by Don Wilcox
“Do not be too sure,” Donna would answer.
“Oh, but you must. The young men are impatient to know who it will be. Have you decided?”
“Wait and see.”
“It will be some handsome man with ten or twelve horns, let us hope.”
“Wait and see.” Then smiling with embarrassment, she would hurry away from them.
Once Joe heard someone ask her if it might not be the new judge. She seemed a bit startled.
“I do not believe he would enter the contest,” she said.
“And if he does?”
“Please do not ask me to think of any other judge except my own father,” she said. “Come, let us watch the games.”
There were all kinds of contests involving apple-throwing and naggie-chasing. The small boys fought with their horns, and two clowns, who were really officials, interceded whenever there was a danger of an injury. These clowns wore false faces representing naggies.
Between the games they kept the crowd laughing. One of them turned a flip-flop and landed on his head, or rather, his horn, so that he stuck in the ground. He kicked like an animal in a trap. The other clown ran circles around shouting for the crowd to come and help. Then with a nimble handspring the stranded clown whirled to his feet.
Before the feast, the young men chose partners. For this event the girls gathered in the center of the arena, and their heroes took turns throwing apples at the group. A tall handsome ten-horned swain wound up like a baseball pitcher. When be let fly with the blue apple, several of the girls bent forward to try, to catch it on their horns. He had lots of girl friends.
The bashful boy could hardly be persuaded to take his turn. He tried deliberately to miss the whole group. But when the apple fell on the horns of the most beautiful girl, he flushed with pleasure as the spectators cheered.
It was during the feast that the exciting announcement was called out by Londeenoko.
“The big event will take place immediately after the feast. Ten young ladies will enter the choosing ceremony.”
Joe and Uncle Keller could see the many faces that turned to Donna. Everyone wondered whether she would be one of the ten. Soon they guessed the answer. Her pretty little sister carried a message to Londeenoko, and when he looked across to her and smiled, everyone knew that he had won his point. Donna would enter the choosing ceremony.
“I’ll see you later,” Joe whispered as he ducked away.
“Where you goin’ ?”
Uncle Keller got no reply. Joe was off on another foot-race—a race against time.
He followed the curve of the river. That was the trail he knew. He took no chance of being seen by anyone who might have remained in the village. If only he could find one of those two men with the artificial horns—Rabbit Face or Scar Hands!
Breathless, he drew up at the hiding place where he and Uncle Keller had listened to the two hornless plotters. Neither of the men was to be seen now. But someone else was there—someone he had not seen before. Luck was with him. This stranger wore a harness over his head and shoulders—an eight-horned harness. So here was the third member of the gang who were passing themselves off as native Martians.
The man was hastily dressing in a naggie wool suit. The jersey fitted tightly around his neck, hiding the harness that held the horns. Joe had no time to wonder who this man was or what he was planning. Ten swift bounds brought Joe to the ledge overhanging the shelf on which the man was working. For a moment Joe waited, the loop of rope ready. If the fellow would just step this way a trifle-there!
The rope fell true—over the arms and down to the ankles. Joe yanked up on it like a fisherman with the biggest catch of his life. The fellow whirled off his feet, strung up by the noose.
It was but the work of a moment to secure the rope to a small tree, and the captive was left dangling a few feet above the shelf.
“Gollies, he’s the best inter-planetary cusser I ever heard,” Joe thought. He raced down over the rocks to the shelf. He worked under the handicap of flying fists, and a broadcast of profanity. It was a supreme achievement for Joe to hold his own tongue during this operation, but he didn’t want this mystery man to know that he spoke English.
“My friends will tie a stone to you and throw you in the river,” the fellow threatened.
He must have repeated the threat in several languages, Joe guessed. His snarling voice still echoed in Joe’s ears two minutes later as Joe raced away. But the friends had not appeared, and the fellow was left hanging by his feet.
Most important of all, Joe now wore a handsome set of horns.
“By George and Joe, I’m a native Martian,” he said to himself.
CHAPTER VIII
Seven candidates for the hand of the hand of the beautiful Donna Londeen stood in line under a tall and graceful blue apple tree and one of them was Joe Banker, the city clerk of Bellrap, U.S.A.
Two of the candidates were broad-shouldered twelve-horned men—husky young giants with three horns on each shoulder and six over their heads.
The tallest of all the candidates was a dark-skinned boyish fellow with eleven horns. He wore a yellow jersey and long naggie-wool, trousers. Beside him Joe must have looked very short. But Joe chose to stand next to him, heedless of the jibes, for a very definite reason. Joe, too, was wearing a jersey.
A close-fitting jersey with a high neck had been necessary as a covering for the harness over any deceiver’s bead and shoulders. It was well enough for Martians who grew their own horns to strut around with naked chests and shoulders. But if one is obliged to conceal straps across the chest and under the armpits, a borrowed naggie-wool jersey is a convenience.
Even so, Joe knew that he was in great danger of being discovered. The tall fellow looked down on his head. And while the band which curved over his skull had been camouflaged with patches of hair between horns, that hair did not match his own. It matched the black hair of the man who had been left dangling by his feet from a rope.
