The spring water scalded his fingers, and hastily he pulled away. Uneasy at the heat, which seemed now to have a faint red glow to it, he stepped over the stream and upcanyon, aware suddenly of a Pellucidar below like the insides of a foundry, bright yellow spills of molten metal leaving intense afterimages in his sight. Except in reality the superheated rock below was under such gravitational pressure that it could be called neither a liquid or a solid, not if you wanted to be accurate. A slight variation, a bolide gravitational or magnetic, and the dark night might suddenly explode on him. Have to live with that.
The woods were dark. Black on black. Oscar blundered into branches that were like wooden arms trying to tackle him. He couldn’t see well enough to move around out here, how did the others do it? The canyon floor was irregular and much of what he stepped on was soft. It made him squeamish and light-footed. Needed a flashlight. Definitely dark. Once a friend in Virginia had taken him out to see one of the caverns in the Shenandoah Mountains, and the guide there had shut down the light in one deep cavern, so they could see the purity of a complete lack of light. You couldn’t see your hand right in front of your nose, nor distinguish any motions it made. It was simply a field of the richest, blackest black he had ever seen.
This wasn’t like that. Overhead stars sparked between wind-tossed branches, and a single solar panel station blinked in the west like a streetlight seen from miles away. Presumably these were casting some light on the scene. How many candlepower was a star? Let’s see, a lit candle some eight miles away is supposed to be visible. They did an experiment about that, in the early days, wandering out on a clear desert basin. One man tramped back and forth to find out at just what point he lost sight of the distant candle. Eight miles? Maybe it wasn’t that far. What was stopping the light from being visible, anyway? What got in the way? Imagine that man out there wandering back and forth, a distant prick of light winking in and out of existence.
He could in fact see his hand in front of his face. Experiment proved this. Black octopuslike thing. But what stood before him, or at his feet: inky shapes on a field of sable velvet. It was possible to walk right into a tree. He proved that by experiment too. Subsequently he made his way with his hands stretched out before him, like a sleepwalker.
Nothing to see, but lots to hear. Airy voice of the wind scraping stone, hooting from time to time around sharp corners. The myriad shivery clicks of leaves overhead and around, a sound sometimes like water falling, but with the individual sounds sharper, more individualized—but so many of them.… The creaks of branches rubbing together, eucalyptus trees did that a lot, they were talkative trees. A scurrying underfoot that made him tread even more slowly, more lightly. Tiny creatures were rushing away as he approached, much as little people ran from city-stomping Godzillas in Japanese movies. And maybe some little guys with a superweapon like snake poison would try to bring him down. Necessary to move very slowly. Give them time to escape.
After a while he increased his pace again. Rattlers were likely to be asleep after all, and they were the only superpowers around. Maybe. Anyway he had to venture on. But it was probably best to give as much warning of his arrival as possible, so instead of trying to reduce the noise of his passage he increased it, swinging a stick around and hitting things with it. It also served as a blind man’s cane, warning him of trees and the like. Best, clearly, to move by sense of sound and touch. He recalled an acquaintance’s story, of walking by a lake at night in east Texas in early summer, stepping squick, squick at every step, as each step came down on one of millions of young frogs hopping about. Ick.
He came to the dim bulk of a canyon wall. So it was possible to see something. A bit confusing; apparently the canyon must fork here. He went right, and soon found himself struggling up through thickets of sage and other shrubs. One type was kind of a Spanish bayonet thing, a bunch of long, stiff, and very sharply pointed blades. Best to avoid. Really, this was stupid. What did he think he was doing? What did he expect to find? Surely no one else would have taken a route as crowded with vegetation as this. Bulldozer approach.
Still he struggled on through the tangled mass of branches. One advantage to hiking alone; you can do things so stupid that no two people together would ever carry on with it. Manzanita, or was it mesquite, anyway there was no way he could go through a nest of that stuff, no matter it was only thigh-high. Those branches were like steel. Go around. Keep going. Pure stubbornness, but after all he could turn around any time and get back to the hot springs easily, so why not? He could do this just for the fun of stupid stubbornness, mindless and pure. Holding to a course just because he was on one. Inertia. A gyroscope in the spirit, spinning madly. One time his friends had rated everyone in their group for strangeness, charm and spin. One to ten. Oscar was the only one given tens in all categories. Nice friends. But his placid moonfaced bulk, spinning? They must have been seeing in to this gyroscope.
