Ingathering

by Zenna Henderson

  Lala looked solemnly down at her own chest, tucking her chin in tightly in order to see. “Lala,” she said, and giggled. “Lala!”

  The two walked toward the creek, Lala in the lead, firmly leashed by Meris’s hand. “No flying,” she warned. “I can’t interrupt Mark to have him fish you out of the treetops.”

  Lala walked along the creek bank, peering down into the romping water and keeping up a running commentary of unintelligible words. Meris kept up a conversation of her own, fitting it into the brief pauses of Lala’s. Suddenly Lala cried out triumphantly and pointed. Meris peered down into the water.

  “Well!” she cried indignantly. “Those darn boys! Dropping trash in our creek just because they’re mad at Mark. Tin cans—”

  Lala was tugging at her hand, pulling her toward the creek.

  “Wait a bit, Lala,” laughed Meris. “You’ll fall us both into the water.”

  Then she gasped and clutched Lala’s hand more firmly. Lala was standing on the water, the speed of the current ruffling it whitely against the sides of her tiny shoes. She was trying to tug Meris after her, across the water toward the metallic gleam by the other bank of the creek.

  “No, baby,” said Meris firmly, pulling Lala back to the bank. “We’ll use the bridge.” So they did and Lala, impatient of delay, tried to free her hand so she could run along the creek bed, but Meris clung firmly. “Not without me!” she said.

  When they arrived at the place where the metallic whatever lay under the water, Meris put Lala down firmly on a big gray granite boulder, back from the creek. “Stay there,” she said, pushing firmly down on the small shoulders. “Stay there.” Then she turned to the creek. Starting to wade, sneakers and all, into the stream, she looked back at Lala. The child was standing on the boulder visibly wanting to come. Meris shook her head. “Stay there,” she repeated.

  Lala’s face puckered but she sat down again. “Stay there,” she repeated unhappily.

  Meris tugged and pulled at the metal, the icy bite of the creek water numbing her feet. “Must be an old hot water tank,” she grunted as she worked to drag it ashore. “When could they have dumped it here? We’ve been home—”

  The current caught the thing as it let go of the mud at the bottom of the creek. It rolled and almost tore loose from Meris’s hands, but she clung, feeling a fingernail break, and, putting her back to the task, towed the thing out of the current into the shallows. She turned its gleaming length over to drain the water out through the rip down its side.

  “Water tank?” she puzzled. “Not like any I ever—”

  “Stay there?” cried Lala excitedly. “Stay there?” She was jumping up and down on the boulder.

  Meris laughed. “Come here,” she said, holding out her muddy hands. “Come here!” Lala came. Meris nearly dropped her as she staggered under the weight of the child. Lala hadn’t bothered to slide down the boulder and run to her. She had launched herself like a little rocket, airborne the whole distance.

  She wiggled out of Meris’s astonished arms and rummaging, head hidden in the metal capsule, came out with a triumphant cry, “Deeko! Deeko!” And she showed Meris her sodden treasure. It was a doll, a wet, muddy, battered doll, but a doll nevertheless, dressed in miniature duplication of Lala’s outer garment which they had left in the cabin.

  Lala plucked at the wet folds of the doll’s clothes and made unhappy noises as she wiped the mud from the tiny face. She held the doll up to Meris, her voice asking and coaxing. So Meris squatted down by the child and together they undressed Deeko and washed her and her tiny clothes in the creek, then spread the clothes on the boulder in the sun. Lala gave Deeko a couple pf soggy hugs, then put her on the rock also.

  Just before supper, Mark came out to the creek-side to see the metallic object. He was still shaking his head in wonderment over the things Meris had told him of Lala. He would have discounted them about ninety percent except that Lala did them all over again for him. When he saw the ripped cylinder, he stopped shaking his head and just stared for a moment. Then he was turning it, and exploring in it, head hidden, hefting the weight of it, flexing a piece of its ripped metal. Then he lounged against the gray boulder and lipped thoughtfully at a dry cluster of pine needles.

  “Let’s live dangerously,” he said, “and assert that this is the How that Lala arrived in our vicinity last night. Let us further assert that it has no earthly origin. Therefore, let us, madly but positively, assert that this is a Space capsule of some sort and Lala is an extra-terrestrial.”

