Vissile 2

Tearing flesh and fabric scraping against rock wall and the kid's form finally visible inches from the top. Bartholgy loosed his grip on Strong and grabbed the kid randomly, dragging him upward. As soon as the weight lessened on the yielding canvas, Strong let it drop and got another grip on the kid, hauling fiercely. The rock rumbled and the opening roared, taking a last try to tear the kid from their hands. Moxy threw the last of his strength into a hard -kick up and over that tore all three of them loose and tossed them rolling away from the opening. They crawled, rose, ran, tumbled away again. A blast of boiling foam and towering steam followed hard after, struck straight upward into the sky and then plummeted pounding pressure against the mountainside in thundering thuds of dead weight. A geyser. The needle fine spray that reached them at the distance they had attained was still hot enough to scald and they tucked reflexively into protective bundles, waiting to see if it got better or worse at the bitter end of their efforts. This time the calm cowered toward silent stillness, and the mountain gave up shaking as if for good. Strong and Bartholgy looked up at each other and then down at the steaming flanks of the mountain. Where the Arctic air slammed into the rising turmoil of the steam column's trail, little fine grains of diamond ice blew glittering swirls and gnawed into their faces like tiny shiny teeth wherever they struck flesh. "Looks like we made it," Bartholgy muttered. "Contrary to all reasonable expectation," Strong added the amendment. They turned to where Moxy had dropped and now lay still, sprawled awkwardly on the rocks. Strong turned the kid's face up to get a medical look at him. Without opening his eyes, Moxy murmured "I was dreaming of a tall stack of griddle cakes with sorghum syrup dripping down. But now it's gone. All gone," he stated mournfully. Strong started to chuckle, then laugh out loud helplessly, idiotically at the kid's comment. It was clear that Moxy had taken another recent plunge underwater. He was wringing wet from the soles of his boots to the top of his tousled hair, drenched from outer coat to inner skin, and in a fair way to freezing to death on the mountainside. The kid stripped to the waist. Bartholgy loaned him his outer shirt, and Strong his fatique sweater, which made it almost to Moxy's knees. Then they got him propped up between them and at long last headed down toward their encampment. "Hey, wait," Moxy called out suddenly, kicking so hard that the threesome almost fell over. "What is it now?" Bartholgy demanded wearily. "Look down there," Moxy nodded. A gleaming sphere, a short stretch off of the trail. They settled the kid to sit on a soft patch of dry lichen. When they returned, Strong carried not only the gleaming, grinning, ancient warrior's one remaining asset, the skull, but also the shattered nether end of Moxy's crutch. "I lost them both, the last time I dropped into the drink," the kid explained. "Lucky thing you weren't still there when the blast came," Strong said staring at the splintered crutch's shards of surviving hardwood. They tied the skull into the bundle of wet clothes, then resumed their weary trudge. After a tiring time, they came into view of a fork in the path. At the joint confluence, a long string of excited soldiers had broken formation and were staring. They stared and pointed up and shouted. And the object of their eager surveillance was quite clearly Strong, Bartholgy, and Youngblood. "Ah, felonious Farrah's frightful fanny!" Bartholgy decried disgustedly. Strong agreed with the sentiment, "looks like Jonson, Haeft and Sprigens jumped the gun." Bartholgy groaned, "the whining mealy-mouthed little troublemakers. Went and U.F.-ed us bigger than Brother Barney's bulging balls! They must have run down at the crack of dawn, crying 'lost in the bowels of Mother Earth' at the top of their tinny voices. To have a search and rescue squad all decked out and ready to rare this quick. Lordy. The Colonel will have my slam -hammer in a sling for this." Strong sneered, shaking his head, "ha! I'll trade you the Colonel for Doc Orry any day of the week. I promise you, peter-pissed to perdition doesn't begin to cover it. Well, let's go face the mauling music. Get it over and done with." The three of them resumed rambling reluctantly downward. By the time they were within spitting distance of their would -be rescuers, both the Colonel and Orry had arrived to investigate the detour to their dedicated mission. The hot glare that greeted the wayward explorers confirmed their worst imaginings. "Bartholgy!" The Colonel thundered. "At least if you're going to break reg so bloody blatantly, you could have the good grace to be found crushed lifeless underneath a rock slide. Instead of ruining a perfectly organized and executed rescue operation by turning up whole and hearty, bubbling with enthusiasm, a song on your lips, and the flush of exercise ripe upon your brow." "Yes sir. Sorry sir. Next time I'll get crushed, if at all possible, sir." Bartholgy declared determinedly. And Orry took up where the Colonel had left off. "I suppose you have a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this, Corporal Strong?" he demanded irritably. Which Strong thought completely unfair, considering he'd already explained even before going out the day before. "No sir," Strong confessed, "I suppose it wouldn't be of any comfort to you, sir, to hear we were nearly boiled alive in an errupting geyser?" Orry glowered, "No it would not." His stare started its survey at their embarrased faces and descended slowly to the level of the cut jeans leg, frozen over Moxy's swollen knee. There it fixed and glared remorselessly. "Youngblood," Orry mouthed his name so fiercely that the humerous edge of the episode was suddenly obscured. "Do you work at being a life-threatening liability to those around you? Or is it an inate talent? If you don't value your own safety, I'd think you'd at least have some consideration for your friends." Strong wondered at the