Moontrap - Don Berry Page 6

  "But it was HBC that bought back the survivors in the first place—"

  "A gesture, my friend, I assure you. What did it cost them? A few blankets, to throw us off our guard. And as far as persuading the Indians to give themselves up . . ." Thurston pursed his lips disdainfully that anyone could be taken in by such a tale.

  "But even the Indians say——" Monday said, frowning, still trying to get things straight in his mind.

  Thurston smiled ruefully. "Yes," he admitted. "I dare say they've been sufficiently well rehearsed. The voice of the Pope, you know . . ."

  Monday looked down at the table. He had never understood exactly how the Pope kept getting involved with Hudson's Bay, except that McLoughlin was Catholic, as were most of the Canadians. But sometimes it seemed as though the Pope were in personal charge of HBC's Columbia Department. The Mission Party always gave that impression, and now Thurston . . .

  "Well, I don't know about all that kind of thing," he said finally "I just try to get along, Mr. Thurston."

  "Believe me," Thurston said kindly, "it is not necessary for you to worry about it. After all"—he laughed—"is it the function of the backbone to worry? Hardly! There are those of us competent to stay one step ahead of the Jesuits, I dare say"

  "Well," Monday said vaguely, "I expect it'll be all right, anyway . . ."

  "Of course. But Monday, good lord, man—I'm forgetting my purpose! I came to congratulate you, not exchange political ideas, fascinating as that may be."

  "Well, thanks very much, Mr. Thurston, but I—"

  "Frankly, Monday," Thurston said reflectively, "there was a time—you don't mind my being frank?—there was a time I was deeply concerned."

  "About me?"

  "Perhaps, more accurately, about your loyalties; about your willingness to take the responsibility of a citizen here."

  "I've always tried to be as—"

  "In order to establish a society here—a real society—a man must place his loyalty to the community before self-interest. The community first, the individual second. You agree? Cooperation is the key, Monday. Menaced on all sides, the Indians, the underlings of Hudson's Bay—cooperation is the key to survival; we must work together.

  "I dare say the situation is not too different from that you encountered in the mountains, Monday. In order to survive the perils of your trade, you hardy mountain men banded together, working as a unit for the common good. The group is always stronger than the individual alone."

  In spite of his uneasiness and confusion, Monday grinned. "Well. it didn't work exactly that way, Mr. Thurston."

  Thurston waved his hand negligently; the details were not important.

  "Nevertheless, I think my point is well taken. The self-interest of the individual must be subordinated to the common good. Else—there is chaos."

  Monday nodded. He suddenly realized his coffee was getting cold, and gulped some down.

  "And in any event," Thurston said, "My concern has vanished. I can't tell you how heartening it is to see you accept your responsibilities, such as the late Cayuse War. You are leading the way, and from your example I fully expect great changes in this community. The relations of the mountain men with—shall we say?—the more respectable elements have not been of the best. There is, perhaps, a difficulty in adjustment, a reluctance. In fact, it might best be described as a failure of discipline."

  Monday smiled again. "Discipline wasn't hardly ever a strong point in the mountains. We did pretty much as we pleased."

  Thurston shook his head ruefully. "Yes," he said sadly, "like willful children. Or the savage Indian himself. You see the connection there."

  "I expect," Monday said hesitantly.

  "And, like all children, we mature; we become sufficiently adult to realize that our place, ultimately is as part of the community. Oh, Monday,' he said, with a confidential smile, "I've had my—moments of irresponsibility, too. You needn't think I've been without one or two—peccadillos, shall we say? I dare say I've been as bold as any, in my time. But that is over now. One sees one's responsibility and acts accordingly." He shrugged. "It is a question of growth."

  "I expect it's something like that."

  "A few minor failures—what can one expect? Absolutely unimportant. For example, that Indian servant you keep around, the woman. But, in time, with your growing sense of community—"

  "That's my wife," Monday said, feeling the sudden coldness in his chest.

