Austin rapped at the window. “Hey! Hey!”
The creatures seemed not to hear. Decked out in the gayest of colors, they moved swiftly, up and back, ricocheting off snow walls, surprised when they slammed into each other, bouncing away in opposite directions, laughing with each and every erratic step.
The sunlight splashing on the snow, combined with the smeary windowpane he was squinting through, made it impossible for Austin to evaluate the trespassers’ true dimensions. He rapped again at the window, harder. And shouted again, louder. “Hey!”
The little figures froze—but only for a moment. Then they ran off, climbing out of the trenches, one going one way, the other another, all of the action viewed by Austin as if through greasy contact lenses. “Hey! Wait a minute! Hey!”
But they were not waiting, they were leaving, and Austin decided to give pursuit. He crawled back to the opening in the attic floor, dropped through, missed the chair, fell, cursed, picked himself up, and raced out of the house. Too late, too late. They were going, going, gone.
He stood there, hoping for a clue, a hint, another laugh, anything that he might pursue, for he was sure he could catch them, the little one at least. But, stymied as he was, he simply turned to walk back to his house—and they popped up anew, Jack-in-the-Box and Will-o’-the-Wisp, appearing and disappearing in one sweeping motion, poking up again, elsewhere, over another mound, multicolored and big-eyed, red and yellow and laughing.
He made another move at them, and they were gone. He gave chase but felt foolish, skidding and sliding more than he was running, coming close to nothing more than a blur of color or an image without substance—the kind a camera snaps when it has no film, allowing light through its lens but recording no picture. His Minnawickies were as visual echoes, and he knew that even if he were lucky enough to snare one, it would be but a reverberation of the slippery original.
There were only two of them, but they moved so mercurially that they could just as easily have been ten. On two occasions snowballs flew at him, but he was unable to fix on the direction. And always the odd laughter, coming from every which way, goading and gobbly, firing like Chinese firecrackers, exploding like sparklers.
It was apparent that he had involved himself in an impossible task, that the hunter was the hunted and the arrow the target. It was apparent, too, that he was out in the cold without parka or gloves or boots. He turned again for the house, the cackling laughter of his tormenters still playing in his ears. And he smiled, for whatever else they might be, his Minnawickies were not terrifying. They had done no damage, stolen no goods, smothered no fire. Perhaps the little finks had taken a liking to him—and wouldn’t that be fine?
Nearing his house, he saw it again, in the snow, and not all that far from his porch:
*ARA/FROOM*
He reasoned that those were very likely their names, or some kind of Indian message like “Go with God” or “Three, mebbe four horses go by not too long ago.”
He glanced back at the horizon and there they were, two bobbing bits of color, waving to him. He waved back and went into his house, feeling good. They had made him feel good and, in so doing, had more than made up for those grim provocateurs, the witch’s tree and the Devil’s Dancing Rock.
10
After a dinner constructed around some more of the meats that Jack Meeker’s generosity had provided, Austin sat before his stove and checked out the Minnawickie section in Maynard’s book. And it was as Maynard had told him in Nam, no surprises. The Minnawickies were small, elusive, playful and difficult to get a glimpse of, let alone catch. They were also reputed to be able to read the future. Most probably they were a branch of the Penobscot tribe, a common Algonquin stock that had all but vanished because of interbreeding with other Indian tribes of the area. What was not all that clear was whether or not the Minnawickies were real or legend. Maynard himself seemed to leave that open to interpretation, apparently possessing his own small streak of Minnawickie whimsy.
Things are attributed to Minnawickies which contradict logic. Unless you see them for yourself, you are not likely to believe they exist at all. They don’t reveal themselves to everyone, which is why people scoff. It is an individual matter, each of us to his own experiences and opinions…
“Thanks a lot, Maynard. You sure do have it nailed down.” Austin poured himself another mug of cocoa and turned to Maynard’s section on Thoreau, item 22.
