They were frolicsome and aggressive, happy to play outside the burrow as long as the bitch would allow. They ran after blowing leaves, and bit them.
They stalked insects. They wrestled each other with mock snarls and sharp nips.
They chewed on the older dogs' tails and bit their ears. They charged their mother or one of the others barking loudly, snapped playfully at legs. They harassed the males until one would lose patience and knock the offender to the ground and give it a harsh snarl or a low growl, which immediately caused the pup to roll over on its back and sprinkle a few drops of urine, which infantile display guaranteed its safety.
Orph liked them. They amused him and he felt good playing with them.
In another week the bitch would bring them from the den a final time and then they'd begin to live and sleep in the open with the rest of the pack, and a week or two after that they'd be old enough to travel, slowly and not any great distance at a time, but Orph could lead the pack away from here, and the human scent that drifted sporadically through the woods. He was more tolerant of the pups' enthusiasm than the black, who warned them away frequently and sulked into the woods when they became too much to bear, but less than the spotted dog, who seemed nearly as proud and devoted to them as the bitch. The spotted dog rarely rebuked or withdrew from them. He licked them, he groomed them, he baited their charges with his swishing tail, be rolled on his back and let them climb on him and didn't object to their little needle teeth.
When the bitch returned them to the den after an hour's play, they squeezed together in exhaustion and went immediately to sleep, soundly, and for a long time. The bitch was then free awhile, to relax, to run.
She didn't worry overmuch. If they woke, they'd call for her, growing querulous if she didn't answer, but they wouldn't brave the outside world without her. A few days ago the biggest one, the dominant pup who looked like Orph, growing daily bolder and more aggressive, had climbed the tunnel to the mouth and emerged into the sunlight blinking and immensely pleased with himself. But the bitch seized him by the scruff of his neck and lifted him off the ground and shook him furiously, growling, until he screamed in terror. Then she brought him back down and left him to cower with his litter mates He had not courted such cataclysm again.
This morning, the pups played themselves silly after they breakfasted and wearily allowed her to shepherd them back into the burrow without protest.
They promptly fell asleep. The bitch padded restlessly up and down the treeline with the males, who were ready to set off hunting. She whined. She missed the tension of the stalk, the thrill of the pursuit, the heart-pounding frenzy of the kill. She had been shackled to the burrow an unendurably long time. Orph was unhappy with her distress. He circled the clearing, looking at the burrow, at the woods, nuzzling the bitch. The black and the spotted were waiting.
Orph moved into the trees with them.
The bitch watched them go. She could stand it no longer. She barked.
They stopped and turned. She barked again. Orph answered. She ran to them. She butted muzzles with all of them in a nervous round. The spotted dog yipped and went racing away. The bitch shot after him.
They ran with flat bodies in a wide fast circle, tearing up the ground with their nails. Orph and the black joined the game. They raced, they leapt over dead falls plunged into the brush in a follow-the-leader game. The bitch was exhilarated. Her spirit infected them. When they finally stopped, they panted happily with long tongues hanging.
Orph began to cast for a scent. He found something of interest and angled off between a pair of dead gray trunks. The other males followed. The bitch hesitated, anxious, then launched herself after them: to hunt, to run, to be free-until the twin ties of time and distance that bound her to the burrow stretched too taut and brought her back to her litter again.
Bauer wrestled up from the twisted sheets sweat soaked and chilled, wrenching toward consciousness, hearing himself cry: "I didn't do anything.
God I didn't!"
His cheeks ran with tears. His breath sobbed.
He sat in the early Sunday stillness with his arms wrapped around himself, feeling the bewildered, annihilating agony of a child whipped for no reason it can understand.
The dream had vanished, leaving only the sickening residue of emotion.
He closed his eyes and tried to empty himself of feeling.
He rose and went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face, toweled the sweat from his torso.
Santo DiGiovanni's letter was on his dresser. He unfolded it and read it again.
I tried to find what was right, and I failed, old man.
I tried to explain, Ursula, but I couldn't find the way.
Orph, I could not see you, only what I wanted in you.
Suddenly, he ripped DiGiovanni's letter to pieces and hurled them away.
"But I didn't shoot those poor black bastards."
He swung his arm across the dresser top knocking off wallet and change and crashing a lamp to fragments on the floor.
"You bitch! I didn't walk out on you when you needed me! I didn't condemn you for my own disappointments."
He spun to the window, through which the hump of a mountain was visible.
"And you-I didn't repay your love by tearing your son's face apart."
He balled his hand into a fist. His forearm trembled. He hammered his fist against the wall. "You bastards!.. Bastards!..
Bastardsl" He wept in rage and grief.
He leaned his head against the wall and rested. He dressed. He made breakfast. He sat in the living room, drinking coffee. His camp gear was laid out along a wall. He looked at it.
Am I going? he thought.
He wondered if he had been enacting a hollow drama for himself.
Should I go?
For a moment, a sense of Orph loomed over him, a nearly palpable presence.
He was drawn into it, felt the pull of the inevitable.
He shook it off.
The presence subsided, but would not disappear, lingered as a soft murmur in his awareness.
He smiled. That's my good boy. Yes. You were true to your own self, you were false to no man. Ahh, Orph.
Wind scraped a branch against the house.
You never sought to hurt anyone. Do I come for you, Orph, or do I wish you long life, your life, your way, with your kind?
The wind gathered strength, coming down the mountain from the north, and increased its velocity as it swept unobstructed through the channel of the valley, and struck the house like a blow, making it shudder and rattling the windows.
They skipped sunrise meditation and set right to breakfast, then most everyone piled into the van and headed off toward Wintergreen. The theater department was staging a medieval fair on campus. Ed and Billy had helped carpenter booths, Josie had sewn pennants and made costumes.
Billy was going to wander the grounds as the ascetic monk leader of a heretical sect. Pancho would play his flute as a strolling musician.
The fair had received generous attention in newspapers and on radio-even a jousting tournament with papier-mache lances was planned-and it looked as if the turnout would be large. It promised to be great fun.
Only Harriet and her son Hero, both of whom disliked crowds and noisy bustle, and Ed and Josie remained. Josie had menstrual cramps and a headache. Ed preferred to work in the garden awhile and then just lie around in the sun.
Harriet packed sandwiches, an apple, and some rock candy into a bag and at midmorning set out with Hero to wander in the woods. They tramped aimlessly, Hero listening with interest while Harriet named trees and flowers for him and told him stories of the Indians who used to live here long ago, and how they loved the land and lived in peace with it.