Fire on the Mountain (14 page)

Several minutes passed and I began to breathe normally again. I opened my eyes. A man in blue overalls walked by above, saw me, gave me a hesitant glance, passed on his way. I stayed where I was, till the door at my back was opened abruptly from within and I fell down on my side.

A Negro in jeans and coffee-colored T-shirt, a huge carton on his shoulder, stared down at me. “You’re in my way, sonny.”

I rolled aside and he stepped over my legs, climbed the steps with his burden and disappeared.

I got up, brushed myself off a little, combed my hair with my fingers, reshaped my crushed straw hat, and walked up the stairway to street level. When I reached the sidewalk I stopped, bewildered and uncertain of my direction. I felt completely disoriented. Then I realized that the morning sun, blazing hot through the city’s smog and dust, was shining in my face. I turned my back to the sun and proceeded westward in a direction which paralleled the railway, now two or three blocks to the south. I had no sure idea where the bus terminal might be but guessed that it was probably in the center of the city, somewhere near the train station.

As I walked on, bruised and tired but vaguely elated, I did not forget to watch for the inevitable police patrol car. When the first one appeared, two blocks ahead, I stepped into the doorway of a bar. Three men on barstools eyed me as I came in; the bartender, a skinny young woman with her hair done up in paper curlers, frowned at me. But before she said anything the patrol car passed and I stepped outside again into the fierce heat of the forenoon. The reflection of myself in a window suggested that the straw cowboy hat might be a
giveaway in the eyes of a conscientious cop. I dropped the hat in a trash can as I went on.

I was afraid to ask anyone for directions. I walked on and on, bearing westward through the depths of El Paso toward the island of skyscrapers at the center. The traffic increased, the sidewalks became crowded, and I became aware of the new aspect of the people around me—not so many cowboys and Mexicans, more ruddy-faced Texans in tropical-weave suits and throngs of bright blue-eyed blonde women wearing sheath skirts, their calves golden in nylon and their feet in spike-heeled shoes—strange, alarming creatures who seemed unable to see me as I plodded along beneath their shoulders.

A cop on foot patrol rounded the corner ahead, carrying his stick. I sidled into a women’s hat shop, where slim things with elegant limbs cackled at one another like hens above the continuous murmur of the air-conditioning system. A scowling and richly-painted face of an indeterminate sex lowered at me as I trod on the deep carpeting. I backed to the door and slipped out behind the policeman’s back.

Finally I decided I’d have to use my powers of speech if I were ever to find the bus station. Otherwise I might walk clear through the city and have to come back again. I stopped in front of an ancient little man selling papers at the curb; though he looked ninety years old he was not as tall as I. He told me where the bus station was. I followed the street pointed out by his crooked finger and sure enough, when I walked down it, there was the Greyhound in neon, the familiar smell of diesel fumes, the usual assembly of homesick draftees and sailor boys.

I counted my money, bought a one-way ticket to Baker, and decided to have some lunch. Climbing onto a stool at the counter I ordered two hamburgers with everything, a chocolate milkshake and a wedge of apple pie with ice cream. I’d missed this sort of soft sweet rotten food out at Grandfather’s ranch.

As I ate my lunch I kept an eye on the mirror behind the lunch counter, watching the traffic that passed through the doorways. If any policeman appeared I was resolved to bolt for the men’s room. But no one bothered me.

My bus, bound for Albuquerque by way of Baker, Alamogordo, Carrizozo and Socorro, would not leave for another two hours. When I’d finished eating I decided to hide in the john.

I sat in there for a long time, locked in a booth and reading a newspaper to pass the time. When I tired of that I recalled in detail my escape from the train and my progress through the city. I wondered if Lee could have heard about it yet and decided that that was unlikely. If he knew he’d guess immediately where I was headed for and how, and the next feet I’d see, through the opening under the toilet door, would be his in their rich brown boots, and the next voice I’d hear would be Lee Mackie’s, calling out my name:

Billy! Billy Vogelin Starr!

