Tribulations

by Richard Thomas

  I stand there holding out my hand, the blind coot staring over my shoulder, his whiskers twitching. He extends his gnarled digits to me, and smiles, so I take his hand, like grabbing a fistful of sticks, and shake it.

  “Nobody of late. I’m Benjamin Russell, but you can just call me Ben,” the old man says. “Come on in, it’s gonna get cold soon. Can you bring the dog? She’s Jezebel, the old whore, I keep her tied up so she won’t wander off, chase after something she shouldn’t—but the ice is coming, I’m sure you know all about that.”

  I turn back to the dog, the meat gobbled up in a frenzy, a rotten sigh coming out of her mouth, death creeping closer every day. And I guess that’s a blessing.

  “Come on, Jezebel,” I mutter, untying the rope from the rusted hook on the post, leading her inside. She knows what’s good for her, the cold coming in, so she obliges.

  Inside it’s warm, a potbelly stove glowing in the corner. Not much to see in here, a tiny bed to one side, the stove, a small wooden table with two rickety old chairs, and a few pots and pans for cooking. Along the inside of one wall, just under the only window is a stack of wood—plenty it looks like for the night, for days in fact, possibly weeks.

  “You found the creek, I imagine,” he says, sitting down in one of the chairs. “So you’re set on water. I head down every couple of days to fill up some jugs, got the path memorized, nothing much to trip over out this way. We got a few sacks of beans and rice, it’s not much, but you’re welcome to join us for dinner.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” I say, plopping into the other chair.

  “Got a few extra blankets and the floor, that’s about it, my friend. Unless you want my bed, I don’t think I could keep you from taking it.”

  “That’s fine, Ben. The floor is just fine.”

  The old man gets up and walks to the bag of dried beans, and then the rice, taking a few scoops from each burlap sack with a tin cup, depositing it all in a cast iron Dutch oven. He lifts a jug off the table, adding in some water, and then reaches for some dried herbs in a small wooden bowl, sprinkling them into the pot. He sits back down, tired and bent.

  “You headed over the mountain, John? North?” the man asks.

  “I reckon. That’s the way the wind is pulling me, hoping to find my family, my wife and daughter. I’m hoping they followed the same signs I’ve been reading for weeks. Guess I’ll see what’s left in a world that’s suddenly gone dark—what’s on the other side.”

  The man nods.

  “Take some of the feed with you, if you want, son—Jezebel and I aren’t long for this world. I got a couple bullets with our names on them, if it comes to that, or we might just wink out in the same long, dark night. Who knows?”

  “Thanks,” I mutter. “I’ll take you up on that offer.”

  The dog sits next to the stove, still shivering now and then, her body doing its best to digest the jerky, something she probably hasn’t eaten in months.

  “Have you seen many people since it all went quiet, get much company?” I ask.

  The wind picks up, the cold beating against the shack, and I’m grateful to be inside. I can feel the ice slipping through the cracks in the wood, nipping at my exposed flesh, but I suppose the structure will hold.

  He sighs, his white orbs open wide, trying to remember.

  “There was one day, we got a whole mess of folks, a long line of feet moving over the dirt. I could hear them coming, like a stampede, and I went to the door and stood there, I listened. Both of us did. I heard a few greetings, but mostly it was quiet, eerie almost, must have been a couple dozen people drifting by, hardly a word, nobody stopping, just the creaking of bodies, the sighs and moans, a few kids crying, a sharp word here and there, but I don’t know if your wife and child were in there. Maybe. You never know.”

  I nod and take a breath.

  “You been over?” I ask.

  “The mountain?” he replies. “Long time ago. It’s a bitch, you’ll cross a few streams, so water’s not the problem. Cold, of course, a few wild things up in the rocks, the scraggly woods that are dying all up and down the hill, coyotes, snakes, the usual.”

  I nod my head.

  “And…”

  He opens his mouth as the wind kicks up again, the shack rattling and shaking, the smell of the beans and rice simmering, drifting to me, my stomach clenching and unclenching in hunger.

  “What?” I ask.

