And what a glorious feeling it was to obey the voice, how much better than any of life’s other small vices and pleasures that he knew and cherished. By going, he was doing what was right. He was doing work, important work, and nothing would stop him. Not his mother’s mandate, not some paltry time restraint, not a full platoon of enemy troops lying in wait around the next corner could stop Private First Class Surrey. His hands swung up into position and he could feel the smooth planed stock of the rifle barrel, the thud of the canteen against his hip, the weight of the cauldron-like helmet on his head. He walked down the drive, following it as it twisted and turned through the trees. The heavy boots, not the most comfortable footgear for traveling long distances, made rubbery squelching noises on the hard ground of the path. He wasn’t far from the Willow Road when he stopped in the middle of the lane, considering. Maybe I can avoid the thorns and The Bottoms entirely if I walk through the woods to the fence here, where they’re not so thick. And turning to his right, he stepped off the drive and plunged into the trees. It was easy going, even in the cumbersome fishing boots. The day was hot but the trees here provided ample shade, and the ground was level, though he hardly noticed any of this at all. He was concentrating on the feeling that pushed him reeling forward, sending waves pulsing through him; humming, singing, throbbing, all jammed together and reverberating from the soles of his feet up through his fingertips, as though a chorus captained by a mad conductor played in the branches of the trees around him or hung rank on rank on the festooned air. He walked through the trees, laughing as branches struck him. He wished that someone else might be there that he could share it with, so new it was, but he felt too a kind of hot selfish greed, joy that it was his and his alone; he knew this intuitively, that it was intended for a receptor of one, he, Tad Surrey, chosen. But underneath it all like sharp rocks beneath a violent current he sensed a kind of danger. What would happen now if I resisted, if I sat down on the ground and refused to take a step further, or worse yet, what if I turned around now and walked back to the house, denying it, whatever it is; what if I said no? What would happen if it came on me when someone else was around, if I was sitting there at dinner, say, with the rest of the family? I couldn’t very well ask Ma to be excused and then bolt out of the house and into the woods! I suppose I’d just sit there squirming in my seat like a child needing to use the bathroom! And as before, when this notion of resistance came into his mind, he thought how little he wanted to fight back. What if I’m walking and I get to the edge of a cliff and it wants me to jump off?! Would I do it?
He realized he had started running now. His boots made a frantic squelch and zip, squelch and zip, as they thudded over the ground. He was moving gradually to his left, giggling as he went. For god’s sakes, Private, get a hold of yourself. He realized suddenly that by allowing himself to be pushed downhill as he approached the fence he was unknowingly nearing The Bottoms. So be it. At least I brought the right gear this time. He continued moving as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the watch. It was not yet eleven. Neither one of his parents were due back for hours to come. He had plenty of time. A grackle called in the branches above him, tuning up its reedy voice for the coming summer. Some trees in this area through which he was passing showed evidence of lightning damage. Looking up, he could see black streaks seared into many of the upper boughs. He had slowed his pace again. He had to, though the voice still spoke to him, teasing and prickling all his senses. He could hear it, like white noise, a radio tuned in to pleasant static. He could smell it, like dust and new bread. Then, over a slight rise, he saw the fence. It ran across, similar to the spot below where he had scaled it before, south of were he was now, nearer the Willow Road. It looked the same, just three long ropes of barbed wire, jagged, rusting, in places ruddy orange giving way to fevered red on the bottom strand, closest to the ground. He came toward it, no longer running, putting one foot in front of the other deliberately, almost savoring. He was about to reach for the top strand as before when he paused, remembering his ungainly landing in the muck when he’d tried to regain the Surrey property a few days earlier. This time he placed one hand on the top strand, between the barbs, and another on the middle. Then he pulled upward on the one and down on the other. The space in between opened up, just slightly. Carefully he lowered his head, turning it sideways and easing it through the gap, then his torso, while at the same time lifting his right leg and passing it through the space to the other side. Now most of the way across, he stood on one leg, lifted the other, and passed it between the top and middle strand while releasing his hold. The ropes sprang back to their original position with a dull twang, and there he was, on the other side.
Proceed with caution now. He was about to take a step when he felt a push to his left, due south, downhill, toward The Bottoms. It was as if a wall had sprang up in front of him, or a fleet of neon arrows had appeared, all pointing the same way. Indeed, as he turned in the direction that he knew he must go, the sun suddenly sliced through the trees and a single shining beam of light, unhindered by any branch, clove through the foliage and laid bare a golden path running straight downhill, nearly blinding him with its brilliance before snapping closed again as the clouds shifted, leaving him blinking and half-dazzled, rubbing his eyes. And on he went again, as one in a dream, arms hanging limply at his sides, rifle forgotten for the moment as his treading boots among the leaves with each new step rustled as he passed.
