Among the Lilies

by Daniel Mills

  First the green of trees in summer leaf and then the black lines of their shadows. Wildflowers burst from the shade they cast, violet blossoms and gold which shone with the sun on them. Songbirds in the branches of the fruit trees. Their silver feathers flashed and winked.

  Two goats appeared, male and female as they were made. They stepped from the tree-line and approached the window, trotting side-by-side. Cattle followed them, and sheep, proceeding two by two and the wolves coming last. They herded the other beasts as some dogs do, tails wagging as they ran alongside and nipped the sheep in their play. Their teeth were white and shining but their tongues were red, the color of raw meat.

  The procession neared the window. The animals came within a few feet of my outstretched hand before turning with the wolves behind them and vanishing from sight.

  Mother joined me at the window.

  All this you have done, she said. This world of color and light is yours as surely as it belongs to him.

  To him?

  She took my hand in hers and pointed with it to the far corner of the garden. My father was there. He was faceless as before but walked with another beside him, a man, and this man’s back was turned to me.

  I don’t understand, I said. Who is the other man?

  Mother didn’t answer. She spoke instead of the coming night.

  The sun is in the west, she said. Dusk is falling, and the heart of this house is rotten to its center. The walls are weak and must give way. None of this can last.

  Black mold down the window-frames. The ceiling dripped with it, spattering my face as I looked up. Liquid filled my mouth, throat, but the taste was sweet as honey, and beyond the windows, the beasts were coupling. Goats mated together and then with the cattle and even the wolves lay with the lambs before tearing them to pieces. The grass was red with it, the trees, and the wild corn turned crimson as it thrust from the ground.

  A serpent moved among the other beasts, rippling and wet, muscled up and down its body as it circled the unknown man where he sat beneath the songbirds’ trees. He was alone, I saw, and did not heed the snake though the pink length of it wound about his shoulders and throat.

  I thought to warn him. I called from the window and he turned round. His face was familiar though I didn’t know his name. The snake was gone but he stood naked, unashamed, and all the birds were quiet.

  I awoke. The bed was wet. My breathing came fast and shallow and I smelled my body’s juices in the sheets. I couldn’t sleep. I sneaked to the basin and washed myself in the evening’s water then lay down once more to await the morning’s bell. It sounded. I rose with the others and sought the Eldress in the kitchen where I knew I would find her.

  Again I told her of the dream but said nothing of the man or the serpent or of the way in which I awoke. She listened but was plainly troubled and wouldn’t speak except to send me away. Go and see to your work, Sister. I must think.

  Her pondering lasted a day and a night and it was morning again when she sent for me. The bell had struck but the sun wasn’t yet risen and I went to the library as I was bid.

  Eldress Rose was there and seated at the long table with her hands folded on her apron. Behind her the Elder Job stood with his face to the window, fingers at the glass. He heard me enter and turned away from his reflection. His expression was grave and he asked me to repeat it, all that I’d said to the Eldress. This I did while the Elder paced the room in his excitement, muttering to himself till a decision was made at last and he spun upon his heel.

  The Dreamer’s Gift, he declared, is the Gift of prophecy. But prophecy is such that we must look to God to know the meaning thereof. Few possess the seer’s eyes, the listener’s ears, but there is one among us, perhaps, who might be trusted to interpret. The Gift was slow in its coming to him and now at last we know the reason.

  The Eldress said, You speak of Brother David?

  Job didn’t answer her. He addressed himself to me directly.

  Write of what you have seen, he said. Create for me a record of such dreams as you remember and give it to the Eldress.

  He looked at her. See that it is done tonight.

  The Eldress nodded. She rose from her chair and shepherded me from the room.

  We will speak of this later, she said and closed the door. But I heard their voices come winging down the hallway as I left and realized they were arguing. I thought

  [The passage ends abruptly. David Stonehouse’s narration resumes on the reverse side of the page.—ed]

  PART THREE

  The house receives me. The prodigal returns to find his father absent and no one to greet him, no feast prepared. The door creaks open on a frigid room, its windows dimmed, its threadbare curtains drawn to slits of dusk. My head throbs. The wound pulses in the makeshift dressings, fashioned from a child’s blanket, and the pencil-tip scratches the page, going back and forth and no lines visible to guide me. The stove is cold and gives no light and Judah has been taken. He has gone to the deeper woods and I am too weak to follow, too weary in this moment even to rise and build the fire.

