The Human Zero- The Science Fiction Stories Of Erle Stanley Gardner

by Matin Greenberg

  “The Mexican?”

  “He doesn’t count. We’ll give him what he has to have.”

  I laughed at that.

  “Be sure you have the half-breed personality on deck when you make the division, and not Pablo Viscente de Moreno, the soldier. You might have difficulties in getting even a cut out of the soldier.”

  He nodded, and his pin-point eyes seemed whirling around in spiral circles, emitting little glitters like a whirling wheel reflecting the light.

  We had another drink and then I went to roll my blankets. It was adventure, even if it wasn’t anything else. And how could a soldier who marched with General Diego de Vargas in 1692 talk to us in a ’dobe house in Mexicali in 1930?

  It just couldn’t be done.

  CHAPTER 3

  Warrior Without a Sword

  But I rolled my blankets and met the man with pin-point eyes at eight o’clock. We went back to the ’dobe. The women crossed themselves, and the children ran and hid. But the Mexican decided to go with us.

  He had another of his surly fits on, and he seemed a little groggy as though he had been asleep and hadn’t fully waked up.

  Emilio Bender treated him like a dog. He put him in the back of the touring car with the rolls of blankets and cooking stuff.

  “Sit there!” he snapped.

  “Si, señor,” said the Mexican.

  The car started with a lurch. The old woman crossed herself. The fat woman watched us with apathetic interest. The children were hiding in the shadows cast by the full moon. I couldn’t see one of them.

  We crossed the border, headed east toward Yuma. It was a hot night and a still night. The rushing ribbon of road and the drone of the motor made me sleepy. The man with pinpoint eyes did the driving until we got to Yuma. Then I took the car and made Phoenix.

  The 'Mexican slept as well as he could, what with the jouncing around on the washboard road between Yuma and the Gillespie Dam. Then we hit paving again. I gave up the wheel at Phoenix, and Emilio Bender took the car over the black canon grade to Prescott. It was getting warm by that time, but out of Prescott we did some climbing and it was cool and nice by the time we got to Flagstaff.

  Back of Winslow the road changed again to sage country, and we stopped the car in the shade of the last of the stunted cedars and had a siesta. We were on our way again by the time the moon got up. We weren’t letting any grass grow under our feet.

  The rock known as El Morro in New Mexico is off the beaten trail. Not many tourists get to it. It’s where a mesa juts out into a valley, and a couple of canons run together. The mesa plunges into an abrupt drop to the level of the valley. It’s over two hundred feet straight down from the top to the bottom, and the sandstone sides gleam in the sun.

  They’ve protected it from vandals. For a while people wrote their names and addresses on the rock, scratching out the messages of the early Spaniards to leave their own names. Why they did it I don’t know. But they did.

  We made a camp. The Mexican looked to me as though he were about half conscious. His head lolled around and his black eyes were utterly expressionless in their stolid stupidity.

  “Wait,” said the man with the aluminium-paint eyes.

  So we had a siesta, cooked some beans, and warmed up some tortillas and waited for the moon.

  It came up over the desert, casting long, black shadows. In the places where there weren’t any shadows the desert gleamed like silver, and the inscription rock was like some huge castle.

  We sat and watched the Mexican.

  Once or twice Emilio Bender made passes with his hands and crooned low words. The Mex seemed groggy. I figured the whole thing was going to be a flop.

  I don’t know just what time it was, but the moon was up a good two hours and the camp fire had died down to a bed of coals before I noticed anything.

  The Mex was sitting all humped over, as motionless as the rock that had weathered the countless ages, and which cast a great blob of shadow in the moonlight.

  I saw his shoulders twitch and his head come back. The chin stuck out and the eyes glanced around the desert. The flesh lost its heavy look of sordid animalism and took on the fine lines of ther thoroughbred. I glanced at Emilio Bender, but the man with the pin-point eyes was staring unwinkingly at the Mex.

  It happened all of a sudden.

