He went to bed with all lamps blazing and all guns loaded, his usual after-dinner deployment, and he slid beneath his quilt with his shotgun lying lengthwise beneath his pillow, his hand on the stock. He didn’t trust the night. The day he didn’t mind, but the night, and the house, and the dogs, and the dark, and the tree, that hideous malignant, lifeless tree—he didn’t care for it, any of it.
Somewhere near midnight he fell asleep. And somewhere beyond it, in both time and clutch, he awoke, as alert as if he’d never been asleep, his eyes and ears straining, his mouth as dry as salt. Something was amiss, the night wriggling like a rained-up worm. Outside, in and about the snow and the dark, where fancies dangled and fear hung over the starched snow in rolling mists, something was coming to pass.
He threw off his quilt, both his feet hitting the floor simultaneously, never feeling the cold, his finger dislodging the safety on his shotgun, freeing both barrels to blow if but an ant breathed upon the trigger.
He went about extinguishing every lantern, the darkness offering no obstacle to his movements, his memory of every item’s placement in the house serving him as effectively as radar. He bellied across the floor to a window too frosted to allow him vision until he rubbed a clear circle on a center pane and peeked out, like an urchin nose-pressing against a rich man’s Christmas window.
It was a bear, the biggest he’d ever seen in any zoo, book or dream, standing straight up in the blue-gray nether fog, looking squarely at him, measuring him, staking him out. Austin immediately assumed it to be the mate of the bear that Benson had dispatched, and he wanted to tell the bear of his innocence, that it wasn’t he who had done the killing—he had only done the running.
It crossed his mind what Ara had told him about Benson—that “a bear got ’im.” Had she been anywhere near the truth? Was this that same bear? And could a bear think like that, and search out the very people and the very place implicated in the killing of its mate? Worse than anything else was Austin’s sudden stark realization that none of his windows was shuttered.
He estimated the bear to be eight or ten feet tall, okay for a kodiak or a grizzly, but how in hell could a brown or a black grow so large? Considering the beast’s size, he didn’t want to rely solely on his shotgun. One of his rifles would serve him better, the .30-.06. No, the Winchester. No, both of them—and he removed them both from their pegs and held them alongside his shotgun. He had three guns at the ready and wondered how to position them. Should he take them out onto his porch and start shooting, not waiting for the bear to make its move? Or should he sweat it out and hope that the bear would go away, because perhaps it was a different bear, or an indifferent bear, or a stupid bear with a lousy memory. One thing it wasn’t was a hibernating bear. It wasn’t asleep and it wasn’t drowsy. Austin looked again and it wasn’t even there.
He went quickly to a window on the opposite side of the house—it wasn’t there either. He looked through his remaining windows, all of them, and the bear was nowhere in sight.
And then he heard it. The bricks in his fireplace, trembling and complaining as if in an earthquake, chunks of dislodged mortar spewing and scattering about his hearth. The bear was on the roof. It had gone up the small hill behind the house, and from there it was an easy enough matter for it to rumble over onto the roof.
And it was up there like Kong, shaking the chimney while bellowing its displeasure, the roar coming loudly into the house, magnified a hundredfold by the flue which served as a megaphone. The chimney was breaking apart, the entire house vibrating around it, smoke and dust curling across the floor. The beast on the roof, if unchecked, was going to bring everything down.
Austin moved quickly, forgetting even to slip into his boots. Opening his door slowly, carrying his shotgun and both rifles, he ran into the shifting mists, leaving his house far enough behind so that when he turned to look he would have a good enough angle of his roof and his chimney—and the bear.
The light was not good, the moon showing no interest in that particular night. Still, he could see the bear throttling the chimney maniacally, swatting at it, knocking the top row of bricks every which way, like dominoes. And he could hear it roaring, though it didn’t seem a noise that a bear might make. It was something else, some kind of bestial caterwauling, more in tune with a nightmare than with reality.
Positioning himself too quickly, he half knelt and fired the Winchester, the recoil knocking him flat on his pajamaed bottom. The rifle shot exploded the night, blowing it apart as if it had body, and a thousand birds, dislodged from their nests, screamed at the intrusion, and God only knew how many animals were triggered into frantic running.
He threw the Winchester aside and grabbed the .30-.06, firing it quickly, for the bear was still a standing target, though it couldn’t be counted on to stay that way for long. The discharge of that weapon, as loud and as offensive as the first, did not cause nearly half the hubbub, the night creatures already jolted from their activities apparently not anxious to reveal their hastily sought-out hiding places.
The bear was still on the roof, still upright, turning its massive head this way and that, making its calculations as to how it was going to deal with whatever was out there in the snow. If either of Austin’s rifles had hit home, it had done so with little effect, and he shuddered at the consequences of such a result.
The light was miasmic, endowing nothing with an outline that could be properly defined against the wallowing mists. There were no straight lines, no crisp silhouettes, just an absence of specificity, even trees and hills merging in a soft-focus shroud, even the sharp geometry of the house rounded off like an igloo. But he could see the bear, for it was the only thing other than the fog that was rolling. It had dropped to all fours and was barreling down the sloping roof, making straight for him.
