The beast v1 0, p.6
The Beast (v1.0), page 6
“Pretty, huh?” Johnny said, picking his suitcase out of the back seat.
“Does the rest of the world know about this?”
“Yeah, but they don’t like the road/’ Johnny grinned. “But there are forest service people down at Chinle. They take a few tourists around the lower end of the canyon, but they seldom bring anybody up this far.”
They shouldered the stuff that had to be carried and left the Model A where it sat. From the trail below it appeared to be a flat-faced little blackbird, spouting steam, ready to leap into space and flap its fenders across the canyon. The trail was beautiful in itself, Barry thought, stepping down the gentle slope that wound back and forth between hummocks of rock and little pinnacles of volcanic basalt They walked down out of sunlight into the reflected brilliance from that great spinnaker of stone that swooped out from the other side. As they emerged on the last slope before the valley floor, Barry looked up at that ruddy cliff with the long curving black streaks showing its outward bulge over the valley, and he felt that washing away of discontent, that loosening of the worried mind, that total agreement with our own selves that we call a religious feeling. He stopped and stood, the suitcase and hamper hanging in his hands, just looking at the cliff. Down in the valley the sunlight had been drawn upward for the night to leave a softening of shadows over the willows that bent slightly in the breeze, and from somewhere in the canyon he began to hear the sounds: first was the regular stroke of an ax far away, and then there was a song, the words high and drifting in the breeze, words in an unknown language but speaking an unmistakable joy in life. He stood and held the weight of his baggage, looking at the valley and listening, the cool wind of the approaching evening running over his skin, and he Wanted it. He could not have said what it was he wanted. Not the Indian way, the savage life, not just the startling and isolated setting, but the combination of the long journey, the trail down, the evening sun lifting its colors up the cliffs, the long floating music drifting up the valley. He listened to the song, clear and joyful as a hymn sung by a single angel, like a lark at heaven’s gate.
Chapter Four
Two weeks before Christmas the wind from the northeast stopped and the sky bloomed with cumulus against a pure summery blue. Bo walked out under the empty trees just to breathe the air. It was like spring again in the little square park with the statue of Paul Revere in the center. Feeling convalescent and new as a wet butterfly, Bo sat on an iron bench and watched the armadas of cloud sail away into the north. They were like ships, he thought, and his mind relaxed with comfortable fantasies of cloud sailors and fishermen in misty rigging. He felt good again. After so long being in pain or expecting it and thinking of the imminent destruction of his life. Bo felt ecstatic in a quiet way just to be sitting in the sun and breathing. He thought languidly of a cat sitting in the sun with its toes tucked under and its tail wrapped around. A blessing, that’s what it is; a blessing just to be alive.
‘‘You’re very good at following the doctor’s orders, Bo,” the familiar voice said. He turned his eyes, which were dazed from looking at the sky.
“Your orders are easy to follow, Lilly.” Looking at her smile was better than a whole month of June. “Sit down, take a load off,” he said, feeling sheepish and rather shy.
"I've got a present, a special treat,” she said, pulling at something in her coat pocket. She brought out a lovely red apple, a Washington Delicious that made Bo’s cheeks suddenly smart with saliva. He hadn’t eaten real food, he thought, for a month, at least.
“You wouldn’t be kidding. I can really eat it, the whole thing?”
Lilly laughed and held the apple by its stem before the older man’s face. “Can I tempt you, dear Adam?” She
did a little dance step and then sat beside him still holding the apple.
“You sure can/’ he said, taking the apple and turning it over a couple of times. When he took the first crunching, delicious bite, he thought he had never tasted anything so heavenly. It brought back a scene from years ago when he had been working at a resort in Wisconsin and had led a troop of young campers back from a too-long hike. The apple was the duplicate of the one he had grabbed from the mess-hall table that hot afternoon. Strange how vivid such memories were, he thought, greedily biting again into the apple, how everything came back as if it had been stored there just for that purpose.