The bushwhacking got more fun. This was life, after all—bashing around in the dark, fighting through tangles of very tough clutching branches, sometimes knee-high, sometimes well overhead. Allegory, Everyman, bungle in the jungle.
The moon rose, and everything changed. Something like a thick translucent white syrup poured into the canyon, making the trees into distinct beings, the mesquite patches into densely textured surfaces, as in an arty black-and-white photo of the sea’s surface, or snow on a forest, or something equally dappled. The droopy long leaves of eucalyptus trees swung in the wind, clattering lightly together. A spiky-barked, spiky-leaved, dusty little tree stood in his path like a growth seen through a microscope. Bacillus scruboakus. Oak, he has a heart of oak, Hank said when recommending Oscar be hired as town attorney. Should have known that any town that consulted someone like Hank when hiring an attorney was going to be seriously weird. Shadows moved and jumped, quivered and bobbed. He could see just enough to see that everything was moving. The wind didn’t seem as strong, or as loud. Moonlight thick as gel. Sage smell.
The moon itself was an intense white, its violent history marked all over it. A rabbit stirring a bowl of rice, the Chinese saw. Nothing so simple as a face. Moonfaced, like Oscar. Sister moon. Just tilt your head to the right a bit and there it was, the rabbit’s two long laid-back ears as clear as could be. Bowl of rice, well it certainly could have been a bowl of pudding, that was guesswork. But the rabbit was there, looking down at him.
There was a rustle underfoot, and in the distance the wind made a sound like crying souls. Not like the wind at all. Must have been coursing through a hole in the sandstone to create such an eerie sound. Just like a cry. Shadows moved suddenly to the left and in the sudden depth of the third dimension that the moon added to the world he thought he saw a bulk shift between trees. Yes, there it was, something fast and big—
It crashed downcanyon, charging sightlessly at him—
Oscar threw out his hands reflexively. “Hey!”
“Aaa!” it cried, leaping back.
“Doris!” Oscar exclaimed, reeling his mind back in. “Excuse me—”
“What?—”
“It’s me!”
“Who?” The panic in her voice was shifting to anger.
“Oscar!” he said, and then, “You remember, I was down at the pools—”
“Don’t joke with me!” There was a wild note in her voice. She wiped her face with a hand. Something more than embarrassment at being frightened by their sudden encounter. Words burst out of her: “What are you doing following me?”
“I’m not! I mean—I—” A number of alternative explanations jammed on his tongue, as he struggled for the right tack to take with her in this fierce mood. “I was just out for a walk. I figured if I ran into you I’d have some company—”
“I don’t want company!” she cried. “I don’t like you following me, leave me alone!”
And she rushed downcanyon, crashing through sagebrush almost as much as he had.
He stood there in the moony dark, stunned by the dislike in her v
oice. His heart tocked in his ears, seemed to pound in the earth beneath him. Intense hurt, mood plummeting like a bird hit by shot. Thump thump, thump thump, thump thump. Not fair. Really. A lifetime’s defenses went into action. No schoolmate’s taunt could touch him. “Well,” he said absently, in a John Wayne voice. “Guess I’ll hafta carry on up this here mountain all by m’self.” Muttering with all the voices, the whole cast of an imaginary movie, moving up the scrub-filled canyon. “Terrible vines here, ain’t they Cap’n.” “Yes, son, but they help hide us from the Injuns. Those Paiutes find us and it would be blubberhawk from space time.”
It got steeper, and he found himself on hands and knees, to get under the thickest part of the brush. Sometimes he crawled right on his belly, heedless of the dirt shoving under his shirt and belt. Clean dry dirt. Some dry leaves, not many. The smell of sage was so strong that he gasped. Must’ve dropped the spice rack, Cap’n.
