Bones On Black Spruce Mountain Page 6

  "I think it's bad," Daniel said.

  Daniel opened his pocket knife and cut Seth's pants from above the knee down to the cuff. He wrapped his bandana around the wound and tied it tight.

  "Can you stand?"

  "I think so."

  Seth stood up.

  "It hurts."

  "Okay. Put your arm around my shoulder. I'll be your bad leg. Let's go."

  "Where? We don't know where we are."

  "I know. Let's start moving anyway. Maybe we'll luck out."

  The accident had brought both boys back to their senses. Now that they were in real danger, their heads settled. They set out calmly, determined to find their way, one limping and leaning on the other.

  Another flash of lightning lit up the woods and Daniel saw straight in front of him a small beaver pond, the beaver pond.

  "We're okay, Seth. I know where we are."

  Seth's teeth were clenched together. "Good" was all he said.

  The two boys staggered downstream toward their camp. Seth was growing heavier and heavier. Daniel's back ached. Finally they were home.

  For a moment Daniel imagined that the lost boy was waiting for them at the camp, that he had a fire going, supper hot and waiting, their sleeping bags rolled out, everything warm and cozy. Then Daniel saw the scene the way it really was. The camp stood dark and soaking in the night. It looked good anyway.

  The boys hobbled into the lean-to and collapsed on the soft bed of hemlock boughs. Daniel lighted two candles. The glow filled and warmed the tiny wilder-ness room. It was almost like being in a kitchen on a cold winter night, the wood stove going, the air full of the smell of doughnuts and coffee.

  "Get your clothes off," Daniel said. "I'll get the first-aid kit."

  Daniel gently cleaned and dressed the wound.

  "It's not as bad as I thought. Pretty deep, but it bled a lot, probably won't be too sore."

  "Thanks, Daniel," Seth said, and as he said it, his hand reached out to touch Daniel, but before it could reach him it hesitated and then returned to Seth's side.

  "It's okay. Let's get some sleep."

  Both boys zipped themselves into their bags and lay listening to the now gentle rain whispering on the lean-

  to roof.

  Gradually Daniel became aware that Seth was crying, soft sobs welling up from somewhere deep inside him.

  "What's the matter?"

  "I want to go home!"

  Chapter 8

  Sometime during the middle of the night, Daniel didn't know exactly when, he woke. The storm was gone and what clouds remained raced across the sky under a full moon.

  Daniel was wide awake and very hungry. He got up, went out back to the toilet, then returned and started a fire. He felt around in the refrigerator down at the brook and found one piece of bacon and two trout. There was still a little club bread left. He cooked supper.

  "Seth . . . Seth." Daniel shook him gently. "How's your leg?"

  "Huh?" Seth raised himself on an elbow. "Okay. It doesn't hurt."

  "Want supper?"

  "Now? What time is it?"

  "I don't know. Two, three o'clock."

  "Why not? I'm starved."

  "It's all ready." Seth crawled out of the lean-to and stood up. "My leg feels pretty good. It's a little stiff. Probably I'll limp some, but it feels all right."

  The boys ate in silence. Seth was sleepy; Daniel was thinking.

  "We got any coffee?" Daniel asked. "I'm sick of tea."

  Seth rummaged inside the lean-to. "We brought enough for one pot."

  "Good. I'll mix some milk."

  The panic of the day was gone. They sat staring at the fire, drinking hot coffee with milk. It was good to be back in camp, good to be safe.

  "Well," Daniel said, "I admit it. The story is true, every bit of it, just the way they tell it. It didn't get mixed up at all."

  "Yeah, it is. I was so anxious for it to be true; I don't know why, but now that I know it is true, I'm not glad."

  Seth was silent for a moment, then he continued:

  "Only they didn't know the whole story. Nobody ever mentioned the mound or the well. I think we were the first ones to find that place. I don't think Mr. Bateau's father was ever there. He must have only found the cave on the mountain. Maybe you're right, Daniel; maybe he did die that first winter; maybe he stole all that stuff the first fall."

