Naturalist Story
We are writing naturalist stories in our English class from inspiration from the story To Build a Fire by Jack London. My story is about a paranoid man who thinks his wife is suicidal and is afraid she’s doing so. He has to fight the weather and a geografical obstacle to get to her. What he finds out is different than what he thought and he paid dearly for it.
The Stained Hill
I walk home from the woods, a deer in my hands. The blood was soaking through my hard leather vest and runs down my pants. Weary from the hunt, I enter my home to find it empty, my wife nowhere in sight. Worry set in as I placed the deer next to the smoldering fireplace. We had jut recently lost our first child during his birth and depression set in my wife’s heart.
I go outside and yell her name, but I get no answer. I look around the house but find no one. Then I notice something I didn’t before. The horse was no longer tethered and was grazing in the field. The leather strap that held him was no longer there. I then look up at the hill that over looked our farm. What I saw frightened and angered me. A figure stood up on the hill next to the gnarled tree.
The man yells frantically as he begins to run up the trail leading to the top. Dark clouds began rolling in as he climbed the rutted road. Soon thunder permeated the air and rain began trickling down. The man knew he would not make it up before the downpour came.
The rain was pouring down and the man was on all fours clawing at the muddy trail trying to make his way up. He was covered in mud and could barely keep his footing. His heaving breath and aching muscles made it almost impossible to climb any further, but the love of his wife would not allow him to give up. Tears and blood soon mixed with the rain from his fingernails as they ripped off from hitting gravel and rocks.
Tree branches tore at his arms as he made it towards the top where the trail was non-existent. He crawled on, wondering if he will make it to the top to save his wife, or if they both will perish on the hill. I was exhausted. I reached up one last time and moved a branch out of my sight.
Exactly when I do the rain stops and I’m at the cliff of the hill. What I see shocks me. The person standing on the hill was not my wife, but an old man that looked out towards the exposed setting sun. He turns and looks at me with grey eyes and laughs.
“What are you doin’ tearin’ around to get to me? I ain’t worth all that blood n’ sweat!” The old man cackles. Anger grips me as I stand up. “You’re suppose to be my wife!” I yell angrily.
I kick the ground in disgust. My foot slips on the mud and my own blood and I slid to the edge of the cliff and fly off. The last thing I hear is the old man’s cackle. The last thing I saw was my wife next to the house leading the horse back to the house, A broken leather strap in her hand.
