The Imaginary Lives of Mechanical Men Part 16

"Why are you talking like this?" says Rifken. "What's wrong with you?"

"Jeezus, Rifken! You're making me nervous. Kind of glad I'm the one with the gun." The two Indians stop and together stare at Hargadon, who takes a step back. "I don't like weirdness, man. And that's what we got here. I mean, help me out, Henley, you do know that you're an escaped murderer, don't you? I'm not going to wake up in a few minutes with the big headache and blankets on the floor, am I?"

Henley stares. Rifken turns and continues down the ridge, breaking trail.

"Okay then. But just tell me one thing, I mean if it don't trouble you too much. What the h.e.l.l you doing in the middle of a pond a freezing water?"

"I don't remember," says Henley.

2.

They are four hours from the truck when it begins to sleet.

At first Hargadon thinks it might be a warm rain drifting up from the Gulf since he feels the familiar tapping on his shoulder and hears the patter. But there are no pocks in the snow, and the air has begun to hiss like dry aspen. Soon enough he notices tiny ice particles bouncing off the scope of his rifle and, after a time, more particles clinging to the smooth blue barrel. It takes another indefinite distance along a narrow ledge for the stomach-fear to hit him and for him to realize that he has heard this sound before-in the warm, safe summer-when you kick over a rock and discover a nest of rattlers. It's a picture so vivid and a feeling so strong that for a moment Hargadon stares absurdly at the rocky outcroppings all around him, unmoving until a fresh gust reminds him that the only rattlers are safe below ground. He shakes the idea out of his mind, resheaths the rifle, and closes the gap between himself and Henley, looking back only once and noticing how the sleet gradually obscures the trail behind him. Then goes hurrying after the two silent figures ahead of him as they traverse a saddleback and cross two low ridges before heading back up toward gathering clouds.

"Hey, Rifken, you know what? There might be a bounty on this guy. I mean, I know we don't get a real bounty but maybe a little recognition, you know, like some time off or something. A little palm trees and sand, that's what I'm thinking about. Some place warm. h.e.l.l, I'd settle for a cup of hot coffee right this minute, you know what I mean? You got any hot coffee up there? Hey! I'm talking to you."

Rifken finds a gray-white boulder with enough of an overhang for the three of them, then waits for the two younger men to catch up. "I got part of a sandwich," he says, "and a little sip of water," ignoring whatever it is that Hargadon is saying as he slides against the lichen-crusted rock and settles into a tight tuck next to Henley. Instead, Rifken takes a long-barreled flashlight from his pack and studies the prisoner's face. Touches the ears and cheek with his bare hand. "Give him your scarf," he says to Hargadon.

"What?"

"Give him your scarf. And anything else you can spare."

Hargadon unwinds the scarf and helps to wrap Henley's ears and face. "Man, what the h.e.l.l did any of us do to deserve this?"

"I'm sorry," the prisoner says. "I didn't expect to get this far."

"Yeah? Well, have a drink of water-or have you already had enough of that for one night?"

"I'm fine. I'm not even cold."

"We need to keep moving," says Rifken.

"What we need is a d.a.m.n fire, or a radio that works."

"If we drop down into those trees, we won't find any dry wood, and we'll be lost in an hour. Best to stick to the high route." He plays the flashlight out over the void and watches the light scatter among sparkling droplets of ice. "And even if your radio did work ..., who do you think's going to helicopter you out of here tonight?"

"Yeah, well, this ain't the way we came in."

"I know."

"You are Cherokee, right?"

"Enough."

"What I mean is, you know where we are. Right?"

"There." Rifken nods toward a ragged silhouette that looks like the edge of the earth. "That's where we're headed."

"Jesus Christ. This is crazy. The hunting part is over, man. We got him. Or haven't you figured that out yet?"

"Look, you've done all right so far. You got nothing to be ashamed of."

"But what?"

"But we've got a rough spell ahead. And a few hours yet before dawn."

Hargadon is surprised at how difficult it is to stand. He has to leverage himself to his feet and pull upright using handholds in the rock. As he rubs circulation back into legs, he notices that Henley has not moved, that he is still propped against a pillowlike stone with his feet already covered by a filmy blanket of sleet and snow. The white scarf has come loose from his head and fallen about his neck so that it looks casual, like a proper scarf, with one end draped over his shoulder and the other hanging down like a tie. His breathing is low and regular, like a man about to fall asleep, and his arms lie limp, not clenched against the cold. From the thigh down, his jeans are black ice.

Rifken kneels and begins to ma.s.sage him awake. "Help me get him up."

"What's wrong?"

