by Don Webb
Rustle.
He lifted rather than pushed his chair back and got up real quiet. He went for his daddy’s rifle over the fireplace. Just buckshot. He put his piece on too as he went to the door, in case he needed more than buckshot. He was glad he always oiled his door well when he opened it soundlessly.
There were three of them at the well. He didn’t begrudge anybody water so he tilted his rifle skyward and walked toward them.
He said, “Howdy.”
Instantly everything was brighter than day. A harsh white light that burned purple into his eyes. Malcolm tried to look up—to see where the light was coming from—and was momentarily blinded for his trouble. He could hear music and laughter above him. Wild and stirring music. One of the figures spoke to him, a man. Could almost begin to see him through the thick light.
“We needed some water for our steam turbines, mister. Hope you don’t mind.” The man had a slightly buzzing voice as though his mouth wasn’t shaped right.
“No, I—I don’t mind at all.”
“We can repay you for the water.”
Malcolm had never thought of selling water to anybody in his whole life. Water was free. Heck, they could’ve gone another mile and got it from the creek. But if they wanted to pay. Someone laughed above. What the hell was going on here? Why did that light seem so thick?
Another figure spoke. A woman.
“We can repay you with a ride in the airship.”
Now Hamlet had said something about that. Write a book, make a fortune. He would get Hamlet back and they would have it made. Maybe the boy wasn’t crazy.
He asked, “Who are you people anyway?”
The man who spoke before answered, “Never mind my name—call it Smith. We just need to know if you’ll take us up on our offer.”
“Yeah. There’s nothing I’d like better.”
“Step aside.”
Malcolm stepped out of the blinding light. There was a whir of machinery. Something was being let down. Sounds of chain and winch.
It looked like a giant’s coal shuttle. The figures in goggles stepped into it, laying down their buckets of water. Malcolm climbed in. Inside the shaft of light he could see four stout chains that pyramided into one chain that began to lift the scuttle from the ground.
It rose a long time.
It stopped.
But the light was too intense to see anything.
“Try one of these.” Some woman had approached the scuttle and handed Malcolm a pair of goggles. He put them on and the pain stopped immediately and he could see.
The sides of the scuttle swung and the three he had ascended with picked up their buckets and headed across a vast hall. It was fashioned of a silver-gray metal like aluminum and its arched ceiling was covered in crystal chandeliers. Far more exotic than the twelve-crystal fob chandelier in his parlor. The chandeliers derived their flashing fiery rainbows from arc lamps and the crystal swung to and fro, vibrated by the movement of the airship and from the great dance taking place.
For the floor of the hall was filled with all manner of man and woman. Clothed and unclothed in the dress of many periods. There were Negroes and Indians and Chinese. Some of the men were clearly excited by the naked women (or the scantily clothed) and they would grab or be grabbed by their partners and engage in acts (some of which Malcolm did not know existed—but looked to be intensely pleasurable). And among the men and women there were others. Almost—but not quite—human. They were hard to look at straight on. In fact if Malcolm really stared at them he heard a buzzing in his ears and they would disappear with a kind of pop. But he could see them out of the corners of his eyes. Their noses long and flexible, their dull blue teeth, their tiny horns. There were musicians dancing among the great throng. Players of horns and viols, bone flutes and ebon wood flutes, bagpipes and hautboys. There were rattlers of rattles, drummers of drums, chimers of chimes, and twangers of long stringed instruments Malcolm could not identify. There were those launching whistling rockets, exploding strings of fireworks, and lighting flower-fires of every color.
A beautiful naked Negress danced before Malcolm and plopped a candy in his open mouth. He would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that it was his grandmother’s fudge.
The music grew so loud and wild that it got inside him and ran around the inside of his skin and he found himself among them—cavorting and cutting capers as never before. He danced and he sang all kinds of wild, crazy songs. Dirty songs and nursery songs and songs he heard Indians sang. Finally he was singing wild songs in a language he didn’t know, but expected to know at any minute.