Thoreau sought to prove that man could escape a stifling civilization by embracing nature. Like Thoreau, I have all my winters and most of my summers free for clear study…and believe that “to maintain one’s self in the wild is not a hardship but a joy…”
There was a knock on the door, and, startled, Austin tilted his cocoa mug, the contents spilling hot upon his thigh. He did not move beyond that, his eyes fastened on the door—which he had neglected to bolt. Outside, a fox barked and a raccoon whinnered, and over it all lay the spooky song of the hooting owl—all the sounds arriving at once, as if orchestrated by some grand design to heighten the moment.
Trained to react quickly to the untoward, Austin laid the book aside and reached for the .44 Smith and Wesson. The knocking came again, coinciding with Austin’s realization that the .44 was not loaded. Calmly he reached for the ammo box—but too late. The door was opening, snow and wind the first things to leap into the house and rush for the corners.
And in the dim light, framed within the doorway, stood a man, dripping with raunchy furs all the way to his snowshoes. His fur hat appeared to be either molting or melting, coming down around both his ears and flowing into a wraparound muffler that had once been a fox. His gloves looked to be bear paws; a leather bag, bulging with whatever, was slung over one shoulder; and he was holding a rifle.
Gray-bearded and wizened, the man looked to be part Indian, part derelict and part mad, his eyes so dilated that the pupils appeared to be black. Austin judged his age to be somewhere between thirty-five and a hundred and fifty.
Seeing the .44 pointed at him, the man scratched his beard grubbily and placed his rifle against the wall, an indication that he intended no malice. Turning his back to Austin, he kicked off his snowshoes and tossed them out onto the porch. Closing the door, he turned again to face his host. Standing there, he said nothing.
“You’re on,” said Austin, still holding the .44.
The man removed his gloves, dug into his shirtfront and pulled out a chain that hung around his neck. It had a medallion on it which he held out for Austin to see, as if he were the F.B.I. and the medallion his proof of it. His voice matched his countenance, stolid and furry—John Wayne with a glean of Louis Armstrong. “Name’s Benson.”
Austin could see “M. Benson” engraved on the medallion. “That’s a beginning,” he said, keeping the .44 trained on Benson’s belly.
“Be needin’ foodstuffs,” Benson said, stuffing the chain back into his shirtfront.
“Help yourself.”
“I’m not fixin’ on payin’.”
“No charge.”
“Obliged.” Benson helped himself, casually plucking items from the shelves as if he were in the A&P and his pouch was his shopping cart.
“You seem to know where things are around here.”
“Been here before.”
“Really?”
“A-yuh.”
“This house has been empty for some time.”
“Has it?” Benson was dispassionate. Nothing would ever ruffle that man’s furs.
“You just come by and help yourself?”
“A-yuh. Like you’re doin’.”
“I own this house.”
“Good house. Sits good against the wintah.”
“Think so?”
“A-yuh. Like a ship turned to the wind. It’ll keep its balance.” He opened a can of apple juice and drank it in two gulps.
Austin laid his .44 aside. “You’re welcome to stay the night.”
“Can’t do that.”
“Hey, it’s the m
iddle of the night out there.”
“A-yuh.”
“Well, where you goin’?”
“Trailin’ a bear.”
“A bear?”
“A-yuh. He’s out there somewhere.”
“You trail a bear at night?”
“No choice.”
“Why?”
“Might’ve hit ’im.”
Austin understood the significance of Benson’s statement. Nearsighted as it was, a running bear could sprint for more than a hundred yards. And a wounded bear, pained and infuriated, could be an incalculable danger to anything it scented or sighted. “Should I be worried?”
“If I hit him, yes.”
“If not?”
“Maybe.”
“How’ll I know if you hit him?”
“Be blood in the snow. Ya’ll see it in the mawnin’.”
“What about tonight?”
“Best ya close ya shutters. Bears don’t understand windahs.” And with that low-key directive, Benson reset his hat, put on his gloves, picked up his rifle, and stepped again into the night, pulling the door closed behind him and, like a good hunter, making no sound.
