Moontrap - Don Berry (41 page)

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.