At Play in the Fields of the Lord

  SNOW, dawn, black aspens. The creature rose at the boy’s coming and somersaulted backward, whining and snarling, the trap clatter muffled in white silences; whiteness; the blood pools colored black, the tight-sewn cold.

  A great head, and yellow eyes too big for Coyote—the last wolf in the mountains, the first and only wolf the boy had ever seen. He had no rifle. The old wolf leaped, to drive him back, and fell forward on its muzzle, which rose white-tipped from the snow; its tongue fell out. The icy steel worked tighter on its foreleg, and the pain confused it, for it looked aside and wagged its tail a little, shivering. Then, just once, it howled a real wolf howl, pure as the black air of the mountain forest. Then it lay down. It had been gnawing on its foreleg, just above where the trap had snapped, and now it began again, whining and snarling at its own agony, at the stubbornness of its own bone which held it earthbound. The mad yellow eyes watched him, the taut muzzle, the purplish curled gum, red teeth, the jaw; the scrape of teeth on living bone made him cry out. The ears flicked forward, but the gnawing did not stop.

  When he came close, it sprang sideways; another such spring might free it. He drew back, frightened of the mad wild yellow eyes.

  The sun rose to low banks of winter clouds; the day grew cold. He cut a sapling and carved a spear point, long and white; confronting the wolf, he drove the raw white wood into its chest as it came up at him and fought to pin it to the ground and grind the pain out of it. But still it fought to live, dull heavy thumps in the white flying powder; a blood fleck seared his lip—the wolf was snapping at the place where the stake pierced it. Shaken free, he had fallen within reach of it, but the stunned creature only raised its bleeding teeth from its own wounds and stared at him and past him, blinked once at the dying winter world, in daze, and lay its head upon its forepaws, panting.

  He opened his eyes, gasping for breath; he drifted downward. Once the abyss opened out into air and sunlight, but there were papier-mâché angels, and again he broke off chords of music from the air like bits of cake: the Paradise was false and he went on. A spider appeared, reared high over his head, then seized, shredded and consumed him. Voided, he lay inert in a great trough, with molten metal rising all about him in a blinding light. SO THIS WAS BRIMSTONE. The missionary’s pasty face peered down at him over the rim: This is a proud day for the mission, Lewis, and a proud day for your people. We all count on you.

  Eyes. Eyes. He struggled to free himself, but the stake held in his heart, the hole in his heart; even breathing hurt him, even breathing. He clawed at his own chest to ease it. If only he could get that pain out, then his heart would bleed his life away, but gently.

  A ROAR of trapped insects, flies and bees, and he among them: mad drone and bugging and brush of hairy, viscous legs scraping toward remote slits of air and light, of acrid insect smell, of flat inconscient insect eyes, unblinking, bright as jewels, too mindless to know fear, oh Christ, how mindless. Humans … A human mob, pounding its way into the bar, in search of—what? It did not know. It had no idea what it was hunting, but was hunting out of instinct, with myriad flat insect eyes, trampling everything underfoot; he shook with fear. Like a rat he was, a famine rat of broken cities, a quaking gut-shrunk rat, scurrying through the wainscoting of falling houses. His skeleton flew apart, reassembled in rat’s skeleton; his spine arched, the tiny forefeet and long furtive hand, the loose-skinned gassy belly; he poised, alert, hunched on his knees upon the bed, hands dangling at his navel, long nose twitching. In the mirror across the room he saw the hair sprout on his face and the face protrude.

  He found his way across the room and stared so closely into the glass that his nose touched it; he watched the face wrinkle and turn old; he saw his own raw skull again and groaned. Then another mask, a new expression, hard and sly and cold. As he watched, it softened and turned young and wide-eyed, gentle; the muscles in his stomach eased, and he recognized the self of boyhood mornings. He was touched by this last face and grinned at it in embarrassment; but just as he grinned, self-consciousness returned to poison him, and the boyish face turned hard again and mean, and the lips drew back upon sharp teeth and the eyes glittered, and the whole body tensed with an anger of such murderous black violence that he recoiled from his own hate, falling back again across the bed.

