The Game

In the fields, the boys became friends more than enemies and felt at home among the wheat. They always met at the gap in the fence, typically dirty and typically smiling. Tristan, more than Seamus, had a tendency to pluck an apple from the tree when they were ripe, or swipe some bread off the window sill, stuffed down in his britches, to be eaten in the wide open fields with his brother. Though he had a mean streak and a bit of laziness around the mind, he was still willing to share the spoils of war, as they were called. Seamus could locate the cleanest part in the stream when they were in the woods, always managed to find the juiciest berries to be taken from the mulberry bush. For the latter, he would take up a piece of cheesecloth that he had acquired from Elizabeth and pull it out of his pocket, wrinkled and boy-smelling, to catch the purple sweet berries as he pulled them off their branches, careful not to crush or bruise them. This was a much more delicate job than the ones Tristan was used to getting. When they were very tiny, Tristan tried to help, but ended up crushing the berries and getting purple juice all over his overalls and hands. It was a horrible mess and one that Seamus didn’t want to relive. On this particular morning, however, there were no plans for mulberries or creeks and dying riverbeds. Instead, they only hoped to play some tag in the wheat field, perhaps finally climb the old oak and just avoid the homestead as long as possible.

At the gap in the fence, Tristan sat and whittled a piece of pine his father had abandoned in the barn. Try as he might, the young boy was unable to turn it into the goose he imagined, even with the help of the pocket knife he filched from Bill over a week ago. As Seamus approached his older brother, still a little nervous after Elizabeth’s questioning, Tristan whittled the beak of the bird right off. It landed with a thud against the high grass near the fence post. The next moment, the blade was thrown point first into the dirt 5 feet from Seamus’ walking body.

"Dammit," the elder muttered.

"’Salright. You’ll get it." Seamus picked up the blade and closed it against his hand, the rosewood handle warm where his brother had been gripping it. As he pushed the knife back toward Tristan, he also took out of his pocket a mason’s jar of water, held it up and said, "Got this, too. Had the bottle. Stopped at the pump and got some water."

"That’s good. Really. Let’s go, huh?"

"Yeah."

Tristan hopped off the fence and began trotting into the field, loping until he was about 100 feet ahead. There, he dropped to all fours and disappeared from sight.

"Hey, no fair," Seamus yelled into the blue. "I thought we wouldn’t play until the oak tree." When he got no response, he picked up his pace until he came to where the wheat told him his brother had stopped. Here, he stopped, too. With his hands and his eyes, he read the secrets the field told him - where his brother had dropped to all fours, how fast he was moving, how he tried to flank Seamus without his knowledge. The point of the game was to take your opponent unawares, tackling him from behind and holding him to the ground in any position for three seconds. Granted, they weren’t real seconds, as the boys counted as fast as their mouths and minds would let them - and as loud, too - but the point was never lost. As a result of The Game, as it came to be called, each boy later became an exceptional tracker. Tristan, more than Seamus, went on to become a skilled hunter as well.

Seamus caught his breathing, knowing that it was giving him away. He kept low to the ground - not on all fours like his brother, but stooped over and on the balls of his feet, checking the newly rained soil for footprints that were barely visible. The tall grass grew in every direction, this being more grass and less wheat. Whatever wheat that grew before Mr. Hanover’s own fence was a direct result of shifting winds and crows dropping seeds where they didn’t belong. As a result, the field they young boys walked through and sought one another through, was a kaleidoscope of height and flexibility. Where the wheat would be stiff one moment, the grasses would be flexible and malleable the next, making it difficult to gauge distance or track accordingly. However, Seamus found that Tristan held to a few major plans and acted as though this were currently true.

He kept low, not moving very much and keeping his breath still. He pictured his older brother circling behind him, probably from his left, and closing in on him like a cat. Seamus took two sideways steps to the right, and paused, listening. Behind him, he heard Tristan slightly change direction. At his right hand, he palmed the broken branch of a mishandled oak and grasped it firmly. With a quick thrust, he threw it farther to his right, low to the ground, so that it crashed among the reeds. Again, he paused and listened. And again, he heard his brother misjudge the sound and move a step or two more to the right, just a touch off course. He backed his right leg up a bit, keeping his left foot planted and acting as a fulcrum. As he backed up the right leg, he turned ninety degrees, now looking to his right at about where his brother should be coming upon him. He waited with bated breath, heart pumping hard and beginning to get a little cold. Five minutes later, his brother came into sight, crawling like a cat a few feet away, intent on a mistaken shape where the branch fell. Seamus desperately waited for his moment and, just when Tristan had passed the point where Seamus might be seen in his peripheral vision, our hero whispered:

"I’m over here, brother."

With a quick turn of the head, Tristan saw what he had previously missed and cursed himself. Seamus leaned forward, smiling, and rushed his elder so that they went tumbling backwards into the grasses. No one could get the upper hand, but they became itchy and nearly cut by the blue grass and the wheat. After a few minutes, both were out of breath and laughing.

"You got me this time," Tristan said. "I was surprised."

"You were scared, I saw it."

"No. Not scared. Surprised is all." But Tristan was very much afraid of his brother’s little whisper, of his gallant resolve, of his superior instincts. Were Tristan the one waiting for the ambush, he would have rushed his younger brother and pinned him there to the ground, yelping as he did so. Looking back, Tristan thought he might have even given himself away if he were in Seamus’ shoes, knowing that the boy three years his younger already had more patience on the trail than himself.

"Just surprised," he said again. Seamus smiled a hearty smile as he stood up, brushing out the grass from his clothing. He began running ahead this time in the direction of the oak tree, knowing the roles were reversing and it was his turn to be the stalker. About 200 feet forward of Tristan, Seamus disappeared.

And so The Game began again.