The Mount

by Carol Emshwiller

  “I have to tell you more things.”

  “Praise is better than punishment,” he says, ears pricked out towards me, curious.

  Our trainer used to try to teach him things practically every minute: To let me breathe and let me see; not to lean over too far, side-to-side or backwards, so as not to get me off balance and maybe make me fall; to “take more care of your mount than you do of yourself. . . .” I’ve heard our trainer tell him . . . yell this at him . . . all these things a hundred times.

  “This is about safety.” I yell it like a trainer. “For both of us. You have to promise things. Remember cross your heart and hope to die? Hope to die!” I say. “Or else!”

  Chapter Five

  He has said enough so that Charley will be safe: Never put your feet where you can’t see them. Never reach into any holes or under any rocks. Listen for rattlesnakes. You can eat crawdads. Nothing poisonous resembles chanterelles. You can dry them in an hour on a hot afternoon.

  He sits on a stone. The foxes appear—as if out of nothing. They’ve been there all the time, but so perfectly the colors of the brush it takes stillness to see them. Stillness in him; they’re already still. A vixen and three kits. The runt is the boldest. Perhaps she has to be. Comes a yard from him if he’s careful not to look straight at her. After a few minutes the mother thinks: That’s enough of that, and signals her back. One bark. More like a meow. So like cats, they are, climbing into the lower branches of trees.

  He would like his life to be this. Sitting silent. Watching. Listening.

  He’ll keep the vixen’s den as one of his secrets—something of his own that can’t be owned. He has learned not to try to hold on to a treasure. It will be taken from him no matter how small or insignificant. Best to own a view. Best to own the smell of pine. And this.

  He cries, but it’s not much more than heavy breathing—a series of sighs and grunts. For Tutu? For Charley? For Jane (his Bright Spot), because he’ll either be off . . . (there’s Merry Mary to find) or he’ll be chasing after Charley, racing away from Jane as he’s doing now.

  But no, all this sighing is most likely for himself.

  He and Charley could watch the foxes together someday. Share the treasure. Nothing would need to be talked about.

  He’d thought to have time to make Charley understand. Keep him from getting to be what he himself had become, so that Charley would never have to do what he’d been forced to do against his fellow human beings.

  Fellow human beings can’t be said to be his fellows anymore. Why should he be allowed to be as if he was still a person among people? Maybe he ought to stay away from Charley. From Bright Spot, too. From the one and only dog up there. From cats. Nothing around that might lick him, or follow him, or sit on his lap and purr. Rather, something wild to watch. Something that lives as it must. Does what it must and only what it must. Never forces another to be cruel to its own kind. Even to its friends. Even to its own mother!

  Tutu, worn-down, worn-out. . . . They should have let her rest long ago. When she had finally refused them, he’d been the one to come after her, to bang her against the wall, step on her feet with his metal-soled boots, though he tried not to. Fell against her, trying not to.

  They’d planned that on purpose, that the son should come for the mother. Mouth so full of metal he couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even say, “Mother. Mother.” But she must have known.

  (Always silence in the stalls of the Sams who hosted the guards. Some couldn’t speak at all, but nobody wanted to, anyway. As host to the head guard, he was the worst of any of them.)

  “I need to go by myself,” he’d said to Jane.

  “I’ll be right behind you.”

  He will have to say more. She never likes it when he doesn’t. “But . . . but. . . .”

  “Talk all you want, there’s nothing you can say that will stop me following after you.”

  “Who knows what’s . . . who’s down there?”

  “I care about Charley, too.”

  He doesn’t want Charley to change his mind, suddenly, at the worst possible time and place. But maybe nothing for it except that Charley will have to learn the hard way—the hardest way, as he, himself, had. Let Charley make his own mistakes in his own time and way.

  Now the long, long view of the valley below. Good for the eyes to see as far as this, into the green and gray and gold. . . . (Red of buckwheat. Red of fox chest.) Good colors for the eyes. And good for the feet to walk along these paths.