Austin considered things, but not for too long. Putting on boots and parka, he went outside and shuttered all his windows. He would have strung electrified barbed wire had he had it. He would even have dug a moat around the entire house.
Back inside, he had to think. Benson was gone. Almost as soon as he’d arrived he left. And Austin had to wonder if the old geezer had been there at all. The apple-juice can—that would be evidence. Austin searched for it but couldn’t find it. Of course, Benson could have simply stuffed the empty into that copious leather bag of his where it would never be seen again. As to the other supplies the man had taken, Austin couldn’t tell about those either. He had tons of stores and no inventory, no way in which to check, nothing signed for in triplicate, no supply sergeant to ride herd.
He let the matter go. He simply bolted the door, promising himself to do that every night from then on.
It was quiet again, and again he curled up with Maynard’s book, first loading his shotgun and placing it within quick reach. It was comforting to read Maynard’s words, written in Maynard’s own hand. It was like having Maynard with him, as a guide and a buffer. He could almost hear Maynard’s voice as he read, Maynard’s accent and unmannered delivery, Maynard’s presence.
“I have a lot of company in my house even though I don’t always see ’em or hear ’em. Weasels squeeze through my stone walls lookin’ for mice but takin’ whatever they can find. And once I caught a beaver at my water barrel, that rascal lookin’ to build himself a summah home at my expense. Family of rabbits I know are always into my beets and parsnips, and moles and shrews’ll eat a man out of house and home without his ever knowin’.
Outside the night’s another affair, not so humorous. I’m not fooled by the silence of the night. Wild animals never really rest. They’re predatory by nature and, when food is scarce, it’s not a good idea for a man to go strollin’ or lookin’ at the stars—’specially after eatin’ and puttin’ the smell of good cookin’ on the wind. I think men are afraid of the dark for good reason…”
Austin shut the book and put it aside. “Thanks a lot, Maynard. You get me up here and then try to scare the crap outa me.” He banked his fire. “Bears. Damned bears are supposed to hibernate, aren’t they? In the winter? What the hell did I read all those National Geographics for if bears don’t hibernate? Sheeeet.” He loaded all his guns. “Next thing comes through that door is goin’ to get it—all barrels. You just tell ’em that, Maynard. You just pass the word. Pow-bam! Everythin’ I got.”
He was half fooling, of course, smiling even as he raged. It was fun to let off steam, and see the humor while comprehending the danger. And yet, if he was half fooling, it followed, then, that he was also half serious. Actually, if he were to truly allot the percentages, he was one-third fooling and two-thirds serious.
There was something about his house, something in it and something outside it, in the walls and in the night, something that was beginning to get to him. But whatever it was, he wanted it to know that he would not be run off, that he was digging in his heels, positioning his weapons and making his stand. Bears, witches, Minnawickies and the lot—fuck ’em all. The next thing through his door, or down his chimney, or up from his cellar, be it animal, mineral, vegetable, plastic or nylon, was going to get it. Pow-bam! Everything he had.
It was a bad night for him, sleep coming only in short rations, fatigue pursuing him like an ever-gaining specter. He thought he had left all that behind in Nam, but apparently he hadn’t. Being in Nam had given him a knee-jerk reaction to things off kilter. And his knee was jerking.
11
In the morning, of course, what with the birds chirping and the little animals whisking about, things looked decidedly brighter. And with the day perky and the sky a shade of blue rarely seen except on kids’ wallpaper, Austin stepped out onto his porch, stretching and yawning, and balancing his coffee mug in the crisp cold.
He unshuttered his windows, which lit up his house, and, in pajamas, boots and parka, he moved onto the path that would lead him to his backhouse, for he had some business there.
Twenty yards along the path and he saw it. In the snow. Spatters of it and blotches of it. A pint of it, a quart of it. Blood. As red as a valentine heart. So fresh that it was still melting its way into the snow. He did not have a moment’s thinking time beyond that—for the huge shadow was blotting out all the pretty daylight. And the heat of the bear, and the guttural roar of it, and the fishy breath of it were upon him, as if the shadow had a weight that equaled its width.
