User:Pinkville/garden

Return to the Garden by Colin MacWhirter

The smell of oil and exhaust lingered in her nostrils, irritating her nearly as much as the inflow of passengers filling up the seats around her. The idle chatter, the brushing by with bags knocking her and half-uttered apologies, the crying children. Too many people and no private berth. It seemed the private berth was not a part of this new world with which she had acquainted herself during the past month. The train began to move, slipping away from the platform as though down an incline. Children pressed their faces against the windows to watch the station roll by. She noted the smudges they left behind on the glass. Her experiment was over. A month in the city, in society, had answered her questions and confirmed her suspicions. It made no more sense for her to live amongst humans than for them to live amongst cattle. She was relieved to be on her way home and as she thought of home even the lights of the office towers, the traffic lights and the automobiles did not undermine her return to ease. Not far now, the dark hills beyond the city beckoned, drew the train irresistibly, and the metropolitan electric haze steadily diminished, consumed by night. Now there was nothing visible through the windows but the landscapes of her imagination. So she saw her home in the mountains, mentally crossed the threshold into the Keep – as she referred to it – the violet-grey slate reassuringly cool underfoot, the stillness and quiet so perfectly unlike the place she was leaving. Blankly gazing through the train window she imagined peering through her own windows, surveying the garden there which gently rose up to and beyond her house, blending into the larch forest all around. In moonlight, a bed of almost phosphorescent yellow needles lay under the trees; during the new moon, it was a soft woven mat – to any but her eyes, only a texture to the blackness. The sudden cry of a baby in the next seat broke her reverie and the stark fluorescent lights of the train car streaked back into her awareness: she could not see the dark beyond the windows but only reflections on the glass of the passengers, the seats, the lights. Abruptly, she rose and made her way to the end of the car, the last car of the train. She opened the door and stepped out to find privacy and a view of the cold night swirling in the wake of the train. Much better. But now she could only think of the city. As a rule, she was not troubled by memories; now and then, however, an image or smell, maybe just a sound, would materialise in her consciousness like an illusionist’s white rabbit, like the scent of offal rising from an animal’s opened belly. They were discrete flashes, which she could relate to each other for a more complete picture of her past only with effort, effort which she rarely considered worthwhile. But these mental images of the city demanded attention, an explanation; they would not be dispelled.

The city of movement. Calisthenic movements of cranes constructing and demolishing. The city of noise. Standing on the street corner, having just arrived, she tried to sort out the sounds of voices: conversations, shouting, laughter; of automobiles:  honking, engines revving, brakes screeching; and of music:  canned, broadcast, whistled – all the sounds whirling about her. In the hotel lobby a confusion of faces and baggage. And people relentlessly imposing themselves upon her: inquiring about her health and comfort, her preferences in food and drink; did she want a room facing south or north? Was she alone? The first week. Sitting in the hotel restaurant, she observed the patrons; there was nothing to prevent her from eating but she had never had an appetite for what humans called food; her blue steak lay untouched. It was nauseating, the clash of smells: people and their meals, the chemicals in the upholstery and carpeting; unsettling, the disorder of conversations, music and clinking china. And the weakness implied by their manners offended her: the absurdities of cooking and cutlery; the rituals around feeding – indicating a flight from truth, the refusal to confront the prey. Now the waiter was asking if her meal was all right. The second or third week. Riding the commuter train, a little closer to the objects of her study, the car was packed – rush hour – but quiet. Surveying the faces it occured to her, they must be thinking too. What on earth about? Two passengers were whispering together, but she caught a few words: “wouldn’t go down on” and “can’t believe” and “squeamish”; she could not imagine what they were discussing, and with such hushed vigour. The train stopped and exchanged one set of commuters for another: they streamed across her view but her eyes settled on a small metal plaque on the wall by the door and she read, “Düsseldorf”, as the train again picked up speed. The fourth week. Passing doorways in the hospital corridor she glanced through each that was open: empty bed, sleeping patient with respirator, nurse adjusting drip-feed, visitor leaning over patient. It was evening and the hall was empty but for apparatus waiting to be used; someone in pale blue noiselessly crossed her path. She reached the end of the corridor, thinking, the hospital seemed the obvious place to go, the site where human interests and her interests turn towards each other, but even here there was nothing for her... almost nothing. She could not fathom the investment made by humans to maintain a surplus population, to push away eternity or oblivion; the hospital was a monument of the entropic human world, a vast rejection of her and her recognition of this persuaded her to return to the mountains... after claiming the one thing here which was hers. The one sleeping. The victim of some accident, gashed and bruised – almost as if in preparation, the blood that much closer to the surface. In the quiet, the low light of the evening she selected a site, peeled away the bandage, pointed the tip of her tongue there in the midst of chewed up flesh, sealed her lips around the wound and siphoned the blood into her mouth. No more than a minute and she was away, leaving the scene charged for a sudden flurry of activity behind her.

