by Lon Williams
Sir Frederick Peers drew back his emaciated shoulders. “I am Where”
“And I,” rumbled Sir George Yonderlook, “am When”
They recited in unison, “Together we are What, Where and When.”
Sir Edward pronounced gravely, “When I say what, it is What’s what. It can’t be anything else.”
Sir Frederick declared gloomily, “When I say where, it is Where’s where. It can’t be anywhere else.”
“And,” said Sir George, “when I say when, it is When’s when. When’s when is now. And that ends all. It is finality.”
* * * *
Winters was sorry he’d wandered into this scary place. He was out of sorts, too, with nervous, sweaty anger. “To me, you bozoes look like a flock of crows and talk like loonies. What have you got in that box?”
Sir George flung up his eyebrows again. “You have not told us your name, sir. However, judging by that tarnished piece of metal on your vest, I judge you are some sort of constable hereabouts.”
Being called a constable and having his badge belittled, stirred Lee’s wrath.
“I’m Deputy Marshal Lee Winters of Forlorn Gap, under orders from Marshal Hugo Landers of Brazerville to keep an eye peeled for wanted monkeys, wild-eyed loonies, and apes with odd ways of making a livin.’ I said, what have you got in that box?”
Sir George treated his demand as if he hadn’t heard it. Nevertheless, he gave indirect answer. “By profession, we three are archaeologists.”
“Arkie what?” gasped Winters.
“Ah,” sighed Sir George, “I fear we cast our pearls before swine when we endeavor to explain even so common a word to such an uncouth, unlettered, slim-shanked nobody. Let us to our work, my brothers.”
“Look here,” responded Winters, “according to what’s in books, we fit two wars to keep Englishmen out of this country. If you gravediggers don’t watch out, we’ll fight another. What have you got in that box?”
Sir Edward nodded at his brothers in art. “Brethren, this man’s mind seems incapable of more than one single fixation at a time. As to what is in our box, he will not be satisfied until he is shown. Let’s open its lid, Sir Frederick.”
Sir Frederick bent to unfasten a latch. “Do you speak as What?”
“I do, indeed, and you are spoken to as Where.”
Winters lowered his gunhand in expectation of violence.
What and Where each unfastened a latch. Slowly their box lid was lifted and turned back on its hinges.
But an instant before Winters could glimpse its contents, Cannon Ball snorted and jumped in wild fear. With bridle-bit clamped hard in his teeth, he struck for home. Lee, unseated, clung madly to saddle and mane, managed to recover and remount in a quick, flying leap.
A good mile had been put behind them before he again had Cannon Ball under control. By then his curiosity about what was in that box had been whipped down by other considerations. He figured he’d got away just two seconds before when was when. Right now he had no urge to go back, either.
* * * *
Two evenings later, Forlorn Gap had settled into its eerie quiet, except for one enlivened spot. That exception was in Doc Bogannon’s saloon, only institution of its kind that remained in a town which once roared and reeked with barrooms. There men sat at card tables, drank whiskey and played poker. Some sweated under an ever-present danger of abrupt death.
Suddenly at a table a middle-sized red-faced, red-haired player yelled, “Don’t touch it!” With jarring, furious speed he was on his feet, a forty-five in each hand. “I’m taking that pile. If anybody don’t think so, let him show his speed.”
A well-dressed, mild-mannered stranger shook his head calmly. “Bart Gosling, I had a royal flush.”
“A quick draw beats a royal flush any day,” Gosling returned tightly. “Want me to prove it? If you do, just touch that money.”
Nobody touched it. Gosling holstered his lefthand gun and scooped up his loot. His recent playmates got up and strolled quietly out.
Doc Bogannon had looked on from behind his bar. Bogie himself was large, with dark hair, splendid head and intellectual demeanor, a man of mystery who lived contentedly with his half-breed Shoshone wife, owned and operated a saloon as his only visible means of support.
