by Doyle, Brian
Moon?
Sir?
Good to see you’re punctual.
Yes, sir.
Three laps around the gym. Let me see you run. Run easy, like you are running on the beach. Speed is not the object.
Yes, sir.
The coach watched as Moon loped around the gym, carefully not cutting the corners of the court. Hmm. He’s got height. He runs easily. He’s not breathing hard. Doesn’t know what to do with his arms. Doesn’t know what to do with his body yet. Still.
Now do me a favor and run sideways for a while.
Sir?
Just sort of slide sideways as fast as you can for a while, back and forth.
Around the gym?
Right here.
Yes, sir.
Hmm. Good feet, thought the coach.
Halt.
Yes, sir.
Moon, do you know anyone on the team?
No, sir. I don’t really know anyone at school yet. I know a few of the kids coming in as freshmen. Not many. Well, a couple. Well, Dave. You know Dave?
The runner? His dad works here?
Yes, sir.
Not yet.
He’ll be a great runner, sir.
If you say so, Moon. Now pick up a ball and just sort of putter around with it, you know—dribble a little, shoot a little, just fiddle around. Pretend I am not here and you’re a little kid in the playground just fooling around.
Moon tried this, but he discovered that what looked so easy and graceful on television was not at all the case with a real ball. For one thing, the ball felt huge and clammy, and for another, it didn’t seem to be bouncing quite as truly and accurately as it should ideally bounce. On television the ball seemed to be almost attached to the hand of the dribbler, generally, but this was not at all the case here. Also shooting was harder than it looked; you had to guess at the parabola and force of a shot, depending on all sorts of factors. On television, generally, the ball fell through the hoop as if the hoop was magnetized, but here he kept missing shots and then having to sprint after the rebound, which disdainfully flung itself into the far corners of the gym.
Time, said the coach. Moon, come sit down for a moment.
Sir.
You really want to try out for basketball.
Yes, sir.
You want to make the freshman team?
Yes, sir. I can’t make the junior varsity.
We don’t have a junior varsity, Moon. We have two teams, basically older and younger, although there’s some interchange. We don’t have enough students for three teams. I think you can make the freshman team if you channel your energies. You run well, and I have the feeling that once you actually play games you will get a feel for the sport. My only advice is don’t try to get good at the game yet. Just play it—does that make sense?
No, sir.
All this next week, we will mostly be running and drilling to get your body used to what the game asks. The week after that we start practice games. After that we will do both drilling and games. My advice to you is kill in the drills but not the games. The other guys will be way better in games. Don’t worry about that. You try to be good at the drills first. Then the next step, okay?
Yes, sir.
They’ll tease you, Moon. They will. Don’t let it get to you. Just smile and accept it. You can’t ignore it, because they’re right—you’re terrible at basketball. But you won’t always be terrible, if you go slow and learn the game right. Okay?
Yes, sir.
The only way to make them stop teasing you is to kill the drills, okay? You win the sprints, they’ll stop. You drop out last in the sweat drills, they’ll stop. Okay?
Yes, sir.
I admire the fact that you’re here, Moon. Takes courage to try to do something you never did before. That’s sort of what school’s for, in the end.
Yes, sir.
Sure you’re doing this for yourself and not for your folks?
Mostly for me, sir. But some for them too. I want them to be happy.
The coach stared at Moon for a minute. Yet another kid with all sorts of stories and pain and grace swimming inside him, and I might see a tenth of it, he thought. Yet another one. I wish to god I could do more for these kids. But at least he’s trying. Heaven help him this week.
Alright, Moon. Shoot around until the other guys come. Today’s mostly drills. You’ll be fine. They’ll razz you because they don’t know you, and they want to see who you are. They’re not really as cruel as they’ll seem this week. Kill the drills, and that will quiet them down.
Yes, sir.
I’m proud of you that you’re here, Moon. Takes guts.
Yes, sir.
I’ll be prouder at the end of the week if you don’t quit, though.
Yes, sir.
You can if you want, but I hope you don’t.
Yes, sir.
You can call me Coach if you want.
No, sir.
Alright, then.
Yes, sir.
29
YES, IT WAS LOUIS who burled his way through the huckleberry bushes at the foot of Martin’s cottonwood tree. Sure it was. With a sort of panache or sense of ownership or blunt curt amused disrespect for huckleberrybushness. What thicket was this, to think that it could fend off the elk of elks? But Louis was not arrogant. Confident, yes. Sure of himself and his place in the world, yes. Aware of his elevated status among his tribe, yes—but not overweening or brash or brazen in his approach to or understanding of the other tribes. He fit his place with grace and assurance; that is the best way to say it. He did not seek to be king of the mountain except among the elk, and there he wished not for power or control or domination but only to be left alone by challengers, whom he defeated and dispatched as quickly as possible, to conserve his energy, to reduce damage, and perhaps, in some subtle way, out of respect for the brave young males who challenged him for what he considered his family. He had done the same, of course, when young, and somewhere in his bones, he knew his time would come, and he would limp away from some powerful attacker and spend his last years wandering alone and desolate. But not today, not this season, not this year.