  A huge dead dog had its teeth locked in his throat, and the metal bar dragged at his chest again, and when he closed his eyes the Rage descended, a huge and multilimbed galoot in hobnailed boots and spurs, eyes bulging, teeth grinding, cigars exploding in its mouth and flames shooting from its ears, bearing a club spiked with rusty nails, wearing brass knuckles and outsize six guns; in its blind snot-flying rage, it blew its own head off by mistake. This thing came stomping down out of his mind, and he gasped, Look at that guy, that guy is so mad, he blew his own head off by mistake! His body relaxed and he howled with laughter, lying now with his back on the floor and his feet on the bed, and as he laughed, the gnawed and painful stake which had pierced his chest as long as he could remember cracked and opened like an ancient husk and turned to dust, and he could breathe again.

  With the music rising in the summer breeze there came a gay preposterous parade along the highroad: calliope flutings and fanfare, with band wagons and floats and maelstroms of confetti, pouter pigeons and emerald parakeets, bursting drums and golden tubas, and gauzy fat-cheeked majorettes in crotch-tight sateen suits, chins bouncing on high squeaking breasts like taut balloons—oompa, oompa, oompa, oompa. And an immense blowzy one-man band of a hand-me-down Big Irma, beer-soaked and high-colored, all billowing bows and curlicues and furbelows of hue and texture Look At Her Go, Hurrah Hurrah! all leer and wink, hiking her skirts to turn the ankle, pretty still beneath the mass of tired flesh, and trying in vain to shake a ball of hair and dog turd from her heel, squinching and squashing and squirting along like a banquet dumped into a bag. She wore a gigantesque plumed hat which she flew like a flag, and as the old tub pushed along, batting her eyes and swinging her butt, she leaked and sagged and oozed so woefully at the seams that rats and crows fought for her leavings, while in the front and alongside, as trumpets blew and pennants flew and children snickered and horses nickered, stores and provisions and water and fuel were crammed aboard; varlets hurled up trays of tarts and heaved up meats and slung up wine flagons and kegs of ale, while others ran to pump in gasoline and air, barely able to offset the waste and loss of the vast outpourings beneath—Big Irma meanwhile, nothing daunted, leering and winking to beat hell, and curtseying prettily as the bands played and hats were tossed and wild cheers rent the air hip hip hurroo and winking her blinkers and twinking her pinkie and twirling a tiny parasol, all giggling and goosed and poked, as if to say, Well, sweet Christ knows I always done my damndest.

  ONCE upon a time, at morning, a small blood-silver river in the rising plains, the silver undersides of wind-awakened leaves, the silver spider webs in dew. A small boy hunting, poised, quick, listening, in a fine old-smelling boat parting new reeds. Soft drops falling from an oar, a newborn sun, far bugling … a swan. The stalk, the shot, the yell of blackbirds, the white bird turning a slow circle, head under water. Feathers floating and wild silence … That morning his skin tingled, and he laughed aloud in that sky-high aloneness that was not loneliness, the strength of a young animal among animals in a soft summer sunrise …

  horses,

  rodeos, long murky bars and rotten sawdust smell in high small sandy towns of the Great Basin, a coyote trapped by hurtling cars where the road cut through the rock, a lone whiskey bottle on the shoulder of the road. Night voices, speed, a dirtied strength, a flight, a maiming, a lost friend; women and bystanders overrun, struck aside by wheels spun loose from flying axles, flying hooves, by fenders: highways, sirens, howling lights, a crash … dread silence …

  smoke,

  and twisted metal shards, flayed twisted limbs, a staring eye, and gasoline spreading like a stain of blood on the stunned pavement: hiss of steam, oncoming sirens, SIRENS, I-A-R-R-A-O-W-A-O-A-O-W ??
?

  Meriwether

  Lewis Moon, in ditch, head bleeding at the temple

  Ever driven a convertible, Lew boy? Go ahead—try it.

  With the record you already made, Lew boy–

  Lewis.

  With the record you already made, Lewis, it won’t hardly be no trouble, no trouble at all.

  Yeah, but Eddie, his grades are very good, he’s got what you might call real native intelligence–

  Hell, just keep drinkin whiskies like you been doin right along, and then you parade that little Eastern gal of yours around the campus, you know, feelin her up and all, and throw a punch maybe if somebody gets smart—that ought to do it.