“What is the delay?” one of the candidates asked. “Where are the officials?”
“They were called to the ravine by someone who saw a demon,” said the tall eleven-horned fellow.
“A demon?” Joe gulped. “What kind of demon?”
“A hornless one,” said Axloff, the tall boyish fellow. “He may be the one who participated in the recent killing of a naggie’ girl.”
Joe swallowed hard. What did this mean? Had they caught Uncle Keller? Surely he would never stick his neck out of yonder thicket to be seen.
“He was a hornless demon who blows smoke,” Axloff continued. “They discovered him in the thicket setting fire to a tube in his mouth!”
“The corncob pipe!”
Joe blurted the words in English before he could catch himself. Axloff looked at him strangely. “What did you say?”
The chills raced through Joe’s spine. His first impulse was to break and run.
“Stay in line, my friend,” Axloff snapped at him.
But a moment later the word passed around that the demon with the fire in his mouth had been struck to the ground by the powerful Londeenoko.
“They’ve beaten Uncle Keller!” Joe thought. “They’ve struck him. And where was I? Out chasing down a pair of horns so I can compete for Donna—when anyone knows that I haven’t a chance. I’m a heel!”
He started to edge away from the line of candidates.
Axloff caught him by the arm. “Come back in line, my friend.”
“I’ll come back soon,” said Joe. He tried to pull away from the tall fellow.
“Stand where you are—unless you want to deal the cruelest insult to Donna.”
“What do you mean?” Joe asked.
“Have you forgotten the code of the choosing ceremony? We men walk forth in this arena—Why? Because we hope to win this girl. Here we stand in a line. If one of us should change his mind and walk away, to her it is a slap to be remembered for life.”
Joe stood tense, looking up at Axloff.
These words of counsel were sound. He was angry at himself for what he had almost done. He would stand fast. For now he realized how much Donna meant to him. For the present Uncle Keller would have to fight his own battle.
Then the further report came. To some extent it subdued his wrought-up feelings.
“The beautiful Donna interceded for the demon,” came the news, to be relayed from mouth to mouth through the throngs. “She asked Londeenoko to have him imprisoned in the dry well. After the Festival is over, they will call him to account.”
“On with the Festival!” the crowd began to clamor. “On with the Festival!”
The seven candidates were made to parade twice around the arena. They were fair game for the spectators, who cheered for their favorites and shouted all manner of insults at the others.
“Who is that little short one in the naggie-wool garments?” they would yell. “He must have grown up on orange colored apples. Where did he come from?”
On the second march around the crowd, Joe became the target for so many jibes that he wondered whether they guessed he was an imposter. A general yell had spread along the line, particularly among the younger boys.
“Where did little eight-horns come from?”
The tall angular eleven-horned candidate, Axloff, stopped to glare at some of these hecklers. He shouted back an answer in defense of Joe.
“Little eight-horns came from Up North. Any complaints?”
He bent his head forward so that his eleven horns pointed straight toward the loudest of them.
The effect was gratifying. Joe heard no more heckling.
“Thank you, Axloff,” Joe said in Martian. “If Donna should not choose me, I hope she will choose you.”
“She could do worse,” said Axloff. His remark earned a series of stony glares from the others. Especially from the two husky twelve-horns. They had frowned on any signs of fraternizing within this line of rivals.
Donna walked slowly to the center of the arena. She was the tenth and last of the girls to choose a husband today. Joe wondered how many of his six companions were left over from the previous events, and how many had waited for this particular choosing.
Above all, Joe wondered what had become of the hornless Venus scientist. Was he here, among these seven? Not unless he, too, was wearing artificial horns. Could it be that this tall, boyish Axloff was the Venus man? Hardly. His horns were too convincing. His diction, too, was precise Martian.
At the sound of the weird musical notes from wooden pipes—the official signal for each event—beautiful Donna Londeen walked slowly toward the candidates. You could hear the low whispering of the spectators. They watched every move as she extended her greeting of friendship to each of the seven men.
She bowed to each, barely touching the horns of her head to their chests. When she came to Joe, the last in line, she gave a surprised gasp.
“You? But how—?”
She glanced quickly at the barely perceptible outlines of the harness that curved over his head. She suppressed a smile as her sharp eyes caught the patchwork effect of his hair.
“Thank you for coming,” she whispered. “But you must not be disappointed . . . if when . . . but, thank you.”
There was no time to clarify her message. No time for him to ask about Uncle Keller. The other six candidates were waiting impatiently for her to address them. The two husky twelve-horns exchanged suspicious nudges.
She stood before the seven of them extending her six-fingered hands in a gracious gesture of appreciation. Her eyes avoided Joe as she spoke.
“My very great thanks to each of you for engaging in this contest. I shall become the wife of the one among you who wins. I wish to each of you good luck.”
She started away. She glanced back, as if uncertain whether everyone was there that she had expected. She crossed the arena to the elevated platform.
“The Venus man!” Joe thought. “I’ll bet a thousand dollars I left him hanging, head down, from the cliff. If she knew, she would never forgive me.”