He reflex-fired his shotgun, emptying both barrels at the catapulting form that passed over his head. And in the same instant, in the same motion, he raced back for his house, across the porch and through the open doorway. Bolting the door and standing with his back against it, he braced for the bear should it be of a mind to follow. And even as he did he wondered how many times he would have to play that scene before the big director in the sky would yell, “Print!”
But the bear did not come, and outside it turned silent again, not even the nagging owl wishing to announce its presence from a safe limb above it all.
Austin felt a sliver of fear, for he had left all his weapons out there in the snow. He still had his .44, but a fat lot of good that would do him against a creature still alive after having been gunned by two rifles and a double-barreled twelve-gauge shotgun. He was certain that he had hit the bear all four times he pulled the triggers—with the shotgun for sure, in the underbelly, since the bear hadn’t cleared his head by much more than a foot. As to the quality of his marksmanship, in service he had consistently won sharpshooter medals, and if he had missed the bear with one of the rifles, there was no way in which he could have missed with both.
He looked through one of the windows flanking his door. And there was no bear. Nothing out there in the snow but his three guns. But that had to be impossible. If the bear had been hit even slightly, he’d have been so enraged that he’d have ripped off the front door or come crashing through the window. And if he had been wounded more than slightly, he’d still be out there, lying in the snow. And if he had managed to dodge both bullets and all the buckshot, he’d be out there ready to do what he’d come there to do in the first place. And yet—no bear.
One thing was certain, Austin was not going to be suckered into going outside to look. A bear might be churlishly benign at first glance, cute and cuddly; but wounded and angered, it was an adversary that even a pack of wolves might steer clear of. As to his guns, he’d get them in the morning—after first making certain that the bear was nowhere around, and that included the roof.
He lit a lamp and checked about the house. It was a mess around the fireplace. Soot, stones, rust, bits of brick
, chunks of mortar all lay about the floor as if a boulder had struck the roof. He’d clean it up in the morning. He’d do everything in the morning. All he was going to do that night was what he usually did at night—not sleep.
18
He did sleep, not a helluva lot and certainly not well, but he did manage to crank out enough of it to not die from the lack of it. And in the morning, upon breaking free from Morpheus, he found his room sunstreaked and warm, the sun having rediscovered his windows and the fire having lasted the night.
But the room looked to have been bulldozed, its fine oak floor strewn with unidentifiable debris that the chimney had upchucked the night before. Austin rather liked it, for the sight of it was evidence that the bear had happened, that it had not been something he had fantasized like so many other off-center events of the last few days.
No matter, it all had to be cleaned up and set straight—and that included his bearskin rugs, which then housed more dirt than the bears themselves had accrued in their lifetimes. He found it upsetting to look at the lifeless hides, so thin and worn, and torn in spots and crackly dried of animation, for those same skins, motheaten trophies of some long-forgotten hunt, had once hosted tons of power, had encased a menacing combination of anger and sinew the likes of which, all too recently, Austin himself had seen in terrible action. How placid and feeble the once beasts, how pitiful an end—throw rugs for puny man.
The morning birds were at it outside, picketing his house, insisting on crumbs, scolding squirrels. It could only mean that the bear was gone, off on some windy ridge or foraging about in some deep hollow, scrounging for nuts, nuzzling for insects.
Austin dressed and went out to gather up his guns, which lay in the snow like remnants of Little Big Horn. He cleaned them and oiled them, and saw to it that they were properly loaded and hung ready on their pegs. That done, he tucked the .44 inside his belt and, as he had intended to do the day before, set out for his postbox. He went back for the Winchester because, in light of everything that had happened, it seemed prudent to have it with him always. Hanging from his hand, it made a straight line with the snow as he walked.
There was blood in the snow but no bear in the area because rabbits and partridge would know of such a presence, and the ones he saw were clearly undisturbed, though eye-dartingly alert.
The bear was wounded, that much was apparent. How badly wounded and how soon it might return he had no way of knowing. Soon enough was a fair enough guess. The blood appeared at imprecise intervals, spotting over half the length of one of his snow trenches before angling up and out. From there it trailed up a rise that led unerringly north. That was where the bear had gone, north, over the hill behind the house. And somewhere beyond the limits of his vision, Austin could almost see it—licking its wounds, harboring its rage, biding its time.
He semicircled the witch’s tree, for he didn’t want to see it or mess with it. In so doing he found himself passing through the birches to where the snow witch stood. He angled away from that too, sidestepping the wicked animation of its flapping cape and the evil fascination of its sightless eyes.
He wondered why he had gone that way at all, since it was hardly the most direct route to the road—probably some lunatic compulsion to frighten himself. All he wanted to do was get to his postbox and back to his house, and in record time. He’d rather not be doing it at all, but he wanted that pencil and paper, and if there was something from Jack Meeker he wanted that too.
The postbox stuck up out of the snow sea like a buoy, Austin able to pick it out long before reaching it. And all the way to it he was aware that it wasn’t the pencil and paper he wanted, or a package of assorted foodstuffs with a chummy note attached—it was some evidence, some proof, that Jack Meeker was alive and well and living in Belden.
