sure that he wants to be considered friends to such a boy—man?—as this. Then another wave of fatigue assails him: perhaps he can beg off further conversation and go back to sleep. The irony does not escape him that the first person in years to have welcomed his company is, in fact, distasteful to him.
Ironic or not, it is true. He leans close to the fire.—Do you not understand this mark upon me?
Instead of withdrawing, the smile on the face broadens.—Sure I do! says the boy.—It’s why I stayed here instead of going home.
Cain is confused.—Isn’t this your home?
—Nope. This hut belongs to Ohar. Or it used to.
Cain asks, And where is he?
—Dead.
—I’m sorry.
—I ain’t, grins the boy.
Cain says nothing. The child sits near with an air of expectation, as if waiting for him to speak. Cain’s eyes drop to the fire, where a finger of flame has split a thick log and now burns hot and white out of the crease.
—Ain’t you going to ask how he died?
—Not interested, Cain shrugs.
—I killed him, the boy says. When Cain looks up the boy adds, I used a rock.
—Why, says Cain, would you do something like that?
The boy appears surprised.—I thought you’d understand, you of all people. I wanted him to die so I did it. I figured maybe you’d want to know how I did it, not why.
—I don’t care how you did it.
—I used a rock, giggles the boy.—Just like you did.
—I didn’t—well, not exactly.
—I used a rock.
They remain silent for a time. Cain feels chilled by the boy’s revelation but cannot say exactly why. It’s nothing he hasn’t done himself, after all.—He must have wronged you greatly to be so abused.
—I didn’t even hardly know him, says the boy.—He just had some stuff I wanted.
—That’s stupid, snarls Cain.—How could you kill somebody and not even know why you were doing it?
Distress splashes plain across the boy’s face.—Don’t call me stupid. You were the whole reason I did this. You were the, the, inspiration.
—Don’t be ridiculous, snaps Cain.—You’re either a murderer, or you are not. I have nothing to do with it.
A note of hysteria has edged into his voice.—A man has to be born capable of such a thing. No one can teach him how to do it if he is not ready in his own heart.
The boy looks about to start crying.—That’s not true, he blurts.—I never thought of anything like this until I heard about you. Then I said if he could do it to his own brother, what’s wrong with me? I said nothing’d stop me and nothing did. I used a rock.
Cain is silent. There is no point to speech. The fire crackles merrily: laughing even in death, Cain can’t help thinking.
Still the boy gabbles on.—And you know what? It wasn’t like I was alone when I did it. You were with me the whole time.
—Your imagination is making me tired, Cain says, which is nothing less than the truth.—I’m going to sleep. It’s all the same to me whether you stay or go.
—So the thing is, it’s not my fault, says the boy.—I never would of known how, if you hadn’t shown me. If it wasn’t for you, he’d still be alive right now.
—Sleep well, Cain mutters. He lies on his side with an elbow over his ear.—I’m not interested in hearing any more.
—Yeah, he’d probably be in this hut right now, talking to you, instead of me.
Cain is wide awake but pretends not to be.
—So in a way, the boy says, it’s like you killed him too.
For a long time Cain stares at the orange firelight flickering against the walls of the hut. The shadows carry images of his brother. Cain watches them wearily, trying to call up the rage he once felt so reliably. And fails.
When he does finally manage to sleep, his dreams are profoundly unpleasant, and he wakes up more than once, sweating and disoriented.
•
In the morning the hunt is silent but for the patter of drops on the roof. Overhead the jays mutter. Was it all a dream? he wonders. He hopes it was. Just an illusion, a metaphor of some sort.
No, it wasn’t.
Cain sits up. The boy is curled into a