In that moment Joe felt the arrows of conscience as never before. This was dead wrong, for him to steal his way into the ranks. If her heart had gone to someone else, what business did he have to be here? Her whole life depended upon the choice of this hour.
“Do not stand there dreaming,” Axloff called back at him. “March with us!”
Joe marched as if in a trance. Never in his life had he felt such an emotion of deliberate guilt. He looked at Donna, standing there on the high platform beside her Uncle. He tried to guess her thoughts.
“I’ve got to take these horns back!” he said to himself. “I’ve got to let that Venus guy have his chance.”
That was all he could think about for the next several minutes.
He followed the line of candidates through a routine of difficult feats. At Donna’s order he took his turn at lifting weights, leaping over hurdles, turning handsprings and hornsprings. The harness on his head and shoulders held firm, Apparently no one suspected his horns were not his own.
Through one contest after another he held his own. But his thoughts were elsewhere. All the time he kept asking himself questions.
Could he be sure that the hanging man was the Venus scientist? What other hornless persons might there be in this land besides Uncle Keller and himself? And the mysterious rabbit-faced man and the man with the scarred hands? And the man hanging over the cliff, who may or may not have been their friend?
Donna had not told much of her escapades to other planets. Now, as Joe recalled her chance remarks, he could bring to mind only two acquaintances of hers from lands beyond Mars.
One of these was the Martian scientist, who had first interested her in other worlds and had made her a gift of his space ship while he carried on his research and experiments here on Mars. He was the one she mentioned most often.
The other was an adventurer of Mercury, who had taken a fancy to her while she was there, and had once followed her all the way back to Mars in his own ship. She had barely mentioned him. Joe did not know whether he was here now, or on Mercury.
Both of these men were, according to his impressions, hornless human creatures more or less related to Earth man—for this breed had undoubtedly found its way around the planets at some time in the historical past.
Casually, Donna had mentioned three or four different Martian friends, favorites of her uncle, Londeenoko. Two of these, Joe guessed, were the twelve-horned men now leading the line of contestants in a tightly fought apple throwing contest.
“Your turn, Axloff,” one of them said. “Beat my record if you can.”
Axloff weighed three apples in his hand. He was allowed three trials. The platform was about thirty yards away, and there Donna stood, waiting, her head bent forward. Her horns were the target.
Three apples now hung on her shoulder horns. None of the contestants had succeeded in hanging one on her head horns. The center horn carried the highest score.
Axloff hurled an apple. It missed.
The twelve-horns gave a low laugh Axloff wound up for his second trial and let fly.
The apple caught squarely on the left horn of her head. The crowd cheered.
Axloff’s third and last trial! The apple flew to the right horn of her head and barely hung there. The crowd went wild. The twelve-horned men muttered sarcasms as Axloff retired to the line.
“Your turn, little Eight Horn,” said Axloff. “Good luck.”
Joe winked and clicked his tongue. He had been the pitcher for the South Side Wildcats in his day. He stepped up, weighed three big blue apples in his hand, rolled two of them to the ground, and whammed out with the third.
It was straight and fast, but high. Donna waited, motionless. It sailed over the point of the middle horn, barely grazing it. Donna’s purple hair waved with the wind. Her head moved a trifle, and the last apple that Axloff had hung on her head fell off and bounced from the platform in two halves.
Crusty old Londeenoko’s eyebrows j
umped. He was agitated over the way these contests were going. He had already shown a definite preference for one of the twelve-horned huskies.
He marched across to her from the farther side of the platform, lifted his heavy hand and barked a sharp warning.
“But I did not mean to move, Uncle,”
Donna replied.
“Do not let it happen again,” he growled.
Donna stood motionless, her head bowed, waiting. Joe’s second shot came, as straight as an arrow. It struck the central horn squarely. It hung to the crest of her head as if it had grown there.
The crowd burst into a panic of cheering, and Joe caught an enthusiastic slap on his back. Axloff’s.
“You will win on that one, friend! Throw away your third shot!”
But old Londeenoko didn’t like it. Again he came thudding across the platform, his sashes fluttering. No one could hear the warning he called to Donna. But a moment later everyone heard him bellow like a wounded bull. Joe’s third apple went wild and caught him in the solar plexus.
CHAPTER IX
Everyone thought that “Little Eight-Horn from Up North” had won.
But Londeenoko had other ideas. He waved his arms for silence. In a thunderous voice he proclaimed, “Foul! Foul!”
Arguments ensued among officials and, spectators. Londeenoko’s nineteen sons and daughters and their numerous children protested that grandpa was playing favorites. The young judge, they declared, would have to come back and settle the arguments. Someone was dispatched to find him.
Others, including Axloff, declared that the rules provided for emergencies such as these. It would be necessary only to devise additional contests of skill or daring to determine which of the leading contenders should win.
“The leading contenders!” one of the twelve-horns echoed sarcastically.
“I suppose that lets us out.”
And while the quarrels mounted in fury, Joe slipped away unnoticed, to do what he thought was the only honest thing to do: Give the Venus scientist a chance to take his place.