緋色の疫病

I

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その道は、かつて鉄道の路盤だった盛り土の上を通っていた。だが、もう何年も列車は走っていない。両側の森は盛り土の斜面にまで広がり、木々と茂みが緑の波となって、その頂を越えて押し寄せていた。踏み跡は人の体ほどの幅しかなく、野生動物が通る道にすぎなかった。ときおり、腐葉土の間から錆びた鉄がのぞき、レールと枕木がまだ残っていることを告げている。ある場所では、直径十インチの木が継ぎ目を突き破り、レールの端を持ち上げて、はっきりと見えるようにしていた。枕木も明らかにレールに引きずられたらしい。犬釘でレールにつながれたまま、その下の床が砂利と腐った落ち葉で埋まるまで持ちこたえ、今では朽ちかけた木材が奇妙な角度で突き出していた。この線路は古いものだったが、単軌式だったことは明らかだった。

The way led along upon what had once been the embankment of a railroad. But no train had run upon it for many years. The forest on either side swelled up the slopes of the embankment and crested across it in a green wave of trees and bushes. The trail was as narrow as a man’s body, and was no more than a wild-animal runway. Occasionally, a piece of rusty iron, showing through the forest-mould, advertised that the rail and the ties still remained. In one place, a ten-inch tree, bursting through at a connection, had lifted the end of a rail clearly into view. The tie had evidently followed the rail, held to it by the spike long enough for its bed to be filled with gravel and rotten leaves, so that now the crumbling, rotten timber thrust itself up at a curious slant. Old as the road was, it was manifest that it had been of the mono-rail type.

一人の老人と一人の少年が、この踏み跡をたどっていた。二人の歩みは遅かった。老人はたいへんな高齢で、軽い麻痺のために動きが震え、杖に重くもたれかかっていたからだ。頭にはヤギの皮で作った粗末な縁なし帽をかぶり、日差しをよけていた。その下からは、汚れてくすんだ白髪がまばらに垂れている。大きな葉でうまく作った庇が目を覆い、その下から老人は足もとの道をのぞき込んでいた。本来なら雪のように白いはずのひげも、髪と同じく風雨にさらされ、野営の汚れがしみついていて、もつれた大きな塊となって腰近くまで垂れていた。胸と肩には、毛の抜けたヤギ皮の衣が一枚かかっているだけだった。腕も脚も干からびて痩せ細り、極度の高齢を物語っていた。日焼けと傷跡とひっかき傷もまた、長年風雨にさらされてきたことを示していた。

An old man and a boy travelled along this runway. They moved slowly, for the old man was very old, a touch of palsy made his movements tremulous, and he leaned heavily upon his staff. A rude skull-cap of goat-skin protected his head from the sun. From beneath this fell a scant fringe of stained and dirty-white hair. A visor, ingeniously made from a large leaf, shielded his eyes, and from under this he peered at the way of his feet on the trail. His beard, which should have been snow-white but which showed the same weather-wear and camp-stain as his hair, fell nearly to his waist in a great tangled mass. About his chest and shoulders hung a single, mangy garment of goat-skin. His arms and legs, withered and skinny, betokened extreme age, as well as did their sunburn and scars and scratches betoken long years of exposure to the elements.

少年は先に立ち、はやる筋肉を抑えて老人ののろい歩みに合わせていた。彼もやはり一枚きりの衣をまとっていた。熊の皮の切れ端で、縁はぼろぼろ、真ん中に開けた穴から頭を出している。十二歳にはなっていなかっただろう。片方の耳の上には、切り取ったばかりの豚のしっぽが気取った様子で挟まれていた。片手には中ぐらいの弓と一本の矢を持っていた。

The boy, who led the way, checking the eagerness of his muscles to the slow progress of the elder, likewise wore a single garment—a ragged-edged piece of bear-skin, with a hole in the middle through which he had thrust his head. He could not have been more than twelve years old. Tucked coquettishly over one ear was the freshly severed tail of a pig. In one hand he carried a medium-sized bow and an arrow.

背中には矢のぎっしり入った矢筒があった。首からひもで下げた鞘からは、使い込まれた狩猟用ナイフの柄が突き出ている。少年は木の実のように褐色に日焼けし、ほとんど猫のような足取りで音もなく歩いた。日焼けした肌と著しい対照をなしていたのが目だった。青い、深い青色で、錐のように鋭かった。その目は、いつものことのように、周囲のあらゆるものに突き刺さるかに見えた。歩きながら、少年は匂いも嗅いでいた。広がってひくつく鼻孔が、外の世界からの知らせを絶え間なく脳へ送り込んでいた。聴覚もまた鋭く、自然に働くまでに鍛えられていた。意識して努力しなくても、一見静かな中のかすかな音をすべて聞き分け、区別し、分類していた。風が葉を揺らす音であれ、蜂や小さな虫の羽音であれ、静まった合間にだけ届く遠い海のとどろきであれ、すぐ足もとでホリネズミが袋いっぱいの土を巣穴の入り口に押し込む音であれ、同じことだった。

