29

Countryside was changed, the summer past.

Leaves turned red. The purple blooms of thistles became black.

Days grow shorter.

Had been on the trail six weeks.

Seven weeks.

Lost track of the day.

Thought the month was October but he wasn’t sure.

Come a good peace and have been lucky with the weather.

Morning mists were rising.

Growing colder.

Sleep with my feet in the bag.

Hands between his thighs.

Clothes much consumed by the country.

Shoes were pretty ragged by now.

Hole that have a little socks in them.

Plodding along.

Grimy and hungry eyed.

Tired down into his bones.

North because it had become a habit.

Sometimes, as he walked, he did not know whether he was awake or asleep.

Mind had broken the leash, spurred on by fatigue.

Memory rising as if it has been pursuing me.

Cobwebby dreams of my past life.

Out of the tired cloud of his mind Ma’s face appeared, the dark and watery eyes.

Stooping figure.

Father who had never been comfortable with people.

Remembered all — every pinochle game, every woman, every sad night.

Thoughts congealing.

Human being survives by his ability to forget.

Feels a tug at his heels from hands growing up through the grass.

Dreamed that I saw my mother and it seemed as though she saw me but then turned her back on me.

Weather had turned bad.

Rained often, sometimes in sudden downpours.

Walk beneath the dripping trees.

Garments all were dank.

Feet mechanical.

Stumbling over roots and stones.

Fell headlong.

So weary that for some time he did nothing save rest upon the ground.

Face on the pillow of brown moist earth.

Began to shake with cold.

Felt of his right leg.

Ankle had begun to swell painfully.

Gash just above his knee.

Got up on his feet and essayed to walk.

Covered with mud, lame, half-blind.

Trail losing itself in the dark and the trees hunched close around.

Saw a hole and crept up it.

Hollow of a giant horse-chestnut tree.

Crouched inside and spent the night huddled there.

Daylight came slow and gloomy.

Hobbled forward.

Using a branch as a walking stick.

Drinking from rivulets.

Beard dipped into the water.

Ate handfuls of flowers and his stomach hurt.

Emerged upon the slope of a down.

Path across the fields.

Norther had blown in about mid morning.

See the rain coming across the country in a grey wall.

Nothing you could do except put one foot forward and then the other.

Bent over against the cold.

Wet to the skin.

Dusk turned to night.

Path down a densely wooded gully.

Pulled himself into some thick bushes and lay flat with his head on his arm.

Back against the cold earth.

Leg was throbbing.

Tried to lick some water from the uneven ground.

Sucked at his soaked trousers.

Awakened sick and trembling with cold in the first flush of the morning.

So weak that he could scarcely raise himself into a sitting position.

Limbs were almost powerless.

Stiff clear to his bones.

Had to get out of that gully and that part of the wild country soon or he was a gone goose.

Crept along on his elbows and one good knee.

Like any four-legged creature.

Leg dragging.

Felt his strength leaving him.

Every breath he took was like a razor.

Trees and rocks about him seemed shadowy and dim.

No longer feel his hands.

Had escaped too completely from men. Nature would kill him now.

Long to let go, drift free of things.

Last stubbornness to live.

Ridge about forty foot high.

Shivering and sweating and soaked with rain he came up over the edge.

Little farmhouse stood near a creek.

Half hidden in the trees.

Crawl toward it.

Through the bushes, down the knoll.

House was dark.

Called cooee but it were long abandoned.

Raised the latch. The door yielded to the pressure.