The Mount

by Carol Emshwiller

He says, “I know you don’t want me to reach in to you, but I’d like to shake your hand.” He grabs his own fist with his other hand and shakes that—out towards me.

  This time I almost wish he would reach in, except I feel as if I might cry if anybody touched me in a nice way.

  “What happened? I don’t know what.”

  “You bucked him off! The champion rider of the batch! You bucked him. When we set our minds to it, we can get rid of them. And you’re not even a grownup heavy. I told your father about it. He went down before he saw it. And he’s not dead yet.”

  What does that mean? From what I saw, everybody jumping on him, he’s got to be hurt. I thought I wouldn’t care, but I do.

  “Here, he sent you things.”

  He takes a bundle out of the vacuum and hands it to me. I open it and spread it out on the bed, and here’s my father’s knife, back to me again, and the belt to hold it, and a handknit vest, but it’s not my old one, it’s his. Here’s oranges, and apples, and a cup of black raspberries. Where did he get all this fruit? Was he saving his own food for me again? And there’s a note: My dear . . . my dear, dear son. . . . The third “dear” underlined. I can’t read it now. I put it back with the other things.

  This prison is odd. Bob’s just the cleaner and can hardly even walk, but he seems to be able to do most anything. Maybe it’s another proof of the Hoot’s kindness. They let him be in charge, or let him think he is.

  That vacuum of his must work even when it’s full of secret things. I wonder what else is in there?

  “All this stuff!”

  “I guess he wanted to give you things and didn’t know what. I guess he gave you everything he had. Except his underwear.”

  (It’s always Lily who laughs. What does she have to laugh about, especially being what she is?)

  “How come they let you give me my knife?”

  “Let . . . they don’t let, but I get things around. News, too. We know just about everything there is to know right here in prison. We have ways. Even though we don’t escape, nothing escapes us. Put your legs over by the bars. I can loosen those hobbles a little bit.”

  His hands are rough and callused like my father’s, but he’s gentle. He’s a lot like my father, except for being crippled . . . except for being a little better-looking because his nose is broken (if I said that out loud, Lily would laugh) and he talks better.

  “Your father and I, we were a team . . . the two biggest of the guards’ mounts.” He already told me, or, rather, Lily, but I don’t mind. I want to hear it all again. “Even when we had time off in the pens, we’d stay together. Hoots—and everybody—thought we were brothers.”

  He shows me how to make it look as if I’m still just as hobbled as before, and yet I can unwind one side one turn.

  “You’ll be able to trot almost as good as ever.”

  I breathe out a whole lot of big breaths without meaning to, as if I’ve been running.

  “Feel better?”

  I just nod.

  “I thought you would. I’ll bet you figured you’d be as bad off as I am. That would be pretty scary.”

  When he’s through, he gives my leg a squeeze just the way my father would have done. I have to turn away. When he sees that, he holds on to my leg all the harder. My father would have done that, too. “It’s all right. Even we guards’ mounts. . . . Back when we were mounts . . . your father and I. . . . We couldn’t talk much, but we could cry.” He gives my leg another squeeze. “How’s your mouth?”

  I don’t answer. I’m waiting for him to go.

  “Your father’s mouth was permanently damaged, but don’t worry, you’ll be able to talk fine.”

  I shake my head yes.

  He stares at me. I know he knows I’m going to cry. Finally he says, “I have to go.” Finally he does.

  I flop completely over, my face flat in the rug, and I do cry. Even right as I’m doing it, I’m wondering, when have I ever cried like this before? Not since Merry Mary. She wouldn’t let go and I wouldn’t, either. Did the Hoots really, really have to pole her that hard? I didn’t want to lose her, except I’m glad I have Little Master. I cry more then, because of maybe having lost him, too—maybe forever. He’s so changed. He yelled, No, just when I was yelling, Yes.

  Finally I stop. I turn over. That big picture of the arena just makes me feel worse.

  “Young Seattle. Beautiful young Seattle.”

