The Wanderer

by Timothy J. Jarvis

  This morning, when I roused the tribeswoman, she acted as if nothing had happened; I doubt anything will happen between us now, and that saddens me, if in a muted way; I’ve grown to find her enthralling.

  I was wrong about this, we’ve fucked since, though in delirium, not desire, a frenzied, bane-freaked rutting that’s soured all lust now. But our mute friendship has continued to grow, and I’m glad of that.

  Our tempers are well matched, and hardship has also tempered our bond, for, since the night of my chagrin, we’ve known no peace.

  The following morning, I woke early, brain throbbing. The sky was cloudless, still blue-black impasto, though there was a faint scumble out over the sea. Leaning over the bowrail, looking down on my reflection in the river, a long way below, I saw it clear; the air was still, there wasn’t even the faintest of breezes to rumple the image. It was chill, my breath ghosted in the air, but all augured the day would turn warm and that it would be another of sane shades in the sky, there were no sick tints in the dawn haze, only rose. I roused the tribeswoman. She also seemed a bit blear and sore-headed; she winced, clutched her skull. I supposed the odd, if pleasant, fuddlement we’d felt after eating the shellfish to have been the result of some mild toxin, and that we were now feeling its after-effects. Once we’d eaten breakfast, the tribeswoman returned to the cabin, went back to sleep. I sat down at my typewriter to briefly set down the previous day’s and night’s events before they faded.

  I’d only been working a short time, when, looking upriver, I saw charcoal smudges on the flats in the faint, if waxing, light. I crossed to the bowrail, peered; seals, as many as a hundred, and a few larger beasts, walruses and seacows, hitching themselves across the ooze, making for the water. Just then, rising clear of the horizon, the sun set the sloblands blazing. Squinching my eyes against the glare, I watched the animals cross a lake of fire, slip into the river, swim out to sea.

  I knuckled my eyes, grinned, stood stunned a short while. But my reverie was soon disturbed by shouts and the beating of drums from upstream. I went to the stern. A mob came our way, crossing the mud: the tribe, come to avenge the death of its leader, come for a reckoning.

  Horrored, I looked on the throng. They were many, almost the entire tribe, I guessed, men, women, and children, all who could walk, even some who couldn’t, infants in slings across mothers’ chests, a crone with withered legs who rode on the back of a burly man, all armed, save the babies and the very youngest children, wielding slings, clubs, knives, blowpipes. It seemed they’d picked a new leader, for a young man wearing purple robes walked alone, slightly ahead of the pack, bearing haughty then hunched by turns, looking over his shoulder often, as if he feared some prank, the tribe, sniggering, running off, abandoning him. Not far behind him came the drummers, thickset men with animal-hide tabors on which they thumped out a driving rhythm. Amid the throng was a frame lashed from pine trunks, which the tribe crowded, clamoured, fought to tote. It bore some large thing. It was cloth draped, and I couldn’t tell what it was, only that it was heavy, going by the stoutness of the frame and the many hands needed to carry it.

  I called out to the tribeswoman, my voice shaking. She came out of the cabin, blinking in the now bright light, came to the taffrail, saw the rabble, turned to me, biting her lip. It was too late to take flight, we’d be seen and run down. I crossed to the foredeck, winched up the gangplank. Then I went back to stand by the tribeswoman. We watched the tribe approach.

  The mob stopped a little way from the ship. The drums fell silent, and the strange burden was set down. Several of the tribe began to untie the thongs holding down the cloth that covered it. I clambered onto one of the shipping containers, boosted up by the tribeswoman, and yowled, loud, drawn out. But the rabble were not cowed, just loosed a few slingstones at me. I jumped back down off the container and took shelter behind the bulwarks with the tribeswoman. A few moments passed, then the clatter of slingstones petered out, and I raised my head, peered over the gunwale, gasped.

  The unwieldy thing the tribe had brought with them lay, uncovered, on the mud. A catapult, an arm with a sling dangling from the end, a rope skein. Several of the tribe bustled about it, twisting the skein, even at that distance the creaking of the ropes could be heard. A rough ball of some dark stuff was then loaded into the sling. The chieftain, who had before stood at a distance, crossed over, while the rest took a step back. A flaming brand was put into his hand, and he set light to the projectile. He waited till it was well aflame, sending up a thick rope of black smoke, then knelt down, released the trigger.