  He smiles, his mouth a mess, gums bleeding over his yellow teeth, wiping his face with a shaky hand, his eyes blinking and twitching.

  “Nothing,” he says, as the window rattles.

  He stands and walks to the stove, the skillet bubbling, stirring with an old wooden spoon, mumbling to himself, rubbing his lower back, the dog lifting her head, whimpering.

  “I don’t know if they all made it over,” is what the old man says, and I swear he’s crying, his back to me, but it’s getting dark, and I can’t see his face.

  The dog sits up and stares at the man, whining, a low growl deep in her belly.

  “Shut up, Jezebel,” the man yells suddenly, turning around, his pale skin flushed. “If I want to tell him, I’ll tell him.”

  She lies back down, quiet now, cloudy eyes darting back and forth from the sound of her master’s voice, to me, and then she closes them, surrendering.

  “I don’t know if any of them made it over, son, is what I’m trying to say.”

  ****

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  He rubs his face and sits back down, tears running down his wrinkled skin.

  “Out here it’s every man for himself, right?” he says. “I guess I could have said no, and let him take me, just surrender. Not like I’m living like a king out here. The fucking thing could have stayed up there, gotten what came its way, I don’t know why it had to offer me anything.”

  “What are you talking about, Ben? Who is up in the hills? Is somebody bothering you? Want me to go talk to them, put a scare in them? I don’t mind.”

  Ben cackles and rubs his white eyes, shaking—his mouth hanging loose, lips trembling.

  “I wish it was that simple, John. A long time ago before this darkness fell over the land, I made a deal. I can’t say I believed much of it at the time, I was sick with the cancer, dying, and felt like I might like to live a little longer, not die out here in the silence, alone. He showed me a path, the new path that goes over the mountain, one he’d been clearing for a long time, months I suspect. Just send them this way, he said. And then he put his hands on my head, and laid me down on the bed, running his long fingers over my flesh, kneading here and there, pushing his fingers in, the pain, the tenderness, he knew what he was doing. There was no blood, but the cancer went away. He ran his hands over my skull, and the headaches stopped. Held my hands and knelt beside my bed, and the arthritis disappeared.”

  I nod my head, listening, as the wind beat the shack and the boards rustled, dust and cold air filling the space.

  “In a moment of weakness, I said okay. And then he left. Now and then he would come down out of the mountain and palaver, always in a slightly different shape. Once, as the echo of my long dead father, once as a gangly shadow of my childhood best friend, and once as a younger version of myself, still handsome and stout. I was drinking a lot then. He’d leave me a jug, and I’d suck it dry. The black bird would soar over, before I lost my sight, and soon enough Jezebel arrived on my doorstep, to keep me company, and not long after, Rebecca—my wife.”

  I take a breath and don’t say a word.

  “Not always my wife, not some long lost love come back to me, no, not from the grave or anywhere else—something new, something I never had, and we lived a simple life. I never asked how or why she was here, I just accepted her, as one might take a coin, a gold watch, a gift on an anniversary, or holiday, perhaps. Long black hair and dark eyes, pale skin, she was a fallen angel that had no business being here. No children, no, we didn’t allow that. I didn’t. Not that we didn’t couple,
but she would never birth an abomination, nothing that the dark one sent me could be continued, you understand?” he asks, staring at me, eyes blind and casting out into the darkness, searching for forgiveness. “There are ways to end beginnings, and several times I did exactly that.”

  “Ben…” I say, even though I struggle to believe.

  “Let me finish,” he says. “She died many years ago—I stopped counting at some point. Not sure exactly how old I am, Jezebel defying the odds right with me, one hundred, two hundred. I don’t know.”

  I squint at him. The liar, he’s lost his goddamned mind.

  “I supposed in the end she was just curious, Rebecca, following the path too far, my warnings falling on deaf ears, her laughter at such imaginings simply contempt for my rotten heart, and my empty head. I guess I could have just said coyote, and left it at that, if not for the necklace. He brought me her locket one day, coming down from the hills in the form of a sick, brown bear. Lumbering down, sending the dog into a fit, dropping the jewelry in the dirt, knowing I was watching, its open mouth a black hole—rotting, buzzing, a low growl slipping out into the air.”

