The Bleeding Man (6 page)

He went home late
that morning, very, very drunk. In the morning, the last part of the night, the fatalness of his
mistakes was apparent to him. He was no Charlie Droble and he knew that the decision that Droble
had made was an easy one compared to the one he knew he would have to make. Couldn't help but
make.

But home in his
own cabin, watching her and the boy eating, washing their food as was her custom, he found that
he did not have the strength to do it. He remembered back to the time before his people had
caught up with him. Had she ever really held him tenderly? Was it his imagination that had built
her into a person, into a human being? Perhaps she was a fabrication, a cold, emotionless
creature he had shaped with his imagination and his great need into more than what she really
was. She had never told him that she loved him, for there was no way for her to communi­cate
that, to tell him that. But he had always assumed it, hadn't he? Hadn't the care, the
expressionless but gentle caring for the boy convinced him of that?

The winter came,
and with it a deep gloom that set­tled over the little cabin. There was no help for him­self,
Gantry knew. He was committed to her, to his son, and he .could not sever those ties. She in her
strange way sensed his great sorrow, and whether com­prehending its source or not, seemed to
spend more time with the boy, less time with him, a thing that Gantry experienced with a kind of
relief. He had found himself very critical of her lately, found him­self very quick to notice
faults in her, faults that had never seemed obvious to him before.

The meteor shower
had lasted two days, longer than any other shower he ever remembered. He sat at the table eating
his food, lost in the kind of misery that comes over a child forced to stay inside when it rains
and there's nothing to do. He kept running it over and over in his mind, kept staring at them as
they ate their meal, washing each bite of food first. The day before, the boy had said his first
word. He had sensed it, had sensed that the boy was beginning to take on her per­sonality even
though the boy seemed to look a great deal like him. He had understood that first word of his and
it was one of her language and not his.

It was funny how
that bothered him the most. That the child would speak her words and not his. And it came to him,
then, it came to him like a painful tear­ing sound, and he knew that he could not save himself.
He knew he could not save her. There was no hope for her. No hope for him. There was nothing that
could be done. Out the window he could see the shells of houses going up at the edge of his land,
houses wait­ing till the summer and the right time to build them. His people had caught up with
him.

He got up from the
table slowly, his food untouched, and he moved toward them. She knew what was to happen and in
that unreadable face, he found the knowledge of what he was about to do. He lifted the boy away
from the mat on the floor and cradling him against his chest, turned and walked back to the
table. She sat motionlessly in the corner and in that moment he knew, he finally knew she was
capable of emotion, that she had feelings of her own.

He pulled a chair
up beside his and sat the boy gently down upon the chair. He turned to her, and without a word
she knew that the boy's place would hereafter be at the table, she knew it by the sad,
un­relenting look on his face.

He took a piece of
bread and put it unwashed into the boy's mouth. And then he heard it, and turned to look at her.
Her face was turned away, her shoulders motionless.

But he heard it
and this time knew what it was. That melodious, birdlike sound, the way the creatures of Kingane
cried, the sound the creatures of Kingane made when they were dying.

But he had his
back hardened against it and would not relent, having made the judgment for the boy. But after
the way of his own kind, his shoulders shook and he made the harsh, broken rasping sound, the way
the creatures of Earth cried, the sound the creatures of Earth made when they were
dying.

Great-grandfather
stared at his gift with a sharply critical eye. Great-grandmother gnashed her teeth like she
always did when great­grandfather was about to make a social error.

"This tobacco
stinks!" said great-grandfather. He held the pouch away from his nose. "As usual, my cheap
great-grandson has shown his respect by bring­ing me cheap tobacco."

Great-grandmother
kicked great-grandfather in the shin, as she had been doing in such instances as long as she
could remember. Not that it did any good. Great-grandfather had grown old and independent and it
took something of the magnitude of an earthquake to change his ways.

Great-grandson
sighed. He knew that no matter what kind of tobacco he brought or how much it cost,
great-grandfather would always say it was cheap.

"You are looking
well, great-grandfather," he said.

"A fat lot you
know!" said great-grandfather irritably.

"It's the vapors.
It gets him in the back," said great-grandmother. "And he hasn't got enough sense to come in when
the cold clouds are out. Not him. He stands out in bad vapors and rain looking for a demigod or
trying to remember where he's supposed to be, as if one burial rack didn't—"

"Some day your
tongue will go crazy and beat you to death!" roared great-grandfather.

Great-grandmother
gave her great-grandson a sym­pathetic look and shrugged.

"How are the white
people treating you in away-school?" asked great-grandfather. He shifted his posi­tion upon the
hard rock so that the sun did not shine directly into his weak, old eyes.

"As badly as
usual, revered one. Those white peo­ple are crazy."

"And what kind of
things are they learning you? Healing arts? Better ways of hunting? Surely these white men are
teaching you many things?" said great­grandfather.

"No,
great-grandfather," answered great-grandson. "They are not teaching me any of those things. I am
learning science. I am learning how lightning is made and what rocks are made of and what stars
are and how fast light travels."

"Spells! Most
excellent! These white people are smarter than I thought. But what was that you said about light
traveling? I have never heard of such a thing! Of what use is it?" great-grandfather
asked.

"They are not
spells," explained great-grandson pa­tiently. "And the traveling of light is
mathematics."

Great-grandfather
nodded his head wisely. "Ah, yes! Mathematics." A shadow darkened his face and he
scowled.

