by Peter Straub
“I will,” said Andy.
On the top of the Edge Bryn fumbled with the rope, securing a Pig’s Ear knot as he looped it round a spindly clump of rooted hawthorn. Andy was supposed then to loop the rope around his own waist while Bryn lowered himself over the Edge, preparing to descend to the cave that way—a mere matter of nine or ten feet below the lip of the Edge.
Bryn duly disappeared over the lip, negotiating toeholds and finger grips, grunting occasionally and chattering happily. Andy meanwhile stood with his hands in his pockets, anxiously gazing across at the twin wheels of the pit-head winding gear, wondering how the rescue was proceeding. It was possible to superimpose on the landscape the giant ghost of an old lady crouched at those black wheels, spinning away with some dark and concealed purpose. And it was while Andy gazed across the fields to the distant mineworks that he heard a yelp and felt the rope tighten round his waist.
Andy grabbed the branch of a nearby tree. The rope jagged against the feeble hawthorn, lifting it out by its roots. Bryn yelped again as the rope dropped him another six feet. Then the hawthorn root popped out of the sandy soil, like a pulled tooth. The rope whiplashed at Andy turning him in a complete circle, losing its purchase on his body. The bush lashed at Andy’s face as it went past him. It snagged on two fingers of exposed tree root, and Bryn was dumped another six feet. Then the bush tore free and whistled as it went over the Edge.
Andy didn’t stop to look over. Instead he hurried down past the Witch’s Face and round to the slope in front of the cave, where Bryn lay in a crumpled heap. Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth.
“Yawlright?” Andy said.
“Of course I’m not all right.”
“You’re all right.”
Bryn groaned. He’d been badly winded by the fall, and he’d scraped his hands and his knees. He’d also bitten his tongue, which accounted for the blood. In the end he’d fallen no more than about twelve feet, and had bounced down the sandstone slope beneath the cave mouth. He sat up, holding his head.
“Hey,” said Andy. “Not crying are you.”
“You shit. Why didn’t you hold on to me?”
“You must be joking. You were gone before I knew it.”
“Useless. You’re useless.” Bryn was on his feet.
“It was your stupid idea. Tying the rope to that bush. Stupid. Where are you going?”
“I’m going home.”
“Wait. I’ll come with you.”
“Sod off.”
Bryn shrugged off his friend’s advances and limped away. Within a minute he was out of sight. “Wasn’t my fault,” Andy shouted. He slumped onto the slope beneath the cave, knowing he should have gone home with Bryn. While Andy’s mother was spending every anxious moment waiting at the pit-head for news of the rescue, Bryn’s mother had told him to come for tea. Just as he’d done the previous night, munching on sardine sandwiches when Ike had turned up.
Ike had broken shifts to be part of the rescue team. He’d stood in the doorway, kicking his boots off, all-in. He drew a chair to the table where the boys sat, and without a word to anyone laid his head down by the plates and the butter, leaking the odor of coal and exhaustion. The boys munched on their sandwiches, looking at him. After a while Jean placed a steaming mug of tea on the table and Ike lifted his head. He blinked sleepily at the boys.
“Well,” Jean had said.
“Not much,” Ike said. He slurped his tea noisily. Then he turned to Andy. “Thing is, lovely boy, he’s in a corner with the other blokes and the ceiling is pressed down on ‘em, see. And we can’t get.”
A flat, opened, sardine can lay on the table, next to the butter. He picked up the can. “See how you get this bit of fish stuck in the corner and you can’t get your knife into it? Well, that bit of sardine’s your dad. In there, look? And the top of this tin is the roof come down on him. Now if we pull out what’s holding up the roof, see?” He pressed down a huge, coal-ingrained thumb, crumpling the flimsy metal sheet of the sardine can. Tomato sauce and fish oil bubbled around the scythed edges of the can. “Well. There you are.”
Ike carefully replaced the sardine can next to the butter. “Don’t you worry, lovely boy. Ike will get him out.” Then he put his head back on the table and closed his eyes.