Then there were the viands passed from guest to guest. Sweet smoked meat and spicy cakes and unnamable fruits of an unbelievable succulentness.
He drank from crystal goblets and vials of mother of pearl, of the coldest spring water and of the fiercest liquors. Some of these ran down his chest and other dancers licked these away. Once one of the others so cleaned him. He looked down upon her and she brushed his face gently with her wing.
A Presence sat on a throne at one end of the hall. There was a veil of dark fire surrounding him. Whenever there was a pause in the great dance, the dancers would look toward the throne with anticipation.
As Malcolm leaned forward to seize a cake from a silver tray held by a golden-haired midget, a voice rang out:
“MALCOLM Alexander MacKenzie, come FORTH.”
It was not volume, but Presence that made the voice so.
The crowd parted for Malcolm as he approached the throne. They looked at him with respect—not with worship or fear, but with respect. He had seen that same look in Hamlet’s eyes when Hamlet spoke to him. But he had never seen so much of it as here—and sadly had never realized its name till now.
The dark fire didn’t throw off much heat, but it concealed whoever sat behind it.
“I wasn’t expecting you, Malcolm A. MacKenzie. I was expecting your son, but no matter, you are here and I will receive you. It’s a little loud here. Let’s go to below decks.”
Instantly they were in a quiet dark room. The dark fire gave off as much light as a dying campfire.
Two great windows formed the back walls of the diamond-shaped room. Malcolm could see towers with rings of lights illuminating a city and casting ripples of light into a long river.
The Presence spoke to him, “Beautiful, aren’t they? They open up the night. That is the city of Austin. They put those ‘Moonlight Towers’ in two years ago. They’re powered by the hydroelectric plant at that dam. Only two cities with electric lights now, Austin and London. But someday all the world will have them. Light to open up the night. I haven’t been this excited in millennia.”
“You some kind of inventor?”
“I am every kind of inventor, but you’re my best invention. You might say I’m the shaper of your consciousness.”
Malcolm seemed a little at a loss. The other continued.
“Oh I wish your son had come. I could’ve shown him the engines of this craft or talked philosophy with him or let him steal my pot of gold and my singing harp. You don’t even know that I made a joke.”
“My boy wants to know the secret of the airship.”
“Electrical power, diesel engines, helium. Aluminum. Rotors. Calculating machines. I’ve told everyone.”
“Everyone? But I thought it was a secret.”
“People remember what they want to remember. They would learn more if they studied the people I move to find their way here.”
“Don’t you just pick up and bring them?”
“The salve does that. The witches’ ointment. Broom grease. Really one of my best inventions except that it screws up the memory. Selling it through the Sears and Roebuck catalog was a stroke of genius.”
The airship had begun to move away from Austin. The Moonlight Towers seemed to move into one another becoming one light and then a star and then naught.
“Where are you taking me?”
“On the wild ride, Malcolm? I wante
d to check on Galveston before dawn.”
“I’ve never seen the ocean. I was born in Georgia, but I’ve never seen it. My brother sent some shells to my boy.”
“Curiosity is strong in him. I can feel that. He’s as brave as you are and curious. He’s the kind of man who will make the twentieth century.”
The involved darkness below was moving rapidly now. Lakes and ponds threw the stars and moon back at the airship. Malcolm saw the glowing cone of a charcoal-maker’s mound burning out of control. He could see the birds—some sort of white bird—that seemed to glow in the moonlight. And then there were strands of cotton, which he realized were clouds. They were above the clouds. Those were clouds down there. And he couldn’t even feel it, couldn’t even feel them moving.
“Will we really see the ocean?”
The voice was gentle for the first time, “Yes. Remember, remember the ocean.”
“Have you been at this inventing for a long time?”
“In Egypt such nights were called Typhonia. By your standards it’s been a long time.”
“Why?”
“For a bet. To prove myself right.”
“Yeah, I know how that is. I once bet Bedford Derleth I could walk twenty-five miles in one day. And I did. My feet were sore for weeks. That pride can be a heavy thing.”
