“That’s what I meant. Skip the equilibrium.”
After a long while she broke off her study of his face and looked away toward the town. The figures of wardens and workmen were small things, poorly seen at the distance.
She said, “There are two courses of action.”
“Three.”
“I know of—” She broke off her inspection of the distant town and turned back to Owen. “Three?”
He nodded. “Three, The first course is the one you’ve already considered. You can obey your instructions from the council and put me down with style;, you can push that knife into my heart and seal me in that coffin and drop me into the same old hole that I came out of; you can toss in my rucksacks and cover it all up, and—poof/ —like a magic wand, twenty-four hours are wiped out as if I’d never been. You can march back into town tonight and tell Wytha the deed is done. That’s one choice.
“Second choice. The second choice is also one that you’ve considered, or at least had serious thoughts about ever since you opened my rucksacks and found what I had stored away for a rainy day. You guessed what I had in mind and the second choice is easier on both of us. Especially me. You can cut these ropes and set me free; you can let me gather up my packs and head for the wilderness yonder, a free man. I wouldn’t cut and run from here where I might be seen. I’d drift over there to the timber where that guy is standing and sort of fade through the trees to the far side—and then I’d light out into the wilderness. You know I’ll never come back to this town —you know that you’ll never be found out on account of me.
“If you make that choice you’ve already figured out how to cover your own tracks. Me, I’d do about the same thing. I’d fill that coffin with dirt and bury it in my old grave, and then I’d lay stones over the grave and leave a sign saying, ‘Do not open until Christmas,* just like Wytha ordered. You can go back to town tonight and tell her the deed is done, chop-chop, and the council is happy and you’re happy and I’m happy. Oh, especially I’m happy. That’s the second choice, Kelly.”
The, troubled brown eyes studied him.
“The third alternative?”
Softly: “I’m surprised you didn’t think of the third way out, cupcake. It’s the very best one. You and me go together.” He bent his head in a gesture toward the great green prairie. “Out there, the two of us together. You can sing and I’ll fish.”
She took a sudden step backward in surprise and then the fuller implications of his bold suggestion struck her. Kehli’s lips opened to reject the startling proposal out of hand, but no sound was heard. The hand holding his knife moved and flapped in an unconscious motion, betraying her amazement.
“Don’t say no until you’ve heard me out, Kelly. I want the third choice—I want you to go with me. Please give it very careful thought.’*
The woman stared, wide-eyed.
“We could cover our tracks in just about the same way as before, only more so. See that poor stiff standing over there in the shade?” Owen motioned with his fingers. “He can’t be seen from the town—he’s covered by the timber. But he won’t come back out here in the sun until you tell him to—he can’t do anything until you tell him to do it. That guy will be our decoy in case anybody is looking. Cut me loose from these zombies and walk me over to the trees where that man is standing. Walk slow. Stall there for a minute or so and then walk back out with him. I’ll stay hidden in the timber.
“When you’re out here in plain sight, right by the crew and the coffin, put your hands around the man’s neck and tell him to flop down in the grass and stay there a while. Don’t hurt him! Lordy, lordy, Kelly, don’t hurt the poor guy—just make him lie down and play dead.
“Fill my coffin with dirt and bury it just like before. Get my rucksacks out of it first, though, and smuggle them into the trees, but have this here crew put down the coffin and cover the grave with stones. Leave your message on it like Granny said. No matter what happens later, the folks in town will think you did your duty and I’m safely buried there—good riddance. After that you can relax—take a nip, if you like. I brought some with me.
“Put the crew to work filling in an empty grave—give them something to do to keep them busy until sundown —and instruct that guy loafing on the grass to grab a shovel and sneak back into the action so he can be just one of the boys at quitting time. Now, you—Kelly, you should drift over to the timber like you’re going to take a nap or sample your picnic lunch. Presto!”
“Owen Hall, you are as mad as the ancient ones!”
“Sometimes I’m madder, cupcake—I’ve got a second chance working for me here, but they never had that. Hear me out. When you drift over into the shade, we’ll grab the backpacks and skedaddle into the tall timber. That means run like hell. There’s two packs—one for you and one for me. We can travel faster that way and by sundown we’ll be long gone hunting the buffalo. The wilderness is ours, all ours, to explore, and you can sing your heart out if you want. I’ll clap my hands and keep time.” ,
“This is absurd! Wytha will come here for an inspection.”
“Of course she will. Scared or not, that gutsy old granny will come tearing out here to see what happened to you. You, Kelly. I don’t think she’ll come out tonight, not after dark, even with a dozen cops and torches to ward off the ghosts and dragons. Those women are scared of the graveyard and scared of the wilderness. Granny will come out here first thing tomorrow at the crack of dawn—and she’ll find my grave but no trace of you. We’ll be over the hills and far away by sunrise.”
“Wytha will see—”
“She’ll see the new grave, as ordered, and she’ll see your blanket and the picnic basket—an empty picnic basket, which will make her think you were still here at noontime. She’ll even search the timber.”
Kehli parted her lips to speak again, but her vocal chords were uncooperative. The rising sun limned her rich brown hair and caused her to squint against the brightness. Owen’s knife hung limp in her hand.