intensity of his commanding officer's anger toward the kid. It was lacking the jocularity the corporal was used to in his C.O. In a second, Moxy went from sheepish to murderous. He shoved off from Strong and Bartholgy and stood with his feet planted firmly down, glaring defiance. A look of pure poison. Strong could hardly believe it was the same kid standing next to him. The look Moxy gave Orry must have broken through his harsh antagonism. Orry looked away, then turned away. The Colonel sent the search and rescue squad back to camp, instructing them to practice finding and rescuing each other on the way down, so as not to waste the morning. "You're right," Bartholgy muttered aside, "I'll take the Colonel's dressing -down over the Doc's any day." Strong admitted,"I don't get it. He's not usually so hard -assed. What came over him, do you suppose?" Bartholgy replied, "oh, that's easy. It's the kid. Orry's taken over seeing to him. Like he was the kid's old man. But he isn't. He's got no right to tell him off. And he knows it. I've seen it before. Coaching the brats in ice hockey. Some boy would take a hard fall. Or a high stick. Bloody nose or scalp. His dad would come rushing in all upset. But he doesn't want to look the jerk, embarass himself with a dopey emotional scene. Doesn't know what to do with all that feeling. So he loses his temper. Shouts. Maybe tells the brat 'don't you ever do that again.' Like the kid might go get socked bloody on purpose, huh? Step- fathers are the worst. They rush in,trying to do the fatherly bit, then back off, worrying the kid'll resent it. Orry's got it bad. All the symptoms. Trying to steer the kid right. Without screwing it all up royally. Poor dumb son of a bitch." Bartholgy shook his head sorrowfully over the pitiful image he'd painted. "Yeah. Well thank you for your diagnosis, Dr. Bartholgy," Strong said, wide-eyed at the soldier's soliloquy. "No charge," Bartholgy replied affably, "looks like the Colonel's kept back a couple of stretcher bearers." "Sure. For the kid. Makes sense," Strong replied, eyeing the empty stretcher dubiously. Bartholgy challenged, "ten bucks says they can't get Moxy to sit, much less lie down." "No bet. The poison mood the kid is in, he's more likely to stomp the whole way back to camp, just to show us all," Strong nodded knowingly. "Shhh. Listen. This should be priceless," Bartholgy commented, savoring the anticipation of their CO's discomfort, and drawing nearer. The Colonel perched comfortably on a rocky out crop, humming softly to himself, and drew a foil pouch from his coat pocket. He opened it carefully and took a long sniff at it's aroma. Then he reached in and drew out a chocolate chip cookie. He held it up in the sunlight, glistening on sugar crystals, and inspected it as if counting how many chocolate chips were present, assuring himself he had not been cheated. Then he bit down on it and munched luxuriously, savoring the flavor of it all. Drawn irresistably forward, Moxy hobbled toward him as if in a trance. "Well, Youngblood," the Colonel nodded with a warm smile, holding out the pouch towards him invitingly, "see any interesting wildlife in the caverns, did you? I've heard it's quite the haven for rare arachnids." "Why that sneaky old codger," Bartholgy exclaimed in overt admiration. "He's got him nine tenths reeled in already." In moments, Moxy was sitting next to the old man, crunching cookies contentedly, deep in the details of scorpion lore. Strong's medical instincts kicked in and he defected from Bartholgy's side over to the Colonel's. He drew the glistening skull from the bundle of frozen clothing and set it gleaming in the dead center of the stretcher. The Colonel's eye caught the movement, and he exchanged a knowing glance with the corpsman. The old man uttered a fascinated exclamation and dashed over to view the anthropologic treasure. The kid couldn't reach the stretcher without dropping on to it, his bad knee as stiff as it was. "On our way back to camp, tell us all about how you found it," the Colonel suggested. He waited until Moxy was far gone in ghostly descriptions before signalling the stretcher bearers to have a try at moving him. Strong tossed a bundle of blankets behind the kid and tugged him back onto it, just as Moxy was describing the sounds of the song for the dead. The Colonel asked him for a detailed analysis of which era of Athabascan linguistic evolution the syntax of the song suggested. While the kid considered this fascinating question, Strong got an air cushion under the leg to elevate the swollen joint. And as the discovery of the skull, and its chemical composition were considered, Corporal Strong successfully covered him in a nice warm tripple layer of wool blankets, leaving only the kid's hands cradling the treasured fossil, and Moxy's own brilliant grin exposed to the bitter cold. The Colonel flicked Strong the thumbs-up signal behind the kid's head. Strong then hung back to join Orry, trudging along quietly behind the stretcher. Orry commented,"you said you were spending the night in the caves. Somehow, I didn't imagine that involved drowning, boiling, freezing, or falling into mile-deep wells in the dark." "Moxy wanted to explore," Strong shrugged. "Ah," the doctor responded softly. The corpsman chuckled, "I don't guess I'd ever make an officer. Not candidate material, as they say." "Oh, I don't know," Orry said in kinder tones. "Because," Strong explained, "whatever the kid told us, Bartholgy, there, and me. The both of us. We did it. No matter how wild. Or reckless. Or demented it seemed. We just followed along after the kid, wagging our fuzzy great tails. You think some people are just born to tell the rest of us where to go and what to do? So that it seems natural-like in us to follow along?" "Yes," Orry agreed. And then after thinking some more, he asked, " You done much psych?" "Oh some, now and again," the corpsman replied. "You think he's suicidal?" Orry asked. "Heck, no," Strong answered reflexively, then paused and thought it over. "No, I don't," he concluded again. "More like a