  Thurston smiled tolerantly. "Between men, Monday—is that really necessary? There are certain natural needs to be satisfied—one understands. But, the dignity of a title? Really. Let's view these things honestly. After all, we have our—biology haven't we? We can wink at a thing or two, even if the Methodists cannot." He laughed.

  Monday stood, placing his hands flat on the table. "Thanks for coming by, Mr. Thurston."

  The smile faded from Thurston's face. "Sit down, Monday, " he said quietly "Theres one more thing."

  "I got work to do."

  "I said, sit down." Thurston did not raise his voice.

  For a long moment they were static, the huge form of Monday braced against the table, leaning tensely forward; Thurston, relaxed, legs crossed, fondling the gold nugget that hung from his watch chain, looking calmly up.

  Then, reluctantly, and without volition of his own, Monday sat down. He clasped his hands in front of him.

  "No need to take offense, Monday," Thurston said calmly. "I would simply indicate that the presence of that woman is a handicap to you. Perhaps an insurmountable one, in time. It is surely clear enough that while the Indian remains, it will be impossible-"

  "You said there was one other thing."

  Thurston shrugged negligently. "Very well," he said. "But in time I am certain you will see the nature of the choice that exists for you. The other thing, Monday, is that you may be called upon to give a bit more of your time in the interests of the community."

  "What now?" Monday said.

  "There are reports of a wild man in the hills about here. In time it will probably be necessary to form a vigilance committee to root him out."

  "What's he done?"

  "Done? Nothing, as yet. But the danger he represents is clear enough."

  "Where the hell's the danger if he ain't done anything?"

  "Monday, please. You are being deliberately naive. For one thing the Indians are convinced he is the Wild Man, from the absurd mythological time of the First People. You understand, it causes unrest."

  "Who's seen him?"

  "He threatened one unfortunate in Oregon City itself. The Indian reports he had blood running from his eyes, was waving a rifle, and disappeared in a cloud of smoke."

  Monday looked up in surprise. "You believe that?"

  "Of course not. The Indian is telling the story for fifty cents. But that the man exists, there is no doubt."

  "Just some old solitary roamin' around," Monday said.

  "Doubtless. But that is precisely the question. It is unnatural for a man to be what you call a solitary."

  "Maybe it is, maybe it ain't," Monday muttered, looking down at the table again. "Man wants to run 'lone, leave 'm be. That's his business."

  Thurston stood at the table. "Fortunately, Monday, it is not a question you are called upon to decide. A man like that is not——whole. He is not in possession of his faculties. When you speak in that way I am reminded of your mountain background, and I find it discouraging. A man who 'runs 'lone' as you phrase it, is a threat to those who would work together. He must be dealt with. I should think that would be clear to you; in a sense it has been the subject of our conversation."

  "Mr. Thurston, I ain't going to—"

  "Monday," Thurston said impatiently, "I have no intention of arguing the point any further. You may be called upon to assist in this matter, and I have every expectation that you will do so. It should not be necessary to point out that your relation to the community is involved in this request, too."

  Monday looked up fi
nally. His hands remained tightly laced on the table in front of him. "That sounds awful much like a threat."

  Thurston shrugged. "Not in the least. I find threats quite unnecessary. All that is required is a clear understanding of the situation that exists. I had thought your eyesight was improving, but I discover there are still areas of blindness. I sincerely hope, for your sake, that the difficulty is temporary. Good-by, Monday."

  He turned and walked quickly out the door. Monday heard the rustle as he took up the reins and turned the horse back up the trail. He listened until the sounds of the horse's hoofs on the packed trail were no longer audible.

  He cradled his head in his hands and stared down at the scarred table planks, tracing with his eyes the nicks and scrapes of knives carelessly dropped, the darker stains of spilled coffee and the blood of rare meat. Suddenly he raised his head at a sound near the back of the house. In a moment Mary came through the door, carrying the bucket.

  "How long you been back?" he asked.

  "I have just come." She went to the cupboard at the back and got a leaf of paper to dump the berries on.

  "You didn't get much," Monday said, looking at the small pile.

  "Many were not ripe," Mary said. "There is enough for a pie, if we could get some flour."

