RJ Astruc * Joel Best * RJ Bradshaw
Jacques L Condor * David Edison * Erastes
CS Fuqua * Fiona Glass * Inga Gorslar * Michael Itig
Lacey Louwagie * Mallory Path * James EM Rasmussen
Trent Roman * John R Williams * Logan Zachary
Angelia Sparrow & Naomi Brooks
QUEEREDFICTION, DURBAN
www.queeredfiction.com
This Book Is A Work Of Fiction.
Published by QUEEREDFICTION ©2009
QUEER DIMENSIONS
All characters in this anthology are a work of fiction and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All rights are reserved. No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher.
The Future of Dr Lole San Paulo ©RJ Astruc; The Sister Bush ©Joel Best (previously published Electric Wine Zine 2001); Borrowed ©RJ Bradshaw; The Night Hunters ©Jacques L. Condor; Here Be Gardens ©David Edison; Whatever the Risk ©Erastes; Time Now ©CS Fuqua; The Visitor ©Fiona Glass; Stargazing ©Inga Gorslar; The Toti ©Michael Itig; The Man in the Mirror ©Lacey Louwagie; The Prettiest Girl in the Room©Mallory Path; Eurydice ©James EM Rasmussen; The Communion Fields ©Trent Roman; Zoogarish ©John R Williams; Off Course ©Logan Zachary; Plumbing the depths ©Angelia Sparrow & Naomi Brooks
QUEEREDFICTION
Gillitts, Durban
Republic of South Africa.
www.queeredfiction.com
Edited by James EM Rasmussen
Cover Photograph by NASA
Cover Design by James EM Rasmussen
ISBN 978-1-920441-03-6 (Electronic Book)
ISBN 978-1-920441-02-9 (Paperback)
First Published September 2009
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CONTENTS
The Night Hunters by Jacques L Condor
Borrowed by RJ Bradshaw
The Communion Fields by Trent Roman
Stargazing by Inga Gorslar
The Prettiest Girl in the Room by Mallory Path
Time Now by CS Fuqua
The Man in the Mirror by Lacey Louwagie
The Toti by Michael Itig
The Visitor by Fiona Glass
Zoogarish by John Randall Williams
The Future of Dr Lole San Paulo by AJ Astruc
The Sister Bush by Joel Best
Plumbing the Depths by A Sparrow & N Brooks
Off Course by Logan Zachary
Eurydice by James EM Rasmussen
Whatever the Risk by Erastes
Here be Gardens by David Edison
Contributors Biography
THE NIGHT HUNTERS
Jacques L Condor Maka Tai Meh
A shiny, ten inch wide red stripe was painted down the center of the cabin’s floor. The red line, divided the two room log cabin in half and in the dim, wavering lantern glow, the red line flickered like a faulty red traffic light. The two old Alaskans, who had painted it, were once lovers and now as old men still lived together. Quarreling and bickering had gradually replaced the passion of the past.
The smell of kerosene, alder-wood smoke and the odor of stewing beans, onions—lots of onions—and game meat mingled in the close air. Fish and Game officer Dill McGee stood in the cabin’s kitchen, just inside a heavy plank door. This door was the last of two doors leading through a covered passageway.
The door, at the outside end of the passageway, opened outward; a mistake and a source of contention for the two men who lived in the cabin. Snow often drifted across the outer door and sealed it shut. Neither of the cabin’s inhabitants could agree on who was to rectify the problem.
The passageway between doors served as a tool shed, storage room and refrigerator. This double door system was a common and practical feature among the older, Alaskan, log homes built in the1900’s. The doors helped to keep most of the severe winter cold out. In the cabin, the snow collected on Officer Dill McGee’s parka hood and sealskin mukluks melted quickly and began to puddle on the scarred and worn linoleum.
“Dammit, Dill McGee, You’re puddlin’ up my side of the kitchen.” Pete Varneyev’s whiskey-hoarse voice rasped from the shadows at the back of the cabin, “Move over and dirty up his side.”
Dill pushed the wolverine fur ruff from his face and crossed the kitchen in two deliberately exaggerated strides. “This part belong to Frank?” He asked. Dill saw the glow of a pipe and heard the squeaking of wood on the linoleum floor. He made out the huddled form of old Pete Varneyev in his homemade rocker. Another rocking chair creaked in counterpoint from the other side of the cabin.
“Get your ass out of my kitchen and get your dripping boots and parka off.” There was no mistaking the bass voice of Frank Merculioff. “Damn, I just mopped last week and there you are drippin’ snow melt all over.”
“Part of that kitchen belongs to me, Dill,” Pete Varneyev said. “Go back to my side and drip all you want.”
“Stay where you are, Dill,” Frank shouted back. “Floor needs mopping again anyway.”
Dill straddled the red line and yelled, “Look! If I’m going to stay here for a week, you gotta stop feuding while I’m here. Agreed?”