At the end of his struggle he found himself beached on a broad ridge. The moon bathed it in light, and the monochrome landscape was revealed to the eye: bony gray hills rose in long broad waves to the mountains around the bulk of Saddleback. Black canyons dropped into the depths between them. The moon was surrounded with a talcum of white light which blotted out the stars. The wind was strong, a hot breath rushing over him. Occasional treetops stuck up in the air, like black gallows or the ruins of old houses. There, in the corner of his eye, a movement.
He spun to face it, saw nothing. But that hadn’t been just a branch waving in the wind. Had Doris returned to stalk him? Pound on him some more? Or—an absurd little ray of hope—apologize to him for her rudeness? Sure. “Doris?” The hope died. Not likely at best. Besides, it had been—
And there it was again, a smooth shape flowing between two bushes. Shadow in the moon’s twilight. An animal.
And in the distance, floating on the wind, a weird yipping bark, yodeling away. Like the cry he had heard before, only … wolves?
“Not possible, Jones,” he whispered. “The timber wolf was driven into the Tetons in my granddad’s time.”
Still, he hurried up the ridge, as it seemed the easiest route. Possible to see farther, too. His ankle hurt. Up the ridge was a knob of hard sandstone boulders, thrusting up among the stars. Like a refuge. A lookout in every direction.
Getting there was a problem. He zigzagged between bushes and short trees, nearly fell off the ridge. A rose bush caught at his clothes, stabbed him, the roses were a bright light gray, most of the blooms just opening, branches extending all over like ropes. As he struggled out of them the blooms fanned open, dropped blown, their yellow quite clear and distinct even in this black-and-white world. Frightened, he hurried away and up the ridge. He tripped and fell to his knees. Two branches twined together, squeaked out the word “Beware! Bewaaare!” He broke them off—they were deadwood. They struggled for a minute in his hands before becoming a wooden broadsword, thick and solid. Behind him the black shadow slipped from bush to bush like quicksilver across glass. Its eyes were bright.
He stumbled into a cleared area of grass, saw that waist-high boulders had been placed in a circle on it. Maybe twenty of them, casting shadows blacker than themselves across the grass. One stone wobbled, rolled off. Wings dashed the air, dive-bombing him and flitting away. No sound to the wings at all. Owls were supposed to fly like that.
Suddenly the peak seemed a trap, a final aerie he couldn’t escape from. A horror of sacrifice filled him, he turned off the ridge and down the head of a canyon. He ran under trees into sudden dark and fell. Cut, bruised, palm of hand burning. A tree stood over him triumphantly, its knobby arms waving in the attempt to free themselves from their paralysis and seize him. So many bony hands. Whaddyou get? bon-y fingers, he sang in his mind. He rolled in dried leaves and crunchy twigs. Dark. Ring of dimly glowing mushrooms, making a circle like the stone ring above. A rose bush wilted before him and the dread washed in again. He crashed away.
Now the canyon floor was fairly level. Eucalyptus trees filled the glade, and below it was as bare as a room. The trees dripped an herbicide that kept the area all to themselves. Easy walking. Suddenly low white shapes dashed about his knees, and he cried out in surprise. The shapes honked. They glowed like the mushrooms had. Ducks? Bigger, no, they were geese. Geese! He laughed, they scattered and scolded him with angry short honks. Nipped at his calves.
He allowed the little flock to guide him downcanyon. About ten of them, it seemed, scuttling about underfoot and honking impatiently. They guided him left, nipping. Up a gentle slope, side wall of the canyon nearly flat here, opening to the sky. Higher yet up the canyon’s side, and the dark waving canyon bottom was filled with treetops. Ocean of round-topped waves. They came to a broad shelf, floored with silver sand. His breath was harsh in his throat. There was a yip and the geese all honked and gathered behind him, huddling there as if he would protect them. Low doggy shapes whipped around the shelf and stood—long tails, foxlike. Fox and geese? The geese turned as one and hissed at one of the creatures. Coyote, sure. Bigger than a fox. Geese and coyote. The coyote moved like a sheepdog with a recalcitrant flock of sheep. Geese and sheep, similar creatures. No doubt geese were smarter.
