The Night Archer

by Michael Oren

  I recounted the entire history, starting with that raging mule, the blathering savages and the half-dead Filkins, culminating in the crimson slurry that was all that remained of my men. Howell nodded knowingly, as though none of this were news, and anticipated my question with his own: You’ve read from the dark bard of Baltimore? Indeed, I confessed, and was grateful to Mr. Poe for vivifying some dreary frontier hours. Then you fear neither the grotesque nor the arabesque. Howell smiled again, inscrutably. Or the malevolent.

  His story began some months ago, in the thickest of winter, with a ferocious attack. Howell was setting one of his traps beside a stream in which he could see his image and suddenly another behind it, but too late. The cougar was upon him, claws and canines sinking into his neck and shoulder. Resisting was useless. Blinded by blood, he collapsed into the water and awaited his demise. His very last thought was Justice.

  Yet then came a second disturbance, more violent still, and the cat released its grip. Through his half-consciousness, Howell sensed a diabolical presence, a power of outrageous scope, but at that point he passed out. Awakening some time later, he rose dripping by the stream and saw the fang-cuts in his cheek. A clavicle was bored as well, but his body was otherwise whole, which was more than could be said for the cougar’s. Eviscerated and split, it lay shredded across several yards. The scene neither gladdened nor disgusted him; rather, shaken and in pain, he dragged himself through the swill and back to his camp, there to minister to his wounds.

  Death did not leave him, though. Suppurating, his injuries prevented him for scrounging for food and exposed him to other carnivores. Each night he dozed, feverish and chilled, expecting to be frozen before daylight or devoured, but then awakened to find his fire refueled and nourishment provided, flayed and disemboweled and ready for his spit. Thus, his health resuscitated but so, too, did his fear. Howell was no longer alone.

  He paused at this point to regain his composure and to accept a cheroot, yet another of my frontier vices. Raising the candle to its tip, I again took stock of his face which was indeed appealing but also, I saw, strained. As if the wear of those desolate months in the woods still weighed on him, and the knowledge of who, or what, had nurtured him back to life. Howell inhaled deeply and blew the smoke, firebreather-like, up to the rafters. His ominous Iliad resumed.

  He never saw it. Or perhaps once, and then only fleetingly, a formless hulk of black, knotted hair which presumably allowed for consumption and sight, though neither mouth nor eyes were indicated. Only a fetor, of which Howell became increasingly aware, and the putrid marks dotting the snow. Of the butchery around him he was ignorant. Not until he regained his mobility and ventured out of camp, not until he came upon the innards and the strewn-about bones, the skulls and sinews, did a grim understanding dawn. An evil was unleashed in the forest around him, ancient and insatiable.

  Yet an evil, he believed, with a weakness, and that foible was none other than him, Howell. With no evidence to adduce other than the food and fire provided during his convalescence, and the fact that he was still alive, he came to suspect that the creature harbored some feelings for him, an ardor, perhaps. Why else would he be succored and spared?

  Why else, indeed? I wondered out loud, and at once regretted it. Howell glowered at me perturbed or worse, incensed, and for the first time I felt my skin prickling. Why, I wanted to press him, did he not descend from the canyon at that point, escape this demon or whatever it was, seek and receive shelter in our fort? Howell seemed to intuit all this, and without being asked, restoring his composure, furnished me with answers.

  He plotted his flight carefully, purposely appearing insouciant, going off to check his traps, replenish bait, & etc. The plan was to wait just before nightfall, the hour when the mountain itself seemed to sleep, to tend to his camp and unfurl his bedding, and slip away in the twilight. He had scarcely concluded these preparations, though, when a gunshot rang through the rocks. Then another, then a great many, followed by what sounded like a cannon. Horrid screams, equine and human, desperate pleas for mercy, and then…silence.

  This is all my fault. That is what Howell thought, standing over my troopers’ remains. The being, if that was what he could call it, was protecting him, but from what? He had no answer, only the thought to remove the object of sentiment. So he squatted cross-legged in the snow, defenseless to the elements, and waited determinedly for death.

