As the Indian approached, his father loomed larger, he seemed a gray stone growing from the snow. He walked steadily toward him, his brother following in his footsteps. The men that had set up the cheer, which reached his ears from the surface of the Big Lake as he and his brother started down the last steep white mountainside, had fallen silent and stood behind the father, waiting for him to speak. He stopped at the edge of the camp and faced his father across the snow.
“Gayabuc,” the old man’s lips spoke the word after staring for some time into the face of his son. “You bring no killings for the babyfeast.” The son did not speak. Both men were silent, facing each other with feet rooted in the snow. “Do you not remember why you left the camp? Do you not remember the boychild?”
“There will be no babyfeast for Gayabuc, for anyone,” the Indians words fell flat in the clearing.
“It is not the way,” the old man stated.
“I have seen the way before me and followed it as I was taught, but my eyes have now seen new things, things for which I have no teaching, no power.”
“For what new things are you without power?” the old man asked in a low voice, knowing that once again his feeling was right
“Them.”
The father looked at the son but the fear did not show in his eyes. For many years now his people had heard that others, others with skin like the snow, had come into the high mountains from the desert, but he had not seen them, none of his people had seen them. But there had been many stories among other people. He himself had come upon a Paiute not more than three summers past that made much talk about seeing them and following them up into the mountains, but never getting close enough to look them in the face. They were tall men, tall as the men that came long ago in his father’s father’s time and stole the children. Their bodies were heavy. The women too, the animals, wild stone-eyed beasts, were larger than both together. In this he knew that the Paiute was not lying. For all the stories spoke of their great size and strength, of how they did not carry bows, but sticks, sticks from which fire would burst and animals would fall. There was one story which came from the desert that told of how the sticks had made an Indian fall, an Indian, it was spoken true, that got too close to their power, and who had looked in their faces. This he had heard. He had no proof, but this he believed. He believed all, because not having seen them, he had seen their tracks some winters ago. They were tracks like no animal would make; they were great in size, and deep. He knew they must be heavy and he had no desire to follow them, for he could sense that their path was evil. All of this he spoke not to those of his camp, for he knew their way was to be frightened and the stories which did reach their ears had placed sorrow on their days. He spoke only to his middle son; the oldest was dead. And when he was alive he was not one to believe his father, so he spoke only to Gayabuc of them.
“Go to the mother of your son,” he pointed to the galisdangal where she sat. “Go, Gayabuc.”
The Indian did not move, his brother behind him did not move.
“Go, Gayabuc.” The old man’s voice came at his son again.
“I have seen them eat …”
The old man said nothing, he waited as his son fell silent, he waited, watching his face. He waited for what his son had no teaching, no power.
“I have seen them eat of themselves.”
“Go to your galisdangal, Gayabuc.”
“I have seen them eat the flesh from their own bodies.”
“Go!”
He went. The Indian who would have no joyous babyfeast for his first boychild went. He turned from his father towards his wife, each foot leaving its soft black imprint in the snow as he walked up the rise to where she waited.
2
WITH EACH step his boots smacked hard on the packed snow. A horse. A horse, if only it hadn’t rained last night he could have brought her. If it had been any other horse he would have, but not her. Too many times he had seen horses slip on slick crusted rainpacked snow, one horseshoe going out from underneath, then the knee slamming to the ice with the weight of the body behind. No, he would not take the chance of her fracturing any bones; she was so fragile. In the spring he could use her. When the snow was gone, she could gallop free; she would like that. He stopped, for all the time he was walking his eyes were searching the flat bush covered land in front of him. In front of him, way in front, was a dark form, which to anyone else would have looked like part of the patch of bush it was next to, but it wasn’t, and he knew it. He knew what to do now that he had spotted it. He raised the long rifle in front of him, the butt of the worn wood stock firmly pressed against his shoulder in a comfortable position. The barrel level, pointed straight out at the form. The sound of the shot was quick. It cracked sharply in the cold open air and was gone. The form in the distance grew smaller, did not move from where it was, it simply grew smaller, slumped dead under the dark weight of its body. He released his finger from the trigger; it clicked back into place. He slung the rifle over his shoulder and moved forward. When he reached the rabbit he did not have to kick it with his boot to make certain it was dead, the bullet had ripped open the side of the head, blood moved slowly to the snow from the opening. He picked it up, could feel the warmth of the body beneath the fur on his fingers. He spread the back legs and slowly shook his head. A male. For six days he had shot nothing but males, the whole winter he had only killed twenty females. He didn’t understand it. The winter before he had shot that many females in just two days. With one of the strips of leather tied to his wide belt he wrapped the rabbit’s hind legs securely and let it hang down. He moved