Austin ran, making for the only refuge the horizon afforded him—the backhouse. And the bear pursued, making the path a little wider than it had been before. And Austin knew that, had he dug the trench properly, two feet wide instead of one, the race would have been over before it had started.
As it was, the issue was still in doubt, the man having to run almost crabwise through the narrow ditch, while the bear had to contend with the divots and slides its lumbering body was creating.
It was a clumsy race, perhaps even laughable to an observer. But if the bear was running for his breakfast, the man was running for his life. And what with fear being a stronger propellant than appetite, Austin got to the backhouse first.
In one motion he pulled the door open, raced inside and pulled the door shut. And he stood there, his back against the door, waiting for the crush that had to come. He didn’t have to wait long—perhaps three horrific, silence-filled seconds—and the bear arrived, roaring and steaming, slamming against the backhouse door as if he didn’t see it there. And the door flew from its hinges, this time in one piece because, when Austin had rebuilt it, he had reinforced it with horizontals and nailed on diagonals for good measure.
It all collapsed on him, making for a strange sandwich—Austin on the bottom, his head ridiculously close to the one-holer; then the unfettered door, lying across his back like a floor; and then the bear, bellowing and bleeding and slathering in frustration.
The torn-off door was all that kept the bear from getting at Austin, while the backhouse walls had all they could do to not fly out centrifugally like an exploding artichoke.
Austin knew that the jig was about up, the full weight of the thrashing bear pressing him flatter and more insistently to the hard ground, his ribs beginning to bend the wrong way, his lungs unable to draw in new air. In a last effort to live, he tucked his knees to his chin and put his back to the task of catapulting the bear from the door. It didn’t work, not that he thought it would. But at least he had tried.
He collapsed under it all, like a grape under a truck wheel, his body fluids pushing out of every orifice, his breathing coming harder and more frantically, like an accordion under a rock slide—a helluva way to die.
It was one shot, that’s all, piercing the sounds of his own gurgled breathing—and h
e felt the bear go slack and become immediate dead weight.
“Ya all right?” It was Benson’s voice, flat and disinterested.
“Jesus Christ…” Austin turned sideways, freeing his diaphragm enough to pull in air for speech. “Yes.”
“Take but a coupla minutes.”
Austin couldn’t answer, choosing to conserve what breath he had for breathing. But he thought to himself, “My father always said I’d end up in the shit house.”
Benson worked quickly, for he had no way of knowing the extent of Austin’s injuries—time, therefore, being an element not to be squandered. With an ax or a sledge, Austin couldn’t determine which, the hunter knocked down one of the backhouse’s side walls. Then, using part of that wall as a lever, and because he was both strong and intent, he lifted the bear-laden door from Austin’s back, just enough so that Austin could roll out from under.
It was the sweetest breath of air that he ever drew; sweeter even than the breath he took after staying underwater fifteen seconds longer than Tom McGee, winning both the seventy-five-cent bet and the admiration of half of Cincinnati. Sweeter, too, than coming up and out of that long French kiss with Amelia Battersby, America’s sweetheart, Ohio branch.
He looked up at the fur-strewn Benson, that man appearing as hirsute as the bear he had just dispatched, and just as loquacious.
“I’ll assume ya all right unless ya tell me otherwise.”
Austin was surprised at how quickly and how well he was able to speak. “I’m all right, you stupid sonofabitch bastard.”
“Good.”
“Isn’t a hunter supposed to make sure an animal is dead?”
“A-yuh.”
“—and not let it walk around all…pissed-off?”
“A-yuh.”
“Well?”
“I made sure.”
“Yeah. This morning. I’m talking about last night.”
“I’m talkin’ about this mawnin’.”
Later, as Benson squatted alongside the bear, skinning it most dispassionately, Austin was once again repairing his backhouse, hammering it all together while grumbling unhappily. “A man’s got to find better things to do with his time than to keep knockin’ the door off his shit house.”
Maynard’s House Page 11