  Monday put his head back in his hands. There was no way to tell whether she had heard Thurston's comments or not. It was one of the many things he would never know.

  "Mr. Thurston did not drink his coffee," Mary said, taking the full cup from the table.

  "He likes sugar in it, " Monday said.

  2

  He woke feeling dull and depressed in the morning. A random thought came to him as he struggled up out of the darkness of sleep, blurred by half-consciousness. They just won't leave me alone, he thought blearily. Yesterday he had wakened clean and fresh, with only the consciousness of Mary's body and his own, side by side. This morning he was back in a world of complexity he had not made. Seemed as though just as soon as a man got to feeling loose, somebody had to remind him of the way things really were.

  Mary was already up, moving about the fireplace. Monday turned his head to watch her. With a long scoop she was dipping up the feathery gray ashes and dumping them into the ash hopper that stood at the side of the fireplace.

  Monday hoisted himself up to his elbows, blinking with sleepiness, and rubbed the back of his neck. It was always hard for him to wake when there were things he didn't want to do.

  Mary turned briefly to see him rise, then returned to the slow, gentle pouring of the ashes. Monday watched the pale cloud of gray that floated up as the stream ran into the hopper.

  "Makin' lye?"

  "In a week, maybe," Mary said. "We have not much soap left. And I could use it to sweeten the sourdough, if we got some flour."

  She could make a pie, if they got some flour. She could make sourdough, if they got some flour.

  "I'm going to put the field in wheat," he said. "We'll have plenty of flour in the winter."

  But even as he spoke he knew it wasn't certain. There were only two mills in the country, one at the Methodist Mission upstream and the other on the island at Oregon City. There was no credit at either place, and the percentages were always too high. Worse was the simple fact of being there. At the mission mill they saved his soul for God, while they cut his purse strings, and at Oregon City the mill was run by friends of Thurston, which was almost as bad. He had come to dread both places and always found some excuse to avoid them.

  He swung his feet over the edge of the bed and reached for his boots. Before he could put the field in wheat he had to have the wheat. Thank god for Swensen, he wouldn't have to plow. The endless, wearisome, monotonous trudging back and forth behind the animals, and them borrowed . . . A man wasn't made for work like that, the same movement over and over again, endlessly using exactly the same muscles. It made him ache at night.

  He would get the seed wheat from McLoughlin in Oregon City. If McLoughlin didn't have it, he'd see that it came out of the Hudson's Bay storehouse in Vancouver. There'd been a hell of a bunch of people through here in the last ten years, and McLoughlin had seen that none of them starved. Lost his job for it, too. And the directors in London had charged his personal account sixty thousand dollars for the things he'd given to the Americans to keep them alive those first bad winters.

  What the hell was wrong? Seven years here, and he still had to go on his knees begging for seed wheat. Short of seed, short of soap, short of flour, short of clothes, even short of powder and ball. In the mountains it had never seemed so complicated, just to stay alive. He couldn't recall ever giving it much thought. And now, already, the eternal damp was beginning to rot the foundations of the cabin and the beams of the roof, and they would have to be replaced before winter came again. He sighed, dragging on his trousers. "Mary, sometimes I think I just wasn't cut out for farming."

  Mary shrugged. "There is much to do," she said.

  "Seems like I take two steps forward and fall back three. I'm gettin' farther behind all the time."

  "Is bad luck, maybe."

  "A man can take just so long a run of the bad," Monday said. "Then he's got to have some good, or he goes under."

  Mary finished scooping the floating ashes and wiped her forehead with her wrist. Her husband's back was turned, as he took the linsey-woolsey shirt from the peg on the wall above the bed. Mary looked at him for a moment and turned back to the coffee pot. "You will be here today?"

  "No," Monday said morosely. "I got to go into Oregon City. See about the wheat."

  After a moment Mary said, "Is maybe better you stay here a day."

  "Why?"

  "You are gone a long time. The meat is gone, now."

  Monday closed his eyes. "Meat, too. Christ, we don't have anything."