  Stories, the old man is telling me stories, just to pass the time, I think.

  “It preys on your fears, John, whatever you long for, whatever you miss—this is what it will become for you. I warn you now, so that maybe you can make it over, outwit the demon, and pass by unobstructed. It was my father, who never held me once, the word love never slipping past his lips; it was my best friend, acts of betrayal, a sneer on his face as he took so many things that were mine; and even my younger self, what I might have been, if only I’d tried harder, if only I’d listened.”

  Outside the wind picks up, shaking the shack again, the ice pelting the side of the structure, the window rattling in its frame.

  “That’s quite a story, Ben,” I say.

  He frowns at me and stands.

  “Dinner’s ready,” he grumbles, spooning the beans and rice into a wooden bowl, handing me a bent silver spoon. “Eat up, son. Tomorrow, you’ll need your strength.”

  ****

  When the sun rises the next morning my head is filled with the echo of animals howling under a moonlit sky, the scratching of Jezebel’s nails on the plank floor, in her own fitful dream, hunter or hunted—not sure which. Ben sits on the edge of his bed staring at me, his jaw clenching and unclenching—staring as if he still had eyes that worked, staring out into all of our futures.

  I sit up.

  “You okay, Ben?” I ask, rubbing my face, pain running up and down my spine, my hands icy cold and partially numb, the potbelly stove down to a dull glow.

  “I don’t expect you to believe it all,” he says. “I know how it sounds. I wish there was some way to convince you of the truth.”

  I wave him off, and then realize he can’t see my hand.

  “It doesn’t matter, Ben, if it happened or didn’t happened, I’m heading over the mountain. If I see your buddy, I’ll put in a good word for you, okay?

  The old coot laughs and smiles.

  “You really don’t understand, my friend,” he says, standing up.

  He walks to the stove, and with a pair of old leather gloves, opens the front of the metal beast. He grabs a few logs from the stack against the wall, and tosses them in, shutting the door with his knee.

  “I’ll put on some coffee,” he says, shuffling over to the bags of supplies in the corner, “you need to get on your way. If you hurry, you can make it up and over and down again, about ten miles total, just under five thousand feet in elevation, I reckon.”

  We don’t talk much over the coffee, beans ground by hand, Jezebel sitting by my side, resting her nose upon my lap. I eat the rest of the rice and beans from the night before, warmed up, sticking to my ribs, as Ben watches, clasping his hands. When I take a step outside to piss, the heat is already sliding over the hillside. Ben fixes me a pack with a small metal pot, and several cups of his supplies.

  When he steps outside, I can tell he’s upset, but he won’t talk about it, shuffling his feet, the dog sitting beside him.

  “Here,” he says, handing me the sack. “This should help you get over, whatever is left on the other side. You won’t die of starvation today, I can at least do that much.”

  “I appreciate it, Ben,” I say, and I hand him a few sticks of jerky. “Save it for the mutt for later, and have yourself a chaw if it won’t rip your rotten old teeth out.”

  He grins and takes it, and then holds out his hand.

  “Good luck, John,” he says, his white glassy eyes trembling in his head. What does he see right now, I wonder—the past, the present, or the future?

  Or maybe nothing at all.

  “Thanks,” I mutter, shaking his hand.

  I bend down to pet the dog, and she licks my hand, the gesture rippling over my flesh, triggering memories from days gone by, back when things were domesticated, when the world hadn’t already run its course. I choke back a muffled sob and swallow hard, clearing my throat.

  “I better get going. I’ll keep an eye out for both man and beast, Ben, I promise.”

  He nods his head, and I set off up the path he warned me about, the only obvious trail over the mountain, to whatever family I might have left. The sign at the edge of the worn out dirt trail is pounded into the dry soil, crooked and faded, the word north painted on it in shaky letters, as if written with a finger, something a child might do, an arrow pointing to the left. The letters are in a faded red paint, or perhaps something else, and as I look up to the clear blue sky, the black bird circles, and then disappears over the woods.