  “You mean,” gasped Meris, “that Lala is a little green man! And that this is a flying saucer?”

  “Well, yes,” said Mark. “Inexact, but it conveys the general idea.”

  “But, Mark! She’s just a baby. She couldn’t possibly have traveled all that distance alone—”

  “I’d say also that she couldn’t have traveled all that distance in this vehicle, either,” said Mark. “Point one, I don’t see anything resembling a motor or a fuel container or even a steering device. Point two, there are no provisions of any kind—water or food—or even any evidence of an air supply.”

  “Then?” said Meris, deftly fielding Lala from the edge of the creek.

  “I’d say—only as a guess—that this is a sort of lifeboat in case of a wreck. I’d say something happened in the storm last night and here’s Lala, Castaway.”

  “Where did you come from, baby dear?” chanted Meris to the wiggly Lala. “The heavens opened and you were here?”

  “They’ll be looking for her,” said Mark, “whoever her people are. Which means they’ll be looking for us.” He looked at Meris and smiled. “How does it feel, Mrs. Edwards, to be Looked For by denizens of Outer Space?”

  “Should we try to find them?” asked Meris. “Should we call the sheriff?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Mark. “Let’s wait a day or so. They’ll find her. I’m sure of it. Anyone who had a Lala would comb the whole state, inch by inch, until they found her.”

  He caught up Lala and tossed her, squealing, into the air. For the next ten minutes Mark and Meris were led a merry chase trying to get Lala down out of the trees! Out of the sky! She finally fluttered down into Meris’s arms and patted her cheek with a puzzled remark of some kind.

  “I suppose,” said Mark, taking a relieved breath, “that she’s wondering how come we didn’t chase her up there. Well, small one, you’re our duckling. Don’t laugh at our unwebbed feet.”

  That evening Meris sat rocking a drowsy-eyed Lala to sleep. She reached to tuck the blanket closer about the small bare feet, but instead cradled one foot in her hand. “You know what, Mark?” she said softly. “It’s just dawned on me what you were saying about Lala. You were saying that this foot might have walked on another world! It just doesn’t seem possible!”

  “Well, try this thought, then.” Mark pushed back from his desk, stretching widely and yawning. “If that world was very far away or their speed not too fast, that foot may never have touched a world anywhere. She may have been born en route.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” said Meris, “she knows too much about—about—things for that to be so. She knew to look in water for that—that vehicle of hers and she knew to wash her doll in running water and to spread clothes in the sun to dry. If she’d lived her life in Space—”

  “Hmm!” Mark tapped his mouth with his pencil. “You could be right, but there might be other explanations for her knowledge. But then, maybe the real explanation of Lala is a very pedestrian one.” He smiled at her unbelieving smile and went back to work.

  Meris was awake again in the dark. She stretched comfortably and smiled. How wonderful to be able to awaken in the dark and smile—instead of slipping inevitably into the aching endless grief and despair. How pleasant to be able to listen to Mark’s deep breathing and Lala’s little murmur as she turned on the camp cot beside the bed. How warm and relaxing the flicker of firelight from the cast-iron stove patterning ceiling and walls dimly. She yawn
ed and stopped in mid-stretch. What was that? Was that what had wakened her?

  There was a guarded thump on the porch, a fumbling at the door, an audible breath, and then, “Mr. Edwards! Are you there?” The voice was a forced whisper.

  Meris’s hand closed on Mark’s shoulder. He shrugged away in his sleep, but as her fingers tightened, he came wide awake, listening.

  “Mr. Edwards!”

  “Someone for Lala!” Meris gasped and reached toward the sleeping child.

  “No,” said Mark. “It’s Tad Winstel.” He lifted his voice. “Just a minute, Tad!” There was a muffled cry at the door and then silence. Mark padded barefoot to the door, blinking as he snapped the lights on, and, unlatching the door, swung it open. “Come on in, fellow, and close the door. It’s cold.” He shivered back for his jacket and sneakers.

  Tad slipped in and stood awkwardly thin and lanky by the door, hugging his arms to himself convulsively. Mark opened the stove and added a solid chunk of oak.

  “What brings you here at this hour?” he asked calmly.