thrill seeker. I mean, I'm used to thinking of suicides as depressed people. The kid just bubbles, constantly. Bounces off things. Joyful. Oblivious." "Oblivious. Now there's the word," Orry nodded. "How many days before were we talking about amputation? He can't have forgotten. That leg has got to be painful. A constant reminder." "Almost like the thrill was an anesthetic," Strong suggested, "or the kid was drunk on it." "Oblivious," the doctor repeated thoughtfully to himself. Strong told Orry, "I'm sorry. If you think I should've reined in on him harder. But I honestly don't think it would have done a bit of good." "Probably not," the doctor agreed. Orry's previous experience with toxic-tempered Moxy suggested a cool-down period. So the doctor did not apologize for the shouting he'd done earlier. Nor did he seek a reconciliation. When they got back to the clinic, he helped the kid off the stretcher. Moxy looked ready to bounce out of there instantly. "Hold on," the doctor said. Moxy looked a question at him, then suddenly started, "oh, shoot. I forgot. Lost one of the crutches," he told Orry. "Do you want to hear any instructions from your physician, or am I just wasting my breath?" the doctor asked wearily. "I'm listening," Moxy nodded seriously. "What did I tell you about that knee?" Orry demanded. "That I shouldn't put my weight on it, and I shouldn't take any blows to it," he recited. "And I didn't," he stated proudly. "Not once," he emphasized. "I was real careful not to." Orry's visage was the image of sarcastic skepticism. "Look. I'll show you," Moxy said. "See?" He rolled up the shirt sleeves. His elbows, forearms and hands were scraped raw and bruised on both sides. Then he showed the doctor his one knee, abraded, and his foot, cut climbing on the rocks. And then he proudly displayed the foot on the same side as his repaired knee. It seemed to be, in fact, the only part of his physique that was utterly clean and clear of scrapes, bruises, contusions, and lacerations. Orry sighed, shaking his head at the physical evidence, remembering the story the kid had told to the Colonel. Moxy had crashed recklessly around for about 10 hours of life-threatening activity, and taken a beating to every portion of his anatomy except for the doctor's precious surgical repair. "I also told you that you were convalescing, and you should take it easy," Orry reminded the kid. "Yes," Moxy agreed. "That's why we were in such a hurry to get out. Why I tried to find a shortcut up to the surface. And those caves go on for miles, let me tell you. I hardly got a glimpse of the place. I was just aching to bring some proper equipment and supplies, and really explore it thoroughly. But I told myself, ' the Doc won't like that...' and so I just had a quick look-see and came right straight back out. And I brought that crutch with me absolutely everywhere, no matter how tight a squeeze, right up to the end. Ask Strong and Bartholgy if I didn't. But at the last, it got stuck in a crevice and knocked me right off my grip, and the mountain trembling and grumbling, ready to hit us with a huge great steaming blast. And still I tried to get that crutch unstuck. And when I finally did, what did the miserable contrivance do but to fall into the hot water? I almost said 'ah, to heck with it,' right then. But I knew you'd be mad, so I took a dive trying to find it. Hot water? Ouch. I stayed as long as I could, trying to find that dratted thing. I stayed so long I almost didn't get out before the blast. But at least you can see that I did listen to you, and I followed your instructions, right down the line, to the letter." Orry stared at Moxy's triumphant smile, striving to detect any hint of jest, mischief, or sarcasm in his expression. But ultimately, Orry had to conclude that the kid was seriously, righteously convinced he had acted in the most conscientious manner, according to the doctor's orders. "Good for you, Moxy. Glad to hear it. Keep up the good work," he told the kid, patting him benignly on the back. Strong looked at the doctor with raised eyebrows, and Orry shrugged back. Strong suggested, "hey, Mox. Maybe we should hit the sack for forty winks." He was so thoroughly exhausted, he felt he could sleep for a week, in full upright locked position, leaning against the surgical table where he stood. "Not me. I'm having noon-chow with the Colonel," Moxy grinned. "Now where did I leave that other crutch?" he wondered, balancing on his good leg. The one with the contusions, lacerations, and abrasions. But no surgical scar. Meanwhile, vack-out was starting to loom large in real time. Orry spent more and more of his waking hours planning the move. Strong proved to be an organizational genius in ways the doctor had not appreciated before. To Orry's surprise, the Colonel approved of leaving the clinic a functional entity. "Go ahead. Get your ducks in a row for Father George," the old man said. "No telling when in the future a friendly memory of us will come in handy in this neighborhood." Moxy sprang eagerly from task to task, translating manuals and instruction sheets, setting up teaching programs and clinical tutorials on the computers, opening communication lines with some of the distant city hospitals. The kid also organized a health lecture series for the local teenagers that Father George was organizing into a group of clinic volunteers. Sometimes Moxy would talk to them, sometimes Strong, and sometimes Orry would grab enough time to give them a seminar or practicum. The doctor's lectures on animal health rapidly became best sellers. They got to be so popular that they were held outside when weather permitted, to allow for the larger audience. Orry soon felt very much out of his depth in these seminars. He had read a fair amount on veterinary care, and possessed a few reference texts and several handbooks from his animal husbandry club in high school. But these proved both out of date, and very parochial. Many of the more common etiologic agents in the clinic's environs had no entries at all in his American textbooks. Fortunately, Moxy