Canyons

by Gary Paulsen

  But when he came to the edge of it the next day, telling his mother or calling the police, when the pressure grew and bothered him that much he could not do it.

  It was not that he didn’t want to, not that he didn’t feel like it.

  He couldn’t.

  He simply could not make himself do it and that frightened him more than having a guilty conscience. Why could he not do it?

  In the third dream there was a horse.

  He was riding the horse in bright sunlight and heat. The horse had light, almost yellow hair but he thought of it as having the color of straw in the dream, a straw-colored horse, and it ran beneath him, between his legs with a power that seemed to come from thunder.

  The front legs pounded up and down and he felt the back legs bunch and spring each time, driving the horse forward, the front shoulders rippling against his legs, driving, pounding.

  There was great joy in the run, the wind against his face, the heat on his back, which was bare, and the horse thundering across the sand and his hair blowing out in back of him, his hair blowing like the straw-colored mane of the horse. He laughed in his throat in the dream and laughed in his bed and the sound awakened him and he came awake and sat up and was glad.

  Glad. His heart felt gladness and he did not know or understand why. It faded, slipped away as he sat in the dark looking at the small light on the smoke detector thinking again, or still, that he was going crazy.

  On the second to the last morning, two days before the day when he would come close to wiping out the rosebushes at the judge’s house, he sat at breakfast with his mother.

  She had been drinking coffee and he had a bowl of oat bran.

  She was sitting in silence, sipping the coffee, looking out the window at the morning sun coming in, lost in thought, and he coughed to get her attention.

  “Is it possible for crazy people to know they’re going crazy?”

  She studied him for a time over her cup. The famous mother look, as he thought of it. The Mother Look. The what-are-you-up-to Mother Look.

  “That,” she said, “is a very strange question for dawn on a Friday morning.”

  He didn’t answer at once, thinking. “It’s not me, understand. I was just wondering, you know, if someone is crazy do they know they’re crazy?”

  She put her cup down. “I don’t think so—but I’m no expert. You’d have to ask a psychologist to be sure.…”

  They had dropped it, and that night he had gone to bed half afraid to sleep.

  And a dream had come.

  This time there was another person in the dream. A girl. He could not quite see her as she moved ahead of him, walking somewhere—he did not know from where or to where—but he wanted to know her better. Wanted badly to know her. And she was gone, walking into a mist that he could not pass through, a mist that frightened him very much.

  This time when he awakened he was drenched with perspiration and his mother was sitting on the side of his bed.

  “You made noise,” she said, “a funny sound, like words I couldn’t understand. Do you feel all right?”

  “A cold,” he said, though he knew it wasn’t true. “Maybe I’m getting a cold.…”

  She had stayed with him until he had closed his eyes and feigned sleep but that night he did not sleep any more.

  And the final day in the week he decided that he had to do something, find out what was wrong.…

  Find out what the skull was doing to him.

  And the best way to find that was to try to find out about the skull. He had to know more about it, all he could know about it.

  That’s where the answer was, somewhere in the skull.

  12

  It was one thing to say he had to learn about the skull, and quite another thing to do it.

  Aside from taking it out of the closet again and looking at it—which he did on Saturday morning, turning it over and over—there didn’t seem to be a way to know anything.

  On closer examination in good light the skull proved to have all good teeth, no cavities. At least in the upper teeth—he did not have the lower jaw or teeth.

  “Does that mean anything?” he said aloud in his room. It was early on Saturday morning and his mother was gone—off on some trip with Bill. They were growing closer and Brennan was happy for her—although it had happened many times before. Getting this close.

  “It could mean he was young.…”

  There it was again. He. Why did he think the skull was male? No, why did he know the skull was male? Because he knew it, was certain of it.

  And without any reason.

  “All right.” He set the skull on his desk, the eye sockets staring up at him. In a second it bothered him and he turned it sideways. “All right—so the teeth are good and that might mean it—he—was young. And if he was young, then the measurements could mean he was about my age.”

  Of course it’s all guessing, he thought, leaning back. From the side he could see the damage done by the bullet. The entry hole in the forehead was a little over a half inch in diameter, and almost perfectly round. But a piece of bone as big as the palm of his hand was missing at the back, broken out in a rough oval.

  God. How must that have been, he thought. How could that be? To have an explosion and then a bullet slam through your head that way and carry away the back of your skull and all the things you are, all the things you were or are or ever will be are gone then, blown away.

  He shook his head. He was squinting, feeling the pain, and he tried to think of something else but could not. Instead he thought of the film he’d seen of Vietnam, an old film showing a man shooting another man in the temple on a street. It had been a television news film. He remembered the way the shock of the bullet had made the man squint.

  He stood, turned away from the skull, looked out the window, and broke it then, broke the train of thought.

  A week. I’ve had the skull a week and a day and I’m going crazy. What have I done?

  He wrapped the skull up again and put it in the closet. I’ll do it now, he thought, I’ll call the police.…

  But he didn’t, couldn’t. Instead he found himself putting his running shoes and shorts and a T-shirt on and heading out into the cool Saturday morning air.

