The Monk

by Hallahan, William H. ;

  Looking back at the monastery, set low on its island, he thought about his warm bed. This was madness. It was after 4 A.M.

  The constellations had slipped westward and new stars had appeared, new throngs to stare down at him. He added more wood to the fire and read the supplication again. And still nothing happened.

  Out there in the darkness, somewhere under that large moon, the creature must be prowling. Brendan was inviting instant death.

  With the penetrating cold, and the fatigue of the nightlong vigil, Brendan was losing his resolve. His courage was at low ebb. The yearning to flee grew more insistent. Life in the monastery was more acceptable than ever. His bed seemed so tempting.

  Brendan closed the book and leaned over to warm his bare head once more before putting his cap on. He yawned and the dog yawned.

  As Brendan turned back to the lectern, the dog’s ears pricked. It stood and peered intently into the darkness. Brendan looked in the same direction across the ice to the far shore. The night was still quite clear under the moon but all Brendan saw was a whited-out winter world. He looked down again at the dog. It stood staring attentively at the far shore. Then Brendan felt a tremor on the ice. The ice shook. The sound of cracking ice scurried across the frozen surface. Then came a rhythmical pounding. Something was running on the ice but Brendan could see nothing moving.

  He could feel the steady pounding of running feet through the soles of his boots. Brendan backed away a few feet from the fires. He gauged the distance to the monastery. It was a very long run. He looked again toward the noise. Far away in the moonlight, he made out a movement. The pounding was louder and the noise of crackling ice closer.

  The dog cocked his head in great curiosity. The figure was nearer and moving at great speed directly toward him.

  Then a shrill, angry titter carried through the darkness. Brendan’s heart quailed.

  The creature loomed out of the darkness, huge, larger than ever, an expression of indignant rage on its hideous face, its forelimbs raised to strike. Abruptly it came to a sliding stop and backed away a step. It snorted in surprise, its furious wild eye fixed on Brendan. From its body rolled its dank sickening odor. Around its neck was draped a wrist-thick gold chain from which depended a mirror in an oval gold frame. The creature had lovingly discovered its own face.

  For a moment it seemed baffled. Then it raised itself to its full height and in a rage beat its fists on its chest and stamped its feet. Great cracks in the ice radiated from it. Cracking noises sounded from all over the lake.

  The creature craned its neck, staring at Brendan’s face in the moonlight, studying the hair and the robe, pacing in a semicircle before him, trying to see better. The mastiff, straining at its chain, watched with great curiosity.

  “Purple,” the creature said. “Purple!”

  “Get thee to hell,” Brendan answered.

  The creature beat its breast in a rage and bellowed, raising its forearm high in the air.

  Brendan walked after it, holding up his right index finger. “Let me touch you, monster! One touch!” He hurried toward it. The creature slipped and leaped to its feet to run off across the ice.

  “Down!” Brendan yelled after it. “Get thee to hell.”

  Far out on the ice, the creature beat its arms hysterically on the chest. “Purple,” it shouted once more. It gathered itself and charged toward Brendan.

  Brendan looked about for a weapon. There was nothing. Fury was up and barking wildly as Brendan threw up his arms to ward off the blow. And suddenly there were two mastiffs barking and lunging. The creature shrieked as the second mastiff bounded up and leaped at its throat.

  The creature tried to turn and run but the dog bore it down on the ice and savagely slashed at its throat. A man’s figure stepped past Brendan, roaring at the creature, “Down! Chimere! Down! Get thee to hell!”

  The ice burst open. Huge cracks appeared. The creature fell into the water, thrashing and shrieking. Then it sank.

  The man turned and looked with great concern at Brendan. “Are you hurt?”

  Brendan shook his head.

  The man stared at Brendan’s head. “Dear God,” he said. “Your aura’s like a bonfire.” He smiled with ineffable joy. “Call me Timothy,” he said.

  Timothy led Brendan inside the monastery. He had the kindest green eyes Brendan had ever seen, and Brendan felt an immediate and overwhelming affection for him.