again came to his rescue with an astonishing jury rig of spare computer parts, homemade software and diverse devious dedicated devices that allowed the doctor to access various current databases worldwide. The result was a series of elegant seminars, so successful that Moxy felt compelled to record, transcribe, and translate them too. As a result, Moxy hurried around the camp with projectile velocity. Orry cringed with watching him. The kid teetered near cliff edges, balanced precariously on the one remaining crutch, and hourly put his bad knee in jeopardy. All of that exercise added muscle mass, but detracted from any chance of adipose. Moxy was still of an age to be growing, and burned through many more calories than he ate, in spite of everyone's feeding him left, right and center. One day Orry went looking for the kid but couldn't find him. The doctor had started out to ask Moxy a simple question. Orry had been listening to a group of people at the clinic who were waiting for their youngsters to get immunizations. An elderly man in the family told a long, funny story that Orry listened to with pleasure. The doctor's capacity to translate had improved logarithmically over the last few months. Now, he had gotten the sense of the story all right. But not the punch line. The old man had told his long, convoluted tale, and his audience had grown increasingly smiling. Then the old man sprang his punch line "and the goat left." His audience roared with laughter and the old man beamed with good humor, and Dr. Orry was brought to chuckling by sheer force of being surrounded by levity. But he didn't get the punch line. So he went to find the kid, to explain the joke. But where was Moxy? Orry worked his way gradually through the camp and ultimately up the side of the mountain. And what he spotted was the kid's crutch, propped against a rocky ridge high above the clinic. Orry made the climb wondering how the kid had got so far so fast. He shook his head at Moxy's effervescent energy level, rocketing up the side of the mountain. Nearly out of breath, Orry arrived at the place, climbed out onto the precipice and sat next to the crutch. Now he could appreciate why the kid had made the climb. Next to the crutch was Moxy's sketch book. Orry picked up the book and it opened to the page where Moxy had wedged his pen. It was a delicate sketch in black ink, a beautiful rendering of the clinic and cliff side, in proportions precise enough for an engineer's blueprint. The breathtaking vistas, the magnificent expanses, all were captured in elegant miniature on the page. Orry marveled at the tiny format, still giving the grand impression of nearly infinite space. Eagerly, he turned the page, and was caught up with the power of the image, in fact a mirror image of the same view. But as the artist's pen drew away from the tiny encampment, the cliffs became distorted, monumental, looming over the place with deep, menacing shadows. Mist and rocks were peopled with nightmare characters, goblinesque eyes and grimmaces in the shadows, shades folding into suggestions of winged demons. Fantastic cloud sculptures threatened storm violence with ghostly creatures lurking therein, mysterious, incomprehensible, possibly malicious in their intent. There was nothing cartoonish in the rendering of these beings. The offering was so real that the doctor's vision felt pulled inexorably to the view, searching for the terrible creatures that Moxy's ghost grey eyes had seen. A moment's search revealed nothing, and then Orry scolded himself for this silly occupation. The fleeting panic, however, reframed itself into the previous question, "Where's the kid?" Now, a small noise drew the doctor's attention. He turned upon the top of the rock, looked down beneath his dangling feet, and there was Moxy, sprawled upon a narrow ledge on the brink of a spectacular drop. Orry's heart almost stopped. His first impression was that the kid had slipped and fallen. His second was less alarming. Could it be that Moxy was peacefully sleeping on such a precarious perch? Orry silently cursed. Silently, because, if he made enough noise to waken him, maybe the kid would startle right over the edge. Cautiously, the doctor spoke in a hoarse stage whisper, "Moxy?" Nothing. He repeated in his normal speaking voice, "Moxy---." No effect. Then he gradually turned up the volume. "Moxy? Moxy. Moxy!" Finally, the kid stirred and turned over onto his side, about a foot closer to the edge now. Orry's heart slammed. "Come on, Moxy---" he coaxed. "Wake up, will you?" The kid murmured, "just five more minutes, please?" Now, Dr. Orry put on his best commanding-officer tone. "Moxy Youngblood, wake up this instant!" he snapped. The kid shifted onto his back, bringing him six inches closer to the edge. His eyes blinked open and he grinned up at Orry. "Hey, Doc. Great view, huh?" "Beautiful," Orry growled. "There's not much point in asking you how you got down there," he commented. "But how are you going to get back up? And stay off that knee?" The kid yawned, sat up and stretched. Then he stood, leaning one hand upon the rock face, favoring his bad knee. The doctor had grown up in mountainous terrain. He prided himself on a certain practical expertise in rock climbing. As far as he could see, there were very few toe and hand holds in the wall. On the one side it showed a rippled convexity and at the opposite end a shallow concavity. Without hesitation, Moxy applied himself to the bulge in the wall. Orry would not have chosen that side as the easiest climb. Basically, Moxy slapped his hands open against the rock and dragged himself up by scraping one boot toe and bending his elbows. Orry noticed that the kid was not using the post-surgery leg, but simply allowing it to trail behind. The doctor inched over the top to see if he could reach down a hand. Then he caught his breath up in a painfully sharp inhalation. From this vantage, the kid's legs dangled off into blue oblivion. There was no ledge to fall onto at all. Just the sheer drop and the bulging promontory with the kid