I shook my head, woke up. A memory of a dream floated through my mind and then was lost. I heard the rumble of the loudspeaker calling off old names: Alamogordo, Carrizozo, Socorro …

I jumped up, suddenly alert and panicky, fumbled with the doorlatch, escaped, and walked as fast as I could, without running, out of the men’s room, through the lobby and out to Gate Three, where the bus waited for me, silver door still open, the driver punching the ticket of the last passenger in the queue. I trotted up, he looked me over closely, and accepted my ticket with what seemed to me like distrust.

“Where are you going, boy?”

I swallowed once before speaking. “Baker.” Couldn’t he read the ticket?

“No baggage?”

“What?”

“Where’s your baggage?”

“I—don’t have any.”

“Baker, eh?”

“Yes sir.”

“You live there?”

“Yes. Yes sir.”

Reluctantly he gave me back my perforated ticket. For a second we both held it, tugging gently against each other. “What’re you doing in the big city all by yourself?” he asked.

“Sir?”

“I said. …” He stopped, sighed, shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Hop in, sonny.”

I found a seat well in the rear of the bus, among the Negroes and Mexicans, behind the soldiers and sailors and Southern-type women. A short spell later we were all riding luxuriously and safely through traffic-jammed streets toward the north, toward the desert, toward freedom and war.

When the bus halted an hour later before Hayduke’s combination post office, grocery store and bus stop in Baker, in the middle of the afternoon, I still had not figured out where I could hide through the remainder of the endless August day.

Two people were getting out of the bus. I followed close behind them and as they entered Hayduke’s place I entered too. Fortunately for me no one was waiting on customers except old man Hayduke himself, and he was busy sorting mail behind the post-office grill.

The two strangers went up to him; I sneaked on by and into the men’s room. I locked the door, climbed on the sink and looked out the small half-open window.

Nothing much to see: an open lot extending clear to a fence half a mile away, the lot traversed by a dirt road at the moment empty of traffic. I could not possibly wander out that way without being seen by somebody. And as I understood my plan, I had to get back to the ranch undetected and keep in hiding there too, until the crucial day arrived when the old man would need me.

A customer tried to open the toilet door, found it locked, swore, and went away. But he’d be back, or
others would. I looked up to the ceiling and found what I had hoped for: a trap door. By standing on the water closet on top of the toilet bowl I was able to reach and open it. But before pulling myself up into the blackness of the attic I unlocked the entrance to the room, after making sure no one was waiting on the other side of the door. It seemed best.

Quickly, before anyone did come, I hoisted myself up through the ceiling and put the trap door back in place.

Black as night up in there and nothing to rest on but the ceiling joists, A rack of two-by-fours makes a poor bed. I waited for my eyes to get used to the darkness, then looked around.

A few feet away was a door in the attic partition. I went through that and found myself in Hayduke’s loft, which was lit by a window overlooking the main street of Baker. This was a considerable improvement. Also the loft was floored and contained a few pieces of junk furniture. Except for the smothering heat, there was little to complain of. I sat down near the window and after watching the near-empty street for a while, fell asleep.

I woke up around sundown, craving water, my belly grumbling for food. The close air and heat made me feel nauseated as well. I listened carefully for any sound of activity in the store and post office below. There was none. Undoubtedly old Hayduke had gone home hours before. I opened another hatch, much bigger than the trap door over the men’s room, and climbed down a wooden ladder nailed to the wall.

One dim electric bulb glowed in the post office behind the wall of mailboxes, barely modifying the twilight that filled the store. A man clomped past in front, boots clattering on the concrete. I crept on hands and knees to the soft-drink cooler and helped myself to a bottle of orange soda pop. That helped. I drank a second, then crawled to the bakery goods and ate six chocolate cupcakes, which aroused my thirst again.
I crept back to the cooler and drank two more bottles of orange pop.

This was thievery, of course. After a great struggle with my conscience I decided not to leave any money on Hayduke’s cash register. Not because I couldn’t afford it—I had nearly ten dollars left—but chiefly because it gave me such a deep authentic pleasure to steal. I ate more cupcakes, drank more pop, and waited for the night to settle in.

When it did I crawled on all fours to the rear door and slipped out into the cool blessed darkness. For the first time in five hours I was able and felt free to stand upright.

