The Boat of a Million Years

by Poul Anderson

  “He was right when he told me to thank you,” Tarrant said. “I will for as many centuries as I’ve got left.”

  Peregrine’s smile was as bleak as the eastern light. “You need not. I had my reasons and I want my price.”

  Tarrant swallowed. “What is it?”

  The tone mildened. “I admit I did have to save you. Maybe you and I are the only immortals in the world, now. We must join together sometime. But meanwhile—”

  Peregrino reached out and caught Tarrant’s arm. “Meanwhile, here are my people,” throbbed from him. “I wasn’t born to them, but they are almost the last of us who were born to this land and are still free. They won’t be much longer. Soon they will be broken.” Even as Tyre and Carthage were, Galtia and Britannia, Rome and Byzantium, Al-bigensians and Hussites, Basques and Irish, Quebec and the Confederacy. “I told you yesterday out on the prairie, I have to stay with them to the end, reason with them, help them find a new faith and hope. Else they’ll dash themselves to pieces, like buffalo over a cliff. So I will be working among them for peace.

  “I want you to do the same. As I told Quanah, letting these few go can earn us a little good will. More will die, horribly, but here is a talking point for you. You claim you are rich and have the ear of powerful men. All right, my price for these lives is that you work on your side for peace, a peace that my people can live with.”

  “Ill try my best,” said Tarrant. He truly meant that. If nothing else, the day would come when Peregrino held him to account.

  They clasped hands. The Indian strode off. False dawn died away and he was quickly into the shadows.

  “Follow me,” Tarrant called to the Langfords. “We have to hit the trail at once.”

  What sum of years had Rufus bought for these four? Two hundred, maybe?

  8

  In Far Western eyes, the Wichita Mountains were hardly more than hills; but they rose steeply, treeless, yet under the spring rains turning deeply green and starred with wild-flowers. In its valley among them a big house and its outbuildings reigned over many acres of cropland, pasture, cattle, and horses, horses.

  Grass shone wet after a shower and clouds drifted white when a hired carriage left the main road for the drive to the homestead. A farmhand on a pony, who had been inspecting fences, saw it and rode to inquire. Mr. Parker wasn’t here, he said. The driver, who was likewise an Indian, explained that his passenger’s business was actually with Mr. Peregrino. Startled, the worker gave directions and stared after the vehicle. It was almost as strange to him as the autos that occasionally stuttered by.

  A side track brought it to a frame cabin surrounded by flowerbeds, kitchen garden in back. On the porch a man clad in dungarees and sandals sat reading. He wore his hair in braids but was too tall and slender to be a Comanche. As the carriage approached he laid his book aside, sprang down the steps, and stood waiting.

  It stopped. A white man climbed out. His clothes bespoke prosperity only if you looked closely at material and tailoring. For a moment he and the dweller were still. Then they ran to grip hands and look into each other’s eyes.

  “At last,” Peregrine said, not quite evenly. “Bienvenido, amigo.”

  “I’m sorry to have been this long about coming,” Tarrant answered. “It happened I was in the Orient on business when your letter reached San Francisco. After I got home, I thought a telegram might draw too much notice. You’d written to me years ago, when I sent you my_ address, that just that bit of mail set tongues wagging. So I simply caught the first train east.”

  “It’s all right. Come in, come in.” With long practice behind it the English flowed easily, colloquially. “If your driver wants, he can go on to the big house. They’ll take care of him. He can cart us to town—how about day after tomorrow? I’ve things of my own to see to, including stuff I’d like shipped after me. If that’s okay with you.”

  “Of course, Peregrino. Damn near anything you may want is.” Having spoken to the other man, Tarrant took a Gladstone bag from the carriage and accompanied his host inside.

  The cabin held four rooms, neat, clean, sunny, austerely furnished except for a substantial number of books, a gramophone, a collection of mostly classical records, and, in the bedchamber, certain articles of religion. “You’ll sleep here,” Peregrino said. “I’ll roll up in the back yard. No, not a peep out of you. You’re my guest. Besides, it’ll be kind of like old days. I often do it anyway, in fact.”

