Hugh screamed. He stabbed wildly, frantically, skinning knife sinking in again and again.
Her massive ruffed neck humped up in a striking curve. Then her head dug down at him. She seized his whole head in her red jaws and lifted him off his feet.
Hugh got in one more lunging thrust. His knife sank in all the way up to the haft directly over the heart.
He felt her dogteeth crunch into his skull. She shook him by the head like a dog might shake a doll. His body dangled. His neck cracked.
He screamed. His scream rose into a shrill squeak.
He sank away, half-conscious.
She dropped him.
Raging, blood spouting from a score of wounds, she picked him up again, this time by his game leg, and shook him violently, shook him until his leg popped in its hip socket. She roared while she gnawed. She was a great cat chewing and subduing a struggling mouse. His game leg cracked.
She dropped him.
Snarling, still spouting blood on all sides, coughing blood, she picked him up again, this time by the rump. She tore out a hunk the size of a buffalo boss and tossed it over her shoulder toward the brown cubs.
Hugh lay limp, sinking away. He thought of the boy Jim, of Bending Reed, of a picture-purty she-rip back in Lancaster, of two boy babies.
Time poured slow—yet space was quick.
The next thing he knew she had fallen on him and lay deadheavy over his hips and legs.
He heard a scrambling in the brush. He heard the voices of men. He heard the grizzly cubs whimpering. He heard two shots.
Dark silence.
Part II • The Crawl
1
A COLD NOSE woke him.
He tried opening his eyes; couldn’t; found his eyelids crusted shut.
He blinked hard a few times; still couldn’t open them; gave up.
The back of his head ached like a stone cracking in heat. His entire back, from high in his neck and across his shoulder blades and through the small of his back and deep into his buttocks, was a slate of tight pain.
The cracking ache and the tight pain was too much. He drifted off into gray sleep.
The cold nose woke him again.
And again he rose up out of gray into wimmering pink consciousness. He blinked hard, once, twice; still couldn’t quite uncrack his crusted eyelids.
A dog licking his face? Dogs never licked bearded faces that he remembered.
The cold nose touched him once more, on the brow. And then he knew he wasn’t being licked in love. He was being sniffed over.
Hugh concentrated on his crusted eyes, forced all he had into opening them. And after a supreme effort, the stuck lashes parted with little crust-breaking sounds. Blue instantly flooded into his old gray eyes. There was an unusually clear sky overhead. Yellow light was striking up into blue. That meant it was morning. If rust and pink had been sinking away under blueblack it would have been late afternoon. Also a few birds were chirping a little. That proved it was morning. Birds never chirped in the late afternoon in August. At least not that he knew of.
August? Where in tarnation . . . ?
With a jerk Hugh tried to sit up.
The jerk like to killed him. His whole back and his rump and his right leg all three became raging red monsters. He groaned. “Gawd!” His whole chest rumbled with it.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a bristling whitegray shape jump back. Sight of the jumping whitegray shape kept him from fainting. That whitegray bristling shape had a cold black nose. It was a wolf.
Then it all came back to him. What had happened and where he was. Major Henry had ordered him to shave off his beard. He had refused. Major Henry had then given the hunting detail to Allen and two other men. He’d got mad and gone off hunting by himself—only to run smack into a she-grizzly.
Miraculously he was still alive then.
Holding himself tight rigid, Hugh opened his eyes as far as he could to size things up. He saw green bottleflies buzzing around him, thousands of them, millions of them. They were like darting spots before the eyes. Every time he rolled his eyes they buzzed up from his beard and wounds and swirled and resettled. Just above him hung a bush heavy with ripe buffalo berries.
He heard water trickling over stones. He heard the wolf padding on the sand, circling him warily. The soule of a mourning dove echoed through the brush-choked draw: ooah—koooo—kooo—koo.
He had hands. He moved them. The green bottleflies buzzed up; swarmed; resettled. He moved his hands again, first his right, then his left. The right hand seemed slightly bruised; the left felt whole.
He studied the small blue marks over the back of his right hand. That was where the silvertip she-grizzly had struck him when she’d clubbed first his flintlock and then his horse pistol away from him.
