Moontrap - Don Berry Page 28

  By the river bank a frog croaked, and the old man grimaced. The night sounds had begun. He had missed it again. But he thought he had come closer this night than ever before; it was a half-victory.

  In a few minutes the dark was full of sound and life around him. They were coming out quickly now, as though the frog had been a guard to announce the freedom of the night. As he went back to the little stack of wood he had gathered he heard the rustling of small scurryings and movings in the cottonwoods. Alight breeze had come up, and the grasses of the meadow swung gently back and forth in ranks.

  Good moon, too, he thought. Lopsided and red, almost full, hanging swollen just over the eastern peaks. Five minutes and it would be small and pale, riding fast to the top of the sky. For some reason his favorite moon had always been the lopsided one. There was an absurdity about it that pleased him—a little off-balance, looking as though it were about to tip over.

  As he watched, he saw a thing he loved; the silent, ghostly swoop of an owl across the smoky red face of the moon. It was the silence of it that made him wonder. Strong wings beating, that should have made a thundering in the night. But there was nothing. All other birds were coarse and unlovely with their flappings and clumsiness. Some of them could glide with a certain grace; but none flew like the owl, in silent dignity and solitude.

  Gradually the moon lost its fire and turned cold and silver. The light of it streamed across the surface of the swift—running stream, broken and shattered and carried away by the infinity of currents and counter-currents that roiled the surface. The brilliance darted and flickered along the ripples faster than his eye could follow. When he had stared at it long, his eyes went out of focus, and there was nothing but the swirling, mingling patches of brightness. Haloed brilliance independent of moon and water; light alone, existing and dancing in the deep blackness of the night, dancing to its own unheard music.

  At last he sighed and shook his head. "Wagh! Moon-doggin' again."

  But he was beginning to feel better, just the same. Silliness, nothing had changed in the world around him, but he was beginning to feel calm.

  " 'Nother couple days I ought t' be feelin' right peart," he said aloud.

  It was good to be back again. And with the best of omens, too, the flight of the owl, the good moon. Everything was going to be clean and pretty. It was going to work out all right.

  ***

  The pre-dawn light was a brilliant overcast. The meadow and its bordering trees glowed with a light of their own. The sky itself was softly luminous, shading evenly and gently from east to west. The cool, diffuse light was wholly neutral. Objects were not seen by light and shadow, as in full sun, but simply by their form, illuminated softly from all directions at once.

  He woke more quickly this morning, and was satisfied to observe it. He was coming back to life again, once away from the numbing and dulling influence of man and his doings.

  Part of it was that, after two days and nights, he was beginning to get the feel of this range, beginning to become a part of it. From his leaving himself open and wholly receptive, the shape and form of the land seeped into him, changing some inner balance to correspond. It led, as always, to a feeling of growing contentment, a feeling of being part of the world again. When in the society of men he had a sense of terrible isolation from the real world, because he had no time to listen, and to see. There was always the suspicion, rapidly becoming conviction, that something was happening. Sometimes he had to run out someplace to sit quiet and see what the world was doing; to be still and listen to the roots talking. The veil of emotion and noise and shallowness that was always associated with the presence of human beings hid the world from him and made him tense.

  Now it was easing, and as he rode in the morning he was relaxed, throwing himself open to the shape of the hills and the texture of the trees he passed.

  It was a land that lived by water, drawing its life from the earth soaked by nine months of rain. The thick and irritating growth of brush that forced him to follow a traveled trail was part of it; all the growth seeped up out of the ground. In the east, even in the range of mountains on the other side of the Willamette Valley, it was not like that. There the heavy growth was high up, as though it grew from the power of the sun, leaving the surface of the earth itself more clear, more spacious. Here, as he let himself feel the character of the land, there was a sense of closed corridors, of thickness, of darkness in the forest itself. It was water country. In the sun forests there was a sense of distance and space he needed. Room to move about, room to breathe, freedom to cut his own trail in any direction that suited him.

  That was the big trouble here, he thought, with all the firs and spruce and trees of gloom. It was a country that lived by wetness, and he was a sun man, himself. He shrugged. It was something new to learn, and he had always been very curious about the way it went between a man and the world.

  Thick as hair on the back of a dog, he thought. And him a flea wandering around. Naturally, a flea was better off; a flea could run along the top if he had to. Suddenly the old man had a wonderfully clear picture of himself scampering along the tops of the forest with ease, running along the matted surface under the open sky. He laughed aloud, and the horse pricked up its ears.

  "Wagh! That's some, now. Wish't I c'd do 'er!"

  It was an image of such brilliant vividness that it pleased him unreasonably every time he thought about it, for the rest of the day. Just after noon the trail began to show signs of heavier use, and the old man knew he was coming into the sphere of the coastal settlements. He was sure of his mountain by this time, but the trail seemed to be skirting several miles to the south of it. He stopped the horse and looked around, frowning. He did not relish the idea of cutting straight across, not with the massed brush that seemed to grow thicker as he approached the coast.