  Tad shivered. “It isn’t you, then,” he said, “but it’s bad trouble. You told me that gang was no good to mess around with. Now I know it. Can they hang me for just being there?” His voice was very young and shaken.

  “Come over here and get warm,” said Mark. “For being where?”

  “In the car when it killed the guy.”

  “Killed!” Mark fumbled the black lid-lifter. “What happened?”

  “We were out in that Porsche of Rick’s, just tearing around seeing how fast it could take that winding road on the other side of Sheep’s Bluff.” Tad gulped. “They called me chicken because I got scared. And I am! I saw Mr. Stegemeir after his pickup went off the road by the fish hatchery last year and I—I can’t help remembering it. Well, anyway—” His voice broke off and he gulped. “Well, they made such good time that they got to feeling pretty wild and decided to come over on this road and—” His eyes dropped away from Mark’s and his feet moved apologetically. “They wanted to find some way to get back at you again.”

  Then his words tumbled out in a wild spurt of terror. “All at once there was this man. Out of nowhere! Right in the road! And we hit him! And knocked him clear off the road. And they weren’t even going to stop, but I grabbed the key and made them! I made them back up and I got out to look for the man. I found him. All bloody. Lying in the bushes. I tried to find out where he was bleeding—they—they went off and left me there with him!” His voice was outraged. “They didn’t give a dern about that poor guy! They went off and left him lying there and me with not even a flashlight!”

  Mark had been dressing rapidly. “He may not be dead,” he said, reaching for his cap. “How far is he?”

  “The other side of the creek bridge,” said Tad. “We came the Rim way. Do you think he might—”

  “We’ll see,” said Mark. “Meris, give me one of those army blankets and get Lala off the cot. We’ll use that for a stretcher. Build the fire up and check the first aid kit.” He got the Coleman lantern from the store-room, then he and Tad gathered up the canvas cot and went out into the chilly darkness.

  Lala fretted a little, then, curled in the warmth Mark had left, she slept again through all the bustling about as Meris prepared for Mark’s return.

  Meris ran to the door when she heard their feet in the yard. She flung the outer door wide and held the screen as they edged the laden cot through the door. “Is he—?”

  “Don’t think so.” Mark grunted as they lowered the cot to the floor. “Still bleeding from the cut on his head and I don’t think dead men bleed. Not this long, anyway. Get a gauze pad, Meris, and put pressure on the cut. Tad, get his boots off while I get his shirt—”

  Meris glanced up from her bandage as Mark’s voice broke off abruptly. He was staring at the shirt. His eyes caught Meris’s and he ran a finger down the front of the shirt. No buttons. Meris’s mouth opened, but Mark shook his head warningly. Then, taking hold of the muddied shirt, he gently turned both sides back away from the chest that was visibly laboring now.

  Meris’s hands followed the roll of the man’s head, keeping the bandage in place, but her eyes were on the bed, where Lala had turned away from the light and was burrowed nearly out of sight under the edge of Mark’s pillow.

  Tad spoke from where he was struggling with the man’s boots. “I thought it was you, Mr. Edwards,” he said. “I nearly passed out when you answered the door. Who else could it have been? No one else lives way out here and I couldn’t see his face. I knew he was bleeding because my hands—” He broke off as one boot thumped to the floor. “And we knocked him so far! So high! And I thought it was you!” He shuddered and huddled over the other boot. “I’m cured, honest, Mr. Edwards. I’m cured. Only don’t let him die. Don’t let him die!” He was crying now, unashamed.

  “I’m no doctor,” said Mark, “but I don’t think he’s badly hurt. Lots of scratches, but that cut on his head seems to be the worst.”

  “The bleeding’s nearly stopped,” said Meris. “And his eyes are fluttering.”

  Even as she spoke, the eyes opened, dark and dazed, the head turning restlessly. Mark leaned over the man. “Hello,” he said, trying to get the eyes to focus on him. “You’re okay. You’re okay. Only a cut—”

  The man’s head stilled. He blinked and spoke, his eyes dosing before his words were finished.

  “What did he say?” asked Tad. “What did he say?”

  “I don’t know,” said Mark. “And he’s gone again. To sleep, this time, I hope. I’m quite sure he isn’t dying.”

