The Mount
Chapter Two
Anyway, I make a sound by mistake and the deer thing runs away.
We see lots of berries and Little Master wants to eat them, but I know some are poison. Back there we had berries lots of times, but none of these look like any of those. But we’re going to have to eat something one of these days. They say those Wild Sams and Sues live on roots. I wouldn’t like that.
I’m not trotting as fast as I did. I’m getting tired and it’s all up hill, steeper and steeper. Everything’s changing. It’s getting so there aren’t any more bushes for hiding but more rocks for it. When it starts getting dark, we find a place where there’s a batch of boulders. We go to hide there for the night, but we see a big long snake crawl out rattling. Back when they warned you about the Hoots’ hands, and poison berries, they also warned about rattlesnakes, so we go on. The farther up it gets, the more it’s just rocks. Since my kind can’t see in the dark, pretty soon we could just lie down in the open and none of those Wild ones would see us, but I go on and on. It’s as if I’m so tired I can’t think to stop. When I realize that, I sit down right then. “I have to wait till morning. I can’t see anymore and I can’t think.”
“I can see,” he says.
“I know that.”
And then he says it. “I’m hungry.”
I don’t know what to do. I tell him, “In the morning, we’ll find something.”
We cuddle up together right where we are, middle of nowhere. I think I won’t be able to sleep on these rocks and with Little Master on my chest, but I fall asleep before I even know it.
I wake up with Little Master holding me—my ear and my hair—too tight again. At least he’s not holding me around my neck this time. It’s dawn. I know something’s wrong, but I don’t know what. I can’t hear anything. And then I do. Things coming, lots of them. Do rattlesnakes do that? Come in a bunch to eat you?
But it’s us. A minute later we’re surrounded—and there’s not a single one of his kind riding even one of my kind, and not a single one of his kind around to supervise. I’ve never seen that before.
One of us is just about the biggest Seattle I ever saw. And he’s like that one with crazy eyes. Best to run. Maybe he’s too big to keep up. But there’s Tennessees there, too. I couldn’t outrun them.
The big one pulls His Excellent Excellency away from me. That’s not easy with both of us hanging on, but he does it, finally, with a jerk. He puts Little Master down on a big stone. Little Master gives one big Ho! like they do when in danger. It’s like he can’t help it—as if he hardly knew he was going to do that. It echoes all over. Everybody puts their hands over their ears. Except that big one. He raises his pole with both hands and points it at Little Master. He’s got crazy, starey eyes, exactly like that other big one that held me away from Sunrise. With eyes like that, you don’t know what he’ll do. He’s got scars on his cheeks, too. And a long, lumpy face and a long nose, and he’s nothing but a big bunch of bulging muscles.
I see all this in half a second, and then I jump and get between the pole and Little Master.
It hurts so much I have to sit down and catch my breath. Even though I haven’t eaten anything, I feel like throwing up. Nobody moves—none of them, but pretty soon Little Master comes to hug me. I’ll have a scar all across me now, forever, top-to-bottom.
When I can breathe again, the big one squats beside me and looks close into my face. So close I can see the scars all over him. I can see how he needs a shave but there’s no hair where there’s scars. I can see the brand along his upper lip. He’s, even so, a Tame.
“Charley?” He sputters it. Chokes on it.
I say, “That’s not fair. He’s just a baby.” Then, “I thought there was peace.”
“Charley? Is it? It’s you!”
“My name is Smiley.”
“Out of Merry Mary!” There’s something wrong with his talking. He can’t get the words out. “You’re the mount….” He takes a big breath. “Of His Ex….”
The Sue Tennessee finishes for him. “His Excellency, Future-Master…”
But he waves her to stop and goes on by himself. “You are Charley. I’m your…” Big breath. “Father.”
I see his long nose and long face, and as if my own dark eyes looking back at me. I know he’s right. It’s Beauty! I knew it even before.
“You’re not my father.”
“Look at me. Look… how alike. The raid… partly… partly I wanted to rescue… and you rescued yourself.”
Rescue!
I hate him.
