Bones On Black Spruce Mountain (9 page)

"I can't imagine being that lonely."

"I know you can't. I mean, it's hard for you to understand, maybe impossible. You've never known what it's like to be completely alone, even when there are other people around, not to have anybody to belong to, anybody you can trust. You've always had your parents, since the day you were born."

Daniel stopped for a moment, reached into the darkness outside the firelight and picked up a stick. He slapped his empty, open palm with the stick and looked away somewhere into his past. Then he laughed a tight, bitter little laugh and began to pace again.

"You don't know what it's like. Before I was eight years old I'd been in twelve different places. I remember the last place I stayed before I came here. I'd been there a long time, I don't know how long. It was awful. I got blamed for everything. So one day I took off, just like the boy, only I was a little kid, eight. It Was winter, but I took off anyway. I had my sneakers on. I got maybe a mile or so down the road and there I was, nowhere. Where could I go? So I turned around and went back. They weren't even out looking for me. They were sorry to see me back."

"How do you know that?"

"I just know it!"

Daniel waited a minute to cool down. "They didn't give me hell or anything; they just looked at me, just stared at me. They didn't say anything. I remember that. None of them even blinked. They just stared. I knew then I wasn't long for that place and I was right. About a month later the social worker came and got me and brought me up here."

"You never told me any of that," Seth said.

"I've never told anybody anything about those days. I don't talk about them because I want to forget them. I want to forget the first eight years of my life. I want to forget the whole thing. But I can't! I try, but I can't forget."

Seth didn't know what to say, so he said, "Well, at least when you came here you knew you were coming to stay."

A sharp, angry laugh shot out of Daniel's mouth. "I knew you were dumb, Seth, but I didn't know you were that dumb."

Daniel's cruelty hurt Seth. He wanted to say something, but he couldn't speak.

"You're hopeless. You'll never know what I'm talk-ing about. Coming here was worse than staying there. How was I to know they were going to keep me? How was I to know? All I knew was it was another place to stay for a while, get kicked around, get kicked out."

"You make it sound like your folks were going to treat you like a stray dog!"

"No kidding."

Seth was beginning to understand a little the depth, • the fury, of Daniel's bitterness.

"But you knew they were going to adopt you! They said they were."

"Said? Said! Shit! Listen, you don't believe what people say. You don't believe anything they say. People talk all the time. What good are words? Words are just words! When I first came here everybody got all excited. Your folks, my folks, you, Mr. Bateau, everybody; everybody but me." Daniel jabbed his forefinger hard into his chest.

"I remember how your mother jumped around when she first met me. She acted like an idiot. I thought she was crazy. And your sister trying to hold me on her lap! A new toy. I felt like telling all of you to save it. When your father came up to me and put out his hand and said, 'Daniel, I'm glad to meet you,' when he said that, do you know what I wanted to do? I wanted to look right up into his face and say, 'You go to hell!' All that talk didn't mean squat to me. I didn't believe it. Like a stray dog you said? That's exactly what I felt like."

Daniel's whole body was shaking. Then in a voice so bitter and angry that it became soft, Daniel said, "Only stray dogs don't move around twelve times in eight years."

Seth stared at the ground between his legs,

"God."

There was a deep silence between the two boys for a time; then, in a voice filled with pleading and tenderness, Seth said, "But . . . isn't it better now? I mean, you've been here five years. They really are your parents. They really do love you. Isn't it better now?"

It was a long time before Daniel answered. "Yes . . . it is . . . a little. It's a little better. But no matter how hard I try to forget, I can still remember. That's no better, and it never will be either."

It wasn't what Seth had hoped to hear.

"There's only one difference between me and that boy, Seth. Just one."

"What's that?"

"I lucked out. He didn't."

Both boys sat in silence for a time. Then Daniel began again. His voice had changed because his anger was gone, not gone away from him, but gone back down into him.

"That's why I didn't want to believe the story. It was just too terrible to be true. I had to refuse to believe it. I just couldn't admit it was true, not even the tiniest bit, because . . . ah! I don't know how to say it . . . because . . . the story could have been about me!

"Don't you see, Seth? If I hadn't lucked out, if I'd kept running, that boy could have been me!"

Then, abruptly, in a voice that made Seth shiver, Daniel said, "No more! I don't want to talk about this anymore!"

Daniel sat slumped and sullen. Seth tried to think of something to say, some question to ask, something, anything, to help Daniel escape from his memories.

"How come he had two places? How come we found all his stuff one place and his bones another?" Seth asked.

Daniel smiled. He knew what Seth was trying to do and he was grateful.

"I think the cave was his lookout. He could have found that place first and hid there while the search parties were looking for him. Then he built that mound, but he always went back to the cave because he could look down from there on the farm. He could see people. Maybe he even spent the whole summer there, sort of like a summer place. That explains the howls."

"How does it do that?"

"You know how people used to say they'd hear howls from the mountain only in the summer during haying? Well, probably the boy sat up there and watched. You know haying is the most sociable time of year, when everybody gets together. The boy watched all those people working together all day, sweating out in the sun and then when the hay was in, when they got together and had a big dinner on the lawn—he probably could hear them talking and laughing if the wind was right—when he saw all that and heard all that, he got so lonely he'd howl, because he felt so deserted. He wanted to come down and be a part of that, but he couldn't; so he howled instead."

Daniel could hear the boy's cries. He could see him alone on the mountain.