clinging by friction, skin pressed against rock face, squirming an inch at a time, up, out and over. The doctor tried lying full length face down on the top to reach a hand down to Moxy. The place where the doctor's pelvis rested was flat and secure, but where his chest came to rest, the surface sloped inexorably down to the sudden plunge where Moxy clung. Orry felt his weight teeter and start to shift and then to slide. Desperately, he lurched in opposition to the terrifying pull, lost his balance and tumbled backwards. It wasn't clear to him what, if anything, was immediatedly beneath him. He dug in with elbows and knees and heels, and soon struck something abruptly. He did a prolonged slide around lengthwise and finally stopped his downward career by cramming feet first into another rock outcrop. "Are you allright?" the kid's voice broke through to his jumbled intellect. "Yeah. Allright," he replied. "Gosh, Doc. Don't do that to me. You nearly scared me to death," Moxy exclaimed. Orry looked up. In response to the kid's extreme facial palor, he refrained from retorting "Now you know how it feels!" "You didn't break anything did you?" Moxy continued in a tone of desperate worry, meanwhile dangling from the nether side of the twenty foot decline Orry had just precipitously toboganned down, and sliding to rest in a heap next to the doctor. The kid sat up and proceded to gently dust Orry's mustier portions. "Oh, gosh, your face is bleeding," the kid said in woebegone tones. Orry touched the scratch on his chin. A drop of blood showed on his finger tip. He had been injured worse on an average morning, shaving his bristles. "I'll live," he declared smiling wryly at the kid, and gathering himself to sit up. "Don't you think you'd best lie quiet awhile?" Moxy fretted. Orry was touched at the the kid's concern. The doctor examined his emotions a moment. He found that he was actually enjoying the kid's fussing. When was the last time anyone worried over him? He tried to recall. Probably way back in high school. He'd injured a knee in football, and his mom had fussed over him quite a bit. It was a comfortable feeling, having someone's evident concern for his welfare. Benjamin Orry treasured the sensation a moment. But then he looked at Moxy, miserable. Guilt was all across the kid's face as he appologized. "I'm so sorry, Doc," he exclaimed. Orry told him, "hey, it's not your fault if I'm gravitationally challenged." And then after a short silence, he couldn't resist asking. "You often nap on the brink of a cliff like that?" "Sure. Why not? My dad had me climbing since almost before I could walk. I just sort of got used to sleeping wherever I felt tired." "You don't worry about rolling off?" Orry suggested. "Haven't fallen yet...." Moxy shrugged. You couldn't argue with that, Orry told himself. "But the first time could also be the last," he remarked anyway. "Guess so," Moxy grinned. "Bring your sketch book. And don't forget the crutch," Orry balanced the two commands. They sat, leaning against the cool shade of the rock wall, solid, secure, preventing all falls. Orry turned the leaves of the sketch book again. It was filled with sketches, all from the kid's trip. There were naturalist studies of flora and fauna, seascapes and landscapes, and some portraits. Orry recognized some of the subjects. There was one of the King, and one of a beautiful little girl the doctor guessed might be the Princess, the King's niece. Portraits of Corporal Strong, Father George, the Colonel, even one of Benjamin Orry himself. He found the likenesses clever, very apt, finely detailed, and altogether rather generous, as if Moxy's drawing hand held a caress for his subjects. "Mox. This stuff is terrific. Really fine. Aren't you tempted to do it full time? Professionally? Weren't your teachers all over you to pursue art as a career?" "Well, you see, there's lots of things I like," Moxy paused. Orry studied his face, waiting. It seemed there was some sort of conflict associated with the answer. "Pap was an artist. That was all he ever wanted to be. He was, what would you call it? Driven. Consumed by it, maybe. Didn't care about money. Nothing practical. Just his painting, and drawing and such. It was his whole world. I think you got to have that level of comittment to be good. Great. As an artist. Maybe. Me, there are so many things I want to do, I can hardly decide. Here. Let me show you," he offered. From the back of the book, he brought out a loose sheet, somewhat crumpled and folded. He carefully unfolded it, smoothed it tenderly against his thigh, and passed it to Orry. It was another work in pen and ink, clearly a portrait of Moxy, somewhat younger. The likeness was perfect, the quality of the line fascinating. It was an altogether brilliant study, powerfully drawn. It captured all the mystery and genius in Moxy's strange, pale eyes. All the enthusiasm, fire, the humor of his expression. All of the joy of youth and beauty in the simple curve of his cheek. And so lovingly rendered, the power of the communication was overwhelming. "Your father's work?" the doctor concluded out loud. Moxy nodded. "Pretty much the last before he died," the kid added in neutral tones. Orry eyed him closely. There seemed very little of emotion associated with this statement. "Maybe you should have it framed," Orry suggested, almost randomly. He then hoped it didn't sound like criticism. "Oh, shoot," Moxy grinned. "Pap must have done hundreds of me. Oils, charcoals, ink, prints, wood, stone, even ceramics. We spent so much time together, before I went off to university, that of course he tended to use me for a subject alot," he shrugged. "I kind of like to keep this one with me," he added, almost as an afterthought. Like a talisman, it occured to Orry. He thought about Moxy as a patient. Thanks to Corporal Strong's concientious attention to duty, there was a family history in the kid's admission note to the clinic. There was no known living next of kin. Moxy's mother had died post-childbirth, and his father died in a car wreck on the kid's 16th birthday. Orry