by Robert Adams
"Well, shit, honey," yelped Arsen, "how about Rose's overeducated fucker of a husband? Where was he? I thought pathologists were kind of like doctors, too."
A smile flitted briefly across her sweaty, tired-looking face. "I think you're going to like this, my love. The most eminent Dr. Yacubian was in the fort, up in the walls, when this ape started after Haighie, who was down below trimming timbers with a wand to shape them for palisade stakes. It was him shooting at the animal with a pistol that alerted everybody else, they say."
"Mike shot it in the back with a flintlock, and when it didn't even slow down that he could see, he stripped the hide cover off a swivel gun and aimed it and started flicking his bic over the touchhole to fire it. Then the good doctor comes running up yelling at him to not fire a cannon at it because it will damage the body of the specimen too much. He grabbed Mike's arm just as the lighter flared and that big swivel fired, so the ball missed the ape and plowed into a pile of pine logs instead. The good news was that the splinters pretty well peppered the ape, but the bad news was that they got Haighie, too, mostly in his butt and legs."
"Mike was so mad that he picked up a spade, turned around, and bashed Bedros flat in the face with the back of it."
Predictably, Arsen grinned broadly. "He kill the fucker . . . I hope?"
She shook her head again, trying to brush back her hair with the back of one wrist. "No such luck, Arsen, Bedros was one of the first they lugged in here. He's certainly got a concussion, his nose is badly broken, both his eyes are going to be black, his lips are badly mashed and split, he may very well lose some front teeth, or so John says, and he bit his tongue so severely he's not going to be willing or even able to do much talking for some little time. John said the jaws weren't broken, but that the joints may have been jammed and damaged. Now, get washed—the brave is out cold."
Arsen chuckled evilly to himself as he prepared to assist his mate in her bloody chores.
Later the next day, he was able to get a little more complete story from Mike Sikeena, Al, Haigh, Swift Wolf, Running Otter, and the Micco.
"I don't know where the stinking fucker came from, Arsen," said Haigh, from where he lay belly-down on his air mattress. "I was at the biggest tree pile and I heard another load of rock come down and I figure that must of shook him out of wherever the hell he'd been hiding at. Anyhow, I smelted thishere godawful stink and I turned around and he was coming over a pile of slabs straight at me. I pulled out my Browning and jacked one up the fucking spout and just started shooting the fucker. Arsen, I shot high expert in the Corps, and at that range, a fucking boot couldn't of missed. I put thirteen fucking nine-millimeter slugs into that fucking monstrosity, I know good and well I did, and Mike swears he put a rifle ball in the thing's back, too, while I was still shooting him my own self, and didn't none of them put the fucker down. Then I dumped the empty magazine and tried to pull the spare out of the holster and I dropped the fucker between a couple logs, I could see it, so I bent over to pick it up and that was when the fucking ball out of that big old drake swivel hit the other log pile and it felt like two, three million fucking yellow jackets had zeroed in on my ass and legs. That stinking critter squalled like I never heard the like of and turned himself around and started for the hills. Before he got all the way turned around, though, I could see he had a great long old pine splinter stick out from his left eye. He must of figured I was the one hurt him so bad with them splinters is the only reason I can think of why he run from me, because I would of been dead meat for him, all he had to do was come and get me." Mike said, "I turned around from bashing that pecker-headed motherfucker Bedros, and looked down to see that djinn or whatever it was coming right up the hill, looked like he was coming right at me, there on top of the wall, and at a damn good clip, too. Well, I pulled the wedge and the breech out the drake, but I couldn't see any more loads for the fucker, so I picked my rifle back up and started loading it just as fast as I could make my hands move."
"Right about that time, Swift Wolf and a whole bunch of braves come climbing up there. The ones that had brought rifles or pistols, they started shooting down at the goddam ape, but it didn't seem to stop him, though he did slow down some, like he might've all of a sudden decided maybe he wasn't going to be welcome up in the fort, maybe. I handed over my loaded rifle to one of them to prime it and shoot it at him and started in looking for more loads for the damn drake. When I still couldn't find any, I ran around to the corner, grabbed up the long sling-piece, and brought it over and had one the braves lift out the empty drake so's I could put the sling-piece in the drake's mounting hole."
