It ceased.
She raised her head; slowly unclenched her hands. She sat up straight The night was dark, and stars shone over the forest There was nothing else.
"Osden," she said, but her voice would not come. She spoke again, louder, a lone bullfrog croak. There was no reply.
She began to realize that something had gone wrong with Harfex. She was trying to find his head in the darkness, for he had slipped down from the seat, when all at once, in the dead quiet, in the dark rear compartment of the craft, a voice spoke. "Good," it said. It was Eskwana's voice. She snapped on the interior lights and saw the engineer lying curled up asleep, his hand half over his mouth.
The mouth opened and spoke. "All well," it said.
"Osden -- "
"All well," said the voice from Eskwana's mouth.
"Where are you?"
Silence. A
"Comeback." -\
A wind was rising. "Ill stay here," the soft voice said.
"You can't stay -- "
I<<
Silence.
"You'd be alone, Osden!"
"Listen." The voice was fainter, slurred, as if lost in the sound of wind. "Listen. I will you well."
She called his name after that, but there was no answer. Eskwana lay still. Harfex lay stiller.
"Osden!" she cried, leaning out the doorway into the Vaster Than Empires and More Slow "A.127
dark, wind-shaken silence of the forest of being. "I will come back. I must get Harfex to the base. I will come back, Osden!"
Silence and wind in leaves.
They finished the prescribed survey of World 4470, the eight of them; it took them forty-one days more. Asnanifoil and one or another of the women went into the forest daily at first, searching for Osden in the region around the bare knoll, though Tomiko was not in her heart sure which bare knoll they had landed on that night in the very heart and vortex of terror. They left piles of supplies for Osden, food enough for fifty years, clothing tents, tools. They did not go on searching there was no way to find a man alone, hiding if he wanted to hide, in those unending labyrinths and dim corridors vine-entangled, root-floored. They might have passed within arm's reach of him and never seen him.
But he was there; for there was no fear any more. Rational, and valuing reason more highly after an intolerable experience of the immortal mindless, Tomiko tried to understand rationally what Osden had done.
But the words escaped her control. He had taken the fear into himself, and, accepting had transcended it He had given up his self to the alien, an unreserved surrender, that left no place for evil. He had learned the love of the Other, and thereby had been given his whole self. -- But this is not the vocabulary of reason.
The people of the Survey team walked under the trees, through the vast colonies of life, surrounded by a dreaming silence, a brooding calm that was half aware of them and wholly indifferent to them. There were no hours. Distance was no matter. Had we but world enough and time... The planet turned between the sunlight and the great dark; winds of winter and summer blew fine, pale pollen across the quiet seas.
12 8-ABUFFALO GALS
Gum returned after many surveys, years, and lighryears, to what had several centuries ago been Smeming Port There were still men there, to receive (incredulously) the team's reports, and to record its losses:
Biologist Harfex, dead of fear, and Sensor Osden, left as a colonist
(1971)
VI
Seven Bird and Beast Poems
Various real or imaginary relations and comminglings of human and other beings are going on here. The last one is a true ghost story.
The first one is a joke about one of my favorite kinds of bird, the acorn woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus in Latin, boso in Kesh). They are handsome little woodpeckers, still common in Northern California, splendidly marked, with a red cap, and a white circle round the eye giving them a clown's mad stare. They talk all the time -- the loud yacka-yacka-yacka call, and all kinds of mutters, whirs, purrs, comments, criticisms, and gossip going on constantly among the foraging or housekeeping group. They are familial or tribal. Cousins and aunts help a mated pair feed and bring up the babies. Why they make holes and drop acorns into them when they can't get the acorns back out of the holes is still a question (to ornithologists -- not to acorn woodpeckers). When we removed the wasp- and woodpecker-riddled back outer wall of an old California farmhouse last year, about a ton of acorns fell out, all worm-hollowed husks; they had never been accessible to the generations of Bosos who had been diligently dropping them in since 1870 or so. But in the walls of the bam are neat rows of little holes, each one with a longValky Oak acorn stuck in, a perfect fit, almost like rivets in sheet iron. These, presumably, are winter supply. On the other hand, they might be a woodpecker an form. Another funny thing they do is in spring, very early in the morning when a male wants to assert the tribal territory and/or impress the hell out of some redhead.