It was hard, now, to understand why she had gone to the city in the first place. What could she have hoped for? Certainly, she remembered the inspiration but, as with many of her impulses, she could not later relate to the mentality that had given rise to it. Again, flashes of memory. From just a few months ago.

It was one morning in January, with the mountain tops lost in heavy clouds from which stray specks of snow were being shed. She was in her Keep, meticulously reviewing her ledgers, and she noticed the date of her last acquisition of new clothes: long ago. Time to replace them. Suddenly, it crossed her mind that she might have lost weight.... It was an idea which went against reason but she could not shake it. So she decided to go into town to be measured for the new outfit. In the alpine town near her Keep was the dressmaker to whom she sent out every decade or so for new clothes. The shop had her measurements on file and the dressmaker knew what she wanted – it was always the same – and a driver delivered the finished items, wrapped in crisp white paper and twine, to her house. She had arranged things so that she rarely visited the town; in fact, for many years only the train station. And she relied on just a handful of people to deliver what she needed or to drive her where she wanted to go. The car arrived just as the stone grey sky was darkening to dusk on the peaks; the horn honked and she started down the long path from her door to the road. As they drove into town, the driver’s eyes darted in the rear-view mirror, but she was watching the deepening grey ribbon of sky high up between the trees which edged the road. The shop was just off Wolf Street, a bit of trivia she had not previously noted, its doorway obscured by winter twilight. “Wait for me here.” There was no one in the shop; but then, it was Sunday, her appointment a special arrangement. She stood at the counter, regarding the cash register and the bell beside it: Ring for Service, finally realising the note applied to her too. As she reached for the bell, the dressmaker entered from the back room. “Oh my! I didn’t hear you.” The dressmaker, a tiny, bird-like woman, looked up into her face, then frowned. “You’re the lady who called to have her measurements taken?” “Yes.” Still, the frown. “You.... You’re the spitting image.... Your mother used to order from me now and then....” “Hmm.” The dressmaker, disconcerted, looked her over, eyes descending from the youthful face under a crumpled bonnet with veil, narrowing slightly at the threadbare mauve and green velvet bolero and skirt and frayed blouse. “Would you like to see a catalogue? Some... contemporary designs?” “No. I want the same design. But I have lost weight.” “Well, please come in to the fitting room.” The dressmaker gingerly guided her through the doorway to the back room. “It’s unlikely you could both have the very same measurements, anyway.” As she was being measured, she absently viewed the little bird-woman, whose fingers began to tremble while extending the tape measure from armpit to hand; she absently viewed the reflection of the bird-woman in the full-length mirror before them, half-noticed her glance up and freeze for a moment before quickly returning to her work without again looking up. It did not take the dressmaker long to get the measurements, and it was her voice which now trembled as she asked, “Would – would you like to select the fabrics?” “I want the twin of the outfit I’m wearing.” “Okay. I’ll have to check to see if we have those fabrics in stock.” “Chartreuse and heliotrope. Those are the colours. It was arranged long ago, there should be plenty of fabric.” “Do you need... something else... or just...?” “The one outfit will be sufficient.” She pulled her daybook and pen from her purse, saying, “Now, a date for the fitting....”  At that moment her eye fell on a catalogue lying open on the nearby cutting table. The two visible pages were photographs of women, wearing only undergarments, standing on a street corner. Slowly she realised she was mistaken, they were fully-clothed but in a perplexing style, incomplete and crude, like the abbreviated clothes of indians and other primitives. Glancing up, she saw that the dressmaker was not altogether dissimilarly dressed. It occurred to her that over the years, despite her occasional encounters with people, she had missed this transformation (devolution) in fashion and it occurred to her that she had likely missed other changes. “I’m sorry. You’re not a daughter, are you. I checked the file, your measurements are the same.” This was a surprise. There was a cascade of thoughts: she was the same as ever... while the human world – in trivial and, possibly, profound ways – had changed. She relied peculiarly on humans, though she only reluctantly admitted it, so might this mutability pose a threat to her? She worried they might notice the anomaly of her changelessness, furthermore, act on the recognition. She would have to try to adapt. Maybe she should reconnoitre their society, as distasteful as that might be, and learn to appear more like them. Then again, she suspected she would come to the same conclusion as she had long ago, that the only way for her to be comfortably safe was to remain in reclusion from human affairs – remain alert certainly, but aloof. Turning back to the dressmaker, she said, “Obviously, a fitting will not be necessary. Have my driver bring the dress to my house when it is ready. He is waiting outside if you need to confer.” The dressmaker glanced back at her and scurried out to the car to arrange the details. She noticed the bird-woman’s lingering anxious scent, and from the front room of the shop she watched the dressmaker at the driver’s window, watched her head bob up and down in clouds of their mingled breath as the four o’clock winter night gathered round. The discussion seemed to take much longer than necessary, she thought. The dress arrived one week later. Unusually, the driver left his car, and he carried the package up the path until she met him halfway, near the edge of her larches, near the edge of her garden. He peered over her shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of her house and the property around it, but she was pulling the package from his leather-gloved hands while reminding him of the routine for payment and did not notice. It was three months later, as she reviewed her ledgers, that she came across the entry for her skirt, jacket and blouse, and the images of the two women in the catalogue and the scent of the dressmaker flashed. She booked her hotel room and her train ticket that day.

