Last Summer at Mars Hill (35 page)

It must have been the same man, he thought now. Major Howell, not really any more interesting now than he’d been then. He hadn’t even walked on the moon. Andrew dropped the amulet onto his chest and pulled a blanket about his knees, stared out the window. Clouds drifted in front of the rising moon. At the edge of the woods there would be rabbit tracks, fox scat. A prickle of excitement ran through him at the thought, and he lay back upon the narrow bed. He would leave tomorrow, early, before Howell got up to let the dog out.

He didn’t leave. He woke to Howell calling hoarsely from the bedroom. Andrew found him half-sitting on the side of the bed, his hand reaching pathetically for the nightstand where a glass of water had been knocked over, spilling pill bottles and inhalers and soggy tissues onto the floor.

“Could you—please—”

Andrew found Howell’s inhaler and gave it to him. Then he straightened out the mess, put more water in the glass and watched as Howell took his pills, seven of them. He waited to see if Howell wanted anything else, then let Festus outside. When the boy returned to the bedroom, Howell was still sitting there, eyes shut as he breathed heavily through his nose. His eyes flickered open to stare at Andrew: a terrified expression that made the boy’s heart tumble. But then he closed them again and just sat there.

Finally Andrew said, “I’ll help you get dressed.” Howell nodded without opening his eyes.

It didn’t take Andrew long to help him into a flannel robe and slippers, and into the bathroom. Andrew swore silently and waited outside the door, listening to the groan of water in the taps, the old man’s wheezing and shambling footsteps. Outside, Festus scratched at the back door and whined to be let in. Sighing, Andrew took care of the dog, went back to the bathroom and waited until Howell came out again.

“Thank you,” the old man said. His voice was faint, and he trembled as he supported himself with one hand on the sink, the other against the door frame.

“It’s okay, Major Howell,” said Andrew. He took Howell’s elbow and guided him into the living room. The old man was heavy, no matter that he was so thin; Andrew was terrified that he’d fall on the flagstone floor. “Here, sit here and I’ll get you something. Breakfast?”

He made instant coffee and English muffins with scrambled eggs. The eggs were burned, but it didn’t really matter: Howell took only a bite of the muffin and sipped at his tepid coffee. Andrew gave the rest to Festus. He would eat later, outside.

Afterward, as Howell sat dozing in the armchair by the fireplace, Andrew made a fire. The room filled with smoke before he figured out how to open the damper, but after that it burned okay, and he brought in more wood. Then he took Festus outside for a walk. He wore Howell’s parka and heavy black mittens with NASA stenciled on the cuffs. The sunlight on the snow made his eyes ache as he tried to see where Festus ran up the first slope of Sugar Mountain. He took off one glove, unzipped the neck of the parka and stuck his hand inside. The amulet was still there, safe against his chest. He stopped, hearing Festus crashing through the underbrush. Would the dog follow him? Probably not: he was an old dog, and Andrew knew how fast a fox could run, knew that even though he had never hunted this spot it would be easy to find his way to a safe haven.

Then the wind shifted, bringing with it the tang of wood smoke. Festus ambled out of the woods, shaking snow from his ears, and ran up to Andrew. The boy let the amulet drop back inside his flannel shirt and zipped up the parka. He turned and walked back to the house.

“Have a nice walk?” Howell’s voice was still weak but his eyes shone brightly, and he smiled at the boy stomping the snow from boots too big for him.

“Oh, yeah, it was great.” Andrew hung up the parka and snorted, then turning back to Howell tried to smile. “No, it was nice. Is all that your property back there?” He strode to the fireplace and crouched in front of it, feeding it twigs and another damp log.

“Just about all of it.” Howell pulled a lap blanket up closer to his chin. “This side of Sugar Mountain and most of the lakefront.”

“Wow.” Andrew settled back, already sweating from the heat. “It’s really nice back there by the lake. We used to go there in the summer, my mom and me. I love it up here.”

Howell nodded. “I do, too. Did you live in the city?”

Andrew shook his head. “Yonkers. It sucks there now; like living in the Bronx.” He opened the top button of his shirt and traced the string against his chest. “Once, when I was a kid, we heard an astronaut talk here. At the library. Was that you?”

