He crept back into the shelter to hold his brother in his arms.
* * * * *
Late in the morning Ben woke in a remission of the fever, knowing Reuben
was not far away. To the complex interesting lines above him--evidently
a roof--he said experimentally: "I must have been sick."
"Lie quiet!" The power of Reuben's hand on his chest startled him, the
sodden ache of his own muscles dismayed him. "We can't go on today, Ben.
It's snowing heavy. I mean to light a fire--with all the snow they'll
never see the smoke, if they come this way at all."
"They?--oh." Ben doubtfully remembered. It would not do for Reuben to
guess how puzzled he was; craftily he asked: "How far you think we came
from Hatfield?"
"Hatfield?"
"How stupid I am!" The unintended words drawled out of his mouth and
floated away. "Meant Deerfield. My leg...." Reuben (who knew everything)
helped him shove down his breeches, then allowed him to sit up and look
at the splinter-wound, a yellowish scabby island in a puddle of pink. He
wished to study it, but Reuben was already pulling up the musty
repellent garment and urging him back on the pile of sweet-smelling
leaves. "Suppose that's what made me sick?"
"Maybe."
"Suppose I ought to be bled?"
"I daren't, Ben. I don't know how a physician does it. I might cut wrong
and not be able to stop the flow."
"I'll do well enough."
"Yes, but you must eat, or you'll weaken."
Ben considered this. He was hungry, yes, but wasn't some difficulty
connected with the idea of eating? Meanwhile someone, apparently
himself, was burdened with a bladder about to burst. "Must go outside."
"Watch out!" Reuben somewhere sounded frightened or angry. "You'll fetch
down the roof if you try to stand."
That was sensible, Ben observed--of course he would, and then they'd
have all the trouble of building it over. He located Reuben kneeling in
a whiteness outside, ready to help him in spite of his stupidity, and
crawled to him. Improbably, the boy transformed himself into a pillar
under Ben's right arm, a curve of warm iron around Ben's middle--only
Reuben who knew everything could have thought of that.
Out here in the blind white morning, Ben was distressed by inability to
interpret what he saw. The swirling pallor might conceal a thousand
significant shapes. He simply must not urinate on what might easily turn
out to be Grandmother Cory's doorstep. He asked with care: "Here?"
"Anywhere. Hurry! You must get back under cover."
"That's right," said Ben humbly, suffering a panic dread that his
bladder would never let go; it did, with relief like an end of pain. But
still the gray and white was all a whirling bewilderment. He knew the
sentinel monsters to be trees; nothing or everything might be stirring
just beyond reach of his vision in these enormous distances. "Where is
the way where light dwelleth?"
"What?"
"Which way is Roxbury?"
"That's east," said Reuben, and jerked his head. "Don't think about it
now. Come back under cover. Damnation, Ben, help me a little! You know I
can't lift you if you fall."
Ben walked with extreme care, and then crawled, back on the pile of
leaves. Darkness approached and slid away. Reuben was shaking his
shoulder, urging him to eat something. "What? What is it?"
"Some of the ham I stole--don't you remember?"
"Yes. But.... How much have we?"
"A plenty. See--all this. And the turkey too--I'll cook that when I have
a fire going."
"Oh yes, the turkey.... Ru----"
"I ate all I wanted while you were sleeping."
He would lie of course, Ben thought. But with a face changeable as
sunlight on a wind-rippled pond, Reuben had never been a good liar. Ben
lifted a heavy arm to turn that face into the wan daylight. "You--did?"
"I swear to you, Ben, we have enough for several days, and I ate all I
needed an hour ago."
Ben struggled over the mouthfuls. The meat lay heavy in him, threatening
nausea; that passed. He accepted a final wave of darkness--not true
darkness, simply a voluntary closing of the eyes. Certainly not
unconsciousness, because he could feel Reuben wrapping some cloth around
his legs. He wondered what it was, the curiosity not powerful enough to
raise his ponderous eyelids. Later he heard Reuben speak--close to his
ear maybe; surely not far away, or the words could not have reached him
with that sweetness and clarity: "_Intreat me not to leave thee, or to
return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and
where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy
God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried:
the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and
me._"
* * * * *
The wolves came that night, not with howling but in silence.
