The Dark Place

Chapter 18

" No, I’m not kidding," Gideon said. "They thought it sounded like the greatest thing since canned peaches."

"Prison?" Julie said. "How could that be?"

How, indeed. He turned onto his back with his hands under his head, looking at the slice of cloudy, moonlit sky beyond the curving edge of the rocky overhang, and thought about the remarkable conversation in the hut. They were lying fully clothed in the sleeping bag, at the base of the giant boulder that shielded the village-to the consternation of the Yahi, who had been flabbergasted when they refused the hospitality of their fire-warmed huts, preferring to sleep outside.

"It is the way of the saltu," Gideon had explained mysteriously, and they had gravely said, "Aah."

"Actually," Gideon said, "I hadn’t wanted to talk to them about jail at all. The more I thought about it, the more insane the idea seemed. What possible purpose could it serve?"

She lay on her side, her cheek resting on her clasped hands. "I couldn’t agree with you more."

"So I started telling them we might find them a reservation: land of their own, streams to fish, animals to hunt, a place where they could have their village, live their lives in peace, and so forth."

"You were able to say all that in Yahi?"

"Pretty much. At a kindergarten level."

"And?"

"And they didn’t know what I was talking about. They said they already had all that right now. So somehow I got to talking to them about prison. I think I was trying to explain how much better life would be on a reservation than in a prison. And"-he burst out laughing-"well, I told them that prison was a big hut made of stone… Clever, what? And they asked if it kept the rain out, and I said yes, it did. They asked if it was warm, and I said yes. They asked if it was light at night-I guess they’ve seen the buildings around Lake Quinault from a distance-and naturally I said it had lights. I could see the way they were looking at each other, especially Shy Buffalo and Keen Eagle, so I told them it was bad; they’d have to stay inside all the time and never go out."

"And that didn’t give them second thoughts?"

"Yes, it did. Keen Eagle asked how they could get food if they didn’t go out, and I told them-"

"-someone would bring their food to them."

"That’s about the size of it. They can’t wait to go."

"That’s fascinating," Julie said. "All I did was learn how to make Yahi baskets. And I told Gray Sparrow my name, even if it’s gauche. She liked it; it made her laugh. She calls me ‘Dooley.’"

"Dooley," Gideon said. "I like it, too. She didn’t tell you hers, did she?"

"No, she fell asleep after an hour, holding that silly turtle. She’s really sweet, Gideon: shy, and happy, and ready to be friends. I’m glad I got a chance to meet her. I wish I could have talked to her."

She turned over on her back. The night was mild, and the sides of the bag were unzipped, giving them plenty of room. "What about Big Cheese?" she said after a while. "Was he so anxious to go to jail?"

"I don’t know. He didn’t say a word the entire time. Just watched, with that superior look on his face. Keen Eagle and Shy Buffalo did all the talking. Not that there was much talking, except for me."

Gideon sat up and clasped his arms around his knees. "You know, when I was telling them how we’d found Claire Hornick in Pyrites Creek, and Eckert and Hartman in the graveyard, I had the distinct impression that Keen Eagle and Shy Buffalo thought it was all a story made up for their amusement. They chuckled every time I mentioned something that was familiar-the villages, the graveyard, the creek-the way a child does when you tell him an exciting story and put him and his house and his street into it. But Big Cheese wasn’t laughing: I wouldn’t say he looked exactly worried, but pretty close; he certainly wasn’t enjoying it."

Julie sat up and leaned her back against Gideon’s shoulder, looking off into the night. "Were we right, then, do you think? Big Cheese has been doing the killing on his own, and the others don’t even know about it?"

"Except for Startled Mouse. I think he knows. He spent most of the time looking at Big Cheese with a funny look on his face. You know, I’m pretty sure I owe him my life. Big Cheese must have hit me down on the gravel bar, and Startled Mouse must have come along and frightened him off before he-"

" Frightened Big Cheese? Startled Mouse?"

"Not physically frightened, of course. But he may be his grandfather, for all we know, or a great-uncle, and that’d give him a lot of authority in Yahi culture. Just being an elder would, for that matter."

Gideon swung his legs out of the bag and began to pull on his boots. "Let’s move the sleeping bag," he said.

"Move it? Why?"

