The Mount

by Carol Emshwiller

  Bonnie Blue Bonnet lets go of me and jumps the wire by herself—if you call that jumping. And then I do, too. I know what to do. It’s what I’ve wanted ever since I got here.

  We’re not allowed in the Hoots’ houses, but now I run to the big one with the gold flag. There’s two Hoots sprawled right outside the doorway. I hope they’re not dead. If they are, then I’ve seen my first close-up dead thing. But I don’t have time to think about it. The door is so low I have to stoop, and stoop all the way down the hall. I’m like a giant . . . like a clumsy savage . . . like those others of us from the forest. And I feel even more so when I get to the first big room and look around. I have to stop. I never saw anything like it.

  They believe in having beauty around them. That’s one reason they like us so much, we’re so beautiful, our muscles and all. And here, everything is of us, lamps made out of our shoes (brand-new ones, black and shiny), brand-new surcingles with silver on them dangling from the ceiling to hold up paintings . . . of us . . . all of them, of us! Groups of us in the arena or out on the long-distance trails with the forest as our background. In silver frames! I start across the room to look for Little Master, but I have to stop again because I see a portrait that I think might be my father. At least, it’s a long face and long nose. I go close and I’m right. Under it there’s a silver plaque that says BEAUTY. A little farther along there’s my mother, MERRY MARY. After that, there’s my picture. Even mine! SMILEY under it. They care about us so much! How can my kind turn against them!

  I go on, to the far end of the house. (In these larger rooms I don’t have to stoop over.) I look in all the cubby-holes along the walls and finally find my Little Master, all alone in his crib. He has a soft doll of one of us, black-haired like me, in fact just like me. He’s hugging it, but when he sees me he lets it go and stands up in his crib—all wobbly like they always are—and reaches up for me to take him as if it was the most natural thing in the world, and I do.

  We’re not allowed to touch them, especially not His Excellent Excellency, Future-Ruler-Of-Us-All, but I pick him up and help him get around my shoulders. I’m not wearing a surcingle, so it’s harder. He hangs on so tight I’m afraid I’ll choke. I speak to him though that’s not allowed except at playtime. I can hardly get the words out. “Can’t. Can’t breathe.” And he stops and hangs on, just as tightly, but to my hair. I hunker down and crawl us outside. The Hoots have begun ho-hoing all at the same time. So loud it’s as if ringing inside my head. I can’t think with that going on. My kind is still beating on his kind. I wonder if those Sams and Sues have plugs in their ears.

  I leap us away from the sound and the dust and all the banging and bumping of us on them. I don’t think about good form or that my hairdo is a mess or that I shouldn’t bounce my Little Master, I just get us away, past the fields and into the trees. At first it’s hard because so many of us are coming . . . coming and coming in the other direction. I fall a couple of times, but I do it as I’ve been taught, leaning into my arms and shoulders so as to keep His Excellent Excellency from getting hurt. I keep going until we can’t hear any yelling anymore, though I can still hear the ho-hoing, but not as if right inside my head. I’ve never before trotted so hard and so far at one time, nor over such rough ground. It’s good there’s a big moon so we can see pretty well.

  We stop by a river (partly because I need to rest and partly because I don’t know how deep it is. I might drown my Little Master). I help him dismount. He’s shaking. He’s wet himself and me all down my back. We rest until I can catch my breath. I’m supposed to walk around like they taught me, so as to cool down from so much running. You’re not supposed to ever just stop. But I don’t. After resting, I stand Little Master on the bank and clean us both up. I can’t do much about his whites, but it’s better if they don’t shine. When we’re all cleaned up, I find a resting spot, hidden by bushy trees, and we cuddle in together.

  So I’ve saved him just as I hoped, but I wonder if there’s any of them left to know about it?

  How could we! Us! . . . I’m ashamed to be a Sam. They’ll bring disaster on themselves, not on the Hoots. Disaster, like the Hoots have always told us and told us. There’s nothing we could ever do to hurt them. They’re smarter than we are, they grow the food, and they have all the tools and weapons. They always say to make peace with the way things are. How live without rules the same for everybody? How live without helping each other? They always say it takes strength of character to do your duty under difficult circumstances. They say the work of the world is never done, and they mean themselves, too. Would we like to lie in bed all day? It’s not only “Go, go, go,” it’s “Do!”

