Innocents Aboard

by Gene Wolfe

  And what came out was the cane. Just that cane, all by itself, with a sort of cold draft from the basement. As soon as it came out it went up and broke the light over the basement door, but I had gotten a pretty good look at it first.

  After that I followed it through the house to the front door, and when it tapped on that to be let out, I opened the door and let it go. After that I closed the door and locked it, and went back to bed.

  When I went out in the morning to get the paper, I was expecting to find that cane out there, probably lying in front of the front door. I looked all around for it, in the bushes and everything, and it was gone, and the harder I looked for it and did not find it the better I felt. I was really happy.

  But now I am going to bed. I should be able to wrap this up tomorrow night.

  A cop came today asking questions. I told him I did not know anything about the dead girls except what I had seen on TV. He asked about Jo, and I had to tell him she had left me, which I think is the truth even if her car is still here, and all her stuff. After that he went next door. I saw him, and I think probably he was asking them about me.

  Anyway, the next night I followed the cane again, only that time I followed it outside. I had heard it, I thought in the house. I had gotten up and gotten dressed very quietly so as not to wake up Jo and looked all around for it. Finally I heard it down in the basement again, walking and walking, tap-tap-tapping on the concrete floor down there, and I opened the door like before and let it out, and then I ran ahead of it and opened the front door.

  And when it went outside, I followed it. I guess I kept about half a block back. Maybe a little bit less. There is no way that I can say how far it was. It did not seem to be very much walking, but pretty soon we were in a neighborhood I had not ever seen before, where all the houses were taller and a lot closer together, and the pavement was not even anymore. I got scared then and went back, and when I got inside I locked the door like I had before.

  Only something had made Jo wake up, and I told her about how the cane had come back and gotten into the basement somehow, and how I had been following it. She said, “Next time let me throw it out.”

  So I said, “Well, I hope there never will be any next time. But if you can find it, you can throw it out.” After that we went back in to bed, and I did not hear anything else that night. In the morning I got up pretty early the way I always do on workdays and got dressed, and Jo fixed my breakfast. Then I went to work the way I always do, figuring Jo would take off for her own job in about an hour. That was the last time I saw her.

  When I got home that night and she did not come, I thought she was probably just working late. So I made supper for myself, a can of stew I think it was and rye bread, and drank a couple beers and watched TV. There was nothing on TV that night, or if there was I do not remember what. It got to be practically midnight and still no Jo, so I phoned the police. They said she had to be gone twenty-four hours and to call back if she did not come home, but I never did. That was the only time I called you.

  While I was getting undressed somebody knocked on the door. I opened it and all the power went out. The light turned off, and the TV picture shrunk to nothing very fast, so I never did see the dog’s head cane come in and by that time I had cut it up anyhow, only I could hear it. I stood as still as I could until I could not hear it anymore. Maybe it went down into the basement again, I do not know. I do not know whether the basement door was open or closed, either. It just sort of went away toward the back.

  Well, I went in the bedroom and shut the door and moved the bureau to block it, and just about then the lights came back on and I saw there was a note on my pillow. I have still got it, and here it is.

  Johnny,

  There was someone in the back yard. I saw him as plainly as I have ever seen anything, a big man with a black mustache and a derby hat such as one sees in old photographs. He wore a thick wool overcoat, black or of some dark check, with a wide shawl collar, it seemed, and what may have been a scarf or muffler or another collar of black or dark brown fur.

  I watched him for some time, wishing all the while that you were here with me, and asked him more than once what it was he wanted, threatening to call the police. He never replied; I know that you will laugh at me for this, Johnny, but his was the most threatening silence I have ever encountered. It was.

  When the sun rose above the Jeffersons’, he was gone. No. You would have said that he was gone, that with the first beams he was transformed into something like mist, which the morning breeze swiftly swept aside. But, he was still there. He is still there. I feel his presence.

  I am not going to work today, having already called in sick. But, I am writing this for you to cleanse my spirit of it, and in case I should decide to leave you.

  I will leave, if you will not destroy every last trace of Mavis’s stick. I know you did not discard it as you promised me you would last night, and will not discard it. I left my poor Georgie for you for much less. I hope you realize this.

  I will go, and once I have I will be out of your life forever.

  Very, very seriously,

  Jo Anne, with all my love

  Now I think it is about over. I really do. Either over, or starting something different. Okay, here is the bad part, right up front. The bottom line.

  Last night I thought I heard something moving around and I thought oh God, it’s back. But then I thought it could not be back because of all the things I did. (I ought to tell about all that, and I will, too, before I turn in tonight.)

  Anyway, I got up to see what it was, and it was all the other canes in the big oak cabinet in the dining room rattling around and knocking to be let out.

