The Boat of a Million Years

by Poul Anderson

  Rufus groaned. His hook slashed. Herrera slipped back in time. The pistol sprang forth. Tarrant jumped to his feet and caught Rufus by the arms before the redbeard could try to draw. Slowly, the boys sheathed their blades.

  “Behave yourself,” Tarrant panted. “Sit down.”

  “Not with these!” Rufus coughed in Latin. He shook free of the grasp on him. “And you, Hanno. Can’t you remember? Like that woman we saved, way back when hi Russia. And that was just a single man, and he wouldn’t have cut her belly open afterward, or given her to the females with their knives and torches—“ He stumbled off, away from everybody, still gripping the bottle.

  Looks followed him for a little. Then Tarrant said to Herrera, “Let him be. Hell get his wits back. Thanks for your patience,” with less than total sincerity.

  6

  Twice during the afternoon, Tom Langford ventured outside. When he saw the encampment, he stepped quickly in again and rebarred the door. Toward evening he said, “I s’pect they’ll try a night attack. Why else would they hang around this long? Maybe again at dawn, but could be any time. We’ll just have to keep alert. If we stand ‘em off then, they ought to up and go. Injuns don’t know how to lay a siege.”

  Bill Davis laughed softly and richly. “We ain’t wuth it,” he opined.

  “Los vecinos vendrdn indudablemente a ayudarnos—‘Elp weell come,” Carlos Padilla ventured.

  “I dunno how fast, if ever,” Langford sighed. “S’posin’ Bob got through, the neighbors are scattered pretty thin these days. Maybe a cavalry troop is somewhere close enough.”

  “We are in the hands of God,” Susie declared. She smiled at her husband. “Yours too, dear, and strong hands they are.”

  Ed Lee tossed and muttered on the Langfords’ bed. His injury had lit a fever in him. The children were more than ready for sleep.

  First there was supper, cold beans, bread, the last milk. They had no firewood to speak of, and little water. Langford asked his wife to say grace. Nobody minded when Carlos crossed himself. Afterward the men one by one and bashfully went behind a sort of curtain Susie had rigged in a corner to hide the bucket all muSt share. Langford had emptied it whenever he stepped out. He hoped nobody more would have any real business there till the Indians were gone. That would be kind of nasty, in these close quarters with a woman and a girl. The privy was sod, it ought to be around yet. If not, well, they’d have the tall grass for walls, the freedom of these acres for which he had saved and toiled and now fought.

  Dusk thickened to night. A single candle burned on the table amidst the guns. The Langfords and the hale men stood watches, two peering out loopholes taken in turn while two caught naps, on the floor or alongside poor Ed. Stars crowded what they glimpsed of sky. The ground was gray-black vague. A waning sliver of moon would be scant help when it rose shortly before the sun. Meanwhile the cold and the stillness gnawed away.

  Once the wife whispered from her side of the room, “Tom?”

  “Yeah?” He allowed himself a look at her. In this dim light he couldn’t see dirt, exhaustion, hollowed cheeks and black-rimmed eyes. She was the girl of his courting days, from whose front porch he’d walk home on the rainbow.

  “Tom, if—if they do get in and you have the chance—“ She must take a breath. “Would you shoot me—first?”

  “Christ, no!” he choked, and could taste the horror.

  “Please. I’d bless you.”

  “You might live, honey. They do sell prisoners to our people.”

  She stared at the floor, then quickly, remembering her duty, out a loophole. “I wouldn’t want to live. Not after—”

  “Do you s’pose I’d ever turn my back on you? Reckon you don’t know me as well as I thought.”

  “No, but you— I’d be without you on earth. Why not together in Heaven, at once?”

  He knew the redskins wouldn’t spare his life. Unless he was lucky, he wouldn’t be a man when he died. Not that knives and fire, or being staked out under the sun with his eyelids cut off, would leave him in shape to think much about that. “Well, you might still manage to get the kids through.”

  Again her head drooped. “Yes. I’m sorry. I clean forgot. Yes, I was bein’ selfish.”

  “Aw, don’t you fret, sweetheart,” he said as cheerfully as he was able. “Nothin’ bad’s goin’ to happen.’Next week our biggest worry will be how we can keep from braggjn’ too loud.”

  “Thank you, darlin’.” She turned her attention outward.

