by John Dalmas
No, she'd definitely go, at an hour that would give her a long start. About midnight, for like all her clones, she could see in the dark like a cat. A night of hard rain would be best; it would wash out her trail. Then she'd have to keep ahead of any tracker sent after her. It was Tomm who frightened her most, Sarkia's best tracker. She'd heard he could follow a psychic trace as readily as tracks; she'd have to cast a web of confusion whenever she changed direction or paused to rest.
And move fast; that was important. Stay off established trails, head north and west, make her way to Ferny Cove, and go through the gate to Curtis. They'd go somewhere far from Evansville. To Oregon, a land of fertile valleys. They'd talked about Oregon before.
But she'd have to avoid recapture, or God only knew what Sarkia might have done to her. She wondered if she could survive a week like that first night.
Over the next weeks she varied the time she left for her morning duties. Normally she started for the kitchen just before the twelve to three sentry got off, but now she sometimes left just afterward, when the three to six sentry was on duty. That way if she didn't show, each would assume she'd leave, or had left, on the other's watch, and she wouldn't be missed until the cook and her assistant arrived at the kitchen about five-thirty. Cook would no doubt be furious, assume she'd overslept, and send the guard running to have her wakened. There'd be confusion then, and a search would hardly be started much before seven.
The last half of May was unusual, rainless. Finally, on the first of June, late evening brought thunder and wind. Near midnight the rain began, beating on the roof.
And suddenly fear stuck the breath in Varia's throat, for this was the time, if it was to be. For several long minutes she listened to the drumming. At last, pushing out of her paralysis, she put her boots and breeches on, and the leather belt she'd asked Skortov for. Then, from beneath her mattress, she took a stolen meat knife sheathed in a tough oven mitt she'd taken. Fumbling, hands trembling, she strung it on the belt through the slits she'd cut. Finally she put her shift on over it, hiding it.
She snuffed out her oil lamp, then opened her door a few inches to peer into the men's sleeping room. For a long minute she watched and listened, gathering her nerve. Then the latrine door opened, and she was looking at the bright yellow flame of the latrine's oil lamp. She froze. Her eyes, adjusted to the dark, were briefly dazzled by the lamp, and she didn't recognize the man who stepped out.
It seemed to her he must have seen her, seen her eye peering past the doorpost, but somehow he hadn't. Turning away, he started for the front of the barracks, fully clothed, and she realized what was happening. It was midnight; he was relieving the watch. Good God! she thought. How could I have overlooked that? Her stomach churned. Was this an omen? If she'd been challenged crossing their sleeping room, she'd have been in serious trouble. Her lie wouldn't convince them all.
Through the barracks door, she saw the two Tigers' backs as they exchanged murmurs on the front stoop. Then the man off watch came in and went straight to the latrine. As soon as its door closed behind him, she swallowed her fear and slipped out, moving quietly, trying to seem legitimate. Opening the barracks door, she stepped onto the stoop-and it was Corgan who stood on guard with his spear at port arms. Her heart nearly stopped as he turned and scowled, but she had enough presence of mind to close the door behind her. The rain still fell, cascading noisily from both sides of the small roof sheltering the stoop.
"What're you doing out here?" he growled. "It's not three o'clock."
My God! If he gropes me, he'll find my belt and knife! "I've got a boyfriend."
"A boyfriend? You?"
"What's the matter? Don't you think I can have a boyfriend? All you Tigers do is hump me. I need loving from time to time." She stepped off the stoop into the rain, pausing to peer back at him. He stood puzzled, confused: The concept was beyond him. "Tell you what," she said. "When it's your turn tomorrow, if you'll take the time to stroke me a little, and kiss me nicely enough, I'll give you a special treat."