  Jane had said she’d come. “With, or ten yards behind. Take your pick.”

  They’d started last night. Fast . . . a Tennessee’s pace. Her pace. They were down into the forested part, at the halfway house by dark.

  She’ll wake soon. Perhaps she already has and has made squaw tea from the bushes along the trail.

  His good Jane. His only Bright Spot. He had never encouraged her, not wanting to be her unreliable bearish lover. Teeth. He still has most of his except for the ones knocked out on each side to make room for the bit.

  Her hands next to his. . . . He would never have been allowed to love someone so small. He’s gross. All over. Scars, tattoos, misshapen lips.

  Once he’d left the print of his fingers on her arm by mistake. Five bruises. She’d tried to hide it.

  “Where else have I hurt you without knowing it?”

  Now she’s by the halfway hut with nobody to drink her tea.

  He could leave her there.

  Of course not.

  But . . . yes. Be alone. She knows the way as well as he does. And she knows him. He can start from here—from the fox’s den. Go over the cliff on the far side by himself. She wouldn’t want a steep climb, anyway.

  He doesn’t think, he just does.

  And there is a kind of happiness left after all. To move his body. Feel his muscles. Look out at the view—down there in fox colors. (He wonders that they call them gray foxes.) You can count on the view. You can count on rocks. Well, usually . . . this one he hugs as he climbs down.

  First thing after he finds Charley, he will give him his hunting knife. He should have done it before. Charley might need it, what with that baby Hoot on his shoulders.

  Jane will come by the east trail, following the river, while he comes straight down, over whatever there is—straight to the fountain.

  Whistle back to the birds. You can count on the birds. Startling blue sky. Last night, startling, starry black. Jane is a Bright Spot every way there is. Her freckles. The color of her hair, which is the color of the fox’s underbelly.

  All the sweet, sweet words of loving Jane.

  He’s hardly ever said them.

  Let her speak close into his ear as if a Hoot was telling which way to go. Someday—and he looks forward to it—there’ll be no direction to face without Jane to say which way.

  Can’t Charley see! Their own heads on their own shoulders? (Before Hoots, they used to say, “Two heads are better than one.” Now it’s “One head is better than none.” But what’s that supposed to mean?)

  He’d been exactly the same as Charley, trying to be the best there is, winning prizes. (At Charlie’s age, how long would it have taken him to change his mind if someone said, “Change your mind right now?”) Later, bought and sold and bought and sold. They’d lied about him, his scars painted over, even the racing numbers tattooed on his upper lip erased and rewritten. Though everybody knew who he was by then. By then an incorrigible. Or was that later? At first he’d been proud of those numbers. Only racing Sams and Sues had them.

  Only those few who won all the time (as he did) were studs.

  Charlie’s right, Merry Mary was a sweet woman. Merry when she could be. Sometimes she laughed at herself even in the middle of her crying. (He’d said her name should be “I’m being silly”: She said it so often as she cried.) Under the circumstances he couldn’t have loved her. There wasn’t time for love. They had to do what was expected. Twice in three years, they’d had their four weeks. They’d clung t
ogether—especially that first time. There never had been anybody else to hold on to. Not since Tutu. Perhaps Merry Mary had loved him, but he had not loved her. There wasn’t any point in it.

  He’ll tell Charley if he’s willing to go back to their mountain village and stay put there, he’ll go after Merry Mary right away. How odd it would be—to see her again.

  He scares Charley. He can see that. Other people, too. He doesn’t feel scary. Just the opposite. He would be the one to hide if he could. Creep around. Be small. Hide behind his own body. Inside his skin. Beyond his scars.

  Hide behind Loco Weed. There’s plenty at the edge of the Hoot fields. But not now. Later there’ll be time for Loco Weed.

  It’s this life, has to be lived now.

  One way or another.