  He set an easy lope away from the house, not meaning to head in any direction but in a block he turned left and started the long road that went up and around the side of the mountain overlooking El Paso.

  There was almost no traffic yet, no distractions, and he gave himself to running, did not think but increased the pace until he was driving up the mountain road, his legs pumping.

  In moments the work made him sweat and he pulled his T-shirt off, still running, and rolled it and tied it around his forehead to keep the sweat from his eyes.

  Running hard now, pushing himself, deep breaths, deep and down his legs knotting and bunching and taking him up the steep road, his shoes slamming on the road, no thoughts, a blank …

  And the word Homesley came in.

  Perfect, he thought. Homesley.

  Maybe he’ll know what to do.

  13

  John Homesley was a biology teacher in Cardiff School. Brennan had taken biology from him the year before and an almost-friendship had developed.

  Well, Brennan thought, jogging down the street that led to Homesley’s house, cooling from his run—it hadn’t started that way.

  Brennan had nearly flunked, had trouble in school, and Homesley had stopped him in front of the school one day as he was heading home at the end of the day.

  He was an enormous man, tall and very heavy, bordering on fat but in a controlled way. Like a bear. He had rounded shoulders that somehow looked massively strong, with a heavy head of dark curly hair that always seemed a little long and a neatly trimmed beard filled with gray streaks.

  “Did you know,” he had said to Brennan, standing in the sun and grass in front of the school, “that the beetles are the most numerous species on earth?”

  �
�What?” Brennan had been in a hurry and was slightly annoyed at the delay.

  “Beetles. They’re the most numerous species of life on earth. Do you suppose that means God made the earth for beetles?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Brennan was confused. He had taken biology but Homesley hadn’t said four words to him. As in most of his classes Brennan had taken a desk in the back of the room and spent much of his time trying to be ignored.

  And now this teacher had stopped him on the school lawn and was talking to him.

  “I said, beetles are the most numerous species on earth—so do you suppose that means God made the earth just for beetles? That beetles are God’s favorite thing?” He stared down at Brennan, his eyes serious, but a faint smile at the corners of his mouth.

  “I don’t know,” Brennan said, and thought, God, I sound dumb. Maybe I am dumb. “I guess so.”

  “Aren’t you curious about them?”

  “Beetles?”

  “Yes. Don’t you want to know about something that is the most numerous thing on earth?”

  “Well … I don’t know. I guess so. Yes. I guess I am curious about beetles.” The sun was on him and he had to squint to look up at Homesley.

  “Good. Let’s find one.”

  “What?”

  “Help me find a beetle. There’s probably one within five feet of where we’re standing.”

  And he put a pair of reading glasses on, which made his face look round and almost clownlike, dropped to his hands and knees and started looking through the grass, moving blades of grass sideways with his fingers.

  Brennan stared at him. There were other kids going past and they stopped to watch.

  “Come on.” Homesley looked up. “Give me a hand. It’s easier with two looking.”

  And still Brennan hesitated. Then he thought, oh, well, maybe it will help my grade and he dropped to his knees and started looking through the grass with Homesley.

  “What are you looking for?” A tall kid in the eleventh grade stopped.

  “Beetles,” Brennan said.

  “Beetles? You mean like bugs?”

  “Yes,” Brennan said, without looking up, wishing he could drop into a hole in the ground.

  “They’re the most numerous species on earth.”

  “Oh.”

  “Mr. Homesley wanted to find one and I’m helping him.”

  “Oh.”

  The boy had walked away shaking his head and Brennan kept his eyes down into the grass.

  And he saw one.

  A black bug, almost an inch long, a shiny black beetle. “I found one.”

  “What does it look like?”

  “It’s black and shiny and about an inch long.” Brennan put his finger down and poked the beetle. It raised its hind end. He poked it again.

  “It’s probably a blister beetle. Don’t touch it.”

  But it was too late. The beetle emitted a squirt of some kind of fluid from beneath its rear end, squirted it on Brennan’s finger. Instantly there was a sharp burning sensation, a quick sting.

  “Ow …”

  “Exactly. They have a defense mechanism that’s pretty effective. You’ll hurt there for a while and might get a blister, but you’ll be all right. Did you know that some beetles have a small turret gun down there and they can aim all around their body and hit with incredible accuracy?”

  Brennan shook his hand. The spot on his finger hurt like a sting. “No. I didn’t.”

  “Oh, yes, beetles are fascinating. A person could spend his whole life just studying them. Just beetles.” He sat up, looking straight into Brennan’s eyes, his face serious. “I can’t believe you don’t want to know things.”

  “But … well, I do.”

  “You don’t seem to want to know biology.”

  “That’s different … I’m just not good at it.”

  “Nonsense. You found the beetle, didn’t you?”

  “But that’s not the same.…”

  “But it is. Exactly. That’s what studying biology—or anything else for that matter—is all about. Just finding things. Do me a favor, will you?”

