Fire on the Mountain (20 page)

As threads of gas leaked out of the house the marshal walked out into the open again and shouted at my grandfather:

“Mr. Vogelin! You better come on out now, Mr. Vogelin. Don’t try to breathe that stuff, it might kill you if you breathe too much. Just put a rag over your
face and open the front door. Come on out now, Mr. Vogelin, we won’t shoot. Everything will be all right.”

The door did not open. There was no sound from within the house. Maybe the old man had been able to keep out most of the gas by simply closing the dampers in the chimneys.

The marshal waited a little longer, then stepped forward, once, twice, toward the house, the ax in his hand. He stopped and called again:

“We’re waiting for you, Mr. Vogelin. Please come out now. You’ll get mighty sick if you don’t come out of there, Mr. Vogelin. That gas can make you mighty sick, sometimes too much of it will kill a man. You hear me, Mr. Vogelin?”

Still no reply. The marshal scratched his head, looking around, looking at us, his face grim, shining with sweat. He faced the house, sighed profoundly—I saw his chest rise and fall—and took another step toward the verandah.

Exactly as before, a rifle went off inside the house and the bullet burned through the air close above the marshal’s head, plowing through the foliage of the trees.

I watched two leaves fall slowly to the ground. Before they had spanned the distance from the bough to ground the marshal had scurried back to cover and was again in consultation with his assistant, behind the automobile.

And again we waited. Five minutes. Ten minutes. While the sun crawled toward the zenith, flaring horribly, roasting the earth and baking skulls. I felt sorry for the man on the roof, devoid of shade and afraid to try to get down. No, I didn’t feel sorry for that dirty scum at all, not when I thought of my grandfather, of the old man waiting inside the house, peering down across the sights of a gun barrel, looking out from his suffocating darkness—if he was still alive—at the blaze of light beating down like golden hail on the world outside. He would see the motionless machines, the tired men crouching in the shade, the continuous shaking
of the cottonwood leaves, and across the wash the burnt desert, under layers of undulant heat waves, stretching away for mile after mile toward the beloved and lost, the unattainable mountains.

I felt the deputy relaxing at my side, his breathing slow and deep. Suddenly I broke loose and ran across the open ground toward the house.

“Stop that boy!”

Two of them pounded after me, ran me down halfway to the house and dragged me back to the bunkhouse wall. This time, without a word, the deputy handcuffed me to the hitching rail.

We waited.

Apparently unable to think of anything more appropriate, the marshal finally gave the command for another barrage of tear gas. The men fired, the grenades arched through the air and smashed against wall and doors and window shutters, obscuring the house with dust and smoke.

Before the gas cleared away the marshal came out of hiding—he was a brave little man—and trotted toward the house with the ax. Halfway there a fistful of dust spurted up at his feet, the bullet caromed off the ground and droned through the air. The marshal halted, staring at the house, his hat back, the ax hanging in his hand. The rifle spoke again, the bullet wanged past the marshal’s shoulder. He turned and lumbered back to shelter, swearing, his belly jiggling.

“Kill them, Grandfather!” I hollered. “Kill them! What are you waiting for?” Why was he shooting all around them—had the gas blinded him? Tears were blinding me. I struggled with my handcuffs, shook the rail, and kicked at the deputy when he tried to stop me.

The marshal took out his frustration on me. “Put that kid in the car,” he bellowed, “and take him clean away from here!”

The deputy came toward me.

“The rest of you,” the marshal roared, turning to the others, “forget them grenades. Pump a few tracers into
that house. Maybe we can burn that old lunatic outa there!”

At that moment the hum of a motor reached our ears. We all heard it. The deputy coming toward me hesitated, the marshal closed his mouth, the men stared up the slope toward the top of the ridge, where the road wound among the boulders.

The sun flashed on the glass of the big cream-colored automobile as it appeared over the top and came racing down the roar at a suicidal speed. It jounced along to the bottom, churning up plumes of dust, skidded around the turn beyond the pasture fence, and came rocking toward us under the grove of trees. Beside Lee, in the front seat, was the pale face, the big staring eyes, of a frightened woman. For one panic-struck moment I thought it was my mother—then I recognized her as Marian, my Alamogordo aunt.

Lee drove the car roughly into the clear space between the ranch-house and the besiegers, jammed on the brakes and jumped out, while the dust swirled wildly around the car and the screech of rubber sliding over rock still hung in the air.

