Lord Grizzly, Second Edition (17 page)

He slept. He dreamt of stampeding buffalo herds. He dreamt of a red buffalo-bull calf playing crouch tag with him like a playful puppy. He dreamt of prickly-pear cactus beds advancing on him like droves of porcupine. He dreamt of glass-clear beardtips cracking in the gray frost of morning. He dreamt of inch-long white snakes emerging from the wound in his back and from between his bare white ribs. He dreamt of seeing Jim and Fitz being torn limb from limb.

5

A
COOL
evening breeze woke him.

Opening slow eyes, Hugh rose out of rolling dreamland into a land of ragged ocher gullies and bald gravelhead bluffs and wind-streaked skies.

One long look at the ragged gullies and Hugh let himself sink back into torpor. Why live? Ae, what was the use?

For a little while Hugh let himself drift through a fur-scented purgatory, between a state of dreamy sweet death and a state of prickly sour life.

But his stomach and blowy belly had other ideas. “First things first,” it said. “Turn out, you lazy white nigger, and round us up some grub. There's work ahead. And sweet revenge after that. Turn out, old hoss!”

Hugh heard his stomach talking so clearly he was sure he was at last out of his head, had at last gone loco.

“Turn out!”

“Ae, ae, master. I heard ye the first time.”

And half-smiling, half-afraid of the whimsy, Hugh threw back the heavy stiff silvertip grizzly fur and, with a groan, rolled over on his belly and rose to his hands and knee and had a look out of his hole.

The sun was almost down, sinking clear and yellow across the South Fork. That meant another striker of a cold night. It made him shiver to think about it.

He cleared his throat, hawking up balls of night spit. He stretched his limbs as much as the redgray monsters in his back and bum leg would allow.

In methodical fashion he set about getting his meal. He had himself some frost-sweetened bullberries, and wild turnip or tipsin roots, and a couple dozen white grubs, and fresh water.

He was washing up when he spotted a gopher. Like an Arab about to pray at sunset, it sat on its haunches at the edge of its hole, paws folded across its chest.

Hugh's old predatory eyes narrowed. Fresh meat. Ae. But how to catch it.

Almost immediately he had an idea. Fix a snare with deer sinew. He snapped off a couple dozen whangs or fringes from the front of his buckskin shirt, tied them together into a good sound leather string about three feet long. He made a slipknot loop at the end.

The moment he advanced, the striped yellowgray gopher vanished tail-whipping into its burrow. Hugh placed the snare carefully around the edge of the hole and then lay back, waiting, the end of the string looped around a finger.

He waited.

He watched the sun hit the horizon in a vast explosion of clear yellow light. He watched shadows race in from the bluffs across the South Fork.

After a while the gopher couldn't resist it. It had to have a look, if not a last peek, at the fading day. Its head popped out an exploratory second; popped back in. Then it popped out its head again for a longer look; then a still longer look—and that instant Hugh jerked the snare and had himself some squealing fresh meat. It had a strong wild taste, naturally salty, and he relished it.

Fortified, quickened, he began the long climb south, up, up, toward the divide on the hogback. The going was rough right from the start. The gully zigzagged sharply, sometimes cut very deep to either side into the sloping land. It was cold, bitter cold. The higher he went the thicker the prickly-pear cactus became, the more numerous the anthills. The heavy bearskin soon began to weigh like a lead sheet on his back. For every three feet he crawled forward on loose dirt, he slid one foot back. Soon too he hit gravelheads with sharp cutting little pebbles. Occasionally in the dark he rammed head-on into boulders, scaring the wits out of himself, making him think for a moment he'd run into another she-rip of a mother grizzly.

The higher he climbed the colder and more brisk the northwest wind became. Another frost was due as soon as the wind let up, and this time a sharp one, maybe even a good freeze. It would be a hard night on hands and knees. It would also be a hard night on a broken leg with poor circulation.

He was glad about one thing. The old she-rip fur might hang heavy on his back but it was warm. Maybe its weight did cut down his traveling time but it more than made up for it by the comfort it provided. Hugh snuggled under it as he struggled along.

The stars came out crisp white. The wind veiled black dust across his path. The gully became shallow; at last lifted up and became a low draw with thick clumps of bunch grass and occasional beds of prickly-pear cactus.

