"Why?" he said, and leaned in and stared me directly in the face with a terrible, quietly wild intensity. "Why?"
Old man, I thought, I can't tell you why. Don't ask me.
He withdrew, sensing he had gone too far.
"I didn't say that," he said.
"You didn't say it," I said.
"And when you bring the plane in for a forced landing," he said, "will you land a little differently this time?"
"Different, yes."
"A little harder?"
"I'll see what can be done."
"And will I be thrown out but the rest of you okay?"
"The odds are in favor."
He looked up at the hill where there was no grave. I looked at the same hill. And maybe he guessed the digging of it there.
He gazed back down the road at the mountains and the sea that could not be seen beyond the mountains and a continent beyond the sea. "That's a good day you're talking about."
"The best."
"And a good hour and a good second."
"Really, nothing better."
"Worth thinking about."
His hand lay on the doorsill, not leaning, but testing, feeling, touching, tremulous, undecided. But his eyes came full into the light of African noon.
"Yes."
"Yes?" I said.
"I think," he said, "I'll grab a lift with you."
I waited one heartbeat, then reached over and opened the door.
Silently he got in the front seat and sat there and quietly shut the door without slamming it. He sat there, very old and very tired. I waited. "Start her up," he said.
I started the engine and gentled it.
"Turn her around," he said.
I turned the car so it was going back on the road.
"Is this really," he said, "that kind of car?"
"Really, that kind of car."
He looked out at the land and the mountains and the distant house.
I waited, idling the motor.
"When we get there," he said, "will you remember something … ?"
"I'll try."
"There's a mountain," he said, and stopped and sat there, his mouth quiet, and he didn't go on.
But I went on for him. There is a mountain in Africa named Kilimanjaro, I thought. And on the western slope of that mountain was once found the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has ever explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude.
We will put you up on that same slope, I thought, on Kilimanjaro, near the leopard, and write your name and under it say nobody knew what he was doing here so high, but here he is, And write the date born and died, and go away down toward the hot summer grass and let mainly dark warriors and white hunters and swift okapis know the grave.
The old man shaded his eyes, looking at the road winding away over the hills. He nodded.
"Let's go," he said.
"Yes, Papa," I said.
And we motored away, myself at the wheel, going slow, and the old man beside me, and as we went down the first hill and topped the next, the sun came out full and the wind smelled of fire. We ran like a lion in the long grass. Rivers and streams flashed by. I wished we might stop for one hour and wade and fish and lie by the stream frying the fish and talking or not talking. But if we stopped we might never go on again. I gunned the engine. It made a great fierce wondrous animal's roar. The old man grinned.
"It's going to be a great day!" he shouted.
"A great day."
Back on the road, I thought, How must it be now, and now, us disappearing? And now, us gone? And now, the road empty. Sun Valley quiet in the sun. What must it be, having us gone?
I had the car up to ninety.
We both yelled like boys.
After that I didn't know anything.
"By God," said the old man, toward the end. "You know? I think we're … flying?"
THE TERRIBLE CONFLAGRATION UP AT THE PLACE
The men had been hiding down by the gatekeeper's lodge for half an hour or so, passing a bottle of the best between, and then, the gatekeeper having been carried off to bed, they dodged up the path at six in the evening and looked at the great house with the warm lights lit in each window.
"That's the place," said Riordan.
"Hell, what do you mean, 'that's the place'?" cried Casey, then softly added, "We seen it all our lives."
"Sure," said Kelly, "but with the Troubles over and around us, sudden-like a place looks different. It's quite a toy, lying there in the snow."
And that's what it seemed to the fourteen of them, a grand playhouse laid out in the softly falling feathers of a spring night.
"Did you bring the matches?" asked Kelly.
"Did I bring the—what do you think I am!"
"Well, did you, is all I ask."
Casey searched himself. When his pockets hung from his suit he swore and said, "I did not."
"Ah, what the hell," said Nolan. "They'll have matches inside. We'll borrow a few. Come on."
Going up the road, Timulty tripped and fell.
"For God's sake, Timulty," said Nolan, "where's your sense of romance? In the midst of a big Easter Rebellion we want to do everything just so. Years from now we want to go into a pub and tell about the Terrible Conflagration up at the Place, do we not? If it's all mucked up with the sight of you landing on your ass in the snow, that makes no fit picture of the Rebellion we are now in, does it?"
Timulty, rising, focused the picture and nodded. "I'll mind me manners."
"Hist! Here we are!" cried Riordan.
"Jesus, stop saying things like 'that's the place' and 'here we are,' " said Casey. "We see the damned house. Now what do we do next?"
"Destroy it?" suggested Murphy tentatively.
"Gah, you're so dumb you're hideous," said Casey. "Of course we destroy it, but first … blueprints and plans."
"It seemed simple enough back at Hickey's Pub," said Murphy. "We would just come tear the damn place down. Seeing as how my wife outweighs me, I need to tear something down."
"It seems to me," said Timulty, drinking from the bottle, "we go rap on the door and ask permission."
"Permission!" said Murphy. "I'd hate to have you running hell, the lost souls would never get fried! We—"
But the front door swung wide suddenly, cutting him off.
A man peered out into the night.
"I say," said a gentle and reasonable voice, "would you mind keeping your voices down. The lady of the house is sleeping before we drive to Dublin for the evening, and—"
The men, revealed in the hearth-light glow of the door, blinked and stood back, lifting their caps.
"Is that you, Lord Kilgotten?"
"It is," said the man in the door.
"We will keep our voices down," said Timulty, smiling, all amiability.
"Beg pardon, your Lordship," said Casey.
"Kind of you," said his Lordship. And the door closed gently.
All the men gasped.
" 'Beg pardon, your Lordship,' We'll keep our voices down, your Lordship.'" Casey slapped his head. "What were we saying? Why didn't someone catch the door while he was still there?"
"We was dumfounded, that's why; he took us by surprise, just like them damned high and mighties. I mean, we weren't doing anything out here, were we?"
"Our voices were a bit high," admitted Timulty.
"Voices, hell," said Casey. "The damn Lord's come and gone from our fell clutches!"
"Shh, not so loud," said Timulty.
Casey lowered his voice, "So, let us sneak up on the door, and—"
"That strikes me as unnecessary," said Nolan. "He knows we're here now."
"Sneak up on the door," repeated Casey, grinding his teeth, "and batter it down—"
The door opened again.
The Lord, a shadow, peered out at them and the soft, patient, frail old voice inquired, "I say, what are you doing out there?"