Spencer's Mountain (28 page)

One week Clay became obsessed with the notion that his house on the mountain was being stolen board by board, that thieves were carrying off his tools and his power saw and the treasures he had collected there. One morning, to put his father's mind at rest, Clay-Boy offered to go up on the mountain to check on the house.

Clay-Boy went through the kitchen to tell his mother where he was going.

“You want to go too?” he asked Claris, who was helping his mother bathe the twins.

“Sure,” said Claris. “Just wait till I throw some powder on old Franklin Delano.”

“I'll take him,” said Olivia, retrieving Franklin Delano from Claris, who handled him as if he were a sack of potatoes.

After Clay-Boy and Claris disappeared down the road Olivia went about her work absent-mindedly. She was sorry she had allowed them to make the expedition. There were snakes on the mountain and all sorts of wild animals. But after a while Olivia admitted to herself that it was not danger from wild things that worried her, but the possibilities open to two young people alone on the mountain with no one to chaperone them.

***

“The best way to go,” said Clay-Boy when they came to the foot of the mountain, “is up the creek bed. We won't run into so many snakes that way.”

Claris shuddered. “You didn't tell me there'd be snakes.”

“There won't be, except for water snakes, and most of them don't bite. Come on. Let's go.”

Clay-Boy led the way. He stepped from one stone to another above the clear shade-dappled water that tumbled peacefully down the mountainside. Through one cool mossy glade after another, over the icy spring-fed water, Claris followed in his steps, agile as a boy. Once Clay-Boy saw a cottonmouth moccasin coiled around the base of a frond of ferns. He knew he should kill it because it was poisonous, but he was impatient to reach the top of the mountain and kept on past the snake, which did not stir.

“That's trailing arbutus there,” he said, and pointed to a patch of the plant, “and over yonder under that pine tree is some creeping cedar.”

“The arbutus is lovely, but I don't like anything that creeps,” said Claris. “Where did you find out so much about plants?”

“My Grandma Spencer. She used to take us walken along the road and every time we'd see a plant she'd tell us the name of it. When I was a junior in high school I picked sixty-two different kinds of plant leaves and knew the names of all of them.”

“Botany is not one of my passions,” she said. “I'm more interested in sociology. Give me a hand.”

Clay-Boy turned back and helped her step up a slippery stretch of rock. It occurred to him that she was behaving more like a girl today than she usually did, and the thought made him feel vaguely superior and protective so that he started pointing out places where she should step with care or else he would wait and escort her over a place where she might have fallen or slipped.

Once when they found a broad rock that split the little stream they sat for a while and rested.

“This is the forest primeval,” recited Claris, “the murmuring pines and the hemlocks.”

“It sure is,” said Clay-Boy. “Plenty wild.”

“It's just as if there were just the two of us left in the world. Everybody else gone off somewhere,” said Claris.

“Just us and the wildcats,” said Clay-Boy.

“Are there any of those up here?” asked Claris with a shudder.

“Maybe,” he said. “But they're nothing to be afraid of. Willie Beasley killed one one time and I saw it. Wasn't much bigger than a good-sized tom cat.”

“What would you do if a wildcat jumped down here on this rock right this minute?”

“I'd say ‘Go way, cat. I'm resting.'”

“No, I mean honestly.”

“There isn't any point in talking about it because it isn't going to happen.”

“All the same, I'm scared.” They were lying on their backs looking up at the patch of blue sky visible through the branches above. Claris moved a fraction closer to Clay-Boy and feeling her near him he brought his arm over and around her protectively. Just as quickly she moved away indignantly.

“Now, don't go trying anything like that with me!” she exclaimed.

“Like
what
?”

“Like what you were trying to do just then.”

“What was I trying to do?”

“You were trying to touch me and you know it.”

Clay-Boy rose with equal indignation, but she did not give him time to speak.

“Just don't get any ideas,” she warned. She got up from the rock and stepped out into the little brook again. Clay-Boy followed after her, sullen and angry that she had mistaken his protective gesture for anything more than what it was intended to be.

“Hey,” he called suddenly. Claris stopped and looked back at him. “I'll go first,” he said, “you follow me.” Obediently she waited while he walked abreast of her, and then as he was about to go past her, Claris reached out and touched his arm and he stopped.

“I'm sorry I screamed at you,” she said.

“I didn't try what you thought I did,” he said.

“I'm a little jumpy today,” she said.

“It's all right,” said Clay-Boy. With Clay-Boy in the lead they continued on up the mountain. Once he stopped and pointed off through the trees.

“If you'll look right through that clearing in the trees where the wood trail turns you'll see a stump,” he said.

“What's so wonderful about a stump?” asked Claris.

“It's where I killed the deer,” said Clay-Boy.

“Let's go over there,” said Claris. “I'd like to see it.”

Clay-Boy had not visited the spot since he had killed the deer there. Now as he stepped into the edge of the clearing he felt as if he were in some haunted place. The trees were in leaf now, and trillium and lady's slippers grew where he had plunged the deer's antlers into the snow. Remembering, a shiver went down his back and when he looked at Claris he found her gazing at him curiously.

“What?” he said.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

“Oh,” he said, “That story my grandfather used to tell.”

“Do you believe it?” she asked.

“Do you?”

“Something's happened to you since last year.”

“What?”

“You're not a boy any more.”

“It took you a long time to notice that,” he said.

“No, it didn't,” she said. “I just like to tease you.”

“Come on,” he said, “Let's look at Daddy's house.”

They did not return to the creek bed but followed the old wood trail that led to the summit of the mountain. The skeleton of the house Clay was building remained as he had left it. Claris walked about on the floor joists and examined the exterior studs which would soon be ready for rafters while Clay-Boy checked on all his father's tools and equipment and found them intact, just as Clay had left them.

