Moontrap - Don Berry Read online

  The countryside had changed incredibly in Monday's eyes. As they rode, he let his eyes rove over the forests all around, the dirt road, the first frame buildings at the edge of Oregon City. They had all been transformed by a new sense of time, and he could see shadowy shapes all around him. Buildings tall as the firs, stretching up toward the sky. Paved and cobbled streets, with slickly groomed horses pulling buggies. Store fronts of brick and marble instead of raw wood. Transligured by his new vision of time, the Willamette Valley became the center of civilization, something new on the face of the earth. And something of which Webster Monday was an important part. His son would see it, and his son would be somebody in the scheme of things in thirty years. Growing with civilization, helping to make a society. Hell, there was no end to it.

  "Surprises 'r no surprises," Webb muttered. "It's all the same t' me. Y' think I give a damn?"

  "No, hoss," Monday said cheerfully. "Hell, we might as well just f'get about it."

  "Wagh!" Webb grunted discontentedly.

  Monday had told Meek about his plan to register the baby as Webster, and he winked at the marshal. He knew it would give the old coon a hell of a kick, to have a baby named after him, and he was looking forward with delight to the filling out of the birth certificate.

  They reined up at the courthouse and dismounted. Inside it was amazingly brilliant, the sunlight pouring through the big window on one side of the door and reflecting up from the floor.

  "Hooraw!" Meek hollered. "Here's business!"

  There was a noise at the top of the stairs and Judge Pratt poked his head out of the door to his chambers. "Marshal. must you shout? There's no one here."

  "We got t' register a birth," Monday said.

  "So? Whose?"

  "Mine," Monday said proudly. "Or anyways, my son's."

  "Well, congratulations! Pratt said. "But there's nobody here."

  "Ah, Judge," Meek said. "You c'n do it, can't you? We rode all the way in from my place special. Where's y'r clerk anyways?"

  "Clearin' stumps," Pratt said. "For a hundred and fifty dollars a year you can't expect him to spend all his time around here. All right," he said discouragedly. "But you should have a doctor, too. Come on up."

  The three men tramped up the stairs and into the judge's chambers. There were a couple of chairs and a kitchen table, on which his papers were spread out.

  "Doctor McLoughlin's promised to loan me a real desk," Pratt said, "but I haven't gotten around to get it yet. All right, now what do we need?" He started rummaging through a stack of printed forms in the corner of the room, newly run off the press at the Spectator.

  "We haven't been a territory a year yet, and we already have so much legal paperwork I'm behind schedule," he muttered.

  "Well," Monday said in good spirits, "that's because we've got so many laws now."

  "My friend," Pratt said without looking up, "there's more truth than humor in what you say. Damn! I can't find any forms that look appropriate. I'll just write it out."

  "It'll be legal, though?" Monday said anxiously.

  "Oh, certainly But I can't find—well, never mind."

  He took a blank sheet of paper and sat down at the table. He glanced up and saw Webb for the first time. "You don't have—"

  "No," Monday said, "he don't have twenty dollars. He's just the guest of honor, so to speak."

  "Guest of honor?" Pratt said, puzzled.

  "In a kind of way," Monday said slowly "Y'see, I figured to name the baby—Webster."

  He turned, just quickly enough to catch the expression of terrified astonishment on Webb's face. Monday roared, doubling over with laughter.

  "There's y'r surprise, coon!"

  "Wagh!" Webb looked down at the floor, the corners of his mouth twisting. "Wagh!"

  "Worth comin' for?"

  "Well, that's some, now." Webb sniffed and scratched his stomach.

  "Wagh! it is, now."

  Judge Pratt, too, was smiling at Webb's discomfiture. He turned back to the paper. "Hell," he said, "I don't know exactly how to go about this. I better just take down the facts and have my clerk fill out a proper form when he comes in. When was the baby born?"

  "Last night," Monday said.

  "What time?"

  Monday turned to Meek. " 'Bout eleven o'clock," Meek said.

  "I was sort of asleep," Monday explained to Pratt.

  "At a time like that?"

