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.Then Eddie's feet moved, but slow and funny, until Eddie was turnedaround."What's the matter, Eddie?" Stevie put his hand on Eddie's nose and looked athim close.Something was wrong with the burro's eyes.They were still big anddark, but now they didn't seem to see Stevie or anything they looked empty.And while Stevie looked into them, there came a curling blackness into them,like smoke coming through a crack and all at once the eyes began to see again.Stevie started to back away, his hands going out in front of him."Eddie," he whispered."Eddie, what's the matter?" And Eddie started afterhim but not like Eddie not with fast feet that kicked the sand in littlespurts, but slow and awful, the two legs on one side together, then the twolegs on the other side like a sawhorse or something that wasn't used to fourABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlPage 81legs.Stevie's heart began to pound under his T-shirt and he backed awayfaster."Eddie, Eddie," he pleaded."Don't, Eddie.Don't act like that.Begood.We gotta go back to the house."But Eddie kept on coming, faster and faster, his legs getting looser so theyworked better and his eyes staring at Stevie.Stevie backed away until he raninto a big old cottonwood trunk that high water brought down after the laststorm.He ducked around in back of the trunk.Eddie just kept on dragging hisfeet through the sand until he ran into the trunk too, but his feet kept onmoving, even when he couldn't go any farther.Stevie put out one shaky hand topat Eddie's nose.But he jerked it back and stared and stared across the treetrunk at Eddie.And Eddie stared back with eyes that were wide and shiny likequiet lightning.Stevie swallowed dryness in his throat and then he knew."The Dark!" he whispered."The Dark.It got out.It got in Eddie!"He turned and started to run kitty-cornered across the wash.There was anawful scream from Eddie.Not a donkey scream at all, and Stevie looked backand saw Eddie The Dark coming after him, only his legs were working better nowand his big mouth was wide open with the big yellow teeth all wet and shiny.The sand was sucking at Stevie's feet, making him stumble.He tripped oversomething and fell.He scrambled up again and his hands splashed as hescrambled.The runoff from the Whetstones was coming and Stevie was in thewash!He could hear Eddie splashing behind him.Stevie looked back and screamed andran for the bank.Eddie's face wasn't Eddie any more.Eddie's mouth lookedfull of twisting darkness and Eddie's legs had learned how a donkey runs andEddie could outrun Stevie any day of the week.The water was coming higher andhe could feel it grab his feet and suck sand out from under him every step hetook.Somewhere far away he heard Mommy shrieking at him, "Stevie! Get out of thewash!"Then Stevie was scrambling up the steep bank, the stickers getting in hishands and the fine silty dirt getting in his eyes.He could hear Eddie comingand he heard Mommy scream, "Eddie!" and there was Eddie trying to come up thePage 86ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlbank after him, his mouth wide and slobbering.Then Stevie got mad."Dern you, old Dark!" he screamed."You leave Eddiealone!" He was hanging onto the bushes with one hand but he dug into hispocket with the other and pulled out his pocket piece.He looked down atit his precious pocket piece two pieces of popsicle stick tied together sothey looked a little bit like an airplane, and on the top, lopsided andscraggly, the magic letters INRI.Stevie squeezed it tight, and then hescreamed and threw it right down Eddie's throat right into the swirling nastyblackness inside of Eddie.There was an awful scream from Eddie and a big bursting roar and Stevie losthold of the bush and fell down into the racing, roaring water.Then Mommy wasthere gathering him up, crying his name over and over as she waded to a lowplace in the bank, the water curling above her knees, making her stagger.Stevie hung on tight and cried, "Eddie! Eddie! That mean old Dark! He made methrow my pocket piece away! Oh, Mommy, Mommy! Where's Eddie?"And he and Mommy cried together in the stickery sand up on the bank of thewash while the flood waters roared and rumbled down to the river, carryingEddie away, sweeping the wash clean, from bank to bank.And a Little Child-I have arrived at an age well, an age that begins to burden my body sometimes,but I don't think I'd care to go back and live the years again.There'rereally only a few things I envy in the young one thing, really, that I wish IABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlPage 82had back and that's the eyes of children.Eyes that see everything new,everything fresh, everything wonderful, before custom can stale or life hastwisted awry.Maybe that's what Heaven will be eyes forever new.But there is sometimes among children another seeing-ness a seeing that goesbeyond the range of adult eyes, that sometimes seem to trespass even on otherdimensions.Those who can see like that have the unexpected eyes the eerieeyes the Seeing eyes.The child had Seeing eyes.I noticed them first when the Davidsons moved intothe camping spot next to ours on the North Fork.The Davidsons we knew fromprevious years, but it was our first meeting with their son Jerry, and thewife and child he had brought home from overseas.One nice thing about campingout is that you don't have to be bashful about watching other people settlein.In fact, if you aren't careful, you end up fighting one of their tentropes while someone else hammers a peg, or you get involved in where totoe-nail in a shelf on a tree, or in deciding the best place for someone elseto dip wash-water out of the creek without scooping gravel or falling in.Evenbeing a grandmother twice over doesn't exempt you.It was while I was sitting on my favorite stump debating whether to change myshoes and socks or let them squelch themselves dry, that I noticed the child.She was hunched up on a slanting slab of rock in the late afternoon sunshine,watching me quietly.I grinned at her and wiggled a wet toe [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]