She turned then and trotted off through the downpour toward the kitchen, giggling on the edge of hysteria. When she got there, she refastened her belt on the outside of her shift. Cook had set aside two large loaves of yesterday's bread to make dressing with, and she tucked them inside her shift. The belt would keep them in. She followed them with a large slab cut from a cheese. It occurred to her then that the bread, if it got too wet, might come apart inside her shift, and looked around for something to repel the rain. The oil-cloth in the vegetable room! she thought. I can wear it back-side out so the white won't show. She took it from its table, but the rough back side was a pale beige, still too visible in the dark. With one of the knives hanging there, she cut a hole in it for her head, then smeared lard on the rough side, the beige side. That done, she opened the soot door behind the stack of ovens, and smeared soot into the lard until the oil cloth was black. Now if the rain doesn't wash it off…
She slipped it on black side out, then washed her hands. The lye soap didn't lather much, but it removed the sooty lard. She gave one last look around, thinking of the problems she was leaving for the cook-the nearest she had to a friend; Liiset had avoided her since their reunion. Clenching her teeth, Varia laid and lit fires beneath the oven stack and in the stoves, and replenished the fire in the water heater. It took a few minutes, but she would not wrong the cook by leaving them cold.
Then she went into the rain again. It had eased considerably, and that worried her. If it stopped, instead of her tracks being washed out, they'd be conspicuous in the rain-softened ground. For a moment she considered cancelling the attempt. She could hide the oil-cloth under the floor, for the kitchen was built on blocks, then sleep in the kitchen for two hours, and do her job as if nothing was wrong.
Swearing, she shook the thought off and trotted toward the palisade. Who knew when a better time would come? Besides, tomorrow evening that damned Corgan might be pawing and kissing her, expecting his special treat.
The next question was, did any of the sentries on the east side of the palisade catwalk have night vision. Most clones didn't. The Tiger clones did, all of them she thought, but her impression was that they didn't pull sentry duty except in their own barracks. The sentries' attention should be outward, but in a time and territory of little threat, who knew where one of them might look. And surprised at seeing someone out in such weather, might track her with their eyes.
When she got near enough to see, all of them were huddled in the widely spaced watch shelters, out of the rain. Temporary log buildings had been built backed up against the inside of the palisade, some with ladders leaning against them. Choosing one well removed from any watch shelter, she climbed to its roof, which put the archers' catwalk within reach. In another moment she was crouched on it. The rain had intensified again, reducing visibility. Without hesitating she tossed her knife over the side, then clambered gingerly over the sharp-ended palisade logs, let herself down to arm's length and let go. The impact buckled her knees, and she sprawled heavily in weeds and mud. It took only seconds to find her knife. Threading it on her belt again, she trotted off northward, staying close to the stockade so she wouldn't be seen from above.
And despite the danger, and the cold rain that must gradually drain her energy, found herself suddenly exhilarated. She could do this! She really could! She could make it work, make her way to Ferny Cove, and to Macon County, or wherever Curtis was! Her dreams could come true despite everything.
9: The Lion Arrives in Oz
" ^ "
Curtis Macurdy hiked up the slope through deepening dusk. He'd lost the conjure woman's footpath, but it wasn't that which worried him. On a hill like Injun Knob, you couldn't miss the top. If you kept going uphill, you got there.
He wore a sheepskin jacket tied round his waist by the sleeves; he'd want it later to keep warm with, sitting or lying on the ground waiting for midnight. Just now, though, sweat slicked his forehead and he breathed deeply, not entirely fro
m climbing. For there was fear, not of the gate, but that there would be no gate. That Varia was gone beyond finding, beyond recovery. It had been a month already. What might have happened to her in that month? Given how Idri hated her.
The fear had been kindled the night before, when he'd hiked that same slope, and spent the night on top in mists and drizzles, sitting, standing, dozing on the wet ground. And shivering despite the heavy jacket he'd paid two dollars for secondhand. When dawn had come with no gate, he'd hiked back down and asked the old conjure woman what had gone wrong. She'd cackled her brittle laugh and said he'd come the wrong night; come again the next.
The calendar in the sawmill had been for 1929, useless for 1930, so he'd judged by how the moon looked the night before: nearly full. When she'd told him it was the next night, he'd asked to see her calendar. She'd laughed at that, too. "Ain't got no calendar," she'd said. "Know in my bones when the moon is full."
In Washington County, every kitchen had a calendar, and every calendar the phases of the moon. Lots of people planted, castrated pigs, and dehorned calves by the phases of the moon.
