Зенна Гендерсон - The Anything Box

"Doesn't she ever say anything?" I finally asked.
Pa looked quick at Ma and then back down at his plate.
"Never heard a word out of her," said Ma.
"Doesn't she ever do anything?" I asked.
"Why sure," said Ma. "She shells peas real good when I get her started."
"Yeah." I felt my spine crinkle, remembering once when I was little. I saton the porch and passed the peapods to Aunt Daid. I was remembering how, afterI ran out of peas, her withered old hands had kept reaching and taking and
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shelling and throwing away with nothing but emptiness in them.
"And she tears rug rags good. And she can pull weeds if nothing else isgrowing where they are."
"Why—" I started—and stopped.
"Why do we keep her?" asked Ma. "She doesn't die. She's alive. What shouldwe do? She's no trouble. Not much, anyway."
"Put her in a home somewhere," I suggested.
"She's in a home now," said Ma, spooning up for Aunt Daid. And we don't have to put out cash for her and no telling what'd happen to her."
"What is this walking business anyway? Walking where?"
"Down hollow," said Pa, cutting a quarter of a cherry pie. "Down to theoak—" he drew a deep breath and let it out— "and back again."
"Why down there?" I asked. "Hollow's full of weeds and mosquitoes. Besidesit's—it's—"
"Spooky," said Ma, smiling at me.
"Well, yes, spooky," I said. "There's always a quiet down there when thewind's blowing everywhere else, or else a wind when everything's still. Whydown there?"
"There's where she wants to walk," said Pa. "You walk her down there."
"Well." I stood up, "Let's get it over with. Come on, Aunt Daid."
"She ain't ready yet," said Ma. "She won't go till she's ready."
"Well, Pa, why can't you walk her then?" I asked. "You did it once—"
"Once is enough," said Pa, his face shut and still. "It's your job thistime. You be here when you're needed. It's a family duty. Them fish willwait."
"Okay, okay," I said. "But at least tell me what the deal is. It soundslike a lot of hogwash to me."
There wasn't much to tell. Aunt Daid was a family heirloom, like, but Panever heard exactly who she was to the family. She had always been likethis—just as old and so dried up she wasn't even repulsive. I guess it's onlywhen there's enough juice for rotting that a body is repulsive and Aunt Daidwas years and years past that. That must be why the sight of her wet tonguejarred me.
Seems like once in every twenty-thirty years, Aunt Daid gets an awfulcraving to go walking. And always someone has to go with her. A man. She won'tgo with a woman. And the man comes back changed.
"You can't help being changed," said Pa, "when your eyes look on thingsyour mind can't—" Pa swallowed.
"Only time there was any real trouble with Aunt Daid," said Pa, "was whenthe family came west. That was back in your great-great-grampa's time. Theyleft the old place and came out here in covered wagons and Aunt Daid didn'teven notice until time for her to walk again. Then she got violent.Great-grampa tried to walk her down the road, but she dragged him all over theplace, coursing like a hunting dog that's lost the trail only with her eyesblind-like, all through the dark. Great-grampa finally brought her back almostat sunrise. He was pert nigh a broken man, what with cuts and bruises andscratches —and walking Aunt Daid. She'd finally settled on down hollow."
"What does she walk for?" I asked. "What goes on?" "You'll see, son," saidPa. "Words wouldn't tell anything, but you'll see."
That evening Aunt Daid covered her face again with her hands. Later shestood up by herself, teetering by her chair a minute, one withered old handpawing at the air, till Ma, with a look at Pa, set her down again.
All next day Aunt Daid was quiet, but come evening she got restless. Shewent to the door three or four times, just waiting there like a puppy askingto go out, but after my heart had started pounding and I had hurried to herand opened the door, she just waved her face blindly at the darkness outsideand went back to her chair.
