by Michael Oren
Like the mule before them, they appeared deranged. Eyes bulging, bodies twitching, their mouths no longer instruments for communicating but caves from which ghostly wheezes rose. No sense could be made of their stammering, not even by Crow, our Shoshone scout. Yet one word kept repeating itself, and that barely intelligible.
Maxemista, or so it sounded. Maxemista, the redskins babbled, which Sgt. Moriarty, also present at the interrogation, promptly Hibernicized into MacMaster. The name caught on with the men, and I confess to likewise citing MacMaster when addressing them. Intimately, in my own mind, though, I recalled long ago one of my father’s lengthy lessons. From the Greek, cited in Plato’s Symposium. Metaxis.
Do not, Sir, conclude that by drawing on this text I, in any way, wish to flaunt my classical education. My father, a beacon of our faith, countenanced nothing else outside of Scripture. Later, seeking asylum from those bonds in the ranks of another, exchanging preacher black for martial blue, I would gladly have bartered my learning for some such as yours, gleaned at the Academy. Yet there is little escape from notions implanted in the cradle. So, Metaxis it remained and thus shall persist throughout this dispatch as it recounts what subsequently ensued from the woods.
Animals—deer, boar, even an elderly she-bear—all frothing, limbs a-jerk, skittered forward. Their manifest aim was the Skookum River immediately to our rear, to salve their frenzy or drown it. Pvt. Keaton ensured that none reached the banks, much less this post, with numerous well-aimed balls. The sole survivors were three execrable squaws who arrived clutching their papooses, teetering and sputtering those same inscrutable syllables which the troops once again rendered MacMaster and their commander, discretely, Metaxis.
So it continued for well over a month, each day yielding aberrant processions. I had no choice but to double the watch with muskets loaded and primed. Respectful of the days’ exertions, I retired early but in full battle dress with nothing but a brazier and bottle as solace. I lay listening to the roof beams crackle under the weight of the snow and the wind which, howling, can drive even mountain men berserk. Proof of that arrived one moonless February night when my solitude was once again interrupted.
Another figure was approaching the stockade, reeling and shrieking. A bison, it seemed, at first inspection, but at closer range was discerned to be a man. A trapper, if such can indeed be called a man for he, alone among the Lord’s creation, is devoted to the killing, skinning, and fleshing of fellow beings solely for the pleasure of those who shall never know the carnage involved or the loathsome ogres committing it. Though often hearing of such hunters, I rarely laid eyes on one myself and then only fleetingly. Their custom was to bypass the post and ford the Skookum to Blackstone, there to trade their pelts for victuals and liquor, powder and chaw, and spend the remainder at establishments off-limits to my soldiery. This trapper was headed not for Blackstone, though, nor even for the Skookum. He limped, rather, right up to the gates and with unquotable indelicacy ordered them opened.
A horned man, fittingly, but one whose cornets fell along with his buffalo robe once he was warmed by our fire. That light illumed a specimen of indescribable filth, char-fingered and yellow-toothed, his beard a gallery of all that he had eaten or spewed. The hides he wore were of such a state as would scandalize their original owners. Only his eyes showed signs of humanity and those, through red-rims and rheum, appeared to have glimpsed the inhuman.
Inquiring of his name and the whereabouts of his weapon, I learned that Filkins dwelt in the barrens beyond Hoatson’s Gulch and there remained his piece, his bear’s claws and snares, none of which were of any use. Not against that. Defining what that meant, however, required further probing, lubricated by stew and long draughts of rum.
That, Filkins, plate and flagon trembling, admitted, was like nothing I never gandered ‘fore, not nigh thirty years in these here hills. Neither man nor beast but something betwixt and bigger, a behemoth. Hair, fangs, and hunger but not for food, Filkins said, but for the butchering of it. For what it killed, it left to rot, with neither meat nor pelage taken, and the dead no longer recognizable as once living. No carcasses just…muck. Without a roar or the softest growl, nothing to warn its victims, only a trail of viscous liquid the color of pus and a breath like hellish zephyrs.
Harkening to this tale, as yet remaining speechless, I glanced in Sgt. Moriarty’s direction. That strong-jawed face, unschooled but wise, and projecting a power I often envied, fathomed my meaning at once. MacMaster, he said aloud, and I must have murmured Metaxis for Filkins’s utensils at once clattered to the floor. Skeletal hands groped for his robe and his head, too, looked skull-like, stripped and blanched by fear. His eyes, reflecting the flames, blazed terror.
