The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein (Mammoth Books) (94 page)

As casually as I could, I said, “I was wondering if I should take any weapons? What would you think?”

“Weapons?”

“Well, guns.”

“For sport or food or protection?”

“Protection, I guess,” I said, feeling foolish.

Gardiner smiled. “So you’ve come to believe those rumours, have you?”

“I don’t know. I recognize the possibility.”

He nodded thoughtfully, the smile gone.

“Might it be a good idea, anyway? There are foxes and such that might try to raid our supplies.”

“A damn good idea, if you ask me,” he said. “No harm in being safe. And, I must say, these rumours are a bit hair-raising, no matter what it is that’s been killing Mac’s sheep.”

“What would you suggest I take?” I asked, feeling uncomfortable about asking a favour, and Gardiner saved me the necessity.

“I can lend you a gun, if you like,” he suggested.

“I’d appreciate that, if it’s no inconvenience.”

“I’ve several spare guns. Not much to do these days but shoot, actually, and guns accumulate the same as golf clubs or tennis racquets or darts – whatever your game is, there’s always a new piece of equipment that strikes your fancy. But I’m wondering what would be best for you? It’s hard to decide when you have no idea what you might have to shoot.” He seemed completely serious in considering this. “Shotgun or rifle, which would you prefer?”

“I’d be more comfortable with a shotgun, I think. But if you can spare two, Gregorio could carry the rifle.”

“Sure. That solves that problem. Gregorio will probably be happier with a gun, too.”

“Yes. He believes what he saw, whether I do or not.”

Gardiner refilled our glasses and left the room; he returned in a moment with the firearms and handed me the shotgun. It was a superb gun, matched to the one hanging on the wall, hand engraved by some craftsman in Bilbao.

“Double twelve bore,” he said. “Full choke on the left.”

I admired the workmanship for a moment, then threw it into aim. I was roughly the same size as Gardiner and the balance suited me well.

“A splendid gun. This will do me.”

“I suppose Gregorio can use this all right,” he said, handing me the rifle. It was a .303 Savage, the lever action feather-weight model, light and efficient in rough, wooded country where a longer rifle might be cumbersome. “It hits hard and it’s fast,” Gardiner said. He looked at me gravely. I suppose he’d sensed something of my nervousness, and he was quite serious when he said, “Just in case.”

“Yes. Just on the off chance, eh?”

“I’ll give you cartridges and shells before you leave.”

“I’ll pay you, of course.”

He gestured.

“On the museum, of course.”

“Oh, well, all right then. Better yet, have Smyth send me half a dozen bottles of that fine brandy he keeps.”

“Certainly,” I said.

I’d never known that Smyth kept brandy, fine or otherwise. There were many things I didn’t know.

Gregorio was sitting on the front steps at Graham’s when I got out of the taxi with the guns. He nodded appreciatively and I handed him the rifle. He worked the lever a few times, then threw it to his shoulder in quick aim. I could see he’d used a rifle before. He nodded again, satisfied.

“This is good. I will carry this?”

“That’s right. But, Gregorio, you must promise me that you won’t use it unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“Necessary?”

“To our safety.”

He smiled. His teeth flashed.

“Yes, I will promise that,” he said. “But, if we find this thing, I think it will be most necessary . . .”

We left early in the morning. It was raining and the dark clouds were torn by wind, strung long across the sky. Gregorio led the pack horses and I rode beside him, just stiff enough so that my muscles welcomed further exertion. Gregorio rode much the same as the Indian, although he used a saddle and boots, slumped slightly forward and relaxed. We both had our hoods pulled up against the rain and didn’t speak much. I was concentrating on our route, and knew that we were following the same trail the Indian had taken from town, apparently the shortest or the only trail to the hills, such as it was. I was able to spot several landmarks I’d passed before, unusual rock formations and abnormally formed trees, the same impossible perch from which, perhaps, the same placid wild sheep observed our passage. We travelled slowly and steadily, and stopped for lunch before we’d reached the foothills; we rested for a few minutes and then pressed on again. Gregorio had lighted his pipe and the battered bowl jutted from his cowl, spluttering as the rain damped the burning mixture. The sky was dark, the weather foul. Where the low clouds were shredded by the wind darker clouds covered the gap from above. It looked as if it might rain for days.