The train whistled, the dark mountains loomed. The clouds in the night sky: visible only as black smudges over the stars, obscure like the now dim images of her past. Having reviewed the thoughts and questions which had impelled her to stray from the Keep, still she could not empathise with the person who had posed them – herself. She had given a month to their city, but what could ephemeral humans teach an immortal? If her changelessness was conspicuous, what did it matter? It was the expression of the natural order that she should stand out. Their world was always changing, yet they could not grasp it, while she, in her eternity, could survey the tectonic transformations as easily as the changing seasons. Now, the city was wide and agitated. But she remembered the same city had once been very different, barely more than a thought: just log cabins, tarpaper shacks, canvas tents and tipis, and the austerity of only a dozen or so sandstone buildings to break the horizontal (and the image came to mind of a pitiful barn-like music hall decorated in the prairie version of a grand opera house; there had been a brief encounter with a leading man – Fairfax?); with horses in the street and cattle driven from the bald foothills right up through the edges of the settlement. Dryland jetsam. Rail lines had been laid – the first figure in a great calculation being worked out on the surface of the prairies. She had followed those rails from somewhere in the east, she could not now recall the name. With the lights of Cochrane disappearing around the bend of the coulee she finally acknowledged her rare reflective mood: thinking of the city’s past unavoidably led her to see the young woman she had been then (it disturbed her to think of it), the young woman taking the waters at a Rocky Mountain hot springs resort.

