“Got all the extras I need,” Birdsong spoke, stopping the eyes before they got to the guns racked above the mantel.
“Maybe so, maybe so,” the man slapped both gloved hands against his knees and stood up. “I have a job for you.”
“What?”
“Snakes.”
“Bit too early.”
“Not according to the data in Sacramento.”
“Data in Sacramento’s got nothin to do with snakes in the Sierra.”
“The State’s got machines in Sacramento, smarter than you and me put together will ever be, those machines are a million dollars right and if the card comes up punched now for snakes, then it’s now for snakes. You want the job or not? It makes no difference to me who’s right or wrong.” He moved to the door and put his hand on the knob.
“Where?”
“Horsetail Falls.”
“Who else is going?”
“Ben Dora.”
“He goes I stay.”
“You then, so let’s move it. I haven’t the whole morning to stand around and discuss it. I want to be home before dark, promised my wife I’d take her over to Grey-eagle for dinner. You had your breakfast?”
“Yes.”
“Good, no time to waste, we’ve a long way to go.”
They got in the jeep and drove on the flat road out of the valley that was sunk into the sky itself, they climbed into the mountains, the black pavement worming its way through the snow that had been thrown up on both sides by the snowplows in high banks like white waves. When they reached the ridge of the first mountain Birdsong wiped the moisture from the plastic of the back window, through the clear swipes his hand made in the wet blur he could see below to the valley. He could see far in the distance, but not to the other side. He could see its silence, its flatness, the few houses that were scattered and remote as if they had been tossed haphazardly into the bowl like black dice. In Truckee Ralph bought two cases of dynamite. Birdsong strapped them with rope against the bed of the jeep. They drove on, following the road along the shore of Dormer Lake and up another mountain, over a bridge shaped like a concrete rainbow, spanning a granite split in the mountain that was aimed like a giant rifle sight at the lake below. The snow began to fall, slightly, slowly, in its own time. Birdsong kept wiping his side window to look out, so if there was one along the road he would see it, and seize it in his mind, the fragile snowplant, growing straight and delicate from the whiteness, its color splashing in bold contrast, as if the glorious ceremony of its intricate existence etched in the very cold that buried most other living things in four and a half months of death each year but breathed life into this only plant, sustained it, nurtured it, this beautiful bastard celebrated as proof of its own beauty; and when it died, when the snow would give way to sun and sink from sight into the black earth, it would kill that which it celebrated, gave birth to, would destroy its own flower of existence, the blazing snowplant. Birdsong searched in the falling snow as the jeep moved along, looking for that blaze of color that his people called Honowah, and for him it was special, singular. It was the color of his dreams. He saw one. He heard the wipers of the jeep slapping back and forth and he saw one, only for an instant, in passing, he saw the burst of crimson against the whiteness, and it was gone, fled, but he held its image in his mind, clinging to it until they would pass by another, and once more the color would grow, brighter. The jeep whined through the mountains, jerking at almost regular intervals as Ralph shifted gears, but always moving.
“I sure as you can see don’t like driving all over God’s mountain roads in the falling snow with a load of dynamite in the back. Don’t like it at all, you can mark that down. I just don’t like it.”
Birdsong heard Ralph’s words spoken loud and tight in the smallness of the cab, over the slapping whir of the wipers which had formed a drone deep in his mind, their monotonous rhythm continuously backing his thought, his thought of crimson, shattered by Ralph’s words, drained of meaning drained by a simple act of intrusion, of speech. He broke from his gaze out the window into the snow and turned in his seat. “What’d you say?”
“You don’t care about dying, do you Birdsong.” Ralph put his gloved hand on the gearshift knob and pushed it forward. “Makes no difference to you one way or the other,” he spoke even louder over the increased whine from the engine. “That’s the trouble with people today, Indians in particular, don’t care whether they live or die. Like Ben Dora for instance, now there’s a man wants to die, and is honest about it, I got nothing against a man not wanting to live, as long as he is honest about it, as a matter of fact I can’t help but have a certain respect for a man like that, only trouble with Ben is that he figures the only way to go and get himself killed is to kill someone else, then let the State go to the trouble of killing him, that’s a bad way to get yourself killed, killing someone else.”