  The flaring missile arced over the Ark, reeky tail a sooty daub on the blue. I turned, dashed to the prow. The missile came down on a sandbank, out in the middle of the estuary, burst apart in a storm of burning smuts.

  Looking back over my shoulder, I saw the tribeswoman waving frantically at me, ran back to the stern. The tribe swarmed round the catapult, readying it again, adjusting; I feared they now had their aim and distance.

  I cudgelled my brains for a flight, frantic, fretting for the tribeswoman’s life, and for mine also, for, though the bombs couldn’t kill me, one might leave me sore burned, unable to flee or defend myself should the din and smoke draw my enemy, as I feared it would, for to him chaos is what carrion is to crows.

  Then I recalled the grappling iron and rope. Beckoning the tribeswoman to follow, I ran to the cabin, and, rummaging around in our pile of things, laid hold of them, a bag of dried provisions, my knife, and my torch. The tribeswoman and I then crossed over to the river side of the hulk, away from the natives, hooked the grapnel to a ring fixed to the deck, and threw the rope over the bulwarks. I gestured to the tribeswoman to go, and she vaulted the rail, swarmed down, hand over hand. While I waited, I looked about, and my heart jolted as I caught sight of, on my makeshift desk, this typescript, and, on top, weighting its piled pages against gusts, my typewriter. I wanted to save these things, to at least try, I’d set down too much by then and had too much still to tell, to purge, of this tale, this account. So I leant over the gunwale, waved to the tribeswoman, signalled she should wait, then ran over to the table, cast about for twine, I didn’t want to leave the pages of my narrative loose, saw a skein on the deck a short way off, darted over, picked it up, then, returning, saw the spare ream I kept under my desk, so took it, tied it up with my tale, then gathered up, in my arms, the bundle of paper and the typewriter, took them over to one of the metal shipping containers, went inside, swept away, with my feet, the draff from a dingy corner, and left them there. A wrench.

  I came forth, blinking, from the container, turned to look at the natives of the flats, saw the catapult kick like an ass, fling a missile into the air, slew, break a tribesman’s forearm in a lash of blood. The flaring lump of pitch groaned out of the sky, struck the corner of one of the containers, rained fire down on the foredeck. Our stack of firewood and some bundles of reeds the tribeswoman was planning to work into twine for fishing lines were soon alight. Burning smuts gyred in the air, spread the flames to the lean-to’s thatched roof, a pile of laundry we’d left out, and meal from oats I’d ground, which I kept in an old metal barrel the tribeswoman had found, buried in mud, a little way down the estuary. From the blazing lean-to, I heard twanging, the strings of my banjo, and was sorry. Some embers, falling on me, kindled my clothes, and throwing myself down, I rolled on the boards to put out the flames. Then I got to my feet, darted to the prow, hurdled the rail, grabbed hold the rope, and slid down it, flaying the skin from my palms. As I dropped, I heard a blast, the oatmeal, saw the barrel spin through the air overhead, splash down in the river, float downstream, trailing steam billows. I splattered down, sank, to my knees, into the sludge. The tribeswoman, who crouched a little distance off, waiting for me, crossed over, took my hand, hauled me out. A noise like a toad’s croak. I lay gasping. Then another report rolled on our ears, a third projectile had struck the Ark.

  The tribeswoman and I loped across the mud toward the river, waded in, be
gan swimming for the far bank. We strove to keep the freighter’s bulk between us and the rabble, but the current was backing with the rising tide and we drifted upstream into plain view. Still, we were not sighted till, midstream, we were forced to clamber over a sandbank. Then one of the tribe hollered, pointed us out. But the catapult needed to be turned to aim at us, and by the time the tribe had done so, and reloaded, we’d gained the far bank and begun running, bent, to stay hid, through the reeds there. The shot was loosed, but struck the bank at the place where we’d clambered from the river, by then far behind us.