"Some more braves had come up, along with the Micco, and all of them had at least one gun apiece, too. They all started shooting the big fucker, but he just kept coming, but real slow, making noises like you'd have to hear your own self to believe, Arsen—sort of like growling but too sort of like a man with a broke jaw trying to talk, too. It was then, just then, I got to thinking we might be up there pumping some kind of a wild man full of lead."
"No, not a man," said the Micco gravely. "I have heard tales of these things, they occur now and then, in the less-well-known swamps and mountains, they seem to especially frequent caves, sinkholes and such. They are beasts who, long, long ago, did aspire to be men, but the Great Spirit found them wanting and refused them, whereupon they did curse the Great Spirit. Spirit then did take away from them the power of true speech, make them more beastlike and less manlike, and scatter them widely, that they might serve as a lesson and warning to the true men of Spirit's awesome powers. They are said to swim well and swiftly. This one must have come down the river."
It was Arsen's perfect out. Did he want to take it? "No, Micco," he said, haltingly at first, "it didn't come downriver or upriver, either. I projected the damned thing over here from the Land of the Thunderbird . . . but please understand, all of you, especially you, Haighie, I had to do it." Then he told them of what had occurred that day in the granite quarry.
"So, you see," he ended, "it was mostly my own fucking fault that all this shitstorm came down. It was all just on account of I was too damn fucking lazy to keep my pistol belt on. But I'll make it all up to you guys."
"Look, Haighie, I'll project you back to a time before we ever went to play that gig up north, like I did Mikey Vranian. Then none of this shit will ever of happened to you and all you'll remember is you decided to not go up there and play with the band, that night. Okay? You ready to go? I'll go get the Class Seven and . . ."
"Hell no! I won't go!" shouted Haigh, trying to get his knees under him, while Al and Mike Sikeena did their best to keep him prone. "Look, Arsen, I want to stay here, with you and the rest."
"Haigh," said Arsen, "neither Rose nor Lisa is sure they got all those splinters out of you and they've got no way to tell if they did. What the fuck it is is wooden shrapnel, Haigh. Not even thinking about infection, pieces of that wood could work around in your legs and do things I don't even want to think about—damage nerves or rupture arteries and shit like that. And, goddam you, if you die, I'll never be able to look Aunt Maryia and Uncle Boghos in the face again. So I think you ought to let me project you back. In fact, I think I ought to send you all back. This place can be fucking goddam dangerous, and I got no right to ask any of you to stay here with me anymore. I'm doing what I feel like I gotta do, but I can't ask or expect you guys to get hurt or maybe die for me, here. I've been wrong to keep you all as long as I have. I'm sorry."
"Well, I be fucked if I mean to go back," remarked Greg Sinclair, who had come in when he heard Haigh's shout. "Man, thishere's the mostest fun I've had since I was in the Corps, I tell you. Where the hell else could I go out with a bunch of real Indians and shoot real buffaloes and deer and elks and horses and even get a chance at cats so big they'd make Clyde Beatty shit his drawers? Oh, no, Arsen, I ain't going back neither, not yet, for a while, anyway."
"Good God, man," Arsen burst out, "you have or had a business, a wife, a house. Don't you
worry about what happened or is happening to them?"
Greg frowned and asked, "Arsen, did you see that moving picture Zorba the Greek?" At Arsen's nod, he went on, "Well, you recall of how Anthony Quinn said something about having a wife and a house and a farm and kids and called it the full catastrophe? Yeah, well, that fucker was fucking right, too, man, fucking-A right."