  Tarrant glanced around. “You live alone, then?”

  “Yes. It seemed wrong to me, getting married and having kids when I knew that in the end I’d fake something and desert them. Life among the free tribes was different. How about you?”

  Tarrant’s mouth pinched together. “My latest wife died last year, young. Consumption. We tried a desert climate, everything, but— Well, we had no children, and this identity has been around nearly as long as is safe. I’m making ready for a change.”

  They settled themselves in the front room on wooden chairs. Above Peregrine’s head a chromolithograph gazed from its frame at Tarrant, a Rembrandt self-portrait. Bad though the copy was, mortal sorrow lingered in those eyes. From his bag Tarrant had taken a bottle of Scotch. Illegally, he filled both glasses his host had fetched, He also offered Havana cigars. Mere creature comforts are still comforts.

  “How’ve you been doing otherwise?” Peregrino inquired.

  “Busy,” Tarrant said. “Not sure how rich I am—I’d have to go through the books of several aliases—but it’s a heap, and bigger every day. One thing I want you for, besides yourself, is to help me think what’s most worth spending it on. How about you?”

  “Peaceful, on the whole. I cultivate my patch of land, make things in my woodworking shop, counsel my congregation—native church, so I’m not really like a white minister—and teach in a school. I’ll be sorry to leave that. Oh, and I read a lot, trying to learn about your world.”

  “And I suppose you’re Quanah’s advisor.”

  “Well, yes. But look, don’t think I’m the power behind bis sad little throne or anything like that. He’s done it all himself. He’s a remarkable man. Among whites he’d have been a, a Lincoln or Napoleon. The most I can claim credit for is making some things possible, or at least easier, for him. He went ahead and did them.”

  Tarrant nodded, remembering— The grand alliance of Comanche, Kiowa, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, Quanah its paramount chief. The bloody repulse at Adobe Walls, the year of warfare and manhunt that followed, and the last starvelings, led by Quanah, going onto the reservation in 1875. The good intentions of an Indian agent three years afterward, when he arranged for the Comanches to ride out under military escort on a final buffalo hunt, and no buffalo remained. And yet, and yet—

  “Where is be now?” Tarrant asked.

  “In Washington,” Peregrino said. Receiving a look of surprise: “He goes there fairly often. He is our spokesman, for all our tribes. And, well, too bad about Mr. McKinley, but that did put Theodore Roosevelt in the White House. He and Quanah know each other, they’re Mends.”

  He smoked for a while in silence. The ageless are seldom hurried. At length he went on: “Among us Quanah’s more than a rather wealthy former. He’s a headman and judge, he holds us together. The whites don’t like the peyote nor his clutch of wives, but they put up with it because he doesn’t just keep us going, by doing so he keeps their consciences at ease. Not that he’s any sobersides. A genial sort, apt to tell stories or use language that’d make a sailor blush. But he is ... reconciliation. He calls himself Quanah Parker, in memory of his mother. Lately he talks about having her bones and his sister’s moved here, so they can rest beside his. Oh, I don’t blinker myself. We Indians have a steep, tough road to walk, and a lot of us will foil by the wayside. But Quanah’s gotten.us started.”

  “And you brought him to that,” Tarrant said.

  “Well, I worked against the prophets, I used what influence I had toward getting peace into the minds of the People. And y
ou, from your side, kept your promise.”

  Tarrant grinned crookedly. It had cost. You couldn’t simply buy politicians, you had to buy or push men who in their turn could strike deals with the grim incorruptibles. But Quanah did not go to jail or hang.

  “I suspect you’re too modest,” Tarrant said. “Never mind. We’ve done our work. Maybe we’ve justified our long lives; I don’t know. So you’re ready to travel?”

  Peregrino nodded. “I can’t do anything more here that others can’t whom I’ve helped train. And I have been on this reservation more than a quarter century. Quanah’s covered for me, kept me pretty much tucked in a corner, discouraged those who remember from talking to outsiders about me. But it isn’t like the prairie. Folks are wondering. If any real word leaked to the newspapers—ah, that worry’s at an end. I’ll leave him a letter, and my blessing.”