  "I had some relaxin' medicine, an' it over-relaxed me."

  Pratt suppressed a smile. "How much did the baby weigh?"

  "I don't know," Monday said. "You need that?"

  "Tell you the truth, I don't know what I need," Pratt said. "What do you say we call it eight pounds? That's about average."

  "Let's call it nine," Monday said. "He's a pretty big boy."

  "I imagine he is," Pratt said. "I imagine he is." He wrote down:

  "9 lbs. 61/2 oz." Monday, reading upside down, nodded with approval.

  "And your wife is Nez Percé?"

  "Shoshone," Monday said. "Virginia's Nez Percé."

  "And what's her name?"

  "Mary," Monday said. "You know that."

  "I meant her last name."

  "Monday, naturally."

  Pratt hesitated, then looked up. "What was her Shoshone name?" he asked quietly.

  "Deer Walking," Monday said, "but listen, Judge——"

  Pratt wrote: "Mother: Mary Deer Walking. Shoshone Indian."

  "Now wait a minute," Monday said. "Her name's Mary Monday, now."

  Pratt carefully wrote: "Father: Johnson Monday. White."

  He put the pen down beside the paper and looked up without expression. "Where were you married, Monday? "

  "Hell, I haven't got any papers or anythin', if that's what you mean. But she's my wife. What the hell difference do papers make?"

  Pratt looked down and picked up the pen again. He brushed the feathers across the back of his hand, watching the tips bend back.

  "Perhaps none," he said quietly, after a moment. He dipped the pen again, and while Monday watched unbelieving filled in another line.

  "Child: Webster, son of Mary Deer Walking. Shoshone Indian. Bastard."

  Monday reached across the table and snatched the paper. Crumpling it in his fist he leaned forward and said, "You make that out again, Judge. And you make it out right."

  Pratt looked squarely at the hulking mountain man looming over him. Quietly he said, "It was right, Monday, I'm sorry. But it was right."

  "Whoa back, Jaybird," Meek said, taking him by the arm and pulling him away from the table.

  "He can't do that!" Monday said. "Are your kids bastards? Are they Nez Percé?"

  Meek looked at the floor. "Virginia an' me took out papers," he said. "Near seven years ago."

  "You can't do this," Monday said, whirling back to the judge. "I'll take out papers, I don't give a damn. Mary's my wife, it never even occurred to me."

  Pratt looked down at the bare wood top of the old table. "It's too late for that now."

  "Listen, Jaybird," Meek said. "Ca'm y'rself down. In the long run it ain't going to make any difference."

  "No difference—christ, no difference!"

  Webb moved up on the other side of Monday, saying nothing.

  Monday tore his arm loose from Meek and lunged across the table, grabbing the front of Judge Pratt's coat, pulling him half out of the chair. "You put it down," he said viciously. "Webster Monday. You put it down like that. Webster Monday."'

  Pratt said nothing, and did not raise his hand to free himself. He looked up at Monday without expression, waiting.

  Meek slammed his fist on Monday's wrist, breaking his grip. Monday straightened up, looking from one of the men to the other. Pratt straightened his lapels calmly. "I could do that, Monday" he said quietly, looking at his hands folded on the table. "But it would just be changed. Legally speaking the child is son of Mary Deer Walking. I'm sorry."

  "You're sorry? You think you're sorry? "

&
nbsp; "C'mon Jaybird," Meek said. "We best go now. We c'n come back after while."

  Monday closed his eyes, his fists clenched at his sides. Finally he opened them and looked at Pratt.

  "Come back? Why come back?" His voice was cold and even now. "Fi1l it out."

  "Monday," Pratt said, "if I had the power to change—"

  "Fill it out," Monday said. "You ain't got any power. You nor any o' the rest of us. There's nothin' human got any power, just the law."

  "The law is made by men, Monday. And in the long run—"

  Monday snorted. "In the long run, in the long run. Son of Mary Deer Walking. That's a death certificate an' you know it. But what the hell. It don't matter who you kill as long as this shitheap of Oregon City got law. All right. Fill it out."

