the sun glowed like a great white coal, dull with the ash of its own burning, without light.
“Niños!”
He knew that if he did not find them, they might die. Tired, he entered the maze of rocks, calling out every little while to the vast silence. The rocks climbed gradually in growing masses toward a far black butte, and as the day burned to its end, the wind died and a pallid sun shone through the haze. It sank away, and its last light crept slowly toward the summit, reddening the stones to fierce magnificence, only to fade at sunset into the towering sky.
Miller toiled up through the shadows. He reached the crest toward evening, on his knees, and his movement ceased. From somewhere below, a little later, he heard ashrill, clear call, and the call was answered, as he awoke, from a point nearer. In the dream, the children had walked toward him hand in hand.
He sat up a little, blinking, and fingered the dry furrows of his throat. To the north, the flier’s empty eyes stared up, uncomprehending. But Miller, without thinking, understood. His hand fell, and as his wait began, his still face grew entranced, impassive. The rocks turned cold. About him, in strange shapes of night, the mountains of Mexico gaped, crowded, leapt and stretched away across the moonlit wastes. The nameless range where he now lay stalked south through the Gran Desierto, sinking at last on the dead, salt shores of the Gulf of California.
1958
H ORSE L ATITUDES
O ur ship—a British freighter that hauled Christmas trees and small machinery from New York Harbor down through the Antilles to South America and up the Amazon—had scarcely left Pier B in Red Hook when an amusing fight broke out between the occupants of one of her two cabins. Since it was I who occupied the other (at the behest of the travel associations, I was composing a brochure on freighter travel), and I liked things to myself, I had no wish to alter our arrangements, nor was I—I’ll be candid—in the least anxious that these natural enemies escape each other, since the forty-day voyage that lay ahead promised little enough in the way of entertainment.
Horace, shrill with good cheer in the Lord, was a Baptist missionary returning to his glum flock in the jungle. The morose Hassid, a Lebanese merchant who shrugged constantly,resignedly, in awareness of the whole world’s weight on his soft shoulders, was impelled by a sallow destiny toward Belém, at the river’s mouth, where customs required that he appear in person with his wares—television sets and small refrigerators, together with two gigantic outboard motors. Hassid was fluent in four languages, having traveled widely in the world—the sure mark of a fly-by-night in the eyes of Horace, who had traveled scarcely anywhere beyond Mato Grosso and east Tennessee. In response to the missionary’s brash inquiries regarding his religious affiliations, “if any,” Hassid mentioned a Protestant grandmother, a Freemason father, and a lingering acquaintance with the Church in Rome. Horace referred to this suspicious figure as “the Turk,” making it a point never to use his name, while Hassid used his tormentor’s name at every opportunity, deeming this sufficiently insulting.
The Baptist was a sprightly boyish sort with a snap-on pink bow tie. For hours at a time he hunched over his new shortwave radio, “awaiting orders from on High,” his roommate said, although all he was doing, I’d discovered, was crooning accompaniment to the latest tunes from Finland and Cambodia.
“Enjoys music,” I assured Hassid. “He’s quite harmless.”
“He is very harmful to me,” Hassid snarled.
These cabin mates’ one common bond had placed them instantly in competition, and our first meal was a sorrowful affair. Just recently the Lebanese had suffered the removal of an abscess from his nose, which he stroked continuously, his moist brown eyes appealing for commiseration. The missionary, not to be outdone, described in
“Niños!”
He knew that if he did not find them, they might die. Tired, he entered the maze of rocks, calling out every little while to the vast silence. The rocks climbed gradually in growing masses toward a far black butte, and as the day burned to its end, the wind died and a pallid sun shone through the haze. It sank away, and its last light crept slowly toward the summit, reddening the stones to fierce magnificence, only to fade at sunset into the towering sky.
Miller toiled up through the shadows. He reached the crest toward evening, on his knees, and his movement ceased. From somewhere below, a little later, he heard ashrill, clear call, and the call was answered, as he awoke, from a point nearer. In the dream, the children had walked toward him hand in hand.
He sat up a little, blinking, and fingered the dry furrows of his throat. To the north, the flier’s empty eyes stared up, uncomprehending. But Miller, without thinking, understood. His hand fell, and as his wait began, his still face grew entranced, impassive. The rocks turned cold. About him, in strange shapes of night, the mountains of Mexico gaped, crowded, leapt and stretched away across the moonlit wastes. The nameless range where he now lay stalked south through the Gran Desierto, sinking at last on the dead, salt shores of the Gulf of California.
1958
H ORSE L ATITUDES
O ur ship—a British freighter that hauled Christmas trees and small machinery from New York Harbor down through the Antilles to South America and up the Amazon—had scarcely left Pier B in Red Hook when an amusing fight broke out between the occupants of one of her two cabins. Since it was I who occupied the other (at the behest of the travel associations, I was composing a brochure on freighter travel), and I liked things to myself, I had no wish to alter our arrangements, nor was I—I’ll be candid—in the least anxious that these natural enemies escape each other, since the forty-day voyage that lay ahead promised little enough in the way of entertainment.
Horace, shrill with good cheer in the Lord, was a Baptist missionary returning to his glum flock in the jungle. The morose Hassid, a Lebanese merchant who shrugged constantly,resignedly, in awareness of the whole world’s weight on his soft shoulders, was impelled by a sallow destiny toward Belém, at the river’s mouth, where customs required that he appear in person with his wares—television sets and small refrigerators, together with two gigantic outboard motors. Hassid was fluent in four languages, having traveled widely in the world—the sure mark of a fly-by-night in the eyes of Horace, who had traveled scarcely anywhere beyond Mato Grosso and east Tennessee. In response to the missionary’s brash inquiries regarding his religious affiliations, “if any,” Hassid mentioned a Protestant grandmother, a Freemason father, and a lingering acquaintance with the Church in Rome. Horace referred to this suspicious figure as “the Turk,” making it a point never to use his name, while Hassid used his tormentor’s name at every opportunity, deeming this sufficiently insulting.
The Baptist was a sprightly boyish sort with a snap-on pink bow tie. For hours at a time he hunched over his new shortwave radio, “awaiting orders from on High,” his roommate said, although all he was doing, I’d discovered, was crooning accompaniment to the latest tunes from Finland and Cambodia.
“Enjoys music,” I assured Hassid. “He’s quite harmless.”
“He is very harmful to me,” Hassid snarled.
These cabin mates’ one common bond had placed them instantly in competition, and our first meal was a sorrowful affair. Just recently the Lebanese had suffered the removal of an abscess from his nose, which he stroked continuously, his moist brown eyes appealing for commiseration. The missionary, not to be outdone, described in
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