Mad Amos Malone

by Alan Dean Foster

  Such imaginings, of course, do nothing if transported to the Old West. There rise no grand temples to Zeus in South Dakota, reverberate no sounds of Roman legions marching on their way to battle in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. But while the Empire has vanished, the language remains. So one day I found myself amusedly translating one of the West’s most iconic symbols into that wonderful old language of Cicero and Tacitus, and with nothing else to go on, handed the result over to Amos Malone to see what he could do with it.

  * * *

  —

  The clerk frowned as the Indian entered the hotel. Fortunately, it was late and the last of the regular guests had already gone off to bed. The nearby parlor was empty. He hurried around from behind the front desk.

  “We don’t allow Indians in here. Get out.”

  The young man was simply dressed in pants and open shirt of trade cotton. His black hair hung down to his neck and was secured by a red headband. To the clerk he appeared as one of the unclean. The visitor ignored the order and stared with undisguised curiosity at the etched bowl of the imported hurricane lamp that illuminated the entryway.

  “I told you to get out,” the clerk repeated, louder but not loud enough to disturb the guests. He wondered if he should wake the owner, Mrs. Hedrick, or maybe even send for the sheriff. “You understand English? Savvy?”

  “I’m looking for a man,” came the soft reply. “Big man.”

  “Listen, you, I don’t care if you’re looking for…” He hesitated. “How big a man?”

  “Very big. Bigger than man ought to be. Big crazy man.”

  Reflexively, the clerk glanced up the stairs. By an odd coincidence, someone fitting that terse description had checked in early this morning. “His name wouldn’t happen to be Malone, would it?”

  “That him.”

  “What do you want with Mr. Malone?”

  “Got business with him.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “What kind of business not your business.”

  “Look, heathen, I…” But again the clerk hesitated. Something about this young savage marked him as different from the tired members of the Gila River tribe the clerk saw in the village of Phoenix during the day, trading vegetables and hides and game for simple tools and muslin from back East. He decided that it would be better not to wake Mrs. Hedrick, better still not to fetch the sheriff.

  He also noticed for the first time that his visitor was very tired, as though he’d come a long way through the January night in an awful hurry. Best not to cross a man in a great hurry even if he was only an Indian.

  “Up the stairs…quietly. People are sleeping. Can you read?”

  A single nod.

  “Number six. Down the hall on your right.”

  “Thanks.”

  The clerk watched until the young man disappeared onto the upper landing. Then he quickly checked to make sure the pistol in the drawer behind the front desk was loaded, even though the Indian had entered unarmed.

  As for the guest whose rest the visitor was about to disturb, that was none of the clerk’s business, was it? Besides, he was more than a little certain that the occupant of room number six could take care of himself.

  At the end of the hall the young man knocked on a door. A voice boomed back from within.

  “Go away! Get lost! A pox on your privates, tarantulas in your boots, and ticks in your beard, and I promise you worse if you don’t leave me in peace!”

  The young man considered this thoughtfully, noted that he had no beard, and replied, “May I come in?”

  Silence. Then, “Oh, hell, come on, then.”

  It was dimly lit inside. A single lamp glowed on a far wall by the window. His eyes adjusted to the weak illumination. Then he closed the door behind him. Quietly, as the nervous white man downstairs had requested.

  Standing next to the lamp and blowing out a long match was a thickly bearded white man of indeterminate age. There was silver in his beard and hair, but in odd places. He reminded the young Indian more of a black bear than a man, and the profusion of visible hair did nothing to dispel the image.

  In the middle of the room was a wide bed. The top sheets had been turned down, but the bottom linen was as yet undisturbed.

  A quick examination of the visitor was enough to satisfy the guest that no harm was intended. So, in addition to putting down the extinguished match, he also put aside the big LeMat pistol he’d been holding in his other hand.

  “Come on in, son.”

  “I am in.”

  “Well, then, come on in farther, dammit.”