They rewrap the scarf and get Henley moving toward the black rocks ahead. Then, after they have climbed another hundred feet, Rifken answers. "I think he's dying."

And gradually, like the cold night itself that seems to be working its way through the layers and folds of his clothing, a realization reaches Hargadon. That they are not headed back toward the truck. That the two hundred state troopers and seventy-five local police and eighteen deputized guards from Windfield are somewhere safe and warm in a world far below. And that what Rifken really means is that all three of them are dying. Like it was part of a plan.

In his mind Hargadon drifts away from the trail trying to make sense of what is happening. It's hard work. The thinking is as slow as walking. But finally it comes to him. He closes his eyes and backtracks over the past several hours, reading the signs and at last making his way to a half-formed idea. That Rifken is doing this on purpose. That he's going to let them die, the three of them, rather than take Henley back. Like it was some kind of Indian thing. It's an idea that grows more obvious and definite the closer he gets to it. Until finally Hargadon can open his eyes and look down at his own legs, coated with a powdery snow like pollen on a bee, and realize that he's following two dead men into oblivion. It's hard to think otherwise. The cold is like a weight pulling him down. He tries to blink his way back to consciousness, but the eyelids creak up and down without revealing any fork in the trail. Thinking Rifken will kill us if I don't do something. It's such an elegant answer to the riddling night that Hargadon can almost admire the way Rifken glides through the snow without lifting his feet. Or leaving tracks. As if he's skiing an inch or two below the surface. So that there is only a ruffled wake where he has gone and, after a few minutes, hardly a hint that he has pa.s.sed this way at all.

3.

It's still dark when they stop to rest again, this time beside the bank of a frozen stream where the water has been caught spurting from the mountain. The layers of ice look like a stepwork of nickels and quarters, but there is also a dry horseshoe of rock where Hargadon sc.r.a.pes together some leaves and works to light a fire. With his last match he produces a minute's worth of smoke and despair. And then silence-a black and bottomless creva.s.se from which he contemplates Rifken who, suddenly and inexplicably, has turned talkative.

"Pure mountain honey," he says. "You can't go a hundred yards along any of those roads down there without seeing a sign that says pure mountain honey. That's what I'd give a million dollars for right now."

They are closer to the treeline now, the soggy pine needles and all the useless lumber of a national forest. From where they sit the trees swell up like an angry ocean, and Hargadon looks upon the sloping branches like a man who has been given his choice of ways to die, withdrawing deeper and deeper into his own thoughts. Verifying that everything Rifken has done for the past hour has been insane-ma.s.saging Henley like a fallen horse, stuffing frozen moss into the man's shirt, babbling about pure mountain honey. It's enough to make Hargadon shift his weight and work the rifle around to his side, casually, without seeming to think about the still-chambered round. Or the possibility of getting off two shots rather than just one.

"We need fuel more than we need fire, kid. How do you think the Eskimos do it? How do you think the ancestors did it? Here, help me get his boots off."

Hargadon narrows his eyes and retreats further into the abyss, until soon Rifken is only a speck and Henley has become one of the ageless boulders lying scattered on the side of the mountain. And there is a certain peace, though from very far away he can still hear Rifken's patter, a low, dangerous chant that tempts him back out into the frozen night, away from the warm place he has found, where he can listen without moving.

"... grew up with my grandfather, who lived in a slab cabin just outside the reservation. Had an open well down the hill a ways where you could draw water from one of the underground streams that popped out of the mountain farther down, like this one here. Cold and clean all year round. You could lean over and see your own reflection, or the moon sometimes, as long as you didn't lean too far. Anyhow, he never set foot on government land-that's what he called the reservation-and he always made the people come to him when they needed something. You know, the healing. Are you hearing me, Hargadon? I'm trying to tell you something. I'm trying to tell you where we are."

The stars have reappeared, faint pinp.r.i.c.ks of light that glow in the shifting haze. The sleeting has stopped or perhaps drifted down the mountain to glaze the world below. But neither Henley nor Hargadon has moved, and Rifken is making frantic motions over the bare legs and feet of the one while glancing from time to time at the other.