Howell, he stammered. Howell, the spelling of which is my conjecture, another recluse of his ilk but more isolated yet, setting his traps above Hoatson’s Gulch, in the barrens where no white man ever hazarded, nor red man either. Caracal Canyon, mountain folks called it, though never penetrating it themselves. Too many bobcats, Filkins claimed, chasms and deadfalls. Only Howell, deprived of Christian name and any civil intercourse, remained, season after season, alone. Surely now, though, he would have company and of the most abominable sort. Save him, General, Filkins pleaded, woefully inflating my rank. Save him while ye kin.
The sergeant and I again exchanged expressions. A solitary question seized our minds: to what extent our duty? Situated on the banks of the Skookum, protecting the civilians within its bend, our redoubt was not designed with rescue in mind and certainly not of the nature suggested by Filkins. Yet thinking of that sinkhole, as I often did, that denizen of cardsharps and cutpurses, rapscallions and curs; thinking of Blackstone, like a sluice gate collecting the impurities leaking West, I wondered who was protecting whom and from what—the townsfolk from the forest or the wilderness from the wild?
Another exchange with Sgt. Moriarty, no less resolute for its silence, supplied the answer. Thus it transpired, Colonel, that at sunrise the next day, three of my dragoons and five of my foot stood for inspection. The force, I deemed, was more than adequate for our mission, to remove this Howell from any danger and meet all threats, hominid or other. To this end, I placed Moriarty in command, brevetting him to third lieutenant, and included Pvt. Keaton, the marksman, in his party. In addition to caplock rifles and pistols, carbines and swords, the detail bore the redoubt’s deadliest ordnance—a blunderbuss which, though antique, expended canister with withering impact.
From the stockade I watched as, through the enveloping mist, Crow guided the expedition toward the tree line. From there it would follow the Nonoma Trace to Hoatson’s Gulch and, from there, up the mountain passes to the canyon. Duties required me to remain at the redoubt, otherwise I would have gladly ridden at the head. Nevertheless, I remained sanguine that the troop would return well before drawing its full week of rations. Of the forty cartridges in each man’s pouch, none, I reckoned, would be fired.
For whether we called it MacMaster or Metaxis, such fantastical creatures did not, in fact, exist. Of that I was certain. Tethered from birth to two traditions, the Christian and the classical, revelatory and rational, I elected for the latter, much to my father’s distress. Logic can lead to a better life, Agathon, he lectured me, but God alone admits you to Heaven. Right though he was, alas, dreams of paradise have little place in a presidio or barracks nor, I imagine, on the battlefield, and even less on this frontier where detachment from reality can prove fatal. No, phantasms and reveries are luxuries reserved for our countrymen back home, secure before their hearths and pulpits. Here, there is only survival and death and the thinnest string dividing them. In the mountains, I knew, there was a grizzly on the loose or a masqueraded shaman, a medicine man turned murderous by his peyote. Mexican bandits, French marauders—numerous candidates arose—rather than incubi and spirits. Whether ursine or outlaw, this Metaxis was assuredly mortal.
Firm in that conviction, I listened daily for the sentry’s bell and at night fre
quented the stockade, with glass to eye searching for the troopers’ return. Yet there was only the mist, pierced here and there by conifers, and the hoots and caws of the forest. Seven days passed and as many sleepless nights, and still not a token. With nearly two weeks gone, I had no choice but to contemplate mounting a search. Before I could, though, one evening whilst reading my Plato, a singular commotion aroused me. Hastening out to the compound, I beheld the ghastliest sight.
Crow, or who I presently deduced was Crow, appeared at first as a blood-soaked totem, torn and lacerated, with scarcely a patch of unmutilated skin. Lips shredded, nose reduced to a stubble, and his remaining eye staring blank. At once, I sent a rider to Blackstone, there to fetch the doctor who was no doubt lying drunk across some billiards table and who, in any case, was unlikely to arrive in time. In the dwindling hours, perhaps minutes, of his life, our faithful scout must speak.
Laying him before the fire, infusing him from my personal flask, I knelt beside this once stalwart brave. Courageous he remained, mustering his terminal breaths to relate the details of the expedition’s end. His gasping echoed my own.