  The visitor obeyed, staring at the stained long johns that were all that stood between the giant and nakedness of an unpredictable nature.

  “What brings you to civilization, son, as the locals delude themselves into callin’ it?”

  “You crazy big man?”

  “Haw! Guess I shouldn’t laugh, though. Most folks’d agree with you. My name’s Malone. Amos Malone. Or Mad Amos Malone, if you prefers the colloquial.”

  “I do not understand your words.”

  “You got company. Folks can be weird about namin’ other folks. Unconventional I may be, but not the other. Leastwise, I think not.”

  “Amos Malone, I have trouble. My people have trouble.”

  “Well, now, I’m sorry t’ hear that. What did you say your name was?”

  “Cheshey.”

  “Okay, Cheshey. Now, if you’ll just tell me…Cheshey? You got a grandpappy called Ma-Hok-Naweh?”

  “That is my grandfather, yes.” Cheshey began to feel more secure in this small dark room with the crazy big white man.

  Malone turned reflective. “Good ol’ Ma-Hok-Naweh. Chief medicine man to the Papagos. Great man, your grandpappy. What brings his grandson so far north?”

  “Do you know of the Big House that stands between here and the home of my people?”

  “Casa Grande? Sure I do. A place full o’ long memories and much magic. Spirit home.”

  Now Cheshey was nodding eagerly. “Crazy white men want to run the trail for their Iron Horse right next to it. Grandfather says the shaking the Iron Horse makes will make Big House fall down. If this happens, times will be made very bad for us as well as for white man.”

  Malone frowned and stroked his impenetrable beard. “Sure as hellfire would. I’d heard that the new Southern Pacific was goin’ to cut north so they could make a station here in Phoenix. Goin’ to lay track right alongside the Big House, huh? We’d better do somethin’ about that right quick. Your grandpappy’s correct.”

  “He waits for us at the Big House. He told me to find you here, said you would help. Would you really help us against your own people?”

  “What makes you think the railroad men are my people, son? There’s only two kinds of folk in this world: the good folk and the bad folk. Mine’s the good folk. They come in all shapes and colors, just like the bad ones. Don’t never let nobody tell you different.”

  “I will remember, Amos Malone,” Cheshey said solemnly. “You must come quick, while there is still time. You have a horse?”

  “If you can call Worthless a horse. I’m comin’ as fast as I can, young feller-me-lad.” As he spoke, he was dragging on his buckskins, then the goatskin boots. When at last he was ready, he paused for a final lingering glance at the still-unused bed. “Real sheets,” he muttered darkly. “I almost made it. Them railroad people better listen to reason, ’cause I’m mad enough at ’em already.”

  * * *

  —

  Of course, they didn’t.

  “Let me make certain I understand you, sir. You want me to move the route of the line several miles eastward to make sure that the vibrations from passing trains won’t knock over a pile of Indian rocks?”

  “That’s about the sum of it,” Malone agreed
.

  The foreman took his feet off the desk, rose, and stalked over to the wall where the map was hung. The only reason he didn’t laugh at his outlandish visitor outright was because he had the distinct feeling that to have done so would have been unhealthy. He would have to be satisfied with being in the right.

  He ran one finger along the map.

  “Look here, sir. I didn’t buy this godforsaken territory from the Mexicans, and I wouldn’t give you a mug of fresh spit for the lot of it! There’s nothing here but cactus, sagebrush, mesquite that sucks the water out of the earth, and Indians too poor to spit it back again. But buy it we did, and the Southern Pacific is chartered to span it from Texas to California. I aim to see that done exactly as laid out by the company’s surveyors.”

  “But why d’you have to pass so close to Casa Grande?”

  “If you must know, I think some fool with a sextant and too much time on his hands decided the old relic might be worth a passing glance from passengers.”

  “Not if it falls down, it won’t.”

  “That’s not my problem; that’s the Indians’ problem.” He walked back to his desk so he could be closer to the Colt that resided in the top compartment there. “Anyway, the decision’s already been made. What’s the big ruckus over an old stone tepee, anyway?”

