Moontrap - Don Berry (46 page)

He dragged himself over to it. Slowly he eased
himself around so he was sitting with his back against the stone
again, his useless left leg stretched out ahead. He pulled the rifle
down to his lap, laying it across his knees. lt was hard to breathe,
the effort of moving cost too much in pain, and he could not get
enough air. He hung his head for a moment, concentrating only on the
breathing, until he felt he had regained enough to go ahead. At the
edges of his vision were the vestiges of the red ocean, and each time
he moved, they closed in slightly, and he had to wait. When he could
no longer see the stains of red at the edges of his eyes, he lifted
his head again and reached for his powder horn.

It was difficult to charge the gun with the barrel
horizontal across his lap, but he could not stand up. He poured a
little powder in, then stood the rifle on its butt beside him and
tamped it lightly on the ground to settle the load. He repeated this
three times, until he thought it was about right. Normally he loaded
without even thinking, but when the charge was divided into three it
was more difficult to tell. He pushed the butt away from him, holding
the barrel, and drew out the long ram. He forced the patch and ball
down securely, replaced the ram in its socket beneath the barrel, and
drew the butt back into his lap.

When at last he had primed
the pan, turned the flint to a new edge, and hauled the heavy hammer
back, he felt better. There was nothing he could do about his leg, or
his side. But the others came now, there was something he could do.
He was not helpless, the old man. He was ready for them now.

***

The dangerous thing was that his senses had come
untracked. He could not tell where the pain was that was inside him,
he could not sense his body accurately. He could not tell how much
time passed, except by judging from the darkness. His inner sense of
time had gone, and it might be seconds or hours. He simply could not
tell. He did not know how long he waited for the others to come, only
that they did not come, and the sky went dark in the west.

The moon rose behind his boulder, invisible to him.
He sat silent and waiting in the sooty shadow, while on either side
the rocks began to glow with a ghostly luminescence. He listened as
carefully as he was able, but his own mind was full of sounds, and he
could not always distinguish the sounds of the night from the sounds
his own mind made.

With the coolness of the night a breeze had begun to
sweep up from the valley rustling the trees below, fitfully shaking
the scrubby brush of the rock slope. The sussuration of the wind was
twined and tangled in his perception with the sound of his own blood
rushing strong and hissing in his ears.

The shadow in which he hid grew short with the rising
of the moon. Still the others did not come, and at last he knew he
was forced to make a decision. He could remain, or he could try to
go.

He looked down at the razorback ridge that connected
his small peak with the larger one, less than a quarter of a mile
away. On either side of the ridge the ground dropped sharply away the
flanks specked with brightness of light rocks in the moonlight. The
ridge itself twisted like a bright snake, dropping down from where he
sat several hundred feet, then rising again to disappear into the
heavy body of the other peak. The massive face of the peak itself was
silvery and distinct in the moonlight. The old man could not tell if
the moon was supernaturally bright, or if the impression was simply
part of the derangement of his senses. He could make out detail on
the opposite face that he thought would be impossible in normal
moonlight. If the detail was real, the moon was awesomely bright this
night. He twisted his head to the side, trying to look up. but the
moon was still beyond his vision.

There was something at the back of his mind about the
moon, something it seemed important to remember. He tried to think
about it, but was not able to keep his mind in one place. It drifted,
floating on the substanceless light like a swirl of smoke gently
moving in a shaft of the brilliant moonlight. His vision kept coming
back to the image of the line of white flowers appearing suddenly at
the darkness of the forest's edge, all spread in a line. It was an 
stonishing sight, it was perhaps the most amazing thing he had ever
seen.

It was the moontrap, he thought, that was what he
should remember. But remembering, he could not understand what it
meant. He had tried to build a moontrap, but it had not been right.
It was very simple, and there was no importance in remembering it.

The shadow drew in slowly until it reached the
lifeless foot that hung uncertainly at the end of his left leg. Half
the moccasin was in light, and as he watched the white glow spread
like a bloodstain down to the ankle and began to ascend the calf.

He was suddenly frightened. He did not want to see
that brilliance reach the splintered bone that stuck out beyond his
ripped trouser leg. He was convinced that when the ghostly light
reached that shard of bone something terrifying would happen. He did
not know what, but the conviction was strong in his belly. All around
him the stones seemed to glow from within, burning coldly with an
unearthly flame of their own. If that happened to the bone that
protruded from his leg, he thought the pain would be unbearable. He
would have to protect himself. He would have to go. He looked down at
his leg again and the moonlight had crept up a little higher. He did
not have much time. Deliberately he let himself tip over to his right
side, resting on his elbow. He inched around until be was pointed
down toward the ridge. He lowered the hammer of the rifle to
half-cock. Grasping the muzzle with his left hand he began to squirm
down toward the ridge, dragging the gun loosely behind him as the
left leg dragged.

He tried to keep the tension out of the muscles of
his left side, but he could not do it altogether. He drew himself up
over his right forearm. Bracing there, he dragged the right leg up
under him. Then the forearm forward again, draw the body up to it,
pause, then the right leg. Each time he drew himself up he had to
tighten the muscles of his belly, and there was the dull thump of
pain in his side. There were two distinct pains; first the dullness
as the muscles contracted, then the sharp, fiery splinter as
something happened inside, as a bone shard darted deep in some part
of him that should not be touched.