When he was satisfied that all was in order, Clay-Boy called to Claris and they started back down the mountain.

“You want to see an Indian mound?” asked Clay-Boy.

When Claris agreed that she would, he led her off the path into a field where the Indian mound was located. There was in the field the quiet of remote places where people seldom come. This field was broad and filled with high grass and bordered with pine trees. There was little sound and not much movement either, only the gently swaying grass as the wind passing through and the occasional swift flight of some bird disturbed the wild and private silence of the place.

Following a path that Clay-Boy knew, they came to a place where the tall grass had been flattened down. Clay-Boy said, “Some deer spent the night here. That's where they bedded down, there where the grass is all bent and broken.”

Claris ran into the small bowl of flat grass and threw herself down into it.

“It's still warm from their bodies,” she said.

“No, it's not,” he said. “They've been gone since sunup. It's warm from the sun.”

“It's nice,” Claris said. “Come try it.”

Clay-Boy came to where she was and sat down beside her. Her eyes were closed and she lay completely still. The aroma of the crushed grass and the earth and the sun-drenched
air rose up around them, and for a long time they lay with their eyes closed and the warm noon sun caressing them.

“Just think,” said Claris. “Only a few hours ago some wild beautiful thing lay here.”

“I hope they didn't have fleas,” said Clay-Boy.

“Oh, if you're going to talk like that, don't talk,” said Claris crossly.

“All I said was…”

“Don't repeat it,” interrupted Claris. “I thought you had a soul. I thought you were my wild witch boy of the mountains and all you can think about at a very important moment like this is fleas.”

“It wasn't all I was thinking,” said Clay-Boy.

“Oh, I know what else you were thinking,” she said. “It's never out of your mind, is it?”

“What?”

“You're always thinking about it. I can tell. I can read minds and I've known all along you brought me up here just to try something.”

Clay-Boy was wordless. Suddenly he realized that
it
could very well happen. He had dreamed of it, imagined it, anticipated it, yearned for it, and now it seemed that the mysterious and impossible thing could actually happen. He flushed with the pleasure of having, without really planning it, arranged the occasion so artfully. He knew he must make his next move with the utmost care. Too sudden a word might frighten or startle her and ruin his chances forever. While he searched about in his mind for just the right word to use, Claris spoke again.

“If you could be anything in the world you wanted to be, what would you be?”

“I'd like to be rich so I could go to college,” Clay-Boy answered. “What would you be?”

“I'd be a nudist,” Claris replied lazily.

“I guess that would be kind of fun,” agreed Clay-Boy.

“I'd go off somewhere to the end of the world, some place without fences or people where nobody could see me and just let the sun and the wind seep right down into the
marrow of my bones. I think that's what God intended us to be anyway. I'd be one right now if you weren't here.”

“I could leave you alone for a while if you want,” replied Clay-Boy.

“Do,” said Claris. She sat up in the grass and stared at him. “What are you waiting for?”

Clay-Boy moved out of the grass where the deer had slept and into the path.

“You could use a little sun yourself,” she called as he moved away.

Clay went a few yards and when he came to a turnoff he stepped off the path and into a sunny clearing beside a scrub pine. First he peered up toward where Claris was but the foliage was too thick and he could not see her. Next he proceeded to unbutton his shirt, fighting all along with his straitlaced Baptist conscience. It was only when he made a halfhearted promise to himself that he would only get out of his clothes and right back into them again that he allowed himself to remove his shirt and trousers and toss them over the pine tree. Standing there in his underwear and his shoes and socks he felt uncomfortable and conscious of the picture he would present if someone should happen to come by.

Discarding his undershirt and shorts he felt even more uncomfortable, and it was only when he shed his shoes and socks that he began to enjoy the sensation of being absolutely naked in the noonday sun.

Cautiously he stepped out of the clearing onto the path again and there above him, her back to him, was Claris. She was loosening the coils of hair at the back of her head, running her hands through them to shake them loose. Clay-Boy could hardly breathe.

When she turned he expected her to run screaming back into the grass. Instead, she continued to run her hands through her hair and asked in a half-teasing, half-serious voice, “What do you think of me?”

“I think you are beautiful,” Clay-Boy heard himself say.

“You're not. You're all bony and knobby-kneed and your neck is red and the rest of you is white as flour.” She gave him
another critical look and with a sudden surge of modesty his hands went down to cover himself.

Suddenly Claris ran at him and pushed him so violently that he fell backward into the grass. When he got up she was running through the grass away from him. He watched her for a moment and then ran after her. She did not look back, seeming not to know or to care if he were behind her.

When at last he caught up with her, he reached out and touched her shoulder. She gave a sharp cry and spun around to face him. She met him in the full force of his running and it carried them with their arms around each other to the grass.

***

The shadows of the late afternoon sun were lengthening across the field when they returned to where they had left their clothes. Clay-Boy dressed quickly in the spot where he had left his. They were hot from the sun and it was only when he was dressed that he remembered how sensitive his skin was to the sun, but it was too late now and his skin began to chafe and grow even hotter under the sun-warmed clothes. Nevertheless he felt pleased and possessive and full of love as he came up the path to where he had left Claris.

For the first time since he had known her she was shy with him, and she offered no resistance when he put his arms about her and held her to him.

“Tell me again that you love me,” she said.

“Why?” he asked.

“I just like to hear it,” she said.

“I love you,” he said. Hand in hand they walked down the mountain. Claris chattered like a jaybird all the way home and Clay-Boy listened, silent, amused, indulgent, inflated with love and ownership of that most precious possession—his girl.

It was only when they came back into the village that they let go of each other's hands; at the gate to her father's house Clay-Boy wanted to kiss her again, but he did not for fear her father might be watching out of the window.