"Big Cheese knows exactly where we are. If he’s planning anything for us tonight, I’d like to make it hard for him to find us."

"But the others wouldn’t let him do anything, would they?"

"Who knows? Remember, we might be reading this wrong. Maybe they’re all involved in it. Maybe this is their standard modus operandi: Feed the saltu, lull them into a peaceful night’s sleep, and then, in the dark of the night, stalk out of their huts with those grisly spears-"

"All right. I’m convinced. Brr."

They found what seemed to be a good place atop the huge boulder itself: a fracture in the rock that provided a rough but nearly horizontal shelf about ten feet above the ground. The moon gave enough light through the thickening cover of ragged clouds to let them find their way quietly up the rock face, and they settled in quickly. They had a wide field of vision, so that anyone creeping toward them would be easy to see. Gideon had left Julie’s jacket and his poncho below, laid out to resemble a sleeping bag.

"That’s better," he said, placing the stone ax a foot from where his head would lie. "Let’s hope it doesn’t rain. We’re out from under the overhang."

"Gideon," Julie said, "what do we do now? I mean tomorrow."

"Nothing, really. I think we’ve accomplished all we can. John will get my note in the morning and head right out. I think we just have to keep talking to them until he gets here. Then, at least, they’ll be in custody-peacefully-and the killings will be over."

"And then what will happen to them?"

"Assuming that it’s Big Cheese who’s been doing the killing-I don’t know what will happen to him. You couldn’t just let him run loose. As for the others, Abe is working on getting some land; someplace remote. It’s too bad they can’t stay here. Or could they?"

"I don’t think so. The Matheny trail is still in our development plan. They’ll be starting to work on it again next year. Besides, how could you have a reservation in the middle of a national park?"

"You know," Gideon said, pulling a hazy item from his memory, "there was a case in Florida in which an Indian-a Seminole, I think-had killed a white man. The defense was based on the fact that the United States had never signed a peace treaty with the Seminoles, and therefore the killing was an act of war, not murder. I wonder if something like that might apply here."

"How did the case turn out?"

"I don’t remember."

"Very instructive, Professor." Julie finished unlacing her boots and got under the top flap of the sleeping bag. "Maybe we’d better get ourselves some sleep and worry about it tomorrow. I guess we ought to take turns staying awake, shouldn’t we?"

"Right," Gideon said, sliding in beside her. He was on the outside of the ledge, toward the huts. "I’ll take the first watch." He reached for the ax to make sure he knew where it was. "Not that I really expect anything to happen."

"All right," Julie said, already yawning, and snuggling up to his back. "Promise to wake me in two hours?"

"Promise. I’ll wake you at eleven. Get some sleep, now. I love you."

"Love you, too. ‘Night."

Her hand double-patted his hip and then remained there as she fell quickly asleep, with her breath warm on his neck. Gideon smiled to himself. How quickly they had gotten to this lovely old-shoe familiarity. Going to sleep with her at his side was already the most natural thing in the world. How had he done without her all these years? Gently he caressed the back of the hand that lay so easily and possessively on his thigh, and he rearranged himself to see better over the scene below. The clouds had thickened and the air smelled of rain, but the night was still clear and mild. Wide awake, he lay with his hand on the ax, waiting. Not that he really expected anything to happen.

Nothing happened. In two hours Julie woke herself and insisted on taking over the watch. Gideon dozed a little, and he had a hard time keeping awake on his second turn on watch, more from boredom than fatigue. The two huts were utterly still, as was the forest. There were no bird cries, no insect sounds, no murmur of wind. When 3:00 a.m. came around, he was happy to give over the watch to Julie. He curled up on his side, facing her, his right hand resting on her waist, his left under the soft line of her jaw. He could feel her pulse throb against his pinkie. With a long sigh, he let himself drift off to sleep. Dawn was only a few hours away. If Big Cheese had had anything in mind, he’d already have tried it.

He felt urgency in the grip on his shoulder and was instantly awake. "What?"

"The big hut," she whispered. "Somebody’s moving."

He turned carefully onto his other side to face the huts. It was more difficult to see now. The misty rain had begun to float down again, and the air was soupy with it. There was a vague, diffuse moonlight filtering through the clouds, but it was no help, obscuring vision like headlights in the fog. His hair was wet with rain, the sleeping bag heavy with moisture.