He looked quickly around, standing bold and tall in the light and the sudden shocking silence.

“Lee!” I called.

He saw me, the terrible look of danger burned on his face. “Turn that boy loose!” he commanded.

Hurriedly the deputy released me. My Aunt Marian was out of the car by now and when she saw me came running toward me awkwardly, as women do, with her arms extended and tears streaming down her face. She hugged me to her, held me so tight and close I could barely breathe and could not see what Lee would do next. But I wasn’t worried any more, the fear was washed away, and with it the outrage I’d felt while waiting for Lee to come.

“Oh you poor boy, you poor poor poor little boy,” she cried over me. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you out of this? Why did he let you stay?” She
kept embracing me and kissing me, closing my eyes with kisses. I had to break loose.

“Please,” I said, “please, Grandfather is in there. Let’s—please, let me see!”

Now Lee was talking to the marshal, his face taut with anger. But he spoke so quietly I couldn’t hear what he said. Abruptly, harshly, he turned his back on the marshal and started walking toward the front of the house. In his hand he held the ax.

“John,” he shouted. “It’s time to quit. Let me in. This is Lee. Are you all right?”

From inside came Grandfather’s voice, strangely muffled. “Stand back, Lee. Stand back.”

“I’m coming in, old horse, don’t try and stop me.”

Lee walked steadily toward the porch, his hat back, the blade of the ax glittering before his hand.

“Stop, Lee,” cried the old man from somewhere inside. “You stop now, Lee.”

“I’m not stopping. Go ahead and shoot.”

The old man fired over Lee’s head. The bullet wailed through the air, cutting a few more leaves from the cottonwoods.

“Stop, Lee. Stand back now.”

Lee kept walking. “No I won’t stop, you old fool. You come out of there.”

We heard the clatter of falling boards. The front door was opening violently from the inside and my grandfather appeared in the doorway, pointing the carbine straight at Lee.

“You stop. You stop, Lee—what do you think you’re doing?”

Lee was now almost at the porch steps. “Shoot, old horse,” he said. “Go ahead and shoot me.” He dropped the ax.

Grandfather raised the muzzle of his gun and fired again, close over Lee’s head. The report had hardly died away before he levered another shell into the chamber.

“Last time, Lee. Last time. You touch my house and I’ll kill you.”

Lee appeared to hesitate for a moment. He almost stopped. Then he said, “Go ahead,” and stepped up on the verandah, coming within eight feet of the old man, who aimed the rifle directly at Lee’s belly.

“I’ll kill you!” the old man shouted.

“Here I am,” Lee said. He stopped and opened his arms. “Here I am.”

My grandfather paused. In the shade of the verandah we could see his whole body tremble, his face blanched pale with hatred and exasperation and defeat.

“You traitor!” he bellowed. “Oh, Lee, you dirty traitor!” And he threw the rifle as hard as he could down on the floor of the porch. His knees started to buckle.

Lee caught him before he fell and helped him walk toward us, toward Aunt Marian and me and the car that would take him away from the ranch.

I thought that Grandfather was weeping: his shoulders heaved, his head was down, his hands were clenching and unclenching in pain, but his eyes, when I saw them, were burned dry. He looked like a blind man.

Lee and Marian helped him into the back seat of the car. I stared at the old man.

Lee put his strong hand on my shoulder. “He’ll be all right, Billy. Come on now.”

I shook off his hand and glared up at him. “Keep your hand off me, Lee Mackie. Don’t you ever talk to me again.”

Three days later the old man disappeared.

We were staying with Aunt Marian in Alamorgordo, Grandfather and I, sleeping in her guest room, eating at her table. I was scheduled to leave for the East on the following day; Grandfather wasn’t supposed to be going anywhere. But he went. He vanished. And I saw him go.

That first day and night after we separated him from his ranch he was a sick man. He would not speak to anyone, he would not look at anyone. He simply sat on a chair or lay on his bed, eyes wide open, staring at nothing.

Aunt Marian called in a doctor and the doctor treated the old man’s eyes, which had been hurt but not seriously burned by the tear gas. He gave Grandfather a going-over with his instruments and said he could find nothing wrong except a temporary condition of what he called nervous shock. He prescribed sedative pills and plenty of rest.