  The night wore on. They had divided it into four watches, then all to be afoot in advance of dawn, when attack was likeliest. About three in the morning by the grandfather clock, the Langfords finished their second trick, roused the hands, and stretched themselves out, he on the floor, she beside Ed. Should the hurt man stir from the heavy sleep into which he had dropped, she’d know it and see to whatever need was his. The other men would shoot better, the more well rested they were.

  A shotgun blast kicked Langford awake.

  Bill thudded against the wall and fell. The lead had sleeted across the cabin and taken him in the back. By candlelight and monstrous flickery shadows the blood that gushed from him shone blacker than his skin.

  Carlos crouched on the north side, rifle aimed and useless. Two broad muzzles thrust in by the west loopholes. One smoked. It withdrew. Instantly another took its place. Meanwhile the second roared.

  Langford jumped to the bedside and Susie. Sick understanding billowed through him. Hostiles, just three or four, had crawled under cover of night, slowly, often stopping, shadows in the gloom, till they were among the stakes and under the eaves. When they shoved their guns through, maybe they hoped they’d fire straight into an eye.

  No matter. Shooting blind, wedging the barrels to and fro, they made defense impossible.

  Whoops lifted, nearer and nearer. Thunder beat on the door. No tomahawks, Langford knew; that was a regular woodcutting ax, probably his. Panels splintered. A gust blew out the candle. Langford fired and fired, but he couldn’t see anything for sure. The hammer clicked on emptiness. Where the hell were the loaded guns? Susie screamed. Maybe he should have saved a bullet for her. Too late. The door was down and the dark full of warriors.

  7

  The racket brought Tarrant iwd the Herreras from their bedrolls, hands to weapons. Tumult went murky among the tipis. “El ataque,” the trader said beneath yowls and shots.

  “What’re they doing?” Tarrant grated: “Another frontal assault, in the dead of night? Crazy.”

  “I do not know,” Herrera said. The noise rose rapidly to crescendo. He bared teeth, a dim flash under the stars. “Victory. They are taking the house.” Tarrant bent to put on his boots. “Where do you go? Stay here. You could too easily get killed.”

  “I’ve got to see if I can do anything.”

  “You cannot. Myself, I stay, not out of fear but because I do not want to see what comes next.”

  Tarrant’s pain lashed: “You told me you don’t care.”

  “Not much,” Herrera admitted. “But it would be evil to gloat, nor have I the heart for it. No, my sons and I will pray for them.” He plucked the other man’s sleeve. You slept fully clad in such a place as this. “Do stay. You, somehow, I like.”

  “I’ll be careful,” Tarrant promised, and loped off.

  He skirted the Comanche camp. More and more torches came to life there, flared, bobbed, streamed sparks on their hasty way. Sight of them dimmed the stars that hi their uncountable thousands gleamed frost-bright across black. Nevertheless he had light enough to turn the soil gray for him.

  Where the devil was Rufus? Probably snoring out on the prairie alongside the empty bottle. Just as well. No matter how self-controlled, a white man took a risk, showing himself to red men in blood-rut.

  So why did he, Hanno, Lugo, Cadoc, Jacques Lacy, William Sawyer, Jack Tarrant, a hundred different aliases, behave like this? He knew he couldn’t save the ranchers, and didn’t mean to try. They must perish as star-many
had perished before them and would in the future, over and over, world without end. History chewed them up and spat them out and soon most rotted forgotten, might as well never have been. Maybe the Christians were right and mankind was like that, maybe it was simply in the nature of things.

  His intention was practical. He hadn’t survived this long by hiding from the terrible. Rather, he kept alert, aware, so he’d know which way to jump when the sword swung. Tonight he’d observe from the fringes. If an impulse arose to wipe out his party too, he could talk it down, .given help from Peregrine and maybe even Quanah, before it got out of control. In the morning he’d start back toward Santa Fe.

  The chief stood huge near the cabin, a long-helved ax on his shoulder. Torchlight guttered across painted face and body, horned headdress; it was as if he flickered in and out of hell. The braves were mostly less clear, blobs of night that swarmed, pranced, screeched, waved their brands like battle flags. Squaws capered with them, knives or sharpened sticks hi hand. The doorway gaped hollow.