Thinking of his gun, he instinctively reached for it. He couldn’t find it. He pawed the sand, the dirt, the edge of a fur, over his belly. Not there. Green flies buzzed up; resettled.
He sighed. Of course. The guns were still in the bushes where the she-grizzly had popped them.
He felt of his body. The green death flies rose; swirled; swarmed around him. He found his head bandaged with a narrow strip of cloth. A huge welt ran from his grizzly cheek back past his swollen red ear and up into his scalp. The welt was a ridged seam. Someone had carefully sewn up his long terrible wound with deer sinews. The ridged welt ran up around his entire head. A few small stitched ridges ran off it. The clotted seam also felt fuzzy. Someone had also carefully webbed the bleeding wound with the fuzz plucked from a beaver pelt. Beaver fuzz was the thing for quick crust building. Many and many was the time he’d put it on cuts himself.
He ran his hand over his chest; over his gaunt belly; found everything in order. The front of him was still all in one piece. Even the leathers, his buckskin hunting shirt and leggings, were whole. Flies buzzed up angry; resettled.
He felt of his right leg; reached down too far; stirred up the red monsters in his back and game leg and rump again. “Gawd!!”
The flies began to bite him, on the backs of his hands and the exposed parts of his face and ears and the exposed parts of his shoulders.
He wondered what he was lying on. He felt around with his good left hand; found a bearskin beneath. Lifting his head, brushing away the swirling buzzing flies, looking past a crusted lid and swollen blue nose and clotted beard, he saw it was the skin of the silvertip she-grizzly he’d fought. He let his head fall back.
He felt of it again to make sure. How in tarnation . . . ? Who had skinned the she-grizzly? He couldn’t have done it himself. That was impossible. The last thing he remembered was the she-grizzly lying deadheavy across his belly and legs. So he couldn’t have.
He remembered hearing voices. He remembered hearing the little grizzly cubs whimpering. He remembered two shots. Ho-ah! The party had spotted runaway Old Blue and had probably heard him screaming. They had come up to help; had shot the cubs. They had pulled the Old Lady off him and had skinned her and had made a bed out of her fur for him. And they had dressed his wounds. Ae, that was it.
He smiled. Ae, real mountain men, they were, to come to a comrade’s relief. He smiled. Real mountain men. They had a code, they had.
“Ae, lads, this child was almost gone under that time, he was.”
No answer. Only the trickling of the brook, the buzzing of the green death flies, the padding of the circling hungry wolf.
Flies? Wolf? Silence? What in tarnation? Quickly he perked up again—and the raging red monsters tore into him.
Somehow he managed to roll over on his side, the grizzly fur sticking to his crusted-over back and lifting up off the sand. The weight of the hide tore away some of the flesh from his ribs. He screamed. Eyes closed, he caught his breath and screamed again.
When he opened his eyes once more, he saw it. His grave. Beside him, not a yard away, someone had dug a shallow grave for him, a grave some three feet deep and seven feet long.
Old gray eyes almost blinde
d with tears, with extreme pain, green bottleflies buzzing all around, he stared at it.
His grave.
He shook his head; blinked.
His grave.
So that was it. He was done for. His time was up.
His grave. He lay on his right side looking at it, bewildered in a wilderness.
“Ae, I see it now, lads. It’s this old coon’s turn at last.”
Or maybe it was the other way around. Maybe he was the only one alive, with all the others ambushed, killed, and scalped.
Cautiously he rolled his eyes around. He looked at the mound of yellow sifting sand beside the yawning grave. He looked at the bullberries hanging ripe overhead. He looked at the silvertip she-grizzly hide under him. He watched the green death flies hovering and buzzing around him. He looked up at the blue sky.
Not a soul or a dead body in sight on that side.
He looked all around again as far as his eye could see; then, despite terrible blinding pain, he rolled over on his left side.
Cautiously he rolled his eyes around. Nothing there either. No horses. No men. There’d been no ambush on that side either, so far as he could see.