  So it is not only the one with the silver top, it is all the rest, too. But if that one is still doing it, why would the others want to step up? So I think what it really means is I have won. Here is what I plan to do. I am going to call up Union Van Lines and tell them I have got a certain item of furniture I want taken out and stored. I will get them to move the whole cabinet for me. (Naturally it will still be locked, because I have lost the key like I said.) They will put it in a warehouse someplace for me. I think New Jersey, and I can tell them I am planning to move there eventually but I do not know when yet. Every month or whatever they will send me a storage bill for fifty bucks or so, and I will pay that bill, you bet, for the rest of my life. It will be worth every nickel to know that the cabinet is still locked up in that warehouse. I will call them tomorrow.

  All right, here is the rest.

  There was a night (if you read the paper or even watch the news on TV you know what night it was) when I followed the cane with the silver top outside again. After about four blocks it went to the same place it had before, where the big high houses were up against each other so close you could see they could not have windows on the sides. Where the streets were dirty, like I said, and sometimes you saw people passed out on the cold dirty old pavement. That pavement was just round rocks, really, but the streetlights were so dim (like those friendship lights the gas company used to push) that you could not hardly tell it except with your feet.

  We went a long way there, a lot farther than the first time.

  When we started out, I was trying to keep about half a block behind like before, because I thought somebody would grab that cane sure, and maybe ask if it belonged to me if I was too close. But when we got in among those old houses that leaned over the street like I have told about, I had to move in a lot closer because of the fog and bad light. It was cold and I was scared. I do not mind saying that, because it is the truth. But I had told myself that I was going to follow the cane that night until it came back to the house, no matter what. I did, too.

  I kept thinking somebody would notice a cane walking all by itself pretty soon, but it was real late, very few people out at all, and nobody did.

  Then there was this girl. She had blond hair and a long skirt, and a coat too big for her it looked like that she was holding tight around
her, and hurrying along. I kept waiting for it to register with her that the cane was walking all by itself. Finally when it got real close to her it registered with me that was not how she saw it. Somebody was holding that cane and walking along with it, and even if I could not see him she could.

  Just about then he grabbed her, and I saw that. I do not mean I saw him, I did not, but I saw that she had been grabbed and heard her yell. And then the cane was beating her, up and down and up and down, and her yelling and her blood flying like water when a car drives through it fast. It sounded horrible, the yelling, and the thud-thud-thud beating, too. I ran and the yelling stopped, but the beating kept right on until I grabbed it.

  It felt good. I never hated to write anything this much in my life but it did. That girl was lying down on the dirty pavement stones bleeding terrible, and it was horrible, but it felt good. It felt like I was stronger than I have ever been in my life.

  People started yelling and I ran, but before I got very far the houses looked right again, and the streetlights were bright. I was getting out of breath, so I started walking, just walking fast instead of running. I tried to hold the cane so nobody would see it, and when I looked down at it, it was looking up at me. Sure, the handle was bent because of beating on the girl. Or something. But it was looking up at me, a German shepherd or something with pointed ears. The red things were back in its eyes even if Jo had not ever seen them, and it seemed like I could see more teeth.

  Then in the morning it was all over the news. I had the clock radio set to wake me up at five to go to work, and that was all they were talking about, this girl that had been a baby-sitter over in the Haddington Hill subdivsion (it is flatter even than here) and she was on her way back home when somebody beat her to death.

  That night they showed the place on TV so you could see the bloodstains on the sidewalk, and it was not right at all, but when they showed her picture from the yearbook, it was her. She had been a sophomore at Consolidated High. I thought I would walk over there and have a look, and when I went out the door that cane with the silver dog on it was in my hand. It stopped me and made it hard for me not to go at the same time.

  But I stopped, and that is when I did it. First thing I thought of was I would take off the silver head and put it in my safety deposit at the bank where it could not do anything. But when I twisted it trying to get it off, it unscrewed. I had not even known it was screwed on. There was a silver band under the part that came off that said some name with a J only too worn to read and M.D., all in fancy handwriting. It could have been Jones or Johnson or anything like that, but he had been a doctor.

  Then inside that silver band the cane looked hollow. I turned it upside down and this little glass tube came sliding out. It was about half full of something that was kind of like mercury only more like a white powder, some kind of heavy stuff that slid around very easy in the tube and was heavy. I took it way back to the back corner of the back yard where I had noticed a snake hole the last time I cut the grass and poured it in. Jo wanted to know what I was doing there. (She had seen me out the kitchen window while she was washing dishes.) I said nothing, just poking around.

  But the funny thing was, when I got back inside the cane was just a cane. There was nothing special about it anymore. I sawed the wood part in two down in my shop like I had planned to, but it was nothing. It was exactly like sawing a broom handle. The next day I took the silver dog head down to the bank on my way home from work, but it did not matter anymore and I knew it.

  So I thought that everything was fixed until Jo saw that man and went away without taking her clothes or car or anything. Then just before I started writing this I saw him myself, and there was a woman with him, and I think it was Jo. That was what started me doing this. So this is all of it and maybe I will put it on the net like I said, and maybe I will not. I want to sleep on it.

