Moontrap - Don Berry (35 page)

"Why the hell is summer so much better than
winter?" Monday said absently.

"Is a question of light," Devaux said.
"Here there is no light, eight months a man lives with no light,
and the wet and the cold."

Monday shook his head. "Y'know, every winter I
think I can't stand it any more, I figure I got to leave. But I'm too
damn low t' do it in the winter, an' when spring comes, it's so good
I forget all about it."

"Is crazy, that," Devaux said. "Me, I
quit thinking in October, then it does not derange me, the winter."

"
When d' y' start again?" Webb asked.

"
May. Good years, maybe the middle of April."

"
What if y' f'rget to turn y'rself on again?"
Monday asked him.

Devaux shrugged. "Makes no difference," he
said. "I forgot one year, and nobody noticed."

Monday laughed and stretched himself up in the
saddle. The unpleasant cloudiness of the whisky was leaving him, but
the sensation of well-being and peace remained. After the
discouragements and rebuffs of the Hrst part of the day, it had been
good to have a little fun, without worrying about it. The cannon's
explosion had wiped out the bad taste in his mouth from the sermon of
Andrews and the
Portsmouth
.

"
This must be the best summer there ever was in
Oregon," he said. "I'll bet the summer of 'fifty goes down
in history as the best summer there ever was."

"Y'iggerant dunghead, that ain't the kind o'
thing they write history about. Ain't nobody cares what the weather's
like."

"Look at Valley Forge," Monday said.
"Ever'body knows that was a real bad winter, what with all them
Revolutionary sojers freezin' their feet off and all that kind of
stuff."

"
That's different," Webb said. "That's
when a man's miserable, sometimes they pay attention to that. But
they ain't nobody gives a damn when a man feels good. I read one hell
of a heap o' history, an' I tell you plain, it ain't about when a man
feels good."

"
Seems like it ought to be, though," Monday
says. "Seems like the times a man feels good are important,
too."

"What ought t' be ain't what is," Webb
said. "Ain't nobody cares."

Monday looked up and watched the bright star-points
jog the rhythm of his horse. "They's sure a vast lot of 'em,
ain't there? One of these days I'm goin' where I c'n see what the
stars look like in the winter, too."

"Is just the same, I think," Devaux said.

"No they ain't," Webb said decisively.
"They's in different places."

"How can that be?" Devaux said. "The
sky is the sky."

"Hell, I don't know how, " Webb said. "But
they are. I seen 'em many a time in the mountains. You c'n see 'em
good there."

"
I never noticed when I was in the mountains,"
Monday said. "I guess I was never interested."

"
That's 'cause you was too young," Webb
said. "Man got to get a little sense before he gets interested
in lookin' at the stars."

"
Me, I don't see how they can be different,"
Devaux said. "I am also commencing to have bad in the head."

"Whyn't you put up at my place, if'n y're
gettin' a headache?" Monday said.

"Maybe I do that, me."

"
Look," Webb insisted. "Days is
shorter in the winter, ain't they? That proves things c'n change."

"
That's just because of the rain an' clouds all
the time," Monday said. "You just can't see the sun is
all."

"
God damn, y're a arguin' son of a bitch,"
Webb said.

It was well past midnight when the three were finally
on the trail that led down to Monday's cabin. There was no light, and
Monday figured the candle Mary usually kept had burned down. He was,
he realized, a lot later than he had figured. having promised to be
back early.

They tied their horses outside and Monday went up on
the porch.

When he opened the door he was assailed by a rotten
odor.

"Jesus Christ," he said. "What's that
smell?"

He started across the room toward the mantel and
stumbled on a chair. "Damn it! just a minute, I'll get some
light."

He fumbled on the mantel for the little box of
locofoco matches and the candle. In the blackness the match flared,
blinding him with its sudden brightness.

"Mary!" he called. "Wake up, we got
company."

He touched the wick and the yellow flame streamed up,
dark shadows leaping out toward the wall. He started to turn,
catching an unfamiliar shape out of the corner of his eye, but he was
too late. In a fraction of a second he saw Webb's hurtling shape, and
then the old man's rifle butt plunged into the pit of his stomach,
doubling him over. Webb lifted his knee, crashing viciously into
Monday's face and throwing him backward from the fireplace to sprawl
unconscious against the wall.

Webb looked at him for a moment, then turned back to
look up at the gently swinging form of the woman suspended from the
beam.

"
That is no answer," Devaux said, his eyes
fixed on the contorted face that witnessed death by strangulation.
"He will wake up some time."

"Couldn't think o' nothin' else," Webb
muttered. After moment he went over to the bed, lifted the heavy
pillow from the swaddled bundle there. He looked down at the
blackened and twisted tiny face and clenched fists for a moment, then
gently put the pillow back. He turned back to the center of the room.

"Me," Devaux said, "I thought all
Indians afraid to hang."

"This don't prove no different," Webb said.
After a moment he blinked and said, "We best cut 'er down."

He picked up the overturned chair and reached for his
knife. Against the wall three heavy shadows danced to the soundless
music of the candle's flame.
 

Chapter Fifteen

1

They buried her toward the river, next to a clump of
blackberry where she had gone every day in season, to pick the full
sweet berries. The late-afternoon sun slanted flat along the river,
golden red, making flame bursts of the trees on the other bank.
Monday tamped down the tiny mound with the flat of his shovel. He
squatted, resting his forehead against the handle. looking at the
ground between his feet. He was numb. wholly numb. After the initial
grief of waking he had sunk into suspension, doing what had to be
done without thinking about it, moving slowly, unconscious of the
passing of time.

Webb leaned on his own shovel and watched the back of
Mondays head.