  Finally it’s dawn. Little Master and I come out and look around. This is the first either of us has seen the forest up close in daylight. We sit on a knob and look. Excellent Excellency’s eyes seem even bigger than usual. I suppose mine are that way, too. Mostly the ground is a mess, leaves and bark and sticks all over. Nobody’s been raking. There are little blue flowers, lots. Yellow ones, too. Lots. We’ve been stepping on them. Trees, as if out of picture books, bushes that scratched my legs as I ran last night, roots that tripped me. And here, the river. It looks scary.

  “Look,” the Little Excellent Excellency says. He’s pointing here and there and there. “Look, look.” Does he know what was happening back home? I guess he does, because he was shaking so and wet us both, but now he’s too surprised to think about it.

  He reaches to hold my hand with his big one. And then gives it a sloppy lick. (Odd how their hands are so much bigger and stronger than ours while everything else about them is weaker.)

  “I love you,” he says. “I love you more than our trainer. I only love him a little tiny bit.”

  He always talks better when he talks to me. I think the others scare him. They’re always yelling at him.

  Then, “You may speak,” he says. As if he’s suddenly turned into our trainer himself. Even the same tone of voice.

  I don’t. Partly because he told me I could. It doesn’t seem right for him to say that after I saved him. Besides, he’s just a baby.

  But I do like him holding my hand and I know he needs to. There’s a lot going on with Hoots and their hands that we don’t understand. We like to hold hands, too, but I don’t think it’s the same.

  We sit a long time just looking. Pretty soon I wonder if my Little Master is hungry, but I don’t ask him. I don’t want him thinking about it if he is. I wonder what they eat? I know they don’t like ice cream. They don’t like cold things even when it’s a hot day.

  I hear rustling in the forest. I think wild animals. I wasn’t scared before, except of the river, but now I move us back under our bushes and we look out. Little Master’s ears prick up, one towards the back and one towards the front. Little Master sees them first, of course. It’s some of us going by—back into the mountains. Carrying things. Poles mostly, but silver surcingles, old books (they used to be ours, anyway), new shoes. . . . Every Sam or Sue that I get a good look at has a Hoot rain hat. This is all wrong. Those of us up here in the forest are savages. All the Hoots say that, and this stealing proves it.

  I should get His Excellent Excellency to a safer place, but I don’t think we should go back to our home. At least not yet. Those Sams and Sues don’t look as if they’d pay attention to us. They’re too busy stealing things. Besides, I may not be fullgrown, but I’m a big Seattle—already big as most Sues or any Tennessee. I can defend him against them.

  “Let’s go,” I say, “Let’s get out of here.”

  He says, “I’m scared.”

  “I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”

  “You’re not a grownup.”

  “Besides, we have to find something to eat.” I know there isn’t anything, but I say that to make him come. “Anyway, let’s go see more things. I’m a Sam, too, remember? These Sams and Sues won’t hurt me.”

  “I’m scared anyway. I want my doll.”

  “Later.
”

  I help him mount. After, I lean over so he can pick some flowers to put behind his ears and mine, too. That makes him feel better. And then we go . . . up along the river. I don’t dare cross it.

  Every now and then we hear Sues and Sams rustling and whistling signals not far from us. Once in a while there’s a part of a song. I wish Sunrise had taught me more, but she didn’t think I’d need to know these things so soon. Whenever they’re close, I squat down behind something. I don’t have to tell him to keep still, he just knows. I can tell how scared he is by how hard he holds on. I depend on him. I wish I could hear things and smell things and see the way he does. But we make a good team just like the Hoots always say, us the legs and them the senses.

  One time we hunker down and then we see there’s this wild animal with big branching horns. I know from books that it’s a deer, but the books didn’t say if it’s something that would eat us or not. I wonder which one of us is more edible. Little Master is all head. If they like to eat brains, he’d be first. Or maybe they’d save the best for last like I always do.