  They kept clear a space in front of it. Three dead men sprawled at the threshold, dragged forth. The Anglo’s left arm was splinted; someone had cut his throat before stopping to think about sport. Rib ends stuck out of a hole torn in the Negro’s back. A third seemed Mexican, though he was so slashed and pulped it was hard to be sure; he had gone down fighting.

  Lucky bastards. Two squaws held fast a small boy and a smaller girl who screamed, blind with fear. A tall Anglo sat slumped. Blood matted his hair and dripped onto clothes and earth. He was stunned. Two warriors locked the arms of a young woman who writhed, kicked, cursed them and called on her God.

  A man bounded from the ruck. A torch swung near him for a moment and Tarrant recognized Wahaawmaw. He had slung his rifle to free his hands. The right gripped a knife. He laughed aloud, caught the collar of the woman’s dress in his left, slashed downward. The cloth parted. Whiteness gleamed, and a sudden string of blood-beads. Her captors forced her down on her back. Wahaawmaw fumbled at his breechclout. The man prisoner stirred, croaked, struggled to regain his feet. A brave gave him a gun butt in the stomach and he sagged, retching.

  A grizzly bear growl resounded. From around the cabin stormed Rufus. His Colt was drawn. He swept his hook back and forth. Two Indians stumbled aside, faces gashed open. He reached the woman. The men who pinned her sprang up. He shot one through the forehead. He hooked an eye from the other, who recoiled shrieking. His boot smashed into Wahaawmaw’s groin. That warrior tumbled, to squirm by the white man. He sought to choke down agony, but it jerked past his tips.

  Flambeau flare made Rufus’-obeard its own hue. He stood with his legs on either side of the woman, hunched forward, swaying a little, flaming drunk but the Colt rock-steady before him. “Aw right,” he boomed, “you filthy swine, first o’ you makes a move, 111 plug him. She’s gonna go free, an’—”

  Wahaawmaw straightened on the ground and rolled over. Rufus didn’t see. There was too much else for him to watch. “Look out!” Tarrant heard himself yell. The Indian bowls drowned his voice. Wahaawmaw unslung his rifle. Prone, be fired.

  Rufus lurched back. The pistol fell. Wahaawmaw shot again. Rufus crumpled. His weight sank onto the woman and held her fast.

  Wild, Tarrant shoved men aside. He sprang into the clear space and went on his knees beside Rufus. “O sodalis, amice perennis—“ Blood bubbled from the mouth and into the red beard. Rufus gasped. For an instant it seemed he grinned, but Tarrant couldn’t really know in the shifty torchlight or even by the light of the stars. He clasped the big body to him and felt life ebb away.

  Only then did he hear what a silence had fallen. He looked aloft. Quanah stood above him, the ax held out tike a roof or a buffalo-hide shield. Had he roared his folk into quietude? They were a massive blur, well back from him and the dead, the wounded, the captive. Here and there a blaze briefly picked out a face or made eyeballs glisten.

  Tarrant hauled Rufus off the woman. She stirred, stared, mewed. “Easy,” be murmured. She got to hands and knees, made her way thus to the man. Squaws had let go of the children, who were already at his side. He’d regained consciousness. At least, he could sit straight and lay his arms around them all.

  The warriors Rufus injured had joined the crowd, except for the slain one and Wahaawmaw. He had risen but leaned on his rifle, shakily, holding himself where the pain was.

  Tarrant got up too. Quanah lowered his ax. The pair of them regarded each other.

  “Bad is this,” said the chief at last. “Very bad.”

  A skipper from Phoenicia learned how to snatch at every chance, no matter how thin a shred. “Yes,” Tarrant answered. “A man of yours has killed a guest of yours.”

  “He, your man, broke murdering into our midst.”

  “He had a right to speak, to be heard hi your council. When your Nermernuh would bar his way and likely attack him, he acted in self-defense. He was under your protection, Quanah. At worst, you could have had him seized from behind, as many men as you command. I think you would have done that if you had gotten the chance, for everyone calls you a man of honor. But this creature shot him first.”

  Wahaawmaw groaned outrage. Tarrant didn’t know how much he had understood. The argument was weak, almost ridiculous. Quanah could dismiss it out of hand. And yet—

  Peregrine stepped forth. He overtopped the chief by a couple of inches. He carried a medicine bundle and a wand on which hung three buffalo tails, things he must have brought from his tipi. A hiss and mumble went through the crowd. Torches wavered. Dertsahnawyeh, the undying one, had power to raise awe in the fiercest heart.