It did not take long before his surroundings began to change, as the marshes again began to prevail. The trees either grew stunted, twisted and further apart as the ground became softer, or they grew taller, with massive trunks, lone giants of the sort that tower high above all the other smaller life forms that are attracted to them and congregate beneath them. Again it seemed to Tad that things on this side of the fence were different in a way so subtle that it defied description or categorization. It wasn’t something easily seen, or heard, or smelt, unless again there was a change in the color that he sometimes fancied he could detect among the ferns and growing things that sprouted up from the richer patches of earth, brushing against him now as he began to negotiate the puddles and slimy patches that indicated larger bodies of standing water ahead. A mosquito whined by his ear and he swatted at it. He was moving away from the fence now, further away from his family’s property. Further into the unknown, enemy territory. He came suddenly upon a line of reeds growing tall in the mud, some of them reaching much higher than his head. They were thick and healthy looking, bright green in color, darker toward their base. Some of the stalks jutted out at odd angles, but most of them stood firmly, proudly, barring his way and his sight beyond as surely as a privacy hedge planted intentionally to keep nosy neighbors from peeking in. And he knew that I need to be on the other side. It’s coming from over there. There can be no doubt. It’s just ahead. And without thinking of trying to pass around this latest challenge, he bowled his way forward, pushing his way between the stalks. They protested, making creaking noises as they bent. Some of them as big around as his arm. Moving stubbornly forward, he was glad in an instant that he had brought the fishing boots, as he sank nearly to his knees in rich, dark mud. The ground ahead of him wasn’t ground at all, but a thin slippery veneer under which ran this dark, pulling sludge, rich in nutrients, that fed the living greenery of the swamp and which the deadliest drought could not dry up. He floundered ahead, now surrounded on all sides by the reeds. He truly felt that the games had come alive and swallowed him, as he could now easily imagine himself in Cambodia or Viet Nam, separated from the platoon in the dense, sweltering jungle, behind enemy lines. Clouds of midges and other dipterous insects buzzed in miniature tornadoes around him, darting at his nose and eyes. He waded further, hearing the throaty bellow of bullfrogs. If he stopped moving he could hear the light splashing noises of other aquatic creatures nearby, disturbed by his passage, though he could not see them. And then, brushing aside a final clump of reeds growing together, he came to the pond.
He pulled himself up out of the water, feeling himself some form of primitive life that has just lately decided to discard gills and webbed feet and take a shot at breathing air for a while. He shook his boots, not taking his eyes from the figure a few paces ahead of him, which now straitened up and turned toward him, evidently having heard his approach. It was a man, dressed in a way that for Tad instantly conjured up a multitude of images of safaris into the depths of the unknown, National Geographic specials or possibly Indiana Jones movies. He wore thick-soled boots of black rubber, well fitted khaki pants and a matching shirt, a size too small, tucked neatly into his belt. Over the shirt was a heavy survival vest with several pockets, all of which looked to be stuffed to the gills. A large hunting knife in a slim tan sheath hung from the left side of the belt. He also had on an olive green hat that was a sort of cross between a fez and a fedora, with a band around it that was actually a cartridge belt holding several glinting shells; there was also a brilliant red feather sticking up out of the band that had to be at least eighteen inches from tip to tip. The hat was pulled down at a rakish angle, nearly obscuring one eye. Balanced on his nose was a pair of thick horned-rim spectacles of a style that hadn’t been popular since the early nineteen hundreds. He had a bulky knapsack slung over one shoulder, and he was holding a small notepad, in which he had now begun to scribble furiously, with what appeared to be a quill pen. All in all, he managed to look fairly dashing while at the same time utterly absurd.
It was Daddy. Tad hadn’t been sure at first, but then he’d caught a glimpse of the bulging, pale blue eyes glittering behind the formidable lenses. He noted, once again, that the pressing, anticipatory feeling had abandoned him, and cut off from it he felt once more profoundly empty, hollow, sucked out. Now that he was here he felt only nervous and foolish. Daddy did not speak, instead continuing to write with quick, violent motions. His face was feverish, his eyes burning a hole in the paper. Was he even aware of the young man standing not three paces away from him? Tad felt like a mischievous child called to the principles’ office, who then must stand, suffering in silence, until such time as his fate is revealed to him. At last he could bear it no longer. “Dr. Livingston, I presume?” he said.
Instantly Daddy stopped writing, the pen freezing on the pad. Then with the speed of a salamander he slipped both pad and quill into one of the many pockets of his vest, zipping it shut. He lowered his head slightly and gave Tad a stern glance. “Yes,” he said. “That is the moniker by which I’m known, sah, you have it aright.” The sound of his voice was surprising to Tad, so much so that he looked quickly into the man’s face, then away again even faster to avoid meeting those eyes. It sounded like the voice of another man entirely from the one he’d previously met. It was an English accent, heavy to the point that it could easily have seemed exaggerated, jesting, did it not have such a natural sound to it. The cadence, the inflections, and the tones were so altered that it sounded not so much like the man he’d met before speaking in a different way, but rather like a completely different person had taken control of Daddy’s body. From this distance, Tad thought he could see other changes too. The complexion of the face was altered. While before Daddy had been pale and wan, now his cheeks were ruddy with color. This time he had thick, bushy eyebrows and a fine tawny stubble on his chin and upper lip. His posture and body language were different. While before he had been hunched over as he sat on his stump like a panther about to pounce, now he stood straight as an arrow. As Tad looked on, he folded his hands before him and fixed him with a look that held none of the intensity that had been bubbling beneath the surface during their last encounter. “Was there something,” he said, still speaking in the same voice, “with which I might give you assistance?”
