THE SUMMER OF THE IRISH SEA
I
Once he had made up his mind to run for the heaven in the sea, Traynor was both relieved and apprehensive. After fifteen years of relative solitude, he relied more on instinct than on conscious thought, and he enjoyed the feeling of having a goal, though he didn’t call it that, even with the dangers that would come with the trying; and in a submerged cavern of his mind, something told him to go on.
Necessity ruled his life; he had known it had become imperative to run for it when he was almost driven to the ground two seasons before because he was too slow. He had wavered, hesitated, fearful of leaving his sanctuary. It had taken a second near-capture to give him the strength, and the fear.
Heaven was an island in the Irish Sea. So he had heard. So he believed as he sat on the low bank watching the shallow stream pass him by. In the twisting clear water he saw his face and shook his head to be sure it was his. Had he the memory, he would have been able to compare what he saw with the way it had been when he was released; now there was only long, black and matted hair tangling with a dark beard he tried to keep short with sharpened stones. His thin face was cracked and browned by the weather, splotched with dull red infections from insect bites and thorns. He leaned forward and saw the strength in his lean arms and chest, the speed in the long legs. The leaf-and-reed loincloth was only a protection, not a reminder.
He grunted and threw a pebble into the water, and immediately the ripples were erased.
A bird called, was answered and called again.
A hare poked its head through the tall grass opposite him, but he was not hungry and he let it go.
A short while and the heat was erased by shadows that covered the movement of the stream. There was a comfort in the twilight coolness telling him the end of the season was near; and he was glad because the next day he would be on his way, heading for heaven and the plentiful game that would feed him until he died.
He believed it, and that fed him too.
During his first few months of freedom, Traynor had attempted to keep track of time so he would know when fall officially arrived and he could move across the low hills without fear; but there was too much to do just to stay alive, and he learned instead to watch for the changing leaves and to test the night air. He quickly discovered an animal pleasure in staying alive long enough to watch the snow fly, and he felt sorry, for a while, for those who purposely lived in the open. Somehow, in spite of everything, they had failed the training and wanted to die, not knowing what it would be like to die.
When the last of the light faded into stars, he lowered himself into the stream, ignoring the water’s sting, and waded upstream to the low-hanging branch that marked his lair. Being careful not to touch the bank, he leaped up to a reed rope and climbed rapidly, silently into the middle branches. Three trees growing together wove an effective screen, and a slight rearrangement provided him with a narrow platform for sleeping, and hiding when necessary.
The mattress of leaves was damp and cool, and there was a moment’s regret at leaving the bed that had given him eight winters of protection, eight summers of hope. His stomach protested when he stretched out, but it wasn’t the first time he had gone to bed without eating. He remembered the hare and smiled.
A bird whispered and was answered.
Then it was quiet and he knew it was safe, and he slept, lightly.
* * * *
II
In the canyon of sleep Traynor dreamed:
A very wide room without paint or picture. A score of beds made of warped slats laid across bricks. Men and women slept quietly, lightly. A tired-looking man in a white coat opened the heavy metal door and crumpled a piece of paper in his hand. Instantly everyone sat up. He grinned and left. They slept. Again he was there, stepping on a small twig until it snapped. They sat up. He grinned and nodded. They slept.
A very wide room with a dirt floor covered with gravel. Naked, panting, perspiring, they jogged around close to the walls; the man, a different man, stood in the center like a horse trainer, urging them on until only one remained on his bleeding feet. Traynor. He was young. Food was thrown at them and they fought with hands and feet and teeth and heads, and ate with their fingers. No one talked: only the grunts and pants and crunching of bare feet on gravel.
It was hot; it was cold. They were in a compound without visible barriers, except for the dogs. It was wet, dry, noisy, quiet. Except for the horses, and the dogs. Snow, sex, rain, sex, heat and death. In the buildings, in the open.
In the rooms, both of them, there were bars on the windows.
In the canyon of sleep Traynor sensed:
Two people: one man, young; one man older but not old. Their faces only, distorted, barely recognizable as faces.
“Tell you what, Edwin, I’ll make that fifty pounds you don’t.”
“I love your confidence in me, you bastard, but you’re on. See if Margot is ready. I’ll be outside with the others.”
* * * *
III
Traynor dropped to the ground and moved quickly through the trees to the burrow he had seen the afternoon before. He crouched, waiting patiently, then leaned forward. His hand darted into the hole and dragged the kicking hare out, twisting its neck before its hindquarters were clear of the ground. As he tore at the warm flesh and spat the fur to one side, he thought of the dreams: he dismissed the first because it was recurrent and had lost its meaning; held the second until it faded only because it was less a dream than a dread. He paused, the animal’s blood running down his forearms and hands, then dismissed that too. It was disturbing, but he would wait until, if it came back.