Grandfather seemed to improve a little the next day. He ate a light meal, sat outside in the shade during the afternoon watching the neighbors ride their gasoline-powered lawn mowers over their tiny patches of lawn, and spoke a few words to me and my aunt. He wanted to know if the horses had been provided for.

She told him that the horses were all right, that Lee was keeping them on his place east of the city. The old man had to repeat his question; the almost continual roar of jet planes overhead was making conversation
difficult. My aunt repeated her answer, and the old man said nothing more. I don’t think he slept much that second night: he woke me up twice with his mumbling and getting out of bed to wander through the house.

The third night he left us. Soon after we were all in bed and the lights were out and the house was silent except for the mutter of the appliances and the braying of the traffic uptown and the thunder of jets above, he crawled out of his bunk, dressed himself in the dark, and padded across the room to me. He must’ve been feeling much better, in his way: a cigar was burning in his hand.

“You awake, Billy?”

“Yes sir.”

He sat down on the edge of my bed and put his huge gentle hand on my shoulder. For a while he said nothing, just puffed on the cigar. At last he spoke:

“Billy, you remember that ride you and me and Lee took up to the mountain last June?”

“Sure, Grandfather. I’ll never forget it.”

“Remember how thirsty you got and how we kidded you about the canteen?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever tell Lee?”

“Tell him what, Grandfather?”

“That I was packing a canteen in my saddlebags?”

I thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think I ever did. No sir, I’m sure I never told him—you asked me not to.”

“That’s right. And you never told him?”

“No sir.”

His cigar flared up a little in the dark and then died down. I could see him fairly well by that time, as my eyes got used to the dim light coming in through the curtains and blinds. The old man was wearing his hat.

“I’m leaving here, Billy.”

“I know, Grandfather.”

“How did you know?”

I paused. “I can’t—I don’t know why. I just knew it.”

“All right. Well, that’s what I’m doing. I’m leaving. I’m running away tonight, just like a kid.” He was silent. “No sir, I can’t stay here another day. I have to pull out. Now I want to ask you this: Do you know where I’m gonna be?”

“Sir?”

“I’m going to hide, Billy, and I think you know where I’m going to do it. Don’t you?”

I thought that over for a moment. “Yes sir.”

“Sure you do. I knew you would. But we won’t mention it because when they all get on you—Marian and Lee and maybe Isabel will be here too, or your mother—when they start putting the pressure on you, why you can say I never told you where I was going. You won’t have to lie too much. Do you follow, Billy?”

“Yes sir.”

“That’s good. And you promise not to tell them?”

“I promise, Grandfather.”

“Fine. That’s the idea.” He started to rise from my bed.

“Let me go with you.”

“What?”

“I want to go with you, Grandfather.”

He puffed on the cigar. “No, Billy. That we can’t do and you know it. You have to go home now. Maybe next summer—

“Home?”

“Yes. What’d I say? But next summer, maybe, you can join me again. We’ll see how things work out.”

“I wish I could go with you.”

“I know. But this time I have to go by myself.” He stood up slowly; I heard him sighing as he looked down at me.

“Goodbye, Billy.”

I couldn’t answer him; I was afraid to say goodbye and I was glad he could not see my tears. In the darkness I watched his tall figure turn, saw him take a small bundle off the dresser by his bed and move to the bedroom door. He faded away, stepping quietly down
the hall and out the front door. listening intently, I heard the sound of the pickup truck as he started the engine and drove off.

It took me a long time to get to sleep that night. And when I did sleep I was troubled by a dream: a dream of fireflies, of marvelous blue-flaming stars that kept receding from me, of a pair of yellow eyes burning in dusk and silence.

The excitement began the next morning when I walked into the kitchen for breakfast. My Aunt Marian and her husband were sitting there drinking coffee.

“Where’s your grandfather?” she asked.

“He’s okay.”

“Somebody stole his truck last night,” her husband said. “But don’t get excited,” he added, as I seemed to hesitate. “Don’t tell the old man; he might get upset. I’ve already called the police about it. They’ll probably find the truck before the day is over.” He finished his coffee as I sat down at my place. “I told him several times he shouldn’t leave the keys in the ignition. It’s a bad habit which he’s got to learn to break if he’s going to live in town.” He folded the newspaper and got up from the table. “I’ll see you at dinner-time—and for godsake don’t let the old man worry about the truck. I wonder if he has insurance on it? Oh well—I’d better go.” And he rushed off to work.