tried to reconcile these disastrous life events with the image of Moxy, now grinning sheepishly with the confession of owning hundreds of portraits of himself. How could he be so cheerful? He was positively ebullient. Clearly, Moxy's father had raised him from infancy. By the kid's own description, it was manifest that father and son had been very close. The level of emotional resilience in Moxy was very strange to the doctor's clinical sense. To put it succinctly, the kid shouldn't be all that happy. But he was. Orry had a hard time resisting a psychiatric diagnosis of some sort for his patient. Pure manic, maybe? How come you smile so much, Moxy? he wondered. Then he retorted, Oh leave off the weekend psychiatrist bit. Stick to something you're good at. Knees and such. Let the poor kid be happy if he can manage it. Maybe he just doesn't know any better, the doctor concluded. "Thirsty?" Moxy offered his canteen. Gratefully, Orry took a cool swig. Then passed it back. Moxy softly uttered something foreign before drinking. Orry had heard him say it before. Now he took the opportunity to ask, "what's that you said?" "Thanks for the water," the kid replied, barely audible. "Is it a local saying?" Orry asked, puzzled. "Er, no. Its American," the kid muttered, looking away, "kind of a prayer thing. From my mom's family. Pap picked up some of her ways and me from him," he explained. Experience suggested to the doctor that he might have stumbled into the realm of taboo. "What was her family's tribe?" Orry backed away to safer turf. The kid burst out laughing, the joyous sound drawing a broad smile from the doctor. "Good question," Moxy told him. "They asked me that in the admissions office at the University. I told the dean I didn't think there was one. Not formally, officially, you know? And he said it was good for the college. Their demographics or something. To have 'Native American' students. Plus it could be worth scholarship money. So he asked me to please find out. Told me to ask my dad. So I asked Pap, what did my mom's people call themselves? And he told me. I wrote it on the University's paperwork. And sure enough, there was some scholarship money, which was nice. But later, when I told Pap I got the scholarship, he laughed so hard." "Why?" Orry puzzled. "Well. That word I wrote on the paperwork, that Pap said mom's people called themselves. Pap told me, roughly translated it meant 'us folks over here' as opposed to 'ya'll over in the other place.' Guess it didn't bother the federal government that mom's tribe was called 'us'. Pap said we could have called them 'Uncle Gus's traveling snake oil company' so long as we said it in the right lingo, huh?" Moxy chuckled at the memory. Orry took another drink. "How come the water in your canteen tastes so good? What do you do to it?" "Nothing," Moxy's pale eyes sparkled. "It tastes good cause its a local source. Right out of the rock, fresh and pure. Not that bottled stuff you drink in camp." "Safe?" Orry asked, eyeing the canteen skeptically. "I can tell you everything that's in it," the kid stated with enthusiasm. "Water is my favorite subject," he added. Orry pondered the rarity before him. A teenage male whose favorite subject wasn't cars, girls, music, sports, or beer, but - "Water?" he asked out loud. "It's my passion. I've traveled all over the planet. First with Pap. Now on my own. Collected specimens. I can tell you the minerals, radicals, dissolved gases. Viruses, bacteria, plant life, insect and crustacean larvae. In water samples from all over the world. For years back. Course my favorite is unicellular organisms. Von Leuwenhoek's Animalcule, you know?" Moxy's eyes were positively luminous. "I've always dreamed of describing a new organism. I keep looking and looking. Someday I'll find one. Maybe," he shrugged cheerfully. When Benjamin Orry was in middle school, many years before, he had taken an overnight train trip with the science club. And accidently, he'd packed his wallet in his backpack of camping gear that went into the luggage car of the train. No access to it for the entire length of the trip. No money to buy the expensive food and drinks in the train's dining car. And the train's supply of water was plainly labelled 'nonpotable...not for drinking'. He had run quickly through the comestibles his mom had sent from home. And then he was stuck abstaining for the remainder of the trip. He debated skeptically with himself whether the water on the train really was bad to drink. Maybe it was just a trick to get the passengers to pay big bucks for the supplies on board. But maybe it would make him sick. Practically, he decided to grin and bear the discomfort. Anyone who had told him before that the thing he would miss most out of all the consumables in the world was a drink of water would have been labelled nuts. But during that trip, he discovered a thirst that went from nagging to miserable to all consuming. He slept fitfully, and when he dreamed, it was of a tall glistening pitcher of water, fresh from his Grandmother's farmyard pump. When he got to a public water fountain in the national park the next day and stood gulping the glittering stream in ecstatic relief, no remembered joy of his past could equal that moment. Well, after all, it was but a brief taste of privation for the youngster. As an adult he knew that drought was a horrible disaster that consumed life by astronomic counts in various parts of the world from time to time. And as a doctor, treating and preventing dehydration in his patients was a daily occupation. But nothing came home and stayed with him as powerfully as that one youthful experience. So he reflected, with this perspective, maybe Moxy's professed passion was not so peculiar. At this conclusion, The Stealthy Juggler could chortle with glee at an unusual consensus. Moxy might become the Juggler's future obssession, too. Just after sunset that evening, there was a party in the compound. It appeared that there was a certain level of local superstition associated with immunization. Moxy had heard of similar