The city was not her destination, only a stop-over, as she and her chaperone rode the train to the mountains. There, they shared a suite in the chateau-like hotel by the Bow Falls, a hotel with all the amenities, and none “for the doubtful class of people”, as Sir John A. Macdonald put it. It was here that her chaperone hoped to guide her towards a suitable husband. There were many candidates; at supper, the stone dining room echoed with men’s talk of timber and copper and coal speculation, the promise of tourism and real property, and, always, the spiritual and financial profits to be gained from the scenery, the sanatorium and the waters. During the meal, her chaperone discreetly vetted their male dinner companions while she talked amiably with a greying gentleman about his recent tour in South America – or was it about the war in the Transvaal? She no longer knew. The following day, by a log cabin pavilion at the foot of Sulphur Mountain, she found the Basin, the bathing pool, cut from the tufa of the hot springs. With her guardian, she donned her bathing costume and deposited herself into the steaming waters. A wealthy and attractive and marriageable young lady in an exotic locale. She would be swiftly swept off her feet. The pool was without shadows, mid-June sunlight pouring into every corner, even the many parasols seemingly unable to provide cover as, underneath, glowing upper class Victorians sipped the tonics prescribed them. She was met by one bather after another who passed on health tips and accounts of their ailments and commendations of the sulphur springs’ medicinal qualities: “best taken in Dr. Brett’s lithiated mineral water,” offered one man. “Better yet, the ‘medicinals’ he serves Sundays at the sanatorium,” said another. A woman, pausing to hack, suggested she see the Cave, just behind the Basin, where the hot springs first had been discovered, “though I imagine some of those indians must have known about it, too”. Tiring of the scene and the heat she decided to investigate the Cave. She waved to her chaperone, who was immersed equally in conversation and turquoise water, and entered the pavilion to change her clothes. Moments later, after a short climb, she stood at the entrance to the Cave, merely a doorway-sized crack in the stone. She heard bubbling water within, and a dim light was just visible, reflected on the purple-brown rock wall. In she went, finding a lantern hung on the wall and a simple log bench facing a pool; a man was sitting there, looking into the foul-smelling waters. Thinking back, she could remember nothing distinct about the man, his image was a blurred silhouette. They talked, certainly – for about half an hour; she must have described her trip from the east. He listened, haltingly commented and posed one or two questions; she thought he seemed ill at ease and so took on the burden of the conversation. But abruptly he rose and offered to guide her through the Cave.... It was there, in the deepest recess of the sulphur-smelling cave that she lost life and gained eternity. She remembered how the echoed gurgling of her blood as it was drawn through his lips mingled with the gurgling of the springs. That was 1901. The last moment of her prehistory. And though her guide, whose name she had never learned, departed – presumably to other resorts – she stayed. She might never know why he had chosen to initiate her and not simply to feed upon and discard her, and it did not matter. Her destiny was her own creation now and did not include a need for husbands, companions of any kind. She built her citadel... in the national park. As a young woman at the turn of the century she had been accustomed to the privilege of her class, perhaps unusually so for her age and sex; but as an imbiber of lives she was truly powerful. Without worrying about why, she noted that things invariably went her way. She could carve out private property from public land. She could commission perilous and difficult construction at no cost. She could survey the sweeping mountain valleys and pluck park wardens and tourists and tramps from their posts and picnic sites and train tracks. She could yield to the raw, savage impulses within her and chase down wolves in the coniferous forests. But first, she fed; in the days and weeks after her initiation she fed, and nothing else. Without forethought, without cunning she sluiced, one by one, a gang of Chinese labourers replacing rail lines, not even knowing that there was no one in the land to miss them. She bled a prospector by Devil’s Lake, mirthlessly; only leaving an opening for his rivals. In the nearby town of Anthracite a prostitute’s dry bones, which she tossed on a slag heap, would never be discovered. She fed recklessly, without awareness or appreciation of her own luck. Until one day, like photographer’s powder, the memory flashed: her chaperone talking with the other bathers, steaming water lapping at their chins, and