  “It’s not a tepee. This ain’t the Plains Country, friend. Big House is thousands o’ years old.”

  “Sure looks it, but how do you know that?”

  “You can taste it. The air in them old rooms reeks o’ antiquity. So do the red clay pots you dig up inside sometimes. It was built by a people the local Indians call the Ancient Ones. Still the tallest building in this territory, if you don’t count a few mission steeples. You go shakin’ it to bits, and there’ll be hell to pay.”

  “Are the Indians making threats, Mr. Malone? I have the authority to request Army protection, if necessary.”

  “No, they ain’t makin’ threats. I’m just relayin’ to you what ol’ Ma-Hok-Naweh told me last night.”

  “Ma-Hok…you mean that old savage who’s been living up there?” The foreman smiled. “I think we can handle any attack he might mount.”

  Malone leaned forward and put a big hand on the desk. The wood creaked under the rough, callused skin. There were some mighty peculiar scars in the skin between the thumb and big finger. “Listen, friend, I don’t think you understand me. You’re not just dealin’ with one senior shaman. You’re dealin’ with the Ancient Ones. Now, if’n I was you, I’d make it a point to shift the line a mile or so to the east.” Having had his say, he turned without a good-bye and strode out.

  The foreman was glad to see him leave. It would make a good story to tell the work gangs. Mountain men were kind of rare hereabouts, and it wasn’t every day you got a visit from one big as a house and crazier than a bedbug.

  * * *

  —

  It was cold in the desert that night. In the Sonoran summer you prayed every day for the heat to dissipate, and then in the winter you prayed for it to return. Those who survived and prospered in such country realized early on that whatever deity was involved, it had made its decision about the land a long time ago, and constant pleading for change would get you nothing but a sore throat that no change in the weather would make any better.

  At Malone’s back, Casa Grande—the Big House—the place of the Ancient Ones, rose four stories toward the new moon. Windows like square black eyes gaped at the clouds milling uncertainly overhead. A big rattler slithered into a crack in the caliche, and Malone listened to the final surprised squeak of a startled kangaroo rat.

  For a while he concentrated on listening to the sounds of the snake swallowing. Then he let his gaze come to rest on the figure seated across the small fire from him.

  Ma-Hok-Naweh’s age was unknown save to himself and a few intimate friends. A true shaman keeps his real age private, which is understandable since it’s the age not of his body but of his soul. Malone held Ma-Hok-Naweh in high regard. He was a true medicine man, not an accomplished fake like Broken Water of the Ute.

  A few ribbed saguaros stood sentinel behind the old man, guarding him from the night. At their bases, lines ran through the sandstone, across his face, to continue down into the stone on which they sat.

  “The Ancient Ones are restless. They are restless because they are frightened for their house in this world.”

  As Ma-Hok-Naweh spoke, his grandson Cheshey sat cross-legged nearby, watching and listening without comment. A wise boy. Like his grandfather and like Malone, he wore only a breechcloth and the ever-present headband.

  “How will the Ancient Ones make their fear known?” Malone asked.

  “I cannot tell, my friend.” The shaman studied the sand pictures before them, watching as the wind played with the granules stained that afternoon with fresh vegetable dyes. As the sand shifted, the earth shifted with it, for the sand is of the earth and knows its ways. “All I know is that it will take the form of the white man’s own medicine, but seen through the eyes of the Ancient Ones.”

  “Will many die?”

  Again the old eyes examined the play of wind and sand. “It may be. I am saddened. Though I argue with the white man’s steel trail, I do not wish to see him die. There are many who are like well-meaning but ignorant braves, who only follow the orders of their chief, he who makes war upon the land, and question not what he says.”

  Now the moon was hidden by dark clouds, and the rumble of approaching thunder rolled over the paloverde and the thornbushes.

  “Can nothing be done?”