  Yesterday—

  The skies were clear when I made ready to depart. I collected the winter's pelts for trading and bundled them into a length of folded oilcloth which I wrapped round twice and secured with a hemp cord. I cleaned the rifle, barrel and breech, and shouldered the cartridge box by its strap then buckled it into place over the sergeant's coat. Upstairs, I retrieved a cloth haversack from the first bedroom (this, too, had been the soldier’s) and stuffed it with a sheepskin and blanket to serve for a bed. Into another sack I placed flint-and-steel and a skillet and such provisions as I would need for the walk down the mountain and back, a journey of two days.

  Judah was restless. He panted to follow me about the house, claws clicking up then down the stair and round the room as I opened the stove-door and stacked inside the unfired logs. I added kindling and tinder and left the last of the matches too, for I carried the flint and would have no need of them. The stove readied I took up my pack and rifle and opened the door.

  I called for Judah, but he would not come, and I could not let him remain behind to starve. He whined in protest as I fastened round the halter then shrieked for fear as I dragged him over the threshold and the door fell shut behind us.

  The jamb stuck: I caught the handle and pulled it in, the noise echoing like a shot from the lawn and woods surrounding. Judah moaned and stayed close. With the halter round his neck he allowed himself to be led down the slate steps then cross the orchard.

  The woods were quiet. They held within themselves a silence like that before the Word was spoken. The wolves had retreated to their den and such deer as remained were bedded down in the thorns and briar-bushes. The pits we passed were empty, their coverings undisturbed, and we were near the dry creek-bed when Judah scented a hare. His hunger mastered his fear and he nipped at my hand which held the rope. I released him, and he leapt, thrashing, into the undergrowth.

  The brush rattled and heaved with the struggle and the hare was surely starved or injured for Judah caught it with ease, emerging from the underbrush with the long body clamped and twitching in his jaws. I finished the hare with a blow from the hatchet then skinned and dressed the carcass. Its haunches I cut into long slivers and held these out for Judah to take. He sucked the flesh from my hand then licked my fingers clean of blood. I discarded the skin then swaddled the butchered meat in cambric to be cooked and eaten that evening when I stopped to pass the night, as was my habit, on the bald lookout over the river.

  An hour’s walk, and we reached the end of the valley. The river surging in ages past had hacked a channel through the ridgelines surrounding and this we followed for hours till we were clear of the vale: I un-looped the halter but Judah stayed close, and would not stray, and together we descended. The forest thinned as we neared town. Fir and spruce gave onto aspen and birch with green leaves curled to give more light. Late in the afternoon we left the spring woods and passed between unseeded fiel
ds black with upturned earth. The town took shape before us, forming out of the dusk as from a mist: the church-spire first then the mill and the red bricks of the general store which showed the evening’s glow.

  The journey had taken longer than I anticipated. I feared I reached the town too late, but the doors to the general store were open and a band of four farm laborers off work lingered outside. For the most part they paid me no mind, all but one man who was older than the others and who looked upon me queerly.

  I returned his stare. He did not look away but neither did he speak and soon returned to chewing his pipe stem with eyes half-shut as in thought.

  Barstow appeared in the doorway. The shop-keep is a glutton, a drunkard: red-faced and fat, his apron smeared with sawdust and flour and streaked with dark molasses.

  He said: “Been expecting you these last two weeks.”

  “That so.”

  “Come in,” he said. “Leave the animal.”

  I slipped the halter from my coat and with it secured Judah to the hitching post. He gave no protest, no reproach, but slumped against the post with his head laid down between his forepaws and ears standing up.

  I entered the store. Inside I exchanged the furs for credit as was our arrangement then purchased oats and rice and coffee as well as bacon and butter. Other items too: hooks and line, matches, gunpowder, jerky. I laid these provisions out in the oilcloth then bound it shut with ropes before taking the bundle onto my back. I strained with the weight of it, more tired than I realized. Barstow made no comment but merely watched me go.

