Almost at once the phone rang, and when I picked it up I heard Keith’s familiar voice, sounding just as he had on the videotape. “I’m glad you could make it! Did they give you a decent room?”
“It’s a beauty, Keith. Thanks a lot.”
“Don’t mention it. Stop by the casino once or twice so they’ll believe me when I tell them you’re a high roller.”
“The quarter slots are about my speed, Keith. When will I see you?”
“How about dinner? Is your wife with you?”
“She stopped off in Philly to visit an elderly uncle who’s ill. I drove in alone and she’s taking the bus tomorrow.”
“I’m looking forward to meeting her. But let’s get together tonight anyway. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
I glanced at my watch and saw that it was already after five. “Fine. Where and when?”
“The Cave Room downstairs. I’ll see you there at seven.”
* * * *
I reached the lobby a half-hour early, after a vigorous shower to wash off some of the road sweat. It seemed as good a time as any to put in an appearance at the casino so I wandered over to the blackjack tables and finally took a seat at the five-dollar one. A young woman with curly hair and a tight dress was dealing for the house, and demonstrating a remarkable run of luck. I lost thirty dollars within five minutes and decided that was my limit for the present.
I drifted into the Cave Room and sat at the bar, ordering a rum and Coke. After about ten minutes Keith Webster appeared. I recognized him at once from the videotape, but what really riveted my eyes was the woman at his side. She was as lovely as I remembered her, and the straight blond hair still reached to her hips. It was Cathy Meriwether, exactly as she’d been forty years earlier.
Keith grinned when he saw my amazed expression. “This is Cathy’s daughter, Sandra. Looks a lot like her mother, doesn’t she?”
“It’s amazing!” I acknowledged, shaking the young woman’s hand. “I’d have sworn it was Cathy.”
“My mother’s old friends always say that,” Sandra Meriwether told me. Even her voice was the one I remembered from so long ago.
“Sandra’s here for the Miss America Pageant,” Keith explained. “She’s covering it for a magazine.”
“You should be one of the contestants,” I told her seriously.
“Thanks, but I’m too old.”
We went in to dinner together and I noticed how my old army buddy fawned over her. It was like the past all over again. “How’s your mother doing?” I asked at one point, after we’d ordered.
“All right.” That was all. No details.
“Cathy used to come here for the pageant,” Keith explained, taking a sip of his cocktail. “Then Sandra started coming. Seeing them every year is one of the delights of my job.”
I frowned at a random memory. “Wasn’t this the week you two—?”
Keith Webster laughed. “Ran off together? You can say it. Sandra knows the whole story. Yes, it was in September of ’51. I went AWOL from Fort Dix and we drove down here together. I remember it was the final night of the Miss America Pageant. That was quite a time.” His eyes glowed at the memory. “The next morning Cathy was gone and I was alone. That just about drove me crazy. I chased after her in my car and that was when I lost control and went through the window of a hardware store. I was court-martialed and got tossed out of the army.”
“I always thought they were too hard on you,” I said.
“Oh, it worked out well in the long run. When I heard from Cathy again she gave me the name of a guy who helped get me into the stagehands’ union. It’s the closest I ever came to show business, I guess. I moved down here so I could see more of her.”
“You said you were living in Delaware.”
He nodded. “Outside Wilmington. It’s an easy commute, across the Memorial Bridge and straight down Route 40. I like the location because it’s about halfway.”
“Halfway between what?”
He and Sandra exchanged quick glances. “Well, Cathy lives in southern Delaware—a place called Rehoboth Beach. I drive down to see her sometimes.”
“My mother’s still a lively woman,” Sandra volunteered. “She’s always at work on something.”
* * * *
After dinner Keith gave us a backstage tour, where leggy showgirls in various states of undress were preparing for the next performance. “I’ll be retiring soon,” he told me. “Don’t think I won’t miss all this.”
Since he’d been responsible for my room I felt he deserved an invitation. The three of us ended the evening up there, looking out at the ocean. Keith snapped on the television so we could watch the Miss America finals being televised from just down the Boardwalk. I had some drinks sent up, although by that time we’d all had enough.
Somewhere during the middle of the pageant Keith departed quietly. “I’m staying at the hotel tonight,” he mumbled. “Too drunk to drive home.”
Sandra was seated on the big bed, her back against the padded headboard. “Aren’t they lovely?” she asked, watching the flickering images on the television screen.
I turned out the rest of the lights and joined her with another drink. “You’re the one who’s lovely, just like your mother.”
“Tell me something. Did you ever sleep with her?”
“Me? No, no—she was always Keith’s girl then.”
She rolled over on the bed. “Would you like to sleep with me?”
“I—”
“I’m not Keith’s girl now.”
I tried to comprehend what she meant by that, but my mind was foggy with drink. We rolled around on the bed for a while, and I remember light from the television screen reflecting on her face as she asked, “Do you know who I am?”