  "Please try to understand—"

  "FILL IT OUT!" Monday shouted. His body shuddered once and he shook off the hands of the men on either side angrily. The three of them stood and waited while judge Pratt took up the pen again and began to fill it out.

  Chapter Eleven

  1

  He stopped at the top of the cliff across from his field and looked long. In the evening glow the river was coppery and molten, like a flow of liquid fire. The sun was almost behind the little cabin that crouched like a tiny frightened animal in the midst of the cleared fields. Below him, in the eddy of the river's turning, driftwood swung in long circles, sometimes brushing against the bank with a crisp, crackling sound. The sandy beach of the point, where he had given Webb his swimming lesson, was in shadow now, deserted and peaceful.

  He had cleared it all, perhaps fifty acres. He had seen it happen, bit by bit, first in his mind, then in reality. With the aching muscles of his back and arms, he had known what it was to fall the trees, to change the face of the land. The great piles of slash burning like beacons in the night, lighting the whole field, the ashes scattered in the fall wind, and soaked into the earth by the rains of winter.

  Seven years.

  Seven springs, bursting up out of the ground with the incredible beauty that astonished him as a miracle each time it happened. Seven summers of sweetness, lush with green, and the forests lying still under pale skies.

  And seven winters; winters of misery and depression, the sky a leaden plate that weighed on his shoulders and mind for long months while the land outside the tiny cabin soaked up the moisture of the air, absorbed the endless drizzle of the dark Oregon sky. And then spring

  again, and the new miracle.

  The rain, he thought. It's the rain that kills me. While the land took nourishment a man died, for half the year or more. The land profited and was indifferent to the parasites that clung to its broad back. And in the end, there was no way he could touch it, not in any sense that mattered. If the fields were left for a year they would sprout of themselves, and the forest would creep in from the edges. In ten years wilderness again, as though he had never lived and passed this way never poured his anguish into that dark earth. He was transitory he and all his kind. The land would remain. and the cleared spaces were no more than momentary irritations of the skin, insignificant, temporary, ephemeral. The land did not care.

  Seven years, and what have I got?

  A horse, a cabin, and a vague sensation that time had passed. In the mountains he'd had three horses and he bitterly recognized that his dismal plank cabin was a poor substitute for the cheer and light of a skin lodge. The mountain years had been full and rich. Each year had its share of wildness and excitement, and was crowded with events and memories; it was a life. Here, the murky and indistinct recollections of a long winter one year, a year there was no snow at all, the year the chimney burned.

  The year the chimney burned, he thought bitterly. An hour and a half of the year that had been worthy of note. In '44 the Provisional Government had passed a law prohibiting Negroes in the country. It had seemed like a good idea at the time; the Oregon country would be free. But they had forgotten to pass a law prohibiting the slavery of whites. And as he thought back, that was the thread that ran through the last seven years for him. Slavery to the land, to the society, living with a constant sensation of being trapped in a small dark room. He wondered if the mountain life had been as free as he remembered it, or if his mind was tricking him. And, in the end, was freedom important? No one here thought of it, talked about it. How long had it been since he'd even heard the word, except in a political speech? It was not something to be proud of. Here they were contemptuous and embarrassed; freedom was a child's game, something for infants and Indians. Here a man had more important things to think about than freedom.

  "Hya!" Monday said softly, nudging his horse into motion again. He passed behind the screen of trees and began to descend along the trail toward Swensen's place. And now there was the boy, little Webb. No one's fault but his own. It would have been so simple, any time, to have a regular marriage with papers and all. But it had never seemed important, he had never

  thought.

  It was typical. He had never really been willing to accept this new world he was living in. He had never committed himself fully, and now he had to pay for it. Or the child had to pay for it. You couldn't have it both ways; in the end it was all or nothing. To live, you had to play the game according to the rules, whether you liked it or not. And his trouble was that he had never been willing to do it that way; he'd thought he could drift along without taking a stand either way. But it was impossible.

  "Well," he said aloud, "I expect ever'body's got to grow up sometime."

