The Collected Stories

by Earl

  The proxy!

  Moore gave a cry and leaped back to his controls. The bio-man still stood in the mists, slowly burning away. But he wasn’t burning. A whipping wind had swept down into the pit, dispersing much of the radioactive fog. And no new vapors came from the center, where a few embers of atom-fire were spluttering and dying.

  “Come back,” Moore commanded. “Take some car—any car—and hurry here.”

  “Won’t the police follow, and see him come here?” Carroll protested. “You don’t want the world to know—what I know!”

  Moore grinned.

  “If they can catch him, let them!” They didn’t. Dennis Smith strode in two hours later. Two figures worked over him, applying salves and tannic acid to his lobster red skin. The proxy lay breathing stertorously, at the limit of its endurance. But the breathing quieted. Its tremendous vitality won out.

  “He’ll be all right.” Moore turned away with a sigh of relief. “I need him. I can do many things with him.”

  “Not hurting people,” Moore said earnestly. “Not revenge against the world. I’m over that. But Dennis Smith, out in the world, can lend a helping hand where needed. I can live and do good through him. That’s the code of science.”

  He swung slowly on the girl.

  “Sure you don’t want to change your mind before it’s too late, Carroll? I’m still an exile, in the eyes of men. Sure you want to marry and live with the loneliest man on Earth?”

  “I’m sure,” she said.

  Hand in hand, they went outside and watched the dawn spread a rosy glow over the world.

  WANDERER OF LITTLE LAND

  The Little People had to reward these two Big People, but to do so meant great danger to them. Then the “wanderer” volunteered—

  THOUGH tired and weak from a day of it, Jim Harvey continued to sit on his camp-stool and dab at the paint-board on the easel with his brushes. It was near dusk.

  Somehow, the day had been perfect and the new setting he had found seemed exceptionally inspirational. A shaded grotto ahead, with a crystal-clear brook murmuring through it, whispering of things mysterious. If only he could get it down as his soul saw it! Around him stretched the untouched wildwood of the upper Catskills. The low peaks in all directions were crowned by the flame of sunset. It was sylvan, idyllic.

  A scene of fairyland, Jim Harvey mused. He could almost feel little eyes on him. Not just those of a rabbit nibbling in a briar-patch, or a slinking weasel. Perhaps the canny little eyes of an elf, or brownie. If he looked quick enough, he might see their little forms lurking behind tree-stumps and toadstools. And if he came here at night some time, in full moonlight, he could paint in the Dance of the Fairies, there in that glade . . .

  He clucked his tongue. His second childhood already, before he was thirty? He laughed silently at himself as he stroked in the brook with silver-grey water color.

  The stroke broke off at a sudden noise. The crackling of underbrush shattered the twilight serenity. Harvey turned and saw a bear coming toward him from the side.

  Startled, he jumped up. Was the bear attacking him? Bears never attacked grown people, except in rare cases of goaded anger or starvation. The he relaxed. It was a half-grown bear, probably a second-year cub, its first independent season away from its mother. It chased something small and twinkling, unaware of the man. A rabbit or wounded bird or chipmunk. . . .

  Harvey strained to see, in the dusk.

  He gasped suddenly. Were his eyes playing him tricks? It was a little man! A tiny, human-proportioned figure about six inches high. It was scuttling across the clearing for the sanctuary of the nearest briar-patch. But the bear was right behind, gaining, intent on gobbling up the tempting morsel.

  Jim Harvey acted instinctively. A dead branch lay at his feet. He grabbed it up, ran forward to intercept, and cracked the bear over the skull sharply. Taken unawares, the bear’s gait broke. Its prey skipped on, into the briar-patch, melting into shadow. It was safe.

  Snarling, the bear turned on Harvey. Its teeth bared ferociously. A full-grown bear might have attacked. But after a growling appraisal of its new and sudden assailant, the cub loped off.

  “Sorry, old man,” Harvey laughed. “Hope you find another dinner. But I couldn’t let you—Good Lord!”