He stared at the hut, blinking away the mist that had collected on his eyelashes, and listened hard. There was no sound. Nothing moved.

"Are you sure? Could someone have just turned over in his sleep?"

"I don’t think so." Her whisper was sibilant, breathless. Again he could feel her breath on his neck, but now it was a shallow panting. "There!"

There had been a faint rustle. The poles at the hut entrance moved slightly, and someone crawled through. Gideon’s hand found the handle of the ax. The figure rose and then stood, motionless and crouching. No, not crouching but crippled. It was Startled Mouse.

"Whew," Gideon said, realizing that he had hardly been breathing himself.

"But why is he out there?" Julie said into his neck.

"Shh."

The old man was not wearing his mantle, and the rain glistened on his skinny shoulders. He appeared to be staring directly at them, but Gideon doubted that he could see them in the rain. After a few moments, he turned to his left and limped quickly toward the other end of the cavelike shelf.

Gideon smiled. "Call of nature," he said. There was a toilet pit about seventy-five feet away, just out of sight.

"Boy," Julie said, hugging him from behind. "That really gave me a scare. Was he looking at us?"

Before he could reply, a second figure, its movements agitated and ferocious, came from the hut. It was Big Cheese, awesome and gigantic against the fragile huts, a slab-muscled, fairy-tale giant, weirdly out of focus in the clinging mist. He ran quickly to where Gideon and Julie had lain earlier, immediately below the shelf. He was obviously startled when he saw the poncho and parka in place of the sleeping bag, and he kicked fiercely at the garments. Clearly, he was furious, trembling with rage, and he was a fearsome sight. The great muscles of the naked back twitched and coiled visibly, as clear as illustrations in an anatomy text, and shining with grease and rain. The savage head twisted violently from side to side as he searched for them.

Gideon looked directly down on him from a frighteningly small distance, no more than four feet, close enough to hear the heavy, frenzied breathing. The Yahi lifted his face suddenly into the rain, and with his eyes closed and his voluptuary’s lips stretched over his teeth, actually howled: a low, wolflike moan that raised the hairs on the back of Gideon’s neck. With the sound, Julie buried her face between Gideon’s shoulders and gripped his sides. He could feel her shiver convulsively. His heart pounded crazily. His tongue, rough and dry, seemed to fill his throat. He realized with a remote, annoyed disapproval that he was very much frightened. Bracing himself against the rocky ledge as well as he could, he gripped the ax and got ready for whatever was going to happen.

The Yahi’s moan died away, and the streaming face was lowered with its slitlike eyes closed. And then he was gone, bounding noiselessly through the mist and disappearing behind an outcropping of the boulder.

Julie’s forehead was still pressed tightly to his back, her hands clenched on the cloth of his shirt. Over the hammering of his own heart, he could feel hers thumping against him.

"Shh," he whispered, stroking her arm. "It’s all right. He’s gone."

What had happened seemed clear. Big Cheese had seen the old man get up to go to the toilet pit-perhaps it happened every night, and the young Indian had been waiting for his chance. As soon as Startled Mouse was out of sight, Big Cheese had run to where he thought the saltu were sleeping. If they’d been there, Gideon thought, their heads would be smashed now, and Big Cheese would be back in the hut, rolled up in his skin and snoring, when the old man returned. In the morning, Big Cheese would be as surprised as the rest at the deaths of the strangers. Startled Mouse might be suspicious, but he couldn’t know for sure what had happened.

"Wh…where did he go?" Julie asked without moving.

"I don’t know. Hunting for us, I guess. He won’t look up here."

Without confidence, Julie asked: "Why not?"

"Because," whispered Gideon, straining for lightness, "I chose this spot with the acumen for which I am so well known. Ishi told Kroeber no one slept under an open night sky. All sorts of spirits and disease lurk out there. It won’t occur to a Yahi that we were batty enough to move out from under the overhang."

Julie rallied. "They’re right," she said. "We’re soaked." He could feel her relax a little, and it steadied him.

Quietly, he folded back the top flap of the bag and began to rise.