“Cathy. No, you’re Sandra. But you really are Cathy, aren’t you? Just like you were forty years ago.”
“I am Myrtle,” she whispered into my ear. “Myrtle Meriwether. Remember my name.”
“Myrtle—What kind of a name is that? No wonder you changed it!”
Then I slept, and remembered no more.
* * * *
By the time I awakened with a dull headache, the morning sun was beginning to appear at the corners of the shrouded windows. I was alone in the big bed. Sandra, or whoever she was, had gone. I went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face, then returned to sit on the edge of the bed and dial the hotel operator. I only hoped Keith hadn’t tried to drive after he left my room.
“Operator.”
“Keith Webster’s room, please.”
“One moment.”
I heard it ringing. On the fifth ring he picked it up. “’Lo?”
“Keith, it’s me. Where is she? Where’s Sandra?”
Silence. I repeated my question and he replied with, “Do you know what time it is?”
“What’s your room number, Keith? I’m coming down.”
“Six-twenty-seven. Give me five minutes.”
I was there in four. He answered my knock on his door, still groggy from sleep, and I repeated my question. “Where is she?”
“Who? Sandra? I left her with you.”
“She was gone when I woke up.”
“Forget her. She’s bad news.”
“It’s Cathy, isn’t it? There’s no Sandra.”
He merely shook his head. “I told you, forget her.”
“She told me her name was Myrtle. Myrtle Meriwether.”
“She told you that?”
“Keith, I have to see her again!”
He sighed and steadied himself against the door frame. “She’s gone back to Rehoboth Beach, Buddy. The pageant is over.”
“Then that’s where I’m going! I have to find her.”
“What’s the fastest way? All the way up to Wilmington?”
He glanced at his watch. “There’s a car ferry to Lewes from Cape May. If we hurry we can catch the first morning run.”
* * * *
The weather had turned suddenly cooler overnight, resulting in a heavy mist that hung over the entire shoreline as we drove south toward Cape May. There was little traffic early Sunday morning and we made good time on the Garden State Parkway. Still, we might have missed the ferry except that it had been held up until the fog lifted a little.
We landed in Delaware just five miles north of Rehoboth Beach. When I pulled into the big parking lot there were no other cars in sight and the mist still hung over the shoreline as it had on the Jersey side. “Where to now?” I asked Keith.
I noticed he’d grown pale during the crossing and wondered if the choppy waters had been too much for his stomach. “You really want to do this, Buddy?”
“I want to see her.”
“Come on, then. She’ll be along the beach.”
We started through the damp sand, and almost at once the place took on a mystic, dream-like quality. I was surrounded by giant sand castles, some reaching above my head, all of them wrapped in mist and in various states of ruin. “What is this place?” I asked Keith.
“They have a big sand castle contest every August. It takes a while for the kids to knock them all down.”
I walked slower now as the sand tugged at my shoes, seeing these elaborate castles spread out on all sides.
Then, through the mist, I heard someone calling my name.
She was standing there, about fifty feet ahead of us, perched on the ruined tower of a castle, her long hair blowing gently though there was no hint of a breeze.
That was when I was suddenly afraid.
“Come here,” she called. “I’m waiting for you.”
“Cathy!”
“I am Myrtle. Remember my name.”
I broke into a run then, heading straight for her. Keith shouted and dove for my feet, tackling me in the sand. I landed on my face.
“Keith, damn it! Let me go!”
“Not there, Buddy. You don’t want to go there.”
I rubbed the sand from my face and eyes, and by that time she was gone. I lay there gasping for breath, choking and sobbing all at once. “Where is she, Keith?”
“Gone, Buddy. Gone until the next beauty pageant. What’s that? Miss U.S.A., Miss Universe?”
“What do you mean, gone? It was Cathy, wasn’t it?”
“It was Cathy,” he agreed. “And Sandra. But really Myrtle.”
“How could she look exactly the same after forty years?”
Keith Webster got up and started brushing the damp sand from his clothes. “Do you really want to know, Buddy? Myrtle Meriwether won the first beauty contest ever held in America, right here at Rehoboth Beach. She was Miss United States.” He paused and stared off into the mist, as if trying to see her one more time. “That was in the summer of 1880.”
HISTORY RETOLD
ABOUT “THE LAST UNICORN”
Older readers—and perhaps young ones, too—may remember a folk song written by the humorist children’s poet Shel Silverstein and made popular by the Irish Rovers. Like the song, this story is a cute reimagining of an ancient story, and was published three years before Silverstein’s song.
First publication—Original Science Fiction Stories, February 1959.
THE LAST UNICORN
The rain was still falling by the time he reached the little wooden shack that stood in the center of the green, fertile valley. He opened his cloak for an instant to knock at the door, not really expecting a reply.
