Moontrap - Don Berry (21 page)

"
So? Account of?"

"
Account of y'r woman bein' Shoshone," Webb
said.

"They some talk runnin'?"

"
Some."

"
Brown or white?"

"White."

"
Sayin'?"

Webb leaned back against the bench of the table. "Not
myin' much o' anythin'. More like a smell in the air.
Wagh!
Bad meat, like."

" '
Bout me an' Mary," Monday said, poking
at the meat with his knife.

"
Not exackly," Webb said. "But me,
now, if this child was brownskin, he wouldn't get nowheres near them
gallows."

"That bad."

"I'm thinkin' it could get that bad," Webb
said. "Seems like ever'body's a wee mite nervy."

"
Wasn't figurin' to take Mary anyways,"
Monday said thoughtfully.

"Best like that, t' my thinkin'."

"
But I figure t'go myself," Monday said.

Webb shrugged. "Don't see it makes much
difference."

"Might could be it does," Monday said.
Absently he jabbed a piece of meat with his knife and handed it
across to Webb. "This here's about done. No, I helped bring them
boys down, and I expect I best see 'er through to the end."

"Stay with the pack all the way." Webb
snorted.

"Y'know damn well Tamahas an' them deserve t'
swing a bit," Monday said. "This childs all for it. Y'ain't
gettin' a rise out o' me like that."

"Ain't trying t' get nothin' out of y'. Y'
figure t' prove somethin', go on ahead. It ain't nothing t' me."

"Might could be it's somethin' to me, though. Me
an' the territory"

"Well now, " Webb said, standing up. "We
raised sign 'bout a quarter mile from camp, an' sure god it was
Absaroka. Good thing, too, it was, else we'd of like t' lost our ha'r
besides them horses .... "

He turned toward the door and went out. "We
trailed after that bunch nigh onto a week. Was Godin as first raised
fresh sign, on the  Rosebud south o' where she turns . . ."

Monday listened to him mount his bony old horse and
ride off into the moonlit night. He rubbed his forehead, staring into
the fire. Then he swung the long pothook back away from the flames
and went back to bed.

2

Just after dawn on the day of the hanging René
Devaux came riding up from Champoeg. The sun had barely cleared the
screen of trees to the east of Monday's cabin when Devaux dismounted,
throwing the reins over the rail of the porch carelessly.

"
Hey, friend of me!" he hollered. "Come
out from the cave and look!"

Monday came out, still belting his shirt around him.
"What're y'feelin' like, Rainy? "

"Regard! Regard!" Devaux pointed at the
rising sun.

The air was supernaturally clear, and the sun rose in
an almost tangible aura of power. The light was a physical thing,
smashing against the side of the cabin as though to force it into the
river. The tops of the trees glowed with sudden incandescence, and
seemed to sway away from the relentless pressure of the light itself.
The whole world swelled with a sudden access of energy as the light
streamed across it, birthing the new day.

"
Mon Dieu
,
he is very strong today," Devaux said wonderingly.

Monday stretched himself, feeling the sharp heat
penetrate his shirt and chest, enjoying the pressure of the light on
his face. It was almost like one of the brilliant mountain days, when
a man had the sensation he'd never have to eat or sleep again, the
conviction that he could steal some of the power ofthe sun itself and
live by that great flood of energy alone.

"By christ!" he said. "Y'know, Rainy,
there's some days in this country make you think it's worth the whole
winter."

"
He going to be ver' hot, this day."

"
Be like this forever, f'r all o' me,"
Monday said contentedly. He looked around at the country, wondering
at the terrible distinctness of each leaf, each limb of fir, every
furrow of the field. The brilliance of the sun infused every object
with a life of its own, an internal glow that illuminated something
from the core of creation itself.

"
Where he is, that crazy old man?" Devaux
asked.

"
Got his camp over by them trees," Monday
said. "Expect he'll drag ass over directly. C'mon in an' have
some coffee."

Devaux hesitated. "No, I stay here. Is not many
mornings in the world like this."

"Bastard," Monday muttered. He went back
into the cabin, feeling the sudden chill of the shadow, acutely aware
of the cutting off of the energy of the great flaming sky. He quickly
shoveled a few grounds of coffee and parched barley into the pot, set
it to boil and returned to the dooryard.

Devaux was lighting his pipe contentedly, leaning
back against the wall.

"By god, Rainy, y're no better'n a lizard lyin'
on a rock in the sun."

Devaux gestured absently with his pipe. "Go back
in the cave, then, son of a toad.
Crapaud,
toi
."

Monday grinned and stretched his shoulders again,
restless with a sudden surplus of energy. At the edge of the field he
saw the tiny, infinitely sharp figure of Webb mounting his horse, and
the faint tendril of his dying fire. "Here comes the coon now,"
he said.

"Old Swensen, I saw him," Devaux said. "He
is not coming. Says it is a waste of time, to watch Indians hang."

"
Even Swensen don't believe in the end o' the
world on a morning like this," Monday said.

"
You think so?" Rainy said curiously,
taking the pipe out of his mouth and looking at Monday. "Strange
thing, maybe. Me I wonder who is stronger, Swensen or the sun. I wish
I had ask him, now."

"
Ask him t'morrow."

"
Tomorrow, he will forget what he feel like
today." Devaux shrugged, but he was interested to know what
Swensen thought on a day like this. Webb rode up, muttering happily
to himself and grinning.

"
Some morning, coon," Monday said.

"
It is, now, " Webb said. "Them Sioux
ain't so damn crazy with their Sun Dance.
They
know."

He came to lean against the wall too, chuckling to
himself.

"
What the hell're you so happy about?"
Monday asked.

Webb put his hand level with his heart, sweeping it
out to the right, then made the spiral sign for "medicine"
from his forehead.

