The Wilding by Benjamin Percy Page A

house—sitting on the sofa, eating off the wedding china, spitting toothpaste in the sink, shoving his thumbs deep into the eyes of the man until blood wells from them. The vision brings with it a shifting sensation, as though the drudgery of his life is about to change, to take on a new dimension, all because of her.

JUSTIN
    In the morning Justin and his son load their gear into the Subaru wagon and drive to his father’s house. His father’s house. It is his, even though he shares it with Justin’s mother, even though Justin grew up there alongside them. Decidedly his.
    Along the way Graham plays his Nintendo DS—something called “The Legend of Zelda”—where a young elf fires arrows and casts spells to battle his way through an elaborate wilderness maze. Justin asks Graham if he is excited, and he says he is, though he never lifts his gaze from the screen, nor do his thumbs cease their frantic dance across the control pad.
    “You’ll be leaving that thing in the car. You know that, right?”
    His eyes remain intent on his work. “I just wanted to get in one last game.”
    “And then you’re going to shut it off and for three days forget it exists.”
    “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he says, and then, “Dad?”
    “What?”
    “Define guy time. ”
    “Say again?”
    “You keep saying guy time. We’re going to have some guy time. That’s what you keep saying.”
    “You know what I mean. Hunting, fishing, camping, hanging. ”
    “Hanging?”
    “You know. Bathing in a river. Sitting around a campfire. Scratching your armpits. Eating beans and farting and not caring if Mom hears. It’s fun. Stepping outside your comfort zone and challenging yourself. Becoming a man.” Justin flits his hand in a half circle as if trying to conjure something in the air, maybe a vision of Graham twenty years from now. “And all that stuff.”
    “Mmm.” Not looking up from his video game.
    They pass through what was once a forested area, razed down to stumps that used to be tall healthy ponderosas—thousands of them—standing like sentinels along the road Justin has driven all his life. Now they are gone and everything looks absent. For a moment he forgets where he is, not recognizing this place, the sky revealed in a way he has never before seen.
    And then, just as abruptly as they disappeared, the trees begin again, thickly clustered, the sunlight filtering through them in strobelike flashes that brighten the way. He hangs a right down a long driveway that opens up into a clearing. In the middle of it crouches the cabin, two stories tall with a red steel roof. Smoke curls thickly from the river-rock chimney and spreads into a thin gray haze.
    A pea-gravel path leads to a set of rough stone steps that rise up to the porch. Next to the railing sits an old Maxwell House coffee can, the damp grounds within it looking a lot like chewing tobacco, soon to be shaken throughout the garden for fertilizer. A sheep skull hangs above the front door like a gargoyle. They scrape their shoes on the welcome mat and enter without knocking. There are bone-work pegs by the door from which hang camouflage hats, rain slickers, a Carhartt jacket. Beneath them sit boots caked with mud and whiskered with grass. The honey-colored hardwood groans beneath their weight as they move across it, down a short hallway that opens up into the living room. A wooden hutch stands against the wall. Inside of it sits an arrangement of bone china and finely decorated teapots, one of the little touches his mother made to call attention away from the bear hides and trophy fish and skull-and-rack mounts crowding the walls. There are two bay windows in the living room that let in the light. This is where Justin finds his father.
    He is sitting in a lotus position in a square of sunlight. He wears faded blue jeans and a long-sleeved thermal. He has disassembled his rifle and spread it across a Budweiser beach towel. The room stinks of gun oil. When he looks up, his eyes