What in tarnation had happened? He’d been sewed up and placed on the she-grizzly’s hide. Also someone had dug a grave for him. Yet no one was about.
He studied the open grave some more. To dig that the men must have thought him dead.
But if they thought him dead, why in tarnation hadn’t they finished burying him?
It was too much for him to understand. His head cracked with it.
“This child feels mighty queersome,” he murmured.
He felt of his skull again. Yes, his topknot was still in place, though it was ridged and seamed all over like an old patched moccasin.
He blinked; fainted. He fell back, body flopping with a thud on the fur-covered sand. Green flies resettled on him.
The wolf approached him a couple of steps; sat down on its haunches. It watched him warily with narrowed yellow eyes. The wolf sniffed, brushtail whirling nervously. Presently the wolf got up; approached a few steps closer; sat down on its haunches again. It waited.
2
A COLD NOSE woke him.
His crusted lids cracked open. Blue sky filled his old gray eyes.
He remembered it. He remembered the last time he was up. Red monsters rending him. Green death flies. A padding white wolf. An open grave.
They were all there again. And this time another was waiting. A turkey buzzard. Floating on wavering three-foot wings, coasting, sometimes flopping to gain height, bald snakehead peering down at him, snakehead gaggling in and out on a long neck, it hovered over him, circling, rising, falling, floating.
The turkey buzzard meant if he wasn’t dead he should be.
The green death flies puzzled him. They rarely sat on a man until he was dead. The white wolf and the black turkey buzzard had enough sense to wait until he was fully dead. Why not the green flies?
There was dead meat around somewhere then.
Well, it wasn’t his, because he was still ciphering—unless the Resurrection had come and dead meat had learned to cipher . . . or he was a soul floating around outside his own dead body.
He remembered it. He’d found himself upon the she-grizzly’s fur beside an open grave, his back and head sewed up. He remembered he’d fainted away trying to cipher what had happened.
The green flies continued to puzzle him. They usually never went to work until after the wolves and the buzzards had had their fill. What did he have they wanted so bad?
He woke gradually. Hearing came back; sight came back; feeling in his finger tips came back; smell came back.
Something stunk something awful all right. He hoped it wasn’t himself. It stunk like a rotting buffalo carcass.
He heard the wolf padding near him. He was in part glad to hear it. As long as it kept padding, that long he was alive.
Through narrowed crusted lids he watched the turkey buzzard circling overhead. Its hooked dull-white beak worked sometimes. Its flesh-colored feet clawed and unclawed. Its reddish-tinged neck became long, became short. Its wings shone greenblack. Its bald head gaggled at him first with one blinking eye then with the other blinking eye. It hung above him seemingly without effort. There was no wind. It waggled a few times and stayed up endlessly.
He sat up; fought the red monsters; survived them; fought a faint; survived it. He brushed the green death flies away. He steadied.
He saw the yawning grave again; saw the whitegray wolf, this time two of them; saw the silvertip fur under him.
Then taste came back. Thirst. Great thirst. “Wadder,” he murmured. “Got to have wadder,” he murmured. He was dizzy with it. His lips, tongue, roof of his mouth, all were so parched he couldn’t get his tongue out to his lips. His lips felt white, felt cracked. They worked under his clotted beard. “Wadder,” he murmured, “wadder.”
His eyes, his ears, turned him to the sound of water. “Wadder,” he murmured. His body settled forward from the hips. He rolled over. The fur hide, still stuck to his back, came up with him. “Gawd!” He undulated slowly toward the trickling stream. The stream was only a few feet away but it took him miles to get there. “Gawd!” He crawled on the sand. He hunched forward. Crawled. “Wadder,” he murmured.
His good foot caught in a root. He got a good toe hold; gave himself a tremendous shove; moved half a foot. It brought him to the edge of the water trickling over clean white stones. He dug his good toe in again; gave himself a great shove again. This time his shove got his grizzled face into the water. He let it shove in. He drank like a horse with his head half under. Bubbles escaped his nose and mouth; guggled up through his beard; came out at the top of his clotted, seamed head of hair.
He drank until his stomach hurt, until it raised him a little off the white stones.
