Robert Butler - A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain - Stories

Vinh made it to the side staircase that led to the upper floor. He climbed it quickly but he slowed abruptly and ducked down as he neared the top. Then he peeked over to make sure that Frank wasn’t already there, and when he saw that the place was deserted, I swear I could see his body actually ripple in delight. He scrambled up on top of the building, went to the back edge so he could view his red shirt by the stream, and he dug into his pocket and placed some of his stones beside him.

Frank was high-stepping down a slope and he disappeared as soon as I saw this. I waited, and then a few moments later, his head popped up at the crest of the hill at the far side of the brick building. The head disappeared again and then popped up once more.

“Aren’t they lovely?” This was Eileen’s voice. Needless to say, the sentiment surprised me. I turned to her and she was still on her back but she had moved her forearm off her eyes. She was looking up into the sky. I followed her gaze. There were some high, white clouds.

“That one is the head of a pony,” she said. The head of a pony. Do I sound like that sometimes? I bet I do. Eileen and I probably respond to the same things. Not even the head of a horse. She saw a sweet little pony. Of course. A lonesome little pony, and the little girl makes a long-distance phone call to the pony and it isn’t lonesome anymore. If they filmed that and put it on between the soaps, I’d weep at that one, too. The little pony shaking its forelock in delight as someone holds the phone up to its ear. I’m a sucker for any of that. But at this moment the pony struck me as pretty uninspired. Dumb, even, seeing a pony in the cloud and getting dreamy-voiced over it.

But I said, “It sure does” as sincerely as I could and I turned to see Frank spank across the grass and throw himself — out of my sight now — against the far wall of the building. Vinh raised his head and looked over his shoulder. He had probably heard the impact. I waited and I expected to see Frank ease his way around the comer and come along the front wall. But he was apparently suspicious of the front, because I waited and waited and so did Vinh, though he eventually turned his face back to his shirt at the stream.

Finally I saw Frank. Vinh tipped me off by suddenly lowering his head. A moment later I saw Frank slip up and press himself against a tree at the back of the building. He was looking toward the woods now, and I wondered if he saw the shirt. Even as I thought this, Frank did a double take. A real double take, a little bit like the cartoon characters, though Frank’s eyes didn’t bug out. His face extended forward and he looked at the red color, and connections were going off in his head.

He looked all around and he studied the tree line carefully and then he dug into his pocket and armed himself with a rock — I could imagine him whispering to himself, “Lock and load, troop.” And Vinh was all this time sneaking little glances over the edge of the roof, his rock already in his hand. I wondered if it was the big rock that Frank had made him throw down. I figured it wasn’t, however. Not at this point. Vinh even held the stone up briefly, perhaps to see if it was the roundest one, the one he could throw most accurately, and it didn’t look from this distance like the big one. I was glad. I was sure if he used the big one that Frank would get very angry.

Frank was slung low and creeping up to the stream, eyeing the red shirt very carefully. He stopped just across the stream and he looked at it and he cocked his head and finally he even straightened up. I don’t know what he was thinking. So it was Vinh’s shirt. Did he expect that to help him find the man? Obviously Vinh wasn’t in the shirt. But I think Frank was very pleased with himself for finding it. It seemed meaningful to him. Then Vinh’s stone hit him right on the point of his left shoulder.

Frank spun around and I could hear his curse even from this distance. Vinh immediately jumped up and raised his arms in the air in victory. Frank rubbed his shoulder and then he darted away, behind a tree, and then to another, and then he ran to the near side of the building and pulled up and pressed himself against the wall. Vinh was clearly agitated. He thought he had already won. He flapped his arms in exasperation and I could see Frank was ready for more war. He had a stone in his hand as if to throw it. He looked up above him and dashed to the foot of the steps and again pressed back against the wall. Vinh called out something that I could not hear. Probably Frank’s name. Probably telling him that the little game was over.

But Frank was creeping up the steps and obviously wasn’t answering my husband, and finally Vinh dug in his pocket for more stones and moved into the center of the roof. He figured that Frank was on the way up. This time Vinh looked very carefully at the contents of his pocket and I knew even before he held it up that he had the big stone.

I stood up, afraid for them both. But there was nothing I could do, of course. Frank figured he was just wounded, since Vinh had only hit him in the shoulder. Vinh figured the war was over and was really angry when it turned out that it wasn’t. I wanted to call out to them, but I could find no words. This was a distant event, farther from me even than the Hollywood studio-set wars I watched from under the covers. It was as far from me as my husband was far from me; as far as that secret, silent part of him that was so difficult a thing between us.

Frank stopped just before his head was ready to show itself to Vinh. My husband was now poised in the center of the roof with the big rock in his right hand and cocked back over his shoulder, ready to throw. Frank waited and I could feel him mustering his strength, focusing on one leap into the open, his own rocks flying. Just like in the movies. But for a moment I wondered if Vinh would kill him, if Vinh would fire at the first sight of the man’s head and hit him in the temple with the big rock and that would be the end. I could not draw a breath. “How lovely,” Eileen Sighed.

Then Frank clambered up the final few steps, very slowly, it seemed to me, although his legs and arms were obviously straining to make this a lightning strike. Hold, hold, I cried in my mind to Vinh’s arm. Don’t aim at the head.

Frank’s first stone or two flew wildly past Vinh and Vinh did wait, he waited and set himself and he threw the large stone and it hit Frank in the pit of the stomach. I knew this because Frank doubled over and then there was a moment of suspension. Frank’s knees bent and he put one hand on the surface of the roof so he didn’t fall over, and Vinh stayed in the crouch he’d assumed after the throw. The two men were suddenly frozen there, like props left over from the movie.

“How truly lovely,” Eileen said.

Then Frank lifted his face a little and I guess he saw the stone that Vinh had used. It must have been lying there before him. He looked up at Vinh and I think he said something, probably some angry name, and then he lunged forward and Vinh tried to sidestep him but only got partly out of the way and Frank glanced off him, scooping wide with his arms, but Vinh was turning away and slipped Frank’s grasp, although he did fall backward, even as Frank spun and hurtled on and also fell on the rooftop.

I hoped that that was the end of it, but both men bounced to their feet very quickly and there seemed to be no question of what to do now. They rushed at each other immediately and Vinh, being smaller, got under Frank’s grasp and he butted Frank in his stomach with his head. Frank fell backward and Vinh fell on top of him and they rolled over immediately, first Frank on top and then Vinh, and arms were flailing and legs and the two men were fighting hard.