  Chapter Six

  Little Master wants to spend the night here, but it’s too closed-in—worse than it used to be now that the ceiling’s halfway squashed down. Little Master likes it low and cozy, but not me. There’s only that one way out, and it’s as hard to squeeze out as it was to squeeze in. Even for him, but especially for me.

  It is wonderfully elegant, and I do like nice things around me. I don’t want to live like my father wants to and wants me to—even wants me to want to. When I was up there, sometimes I just ached and ached for one or two nice things, and I don’t mean just useful things like refrigerators and heaters.

  When I grow up I’m going to live in a civilized way no matter where I am, with clean, smoothed-out fingernails, and shiny clothes, hair in a fancy hairdo, and nice, neat eyebrows. (Not like my father’s.) I’m going have a stall with pictures of Seattles and a flag on top in the colors of my silks. (I’m too young to have silks now, but as soon as I get to race in real races I’ll have them.) Everything beautiful, everything the best, including me.

  But I’m not going to spend the night here, so hemmed in. Besides, there’s no crib even half my size, and I wouldn’t like being in a crib in a cubby anyway.

  We spend the night in the stall that’s closest to the pond. This time I finally do get some sleep. Partly because we sleep under a cot instead of on it and we hide behind our bundle of stuff so I feel safer. We have a pretty big bundle. I took my mom’s picture out of the frame and rolled it to make it easier to carry. I wanted the silver frame so badly, but it’s too awkward. I let Little Master bring two of his whites, though they won’t stay shiny for long.

  Little Master wakes up all droopy. “I dreamed my house,” he says, “all closed in, nice and low and cozy, everything curved and round and white, and my cubby curved over me and smooth, shiny clothes, and I dreamed six mothers, but everything fell into little pieces of dry cake, even the mothers. Then you were there, but you were soggy and you fell to pieces, too.”

  “I’m here. I’m whole.” At first I don’t say, “Long as you behave yourself,” but then I think I should, and then I do. I know I talk too much. I’ve picked up a lot of bad habits up there in the village. I’m wondering if I’ll ever be a proper mount again. I’m not sure I could keep quiet anymore. All this is my father’s fault.

  I stroke Little Master for a bit. And pretty soon he pats me and strokes me, too. And nibbles and licks me. Sometimes that’s nice, but right now I’d rather he didn’t.

  Pretty soon, though, we wonder where we ought to go next. Neither of us wants to go back there in the cold and wild where everything is up or down, and lumpy. Little Master couldn’t go more than a yard or two even if he had a stool up there. And there’s nobody there but Wild Sams and Wild Sues even though lots of them used to be Tames and well-trained. Jane was born Tame, imprinted at birth, too, but she got taken up there when she was seven. She’s as bad as any of them, so I guess good imprinting doesn’t always matter.

  We decide to head for the unknown. We don’t care which unknown it is. (We’ll have everything we want, at least what’s most important to us, with us.) Every direction except up into the mountains is unknown. What we’ll do is, we’ll just head out on any road we like the looks of. We’ll get to walk through those tiny red flowers again. They’re all over.

  Then I think we should go look for Merry Mary, but that’s just as unknown as the just plain unknown, so we’ll go along with whatever road we like best that’s not towards the mountains.

  I load myself up (I tied our bundle into a kind of knapsack), then I squat for Little Master. He has trouble mounting because he won’t let go of his doll, but that turns out to be a good thing, since, just before he’s mounted, we hear funny noises. Far away but coming closer fast. We go to the door of the stall and take a look. First we see far away dots and dust, but pretty soon we see a whole batch of mounted Hoots. They’re guards. Sounds like them, too, their mounts with iron soles, big, black boots and clanky tack. I know all about them, but I’ve never seen any except those few that came for Sunrise, and they weren’t dressed so fancy.

  “They’ll smell me for sure,” I say.

  But Little Master says they won’t. “Lie down and don’t move. Moving makes you smell more. I’ll spread my whites over you, and then I’ll lie on top, but first I’ll pee along the doorway.”

  “Can I have an eyehole?”