  Later, when Mark was satisfied that the man was sleeping, in the warm pajamas he and Tad had managed to wrestle him into, he got dressed in dean clothes and had Tad wash up, and put on a clean flannel shirt in place of his blood-stained one.

  “We’re going to the sheriff, after we find the doctor,” he told Tad. “We’re going to have to take care of those kids before they do kill someone or themselves. And you, Tad, are going to have to put the finger on them whether you like it or not. You’re the only witness—”

  “But if I do, then I’ll get in trouble, too—” began Tad.

  “Look, Tad,” said Mark patiently, “if you walk in mud, you get your feet muddy. You knew when you got involved with these fellows that you were wading in mud. Maybe you thought it didn’t matter much. Mud is easy to wash off. That might be true of mud, but what about blood?”

  “But Rick’s not a juvenile any more—” Tad broke off before the grim tightening of Mark’s face.

  “So that’s what they’ve been trading on. So he’s legally accountable now? Nasty break!”

  After they were gone, Meris checked the sleeping man again. Then, crawling into bed, shoving Lala gently toward the back of the bunk, she cuddled, shivering under the bedclothes. She became conscious of the steady outflow of warmth from Lala and smiled as she fanned her cold hands out under the cover toward the small body. “Bless the little heater!” she said. Her eyes were sleepy and closed in spite of her, but her mind still raced with excitement and wonder. What if Mark was right? What if Lala had come from a spaceship! What if this man, sleeping under their own blankets on their own cot, patched by their own gauze and adhesive, was really a Man from Outer Space! Wouldn’t that be something? “But,” she sighed, “no bug-eyed monsters? No set, staring eyes and slavering teeth?” She smiled at herself. She had been pretty bug-eyed herself, when she had seen his un—unbuttonable shirt.

  Dr. Hilf arrived, large, loud, and lively, before Meris got back to sleep—in fact, while she was in the middle of her Bless Mark, bless Tad, bless Lala, bless the bandaged man, bless—He examined the silently cooperative man thoroughly, rebandaged his head and a few of the deeper scratches, grabbed a cup of coffee, and boomed, “Doesn’t look to me as if he’s been hit by a car! Aspirin if his head aches. No use wasting stitches where they aren’t needed!” His voice woke Lala and she sat up, blinking silently at him. “He’s not much worried
himself! Asleep already! That’s an art!” The doctor gave Meris a practiced glance. “Looking half alive again yourself, young lady. Good idea having a child around. Your niece?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Good to help hold the place until you get another of your own!” Meris winced away from the idea. The doctor’s eyes softened, but not his voice. “There’ll be others,” he boomed. “We need offspring from good stock like yours and Mark’s. Leaven for a lot of the makeweights popping up all over.” He gathered up his things and flung the door open. “Mark says the fellow’s a foreigner. No English. Understood though. Let me know his name when you get it. Just curious. Mark’ll be along pretty quick. Waiting for the sheriff to get the juvenile officers from county seat.” The house door slammed. A car door slammed. A car roared away. Meris automatically smoothed her hair as she always did after a conversation with Dr. Hilf.

  She turned wearily back toward the bunk. And gasping, stumbled forward. Lala was hovering in the air over the strange man like a flanneled angel over a tombstoned crusader. She was peering down, her bare feet flipping up as she lowered her head toward him. Meris clenched her hands and made herself keep back out of the way.

  “Muhlala!” whispered Lala softly. Then louder, “Muhlala!” Then she wailed, “Muhlala!” and thumped herself down on the quiet, sleeping chest.

  “Well,” said Meris aloud to herself as she collapsed on the edge of the bunk. “There seems to be no doubt about it!” She watched—a little enviously—the rapturous reunion, and listened—more than a little curiously—to the flood of strange-sounding double conversation going on without perceptible pauses. Smiling, she brought tissues for the man to mop his face after Lala’s multitude of very moist kisses. The man was sitting up now, holding Lala closely to him. He smiled at Meris and then down at Lala. Lala looked at Meris and then patted the man’s chest.

  “Muhlala,” she said happily, “muhlala!” and burrowed her head against him.

  Meris laughed. “No wonder you thought it funny when I called you muhlala,” she said. “I wonder what Lala means.”