  The sun was low and sinking, nearing the tree-line. The hired men had gone, all but the oldest among them, who lingered with the pipe-stem clamped between his teeth. He was leant up against the wall of the saloon wherein the others had vanished with his gaze fixed on me as I unhooked the halter from the post and took the lead into my hand.

  I withdrew a length of jerky from my coat-pocket and held it out for Judah. He sniffed at it but showed no interest and allowed himself to be led without protest, staying close behind me all the while, sheltering in the shade I cast.

  We passed the saloon-doors and the old hired-man. I was lost to my thoughts and did not hear his voice and only halted when I felt his hand upon my arm. I spun round. My eyes met his, and he must have seen something there for he removed his hand, as though scorched, and retreated from me with hands raised for fear that I might strike him.

  “No need of that,” he said. “Wanted a word with you is all.”

  “Then have it,” I said.

  He hesitated. “Just something you should know.” He struck a match then cupped his hands round the flame to re-light his pipe. “There was someone behind you,” he continued, coughing, the smoke on his lips. “As you came into town just now. Someone following. A man.”

  I shook my head. “I would have heard him. The dog would have scented him.”

  “He kept his distance. Walked some paces behind you and hid hisself behind that hedgerow as you came off the hill. Been watching for him ever since.”

  “You haven’t seen him?”

  “No, but he could’ve sneaked off, I suppose. If he made for the woods, I mightn't have seen him.”

  “Or he is still up there,” I said. “Waiting for me.”

  He nodded. “It’s why I stopped you. In case he’s planning to jump you. The others, mind, they wanted no truck with you. They say you're a strange one, and so you are, but it isn't right, is it, a man should turn toward his home without knowing what's there waiting for him.”

  “No.”

  The old man made his goodbyes and disappeared into the saloon. From inside I heard the young men shouting as he joined them and this was followed in turn by the first strains of a song in voices rough and wild as the wolves’.

  The moon was shining brightly upon the battle-plain…

  I did not stay to listen. I un-slung my rifle to check the breech then placed my thumb upon the hammer, readied. I willed my hands to be still and my breath to slow and climbed to the high fields. The halter slipped from my wrist to my elbow, but I did not adjust my grip upon the rifle, did not dare. I pulled Judah along by the throat so he lost his footing again and again.

  We gained the hillside, the juniper hedge where the man was said to be hiding. I approached with the rifle at my shoulder, the barrel outthrust.

  There proved no need of it: no one behind the hedgerow, no one waiting for me in ambush. But Judah’s fright was catching, I suppose, because I started to run. The breath pumped through me as from a bellows and I made for that line of hills at such a pace as I could manage.

  The sun was down when I reached the overlook with its view of the river and the vale below. I made camp upon the promontory, as I often do, building a fire from windfall strewn about the hillside where winter blasted the summit and splintered the last of the shade-trees.

  I took a bird for our supper. A woodcock ventured too near the fire and I downed it with a shot from the rifle. Wild turkeys were nearby and there were chipmunks and squirrels and such game as I had not seen in months. The bird I prepared by the light of the fire then drove in the rod by which to roast its carcass over the logs.

  The flames licked up: the flesh charred, bubbled, dripped. A hunger came over me at the scent, heavenly after weeks of rice and fish, but Judah only stalked the edges of the firelight, as though compelled, his eyes showing white about the sockets where they turned to the dark surrounding. He whined, softly.

  The valley was below us, the river unheard at this height. Wind whistled in the broken trees and made the flames to leap and dance, shedding sparks in clouds like fireflies for all the summer was far off. Supper, then. I filled my belly while Judah paced and finally halted opposite me with the fire between us, hiding him from view.

  Exhaustion overcame me: I slept.

  I awoke to a ring of smoldering embers and Judah keeping watch with the darkness cinched round us and tightening. The fire in dying was like a storm’s eye with a chill wind rustling all about and no other sound but footsteps close-by and circling the fire. I heard them in the undergrowth, mulching leaves and twigs together.