Autumn was the intense season for Louis, the season of challenges and of hunters, and when the challengers of October were vanquished and the last hunters of November evaded and bollixed and led deftly into sucking mud and trackless marsh and the snow began to fall densely in December, there was a last dangerous period when cougars and bears and even bobcats and coyotes scoured the hills for prey slowed by snow or too old or ill to bound away with an athleticism nearly as stunning as their high-desert cousins the antelope. This last flare of danger was especially so for Louis and his fellows, because they were often wounded and sore after battle and much thinner after their exertions in love and war. But until he dropped his antlers in January, he was armed with enormous razor-tipped knives on his head, and even after he shed his antlers, he had his huge rock-hard hooves, powerful enough to smash a skull as easily as an egg. It was very rare, now that he had attained his full growth, that he himself would be attacked, but it was not so rare that his tribe of female elk would be stalked by a hungry cougar or rushed by a bear from ambush. But Louis, at twelve years of age, weighed more than a thousand pounds and was a terrifying eight feet tall when he reared and slashed with those awful hooves. More than once he had landed a blow that instantly killed the attacker, who was then in his or her turn eaten by the many smaller animals and insects to whom a bear carcass was a mountain of meat, a promontory of protein, a feast beyond imagination. Who knows if among the ravens and the marten, the vultures and the jays, the weasels and the bobcats, stories were not still told of an alp of fresh food found splayed on a brilliant hillside, with no evidence of its provenance but the prints of many elk, one among them immense?
* * *
While much of Martin’s time was spent pursuing and digesting the many savory delights available to the predatory tribes generally, he was also attentive and curious abou
t the many things he found on the mountain that he could not eat, and could not understand their use or role or provenance. Beer cans and bottles, for example. As a rule, bottles were found near creeks and streams and rivers, and cans along the roads and trails. He once found an unopened bottle actually in a stream, and he fished it out and played with it for a while until it slipped out of his paws and smashed, releasing a frightening fizz and a foul smell like something had died and fermented in the brown glass.
But he also found bullet shells, condoms, spoons, fishing lures, cigarettes and cigars and tobacco chaws in every conceivable form of redolent dissolution, rum and whiskey bottles, pornographic magazines, bicycle wrenches, candy bars, compact discs, earbuds, arrows, lug nuts, hubcaps, apple cores, eyeglasses, sunglasses, hats and caps, gloves, old tires, and once a set of upper dentures, which fascinated him because he recognized them as teeth but could not imagine why they were out here on the forest floor, unattached to any jaw or cranium that he could see.
Most of these objects he approached with immense caution, for they smelled of human beings, and human being smell was dangerous. Sometimes he would watch for a while and let other animals explore them first to see if there was a snare or trap involved; jays and crows and ravens and nutcracker birds were especially useful here, as they were curious beyond belief and would cheerfully zoom in and poke around anything new and especially shiny they noticed without seeming to care about possible dangers; but they never seemed to get caught in traps that Martin noticed, so either they were deft escape artists or perhaps too light in weight to set off a snap trap or be snagged by a snare. Or, as Martin began to think, perhaps they knew human beings best and understood their habits and patterns and knew which things were deadly and which were lost toys or careless garbage—although not even the ravens, generally the subtlest of birds, were beyond mistakes. Martin had once seen one starved to death by a plastic six-pack holder, into which the bird had inserted his head from curiosity or to entertain his companions; but then he could not get it off, and eventually it had snagged irretrievably, and the raven eventually died. His companions brought him snatches of food for a while and begged him to eat and made what were perhaps encouraging remarks and admonishments to persevere; but he died. By the time death came, he was so withered and reduced that none of the bigger scavengers bothered with his corpse, and he was left to the insects and the weather. You can still see his bones if you climb up the mountain a ways and look for a spire of rocks like the mainsail of a clipper ship; in among the spiny juniper there is the plastic six-pack holder, hardly weathered at all, and from it hangs the amazing skeleton of a raven, one of the kings of the mountain for years beyond counting.
30
I LIKE IT a lot more than I ever thought I would, said Moon, answering Dave’s question about basketball practice. You bet they ragged me, those guys. But they ragged all the freshmen, so I didn’t feel too bad, and it turned out the coach was right—the more you killed the drills, the less the older guys ragged you. I told the other freshmen that, and they told me Coach told them the same thing. He’s an interesting guy, Coach. Usually coaches are supposed to like the older guys who they know and trust and be hard on the new guys they don’t know. Weed out the weak ones or something. But he treats everyone the same. He doesn’t yell or anything, either. Coaches on television are always yelling. He says why should he yell when you know what you are supposed to be doing and you are trying to do it? He says we don’t yell at him when he makes a mistake, so why should he yell at us? Plus he says yelling is counterproductive, and those who get yelled at learn to tune it out, so what does a guy who yells do then? Whisper? This is the kind of thing he says before practice. He gives a little speech about something, and it’s never about basketball, it seems. It’s always about how to approach it or something. Interesting guy. Of course then he runs us so hard in drills and scrimmages that guys puked the first week.