  But I have scars, and my nose has been growing, and my hairdo is, almost all of it, phony, and I can just barely trot. . . .

  “Here. Take this.”

  I look over at her cage. What she wants to give me is her butterfly hair clip. I sit up. I wipe my nose and cheeks on a piece of the wrapping from the things my father gave me. Her hair clip looks like my mom’s.

  “That’s a Sue kind of thing.”

  “Take it anyway. It’s pretty. You can give it to your Suefriend.”

  I go close to the bars and take it. It is pretty, shiny blue with little red and gold lines in it, tiny yellow eyes made of two tiny, shiny stones. Even the underside is pretty.

  “Thank you, but I’ll just borrow it for a little while. I’ll give it back.”

  “Please keep it.”

  “I don’t have a Suefriend.”

  “I know your Suefriend has to be a Seattle, and just as good as you are, they wouldn’t let you have any other kind, but if I could, I’d want my Samfriend to be like you.”

  Of course they wouldn’t let me. No matter what. And of course I’m just the sort of Sam a nothing would want the most of all. Well, every Sue would. But . . . well . . . she keeps being nice to me.

  “You can be my Suefriend.”

  She covers her mouth with her hand. She looks as if she’s too happy to stand it. Then she reaches both hands out to me and laughs. “I know you don’t mean it, and you can’t mean it, you’re too important, but it’s nice of you to say that, anyway.”

  I reach out, too . . . if we lean way forward against our bars and push against them. . . . They’re not really bars, they’re that same white ribbon stuff. I suppose they could turn them on and spark us any time they want, but we don’t worry about that, we lean and stretch as far as we can. We can’t hold hands but we can hold fingers. It feels good to hang on to another person, even a mistake. But we can’t stretch out like that for long, we give up after a couple of minutes.

  “I do mean it. Things are changing. Everything’s going to be different. We can’t go backwards. It’s too late for that.” I sound just like my father. In fact it’s his words, word for word. “There’s lots more of us than of them, now. And I saw our airplanes. They flew right over us.”

  She says, “Airplanes!” and covers her mouth with her hands again, both of them this time, as if to hide her grin. I never saw such a smiley person.

  “Smiley is my Hoot name, but you’re the one should be called that. You smile the biggest smiles I ever saw.”

  I like how pleased she always is. I like how I feel when I see her laughing. I even kind of like her looks, even though I know she’s ugly. I even like how she’s not just like me. If I don’t watch out, I’ll love all wrong, the same way my father does.

  For a minute I think I could give her that bit with the silver cheek-pieces, but then I think how, even though it’s beautiful, and the leaping Sams at the sides look just like me, I’m not sure she’d like it. I’m not sure she should like it.

  “I wish I had something to give to you. I mean besides giving this back later on.”

  “I don’t even know your name . . . your person name. All I know is Bob said, Heron’s child, and now I know your Hoot name is Smiley.”

  “I’m Charley.”

  Then I make her take some of the fruit my father gave me. At first she won’t, but I say we’ll sit on the floor close to our bars and have a picnic together. So we do, but the fruit stings the inside of my mouth. I yell at the first bite, and she grabs for my hand again, except now it’s my turn to have my hands aro
und my jaw.

  “Poor beautiful Seattle, you’re going to get even thinner. People will think you’re a Tennessee.”

  We laugh, because of course they won’t. Seattles are all tall and have black hair. (If it isn’t naturally black, it’s dyed.) And Tennessees have either reddish hair and freckles like Jane, or they’re blond. Jane is a pretty good specimen for what she’s supposed to be. I wouldn’t admit that before, even to myself . . . especially not to myself.

  “I’m sorry I wouldn’t talk to you before. You’re the first. . . .” I won’t ever say nothing anymore. “You’re the first one like you I ever really was this close to.” There were plenty up at the village but I made a point of not getting close to them.

  “When would a Seattle as special as you are have the privilege of being next to a big mistake?”

  She always sounds as if she doesn’t care that she’s nothing but a mistake.