He had been suppressing that lingering “on-the-edge” feeling since Ara first told him of the big man’s death. He had deliberately not thought about it, purposefully avoided tackling it—because he suspected that it might be true. And if it were true, it could only portend further bad news for Austin Fletcher, who was, frankly, not making it—not really, not alone in the wild, brother to the wind and cousin to the sky. He was more a stepchild to the loon and an orphan of the storm.
It went beyond apprehension. It went all the way to terror—and never, not even in combat, had he ever known terror. He wanted Jack Meeker back on the scene because he needed him, as an aide and a confidant and a bulwark. And if he couldn’t get it, then “To hell with you, Maynard—I’m leaving.”
He set his rifle against a tree, removed his glove and reached into the postbox. It was like plunging his hand into a mausoleum. It was that damp and dreadfully moribund.
“Nothin’ in there.”
He wheeled to see her standing not ten feet away. Ara. How could he not have noticed her?
She was smiling, so pretty in her woolen cap, her hair spilling out from under, her hands on her hips as she scolded him sweetly. “Gonna shoot me, Austin?”
His rifle was leveled at her. It had done that by itself. He lowered it sheepishly. “Where’d you come from?”
“I been here. Behind this tree.”
“Hiding?”
“I guess. Wasn’t sure ya’d be happy to see me.”
He was so glad to see her that he could have swept her up, carried her off and holed up with her till Easter. “I’m happy to see you.”
“Nothin’ in the box, Austin.” She had said it again, reiterating, making her point all too plainly.
“You looked.”
“A-yuh.”
“You knew I’d be coming here.”
“Sooner or later.”
“Wasn’t there a pencil and a note pad in the box?”
“There was.”
“What happened to it?”
“Froom took it for his mathematics.”
Austin looked off and saw Froom, on a snowy rise, holding the reins of his sled, mercifully calm. “Well—I’m sure he’ll give it back to me if I ask him.”
“No, he won’t. He never gives nothin’ back. Anything he takes, he keeps. That’s his way.”
“Someday somebody’s goin’ to punch him out.”
“Have to catch him first.”
“Oh, I’ll bet he’s not so fast without that sled.”
“In the summah we use a wagon. What’re ya expectin’, Austin? In the box, I mean?”
He didn’t want to answer. Answering would involve him in a subject he plainly didn’t want to discuss with her. “Oh—I just come by as a matter of course. Part of my routine.”
“Ya lookin’ for a package from Mr. Meeker.”
“Right. Did you take it?”
“Nope.”
“Froom?”
“Nope.”
“Well, it doesn’t seem to be here. Maybe tomorrow—”
“Won’t be there tomorrow, Austin. Won’t be there ever.”
“You’re sure of that.”
“A-yuh.”
He became immediately annoyed, as if she’d pressed a button that said, “Annoy Austin.” “Listen, Ara, don’t you think it’s time you—”
She didn’t let him finish. Instead, she thrust a newspaper into his hand. The weekly, from Millinocket. “Best ya read it.”
He didn’t want to read it. He wanted to hand it back to her because he knew what was in it. And he was right. It was the headline story and had a photo of Jack Meeker to it, the big man at his desk, on duty, serving the people of Belden, proud and pleased to do so.
JACK MEEKER DIES IN FIRE
SUDDEN BLAZE IN BELDEN DEPOT HOUSE CLAIMS LIFE OF STATIONMASTER
On Saturday last, Jack Meeker, a town fixture as both Stationmaster and postmaster, lost his life in a flash fire that swept through the Belden train station, leveling it to the ground and…
“Sorry, Austin.”
There was more to the story, the details, but Austin couldn’t bring himself to read it, his hands so unsteady that they could barely hold the
newspaper. “How do they know it was him?”
“It was him.”
“Bodies get…charred. Sometimes beyond recognition.” He was grasping at straws, pushing away the truth. He knew it but had to give it a try, it was all so awfully unacceptable.
“It was him.”
“How do they know?”
“Because he wasn’t burnt. Beam dropped on him. Norm Parker pulled him out, but his back was broke. It’s all in there, Austin. He was already gone. I’m really sorry.”
Austin was not surprised at the news. He had expected it. No, he knew it. “He was my friend.” He knew it when she first told him, all his protests at the time being tantamount to a blind man insisting that he could see.
“Kind of was everyone’s friend.”
“He saved my life. He got me here. I’d never have made it without him.”
“Ya would’ve.”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Ya would’ve.”
He flared. “How come you’re always so goddamned certain about everything? You’re always so certain!”
“I’m only certain about things that’re certain. You’d’ve made it.”
“There a funeral?”
“Funeral was.”
“Things sure happen fast up here.”
“A-yuh.”
“Seems they buried him almost before he’s dead.”
“Seems.”
“Okay—now tell me about Benson. How come he’s not written up in the paper? Didn’t you tell me he was dead, too?”
“A-yuh.” She took the newspaper from him and turned it to a page more nearly in the middle. Then, pointing to where he was to read, she handed it back to him and looked away, kicking snow with her boot tip, trying to not be there.
Maynard’s House Page 17