“Sure thing, Dill, my boy,” Pete rasped.
“No problem fer me, McGee,” Frank said. “See you got our message. We been mighty upset about the ‘goings-on’ around here lately.”
“Bullshit! He’s the one who’s upset. I been confused not upset,” Pete said. “That ole sommabitch is scared shitless, Dill, and he’s afraid to say so.”
“I ain’t scared, Dill!” Frank’s voice bounced off the cabin walls. “I’m upset!”
“He’s scared!” Pete countered.
“UPSET!”
“Keep it up you two and I’m on my way back to Seward in two minutes.” Dill shouted toward the dim rear of the cabin, “Light another lantern. It’s too damn dark in here.”
Dill heard the scratch of a match and saw the round, bearded face of Frank Merculioff in the sudden flare. Frank lit the wick of a kerosene lantern.
“Flame’s smokin’ up the chimney. He ought to turn it down. The wick’s too high,” Pete said.
Frank made a growling sound. “He can turn it down himself. It’s on the table straddlin’ the divide.”
“I’ll turn it down,” Dill said. He crossed to the lantern and moved it to a halfway point in the long backroom of the cabin.
“Take your off parka and sit down,” Frank said.
“I made some beans with mountain goat,” Pete said.
Frank growled again, “He put too many onions in it!”
“He don’t have to eat any!” Pete snapped back.
Dill waved his arms like a referee. Both old men stopped rocking and scowled at one another.
“For one week, I want you both put it on the back burner. I can’t help you solve what’s going on if you argue constantly.”
“Been arguin’ and fussin’ at each other fer thirty years now,” Pete said.
“Hard to stop all of a sudden, but I’ll try,” Frank said.
“Yep, if that ole fart can stop maybe I’ll try, too—but I doubt I can stop fer an entire week.” Pete blew out a big puff of tobacco smoke. The thin old trapper rose from his rocker without effort and crossed to the kitchen with surprising agility.
“I’ll set the table and ladle up dinner while Frank brings you up to date on what’s been goin’ on around here. Sit over there in my rocker; it’s a good chair,” Pete said.
Dill sat and watched Pete and Frank bustle about their individual sides of the kitchen.
The two old partners were famous, or infamous, depending upon the point of view of their few neighbors in the Portage Glacier valley. Dill knew their story. The mixed Russian-Aleut men had drifted up to mainland Alaska from Kodiak in the summer of 1902; fleeing Orthodox bigotry and village oppression. The two, as young lovers, had moved into the valley and built the cabin where they still lived fifty five years later. The cabin itself was old and sagging like the two men who occupied it, but both the men and the log walls still held up against the Alaskan winters.
Dill had heard all the gossip about the old pair, knew of their devotion to each other and ignored all the complaints some of the locals had about the ‘two old queers’ at the far end the valley. They were his friends of five years now and he visited them often; dropping by to check on the aging partners when his Territorial game warden duties brought him to the north end of his Kenai district. Both men were now eighty and, as they expressed it, ‘Still kickin’ and still breakin’ the law and livin’ off the land.’
Dill always carried gifts of tobacco and candy on his visits; Turkish Latakia for Pete and Prince Albert for Frank; licorice buttons for Pete; sugar-orange slices for Frank. In return, the two old sourdoughs regaled Dill with stories of the ‘old days’. Both men spun yarns of such preposterous dimensions, Dill often had to suppress his disbelief. Gossip said the men had been happy until they were both in their early sixties. No one knew what happened to divide the partners, but Pete told Dill they just couldn’t stand each other after being in such close quarters for thirty years. Frank said neither wanted to leave their homestead. Building a separate cabin was not feasible; so the two men split everything they owned into equal shares: traps, guns, bedding and supplies. They painted the red line down the middle of the cabin and each of them took half of the cabin as his personal territory. The two men, once lifelong partners, had ‘divorced’ with the wide, red stroke of a paint brush.
Where their lives were once linked and inseparable, the only things they still did together now were to hunt, eat and argue. They argued through written notes about everything under the Alaskan sun, including the sun and the weather it caused.
Pete called Dill to the table; the evening meal was ready. Dill sat at the center of the table straddling the red line with his chair. Pete and Frank sat at opposite ends each on his side of the line. Dill reached for a piece of corn bread and crumbled it into the thick stew.
“So, how much meat have you put up for the winter?” Dill asked.
“Counting the salmon?” Pete answered.
“Sure, counting the salmon.”
Pete stared off into space and calculated the summer’s salmon catch. “Well, I’d venture we got about four maybe five hundred pounds of smoked salmon put away.”
“More like three hundred pounds, Dill,” Frank said.
Pete argued. “I’d say five, Dill.”
“Three, Dill,” Frank insisted.
“Plenty of salmon,” Dill interrupted.
Frank ladled out another bowl of stew, sat down and glared at Pete.
“He said he didn’t like so many onions in the stew,” Pete had his mouth set in what Dill assessed as a smirk.