“You’re trying to think of more objections,” Owen said. “Don’t bother. I know how to cover trail and how to leave no trail at all. I know how to use creeks and rocky ground to travel for miles without a trail. I ain’t no Kit Carson, but I know twice as much about the outside world as those dames in town. The big point is, you and me ain’t afraid of the prairie but they are.
“I want to show you the pretty country, Kelly. I want to show you what we’ve got two or three hundred miles south of here. There’s a little canyon and a waterfall at an ol* place called Turkey Run that’ll take your breath away. There’s hill country farther south like you’ve never seen in all your born days. And the Ohio—just wait until you see that river! Over on the Illinois side there’s a place called Cave-in-Rock, where pirates used to hide and then jump out on the river traffic. Hoo boy, Kelly, I want to show you everything!”
Kehli found her voice. “I must choose—” She was unable to complete the sentence.
Owen Hall nodded. “You’ve got to do the choosing. All I can do right now is stand here and wait. The sun’s getting kinda hot out here and this zombie didn’t have a bath.”
Kehli was painfully aware of her dilemma.
She gazed back toward the distant town as if seeking a solution to the dilemma but found nothing other than the tiny figures of workmen and shepherds on the road. Their ranks were thinning out as the males left the roadway and reported for work, while shepherds were even fewer in number. Her watchful audience had gone. Close at hand a solitary male waited in the cool shade of the forest for his next command. The pink blanket and her lunch basket hung on his arm.
Immediately before her were the four males who comprised the remainder of the work party and the man she had been told to put down. He waited for her decision, trussed between two of the workmen but patiently watching her face. Kehli was uncomfortable under his unwavering gaze. She raised her hand to study the new shiny knife taken from the rucksack and knew that the point of the blade was cruelly sharp. She could not b
ring herself to look up at the man for long moments.
“Some folks call that a widow-maker,” Owen Hall said. “Use it smartly, or put it away.”
Fifteen
Here with a little Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse—and Thou
—Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
—Omar Khayyam (FitzGerald’s second edition)
Owen Hall trod carefully, smelling the nearness of, water and knowing what was to come. The undergrowth was heavy and treacherous, unlike that first easy timber he’d found outside the city, and he took care not to misstep. To trip over his own feet and fall headfirst down the scarp would be a damned-fool thing to do. The trees were thinning and he knew he was approaching the brink.
He moved on slowly, placing each foot firmly on the ground before him to test the earth and clinging to each tree for support in case the ground should suddenly drop away from under him. The brink had to be close.
Owen stopped suddenly, took a step back to firmer ground, and stared through the trees to the vista below.
The river was-thirty-five or forty feet below him at the bottom of a weedy embankment. He was standing at the very edge of the scarp looking down on the flowing water, so near, that he could spit into the shallows of the near shore. Owen thought he saw deer prints in the mud of the shore. The heavy timber grew around him for miles in either direction, upriver and down, and he would not have found the river so easily if it had not been for the westerlies carrying the smell of water. He knew he was somewhere in southwestern Indiana and knew the river had to be there unless the pink ladies had stolen it, but he had relied on the west wind to help him find it. ^
Kehli came up behind him, thrashing and stumbling through the thick underbrush. He put out a quick hand to stop her and save her from tumbling over the edge. She caught her breath and stared downward with great round eyes.
“What is it, Owen Hall?”
“That’s the ol’ Wabash, Kelly. Ain’t it a beauty?”
“What is a wabash?”
“The Wabash River, tourist! I’ve been waiting three weeks to see. that sight—several hundred years and three weeks.” He looked around at Kehli. “I think we’ve been gone from the old home town about three weeks. Now, ain’t that a real beauty? It would be romantic if we had some moonlight.”
The woman stayed transfixed by the spectacle. “What does one do with a wabash river?”
Owen Hall laughed aloud and would have clapped his hands if he dared let go both supporting trees.
“One fishes in it, cupcake. One takes a bath in it every Saturday night, one swims in it, cooks with it, and drinks it—but not all at the same time in the same place if you want to stay sanitary. With a little work, one can even lash together a raft and float downriver on it, and we just might do that, because the Ohio is down there somewhere—down south, yonder.” He relaxed his hold on one of the trees and reached out for Kehli’s hand. “Would you like to go down and sing in it? I’ll bet you never sang in a river before.”
“I have not seen a river before.”
“Bully!” Owen Hall said. “This is going to be another historic first, like Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic on one engine. Let’s work our way down and stick a toe in the water. And tonight, if I can remember all the words, I’ll teach you how to sing “Moonlight on the Wabash.” My grandmother used to sing that all the time. Now, there was a spry old gal.”
The palmy days had begun.
- 3684 - JUNIPER TIME Kate Wilhelm $2.75
-41593 - RUINS OF ISIS Marion Zimmer Bradley $2.25
- 82917 - ROAD TO CORLAY Richard Cowper $1.95
- 82876 - A WORLD BETWEEN Norman Spinrad $2.25
- 81207 - JOURNEY Marta Randall $1.95
- 42882 - COLONY Ben Bova $2.95
- 82835 - EYES OF FIRE Michael Bishop $2.25
- 43288 - THE DEMU TRILOGY E M. Busby $3.50
- 81130 - DYING OF THE LIGHT George R. R. Martin $1.95
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