"I will have one eye left to find my way."
Mary sat watching her, interested as if Catania might change to someone different. "... And if I take your feet, as my aunt took Doctor Dorothy's feet to make her stay?"
"Then, I will go slowly."
Mary sat without speaking for a while. The fire ticked and muttered in the hearth. "What a waste," she said, and sighed. "What a waste of a Lady you are! It makes me very angry that you will surely learn a duty some day, but won't accept it now for Gardens." Mary showed her teeth and opened both eyes so her empty socket showed red. "—We make paper here! And you come from people living with animals and by animals and as animals, and make nothing!"
Mary rose from her cushion as if her heart was strong. "I could take both your eyes, Catania, so your tears would sting the hollows for many years."
"Then, I would travel blind."
Mary stood and looked at her. "Those answers," she said, "—those are the answers I would have given. They leave me more disappointed, more angry with you for running away. Don't answer so well, my Scar-face. Don't make me angrier."
"I'm sorry I cannot please you."
Mary began walking back and forth, in and out of the fire's shadows. "I thought," she said, "—I thought the Weather had brought me a true daughter. I thought you were a gift to Gardens."
"I would be, if I could."
"You liar. Liar!" Mary was weeping; tears had come from her eye and from where her other eye had been. "It's all for a man. A man already lost to you and everyone!"
"Not true. Not all for a man."
"Don't you tell me what is true and what is not."
Catania said nothing. She imagined the blue of the morning sky, and that she was out under it, riding a sled away.
Mary wiped her tears with her sleeve, and sat down on her cushion again. "And if I have Tall Jack's eyes taken, unless you stay?"
"... Then Jack would lose his eyes, and I and other Trappers would lose our lives—and you would lose your paper-mill to burning."
"Ah...." Mary blew her nose on the hem of her robe. "An answer even better than mine would have been. What a waste."
A man, a Gold-bracelets Catania didn't know, came down into the house.
"Dear Lady," he said to Mary, "—one of the Dog-men will fight us or come into your house. What is your wish?"
Mary smiled. "Surely this will be your Tall Jack, Catania. A last time, now, to think of your answer again."
"He wouldn't want me to give a different answer than I have already given."
"Let him come down," Mary said to the Gold-bracelets. "Then go, and leave us alone."
Catania had grown used to Mary's house, and had thought it large enough. But when Jack ducked in and stood stooped beneath the ceiling, the room became small as if by mind-magic, so he seemed to fill much of it.
"At least," Mary said, sitting on her cushion looking up at him, "—at least it is a man."
"I came to say thank you," Jack said to her, and Catania saw him look at the painting that made a story around the room. "—Thank you for Gardens' hospitality."
" 'Hospitality,'" Mary said. "No wonder we make no words better than Warm-time words. They made them all, and each just right." She got up off her cushion with a grunt. "Do you want vodka, Tall Jack?"
"No."
"Well, I am going to have vodka, —Catania?"
"No, thank you."
Mary went to her shelves, humming a soft song without words. She poured vodka into a leather cup, then searched for a time among her little wooden boxes for what forest-friends she wanted to flavor it. "But Jack, you came for my Scar-face, more than for thank-you's."
"I came for both, since we're leaving."
Catania saw Jack's shadow as the hearth-fire threw it moving against the painted wall.
Mary One-eye stirred her vodka with a fat finger. "Now, I asked your doctor to stay, and threatened to take a hand... take an eye ... take her feet to keep her with us to become a Lady."
"Get up," Jack said to Catania. "We're leaving."
"I threatened," Mary took her finger from her cup, and dried it on her robe, "—but she gave strong answers of no." Mary smiled. "Then I mentioned taking your eyes, Tall Jack, but still our Catania gave strong answers, and said yours would be as strong."
Jack reached down, took Catania by the arm and lifted her to her feet.
"It makes me angry," Mary said, and she was no longer smiling, "—to see that strength of hers shown only to refuse service to my people."
Jack led Catania toward the tree-root stairs, but Mary stepped in their way. She stared up at them with her one eye. "And for what good reason? Why, for you."
"And other reasons," Catania said.