When he finished the meal, he buried the bones in the bed of the stream and waded westward until his lair was out of sight. Then he left the cold water and hurried through the woods. It was still too early for anything to happen, but there was a meadow he had to cross before the heat slowed him down. As he walked, he listened to the wind, separating the sounds into rustling leaves and animals, and just the wind. Excitement made him tense, and the feeling was so different than when he was being hunted that he was reluctant to shake it off.
He surprised a bird in its nest and ate while he moved.
There were images of blue water, green land, and others like him no longer afraid to be together—he hummed and was startled by the sound, but it struck him as being good; peaceful, like the night.
He walked faster, using a memory to prod him on: a man he had met, living in a cave dug into the bank of a river. Traynor had wandered from the self-imposed boundaries of his land when he reached the river, farther north than he had ever been. Together they filled the other’s larder with fish caught by hand, then sat in the cave and talked. It was a strange sensation, talking, and Traynor was slow to realize he did not like it.
“What’d you do?” It was the standard opening, the greeting among his kind. The man was old.
“Multiple,” Traynor answered without remembering. “A wife, a man and a woman. I was about twenty-five.” No memory, just ritual.
“Rape and murder. They were fifteen, I was twenty-eight.”
The two traded their lives, near-captures, and the hunts they had seen from hiding places. Both knew they were freaks for living so long. Then the other told him of the heaven. It took most of the afternoon because the words, unused for so long a time, were difficult to resurrect.
“I’ve seen a few of us lately heading west, always in winter. We’re quite a number up here, you see, not so many towns and large houses. These others, they talk of a place in the Irish Sea. Food. Warm places. No blood.
That’s what they say. The Irish Sea, over there someplace.” He paused a long moment. “I’m trying next year.”
The following day, moving south, Traynor heard the baying hounds behind him and ran, angry that he hadn’t taken some of the fish with him now that they were sure to be wasted.
Several times in several years he heard about the heaven. The promised deligh
ts were always different, but the place was always the same. He ignored the talk as foolish—how could they know?—most especially from the women he only wanted to use. He had been safe for more seasons than he could count, until the summer he’d nearly been caught because he was too slow.
Suddenly, before he registered the fact, Traynor stopped thinking and saw glimpses of the meadow’s flowing green. The sun was hot. He slowed, stopped, then crept forward agilely on all fours. His eyes narrowed, his nostrils widened. A large bush a few yards from the tall grass shielded him from any eyes that might have been trained in his direction. He shifted until the wind blew in his face. He knew this place, he could run it without concentration, without looking down.
But now he would wait, listen, and wait again.
Insects drifted to and away from him. His legs became stiff and he shifted angrily. A spider, not three inches from his cheek, leisurely wrapped an immobile bee in fragile-looking white.
He dozed.
* * * *
IV
In the shadow of the spider Traynor dreamed:
A montage of faces, swirling, spewing words tonelessly. Before Traynor, before his father and his father’s father. Fragments overlapping and sometimes senseless. He understood none of it.
“There’re just too many ... no room ... no room...”
“Legalized murder! That’s all it is! How can we as a people con—”
“It works in the Union . . .”
“Without war there must be an outlet. . . nothing worse than beasts anyway how can their vile existence be tolerated when . . .”
The faces blurred and spun—a shift while Traynor shifted his feet in the dust.
“Trained, conditioned, and weeded out, they adapt as—”
“Far more exciting. Instinct and reason, by God it’s—”
“German shepherds are best if one heads-—”
Traynor made a sound much like a whimper, and sensed:
“Margot, don’t tell us you’re squeamish.”
“Nonsense, Edwin love. I’m just nervous. It’s all the excitement, that’s all. I’m simply not an old hand at it like you.”
* * * *
V
Traynor shook himself awake and punched the ground in frustration. Time that was not his had been wasted, and a terrifying sense of urgency shook his limbs. He decided against running, however, since the next line of trees was too far away to outrun any dogs. He moved slowly below the tops of the weeds and grass, trying to stay in time to the wind that sifted out of the trees. Bees ignored him, flies did not. The air cooled in the intervals of shade as clouds passed under the sun. He rested for a moment beside a rotted log, not thinking but fearing that he had never had to do this before, knowing he could usually travel a whole day without stopping. He stretched up and measured the distance left; the shadows were what he was after.
He was hungry.
He rose to his knees, tensed, then ran, watching the trees bob in front of him. The afternoon silence was hardly broken except for the sound of his own breathing. When finally he fell gasping into the brush and let the sun-speckled shadows wrap him gently, he closed his eyes and sweat drenched him. Never, never before had he felt so winded. He became afraid.
By the time the sun began teasing the horizon, he found himself in an area beyond his own. He skirted several small farms and a village, avoided the roads as much as he could. There had been a time when he had considered killing a man and stealing his clothes; but sooner or later somebody would notice the brands on his forehead and back.
Eventually he caught a family of quail and a hare and sat on his haunches eating. He hurried, unaware of the noises around him. He finished and left the bones un-buried.