  He looked out the window. It faced west. His hand lifted to his lips the brew of a people who themselves were once barbarians, southward raiding, northward retreating in war after war for their freedom. He said, “It’s time for me to start over.”

  XV. Coming Together

  1

  Rain roared. It washed away heat and grime, turned the air into flying, stinging gray. When lightning flashed, the hue became brief mercury, while thunder trampled down noise of motors, horns, water spurting from wheels. One bolt stabbed the new Empire State Building, but dissolved in the steel web under the masonry. Though the hour was early afternoon, headlights glimmered on cars and buses. Even mid town, pedestrians became few, trudging hunched beneath umbrellas or dodging from marquee to awning. Taxis were not to be had.

  Uptown, Laurace Macandal’s street lay altogether bare. Ordinarily it bore life enough, and after dark bustled and glittered. Several night clubs had sprung up among the neighborhood’s modest tenements, small shops, and this old mansion she had renovated. Hard times or no, white folks still came to Harlem for jazz, dance, comedy, a little freedom from care such as they told each other Negroes were born to. Just now, everybody was inside, waiting out the weather.

  She glanced at a clock and beckoned to one of the maids. “Listen well, Gindy,” she said. “You haven’t been long in service, and something very important will happen today. I don’t want you making mistakes.”

  “Yes, Mama-lo.” Awe shivered in the girl’s voice.

  Laurace shook her head. “That, for instance. I have told you before, I am only ‘Mama-lo’ at holy times.”

  “I, I’m sorry, ... ma’m.” Tears blurred sight of the woman who stood before the girl—a woman who looked young and yet somehow old as time; tall, slim, in a maroon dress of quiet elegance, a silver snake bracelet on her left wrist and at her throat a golden pendant whose intertwined circle and triangle surrounded a ruby; too dark to be called high yellow, but with narrow face, arched nose, hair straight and stiff. “I keeps forgettin’.”

  Laurace smiled and reached to pat the maid’s hand. “Don’t be afraid, dear.” Her voice, which could be a trumpet, sang like a violin. “You’re young, with much to learn. Mainly I want you to understand that my visitor today is special. That’s why no men will be around except Joseph, and he’s to stay with the car. You will help in the kitchen. Don’t leave it. No, there is nothing wrong with the way you serve at table, and you’re prettier than Conchita, but she ranks higher. Rank must be earned, by service as well as faith and study. Your time will come, I’m sure. Mainly, Cindy, you are to keep silence. You may not speak a single word to anybody, ever, about who my guest was or anything else you might happen to see or hear. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, ma’m.”

  “Good. Now be off with you, child. Oh, and do work harder on your English. You’ll never get anywhere in the world unless you sound educated. Are educated. Master Thomas tells me you aren’t deing so well at arithmetic, either. If you need extra help, ask him for it. Teaching isn’t just his job, it’s his calling.”

  “Y-yes, ma’m.”

  Laurace inclined her head and half closed her big eyes, as if listening. “Your good angel hovers near,” she said. “Go in peace.”

  The girl trotted off, pert in her starched uniform, radiant in her sudden joy.

  Alone, Laurace prowled about, picked up objects, fiddled with them, put them down again. She had made this room Victorian, oak wainscots, heavy furniture, thick carpet and drapes, glass-fronted cabinets for carefully chosen curios, a shelf of books still more select, on top of which rested the white bust of a man who had been black. Electric bulbs in a glass chandelier were dim; rain’s twilight crowded close. The effect was impressive without being overly strange.

  When, from a bow window, she saw the car she had dispatched arrive at the curb, she set restlessness aside and straightened. Most would depend on what impression she herself made.

  The chauffeur got out, unfolded a large umbrella, came around to the right side and opened the rear door. He escorted his passenger to the porch, where he rang the bell for her. Laurace didn’t see that, but she heard and knew. She likewise knew of the two maids who received the visitor, took her coat, and guided her down the hall.

  As she entered the room, Laurace went to meet her. “Welcome, welcome,” she said, and clasped both hands in hers.