Several more coyotes appeared out of the darkness, herded Oscar and the geese to the back wall of the shelf. Here the sand was thick and bright, mica chips flashing moonlight, the geese standing out like cottonballs, dashing about complaining. They nipped back at the coyotes if pushed too far, noisy as they clacked and honked and hissed, in a language very expressive, very emotive. Clear as could be what they meant. The coyotes’ tongue, on the other hand, was utterly alien. Sliding yips, how did they do it? Vocal chords like a pedal steel guitar.
The geese settled down, began to peck in the sand. They groomed their feathers with their bills, their long necks stretching in impossible curves, loops. Grooming each other or the coyotes who sprawled among them, calm and watchful. Oscar sat down heavily, crossed his legs. A coyote still ambling around their beach-like extrusion plopped down behind him, lay on its side, its back pressing Oscar’s. He found he was weeping, he couldn’t see anything but dim white blobs in the darkness. The moon set and the geese themselves provided the light, glowing like little moons. The coyote braced against him sighed heavily, squeaked softly with contentment, like a dog. Comfortable. A few more coyotes heard the sound, padded over to join them. The wind filled Oscar’s chest until he thought it might burst him, or waft him away like a balloon. His eyes felt dry and sandy, his nose was clogged. He breathed in and out through his mouth, trying to keep from overfilling. Furry warmth, the tickle of a tail flicking against his ankle. Contentment spilled through him, he was an artesian well of contentment. The down under the feathers of the geese; nothing softer. They buzzed through their bills when they were happy. He lay on his side, feeling a warm exhaustion wash down through him, groundwater, muscles melting. One night when he was five years old, the shadow of the tree outside his window had waved on the floor, and he had felt something like this—felt how big the world was, and how charged everything was with meaning. It made you breathe so deep, made your chest fill so full! In and out, in and out, in the rhythm of the sand underneath him. Geese slept with their heads under one wing.
When he woke it was not from sleep, but from a dream so vivid and real that it seemed opening his eyes was like disappearing, turning into a ghost. Stepping from some bright world into a dimmer one. He was lying on sand, his side was damp and stiff. The night’s wandering stood clear in his memory, including the flock of white geese and their guardian coyotes. But now the sandy shelf was bare. Paw prints everywhere. He was alone.
He sat up, groaning. The sky was the gray of his pearl gray suit, and seemed low and cloudy, though a few stars pricked it to show that it was actually the clear dome of the sky, cloud-gray in this moment of the dawn. Everything was still monochrome, grays everywhere, a million shades of it. There were thorny weeds edging the patch of sand. Bird song started in the canyon below, and small
birds here and there joined in.
Moaning and groaning he stood, hiked down from the shelf. How … He lost the thought. All the intense emotions of the night before had drained away. The wind still gusted, but not inside him. He was calm, emptied, drained. Trees stood around him like great silent saints. He walked downcanyon. Eventually he would come on something. At times he felt sure he was still dreaming, despite a stubbed toe. Warm dry air, even at dawn.
Far down the canyon, where it opened up and joined a bigger one, he came upon a big bare sycamore tree, filled with sleeping crows. A tree very old, very big, mostly dead, no leaves except on one live strip that twisted greenly off to the side; and entirely filled with still black birds.
“Now wait a minute.” He pinched himself. Bit the skin between thumb and forefinger. Yes, he was awake. He certainly seemed awake. Mountain canyon at dawn, Santa Ana Mountains. Yes, he was awake! Anyway this happened a lot, even down in town. There were a lot of crows around, flocks of really big ones, like ravens it seemed to him. Loud birds, pests, little Mongols of the air, dominating wherever they wanted to. He had seen a flock descend on a tree before; in fact they had their favorites, which they stopped in ritually at the end of the day, when heading back up to their night haunts—up to here, in fact, for this particular horde. A whole flock perched up there silently, sleeping, filling every branch like black fruit, on twisting gray branches against the gray sky. The green of the live strip beginning to show.