superstitions back home. "The old folks always used to warn us. Like, if you said the name of some dead fellow, his ghost might think you'd called him, decide to join you, you know?" Orry raised his eyebrows at this explanation, "a vaccination ghost?" Moxy chuckled, "not exactly. I guess the fear is, you might attract the disease to the kid by talking about it too much, paying it too much attention. Maybe they're right," he added, grinning widely. "I got my MMR immunization and then got the measles." "A decade and a half later," the doctor snorted. "Guess my viral ghost was kind of sluggish," Moxy shrugged. "Anyway, the deal is, they make this vaccination stuff into a sort of initiation rite and celebration to confuse whatever malignant entity might be paying attention. Which is nice, cause we get invited to the party." The food was good, the company congenial. Everyone was invited, and most of the camp showed up. The King even put in an appearance. This was a little nerve wracking for Orry and the Colonel, because the group with the kids throwing the party were not of the King's sect. And since the King claimed the entire mountain where they lived, there could be a turf dispute involved. However, the King seemed inclined to be sociable, smiling pleasantly and partaking of small quantities of food when urged. His followers stood in the shadows, grimly watching over him in lethal silence from a distance. After the eating had gone on for awhile, their host nodded his head to Moxy, who opened a case and took out his twelve string guitar. Orry held his breath. Here was grounds again for a fight. He knew some of the locals disapproved of music and some didn't. Their host and his extended family were a rather polytheistic group, humbled by no power, but ready to placate any major or minor deity in the immediate vicinity, including those of modern medicine, in order to better insure the well-being of their treasured children. And they had a long tradition of folk music. To Orry, the question was not whether the King would disapprove of a secular display of voice and instrument, but rather how violently he might object to it. Softly tuning the instrument, the kid gazed around at their host, and with a nod, invited the old man to sing. Listening for only a moment, the kid seemed to catch the logic of the melody, and followed the singer's voice in easy accompaniment. To Orry's relief, the King simply withdrew, quietly, distancing himself from the activity. Orry eased off a worried notch, and started to enjoy the music. As the old man concluded the lyrics, Moxy strummed the melody, his head cocked, eyes closed. Then he launched into variations, the melody lending itself to the flamenco genre. It started softly and plaintively, then gradually gathered momentum. The melodic intensity increased into the form of a bulerias which involved his fingers in a dance, leaping from the strings to percuss the guitar with increasing violence. The pace was fulminantly furious, the pounding explosive, the singing of the strings intensely complex, and then all was sudden silence. The dearth of sound revealed many in the audience holding their breath. A certain sigh of exhalation and then jubilant acclamation of the performance. "More," some of the American soldiers called out. Moxy looked around for the IPKers, and started a song for each of their home countries, in turn. Some soldiers were bashful, but most launched in singing uninvited, as soon as they recognized the melodies. The kid finished with the songs. At last he started a beautiful piece, wordless, but lyrical. It was an ancient thing, one belonging to the earliest history of the mountainside, perhaps as old as man's existence there, and one evolved to appeal to the innermost soul of the company present. After the first few measures, Orry realized with some alarm that the King's followers had re-entered the circle of listeners. He glimpsed the King's face in the firelight, and caught the reflection of a glistening tear on his cheek. One of the king's soldiers immediately next to his leader seemed to be slightly nodding his head in time to the music. The doctor again allowed himself to relax somewhat and listen to the rest of the piece appreciatively. Moxy really was a gifted musician, Orry realized. Mentally, he added the talent to a steadily growing list. After the performance, the kid replaced the guitar in its case, and then sat staring into the fire. Some of the folks stayed around chatting pleasantly. There had been no drinking of alcohol, abstention being practiced by most of the local people. So instead of collapsing riotously the way some parties back home seemed to do, this one merely settled peacefully to a close. Having thanked the host for his hospitality, the kid took up his instrument case, and left. Orry followed after, casting a doubtful look overhead. It was a weird night with a dry rasping bit of a wind starting up, and the sky lit a peculiar shade of greyish yellow. A shadow caught Orry's attention, and then the Colonel's voice, "We need to talk," stopped him. The C.O.'s grim determination caught the doctor by surprise. Orry braced for something bad. The Colonel said "we have a problem." After a moment, Orry hazarded "medical or military?" "Neither. Or both. Depending on your point of view. Or developments." Orry waited patiently. His C.O. was usually hard as surgical steel and straight through the sternum. Never at a loss for words, plan or action. What was their invincible leader encountering that was so difficult to grapple? "The King approached me this evening. With a formal proposal. For marriage between the Princess and Moxy Youngblood." Orry guffawed out loud. Then nearly strangled on his laughter. "Oh, gawd, Colonel," he said, "you really had me going there. I thought that there had been an outbreak of pneumonic plague. Or that war had been declared and we were caught behind enemy lines or something..." The Colonel glared at his second in command until his levity subsided. "Yes, well, what are we going to do?" he demanded. "Hell, I don't know. Tell