“Dora’s no Indian.”
“Of course he isn’t, I know that, I said most people, most people don’t care much one way or the other whether they live or die. I just happened to be mentioning Dora. The way he terrorizes most people in that valley is a death wish.”
“Dora makes no wishes.”
“Hell man, that’s not what I meant by ‘wish.’ ”
“It’s what you said.”
“It’s not what I mean, not in the way you mean it What I was saying was that a man learns a lot in my profession, dealing day in and day out like I do with pure nature, seeing life and death, not like some guy with a tie that sits behind a desk all day staring at four pissgreen walls, that’s not for me. We must not destroy nature, and we won’t, not so long as we have science to protect it.” He placed his hand on the shift and pulled it toward him. “You’re not listening to a word I’m saying, are you?”
“No.”
“You could care less whether you live or die, whether nature lives or dies.”
“Right.”
“You know Birdsong, I don’t see one damn thing noble in your situation.”
“Neither do I.”
“Hell, is that the only way you can communicate, with one word grunts. You’ve worked for me countless times and I’ve never heard you say one thing worthwhile. You never try to talk, to get to know me as a man.”
“I didn’t ask you to hire me.”
“That’s right, you didn’t, but did it ever occur to you, just once maybe, that I’m trying to help you out.”
“No.”
“I don’t understand your bitterness, you have property, health, that’s one hell of a lot more than most people ever have.”
Birdsong said nothing. He turned and wiped another clear space on the gray moisture of the plastic window and looked out into the implacable whiteness, no longer seeking the flash of crimson, just watching.
“It’s a godsend I have fourwheel drive in this jeep,” Ralph spoke to himself. He shifted into another gear and kept silent as they drove higher into the mountains. Finally, he pulled over to the side of the road, turned off the engine, reached under the seat and pulled out two empty backpacks, handing one to Birdsong, and they got out.
Birdsong stood on the road, stamping his boots on the snowcoated pavement. He watched as Ralph untied one of the small wooden boxes, pried it open with a screwdriver. The lid came up, exposed the dry neatly packed sticks of dynamite, pieces of fallen snow melted quickly on the tight red wrappings. Ralph passed sticks to Birdsong who placed them gently in the back of a pack; when the box was half empty he loaded his own pack.
“Why the extra box?”
Ralph gave a smile like a little boy’s, hitching up his loaded pack and pulling the shoulder straps down securely over his green jacket. “Birdsong, whenever the State gives you money to buy something always buy twice as much as you need because you never know if they’ll give you money for the same thing again, Gimbel’s law.”
A Greyhound bus came around the blind corner above them. They stepped off the pavement and watched it come forward, the powerful headligh
ts piercing the fallen snow directly in front, the massive eight wheels swishing a dull sound on the pavement as it passed, exposing the sign above the wideglass front declaring: TAHOE EXPRESS, the passengers in the rolling gunmetal gray box turning their heads together as one to the sight of two men standing patiently in the ever increasing whiteness, their faces shapeless blurs behind foggy tinted glass.
“Those jockeys,” Ralph shouted over the din of the engine, the tailwind blowing soiled snow in his face, “would drive those rigs over the ocean in a hurricane if a casino was waiting on the other side.”
They remained until the large object turned out of sight behind some trees, the last of its sound gone from the air. All was quiet again, the quiet of falling snow. They stood in the silence, the two men, then Birdsong walked across the road into the trees. Ralph followed. Birdsong stepped over a stream that ran narrow and noisy through the trees that grew closer together and taller.
“That was stupid.”
“What,” Birdsong looked at Ralph who was unhitching his pack.
“I forgot the snowshoes. We won’t get halfway up this mountain without them.” He handed his pack over and walked back through the trees.