When we reached the foothills and began to climb, everything seemed familiar, unlike the outstanding landmarks of the rising tableland, and I realized this was because everything was the same, curious and unusual formations repeated many times over until they became commonplace. I had no idea now whether we were still following the path the Indian had taken. Gregorio undoubtedly knew the land, but lacked the Indian’s infallible sense of direction or familiarity, and he had to stop from time to time to get his bearings, relying on a visual knowledge which the Indian hadn’t needed. We made frequent mistakes, and had to turn or backtrack, but they were not serious and our progress wasn’t greatly hindered. Several times we stopped to stretch and sample the grape alcohol. The rain continued and it grew colder; the reins were slippery and the damp began to seep through my windbreaker, adding the unpleasant sensation and scent of wet wool to my discomfort. I was quite satisfied when Gregorio suggested we stop for the night, although I knew we had not made nearly as much progress as I’d made on the first day following the Indian.

We made a campfire, not bothering with the Butane stove or the tents until we’d reached a more permanent camping place, but sheltering against the rocks in our sleeping bags, talking for a while and then lapsing into silence. Gregorio’s pipe glowed for a while longer and then we slept.

It was still raining in the morning. The fire was out and we had to relight it to make coffee. We ate our breakfast from tins while the horses watched with drooping ears. Progress was slower on this second day, as we climbed higher and the forest thickened around us. It was necessary to move in single file now, and I dropped to the back of the line. We had been travelling for several hours when we came to a stream. It was impossible to tell if this was the same stream I’d crossed behind the Indian, when I’d noticed that scar on his side, but if it was the same water, we had certainly come to it at a different place. The banks were shallow and we had no trouble fording it. I thought it was probably the same stream, but that we were farther to the north. On the opposite bank the land rose more sharply, and I began to anticipate reaching the top of the range – the same distance, roughly, as I’d made in the first long haul of some twelve or thirteen hours behind the Indian. But as we continued to rise higher and the land did not begin to level off, it strengthened my belief that our path lay farther north, where the mountain range extended towards the Pacific. Either that, or we were travelling much slower and more circuitously than I hoped.

In the late afternoon we came to the highest point of this slope,
and the land lay below us on all sides. There were further mountains to the west, hazy and unreal in the rain. I asked how far we’d come and Gregorio told me we were more than halfway there. This was encouraging, but inspired no great desire to press on more rapidly. We went on a few miles beyond the top, to gain the shelter of the trees and hills, and made our second camp.

Sitting beside the fire, after dinner, Gregorio broke open the box of cartridges and silently began to load his rifle. He put the safety catch on but kept the gun beside him. The shotgun was in my pack, stock and barrels separated and carefully wrapped. I felt no urge to get it out. My foreboding had diminished, and the land no longer seemed so wild and savage on this second trek, at a slower pace and with a guide to whom I could speak. But I thought Gregorio might prefer me to be armed.

“Shall I get my gun out?” I asked.

He shrugged. “We are not very close,” he said. “It is just that I am nervous. I have never before been in the mountains without a dog to awaken me if there is danger. I left my dog with a friend . . .”

I wondered if he still had the same dog that had fled when El Rojo died. But I didn’t ask him.

We descended gradually throughout the morning of the third day. The rain had slackened somewhat, although the sky remained dark, gunmetal streaked with black. Progress was good and, although the land still lay below us north and south, looking back I could see we had come a considerable distance from the peaks. The land was fairly open and I was able to ride abreast of Gregorio, but he seemed in a solemn mood. He had the rifle slung across his back and looked like a Hollywood Hemingway bandit. We stopped late for lunch, and he didn’t seem interested in the food but drank rather more pisco than usual to wash it down, then forfeited his after-lunch pipe in his impatience to get under way again.

A mile or so from where we had halted, he turned from the obvious flat route and led the way along an inclining shelf towards the north. Trees grew in a curiously straight line on our right, their limbs drooping wearily under the weight of hanging moss and pressing rain, and the ridge on our left dropped away sharply in layered rock. Presently, the incline became more gradual and then disappeared as the land rose to meet it in a triangle. I realized it had been a long canyon, and we had come to the end of it. Gregorio pushed his hood back, and the wind rippled his stiff hair. He was looking about, alert and concerned, and I wondered if we were lost.