Jack said, "Stand aside."
"Listen to him bark. A tall two-legged dog-man, a savage dog-man with nothing left in him but a few more bites—" Mary threw her vodka up into Jack's face.
Then Jack was gone from Catania's side—and gripped Mary One-eye, grappled her to him like a lover, her hair twisted in his fist, her head forced back. The point of his belt knife rested, a bright decoration, beneath her only eye.
Mary seemed pleased. "Bite, dog!" she said, "—and my people will burn your Trappers on their sleds. And burn the new little baby with them."
"Don't," Catania said. "Jack, don't hurt her."
But it was the Fighting Jack, now, and only his shadow moved along the wall.
"... What if I apologize?" Mary said, and she smiled under the knife. "Do you know that Warm-time word, Tall Jack? It's a very good one. ..."
Slowly ... slowly, he lifted his knife-blade away, loosened his grip on Mary's hair, and stepped back from her.
"We're going," Catania said.
Jack wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, and sheathed his knife.
"Go," Mary One-eye said. "Run until you have nothing left to run from... and nothing to run to." She went to the hearth, and tossed her vodka cup into the fire.
** *
Through the morning, the Trappers cleaned their camp. They finished the last packing, drowned their fires with Fast Creek water, and filled in the John trench with fresh dirt and old snow. Then they combed over the slope to find anything left behind.
There were no visitors from Gardens, though it was a sunny morning, and warm enough to further soften the snow. None came to say goodbye to the Trappers, or to May and the five Garden girls going with them. No children came, or Gold-bracelets, and there was no farewell music or drums.
Jack chose the order of traveling: Torrey's sled first, then the Richardsons, then Weber-Edwards. The Olsens, Sorbanes, and Auerbachs coming after. Jennifer Weber and Bailey Auerbach were the only riders. Susan Monroe had made a wrap-poozy of the beautiful Gardens blanket to carry Small-Sam on her back.
Three-balls danced in his harness, whining, eager to run. When Jack came trotting up the slope, his lance balanced in his hand, Torrey called "Musout!" The team hauled as one dog, and the sled jerked, skidded, then slid away fast up and out of Gardens' small valley and into the trees.
Jack led them south—but turned a little as they traveled over thin snow and pine needles, wending between great evergreens to come to the smaller tree, a birch, where Jim Olsen rested bundled in the branches. Tree-resting was poor resting, compared to staying in ice, but it had become too warm for that.
The Trappers braked their teams, tied them off, and came to say goodbye, touching the resting-tree in turn, while Chapman and Micah wept. Catania recited the 'Now-I-Lay-Me-Down,' for Difficult-Jim Olsen. Then, done praying, they went to their teams to travel.
As the sleds began to pull away, Mary One-eye stepped out of hemlocks, and called, "Catania...."
Some Trappers strung their bows and went into the woods, thinking there could be goodbye trouble, that some Gold-bracelets might have come with her. But Mary had come alone.
"Catania...."
"Careful," Jack said, but Catania went to the hemlocks to meet her.
"My sweet Scar-fa
ce," Mary said, and hugged her as if there'd been no disagreement between them. "I thought you'd stop here to say goodbye to that foolish man.—As you can now say goodbye to this foolish, fat old woman." She stood on her tiptoes to kiss Catania's scarred cheek.
"Mary, I would have stayed... if I could have stayed."
"Oh, you were not ready for it yet." Mary smiled. "I'll have to live long enough to make another Lady.—Here," she took a folded page of paper from her robe's pocket. "A copy-present from Necklace Peter."
"Thank him for me," Catania said. "And Mary, walk every day, but try not to climb—"
"Yes, and eat less and so forth. I will obey you, Doctor, as you have not obeyed me." She took a breath. "I have come to ask your forgiveness."
"Forgive you for what?"
"For what it is that requires forgiveness, Catania. Say that you forgive me."
"I don't—"
"Say, 'Mary, I forgive you.' "
"I'll say it, but I have no reason to."
"Say it."
"... I forgive you, Mary."
Mary One-eye sighed. "Thank you," she said. "Now, goodbye, Sweet Scar-face—your people are waiting."