Birdsong stood alone, holding the dynamite in the center of the stillness, listening back into its deepness as the wind cut it in sharp parts through the trees heavy with snow. This side of the mountain was sheltered from the main force of wind and the snow was light. The snakes hibernated here in the rocks, the rocks made it dangerous for men, the snow piled in between them, filling the open spaces level to the height of the boulders so if great care were not taken, or snowshoes not worn, a man could be walking on a hardpack that felt secure and solid beneath his feet; the next step might be into a soft pocket, the weight of his body would cut into the snow, slicing down, ten, forty, eighty feet of suffocating drop. But the snakes were up there, it was the only way, the only time to get them all together. The silence was breaking up, being pulled apart as the heavy sound of Ralph making his way through the trees reached him.
“Thanks,” Ralph took his pack, put his arms through the shoulder straps and hitched it up. “Hope this clears out of here in a while,” he cocked his head back and looked into the gray sky from beneath the protective brim of his hat. “Make it a lot easier on us if it would.” He shifted uneasily under the weight on his back, moving back and forth, watching Birdsong lace the last snowshoe onto his boots, waiting for him to lead the way.
They started. Birdsong in front, leading up the mountain, slowly, higher, towards the rocks, the snakes. He kept his eyes on the snow in front of him, it was dangerous here, the rocks were always shifting beneath the sinking weight of snow, then being covered over again. The trees began to thin and they picked up the stream they had crossed by the road. It was wider, running hard through the slot it cut in the ice. He followed alongside, there was another motion in the air, not just the sound of wind, it was a sound of leaves being crushed in a hand, but far away so that it did not come with a splintering in the air, but steady, and low, murmuring. There were few trees left, the ones that did manage to grow were short and squat, hunched close against the cold. Soon even these trees were gone. Still he followed the stream. The other sound came stronger, pulling even with that of the wind, challenging it. He could see up the mountain, there was nothing to stop his gaze. He could not see to the top, the swirling bits of snow thickened and grew into a gray wall that stopped his vision. He continued toward the wall, always pushing it back, dissolving it. The sound of the wind had been lost, buried beneath the other sound which had grown into a rumble, a belching roar sucking everything out of the air, drawing it down to earth, forcing it to the source, the stream, water. The stream in front of him was driving furiously with the force of six lakes behind it. The air opened up and he could see the energy swirling; the currents from the falling water cleared the snow above, he could see up the mountain along the watery path to where the falls began, dropping in sections, one long suspended tumble onto another, a crushing ladder. The mist sprayed into the open, then disappeared, its substance invisible, driving into the air, giving way once more to the snow, and he knew soon to turn west. He made his way to the next fall of water, the ground rising steeply, the snow as high as the boulders, smoothed over them. The weight on his back tugged at his shoulders, not much, but as he continued he knew it was there, and this made it a burden, pulling him closer to the ground. Ahead, a piece of mountain pierced through the snow, exposed, a sheer crag of granite, tall as a mature redwood, a cliff of gray. He walked away from the falls, no longer toward the top of the mountain but toward the cliff, the crash of water staying with him. Stone domes rose from the whiteness, boulders, dominated by the darkness of the cliff. He was close to the place he wanted to be. Each step came down heavy as he moved through the domes, the web of snowshoe pressing firmly into the cold, supporting the clumsiness of his body, each step smaller than the last, one following another, one striking the snow, not stopping, breaking through, its tearing sound joining with the roar of falls filling his ears. His body drops, he bends one knee to catch at the break in the snow. It holds. For a moment his weight is suspended, then slips, making the hole in the snow the size of his body. He falls with the knee bent, slamming against the wet surface of a boulder; twisiting him, knocking against the side of another rock, his body stopping, wedged between two stones.
