William H. Hallahan - (31 page)

Brendan climbed for an hour. Periodically he paused long enough to
get his bearings and to look back at the lake. It seemed to have
grown smaller. The monastery was barely visible among the trees;
Timothy, Repentance and the hawk were not visible at all.

It was after five when he reached the crest, panting, mopping his
brow, not daring to push off his hood. His eyes studied the woods for
signs of the hawk.

Then he started down the other side of the mountain. Many miles
south of him lay the Great Gap between the two mountains. That was
the way to safety.

Soon he was struggling to keep his footing as his boots slipped
and slid down the snowy slope. He had to break his way through
thickets, ducking branches, stubbing against rocks. It was painfully
slow going and his back was complaining about the constant stooping
under the branches. Then he found the fire lane. A row of power-line
poles marched straight down the hill and he was able to increase his
speed, keeping to the edge of the cleared trail.

The moon disappeared in black clouds, and later he was enveloped
in a swirling snowstorm. He was just barely able to follow the
powerlines down the slope. There was one good thing about the snow:
It was covering his tracks.

At six thirty there was a little more light, and he knew that
above the snow clouds dawn was breaking. He was weary; his muscles
ached as if they had been pummeled by a club. He yearned to sleep. A
safe hiding place somewhere out of that searching wind was what he
needed.

He had come down the long undulating slope and had crossed the
narrow tip of a valley before starting abruptly to climb again. He
came upon a sinuous roadway and followed it, feeling his tired legs
complain with every step. The road rose sharply and curved to the
left.

He had walked into the middle of a field before he realized that
the road had turned away again. Before him, looming in the falling
snow, was an indistinct structure. He walked closer to it. It was a
summer cottage with a front porch.

Brendan studied the building. Someone had left open the lattice
cover under the left side of the porch. He stooped down and peered
inside. There was a snowdrift that extended about five feet. Beyond
that was a thick bed of autumn leaves that had blown in there.
Brendan crept in, then with care shut the lattice cover like a gate.
Immediately, the wind was busily blowing snow through the interstices
of the lattice work.

On his knees, crouching with his head bent, he opened his sleeping
bag, beat the snow off his clothing, unlaced his boots and slipped
into the bag. He'd barely zipped himself in when he fell asleep.
 
 

The hawk's cry woke him. The snow had stopped but the wind was
still blowing. As he sat up, Brendan saw through the lattice across
the field and out on the roadway. While he'd slept, the snow and the
scouring wind had completely obliterated his tracks. The hawk cried
again, and he could just see her high above, an agitated speck in the
tumultuous clouds.

Brendan crouched under the porch and waited. It was late afternoon
when Brendan could hear birds in the trees, cluttering. He knew the
hawk had flown off. A flock of crows arrived, dancing briefly on the
swaying boughs of some conifers, then went off with their raucous
calls echoing down the mountainside. The south-facing slope of the
roof above him was catching the full effect of the March sun, and he
could hear the eave dripping heavily. He also heard water trickling
somewhere under the snow. The afternoon was getting short and with
darkness all that snowmelt would freeze and make the footing
slippery.

For two hours more he remained under the porch, watching intently
for the hawk. In the sunset a black form sailed over the house, and
with one glance Brendan knew she was back. As he watched, she swept
across the sky again in a slow semicircle, then wheeled north as
silently as death. A moment later she was a distant black dot over
the valley, curving this way and that, endlessly searching. Darkness
was not far off.

He risked heating some dried soup in a cupful of snow over his
alcohol stove, ravenously drank it and ate two of his four
sandwiches. He felt stiff and ungainly. He yearned to stand and
stretch. He wished he had a weapon. How would he ever escape the
hawk's incredible eyes?

Brendan swung back the lattice and stood up. The sun was gone;
only a faint redness in the west marked its descent. And already in
the east and south the evening stars had appeared. His luck was
holding: A huge moon was rising to light his way south. It was a
beautiful windless night and in the silence the only sound was the
crunch of his boots on the snow. He still felt stiff from the night
before.