  All you boys want is a complete sellout of the Cheyennes in this state, and you’ll give the dumb Injun three hundred brand-new all-American silver dollars, right?

  Well, there’s no call to look at it that way …

  Make it two thousand, or this auto, and I’ll be out of your miserable alma mater before daylight.

  Two thousand? Or this automobile? How in hell are you going to earn two thousand—scalp somebody?

  Hand it over and find out.

  Look, Geronimo, we can get you framed for less than that!

  Ah, come on, Eddie, they said they wanted it a nice clean job.

  Well, there’s the two, goddamit, Lewis—now when you going to earn it?

  … eighteen, nineteen, two. Right now—you two fat turds get out and walk.

  Hey, wait a minute, watcher language! No red nigger’s gonna …

  –Ow! Christ watchit!

  In the mirror he saw one of them, face bloodied, help the other to his feet; they bawled for justice.

  You mean that’s their car you have downstairs? Oh, I can’t bear it, you were almost graduated! Lew, listen to me, darling, this is no way to prove anything–

  Lewis. I’m supposed to feel you up in public.

  Oh, listen to you, sweetheart, look how drunk you are! If you really believe in what you’re doing, why are you so drunk? Listen, it’s not only a question of yourself—how about your people? How about the people who worked so hard to get you in here–

  That’s it, right there—I sold out when I first signed in as their pet Indian. And yours too, baby, yours. The only reason you’re making it with me is because you don’t come from around here. You goddamn liberals are all alike—all talk and no risk.

  Don’t be like that! How can we help you people if you won’t help yourselves! Oh, can’t you understand? I love you!

  Love, love, lo-ove …

  Down the road. The big two-tone auto stank of lotion and cigar butts, but it moved. It roared across the land like an apocalypse, almost to the state line, before the oil gauge flashed red; then he forced it harder still, grinding his teeth and driving the gas through it to burn it clean, until the tires reeked and the body shuddered, until the fat plastic dashboard bulged with warnings, until the whole fat contraption of churchgoing chromium and patriotic plush screeched and choked on its own heat and burst its block and screamed to a hissing locked fiery halt with eight million all-American motorcycles hard behind. I-A-R-R-A-O-A-O-W. A last swig and he broke the bottle, then toppled out, rolling and laughing, on the highway shoulder. Down he went through waving weeds into the swamp, hailing and cursing the cop silhouettes, with two thousand dollars and a hand cut by broken teeth, and nothing and nowhere, but free, by Christ, how free of their whole Indian game.

  He headed eastward to New York. On a truck radio he heard the charges: grand larceny—an automobile and two thousand dollars—and felonious assault.

  See, Lewis, it ain’t gonna work. You find yourself another local.

  I don’t get it. You had a fight in here yourself only last week—you guys were drunk right on the job.

  You don’t fight the way we fight. We fight for fun, Lewis. Because we like it. Because we like it. We ain’t tryin to prove nothin. So you just find yourself a nice white local where they fight the way you fight.

  White local, huh? There’s more Cheyenne in this blood coming out of my nose than there is Mohawk in all you bastards put together–

  You got shit in your blood too. We never heard of Cheyennes, hardly, until you come along, and anyway, we ain’t professional Indians like you. All we know about Indians, bub, is what we seen on television.

  I-A-R-R-A-O-A-O-W …

  Sirens, howling lights, another crash, another, still another: modern times. CRASH, CRASH, CA-RASH—that crazy kid is CA-RAZY—he began to laugh. The crashes became gimcrack destruction, a breaking and tinkling of deafening dimensions, a mounting heap of slow jalopies hurling themselves together at a crossroads.

  Port

  scene with rum, tropical colors, high white birds, the lonely palms of dawn: a crazy-legged Negress dancing nude,

  Wistaria,

  her flesh …

  Because the way things are goin they ain’t no hope for none of us, lessen we don’t get somethin learned here to us pretty quick …

  Here was

  Rage again, exploded now, hung-up like an old scarecrow, like a big broken toy with one loose eye and loose old parts and springs and stuffing every whichy-way—all hung-up on itself, poor critter. Rage danced somewhat sheepishly to guitar and wind, as if to say: Well, just because I’m angry doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a dance or two …

  Lucidity. He sighed. He lay there all laughed out and loose, loose as a dead snake slung on a rail, lay there drunk with gentleness and pleasure. Be a good boy, Lewis, do not hate so much.