she waving, unnoticed. It had been days, two weeks.... Her chaperone must be wondering about her, must be worried. That was what people did. When a person vanishes others worry and call the authorities, the police.... And for the first time since her initiation the thirst subsided. Prickly fear seized her hands and head. There must be a search underway, and there were six, seven bodies to be found. But not hers. Unless she took action, she would be detected. As she entered the hotel lobby, heads turned; her clothes were torn and muddy, and an iron-tinged two-week pong walked with her. Nobody accosted her. A large party had arrived, the hotel staff were busy, and no one dared risk involvement with a woman of such unsavoury appearance. The elevator operator pressed himself into the corner of the elevator, as far from her as possible, but she did not notice, intent as she was on her goal. Before she could knock, the door opened. Her chaperone, in the midst of leaving, started and gasped at the sight of her, but she drove her back into the suite, closing the door and locking it. Her chaperone could say nothing, in fact, there was only a choking sound from her throat, with shock, relief, confusion and fear contorting her face. “I am not dead. Something better. You have been worried. You have spoken to the police. I cannot permit you to put me at risk.” The chaperone, trying to ignore the terrible sight of her dirty and bloodied ward and her odd words, managed to ask, “But what happened to you?” “You have found me. The search is over. Tell the police.” “... I was just on my way.... Yes, yes. I’ll tell them.” While her chaperone was out calling off the search, she tore off her soiled clothes and put them in a bag, cleaned herself and dressed in a fresh ensemble. She waited, seated on the edge of her bed, looking into the mirror which reflected an empty room. When the chaperone returned, she explained her intentions to her and passed on instructions; these were fulfilled within five weeks. The builders, and her chaperone, did not understand the meaning of their tasks, but they performed them. For the site of her new home, she chose a secluded spot high up near the treeline, in the Sundance Range. The structure was of limestone and slate and purple-brown Rundle rock. It was one room, square, with a high-peaked roof so the snow would slide off. The building materials were brought in on a steep trail that had to be cut through firs and Engelmann spruce, whose needles gave off a peculiar foetid odour when bruised by the labourers’ axes and saws. The atmosphere was disquieting and the work dangerous – one man was crushed under a load of rocks, another disappeared and was presumed eaten by a bear or mountain lion; when all was done she dismissed the surviving workers, who moved on to the next job, or the hope of one, and so, in successive hazes of sweat and whiskey, suppressed and lost the disturbing memory of their lady employer. As for her chaperone, her purpose as a matchmaker having been snuffed out two months earlier and her recent use as a sort of procurer having concluded, she was instructed to send their relations a telegram saying that they were travelling on to the west coast, and to book a private berth on the train. Meanwhile, other preparations were made, so that the two could comfortably embark. The door closed, the blinds down, she and her chaperone sat wordlessly, staring absently as the train rolled deeper into the mountains. Over the five weeks she had explained nothing about her transformation and her chaperone, apparently in a grim daze, had not asked – when not speaking in the course of her duties, had only repetitively, compulsively swallowed and cleared her throat. The daze ended as they neared Kicking Horse Pass. As the chaperone mutely watched, she drew out her hat pin, pierced a vein in the woman’s left wrist, and sucked away the chaperone’s life and blood. Minutes later, the train having slowed for a switchback, she jumped. It was a long but necessary walk back and she heard, when the train entered the pass, the thunderous fall of boulders which swept it and its passengers down the cliff to the foot of the peaks. The recovery crew would find only mingled limbs and debris and mistakenly identify her as one of the victims because of the recognisable tatters – bloody and mud-covered – of her skirt and blouse. She was safe in her keep, her secluded aerie. In the valley below they were growing hay, making railway ties, mining coal, cutting timber, getting drunk, convalescing. People coming and going; she would never go hungry and no one seemed to remain long enough to notice her or the pattern of disappearances. There would be times when a body was found in the woods, the apparent victim of a bear mauling; a gang would be assembled, ride out into the woods, find and destroy an unfortunate grizzly. Through a hundred years there would be echoes of this sort of story.