On his back was a quiverful of arrows. From a sheath hanging about his neck on a thong, projected the battered handle of a hunting knife. He was as brown as a berry, and walked softly, with almost a catlike tread. In marked contrast with his sunburned skin were his eyes—blue, deep blue, but keen and sharp as a pair of gimlets. They seemed to bore into aft about him in a way that was habitual. As he went along he smelled things, as well, his distended, quivering nostrils carrying to his brain an endless series of messages from the outside world. Also, his hearing was acute, and had been so trained that it operated automatically. Without conscious effort, he heard all the slight sounds in the apparent quiet—heard, and differentiated, and classified these sounds—whether they were of the wind rustling the leaves, of the humming of bees and gnats, of the distant rumble of the sea that drifted to him only in lulls, or of the gopher, just under his foot, shoving a pouchful of earth into the entrance of his hole.

突然、少年は身を固くして警戒した。音と、姿と、匂いが、同時に危険を知らせたのだ。彼は後ろの老人に手を伸ばして触れ、二人は立ち止まった。前方、盛り土の頂の片側で、がさがさという音がした。少年の視線は、揺れる茂みの先に釘付けになった。やがて大きな熊、灰色熊が姿を現し、人間を見るなり、やはりぴたりと足を止めた。熊は二人が気に入らず、不機嫌そうにうなった。少年はゆっくりと矢を弓につがえ、ゆっくりと弦を引き絞った。だが、熊からは一瞬も目を離さなかった。

Suddenly he became alertly tense. Sound, sight, and odor had given him a simultaneous warning. His hand went back to the old man, touching him, and the pair stood still. Ahead, at one side of the top of the embankment, arose a crackling sound, and the boy’s gaze was fixed on the tops of the agitated bushes. Then a large bear, a grizzly, crashed into view, and likewise stopped abruptly, at sight of the humans. He did not like them, and growled querulously. Slowly the boy fitted the arrow to the bow, and slowly he pulled the bowstring taut. But he never removed his eyes from the bear.

老人は緑の葉の庇の下から危険をうかがい、少年と同じようにじっと動かずにいた。数秒のあいだ、にらみ合いが続いた。やがて熊がいらだちを募らせはじめると、少年は頭の動きで、老人に道から外れて盛り土を下りるよう合図した。少年も弓を引き絞って構えたまま、後ろ向きに続いた。二人は、盛り土の反対側の茂みをかき分ける音で熊が行ってしまったと分かるまで、待っていた。少年はにやりと笑い、先に立って道へ戻った。

The old man peered from under his green leaf at the danger, and stood as quietly as the boy. For a few seconds this mutual scrutinizing went on; then, the bear betraying a growing irritability, the boy, with a movement of his head, indicated that the old man must step aside from the trail and go down the embankment. The boy followed, going backward, still holding the bow taut and ready. They waited till a crashing among the bushes from the opposite side of the embankment told them the bear had gone on. The boy grinned as he led back to the trail.

「でっけえのだったな、じいちゃん」と、少年はくすくす笑った。

“A big un, Granser,” he chuckled.

老人は首を振った。

The old man shook his head.

「日に日に増えていくわい」と、老人は細い、頼りない裏声でこぼした。「カリフォルニアのクリフハウスへ行く道で命の危険を感じる日が来るまで生きようとは、誰が思ったものか。わたしが子供だった頃、エドウィンや、天気のいい日にはサンフランシスコから何万という男や女や赤ん坊までがここへ来たものじゃ。それに、あの頃は熊などおらんかった。そうとも。あまり珍しいので、人は金を払って檻の中の熊を見たものじゃ。」

“They get thicker every day,” he complained in a thin, undependable falsetto. “Who’d have thought I’d live to see the time when a man would be afraid of his life on the way to the Cliff House. When I was a boy, Edwin, men and women and little babies used to come out here from San Francisco by tens of thousands on a nice day. And there weren’t any bears then. No, sir. They used to pay money to look at them in cages, they were that rare.”

「かねってなんだ、じいちゃん?」

“What is money, Granser?”

老人が答える前に、少年は思い出して、得意げに熊の皮の下の袋に手を突っ込み、傷だらけで曇った銀貨を一枚取り出した。老人の目が輝いた。老人は硬貨を目の近くに寄せた。

Before the old man could answer, the boy recollected and triumphantly shoved his hand into a pouch under his bear-skin and pulled forth a battered and tarnished silver dollar. The old man’s eyes glistened, as he held the coin close to them.

「見えんのじゃ」と、老人はつぶやいた。「エドウィン、おまえが見て、年号が読めるかどうか見ておくれ。」

“I can’t see,” he muttered. “You look and see if you can make out the date, Edwin.”

少年は笑った。

The boy laughed.