But it opened, pulled over the roughness of the rock floor by great hairy hands. “Come in,” a voice commanded him. “Hurry! Before this rain floods me out.”
“Thank you,” the traveler said, removing the soggy garment that had covered him and squeezing out some of the water. “It’s good to find a dry place. I’ve come a long way.”
“Not many people are about in this weather,” the man told him, pulling at his beard with a quick, nervous gesture.
“I came looking for you.”
“For me? What is your name?”
“You can call me Shem. I came from beyond the mountains.”
The bearded man grunted. “I don’t know the name. What do you seek?”
Shem sat down to rest himself on a pale stone seat. “I hear talk that you have two fine unicorns here, recently brought from Africa.”
The man smiled proudly. “That is correct. The only such creatures in this part of the world. I intend to breed them and sell them to the farmers as beasts of burden.”
“Oh?”
“They can do the work of strong horses and at the same time use their horn to defend themselves against attack.”
“True,” Shem agreed. “Very true. I…I don’t suppose you’d want to part with them…?”
“Part with them! Are you mad, man? It cost me money to bring them all the way from Africa!”
“How much would you take for them?”
The bearded man rose from his seat. “No amount, ever! Come back in two years when I’ve bred some. Until then, begone with you!”
“I must have them, sir.”
“You must have nothing! Begone from here now before I take a club to you!” And with those words he took a menacing step forward.
Shem retreated out the door, back into the rain, skipping lightly over a rushing stream of water from the higher ground. The door closed on him, and he was alone. But he looked out into the fields, where a small, barn-like structure stood glistening in the downpour.
They would be in there, he knew.
He made his way across the field, sometimes sinking to his ankles in puddles of muddy water. But finally he reached the outbuilding and went in through a worn, rotten door.
Yes, they were here…. Two tall and handsome beasts, very much like horses, but with longer tails and with that gleaming twisted horn shooting straight up from the center of their foreheads. Unicorns—one of the rarest of God’s creatures!
He moved a bit closer, trying now to lure them out of the building without startling them. But there was a noise, and he turned suddenly to see the bearded man standing there, a long staff upraised in his hands.
“You try to steal them,” he shouted, lunging forward.
The staff thudded against the wall, inches from Shem’s head. “Listen, old man…”
“Die! Die, you robber!”
But Shem leaped to one side, around the bearded figure of wrath, and through the open doorway. Behind him, the unicorns gave a fearful snort and trampled the earthen floor with their hoofs.
Shem kept running, away from the shack, away from the man with the staff, away from the fertile valley.
After several hours of plodding over the rain-swept hills, he came at last upon his father’s village, and he went down among the houses to the place where the handful of people had gathered.
And he saw his father standing near the base of the great wooden vessel, and he went up to him sadly.
“Yes, my son?” the old man questioned, unrolling a long damp scroll of parchment.
“No unicorns, father.”
“No unicorns,” Noah repeated sadly, scratching out the name on his list. “It is too bad. They were handsome beasts….”
ABOUT “WHO RIDES WITH SANTA ANNA?”
French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and, according to the history books, died six years later while in exile. More than a decade later Mexican President G
eneral Santa Anna, known as “The Napoleon of the West,” led a thirteen-day siege on the Alamo Mission in San Antonio resulting in the massacre of approximately 500 Americans and Texans. What if…?
First publication—Real Western Stories, February 1959.
WHO RIDES WITH SANTA ANNA?
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna stood pensively on a hardened hill of sand, looking north toward a little cluster of smoldering cottonwoods that had once sheltered the walls of the Alamo Mission. For nearly two weeks his overwhelming forces had battered at the small band of Texans and Americans. For nearly two weeks every attack had been thrown back—until now the plain between the Mexican camp and the little mission was strewn with the trappings of unsettled battle.
“Once more,” Santa Anna breathed to the officer at his side. “Once more we must try it.”
“But five hundred of our men have died already, President.”
“What is five hundred when seven times that number still ride with us? Prepare for another attack.”
And he stood there, alone, searching the horizon with his glass, swinging it from time to time back toward the shell-scarred walls of the Alamo Mission, searching for any sign of movement. Presently the officer, Juan, returned to his side.
“Yes, Juan?”
“I have passed the orders, President.”
“Very good.”
“But a single rider has come in from the south…”
“A rider?” Santa Anna wheeled around, turning his glass toward the camp. “A messenger from Mexico City, perhaps?”
“No, President,” Juan shook his head. “He is an old man—though he rides well. He wishes to speak with you.”
“Very well. Bring him to me. But be ready to ride.”
* * * *
And presently a little old man came slowly up the path to the place where Santa Anna stood. A short man, with a face that still seemed to retain some of the shrewdness of youth combined now with some uncertain wisdom of age.
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