Last Summer at Mars Hill (33 page)

A little while ago he had taken a capsule, washing it down with a scant tumbler of scotch. He took a childish pleasure in violating his body now.

“Festus,” he croaked, his hand ruffling the air at his side. Festus shambled over, tail vibrating. “Hey Festus, my good dog. My good bright dog.”

Festus licked Howell’s hand, licked his chops and whined hopefully.

“Dinner?” Howell said, surprised. “So early.” Then wondered in alarm if he had fed the dog yesterday; if he had forgotten that as he had sometimes forgotten the mail, his clothes, his own meals. He stood uneasily, head thrumming, and went to the kitchen.

A moist crust still rimmed the dog’s dish. There was water in his bowl. But when Howell opened the cabinet beneath the sink there were no cans there. The tall red Purina bag was empty.

“Oh, no,” he murmured, then looked in the refrigerator. A few eggs; some frozen vegetables. There would be soup in the cupboard. “Festus, Christ, I’m sorry.” Festus danced expectantly across the planked floor to wait at his dish.

Howell leaned against the sink and stared outside. Schelling’s might still be open; if not, Isaac lived behind the store. There was gas in the car. Peter had returned the keys, reluctantly, but Howell hadn’t driven in months. If he waited it might be two days before anyone called or checked Sugar Mountain. He rummaged through closets until he found boots and heavy parka, then shoved his inhaler into a pocket. He paused in the kitchen, wondering if he should bring the dog with him.

“I’ll be back soon,” he said at last, rumpling the spaniel’s ears. Then he swallowed another pill.

Outside, flakes the size of his thumb swirled down and burst into hundreds of crystals upon his parka. The sky hung so low and dark that it seemed like nightfall. Howell had no idea what time it really was. He staggered to the car, kicking the door until snow fell from it and he could find the handle. He checked the back seat for shovel, sand, blankets. Then he started the engine. The car lurched forward.

He had heard the snowplow earlier, but the road was already buried once more. As the car drifted toward a high bank, Howell wondered why it was he had decided to go out, finally recalled Festus waiting hungrily at home.

In a few minutes he realized it was futile to steer toward one side of the road or the other. Instead he tried to keep a few feet between car and trees, and so avoid driving into the woods. Soon even this was difficult. Pines leaned where he had never seen trees. The stone walls that bounded the road had buckled into labyrinthine waves. Down the gentle slope inched the car, bluish spume flying behind it. The heater did not work. The windshield wipers stuck again. He reached out and cleared a tiny patch to see through the frigid black glass starred with soft explosions.

Through the clear spot, Howell saw only white and gray streaks. Smears left by his fingers on the glass froze and reflected the steady green and red lights of the dashboard. His hands dropped from the wheel, and he rubbed them together. The car glided onward.

Dreaming, he saw for an instant a calm frozen sea swelling beneath tiny windows, interior darkness broken by blinking panel lights while, outside, shone the azure bow of Earth. Then his forehead grazed the edge of the steering wheel, and he started, gently pressing the brake.

An animal plunged in front of the car, a golden blur like a summer stain upon the snow It thudded against the bumper.

“Son of a bitch,” murmured Howell.

The car stopped. As he stepped out he glanced behind him, shielding his eyes. Snow already filled the tracks snaking a scant hundred feet to the end of his drive. He pulled the hood tight about his face and turned.

In front of the car sprawled a naked boy, eyes closed as if asleep, skin steaming at the kiss of melting snow. Long black hair tangled with twigs; one fist raised to his lips. A drowsing child. The astronaut stooped and very gently touched his cheek. It was feverishly hot.

The boy moaned. Howell staggered against the bumper. The freezing pain jolted him. He stumbled to the door, reaching for the old Hudson’s Bay blanket. Then he knelt beside the boy, head pounding, and wrapped him in the blanket. He tried to carry him: too heavy. Howell groaned, then dragged boy and blanket to the side of the car. For a moment he rested, wheezing, before heaving the boy into the passenger seat.

Afterward he couldn’t remember driving back to the house. Festus met him at the door, barking joyfully. Staggering beneath the boy’s weight, Howell kicked the door shut behind him, then kneeling placed the bundle on the floor.

“Festus, shh,” he commanded.

The dog approached the boy, tail wagging. Then he stiffened and reared back snarling.