Soon the road crested and wiggled down toward a broad valley. On
the other side of the valley he saw the Great Gap between the two
mountains. They bulked like two whales. Between them was the glow of
the rail-junction city. Here and there in the valley he saw the
lights of farmhouses. The moon at three quarters cast an eerie ghost
light over the snow. He felt totally alone. But the worst of the
climbing and descending was behind him. Ahead lay a fairly straight
walk. Contrary to Timothy's advice, he stayed on the paved road. The
walking was much faster that way.
 
 

It was sometime around one in the morning when the first gust of
warm air touched his face. A wind kicked up, moist and southerly,
full of rain.

Brendan turned and looked back. In the moonlight his tracks were
clearly visible. He squinted into the moonscape, searching for any
movement, and found none. Then he turned and almost trotted toward
the interval. The backpack weighed heavily on his shoulders.

Occasionally, a long way off he would see a car approaching and
then he would scamper off the road and wait for it to pass. Several
times, farm dogs set up a barking staccato and he was sure the hawk
heard it.

Sweat was streaming from him now. After the months of inactivity
in the monastery, he was soft. He didn't know how much longer he
could keep up the pace he was setting. Once when he turned to look,
he saw the great mass of the mountain he'd crossed during the night.
In spite of his relentless pace during the last two hours, the
mountain seemed as close behind him as ever and the interval more
distant. He could almost convince himself the mountain was following
him. It began to rain and in a few minutes it was teeming, a warm
spring rain.

The road was rising gradually, a long sweeping slope toward an old
fold of land. Under his rain poncho he heard himself panting now and
the calf in his right leg was tight and threatening to cramp. He
considered discarding the backpack. It had grown heavier with each
hour.

The snow was melting rapidly away, and
he slogged through lakes of drowned slush. He was concentrating on
his footing when he heard the hawk's
cree cree cree
faintly
through the noise of the downpour. He immediately looked for a place
to hide. He broke into a run, and as he bounded around a curve he
almost ran into a railroad crossing light. Two red lamps were
blinking alternately. In front of him a freight train rolled, moving
slowly and picking up speed. Without hesitating, Brendan broke into a
run and trotted beside it, watching. A freight car with its sliding
door open approached him, he turned his body and flopped on the edge,
dangling his legs in air and kicking to get inside. He couldn't make
it. He dropped off, took another run and dived up. But the backpack
threw him off stride and he was still dangling. The train was rapidly
picking up speed and he got a glimpse of a tunnel ahead. With the
last strength in his legs he ran again, almost reaching a sprint, and
jumped up. His head and shoulders were inside; his legs dangled. He
could not pull himself in. Something gripped his collar. In a moment
he was dragged inside the boxcar. And a moment later the train
entered the tunnel. Things became pitch-dark.

Anne went home every night. She would start a meal while playing
an album on the stereo. While the food cooked she would take a
shower. Then she would dress, turn off the stove and go to a
hamburger place. The next morning she'd find the food dried in the
pot on the stove and throw it away.

She would start to dust the furniture. Later, the dustcloth would
still be in the middle of the table or stuck in a Venetian blind. She
didn't like being alone anymore. It took her a while to realize that
she was blaming herself for Brendan. If he really had trusted her and
believed her, he would have taken her with him.

"My fault," she said to the mirror. "Dumb broad."

She went more and more to the Green on Green. Jackie was company.
A born bartender, a frustrated actor cadging TV parts on any passing
bit of film, he was also a listener to others' troubles. He wanted to
talk about his own problems sometimes, and would confide in Annie.
They propped each other up. Jackie's nightmare was failure in the
theater, he feared he would end up a middle-aged half-bald
glass-polishing bartender living over a saloon somewhere and once or
twice a week hustling some wino's wife up to his bed for a little R &
R. In pantomime he would stick his can out in the back ("Middle-age
spread," he'd say) and waddle up and down for her, making her
giggle. But when he looked sidewise a few years ahead, she could see
the doubt in the corners of his eyes.