  Reaching higher ground, the other side of the reed bed, we halted, gulping air, peered back over the canes at the Ark. Dense black smoke rose from it, roiled. As we watched, the lean-to collapsed, sparks and ash puffing up. Some of the tribe, who’d climbed on board using grapnels, darted hither and yon, scouring the deck, ragged forms stark before the flames, roisterers at some dark revel. They weren’t long searching – I suppose, as I had, they tried the companion hatch, found it wouldn’t open – then shinned back down to the flats, crossed over to where the remainder of the tribe awaited them. A small group broke away, walked a little distance off, sat in a circle. The clan elders, I surmised, conferring. After a short while, council over, they rose, rejoined the rest. The chieftain began gesticulating, giving orders. The tribeswoman and I didn’t wait longer, but turned, stole off.

  We fled north through a land of weald and sward; of woods of oak, maple, birch, alder, elm, beech, and ash, where finches twittered, pheasants strutted, woodpeckers drummed, and swine rooted; and of pastures where rabbits frolicked, hares loped, grasshoppers chirred, sheep and goats bleated, and cattle grazed, their lowing the region’s only sorrowful note. Not that, running scared, we’d time for the country’s gentle charms.

  But the land had a dark side, portended the dread place we were soon after to come upon. On the second night of our flight, a howl woke me. Against the full moon, just kicked loose of the earth, its big round face like a ball of tallow moulded by sooty fingers, was, stark, the shade of a wolf, muzzle to the sky. The tribeswoman, also roused by the noise, sat up, rubbed her eyes. I pointed out the beast to her, but it had slunk off. She fell back into slumbers, but they were troubled, going by the whimpering she made. I couldn’t sleep, lay awake watching the moon cross the sky on its rod, ears straining for the whirr of gears.

  We broke camp early the following morning and, after walking only a short way, came to a brook. Turning, we saw smoke furrowing the sky to the south: the tribe were on our trail. At first, I was bewildered, we’d covered our tracks well, but then I heard the hounds. We stood there, stricken, harking to the frenzied yapping. Then the tribeswoman let her pent breath out in a rush and pointed at the watercourse, walked her fingers through the air. I was bemused a moment, then realized what she meant; we could perhaps throw off the dogs, baffle their noses, by wading in the stream a way. I nodded, she removed her sandals, hitched up her skirt, I took off my boots, rolled up my trousers. Then we entered the water. It was shallow, came only to my knees, but was bitingly cold, my toes went numb almost straight away. We headed upstream, where briar thickets hid the stream from view. After trudging against the coursing water till fatigued, till breathing ragged, we clambered out onto the north bank, lay down to rest. The sky was clear, the morning had waxed warm, and, worn out and careworn we fell into a doze. On stirring, looking up, I saw the sun had reached its zenith. At first I was held rapt by the weird bands of vermilion, puce, viridian, and mallow shimmering in the sky, then I cursed the lapse; we’d doubtless lost any lead our ruse had gained us. I shook the tribeswoman awake, and we hurried on our way.

  Mid-afternoon we sighted a forest of gloomy firs up ahead, tall, close-seeded, dark. I thought it a grim enough place, but the tribeswoman seemed in terrible fear, shuddered whenever her eyes fell on it. I supposed it a place of fabled evil for her folk. By dusk we’d reached the treeline. We spent the night there, the pines looming over us.

  The next day, rising before sunup, we saw, not far off, the fitful glow of a fire, and had to press on into the forest. The tribeswoman shook her head, shivered, but I cajoled, brought her round. Knarled boles rose stark till far above, where twined black boughs and sprays of dark needles all but blotted out the sky, leaving only flecks of light, strewing the canopy with false stars; it was as if the place had seen a battle between the forces of night and day, and night had won a decisive victory, routed day’s troops, and the land had been forever ceded to it. The undergrowth was dense, if sickly, tangles of wan ferns, clumps of sere nettles, snares of brittle bramble, and crawled with stagbeetles, cockroaches, ants, spiders, writhed with worms and grubs. Of higher creatures, we saw none, no birds, not even a rat or snake, though in places the brake was trampled, and we heard, from time to time, in the distance, the noise of a large animal crashing through the scrub.

  We pressed on into that wretched forest, where I hoped the tribe would be loath to follow. By nicking the trees with my knife, small blazes low on the trunks, I marked our path. After a few hours, afraid to go on lest we lose our way, we halted, made camp, bodging a shelter from thicker fallen boughs and wadded moss.