"Where are you going?" she asked sharply. "Don’t-"

"Shh, I’m not going anywhere. I just want to stand up and look. I can’t see where he ran." He peered cautiously over the top of the boulder and was able to see all the way to the end of the rockbound enclosure, to the narrow cleft through which he and Julie had entered it.

"Do you see him?"

"There’s nothing. The sky’s getting smudgy out that way, though. It’ll be light soon."

"Thank goodness."

The entire little compound lay before him, permeated with a gray, predawn stillness. He wiped the moisture from his eyes. Already the strangely saturating mist had penetrated his shirt and trickled icily down the small of his back. Unless it was cold sweat, which was entirely possible. Where was Big Cheese? What had become of Startled Mouse? Gideon dropped his eyes to the ground at his feet. Where was the ax?

The two cries, urgent and horror-stricken, exploded in his ears one after the other.

"Ciniyaa!" someone shouted from behind him. "No!"

Behind him…on the other side of the big boulder, away from the cave! Big Cheese must have run out through the narrow entrance, doubled back, and come up behind him…

Gideon spun violently just as Julie screamed, " Gideon! Oh, God…!"

The shining, naked figure crouching atop the rock swelled and reared up over him, gray and luminous in the murky light, the terrible stone ax raised to the zenith of its arc and already sweeping down.

Without thinking, Gideon leaped forward to meet it. His outthrust hand caught the plummeting wrist, caught it and brought it up short. Wild black eyes glared crazily at him, inches from his own, while the ax teetered and then toppled over, heavily thumping Gideon’s shoulder and sliding down his back. Long before it hit the ground he had balled his right fist to ram it into the gleaming, dark abdomen. His shoulder muscles had already bunched to drive the blow home when the red, mindless haze of sudden violence abruptly cleared. He saw who stood before him.

Startled Mouse.

With a shudder of pity and revulsion he dropped the writhing, slippery wrist-as frail and scrawny as Abe’s. The old man, too, shook himself, as if with disgust at the saltu ’s touch, and screamed what might have been a Yahi curse or only a wordless shriek of loathing. He ran a few feet along the top of the boulder, spiderlike and dragging his mutilated foot after him, to where a jumble of loose stone fragments lay in a rough depression, and tried to pick one up. It was too heavy, and the old man moaned his frustration. He grasped a smaller one in both hands and jerkily raised it over his head, grimacing with the effort.

Again there was a shout in Yahi from the other side of the boulder. "Ciniyaa!" Big Cheese stood below, his smooth face raised in the gray rain to the old man. Startled Mouse looked over his shoulder at the cry, and Gideon saw his sound foot slip a few inches on the wet rock. Off-balance from the weight of the stone, he began to tip backward over the edge of the boulder.

"The rock!" Gideon shouted. "Throw it down!"

Gideon sprang toward him, and Julie started from the sleeping bag, hands outstretched. Below, Big Cheese moved a step, his arms raised to catch the old Yahi. Gideon knew none of them would reach him in time, and knew that they knew it, too.

Startled Mouse knew it as well. The rock was held aloft on rigidly extended arms. The collapsed old face was defiant, the flaccid, nervous mouth for once clamped shut. Like a bizarre statue toppling from its base-a tilting, pathetic Moses hurling down the tablets-the old man inclined slowly backward and hung impossibly over empty air. Gideon had very nearly reached him after all when the rock finally fell away, and Startled Mouse dropped headfirst after it.

Mercifully, the clatter of the stone drowned out the sound of fragile, thinly cushioned bone striking the rocky ground ten feet below. Gideon clambered quickly down the side of the boulder, but Big Cheese was there before him, on his knees.

The old man was dead. He had landed on the back of his head, and the brittle skull had ruptured, so that brains and blood were already mixing with the rain. His face was undamaged, but the mouth hung loose again, and the eyes were eerily askew, one nearly shut, the other open and unfocused.

Gideon heard Julie come up behind him. "Oh!" she said softly. Instinctively, Gideon knelt and gently closed the old eyes with two fingers. He looked up to see Big Cheese, his face streaming with rain, staring strangely at him. There was a long, long moment of silence. The Indian sat back on his heels. The sensual nostrils flared as he drew in a lengthy breath.

"You know," he said in flawless English, "he had a legitimate grievance."