“Ahhh. Water.” He shook his grizzly head. Drops sprayed off to all sides. “Ah, what is better than water?”
He drew back to a kneeling position. Again the weight of the fur-skin, still stuck to his crusted back wounds, tore at the flesh over his ribs. He screamed. He fell flat again.
He puffed. He waited for strength. He lay staring at the clear water directly under his nose. He saw a tiny bloodsucker waving black from a pebble. He saw a tendril of green moss waving from a stone. He saw green minnows fleeting upstream.
“Got—to—get,” he puffed, “got—to—get—that—skin—off—somehow.” He puffed. “Best—soak—it—in—water.”
He rolled over slowly, dragging the skin with him. He slaped forward on his back until he lay with his back in the water.
The water felt cool and it felt good and it soothed him.
Presently he felt the minnows tickling him, nibbling at his crusts. He lay in the shallow waters of the stream and let the minnows lip the wounds. “The minnies’ll heal me,” he murmured. “Water is medicine but the minnies’ll leech me. Purify the blood.”
The white wolf wriggled its cold black nose at him. It sat on its haunches. It waited. The turkey buzzard gaggled its wrinkled bald head in and out and hung on its wings. It waited. The green death flies buzzed over him. A few of the flies hit the water, floated away downstream, drowning.
Ripe buffalo berries hung above him. He reached up for a cluster; put it all in his mouth, stem, skin, pit, flesh. After the fresh water he thought the bullberries had a fine grape flavor.
“Wonder where everybody is? The lads wouldn’t’ve left me alone here.”
It became high noon. And hot. His back, submerged in running water, felt fine, but his face and front sweat where the overhead sun struck him through the bullberry bushes. At the same time he was sure he was almost as hot from a fever as he was from the sun, because his back, which should have been chilled to the bone in the running spring water, actually felt warmish too. The water trickled in through the gaping rents of his leathers, around and over his turtle-shell crusts, around and into the grizzly bearskin.
The mi
nnies lipped him.
He murmured to himself. “The fur must be soaked loose by now.” He reached a hand around to feel of his back. One of the red monsters awoke. He cried out. “Gawd!”
He reached around a bit further. The crusts had become soggy in the water and the fur was loosened in most places. He could feel ridges, seams, running everywhichway over his back. Someone had sewed up his back with deer sinews too. In some places the buckskin whangs had been tied into hard knots, each knot with a pair of little ears. His back felt like a patched up tepee. It was as uneven and as bumpy as the breaks in the Badlands. And probably as inflamed: burnt red, pus yellow, rotted purple. Blotched over like a case of eczema peppered with boils.
Hugh’s hand came away stinking. Then he knew where the bad smell came from and why the green flies and the whitegray wolf and the hovering wrinkle-necked turkey buzzard fancied his meat.
He found a patch where the bearskin was still stuck to his back. With a pushing finger moving very cautiously, probing, he pried it off. He grimaced in pain. The beard over his mouth quivered. The pain was so terrible at times that consciousness came and went in waves.
After a rest he pried farther. The bearskin parted with little rips, from the waterlogged crusted wounds, came loose with tiny rending sounds.
He shuddered—and the last of the silvertip bearskin fell away. “Ahh!” he breathed. “Ahh.” He shook his head. “Gawd! that was hard doin’s! By the bull barley, that was.” He sucked breath. “Gawd, I feel queersome. Like a buffler shot in the lights.”
He felt better after a while. He sat up. Gray bullberry leaves brushed his brow, touched his matted gray hair. He shook his head; blinked; blinked.
“Whaugh!” he roared suddenly, and the whitegray wolf jumped back a dozen steps and the turkey buzzard overhead flopped its wings and flew in a higher circle. Hugh laughed.
The raucous laugh caught his ear. Ho-ah! His voice seemed to have changed some. Or else his ears had gone on the blink. His voice had always been heavy, a cross between a bear grunt and a deacon’s growl. But now it sounded cracked and coarse. The Old Lady must’ve given his talkbox a whack too.
Lord Grizzly, Second Edition Page 13