"Yeah, I have a fucking business, all right, and that fucking meant I had to work my ass off twenty-five hours a fucking day just to pay the fucking salaries and taxes and bills and all, too. I couldn't never do any the fun things I wanted to do—except just to play with the band, ever now and then—'cause it takes money to scuba-dive and sky-dive and hunt big game and race stock cars and all, and my fucking wife nagged me into putting every damn cent of profit I ever made back into the fucking business, and where she eased up, my fucking accountants would bear back down on me even harder. And I was getting a fucking potbelly and watching my muscles I didn't hardly ever use no more turn to flab, with my fucking wife all the time nagging me about smoking and drinking beer and eating meat. Man, I could just fucking feel myself becoming an old man, watching gray hairs pop up on my head and my chest and even my fucking crotch hairs, too, and wondering if I could cut the mustard any more because I lotsa times had trouble getting my wang up and keeping it up long enough to toss a fucking boff with my wife, her all skin and bones and a mouth on her that never let up even when I was shagging her."
"But, man, Arsen, I'm free here, really fucking free, goddammit! No, I can't do scuba diving, here, but I can swim and fish any damn time I feel like it, and I can't sky-dive, but the carriers are a hell of a lot more fun than chutes, I tell you, and more fun than driving stock cars, too. And the hunting, hell, man, even the rich swells at home couldn't never ever do this kind of hunting, and I can do it damn near ever day, too."
"Arsen, I feel really like I'm alive, here. I got me a good, sweet woman that knows how to make a man feel like a man and flat enjoys doing it, too. She ain't nagged me about nothing yet, and she can work as hard as I do when it comes time to work. She cooks good and she likes to eat meat and drink beer, sometimes, and she ain't all the time gabbing about how to get skinnier than skinny."
"So, Arsen, buddy, when you go to making up a list of folks you mean to send back to our old world, you better put me at the bottom of the fucking list. I'm plumb happy here, man. You can take our old world and shove it—I don't never want no more parts of it."
Arsen looked as stunned as he felt. "How about you, Al? You want me to project you back?"
"Well . . ." said Al, hesitantly, "well, maybe sometime, someday, Arsen, but not now. I like it here, too, like Greg in some ways, you know. I feel really kind of like free, you know. Everything just kind of like, you know, agrees with me here. I'm in a whole lot better shape than I've been in a long time, too. I don't know quite how to fucking explain it. You know I thought when we first were slapped down there in England, I'd probably freak out if I couldn't find me a way to make a connection, you know, and turn on to some good grass or some hash. But, hell, man, I don't miss that shit at all, here. I can crawl out of my wigwam in the morning and stand up straight and breathe the cool air and look up at the trees and the fucking blue sky and, like, man, I'm higher than Acapulco Gold or Maui Wowie ever put any fucker. I've got good buddies, a good woman, good chow and plenty of it, a beer or two now and then, no worries about school or anything. No, Arsen, I think I'll ship over, pull another hitch, here in the closest thing to heaven any of us will probably ever fucking see."
"You want to send somebody back so bad, Arsen," suggested Mike, "why the hell don't you send that fucking Bedros back, huh? He's about as much good as tits on a boar hog, most the time, and after the way I clobbered him yesterday, I don't think he's gonna be any good at all to any fucking body for a while to come. Fucker try fucking with me again, I'll fucking kill the cocksucker the next round!"
"No you won't," said Arsen, firmly. "You won't kill him or even hurt him this seriously again, for the same reason I haven't sent him back before this. Scab-sucking prick that he is, Rose still loves him and wants to be near him, and we all love Rose, so that's that. Right?"
He grimaced and added, "But I just may have to send him back if he doesn't wake up soon, just like I may have to send Haigh back, like it or not, if he shows signs of trouble inside his legs. I promised Lisa and Rose that already."
"How 'bout Rose, then, Arsen?" demanded Haigh. "She'll be alone here without him then too."
"No she won't," replied Arsen. "She doesn't know it yet, but if Bedros goes back, then so does Rose. Too bad—we'll miss her."
Then suddenly, Arsen remembered something of vital importance. "Greg, Mike, did one of you do a carrier patrol today?"
"Shit, no," said Greg. "Today's Lisa's turn and she gets real mad if somebody else goes in place of her, you know that, Arsen."
"Aw, hell, just forget it, man," said Mike, shrugging. "One fucking day ain't gonna matter. All we ever see is water and trees and animals and all, anyway."