  The laugh broke off. It suddenly occurred to him why he had interfered. Because he believed he had really seen a little man! A pixie, a woodland sprite—one of the mythical Little People. Trick of the shadows, of course. Or the effect of the fairy-like setting, and his own previous wool-gathering.

  And yet . . .

  TEN minutes later he turned from his search of the bushes into which the little form had scuttled, finding nothing. He packed his paints and brushes, slung his easel and sketches under his arm, and left. He looked back once, shaking his head.

  Three miles beyond he came to his home. It was little more than a cabin, with a two-acre patch of cleared ground back of it, isolated in these hills. The nearest farm was twenty miles east. The nearest town, Tannersville, fifty miles south.

  Harvey reached the door at the same time that a battered, chugging Ford crept up along the weed-grown road which was the only direct connection with civilization. The car stopped and a young, slender girl leaped from it into his arms—when he had dropped his paraphernalia.

  “Mary, darling,” Harvey greeted his wife. “Any luck today?”

  “Poor dear, you look tired,” she said in tender evasion. “And yet you look a little excited, too. Well . . . about the paintings—”

  “I am excited!” Harvey suddenly burst in. He grasped her by the shoulders, looking deep into her azure eyes. “Mary, do you believe in—elves?”

  “Jim!” She peered closely at him.

  “I mean it! I saw one today. Or rather, one of the Little People.”

  “Jim, you aren’t well yet, and you’ve been working so hard—”

  Harvey brushed a thin hand through his red hair. “Now look, Mary. I know I’m Irish, romantic by nature, and all that. But I tell you I saw one. I’m going to find them—there must be more—and paint them—”

  He stopped, turning. Again a car’s motor sounded, but this time the smooth purr of an expensive, new one. The man who stepped out was short and heavy-set, his face thick-featured in the fading twilight.

  “Henry Bainbridge!” breathed Mary, pressing close to her husband.

  “Hello,” Bainbridge greeted tersely. “Just happened to be looking over some of my other property hereabouts. Thought I’d drop in on you.” Then, as though having satisfied the amenities, he raised his voice. “I didn’t receive your last monthly payment, Harvey. You’re four months in arrears now. How long do you expect me to wait?”

  “We’ll make a payment next month,” Harvey said just as tersely. “You know you overcharged us for the land, in the first place. I’ve had some bad luck recently, placing my paintings—”

  “I’m a business man, not a father-confessor,” Bainbridge retorted gruffly. “I want those payments made up. This is good land. Other people would like it, if you don’t. Understand?”

  HE turned on his heel, and his car backed around, its taillight vanishing along the winding road that led to the highway.

  “You’re not crying?” Harvey said softly, as he took the unsold paint-sketches from the car to the cabin.

  “No,” Mary denied, avoiding his eyes. “But I didn’t place a single painting today, in Albany. Jim, what are we going to do? You know what he meant. You’ve got to stay here. Your health—”

  She whirled, her eyes widening suddenly. “Jim, what were you saying before? About—elves!” Worry shone from her eyes, more than for just his physical health.

  “Elves!” Harvey bitterly snapped the word out. “There’s nothing like a little reality to knock out romantic nonsense. Bainbridge wants his money.

  The garden needs weeding. Those are the real things.”

  His tall form drooped a little. “All along I’ve been like that—foolish, imp
ractical, romantic. Our elopement. The attic in New York. I was going to be famous overnight. I ruined my health. My first sensible move was to get this place, a year ago. Nature began healing me, and inspiring my art. But I’ve got to keep myself in line. The garden needs weeding. I’ll do that tomorrow first thing. And if my pictures don’t sell better, they need a hired hand at the Wilkins farm.”

  He took a deep breath, getting that off his chest. He looked out of the window, at the full moon slowly rising, bathing the countryside in silvery splendor. Tiny figures, dancing in a glade under such a moon, the legends went.

  He shook his head firmly.

  “What I saw,” he murmured, “was a squirrel or chipmunk. . . .”

  CHAPTER II

  Festival in the Forest

  YOUNG Aldic peered from behind a clump of grass as tall as he was, down into the glade. The rising moon spotted the rich sward with liquid silver, through the rustling branches of giant trees.