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132 JT BUFFALO GALS
He finds a tree that makes a really loud sound, and drums on it. The loudest tree these days -- a fine example of the interfacing of human and woodpecker cultures -- is a metal chimney sticking up from a farmhouse roof. A woodpecker doing the kettledrum reveille on the stovepipe is a real good way to start the day at attention.
Seven Bird and Beast Poems "A-133
What is Going on in The Oaks Around the Barn
The Acorn Woodpeckers are constructing an Implacable Pecking Machine to attack oaks and whack holes to stack acorns in.
They have not perfected
it yet They keep cranking
it up ratchet by ratchet by ratchet each morning
till a Bluejay yells, "SCRAP!" and it all collapses
into black-and-white flaps and flutters and redheads muttering curses in the big, protecting branches.
For Ted
The hawk shapes the wind and the curve of the wind
Like eggs lie the great gold hills in the curve of the world to that keen eye
The children wait
The hawk declares height by his fell fall The children cry
Comes the high hunter carrying the kill curving the winds with strong wings
To the old hawk
all earth is prey, and child
(1973)
(1986)
134-A BUFFALO GALS Found Poem
However, Bruce Baird, Laguna Beach's chief lifeguard, doubts that sea lions could ever replace, or even really aid, his staff. "If you were someone from Ohio, and you were in the water having trouble and a sea lion approached you, well, it would require a whole lot more public education," he told the Orange County Register.
-- PAUL SIMON, for AP, 17 December 1984
If I am ever someone from Ohio
in the water having trouble
off a continent's west edge
and am translated to my element
by a sudden warm great animal with sea-dark fur sleek shining
and the eyes of Shiva,
I hope to sink my troubles like a stone and all uneducated ride her inshore shouting with the foam praises of the freedom to be saved.
(1986)
Totem
Mole my totem mound builder maze maker tooth at the root shaper of darkness into ways and hollows
in grave alive heavy handed light blinded
Seven Bird and Beast Poems *A-135
Winter Downs
(For Barbara)
Eyes look at you. Thorns catch at you. Heart starts and bleats.
The looks are rocks white-ringed with chalk: flint fish-eyes of old seas, sheep's flint-dark gaze.
Chalk is sheep-white.
Clouds take shape
and quiet of sheep.
Thorn's hands hold stolen fleece.
The stones sleep open-eyed.
Keep watch: be not afraid.
The Man Eater
They'd all run away then. We came out of the hovels by the well to wait as that one came
soft from the branched dark into the moon-round singing to wear garlands by children woven, given. An old one of us
(1980)
(1986)
136-A" BUFFALO GALS
brought the goat out fed well, also garlanded, but that one ignored the goat and cast about among huts and gardens hunting hunting.
"They're gone," we sang while the children let the goat go.
"They ran away," we sang, dancing, dancing hunting with that one, with her who is branched with darkness and shining, and is not afraid.
VII
(1986)
Sleeping Out
Don't turn on the flashlight, we won't see
what's crashing its way slow
down there in the foggy darkness
thickening the air with a smell
like wet deadness smoldering,
or why the crickets went still
and coyotes giggle behind the hill.
The light will make a hole in the air and what we fear will be more there all round
it in the dark brash and the old dark mind.
(1985)
"The White Donkey and "Horse Camp"
In these two stories, the relationship is that natural, universal and mysterious one between the child and the animal.
"The White Donkey" was written in the white-hot dawn of a summer morning during the Writers Conference at Indiana University. I had asked the writers in my workshop to write a "last contact" story -"first contact" is a very common theme in science fiction, of which the films Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. are trivial but familiar examples. This story, however, is not science fiction but fantasy, since the creature in question is not an 'alien' or an extraterrestrial, but just the opposite. It is an animal whose habitat is restricted to the human imagination. Even there it flourishes only within the Western European ecosystem, where a few years ago it experienced quite a population explosion, reproducing itself all over greeting cards, posters, book covers, and other curious ecological niches. But to the child in this story, no recognition is possible.