“Festus, shut up.” Exhausted, Howell threw down his parka. He paused to stare at the blizzard still raging about the mountainside. “Festus, I’m throwing you out there if you don’t shut up.” He clapped and pointed toward the kitchen. “Go lie down.”

Festus barked, but retreated to the kitchen.

Now what the hell is this?
Howell ran his hands over his wet scalp and stared down at the boy. Melting snow dripped from the blanket to stain the wooden floor. Tentatively he stooped and pulled back a woolen corner.

In the room’s ruddy light the boy looked even paler, his skin ashen. Grime streaked his chest. The hair on his legs and groin was stiff with dirt. Howell grimaced: the boy smelled like rotting meat.

He brushed matted hair from the thin face. “Jesus Christ, what have you been doing?” he murmured. Drugs? What drugs would make someone run naked through the snow? Wincing, Howell let the tangled locks slip from his hand.

The boy moaned and twisted his head. He bared his teeth, eyes still tightly shut, and cried softly. His hand drooped upon his chest, fingers falling open. In his palm lay a stone attached to a filthy string around his neck.

Howell crossed the room to a bay window. Here a window seat served as spare bed, fitted neatly into the embrasure. He opened a drawer beneath the seat and pulled out blankets, quickly smoothed the cushion and arranged pillows. Then he got towels and tried his best to dry the boy before wrapping him in a clean blanket and dragging him to the window. Grunting, he eased him onto the bed. He covered him first with a cotton comforter, then heaped on coarse woolen blankets until the boy snorted and turned onto his stomach. After a few minutes his breathing slowed. Howell sank into an armchair to watch him sleep.

From a white dream, Andrew moaned and thrashed, floundering through unyielding pastures that resolved into blankets tangled about his legs. He opened his eyes and lay very still, holding his breath in terror. The darkness held an awful secret. He whimpered as he tried to place it. Turning his head, he saw a shining patch above him, a pale moon in a cobalt sky. His eyes burned. Shrugging free of the comforter, he sat up. Through the window he glimpsed the forest, snowy fields blued by moonlight. Colors. He glanced down and, for the first time since autumn, saw his hands. Slowly he drew them to his throat until they touched the stone there. His fingers ached, and he flexed them until the soreness abated. New blood tingled in his palms. He sniffed tentatively: dust and stale wood smoke, his own sweat—and another’s.

In an armchair slept an old man, mouth slightly ajar, his breathing so soft it scarcely stirred the air. At his feet lay a dog. It stared at Andrew and growled, a low ceaseless sound like humming bees.

“Hey,” whispered the boy, his voice cracking. “Good dog.”

The dog drew closer to the old man’s feet. Andrew swung his legs over the bedside, gasping at the strain on forgotten muscles. As blankets slid to the floor, he noted, surprised, how the hair on his legs had grown thick and black.

Even without covers the room’s warmth blanketed him, and he sighed with pleasure. Unsteadily, he crossed to a window, balancing himself with one hand against the wall. The snow had stopped. Through clouded glass he saw an untracked slope, a metal birdfeeder listing beneath its white dome. He reached for the talisman, remembering. Autumn days when he tugged wild grapes from brittle vines had given way to the long fat weeks of a winter without snow. Suddenly he wondered how long it had been—months? years?—and recalled his mother’s words.

…
they forgot…and stayed forever, and died up there in the woods
…

Closing his eyes, he drew the amulet to his mouth and rubbed it against his lip, thinking,
just for a little while, I could go again just for a little while…

He had almost not come back. He shook his head, squeezing tears from shut eyes. Shuddering, he leaned forward until his forehead rested against the windowpane.

A house.

The talisman slipped from his hand to dangle around his neck once more. Andrew held his breath, listening. His heartbeat quickened from desire to fear.

Whose
house?

Someone had brought him back. He faced the center of the room.

In the armchair slumped the old man, regarding Andrew with mild pale eyes. “Aren’t you cold?” he croaked, and sat up. “I can get you a robe.”

Embarrassed, Andrew sidled to the window seat and wrapped himself in the comforter, then hunched onto the mattress. “That’s okay,” he muttered, drawing his knees together. The words came out funny, and he repeated them, slowly.

Howell blinked, trying to clear his vision. “It’s still night,” he stated, and coughed. Festus whined, bumping against Howell’s leg. The astronaut suddenly stared at Andrew more closely. “What the hell were you doing out there?”

Andrew shrugged. “Lost, I guess.”

Howell snorted. “I guess so.”