  “Not by this old one. Perhaps by you, if you would wish to try. You know the white man’s ways as well as our ways. The spirits might look kindly on you as an intermediary. With help and will, you might do something.”

  Carefully he reached down and collected a handful of green sand and put it in a small leather sack. He did the same with a palmful of ocher grains. Malone accepted both sacks and put them aside.

  “Keep them apart, for they contain both life and death,” Ma-Hok-Naweh admonished him. “You know the words. Use the sand and the words together and you may turn the unrest of the Ancient Ones. Do not be startled by what you may see. Remember that it is only white man’s medicine as seen through the eyes of my ancestors. And if you cannot work this thing, get out, get out quickly, my friend!”

  Malone rose, his near-naked body massive against the ancient wall behind him. “Don’t worry about that, old teacher. I don’t aim to die fer no damn-fool railroad man. But maybe I kin save his braves in spite of themselves.”

  Ma-Hok-Naweh stared worriedly at the sands as his friend dressed, mounted, and rode off toward the south, toward the railhead. After a while his grandson spoke for the first time all evening, his voice a whisper as befitted the enormity of the occasion.

  “Do you think he can do anything, Grandfather?”

  “No, I do not think so. But he is a strange man, this Amos Malone, even for a white man. It may be that I am wrong and that he can do something. Also, you must always remember that he is crazy, and that is a great help in dealing with the spirits.” Ma-Hok-Naweh looked to the ground. Dark spots began to appear on the dirt. “Now help me inside the Big House, grandson. It is the best place now for me to be.”

  The boy looked around uneasily. “Because the wrath of the Ancient Ones is upon us?”

  “No, you young fool. Because it is starting to rain.”

  * * *

  —

  Worthless was breathing hard when Malone rode into the railhead camp. But Worthless always breathed hard, whether he’d been ridden ten miles or ten feet. It was his form of protest at being subjected to the indignity of having a man on his back.

  The foreman had a tent all to himself, set apart from those shared in common by the laborers. Malone strode inside, reached into the bed, and yanked the
foreman to a sitting position. The man weighed well over two hundred pounds, but that didn’t keep Malone from shaking him like a child.

  “Wake up, Dungannon! Wake up, you son of a spastic leprechaun, or I’ll leave you to die in your bed!”

  “Huh? Whuzza…You! Let go of me, you bloody trespassing madman. I’ll see you hung in Tucson if I can’t have you lynched on the spot! Let go of me, or I’ll…” He paused, and his voice changed. “What’s that?”

  “What’s what?” So mad was Malone, so intent was he on shaking some sense into this fool, that he’d tuned everything else out. Now he let his senses roam.

  Sure enough, there it was. Whatever it was.

  He let go of the foreman’s nightshirt. Dungannon pulled on his boots and in nightshirt and peaked cap followed the mountain man toward the doorway of the tent.

  Dungannon sounded confused when he spoke. “Sounds like a train coming,” he said. “Don’t know why they’d be bringing in extra supplies at night. Funny they’re not sounding a whistle. Guess they don’t want to wake us….No, there’s the whistle, all right.”

  Malone strained his senses at the night. There was more outside the tent than the smell and sounds of rain falling steadily, more than the suggestion of metal coming closer. He could sense it, and it wasn’t good.

  “That’s no train a-comin’, Dungannon, and that weren’t no whistle you heard.”

  “Sure and it was, you great deaf amadán. There, hear it again?”

  “Listen, man!” Malone was running out of patience and he knew they were running out of time. “That’s no train whistle. That’s a whinny, though like none I ever heard before.”

  He knew what he knew, and so did Worthless. He’d seen his docked unicorn fight off a wounded grizzly with his front hooves and dance neatly around a whole den of jittery rattlers without bucking or getting himself bit. But now Worthless was pulling frantically at the hitching rail where he’d been tied, eyes wild like with locoweed—even the squinty one with the white circle around it—bucking and yelling hoarsely. Worthless, who was usually afraid of nothing.