them ' no'," Orry sniggered. "Do you have any idea how much money, power, influence, political balance, potential enmity, destructiveness and plain diplomatic disaster you're talking about there?" the Colonel demanded coldly. "Okay. So say ' no thank you...' " Orry offered, still chuckling in spite of his best efforts. The C.O. asked pointedly "and how do you suppose they will react to this refusal? Do you think, perhaps, the King's followers are going to feel a certain animosity toward Moxy after he offends their Princess?" Orry saw in his mind's eye, the King listening to Moxy's music with tears in his eyes, framed by a row of unsmiling, assault weapon-bearing-guerillas. The image sobered the doctor horribly. "Do you think you might find the kid with his throat cut ear to ear, maybe, a few hours after our polite ' no thank you'?" the Colonel continued relentlessly. "They lay a finger on the kid, I'll...." Orry paused in his threat, simply for lack of a vengeance suitably awful coming to mind. After a thoughtful pause, the doctor suggested, "Father George might have some practical thoughts on the subject, sir." "First thing in the morning," the Colonel agreed hopefully. Orry ducked into his quarters, quietly so as not to disturb the kid. Maybe it was the Colonel's last alarming suggestion about slit throats that got Orry on his cautious side. He glanced into Moxy's corner, then inspected it more closely. Then he cranked up the lights. The kid was not there. Orry muttered in annoyed fashion, as if to reassure himself that irritation at Moxy rather than a premonition of violence was the prevailing mood. "Can't count on him for the simplest, straight forwardest.... Said he was hitting the rack. Where the hell is he?" He grumbled as he grabbed a lantern and again went out into the night. The strange weather had intensified, the dry, irritated dusty wind muttering along with the doctor in a complaining sing-song. The lantern cast distorted shadows that shimmered and evanesced, blown hither to skittering return. Finely chiseled fragments off the mountainside gnawed at the doctor's boots. His clothes flapped dismally about his limbs. The airborne dust of centuries crept in between his lips, setting his teeth on edge, offering a taste, a smell of demise, long since mouldered, pulverized, seeking only a temporary space for respite, any crevice wherein to rest. He surveyed the encampment, then walked the perimeter. Even the sentries had become nonentities, and he walked the edge without challenge. The feeling of being largely alone in a grimey, grim space gripped his throat. He coughed slightly and regretted the gritty inhalation that followed. His eyes burned like purgatory. "Where are you?" he asked in his mind. As if by invocation, something appeared, caught his eye higher up the side of the mountain. The kid's haunt. Something was stirring up there. Surely Moxy wouldn't have gone up to the heights in all this wind and dirt. Cautiously, Orry felt his way along the edge of the cliff. The wind pulled hard, gusting with purpose, meaningful menace. He reached the kid's usual perch, but it was empty. The doctor felt certain he had seen something up here just moments before. "Where are you?" his mind chanted to the pulse of the storm. Precariously turning his back on the sheer drop, he scanned the heights above him, arching his back, shielding his vision with both hands. On high, an eerie greenish beam stood straight up off a dagger-like projection of rock. And in the surreal glow at the base of the formation was something that seemed to be a human leg. It was a leg. A leg clad in denim. Booted toe pointing downward at Orry. From this vantage, the place was inaccessible. Orry turned, leaned hard against the wall that looked out over the blank expanse of swirling nothingness, and inched his way along. It turned into a crevice which rapidly became a tight squeeze for such a big body. He grew edgy at the thought of sticking tight there, trapped with no help likely for himself or the kid. He tried not to think about the storm or getting stuck, and instead worked at moving along the wall. Finally, the space got larger and the second wall that formed the crevice worked its way up forming a front. He turned his back to the low outer wall and scanned upward again. He was shocked to find how much elevation he had gained by inching around the side. And shocked to realize how much time must have passed. Now he was within yards of the dagger formation, nearly straight upward overhead. And the eerie greenish glow fell down upon Orry, lighting his vantage. If Orry sat upon the outer wall, ignoring the terrifying emptiness that backed him and the wind trying to pull him off, and if he leaned back just an inch or two, pressing his hands into the ceiling lip of his crevice he could rise up just enough to catch a glimpse of.... yes, that was the place with the body lying still, stretched at the base of the dagger. Orry teetered and dropped onto the wall, losing his glimpse of Moxy. He was convinced it was Moxy, though all he had seen was the back of the kid's head. An image of glossy black hair, a stretch of dusty jacket, the beginning of denim trousers. Quite immobile with the grit gnawing at the body. Orry inched back, a little further this time, feeling the heart-tearing plunge draw him, teetering on the vertex of the wall. He pressed up and out and looked over the snarling curl of the green-glowing lip of rock. Directly up at the human figure poised over Moxy's body. A pale robed form with a gleaming pointed piece of metal clenched in its upraised fist. The sharp metalic blade was aimed directly downward between the kid's vulnerable shoulders. "Moxy!" The doctor's warning cry snagged upon the moaning storm wind. Slowly, the moth-white shrouded figure turned its gaze down upon Orry, who looked up into it's vissage. It was a face without any eyes. The doctor's involuntary shudder shook him from the wall. The empty eye sockets glaring at him was the last image he saw as he fell back into the dark void...

Head back to the main page!