He didn't hit Barry. Instead, he retreated to his niche and retrieved
the triangular piece of flint that he'd been cherting into an arrowhead
for school and a hammer stone and set to work on it in the light of a
flashlight.
#
He sharpened a knife for Davey, there in his room in the cave, as the
boys ran feral in the woods, as the mountain made its slow and ponderous
protests.
He sharpened a knife, a hunting knife with a rusty blade and a cracked
handle that he'd found on one of the woodland trails, beside a hunter's
snare, not lost but pitched away in disgust one winter and not
discovered until the following spring.
But the nicked blade took an edge as he whetted it with the round stone,
and the handle regained its grippiness as he wound a cord tight around
it, making tiny, precise knots with each turn, until the handle no
longer pinched his hand, until the blade caught the available light from
the cave mouth and glinted dully.
The boys brought him roots and fruits they'd gathered, sweets and bread
they'd stolen, small animals they'd caught. Ed-Fred-George were an
unbeatable team when it came to catching and killing an animal, though
they were only small, barely out of the second grade. They were fast,
and they could coordinate their actions without speaking, so that the
bunny or the squirrel could never duck or feint in any direction without
encountering the thick, neck-wringing outstretched hands of the pudgy
boys.
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