  Before I disappear around a bend, into the thin pines and maples that rest at the base of the hill, I turn to wave at them both, forgetting one last time that they can’t see a damn thing. I wave anyway, feeling like I could have done more, said something—not been so ornery and doubtful. What’s done is done, and I wave at them anyway, and as I head up the mountain the dog barks once, wagging its tail, and as the darkness swallows me up, Ben waves back.

  ****

  For three hours I work my way up the hill, stopping only to refill my water whenever I pass over a creek or stream. Though it gets cooler the higher I go, the sun slowly rises, the woods warming around me, insects chirping, a red-tailed hawk gliding over an opening in the canopy, sailing on the thermals that push around the mountain range.

  When I stop to rest for a bit, sitting on a fallen oak, pulling off my left boot to root out a rock, a mangy smell drifts toward me, and I look up and around, eyes on the path, and then to the woods. Something rotten, and dirty—not sure what it is. I slip my boot back on and stand up, leaving the bag of supplies on the ground, both hands to my hips, holsters unsnapped.

  I sniff again. Something isn’t right. There’s a wet smell, something gone sour, flesh baking in the sun, feces and urine, a heavy odor filling the air. The woods are silent, not a bluebird or jackdaw to be heard, just the thudding of my heart and my own shallow breath.

  Down the path saunters an aging coyote, with long ambling legs, yellow eyes, its fur torn in patches, faded brown and grey, one ear missing a chip. When I hear a panting behind me, I look back down the other way, and see another one coming up the hill. And from out of the bushes, two more from the left, starting to snarl now, two more from the right. They are skinny, with their mouths open, yapping at each other, so I move to the center of the path, guns pulled out now, my head on a swivel, back and forth. The leader stops at the top of the trail and sits down, panting, as his brothers close rank. I cock the hammer on the right pistol, and then the left, the creatures never slowing their pace, happy with their numbers, starting to slink low, ears up high.

  I wait for one to leap, contemplating a shot at the leader, hoping it might make them scatter, counting in my head the number of bullets, wondering if I’m a good enough shot.

  To the right, and up the hill there is a great ripping sound from deep in the woods, as if a tree has been uprooted, leaves rushing
by, and then a heavy thud, as it crashes to the forest floor, and the animals flee in all directions, gone in the blink of an eye.

  Bear?

  It moves closer, and I can see the tops of the trees swaying back and forth, suddenly the forest full of life, all manner of bird cawing and chirping, a flutter of wings, a jackrabbit shooting past me, and I almost pull the trigger, cursing the long-eared bastard. Bushes rustle and I can see it moving closer to the path, just up a little bit, branches snapping, twigs cracking, and then the foliage parts, and out the creature steps onto the trail.

  I stare in wonder, and suddenly think that maybe Ben wasn’t lying at all.

  The boy stands there in torn pants, tied with a rope, no shoes, and no shirt, his head shaved, eyes brown and pooling. His feet are so filthy that the toes almost look bonded together into one cloven hoof.

  “Are you heading over the mountain?” he asks. I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. He holds his hands in front of his distended belly, scratches and bruises up and down his arms, a smile filling his face; too wide—far too wide.

  “That was the plan,” I muster.

  “Did Ben send you my way?” he asks, just a child, maybe ten or twelve, something not right, and if I turn my head to one side and squint, he looks so very familiar.

  “In a manner of speaking, I guess he did,” I exhale.

  “You can put those away,” he says.

  I look down, and the guns are holstered.

  “Have others been by?” I ask, “Since things, well…”

  “Since the end times began?” he asks.

  “Recently. My wife, my daughter…”

  And at this he grins again, his teeth not yellow, but sparking white, from this distance not square and humble, but slightly filed, as if to a point.

  “This is my mountain now,” he says, not moving, eyes blinking.

  “Look, son, I’m just trying to get over and down, won’t be on your mountain hardly any time at all.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not good enough,” he says. “There must be a tribute, and there is none that I can see. Are you not willing to make an offering?” he asks. “What exactly do you have to offer?” he asks, eyebrows furrowing, a frown sliding his face down, his mouth shut, as the sun settles behind rapidly moving clouds, the forest dimming, the air turning cooler—goosebumps running across my flesh.