  "I don't think so. I've changed my mind. I think he survived, for a couple of years at least."

  "But we can't prove that."

  "Maybe we can," Daniel argued. "There's got to be something in all, that stuff we found that proves he lasted more than one year."

  "That watercress we found," Seth said, "I bet he planted that, stole it and planted it."

  "Maybe he did, but he could have done that the first fall."

  "Yeah. The jars and clothes he could have gotten the first fall too, even though the story says different."

  "That's right, but I just don't see how he could have done it all in one fall. He built that mound to live in, that was a big job, and he stoned up the well. He must have spent a lot of time going around stealing things. And if he learned to hunt with that spear, he must have spent weeks, maybe months, learning how to sneak up on game before he ever got anything. It all seems like too much to learn, too much to do, in a few months."

  "I know it. I wonder where he learned it all."

  "He taught himself," Daniel asserted. "He had to."

  "I guess so. You know," Seth mused, "it's like he was building a whole new civilization up here."

  "Only there was one thing missing."

  "What?"

  "Other people," Daniel said.

  The boys fell silent, thinking, trying to find that one clue that would prove beyond doubt that the boy had lived in the mountains more than one fall. Seth got up, poured himself some more coffee, and began limping back and forth in front of the fire. Suddenly he turned toward Daniel and exclaimed, "The hoe!"

  "What?"

  "The hoe! What's the only thing you use a hoe for?"

  "Hoeing."

  "Hoeing what?"

  A smile flashed across Daniel's face. "A garden! And he was too late the first year to have a garden. He could only have had a garden after the first winter up here."

  "Ah, it's no good," Seth said. "He could have taken the hoe the first fall figuring he'd have a garden. Then he could have died before he had the chance."

  "Maybe so," Daniel said, "but I'm ready to believe. Maybe we won't ever be able to prove he really did survive, but I think he did, at least I want to think he did."

  "How come you've changed your mind all of a sudden?"

  "I don't know. It's just a feeling, ever since I saw the bones. I know that boy."

  Daniel stood up and began pacing back and forth in front of the fire. His hands gestured nervously in front of him.

  "He ... he feels like my brother. When I close my eyes I can see him up here, moving around like a wild animal. I can imagine what he thought, how he felt."

  "Okay, then," Seth asked, "if you know all about it, what killed him? If he didn't freeze or starve, what killed him?"

  "Nothing. He wasn't killed; he died. And it's just like Mr. Bateau said, he died of loneliness."

  "What?"

  "Those bones were lying there just as if he'd died in his sleep. They weren't messed up or broken or anything: they were just lying there, all stretched out. One night he just gave up and died."

  "I don't get it."

  "Don't you see, Seth? The boy was an orphan."

  Daniel's voice began to tremble. "He probably never even knew who his parents were. He knocked around from here to there; he never really had a home. Then he got hooked up with that guy in Hardwick who beat him all the time. You can only stand so much of that."

  As Daniel talked, he could feel himself slipping farther and farther back into his own past.

  "You can only live so long without anybody to love you, and then something snap
s, you get a little crazy or something. You get so you can't trust anybody, even though you want to. After that happens, even though you want to trust people and you want people to trust you, even though you want that more than anything in the world, you can't. I think that's what happened to the boy. It got too late for him. That's why he ran away. And that's why he never came down off the mountain. He couldn't. He wanted to, but he couldn't. He was just too afraid of other people."

  "You mean he went crazy, just like Mr. Bateau said."

  Daniel sat down abruptly and sighed a frustrated sigh. He let his chin droop into his chest and he stared at the darkened ground between his feet.

  "Sure he went crazy, if that's what you want to call it."

  Then suddenly Daniel stood up and threw his arms out toward Seth.

  "But he couldn't help it! Can't you see! He didn't want to be up here. But it was the only thing left. He hated living up here. He was lonely and afraid!"

  Daniel started to pace back and forth in front of the fire again.