"
Wagh!
" Monday
agreed. "Damn good medicine, t'my thinkin'."

"
Not the sun, y'iggerant nigger," Webb
said. "Had me a medicine dream las' night. Woke m'self up
laughin'."

"There's some, now," Monday said. "I
only woke up laughin' once in my whole life."

"That's cause y're just a boy, " Webb said.
"Me, I woke up laughin' a dozen times, maybe."

"
Sometimes I wake up hollerin'," Monday
said. "Hollerin' an' cryin'."

"Hell, that ain't nothin'. It don't take nothin'
to wake up hollerin' an' cryin'."

"
I'm just sayin', is all," Monday said
defensively. "Sometimes I do that."

"
Any ol' nigger c'n
scare
hisself 'thout no trouble," Webb said. "But t' wake up
laughin', that's somethin' else. T' my thinkin', y' got t' be four
different people t' wake y'rself up laughin'."

"Me," Devaux said, "I see only two.
One to laugh and one to wake up."

"F
our y'
dunghead," Webb snapped. "T' make y'rself laugh, y' got t'
be surprised, ain't that right? So y' got t' have one different coon
t' do the surprisin', an' another t' be surprised."
 
"Still only two," Monday said, frowning.

"Hold y'r goddam mouth," Webb said. "Then
y' got t' have another one t' laugh, an' the last one t' wake up
'cause he hears the laughin'."

"
No, friend of me," Devaux said seriously.
" The one that laughs is the same one that was surprised, no?
And the one that wakes up is the same one who made the surprise."

"Hell, he ain't going to wake up," Webb
said. "That 'un already knows the surprise. Why would he wake
up?"

"
Because he hear all that laughing going on."

Monday rubbed the back of his neck. "Might could
be three," he said.

Webb narrowed his eyes viciously. "You got a
damn bad habit o' conterdictin' y'r betters, boy. This nigger'll have
y'r ass f'r breakfast yet, one o' these times."

"Ain't no reason t' get y'r back up, hoss. But
honest t' god, I only see—"

Webb leaned back against the wall. "Don't give a
damn what y' see. This nigger's figured all that out a long time ago,
when I had rn' very first laughin'-dream. An' there's four."

Devaux shrugged. "Is very curious, about that."

"Anyways," Webb said contentedly, "this
child woke laughin' this morning, an' he ain't goin' t' let any
sad-ass niggers like you spoil it f'r him."

"
Hell, Webb," Monday said sincerely. "I
ain't tryin' t' spoil nothin'. I love t' wake up laughin', honest."

"Thing about when y' wake up laughin',"
Webb said thoughtfully, "y' can't take nothin' serious the rest
o' the day. It's funny as hell."

"Me, I like to wake
up laughing, too," Devaux said, friendly, "but I don't
think I ever did."

***

It was the kind of day everything could happen. The
sun, climbing toward noon, remained three times its normal size. The
heat, strangely, was not great, but there was a radiance over the
land that transformed it, as though a shabby skin had been washed
away in the flood of light.

Everything was new, everything was freshened and
reborn, as clean and untouched as had been on the morning of
creation.

The body of a man reached out and spread itself on a
day like this, Monday thought. He felt a foot taller, and there was a
sensation of incomparable fullness and tone to all his muscles. The
others felt it too, and they rode in to Oregon City without much
talk, simply enjoying in their bellies the radiance that touched
them. Webb did not even reminisce about the old days; today the
present was too real for that.

The old man chuckled occasionally, but Monday knew it
was because of the laughing dream, and not something that had
happened a thousand miles away and a thousand years ago. Even the
raw, new gallows behind the courthouse glistened in the sun. Monday
and the others tied their horses in front and walked around to stare
curiously at the yellowish-white structure; none of them had ever
seen a gallows before.

"
Wagh!
"
Webb said. "That's some, now. Just like one o' y'r goddam
houses, it is."

The carpenters had only finished in the morning, and
there was still the clean odor of freshly cut wood, and tiny piles of
sawdust stood like anthills at several places beneath the platform.
On the ground below one edge there was a long trail of yellowish
powder, where the planking had been trimmed off even.

"Didn't think they looked like that,"
Monday said, walking over to peer underneath.

The carpenters had built a high, raised platform
perhaps fifteen feet long and eight wide, standing seven feet above
the level of the ground. At the right end a flight of stairs led up
to the platform. Two posts, one at either end, supported the
crossbeam, a roughly hewn timber nearly a foot square.

"
I had it in my mind different, " Monday
said, straightening up. "You know, just one post, like a
upside-down L."

"Hell," Webb snorted. "Y'iggerant
dunghead! They got five o' these niggers t' hang. Take 'em all day,
one at a time like that."

"I expect. I ain't criticizing, I'm just sayin'
how I had it in my mind, is all. I never thought much about it."

The center section of the platform was hinged at the
back edge. From under the platform, Monday could see that the front
edge was not supported at all, except by the rope. Tied to a ring at
either end of the center trap, the rope passed over the crossbeam and
down again at the back of the structure. Passing through two more
rings in the frame, it ran low along the back edge. Near the center
of the back it passed over a large block of wood.

"Must be five, six dollars worth o' line right
there," Monday said. "Not even countin' the nooses."

Devaux shrugged. "Friend of me, is why they want
we should pay taxes, to buy rope to hang Indians."

The three had not been the first to arrive. Scattered
around were small knots of people chatting, and more were arriving
all the time. Most of them glanced only covertly at the gallows.
Monday was surprised to see so many women, dressed in bright and
festive clothing that shone brilliantly in the sun. The men wore
their Sunday clothes, except for a few farmers who had put in the
morning in the fields and had come directly to the hanging from work.