leaped up hauling at his breeches and tore through the brush toward the road.
A crazed mountain troll clutching up a pair of bloodstained breeches by one hand and calling out in a high mad gibbering, bursting from the woods and hurtling down the gravel road behind a lightless truck receding half obscured in rising dust. He pounded down the mountain till he could run no more nor had he breath to call after. Before long he had stopped to buckle his belt and he went lurching on, holding his side, slumped and breathing hard and saying to himself: You won’t get far, you dead son of a bitch. He was halfway down the mountain before he realized he did not have the rifle. He stopped. Then he went on anyway.
When he came out on the valley road he looked down toward the highway. The road in the moonlight lay beneath a lightly sustained trail of dust like a river under a mantle of mist and for as far as he could see. Ballard’s heart lay in his chest like a stone. He squatted in the dust of the road until his breathing eased. Then he rose and started back up the mountain again. He tried to run at first but he could not. It took him almost an hour to make the three miles back to the top.
He found the rifle where it had fallen from the truck fender and he checked it and then went on into the woods. She was lying as he had left her and she was cold and wooden with death. Ballard howled curses until he was choking and then he knelt and workedher around onto his shoulders and struggled up. Scuttling down the mountain with the thing on his back he looked like a man beset by some ghast succubus, the dead girl riding him with legs bowed akimbo like a monstrous frog.
B ALLARD WATCHED THEM from the saddle in the mountain, a small thing brooding there, squatting with the rifle in his arms. It had been raining for three days. The creek far below him out of its banks, the fields flooded, sheets of standing water spotted with winter weeds and fodder. Ballard’s hair hung from his thin skull in lank wet strings and gray water dripped from his hair and from the end of his nose.
In the night the side of the mountain winked with lamps and torches. Late winter revelers among the trees or some like hunters calling each to each there in the dark. In the dark Ballard passed beneath them, scuttling with his ragged chattel down stone tunnels within the mountain.
Toward dawn he emerged from a hole in a rock on the far side of the mountain and peered about like a groundhog before commiting himself to the gray and rainy daylight. With his rifle in one hand and his blanketload of gear he set off through the thin woods toward the cleared land beyond.
He crossed a fence into a half flooded field and made his way toward the creek. At the ford it was more than twice its right width. Ballard studied the water and moved on downstream. After a while he was back. The creek was totally opaque, a thick and brickcolored medium that hissed in the reeds. As he watched a drowned sow shot into the ford and spun slowly with pink and bloated dugs and went on. Ballard stashed the blanket in a stand of sedge and returned to the cave.
When he got back to the creek it seemed to have run yet higher. He carried a crate of odd miscellany, men’s and ladies’ clothes, the three enormous stuffed toys streaked with mud. Adding to this load the rifle and the blanketful of things he’d carried down he stepped into the water.
The creek climbed his legs in wild batwings. Ballard tottered and rebalanced and took a second grip on his load and went on. Before he even reached the creekbed he was wading kneedeep. When it reached his waist he began to curse aloud. A vitriolic invocation for the receding of the waters. Anyone watching him could have seen he would not turn back if the creek swallowed him under. It did. He was in fast water to his chest, struggling along on tiptoe gingerlyand leaning upstream when a log came steaming into the flat. He saw it coming and began to curse. It
A crazed mountain troll clutching up a pair of bloodstained breeches by one hand and calling out in a high mad gibbering, bursting from the woods and hurtling down the gravel road behind a lightless truck receding half obscured in rising dust. He pounded down the mountain till he could run no more nor had he breath to call after. Before long he had stopped to buckle his belt and he went lurching on, holding his side, slumped and breathing hard and saying to himself: You won’t get far, you dead son of a bitch. He was halfway down the mountain before he realized he did not have the rifle. He stopped. Then he went on anyway.
When he came out on the valley road he looked down toward the highway. The road in the moonlight lay beneath a lightly sustained trail of dust like a river under a mantle of mist and for as far as he could see. Ballard’s heart lay in his chest like a stone. He squatted in the dust of the road until his breathing eased. Then he rose and started back up the mountain again. He tried to run at first but he could not. It took him almost an hour to make the three miles back to the top.
He found the rifle where it had fallen from the truck fender and he checked it and then went on into the woods. She was lying as he had left her and she was cold and wooden with death. Ballard howled curses until he was choking and then he knelt and workedher around onto his shoulders and struggled up. Scuttling down the mountain with the thing on his back he looked like a man beset by some ghast succubus, the dead girl riding him with legs bowed akimbo like a monstrous frog.
B ALLARD WATCHED THEM from the saddle in the mountain, a small thing brooding there, squatting with the rifle in his arms. It had been raining for three days. The creek far below him out of its banks, the fields flooded, sheets of standing water spotted with winter weeds and fodder. Ballard’s hair hung from his thin skull in lank wet strings and gray water dripped from his hair and from the end of his nose.
In the night the side of the mountain winked with lamps and torches. Late winter revelers among the trees or some like hunters calling each to each there in the dark. In the dark Ballard passed beneath them, scuttling with his ragged chattel down stone tunnels within the mountain.
Toward dawn he emerged from a hole in a rock on the far side of the mountain and peered about like a groundhog before commiting himself to the gray and rainy daylight. With his rifle in one hand and his blanketload of gear he set off through the thin woods toward the cleared land beyond.
He crossed a fence into a half flooded field and made his way toward the creek. At the ford it was more than twice its right width. Ballard studied the water and moved on downstream. After a while he was back. The creek was totally opaque, a thick and brickcolored medium that hissed in the reeds. As he watched a drowned sow shot into the ford and spun slowly with pink and bloated dugs and went on. Ballard stashed the blanket in a stand of sedge and returned to the cave.
When he got back to the creek it seemed to have run yet higher. He carried a crate of odd miscellany, men’s and ladies’ clothes, the three enormous stuffed toys streaked with mud. Adding to this load the rifle and the blanketful of things he’d carried down he stepped into the water.
The creek climbed his legs in wild batwings. Ballard tottered and rebalanced and took a second grip on his load and went on. Before he even reached the creekbed he was wading kneedeep. When it reached his waist he began to curse aloud. A vitriolic invocation for the receding of the waters. Anyone watching him could have seen he would not turn back if the creek swallowed him under. It did. He was in fast water to his chest, struggling along on tiptoe gingerlyand leaning upstream when a log came steaming into the flat. He saw it coming and began to curse. It
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