Jean had made a silent gesture that they should leave the table.
Recalling all of this, Andy felt a sob break free deep in his chest and force its way into his throat. He wiped his eye and tossed another pebble down the sandstone slope. There was nothing he could do. They wouldn’t let him wait up at the pit-head and there was no one at home.
Then the ground shook. Very slightly. The mild tremor made him grab at the earth, and he thought he heard a muffled thump. Just for a second he’d felt the shock of earth dislodging, and he knew he hadn’t imagined it because a couple of tiny pebbles broke loose from the cave and went bouncing down the slope. He wondered if it had anything to do with the pit rescue.
He decided to hurry home. He got up and picked his way down the slopes, barely keeping his footing. He knew that if he went back up to the Edge he could cut across fields and get home faster. His hands trembled. He was clambering between boulders, over the exposed roots of trees, when he stumbled. That’s when he saw the second cave.
Inside the cave, the doglike growl subsided. Then it came again, only this time it sounded like a man trying to clear his throat of coal dust. The two tiny lights continued to swing from side to side. Another, distressed throaty growl made Andy want to get out.
But as the lights floated towards him out of the gloom he recognized the bowl of a miner’s helmet. The upper light was a helmet lamp. A miner, face blackened with coal dust, approached him from the dark end of the cave. Hanging from the miner’s belt was a Davey lamp, with its tiny flame alive.
The miner stopped and leaned against the wall. Breathing heavily, he tried to clear his throat again. He was struggling. “Hello Andy. Where’s my lovely boy then?”
Ike blinked at him in the darkness, his face caked with sweat and black dust. All Andy could see of his features were his teeth and the whites of his eyes. Ike had a rope looped over his shoulder; identical to the one he and Bryn had played with earlier. “Bryn went home.”
Ike seemed confused. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the cave wall. Ike was breathing asthmatically. He seemed to have trouble getting his words out. “Oh. Came to have a word with him, I did. See.”
Now Andy could see and hear industrious activity taking place deeper in the cave behind Ike. He tried to look beyond the miner. “Where’s my dad?”
“Your old man’s all right. I got him out.” Ike unhooked the rope from his shoulder and flung it to the cave entrance. “Told you I would.”
Andy tried to push past Ike, to get to his dad. “Let me through.”
Ike stopped him. Struggling to draw himself up to his full height, he placed a big blackened paw on Andy’s shoulder. “No, no, no. That’s not for you back there. Nothing to concern you back there. I just came to see my lovely boy. But you say he’s not here, then?”
“No. He went home.”
Ike slowly lifted a sooty hand to wipe back the sweat from his brow. Even in the darkness Andy could see it bubbling black and coursing dust into Ike’s eyes. He was out of breath. “Tell him I came. Now you run along home, son. Go and see your old man.” Andy nodded as the miner turned and retreated, with slow heavy steps, the lamp swinging at his side, deeper into the blackness of the cave. “And tell your old man,” Ike called softly.
“Tell him what?”
“Just tell him.”
Andy escaped from the cave into the bright summer light. There, lying on the floor was the rope Ike had flung at the cave entrance. Andy picked it up. It was black from the coal, and the gritty dust immediately transferred itself to the boy’s hands. He was already blackened from the paw print Ike had left on his shirt, so he hooked the rope over his shoulder and hastened home.
When Andy persuade
d the gatekeeper to let him through to the pit-head, he found his mother there, and his father. Stan had already been brought up with the other rescued men. They were all in good shape, but there was no celebration and no rejoicing because one of the rescue team had been killed in the effort of getting the men out.
Andy didn’t see Bryn for some weeks afterwards. His mother had taken him, along with his sister, to stay with her family in Wales. When Bryn did return Andy tried to pass on the message Ike had given him.
“What?”
“He came looking for you. Up at the rocks. Your old man.”
“What?”
“He left the rope. Do you want it? The rope?”
Bryn wrinkled his nose in contempt. “No.”
“But you must.”
“Shut it, will you? Shut it.”