The dead weight of his body rested on his right hip
each time he dragged it forward. The rocks scraped mercilessly at the
leather, and when it had been gouged away began to work at the flesh
beneath it. After the first effort, something had given way in his
side with a soft sensation. Shortly he began to feel the
tickling-insect sensation of flowing blood down his belly again, but
there was nothing he could do about it. It became one of many
sensations that confused him at first. The wild
mélange
of pain from the leg, and from the side, the new sensation of tearing
in the flesh of his right hip as he dragged himself slowly over the
brutal rocks, the scraping of his side and elbows and the flowing of
blood across his belly.

There were too many feelings. He could not keep track
of them all. The muscles of his back occasionally twitched, and there
would be momentary burning irritations like the sting of a nettle.
They were not real. He did not know where they came from, except that
he could no longer perceive his body accurately, and it was signaling
things that did not exist.

He had to forget about the feelings, it was all he
could do. Some of them existed, some of them did not exist, but all
were equally real. All he could do was forget them, because he could
not distinguish and there was not sufficient room in his mind to hold
them all. He forced himself to think only of the one thing that was
important, to move. Elbow forward, drag. Leg up. Elbow forward, drag
. . .

He was astonished as his glance caught the boulder he
had left. He thought he had been crawling for several hours, but the
rock, now outlined with the silver fire of the moon, was only a few
yards away. He looked down at the ridge and could not see that he had
gained at all. He would have to use something much closer for a
reference point, or he would never be able to discern any progress.

He chose a flat slab of rock that leaned against
another, about fifteen feet away. As surely as he had turned his mind
from the pain, he turned it away from the ridge and the peak at the
other side. There was only the leaning slab. That was his goal. The
rest did not exist. He reached his elbow forward again.

He tried closing his eyes for a few movements, to see
if he could surprise himself with the progress he had made. It did
not work well. He tended to lose his balance with his eyes closed.
And when he lost his balance it required a tensing of muscles to keep
him upright, and then there was the quick succession of dull pain,
sharp pain, and the knowledge that the puncturing sliver of bone had
penetrated deeper into his life.

Even that was not so bad as the terrifying sense of
someone watching him when he closed his eyes. He looked around, but
there was only the bright, indifferent eye of the moon, staring down
from a vastness of sky that was deeper and higher than he could ever
remember.

He stopped often to rest, when the always threatening
veil of redness crept in at the edges of his sight. lt was hard to
rest, he hated it. He wanted to move, he wanted to go on. The only
thing that was real was the dragging of his useless corpse over
broken ground, the land tearing at his flesh. He wanted to do that.
He wanted to move and the anger and hatred welled up in him when he
had to stop to rest.

He set himself to it viciously, finding a fierce joy
in doing it. The moon stared down, and watched him.

"I'm goin'," he muttered. The moon did not
believe he could do it. The moon thought he was a helpless old man,
all alone and almost dead and unable to do what he had to do.

"I'm goin'.
Wagh!
"

The leaning slab of rock was passed. He did not
remember passing it, and looked back over the long bright barrel of
the rifle to see that the rock was fifteen feet or more behind him.
He clenched his teeth in satisfaction. He was doing it.

He looked forward again, and pretended that the ridge
seemed a little closer. As he had lost the ability to distinguish
between the world outside and his own mind, it was not exactly
pretending. If it seemed closer in his mind, it was closer. It was
simple. The rock over which he dragged the beaten body was a product
of his mind. He had created it and the moon to watch. It was his joy
to do this. It was his life.

He stretched his arm forward again, and it passed
from the light into the sudden blackness of a moon-shadow. He saw it
disappear, and drew it back again, badly frightened. He looked at it,
back in the light again. It had not been cut. It had seemed to him it
had been cut off, thrust into the nothingness of space, ceasing to
exist along the sharp line of shadow. It was another trick of the
moon.

He looked up. It rode very high, and tiny. It seemed
incredible it should be so tiny and yet give so much light. But the
sky was so large, it deepened above him to infinity, and just beyond
the last reaches of depth hung the moon, watching.

He grinned. The moon was testing him, to prove his
worth. The great white eye of the world was watching impassively to
see if he could do it. The moon did not care, one way or the other,
but it was interested in watching him.

He put his arm forward into the shadow again, tapping
with his fingers to be certain the ground was there. Reassured, he
dragged himself up, and his head passed into the nothingness. He
looked back. His legs were still in the light, cut off by the
shadow-knife just below the hips. He almost wished he could leave
them there. They were doing little good. He could not even remember
if his right leg was still working or not.

He went on. The moon crested above him and began to
swing down toward the sea. ln time it was no longer above, but ahead
of him, and then he understood it better. The moon could not wait.
She was watching him, the great white eye, but she would not wait for
him. He would have to keep up.

It helped. In time it became clear to him that the
world had ceased to exist in the shadows. There was only emptiness,
an emptiness created by the moon. Where there were no rocks to tear
at him, he could move more easily. The luminous lovely moon was
dissolving the earth around him.

He went a little more easily then, moving westward in
the track of the moon. Time and pain were lost and drowned in the
sweet curve of moving light that drew him on.

Only once was there trouble after that, and then he
fell over a low step along the ridge. It was not more than three
feet, but he lay crumpled at the base for a long time, the redness
that was the enemy of the moon having overcome his sight. The silver
light revived him in time, and he began again. He closed his mind off
to all sensation but that of moving. It was so complete that he
thought he had let go of the rifle, and had to look back to see if it
and the useless leg still dragged along.

He did not remember crossing the base of the ridge
and beginning to ascend the other side. He remembered only the
brilliant light he followed, a light that filled him completely and
left no room for pain or thought.