"What the hell is
mathematics?" growled great­grandfather.

"Counting and
measuring. Adding and subtracting the number of things one has," said great-grandson.

"Sending you to
away-school has turned you into a wise nose! Why didn't you say that the first time! Mathematics!
Any fool knows how to count on his fin­gers! You went to away-school to learn a four-dollar word
for counting on your fingers? This is the kind of a thing you are learning?"

"You don't
understand. We learn more than just how to count on our fingers. We've learned how to measure
great distances. For instance, I know how far away the stars are."

Great-grandfather
shook his head. He looked at his wife. They both shrugged. "That is very interesting," said
great-grandfather. "And what is that used for?"

"I don't know,"
admitted great-grandson. "They only told me how far away it is."

"What other kinds
of things have they told you?" asked great-grandmother. "These things sound as crazy as eating
rocks."

"Well, I have
learned that man was once an ape, that the earth flies in the air around the sun and that when
people die their bodies rot and their souls go to heaven. Also I learned that—"

Great-grandfather
jumped off the rock. "What? What?" he shouted. "What is this craziness! Has my great-grandson
fallen upon his head too many times!"

Great-grandmother
tried to quiet great-grandfather down but he jumped around like a frightened horse. He paced back
and forth, cursing loudly.

"They also told me
the Great Spirit is superstition," said great-grandson.

"What is this
superstition?" roared great-grandfather. "Is that another of those city funnies you picked up at
away-school? If I wasn't so old I'd flatten you with a rock! I never heard such
foolishness!"

"But
great-grandfather," protested great-grandson, "I am only telling you what they are teaching me at
away-school. It isn't my fault that the white people are all crazy. They even told me that it was
impossible to talk with people after they are dead."

"They have 
gone  too  far!"  shrieked  great-grand-father. "They have gone too far!
There will be no more away-school!"

Great-grandfather
beat his scrawny chest with his fists in a defiant gesture which sent him into a fit of
coughing.

Great-grandmother
patted him on the back as his face swelled up and turned red.

She looked
disgusted. "You shouldn't have told him all those terrible things," she said, pounding
great­grandfather's back vigorously. "You know this happens every time he gets upset."

Great-grandson
looked properly apologetic and helped great-grandmother sit him back on his favorite sitting
rock. The coughing fit passed, leaving great­grandfather weak and gasping for breath.

"It's the vapors,"
said great-grandmother. "If he had enough sense to come in out of the—"

Great-grandfather
scowled so ferociously that she stopped speaking. She knew when she was well off.

"No more!" gasped
great-grandfather between gasps. "No more away-school!"

"But
great-grandfather," the boy protested. "I will be arrested and thrown into the white man's jail
if I do not go to away-school."

The old man folded
his arms across his chest. He raised his head, tilting it at a defiant angle. He sucked his
scrawny stomach in and pushed his thin chest out. It was his warrior's stance, which had once put
fear into the hearts of many a comely woman. When great­grandfather did this, it meant that his
mind was made up. It meant that there would be no further discussion. It meant that there would
be no more away-school. It also meant another coughing spell for great-grand­father, who was
always forgetting his condition.

Great-grandmother
began whacking him on the back again with the practiced ease of one who has done it many hundreds
of times. She sighed. "He never learns."

"Or else he never
remembers," suggested great-grandson.

Great-grandmother
shook her head wearily. "I think it is a little of both," she said.

The letter from
away-school came three weeks later. The boy carried the letter to his great-grandparents. "I told
you they were going to throw me into the slammer if I didn't go to away-school," he said after
reading them the letter. The letter said they were going to throw him into the
slammer.

Great-grandfather
started to go into his warrior's stance but the old woman had anticipated that very thing and she
whacked him in the back before he could get a decent start at it. He was taken completely by
surprise and fell forward off his favorite sitting rock. This saved him from another coughing
spell.

"What happens is
that they are going to come and get me and throw me in the slammer," said great-grandson, looking
unhappy about the whole thing.

"Something will
have to be done about this thing," said the old man solemnly from his seat upon the
ground.

"I will not take
this thing lying down." He got up as if he meant it literally and started to sit back down on his
favorite sitting rock. His dim eyes betrayed him and he almost sat down on
great-grandmother.

"The rock is two
feet to your left," said great-grand­mother.

"I knew that all
along," said great-grandfather in­dignantly. "I was only trying to get you to guess my
weight."

He moved over to
the rock, stared at it carefully, judging its exact location, and sat down. He missed the rock by
three inches.

"It is good to sit
upon the ground once in a while," reflected the old man as he rubbed his hip. "It gives a man a
whole new perspective on things."

Great-grandmother
snickered to herself. In an aside to the boy, she said, "Boy! He's in lousy shape, ain't
he?"

It was but one day
later that great-grandson rushed up to his great-grandparents. "They've come," he cried, gazing
over his shoulder fearfully. There was a loud whining noise from the direction from which he had
just come. Great-grandfather was asleep in the sun with his mouth open. He jumped awake, thinking
he had been shot. He felt all over his chest, not that it would have made any difference in his
condition.

"Who? What?" he
said.

"The white men
have come to throw your one and only great-grandson into the slammer!" shouted
great-grandson.

Great-grandfather
yawned and closed his eyes again. "That's nice," he said. "I always liked buffalo sou—" He was
asleep again.