“Tell him, I never said I didn’t like ‘em. Jest said he used too many.”
Dill put down his spoon and looked at Frank. “I’m asking about meat—moose, bear, goat.”
“Now that’s another story entirely, Dill McGee,” Frank said “Usually we got two moose quartered out, hanging in the shed. This year, we’ve been havin’ trouble. That’s why we sent you that note by the Soldotna postman.”
“Somebody stole our moose,” Pete’s voice cracked.
“Did what?” Dill asked.
“Took our kills. All six quartered haunches—took them at night when we was sleeping. Never left no tracks, nothin’,” Pete stammered.
“All we saw was these round circles in the snow like somebody took pains to wipe their tracks and of course, the lights,” Frank added.
“The lights?” Dill looked at Pete then at Frank. Both of the old men nodded.
“You never mentioned any thing about ‘circles’ and ‘lights’ in your letter.”
Frank said, “We couldn’t. We knew the postman would read our note—wasn’t in a sealed envelope if you reckon back on it. I wrote it on a paper bag.”
“We didn’t want the neighbors thinking we’d gone daft or something. Although, Frank’s been loony for years,” Pete said and cackled his raspy laugh and smirked at Frank.
“He’s the crazy one, the old coot,” Frank said. “Besides, our nearest neighbor is six miles away.”
“Boys,” Dill said. “Knock off the arguing. Tell me about the moose.”
Pete answered, “We got us three moose this year, early on.”
“All bulls, I hope?” Dill smiled at Pete. “Wouldn’t like to arrest you for taking a cow.”
“Now, Dill, you know we wouldn’t do that!’ Pete smiled back.
“Don’t suppose those rumors about you two poaching game and breaking Territory laws have any basis in fact?” Dill said.
“Jest gossip of nosey neighbors, that’s all,” Frank said.
Pete jumped into the conversation. “Even six miles apart, some folks ain’t happy less they poke their noses in other people’s business; startin’ rumors.”
Dill said, “I happen to know a rumor about two old guys who keep a pair of moose testicles in a fruit jar filled with alcohol. Know what they do with them?” Dill looked at the men. They didn’t look at Dill, but busied themselves with preparing their pipes.
“Here’s what I heard they do. They kill a cow hang her up nicely dressed out. Then, in the crotch cavity of one of the hind quarters, where a bull moose’s testicles would be, they hang the balls and let them freeze in place. A quick glance and a game warden would think he was looking at a bull’s carcass, wouldn’t you say?”
“I’ll tell you what I’d say.” Pete blew out a puff of smoke in an exaggerated exhale. “I’d say them two old guys was clever as hell.”
Frank added his own puff of smoke, “I think I’m inclined to agree with Pete fer now.”
“Wonder if them two old guys still have those moose testicles?” Dill said.
Pete’s jaw dropped at the question and his pipe dangled momentarily. “Nope, I know fer sure they don’t.”
“They was stolen along with our three moose jest one week ago,” Frank added.
“Stolen by whom?” Dill asked.
Pete leaned forward and whispered, “By them fellas with the lights, most likely.”
“What does he mean ‘most likely’? He knows it had to be them,” Frank said.
“Maybe so, Dill” Pete replied. “But we don’t know who the them is. And what’s more we don’t know where they come from or how they got here. Remember, Dill, I told you, no tracks—just big circles in the snow. We’ll show you in the morning, if tonight’s snow don’t cover ‘em up.” He took a final puff on his pipe and glanced at the kitchen clock. “I say it’s bed time.”
Pete tapped his pipe into his empty soup bowl and stood up to clear away the supper dishes. Frank pushed back his chair and went back toward his rocker. He stopped to shove several pieces of firewood into the bulky Yukon stove in the center of the cabin.
“Roll out yer sleepin’ bag on the bear skin and drag it across the red line, Dill, right there in front of the stove,” Frank said. “That way, you’ll be staying with both of us. Besides, that’s the warmest spot in the cabin.”
Dill spread his bed-roll on the thick grizzly hide rug. “Can you tell me more about the theft of your moose?” Dill asked.
“Ain’t nothin’ more to tell,” Pete said. “Told you everything we know.”
“We figured a smart, young, good-lookin’ game warden, like you, could figure out what’s goin’ on and explain it to a couple of dumb old sourdoughs like us. You got all the facts, Officer McGee. I suggest you sleep on it. Maybe something will come to you in the night,” Frank said.
Frank and Pete grunted ‘goodnights’ to Dill, but not each other. Dill blew out the lantern and the darkness rushed in to surround them.
A flickering light, from the off-kilter door of the Yukon stove, battled the darkness. The wood inside the barrel stove crackled and occasionally hissed. Dill heard the cabin logs pop and settle with the extreme cold. He stared at the darkness above him in the rafters. He thought of the missing moose, the circles in the snow; the unexplained lights. There had to be an explanation.