  Clara Rosario’s fingers responded only slightly, as did her mouth to the smile offered her. She seemed alien, her own finery a little too bright-colored. Though her hair was marcelled midnight, skin tawny, lips full, she was of white race, hazel-eyed, straight-nosed, wide across the cheekbones. Laurace stood three inches higher. Nonetheless Clara carried herself boldly, as well she might, given a figure like hers.

  “Thank you,” she said, with a staccato accent. Glancing about: “Quite a place you got here.”

  “We’ll be private in the sanctum,” said Laurace. “It has a liquor cabinet. Or would you prefer tea or coffee? I’ll order it brought.”

  “Uh, thanks, but I could use a drink right now.” Clara laughed nervously.

  “You can stay for dinner, can’t you? I promise you a cordon bleu meal. By then we should have completed our ... business, and be able to relax and enjoy it.”

  “Well, not too late. They expect me there, you know? I jolly them along and— Could be trouble, too, for me to head off. Men are kind of on edge these days, wondering what’s going to go wrong next, you know?”

  “Besides, we don’t want anybody wondering what you’re up to,” Laurace agreed. “Don’t worry. I’ll send you back in plenty of time.” She took Clara’s arm. “This way, please.”

  When the door had shut behind them, Clara stood a while, tensed. Between curtained windows, the smaller room was wholly foreign; Straw mats -covered the floor, leopard pelts the curiously shaped chairs. Two African masks dominated one wall. On a shelf between them rested a human skull. Opposite stretched an eight-foot python skin. At the farther end stood a marble altar. Upon its red-bordered white cloth were a knife, a crystal bowl full of water, and a bronze candlestick with seven twisty branches. Lighting was from a single heavily shaded lamp on a table beside silver boxes for cigarettes and matches and an incense holder whose smoke turned breath pungent. Almost lost in their everydayness were the cabinet and console radio that flanked the entrance, or the coffee table which near the middle held glasses, ice bucket, seltzer, carafe, ashtrays, small dishes of delicacies.

  “Don’t be alarmed,” said Laurace. “You must have seen magicians’ lairs in the past.”

  Clara nodded. “A few times,” she gulped. “You mean you—”

  “Well, yes and no. These things aren’t for use; they’re meant to convey sacredness, power, mystery. Also,” Laurace added matter-of-fact!y, “nobody would dare open that door without my leave, under any circumstances whatsoever. We can talk in perfect safety.”

  Clara rallied. She would not have endured through her centuries without ample courage; and her hostess offered nothing but friendship, of a sort and provided it be possible. “I guess we’ve gone mighty different ways, you and me.
”

  “Time we bring them together. Would you like some music? I can get two good stations.”

  “No, let’s just talk.” Clara grimaced. “I don’t need music all the time, you know? I run a high-class house.”

  “Poor dear.” Much sorrow was in the gentleness. “You don’t have it so easy, do you? Have you ever?”

  Clara lifted her head. “I get by. How about that drink?”

  She chose a strong bourbon-and-branch, together with a cigarette, and settled onto the sofa before the table. Laurace poured a glass of Bordeaux and sat down on a chair across from her. For a space there was silence, apart from the dulled noise of the rainstorm.

  Then Clara said, half defiantly, “Well, what about it? What are we going to talk about?”

  “Suppose you start,” Laurace answered, her words continuing soft. “Whatever you want. This is just the first of pur real meetings. We’ll need many more. We have everything to learn about each other, and decide, and finally do.”

  Clara drew breath. “Okay,” she said fast. “How did you find me? When you showed up at my apartment and, and told me you’re immortal too—“ It had not brought on hysteria, but Laurace had soon realized she’d better go. Afterward it had been a matter of three careful telephone conversations, until now. “I thought at first you were crazy, you know? But you didn’t act it and how could a crazy person have found out? Later I wondered if you wanted to blackmail me, but that didn’t make sense either. Only ... all right, how do you know what I am, and how can 1 know you really are what you claim?” She raised her glass in a jerky motion and drank deep. “I don’t want to offend you, but, well, I’ve got to be more sure.”