"Horse Camp" seems to trouble people, even some who have gone through, or had daughters go through, the "horse stage." Perhaps what troubles them is that one can hear in it a yell of freedom and a scream from the trap in the same voice at the same time. Or maybe they just want to know how. / don't know.
139
140 JT
The White Donkey
THERE WERE SNAKES IN THE OLD STONE PLACE, but the grass grew so green and rank there that she brought the goats back every day. "The goats are looking fat," Nana said. "Where are you grazing them, Sita?" And when Sita said, "At the old stone place, in the forest," Nana said, "It's a long way to take them," and Uncle Hira said, "Look out for snakes in that place," but they were thinking of the goats, not of her so she did not ask them, after all, about the white donkey.
She had seen the donkey first when she was putting flowers on the red stone under the pipal tree at the edge of the forest She liked that stone. It was the Goddess, very old, round, sitting comfortably among the roots of the tree. Everybody who passed by there left the Goddess some flowers or poured a bit of water on her, and every spring her red paint was renewed. Sita was giving the Goddess a rhododendron flower when she looked round, thinking one of the goats was straying off into the forest; but it wasn't a goat It was a white animal that had caught her eye, whiter than a Brahminee bull. Sita followed, to see what it was. When she saw the neat round rump and the tail like a rope with a tassel, she knew it was a donkey; but such a beautiful donkey! And whose? There were three donkeys in the village, and Chandra Bose owned two, all of them grey, bony, mournful, laborious beasts. This was a tall, sleek, delicate donkey, a wonderful donkey. It could not belong to Chandra Bose, or to anybody in the village, or to anybody in the other village. It wore no halter or harness. It must be wild; it must live in the forest alone.
Sure enough, when she brought the goats along by whis-The White Donkey A. 141
ding to clever Kala, and followed where the white donkey had gone into the forest, first there was a path, and then they came to the place where the old stones were, blocks of stone asbigas houses all halfburied and overgrown with grass and kerala vines; and there the white donkey was standing looking back at her from the darkness under the trees.
She thought then that the donkey was a god, because it had a third eye in the middle of its forehead like Shiva. But when it turned she saw that that was not an eye, but a horn -- not curved like a cow's or a goat's horns, a straight spike like a deer's -- just the one hom, between the eyes, like Shiva's eye. So it might be a kind of god donkey; and in case it was, she picked a yellow flower off the kerala vine and offered it, stretching out her open palm.
The white donkey stood a while considering her and the goats and the flower; then it came slowly back among the big stones towards her. It had split hooves like the goats, and walked even more neatly than they did. It accepted the flower. Its nose was pinkish-white, and very soft where it snuffled on Sita's palm. She quickly picked another flower, and the donkey accepted it too. But when she wanted to stroke its face around the short, white, twisted hom and the white, nervous ears, it moved away, looking sidelong at her from its long dark eyes.
Sita was a little afraid of it, and thought it might be a little afraid of her; so she sat down on one of the half-buried rocks and pretended to be watching the goats, who were all busy grazing on the best grass they had had for months. Presently the donkey came close again, and standing beside Sita, rested its curly-bearded chin on her lap. The breath from its nostrils moved the thin glass bangles on her wrist Slowly and very gently she stroked the base of the white, nervous ears, the fine, harsh hair at the base of the horn, the silken muzzle; and the white donkey stood beside her, breathing long warm breaths.
142ABUFFALO GALS
Every day since then she brought the goats there, walking carefully because of snakes; and the goats were getting fat; and her friend the donkey came out of the forest every day, and accepted her offering and kept her company.
"One bullock and one hundred rupees cash," said Uncle Hira, "you're crazy if you think we can marry her for less!"
"Moti Lal is a lazy man," Nana said. "Dirty and lazy."