  The Mexican sprang to his feet, and looked all about him. The moonlight caught his eyes, and there seemed to be fire in his glance. He looked at me and jumped back, his hand flying across his body to his left hip, groping for the hilt of his sword.

  “Who are you?” he shouted. “Friend or foe? Speak, before Pablo Viscente de Moreno slits your gullet with a blade of Damascus!”

  And then he frowned as his groping fingers failed to encounter the hilt of his sword.

  “Dios! I am disarmed!” he roared. “And whence came these clothes? What witchery is this? Where are the sentinels? How about the horses? We are in hostile country! The horses are more precious to us than gold. Where are those horses?”

  He whirled and fixed the man with pin-point eyes.

  “You!” he bellowed. “I’ve seen you before—a sniveling scribe, a hunchbacked, round-shouldered, driveling devil who is learned in something or other. Who the devil are you?”

  Emilio Bender said nothing, simply continued to stare with his pin-point eyes, and the moonlight glinted from them and made them seem more than ever as though they had been coated with aluminium paint.

  “Speak!” roared the Mex, and made a swift imperious stride toward the hypnotist.

  Bender faltered in his glance. I mean it. He shifted his eyes quickly as does one when he is afraid. It was the first time he had ever lost that positive, unwinking stare, that incisive power.

  Once more the Mexican’s hand groped about his left hip.

  “If I can find the devil who stole my sword I will spit him like a rabbit and leave him to writhe on the sand in the hot sunlight of to-morrow . . . Where’s the commander? Where is General Don Diego de Vargas?”

  He paused, waiting for an answer; and as he stood there, the moonlight clothing him with a silver aura, he seemed like a man of fire. Gone was the stolid Mexican who was a peon, a cholo. In his place was this imperious man of fire and courage, a soldier who had made a profession of soldiering when carrying arms was not merely being a cog in a military machine.

  He took a swift step toward Emilio Bender, then halted.

  “Carramba! We have few enough men as it is, even if you are a devil of a scribe. The general would like it none too well if I should run you through. But show me where my sword is, or by the Virgin I will spit you to the gills!”

  Emilio Bender made a few passes, muttered soothing words, but the passes were without effect. The Mexican turned to me.

  “Crazy,” he said. “It is the heat of the desert, and the constant watching for raids from the savages. I have seen men so before. Tell me, comrade, where is my sword, and how come I by these clothes?”

  I met his eyes, feeling a strange fascination for this man of fire.

  “You left your sword and your armor at a cave where you stored much gold plunder. Have you forgotten?”

  He shook his head as a swimmer shakes his head upon emerging from the water.

  “Damn it, you tell the truth!” he said. “I had forgotten about that cave. It seems that I have been in a long sleep. Things are not as they should be. There is much that has intervened.

  “Bien, we will go to the cave. Let me get my blade in my fingers once more and I will be myself. But how quiet it seems! Where are our comrades? Where is the general? Where are the horses?”

  “They, too, are at the cave.”

  He glared at me.

  “If you are lying you will be spitted like a bird!”

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  He looked around him at the desert.

  “Strange!” he muttered. “The moon was well past the full. Now it is but turned on the wane . . . This must be the rock. S
urely, this is where the general carved his name and the date of his passage. But last night it was. And to-day seems a haze. I must have had the fever. Tell me, you scrivener, have I had the fever?”

  The man with pin-point eyes nodded.

  “Yes,” he said, “you have been sick.”

  The Mexican said no further word but strode across the sand toward the white silence of the glittering rock. The moonlight sent a grotesque shadow, as black as a pool of ink, accompanying him. And I trotted after.

  Following me came the man with the aluminium-colored eyes, and he had to trot rapidly to keep up.

  The Mexican went directly to the place on the rock where the autograph of General Vargas has been protected from vandalism by the fence. He stared at the fence.

  “Done to-day!” he exclaimed.