Eventually, Bryn and his mother and sister moved permanently to Wales.
Andy never said anything about it to his own father. One afternoon he said to Stan, “So Bryn’s dad saved your life, then, didn’t he?”
“That’s what they say, son. That’s what they say.”
That was the closest they ever got to discussing the matter.
More than once Andy went back up to Corley Rocks to try to find the second cave. He looked hard for it. He never did find it. Though he did have the rope. He hung it on a nail in the garden shed, where it remained untouched for many years, black with coal dust.
October in the Chair
Neil Gaiman
FOR RAY BRADBURY
October was in the chair, so it was chilly that evening, and the leaves were red and orange and tumbled from the trees that circled the grove. The twelve of them sat around a campfire roasting huge sausages on sticks, which spat and crackled as the fat dripped onto the burning applewood, and drinking fresh apple cider, tangy and tart in their mouths.
April took a dainty bite from her sausage, which burst open as she bit into it, spilling hot juice down her chin. “Beshrew and suckordure on it,” she said.
Squat March, sitting next to her, laughed, low and dirty, and then pulled out a huge, filthy handkerchief. “Here you go,” he said.
April wiped her chin. “Thanks,” she said. “The cursed bag-of-innards burned me. I’ll have a blister there tomorrow.”
September yawned. “You are such a hypochondriac,” he said, across the fire. “And such language.” He had a pencil-thin mustache, and was balding in the front, which made his forehead seem high, and wise.
“Lay off her,” said May. Her dark hair was cropped short against her skull and she wore sensible boots. She smoked a small brown cigarillo, which smelled heavily of cloves. “She’s sensitive.”
“Oh puhlease,” said September. “Spare me.”
October, conscious of his position in the chair, sipped his apple cider, cleared his throat, and said, “Okay. Who wants to begin?” The chair he sat in was carved from one large block of oak wood, inlaid with ash, with cedar, and with cherrywood. The other eleven sat on tree stumps equally spaced about the small bonfire. The tree stumps had been worn smooth and comfortable by years of use.
“What about the minutes?” asked January. “We always do minutes when I’m in the chair.”
“But you aren’t in the chair now, are you, dear?” said September, an elegant creature of mock solicitude.
“What about the minutes?” repeated January. “You can’t ignore them.”
“Let the little buggers take care of themselves,” said April, one hand running through her long blond hair. “And I think September should go first.”
September preened and nodded. “Delighted,” he said.
“Hey,” said February. “Hey-hey-hey-hey-hey-hey-hey. I didn’t hear the chairman ratify that. Nobody starts till October says who starts, and then nobody else talks. Can we have maybe the tiniest semblance of order here?” He peered at them, small, pale, dressed entirely in blues and grays.
“It’s fine,” said October. His beard was all colors, a grove of trees in autumn, deep brown and fire orange and wine red, an untrimmed tangle across the lower half of his face. His cheeks were apple red. He looked like a friend, like someone you had known all your life. “September can go first. Let’s just get it rolling.”
September placed the end of his sausage into his mouth, chewed daintily, and drained his cider mug. Then he stood up and bowed to the company and began to speak.
“Laurent DeLisle was the finest chef in all of Seattle; at least, Laurent DeLisle thought so, and the Michelin stars on his door confirmed him in his opinion. He was a remarkable chef, it is true—his minced lamb brioche had won several awards, his smoked quail and white truffle ravioli had been described in the Gastronome as ‘the tenth wonder of the world.’ But it was his wine cellar…ah, his wine cellar…that was his source of pride and his passion.
“I understand that. The last of the white grapes are harvested in me, and the bulk of the reds: I appreciate fine wines, the aroma, the taste, the aftertaste as well.
“Laurent DeLisle bought his wines at auctions, from private wine lovers, from reputable dealers: he would insist on a pedigree for each wine, for wine frauds are, alas, too common, when the bottle is selling for perhaps five, ten, a hundred thousand dollars, or pounds, or euros.