His head rested against stone, facing up through the gaping hole torn in the snow above, snow that had packed in between the two boulders, melted out beneath, trickling down the slick sides until the area was hollow, leaving a slice of ice spanning the boulders like a glass bridge. The sky swirled, snowflakes drifted through the hole, their coolness melting on his face. The sheet of ice that was not broken from his fall was puckered underneath from gathered droplets of water dripping down in the dampness. He saw a hat through the hole, then a face beneath it, red and shiny from the cold, the mouth opening and closing, “You know you almost blew us sky high! We’re damn lucky to be alive you and me! That was close, very close, they don’t get one hair closer than that. Boom! And it’s all over. A fall like that could set that dynamite off quick as an owl can wink. Don’t you make any sudden moves now, you still got some pretty tricky stuff strapped on your back. Are you hurt?”
“You better stop talkin and get off that ice or you’re goin to be down here sittin next to me.”
“The way you fell through that snow I thought you probably wouldn’t come up until China, or India maybe. Damn lucky you fell in between two boulders that come together nice and convenient like and not in some chasm. Can you stand?”
“I can stand. You just get off there so you don’t make it harder for me to get out.” He placed his palms flat against the wet rocks and pressed, his legs coming up straight, one knee bent out with quick spears of pain. He stood, keeping balance with his hands, his head just beneath the hole, the one knee throbbing. He could see Ralph through the opening, standing off to the side.
“Hand out the pack first.” Ralph moved closer.
He unstrapped the pack and passed it out, then hit around the hole with his hand, knocking the thinner ice away, bits of the cold falling on his face. He put his arms up through the hole, reaching his hands to the solid surface above, spread his feet, placing one snowshoe on each rock for balance and hoisted the weight of his body from the hole.
“Here’s your pack,” Ralph presented it as if it was a reward for his getting out. “Very close that. Too close, really, you never know when Boom! It’s all over except the insurance.”
Birdsong headed once more for the cliff, the steps coming even shorter, his knee opening in new pain with each movement. When he reached the cliff he walked on beneath it, almost brushing against the sheer wall.
“That’s a bad leg you got there. Yes, it’s pretty bad. Maybe you shouldn’t go on. You could fall again, walking on a wobbly leg like that. Maybe we should head back.”
Birdsong swung around and faced Ralph, the snow
swirling between them. His breathing slowed, was softer, the sound of the falls thick in the air. “I’m not going back,” the words sank into the muted roar of the falls, lost their shape, became obscure.
“Now look, if it’s the pay you’re worried about don’t. I hired you for the day and I’ll pay fair for it. No use killing yourself just because you might think I won’t pay if we don’t finish. I don’t know what ever gave you that idea. I’ve always been square.”
“I don’t give a goddam.”
“Let’s not get hasty, Birdsong. I think we’re both worn down. We’ve been knocking ourselves out on this climb. What the hell do machines in Sacramento know about whether or not it’s going to snow on the day they punched for snakes? Why don’t we go on back down? It may be dark by the time we get back and I don’t want to walk out of here playing hopscotch in the dark.”
Birdsong was already moving, continuing along the base of the cliff, the steps coming quicker for the pain had spured out, filling his leg, jabbing at his entire body; he moved with it, went into it, it was fast, soon he was beyond the cliff, out from under it, onto the far side, the side sheltered by the monolithic intrusion on the landscape. The deflected winds from the cliff drove the snow over this section, the ground a translucent cover of white, leaving bare the jagged rocks and in their paths the short rugged bushes. Slicing through this, cutting in diagonal lines across the mountain until lost on the far side, diminishing in the snow, were separations in the earth, cracks, narrow enough for a man to step over, wide enough for him to fall in. On this side of the cliff, filling continuously into the void, rushing into this last gap of silence, the tumbling, echoing drone of the falls funneled into a blare. He walked up the far side of the cliff, across to the cracks. At the first one he stopped, his eyes roving over the rocks at its edge, over the gray surfaces. He moved on, stepping over the chasm, heading further up the mountain. At the second split in the earth he did not stop but stepped over, toward the next. When he came to its edge he halted, his eyes again studying the rocks. There was no change in the eyes as he slipped the pack from his back and took out a long red stick.
Rabbit Boss Page 4