“Goodness,” Lilly said, watching his progress. “I’m afraid when you finish that poor apple you’ll begin on me. Such an appetite.”
“You’d be hungry, too,” he said, sucking back the juice, “if you’d been eating no more than enough to keep a sick rabbit alive for a month or more.”
But as he finished it, he wondered if the pain would begin, as it had so often whenever he ate anything. It still grabbed him sometimes, though at longer intervals in the past week. Lilly could evidently see the concern on his face.
“I think it’ll be okay,” she said, wiping at a spot of juice on his chin with her handkerchief. “But you art messy.”
“I still can’t believe it,” he said, sitting back and putting one arm along the back of the bench behind her. “And what am I going to do? I can’t just stay here.”
“Would you like to go into Boston, see Paul Revere’s house?” Lilly said, seeming to misunderstand.
“No, I mean I just got to thinking again about home and my wife.” He felt ashamed for some reason to mention Mary Louise, as if he were being unappreciative, or even a traitor.
“Oh, yes, I knew what you meant,” she said, her eyes cast down now. “Bo, I’m afraid you’ll misunderstand what I’m going to say now.”
He felt a sudden weakness in his guts and tensed himself for the pain. But it was only some unfamiliar emotion making his stomach feel butterflies. He could not have said why he felt that way, but an image he didn’t understand flashed into his mind: a shy young boy being cajoled by a loving older woman.
“I want you to”—the young woman paused, feeling for words—“to not go home for a while.” She looked up at the man’s face. “I want you to stay here with me.”
Their eyes met then, and the two people on the park bench saw something in each other that made them both look away at the same instant.
“You mustn’t misunderstand, Bo,” she said. “She wants you to stay until you are really cured, and I … well, of course I want you to stay, but it’s not like 1 want you to … to ..She stopped.
George Beaumont felt suddenly more like his own age and realized something of what was going on. He felt a flush of shame at the way he had been acting. What in the goddamn hell, he thought. I’m playing the kid here, letting her do all this. He straightened his back, looked at the young woman and grinned.
“Well, if I wasn’t smarter, I’d say you were trying to propose to me right here in public.” He put his arm around her shoulders and turned her to face him. “Gosh, Lilly, I know what you mean. You don’t have to go through all that.”
She looked up at him, an expression halfway between gratitude and frustration on her face. He felt for the first time since they had met that he was in command of the situation. It was a strange feeling. She had been nursing him, telling him what to eat, when to go out and for how long, how much to sleep, for crissakes, when to go to the toilet even. And he had forgotten that she was only a kid, maybe only twenty-two or -three, and it had made him feel like an even younger kid to have her mothering him like that; but, of course, he was older and should know about these things. His grin began to feel a bit strained.
“Well, what do you say we do take a look around this place. I never been much out of my home state anyway.”
“Okay, Bo,” she said, and her look was grateful now. “I’m not a native, but I can show you some churches and old houses, and I know a place where we can get the best Italian salad outside of Napoli.”
They took a train into Boston and did a portion of the North End, Faneuil Hall and the Old North Church, which had announcements in front in Italian, but then Bo was feeling shaky. They found the restaurant, where Lilly said he could have one glass of wine and the antipasto with garlic bread, nothing with meat sauce. It was fine, the bright, summery day with no sea breeze at all so that Boston might have been a thousand miles from an ocean.
It was like early spring rather than late fall, and the Christmas decorations seemed funny anachronisms from a long-vanished culture. The food was great, Bo said, and he felt every bite, every swallow a tiny miracle of its own as it produced nothing but a warm glow in his middle, no pain or even discomfort. All of that in the past months might have been a nightmare, something that had happened to someone else. And Lilly was so comfortable with him that he kept forgetting they were not engaged or married, or going to be. When he thought that, he almost choked on an anchovy bone and had to hide behind the big napkin the waiter had tied around his neck.
When he raised his red face, she was looking at him with such compassion that he felt the surge in his blood again. He reached over to pat her hand and found himself holding it instead.