  By now there was a circle of kids watching and Brennan had never been so embarrassed in his life. He had spent most of his childhood being very shy and trying to not be noticed. And now Homesley had put him right in the middle of things.

  “Every day bring me a different kind of beetle.”

  “What?”

  “Bring me a new beetle each day and we’ll learn about them together.…”

  And a sort of friendship had developed. Brennan had done as Homesley had asked and brought a beetle, a different kind of beetle, each day and they would look it up, study the characteristics, talk about them.

  And Brennan passed biology—Homesley had been as good as his word. But a strange thing had happened. Somehow working with Homesley had bled over into other parts of school. It wasn’t that he enjoyed school—he wouldn’t go that far.

  But he studied. His habits changed and he studied almost by instinct; almost naturally.

  Which just as naturally brought his grades up.

  Which made his mother happy.

  Which made him happy.

  Which made it still easier to live, to study, to learn—all because of Homesley and his beetles.

  But perhaps more important, Homesley had shown him other things as well—other than biology.

  He had invited Brennan to his home one weekend, where he lived with a wife named Tricia who was almost as small as he was large.

  He had taken Brennan into the basement, where Brennan had expected to find jars of bugs, or plants, or fetal pigs floating in preservatives.

  Instead it looked like the interior of a space vehicle. Every corner, every wall was filled with electronic equipment.

  “What …” Brennan stopped just inside the room.

  “Music.”

  “Music?”

  Homesley had nodded. “Trish and I love to listen to music. We can’t watch television—it’s too … slow for us—so we listen to music.”

  “You mean like rock?” Somehow he couldn’t feature Homesley listening to wild music.

  And Homesley had shaken his head.

  “Mostly classical. I like Mahler, and Bach and Beethoven. Trish gets into opera.”

  There was an overstuffed couch in the middle of the room and at each end a floor lamp stood.

  “You mean you just come down here and sit and listen to music?” he asked.

  Homesley had nodded. “Sometimes we read—but usually we just listen.”

  “And all of this is just for music?”

  Another nod. “Of course a lot of it is speakers. Would you like to try it?”

  “I sure would.…”

  “Sit on the couch, in the middle, and lean back. I’ll play Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony for you.”

  Brennan thought of asking for some Pink Floyd or Creedence Clearwater but decided Homesley probably didn’t have them.

  He sat.

  And listened.

  And it was more than just hearing the music. At first the strains of Mahler sounded soft to him, and he thought he would be bored—which was what usually happened when he listened to classical music.

  But the system, the speakers made the sound so … so pure somehow, so rich and pure that the music went past just hearing, past listening—the music went into him.

  He sat in stunned silence while the whole of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony, the whole of Mahler’s music, the whole of Mahler’s thinking went into his mind.

  It was incredible.

  When the music was finished he looked around the room expecting something, the whole world, to have changed. Homesley had left as the symphony began and he came in holding a can of soda.

  “Like it?”

  Brennan felt like whispering. “I didn’t know, you know, didn’t have any idea music could be that way.…”

  And so Brennan learned about beetles and about music that year. Through the
spring he went several times to the Homesleys’ house and listened to music, talked about music, about biology, about nothing and everything and learned most about himself.

  When summer arrived he went to work for Stoney and had not spent much time with Homesley. He had been working too hard.

  But the friendship was still there and the feeling that Homesley was perhaps the only person who could help him with this skull business.

  That’s how he thought of it now.

  This skull business.

  No sleep, dreams he couldn’t begin to understand, thoughts, voices through his brain that made no sense, his whole life upside down …

  This skull business.

  He jogged now to cool a bit coming off the run as he neared Homesley’s house.

  Homesley could help.

  He hoped.

  14

  “A skull.”

  Homesley’s voice was flat. He stared at Brennan.

  Brennan nodded.

  “With a bullet hole in it.”

  Another nod. “In the forehead.”

  “And you have it in your closet.”

  “Yes.” Brennan sighed. “It seems pretty stupid, doesn’t it?”

  “Well.” Homesley had been trimming a small green plant and he plucked a leaf from it, thinking. “Well, I don’t know. Let me get all this straight. You found the skull in a canyon and brought it home without telling anybody?”

  “Right.”

  “And you still have not called the police?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Brennan …”

  “I mean it. I can’t. I’ve started to several times, many times, but something stops me and I can’t. I just can’t. And I’m having all these weird dreams that I don’t understand and things are happening to me.…”

  He told Homesley all of it, from the camping trip to the dreams, and when he was finished Homesley leaned back and put his hands on the table that held the plants.

  “My,” he said. “My, my, my …”

  Brennan felt drained, tired. “And so I thought I would come to you.”

  Homesley looked out the window, thinking. A fighter from Biggs Air Force Base roared over the house making a low-level run into the desert. Homesley’s house was in a development not far from the runway and the fighters were frequent visitors. Strangely he didn’t seem to mind the noise—although it was also true that it couldn’t be heard in the soundproofed basement music room.