This Will Be Difficult to Explain and Other Stories by Johanna Skibsrud Read Free Book Online

could have imagined, having only seen them from a diminishing distance.
    â€œShit,” Daniel’s father said when, in another moment, he saw it, too. He grabbed at the hood of Daniel’s jacket and kind of tugged at it. Daniel got down on the ground like it was a movie and they were the ones being shot at. “No, get up ,” Daniel’s father hissed at him. “Back up, back up.”He had his gun raised and he was shooing Daniel behind him with one hand. The buffalo did not see them, but was standing looking off into the closely grown wood as if at nothing.
    â€œI got’m, I got’m,” Daniel’s father said, and then the gun went off and the buffalo was gone.
    Daniel realized that he had tightly shut his eyes and that was why there had been no progression. One minute he had seen the buffalo looking off into the woods, and then there was no buffalo at all. The trees were so closely grown that it seemed impossible that an animal so large could have squeezed through them and disappeared.
    Daniel sensed his father’s disappointment, although neither of them said anything. When the buffalo was gone, Daniel’s father simply took down his gun, wiped off the muzzle, and then turned in the direction that Daniel was, without looking at him. “Come on,” he said. “Which way?” Daniel didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t seen the direction that the buffalo had gone, and then he wasn’t even that sure if they should be running after it or away from it. He pointed straight ahead, and his father took off in the direction that he pointed.
    When Daniel and his father got back home that evening they left the rifles on the rack because neither of them wanted to put them away. It would have seemed to be too outright an admission that it was over—that they wouldn’t go looking for buffalo again. The next day they both had work or school, and probably by that time anyway, thepolice and the fire department would have the situation under control and they wouldn’t need volunteers anymore.
    Daniel’s mother was scrubbing the bathroom when they got back in, and didn’t rush up to greet them as he’d thought she might.
    â€œCatch a buffalo?” she said when they got in the door, in a voice that Daniel recognized as one that was capable of starting up a fight between her and his father.
    â€œNope,” Daniel’s father said.
    â€œToo bad,” Daniel’s mother said.
    â€œYep, I sure wouldn’t have minded having a buffalo to eat off of all winter, and neither would’ve you and neither would’ve Daniel.”
    â€œKnutsen’s buffalo,” Daniel’s mother corrected him.
    â€œNot if I shot it,” Daniel’s father said. “Not if Daniel here shot it. That was the deal. Anyone could have had himself a buffalo tonight.”
    â€œToo bad,” Daniel’s mother said again, in that voice. “Yep,” Daniel’s father agreed. He gave Daniel a wink, and then wondered aloud what they were having for dinner if it wasn’t anything wild.
    Later that evening Daniel went walking down the road toward the direction of the Knutsens’ farm. He wasn’t planning on going as far as that. He wasn’t supposed to be out at all. But his mother and father were both in the back room watching TV and not paying him any attention, so he’d just slipped out. The night was cool and calm. It was like walking through a picture of another planet. Theair was that still—stopped, almost. He felt like he could walk on and on forever in that air, that it would offer no resistance—and that would be the good, and really the only, choice that he could make in his life. But then he thought about his parents. About how worried they would be for him, out there with the buffalo, if they realized he was gone. Reluctantly, he turned and walked back to the house.
    But then, when he entered the house, he