  “Stay where you are, Jack Tarrant,” he said quietly, “while Quanah and I go talk.”

  The chief nodded. He spoke certain commands. Wahaawmaw snarled but hobbled obediently off to lose himself in the throng. Several warriors came rifles in hand to keep guard on the whites. Quanah and Peregrino departed into the night.

  Tarrant went over to the prisoners and hunkered down. “Listen,” he said low, “we may be able to get you free. Keep still, don’t make any fuss. This band’s had a shock that cooled them down some, but don’t do anything to remind them they meant to destroy you.”

  “I got you,” the man answered, clearly if not quite firmly yet. “Whatever happens, we owe you our prayers, you and your partner.”

  “He came like a knight of King Arthur,” the woman whispered.

  He came tike a goddamned drunken idiot, Tarrant thought. I could have headed him off if I’d known. I would have. Oh, Rufus, old buddy, you always hated to be alone, and now you are, forever.

  The man offered his hand. “Tom Langford,” he said. “My wife Susan. Nancy. Jimmy, uh, James.” For out of grime and drying tears and the start of a bruise, the boy had cast his father a reproachful look. Tarrant wanted to hoot laughter.

  He choked it down, shook hands, gave his name, and finished, “We’d better not talk more. Besides, the Indians expect me to see to my dead.”

  Rufus lay about ten feet from the Langfords. It might have been ten thousand miles. Tarrant couldn’t wash him, but he straightened the body, closed the eyes, bound up the jaw with a bandanna. He drew his pocket knife and cut himself in the face and along bared arms and chest. Blood welled and dripped, nothing serious but it impressed the watchers. This was their way of mourning, not the white man’s. Surely therefore the dead was mightily important, to be avenged with cannon and saber unless his friends were appeased. At the same time, the friend who was here did not wail over him, and that too was eerie. By ones and twos and threes, the Nermernuh melted off toward the comfort of their camp.

  Well, Rufus, you did have fifteen hundred years, and you enjoyed just about every day of them. You wenched and fought and sang and gorged and swilled and adventured, you were a hard worker when we needed work done and a better yet man to have at my back when we needed that and in your rough gruff style a pretty good husband and father whenever we settled down a while. T could have done without your stupid
practical jokes, and by ourselves for any length of time your conversation got so boring it was physically painful, and if you saved my life now and then, I staked my own as often to pull you out of some scrape you’d blundered into, and—and a lot of gusto went out of my world tonight, Rufus. A lot of love.

  False dawn chilled the east. Quanah and Peregrino were dim in sight until they reached the cabin and halted. Tarrant rose. The guards glided deferentially aside. From the ground the Langfords stared dull-eyed, wrung dry, their children uneasily asleep.

  Tarrant stood waiting.

  “It is decided,” said Quanah. The deep voice rolled like hoofs over the plains. Breath blew ghost-white in the cold. “Let all men know that the Nennernuh are generous. They will heed my wishes in this matter. You, the trader, and his sons may go home. You may take these captives along. They are in exchange for your comrade. He brought his death on himself, but since he was a guest, let that be his price, because the Nermernuh set high their honor. Nor shall his body be harmed, but we will give him decent burial, so that his spirit may find its way to the afterworld. I have spoken.”

  A shudder passed below Tarrant’s skin. He had more than half awaited worse than this. Somehow he kept it hidden and said, “I thank you much, senor, and I will tell my people that the soul of Quanah is large.” He believed he meant it.

  For an instant the chief let his stateliness drop. “Thank Peregrino. He persuaded me. Begone before sunrise.”

  He beckoned to the guards. They followed him toward the Comanche camp.

  A mortal might have crumbled to pieces as the pressure came off, cackled and gibbered and swooned. An immortal had more reserves, more bounce. Nonetheless Tarrant’s words trembled. “How did you do it, Peregrino?”

  “I pushed your argument as far as it would go.” Again the Indian took time to build and weigh each English sentence. “He wasn’t unwilling to take it. He isn’t a fiend, you know; he’s fighting for the life of his people. But he must convince them also. I had to ... call in all my chips, call on the spirits, finally tell him that either he released you or I left him. He does value my advice as well as ... my medicine. After that it wasn’t hard to get him to release this family too. I will help him convince the warriors that was a good idea.”