forward again, each step ringing a loud hollow sound on the snow. He looked down at the stiffening body slapping at his leg, it had been warned. Doesn’t he make so much noise stomping around on this snow that they know two weeks in advance he’s coming? But do you think they would hide? No. They’re all so simple. He gives them a sporting chance. Still, they can’t keep themselves alive a day longer. They know that if they don’t hide he’s going to get them; even if they do hide he’ll still get them. He gives them warning he’s coming, but do they slip into hiding? No. They’re all so dumb. It is difficult to understand why they insist on being, but they do. If only they would hide. Maybe they could live a week longer, maybe a month, even to spring. Everything, no matter how stupid, at least deserves to live till spring. Even one day, one day longer to live, it would seem to mean a lot. Maybe they get cold, cold and tired of hunting food that just isn’t there when more than three feet of snow has buried everything worth eating. Maybe they just get tired of gnawing cold sagebrush, get tired and quit, quit and wait for him. He gives them a chance, he plays the game fair, fairer than anyone plays with him. He stopped. Before him was a dead rabbit, its gray legs sticking stiff in front of it against the white. Stretched out in a neat line between the legs were the sausage bodies of twelve newborn rabbits. He put a shell in the rifle, cocked it, aimed the barrel at the dead mother’s head and pulled the trigger. He tied the rabbit on his belt and squatted; looked at the imprint left by the body. The bullet had gone through her skull, a black hole about the width of his little finger penetrated the snow, the babies in the neat row along the line left by her belly. He touched one. It was dead. He rolled each cold body over. The last one, the last one was warm, not much, but at least warmer than his finger. He scooped it up, cupped it to his mouth, took a deep breath. Slow, very slow, he let the warm air exhale between his lips onto the bit of fur covered flesh. Standing in the cattle field he breathed the heat from his body, the snow sweeping out flat beneath his feet, reaching in all directions to the mountains that ringed him, mountains so high it took the Sun half a day’s climb before its stretching light rolled down the steep slopes filling the valley, touching all parts of its hard floor. He opened his jacket, tucked the small animal under the shirt next to his skin, and moved on. His boots smacking out with each step, the two rabbits flopping at his side.
“Three is all you got Joe?”
He l
ooked at the tall boy as he shut the gate of the fence which formed a perfect box around the three storied house jutting up sharply from the snow and was the exact same color. “Uh-huh, three’s about it I guess.”
“What do you mean, Joe, you guess three?” The boy walked forward, a brown dog with its head up following right behind.
“Could be three, could be it ain’t.”
“Could be it ain’t, why?” The boy stopped in front of him, the dog sniffing at the hanging rabbits.
“Could be what you see here is three, but what if it was the President’s truth that each ate three apiece before I got to them? That would make three and six and nine. Could be it ain’t three, but nine. So your old man could owe for nine.”
“Rabbits can’t eat one another, Joe,” the boy glanced up with a look of pride on his face for knowing just what the truth was.
“You ever seen it? You ever been hungry enough to eat somebody?” He placed a hand on the boy’s head and felt him shake it. “Then how do you know it ain’t so?”
The boy did not answer, he looked away, then at the dog, its tail swinging back and forth in the early evening air, sniffing at the rabbits.
“Sam,” the boy turned his eyes toward the broadfaced front porch of the house. “Sam,” the voice called again, it was a woman’s voice and it came from the front door that was held open a few inches. “Get in here for your dinner,” the words shot from the crack across the snow covered yard. The boy looked at the man with the rabbits, lowered his head and went in the house, the brown dog settling at the side of the door where he disappeared. The man walked around the house to the back, pulled open the screen door and knocked, then waited.
“Birdsong,” the door opened. He could feel the warm air from the kitchen on his face, and for a moment, see the children at the long table, the woman seated with a baby on her lap; her hair he could see, not her face. “Birdsong,” the man stood in front of him, the door closing behind, “How many?”
“Three.”
“Three hell, it’s hardly worth it, is it, three?”
He looked at the man in front of the closed door, the face was smooth and easy. After thirty years it was still unmarked. “Three, Mr. Dixel.”
“Males again?”
“Males.”
“That’s two-bits a head. Here’s six-bits,” he reached into the starched front pocket of his slacks and brought out a handful of change.
“And one female.”
“Twelve-bits then, altogether,” he held the coins out to the Indian.
“Wait,” Birdsong put his hand up, then reached into his jacket under his shirt and brought out the tiny rabbit, holding the bit of warmth in his open palm.
“What the hell is that,” the man looked at the rabbit, then at the Indian.
“A rabbit.”
“You don’t think I’m going to pay you for it?”
“Why not?”
“Because … because it isn’t even grown.”
“It would be by spring.”
“But this isn’t spring.”
“Course not, but if it were it would be six-bits worth of rabbit ’cause it’s a female.”
“How in the hell do you know that when it isn’t any bigger than your thumb. Besides, it looks dead.”
“Touch it.”
“So it’s warm,” the man looked him in the face. “But it isn’t six-bits worth warm.”
“What difference is it if it is warm, you’re paying for it dead.”
“Two cents I’ll give you, my dinner’s getting cold.”
