By Jack Snow
Author of The Magical Mimics of Oz, Spectral Snow, Who's Who in Oz, etc.
Originally published in Dark Music and Other Spectral Tales, 1947.
The three men sat in the tiny cabin, huddled in front of the fire that
was doing its best to burn in the rude fireplace. They had finished
talking more than an hour ago. A strange silence held them in its grasp
now, as securely as the icy cold clutched the tiny valley nestled in the
heart of the great mountain.
It was not that there was nothing to say, nor that any of the three were
of a silent nature. There was in fact, a great deal they could have
talked about. The two men from Cheyenne, held captive in the cabin by
the snowstorm, were from the outside world; they brought news and
stories of events that had transpired in the last month. Old Tronsen was
glad enough to listen to them, exiled as he was here in the heart of
the mountains, where winter made its home. And when they had tired of
talking, there was Tronsen's rich life, replete with the golden legendry
and lore of the early west--glorious tales he could tell of the opening
of the frontier towns, and the planting of a civilization that was to
girdle storm swept prairies and trickle through the narrow mountain
passes, moving relentlessly westward until there was no wilderness left,
except these hollows in the mountains where an old man like Tronsen
could creep away and dream of the early days.
The fire crackled dispiritedly and seemed to jealously cherish the small
warmth its blue flames gave forth. Snow whirled about the window, while
the wind cut the corners of the cabin with shrill whistles. Blake, one
of the men from the city, shifted his position and gazed from the fire
to Tronsen. Five days with a man in the same room . . . eating,
breathing, thinking and talking in the same room is a fairly complete
introduction, and yet there was something about Tronsen that eluded his
guest. It was something that lay concealed in the old man's eyes,
something in their luminous blue, and the tiny lines about them. They
were the eyes of a dreamer, and while Tronsen was lean and spare with
the leanness of a life of continual work and privation, there was
something of the child about him, something that dreamed, something
almost tender and poetic.
And now, tonight--Blake gazed at Tronsen as he sat there, his features
lighted by the oil lamp--what was he thinking of? Blake was mystified by
the expression of eager intentness that absorbed his features. He was
staring with rapt attention at the window, and as Blake watched him he
detected an alertness, an expectant light in the old man's eyes. It was
almost as if he were waiting for someone or something. Blake got the
impression that the old man was waiting for something terrible to
happen, and yet feared that it wouldn't!
Blake glanced at Thomas who was sitting close to the fire on a rude
bench. Their eyes met for an instant, and Blake knew that Thomas
understood and sensed something unusual. Blake was nervously annoyed, he
felt that he must say something, anything no matter how inane, to put
an end to this absurd silence, and at last momentarily interrupt the
shrieking of the wind.
"Sounds like an all night wind, and a devilish noisy one too," he said,
addressing Tronsen. The man of the mountain stirred as if returning with
his thoughts from a great distance. He gazed steadily at Blake for a
moment, and then spoke in a low voice with great earnestness.
"It isn't that it's an all night wind, for it's always lurking about
here somewhere, it's just that it has chosen to make itself known
tonight ... to reveal itself." The old man paused and then continued:
"If you had lived in the mountains as long as I, you would get to know
the winds and the snows, and even the air of the place--you would become
'familiar' with them, and sense their moods. There is a strange, new
note in the wind tonight, something I have never heard before. I--I
wonder if I could be right?"
Odd and incoherent words, these were, and Blake was frankly disturbed.
He realized that he had unknowingly touched upon the wrong subject, but
before he could a word, old Tronsen was talking again, quietly, and with
immense conviction: Blake found himself powerless to speak and almost
awed at the expression in the blue eyes and the seriousness of the man's
tone.
"Have you ever thought," he said, "that a mountain as a unit, an entity,
might possess a personality, a spirit as real and vibrant as a
person's? Certainly no two mountains impress one alike. Who could ever
confuse a Sierra with one of the Catskill range or an Ozark? They are
all mountains, yet they are much more . . . they are composite parts of
nature and as such they have their own peculiar forces and their
elemental existences. So many thousands of tons of rock, so many trees,
so many streams and so many valleys, just so much snow--Oh, I tell you
it's all perfectly calculated and planned, all of these things are part
and parcel of the great thing we call a mountain. I have lived here on
this old peak for years, I know. I have seen it in all its moods, I have
seen it swayed with the warmth of spring, gone mad with wild flowers
and tumbling its streams down the valleys; I have seen it basking openly
in the summer sun like a great lazy animal sleeping, full of warmth and
content. And I have seen it through many winters, as you men see it
now, crystallized and caught in the frigid net of winter, brilliant,
white and hard. I tell you there is something else . . . something
besides rock and trees and snow! Sometimes I can feel it, sometimes it
is very strong. Sometimes," here the old man's voice dropped to a low
whisper, "sometimes it goes abroad . . . often on nights like this it
escapes! It leaves the rocks and the trees . . . something 'goes out'
just as part of ourselves leaves the body in times of wild excitement or
emotional stress. Tonight it's the storm and the terrific excitement of
the wind and the driving snow. They have let loose something! They have
released something that is abroad, moving about OUTSIDE the mountain!"
Tronsen paused, his eyes brilliantly luminous and gleaming with
eagerness and excitement. Thomas had been listening spellbound to the
old man, and was plainly carried away by the man's imaginings and the
eerie atmosphere of the storm that was sweeping the valley.