“It’s … uck … all right. Just an extra big bone in that sliced fish." He grinned. “Boy, those Italians. Who’d ever think of puttin’ fish in a salad?
“Say,” he went on heartily, “this wine is really givin* me a buzz. You better watch yourself, girlie.” But he felt weak enough to be carried back to his room. The walking around had worn him out. He had not realized how weak he had become from the past month of fighting. Yes, he thought, I was fighting for my life. He had to pin his trousers together now, and his shirts had to be cinched up at the neck with the necktie or they looked like they belonged to his big brother. He had lost perhaps sixty pounds, and, although Lilly said he looked better without the extra weight, it made him feel unaccountably light and strange in his clothes. Even his shoes felt loose. He imagined that he looked like a bum. And that brought thoughts of Mary Louise, for she had always objected to his nickname, saying it was a tramp’s name, not a respectable man’s.
“Bo, you really look tired,” Lilly said. “Let me call a taxicab to take us back, okay?”
“Hell, we can’t do that. It’s miles and miles, and it’ll cost a fortune.” He felt for his wallet. “I got to think about finances, you know.” This was a stupid thing to say, what with Lilly buying most of what he had been eating for the past month or so, but he was worried about it. He had money at home, but even though he had brought more than he needed back in November and had wired the bank for more since, he was acutely aware of the money going out and none coming in.
“Sure we can,” the young woman said, squeezing his hand. “My treat.”
“You’re always doing that, Lilly,” Bo said, and his voice sounded querulous in his own ears, like a little boy again. But he slumped back in the chair and grinned at her. “You’re awfully good to me, kid.”
“I’ve got a good job, and that’s something these days,” she said. “And I’ve saved some, too.” She looked so happy to be doing for him that Bo decided to quit being an ass about it all. She wanted to do it, wanted to be saving his life and feeding him, and hell, he needed it. He had always believed in doing things for himself, and now for the past six weeks somebody had been doing it all for him; and he had been taking it. Well, let it be that way, dammit, he thought. 1 need her. And he didn’t think beyond that, as he would have before he got so sick; think beyond the help he got to the debt incurred, to the repaying of the obligation. A friend, that’s what she was, a real friend, and that’s what the by-God-hell friends were for.
One night later on he dreamed again of the Beast. In his dream the moonlight filled his room with liquid light. A colorless, shadowless aura seemed to be coming from all sides instead of through the window like real moonlight, and in that mysterious glowing field the Beast came stalking into his room on its long blue-gray cat legs. It stood beside his bed, standing straight like a man, or … no, he remembered, it was female, like a tall woman dressed in blue-gray fur. Now its blunt fingers were unbuttoning the pajamas he had bought at the local Sears Roebuck so he wouldn’t look so awful sleeping in his underclothes when she came in—Lilly, he meant. And the Beast ran those fingers over him; not just his stomach, but his chest and legs and head, trailing its blue-gray paws so as just to touch his flesh. It left a tingling path along his nerves. He looked down at his naked body and saw traces of light wherever the paw touched him until his body was a series of gleaming streaks, as if She had illuminated the arteries and veins, the nerve networks, made the flesh itself transparent. And when he looked up again, the face of the Beast was close to his own; the muzzle with its gleaming fangs seemed to smile at him, and the eyes were shadows into which he looked and saw flashes and sparks far away. He kept wanting to ask, in his dream thoughts, “What are you? Why have you done this for me?” But he could not move, not even his lips. Only his eyes followed the movements of the Beast as it faded into the clear moonlight, backed away from him, diminishing in perspective as if it were being pulled away on a track, until he could only see a faint touch of blue-gray in the surrounding luminous ether. He tried to call out, to cry for it to stay, to say he was grateful, that he wanted to do something in return, but it was gone.
When he awoke his head was propped against the head-board as if he had been sitting up all night. He looked straight out the grimy little window and saw that it was snowing. The room was cold, but he threw back the covers and undid the pajamas to look at his long, gaunt body. He looked for the streaks of light, but of course it bad been a dream.