What he saw, he regarded with mild interest and philosophical understanding. Forlorn Gap was a crossroads town, with Goodlett Hotel as its only house and Bogie’s saloon as its only place of recreation. Here strangers came and went, both good and bad, brilliant and stupid, rich and poor, lucky and unlucky. Whatever their breed, they had his tolerant sympathy. They were men, all journeying to meet their destinies, in part of their own making, in part designed and executed by forces not of their handiwork.
Bart Gosling, thought Bogie, as that man of fury came forward, was of an unlucky breed. Such men usually fell into pits they had dug for others, died when they least expected it because they were never so good as they regarded themselves and never so clever but that some crafty madman was cleverer.
“What would you have, sir?” Bogie asked politely as Gosling leaned against his bar and stared at him arrogantly.
“Whiskey,” Gosling stormed. “What did you think I wanted?”
“Whiskey,” Bogie replied politely.
“Then why did you ask me what I wanted? Why didn’t you just pour me some whiskey?”
“In my cloistered youth I was taught never to be presumptuous,” Bogie replied. He set a glass, filled it and stood his bottle beside it.
Gosling tossed down his drink and helped himself to another. He put down his empty glass and leered at Bogie. “Charge it,” he spewed. After a look of insolent defiance, he walked back and forth, kicked over a table surrounded by drinkers, came back and filled his glass again. “Charge it, I said; or didn’t you hear me?”
Bogie was about to tell him he kept no charge accounts, when his batwings swung in and a lean, weatherbeaten, dark-mustached, familiar personage tramped in.
“Winters!” exclaimed Bogie. He lowered his voice as Winters strode up. “Winters, am I glad to see you!”
Winters planked down a coin. “Wine, Doc.”
“Wine it is, Winters.” Bogie quickly filled a glass, looked at Winters searchingly, and lifted his brows. “You look peeved about something, Winters.
Has your wife given you a scolding? Or did your latest wanted monkey get away?” Winters leaned forward. “Doc, I want to ask you something.”
“By all means.”
Winters indicated his official badge. “Doc, do you see this star?”
“How could I help seeing anything so bright and shining?”
“Are you sure it don’t look tarnished?”
“A star in heaven couldn’t be more flawless.”
“All right,” said Winters.
“Now, let me ask you a question,” said Bogie. “Has your wife berated you for neglecting your badge? Or did she shine it for you, then berate you for neglecting to thank her?”
“Neither,” said Winters. “Two days ago my badge was made fun of by three snooty Englishmen.” He glanced left, then looked at Bogie. He jerked his head at a freckled redhead who stood a few feet away and regarded Winters from contemptuous, whiskey-reddened eyes. “Who’s he, Doc?”
Bogie alerted instantly. “My apology, Winters. I want you to meet one of my newest and most esteemed friends, Mr. Bartemus Gosling. Mr. Gosling, Deputy Winters.”
Neither showed any pleasure at this courteous introduction.
Gosling spat at a spot midway between them. “Deputy marshals ain’t my favorite people. Fact is, I heartily despises ’em” Winters leaned his back against Bogie’s bar. “You know, Doc, this feller reminds me of when I was in second grade in school down in Trinity Valley, in Texas. We had a teacher named Watlington Jones. Us scholars all called him High-pockets. One day I come across a word in my reader I didn’t know what it was. So up front I goes to ask High-pockets.
“I puts my finger under it and I sa
ys, ‘What’s that word, Professor?’ Old High-pockets takes a good long look and says, ‘Young feller, that word is go-sling.’ Would you believe it, Doc, I was ridin’ herd on a thousand steers in West Texas before I ever knowed that word was not go-sling at all; it was gosling.”
Red Bart’s inflamed eyes gleamed. “Are you poking fun at my name, Winters?”
“No,” said Winters. “I was merely hinting that your name, pronounced another way, contains a bit of advice to its owner.”
“I don’t need advice, Winters. I told you I despises deputy marshals. Maybe you didn’t hear me. It could become mighty unhealthy for you around here.”