Through the afternoon, under the long patient drive of snow, Reuben had
gone out after more dead wood whenever Ben seemed quiet in his sleep. He
had struggled with Ben's tinderbox to the edge of despair, and won a
flame at last, the fire then leaping bravely and settling to steadiness
under the endless slanting white, the smoke pushed away from the opening
of the lean-to by a faint breeze out of the west. When he had gathered
all the firewood he could find without going beyond reach of Ben's
voice, Reuben used the stolen kitchen knife to hack off a green ash
sapling and trim it to a six-foot spear. He was wearing Ben's knife now
at his belt, but was unwilling to employ it in such labor--besides, the
tedious task of trimming and whittling disposed of much time when there
was nothing else to do and he knew it might be dangerous to think. All
afternoon he heard only the crackle of his fire, the sustained mild
hiss of the snow, and the small sounds of Ben's troubled slumber. His
mind heard the wolves, knowing they would come.
The hunter-builder had chosen this location cleverly. Thick brambles and
a looping confusion of wild grape covered the high bank above the
lean-to; a beast could squirm through it, no doubt, but probably would
not try, and surely would not jump down from it so long as someone
tended a fire below. This fair security in the rear left only a
half-circle of territory that needed watching. At the western end of
that little arc, where the lean-to itself shut off his view if he sat by
the opening, Reuben laid ready a stack of dead wood mixed with evergreen
branches. It would be a moment's work to carry a brand to that pile,
sending it up in a fine blaze to guard the blind spot. The wolves would
not like that.
This was his last act of preparation before evening came on. He knew of
evening as a gradual failing of the light, a growth of shadows in the
continual drift of snowflakes, a shift from gray to black. At one time
it had been afternoon; then afternoon resembling evening. Then night.
Reuben became ears and eyes.
He could never hear their feet when they came, but all night he must
listen for any change in Ben's breathing or any call from him, such a
sound as might be smothered by fire noises or the small narcotic
monotone of the snow. He sought to imitate Ben's way of looking
everywhere, never allowing his gaze to become frozen in a stare. If
something seemed to move out yonder, as happened many times deceivingly
after darkness beyond the fire had grown complete, he must flick a
glance at it, look away, return, and so assure himself that it was
nothing, maybe a leap of fire-shadow, a harmless swaying of a branch of
the giant spruce that stood twenty yards away.
He knew the truth of it, and with relief because it ended the sour agony
of anticipation, when twin emeralds to the left of the spruce blinked on
and off and shone again nearer. Two other pairs of jewels flashed into
life, one to the right, the third directly below the tower of the tree.
"I know you," he called. "I know you for what you are."
He stood up to look beyond the lean-to. A fourth pair of hunting lights
had been approaching the blind spot, and halted at sight of him. Reuben
drew forth a burning stick. He walked slowly, with care for the flame,
and touched it to the dead wood and pine needles. The lights in the snow
did not retire; they watched, curious and cold. In the sudden radiance
they acquired a gray body, taut, startled at the new flame but not yet
in retreat and visible to Reuben in sharp detail. A bitch wolf carrying
young, her belly not much distended but seeming so because of the
gauntness of her ribs and a wiry thinness of long flanks.
Only four; probably no others. They ranged in small groups like
families, Jesse Plum used to say. The tales of large wolf packs, Jesse
insisted, were travelers' fancies. A few of the young sometimes remained
with the old ones until full-grown, then drifted away to start families
of their own. "Be you ever confronted by 'em," said Jesse once, "they'll
be few, boys, and no great peril unless they can get behind you in the
dark. True, they can kill you and eat you, but they do doubt it, they
understand cold steel and they be full of fear, the way all creatures
fear man, and so do I." Well, in the complex story that grew from that
opening, Jesse had been assailed by ten wolves who were not wolves;
after he climbed seventy feet to the top of a beech, the great dog wolf
leader had scrambled up after him, snapping at his heels but unable to
reach them so long as Jesse remembered to make certain signs in the air.