Next night was the same until along about ten o'clock, just as Ma wasthinking of putting Aunt Daid to bed. First thing we knew, Aunt Daid was by
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the door again, her feet tramping up and down impatiently, her dry hands
whispering over the door.
"It's time," said Pa quiet-like, and I got all cold inside.
"But it's blacker'n pitch tonight," I protested. "It's as dark as the
inside of a cat. No moon."
Aunt Daid whimpered. I nearly dropped. It was the first sound I'd ever
heard from her.
"It's time," said Pa again, his face bleak. "Walk her, son. And, Paul—bring
her back."
"Down hollow's bad enough by day," I said, watching, half sick, as Aunt
Daid spread her skinny arms out against the door, her face pushed up against
it hard, her saggy black dress looking like spilled ink dripped down, "but on
a moonless night—"
"Walk her somewhere else, then," said Pa, his voice getting thin. "If you
can. But get going, son, and don't come back without her."
And I was outside, feeling the shifting of Aunt Daid's hand bones inside my
hand as she set off through the dark, dragging me along with her, scared half
to death, wondering if the rustling I heard was her skin or her clothes,
wondering on the edge of screaming where she was dragging me to—what she was
dragging me to.
I tried to head her off from down hollow, steering her toward the lane or
the road or across lots or out into the pasture, but it was like being a dog
on a leash. I went my way the length of our two arms, then I went her way.
Finally I gave up and let her drag me, my eyes opened to aching, trying to see
in the dark so heavy that only a less dark showed where the sky was. There
wasn't a sound except the thud of our feet in the dust and a thin straining
hiss that was Aunt Daid's breath and a gulping gasp that was mine. I'd've
cried if I hadn't been so scared.
Aunt Daid stopped so quick that I plowed into her, breathing in a sudden
puff of a smell like a stack of old newspapers that have been a long time in a
dusty shed. And there we stood, so close I could touch her but I couldn't even
see a glimmer of her face in the darkness that was so thick it seemed like the
whole night had poured itself down into the hollow. But between one blink and
another, I could see Aunt Daid. Not because there was any more light, but
because my eyes seemed to get more seeing to them.
She was yawning—a soft little yawn that she covered with a quick hand—and
then she laughed. My throat squeezed my breath. The yawn and the hand movement
and the laugh were all young and graceful and—and beautiful—but the hand and
the face were still withered-up old Aunt Daid.
“I’m waking up." The voice sent shivers up me—pleasure shivers. "I'm waking
up," said Aunt Daid again, her soft, light voice surprised and delighted. "And
I know I'm waking up!"
She held her hands up and looked at them. "They look so horribly real," she
marveled. "Don't they?"
She held them out to me and in my surprise I croaked, "Yeah, they sure do."
At the sound of my voice, she jerked all over and got shimmery all around
the edges.
"He said," she whispered, her lips firming and coloring as she talked, "he
said if ever I could know in my dream that I was just dreaming, I'd be on the
way to a cure. I know this is the same recurrent nightmare. I know I'm asleep,
but I'm talking to one of the creatures—" she looked at me a minute "—one of
the people in my dream. And he's talking to me—for the first time!"
Aunt Daid was changing. Her face was filling out and her eyes widening, her
body was straining at the old black dress that wasn't saggy any more. Before I
could draw a breath, the old dress rustled to the ground and Aunt Daid—I mean
she was standing there, light rippling around her like silk—a light that cast
no shadows nor even flickered on the tangled growth in the hollow.
It seemed to me that I could see into that light, farther than any human
eyes ought to see, and all at once the world that had always been absolute
bedrock to me became a shimmering edge of something, a path between places or
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a brief stopping place. And the wonder that was the existence of mankindwasn't unique any more.
"Oh, if only I am cured!" she cried. "If only I don't ever have to gothrough this nightmare again!" She lifted her arms and drew herself up into aslim growing exclamation point.