"Y' figger t' mark it any way?" he said.
"Cross or somethin', maybe." Monday looked up. He passed
his hand across his forehead. "Mark it?" he said. He
frowned and after a moment repeated, "Mark it. No. I know—I
know where she is." He looked at the pile of fresh-turned earth,
the color of a newly plowed field. "She's right—here," he
said.

He turned away his eyes closed.

They walked slowly up the slight: rise to the cabin.
At the porch Monday absently knocked the dirt from his shovel blade,
as though he were returning from any other day's digging. There was a
sharp flash of anguish as he lit the candle inside, a clear, stopped
vision of turning to catch sight of the dangling, shapeless form in
the center of the room. For a long time, every time he lit a candle
it would be there, just at the edge of his sight. He would always be
just on the verge of turning, catching a glimpse . . .

He shook his head and blew out the candle. The house
was already cool, though the sun was not yet down. And it was empty
He went back out on the porch and sat with his back against the wall,
watching the thunderous silent reds and purples of the dying day.

"What d'you want, hoss?" Webb asked him.

"Go away," Monday said. "Leave me
alone."

Silently the two men saddled their horses again and
mounted. Webb sat slumped in the saddle for a moment, frowning down
at the neck of his animal. He guided the horse a few steps until he
was just opposite Monday.

"Listen, coon," he said.

Monday looked away from the sunset and turned to the
old man, his face blank.

"Y'know down t' the coast, there's a two-hump
mountain. Round fifteen miles this side o' Solomon Smith's I hear."

Monday nodded absently. "Saddle Mountain they
call it. Ain't much of a mountain."

"
Reckon t' take a look at 'er anyways,"
Webb said.

Monday nodded again.

"
Y'understand?" Webb demanded. "This
nigger's headin' down there."

"All right," Monday said indifferently.

The old man sat quietly for a moment, looking at
Monday. Then he clucked to his horse and turned off on the trail,
Devaux riding silently beside him.

Monday turned his attention back to the setting of
the sun, watching the shifting colors and the changing shapes of
clouds without interest. When the colors had faded and there remained
no more than a thin, copper-green stain in the western sky, he got up
slowly and went back into the cabin. Mechanically he kindled a fire
in the fireplace and watched the yellow flames begin to work at the
wood.

He went to the cooler below the floor in the rear and
fumbled around among the paper-wrapped packages until his fingers
touched the cold smooth surface of the bottle. He brought it back to
the table and sat down. For a minute he stared at the growing fire,
motionless. Then with a sudden gesture he yanked the cork out of the
bottle and tilted it up, letting the raw fire burn his throat and
savoring the pain of it. He put the bottle back down, blinking to
clear his eyes.

"That's all," he said to the fire. "There's
nothin' more to take away.

The fire flared and he
watched it uninterestedly. After a while he put his head down on his
arms and began to weep.

***

It seemed not grief so much as utter emptiness. A
great vacuum had been made in the world, and the world did not
acknowledge its existence. Night came and the stars came out, and
somewhere in the sky the moon was riding, tonight a pale sliver
slipping through the blackness. "Fingernail moon," she
called it. Was that Shoshone? Or had she made it up? Now he would
never know. There were many things he would never know now, all the
answers to the questions he had not thought to ask. There was always
time tomorrow for the forgotten questions of today. Until time ceased
suddenly. and it was too late to ask.

In the tiny lagoon by the river, a log lay half
beneath the water, great bulbous eyes peering about at the world, a
thick voice croaking in the night. A doe drank placidly at the beach,
her forelegs in the water. She shook the droplets from her muzzle,
sparkling in the moon, looked around her, and bent to drink again.
Small animals rustled in the brush.

Too late for questions now, and in any event there
were few enough answers. The ultimate answer was always the same;
absence.

Nothingness. Emptiness. There was now no reason to do
anything. To light the fire was futile; it burned the wood and was
gone. A man ate and his body used the food and it too was gone,
having served no purpose but to keep him alive enough hours to find
more food. An endless cycle of inutility, without reason, cause, or
outcome.

A raccoon hunched silent by the river, puzzling at
the bright and tantalizing image of the moon that wavered before it,
infinitely attracting, infinitely mysterious in its shining. The
raccoon looked around, black eyes bright and searching.

It was all over now. Hollowness, the ringing
emptiness and gray cycle of day on day, planting, harvesting so you
may survive the winter to plant and harvest again, under the cold
indifferent sky.

By the lagoon a snake waited patiently, moving
silently from time to time toward the frog's hoarse croaking. The
raccoon tentatively reached out one fine and agile paw to touch the
surface of the flickering moon. Shrews darted from their tree-root
nests and foraged in the night with the terrible voracity of hunger.
Owls flew.

2

Night emptied itself into the ocean. The eastern sky
stretched thin and pale across the endless forest, and in time was
visited by a hollow sun that climbed the day in a furious masquerade
of life. Night passed; day came. The animals of darkness sought
shelter in the dawn silence,
and the animals
of light blinked at the world.

Monday woke, remembering, and stood suddenly at the
table. The fire was out. He sat back down again, resting his head on
his arms, as he had slept. After a while he rose and went outside,
not noticing the light except as absence of a darkness that had
existed before. He walked down the slope toward the river and the
blackberry patch. There was no one there. The little pile of dirt
rested inert in the dawn, dark from the moistness of the night.
During the day it would dry again, becoming light gray, and then the
night wetness would come again, making it dark. Summer would end in a
flurry of rain that wet it down, and the leaden sky of winter would
press it, flatten it, and when the spring came again grasses would
begin to grow. Another summer, another fall—perhaps there would be
clear, bright days in fall—and another
winter
. . .