Canyons by Gary Paulsen

Author:Gary Paulsen
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-80425-9
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2011-08-02T16:00:00+00:00

12

It was one thing to say he had to learn about the skull, and quite another thing to do it.

Aside from taking it out of the closet again and looking at it—which he did on Saturday morning, turning it over and over—there didn’t seem to be a way to know anything.

On closer examination in good light the skull proved to have all good teeth, no cavities. At least in the upper teeth—he did not have the lower jaw or teeth.

“Does that mean anything?” he said aloud in his room. It was early on Saturday morning and his mother was gone—off on some trip with Bill. They were growing closer and Brennan was happy for her—although it had happened many times before. Getting this close.

“It could mean he was young.…”

There it was again. He. Why did he think the skull was male? No, why did he know the skull was male? Because he knew it, was certain of it.

And without any reason.

“All right.” He set the skull on his desk, the eye sockets staring up at him. In a second it bothered him and he turned it sideways. “All right—so the teeth are good and that might mean it—he—was young. And if he was young, then the measurements could mean he was about my age.”

Of course it’s all guessing, he thought, leaning back. From the side he could see the damage done by the bullet. The entry hole in the forehead was a little over a half inch in diameter, and almost perfectly round. But a piece of bone as big as the palm of his hand was missing at the back, broken out in a rough oval.

God. How must that have been, he thought. How could that be? To have an explosion and then a bullet slam through your head that way and carry away the back of your skull and all the things you are, all the things you were or are or ever will be are gone then, blown away.

He shook his head. He was squinting, feeling the pain, and he tried to think of something else but could not. Instead he thought of the film he’d seen of Vietnam, an old film showing a man shooting another man in the temple on a street. It had been a television news film. He remembered the way the shock of the bullet had made the man squint.

He stood, turned away from the skull, looked out the window, and broke it then, broke the train of thought.

A week. I’ve had the skull a week and a day and I’m going crazy. What have I done?

He wrapped the skull up again and put it in the closet. I’ll do it now, he thought, I’ll call the police.…

But he didn’t, couldn’t. Instead he found himself putting his running shoes and shorts and a T-shirt on and heading out into the cool Saturday morning air.

He set an easy lope away from the house, not meaning to head in any direction but in a

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