  "Everything else we can do without. Meat, we cannot do without meat."

  "All right," Monday said. He started taking off the cloth shirt, his farmer's shirt, and suddenly the depression began to lift. He reached up for the buckskin hunting shirt, and in spite of himself began to smile.

  "By god, that's not a bad idea, Mary." In his mind he could already see the branch moving, the faint shadow of a buff body over the sights of the gun, could feel the waiting tension. "The wheat can wait a day, can't it?"

  "Yes, I think so," Mary said.

  His movements became quicker, more sure. He yanked off the stupidly heavy boots and reached under the bed for the feather-light moccasins. Just getting the boots off, he felt ten pounds lighter. The moccasins were his own feet, shaped by the wearing until no other man could feel comfortable in them. He stood up, shrugging his shoulders, loosening his body for the hunt.

  "You don't want breakfast first?" Mary said.

  "No," Monday said seriously. "I best get out early. " He was suddenly impatient to be gone and could not wait.

  Mary nodded.

  Monday took down the gun from its pegs over the fireplace and checked the flint. He poured a little powder into the horn, and took several balls.

  "You take enough?" Mary said, watching.

  "I only need to shoot once."

  "What if you miss?"

  Monday scowled at her. "She's got hindsights and a foresight," he said sharply.

  "Just a question that I ask," Mary said innocently, raising her hands.

  "I c'n still shoot a gun," Monday muttered, not seeing her faint smile. He snapped the hammer sharply several times and nodded to himself.

  Lightly he moved to the door, stepping out into a flood of early-morning warmth. The sun had just passed the screen of trees to the east, and was rising quickly, losing the redness of dawn. He stood at the door for a moment, looking at the world, letting his eyes sharpen themselves against the wall of foliage that surrounded his little clearing, feeling the sharp cleanness of the air.

  "Good, I'll get goin', then."

  Quickly he saddled the horse, muttering softly to him, rubbing his muzzle. Mary stood in the doorway watch
ing her husband's impatience without expression. He mounted and Mary walked over to the horse.

  Monday bent down from the saddle and kissed her perfunctorily on the forehead. "Got to get movin'," he said brusquely.

  Mary stepped back and he swung the horse around, setting off up the main trail for Peter's Mountain and the thick cover of brush where the soft and subtle bodies of the deer were waiting for him.

  She watched him go, then turned and went back into the dark house. With difficulty she stooped at the cooler beneath the floor and began to rearrange the paper-wrapped packages. She put all the fresh packages of meat that Swensen had left near the back, where Monday would not notice them. Then she got out the half-completed shirt and took it to the front porch, where she could work in the warmth of the sun.

  3

  Once on the trail he lost the tensions across the back of his shoulders, the feeling of tightness that had slipped into him with the thoughts of seed wheat and no flour and begging and the mission and all the rest of it. He began to feel relaxed and easy again. The horse's hoofs fell softly, like the pad of a cat, and overhead the branches of fir moved slowly, a creaking, shifting roof over the endless tunnel that was the trail.

  Here in the woods the concerns of civilized life receded into nothingness again. No worry about Thurston or the farm or that vicious thought of raising money that always twisted his guts. And most of all, no question of whether he was doing the right thing, the thing he was supposed to do. Right and wrong were merely words again, noises of no distinct meaning. There was only the powerful consciousness of the world around him. as it existed. without trying to make up words to fit it. Monday realized it had been a long time since he had been able to feel the good world-feeling, the balanced emotionless awareness of himself and the world, and what was passing between them. He nodded to himself, watching the brush to either side close in, taking a growing joy in the simple act of perception.

  When he had ridden in this way for half an hour, the trail narrowed so that it was not easy for the horse to pass without brushing against the undergrowth at either side. The sense of being penned was making the animal nervous, and Monday reined up. He dismounted and rubbed the horse's muzzle gently. "Easy, easy. Can't worry about it," he whispered. Gradually the skittery animal calmed, drawing a sort of peace from his master. Monday felt perfectly neutral and suspended now, almost without volition.