  Stuck as to how to go on, I’ve been musing abstractly on my tale a short time. It’s occurred to me I am, at this moment, and have been many times in the writing of it, in three different places at once. It’s uncanny. Just now, I’m huddled with the tribeswoman in our makeshift hut, peering wary into the gloomy pines, but I also sit gawping at Jane, in the Nightingale pub, and at this battered rusty iron desk, in a cabin in the ravelled guts of this hulk, rhapsodizing all these affairs. It’s disconcerting; I hope, by the end of my tale, I’ll have collected myself. But, now, I’d better press on.

  I must return, then, to that drear forest, that place so dismal, so apart from the quick world. The writhen limbs overhead, needle rank, clot the sky. We felt oppressed by them, though were glad of their thick shroud on the second day when we heard thunder, wind threshing the treetops, saw rain running in rivulets down the trunks, realized another storm had broken over the region.

  Foraging in that place yielded little, just some bland mushrooms with dun caps, a few grouse and pheasant carcasses, maggot-ridden, but edible, though barely, only if we choked our gags. The supplies I’d grabbed before fleeing the Ark dwindled and, within a fortnight, were used up. I realized we’d have to return to the rich land we’d left behind, or else the tribeswoman would starve. I just hoped the natives wouldn’t be lying in wait for us on the edge of the forest (I was almost certain they’d not have followed us in, sure, from the tribeswoman’s reaction, the place was a haunt of boggarts for them).

  Early one morning, we set out, following my blazes. But then we came to a place where patches of bark had been stripped from many of the trunks, perhaps by beasts whetting horns, antlers, tusks, and too many of my notches were lost, and so was the trail. Given that I’ve spent millennia poring over books, it might be supposed my brain is crammed with lore. The truth is, though, as I’ve previously written, my memory’s unfitted to the aeons; I couldn’t then dredge up any learning to aid us in getting our bearings. Had I been alone I might have wandered that cursed place for weeks, even months, but the tribeswoman had some survival know-how, discovered where south lay by peering at the dull green and orange mottles of lichen on the bark of the tree boles, and, by dusk, had led us to the edge of the forest.

  By certain landmarks I saw we were close to the spot where we’d spent our last night before entering the gloomy pines. The tribe had clearly camped there, bided for us, for scattered ashes and cinders, cornhusks, apple cores, and the picked carcasses of sheep and fowl, strewed the meadow. But it seemed they’d given up their watch. They’d left behind some parcels of nuts, berries, and dried fruit wrapped up in spinach leaves; we supposed, at the time, they’d just been missed when the camp was packed up. Famishing, the young woman and I fell to eating these sweetmeats.

  They were poisoned. The bane coursing thro
ugh our wasted frames, maddened us. Though it was cold, we tore off our garments, cavorted, clinched, danced a grotesque shuffle, then, stumbling, fell to the floor. I groped the tribeswoman, kneaded her breasts, pinched her dark nipples, fumbled between her thighs. She arched her back, parted her legs, groaned. I was hard, the first time in many ages. She pulled me to her, and I drove into her, pounded, animal, abandoned, lost. Then she retched, spewed bile from the corner of mouth, her eyes rolled back, she shuddered, squirmed, but I held her tight. Then, howling, she elbowed me, hard, in the face. Tears blurred my vision, blood gushed from nose, she wriggled free, got to her feet, stood a little way off, trembling, glaring, arms wrapped about her. Holding my broken face in one hand, I staggered to my feet, yelled something nasty at her, advanced on her, priapic, enraged. She turned, ran naked and wailing past a holly bush growing on the forest’s edge, its bright berries red gouts against the firs, yelped, she’d passed too close, the prickles of the dark green leaves had scratched her, then entered the gloom. I made to follow, but gripes flared, and I went to the floor, clutching my gut, passed out.

  I’ve pledged to write only what is true; wondering how most faithfully to relate the time that came after my poisoning, I find myself facing a crux. Things took place that were so gruesome I believe them most likely bred out of the venom’s delirium, but I’ve suffered strange horrors in the past, and they could have been only the simple truth. Equally, I can’t be sure that, of the entirely mundane happenings, some were not delusive, indeed, one of them, though not eldritch, many may find hard to credit: an act of genuine altruism.