  “Little mistake. Besides, you’re nice and I really do want you for my Suefriend. I wish I had something of my own to give you.”

  The apple doesn’t sting my mouth so badly. I can eat it if I cut it into little pieces with my knife and don’t chew much, but I can only eat a little. I sort of pretend so as to keep Lily company at our picnic, but she can tell.

  “When the milk comes, I’ll give you mine. I’ll ask Blue Bob to bring you something you can eat. You could soak your dry cakes in milk.”

  “Yauwch.”

  After we eat, I sit back on the bed and look at the butterfly hair clip again. It looks civilized and artistic. Delicate. Sometimes it’s nice to have a Sue kind of thing for a little while.

  Then I remember my father’s letter. I unfold it again.

  My dear . . . my dear, dear son. . . .

  I guess he means it. Even just that part makes me feel tearful again. Last I saw him, he was at the bottom of a pile of guards and mounts. All Bob said was, “He’s not dead yet.” I don’t know what that means. I should have asked. I guess I was too scared about myself being hobbled. My legs are the most important part of my conformation. Lots of Hoots say they look at the legs first and don’t much care about the rest.

  I hang on to the butterfly clip and read.

  I put a burden on you when I came for you. I knew people would expect things from you as they do from me, but I feared, if I didn’t get to you in time, you would rebel and be put in solitary and then made a mount to the guards and pitted against your own people. I trampled my own mother. I can hardly write it.

  I wasn’t being fair. I wanted you to think like me, be like me, do as I do.

  But Little Master, walking! That’s a whole new thing. There’s a solution I haven’t thought about.

  The way you and Little Master are together! That’s entirely new. Hoots talk of kindness and caring, but you two have come to it. Your relationship is not mount to host but friend to friend.

  Odd to have his writing be so smooth. I guess I expected it to be the way he talked.

  You once told me kindness is better than voting. I should have listened. I trust you and Little Master to find the way.

  Love, your father.

  Sometimes . . . often I used to think: Well, how does he know he’s my father, anyway? I was hoping he wasn’t. But I know it’s true, he really is.

  Lily and I eat every meal sitting on the floor next to our bars, as close to each other as we can get. I have the book now. Well, we both have it. Sometimes she reads to me, and I lie on my cot and listen. She has a nice voice. Every now and then she says something ridiculous as she reads. For a minute I think it’s really in the book, but then I know it’s another one of her jokes. I don’t read out loud to her because it still feels funny to talk. Almost as if some nerves won’t work anymore. Yodeling and cracking is the least of my worries now. My voice is the one thing Lily doesn’t ever make jokes about.

  I never really did know what trains were until this book. Lily says the tracks are still here, though a lot have been removed for the metal. Lily says by us. She says we’re making a lot of important things out of them. Maybe those airplanes and bicycles.

  Lily saw some tracks once. They went on as far as she could see in both directions. I told her about those little red flowers as far as you can see in every direction there is. She never saw that.

  Mostly I tell her about the village. She loves to hear about that the best of anything. She thinks she’d like it even if there isn’t any easy-to-get hot water and you have to make your own clothes. And shoes—and they don’t last very long. I tell her about my father’s having strings hanging off of his. Hats made out of leaves or grasses or leather unless you can steal them.

  “Nobody cares about racing up there. That’s the least important thing. You could have bowed legs or knock-knees and nobody would care.” I don’t say how bad that makes me feel, because I know it makes her feel good. “Nobody’s a mistake, everybody’s all mixed up. You can love anybody you feel like. And there’s a lot of different things to be. You could knit or sew or cook or plant things. People would appreciate all of it.”

  “It sounds as if, up there, you won’t have to worry about being too thin for being a good Seattle.”

  “If eating hurts this much all the time, I guess I won’t get any fatter.”

  I explain voting. She thinks she’d like it, because even if you lost, you’d have had a say, because they talk it over.

  “A lot,” I say. “They talk and talk, a lot more than you’d want.”