The Presence laughed.
Malcolm asked, “This guy you bet, is he keeping track of all the stuff you do?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen Him for awhile.”
* * * * * * *
The airship was passing over plains of coarse grass. There were farms and marshes full of moonlight. And then.
The ocean.
It was everything he’d dreamt of. Everything people said. And more and different. He watched the lines of white foam markers of waves and beyond that there was movement without the great lines—just isolate flecks of white. And it went on forever.
The airship turned around over an island. There were fine brick buildings in the moonlight—and tall-masted ships tied up round the island and a bridge as pretty as a picture of the new Eiffel Tower bringing two ribbons of railroad steel to the island.
“Say, eh, Mister, what did you bet?”
“I bet that people could learn to think for themselves.”
The airship had turned landwards.
“That’s some bet. I want my son to think for himself, but when he starts to, it scares me.”
“Diversity brings more than it takes away. That’s why I hate slavery. You lose diversity.”
“I’m really glad to see the ocean. Could you show me your face so I know who did all this?”
“No one’s asked me that for a while.” The Presence stepped through the veil of dark fire. There was never skin so black as pure ebon as this. There were never eyes so full of stars nor leather wings so frightening. But above all, here was the most beautiful face—even with its marks of pride and anger—that Malcolm A. MacKenzie had ever seen. Of course it was one of the foremost of its species.
Now theologically Malcolm wasn’t prepared for this instant. He thought what he was seeing was God. He dropped to his knees.
Instantly all beauty changed to anger. The creature seized Malcolm with its taloned hand. It burned into the flesh like a branding iron. It hauled Malcolm to his feet.
“NEVER. NEVER KNEEL. Stand on your own feet!”
The dark fire surrounded the creature again, and Malcolm thought he heard the creature say, “It’s part of the bet.” But the words were so soft he wasn’t sure.
* * * * * * *
Malcolm woke in his kitchen. Dawn light was reddening the windowpanes.
A dream, he thought, it was a dream.
Then he moved and almost passed out from the charred places on his shoulder.
He got dressed which wasn’t easy since every movement brought a whimper from his throat. He threw the rest of the salve on the banked coals of the fireplace where it burned nastily.
Roberta found him drinking coffee cups full of whiskey. He wouldn’t let her go for the doctor, but she did ride into town and find Hamlet. Hamlet came back to the ranch. Malcolm wouldn’t talk about his experience, but Hamlet had a good idea.
In fact, Malcolm talked less and less as the years went by. He’d just saddle up his horse and ride to a high spot on the ranch and watch the stars, but folks never knew why.
The ranch prospered under Hamlet’s management. In fact, it became something of a model of modern ranching techniques. Hamlet married Rosa, and she got her share of the ranch—which was all she ever wanted anyway. Some evil-eyed gossips said that the ranch had begun to prosper because Rosa had taken her spell off it.
As for Emily Jones, the town got the railroad the next year; and Emily rode off with the conductor beyond the boundaries of this tale.
(for John A. Keel)
GRAVY RUN
Nobody loves the bread man when it snows. Each store owner bitches because the bread’s late. The dock hates you because they hate everybody when Christmas season comes with sixteen-hour days. Even your girlfriend’s miffed because she hasn’t seen you in weeks.
The roads want to kill you. The snow merges road and land. The ice pulls at your truck. Your brothers’ and friends’ trucks fill the ditches and you drive on by—at twenty miles an hour—because you’re already eight, twelve, sixteen hours late.
My last drive for Soft-n-Fresh bakery came with the worst storm of the season. December 21. I had to take 63, an old bobtail with no heater and damn near no brakes. I put my printouts in order, closed my brown garage sale briefcase, and drank my last cup of coffee. I said goodbye to the dockworkers. The fat kid said, “Try to be back before Christmas.” And I laughed. Then I opened the door and saw he wasn’t joking.