"Anyway, this part I'm telling you now ..., it's like a myth. Which the people don't tell too often because they are practically all Baptists and such, going to church just like the white folks, except for my grandfather, who was a holy man. And really believed. So you can guess what it was like growing up in a cabin, no other man around, and my mama so grateful when the preacher from the reservation brought us a kerosene heater and a Christmas ham, and my grandfather telling me on the same day that the name of the place was Ataghi. And that it was sacred. Way far west, as far as you can go and still be in the mountains. Toward the red sun-that's the way he said it-so far into the mountains that only the animals knew the path. And that no hunter had ever seen it because of the magic. Like he wanted me to believe too. Telling me that even though there are lots of trails along the headwaters of the Oconaluftee-ones that go higher and higher into wild places-they get all tangled so that not even a little girl could crawl on her hands and knees. Only the animals know the way. Because it's a lake of magic water where no hunter ever walked the sh.o.r.e or drank from the streams that feed it. But sometimes, if a lost hunter would come near, there might be a big fluttering sound of wings and clouds of ducks and geese and doves and pigeons. Though if he ever reached the spot, there would be nothing, only a flat bed of earth and stone. Which is where we are now. Hargadon? We don't have that much farther to go. Just an hour. We can make it, all three of us."

Rifken has taken off his coat and wrapped Henley's legs as he continues to rub. When he finally looks up, he sees that Hargadon is still capable of moving and that-although he is still seated, still outwardly motionless-somehow the rifle has been unsheathed, and the mittens have been removed, and the dead eyes have reawakened with one final spark.

"Unless," says Rifken, "it was a spirit warrior who had first cleared his vision with a night of prayer and fasting. And even then he might see only faint tracks and a few feathers caught in the brambles. Maybe not even a blade of gra.s.s. So that most of the human beings in every age think that the lake dried up long ago, but that is not true either. It can appear, Ataghi, just at daybreak, to someone who has fasted all night and kept watch, Hargadon. Like a mirror of pure water. Shallow on the land but full of fish and reptiles, covered with water birds, while on the sh.o.r.e will be every kind of forest animal. Because it is the medicine lake of the beasts. And whenever the deer or the bear is wounded by a hunter, he makes his way along these trails, right here, up the headwaters to the secret place and wades into the pure water, swimming to the other side. And when he comes out, his wounds are healed. That's why the animals keep it hidden, this lake. Invisible. And that's the way it was told to me. When I was too young to know."

"Too young to know what?"

"Hargadon, listen to me. If you use that rifle, you'll never get out of here alive. I know where we are. I know how to get us out."

"I think you're looking for the same thing he was looking for."

"Maybe I am. But let me tell you something. Let me tell you why he's here."

"Him? He killed somebody."

"He killed his wife and the man she was with. That's true. That's absolutely true. He went home one night, to the trailer where he lived, and took out a pistol, and fired nine times in the bedroom where he found them. That's the G.o.d's honest truth. But that's not why he's here. He's here because two of those shots went through a very flimsy wall in that trailer, Hargadon. A paper-thin wall. And on the other side of that wall was a little girl. That's why he's here. Because of something he didn't intend. That's what I want you to think about, firing a shot you don't intend."

"You don't have any idea where we are. You're just walking, hoping for a miracle."

"On the other side of that ridge is what you want. I swear. Just give us one more hour, and I'll have you where you need to be."

Hargadon raises the barrel slightly and clicks off the safety. Then raises it higher until the front sight is aimed at the moon and fires a shot into the air. Works the bolt without looking and fires another. And then a third. "There might be somebody out looking for us," he says. "You can never tell."

Snow falls from the limb of a spruce some thirty yards below them and sets off a cascade that clears the powder from one side of the tree. Then the uppermost branch bends again and launches a white owl that takes flight like a diver springing into the air, fluttering as it gathers the night beneath its wings and then settling into the slow rhythm of flight as it descends into the valley.

"Come on," says Rifken. "We're going to have to carry him now."

4.

Henley stops breathing on the upslope and then, somewhere between the ravine and the second spur, dies without a sound. Hargadon can guess what has happened when the weight becomes easier to bear, more like a load of wood than a sack of meal. Still he keeps going because he knows what the news will do to Rifken. They go until a patch of loose gravel stops them. It's where Hargadon slips, loses his hold on Henley's arm, and the body planks into the snow. Rifken doesn't even look. He can do no more than bend at the waist and gasp, blowing out clouds of foggy breath like a spent runner. Finally he looks around to get his bearings before kneeling to feel for a pulse, as if it were all a foregone conclusion. After holding his fingers against Henley's throat for a moment, he says to no one in particular, "I can't hardly breathe anymore," then begins to pull off the gloves he gave Henley back at the lake.

The younger man watches Rifken work the gloves back onto his own gray hands as if they are magic. Then, when Rifken shivers and buries his hands beneath his arms, Hargadon is sure he has seen a sign. He tries to unfreeze his mind. "What now?" he says.

"I'll be honest with you. We ought to be able to see the town from here, the lights and all. Maybe the storm knocked out their power."

"That's not what I mean. What are we going to do about him?"