You puke? asks Dave.
Just once. You?
Not yet, says Dave. Although I have been so tired that I knew if I tried to eat something, it wouldn’t stay down in the basement.
How’s running?
It’s a good thing I ran a lot before practice, that’s all I can say.
Getting ragged?
Actually, no. I think the seniors would like to, but the sophomore guy sets the tone somehow, and no one rags anyone. Plus, we are running so hard we don’t have time to talk.
You going to make the team?
I don’t know, Moon. The first cuts are next week. They keep twelve guys, and there are a lot of older guys. There’s six of us freshmen, and I am thinking they might keep two. How about you?
I think I might make the second team just because there’s not a lot of guys and they need me to practice, said Moon, but I don’t mind either way. I promised my mom and dad I’d try out, which I did. Making the team would be gravy.
How was it having your mom home?
Man, it was a ball after the first couple days. When she or Dad get home, they are way too parental for a while, and we have to find the balance, you know? Like there’s too much cooking and sitting together talking about Things That Matter. The best way to be with your family is just to be with them without an agenda, right? Like your family does. You say yourself, sometimes the best times are when no one says anything, like watching a movie or just hanging around reading and napping and goofing and stuff.
I guess.
You okay?
Yeah. I worry about my mom. She’s awful tired.
Didn’t she cut back at the lodge? When your dad got work?
Said she did, but she didn’t. You know how they are. It’s like if they say they are going to, that counts, even if they don’t actually do it. There’s always some good reason, like someone switched hours or she’s covering Emma’s shift or there’s overtime or something. But she’s awful tired. You can tell.
You tell your dad?
He knows. He says things to her, but he can’t make her change.
Maria?
Maria could. We are sort of keeping her in reserve for when we really need her, my dad says. She’s like a secret flashlight you pull out when everything looks dark.
How’s she doing?
Loves school. What a shock. Although her thing now is that first grade is for little kids and she wants to apply to fourth grade. She says school should be like colleges where you apply wherever you want and they say yes or no, rather than have to march up the grades like a ladder. Dad says she has a point, but he says the school district is antediluvian and dinosophomoric. You know how he talks. When’s your dad coming home?
He says he will be home for the first game of the year, no matter what, even if I don’t make the team. He says he’s so proud that I gave it my all that he will be there either watching me or sitting with me.
That true?
You want another sandwich?
Moon? That true?
Because I am having another sandwich. I could eat ten sandwiches right about now. I’m starving. You want another one?
* * *
I’ll prove I deserve to be in fourth grade, thought Maria. I’ll prove it beyond the shadow of a cloud. I’ll walk home from school by myself. Like the big kids do. I don’t have to take the baby bus. I am not a baby. The baby bus is for little kids who are afraid to walk home by themselves. I know how to cut through the woods like Dave does. I am demure for my age.
And, her plans laid, she quietly collected what she would need for a jaunt through the woods and did her level best to forget the ironclad rules about frontiers and limitations on her urge for ramblage, as her dad said, although she found that every time she set her mind to forget the rules, they came back clear as if they were written in the air before her eyes—the four boundary points of her compass, the corners of her world, the edges of the allowable universe other than school … the big rock that looks like a hawk near the highway, the huge red cedar tree in the forest, the beech tree near the river, and Miss M
oss’s cabin below the store. I promised, she thought. I signed a contract. I gave my word. But that was all before first grade. Things have changed. Circumstances are different. Therefore promises are different. Plus those rules are for little kids in kindergarten. But I should be in fourth grade and not even first grade. I’ll prove that the rules shouldn’t apply. Once I show Mom and Dad that there’s no reason anymore for the rule, then there doesn’t have to be the rule, and I can walk home every day by myself and not have to take the baby bus.
Still, she felt uncomfortable. She put a compass and an orange and a spoon and a thin jacket and a cap and two candy bars in her backpack. At the last second before she zipped it up tight and went to bed, she put in the owl feather that Dave had given her, just because. You never know when an owl feather will come in handy, she thought. What if she met an owl who was one feather short? Wouldn’t that be good, to hand an owl an owl feather? And what if the owl was very grateful then, and decided to be her friend? Wouldn’t that be good? And maybe that owl talked to the other owls, and all the owls on the mountain would keep an eye out for Maria’s family. That would be a good thing, to have all the owls keeping an eye out for you, because they see everything. Probably no animal in the woods sees as much as an owl. That would be a good thing, she thought, and she fell asleep.
31
USUALLY WINTER ON WY’EAST begins slowly, with plenty of small practice snowstorms dusting the meadows and clearings and frosting the forest and replenishing the brilliant gleam of the glaciers and snowpack on the peak. Usually there is no snow to speak of in September and about five inches falls in October and thirty in November and fifty in December and sixty in January, and then the snows taper back down through the forties in February and March down finally to zero inches by July, although you never know; plenty of climbers and skiers have seen sudden snow in the highest reaches of the mountain in summer, usually late in the afternoon, when the wind shifts course and fogs roll in and climbers lose their bearings. On average, September’s snow was a tenth of an inch, according to all the charts. But averages skew.