The open lot faced toward the east. I walked south behind the scattered buildings of Baker, crossed the highway half a mile south of town and headed northwest toward the dirt road that led to Vogelin’s ranch.

Perhaps my direction was a little off course. Though I had the lights of the town to guide me it was an hour before I reached the road. And by that time I was hungry and thirsty again. I cursed myself for stupidly forgetting to bring any of Hayduke’s food and drink with me. Too late now.

I struck out west at a steady walk, feeling light as a tumbleweed, despite my hunger and thirst, or maybe because of it. Gaily I tramped along, watching the maneuvers of the stars, and one by one sang all the new songs that Lee had taught me that summer. There’d be no moon tonight, but my night vision was good. The road stretched out ahead as clear to me as an illuminated highway.

It wasn’t long though before I started to tire. I lay down in the sandy ditch and rested and slept for I don’t know how long, till the cold night air chilled me through and I woke up and walked on.

A jet plane roared far overhead, the afterburner glowing like a red star. Presently I heard another noise, the sound of an automobile. I looked back and saw a
pair of lights twinkling on my trail, bobbing toward me on the uneven road.

Panicked, I ran off the road and into a barbed wire fence. The flat open desert surrounded me. No place to hide. I crawled through the fence, tearing my coat again, and ran away from the road and hid behind a clump of saltbush, stretching prone on the sand. A shrill buzzing started nearby. For a moment I didn’t understand it. I suppose I unconsciously assumed it was a locust, but when I saw the dark coils and the spade-shaped head rising beyond my outstretched hand I understood quickly enough, without any thinking about it, and rolled away and ran for the next saltbush, and threw myself down again.

The car swept past, taillights shining through the dust. Lee’s car? I couldn’t be sure; it might have been. I got up and started toward the road. It was then that the terror hit me, the full meaning of that vibrating rope of poison. I had to sit down and rest some more before my heart finally stopped thumping like an engine and my nerves had composed themselves enough to resume control of my muscles and limbs.

Tired as a branded calf, I crawled through the barbed wire and wobbled down the road, following the fading hum of the car and the tiny red lights. The lights soon disappeared and the sound of the motor petered out completely. Under the silence of the stars I plodded on, my head drooping and my arms hanging dead, my hands heavy as rocks.

Hours later—it seemed like hours later—I saw the boundary line of grandfather’s ranch, the big square gateway looming black against the deep blue of the night. I was almost upon it before I saw the jeep parked near the gate, the gleam of helmets, the burning coal of a cigarette, and heard the mumble of human voices, the static of radio.

I stopped, stared, almost too dazed by hunger and thirst and fatigue to care now whether I was caught or not. At last I decided not to give up, not yet, and
walked a big detour around the jeep and the gateway, climbing over a couple of fences and angling back to the road well beyond the guards.

At least I had learned where I was. Ranch headquarters—home, food, water and sleep—were only three miles farther. That knowledge gave me the courage to continue. Shuffling through the dust, stumbling over the teeth of buried ledges of rock, I marched on, dreaming of water and meat—yes, it was meat I yearned for now—and a hidden corner in which to lie down and sleep for a few days.

Headlights emerged from the Salado wash and leveled at me, coming across the old lakebed. Once more I hurried off the road and lay down behind the brush, first making sure there was no rattlesnake waiting for me. The car approached, racing across the alkali flats and then slowing as it climbed and wound up the slope among the boulders. I watched it come, too tired to be more than mildly curious. But this time I was sure it was Lee’s car and I thought I saw two men on the front seat. That meant that Grandfather had abandoned the ranch-house to join in the search for me.

It seemed to take another hour for me to comprehend what that might mean. When awareness came at last it was too late. I stood up, ran toward the road, and howled with all my strength at the receding taillights:

“Grandfather! Lee! Stop! Wait! Grandfather …!”

Too late: the car kept going, the lights faded in the distance. How could they have heard me? Tears streamed down my face as I stood helplessly in the middle of the road and watched the lights of the car merge with the darkness, and heard the whine of the motor grow thinner and thinner, spiraling up and outward into the roofless sky.