Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  Having made certain of that, Kenton went on swiftly to the cenote, which was almost at the jungle’s edge. No one was visible there, and he hesitated, staring around. The black pillars of the trees lifted on the other side of the pool.

  Where was the Indio girl?

  She seemed suddenly to rise from the ground beside Kenton, a soft, warm statue in the moonlight. Her lips were parted, and her eyes were wide with terror.

  “Come.” The girl’s whisper held a vibrant pitch of danger. She took Kenton’s arm, urged him into the deeper shadow under the trees. The pool glistened like silver at their feet.

  “You said—danger,” the white man said softly. “Well?”

  “That Senor Quayle, he is a devil,” she said. “He means to kill you.”

  “Go on,” Kenton said.

  “You kill him—yes? Otherwise you cannot save yourself.”

  “Why do you tell me this?”

  There was a silence. Then the girl said:

  “I am Tucha. Senor Quayle took me from Pablo, my man, and killed Pablo when he tried to keep me. That was a week ago—”

  A footstep sounded, and a black bulk loomed nearby.

  “The blue knife—beware of it,” the Indio girl said in a terrified, frantic whisper and turned to escape.

  But she was too late.

  Quayle’s cane shot out and Tucha tripped over it with a catlike twist. She was up again instantly, but Quayle’s hand had fastened in a viselike grip on her arm. The gaunt man’s eyes were little specks of light under the shaggy brows. His sagging, yellow face was corpselike in the moonlight.

  “Get back to the house, Kenton,” said Quayle in a dead voice. Tucha cried out protestingly, fearfully. Her captor did not even spare her a glance. The superintendent shook his head. “Sorry, Quayle. You interrupted a private conversation.”

  In the moonlight Kenton saw the other’s swift movement. The blue barrel of a gun flickered. But before Quayle could bring it to bear, Kenton acted, his foot arcing up like an arrow. He neatly kicked the weapon out of his opponent’s hand. It sailed up into the air and fell splashing into the pool.

  Kenton went charging in. Caught by surprise, Quayle gave back a few paces, and his cane dropped from his fingers. Tucha was cowering in the shadow, white showing around her pupils. She was making soft, whimpering noises.

  Then Quayle recovered, drove a vicious blow at Kenton’s midriff. But it didn’t quite land. Kenton twisted aside, pumped sledgehammer blows at his opponent. Quayle closed in, his yellow teeth bared in a snarl of fury. His knees jerked up, trying to grind into Kenton’s groin.

  BRIEFLY agony lanced through the latter, and his leg blocked Quayle’s. He struck savagely, furiously, and saw blood gush from the gaunt man’s nose as cartilage ground into pulp under his fist. Quayle screamed with rage, and clawed his nails down Kenton’s face.

  It didn’t work. The superintendent was fighting like a machine—remorseless, vicious, inexorable. Quayle was no match for him. He tried to stop a blow with his arm, failed, and went reeling back, his lips split and bleeding. Breath wheezed and rattled in his throat.

  “Damn you!” he choked. “I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?” Kenton mocked, and moved forward, head lowered. Quayle let out a harsh, inarticulate cry and dropped to the ground. Involuntarily the other paused, and Tucha cried out in warning.

  But Kenton did not see what was happening in time. Quayle’s hand found the cane. He wrenched at it—and a thin, silvery blade glittered. A sword-cane!

  Quayle bounded up and lunged as Kenton plunged forward desperately. The steel did not penetrate Kenton’s chest, where it had been aimed. It drove painfully into his left arm, instead, sending a red-hot flame through his biceps muscle.

  Involuntarily Kenton went off guard in his agony, and in that fatal moment Quayle put all his strength into a sledgehammer blow that crashed against Kenton’s jaw and sent him down and out.

  The ground came up and hit the back of his head. Kenton was briefly conscious of Tucha’s hopeless cry, of Quayle’s snarling laugh. And then the lights went out completely . . .

  Firelight brought him back to consciousness. He had a splitting headache, and his left arm was throbbing. But the blood had clotted. That was something, anyway.

  He was lying in a native hut, and firelight shone through the doorway. Dark figures were passing here and there outside, and a post had been erected near the flames. The girl, Tucha, was bound to it, her mouth effectually stopped by a gag.