He had just put his feet on the rug when the door exploded with a hail of thumps and knocks. For an instant he was so stunned by the unaccustomed noise that he thought the house must be falling down around him. Mrs. Peavey, the landlady, never knocked, always called out softly, did he want his bed made, and things like that. And Lilly sort of scratched, very softly, although he always heard her. But the rain of blows on the door now could only be made by someone who did not know how small the room was, or who thought its occupant was stone deaf.
As he stepped the two paces to the door to open it, he felt anger rising in him. Who in the goddamn hell knocks like that at the door. He swung it open, prepared to be rude to a vacuum cleaner salesman, and found himself facing three men: two shorter than himself, wearing fedora hats and chewing cigars, the other quite a big man dressed in blue, a policeman.
“Mr. Beaumont, George Beaumont?” said one of the fedoras, the cigar bobbing to the words.
“Yes,” George said, bewildered and feeling a twinge of fear in his stomach.
“Anyone else in there?” the other fedora said, pushing against George so that he had to back into the room.
“What do you mean?” George said. “Who the hell are you guys, anyway?”
The other fedora pulled a badge from his pocket. “Private investigator. Rawlins Detective Agency outta Chicago.” The badge disappeared into the pocket again.
Bo looked at the big blue uniformed cop who stood at the threshold like a statue with an apologetic look. “What is this?” he said to the cop.
“If you’re George Beaumont,” the cop said, “these guys have a warrant so I have to pick you up.” He seemed reluctant but determined.
“Nobody else here,” the other fedora said, knocking cigar ashes on the hooked rug.
“Crummy joint you picked to hide yourself away in,” said number-one fedora. “You do look sick, like the lady said,” he continued, giving Bo a once-over.
“Better get dressed,” the cop said, coming through the door and looking around as the other two men had.
“What the hell are you guys looking for?” Bo asked, feeling so outraged that his fear could not surface.
“We know you been having a little … ah, shall we say, love nest here with a young lady of anonymous name,” said fedora number two. “And we have been engaged by your legal and deserted wife, one Mary Louise Beaumont of Whitethorn, Illinois, to locate your whereabouts and haul your ass back.” The man leaned against the wall and gave Bo a sarcastic smile. ‘That answer your question, big shot?”
“But you can’t walk in here and force me to go back,” Bo said, fear beginning to sound in his voice in spite of himself. “I got some rights, too.”
“You ain’t got rights,” fedora number one said. “What you got is a wife.” He laughed over at fedora number two.
T got to stay here,” Bo said, listening to his voice shake and feeling, as from a distance, the foregone conclusion of his helpless entreaties. “My doctor isn’t done with me.”
“His doctor isn’t done with him!” fedora number one said, tilting back the hat to reveal a large expanse of bald forehead. “Listen, wise guy, that little broad is a pretty cute doctor, but she ain’t the one that ain’t done with you. The one that ain’t done with you is your legal spouse, baby. And when she’s done with you, you gonta need a doctor.” The two detectives, or whatever they were, guffawed.
He was detained at the police station in Malden for most of the day until he could see a judge and be released on his own recognizance. He was then presented with a subpoena demanding his presence in court at Rockford, Illinois, on the Thursday after Christmas, to answer charges of gross neglect, mental cruelty and desertion brought by Mary Louise Beaumont in a divorce action. Bo could not believe his eyes when he untangled the legal jargon and understood what was happening. The two private investigators disappeared once the subpoena was served and witnessed, but they left a few parting thoughts for Bo to ponder. One, his wife had a case for desertion if he was not seeing a bona fide doctor here in the East and if he was not dead by the time the court action came up; and two, they had gathered evidence of a love tryst (fedora number two called it a “triced”) involving George and one Lillian Penfield of the city of Revere, Massachusetts, with pictures of himself and the young lady (as fedora number one said, “pitchin’ woo”) in a local park.