  He eased the horse into motion again. He had some hours of light yet, and would follow the trail until he was certain he had no choice. He was more watchful now, approaching civilization, but in a certain way less receptive. He scanned the brush and forest on either side, for signs of man's passing, and lost some of his satisfaction in simple perception. It was like the difference between looking at a piece of meat with great joy, because you were hungry, and examining it carefully because you thought there were maggots in it.

  By the middle of the afternoon he was very jittery, and it was with a double sense of relief and apprehension that he came to the crossroads, where a six-foot-high cairn of rocks stood sentinel. The continuation of the trail he was on, heading toward the ocean, abruptly grew to the proportion of a road. The trail coming in from the left was also heavily traveled. To his right, heading north toward the mountain, there was much less sign of use.

  He nodded to himself with satisfaction and quickly turned off on the north-winding path. ln a few minutes he was out of sight of the stone cairn and the meeting of the trails.

  He stepped up the pace a little, wanting to put some distance between himself and the frequented place. After an hour he eased off, losing the uneasy sensation that there was somebody behind him. Twenty-four hours. They would be in the mountains by now, probably somewhere just before his last campsite, or if they had been pushing, they might even have reached it by now. He would have all day tomorrow to pick his spot on the mountain and get ready.

  He had been on the mountain path for nearly two hours, and it had become obvious that it was very seldom used. It had narrowed considerably, so that his thighs were often scraped by the brush on either side. There were a number of deadfalls across the way, and for each he had to dismount, lead the horse over, or find a way around.

  The horse was becoming a handicap.

  In the heat of the afternoon he was sweating heavily and the increasing effort was tiring the animal more rapidly. When the trail crossed a tiny creekbed he decided to stop for a few minutes. The stream was almost dry this late in the summer, having been nothing much to begin with. The white, rocky bottom wound through the
woods, bright in the light ofthe sky like bones drying, with only a faint trickle of water in the center. The old man dismounted and squatted by the dry bed, looking at it, not thinking of anything in particular. After a bit he roused himself and unstrapped the saddlebag to get his tin cup. He took it into the middle of the creekbed and dipped up half a cupful.

  He waited a few moments until the mud settled in a fine sediment, then drank, sipping the fresh coolness slowly. At the moment he felt that a cup of clear water was perhaps the finest single experience in the world, and he didn't want to waste any of it. He knew he would feel the same about eating when he made camp, and sleeping when it was time to sleep, but that didn't matter. For the time, his cup of water was sufficient.

  He shook out the cup, stuffed it back in the little saddlebag. It took so little to make a man really happy. He sat for a moment beside the creek, thinking. Then he unsaddled the horse and stripped the bags off. He took the long rifle out of its leather pocket and cradled it across his knees.

  The animal grazed slowly along the edge of the dead stream, and the old man watched her for a while. They had gone a long way together, the two of them, shared a lot of mountains between them, a lot of cold rivers.

  "Wagh!" The old man grunted. "Y're a terrible ugly critter, though. Y'are now."

  The horse was too bony, the points of her bones seemed about to poke through the skin, and her ribs were always faintly visible. She was getting old now, the bony old skeleton. She'd seen better days, they'd both seen better days. The old man wondered vaguely if the horse missed the traveling brigades, missed being picketed at night with twenty other animals like her, browsing companionably in the darkness of the night.

  The animal nosed aside the ferns and grabbed a mouthful of grass. Chewing contentedly she looked over at the old man, then back down to the grass. The old man thought about the winter times, the starvin' times, when he'd spent more hours of the day stripping cottonwood bark for the goddamn animal than he spent getting food for himself. A waste of time, but the animal was life itself. A man without a horse was a dead man, a nothing.

  Funny thing was, no matter how much she had to eat, the old rack of bones never put on any flesh. He supposed there was some just plain built bony, him and the useless old skeleton that browsed contentedly under the ferns.

  He picked up the rifle and went over to the animal, rubbed her neck and pulled on the mane. The horse looked up, tried to nibble one of the long black scalp locks that dangled on the old man's chest, then turned back to the hope of nourishment that never seemed to do any permanent good.

  Coolly and without emotion the old man raised the rifle and placed the muzzle behind the animal's ear and pulled the trigger.

  The hammer fell with a loud clack and the flint sparked. The old man looked unbelieving down at the open, unprimed pan. He blinked, clearing his vision, and tightened the grip of his fist around the rifle. He wheeled suddenly away from the animal and walked off a few steps, yanking the plug from his powder horn with his teeth. He began to curse softly as he poured the powder, because his hand was shaking. It was a thing he could not stand, wasting powder. There was no reason for it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  1

  The sun was well above the hills when the long, ungainly column of horsemen wound around the little bay. As they passed the Clatsop village built at the mouth of the river they became less a posse than a parade. The inhabitants of the village all came out of their lodges and lined the trail, watching them pass, curious, saying nothing. The village dogs barked constantly with a high, annoying yap-yap that got on Mondays nerves. He was glad when they were past, headed out along the trail the Indians called the Big Road.