Through Nonoma Trace and then up Hoatson’s Gulch, the company passed without incident, not even encountering predators. Indeed, the entire forest seemed divested of life, with neither wolves nor deer nor pronghorns in evidence, as if driven off by scourge. No lynx observed the soldiers’ ascent into Caracal Canyon, though Crow sensed they were being followed. Something, someone amid the height-stunted trees, behind the snaggletooth rocks, this Howell, perhaps. Testaments to a trapper’s presence soon surfaced, in the form of stretching hoops and a pot of the beaver brains used for tanning. A streak of purulent liquid and a foul-smelling odor were remarked upon, but of the man himself, no sign.
It came, Crow panted, fast. I lifted his head toward mine and peered into that surviving eye. It? The word he uttered sounded like Maxemista or perhaps MacMaster, but it was lost in his subsequent screams. From these, I pieced together a sequence of horrendous shrieks, of horses neighing and men beseeching God, gunshots bursting haphazardly. Only Sgt. Moriarty retained his composure, Crow said, ordering his men into a firing line and commanding Pvt. Keaton to aim straight for the heart, which he did. But it had no heart. No body, either, only fur and fangs and an unquenchable craving to kill. How many? I pressed him, mercilessly shaking that head as the last of the air rattled out of him. He managed one word, All.
There comes a time in any officer’s life, as you, Colonel, undoubtedly know, when circumstances dictate decisions. Mine was made by Metaxis. Without the month it would take to bring reinforcements from your fort, I ordered the bulk of my troops to gird. The others, mostly invalids, would be left behind to man the stockades and appear to guard Blackstone, which had nothing to fear but itself.
At dawn we set out, the undersigned on his trusty roan, followed by dragoons and infantry, all exceedingly armed. Without a scout but guided by the signs of the previous patrol, I led my men into the mist and beyond the tree line, along the trace and past the gulch to the foot of Caracal Canyon. Contrary to the Eden that our transcendental Emerson envisions, or his bright-eyed epigone Thoreau, the forest teems with ravenousness and cruelty, a perdition painted green. This forest in particular. As poor Crow described, no wildlife was observed, nor life of any kind, the snow unbroken by paws. The sky, too, seemed swept of birds, with only the badlands rising above.
As a man, I am not gifted like some, such as you, Colonel, with inordinate courage, and many months’ desuetude strained my uniform’s cut. Yet, at this point in the anabasis, there was no choice but to dismount and lead my troupe on foot. Into the canyon we trekked, single file and disciplined, until we neared the trapper’s camp. The smell was to be expected, of rancid meat, but this stench was especially sinister, and the snow stippled greenish yellow. Unsheathing my sword, I ordered all weapons cocked. Such accouterments were useless, alas, against the nightmare we next encountered.
Blood, deep, clotted pools of it, further thickened with flesh. Call it fiendishness, call it horror, but our language lacks adequate words. A kidney there, and a liver, and an eyeball glaring from the gore, and bones, a great profusion of them, but scrambled. Buttons with eagles, forage caps emblazoned with stars, spurs, bridles, belt buckles, and boots, but not an individual in sight nor anything reconstructible as one.
The slaughter caused the loss of many a soldier’s stomach, but I managed to retain mine, along with the wits to examine the scattered guns. Most had been discharged, among them the blunderbuss, but none appeared to have found a target. The danger, whatever it was, lurked still. I rallied the few not retching and led them, at saber and pistol-point, onward.
Within a stand of junipers, beneath a granite crop, I descried an abandoned camp—or so it at first appeared. Several paces further revealed a figure seated Indian-style and swathed in skins. The usual beaver, of course, but also muskrat, otter, and goat—so many furs that it was difficult to determine where the animals ended and the mountain man commenced. I could distinguish pallid cheeks between his ringtail cap and whiskers, his lavender lips, and extremities turned to ice. Shaking him to consciousness was futile. Yet he breathed still, I saw, and instructed him raised, blanketed, and cross-saddled. I was determined to revive him, Sir, to learn first-hand the gruesome fate befallen my squad, and unveil the identity of Metaxis.
