May 2012 BB Challenge Words: Simon, Blind, Butter, Leap, Cradle

XxXxX

5

Simon Bullnose Walker was a hunter. He hunted to survive. But sometimes, as now, it wasn’t about survival at all. It was about something else, something…bigger.

Some might call it vengeance; others, justice. Still others might call it murder. Simon didn’t much care if it had a name. Names were just words. And words were the creation of men. The world was much bigger than words, and words restricted men’s thinking, locking them into seeing only what they could define. Words made men blind to the bigger reality, the truer reality around them.

It was a lesson Simon had learned early in life. Folks were always looking for words to say what he was. Whatever word they chose would dictate how they would talk to him, how they would respond to him…and how they would treat him. Those who called him darkie expected him to do their fetching; when he walked away as though to oblige them, he just kept walking, and never looked back. Those who called him Mexican expected him to be a thief; and so he took what was theirs, and then disappeared into the night, leaving them to chase nothing but shadows—because the word they’d used had no reality within it. Those who called him Indian expected him to be a savage; and so he was. No one ever used any of those words on him more than once.

Simon didn’t much care if there was a word that spoke truly about him. The old trapper who’d found him had always said Simon shouldn’t abide by men’s words, because Simon was more than just a man. In fact, according to that trapper, Simon might not even have been born of woman. He’d been found caterwauling in a cradle, in the middle of the forest, an infant child left alone and hungry. When no human soul came forth to claim him, the trapper took him in. He was called Simon for the trapper’s baby brother, whom the trapper had abandoned to venture west in search of something that had always seemed so elusive in the society of men, something grander than words could ever describe—something Simon had found even when the trapper couldn’t; he’d found it whenever he gazed out over things no man could ever create—or recreate—valleys and gorges and waterfalls that defied even the greatest artists’ pallets…or the greatest poets’ words.

Simon’s second name came about as he grew into the man he would become. His wide face and nearly equally wide, flat nose earned him the name Bullnose. Like Simon, it was a name he had never been inclined to argue against. Like Simon, there was a purpose to it. It was a name that gave him strength, and he wore it well.

His third name, Walker, came about much later, after the old trapper had died and Simon was left to walk in the world alone. It was then that he became a hunter. He lived in the forest with the other animals, and he came to respect them as they came to respect him. He would not use an animal to serve him. Just as he would not fetch for those who called him darkie, he would not expect an animal to fetch for him. He rode no horse. He conscripted no mule to haul for him.  And though the trapper had been good to him, Simon did not respect what the trapper had done. Trapping was not hunting. Trapping took animals. Hunting was different. Simon hunted only those animals who called to him, those that were willing to give what they had so that he might survive. They gave him food. They gave him clothing. And sometimes, as now, they gave him shelter.

At the first signs of rain, Simon had tucked himself into the niche between the rocks he’d taken as his home as soon as he’d caught up with his recent prey. The niche was small enough for most men to overlook, yet large enough to enable him to stretch out in comfort. And throughout the storm, that’s exactly what he’d done. He’d pulled a thick bear skin over the opening, providing him with warmth as well as protection, and he’d settled into a sleep deep enough to revive his body as well as his spirit.

When he woke, he could easily sense the change in the weather. The smell was crisp, the sound…soft. The lonely howl of the wind might seem hard to most men, but to someone like Simon, a man so unlike other men, it was comforting. It was the kind of howl that reminded Simon he was where he belonged, the kind that sang to him like a lullaby…the only lullaby he had ever known. He breathed in that crisp scent, that soft lullaby, and then he pulled aside his bear skin door to find the entrance of his niche nearly obscured by new fallen snow.

It was a sight that gave him succor. Dawn was hours ahead yet, but it would be a good dawn, a good day. Weather such as this made other men weak, men such as the two-legged prey he’d been tracking by smell for the past three weeks. Yes, they would be weak, but he was now rested, and strong as the bull that had given him his second name.

The day to come would surely mark the last day of his latest hunt.

XxXxX

“He’s in there, alright.” Hoss forced the words past the thickness in his throat. He’d managed to get a peek at the inside of the shack through cracks in some loose boards, and though he’d only caught a glimpse of Joe, it had been enough to show him his brother’s face was bloodied and swollen. And that wasn’t all. Joe’s hair was sopping wet, and his shirt looked to be drenched with about as much blood as water. Wet as he was, that boy was libel to catch his death of pneumonia…if them monsters in there with him didn’t outright kill him first.

Hoss could swear his heart swelled up into his throat when he saw his little brother like that. He didn’t even feel cold anymore, not compared with how cold Joe had to be feeling.

“How bad is it?” Adam asked, his voice sounding almost as raw as the wind.

Talking was easier now that they were off the trail and surrounded by a stand of trees that protected them from the worst of the storm. They’d even been able to pull down their neckerchiefs; now Hoss could see Adam’s face was as raw as his voice.

Yep. Talking was easier. But finding words seemed harder than ever.

“We got to get him outta there,” Hoss said when he couldn’t bring himself to describe exactly how Joe had looked.