  “We have only a few minutes,” Timothy said. “Satan’s hawk will be here any moment.”

  “Can you help me?” Brendan asked.

  “Yes. I can. But first we have to get you somewhere safe. There’s a place forty miles south of here, through the mountains at the Great Gap. An old ruin of a monastery. I’ll take care of the hawk as long as I can while you make your way there. Travel at night only. Keep your head covered. And watch for the hawk. If you see her, hide immediately.”

  “What if she sees me?” Brendan asked.

  Timothy’s eyes became bleak. “Pray.”

  It took only a few minutes to fit Brendan out with winter garments and boots and a backpack. Timothy accompanied him to the edge of the ice, giving him detailed advice. He finished by saying, “Cross the lake that way. Keep your heading due south. And no matter what you hear or see, don’t stop. Run for your life.”

  Guided by the bright moonlight, Brendan trotted across the ice to the shore and disappeared among the trees. There was a long climb ahead of him in woods that were still deep with snow. He turned and looked back. He was leaving a clear trail in the snow behind him. Then he heard the hawk. “Cree cree cree!” she shrieked, circling the monastery. When she saw Timothy she filled the night with her cries. Timothy and the mastiff walked across the ice away from Brendan with the hawk darting after them.

  Brendan climbed for an hour. Periodically he paused long enough to get his bearings and to look back at the lake. It seemed to have grown smaller. The monastery was barely visible among the trees; Timothy, Repentance and the hawk were not visible at all.

  It was after five when he reached the crest, panting, mopping his brow, not daring to push off his hood. His eyes studied the woods for signs of the hawk.

  Then he started down the other side of the mountain. Many miles south of him lay the Great Gap between the two mountains. That was the way to safety.

  Soon he was struggling to keep his footing as his boots slipped and slid down the snowy slope. He had to break his way through thickets, ducking branches, stubbing against rocks. It was painfully slow going and his back was complaining about the constant stooping under the branches. Then he found the fire lane. A row of power-line poles marched straight down the hill and he was able to increase his speed, keeping to the edge of the cleared trail.

  The moon disappeared in black clouds, and later he was enveloped in a swirling snowstorm. He was just barely able to follow the powerlines down the slope. There was one good thing about the snow: It was covering his tracks.

  At six thirty there was a little more light, and he knew that above the snow clouds dawn was breaking. He was weary; his muscles ached as if they had been pummeled by a club. He yearned to sleep. A safe hiding place somewhere out of that searching wind was what he needed.

  He had come down the long undulating slope and had crossed the narrow tip of a valley before starting abruptly to climb again. He came upon a sinuous roadway and followed it, feeling his tired legs complain with every step. The road rose sharply and curved to the left.

  He had walked into the middle of a field before he realized that the road had turned away again. Before him, looming in the falling snow, was an indistinct structure. He walked closer to it. It was a summer cottage with a front porch.

  Brendan studied the building. Someone had left open the lattice cover under the left side of the porch. He stooped down and peered inside. There was a snowdrift that extended about five feet. Beyond that was a thick bed of autumn leaves that had blown in there. Brendan crept in, then with care shut the latti
ce cover like a gate. Immediately, the wind was busily blowing snow through the interstices of the lattice work.

  On his knees, crouching with his head bent, he opened his sleeping bag, beat the snow off his clothing, unlaced his boots and slipped into the bag. He’d barely zipped himself in when he fell asleep.

  The hawk’s cry woke him. The snow had stopped but the wind was still blowing. As he sat up, Brendan saw through the lattice across the field and out on the roadway. While he’d slept, the snow and the scouring wind had completely obliterated his tracks. The hawk cried again, and he could just see her high above, an agitated speck in the tumultuous clouds.

  Brendan crouched under the porch and waited. It was late afternoon when Brendan could hear birds in the trees, chittering. He knew the hawk had flown off. A flock of crows arrived, dancing briefly on the swaying boughs of some conifers, then went off with their raucous calls echoing down the mountainside. The south-facing slope of the roof above him was catching the full effect of the March sun, and he could hear the eave dripping heavily. He also heard water trickling somewhere under the snow. The afternoon was getting short and with darkness all that snowmelt would freeze and make the footing slippery.