"Greg, Lisa is zonked out in the crypt—she and John and Rose and I worked our twats off most of the night on the wounded and the hurt. You fuckers must've spent half the powder that was fired, yesterday, pot-shotting at each other."
"It did get kind of hairy inside the fort there, when that ape, with half his arm shot off by the ball from that sling-piece come right up the palisade and over it and then fell down off the wall walk into the fort and everybody started shooting at it surrounded by them sandstone walls and all. But it never did get up again after it landed at the bottom of the wall. Hell, I don't know how it kept going long as it did with all the lead's been dug out of it," said Mike, adding, "Look, if you want me to take a sweep down the river, I will. Laying down in the carriers sure ain't no kinda work, Arsen."
"No, not just you, Mike, we'll both go. Come on."
Arsen led the way out of the wigwam to the row of three carriers bobbing a few inches above the ground. "I've got bad fucking vibes. I want to see for myself what's causing them."
CHAPTER THE FIFTH
Don Felipe al-Asraf de Guego had, from the very onset, realized fully and deeply appreciated the signal honor conveyed upon him by the exalted Captain Don Guillermo ibn Mahmood de Vargas y Sanchez del Rio and had striven to conduct himself in accordance with the rare opportunity to garner glory.
In his airy office within the powerful fort at the port-town of Boca Osa, situated at the mouth of the Rio Oso, the commander of both fort and civil populace had waved the young knight to a seat on an arm-stool, had smiled at him warmly while an Indian slave served them both cups of rich, sweet, unwatered wine of Malaga in which one could easily savor the climate of that far-off warm and sunny Moorish city, set the mood of comradely informality through the expedient of telling a humorous and bawdy tale of the unexpected relations of a peasant's daughter and a traveling muleteer, then finally got down to business. "Young sir, you know of course that opportunity for advancements of all sorts virtually abound like unto weeds in this new-style Spain. If you want proof, just look no farther than me or Don Abdullah; believe me, both of us recall well exactly how it feels to arrive upon the quay in Habana with a famous patronymic, a decent sword, personal honor, ambition, and damned little else save, perhaps, a letter of introduction to some midlevel official, for he and I both came west across the Ocean Sea in just such fashion, knowing that we would sink or swim, live or die, prosper or starve by dint of only our wits, our strong sword arms, and the Will of God."
"We two both came ashore at Habana within the very same week, my boy. Did you know that? Yes, Don Abdullah and I, although we had never met back in Spain, departed the very same port on the very same day, but aboard different ships. Blind Fate threw us two together there, blind Fate and the fact that we both bore letters addressed to the same man, a Monsignor Hassan de Sidi al-Frangi—a most wise, rightly esteemed, and holy man, he was, God rest his soul; he died years ago of the summer fever."
<
br /> Following the lead of his superior, Don Felipe reverently signed himself, but kept his silence.
Captain Don Guillermo sipped at his wine and went on. "Monsignor Hassan it was who found us cheap but acceptable lodgments, sent us to meet the proper people, saw that we each were provided with one squire of Creole antecedents but good breeding, had us to dine with him often and advised us sagaciously, especially with reference to the intricacies of this new world, new culture, and the values of its new social order, wherein our pure European and/or Afriqan blood was worth far more to wealthy Creoles here than ever they would have been in the old lands of the east."
"When he was sure of us both and another young man, one Lorenzo de Galdeza, certain that we all were God-fearing and pious, honorable, sober, not readily given to gambling or debauchery, seeking after glory for our names and gold and to help to convert the pagan to Christ, then he dropped a word to certain personages and we three were chosen to serve as ensigns with the force of Don Ricardo de las Murasverdes, who was just then preparing to lead his first attempt against the indio king of the Mexicos."
"It was during that costly, ill-fated, but glorious campaign that both Abdullah and I received the accolade and poor young Lorenzo fell, covered with glory, in battle. May the good God bless and keep for aye his gallant soul."
Again, Don Felipe aped his superior in signing himself, but still spoke no word, not having been yet bidden to so do.
Don Guillermo rang and waved the indio slave who silently padded in to refill the two cups from the ewer wrapped in wet cloths, waiting until the indio was gone before going on with his tale.