During her century there had been only four occasions that she could recall when someone, having learned of her and her habitation, had come to suspect her of malign activity. But/though each person had finally been persuaded otherwise. The train had reached the plain between the foothills and the wall of mountains; in the deep sea dark she could see the waving grass and a few horses standing, presumably asleep. The sight partially mirrored her thoughts.

There were hoof marks in the still warm ash behind a little brush fire on the slopes a mile or two from her house. She noticed them as she was gathering kindling to cover a prospector’s body – she wanted the flames to reduce it to ash too. She stopped, with the dry branches in her arms. Had she been seen, the bloodless body been found? The fire bothered her, it frightened her a little and its glow reduced her night vision and confused her sense of smell. She looked about but could see no movement and detect no unusual scent. With the wind rising as the evening light deepened, and the flames marching forth, she hurried to complete her task. Through thickening smoke she started to run back to her Keep. The wind shifted, the air cleared, and she stopped. The smell of a man and horses. Somewhere nearby... There was a whinny, and a beam of lantern light swung across her. She was trembling as she looked for the source of the light. Breaking a trail down through the trees before her was a man on a pony towing a packhorse. It was too late to hide. “Hello,” he called. “I didn’t expect to meet you but I’m glad I did.” She said nothing, standing fixed to the spot. “You’re the one lives up in that stone house a mile from here.... I was coming up to warn you about this fire.” “Yes.” He stopped, only twenty feet away, his ponies seeming to watch her, their eyes wide and their nostrils flaring. “I don’t think there’s anything to worry about right away; it’s small yet. I’m riding in to town to round up a crew before it gets big. But it might be an idea for you to come with me, just in case.” His smile slowly fell as she failed to respond, only stared at him and his stamping horses. He tried another approach. “You all right up here? No problem with bears or wolves or anything. Only, there’s been some disappearances. Matter of fact, you seen a fellow up here the past couple of weeks? I wouldn’t be surprised but he got himself killed by a bear... or maybe he started this fire and burned himself up in it?” “No.” His frown deepened, he found he couldn’t look her in the eye. “Well, anyway, if you’re staying, I’ll check in on you when we come back. Just be sure to watch that wind doesn’t turn and whip that fire your way. And if you see that prospector –” The smoke suddenly blew back over them, covering them, and she took the opportunity to run off home before she had to hear another word. With her comforting stone walls around her and the heavy door shut, she could think. Who was this trespasser? What did he really want? She reflected that the broken branches, footprints and hoof prints, and extinguished campfires she had noted over the past two weeks and put down to the prospector alone might also have been left by another, by this meddlesome trespasser. He must have been tracking her for days. He must have seen her with the prospector’s body. She put her hand to the cool wall, steadying herself against the anger and fear which seized her. How she wanted to take this man, open him like a sack and dump out his contents. He was not worth feeding on – in fact, the thought sickened her. She sped to the door – and stopped. She should think this through. He must be one of the fire wardens the park had hired two years ago. That meant other people would know where he was, that he would soon be missed if he failed to return. She should wait, observe him and discover the nature and extent of the risk he posed to her. Then, at the right time, she would punish him for his violation of her. She wondered how much he had already learned of her and her existence. She walked back out into the night, made her way down the path towards the nearby tote road, intending to pick up the man’s trail and follow him. The half moon was bright enough to pick up the telephone lines running alongside. It was colder, the fall night air having rapidly dispelled the day’s warmth. At the end of the path was her stone gate, where the Brewster brothers left her deliveries and sometimes met her. The man was there now. She could see his heat – and the heat of his ponies: he had hitched them to the gate and they were feeding on the tufts of grass and alpine flowers growing at the base of the stones. From behind tangled branches she watched him retrieve a pouch from his pocket, take something out and put it to his mouth. Then he started walking up the path towards her. Outrageous. He could not have detected her, he must be going to her house. Why? “How may I help you?” “Jesus! You startled me,” he said, with a note of reprimand. “How may I help you?” Once again he found he could not look this oddly off-putting woman in the eye. “I thought it over.... I thought it might be better I stayed here. It’d be better for you if I stayed here the night, kept an eye on you. In the morning I’ll ride down to Banff. You know, this thing’ll probably burn itself out, but... just to be sure. I’ll make sure you’re all right.” “You want to spend the night at my home,” she said, watching a lump in his cheek move up and down with a chewing motion. “Well, I won’t be a bother. My ponies are fine by the gate, there’s grass and whatnot. And I can put up my tent if you’d rather.” Something had to be done, she could see that. He was too persistent. His suspicions somehow had to be laid to rest. Even at the risk that someone might come after him. He chewed and spat out a black stream. She said, “I don’t care for snuff.” “Sorry.” And she led him up the curving path through the bristled trees. The half moon had slid behind the peaks. He had no lantern but she could see her way and he had no choice but to follow. He had a sense the trees were thinning, then further realised they no longer bore needles; finally they reached the edge of her clearing and, walking on, the only sound was that of the path crunching underfoot. It was almost like loose gravel. At the house – it was a huge cairn – she said, “You had better come inside.” The idea had materialised in the moment he had spat out his tobacco; it would neatly solve the problem of this man. Following her obscure silhouette, he took the first step up to the doorway, saying, “One of the Brewster.... I was told some awfully queer stories about –”  She opened the door and it was as though some of the night air was sucked inside, taking his breath too. They crossed the threshold and she closed the door behind him. After a moment he asked, “Is there a light?” “No.” There was no sound, no definition to the dark. But she was watching the expression of his warmth... it was like a glow-worm. “Tired,” he said. She noted that his sweat had suddenly soured. Finally, she spoke. “In a short while you can return to town. But you need to sleep. First, I’m going to give you something.” When he awoke from life he unfolded himself from the corner of the room and stood looking through the dark. The door had been opened, left for him to close again. He could see her cool dim form; they regarded each other for a moment and then he left. Nothing needed to be said. He walked to the trees and on down into the valley. He had only to briefly pass by the park office, make his/an unremarkable report, then move on. There could not be two such as them in one valley. Later, the abandoned ponies – having consumed all the vegetation within reach – broke free from the gate and wandered off into the woods, day by day shedding the remnants of the fire warden’s gear until they were naked. The forgotten brush fire spread until smoke filled the volume of space between the mountain ranges: everything below her perch. But it never threatened her home, and it burned itself out eventually. And no wardens ever passed her way again.

Fear crackled, at times, in her – at the surface of her skin and at the edge of her hearing – threatening to undermine her ordered existence. She could feel it, hear it. She knew it made her act rashly, sometimes – maybe putting her at risk. Crackling fear... she recognised it, broke it, reminding herself that she had persisted a hundred years nonetheless. And the fear prompted by her thoughts of the fire warden also broke like blistered skin. There were voices calling – the train had stopped – activity at the front of the train. She turned to look up into the last last car and saw passengers looking about, talking: obviously wondering, speculating about the reason for the unscheduled stop. She turned away again. They had entered the mountains and with the cloudy night and walls of rock all should be black, but they had stopped at Exshaw. Its eerie lights were reflected in a steel-smooth lake. Not a town, but a limestone excavation and cement plant; during three decades one mountain had been cut down to a stump in successive diagonal slices, and in ten years its neighbour had nearly joined it. Apart from the shouts by the train engine, there were the sounds of industry: something like gravel sluicing into a bin; phantom objects clattering and clashing together, forlornly echoing in the dead mountains

It was coolNear Seebe the train slowed to an unscheduled stop Seebe/Exshaw This was the   of mountains Had she been unjustly fearful of the man? The event was deep in the past – 1911. It was difficult to judge. But here she was, ninety years later.