"I think he died during haying, just like Mr. Bateau says. I think one night, after he'd spent all day watching, he just couldn't stand it anymore, so he crawled into the cave and died."

"I think you're right, Daniel, but it's awful."

Both boys sat hunched over their thoughts.

Finally Daniel sighed an enormous sigh, laughed an odd little laugh, and stood up. "Let's split what's left of the coffee."

All the clouds were gone now and the full moon lit the wilderness as if it were day. The boys sat and watched the black and silver woods. Daniel poked at the fire. Seth munched on the bag of nuts and raisins, then passed them to Daniel.

Seth began chuckling to himself.

"What's the matter?" Daniel asked.

"You solved the mystery and you don't even know it."

"I did?"

"We've got proof he lasted at least one winter."

"We do?"

"We found him in the cave, right? He only went there in the summer, to watch people, right? He could never get there in the winter. The ice up there would make it impossible. He ran away in the fall. The only time he could possibly have gotten back there was the summer after the first winter."

Daniel smiled. It was true.

But the solution to the mystery seemed insignificant now. They had found the truth, but the facts were meaningless to them. Only the boy mattered.

"I want to go back," Daniel said. "I want to spend tomorrow night with the bones."

Seth's heart sank. "Oh, Daniel, I don't want to; I can't." Seth understood why Daniel wanted to return, or at least he had some idea, but he was afraid.

"I'm going. I've got to. Just once. I'm not going to try to talk you into it, but I'd like for you to come with me. Don't decide for sure just now. Sleep on it. You can decide tomorrow."

Then Daniel added, "Speaking of sleep, let's get some. The sun's about to come up."

Both boys climbed inside their bags, and in what seemed like seconds Seth could hear Daniel's deep, even breathing. Seth blew out the candle and zipped his bag. He tossed and turned. He couldn't sleep. Maybe it was the coffee or the decision he had to make or maybe it was all he had just heard.

He propped himself up on one elbow and looked at Daniel through the darkness. Slowly Seth was begin-to understand something about his friend, something about the bones, about loneliness. And part of his understanding was knowing he would never quite understand, at least not the way Daniel understood, not with the fury And pain Daniel felt. But just now Daniel had opened the door into his past, if only just a little, and allowed Seth to look in. Seth was grateful for that.

He lay back. He knew now that he and Daniel were like brothers, but he also knew, for the first time, that like all brothers, they were the same and different, together and alone.

Despite their closeness they were both terribly alone.

Chapter 9

There was an awkward silence between the two boys over breakfast the next morning. Neither Seth nor Daniel wanted to resume last night’s discussion, but it still weighed heavily on their minds, so instead of talking about it, they didn’t talk at all.

Finally Daniel said, “How’s your leg?”

“Okay. Stiff, but it’ll be okay.”

“You should probably take it easy this morning, don’t you think?”

“I thought I’d just hang around here or something. What are you going to do?”

“Maybe I’ll fish down the brook toward home, get us enough for today.”

“Daniel, I don’t want to go back.”

“Let’s not talk about it now. At lunch, let’s decide at lunch.” Daniel wanted Seth to come with him. In fact, he doubted he could make it alone, but he was determined not to force Seth to go.

“Maybe we could just. go over there this afternoon, come back in time for supper, not spend the night,” Seth suggested.

“No, I want to spend the night up there or not go at all.”

“Why? Why do we have to do that?”

“It just has to be that way. We’ll talk later. I’m going fishing.”

Daniel gathered his gear together and headed down Lost Boy Brook. Something was drawing him toward that pool in the brook where he and his father had first fished together five years before.

When he reached the pool, it was as if he had walked backward into his own past. Everything there was as it had been, the deep pool, the green swirling water, the gravel bar where they had cooked lunch.

Daniel’s thoughts wandered back to that other time. He could see an eight-year-old boy standing on the gravel bar with a strange man, a man the boy would come to know as his father. He could see the boy stealing glances at the man’s face, wondering who he was, what they were doing here together.

The man helped the boy up onto the big rock that jutted out into the stream, and the boy walked care fully, fearfully, along the spine of the rock toward the stream. The man helped him down into a small bowl. in the rock, a seat hollowed out by centuries of high spring water. Daniel watched the boy as he sat at the edge of the stream looking at the rushing water. The boy was smiling; so was Daniel.

Then the boy turned to the man and the man was gone. The boy was alone and crying.

Daniel was puzzled. That was not what had happened. It had been a good day, just as he had described it to Seth. Why then had his memory tricked him and made it seem bad? His good feelings rushed away; he felt alone, like the little boy by the brook, like the boy on the mountain. The old fury rose in his throat. He tried to choke it back, but it was no use. Then Daniel heard himself speaking aloud, the words wrenched out of him.

“I’m alone. I’ll always be—just like that kid. I’ll al ways be an orphan. It’s too late for me too.”

Daniel stepped up onto the rock and settled himself into the seat. He still lit. He leaned back and felt the coolness of the stone through his shirt. Daniel had only slept a few hours last night; he was tired, worn out. He felt like crying, but he was too sad and angry to cry. He closed his eyes and listened to the brook; then he fell asleep.

In a dream Daniel saw himself standing at the edge of a flat, open field. The field was filled with people, old people, young people. Each person stood an arms length away from those around him. Everyone was reaching out, clawing at the air, calling, straining touch another, but they could not move; their feet were stuck, rooted, where they stood. The people reached, they strained, but they never touched. Slowly, here and there, a person sunk into the earth and disappeared. Slowly another rose to take his place.