  "Look, most kids would think it takes a lot for a boy to live alone like an animal on a mountain. It does. . . . It does, but it didn't take half as much courage as it would have for him to come down. You see? Coming down would have meant trusting some-one. And he couldn't. He just couldn't do that. So he lived up here until he couldn't stand it anymore and then he just gave up and died. He was trapped. He was too afraid to come down and too lonely to live."

  "I can't imagine being that lonely."

  "I know you can't. I mean, it's hard for you to understand, maybe impossible. You've never known what it's like to be completely alone, even when there are other people around, not to have anybody to belong to, anybody you can trust. You've always had your parents, since the day you were born."

  Daniel stopped for a moment, reached into the darkness outside the firelight and picked up a stick. He slapped his empty, open palm with the stick and looked away somewhere into his past. Then he laughed a tight, bitter little laugh and began to pace again.

  "You don't know what it's like. Before I was eight years old I'd been in twelve different places. I remember the last place I stayed before I came here. I'd been there a long time, I don't know how long. It was awful. I got blamed for everything. So one day I took off, just like the boy, only I was a little kid, eight. It Was winter, but I took off anyway. I had my sneakers on. I got maybe a mile or so down the road and there I was, nowhere. Where could I go? So I turned around and went back. They weren't even out looking for me. They were sorry to see me back."

  "How do you know that?"

  "I just know it!"

  Daniel waited a minute to cool down. "They didn't give me hell or anything; they just looked at me, just stared at me. They didn't say anything. I remember that. None of them even blinked. They just stared. I knew then I wasn't long for that place and I was right. About a month later the social worker came and got me and brought me up here."

  "You never told me any of that," Seth said.

  "I've never told anybody anything about those days. I don't talk about them because I want to forget them. I want to forget the first eight years of my life. I want to forget the whole thing. But I can't! I try, but I can't forget."

  Seth didn't know what to say, so he said, "Well, at least when you came here you knew you were coming to stay."

  A sharp, angry laugh shot out of Daniel's mouth. "I knew you were dumb, Seth, but I didn't know you were that dumb."

  Daniel's cruelty hurt Seth. He wanted to say something, but he couldn't speak.

  "You're hopeless. You'll never know what I'm talk-ing about. Coming here was worse than staying there. How was I to know they were going to keep me? How was I to know? All I knew was it was another place to stay for a while, get kicked around, get kicked out."

  "You make it sound like your folks were going to treat you like a stray dog!"

  "No kidding."

  Seth was beginning to understand a little the depth, • the fury, of Daniel's bitterness.

  "But you knew they were going to adopt you! They said they were."

  "Said? Said! Shit! Listen, you don't believe what people say. You don't believe anything they say. People talk all the time. What good are words? Words are just words! When I first came here everybody got all excited. Your folks, my folks, you, Mr. Bateau, everybody; everybody but me." Daniel jabbed his forefinger hard into his chest.

  "I remember how your mother jumped around when she first met me. She acted like an idiot. I thought she was crazy. And your sister trying to hold me on her lap! A new toy. I felt like telling all of you to save it. When your father came up to me and put out his hand and said, 'Daniel, I'm glad to meet you,' when he said that, do you know what I wanted to do? I wanted to look right up into his face and say, 'You go to hell!' All that talk didn't mean squat to me. I didn't believe it. Like a stray dog you said? That's exactly what I felt like."

  Daniel's whole body was shaking. Then in a voice so bitter and angry that it became soft, Daniel said, "Only stray dogs don't move around twelve times in eight years."

  Seth stared at the ground between his legs,

  "God."

  There was a deep silence between the two boys for a time; then, in a voice filled with pleading and tenderness, Seth said, "But . . . isn't it better now? I mean, you've been here five years. They really are your parents. They really do love you. Isn't it better now?"

  It was a long time before Daniel answered. "Yes . . . it is . . . a little. It's a little better. But no matter how hard I try to forget, I can still remember. That's no better, and it never will be either."

  It wasn't what Seth had hoped to hear.

  "There's only one difference between me and that boy, Seth. Just one."

  "What's that?"

  "I lucked out. He didn't."