* * * *
By and large, Winters realized that he lived a scared life. Yet some hidden spring of courage poured steadiness into his blood when going got rough. “Being a deputy marshal is right unhealthy, so I’m told,” he said casually. “But I’m still alive, Gosling, and in fair to middling health. Does that mean anything to you?”
Gosling thought it over. Discretion tempered his valor. He spat again. “Every dog has his day, Winters. Sooner or later, you’ll have yours.”
Winters, aware that Gosling had cooled off, turned to Bogie and put down another coin. “A drink for your new and esteemed friend, Doc. I’m late for supper. Good-night.”
Gosling waited until Winters was out then poured himself another drink. “Charge it,” he sneered. “I don’t accept charity from no lawman.” He strode back and forth. Again he kicked over a table. When objection was raised by its users, he snapped hands to both guns. “All right, want to do something about it?” To show how tough he was, he kicked over still another table.
Then he turned and stared as Bogie’s batwings swung and three tall, gloomy strangers marched in, one behind another, all in step, all dressed alike in long black coats and round black hats. Only their faces were markedly different. One face was large and moon-like; one was centered by an extraordinarily long nose; one was elongated and thin. They marched as if by prearrangement to an unoccupied table, sat down and assumed attitudes of waiting.
Bogie hurried around. “At your service, gentlemen.”
One said, “I am Sir Edward Kiewit. My companions are Sir Frederick Peers and Sir George Yonderlook. We would have wine, my good man.”
Bogie bowed respectfully. “Wine it is, my valiant sirs.” He backed away, turned, promptly came back with glasses and a bottle. He said as he poured wine, “It is not uncommon for an Englishman or so to visit here. But three English knights—ah, that is a distinction.”
Sir George tossed his heavy eyebrows upward, then lowered one of them. “We are archaeologists, my good man. Though an archaeologist retains his nationality for what it may be worth, he is truly a man of all climes and places, interested in all times, as well, alive in all accepted ways, yet forever touching fingers with death. He is an explorer of tombs, an interpreter of things that were and are no more.”
“You are a most venerable breed of men,” declared Bogie. “But what tombs do you find to explore in this jumble of mountains?”
“What we are given to know,” Sir Edward Kiewit proclaimed in a melancholy voice, “is not given to ordinary men. As for me, I am he who knows what’s what.”
“And I,” announced Sir Frederick gloomily, “am he who knows where’s where.”
Sir George nodded. “And I am he who knows when’s when.”
Bogie’s own eyebrows lifted. “Most interesting,” he said nervously.
Bart Gosling had sauntered to their table. He put one foot in a vacant chair and eyed them with drunken contempt. “You fellers sound like a bunch of squirrels. Can you play poker?”
They looked at one another with lively interest and nodded.
Sir George said resonantly, “We merely dropped in for wine, a bit for our stomachs’ sake. We could play poker, if we were of present mind to do so; indeed, we could take all you have in one short evening.”
“I’ve got a thousand smackers which says you can’t,” Gosling bragged arrogantly. He touched his sixguns significantly. “And I’ve got a couple of powder-pushers here which says you won’t.”
* * * *
Sir George and his companions exchanged eyebrow talk.
Sir Frederick pinched his long nose. “No, friend Gosling. We adhere to original intentions. However, we should deem it an honor to drink with one so daring. Wine or whiskey, sir?”
Gosling eased into a chair. “Whiskey.” Sir Frederick nodded at Bogie. “A quart of whiskey, my good man.”
Bogie responded, but with misgiving. He figured something was going to happen to his esteemed friend Gosling, and he hated to think of what it might be. However, he had never held himself in general terms as his brother’s keeper. In this particular instance, fraternal instinct was so low as to be practically nil.
A few minutes later he saw them escorting Gosling away, one walking before him, one on each side. Those beside him gave him physical support, which indicated to Bogie that Gosling was soaking drunk.
Outside, refreshed by night air, Gosling roused what remained of his own power and demanded where they were taking him.
“To your long home,” replied Sir Edward. “When a man is down, as you are, forced to place his fate in other hands, there is no substitute for friends. You are especially blessed, in that you have three. We three are taking you to where you can rest and sleep. Aye! and sleep.”