  We said nothing. He raised his eyes to the inscription on the rock and nodded.

  “I had thought it was more clear. Perhaps it’s the moonlight. Perhaps it’s my eyes that have become dim with the fever; but it’s the inscription all right.”

  His eye caught the yellow pasteboard box in which a roll of films had been brought to the spot by some tourist.

  “What the devil?” he exclaimed, and stopped to pick it up.

  We waited. He turned it over and over in his fingers.

  “Cascaras! he exclaimed. “There is magic in this thing, or else it is the fever.”

  “It is the fever,” said Bender.

  The Mexican glared at him. “Speak when you’re spoken to, scribe. Tell me, how do we join our comrades? Which way do we go?”

  “Where is the cave?” asked Bender.

  He pointed toward ancient Zuni. “It lies in that direction, a march of two days.”

  Bender nodded.

  “Come,” he said. “We have a new chariot”

  And he led the way toward the automobile which had brought us.

  The Mexican’s breath hissed in astonishment as he saw it.

  “What a chariot! But how are the horses fastened? And why make it so cursed heavy? But it has good lines; only it would do ill in battle. Mark you, my man, there is not proper arm room in which to swing a sword, and that may betray us to these savages.

  “A good chariot should have a grip for the left hand so that one may lean out and swing the sword in a complete circle, free of all obstructions. But look at this! There is no grip! There is no place to lean out, and that step which runs along the side will prevent a free swing of the sword.

  “But we only talk! Talk is for scriveners and women, not for men of battle. Bring on the horses and we will start.”

  Emilio Bender fastened the aluminium eyes upon the man.

  “First,” he said, “you must sit in the chariot. We will all get in, and then the horses will come.”

  CHAPTER 4

  An Old Battlefield

  When the Mexican swung into the car, I noted that the heavy awkwardness was gone from him. He was as graceful as a race horse. I got in the back. Emilio occupied the driver’s seat and stepped on the starter.

  The car whirred into life and lurched forward.

  The Mexican leaped out into the desert in a long arched vault of such surprising swiftness that it could not have been anticipated.

  “Madre de Dios!” he exclaimed, and crossed himself. “It is magic. It shot at us from under that place in the front and it moved. I swear that it moved! Look, you can even see the tracks in the sand where it moved! And there were no horses!”

  Emilio Bender got out and fastened the pin-point eyes upon the Mexican, made passes, muttered soothing words.

  “It is a magic chariot. We have come from those who are powerful to take you to your comrades. We must make haste. You must enter the chariot and go with us.”

  The Mexican shook his head.

  “No. I travel either with my horse under me, in a chariot that I can understand, or on my two feet.”

  “Surely,” taunted Bender, “Pablo Viscente de Moreno is not afraid of a chariot that can be driven by a poor scrivener!”

  That gave the Mexican something to think about. I could see his face writhe and twist in the moonlight.

  “He is not!” he said, and climbed back in the car.

  Bender stepped on the starter, slammed in the gears. The car lurched into motion, gathered speed, started skimming over the moonlit road.

  The Mexican gazed about him at the flying landscape with eyes that seemed to bulge out beyond the line of his bushy eyebrows.

  "Car-r-r-ramba!” he muttered. “Wait!” he yelled at Bender. “Such a pace will tire out the chariot within the first two miles. I tell you it is a two-day march!”

  For answer Bender slammed it into high and stepped on the throttle. The Mexican tried to say something, but the words would not come. He sat on the edge of the cushioned seat, gripping the windshield support with a grip that showed the white skin over his knuckles drawn taut and pale. The car hurtled through the moonlight.

  After half an hour the Mexican recovered his faculties sufficiently to glance about him for landmarks.

  “This road,” he said, “has no business being here. But perhaps the magic chariot makes its own road as it goes? That mountain over there is where we camped the first day’s march, and the distance from here to the cave is not great. The first march is short.”

  Then he became interested in landmarks and seemed to forget the novelty of his means of transportation.