  Oh good old Wolfie, Wolfie would die laughing. The thought of the Old Wolf laughing, dying of laughing, set him off again, but this time, even as he laughed, an apprehension came. He crawled to the corner of the room, where he crouched low, watching both door and window. The noises were surrounding him, there was something happening to him, something happening, and he felt too tired now to deal with it. If he could only stop this laughing, but he could not; his laughter grew louder and louder, and when he tried to stop he could not close his mouth. It stretched wider and wider, until he swallowed the ceiling light, the room, the window and the night; the world rushed down into the cavernous void inside him, leaving him alone in space, pin-wheeling wildly like a jagged fragment spun out from a planet.

  A terrific wind blew, and his ears rang with the bells of blue-black space; the wind sealed his throat, his flesh turned cold, his screams were but squeaks snapped out and away by the passage of night spheres. Nor could he hear, there was no one to hear, there was no one where he had gone—what’s happening, what-is-happening …

  He had flung himself away from life, from the very last realities, had strayed to the cold windy reaches of insanity. This perception was so clear and final that he moaned; he would not find his way back. You’ve gone too far this time, you’ve gone too far …

  As he whirled into oblivion, his body cooled and became numb, inert, like a log seized up and borne out skyward by a cyclone; he struggled to reach out, catch hold, grasp, grip, hang on, but he could not. He could not, he was made of wood, and there was nothing to hang on to, not even his own thought—thought shredding, drifting out of reach, like blowing spider webs. He was gone, g-o-n-e, gone, G-O-N-E, gone—and around again. The howling was in his head, and all about lay depthless silence. His screaming was ripped away before it left his mouth, and the mouth itself was far away, a huge papered hoop blown through and tattered by the gales. The air rushed past, too fast to breathe; his lungs sucked tight, shriveled like prunes, collapsed. He died.

  Death came as a huge bounteous quiet, in the bosom of a high white cloud. The wood of his body softened, the knots loosened; he opened up, lay back, exhausted, mouth slack, eyes wide like the bald eyes of a corpse. He glimpsed a hard light lucid region of his mind like a lone comet, wandering far out across the long night of the universe.

  9

  TOWARD DAWN LEWIS MOON CAME TO THE QUARRIERS’ ROOM. HE entered without knocking. Quarrier awoke in time to find Moon going through
the pockets of his pants hung on the chair. Moon met his gaze calmly, still going through the pockets, and a moment later held up the Niaruna dictionary in the dim light. Quarrier slipped quietly from his bed and trailed Moon into the corridor.

  “What are you doing?” he whispered angrily. He was upset by his own nakedness.

  “You haven’t any clothes on,” Moon remarked. “Is that a sin?” The pupils of his eyes were very large, and both his face and voice were gentle.

  “Give me that dictionary!”

  “No, not now.” He was already moving off unsteadily; he disappeared into the stairwell. Quarrier ran back for his bathrobe, then went to fetch Wolfie. But Wolfie had found another place to sleep, for his bed was empty.

  From the window Quarrier watched Moon drift down the center of the street to the edge of light and disappear into the darkness. Then he saw Andy running in the same direction. He started to call out to her, then stopped; he ran to the doorway, to the stairwell, then back to his room.

  Quarrier was at his window when a climbing airplane roared over the hotel. In the jungle no one flew at night, and in the echoes of the plane’s motor a tension swelled, a taut silence, cracked like glass by the sound of a first voice, which told him that the whole settlement had leaped awake. From across the town, a moment later, he heard Wolfie howling.

  By sunrise all of Madre de Dios had convened to stare at the spot where the airplane had been. Guzmán himself came, in his private car, with driver. Everyone had an ear cocked for an engine, but everyone also seemed to know that Moon would not come back.

  Nevertheless, Huben went over to the radio shack to try to contact Moon. Almost immediately the flyer’s voice resounded, but Leslie was unable to tell how long Moon had been talking. Apparently the man had no audience in mind, for the monologue was in English. Who was he talking to, then? Leslie did not catch all of it, and in fact made no real contact; he was paid for his efforts in curses and strange maledictions.