  His horse flicked his ears at the sound of Monday's voice, then let them drop again, and moved slowly along the trail in the thickening dusk.

  ***

  Doctor Beth's animal was tied at the front of Monday's cabin when he reached it, and there was light from inside.

  "Sorry to just barge in," the woman said as he entered.

  "Don't matter," Monday said.

  "You don't look too chipper for a brand-new father," Beth said.

  Monday shrugged. Automatically he went to the fire and began to poke around for a live coal, but he had been gone too long and would have to rekindle it entirely.

  "I wanted to have a word with you," Beth said, watching him.

  "Tell you the truth, I'd—Could it wait? I'm feeling a little low in the mind." He took a piece of kindling and began to shave a fuzz-stick with his knife, watching the thin pieces curl back from the blade.

  "Won't take long," Beth said. "And it's—more or less important."

  Monday shrugged again. The knife slipped, severing one of the shavings completely, and it annoyed him. "Roll it out, then," he said.

  Beth leaned back against the table, watching the flickering flame of the candle that stood on the mantel. "You know," she started, "the baby came like I said it would, head up."

  "So."

  "That kind of birthing is hard on a woman."

  "I expect all birthing is," Monday said. He put the fuzz-stick upright in the ashes and began to build a tiny structure of kindling around it. "That kind is worse," Beth said flatly. "Now it's over and done with, I may as well tell you there's one hell of a lot of women don't live through it."

  Monday looked up, startled. "You——"

  "That's why I stayed," Beth went on, without waiting. "I figured Mary was going to need more help to get through it than just Virginia."

  "Oh, my god," Monday whispered. "I didn't know—"

  "Now listen, Monday," Beth said. "It's over now, and it's all right. There's no call to start getting scared this late in the game. It's over, we were lucky, and that's that."

  "There's nothing wrong, I mean, Mary's not—"

  "Mary's torn up pretty severe." Beth said. "She had a damned hard time, and it's going to be a while before she gets over it. Thats what I wanted to talk to you about."

  "I'll be good to her," Monday said. "I'm not going to—"

  "The thing I want to say is, with a birth like this, all the damage isn't to her body."

  "W
hat do y' mean? Somethin' wrong——"

  "Just let me finish, Monday, just let me finish, all right?"

  Monday nodded, watching the woman's eyes.

  "I seen a lot of breech births, and they do something strange to a woman," Beth went on. "I tell you frankly I don't know why. I just don't know. But sometimes, for a long time afterward they—think different. Sometimes for six months, sometimes even a year. They're depressed. They're scared, as near as I can tell. When you go through something like that, it scares you bad. In other words, there's likely going to be times that Mary's worried and upset, and you won't know just why. But there's a reason. There's a reason for everything."

  Monday rubbed his forehead, trying to understand. He stood at the fireplace and took a locofoco from the little box on the mantel. After striking it, he applied the bright flame to the fuzz—stick. Suddenly there was a little column of flame in the center of the kindling.

  "I'm just saying, be a little careful," Beth said. "She's going to be taking things very serious. She's going to get low in the mind and want to hide in a corner. She's going to feel like nothing's worth doing, you understand? And you have to remember that she's not thinking the same as you're used to. You want to be careful, and not upset her too much."

  After a moment the kindling had caught, and Monday began to pile larger wood around. "You know," he said, "the baby's a bastard. A half-breed Shoshone bastard."

  "Babies are babies," Beth said indifferently.

  "Might could be," Monday said bitterly. "The law don't think so."

  "Listen, Monday," Beth said. "Don't blame the law for somethin' you should have thought of nine months ago."

  "Sure. It's my fault. I know it. I'm just sayin'."

  "Just feelin' sorry for yourself is what you're doin'."

  "Might could be," Monday said. "Don't matter what you name it."

  "Listen, my friend," Beth said. "You best forget about your own disappointments for a while. Seems to me you best concentrate on making life a little bit pleasant for y'r woman. You ever ask her what kind of life she wants?"

  "She's my wife," Monday said. "She wants what I want."

  "You ever ask her?"