Fine. Let’s play along. “Do you remember me?”
“Indeed I do, sah. You are that flitting sprite, that fresh-faced urchin, that spirit of impetuous youth that happened across my path this Friday last.”
It was the voice, Tad thought, of an Oxford professor. A bit stuffy, a trifle pompous, entirely world weary, completely disinterested in the conversation. There was a pause, much like a moment on stage when an actor has forgotten his lines, during which Daddy waited patiently while several questions raced through Tad’s mind, one after another. He had discarded several before finally settling on, “What were you writing just then?”
Daddy sniffed. “Aren’t we the nosy parker? Well, if you must know, I’ve been conducting an extensive study of the rana catesbeiana that frequent this pond, spawning here during the summer months. Idyllic conditions for them, don’t y’know.”
“The what?”
“Rana catesbeiana. The common bullfrog. Surely you don’t mean to tell me you don’t speak Latin?” Tad shook his head. “Land’s sake’s alive! What the devil do they teach you children in school these days?”
Tad shrugged. “I don’t know. Math. Science. English.” Then, trying another tack, “Why are you talking like that?”
Daddy blinked, furrowing his brow. “Like what, old chap?”
“Never mind.”
“Quite. Mathematics, you said. Very fine. Language of the universe, mathematics. English. Nouns, vowels. Consonants and the like. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Science. What discipline?”
He shrugged again. “Just, you know, general science. How electricity works. Or model volcanoes. Growing mold in a petri dish. Stuff like that.”
Daddy shook his head disgustedly. “No, no, no. What rot. Mold in a petri dish.” This last he spoke in Tad’s voice. Not an imitation of Tad’s voice, but in Tad’s voice. The similarity was astonishing. It even cracked slightly on the last syllable, as Tad’s had done. Tad looked at him sharply again, and this time he thought the eyes, bulging behind the thick glasses, twinkled at him for a fraction of a second. This time it was Daddy who turned away, looking out toward the pond. “I’m speaking of the natural sciences. Biology. Astronomy. Zoology.” He bobbed his head up and down twice, in a way that Tad instantly recognized from their first meeting. The other is in there, the crazy one. But is he just playing now? Was he just playing before? Which one is the real one? Perhaps neither, he thought. Perhaps I haven’t even seen the real one yet! And oh, but what a bothersome thought that was. Again he studied this man before him and a chill ran down his spine despite the sweat covering his body. The sun had risen higher in the sky, but its beams were deferred by a hazy sheet of moisture that hung like a caul over the canopy of vegetation as the flies and gnats chased each other and the rana catesbeiana sang out to each other in their burbling voices. Tad was aware of the isolation, of its pressing down on himself and this strange creature that spoke in different voices, together in the woods at this hidden spot surrounded by its guardian reeds, on this piece of property that might or might not belong to Roy McKenton, depending who you asked. He had the sensation of motion, of traveling out of his body, and he saw the two of them, he and Daddy, as from miles above, specks on the forest floor among the towering shade trees that were themselves specks, indivisible and pointless. It was a lonely feeling.
He looked toward Daddy to see if there was any indication the man was feeling any of these things, but if he did, he gave no s
ign. While Tad’s mind had wandered away, Daddy had continued speaking, and as he gestured in grand sweeping motions to the swamp, the sun pierced through the haze again and he was wreathed in ringing golden hues that swam and darted around him. As though every word he spoke was unconditional truth on which the world’s revolutions depended. “You’re on holiday, I expect.”
“Yes,” Tad said, breaking the spell.
“But surely you won’t mind some extracurricular tutelage. Bright, enterprising young chap such as yourself.” He stepped forward and draped a friendly arm across Tad’s shoulder. The contact elicited a sort of warm flash that went whizzing down his arm and inward to his core as the two of them began to walk along the bank. Tad, watching him out of the corner of his eye as they went, felt that he should be removing the arm. But he didn’t. “All my life I’ve been fascinated by the daily exercises of the fauna,” Daddy said. “What can’t our animal friends teach us about the universe’s secret ways?” They stopped by a concentration of lily pads and Daddy gently steered Tad in the direction of the water. He withdrew his arm and spread both hands in front of him like Moses parting the Red Sea, the bulging eyes behind their thick lenses pointed skyward. “They, for whom the gift of life is so much better understood than we. Though their time may be shorter, not a moment wasted. They never question their own mortality, as we do. They accept the gifts bestowed by their creator and live every moment, because, simple minded, they know how to do nothing else. Don’t y’agree?” He turned to Tad, who had been gazing out on the pond, where many of Daddy’s fauna watched and listened to these proceedings.
Woods Page 6