"Goodbye," Catania said, hugged her, and walked back to the sleds.
"Remember, Catania," Mary called after her. "Remember that I am forgiven...."
Necklace Peter sent me a present from the library—a copy-poem about weather, probably since I'd loved the R. Frost so much.
This is called 'Persephone.' It was written by ]. Reed in an unknown year.
Each time our blue earth turns around, Before it meets its moon for spring, My last year's love comes whistling down, And does his seasonal thing. He wraps me in rain like a treasure, Then lays me to sleep in the snow, Where I dream up my flowers for pleasure, Then die, so the sunlight will grow.
We have left Gardens, and are in the dark forest. I miss my second mother, Mary, but am glad to be gone. She asked too much.
FROM THE JOURNAL OF DOCTOR CATANIA OLSEN
CHAPTER 16
Though Jack held them in, the Trappers kept the habit of running-from—driving their teams over the poor snow through brush and bramble and between great trees as if more Cree had come down and after them.
Only near each nightfall, when the dogs grew weary, did they slacken their pace.
It took a Warm-time week of forest running—south, then east—to ease them. As they eased, the winter eased and the forest began to thin, until, in their second week of traveling, they came into almost open country, with more and more hardwood. The snow here was leaving the ground to winter-kill and sparse spring grasses.
It was as warm, already, as the Range became in its short summer.
On the morning of the fifteenth day—when the last of the Garden food, except the nanny goat, was gone—Donna Weber and Wanda Sorbane, out scouting, killed a black-tail deer. Wanda shot it from a far rock-throw away, and struck it in the heart.
"That's good luck," the Trappers said, and thought their fortune was changing with the season.
"Good luck," Jack said, lying with his head in Catania's lap as she rinsed his eyes with boiled water. His eyes were still sore, still very red from the vodka-drink Mary had thrown into them— though, a few days ago, they'd seemed to be getting better.
"Good luck for now," Catania said, "—but trouble sooner or later. Chapman hasn't forgotten Jim lying with his belly open. Joan Richardson hasn't forgotten. Or Bailey...."
"New country will keep them happy." Jack sat up, then stood. He never rested as long under her hand as Catania wished. Even so, these days were the best she'd known, a contentment so sweet she feared its loss each morning, when she woke.
"And what new country will we be able to keep?"
Jack reached down and gently pinched her nose. "I'm thinking of hills I've heard of, in Map-Arkansas. Good hills, hardwood trees, and five- . . . maybe six-week summers."
"I thought there were bad men near there, in Map-Missouri."
"The people I knew will be gone," Jack said. "They were shortlived men." And he went off to the cook-fire to slice some more venison.
... The next few days, the sun shone so that the last of the snow died under it and was gone. Then the sleds had to be unpacked, their rawhide lashings cut, so the bent-wood members could be taken down and fitted together differently to become drag-travvies.
The long runners were the difficult things—had to be paired, then bound with re-knotted rawhide to the frames for half their lengths, so only the ends of their steel edges dragged on the ground.
In travvy, the teams could pull almost as fast as on soft snow, but the dogs didn't like it, even though the country opened so they often ran on wiry winter grass, instead of working through woods. The travvies were unbalanced hauls, and the grass cut the dogs' pads.
"Where are we?" Torrey said. He and Jack were sitting by a small pit fire at sunrise, checking the dogs' feet. Three-balls had shoved and snarled to be first, and now lay between them on his back, grunting with pleasure. The Trappers had camped between two low rises, with no trees near, and dug pit fires to burn dry grass safely.
"I think we're in Map-Texas," Jack said. "This is south of where I've been before."
"And now we keep east?"
"Now we keep east."
"Booties back on?"
"No, the grass will wear them out. Their pads'll toughen."
"They better," Torrey said. "We can't have lame dogs."
Catania and Garden May came back from peeing, and sat down with them. "Is it a lame dog?" May said to Three-balls. Still on his back, he lolled his tongue for her; he liked Garden May.
"We don't get something today,” Torrey said, "—we need to cook the nanny goat."