Thus it transpired that the person I assumed was Howell entered our redoubt. I had him berthed in the blockhouse, the warmest of its ramshackle structures and the most secure. Hot food, fresh clothing, and a constant fire were provided him, and a pistol for his own protection. Whatever fortuitous stroke had spared him, there was no telling how long it would last or whether, denied this final victim, with the scent of his blood in its snout, Metaxis might seek him out.
Days passed. I did not summon the doctor, or rather, could not, that vile inebriate having been caught cheating at cards and Bowied in the thorax. Filkins, who might have confirmed whether my guest was in fact his friend, was last seen slumped in one of the town’s saloons and had been thrown insensate into the street. It fell to me to nurse the patient back to health, or at least to intelligibility, depleting my own stock of spirits.
Hope had nearly deserted me when, a week or more later, alone in my quarters, my candle mysteriously snuffed out. Thinking my door ajar, I rose to find it opening to a moonless, windless night and the dusky umbra of thieves. Or what I thought were robbers. Lunging for my sidearm, I aimed and made to pull the trigger. My finger froze, fortunately, at the sound of my name. Pray do not shoot me, Captain Biddle, exclaimed a calm, cultured voice. I’ve come to convey my gratitude.
Into my billet he stepped, in borrowed civilian garb—double-breasted frockcoat, trousers, cravat—cleanshaven and combed, as if attending a soiree. A contemporary of mine, roughly my height, if comelier and trim, and the accent of a fellow Easterner: Howell. Apologizing for nearly drilling him, I pulled up a stool, relit the candle, and offered him my only tin cup. The rest of the night and throughout several pleasant evenings thereafter, I tipped that vessel and sipped from my flask while hearing a most hair-raising tale.
Our origins, I learned, were similar as well. Schooled in Latin and Greek, undiluted except by the Bible, torn between temple and church, Howell also had an imperious father. A man of the cloth, like mine, but a seller of it by the bolt, a merchant of self-hewn accomplishments who expected his son to expand them. Howell, though, wanted a different life, not of serge and crinoline but of manliness and adventure, of freedom. And so, at the age that I forfeited my liberty to the service, he reached for his with gambrels and fleshing tools, headed West and sought out the rockiest mountains. Instead of silk, he now wore rawhide, ate what he shot and commixed with nature as it really was, not recreated in some city park or romanticized in books, cold, hale, and refreshingly brutal.
And lonely, Howell soon discovered. For the rigors of pioneer life, he was thoroughly prepared, but not, as it happened, for solitude. The
interminable days, the even longer nights, with nothing but a coyote’s yelp or eagle’s screeching to call company, the rare encounters with Filkins, and those mostly silent. Thoughts, especially, plagued him, as he gutted the critters he caught, their entrails oozing through his hands. Worse than any carnivore, he ruminated, for he killed not chiefly for food but for profit, and yet what, exactly, still defined him as a man? Gazing at the piles of viscera, he began to suspect he was no longer either beast or homo sapiens, but something less than each.
At this point, Howell might have jettisoned his backwoods dreams, hoisted his pelt packs and traded them in at Blackstone. Instead, he ascended. Higher and higher, he trudged, reaching these craggily summits where the air is slender and treetops dwarfed, and only the lions dare perch. Why? I asked and Howell smiled shyly. He pointed at the Plato laid beside my bunk, touched fingertips to its cracked leather binding. The cave, he whispered, and I at once muttered of course.
Again, Colonel Rutledge, it is not my purpose to impugn your familiarity with certain volumes or to presume what our Academy does or does not teach. I merely want to indicate that, from the outset, Howell and I shared a certain sensibility, an unspoken tongue, if you will. His reference, I gathered, was to Plato’s metaphor of a man held since birth in a cave, who knows only shadows and simulacra and so confuses them with the world. Only when he escapes his confinement and surfaces into the sun does he confront the ultimate Truth. That is what Howell sought at the top of Caracal Canyon, the truth about himself.
All this I learned over the course of several nights of genial conversation and many more cups of brandy. I cannot speak for every man, but I could not help but be drawn to Howell. The fineness of his features, that firmity of chin and fullness of mouth, hair the color of goldenrod, he might have sat for a medieval master, a Holbein or Donatello. His eyes, feline green, exercised particular magnetism. I felt, nonetheless, that these very blessings disguised some internal curse. With the last of my bottles near emptied, the time had come for Metaxis.