  For two hours more he remained under the porch, watching intently for the hawk. In the sunset a black form sailed over the house, and with one glance Brendan knew she was back. As he watched, she swept across the sky again in a slow semicircle, then wheeled north as silently as death. A moment later she was a distant black dot over the valley, curving this way and that, endlessly searching. Darkness was not far off.

  He risked heating some dried soup in a cupful of snow over his alcohol stove, ravenously drank it and ate two of his four sandwiches. He felt stiff and ungainly. He yearned to stand and stretch. He wished he had a weapon. How would he ever escape the hawk’s incredible eyes?

  Brendan swung back the lattice and stood up. The sun was gone; only a faint redness in the west marked its descent. And already in the east and south the evening stars had appeared. His luck was holding: A huge moon was rising to light his way south. It was a beautiful windless night and in the silence the only sound was the crunch of his boots on the snow. He still felt stiff from the night before.

  Soon the road crested and wiggled down toward a broad valley. On the other side of the valley he saw the Great Gap between the two mountains. They bulked like two whales. Between them was the glow of the rail-junction city. Here and there in the valley he saw the lights of farmhouses. The moon at three quarters cast an eerie ghost light over the snow. He felt totally alone. But the worst of the climbing and descending was behind him. Ahead lay a fairly straight walk. Contrary to Timothy’s advice, he stayed on the paved road. The walking was much faster that way.

  It was sometime around one in the morning when the first gust of warm air touched his face. A wind kicked up, moist and southerly, full of rain.

  Brendan turned and looked back. In the moonlight his tracks were clearly visible. He squinted into the moonscape, searching for any movement, and found none. Then he turned and almost trotted toward the interval. The backpack weighed heavily on his shoulders.

  Occasionally, a long way off he would see a car approaching and then he would scamper off the road and wait for it to pass. Several times, farm dogs set up a barking staccato and he was sure the hawk heard it.

  Sweat was streaming from him now. After the months of inactivity in the monastery, he was soft. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep up the pace he was setting. Once when he turned to look, he saw the great mass of the mountain he’d crossed during the night. In spite of his relentless pace during the last two hours, the mountain seemed as close behind him as ever and the interval more distant. He could almost convince himself the mountain was following him. It began to rain and in a few minutes it was teeming, a warm spring rain.

  The road was rising gradually, a long sweeping slope toward an old fold of land. Under his rain poncho he heard himself panting now and the calf in his right leg was tight and threatening to cramp. He considered discarding the backpack. It had grown heavier with each hour.

  The snow was melting rapidly away, and he slogged through lakes of drowned slush. He was concentrating on his footing when he heard the hawk’s cree cree cree faintly through the noise of the downpour. He immediately looked for a place to hide. He broke into a run, and as he bounded around a curve he almost ran into a railroad crossing light. Two red lamps were blinking alternately. In front of him a freight train rolled, moving slowly and picking up speed. Without hesitating, Brendan broke into a run and trotted beside it, watching. A freight car with its sliding door open approached him, he turned his body and flopped on the edge, dangling his legs in air and kicking to get inside. He couldn’t make it. He dropped off, took another run and dived up. But the backpack threw him off stride and he was still dangling. The train was rapidly picking up speed and he got a glimpse of a tunnel ahead. With the last strength in his legs he ran again, almost reaching a sprint, and jumped up. His head and shoulders were inside; his legs dangled. He could not pull himself in. Something gripped his collar. In a moment he was dragged inside the boxcar. And a moment later the train entered the tunnel. Things became pitch-dark.

  PART

  IV

  CHAPTER 11

  The Question

  Anne went home every night. She would start a meal while playing an album on the stereo. While the food cooked she would take a shower. Then she would dress, turn off the stove and go to a hamburger place. The next morning she’d find the food dried in the pot on the stove and throw it away.

