THE HEADLIGHT WAS dancing over them; the squat, alive boxes, three tiers high, looming in front of and fast above us. The humming iron bottom of the flatbed - sagging under honey and level with our coming headlight - reflected our unfair arrival back to us.
Siggy's elbow pumped twice, whumped me in the chest and rocked me off his shoulders. But I was already helping him; my hands were already knuckling into the tight squeeze of seat and gas tank between us. I pushed up and off from my wrists, snapped my arms out straight and felt myself move away from Siggy and the beast, very slowly, it seemed - for a hundred miles of down-hill-flying road I was pushing myself up and off; for a hundred miles, I was floating behind and away 'from the beast, who was still in second gear and would never find first.
The jogging-red tail-light pranced below and in front of me. And I thought: I'm going to sit in the air and float this road down to Waidhofen. I'm going to clear these bees by a mile; for a hundred miles I will never come down.
And the tail-light moved away from me, sidestepped, tried to make up its mind and direction - had, of course, no place to go.
The longest hundred miles I was ever in the air strangely took no time at all. Not even time enough for the indefatigable Siggy to free his knees from under the handlebars, though time enough for me to see him trying - his dome snapping back and catching all the weird reflections of headlight, tail-light, edges and faces of bee box, flatbed, hulking tractor-fender and the iron parts of Keff's open mouth.
The tail-light, doing the damnedest dance, fell down on the road and spattered patterns of red-light, white-light pieces - did its dance out and went dark. Siggy, tucking his dome in the shadows, and in his duckjacket, put the old beast on its side.
The headlight pierced under the flatbed to the safe road beyond. The bike, on its side, was taking that route, flowering sparks from the drag of the tailpipe searing along - of foot pedal and kickstand, of handlebar and wheel hub, biting off chunks of the falling-down road.
And won't it surprise you, Keff, to see me fly over the whole damn mess and meet up with Siggy when he ducks out from under the far side of your terrible cargo?
But what did you do, Keff? Just what precisely did you think you were doing - when you lurched forward, Keff, and stalled; when you stalled and then lurched, or whatever the order was? What were you trying to do, Keff? What in your too-late brain could you ever have been thinking? Keff, why did you think you could ever get out of the way?
Why did you move, Keff - so that Siggy slid under the flatbed, but not out the other side?
Oh, you didn't move much, Keff, but just enough so that something caught a part of Siggy or his beast - an axle? an inch of tire? the outjutting edge of the flatbed's bottom? God, something said THANG! - a hollow, iron ringing that shook the moon.
You didn't move much, Keff, but you lurched.
Just as I was about to fly over your awesome cargo, you lurched, Keff! And Siggy, or a part of his beast, said THANG! up under the flatbed's bottom; and Gallen, her long, loveless arms only pretending to steady the terrible third-tier bee boxes, jumped! Knew the game was up and that the hives were moving beyond her control. She jumped clear; just as I was about to buzz over your bees, Keff - just then. You lurched, stalled, choked - whatever it is you do, and did, behind your gauges, gears, and ominous iron parts.
And the third-tier bee boxes hung on edge for as long as it had taken me to travel my hundred miles in the air; they fell in slow motion, feathered down to the powder-soft road and the waiting iron edge of the flatbed. The bees and I fell in slow motion, Keff.
Did I decide to put in a landing when I saw them fall? I came down mushy in the road, which was harder than it looked, and chewed all the skin off the heels of my hands.
But the bee boxes fell harder than I did. They were as heavy and vulnerable as water balloons. Their frail sides split, and they spilled their running, spongy hives.
God, what did they say? What did the bees say? Was it 'Who's mashed my home in the middle of night?' Or was it 'Who's woken me up - crashed into the hive, crushed my babies in their waxy little cells of sleep! And who blinds me now with this light?'
Because the beast wouldn't die, would not put out its headlight; it shone up under the trailer, so beautifully amber, on the great gobs of honey that drooled down over the flatbed's edge.
Well, the light caught you too, Keff - coming up the road to me, loping bearlike and swinging your great arms round your head, smacking your pants cuffs and leaping, Keff - yes, leaping - and turning around in the air, hugging yourself, Keff; and bending low; and again loping on toward me.
Did Gallen get to me before you did, Keff? Or did I only imagine her there for a second before you scooped me up like a ball and half carried, half rolled me up the mountain, out of the light that was showing the bees the way?
And did the stinging begin then? I don't remember feeling a thing. I remember hearing a quieted, much duller repetition of the original THANG! the beast, or something, had made against the trailer. I remember it, thang-whump, thang-whump, up under the flatbed's bottom.
Siggy, were you trying to lift the trailer off you - still trying to get your poor, wedged knees out from under the handlebars? Your fist, or forearm - your dome? - thang-whump and thang-shump again; did you know I'd hear you and come running?
I heard you. I came running. And I would have gotten there if the bees hadn't closed my eyes, filled my ears and slowed me to a crawl. Even then I might have gotten there, if Keff hadn't come lumbering down on me, taking me over his hip and up under his arm and bumbling me back up the road.
If I screamed, it was to hear a human sound; to drown out the bee drone - what was it they were saying?
'Here is the breaker of homes, the masher of baby bees! And he can't get away if we follow his light!'
And after that, what was the true order of things?
There was Keff, telling me what I already knew: 'Oh, smarty, I listened. I listened! I heard your engine die, and I listened for it to start up, but it didn't. I didn't hear it, smarty! I said to the girl, "Just you steady those boxes and we'll finally get across this road." Oh, smarty, ask her! We both listened, and you weren't coming. Nobody was coming. How did you get here so fast that I never heard?'
And before that, or during that, or even after that, the blinking-blue Volkswagen came down from St Leonhard, having heard, they said, the THANG! - even up there.
I was trying to open my eyes sometime in all of that. But they wouldn't open, and Gallen put her mouth to them and wetted them cool for me.
And again Keff assured me that he had listened.