Adam sure seemed to understand, though. Hoss’s older brother had always been pretty good about reading Hoss’s eyes, and the look in Adam’s right then made it clear he didn’t like what he saw this time.

“We gotta get in there, first,” Sheriff Coffee said, his voice stronger but no less raw than Adam’s had been. “How many guns they got?”

Hoss shook his head slowly, his gaze moving again to the shack. “I counted four men and a boy, fourteen, maybe fifteen. Only side arm I saw was Joe’s.” Hoss had spotted Joe’s gun on the floor, still in the holster, looking like it had been carelessly tossed there…like it was a useless piece of junk. Somehow, seeing Joe’s gun like that made it clear to Hoss that’s just what those men in there expected to do with Little Joe, toss him aside like he was nothing. But Joe sure wasn’t a piece of junk; he was Hoss’s little brother, and a decent man besides.

Taking a long, icy breath that swam through his head like frigid rapids, Hoss knew he had to finish answering the sheriff’s question. “They got at least three shotguns and two rifles. Could be more; it was hard to tell. They’re pretty scattered.”

“Good,” Adam said. “Sounds like they won’t be expecting company.” He was looking at the shack now in that calculating way of his. Usually when he looked like that, it set Hoss’s heart at ease. Whatever needed figuring, Adam was the one to do it. He’d lay out the plans, and then Hoss would do whatever those plans said he needed to do.

But this time Hoss didn’t feel at ease at all, because Adam looked older than he should. And not just older, but…plumb old. The way he squinted into that unforgiving wind when he looked toward the shack etched creases deep enough to gather snow. Even his eyelashes were snow covered, making them more white than black. It was as though the ride they’d just made had been hard enough to age him by twenty years or more.

Frankly, Hoss felt a whole lot older, too, and it wasn’t just from being scoured by that icy wind. It was from seeing his little brother tied to that chair with his head lolling forward. Hoss could almost have believed Joe was already dead to see him like that, but a man had been standing over him and shouting about how much Joe needed to pay for what he’d done. No man would shout like that to a dead man. Would he?

“At least we know we have the element of surprise in our favor.” Adam’s voice drew Hoss’s attention away from the worrisome image, but only for a second…just long enough to enable him to conjure an equally troubling thought, a thought so disturbing he couldn’t answer right away.

But then Adam looked at him, and Hoss felt better for seeing his brother’s eyes. They were as clear and sharp…as strong as ever.

Everyone had always said Hoss was the strongest of the Cartwrights, but Hoss knew that wasn’t true. Adam was a whole lot stronger. Adam’s strength counted a whole lot more than Hoss’s anyways, because it was the kind of strength that could keep them going, no matter what…just like he’d done when Joe’s ma had died. Even though he’d barely been more than a boy himself, Adam had kept them going. He’d ignored his own grief to help both Joe and Hoss get past theirs, and their Pa’s besides. Hoss had seen pain in his brother’s eyes back then, but he’d seen something else, too. He’d seen then what he saw now: courage.

“Maybe so,” Hoss said finally. “They sure ain’t expectin’ anyone. But….” He swallowed past the lump of his swelled up heart, his gaze moving again toward the shack. Danged if he wasn’t a coward compared with Adam.

“But what?” Adam prodded, his tone as demanding as it was concerned.

“There’s one man in there….” Hoss tried to shake the image of the fire poker the man had been holding, its point glowing red. “He’s keepin’ real close to Joe. Too close.” Hoss made sure Adam was looking right at him before he went on. “He’s hurtin’ him, Adam. He’s doin’ things no man ought ever to do.”

While Hoss locked his gaze with Adam’s, it was Sheriff Coffee who spoke. “Then we’d better move fast.”

“Can’t,” Hoss argued. “We go rushin’ in there he’s libel to kill Joe before we even know what he’s doin’, maybe even before he knows what he’s doin’!”

“What do you suggest?” Adam asked.

If that question had come from anyone else, maybe Hoss would have admitted he didn’t know. Or maybe he would actually have been able to figure something that might work. But it hadn’t come from anyone else. It had come from Adam, Hoss’s older brother, the brother who always knew what to do. And suddenly Hoss couldn’t say anything at all.

An instant later, it didn’t matter. Sheriff Roy Coffee’s voice pulled at his attention…and then Roy’s eyes stole Hoss’s focus.

“What in the world…?” The sheriff was looking over Hoss’s shoulder, his brows curling as he spoke. And then his eyes went wider than Hoss had ever seen them, like whatever was behind Hoss had startled or maybe even scared him.

Hoss had never seen Sheriff Coffee scared of anything, so if Roy was scared of whatever he was looking at, it was enough to get Hoss downright terrified. He swiveled around as fast as he could, though his movements were stiff, his feet hampered by the deepening snow. When he finally did make it around, his own eyes must’ve gone as wide as Roy’s. He even shivered, suddenly feeling far colder than he’d been…maybe even as cold as Joe.

An animal unlike any Hoss had ever seen was standing straight up on its hind legs in the trees not ten yards distant. It looked like a giant, fur-covered man, the kind of monster grown men weren’t supposed to believe in. But Hoss found it hard to not believe in what was right there in front of him. Besides, even Dusty had talked about monsters; and a man who’d never told tall tales sure wasn’t going to tell his first one on his deathbed.