  Kenton, too, was tied, he realized. He investigated as well as he was able, but the knots were out of his reach. He could only lie helpless, waiting. Was there anything in the hut which he might use to cut his thongs? His gaze searched the gloomy interior, but the hut had been cleared of everything. There was not even a sharp-edged stone on the ground.

  A figure paused at the hut’s door, peered in, and grew larger. It was Quayle. As he came into the shaft of light Kenton saw, with some satisfaction, that the other’s face was cut and swollen, and disfigured with plasters. Quayle’s eyes were vicious now.

  He swung his malacca cane and it slashed viciously across Kenton’s cheeks.

  “Keep it up, if it’ll make you feel better,” the prisoner said. “Why not kill me right now? I might get away.”

  QUAYLE grinned unpleasantly.

  “I don’t think you will. I’ll kill you, all right, but in my own way. Slowly.” His fingers explored the bandage over his nose, and he winced with pain.

  “The girl didn’t tell me anything,” Kenton said. “She was just trying to date me up.”

  “You’re lying. I heard—well, never mind. Tucha will get her lesson, and it’ll be a lesson for the natives, too.” He swished the stick through the air.

  “You’d better kill me now,” Kenton said. “I’m warning you, Quayle. If I once get loose, I won’t stop till you’re dead.”

  His answer was a sneering laugh. Quayle went out. Kenton heard his shrill voice issuing peremptory orders.

  “Muster around, you beggars! All of you! I want you to see this!”

  Kenton tested his bonds again, but it was useless. At a sudden thought, he painfully investigated to see if his money belt was missing. It was, as he suspected. Well, the whole plot was beginning to grow clearer now.

  Something moved in the shadow behind him. He turned his head sharply, trying to see in the gloom. The thatch wall of the hut was shaking. A flicker of light slid through it. A machete!

  It thudded softly to the ground. From outside the hut, a voice—the voice of a native—whispered:

  “Tucha is our friend. You help her, white man. Kill Senor Quayle.”

  And then the sound of naked feet was heard padding off into silence.

  As Kenton maneuvered into a position to use the knife, his mind was working fast. Apparently the Indios were under Quayle’s thumb, but they didn’t like it. Or, at least, they didn’t like to see those of their own blood maltreated.

  Remembering what Tucha had said about Quayle killing her man, Kenton grinned coldly. The Indios were good friends and worse enemies. They might be afraid to attack Quayle, but they would be glad to help Kenton—if that could be done without danger of detection.

  The sharp, well-balanced blade made short work of the rawhide thongs. Presently they fell away, and Kenton stood up, massaging his numbed limbs into circulation. His left arm was limp and helpless. If he only had a gun, he thought.

  There would be guns in the big house. But could he get there unseen? Apparently all the village was watching the fire and the girl bound to her post. Holding the machete lightly in his right hand, Kenton slipped out of the hut.

  Bad luck struck without waiting. A stray cur, wandering through the village, saw Kenton and set up a harsh yapping. Involuntarily the white man dodged back. But he was too late.

  He saw the natives around the fire turn, startled. He saw Tucha twist around to stare. After a momentary pause Quayle came running forward, looming larger and larger in
silhouette. There was a gun in his hand.

  Kenton hesitated in the shadow of the hut’s doorway. Then it was too late for escape. If he tried to run, he would be an easy target for Quayle’s lead. He jumped back into a dark corner of the hut. Perhaps Quayle wouldn’t see him there, for a moment. And a moment would be enough. Yet, in a rough and tumble scrap, Kenton was fearfully handicapped by his useless arm.

  ABOVE the shouts of the natives came the thudding of booted feet. Quayle hesitated outside the doorway. Then he leaned in, the pistol ready, a shadowy bulk potent with deadly menace. Finally he saw Kenton.

  The latter, flattened against the thatch wall, lifted his right arm as Quayle fired. The haft of the machete was cool against his palm. With all his force he hurled the weapon.

  Searing agony tore along his ribs. Quayle shot again as the machete flashed through the air. Then the hut was filled with the booming reverberations of gunfire. Bullets thudded into the ground.

  Quayle’s head was drawn down, his chin tight against his chest, as though trying to hold the blade of the machete in place. The revolver fell from his hand. Then he slipped silently down and lay motionless in the doorway.