  She would start to dust the furniture. Later, the dustcloth would still be in the middle of the table or stuck in a Venetian blind. She didn’t like being alone anymore. It took her a while to realize that she was blaming herself for Brendan. If he really had trusted her and believed her, he would have taken her with him.

  “My fault,” she said to the mirror. “Dumb broad.”

  She went more and more to the Green on Green. Jackie was company. A born bartender, a frustrated actor cadging TV parts on any passing bit of film, he was also a listener to others’ troubles. He wanted to talk about his own problems sometimes, and would confide in Annie. They propped each other up. Jackie’s nightmare was failure in the theater; he feared he would end up a middle-aged half-bald glass-polishing bartender living over a saloon somewhere and once or twice a week hustling some wino’s wife up to his bed for a little R & R. In pantomime he would stick his can out in the back (“Middle-age spread,” he’d say) and waddle up and down for her, making her giggle. But when he looked sidewise a few years ahead, she could see the doubt in the corners of his eyes.

  He was also part of Brendan’s life. She stubbornly refused to admit to herself that Jackie was a way of holding two fingers onto Brendan’s coattails. If ever he returned, she was sure he would come back through the doorway of the Green on Green.

  Jackie also watched the door for Brendan’s return. Brendan was his prop, his cheering section. Jackie missed him. “I feel like there’s a draft coming up my back sometimes,” he said to Anne. “Like a ghost.”

  “Do you believe in the occult, Jackie?”

  Jackie nodded seriously. “I believe it all. Leprechauns, pookas, fairies, banshees, the whole kit.”

  “Have you ever seen one?”

  “No, but I may any moment. I’m like the lady who said, ‘I don’t believe in ghosts and I hope they leave me alone.’”

  Invariably Trevor would turn up. And shortly a whole gang of his friends would appear. Trevor’s bar bills were enormous. One evening Jackie drew him aside and spoke earnestly to him for a few minutes. Trevor drew out a checkbook and wrote a check. Jackie shook his head as he put it in the cash register.

  Anne noticed that Trevor’s friends never bought him a drink, never put a penny on the bar.

  “Do you pay for all that?” she asked him.

  “What?”

  “All the drinking your friends do?�
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  “I suppose.”

  “Tell me their names. What’s her name there with the short blond hair?”

  “I forget.”

  “What does she do?”

  “Oh, she’s a friend of his.”

  “I see. What’s his name, Trevor?”

  “I—let me see.”

  “Where did you meet him?”

  “Oh—in some bar, I guess.”

  “Trevor. Don’t you know a freeloader when you see one?”

  He grinned sheepishly at her. “They’re broke. They’re actors on the street.”

  “Actors, me eye,” Jackie said. “That one is an accountant. And the others are all something else.”

  “Let them buy their own drinks, Trevor,” Anne said.

  “Good,” Jackie said. And he walked down the bar. Several times Anne watched him shake his head at Trevor’s friends and point at Trevor. Shortly all of Trevor’s friends had departed.

  “They didn’t even say good night, Trevor,” Anne said.

  He shrugged and smiled at her. “It was just a few dollars.”

  Later Jackie told her that the few dollars were often over a hundred dollars a night.

  Anne regretted her intrusion in Trevor’s affairs. Now when they met, Trevor asked Anne for advice. Should he keep his current accounting firm or hire a new one? His stockbroker was a friend from college but lately his advice had been very bad. What should he do? Trevor was a procrastinator. Confronted with a problem, he often did nothing.

  Anne found herself calling him during the day and prodding him like a mother. One day she realized it and withdrew her comments. He grew upset.

  “First of all, Trevor,” she answered, “I’m not smart enough to give you good advice. What do I know about stockbrokers? And secondly, you never take the advice anyway.”

  He was upset. Anxious. “Annie, don’t get mad. I need to be able to talk to you. I do take your advice. I’m getting a new stockbroker and it’s an all-business relationship this time. I don’t buy drinks for freeloaders anymore. I’m writing a play. Every day. My whole life is getting straightened out because of you.”