As the monster walked toward Hoss, it grew wider and thinner by turns, and each step it took was as solid and sure as if he’d been walking on the hard-packed ground. How could that be, when every step Hoss had taken moments earlier to get back from the shack had driven his feet through the snow as though he’d been walking through soft butter?

Hoss raised his rifle. He wasn’t sure he wanted to wait for an answer.

“I got no quarrel with you,” the thing said when it got close. Its voice was low and deep, sounding too much like Pa for Hoss’s liking.

Hoss had heard Indian tales about shape shifters; now he found himself wondering if things like that could shift voices, too. But as it moved closer, Hoss could see it was a man after all, a dark-skinned man of Adam’s height and Hoss’s girth, wearing an even darker cloak of fur that was salt speckled with snow and billowing around him in the wind.

“Name’s Walker. I just come to ask why you’re here.”

Snowshoes, Hoss realized then. That’s how the stranger had walked so easily; he was wearing snowshoes.

“We should ask the same of you,” Adam said while Hoss was focused on the man’s feet. “This is our property.”

The stranger’s head tilted slightly, seeming respectful. “Then your name be Cartwright.”

“Then you already know you’re trespassing,” Adam answered.

“I know the men in that line shack are trespassin’. I aim to rid you of them.”

Hoss’s grip on his rifle loosened. He looked to Adam as the furrows in his older brother’s brow grew deeper, collecting more snow and making him look old again.

“Why?” Adam asked.

“Those men are a blight on this earth.” He spat out the word ‘blight’ like it left a bitter taste in his mouth. “They’ve left a trail of ruined land and rotted carcasses from here to the Ozarks down Arkansas way.”

Roy didn’t seem inclined to believe him. “I don’t recollect seein’ anythin’ come across the wire on any trouble from Arkansas.”

“You wouldn’t,” the stranger said. “Their blight ain’t touched folks anyone would miss…leastways, not until now.”

“Until now?” Adam asked.

The man looked from Roy to Adam, and then back again. “Yesterday, they hounded a man right down off this mountain. Way I figure it, that man should’ve reached Virginia City some hours ago; and the way I figure it, that’s why you’re here now, sheriff.”

“If you know all that,” Adam said then, “why’d you ask?”

The man looked to Adam again. “Figurin’ somethin’ don’t make it true.”

Hoss lowered his rifle. “Look, mister, we ain’t got time for riddles. Are you really after those men in there?”

“I am.”

“Then the way I figure it, we ought to work together for now.”

“Hoss,” Adam warned, shooting a look at him that would have chilled his blood if he weren’t numb already.

“He ain’t one of ’em.”

The man inclined his head in appreciation.

“You don’t know that,” Adam argued.

“Yeah. I do.” Even while he answered Adam, Hoss kept his eyes on the stranger. “I don’t know how I know. Call it a leap of faith if you want. But I know he ain’t one of ’em.”

They all stood like that for more heartbeats than Hoss was willing to count, though he felt every one of them pounding against his chest. He could almost believe there was something alive inside him, pushing him to move, to take action…to get Little Joe away from the monsters in the shack. Now that another monster was standing right in front of him, it had to mean they had a better chance of doing that, didn’t it?

“We ain’t got time for waitin’ around like this,” Hoss said finally. “You can keep at it if you want to, but I’m gonna start makin’ my way back over to that shack. Little Joe’s in there, an’ I don’t mean to make him suffer any more’n he already has.”

Hoss swiveled around again…just as slowly as he had moments earlier. But he’d taken no more than a couple of steps forward when he saw the door to the shack come open. Instinct dropped him low to the ground to avoid being seen if whoever was coming happened to look this way. Yet as he watched, it was clear he’d overreacted. Only the boy stepped out, and as soon as he did, someone slammed the door behind him.

“That’s it,” Adam said as the boy headed for the trees opposite them.

“What’s it?” Hoss asked, turning to see both Adam and Roy were crouching down now, too. Even the stranger was on his knees, with one hand pressed against the ground, and the other clutching a knife. And suddenly that man looked so much like an animal, Hoss started to wonder if he’d been wrong to turn his back to him after all. There was a wild look to the man, the kind of look that made it clear no one stood a chance of taming him…the kind that marked Hoss a fool for taking that leap of faith of his.

Even so, Adam kept talking as though nothing had changed—or as though everything had changed so much he was already accepting Hoss’s argument about the stranger. “If we draw them outside, we’ll stand a better chance of getting to Joe.”

“How do you reckon we draw ’em out in this weather?” Sheriff Coffee asked.

“The boy.” It was the only thing the stranger said. He didn’t even wait to see if they understood. He just up and started running, right into the wind, right toward where that boy had gone.

For an instant, Hoss felt a pang of sympathy for a kid who was about to discover he was being chased by a monster. And then he reminded himself that boy was a monster, too.

XxXxX

This story is posted in chapters.  To move from page to page, click the next page number below.