  Anyway, I make a sound by mistake and the deer thing runs away.

  We see lots of berries and Little Master wants to eat them, but I know some are poison. Back there we had berries lots of times, but none of these look like any of those. But we’re going to have to eat something one of these days. They say those Wild Sams and Sues live on roots. I wouldn’t like that.

  I’m not trotting as fast as I did. I’m getting tired and it’s all up hill, steeper and steeper. Everything’s changing. It’s getting so there aren’t any more bushes for hiding but more rocks for it. When it starts getting dark, we find a place where there’s a batch of boulders. We go to hide there for the night, but we see a big long snake crawl out rattling. Back when they warned you about the Hoots’ hands, and poison berries, they also warned about rattlesnakes, so we go on. The farther up it gets, the more it’s just rocks. Since my kind can’t see in the dark, pretty soon we could just lie down in the open and none of those Wild ones would see us, but I go on and on. It’s as if I’m so tired I can’t think to stop. When I realize that, I sit down right then. “I have to wait till morning. I can’t see anymore and I can’t think.”

  “I can see,” he says.

  “I know that.”

  And then he says it. “I’m hungry.”

  I don’t know what to do. I tell him, “In the morning, we’ll find something.”

  We cuddle up together right where we are, middle of nowhere. I think I won’t be able to sleep on these rocks and with Little Master on my chest, but I fall asleep before I even know it.

  I wake up with Little Master holding me—my ear and my hair—too tight again. At least he’s not holding me around my neck this time. It’s dawn. I know something’s wrong, but I don’t know what. I can’t hear anything. And then I do. Things coming, lots of them. Do rattlesnakes do that? Come in a bunch to eat you?

  But it’s us. A minute later we’re surrounded—and there’s not a single one of his kind riding even one of my kind, and not a single one of his kind around to supervise. I’ve never seen that before.

  One of us is just about the biggest Seattle I ever saw. And he’s like that one with crazy eyes. Best to run. Maybe he’s too big to keep up. But there’s Tennessees there, too. I couldn’t outrun them.

  The big one pulls His Excellent Excellency away from me. That’s not easy with both of us hanging on, but he does it, finally, with a jerk. He puts Little Master down on a big stone. Little Master gives one big Ho! like they do when in danger. It’s like he can’t help it—as if he hardly knew he was going to do that. It echoes all over. Everybody puts their hands over their ears. Except that big one. He raises his pole with both hands and points it at Little Master. He’s got crazy, starey eyes, exactly like that other big one that held me away from Sunrise. With eyes like that, you don’t know what he’ll do. He’s got scars on his cheeks, too. And a long, lumpy face and a long nose, and he’s nothing but a big bunch of bulging muscles.

  I see all this in half a second, and then I jump and get between the pole and Little Master.

  It hurts so much I have to sit down and catch my breath. Even though I haven’t eaten anything, I feel like throwing up. Nobody moves—none of them, but pretty soon Little Master comes to hug me. I’ll have a scar all across me now, forever, top-to-bottom.

  When I can breathe again, the big one squats beside me and looks close into my face. So close I can see the scars all over him. I can see how he needs a shave but there’s no hair where there’s scars. I can see the brand along his upper lip. He’s, even so, a Tame.

  “Charley?” He sputters it. Chokes on it.

  I say, “That’s not fair. He’s just a baby.” Then, “I thought there was peace.”

  “Charley? Is it? It’s you!”

  “My name is Smiley.”

  “Out of Merry Mary!” There’s something wrong with his talking. He can’t get the words out. “You’re the mount. . . .” He takes a big breath. “Of His Ex. . . .”

  The Sue Tennessee finishes for him. “His Excellency, Future-Master. . . .”

  But he waves her to stop and goes on by himself. “You are Charley. I’m your. . . .” Big breath. “Father.”

  I see his long nose and long face, and as if my own dark eyes looking back at me. I know he’s right. It’s Beauty! I knew it even before.

  “You’re not my father.”