  Judah heard them too.

  He spun round, mad with fright, and snarled through his teeth. His jaws snapped at the air clotted with smoke and embers whirling up as I leapt half-dazed from dreaming and planted my boot amidst the coals of the fire-pit. I cursed and stumbled back, smoke-blind and coughing on sparks as I dropped to my knees and rooted in the grass for the rifle: dead grass in blades, the thorns of a creeping briar. The gun was gone, stolen away. I hugged the cartridge box close with one hand while with the other I pulled a coal-red stick from out the fire and waved it before me.

  Judah yelped and howled and tore round the fire-pit. The thief, it seemed, was near, his footsteps close, but he evaded us. I could not see him though I thrust out the torch before me and waited for my eyes to adjust: naked trees at clearing's end, the forest massing far below.

  The footsteps were louder now, faster. They revolved about the fire-pit with Judah keeping pace, snapping at shadows as they winged through the firelight. I was shouting, hoarse, the words tearing in my throat though I recall nothing of what I said. It hardly matters: I wanted only to drown out Judah’s frenzied yelping, the sound of footsteps circling.

  His tread was that of a heavy man but he moved with the speed of a bat so that even Judah flagged and fell behind, panting. The hound’s breath failed him. He snarled with the air that was left in him. I swung with the torch, so wildly the glow extinguished in my hand. I slipped the hatchet from my coat and hacked at the air, cutting the man’s shadow to pieces though he did not cease or slow and Judah collapsed by the fireside. His barking yielded to a long, low moan, and the man was gone.

  His footsteps retreated. They faded from the grass, the underbrush. The moon slid down the sky to reveal an empty expanse of hilltop, a clearing starred with frost and the loops of a man’s boot-prints breaking through. The gun was missing. Plainly
the man had taken it with him, carrying it off with the shadow he dragged behind.

  I kicked at the coals and rekindled the fire, striking sparks with my flint from off the hatchet’s blade. “Eat,” I said to Judah, and he was too weary to refuse. He slurped the flesh of the woodcock from my hand and swallowed down the burnt fat. My hands were wet with saliva, blood: I wiped them dry on my coat then lay down awake to watch the stars go out of the sky.

  They did. The sky flared violet then dimmed into gray. In the fog of the morning, I shouldered my pack and smothered the fire and with Judah beside me walked down the hill to the river and the valley beyond. We were silent just as the land was silent: no birds, no wind. Only the river as we drew near. The flow was up. The waters gurgled through the mist like the phlegm trapped in a sick man’s chest and driftwood formed a kind of dam where the rains washed down the slopes of the hills surrounding.

  We neared the pine-grove, that low hill with its three pines like Calvary and the small grave at its center. I could not think of it, not now, and did not look to see the markers I had given them, twin crosses fashioned two years apart. We went on, striking southwest from the river toward the pit-traps and the house. I walked half-asleep, shambling forward with the cartridge box at my chest and the oilcloth-wrapped bundle strapped to my back, heavy with powder and shot and no gun now to fire them.

  Traps alone would not suffice. Without the rifle we would starve and starving must go south out of the mountains to the Village and the stone house. Its gates are shut against me, sealed fast in my exile, which was Adam’s, impassable though no flaming sword appears to cut me down. It is hardly necessary. Those doors will not open to me though I lose my voice in calling to them—my brothers, my sisters—and beat my fists bloody on the oak.

  Morning unraveled toward noon. We neared the house. In my reverie I did not notice Judah as he stole away. I did not even realize he had gone til I heard that awful howling at my back and realized I was alone. The screaming was to the east, the outermost ring of pit-traps. Such pain in it, such fear: he must have fallen. From the depths of the pit he howled out for rescue like a child starved for mother’s milk. The pack unbalanced me: I secreted it away in a hollow log and took off toward the pit-trap, leaping clear of fallen limbs where I spied them and somehow keeping my feet for all I stumbled, arms flung wide. I reached the pit, running, and nearly tumbled over but drew up short, and skidded to the edge, and found it empty.