  It was the Full Moon Festival, gayest of the Little People’s nightly cavortings. The young people were dancing and laughing, to the tune of golden cymbals and tiny reed-flutes and three-stringed snail-shell lyres. The sweet night air was filled with tinklings and pipings, and the great moon smiled down and nodded.

  Aldic’s blood surged. He had not enjoyed such a festival now for several moons. More, his eyes had singled out the lithe, swaying form of a lovely girl whose hair blazed like spun-platinum.

  Aldic’s heart quickened, for she was sculptured beauty. But he paused, as he was about to reveal himself.

  “Ey-oo!” a voice called down there, and a stalwart young man raised his arm for attention. “Ey-oo! Listen to Boro! Listen to me, all of you. I chased away a bear, before, single-handed!”

  The dancing stopped. Figures crowded around Boro, the girls eagerly, the other men reluctantly.

  “A bear?” queried the girl with silver locks. “How wonderful! Tell us of it, Boro.”

  “It was a mighty bear,” Boro complied, sweeping his arms around in a huge arc. “The greatest you’ve ever seen. Ten times taller than I. I battled with it. Every time it charged, I rapped its toes with my club and danced beyond its nose. Finally I leaped on a stump and smote it a terrific blow on the nose. Howling, it ran off like a frightened rabbit from Boro the Mighty!”

  “From Boro the Braggart!” amended a male voice. “It could not endure his endless boasts.”

  “There was no bear at all,” charged another voice flatly.

  “No?” Boro challenged. “Then what tore this?”

  Standing in a moonbeam, Boro turned his back. Half his spider-silk shirt was gone, ripped from the rest as if by a great claw. And a thin but noticeable scratch ran the length of his body.

  “Does one receive scratches in the back when fighting from the front?” demanded a male voice derisively.

  “Who said that?—” As he spoke, Boro leaped among the clustered men. He dragged one back in the moonbeam, cuffed him with the flat of his hand, and then shoved him sprawlingly to the ground.

  “Now,” he shouted, “who else says Boro is a liar?”

  He leered around, his powerful body hunched for a spring. The men were suddenly silent, and backed away. The girls gazed at Boro with sighs.

  “I do!”

  BORO whirled like a shot, searching out the clarion voice. It came from beyond the group.

  Aldic leaped from his concealment, and strode down the slope. The moon’s limelight revealed him as a tall, slender figure, clad in silken-green shirt, kid-leather shorts, and alligator-skin moccasins. His arms and legs were bare and sun-bronzed. His weapons hung from a belt of copper-wire, from which the light reflected a burnished glow. But not as bright a glow as the flaming red hair of his head.

  He stepped with easy grace before Boro.

  “I call you liar, Boro the Braggart. I saw the episode. The bear was a small one, not full-grown. It was pursuing you. You had no thought of fighting it, in your great fright. You did not chase it away. Someone else did.”

  Boro squirmed in humiliation, at being thus exposed by one who had obviously seen the true event. But he was more surprised, for the moment, than shamed.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  All their eyes were on Aldic wonderingly, for none had ever seen him before. He was a total stranger to their tribe of a thousand, all of whom knew each other.

  “I am Aldic, a wanderer,” the newcomer returned. A child of nature, he went on without false modesty. “I have traveled from far, and have crossed many lands and had many adventures. I have even been in some of the great cities of the Big People.”

  “He is from another tribe!”

  “He wears clothes made from the Big People’s things!”

  “He has been in their cities!”

  It was a mixed chorus of awe and respect from the group. Not in the memory of those living had a stranger visited them from another of their tribes scattered widely over Earth’s vast surface.

  Boro growled a little. This newcomer had punctured Boro’s tale, and robbed him of the limelight, both. It was too much. Boro unslung his bow, fitted a bone arrow to its caterpillar-silk string, and let fly. The arrow whistled through the air, thunked against a tree-trunk, and hung quiveringly by its point in the dead-center of a target used for practice.

  Aldic answered the challenge, unslinging his bow of sprung steel which had once been a delicate watch-spring. The arrow, also of metal, was a darning needle with the eye broken in half for a notch. The twang of a violinstring sounded as the metal shaft darted for the tree and split Boro’s arrow into splinters of bone, taking its place at the bull’s-eye.