Howell smiled. “Yup. I wondered if you might have been one of those kids, one of those times. So many kids, I must have talked to a thousand kids at the school here. You want to be an astronaut when you were little?”

“Nah.” Andrew poked at the log, reached to pet Festus. “I never wanted to be anything, really. School’s really boring, and like where I lived sucks, and…”He gestured at the fire, the room and the door leading outside. “The only thing I ever really liked was being up here, in the woods. Living in The Fallows this year, that was great.”

“It’s the only thing I liked, too. After I stopped working.” Howell sighed and glanced over at the pictures covering the wall, the sagging bookcases. He had never really been good with kids. The times he had spoken at the school he’d had films to back him up, and later, videotapes and videodiscs. He had never been able to entertain his son here, or his friends, or the occasional visiting niece or nephew. The pictures were just pictures to them, not even colorful. The tapes were boring. When Peter and his friends were older, high school or college, sometimes Howell would show them the Nut File, a manila envelope crammed with letters from Rubber Man Lord of Jupiter and articles clipped from tabloids, a lifetime of NASA correspondence with cranks and earnest kooks who had developed faster-than-light drives in their garages. Peter and his friends had laughed at the letters, and Howell had laughed, too, reading them again. But none of his visitors had ever been touched, the way Howell had. None of them had ever wondered why a retired NASA astronaut would have a drawer full of letters from nuts.

“Andrew,” he said softly; then, “Andrew,” as loud as he could. The boy drew back guiltily from the fire. Festus started awake and stared up, alarmed.

“Sorry—”

Howell drew a clawed hand from beneath the blanket and waved it weakly. “No, no—that’s all right—just…”

He coughed; it took him a minute to catch his breath. Andrew stood and waited next to him, staring back at the fire. “Okay, I’m okay now,” Howell wheezed at last. “Just: remember last night? That picture with the poem?”

Andrew looked at him blankly.

“In my room—the moon, you wanted to know if I wrote it—”

The boy nodded. “Oh, yeah. The moon poem, right. Sure.”

Howell smiled and pointed to the bookcase. “Well here, go look over there—”

Andrew watched him for a moment before turning to the bookcase and looking purposefully at the titles. Sighing, Festus moved closer to the old astronaut’s feet. Howell stroked his back, regarding Andrew thoughtfully. He coughed, inclining his head toward the wall.

“Andrew.” Howell took a long breath, then leaned forward, pointing. “That’s it, there.”

Beneath some magazines, Andrew found a narrow pamphlet bound with tape. “This?” he wondered. He removed it gingerly and blew dust from its cover.

Howell settled back in his chair. “Right. Bring it here. I want to show you something.”

Andrew settled into the chair beside Howell. A paperbound notebook, gray with age. On the cover swirled meticulous writing in Greek characters, and beneath them the same hand, in English.

Return address:

Mr. Nicholas Margalis

116 Argau Dimitrou

Apt. No. 3

Salonika, Greece

“Read it,” said Howell. “I found that in the NASA library. He sent it to Colonel Somebody right after the war. It floated around for forty years, sat in NASA’s Nut File before I finally took it.”

He paused. “I used to collect stuff like that. Letters from crackpots. People who thought they could fly. UFOs, moonmen.
Outer space.
I try to keep an open mind.” He gestured at the little book in Andrew’s hand. “I don’t think anyone else has ever read that one. Go ahead.”

Carefully Andrew opened the booklet. On lined paper tipsy block letters spelled
PLANES, PLANETS, PLANS
. Following this were pages of numerical equations, sketches, a crude drawing labeled
THE AIR DIGGER ROCKET SHAPE
.

“They’re plans for a rocket ship,” said Howell. He craned his. neck so he could see.

“You’re kidding.” Andrew turned the brittle pages. “Did they build it?”

“Christ, no! I worked it out once. If you were to build the Margalis Planets Plane it would be seven miles long.” He laughed silently.

Andrew turned to a page covered with zeros.

“Math,” said Howell.

More calculations. Near the end Andrew read,

Forty years of continuous flying will cover the following space below, 40 years, 14,610 days, 216,000,000,000,000 x 14610—equals 3,155,750,000,000,000,000 miles. That is about the mean distance to the farthest of the Planets, Uranus.