Rifken sits back on his haunches and rests his wrists on his knees. "I can't hardly breathe. Or think. You might be getting your wish after all-to walk out of here alone."

"Just rest a few minutes."

"Why do you all of a sudden care about him? I thought you wanted off this mountain as fast as you could get off."

"I don't know."

"Maybe you see yourself." The older man nods toward the body.

"No. He did wrong. But tried to get to the right place. You got to respect that, and maybe I wouldn't mind being back up here again myself when spring comes."

"Now who's crazy?"

"I'm just thinking out loud, that's all. Like we did what we had to do. And so did he."

"It wasn't real, kid. It was just a lake."

"Yeah. I know. But if this body was to slip into a ravine or something, it probably wouldn't be found. Maybe ever. And then he might get whatever it is he was looking for. I'm just wondering is all. Wondering if there's something we owe, me and you. Like a debt that needs repaying. Anyway-I'll tell you one thing for sure. I don't have it in me to carry him over that ridge. And neither do you."

Rifken rubs his face and sinks lower into himself, remembering how grateful his mother had been for heat and food. How that preacher, a Cherokee man himself, had treated them with respect, talking low and humble, without any hurry in the world until the day he said, "Miz Rifken, you ever thought about being saved?"

Hargadon unzips the parka and drapes it over the seated figure, stamping his boots clean before climbing a few steps higher to where a ma.s.sive rockface meets the narrow trail. "All I know is you're the one who seems to have a problem with this, not me." He finds a wide foothold and works his way up to a vertical split.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?" Rifken stands, letting the second parka fall at his feet.

"I just thought that if one of us could make it up to that table rock, he could probably see if the road was down there. And that the other one could stay here ... do what needed doing ... and then take the trail around and down." He inserts one foot into the slit and pulls with both hands until his knee finds a six-inch ledge. Then the fingers read the rock above his head and discover another handhold. He moves like a mechanical spider, slowly, feeling his way with all four limbs and keeping his body flat against the wrinkled surface. When he slips, he does not gasp or flail but simply pulls himself along as if climbing and falling were inseparable halves of the same thing. At the top Hargadon is no more than thirty feet from where he has started, but he falls forward and promises himself sleep, enough sleep for a lifetime, if he can just be allowed to see beneath the first painful sliver of light breaking beyond the next range. He takes one last breath, then stands on the tabletop and shades his eyes.

While from below an old man's voice drifts up to him. "What do you see? Is there a cut bank and a stand of hemlock?"

"Yeah," says Hargadon. "Yeah, there is. And I can see the road too."

5.

The truck is nearly covered under a mound of snow, but it starts as soon as Hargadon turns the key. For a few minutes he sits with his head bowed and his arms draped over the steering wheel, unmoving even though the first cold air from the heater stings his hands. Ice crystals in his three-day stubble begin to melt and trickle to the point of his chin. Still he doesn't move, drinking in the growing warmth like a greenhouse orchid and gradually opening to the possibilities of the new day. The seat cover, after two days in the storm, creaks every time he breathes; but the engine revs, and the radio works. So Hargadon stretches one or two muscles at a time and listens to the reports coming in from the first patrols headed back up into the mountains. Then he switches to a country music station and waits.

Looking out the pa.s.senger window he can see Windfield itself, gray as a castle and crowning the crest of the next range. It does not look like a prison. It is something more human, a cathedral perhaps, or a Tibetan lamasery, or refuge for the penitent, just above the level of clouds. There are no fences or guard towers. No rats or damp, dripping pipes in Windfield. It is clean and warm. He knows because, on most days, he works there with his friend Rifken and the others. Where the greenery, just outside the walls, is so thick and tangled you cannot run in a straight line, could not fall or fly or even skitter like loose stone down to the towns below.

Hargadon turns the defroster on high and steps out of the truck to begin brushing the snow away from the windshield with his arm. He hears a hissing sound behind him and turns to see a car from the state patrol. It rolls to a stop, idling with a low growl as the driver makes a quick radio call. Then steps out on the far side. He is a tall black man with close-cropped hair and a starched gray uniform. Campaign hat and polished boots. Jacket open and clear of his holster. "You doing all right?" he asks.

Hargadon sees him eyeing the Department of Corrections decal on the side of the truck. "Doing okay now. Had a hard night of it though."

"You wouldn't be one of those missing guards, would you? From Windfield?"

"Yeah. I'm Hargadon."

"You look like you been through it."

"Yeah, well ... it got a little tricky."

"They're looking for you about as hard as they're looking for Henley." The trooper turns and regards the ragged furrow in the snow leading back up the side of the mountain. "You find anything?"