"Se he wants a wife to work and clean for him! And he'll take her for only one bullock and one hundred rupees cash!"
"Maybe hell settle down when he's married," Nana said.
So Sita was betrothed to Moti Lal from the other village, who had watched her driving the goats home at evening. She had seen him watching her across the road, but had never looked at him. She did not want to look at him.
"This is the last day," she said to the white donkey, while the goats cropped the grass among the big carved, fallen stones, and the forest stood all about them in the singing stillness. 'Tomorrow 111 come with Uma's little brother to show him the way here. He'll be the village goatherd now. The day after tomorrow is my wedding day."
The white donkey stood still, its curly, silky beard resting against her hand.
"Nana is giving me her gold bangle," Sita said to the donkey. "I get to wear a red sari, and have henna on my feet and hands."
The donkey stood still, listening
"Therell be sweet rice to eat at the wedding" Sita said; then she began to cry.
"Goodbye, white donkey," she said. The white donkey looked at her sidelong and slowly, not looking back, moved away from her and walked into the darkness under the trees.
(1980)
A-143
Horse Camp
ALL THE OTHER SENIORS WERE OVER AT THE street side of the parking lot, but Sal stayed with Norah while they waited for the bus drivers. "Maybe youll be in the creek cabin," Sal said, quiet and serious. "I had it second year. It's the best one. Number Five."
"How do they, when do you, like find out, what cabin?"
"They better remember we're in the same cabin," Ev said, sounding shrill. Norah did not look at her. She and Ev had planned for mo
nths and known for weeks that they were to be cabin-mates, but what good was that if they never found their cabin, and also Sal was not looking at Ev, only at Norah. Sal was cool, a tower of ivory. "They show you around, as soon as you get there," she said, her quiet voice speaking directly to Norah's lastnight dream of never finding the room where she had to take a test she was late for and looking among endless thatched barracks in a forest of thin black trees growing very close together like hair under a hand-lens. Norah had told no one the dream and now remembered and forgot it "Then you have dinner, and First Campfire,"
Sal said. "Kimmy's going to be a counselor again. She's really neat Listen, you tell old Meredy... "
Norah drew breath. In all the histories of Horse Camp which she had asked for and heard over and over for three years -- the thunderstorm story, the horsethief story, the wonderful Stevens Mountain stories -in all of them Meredy the handler had been, Meredy said, Meredy did, Meredy knew.
"Tell him I said hi," Sal said, with a shadowy smile, looking across the parking lot at the far, insubstantial towers of
144 JT BUFFALO GALS
downtown. Behind them the doors of the Junior Girls bus gasped open.
One after another the engines of the four busses roared and spewed. Across the asphalt in the hot morning light small figures were lining up and climbing into the Junior Boys bus. High, rough, faint voices bawled. "OK, hey, have fun," Sal said. She hugged Norah and then, keeping a hand on her arm, looked down at her intently for a moment from the tower of ivory. She turned away. Norah watched her walk lightfoot and buxom across the black gap to the others of her kind who enclosed her, greeting her, "Sal! Hey, Sal!"
Ev was twitching and nickering, "Come on, Nor, come on, well have to sit way at the back, come on!" Side by side they pressed into the line below the gaping doorway of the bus.
In Number Five cabin four iron cots, thin-mattressed, grey-blanketed, stood strewn with bottles of insect repellent and styling mousse, T-shirts lettered UCSD and I V Teddy Bears, a flashlight, an apple, a comb with hair caught in it, a paperback book open face down: The Black Colt of Pirate Island. Over the shingle roof huge second-growth redwoods cast deep shade, and a few feet below the porch the creek ran out into sunlight over brown stones streaming bright green weed. Behind the cabin Jim Meredith the horse-handler, a short man of fifty who had ridden as a jockey in his teens, walked along the well-beaten path, quick and a bit bowlegged. Meredith's lips were pressed firmly together. His eyes, narrow and darting, glanced from cabin to cabin, from side to side. Far through the trees high voices cried.
Ursula K. LeGuin - Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences Page 11