All that had been perfectly understood as a fireside fantasy, designed
to send the children off to the black garret in a good mood. Here,
Reuben told himself, he faced only four common wolves, angry with the
long winter hunger but afraid of the fire. The gummy spruce branch in
his hand still sputtered hotly. He flung it at the somber eyes. The
bitch wolf casually dodged the brand. He saw the gray evil of her glide
away to join the three others in deeper obscurity.
He sat on his heels near the opening of the lean-to, the green ash spear
lying under his right hand, and listened for Ben's breathing. That sound
reached him at last, seeming untroubled; then he could watch with
greater assurance. If anything pushed through the brambles and dry brush
at the top of the bank, he would hear it and be ready.
The eyes shifted, winked, vanished to reappear in silence. He found no
more than four pairs at any time. If they became three or two, that
might mean fresh danger. They remained, for a long time, four.
Reuben wondered when the snowfall had ceased. He remembered noticing
that it was thinning when the eyes first appeared. Now it was over, the
air clean and mild, a weak wind still sending the smoke away from the
place where Ben lay sleeping. Reuben glanced upward in search of stars
and found a few. Maybe--though not for hours yet, he thought--the moon
would return, and shine on a smooth silver blank where yesterday his
feet and Ben's had scrawled a trail.
He began to feel acquainted with those eyes. "You over on the left," he
called--"you're Snotnose. You under the spruce, you're Trundletail, and
your mother is Doxy Tumble." For a while he amused and warmed himself by
hurling snowballs at them.
They slunk away, not far. The unconcern of their withdrawal conveyed the
arrogance of contempt. They could wait.
Reuben's amusement died like the breaking of a weapon in his hand. He
thought: _What do they know?_ He stood as tall as he could, waving the
green spear, and shouted at them: "I know you! Dirty dogs! Offal! I spit
on you!" He fought back a desire to rush out in pursuit of them, with
Ben's knife and the green spear.
That would be mad. They would understand his smallness, his singleness,
and close in, tear him apart, move on to the shelter where Ben lay
helpless and sleeping.... Reuben carried more wood to the other fire,
then forced himself to squat once more patiently on his heels, and keep
count of the pairs of eyes. Four. He could wait, too. How long?
Eternal hours. Like those that must have already passed since the wolves
came. Or had they been there forever?
Why, of course they had. The breed was immortal. They had never been far
from Deerfield. They owned the wilderness before ever Christians came to
it. They howled in Rome, when Reuben Cory was not. Meeting the green
ancient stare from the dark, Reuben felt his face stiffly smiling. He
thought: It's true, true--there was a time when I was not. Something new
began--something--the name of it I, Reuben Cory. Well, this I may have
known, but until now I did never believe it.... He shivered, and
although there was cool pleasure in it he drove away the consolation of
philosophy because anything that dimmed alertness was dangerous. He
could wait.
In a reasonable world, one slept for a part of each revolution of the
beautiful sun. Reuben thought back in search of the last time he had
slept--Springfield, before Jesse was found in the snow. Danger hid in
this reflection also, the danger of self-pity. He put an end to it: _I
will not sleep._
It came to him that if one is hungry enough, any creature not downright
poisonous is meat. Suppose, somehow----?
He could not go out against them, away from the fires. Either they would
rush him all four together, or they would run away--good meat lost. But
suppose, somehow, one of them might be tempted to come alone--say the
old gray bitch who had already tried a sneak approach. How?