  The land was partially cleared around them, and the Big Road was well traveled. Going was easy, and they made good time. For the first few miles the Big Road ran next to the river, nearly due south, paralleling the beach and less than half a mile inland. Then the coastline bulged out with a great hump of the headland Neahseu'su, and the river skirted around the inland side. Before long the column had trended away from the sea, and the steady rolling sound of the surf disappeared behind the bulk of the head. The land around them was still flat; but now the foothills of the head rose abruptly a half-mile to the right, and to the left were the first risings of the Coast Range. From both sides small creeks began to empty into the river.

  It was going to be one hell of a hot day. There was an oppressive thickness to the air this close to the ocean, like a feather comforter made invisible. It was very still. The horse's hoofs raised tiny puffs of dust that did not dissipate until shattered by the passage of the next horse. Toward the end of the line the dust was unpleasant and made it difficult to breathe.

  The men had lost the shrill gaiety that characterized the boat trip down. It wasn't so much like a holiday now. They rode with their eyes narrowed against the brilliance of the morning sun and the cloud of dust that enveloped the column. There was little talking between them, and what little there was consisted of sullen complaints.

  It would be better, Monday thought, when they reached the timber again, and shade. There would not be the dryness of the dust, and the heat would not be so intense. He had become increasingly depressed as the morning wore on; and uncertain. But there was no way to change it now.

  Again he had the powerless sensation of running before the avalanche. There was nothing he could do, no way to stop the landslide once it had begun. All he could do was keep running or be swept under. It had gone too far to stop.

  Where did it begin to be inevitable? Webb had asked him in so many words to come back to the mountains; that he might not die. And yet, was that a choice, a real choice? There was nothing in the mountains any more. A drifting, aimless life, living each day for its own sake. Nothing. But in refusing, perhaps he had dropped the last stone that started the fall. After that, the end was certain, and he supposed everything that had happened could have been guessed at. If you could see, if only you could see clearly. That each blot of ink, meaningless, in the end made a picture. But you could never see in time, it was one of the rules of the game. A man could never know what slight movement of his hand was important until it was too late to change. And then there was nothing to be done. You went along. In the end there were no real decisions to make, it was all inevitable, you did what you had to do. Thurston did, Webb did, he did. All of them pushed by something beyond their comprehension, beyond their control. All of them, knowing or not, pushed by the following avalanche. He could not be responsible for it, he could not be guilty of it.

  ***

  By noon they were filing beneath the webbed roof of limbs again. Gray with dust, the column was a ghostly snake threading through the deep green-black of the forest. Monday rode silently in the middle of the line, his horse as gray as the others. They were all indistinguishable, one from the other.

  Bill the carpenter pulled up alongside Monday's mount. "Hell of a day," he said.

  Monday nodded. His shirt was plastered to his back with sweat, and rivulets washed away the dust in tiny streams down his face.

  "Y' think we'll catch him?" Bill asked.

  "We'll catch him," Monday said.

  Bill shook his head dubiously. "Awful damn big country t' go a-chasin' one man in."

  "Different if he's waitin' for you," Monday said.

  "Think he's waitin'?"

  Monday nodded.

  Bill thought about it, frowning. "Me, I don't like that much," he said.

  Monday shrugged. "Just the way it is."

  They rode in silence for a few moments before Bill said, looking around him, "You know this here Saddle Mountain?"

  "I been around it once," Monday said.

  "Hard going? Me, I don't like climbin' mountains and things like that."

  "Not much to it," Monday said. "Just a nice walk uphill."

  "That's good."

  "Pretty easy place to set a mousetrap, though," Monday said.

  "How so?" The other man fro
wned, and Monday was faintly pleased.

  "The two peaks ain't but about a quarter-mile apart. Little razorback ridge in between 'em. A man tryin' t' cross that ridge, he's about two hundred feet below the peaks. Pretty easy target from either side."

  "We1l," Bill said hesitantly, "maybe we'll catch up to him afore he gets up there."

  "Ain't likely," Monday said. "He'll be headin' for high ground fast as he can. I expect he'll just get up there an' try to pick us off one at a time."

  "Well," Bill muttered, "I just hope nobody gets hurt, is all."

  "Jesus christ, man!" Monday said, finally at the end of his patience. "What the hell you think we're here for?"

  Startled by Monday's vehemence, Bill looked up at him, and Monday was disgusted by the fear so evident in the other man's loose face.

  "Hell, y' don't have t' get mad about it," the carpenter said. "I ain't got nothin' t' do with this anyway."

  "You're here."

  "So are you, far as that goes," Bill said defiantly.

  "Sure. We're all here," Monday said morosely

  The other man reined back his horse and drifted down the line. They were all here, Monday thought. It was a kind of puppet show. Would they have any notion if they saw the old man over the sights of their rifles that they were looking at a man of flesh, like their own? He doubted it. Everything outside their own skin was part of the puppet show. Like the malicious gossip at the mill, there was no sense of real persons, of real harm. It was just a way of passing the time. The only man for whom it was real was the old man who waited for them,

  because death is real.

  "Damn their eyes," he whispered. "God damn their eyes." His throat felt tight, as though he wanted to holler, but he did not. He rode along with the column and behind him the carpenter assuaged his hurt feelings by cursing Monday and all like him.