When he reached the top of Injun Knob this second try, it was dusk, the sky clear and the moon already up, its round fullness reassuring. After a night as wakeful as the one before, he expected to fall asleep nearly as soon as he sat down. But he sat anyway, almost exactly on the top, leaning against the largest tree available, a scrubby shortleaf pine. After a few minutes, he got up and put on his jacket, then sat back down. He felt ready for whatever happened-anything except nothing at all. A Smith amp; Wesson.44 hung on his belt, and a Winchester.45-70 buffalo gun lay across his lap, its thick octagonal barrel feeling heavy as a Model-T axle. Spare shells for both guns were buttoned in his jacket pockets.
The moonlight played tricks with his vision. Things moved in the shadows, images formed and shifted. And when his eyelids slid shut, Varia met him in a garden, a garden surrounded by a palisade like the pioneer forts in his history book. They walked into a house with a windmill by the back porch-it was Will's-and inside were three other Varias. "We're your wives," one of them said, and they pushed him down on a bed and undressed him. He was compliant, but when they pulled his underwear off, there was another set beneath them, and a set beneath them… Then he was on his feet. "Varia," he said, "this isn't going to work. It's got to be just you and me. I like your sisters all right, but…"
"I'm not Varia, I'm Liiset."
He looked around at the others, then back to the first. "No," he said, "you're Varia. Why are you trying to fool me like that?"
She started to cry, and they sat down on a fallen tree by the Sycamore Bend, he with his arms around her. "Honey," he said, "it's not going to work with all four of you. It's not. You're the only one I want." Still weeping, she started to fade out of his arms, less substantial than the transparent Varia back on the farm. "Don't go away!" he cried. "I came all this way to get you back!"
He awoke shouting, lunging to his feet, the heavy buffalo gun clopping against bare bedrock. He didn't notice, his mind still caught up in the dream. Oh God! he thought, don't let it be like that! Then blinking, looked around, breathing hard. It was quiet and peaceful, the full moon shining down between sparse trees. This was still Missouri in the U.S. of A., he was sure of it. Had midnight come and gone? The only directions he knew for certain were up and down. The moon could still be east of south, or… He found the dipper and the pointers, then the Pole Star faint in the moonlight. Not midnight yet; not for a while. He bent, picked up his rifle and sighted on the moon. The sights were undamaged, hadn't struck the rock. With a sigh he turned up his collar, sat back down against the pine, and letting his eyes close again, slept.
With a deep thrumming resonance, the gate spit him out of nightmare, rolling across the ground in bright sunlight. He woke like a frightened tomcat, hair on end, and scrambled staggering to his feet, grabbing for a rifle that wasn't there. So he snatched at his holster, drew the.44, and looked around wild-eyed. Four men stood a little way off, watching him and laughing, talking some foreign lingo he might have heard once before, when Varia and Idri had lashed each other that day in Evansville.
The men started toward him, and bracing his legs against residual dizziness, Macurdy drew his revolver. His wits began to adjust, and he was aware that they carried short spears pointed his way. He pointed the revolver back at them, and when they kept coming, jabbed it in their direction. They stopped eight or ten feet away, spears at the ready. A stride forward and thrust, by any of them, and he'd be meat. One, the leader, said something to him, he had no idea what.
"Stay back," he answered. "I don't want to hurt no one."
The man spoke more sharply, and jabbed the spear at him, its point almost reaching him. Macurdy jumped backward and pulled the trigger-and nothing happened. He felt the hammer release and strike, heard it click, but no shot fired. He pulled again, and again nothing. He knew he'd loaded all six chambers. Staring around, he spied the rifle lying in the grass too far away.
The man had been saying something more. Now the others moved behind Macurdy, who looked at the revolver and swung the cylinder out. From each chamber, a center-fire cartridge peered back at him, two of them indented by the firing pin. The spearmen watched curiously. Reseating the cylinder, he tried again, and once more it clicked, so he slid the weapon back into its holster. Then a spear jabbed his left buttock, and with a yell, Macurdy jumped forward. Once more the leader spoke, beckoning, and Macurdy followed him.