  Another cop came a couple of hours ago, and after he went out back I found these papers, which I had stuck in a drawer. (It is December now.) He was friendly, but he did not fool me. He said the New Jersey cops got a court order and broke into the cabinet for them. I said, “What were you looking for?”

  And he said, “Jo’s body.”

  So I said, “Well, what did they find inside?”

  And he said, “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” I could not believe it.

  “That’s what they say, sir.”

  Then I told him there had been a collection of valuable canes in there, and they did not belong to me, they belonged to Mavis. He hummed and hawed around, and finally he winked at me and said, “Well those Jersey cops have some real nice canes now, I guess.”

  I am not ever going to go near New Jersey, and I hope that those other canes do not decide to come back here, or anyway not many of them.

  So then I told him about the trespassers and asked him to take a look around my back yard. He went to do it, and he has not come back yet. That makes me feel good and really strong, but probably I will have to call somebody tomorrow because his police car is still parked in front of the house.

  Queen

  It was late afternoon when the travelers reached the village. The taller of the two led the way to the well, and they sat there to wait as travelers do who hope that someone will offer them a roof for the night. As it chanced the richest man in the village hurried by, then stopped, compelled by something he glimpsed in their faces. Something he could not have explained.

  “I’ll be back this way quite soon,” he told them. “We have a room for guests, and can offer you a good supper.”

  The taller thanked him. “We were only hoping for directions. What is the name of your village?”

  The richest man told him.

  “We have come to the right place, then.” He named the old woman.

  “She’s poor,” the richest man said.

  They said nothing; it was as though they had not heard.

  “She hasn’t a lot. Are you relatives? Maybe you could buy something and take it to her, then she could cook it for you. A lamb.”

  “Where does she live?” the taller asked.

  “Over there.” The richest man pointed. “At the edge of the village.” He hesitated. “Come with me. I’ll show you.”

  They followed him, walking side by side so silently that he looked behind him thinking they might have gone. Neither had a staff. That seemed strange; he tried to recall when he had last seen a traveler who had no staff to help him walk, no staff to defend his life, if defense of life were needed.

  The old woman was still at her spinning, which surprised him. She let them in and invited them to sit. The travelers did, but he did not, saying, “There are things I have to do. I only brought them here because they didn’t know the way, didn’t know how to find your house. Are they relations of yours?”

  She shook her head.

  “Do you know them? It might not be safe.”

  She considered, her head to one side, remembering. “I think I know that one. Or perhaps not. It’s been so long.”

  “You’re not going to hurt her, I hope?” the richest man asked. “She has nothing.”

  Speaking for the first time, the smaller of the two said, “We have come to take her to the coronation.”

  “Well.” The richest man cleared his throat. “She is an, er, um, descendant of the royal line. I had forgotten. However …”

  “However?”

  He coughed. “However a great many people are, and she has little with which to make you welcome.”

  “A little oil,” the old woman said. “Some flour.”

  “So why don’t I, ah, provide a bit of food? I could have my servants bring something, and dine with you myself.” Suddenly unsure, he looked at the old woman. “Would that be all right?”

  “I would like it,” the old woman assured him.

  When his servants had spread a cloth for them and loaded her small table with dishes, he dismissed them and sat down. “I don’t know that all this is good,” he said. �
��Likely some of it won’t be. But some of it’s bound to be good.”

  “Do you want to go now?” the smaller traveler asked the old woman. “Or would you rather eat first? It’s up to you.”

  She smiled. “Is it a long way?”

  The taller said, “Very long indeed. The place is very far from here.”

  “Then I would like to eat first.” She prayed over the food the richest man had provided, and as he listened to her it came to him that he had never heard such prayers before, and then that he had never heard prayer at all. He was like a man who had seen only bad coin all his life, he thought, and after a great many years receives a purse of real silver, fresh from the mint.

  “That is true,” the taller said when the old woman had finished her prayer, “but food is good, too.” It seemed to the richest man that this had been said in answer to his thought, though he could not be sure.

  “I was about to say that I never expected to go to a coronation,” the old woman told the smaller, smiling, “but now that I think about it, I realize it isn’t really true. I used to dream that I’d see my son’s coronation—that my son would be a king, and someday I would see him crowned. It was silly of me.”

  “Her son was a teacher,” the richest man explained.

  They ate olives, bread, and mutton, and drank wine.

  “You won’t be leaving in the morning, I hope?” The richest man had discovered that he did not want them to go; he would suggest they sleep in his house, as he had first proposed. They could rejoin the old woman in the morning.

  “No,” the taller said.

  “That’s good. You must be tired, since you’ve come a long way. You really ought to stay here for a fortnight or more recruiting your strength. This is an interesting part of the country, agriculturally and historically. I can show you around and introduce you to all the people you ought to meet. Believe me, it never hurts to be introduced, to have connections in various parts of the country. Too many people think that they can do everything through relatives, their families and their wives’ relations. It never works out.”