“The treasure—the jewel—the rarest of the rare and the ne plus ultra of his temperature-controlled wine cellar was a bottle of 1902 Château Lafitte. It was on the wine list at $120,000, although it was, in true terms, priceless, for it was the last bottle of its kind.”
“Excuse me,” said August politely. He was the fattest of them all, his thin hair combed in golden wisps across his pink pate.
September glared down at his neighbor. “Yes?”
“Is this the one where some rich dude buys the wine to go with the dinner, and the chef decides that the dinner the rich dude ordered isn’t good enough for the wine, so he sends out a different dinner, and the guy takes one mouthful, and he’s got, like, some rare allergy and he just dies like that, and the wine never gets drunk after all?”
September said nothing. He looked a great deal.
“Because if it is, you told it before. Years ago. Dumb story then. Dumb story now.” August smiled. His pink cheeks shone in the firelight.
September said, “Obviously pathos and culture are not to everyone’s taste. Some people prefer their barbecues and beer, and some of us like—”
February said, “Well, I hate to say this, but he kind of does have a point. It has to be a new story.”
September raised an eyebrow and pursed his lips. “I’m done,” he said abruptly. He sat down on his stump.
They looked at each other across the fire, the months of the year.
June, hesitant and clean, raised her hand and said, “I have one about a guard on the X-ray machines at LaGuardia Airport, who could read all about people from the outlines of their luggage on the screen, and one day she saw a luggage X-ray so beautiful that she fell in love with the person, and she had to figure out which person in the line it was, and she couldn’t, and she pined for months and months. And when the person came through again she knew it this time, and it was the man, and he was a wizened old Indian man and she was pretty and black and, like twenty-five, and she knew it would never work out and she let him go, because she could also see from the shapes of his bags on the screen that he was going to die soon.”
October said, “Fair enough, young June. Tell that one.”
June stared at him, like a spooked animal. “I just did,” she said.
October nodded. “So you did,” he said, before any of the others could say anything. And then he said, “Shall we proceed to my story, then?”
February sniffed. “Out of order there, big fella. The man in the chair only tells his story when the rest of us are through. Can’t go straight to the main event.”
May was placing a dozen chestnuts on the grate above the fire, deploying them into patterns with her tongs. “Let him tell his story if he wants to,” s
he said. “God knows it can’t be worse than the one about the wine. And I have things to be getting back to. Flowers don’t bloom by themselves. All in favor?”
“You’re taking this to a formal vote?” February said. “I cannot believe this. I cannot believe this is happening.” He mopped his brow with a handful of tissues, which he pulled from his sleeve.
Seven hands were raised. Four people kept their hands down—February, September, January, and July. (“I don’t have anything personal on this,” said July apologetically. “It’s purely procedural. We shouldn’t be setting precedents.”)
“It’s settled then,” said October. “Is there anything anyone would like to say before I begin?”
“Um. Yes. Sometimes,” said June, “sometimes I think somebody’s watching us from the woods, and then I look and there isn’t anybody there. But I still think it.”
April said, “That’s because you’re crazy.”
“Mm,” said September, to everybody. “She’s sensitive but she’s still the cruelest.”
“Enough,” said October. He stretched in his chair. He cracked a cobnut with his teeth, pulled out the kernel, and threw the fragments of shell into the fire, where they hissed and spat and popped, and he began.
There was a boy, October said, who was miserable at home, although they did not beat him. He did not fit well, not his family, not his town, nor even his life. He had two older brothers, who were twins, older than he was, and who hurt him or ignored him, and were popular. They played football: some games one twin would score more and be the hero, and some games the other would. Their little brother did not play football. They had a name for their brother. They called him the Runt.
They had called him the Runt since he was a baby, and at first their mother and father had chided them for it.
The twins said, “But he is the runt of the litter. Look at him. Look at us.” The boys were six when they said this. Their parents thought it was cute. A name like “the Runt” can be infectious, so pretty soon the only person who called him Donald was his grandmother, when she telephoned him on his birthday, and people who did not know him.