  We found him first, though Howell wished we hadn’t. It will not surrender, he said with a desperate pull on his cigar. Its embers glowed luridly, winking in the dwindling light of my billet and exposing eyes narrowed with pain or, perhaps, rage. The brandy was low, the candle almost extinguished, and I sorely desired Howell’s exit. He must have deduced this as well and presently took his leave, but not before once more pointing at my anthology of the first philosopher’s works. Ask Diotima, he whispered. She knew.

  I might have pondered this cryptic remark and found a route to Howell’s decipherment, but as the door creaked closed, leaving me in gloom, I thought only of Metaxis. What if, rather than follow its beloved here, it was, itself, ensconced? What if I, oblivious as any fur-accursed creature, had stumbled into a trap?

  Post haste, I ordered the stockade double-bolted, the blockhouse as well. The reason given was the snowstorm rolling over the mountains, hopefully the season’s last. I battened my door as well, with lock, trunk, and table. Such obstructions would prove feeble, I gathered, should Metaxis choose to gain entry. Still, I huddled in my bunk, in battle dress under my blanket and a loaded Colt beneath my head. I lay there awake and shivering, listening to the tempest yowling.

  Snow, sleet, thunder and flashes, the storm was the winter’s revenge, a parting shot before spring. Limitless hours passed before my door was at last pierced by what I at first took for horns or talons but were soon comprehended as rays. Removing the barricade, I stepped out into a sun not seen for months in these parts, blinding and revealing at once. It was in that truthful light, I realized my foolishness and ran, hands still shielding my eyes, to the blockhouse.

  The door remained locked, I happily discovered, but my relief ended upon entry. A hole slightly bigger than a man had been burst through a back wall leading to another aperture, much larger, in the stockade behind it. No remainder of Howell, not even his pistol. Only that smell, that infernal smell, and a wicked excretion in the snow.

  The trail led straight for Blackstone and my first thought was the same as Howell’s last, Justice. Imagine Metaxis amuck in the flophouses, the bordellos, and watering holes, tearing its ruffians to pieces, purging them from this earth. The image entered my mind and then fled it as I remembered our mission: to defend the townsfolk from harm.

  Tracking Howell was not difficult, even in the melting snow. I had merely to follow my nose, so to speak, to the very banks of the Skookum. Yet there the evidence ceased. Smoke was rising from the chimneys of Blackstone and the settlement looked undisturbed. Like many a crazed animal before him, I reckoned, Howell had chosen to salve his madness and drown it in the river’s depths.

  There was nothing to do but return to the redoubt, to begin writing this dispatch, and wait for the mountains to dry. My intention was to undertake another expedition, more heavily armed if possible, retrieving the effects of the fallen and burying whatever might still be interred. The Ides of March came and vanished, and the mud solidified to earth. Once again, with nary a picket to man the parapets, I set out at the head of my troops.

  Life had returned to the forest, with elk and moose grazing along the trace and eagles circling the gulch. Even the canyon contained signs of the cats for which it was named. Advancing to that summit, I ordered bayonets fixed. If Metaxis was still in the vicinity, we should fight it with every armament, I resolved, with fire and steel and bare knuckles.

  Metaxis did not materialize, providentially, only a hodgepodge of bones. Massive femurs, tibia, and vertebrae, a mandible that might have been a mammoth’s or a whale’s, teeth as long as tusks.
The other remains, to tell by the tatters left by the scavengers that picked them, belonged to Howell. His were jumbled up with the monster’s, melded with them, it seemed, except for the hole blasted in the back of the skull and the pistol still wedged in its jaws.

  Now, bound inside the redoubt, in my quarters with quill in hand, I reluctantly conclude this report. I say reluctantly for it does not contain conclusions. The events described have made me question my appropriateness for this role, to ponder whether I might be more suitable educating in some small Eastern college or, believing in infamy if not rectitude, inheriting my father’s manse. I remember Howell, poor tortured Howell, and the last words I heard him say. Ask Diotima. She knew.