“Where is my home?” demanded Gosling.
“A man’s home is where he rests and sleeps,” said Sir George.
Gosling was dreamily aware of being led by moonlight to a vehicle to which were hitched two splendid black horses.
“Our carriage,” announced Yonderlook.
“Looks like a blasted hack to me,” Gosling protested drunkenly. “I don’t need no hack. Take your stinking hands off me. I got a room at Goodlett Hotel.”
Kiewit and Peers seized his arms and bound them behind his back. “When we would do one a favor,” said Peers, “we expect cooperation, not resistance.” When Gosling began to kick at their shins, they likewise bound his legs. In short order they relieved him of money and guns, lifted him up and laid him down in a long pine box mattressed with a few straws and filled with vile odors.
“Help!” Gosling screamed.
But a lid was slammed down and latched, so that his screams were confined within their own alcoholic mist. Then began a furious, clattering journey, full of jars, jolts and bounces, sobering and horrifying in their effects. Horses and hack hove to a miserable eternity later, and Gosling’s narrow prison was lifted from its swaying carriage and dropped upon more solid support.
“Let me out of here!” he yelled.
“Of course,” a ghostly voice responded. “That is what we intend to do.”
* * * *
It was not done immediately, however. Gosling next felt himself being lifted, carried up a steep incline, over a summit, and down on its farther side. Once more he was dropped. Then his box lid was turned back.
He gazed upward at a sky filled with bright stars. “It’s a good thing you opened up,” he said, his own voice sounding flat and unreal. “If it’s a joke you want, you’ll get it. Just wait till I get on my feet.”
They turned his box over and dumped him out on his face. With rough dispatch they lashed him from head to feet to a stout plank then turned him, face-up.
“Now,” rumbled Yonderlook, “what have you to say, most unconvincing braggart?”
Gosling laughed crazily. Of course this was only one of his liquor-soaked nightmares. He’d wake up, and it would be over. He heard himself say in that hazy, torturing land of dreams, “What are you going to do with me?”
“Ah,” replied Yonderlook, “being archaeologists, we plunder as thieves among these ancient sepulchers. But we are honest thieves. We take their unfeeling dead, but we pay them back in kind, bone for bone.”
Kiewit said, “We are three fates, so to speak. I am What. When What says what, it is What’s what, and ther
e can be no fate but death.”
“And I,” declared Peers, “am Where. When Where says where, it is Where’s where, and fate can overtake you nowhere but here.”
“And I,” said Yonderlook, “am When.
When When says when, it is When’s when, and when is now, with doom and with finality. Let us to our work, my brothers.”
Gosling did not scream. He laughed. He was so glad this was only a dream. He dreamed he was dropped into a pit, that dirt was scraped in a flood upon him. But he’d had worse dreams. He was not afraid. He was about to smother, but often he’d been in that state just before waking. Yet he must wake soon. He must wake…
* * * *
Winters had late supper, yet not so late as to deny him precious minutes with his beautiful wife before a fireplace in their cozy cottage.
After Myra had briefly watched him, she said, “Lee, why do you keep polishing your deputy-marshal badge?”
He held it up for inspection. “Reason enough,” he replied positively. “A snooty loony posing as an English archaeologist called it a tarnished piece of metal. I didn’t like it.”
Myra was curious. “Archaeologist?”
“Right. But don’t ask me what one is. Only thing I know is, more than anything else in nature they looked like buzzards.”
“Why, Lee!” Myra exclaimed. “Archaeologists are scholarly people.”
“What do they do for a living?”
“From what I’ve read, they usually work for universities and museums. They study old things, especially old tombs and ruins of ancient times and cities. They dig.”
“They do, don’t they?” said Winters. “Well, yes.”
“And rob graves?”
“Not just any grave. Old ones, like tombs of Egypt. It’s for education. They dig up old records, some written on stones, or on clay tablets, or on walls of temples.”
“And people?”