“A nickel.”
“Two cents.”
“I’ll keep it.”
“Suit yourself. Here’s your twelve-bits,” he handed the money over and turned back into the house, the door closing tight behind him.
At night he had the dream. The dream was exploding now. Blasting with ever increasing regularity. Two, three nights a week it came to him. During the day he tried to move away from it, defend himself, fight it. During the day he would not think of it, and when it would come to him, when he would least expect it, he would turn his face to the sun, his eyes open, and the brilliance of the mountain light would drive the memory of the dream back, pushing it deep in his mind, flooding it with light, drowning it in whiteness. In the evenings, when he was tired and it would slip up on him, forcing its pictures into reality, then he would hit his eyes with closed fists, and he would keep hitting them, forcing the blackness into his head where the dream had found its way to flare up in streaks of white and pounding flashing stars, boldly destroying the place of the dream. But at night, asleep, he was defenseless. The dream would come. Slowly at first, seeping into the darkness, taking shape, catching him, soothing, it came like a song hung deep in black. Softly it sang, until it knew it was safe, then louder, louder it grew, breaking into a hard chant, slashing back and forth in the dark, racing into a dance, a dance of lizards, slipping and wrapping themselves about a pine tree, the trunk swirling with slick, stone-gray bodies, the chant droning like the sound of a far off chainsaw coming louder, hideously buzzing, the bark spraying away from the trunk beneath the brittle scales of slithering bellies, exposing the white meat of the tree, the bodies moving on its open moistness, cutting deeper, the tails lashing fiercely as they grow closer to the place where the sap flows, the air filled with ripping as the trunk cracks, splits, crashing away from where it stood in two separate parts. The silence, the silence of where the tree stood, takes shape, hardens, thickens, rounds into a boulder in the summer sun. Clinging to its side, immovable, is one lizard, its body still, making only a slight movement of delicate blue gills, as they softly, noiselessly suck at the air. And when he was young, with his brother, they would come upon a lizard caught in the sun, thinking it couldn’t be seen, thinking it was part of the rock, invisible, but they had searched for it. They had spent the hot day and all the ones before it walking through the forests, finding open spaces in the trees, spaces where there would be only the warmth of the sun, warmth falling on rocks, boulders, perhaps a lizard, and they hunted with an air-rifle, a gun that had been given by their father to both of them on one of their birthdays; of all the things to shoot the sting of a round copper bee-bee into, and maybe kill, none held their attention like the lizard, for the lizard was a soundless creature, a creature that looked like it should be destroyed, a creature that once the bee-bee had penetrated its cold blooded body did not move, did not make a sound, a creature that looked as if it begged to be killed, that if it were large enough so the stroke of its scaled tail could crush a man it would desire spears hurled at it, penetrating the armor of its scales, driving home to its heart, releasing it from being what it was not. And when he and his brother came to the boulder they saw it. First he shot, the bee-bee tearing a perfectly round hole into the back, then ricocheting straight out, and it was as if nothing had happened, he had to keep his eyes on the lizard to realize something had, he kept his eyes on the hole in the back, and his brother shot, the bee-bee going through the armless body making a soft ping on the rock beneath, then bouncing straight out. They would gaze at the two holes, one next to the other, and wonder why the lizard would not, did not, move. They would wait for blood, but it never came, they knew it wouldn’t, and they would stay, each taking a shot; slowly the holes began to merge into one, the lizard’s feet still rigidly hooked in the boulder, most of its back blown out, the stone showing beneath. Finally they would tire, move to the large rock in the sun and pick the reptile up by the tail, its body would slip away from the tail to the ground and they would pick it up again, one of them putting the tail in his pocket to later place with the others. They would hold the body up and look through the hole in the back and see the sunlight on the other side.
In the morning the rabbit was alive. He did not expect it to be. He warmed some milk over the still glowing coals in the fireplace, then twisted a bit of cloth and dipped it in the milk. As the rabbit sucked at the rag he watched and knew it would live to be full-gr
own, for it seemed not right that it had survived this long, so it must live. When he finished with the rabbit he placed it back on the old handkerchief folded near the fire and went outside to feed his horse. The air was quiet with the smell of pine, the sky was clear, except for some slivers of white clouds he noticed spread out over the bank of mountains to the west. He knew it would snow by dark. He had built a shed off one side of his one room house, this was the stable for the horse. He pushed open the wooden doors of the front. His horse rose from the hay where she was sleeping and walked to him, nuzzling her white nose against his shoulder. “Shasta,” he spoke softly, rubbing the palm of his hand against her neck. He touched his lips to the soft hide of her face; she smelled of hay and salt. He fed her, put the bridle he had braided last spring over her head, and led her through the door. Around and around they moved in a wide circle on the snow in front of the house, the man and the horse, the man making certain to step in his own footprints as he retraced the circle, his head down, eyes to the ground, following his own trail, and that of the horse.
Rabbit Boss Page 2