Gradually Old Hugh tired. His good leg trembled with quick fleeting cramps. His elbows quivered from the ache and pain of various stone bruises.

He rested, panting; slept awhile, ganting; awoke with a start, shivering; crept on, bad leg slaping behind; rested some more, puffing; slept.

He dreamt of dying alone in a gully, cold and blue and bloated with snakenecked greenblack turkey buzzards circling hungrily overhead.

He woke with a jerk; crawled a few yards; rested; slept.

He dreamt of Jim and Fitz sitting around a jumping fire and arguing about him.

Cold and shivering, he again woke with a guilty start; crept on a ways; rested; slept.

He dreamt of his two boys, the blackhead and the sunhead, dreamt of the old she-rip tearing him up and down his back.

And creeping along in the black night, he fell into a small washout. He was so exhausted when he hit bottom he didn't bother to see if his bad leg had tumbled down with him. It was too cold to bother. “I feel queersome,” he murmured. He curled up as best he could, snuggled under the heavy grizzly hide, and fell asleep.

He slept through dawn and on through a sunny glinting day. Rusty dusk lay over the sloping land, and over the bald tan bluffs and small red teat mesas forming the ridge to the south, and down in the far valley of fall yellows behind him to the north, when he at last poked his head out of the small washout.

“This child's slept a hole in the day, ‘pears like.”

He stared at the brown evening. He blinked bloodshot eyes. His bowels rumbled with hunger. “This child needs meat.” He began to puff just thinking of the work ahead. “And this child needs wadder too.”

Stiff-limbed, with one of the redgray monsters raging again, the one in his back, he clambered out of the washout.

One good look around and he knew he was doomed to go without either grub or water for that day—unless he ate rusty dead bunch grass and drank his own urine. There was nothing, not a bush or a tree or a trickle of water.

Like a dog digging for gophers, he scrabbled some dirt out from under a thick clump of bunch grass. Ae. Nothing but dry hard dirt. In digging, dirt packed in under his fingernails and he sucked them clean in his mouth. The dirt had a sour flour taste.

He pinched in his brain to help quiet down his growling stomach. He worked up some saliva to wet his throat and lips. He hoped the wind would stay down during the night. Wind dried one out.

Just before black night swooped down over the long swinging land he had a last look around. From the spot where the sun had set he plotted his course for the night. The course lay between two small red crumbling mesas directly south. He saw that his climb during the night previous had lifted him fairly high out of the South Fork valley. He also saw that the rest of the way to the top of the hogback divide lay smooth and undulating ahead of him. Even the incline was much more gentle.

There was no sign of redskin or varmint in the godforsaken dry-grass country. The land was clean of green grass and running red meat. The sky above was clean of flying flesh. There was nothing but himself and the twinkling stars above and the rustling dried bunch grass below. He was alone. Solitary. There was only himself to feel sorry for himself. There was only himself to tell he was himself. Only he knew that he knew. He was alone.

“These parts make this child so lonesome for company he's about ready again for huggin' with a she-grizzly.”

He shivered in the cold. “But I'll say this for the frost. They won't be any more mosquitoes this fall. Or green bottleflies.”

He found it in him to go on without food. Some little energy had seeped into his well during the night. For a little while there was enough to work the pump.

He laughed grimly to himself when he thought of the trail he was leaving across the country: two long tracks, a round dent, and a pair of wriggling marks—a three-legged two-tailed whangdoodle for sure. Ae, and maybe even Old Wakantanka himself at last come down to earth to play a Christ's role.

He crawled on slowly like a three-legged dog dragging a stinking gamy leg and walking on sore pads.

Thrown stars moved across the black skies.

“Wadder,” Old Hugh murmured, “wadder. Got to have wadder.”

He looked up at the star-flying skies. “Don't it ever rain in this godforsaken country? I'd catch me some fresh rain water in me bearskin.” He wetted his cracked lips; tried to work up some saliva for his parched throat.

“Wadder,” he murmured, “wadder. If I only had wadder I wouldn't mind goin' without meat.”

The closer he got to the two little red teat mesas the stonier the terrain became. Bunch-grass clumps became more sparse. Even the cactus beds became rare. Rough blackred stones began to shred his bearskin elbow and knee guards. Prickly brush tore at his buckskin shirtfront as he straddled over them. Old Hugh cursed the country. Much more of it and he'd have to cut up his bearskin for clothes and guards.