  Both boys sat in silence for a time. Then Daniel began again. His voice had changed because his anger was gone, not gone away from him, but gone back down into him.

  "That's why I didn't want to believe the story. It was just too terrible to be true. I had to refuse to believe it. I just couldn't admit it was true, not even the tiniest bit, because . . . ah! I don't know how to say it . . . because . . . the story could have been about me!

  "Don't you see, Seth? If I hadn't lucked out, if I'd kept running, that boy could have been me!"

  Then, abruptly, in a voice that made Seth shiver, Daniel said, "No more! I don't want to talk about this anymore!"

  Daniel sat slumped and sullen. Seth tried to think of something to say, some question to ask, something, anything, to help Daniel escape from his memories.

  "How come he had two places? How come we found all his stuff one place and his bones another?" Seth asked.

  Daniel smiled. He knew what Seth was trying to do and he was grateful.

  "I think the cave was his lookout. He could have found that place first and hid there while the search parties were looking for him. Then he built that mound, but he always went back to the cave because he could look down from there on the farm. He could see people. Maybe he even spent the whole summer there, sort of like a summer place. That explains the howls."

  "How does it do that?"

  "You know how people used to say they'd hear howls from the mountain only in the summer during haying? Well, probably the boy sat up there and watched. You know haying is the most sociable time of year, when everybody gets together. The boy watched all those people working together all day, sweating out in the sun and then when the hay was in, when they got together and had a big dinner on the lawn—he probably could hear them talking and laughing if the wind was right—when he saw all that and heard all that, he got so lonely he'd howl, because he felt so deserted. He wanted to come down and be a part of that, but he couldn't; so he howled instead."

  Daniel could hear the boy's cries. He could see him alone on the mountain.

  "I think he died during haying, just like Mr. Bateau says. I think one night, after he'd spent all day watching, he just
couldn't stand it anymore, so he crawled into the cave and died."

  "I think you're right, Daniel, but it's awful."

  Both boys sat hunched over their thoughts.

  Finally Daniel sighed an enormous sigh, laughed an odd little laugh, and stood up. "Let's split what's left of the coffee."

  All the clouds were gone now and the full moon lit the wilderness as if it were day. The boys sat and watched the black and silver woods. Daniel poked at the fire. Seth munched on the bag of nuts and raisins, then passed them to Daniel.

  Seth began chuckling to himself.

  "What's the matter?" Daniel asked.

  "You solved the mystery and you don't even know it."

  "I did?"

  "We've got proof he lasted at least one winter."

  "We do?"

  "We found him in the cave, right? He only went there in the summer, to watch people, right? He could never get there in the winter. The ice up there would make it impossible. He ran away in the fall. The only time he could possibly have gotten back there was the summer after the first winter."

  Daniel smiled. It was true.

  But the solution to the mystery seemed insignificant now. They had found the truth, but the facts were meaningless to them. Only the boy mattered.

  "I want to go back," Daniel said. "I want to spend tomorrow night with the bones."

  Seth's heart sank. "Oh, Daniel, I don't want to; I can't." Seth understood why Daniel wanted to return, or at least he had some idea, but he was afraid.

  "I'm going. I've got to. Just once. I'm not going to try to talk you into it, but I'd like for you to come with me. Don't decide for sure just now. Sleep on it. You can decide tomorrow."

  Then Daniel added, "Speaking of sleep, let's get some. The sun's about to come up."

  Both boys climbed inside their bags, and in what seemed like seconds Seth could hear Daniel's deep, even breathing. Seth blew out the candle and zipped his bag. He tossed and turned. He couldn't sleep. Maybe it was the coffee or the decision he had to make or maybe it was all he had just heard.

  He propped himself up on one elbow and looked at Daniel through the darkness. Slowly Seth was begin-to understand something about his friend, something about the bones, about loneliness. And part of his understanding was knowing he would never quite understand, at least not the way Daniel understood, not with the fury And pain Daniel felt. But just now Daniel had opened the door into his past, if only just a little, and allowed Seth to look in. Seth was grateful for that.