On this side, the gate was in a grassy grove of large old basswood trees. The place looked nothing like Injun Knob; there wasn't even a knoll, a hump. Within a couple of minutes they were out of the woods, crossing open pasture. Several times more the spear jabbed one buttock or the other. Limping now, Macurdy felt blood trickling down the back of both legs. At each jab he jumped, and someone laughed. Glancing over his shoulder, he identified his tormentor, then the leader snapped another order and the jabbing ceased.
The pasture ended at a wide potato field. Macurdy could see a crew of men hoeing some distance away. He trudged between the potato hills, three spearmen spread behind him while their leader walked ahead. Across the field was a considerable village of log buildings.
His captors took him to a small hut, one of numerous surrounded by a twelve-foot palisade. The leader opened the door, and-Macurdy turned abruptly, grabbed the shaft of the spear that had jabbed him, wrenched it free, and doing a horizontal haft stroke, struck his tormentor on the side of the head with the hard hickory shaft. The man staggered sideways and Macurdy was on him, grabbed him by his waistband and his wadmal shirt and slammed him head first against the log wall. Then let him fall, and stood with his hands raised above his own head in submission.
The leader barked rapid words, then strode over to the fallen man, and bending, spoke to him. When the man didn't move, he kicked him, and made some rough comment. Briefly he looked Macurdy in the eye, then grunted an order to the remaining two spearsmen. One jabbed their captive hard in the belly with a spear butt, and Macurdy doubled over. The other struck him above an ear, and he fell to his knees. Moccasin-like boots began kicking him, and he dropped the rest of the way, curling up in a ball. Someone rolled him onto his back astraddle of him, fists striking at his face. Except to shield himself with his forearms, Macurdy made no resistance, and after half a minute, the leader barked another order. Reluctantly, Macurdy's pummeler got to his feet.
Macurdy got slowly to his own. Hands grasped him, frog-marched him to the door of the hut and propelled him inside, where he fell sprawling on the floor. A moment later his sheepskin jacket was thrown in after him.
The floor he lay on was dirt. The only light came through the door, and through foot-square windows, one each in three of the walls. Beneath one of them was a trestle table with a bench on one side and a water bucket. The place smelled of wood smoke and damp ground.
An old man stood in a corner, and after a moment spoke to him-in American! "You're wearing Farsid
e clothes!"
Macurdy got to hands and knees, then stood up, fingers exploring his face gingerly. "My name's Curtis Macurdy," he said. "From Washington County, Indiana originally, but I've been working at Neeley's Corners, in Missouri." He examined the old man, perhaps six feet tall once, now gaunt and somewhat bent, with one shoulder carried lower than the other. And bearded. Macurdy wasn't used to beards, hadn't seen half a dozen beards in his life.
The old man sat down as if weighted by Macurdy's gaze. "Did you just now"-he waved vaguely-"arrive through the, ah, aperture between universes?"
"I came through the gate on Injun Knob."
"How do you feel?"
Macurdy reached back, feeling his behind. "Not too good. That sonofabitch I slammed against the wall had been jabbing my rear end with his spear all the way from the woods." He stepped to the door and peered out. The unconscious man had been taken away, but one of the others had been left on guard. The man scowled at Macurdy, and gestured threateningly with his spear.
"Okay," Macurdy said placatingly in his direction. "Okay. I'm not looking for trouble. I don't doubt you're good to your wife and mother, and all I want to do is get along."
He backed away from the door, bent painfully and picked up his jacket, then straightened and looked the cabin over. It was about twelve by twelve feet, and low roofed. On one wall hung two sleeping pads, long sacks of straw. A pair of split-plank shelves had been built on another. At the windowless end was a mud and stick fireplace; a copper kettle and ladle hanging beside it. Embers glowed beneath a blanket of wood ash.
"And you just arrived?" the man asked. "Just now?"
"Yep."
"You don't feel ill?"
"Nope."
"Remarkable. When my companion and I came through, eight years ago, we arrived desperately ill. I had a fever, cramps, and severe diarrhea for two days. My companion was so ill, I feared for his life. I've been told that two young men died after coming through, some years before we did."