"For the first time I really know I'm dreaming," she said. "And I know thisisn't real!" Her feet danced across the hollow and she took both my numbhands. "You aren't real, are you?" she asked. "None of this is, is it? Allthis ugly, old, dragging—" She put her arms around me and hugged me tight.
My hands tingled to the icy fire of her back and my breath was tangled inthe heavy silvery gleam of her hair.
"Bless you for being unreal!" she said. "And may I never dream you again!"
And there I was, all alone in the dark hollow, staring at hands I couldn'tsee, trying to see the ice and fire that still tingled on my fingertips. Itook a deep shuddery breath and stopped to grope for Aunt Daid's dress thatcaught at my feet. Fear melted my knees and they wouldn't straighten up again.I could feel terror knocking at my brain and I knew as soon as it could breakthrough I'd go screaming up the hollow like a crazy man, squeezing the blackdress like a rattlesnake in my hands. But I heard Pa saying, "Bring her back,"and I thought, "All my grampas saw it, too. All of them brought her back. It'shappened before." And I crouched there, squinching my eyes tight shut, holdingmy breath, my fingers digging into my palms, clutching the dress.
It might have been a minute, it might have been an hour, or a lifetimebefore the dress stirred in my hands. My knees jerked me upright and I droppedthe dress like a live coal.
She was there again, her eyes dreaming-shut, her hair swinging like thestart of music, her face like every tender thing a heart could ever know. Thenher eyes opened slowly and she looked around her.
"Oh, no!" she cried, the back of her hand muffling her words. "Not again!Not after all this time! I thought I was over it!"
And I had her crying in my arms—all that wonderfulness against me. All thatsoftness and sorrow.
But she pulled away and looked up at me. "Well, I’ll say it again so Iwon't forget it," she said, her tears slipping from her face and glitteringdown through the dark. "And this time it'll work. This is only a dream. My ownspecial nightmare. This will surely be the last one. I have just this onenight to live through and never again, never again. You are my dream—this isall a dream—" Her hands touched the wrinkles that started across her forehead. The old black dress was creeping like a devouring snake up her and her fleshwas sagging away before it as it crept. Her hair was dwindling and tarnishingout of its silvery shining, her eyes shrinking and blanking out.
"No, no!" I cried, sick to the marrow to see Aunt Daid coming back over allthat wonder. I rubbed my hand over her face to erase the lines that werecracking across it, but the skin under my fingers stiffened and crumpled andstiffened and hardened, and before I could wipe the feel of dried oldness fromthe palm of my hand, all of Aunt Daid was there and the hollow was fading asmy eyes lost their seeing.
I felt the drag and snag of weeds and briars as I brought Aunt Daid back—asobbing Aunt Daid, tottering and weak. I finally had to carry her, allmatch-sticky and musty in my arms.
As I struggled up out of the hollow that was stirring behind me in a windthat left the rest of the world silent, I heard singing in my head, Life isbut a dream . . . Life is but a dream. But before I stumbled blindly into theblare of light from the kitchen door, I shook the sobbing bundle of bones inmy arms—the withered cocoon, the wrinkled seed of such a flowering—andwhispered,
"Wake up, Aunt Daid! Wake up, you!"
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The Substitute
"But I tell you, Mr. Bennett, he's disrupting my whole room! We've got to dosomething!" Miss Amberly's thin, classroom-grimed fingers brushed back thestrand of soft brown hair that habitually escaped from her otherwise neatlydisciplined waves.
Mr. Bennett, twiddling a pencil between his fingers, wondered, as hesometimes did at ten-after-four of a weekday, if being a principal was a signof achievement or of softening of the brain, and quite irrelevantly, how MissAmberly would look with all of her hair softly loose around her face.
"What has he done now, Miss Amberly? I mean other than just be himself?"