  Redder than the firelight was the wide gash in his throat. The knife had found its target.

  Kenton sprang forward, scooped up the gun, and hurdled Quayle’s body. He cast a swift glance around. The natives had not moved, but running toward him from the direction of the big house was the trader Harrigan, his fat face glistening with sweat. A Winchester was cradled in his arms.

  Kenton lifted the revolver and took aim. But before he could move, Harrigan had taken in the situation. He slowed to a stop by Quayle’s body, the rifle falling slowly from his hands to the ground.

  “You—you killed him,” he gasped in a queer, incredulous tone.

  “Yeah,” Kenton said, his cold eyes searching. “Well?”

  “Thank God,” Harrigan whispered. He turned a vindictively triumphant gaze on the motionless body. “I—I was his prisoner, Kenton. Since he came to the river, I haven’t known a moment’s peace. But you killed him!” Suddenly Harrigan reeled against the wall of the hut, shaken with a storm of half-hysterical sobs.

  “He’s dead! Dead!”

  Kenton nodded . . .

  Later, under the swinging punkah, Harrigan explained. The table at which they sat was heaped with food and liquor, and the trader was thrusting both upon his guest. Feeling again the comfortable tightness of his money-belt about his waist, Kenton allowed himself to relax, though his nerves were still jumping from the recent peril. He sipped champagne that was forced upon him, and watched Harrigan slowly drink himself into a stupor.

  “Quayle came here a year ago, yes,” Harrigan answered Kenton’s question. “He threatened to kill me if I didn’t play along. What could I do, Kenton? There was no way to get help. If I’d tried to escape, he’d have shot me. If I’d tried to warn anybody, the same thing.”

  Kenton nodded, stretching his lean body. The rattan chair creaked under his weight.

  “The old robber baron idea—establishing yourself on a trade route to rob the passers-by,” Kenton said. “I get the idea, Harrigan. When that Indio rammed my boat and overturned it, it wasn’t an accident.”

  THE trader nodded, reaching for the huge basket of fruit before him.

  “It’s happened before.”

  “He must have had a spy in the mining camp,” Kenton said slowly. “There was a mark on the prow of my piragua.”

  “It was Gunther, the bookkeeper at the mine,” Harrigan explained. “Whenever a man quit and collected his full pay, he managed to cut a mark on his boat, so Quayle could see it and send out a native to cause an ‘accident’. He’d kill the man, take his money, and get rid of the body. The ’gators—” He shuddered. “It’s been hell. If I could have saved a single man—”

  “You’re an accomplice, you know,” Kenton said bluntly.

  “I’ll stand trial. I couldn’t help myself . . . But Quayle’s dead now. Good God! The man was a devil!” Harrigan shivered, and gulped champagne. “Well, it’s over now. More champagne?” He selected a ripe melon from the fruit basket as Kenton shook his head. “Then you’ll have to split this with me. First one of the season.”

  Kenton could not refuse without seeming ungracious, so he watched as Harrigan took a knife from a drawer and deftly split the melon in two, handing one half to his guest. The pulp was moistly yellow, tempting enough to a thirsty man, and Kenton picked up a spoon at his plate. Then he paused, staring at the knife which Harrigan had set down.

  The trader was chewing a spoonful of juicy pulp. He looked up, saw the direction of Kenton’s gaze, and followed it.

  The knife on the table had a blue wooden handle. Kenton was remembering something the Indio girl had whispered.

  “The blue knife—beware of it.”

  Harrigan’s eyes met Kenton’s. For a heartbeat the deadlock held.

  “You lousy murderer!” Kenton shouted, leaping up. He heard his chair go rattling down behind him. Harrigan was leaning forward, his fat cheeks sagging, his eyes very bright.

  “What—what—” Harrigan stammered.

  “A clever trick,” Kenton said between clenched teeth. “Poison smeared on one side of the knife, so that only half of the melon is poisoned when you cut it. So that’s how you got rid of our miners! You were behind Quayle! He was just your stooge, a fall guy in case anything went wrong!”

  The trader’s eyes were wide. His lower lip sagged a strange smile.

  Kenton sensed rather than saw the swift movement under the table. Harrigan was going for his gun. The superintendent had no time to get out his own weapon. It was in its holster at his side. He simply up-ended the table and hurled it at the other.