A highway was being built from Banff to Lake Louise; but she had thinned the number of labourers as much as she dared – the “possible saboteurs” of Austro-Hungarian background who had been penned up in a camp near the Cave and Basin. There did not seem to be as many tourists as usual and she worried that her sources of nourishment were drying up. So she went to the city. On impulse, she took in a show at Hull’s (or was it Sherman’s?) Opera House. This turned out to be a mistake, it was tawdry and often incomprehensible. As a human she had enjoyed the theatre, the dramas and music, now she could not imagine what had held her attention. It was ugly and garish [colours/smell of make-up]. The characters gesticulated and speechified over matters that seemed of great importance to themselves but which were in reality pointless and insignificant. It was as though a cloud of may flies had put on/attempted a melodrama. And it was all so tainted with sentiment and poetry. It annoyed her so much, she joined the well-wishers backstage at the end of the show. She segregated the leading man from everyone else, virtually towing him into a dressing room and then simply decapitated him in her anger. Her thoughts churned all the way home, so much so that she failed to notice she was being pursued/observed. Theirs was an ugly, chaotic world. Without purity. Without order or meaning. She was apprehended at the train station in Banff, before she could hail a cab. The police took her in for questioning, then let her go with the suggestion they might call on her later. One of the city detectives did, the following day. He rode up to her house on horseback. She could remember seeing the horse’s ears pinned back, its nervous eyes open wide, as she peered out through the slit window by the door. She invited the detective in, wasted no time and two hours later escorted him back to his horse which now would not be ridden. He walked, she guessed, down the valley till it opened onto that of the Bow. She, of course, had always had the convenience of telegraph/telephone to order a driver. That was 1917. the horse? reads his notes/suspicians The third suspicious soul was a woman photographer. Someone who could not get enough of the rustic beauty of the Rockies. [mountains and mountain people – incl She] The photographer had set up camp too close to the Keep. Close enough that she could not help but notice disturbing phenomena, the evidence which the Keepholder tended to take too much for granted: a die-off zone of vegetation which formed a perfect circle around the house, a lack of grocery delivery or organic garbage disposal, the two occurrences of blood-speckled/flecked trails leading from the woods towards the house. The photographer courageously planned/arranged a hike with her. Climbing up through the sepia-tipped/tinged larches the photographer met her, just before dawn broke over the peaks. She read later in a magazine of the promising Rocky Mountain photographer who had suddenly given up her craft in 1937 but whose photos, fortunately, could still be enjoyed as a rare record of the area in the thirties. cloud rising up out of the valley like steam

The fourth was in 1968. It was a man who had grown up in Banff possessing a philosophy surprisingly in tune with hers. They had met one evening at the train station. She had come there hoping to feast. He had been handing out chapbooks. They had started talking and he explained his view of the moral decadence and disorder of human society. She would have put it in different terms but she largely agreed and suddenly was shocked to find herself in his living room, feigning interest in a cup of coffee, as they discussed the shade-like nature of human lives, the inexplicable failure of humans to yield to their betters. He seemed particularly concerned with the mixing of bloodlines, an issue which was irrelevant to her, but they agreed heartily that the establishment of a democratic, classless society was an evil to be avoided at any cost. As she had left that night she found that some of his comments lingered/echoed uncomfortably in her memory, especially those of a religious nature/overtones. These were characterisations of the evils he opposed as blood-sucking, soul-defying and unholy succubi, that is, disturbingly like herself. She recognised the need to be wary, but nevertheless they met in town occasionally to talk until the day he arrived unexpectedly at her door. mostly, she simply nods and has little or nothing to add to discussion she brings up the experience of the hospital – surplus population all of the following by the light of his flashlight – she has no lamps He had undoubtedly been full of anticipation, she had later found in his jacket pocket a little box with what she discerned was an engagement ring inside. But when she opened the door she could see the expression on his face of deep worry and disturbance. He glanced all about, would not meet her eye, while his seemed to alight on one source of discomfort after another. The garden had certainly unnerved him, and the atmosphere of her sitting room clearly did not improve matters. She saw him recoil from her collection of trophy animals, the crows lying in methodical/perfect rows on her table, the three wolves suspended from a rafter and she herself in a bear coat she had made last month by scooping out the viscera and sewing up the arms as sleeves. She had used some of its teeth as buttons, it was traditional really. She had even consulted a book on tanning and such, but that whole process seemed far too labourious and she rather liked the coat’s natural perfume which daily deepened in putrescence whenever away from the house. He sat in the chair she offered him, for the wind seemed to be knocked out of him. She made him a cup of tea which he drank cautiously/hesitantly. Yet, in ten minutes or so they were talking comfortably, returning to their shared themes. He spoke of his expectation of establishing a thousand-year empire of the Lord, an empire of nobility, redeemed humanity without the taint of the demon-touched demi-humans. She spoke of the process of purification, like a baptism, rendering immortality. Each of them believed the other spoke in metaphor. Only later would they understand the mistake. partially Without hearing what he was saying, carried along by the current of the strange afternoon and surroundings, he offered himself to be baptised by her. She fenestrated him, crossed (with pain shooting up her fingers) his forehead with his own blood. When he awoke/revived, he explained that he had had suspicions about her but had fallen in love with her nonetheless, had come to her house needing her, hoping his suspicions were baseless, only to find the evidence which confirmed them. It was the moment she had given him the tea, as though there was nothing unusual about sitting in the lair of a vampire, nothing remarkable in confronting the truth that such beings exist, it was that innocuous gesture that resolved him to join her, if it were possible. As Lord and Lady they could cleanse the world for the Millennium. But even as he related/said it, his excitement/hope faded. Without even having to think it he knew it was not to be. There is no society of/for vampires, no sociability not even a fascist society. How could there be? If there was a philosophy or a god for the vampire to express its relation to the human world it might be this line from Leviathan: “Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time wherein men live without other Security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry... no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.” long That evening, the initiated chapman had wandered back down the needle-carpeted slope. In the first instants of realisation he had thought to step into the sunlight and extinguish/pre-empt his new existence but the hunger had risen quicker than the sun and it was that which took the place of his will to self-destruction or his ambition to wrest the human world from its heterogeneity and purify it in his Lord’s name. Now he was possessed by sanguinary impulse.