Miss Amberly flushed and crossed her ankles, her feet pushed back under thechair. "I know I'm always bothering you about him, but Mr. Bennett, he's thefirst student in all my teaching career that I haven't been able to reach. Iheard about him from the other teachers as he came up through the grades, butI thought . . . Well, a child can get a reputation, and if each teacherexpects it of him, he can live up to it good or bad. When you put him in myclass this fall, I was quite confident that I'd be able to get through tohim—somehow." She flushed again. "I don't mean to sound conceited."
"I know," Mr. Bennett pried the eraser out of the pencil and tried to pushit back in. "I've always depended on you to help straighten out problemchildren. In fact I won't deny that I've deliberately given you more than yourshare, because you do have a knack with them. That's why I thought that Keeley. . ." He tapped the pencil against his lower lip and then absently tried towiden the metal eraser band with his teeth. The metal split and bruisedagainst his upper lip. He rubbed a thumb across his mouth and put the pencildown.
"So the new desk didn't work?"
"You ought to see it! It's worse than the old one—ink marks, gum, wax, oldwire!" Miss Amberly's voice was hot with indignation. "He has no pride toappeal to. Besides that, the child isn't normal, Mr. Bennett. We shouldn'thave him in class with the others!"
"Hasn't he been doing any work at all?" Bennett's quiet voice broke in.
"Practically none. Here. I brought today's papers to show you. Hisspelling. I gave him fourth grade words since he barely reads on that leveland would be lost completely on seventh grade words. Look, beecuss. That'sbecause, liby. That's library. Well, just look at it!"
Bennett took the dirty, tattered piece of paper and tried to decipher thewords. "Pretty poor showing," he murmured. "What's this on the bottom. Vector,Mare Imbrium, velocity. Hm, fourth grade spelling?"
"Of course not!" said Miss Amberly, exasperation sharpening her voice."That's what makes me so blistering mad. He can't spell cat twice the sameway, but he can spend all spelling period writing down nonsense like that. Itproves he's got something behind that empty look on his face. And that makesme madder. Stupidity I can make allowances for, but a child who can andwon't—!"
The slam of a door down the emptying hall was an echoing period to heroutburst.
"Well!" Bennett slid down in his chair and locked his fingers around onebent knee. "So you think he really has brains? Mrs. Ensign assured me lastyear that he was a low-grade moron, incapable of learning."
"Look." Miss Amberly pushed another crumpled exhibit across the desk. "Hisarithmetic. Fifth grade problems. Two and two is two. Every subtractionproblem added—wrong. Every division problem with stars for answers. But lookhere. Multiplication with three numbers top and bottom. All the answers therewithout benefit of intermediate steps—and every one of them right!"
"Co-operation?" Bennett's eyebrows lifted.
"No. Positively not. I stood and watched him do them. Watched him make amess of the others and when he got to the multiplication, he grinned that
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engaging grin he has occasionally and wrote out the answers as fast as hecould read the problems. Tomorrow he won't be able to multiply three and oneand get a right answer! He skipped the fractions. Just sat and doodled thesefunny eights lying on their sides and all these quadratic equation-lookingthings that have no sense."
"Odd," said Bennett. Then he laid the papers aside. "But was it somethingbesides his school work today? Is he getting out of hand disciplinewiseagain?"
"Of course, he's always a bad influence on the other children," said MissAmberly. "He won't work and I can't keep him in every recess and every lunchhour. He might be able to take it, but I can't. Anyway, lately he's begun tobe quite impudent. That isn't the problem either. I don't think he realizeshow impudent he sounds. But this afternoon he—well, I thought he was going tohit me." Miss Amberly shivered in recollection, clasping her hands.
"Hit you?" Bennett jerked upright, the chair complaining loudly. "Hit you?"
"I thought so," she nodded, twisting her hands. "And I'm afraid the otherchildren—"
"What happened?"
"Well, you remember, we just gave him that brand new desk last week, hopingthat it would give him a feeling of importance and foster some sort of pridein him to make him want to keep it clean and unmarred. I was frankly verydisappointed in his reaction—and almost scared. I didn't tell you when ithappened." The faint flush returned to her thin face. "I—I—the others think Irun to you too much and . . ." Her voice fluttered and died.