Trillions, Quatrillions, Billions and Millions of miles all can be reached with this Plan.

Andrew shook his head. “This is so sad! He really thought it would fly?”

“They all thought they could fly,” said Howell. “Read me the end.”

“‘Experimenting of thirty-five years with levers, and compounds of,’” read Andrew. “‘I have had made a patent model of wooden material and proved a very successful work.

“‘My Invention had been approved by every body in the last year 1944, 1946 in my native village Panorma, Crevens, Greece. Every body stated it will be a future great success in Mechanics.

“‘Yours truly’”

Andrew stopped abruptly.

“Go on,” prodded Howell. “The end. The best part.”

On the inside back cover, Andrew saw the same hand, somewhat shakier and in black ink.

I have written in these copy book about 1/1000 of what actually will take in building a real Rocket Shape Airo-Plane to make trips to the Planets.

There in the planets we will find Paradise, and the undiying water to drink so we never will die, and never be in distress.

Come on all you

Lets get busy

for the speedy trips

to all Planets

and back to earth again.

NICHOLAS S. MARGALIS

A
UG 19 1946

Howell sat in silence. For a long moment Andrew stared at the manuscript, then glanced at the old man beside him. Howell was smiling now as he stared into the fire. As Andrew watched, his eyelids flickered, and then the old astronaut dozed, snoring softly along with the dog at his feet. Andrew waited. Howell did not wake. Finally the boy stood and poked at the glowing logs. When he turned back, the blanket had fallen from the old man’s lap and onto the dog’s back. Andrew picked it up and carefully draped it across Howell’s knees.

For a moment he stood beside him. The old man smelled like carnations. Against his yellow skin broken capillaries bloomed blue and crimson. Andrew hesitated. Then he bowed his head until his lips grazed Howell’s scalp. He turned away to replace the booklet on its shelf and went to bed.

That night the wind woke Howell. Cold gripped him as he sat up in bed, and his hand automatically reached for Festus. The dog was not beside him.

“Festus?” he called softly, then slid from bed, pulling on his robe and catching his breath before walking across the bedroom to the window.

A nearly full moon hung above the pine forest, dousing the snow so that it glowed silvery blue. Deer and rabbits had made tracks steeped in shadow at wood’s edge. He stood gazing at the sky when a movement at the edge of the field caught him.

In the snow an animal jumped and rolled, its fur a fiery gleam against the whiteness. Howell gasped in delight: a fox, tossing the snow and crunching it between its black jaws. Then something else moved. The old man shook his head in disbelief.

“Festus.”

Clumsily, sinking over his head in the drifts, the spaniel tumbled and rose beside the fox, the two of them playing in the moonlight. Clouds of white sparkled about them as the fox leaped gracefully to land beside the dog, rolling until it was only an auburn blur.

Howell held his breath, moving away from the window so that his shadow could not disturb them. Then he recalled the boy sleeping in the next room.

“Andrew,” he whispered loudly, his hand against the wall to steady himself as he walked into the room. “Andrew, you have to see something.”

The window seat was empty. The door leading outside swung open, banging against the wall in the frigid wind. Howell turned and walked toward the door, finally stopping and clinging to the frame as he stared outside.

In the snow lay a green hospital gown, blown several feet from the door. Bare footprints extended a few yards into the field. Howell followed them. Where the shadows of the house fell behind him, the footprints ended. Small pawprints marked the drifts, leading across the field to where the fox and dog played.

He lifted his head and stared at them. He saw where Festus’s tracks ran off to the side of the house and then back to join the other’s. As he watched, the animals abruptly stopped. Festus craned his head to look back at his master and then floundered joyfully through the drifts to meet him. Howell stepped forward. He stared from the tracks to the two animals, yelled in amazement and stood stark upright. Then stumbling he tried to run toward them. When Festus bounded against his knees the man staggered and fell. The world tilted from white to swirling darkness.

It was light when he came to. Beside him hunched the boy, his face red and tear streaked.

“Major Howell,” he said. “Please—”

The old man sat up slowly, pulling the blankets around him. He stared for a moment at Andrew, then at the far door where the flagstones shone from melted snow.

“I saw it,” he whispered. “What you did, I saw it.”