When the evening soothed him and made him tired, he found a tree to sleep in. He thought, for a moment, how fat he’d grow in heaven, the mate to be there when he wanted her, and the dying old he desired.
“Old,” he said aloud. He liked the sound of it.
He slept, soundly.
* * * *
VI
Two people: riding, smiling, bobbing, unidentifiable. One complained about the smell of salt air. Bobbing, riding, smiling.
“Why should he leave, Edwin? I mean, it’s not very logical, is it. Why, he’s practically a legend.”
“Sooner or later, love, he’d have heard of the migration. Maybe he’s ready to chuck it in, like a dog, maybe, who’s ready to die. I don’t know.”
“Maybe, but it’s still not—”
“My dear, you’re giving it credit for something it no longer has. It’s like giving a quadratic equation to a horse and expecting him to solve it. Impossible. Hey, there they go! Come, hurry, Margot, I want to get home for supper!”
The air was cool, the ground damp as the sun split itself between leaves and branches. Traynor finished a meager starling and began walking, noticing belatedly a difference in the smell of the air. He wrinkled his nose and wondered. His footsteps were punctuated by grunts and he ran more often.
A partially plowed field stretched in front of him. He halted, looked, leaned into the strange wind that pushed his beard against his chest and his hair over the gothic F scarred into his brow. He drank deeply in a creek, then stepped into the sun, running, keeping balance by the touch of his fingers on the ground. Then he lay in the shadow of a log and watched the belt of woodland ahead for signs of movement. It stretched like a green quarter-moon, blackened by the glare of the sun in his eyes.
He smiled.
More tired than he remembered being in his life, he clenched his fists and rose, and heard the dogs. Stiffening, he waited for their direction, then sprinted over the frozen waves of the field. Low, hunched, breathing easily now that the tension was broken, he passed the tips of the crescent as the hounds scattered from the underbrush like leaves. Their yelps became bays, and behind them the horn signaled.
Traynor’s eyes widened in fear and he surrendered all pretext of hiding as he straightened his legs to get more power. Glancing around quickly, he veered sharply to his right, hearing rather than seeing the horsemen break into the open. The furrows tripped him, slowed him until he began leaping from top to top.
The horn, low and high, low and high, pushed him on. He stumbled without falling. A small dog stood in his way, fangs bared, growling. In sudden anger Traynor kept on, and when the dog leaped, he smashed it across the throat with his forearm. Another began snapping at his heels and he stopped, pivoted, and, grabbing its muzzle, used the momentum to help him toss it over his shoulder. A third was kicked in the head and it collapsed into the dirt, whimpering and whining. He ran on, humming something he knew was about oceans and waves and the wide Irish Sea.
Another dog, still another, became tangled in his legs and they sprawled, rolled on the ground, Traynor’s hand on its throat, choking and pushing its tearing fangs and wide, frenzied eyes away from his face.
There was a sharp pain in his side, on his legs, on his back.
Slowly he reeled, fell, stood, fell. A prison cell floated, a man in white coasted, blood spurted softly from a knife wound in a woman’s chest. A horse, a rider, fangs, a smile.
Low and high the horn.
He heard the call to heaven.
My God, he cried out silently, I’m not a—
The woman rode up and reined in her mount just as the man screamed.
“Congratulations, Margot, you’re the first! He’s beautiful, and the trophies are yours, of course.”
“God, Edwin, he screamed.”
“They always do, dear. You never really get used to it.”
“He knew!”
“Nonsense. Why should he be any different from the others? Do you ... do you want me to carry them back, love?”
“No, not the cloth, just the . . . other. I’m . . . I’m not sure I want it.”
“I understand, dearest. You’ll change your mind; it’s only the letdown after the chase. Just keep telling yourself he was a rapist or something. Dammit, Pet
er! For God’s sake, be careful what you’re doing with that thing. That’s better. Put it in the saddlebag, will you? And don’t force it, idiot, you’ll tear the ears off.”
<
* * * *
Robert Thurston
GOOD-BYE, SHELLEY,
SHIRLEY, CHARLOTTE, CHARLENE
In a smoke-congested back room of the universe the God of my agnostic imagination oversees this crooked card game. Bored, His jaw wedged into His left palm, His left arm propped up on the poker table, His left elbow nestled in a wide green rip of felt, He pulls cards randomly out of a grease-stained deck. On the back of each card is a still-life flower picture. (It seems that all the cards of my childhood depicted a variation of that vaseful of lifeless blooms.) God wears a purple waistcoat pulled tight across His ribs. The garters can’t be seen amidst the ballooning sleeves of His striped shirt. The top edge of a blue patterned kerchief is coated with a residue of dust and sweat. On one shoulder He sports a campaign button that says—scrape lines crisscrossing curved letters—”Win with Qay and Frelinghuysen.”
Orbit 11 - [Anthology] Page 7