The Curious Life and Death of Don Fernando is a fable by Jack Rusher, published here Thursday, January 17, 2008. It is part of Stories.
Welcome, Don Fernando.
Part Two: Birth
She was seated in their round hut, tending the fire, when her younger brother returned from the hunt carrying a live deer slung across his shoulders.
“Sister, sister,” he panted, “watch!”
He cut a chunk of flesh from the flank of the deer with his stone knife, spilling blood on the floor.
“Don’t make a mess inside. What’s wrong with you?”
He handed her the meat, held still the deer, and poured water over the wound, washing away its blood. The deer was whole.
The next day her man returned from a trading trip to neighboring villages. They told him the tale, which he didn’t believe until he was shown the same miracle. The next morning he and her brother set off for the fork of the Great River, the place where the deer had been captured.
After two days of waiting, she followed them to where they lay dead, blood on her man’s axe and her brother’s knife, cormorants eating their eyes. Near the bodies there was a tiny, clear pool of spring water.
Detail taken from a botanical drawing of Rosmarinus officinalis. Pierre Joseph Redouté. c. 1807.
She cut a branch of blooming rosemary, dipped it into the water and watched as roots sprouted from the branch.
Using her man’s axe, she dug a pit. When it was wide and deep, she threw his body into the trench, then gently lowered her brother down on top of him. Before covering them with earth, she dipped her right index finger into the gash on her brother’s head, walked to the spring, and let fall a single drop of his blood into the water.
As she was placing the final stones atop the grave Fernando drew breath and cried out for the first time.