  “Look at me. Look . . . how alike. The raid . . . partly . . . partly I wanted to rescue . . . and you rescued yourself.”

  Rescue!

  I hate him.

  They have a cream my father puts on my top-to-bottom burns. Down my neck and shoulder and ribs and hip bone, down my thigh, and even across my foot. My father puts it on as gently as Sunrise used to put the same kind of stuff on me after I got poled before, but I never got poled this hard. That would have killed my Little Master.

  They let Little Master stay next to me. He licks my cheeks and pats me all through it. It’s a bother, but I don’t tell him.

  Afterwards, our stomachs growl as if they were talking to each other.

  “You’re hungry,” that Sue Tennessee says.

  I never was this close to one. I never wanted to be and I still don’t, she’s so ugly—she’s got little spots all over her—but she’s trying to be nice.

  Little Master says, “Yes,” but I say, “No.” And then Little Master says, “Yes, he’s hungry, too.”

  Everybody sits down with the rocks for chairs and tables. My father sits on the ground at my feet. I hate him, but I can’t help thinking how he has a very good conformation. I can’t help thinking how I’ll grow up to be as strong as he is.

  I never saw some of this food. I don’t know what it is, which I guess is a good thing. It doesn’t taste too bad, though, and they do have our kind of dry cakes. I’ll bet they stole them from the Hoots when they were down there stealing things. Little Master only eats the dry cakes. He knows those because he used to chew on mine even though they told him not to.

  After we eat I learn how strong my father is. First he puts the Little Master on my shoulders. He makes him keep one leg off my poled shoulder, so he’s sideways. I’m thinking, even sideways, I hurt too much to carry him anywhere, especially not up. But then my father lifts me, easy as could be, and puts both of us on his own shoulders. I’m almost twelve and big for my age, even as a Seattle, but he starts out, straight up the mountain, as if we were nothing. It’s a hard climb, but my father hardly even breathes heavily and doesn’t stop to rest. I’ll be just as good someday. My Little Master, grownup by then, too. We’ll go everywhere together, just like we were born for.

  We go up all morning, until we finally top a rise, and then start down again. We go around a rocky cliff and there’s suddenly a big view of a valley with streams that shine in the setting sun, and green squares and yellow squares and funny houses. Snowy mountains in the background.

  Hard to tell from he
re, but there’s nothing there that looks like stalls or arenas, and not a single house looks like the round white lumps, all in a row, that are the Hoots’ houses. Not even one. And not a single flag. In fact, hardly any color at all, though when we get closer I can see flowers here and there next to the houses. And, closer, you can see there aren’t any white wires. I look hard, but they’re not anywhere.

  My father points down there. “Margaret . . . your Sunrise,” he says. And the Tennessee says, talking for my father, “We rescued her, too. She’ll be glad we rescued you. She was worried.”

  I’m thinking how it was Sunrise’s own fault. She shouldn’t have been whistling like she did that night, but I say, “Good,” anyway, to be polite. Then I ask my father the most important thing. “Are you going to kill him?”

  “Not if. . . .”

  You can tell it hurts him to talk.

  “. . . if you don’t want. . . .” Big breath. “Want me to.”

  I guess I don’t hate him quite completely, but pretty much.

  Chapter Three

  By now I know that rattlesnakes don’t eat people. By now I know how to catch and skin and cook them. And I know how to build a fire out of almost nothing, even in the rain. It’s my father taught me all the rattlesnake killing and skinning and such. Back down at home I wouldn’t have had to know any of that, though with things as they are, it may come in handy.

  We went out alone, me and Little Master and my father, and I didn’t get to like my father any better. It’s not his bigness that scares me. . . . (He leaned close to show me how to hold the firebow, and his arm was the size of about four of mine. Hairy, too, and nothing but wadded-up muscles. I’m glad Hoots don’t have any hair except that little bit of red fuzz on the top of their heads.) What scares me is that crazy look in his eyes, how quiet he is, and the way he stares off at the mountains—or at nothing—or at me. That’s the scariest. And I wish he wouldn’t try to talk.