Then he reined up, slipped the rifle from his back and held it across the pommel. The grey gelding pawed the ground.

“What is it?” I asked.

“We are there.”

“Where?”

He pointed towards the trees at the head of the canyon.

“That is where I saw it,” he said.

I nodded and dismounted. Gregorio looked down at me for a moment, then swung from the saddle.

“Will you show me?” I asked.

“I came here. I am not very brave about this, but neither am I a coward. I will show you.”

He looked very Spanish suddenly, arrogant and proud. We tied the horses to a leaning tree and walked towards the trees. I remembered the darkness and silence he’d told me about, but didn’t feel that sensation. It didn’t seem a frightening place. Gregorio pushed through the brush, the short rifle held before him, and I followed. The trees inclined towards us and we were in an open glade. There was nothing there. Gregorio moved across the space, his boots sinking into the soft earth, head lowered and moving from side to side.

Suddenly he stopped very quickly. I came up beside him. His knuckles were white on the rifle, his teeth were white as he drew his lips back, and when he moved the toe of his boot I saw something else flash white on the ground. I knelt, and felt a sudden beat of sympathetic pain. It was the broken skull of a dog. A brave dog.

I wanted to say something, but one doesn’t express those things. Gregorio stared at the skull for a moment, stone faced, and then he shrugged.

“It is done,” he said.

There was nothing else there. He walked silently back to the horses.

We made our permanent camp some distance from that glade. That was our focal point and I didn’t want to go too far from it, but Gregorio wouldn’t have wanted to be too close to the scene so horrible in his memory, although there was certainly nothing there now. I’d searched methodically for footprints or patches of hair that might have been torn out on the thorns, but found nothing except a few more bones, scattered and picked clean. The scavengers had made a thorough job of their grisly feast.

Physically, the spot where we made camp was far more gloomy than the glade. Gregorio had chosen it for maximum shelter and
convenience rather than scenic grandeur, although there was a certain unreal and eerie enchantment about the place. A brooding, timeless, unchanging mood clung to the rocks and trees, a smell of arrested decay that had begun but would go no further, as though a primordial swamp had been suddenly frozen for eternity.

It was an area enclosed by a rough oval of rocks and trees a dozen yards wide at the narrowest segment of the ring. The rocks were of all shapes and sizes, from boulders to stones, and the trees grew from all angles between them and around them, twisting to conform with the immovable rocks and bowing away from the constant winds. Several trees had grown together, joining at the trunks and limbs while boulders separated their roots; others had split around narrower rocks so that two trees shared the same roots. The stones were covered with slimy moss and fungus and sallow creepers dripped from the limbs.

I held the horses while Gregorio scrambled over the rocks, vanishing behind a curtain of swaying vines. He returned shortly, satisfied that the interior of that oval would be the ideal place to make our camp. It was enclosed from the wind, the trees arched into a roof overhead, and best of all a narrow stream ran through the space, appearing in a spurt of fresh water from between the rocks.

It was difficult to get the horses inside. They were reluctant to cross the barrier of rock and we had to lead them one at a time, clattering and sliding, but once they were inside they were safe and we didn’t have to worry about them. They wouldn’t cross the rocks voluntarily and it eliminated the need to tie or hobble them, as well as the effort of carrying water from the stream across the treacherous footing, as would have been necessary had we left them outside.

I erected the tents while Gregorio fashioned an interior barrier of rock and dead trees to keep the horses out of the living quarters of our strange dwelling, and used the folding axe to hollow a log into a feeding trough. Then I set up the stove and attached the Butane bottle while he built a circle of rocks in front of the tents to serve as a fireplace. The stove was adequate for cooking, but we needed a fire for warmth and light. Together we unpacked the rest of the supplies and covered them with a tarpaulin. Our camp was made, crude but adequate, and it was time to decide what the next step should be. I lit a cigarette and considered the prospects. Gregorio was gathering whatever dry wood he could find. Now that the destination had been reached, I felt a sense of futility. We were here, but had anything other than distance been accomplished? I don’t know what spectacular clue I’d hoped to find, but there had been nothing, no sign of the creature’s presence in the area and no reason to suppose he was still there. All I could do was wait and
observe and hope, and that seemed a passive and remote approach. I decided to confer with Gregorio and waited while he used a chemical fire lighter to start the camp fire, and brought water for coffee.