The truck started on the third try and I pulled out of the bay. About a mile down the road I switched on the radio. Nothing but static. Beats Christmas carols I guessed.
My first stop was in Canyon, Texas. Usually they’ve got a cup of coffee waiting for me. That day it was just sullen looks and complaints. I set up the rest of my route in their parking lot. They’d given me ten extra boxes of SoftyCrust. In addition to everything else I was supposed to peddle extra bread today.
My next ten stops were all little towns. No chance of talking them into buying extra bread. Night fell. I crossed into New Mexico. Snow fall lightened a little. I could see twenty maybe thirty feet in front of my truck. The plows had been through recently so the going got easier. About midnight—about halfway to Tucumcari—I spotted a hitcher.
Now I don’t pick up hitchers. I’ve got a scar over my left ear from my last encounter with one. So normally I just wave and drive on. But I figured leaving someone out on a night like this was tantamount to murder. I stopped.
The old man climbed in. His hair and beard were white with snow. He grabbed my thermos as I started up. He drank half of it in one glup. Then he started talking, “Glad I found you.”
I figured the snow had got to him; I said, “You mean glad I found you.”
“No, son, I’ve got a great business opportunity for you.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
He went on, “It’s about those ten boxes of SoftyCrust.”
For the first time tonight my insides got colder than my outsides. I said, “What do you know about my load?”
“I’m a businessman, son, a businessman.”
I looked him over carefully. He wore a plain quilted coat over a dirty red flannel shirt, levis, tore-up boots. He didn’t look like the Devil or Merlin or an escapee from a B-movie. But his eyes, well, his eyes gleamed like the snow.
I hate it when someone calls me “son.” I said, “Sure, pops, sure. What’s the deal?”
“I’m gonna arrange for you to sell the bread at a huge profit.”
“It isn’t my bread. It’s the bakery’s.”
“You can pay them for it. And still make a huge profit.”
“What do you get, my soul or someth
ing?”
“Just ten per cent of your take. It’ll be enough to capitalize my researches for years.”
He talked like a businessman.
“Why did you pick tonight? I got extra bread lotsa times.”
“Because of the snow. You know the saying back in Amarillo? ‘The only thing between Amarillo and the North Pole is a barbed wire fence’ then when it’s real cold they say ‘Somebody musta took the fence down’?”
“I’ve heard it.”
“Well, it’s truer than they know. Only it’s not the North Pole.”
I figured I’d picked up a nut. He’d guessed right about the bread. So what? Extra bread on my run is a certainty. I decided to turn him over to the Tucumcari police. They could lock him up safe and warm. So I said, “Sure, pop, you just take care of everything.”
To my surprise he went to sleep. He snored. At two in the morning his pocket alarm went off. Beep!Beep!Beep! I hate those things. He sat up. He pulled a little silver case from his shirt pocket. I thought he was going to offer me a cigarette. He pressed a button.
The truck skidded off the road straight into an electrical substation. The substation bent away from the truck just before the impact. It pulled back like rubber. A little tunnel formed and sucked the truck into it. Lightning flashed on the tunnel walls. The truck shrank into a string. Everything elongated. I got dizzy—no dizzy’s too mild a road. I turned toward the old guy. He was grinning. Then his silver case blew up. He said, “Damn!” then he disappeared. Everything went black.
I came to. The cab was O.K—I guessed the rest of the truck was. It set on a low snow-covered plain. The sun was shining. It was surrounded.
They stood in a rough circle around my truck. Their eyes were orange, their fur white. I’d guess they were eight feet tall. They carried spears.
I opened my briefcase and took out my .45. The first spear smashed through my windshield. The glass cut my cheeks. I fired at the spear thrower. A bad miss, but the noise scared them. They screamed like monkeys in a Tarzan picture. I lay across the seats trying to provide as little target as possible. Spears hit the hood. I fired out the passenger’s window wounding one. It went crazy. It grabbed its reddening side and charged the truck. I fired two more times. It fell. Then they were on me. From everywhere.