He was also part of Brendan's life. She stubbornly refused to
admit to herself that Jackie was a way of holding two fingers onto
Brendan's coattails. If ever he returned, she was sure he would come
back through the doorway of the Green on Green.

Jackie also watched the door for Brendan's return. Brendan was his
prop, his cheering section. Jackie missed him. "I feel like
there's a draft coming up my back sometimes," he said to Anne.
"Like a ghost."

"Do you believe in the occult, Jackie?"

Jackie nodded seriously. "I believe it all. Leprechauns,
pookas, fairies, banshees, the whole kit."

"Have you ever seen one?"

"No, but I may any moment. I'm like the lady who said, I
don't believe in ghosts and I hope they leave me alone.'"

Invariably Trevor would turn up. And shortly a whole gang of his
friends would appear. Trevor's bar bills were enormous. One evening
Jackie drew him aside and spoke earnestly to him for a few minutes.
Trevor drew out a checkbook and wrote a check. Jackie shook his head
as he put it in the cash register.

Anne noticed that Trevor's Mends never bought him a drink, never
put a penny on the bar.

"Do you pay for all that?" she asked him.

"What?"

"All the drinking your friends do?"

"I suppose."

"Tell me their names. What's her name there with the short
blond hair?"

"I forget."

"What does she do?"

"Oh, she's a friend of his."

"I see. What's his name, Trevor?"

"I--let me see."

"Where did you meet him?"

"Oh--in some bar, I guess."

"Trevor. Don't you know a freeloader when you see one?"

He grinned sheepishly at her. "They're broke. They're actors
on the street."

"Actors, me eye," Jackie said. "That one is an
accountant And the others are all something else."

"Let them buy their own drinks, Trevor," Anne said.

"Good," Jackie said. And he walked down the bar. Several
times Anne watched him shake his head at Trevor's friends and point
at Trevor. Shortly all of Trevor's friends had departed.

"They didn't even say good night, Trevor," Anne said.

He shrugged and smiled at her. "It was just a few dollars."

Later Jackie told her that the few dollars were often over a
hundred dollars a night.

Anne regretted her intrusion in Trevor's affairs. Now when they
met, Trevor asked Anne for advice. Should he keep his current
accounting firm or hire a new one? His stockbroker was a friend from
college but lately his advice had been very bad. What should he do?
Trevor was a procrastinates. Confronted with a problem, he often did
nothing.

Anne found herself calling him during the day and prodding him
like a mother. One day she realized it and withdrew her comments. He
grew upset.

"First of all, Trevor," she answered, "I'm not
smart enough to give you good advice. What do I know about
stockbrokers? And secondly, you never take the advice anyway."

He was upset. Anxious. "Annie, don't get mad I need to be
able to talk to you. I do take your advice. I'm getting a new
stockbroker and it's an all-business relationship this time. I don't
buy drinks for freeloaders anymore. I'm writing a play. Every day. My
whole life is getting straightened out because of you."

He bought her a lovely pin. "For my business counselor,"
he said. "No strings, Annie. Just a way of saying thank you."

"Say thank you."

He frowned. "Thank you."

"Good. Now you said it. You don't need to give me a pin."
And she made him take it back.

He grew quiet. Then he took her hand. "Anne. You told me
Brendan's not coming back. True?"

"I'm afraid so, Trevor."

"Then, follow my logic, if there's ever going to be a man in
your life, it won't be Brendan. Right?"

"I'm afraid that's so also, Trevor. But--"

"Shhh! Let me give my advisor some advice. Get on with your
life. Brendan's in your past."

"And you're my future."

"I would marry you right now."

"Oh, Trevor. We'd end up in a divorce in two weeks."

"Good. Wonderful. I mean I'd take fourteen days of marriage
with you if that's all I could get."

She looked at him with awe. It was as though he were reading her
script with Brendan. "I'd take two weeks of living with you,
Brendan," she'd said. She took Trevor's hand in both of hers.
She knew exactly how he felt. He loved her and couldn't have her; she
loved Brendan and couldn't have him. Right now, tonight, she'd
eagerly, joyfully take fourteen days with Brendan.