  Their meaning occurred to me that same day, descending the mountain. No sooner dismounted then I rushed to consult my Plato. I found it, perforce, in the Symposium. “What is not fair is not of necessity foul or what is not good is evil,” Diotima tells Socrates. “Love is a great spirit”—a daimon, in Greek—“and like all spirits an intermediate between the mortal and divine.” Diotima, the prophetess of Mantinea, the philosopher of human half-ness and the battle between our bifurcated selves. Of minotaurs and satyrs, centaurs and pans: the never-ending struggle she called metaxis.

  I wish to thank you, Colonel, for the recently received consignment of sugar and coffee, the fourteen barrels of salted pork and the extra drams of rum. While considered commonplace back home, such comestibles, here in this wild, are godsends.

  I am, Sir, respectfully, your obedient servant,

  A. Biddle, Captain

  Day Eight

  And God rose from resting and looked upon the world he created to affirm Himself. Gazing admiringly at its surface, he saw that the heavens and earth remained separated, the seas and the land, all swarming, soaring, and crawling with life. The light was still light. “Great,” He pronounced.

  But, “Not so fast,” warned Satan.

  A gnarly digit pointed toward a certain cave and the creatures dwelling within. Cowering was more like it, naked and reeking, squabbling over rancid scraps and squirming in their own filth. Partaking of flesh for both pleasure and food. The sounds they made—grunts, growls, whimpers—shamed the glory of birdsong, the royal lions’ roar. Even insects had hives and purpose, but not these beings, whose sole objective was to eat, shit, and fornicate throughout this day without a thought for the next. Satan sneered, “Kind of blew that one, didn’t you?”

  God grimaced and the universe crimped. Of his arsenal of floods and thunderbolts, He chose one and prepared to uncreate.

  Yet again, “Why be hasty?” asked Satan. “Perhaps there are things you could do.”

  Clouds rose in curiosity.

  “First, you can give them consciousness. Enable them to distinguish between themselves and the world around them, even from one another. Make them aware of powers greater than theirs. They will know that they are living. They, alone, will know they will die.”

  Galaxies glistened—God’s way of saying, “go on.”

  “Give them hate,” Satan obliged. “So they can fight for reasons other than resources. But grant them also love, the ability to care beyond instinct, not only to nurture but to adore. And with love comes loss. Just watch how these creatures wail once their affections are rejected. See them beg in the face of death. See how, in all their torments, they turn to…”

  Comets curled in question marks.

  “Of course, to you. For help and deliverance. For peace.”

  Convinced, God stretched out His mighty hand to make it happen, but Satan once again stayed it. “Hold on.” Seems he was just warming up.

  “We must also give them fear.” Not of the elements or of wilder animals, but of infinite unknowns. Of humiliation and failure, impotence and infertility. Satan cackled. The list was that delicious. “Of mortality and the meaninglessness of life.”

  If God thought this was over-the-top, that his antithesis—whom He also created—had gone too far, the universe remained silent. The truth was beginning to sink in. Any being so fearful, maddened with hatred and agonized by love, could again appeal only to Him.

  “Wonder at the stars. Guilt at not being one. Longing, suffering, hope!” Satan was in a zone. “Each of them leading to you-know-where.” The same crooked digit pointed upward.

  “And one more thing. A trifle,” Satan lied. “Good and evil.” To understand that the world is not only rocks and mountains, forests and seas, but a range for working out morality. “A testing ground, if you will.” For learning that children are good in a way that rocks are not and pelting them with rocks cannot be. That meeting hate with love is always good but hating love is sinful.

  “In short,” Satan sighed, “we’ll have to give them souls.”

  For in guiding the soul, what better source could there be than the Lord of All Creation? The horizon, in acknowledgement, blushed. God had heard enough. Eschewing floods and thunderbolts, He merely quoted Himself. “And let there be…”

  And there was. As the ninth dawn brightened, the creatures emerged from the cave. Surrounded by others that they now knew to be their neighbors, their mates, and offspring, they covered their nakedness in shame. Freed from memories of squalor, yearning suddenly for Eden, they blinked into the sunlight and threw back their shoulders to the sky.

