The Beyond by Jeffrey Ford Read Free Book Online

heavy pack. Then the thought came to him that perhaps Wood might pull it behind him.
    Cley’s accuracy with the bow had become so good through the winter that he could fell a deer with just one arrow. He worked quickly, skinning his prey on the spot, and in this manner was able to take two or three skins a day. At night, he and Wood ate venison steaks and livers and began to regain much of the strength they had lost through the harsh heart of the winter. After dinner now they passed on the book, for the nights were filled with industry—treating the insides of the pelts and readying them to be sewn together. He calculated that he would need at least fifteen skins to make a tent large enough to cover both of them.
    Killing a deer and carving it up was second nature for the hunter, and he enjoyed the work—at last a definite project other than merely surviving. It took his mind away, and he no longer sat morosely holding the green veil and staring into the past. When the tent was three-quarters sewn together, he realized he had not yet tackled the job of making fire without matches. The idea of rubbing sticks together to draw a flame seemed preposterous, so he instead opted for the technique that called for the banging of rocks.
    Following the stream at the bottom of the hill, he and the dog set off one morning, searching along its bank for promising specimens. Every now and then he would stop, lift two rocks, smash them together as hard as he could, and study the results. By midday, he had broken nearly thirty rocks and smashed each of his fingers at least once without having produced a single spark. Wood grew tired of this fruitless pursuit and went off into a stand of shemel trees after a geeble.
    â€œWhat idiot invented this technique?” Cley wondered, but drawing on the persistence that had kept him alive through worse trials, he continued. He knelt again by the stream’s edge and brought up a large, black, heart-shaped stone. He was searching for another against which to smash this one when he heard a strange noise. It was something familiar but nothing he had heard in a long time. He stopped and listened more intently. All he heard was the sound of the tree branches scraping together in the breeze and the rushing of the water.
    Minutes later, he reached out to take up another stone and heard again, from off in the forest, the distinct sound of someone weeping. He was used to the weird noises of the Beyond, but this particular one made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Listening closely, he was sure he heard a woman sobbing. Getting up, he called for Wood. The sound of his own voice dispelled the crying, and he stood perfectly still for a long time, listening.
    â€œHello?” he finally called but there was only the breeze.
    â€œWho is there?” he yelled, and with this, Wood came charging out of a thicket of trees. He realized, upon seeing the familiar figure of the dog, how momentarily frightened he had been. Listening intently awhile longer, he finally decided it was nothing more than the call of a bird or the rushing of the stream over an obstruction.
    In order to put the incident decisively out of his mind, he banged together the two rocks he held. A spark leaped out of the collision and landed in his beard. Moments later, a thin wisp of smoke curled away from his face, and a moment after that, he was on his knees again dipping his beard forward into the ice-cold stream. Wood nipped him on the rear end as he knelt with water dripping off his face.
    On his way back to the cave, Cley looked up from his thoughts to see where the dog had gone. In the distance, a figure stood amidst the trees where the stream turned left toward the hill. He blinked and looked again. Whatever had been there was now gone. Pocketing the two rocks, he took out his knife and began running as quietly as possible. He was positive that what he had seen was not a demon because there was no sign of wings or