At the end of the train she was no longer alone. A uniformed man had come out to smoke a cigarette, maybe to pick up an earlier conversation he had had with the eccentrically dressed woman on the train platform. After all, there were still ten minutes before they arrived in Banff. She recognised him as the one who had been pestering her back in Calgary, asking where she was headed, offering her a cigarette, showing her snapshots of his family. train had been “strangely/mysteriously” delayed She had had enough of society. She was of the eagle breed, not concerned with the goings-on in the burrows under the alpine meadows, only interested to drop from the sky, grasp the mouse and nourish herself. She interrupted his small talk, fixed him in the eye and, raising her left hand, palm-upward, opened the stigma on her left wrist with her hat pin. The blood swelled in a bubble before his transfixed eyes and she blew her breath of frost so that the blood dispersed in a spray, showering him in a million microscopic beads. He did not know that he had been pushed, had no consciousness at all of the instant before he fell to the tracks, to be left broken behind the train which disappeared into the mountains/hoodoos. It was later; the cab sped off, spitting up loose stones as it went, and she started up the long path to her house. As she reached the edge of her garden something troubled her. And with her dark-adjusted eyes she suddenly realised with horror what it was. more on cabbie – relating to earlier incident with townsperson Her garden, ordinarily drooping with yellowed foliage, motionless and silent in its pristine desiccated permanence, was alive. She sensed alpine night creatures foraging in its verdant, even overgrown beds. Now the Keep was in view, behind this newly risen tangle of bushes and flowers. There was [blinding – she has no lamps] light emanating from within. fire? She sprang forward, up the steps, preparing a howl to rip the life from the interloper/s by its mere/very sound, poised to haul the door from its frame and confront those who had dared cultivate her prized petrified garden and who had invaded her citadel, dirtying it with their filthy human presence. But she stopped dead before the door, which had been incised with the form of a crucifix and garlanded with bulbs of garlic. The windows too were so adorned. She had no way of entering her own home. A sickening panic, the very opposite of her familiar bloodlust, rose from her gut and she now saw the narrow sky between the mountain peaks beginning to lighten to violet pre-dawn. She ran, circling her house, looking frantically for a way in and heard, finally, the sound of gravel underfoot behind her on the pathway. She turned to see only a blur of movement as someone, someone she might have recognised from town if only she had ever been able to truly see them, swung the stake into her chest.

some murderous... someone had shut her out of her sanctuary... now she was left waiting for the unstoppable/unavoidable shaft of sunlight which would penetrate the mountains and penetrate her...

The End

“...any person’s ideal situation is one that allows him full freedom of action and inhibits the behaviour of others so as to force adherence to his own desires. That is to say, each person seeks mastery over a world of slaves.” James Buchanan, The Limits of						Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan, (Chicago, 1975), p. 92.