As if an open-country angel had heard him, Dummy Olsen waved from the top of the north rise and called—softly for Dummy—"See 'em over there? See 'em over there?"
Only a few Trappers got out of their bedding to see, since Dummy was not reliable. But Del Richardson ran up to look, and saw them too.
"Deer ... deer!" They were little light-brown deer with white butts, grazing in a shifting herd a long way off over the winterkill grass. They all seemed to be young spike bucks.
"I've heard of those." Jack came up the rise and looked out, squinting. "Don't think they're deer....
"Wild goats," Chapman Olsen said.
But Myles Weber said, "Not goats, either; look at those split horns."
"Goin' huntin'!" Dummy ran down the slope and the other Trappers followed him, hurrying for their bows and quivers and lances.
Jack had to tell no one what to do.
Susan, the baby, and Jennifer Weber stayed in camp with limping-Bailey Auerbach. Martha Sorbane, and Myles and Helen Weber stayed to guard them.
The others ran out into the country as the sun rose into a cloudy sky. Micah Olsen, Pat Weber, Rod Sorbane, and Wanda Sorbane ran north as fast as they could, to pass the herd... then turn to drive it in.
The others spread out across the grassland a lance-throw apart, and trotted away over ground that slowly rose .. . then slowly dipped—but never so high or low they lost sight of the animals.
"Antelope is what they are," Jack said to Ruth Bissel—Ruth, May, and all the Garden girls were eager on their first hunt, trotting along in line, bare breasts shaking.
"Antelope…." Ruth passed it along. "Antelope."
The herd watched them, seeming curious as the Trappers came through grass grown higher and higher, so they left long tracks that parted the stems like fingers reaching.
Jack looked for the drivers, for Micah and the others swinging north behind the animals, but couldn't see them.
"Slow," he said to Ruth Bissel, and she passed 'Slow' down the line. As the Trappers heard, each eased to a jog trot barely faster than walking, and crouched a little. The tall grass, killed by cold and streaked black, had died standing, so it rustled as they went by. Rustled in the morning wind, also. The wind—from the north and cold—was blowing into the
ir faces.
It carried spring rain with it, instead of snow. Beyond the antelope herd, a dark haze swayed along the horizon. It billowed out like Garden cloth in a breeze, and the Trappers could see its long soft steps in the grass as it came.
The Trappers slowed and stopped to unstring their bows, coil the twisted sinews, and put them in their belt-pouches to save from wetting. Then they began to trot again, balancing their lances in their hands. The Garden girls, whose breasts were sore from running, held their left arms across to cradle them and went on, swinging their axes one-handed.
The antelope turned and turned under the rain, like char in the fall of a summer stream, as the storm came near and nearer— then struck the Trappers with darkness, and drenched them. Their line was staggered in wet wind and blowing grass. Small-Paula fell and got back up again, and bright lightning snapped so close they ducked like a team under the whip, the dead grass hissing and seething around them.
Out of darkness and stinging rain, an antelope came sailing flashing past. The Trappers could hear distant whistles and shouts on the wind as the drivers came running behind the storm. Antelope leaped through, bounding right and left, then away, gone down the wind like leaves. The steel of lance-heads shone in the rain along the Trapper line.
Two more antelope came running together, side by side, to pass by Newton, Lucy, and Nuncie Lewis. The Garden girl gripped her ax with both hands, threw it and almost hit one, so it jumped left—wet and shining from the rain—and the other jumped to join it. That was the antelope Newton killed. He rose from the grass and threw, and the antelope went down. As he jumped to cut its throat—batting the thrashing head's small pronged horns aside—Lucy ran to throw at the other, but threw short. The antelope were very fast.
Down the line, one came jumping from a squall of rain and lofted past Jack, its eyes wide.
Jack turned as it went by, his muscles loose and easy, saw the place he wanted—and his lance hummed away, streaked just over the animal's back, and vanished into rain and dark grasses.
He stood astonished at missing, then laughed, and trotted through the rain to find the lance.
... The rest of the day into afternoon—a day now clear, and warm enough that many took off their buckskin shirts—the Trappers dealt with meat.
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