  Boro shot his second arrow for a target twice as far away, taking more care, testing the wind. The sliver of bone arched high. Carelessly, Aldic loosed his second shaft almost at the same time. In mid-air, the steel arrow struck the one of bone, shivering it in two—and went on to impale the target hardly an inch from the center.

  The exhibition brought a chorused gasp from the watchers. No Robinhood, of their legends or those of the Big People, had ever attained such skill.

  BORO, face glowering, was not satisfied. Balancing his spear in hand, he crouched and then flung it almost straight up. It reached the branch of a tree, high overhead, with just enough force to cling by its fire-hardened point. Twenty-five feet in the scale of the Big Ones. Three hundred feet, in proportion, to the Little Folk. A mighty cast.

  The point of Aldic’s spear consisted of a common-pin embedded in the wooden shaft. His body snapped like a bow-string as he cast. Higher and higher the weapon sailed. Its sharpened point split the haft of Boro’s spear and went thrice its length further before falling back. Aldic caught it in his hand, and glanced quietly at Boro.

  Sweating, Boro jerked his stoneheaded axe from his belt, and hurled it against a tree-stump with such force that its blade sank half-way into the hard wood. Aldic’s arm, like whipcord, buried his bright-metal axe-head completely out of sight.

  All this had taken only seconds. The crowd had watched in silent wonder. The red-headed stranger was besting Boro, who had no peer among the tribe, in the manly things. Now two of the men ran to the pile of prizes—things stolen from the Big People—and returned carrying a flat length of wood with markings on it.

  The ruler was placed upright on the ground. Tallest of the tribe, Boro stood against it and was measured off at the fourth little marking above the sixth big marking. His eyes gleamed triumphantly, and then clouded as the stranger’s mane of red hair reached a notch higher—six and 5/16 inches.

  Cheers now rent the air, from the spectators. It was good to see Boro, bully and braggart, humbled. The smiling, red-haired stranger was a man of men.

  “Aldic is taller than Boro!”

  “And more skillful!”

  “And stronger, perhaps!”

  “Look out, Aldic—”

  The last was a half-shriek from the girl with silver-blonde hair.

  Without warning, Boro had launched
himself at Aldic. At the girl’s cry, Aldic pivoted and met the attack. Boro locked his arms around Aldic’s waist. The powerful muscles of his shoulders and arms bulged out thickly. Aldic’s arms promptly went around Boro’s shoulders.

  Locked together, unmoving, the two stalwarts exerted their full strength. The crowd’s breath went out, as though they were the ones being squeezed. Some shook their heads sadly. Though taller, Aldic was not as heavily-built as Boro, who was a miniature Hercules.

  Yet now they saw how the receptively smooth arms of Aldic had suddenly tightened into knots of iron. His back and shoulders bulged beneath his green-silk shirt in one mass of muscle. Relentlessly as a vice he squeezed till Boro gulped, went purple, and sagged to the ground.

  Aldic, barely breathing himself, stood over his adversary, panting on the ground.

  “Now, Boro the braggart and liar, tell the truth! Tell them who saved you from the bear—”

  CHAPTER III

  Reward for a “Big One”

  A SHARP cry interrupted, from the edge of the group.

  “Eyoo! A fox! A fox! Run!”

  A glance over their shoulders and they all saw the red-furred killer leaping from the thicket-edges of the moonlit glade. Of all their enemies—save man—the fox was the most to be feared. Yet the Little Folk, inured to danger, were not panic-stricken. They melted away into the protecting thickets with a speed that promised to rob the prowler of a meal.

  All except one. Spent by the recent ordeal, Boro staggered to his feet, not fully in command of himself. He stumbled across the glade, last. The fox’s quick eyes saw this straggler, and veered toward him with slavering jaws ready for the kill.

  Aldic had run with the rest, though behind them. Glancing back, he saw the imminent tragedy. Stopping and turning with the swiftness of a snake, he raced back, tugging at the spear slung back of his shoulder.