  “A little one, but don’t move!”

  So I get to see them going by, all the Hoot guards in shiny whites and wide black hats, so wide they cover both mount and rider. Us Sams (they’re all Sams) are in red, and the tack is shiny red and shiny black. There’s lots of silver. Their feet make a wonderful ringing sound. They trot in ranks. Nice and easy, but fast, arms swinging over their chests, all at exactly the same angles. And all the Sams are the same height, too, and they all have black hair. (It could be dyed.) And they all have exactly the same black curled-up-at-the-sides mustaches. Maybe those are dyed, too. A matched company. The Hoot guards are singing. I hear it, but mostly I feel it beating in my head and in my backbone. . . . Every now and then I hear our kind of words: “Go, go, go,” and, “sturdy,” and, “steady,” as part of their song. The Sams’ feet are in time with each other, and the Hoots are singing to their beat.

  Then there’s three big sparking bangs. The chuck, chuck, chuck, bang! That’s when the Hoots have the poles set on highest. The Hoot out front is throwing out fire balls from his pole.

  This is the most wonderful thing I’ve ever heard or seen in my whole life! This is perfect! Better even than when they have shows with us in our silks and flags all over, and those of us who play piccolo, play. (They like the piccolo best of all our instruments.)

  I want to go with them. I want to be one of those Sams. They could train me. I’d do everything just right. I make a move to get up, but Little Master gets a Hoot grip on me. (One big hand curls my leg tight in, and the other pulls my arm behind me. That hurts.) I was going to yell anyway, but then I see the gleam on the silver cheek-pieces of their bits, and I think about my father with a tooth knocked out on each side, and scars. I can imagine what must be inside their mouths. Or I can’t. These are, all of them, like my father, the very worst of us Sams. The incorrigible. The untrainable. And I am trainable. I wouldn’t get along with them any better than I get along with my father.

  So Little Master and I wait, utterly still, and listen. . . . And listen and listen till way after we can’t hear them anymore. Seems like they’re on their way up the mountain. Towards us Sams and Sues up there. Towards all those people I don’t like—but towards Sunrise, too. And Jane. . . . I don’t like her, but she really tries to be nice.

  The more things that happen, the more I don’t know which side I’m on.

  Even as Little Master was hanging on to me, I was wondering: Why is he holding me back? And how did he know all that about peeing? Wouldn’t he rather they rescued him? But he was scared, too. I could tell by the way he was holding me, and, after they go by, and he sits back, I see his ears swiveling all around, listening still, though everything’s quiet.

  “What did you do all that for?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “
Aren’t you Hoots all kind and generous? You were scared. What are you scared of? And how did you know that about peeing?”

  “That’s a known thing. We all know that.”

  “Don’t you want to get rescued and back with your own kind?”

  His ears go straight out sideways when I say that. That always makes him look funny. I laugh, and then he laughs because I do.

  “You don’t know, do you?” I say. “I mean I’m all mixed up and you are, too.”

  Then we get quiet and just sit and think. Actually, I don’t think. My brains won’t work. I just keep still and look at my shoes. Then I do think, but about shoes. If I don’t find a bigger pair pretty soon, I’ll have to wear homemade. That isn’t what I want to be worrying about right now. Little Master has his doll on his lap and gives it a lick now and then. I’ll bet he’s not thinking, either.

  All of a sudden I find myself saying, and I don’t know why, “I have to go back.” I didn’t even know I was going to say that.

  He doesn’t say yes or no, or good or bad, or anything, he just hugs his doll and gets ready to mount.

  We start for the pond to drink and to eat some of our cakes, but when we get close—for heaven’s sake, I see my father! Sitting there on the rim of the pond, calm as could be—or, rather, calm as always. (He’s stuck in always being calm.) He just keeps sitting, watching us come. When I think back about when I first met him, I remember he was even calm when he poled me. Even after he poled me, he was still completely calm. You’d think somebody with as many scars and tattoos and lips out of shape could never be calm.