  “There,” he said, “is where we lost two men only last week. There was a scouting party of the savages. But we routed them. I charged three of the Indians over against that rock. Their bodies are there yet, if you care to go and look.”

  The car roared onward.

  “Wait!” yelled the Mexican. “You are turning away from the direction. Over there against that hill is where we are to go. Just under that mesa that sticks up into the moonlight!”

  Bender slowed the car, turned it into the native desert. The wheels bit deep into the sand, and he shifted to second.

  The Mexican nodded sagely.

  “I knew it could not stand that pace,” he remarked. “Mark you, charioteer, you are not accustomed to these desert places. I can tell that from many things. You have probably come from Spain within a fortnight. You will soon learn that things are different here, and the greatest distance is covered by him who makes the less speed at the start.”

  Bender said nothing. He was pushing the car through the sand, dodging clumps of sage and greasewood.

  I said nothing. It wasn’t my funeral—not yet.

  The car ground its way toward the base of the mesa. As the ground got higher it got harder and the laboring engine gave us a little more speed. I knew the radiator would soon be boiling at that rate. Personally, I’d have given the car a rest.

  Not Bender. His greed was getting the better of his self-control, and he was pushing the car to the limit.

  We covered about five miles before I could smell the motor overheating. Then it fumed like rancid butter poured on a hot stove.

  “Better cool her down,” I suggested to Bender.

  He nodded and slowed.

  The Mexican pointed to the rugged skyline of the mesa. “There to the left and down at the base. There is the entrance to the cave.”

  “There is much gold?” asked Bender.

  “As much as two horses could carry,” said the Mexican casually. “We have made these savages pay for their rebellion and the massacre of the priests.”

  Bender got ready again and his foot jammed the throttle to the floor boards. The wheels lurched and jumped in the sand, the car gathered momentum.

  We were way off the road now, out in the desert, away from the line of sane travel. We might find anything here. I watched the line of the mesa grow larger until it loomed above us.

  Then the motor halted for a second. Something clicked and from the mechanism came a clatter—clatter—clatter. The wheels ceased to spin and the car slowed.

  “Connecting rod bearing,
” I said.

  “The gold,” commented the Mexican, “is but a little distance.”

  And Emilio Bender slammed his foot back on the throttle. Rod bearing or no rod bearing, he was going to get to that gold.

  The motor lost power. The rod clattered and banged. I looked for it to thrust through the bottom of the crank case at any moment. But the wheels bit into the sand and we crawled ahead.

  For several minutes the car pushed forward. Then there came a terrific noise, a hissing of hot oil on the sand, and the motor froze tight as a drum.

  “Busted out the crank case,” I said, not that there was any need for the comment, but I just wanted to remind him that I’d warned him.

  Bender cursed, then jumped from the car. “Come on! We’ll walk.”

  The Mexican was out of the car before the words were well clear of Bender’s tongue.

  “Carajo! It was great magic while it lasted!” And he was striding toward the wall of the mesa, his feet crunching into the sand, his black shadow marching beside him, a mere black blotch of squat darkness.

  We followed as best we could. Greed was giving excessive strength to Bender, the hypnotist, and I noticed he didn’t pant or tire, but jog-trotted through the sand at a steady pace, keeping almost up with the fiercely striding soldier.

  We arrived at the base of the mesa. The Mexican found some long forgotten trail, and we started up.

  It was a hard climb. Cloudbursts, wind and sun had done things to the trail, and the Mexican cursed from time to time.

  “The Indians have been here, I tell you. We shall find where there has been a great battle. Strange I do not smell the blood or that we do not see corpses piled along the way. I tell you they are cunning. They have cut away this trail as though it had been done by a hundred years of time. Only an Indian could do that.

  “Forward, my comrades! Who knows what we shall find within the cave? I wish I had my blade. It would be most awkward to be attacked now.” But he kept pushing up the side of the mesa until the sheer wall frowned above us.