"I understand," he said, "I have felt it too! All night long it has been
whirling about with the snow, driving with the wind. I have felt it,
something besides the storm . . . something mad with the wildness of the
storm . . . like a person exalted and lifted up by some terrific
experience and carried outside of his body!"
A sudden blast of wind shook the cabin like a leaf, and the three men
sat tense and silent, prey to the strange impressions that hovered in
the room. Tronsen was staring intently, fixedly as if he were expecting
something, waiting for something.
Suddenly Tronsen leaped to his feet, his eyes glowing wildly. "It's come
in," he shouted, "it's in the room, and it's trying to tell us
something--something that it wants us to do! My God can't you feel it?
Think man, think! Can't you get what it's trying to say? Try for God's
sake--it's something of vast importance! Something we must do!"
Tronsen stared at Thomas to whom these last wild cries had been
directed. It was then that Blake, certain for the moment that the storm
and days of confinement had overwrought the old man's nerves, felt
something sweep across his back that caused the hairs on his neck to
stand strangely. He turned quickly about and stared with a shock of
incredulity and wonder.
There was something in the room. Yet it could scarcely be described in
words as we know them. It was not material--physical. It was merely that
it was there in the room. It was a fine spiral mist that whirled
swiftly about the room. It glowed with an almost visible blue light, and
below the shrill cry of the wind Blake could distinguish a low,
vibrant, humming sound. Tronsen and Thomas were on their feet, Tronsen
eager and wild with excitement, Thomas white and staring with amazement.
The presence vibrated across the room again toward the door, humming and
darting, and rising and falling in the chill air of the cabin. Then
while the three men stared in awe, a mighty blast of wind drove the door
inward so that it fell from its hinges and crashed to the floor of the
cabin. In an instant the thing was outside the cabin and gone into the
night.
"I've got it!" Tronsen screamed, "I've got it! It wants us to follow! It
wants us to get out of the cabin! That's what it's been trying to tell
us!"
Already the cabin was filled with the icy cold of the night. The fire
was burning bluely, and the lamp had been blown out with the first
mighty puff of the wind. With a cry Tronsen dashed into the night.
Thomas was after him in an instant, and Blake, leaving reason behind,
followed them. Tronsen was making for the shelter of a great cave that
yawned a few hundred feet away in the side of a wall of rock that rose
from the valley. As Blake plodded through the deep snow, his mind a wild
confusion of impressions, he was aware of a great, overpowering
noise--a noise that was entirely alien to the storm. It was a terrific,
roaring sound that seemed to come from the heavens themselves. It filled
him with terrible panic and unreasoning fright, inspiring him to
incredible speed as he ran through the heavily drifted snow.
Only once did he turn and look behind toward the cabin. The noise had
increased to a sound like unearthly thunder, echoing and reverberating
terribly through the valley. What Blake saw terrified him so that he ran
madly without thinking.
Down the side of the valley was moving a vast accumulation of snow and
ice, a monster snowslide descending with terrific speed directly into
the valley. The tiny cabin lay just in the center of its path. The three
men huddled together in the shelter of the cave, shivering with the
cold and shaken with the strangeness of their dash into the night.
"Look," murmured Tronsen, in a voice filled with awe. "Look!" Blake saw
the avalanche leap from a crag above the valley and settle over the
cabin, spreading its waste of snow and ice and boulders over half the
valley. Only a distant sliding and scraping could be heard now as the
vast body of ice sheered into place in the valley.
While the three men stared aghast at the fate they had so strangely
escaped, there came a sudden lull in the storm. The driving of the wind
and snow ceased and a distant moon gleamed wanly from behind a cloud. It
was as if the descent of the avalanche had released the tension, had
cleared the air, and all the suspense and wildness of the night was
immediately calmed. The elements had spent themselves in one last fury
that had sent the huge mass of ice and snow crashing into the valley.
As Blake stared at the wonderful sight--the gleaming white of the snow,
the crags of ice scintillating in the moonlight, the tall pines hung
with crystal, a world of magnificent waste, frozen fast and chilled in
icy fingers, he was sure that he saw something shimmering and nebulous
arise from the waste of the avalanche and move far up into the
sky--something that whirled quickly and vibrated, vanishing into the
vast vault of the heavens, toward which the peak of the mighty mountain
climbed high above them.
And none of the men could deny the low, exultant humming sound which was carried across the snow to them.
THE FORGETFUL POET
By Ruth Plumly Thompson
Originally published in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, March 9, 1919.
Puzzles and Such
First we had better answer last week's puzzles, and there were enough of
them, dear knows. Here they are: A man can have three hands on one arm
if he wears a wrist watch. A bear is a plantigrade carnivorous
quadruped. An ant as tall as a hill is a gi-ant. Cain and Abel were the
two Bible characters mentioned. The words left out of the verses were
year, clear, broom and room.
Now can you tell us what two letters of the alphabet will give a merry
little sprite. They are a bit beyond the middle--I'll tell you that
much, and
Why is the postman like the baby's blocks?
What two letters of the alphabet will shelter an Indian?
Can you read this sentence? U & I r b 4 t.
This little verse is, as usual, rather incomplete. How would you finish it?
A book has -----
Just like a tree,
Its leaves grow dull
At times, dear!
Just like old stories
And long tales
And sundry of
My ----- dear!
[Answers next time.]
Copyright © 2010 Eric Shanower and David Maxine. All rights reserved.