The boy waited for him to bring up parents, police; but the man only gazed at him thoughtfully. The man looked sick. Even in the dimness, Andrew made out lesions on his face and hands, the long skull taut with yellow skin.

“You here alone?” Andrew finally asked.

“The dog.” Howell nudged the spaniel with his foot. “My dog, Festus. I’m Eugene Howell. Major Howell.”

“Andrew,” the boy said. A long silence before the man spoke again.

“You live here?”

“Yeah.”

“Your parents live here?”

“No. They’re dead. I mean, my mother just died. My father died a long time ago.”

Howell rubbed his nose, squinting. “Well, you got someone you live with?”

“No. I live alone.” He hesitated, then inclined his head toward the window. “In The Fallows.”

“Huh.” Howell peered at him more closely. “Were you—some kind of drugs? I found you out there—” He gestured at the window. “Butt naked. In a blizzard.” He laughed hoarsely, then gazed pointedly at the boy. “I’m just curious, that’s all. Stark naked in a snowstorm. Jesus Christ.”

Andrew picked at a scab on his knee. “I’m not on drugs,” he said at last. “I just got lost.” Suddenly he looked up, beseeching. “I’ll get out of your way. You don’t have to do anything. Okay? Like you don’t have to call anyone. I can just go back to my place.”

Howell yawned and stood slowly. “Well, not tonight. When they clear the roads.” He looked down at his feet, chagrined to see he still had his boots on. “I’m going to lie down for a little while. Still a few hours before morning.”

He smiled wanly and shuffled toward the bedroom, Festus following him. In the kitchen he paused to get his inhaler, then stared with mild disbelief at the counter where an unopened sack of dog food and six cans of Alpo stood next to a half-filled grocery bag.

“Festus,” he muttered, tearing open the sack. “I’ll be damned. I forgot Pete brought this.” He dumped food into the dog’s bowl and glanced back at the boy staring puzzled into the kitchen.

“You can take a shower if you want,” suggested Howell. “In there. Towels, a robe. Help yourself.” Then he went to bed.

In the bathroom Andrew found bedpans, an empty oxygen tank, clean towels. He kicked his comforter outside the door, hesitated before retrieving it and folding it upon the sofa. Then he returned to the bathroom. Grimacing, he examined his reflection in the mirror. Dirt caked his pores. What might be scant stubble roughened his chin, but when he rubbed it, most came off onto his fingers in tiny black beads.

In the tub stood a white metal stool. Andrew settled on this and turned on the water. He squeezed handfuls of shampoo through his long hair until the water ran clear. Most of a bar of soap dissolved before be stepped out, the last of the hot water gurgling down the drain. On the door hung a thin green hospital robe,
E. HOWELL
printed on the collar in Magic Marker. Andrew flung this over his shoulders and stepped back into the living room.

Gray light flecked the windowpanes, enough light that finally he could explore the place. It was a small house, not much bigger than his abandoned cottage. Worn Navaho rugs covered flagstone floors in front of a stone fireplace, still heaped with dead ashes and the remains of a Christmas tree studded with blackened tinsel. Brass gaslight fixtures supported light bulbs and green glass shades. And everywhere about the room, pictures.

He could scarcely make out the cedar paneling beneath so many photographs. He crossed to the far wall stacked chest-high with tottering bookshelves. Above the shelves hung dozens of framed photos.

“Jeez.” Andrew shivered a little as he tied the robe.

Photos of Earthrise, moonrise. The Crab Nebula. The moon. He edged along the wall, reading the captions beside the NASA logo on each print.

Mare Smythii. Crater Gambart. Crater Copernicus. Crater Descartes. Sea of Tranquility.

At wall’s end, beside the window, two heavy gold frames. The first held artwork from a
Time
magazine cover showing three helmeted men against a Peter Max galaxy:
MEN OF THE YEAR: THE CREW OF APOLLO 18,
printed in luminous letters. He blew dust from the glass and regarded the picture thoughtfully. Behind one of the men’s faceplates, he recognized Howell’s face.

The other frame held an oversized cover of
Look,
a matte photograph in stark black. In the upper corner floated the moon, pale and dreaming like an infant’s face.

APOLLO 19: FAREWELL TO TRANQUILLITY
.

Outside, the sun began to rise above Sugar Mountain. In the west glowed a three-quarter moon, fading as sunlight spilled down the mountainside. Andrew stood staring at it until his eyes ached, holding the moon there as long as he could. When it disappeared, he clambered back into bed.