Wisdom lurked in her, a cold flame behind a long gray face. Reuben
thought of her as their leader. He discovered that he hated her, in a
swelling ecstasy not extended to her slinking companions. The thought of
killing her, at first a random flicker like a further warning of
madness, became a purpose, a source of power, a wildness deserving a
better name than lunacy because of its very absurdity. For ten minutes
or perhaps an hour Reuben hovered apart from his mind and watched the
thought grow. A boy does not kill a grown wolf with a little stick.
And yet the point was sharp. The ash would bend like a bow but never
break. His hand and eye were true, true as Ben's.
The fire beyond the lean-to was dying down. This had happened
before--how many times? Marching over to refresh it, Reuben found he
could not remember. No moon yet, therefore dawn must be remote in the
future. He stood with his spear on the unimpeded ground between the two
fires, considering, brooding.
The passion of hatred held something of love or at least a sultry need,
a hunger not of the belly. He studied the pairs of eyes--four--wondering
which pair might be hers. He fell to muttering, aiming at the gray bitch
wolf every foulness of indecent words he could recall. Words only,
unrelieving, lacking the thrust and achievement of a spear. New words
startled him: "Such meat should help him...."
He had not the strength to do any harm with a thrown spear; he would
only lose the weapon. Sometimes the very power of a stronger adversary
can be made to work for you. If you know how. If you dare.
Reuben knew he was not mad. Within the passion was a coldness to match
her own; shrewdness; wicked planning with all the treachery of a wolf
and the bravery. No time now to think of courage or fear. Endless time
to know the unbearable need for an act of love.
Reuben sank to his heels on this open ground, the lean-to at his back,
fires not great to the left and the right of him, between him and the
wolves only an expanse of flame-lit snow. He dropped the green ash spear
in that white so that the sharp end was covered. His hand curling midway
on the shaft owned a separate life, refusing to suffer from the harsh
coldness. Gradually he allowed his head to droop, lift feebly and droop
again, while his upturned eyes, perhaps not plain to the enemy,
maintained alertness. Seeing all. Clever as Ben's.
The beasts were cruelly wise, Jesse Plum used to say. Out of thickets
and moon-shadows they watched men's ways, as dogs did. Unlike dogs they
watched only for signs of weakness, and this from no motives but hunger
and savagery--except, said Jesse, those wolves which were not wolves.
He must be not reckless but wise and cold as they. He must be ready also
to recognize the need for retreat. Supposing they all four came
together, then he must jump to life quickly, scare them with noise and
bustling and renewal of the fires. But supposing, when this interminable
ordeal of crouching, waiting and feigning weakness came to an end,
supposing it ever did--supposing his feet had not grown numb and frozen
to betray him--supposing the old gray bitch should advance alone, while
Ben lay sleeping and the Great Bear slanted toward the North Star----
She was coming.
He would not believe it for a while. Slowly he explained to himself
that one of them must have crept out into the open a long time ago, as
some trick of the firelight deceived him into calling it another shadow.
Then he knew this was not so. She was coming to him. With all his heart
he accepted it.
He lowered his head once more, and in that moment witnessed the brief
belly-to-earth advance, the freezing down to watch him again across a
much smaller distance. This could only be the one he hated, no other.
She was coming to him. The others remained a shifting of eyes beyond the
clear ground--afraid of him, mere offal, mere dogs as she was not--or
else they were holding back because they knew her reasons and his own.
He knew that if he were to jump to his feet and dodge back behind the
fire, she would not rush, not yet. No gambler, she would slide away and
wait for the certainty, wait till dawn or beyond dawn or beyond the next
dawn. He could not do it. It might be wiser, safer; might almost be a
duty to Ben that he should retreat to comparative safety, now, while he
had time. His body would not do it. His body would only wait like a
bowstring, clutching the spear, controlling that deceitful droop of his
head until the approaching moment when one of them--a half-starved alien
beast or a boy who must remember the doorway of a reddened room where he
clung sickly to a bedpost and did nothing--one of them would die
quickly.