He stopped to rest on a long flat rock. Before stretching out he felt around first to make sure there weren't any rattlers around.

He panted, mouth open, beard floofing in and out of his cracked lips.

He panted. It was hard doin's, all right. Ae. And probably the death of him at last.

He thought of the gamy death smell that'd been hanging around him a bit stronger the last day. He explored his back under the bearskin. Some of the scab had come off the sinew-seamed wounds. In a couple of places he could pull out the deerskin stitches. The stitches came out easy, greasy, like old hairs pulling out of rotted follicles. He pushed his arm around farther to touch the open sore above the loose flap of flesh and bared white ribs. Still slippery with pus. He felt of it gingerly. His hand came away stinking. Bah!

He found the open wound hadn't rotted through to his lung. He was done for if it had. Ae. He'd seen men rot away into slow death once the corruption got into their bellows.

He explored it carefully again. He felt the bare bone of one of his ribs. He felt the string of a loose tendon. Or was it a blood vessel? There were also odd squirming bits in the middle of it.

Squirming? Ho-ah. Maggots, then. Ae. So he was rotting away like an old down buffalo in a wallow like he feared.

He lay down flat on his belly. Just about dead before he'd even crossed the first divide, he was. With at least one more big divide to go and a long raft ride after that down the Cheyenne and then the great Missouri itself—and the raft ride probably the toughest part of the trip.

Why live? Ae, what was the use?

He wept.

He dipped into sleep and dreamt of campfires. There were many of them and they all were one. Around the jumping flames sat Jim and Fitz still arguing about him. He himself lay stretched out on his belly, his back blooming with little bloody plum trees. But once again he couldn't make out what Jim and Fitz were saying.

He called out, “Jim? Fitz? Where be ye? Come clost so I can hear ee.”

The roar of his own voice woke him from the flame-jumping nightmare.

His head buzzed. A terrible headache cracked in his skull. When he looked up at the stars, they became streaks of light rushing from east to west, and when he looked ahead, the pair of red mesas blurred off into a dancing mountain range.

He dipped into sleep and dreamt again. This time he was back in Lancaster. Back with his white wife Mabel and his two sons, blackhead and sunhead. There was a final supper of some sort, a supper which for once had begun with jolly joshing, with the boys happy that Pap and Ma for once were getting along a little. It was the night he'd come home with a new hunting rifle, a Lancaster model, instead of coming home drunk as he usually did. The food was good, though somewhat skimpy. The talk was pleasant, though somewhat chaffy. Hugh was glad Mabel was smiling some again. He liked seeing his boys happy. And Hugh had just begun to think maybe Mabel was actually having a change of heart, giving up her notion that he should get a better job, accepting his notion that they should move farther west so he could hunt for a living, giving up her airish notion of rising in the world—when somehow, he didn't know just how, somehow it happened that he dropped a family heirloom of her mother's, a prize hand-painted bowl, breaking it to a thousand smithereens. That set it off. To the sad horror of the lads, he and Mabel were at it again. She threw things at him: mops, pails, pestle, breadboard, coffee grinder. He might have accepted all that, but she spotted his new Lancaster gun. She picked it up by the barrel end and rushed toward him, intent on smashing its butt over his head. That was too much for Hugh. Let her break his new gun over his own noggin? Never. Not on your life. He jumped up and wrestled it from her. Enraged that he should dare show physical resistance, she slugged him. In a flash Hugh balled his own fist and hauled off and hit her smack in the face, hit her so hard she spun across the room and landed in the woodbox. There was a terrible silence. And in that silence it came to Hugh at last, finally, that he could never live with that she-rip of a woman. She was just too much for a man. There'd never be a living with her, of any kind, no matter how much he loved his lads, Blackie and Sunny. So he deserted. Deserted the lads even though he heard them calling after him, lone-somely, “Pap! Pap! where are you going, Pap?” But Hugh hardened his heart; pretended he didn't hear them. “Pap! Pap!”

Their shrill boyish voices calling him woke him with a start from his dream. He looked around wildly as if half-expecting to see the lads themselves.

Again his head buzzed with a terrible cracking headache.

He shuddered. What awful dreams he was having lately.

He lay flat on his belly, possessed by the after depression of the nightmarish dream, lay possessed by a dark sense of guilt, so dark he shuddered again involuntarily.