  A gun boomed, ripping the punkah. Harrigan was floundering up, and Kenton dived to meet him. He caught the trader’s gun-wrist and squeezed.

  But there were powerful muscles under Harrigan’s deceptive appearance of fatness. The trader locked his foot behind Kenton’s ankle and the two fell, rolling over and over in the jumbled mass of dishes, fruits and foodstuffs on the floor.

  Harrigan’s wheezing breath was hot on Kenton’s throat. The two men were clawing and kicking and slugging in a tangled mass of arms and legs, Kenton desperately maintaining his grip on his opponent’s wrist. But slowly, surely, his fingers were slipping from the sweaty skin.

  A FIXED, horrible smile twisted Harrigan’s lips. His free hand moved in a swift motion. It dipped to Kenton’s holster and found the gun, yanked it out and tossed it into a corner.

  With a frantic twist Kenton managed to writhe atop his opponent. Simultaneously Harrigan’s knee jerked up into the other’s stomach. The blow made Kenton go sick and giddy. He felt himself being battered around, but he still clung with all his weakening strength to the trader’s arm.

  Harrigan’s gross bulk was again on top, crushing him. He wrenched his wrist free. Light glinted on the gun-barrel.

  Suddenly Kenton’s groping hand closed on something cylindrical and hard which he did not recognize at first. Staring up through blood-colored eyes at the trader’s malevolent, smiling face, he saw the black mouth of the pistol growing larger and larger . . . Then his hand contracted—on a knife-hilt!

  Instinct acted then. Kenton drove the weapon up into Harrigan’s chest as the trader’s finger tightened on the trigger.

  Even so, Kenton would have died, but his opponent did not shoot. Instead, his eyes went wide with horror, and he tried to twist away in a frantic effort to evade the thrust of the knife with the blue handle. The blade that he himself had poisoned.

  But he failed. The steel struck home. It dug deep into Harrigan’s breast, and the trader screamed and hurled himself back, clawing at the knife-hilt. He fell on his side, rolled over on his back, and lay still. There was an odd, mirthless smile on the fat face.

  Kenton got up, sick and giddy. He reeled to a rattan chair and sank down, gasping with pain and weakness.

  H
is eyes were fixed on the motionless figure on the floor.

  Harrigan was dead. The robber baron of the river was washed up. And there was still Gunther, Harrigan’s spy at the mining camp, to settle with.

  But that could wait. Everything could wait. Everything but a good night’s sleep . . .

  “I still don’t understand, Joe,” said Ed Buckley, still amazed at Kenton’s abrupt return. The latter had just finished trussing up Gunther for delivery to the law. “You mean that Quayle, Harrigan and Gunther, here, have been robbing and killing our men?”

  “Just that,” Kenton said. “I quit my job here so I could see for myself if they’d try to rob me. Well, they did. And before I forget, here’s that three thousand. You need it more than me.”

  He glared at Gunther who lay cowering in a corner.

  “I’m glad you didn’t try to make a break for it, rat. I’m getting sick of killing people with knives.”

  THE GREEKS HAD A WORD FOR IT

  Pete Manx Rides Again When Three-Score Men in a Trojan Horse Wage a Blitzkrieg for a Blonde!

  DR. HORATIO MAYHEM and Professor Belleigh Aker stared around the sumptuous office in astonishment. They saw overstuffed furniture, soft carpets, a desk. On the desk was a pair of feet, behind which grinned the shrewd features of Pete Manx, Time Traveler Extraordinary.

  “Get a load,” Manx advised, “of the ad in this ayem’s Times.” He indicated a folded newspaper. Smugly, he brushed invisible dust off his mauve tie, adjusted his checkered coat, and tipped his gleaming derby to a rakish angle.

  The two professorial heads dipped as if attached to the same drive shaft. The advertisement, inserted by Historical Research, Inc., Peter Manx, Pres., solicited clients interested in the same—novelists, motion picture people, students, or what have you. The Past was an open book, the ad maintained. Any question about any era would be answered accurately and in detail by Manx’s organization, via the famous Time-chair, for a nominal consideration.

  “What on earth,” breathed Mayhem in awe, “does this mean?”

  Pete smirked.