  “But I’d have one whole vote even if I’m just a mistake . . . one whole vote! You’d only have one, too.” That makes her grin again as if the joke’s on me. And it is. (Actually, it did seem as if my father had more votes, though that wasn’t supposed to happen. And I didn’t seem to have any.)

  “I know I am just a mistake, but you said, up there, being a good mount and racing and conformation aren’t the one and only things, so if they aren’t, I could win ribbons and statues and medals with my cleaning up. Could I? And you said I’d get to keep the ribbons. I’d put them on my own walls. I wouldn’t have to give them to any old Hoots.”

  She gets this dreamy look. “Think of that, prizes for cleaning up. I’d. . . .” Then she laughs so hard she can hardly talk. “Champion scrubber.”

  She’s so silly, but I don’t say that. For all I know, maybe there are medals for that.

  “People always talked about what was up in those mountains and I’ve imagined places like that. I’m not the sort that likes all these comforts anyway. I’d much rather be a real person than have fancy things.”

  “I’m a real person. I was a real person from the start. Even up there.”

  “Maybe you are, and I know I’ll never be as real as you, but I’d like to be a little bit realer than I am.”

  “You’re like my father. He doesn’t care for comforts. He likes things hard to do. As long as he can vote, he doesn’t care.” When I talk about him to Lily, he doesn’t seem so bad. “He rescued me, but I didn’t want him to.”

  “I wish somebody would rescue me.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  That makes her laugh again. If she wasn’t already sitting on the floor, she’d fall on it.

  “No, I’ll rescue you.”

  “It’s already been done. That’s how I ended up in prison. But you know, they will rescue us . . . maybe use airplanes. Swoop down right at the prison doors.”

  “You, maybe.”

  “Maybe Bob will do it. You’d be first, then.”

  She says, “Don’t laugh, he really might. Bob does more than you’d think.”

  “I know that.”

  But I must have made a face, because she asks, “Does it hurt to talk?”

  “No, it just feels funny. I’m sorry I wouldn’t talk to you when I first came.”

  “I’m used to that. It happens all the time. People take one look and think, there’s the absolutely perfect conformation for a typical nothing, and won’t give me the time of day.” She looks up at those light bars
that are always glowing, night or day. “I wonder what time it is, anyway.”

  “I’d give you the time of day, if I knew.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Blue Bob comes again, and I ask him right away about my father. He says the same thing, “He’s not dead yet,” only this time he says it kind of hesitating. This time it’s not a joke, and I realize it probably wasn’t last time, either.

  Then he says, “I’ll tell you two a secret.” He’s avoiding talking about my father. “We wanted to get some of our people in here—in prison. It’s part of our plans. But your father lost control of himself.”

  “He saw me.”

  “Yes. And we know that Hoot well. He and I hosted him before. Often. Your father couldn’t stand to see him riding you.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “Bright Spot . . . Jane is with him.”

  “He’s not all right.”

  “He wants to see you. I came to take you to him. Don’t let him see your hobbles.”

  “You can take me there?”

  I guess Bob can do anything. I guess Bob really is in charge.

  “Lily, you stay.”

  He holds out what looks like a little three-inch piece of our bars, bends it, and my bars fall into a white clump—into what looks like an impossible tangle. He makes Lily’s bars fall, too. We don’t even think, we go to each other as if to hug, but then we both stop, and, after a minute, just hold hands.

  Bob says, “You’ve changed,” and then, “Come. . . . Charley. . . . Come.”

  I let go of Lily. I think I’m in love. This must be it.

  Bob points with his thumb for Lily to go back in her cell. He bends the little white wire, and the bars untangle themselves and spring up again.

  My hobbles are loose the way he showed me. I can keep up with Bob’s shuffling, no trouble at all, and I can go up the stairs a lot better then he can. I wonder about the stairs. Usually Hoots don’t have indoor places they can’t go without stools. They always have ramps. They couldn’t come up here without mounting one of us. Little Master could, though.