  “Thank you,” they said in the first words ever spoken. For God had given them those as well, a language to evoke their love and hatred, to express their fears, and to describe both good and evil. A voice for their incipient souls.

  “Thank you,” they sang and, “thank you,” they cried, and God heard their prayers but with difficulty. Drowning them out was a cacophony of birds and the braying of lions, laced with satanic chuckles.

  The Old Osifegus

  “When’re we gonna get there? When’re we gonna get there?” I sang and bounced up and down on the seat, just as I’d seen other kids do on TV. Their moms sometimes got angry with them, but not mine. This was just one of our games—we had a roomful, she said—and instead of yelling at me, she just leaned into the steering wheel and smiled.

  “When are we going to get there, Pickle?” she asked without taking her eyes off the road. “Never.”

  “And how far is never?”

  “Forever and back again.”

  I was still bouncing. “And how far is forever?”

  And so it went for maybe an hour or more every day, until we had to stop for gas or use the bathrooms. We ate, when we ate, good food, Mom promised me, not highway crap. And once in a while we stopped in a place with a real bed, a TV, and one time even a pool that I stayed in for hours. My lips, she said, were bluer than my eyes, if that was possible.

  Otherwise, we kept to the road. Obeying the speed limit and the other rules because the last thing we needed was a ticket. “A ticket to what?” I wanted to joke, “the movies?” but didn’t. One thing was too serious for Mom—the need to stay moving as fast and as far as possible, so it couldn’t catch up with us. The Old Osifegus.

  “Tell me what it is again.”

  “What?”

  “The Old Osifegus.”

  Mom squinted up at the rearview mirror and sneered at the idiot tailgating us.

  “Is it a person? Is it a thing?” I could be very stubborn.

  But Mom just shrugged. “Trust me. If it ever catches up to you, you’ll know.

  So we drove, mostly in the summer, heading north where Mom said the nights were cooler. Winters, we turned around and headed the other way. I never liked that way. That way was always some school where Mom sent me each morning in itchy clothes and a bookbag that hurt my shoulders. That way were strange kids who stared at me weirdly and asked mean questions like “where do you live?” and “what color’s your house?” and “how come we never see your mom?”

  “Tell them the truth,” Mom said while putting on her lipstick in the mirror. “Tell them you live at 2002 Corolla Court and that your house is Impulse Red. Tell them your mother works in the restaura
nt business.”

  These were good suggestions, I knew, but I never took them. I never answered those mean questions but just got off the school bus at some stop where the houses looked nice and then doubled back to the diner where my mom in a white apron snuck me sandwiches. Later, alone, I did my homework.

  “There’s nothing shameful living like we do,” Mom told me. She sounded serious now, brushing the hair from my forehead and kissing it. “I was born on wheels. I grew up on ‘em. Many people do and it don’t make us any less good. Remember that, Pumpkin.”

  I did remember it, and sometimes I thought that I was the luckiest girl in the world, driving with my Mom all day and sleeping next to her each night. Well, not next to her, really. She slept in the front seat and I laid down in what we called my bedroom. Some nights, if she wasn’t too tired from driving, she’d crawl back and read me books. My favorite was about a girl my age but living a long time ago, going West in a covered wagon.

  “Just like us!” I’d shout.

  “Yeah, Princess, but we go West and East. North and South. Everywhere.”

  “But am I like the girl, Mom?” I’d want to know. “Am I like the girl—what does she call it—a homesteader?”

  “You betcha.” Her hands cupped my chin and rolled it this way and that. “We have this instead of a home.”

  After that, I pretended to fall asleep while mom climbed outside for a cigarette. That was the only time she kept the windows open, when she sat on the hood, smoking. Peeking over my blanket, I liked to watch the red dot burn brightly at first and then glow softly in the dark.

  I’d wait for her to come back inside and tuck the blanket under my chin. I could smell her sharp-sweet smell and hear a sound like a little cry. Only then would she turn out the lights and lock the doors tight, safe against the Old Osifegus.