"Not at all," he reassured her, taking up the pencil again and eying itintently as he rolled it between his fingers. "A good administrator must keepin close touch with his teachers. Go on."
"Oh, yes. Well, when he walked in and saw his new desk, he ran over to itand groped down the side of it, then he said, 'Where is it?' and whirled on melike a wildcat. 'Where's my desk?'
"I told him this was to be his desk now. That the old one was too messy. Heacted as if he didn't even hear me.
" 'Where's all my stuff?' and he was actually shaking, with his eyesblazing at me. I told him we had put his books and things in the desk. Heyanked the drawer clear out onto the floor and pawed through the books. Thenhe must have found something because he relaxed all at once. He put whateverit was in his pocket and put the drawer back in the desk. I asked him how heliked it and he said 'Okay' with his face as empty…"
Miss Amberly tucked her hair back again.
"It didn't do any good—giving him a new desk, I mean. You should see itnow."
"What's this about his trying to hit you this afternoon?"
"He didn't really try to," said Miss Amberly. "But he did act like he wasgoing to. Anyway, he raised his fist and—well, the children thought he wasgoing to. They were shocked. So it must have been obvious.
"He was putting the English work books on my desk, so I could grade today'sexercise. I was getting the art supplies from the cupboard just in back of hisdesk. It just made me sick to see how he's marked it all up with ink and stuckgum and stuff on it I noticed some of the ink was still wet, so I wiped it offwith a Kleenex. And the first thing I knew, he was standing over me—he's sotall!" She shivered. "And he had his fist lifted up. 'Leave it alone!' heshouted at me. 'You messed it up good once already. Leave it alone, can'tyou!"
"I just looked at him and said, 'Keeley!' and he sat down, still muttering.
"Mr. Bennett, he looked crazy when he came at me. And he's so big now. I'mafraid for the other children. If he ever hurt one of them—" She pressed aKleenex to her mouth. "I'm sorry," she said brokenly. And two tears slidfurtively down from her closed eyes.
"Now, now," muttered Bennett, terribly embarrassed, hoping no one would
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come in, and quite irrelevantly, wondering how it would seem to lift MissAmberly's chin and wipe her tears away himself.
"I'm afraid there isn't much we can do about Keeley," he said, looking outthe window at the ragged vine that swayed in the wind. "By law he has to be inschool until he is sixteen. Until he actually does something criminal ornearly so, the juvenile division can't take a hand.
"You know his background, of course, living in a cardboard shack downbetween Tent Town and the dump, with that withered old—is it aunt orgrandmother?"
"I don't know," Miss Amberly's voice was very crisp and decisive tocontradict her late emotion. "Keeley doesn't seem to know either. He calls herAunt sometimes, but I doubt if they're even related. People down there thinkshe's a witch. The time we tried to get some of them to testify that he was aneglected child and should become a ward of the court, not a one would say aword against her. She has them all terrified. After all, what would she do ifhe were taken away from her? She's past cotton picking age. Keeley can do thatmuch and he actually supports her along with his ADC check from the Welfare.We did manage to get that for him."
"So—what can't be cured must be endured." Bennett felt a Friday yawn comingon and stood up briskly. "This desk business. Let's go see it. I'm curiousabout what makes him mark it all up. He hasn't done any carving on it, hashe?"
"No," said Miss Amberly, leading the way out of the office. "No. All heseems to do is draw ink lines all over it, and stick blobs of stuff around. Itseems almost to be a fetish or a compulsion of some kind. It's only developedover the last two or three years. It isn't that he likes art. He doesn't likeanything."
"Isn't there a subject he's responded to at all? If we could get a wedge inanywhere . . ." said Bennett as they rounded the deserted corner of thebuilding.
"No. Well, at the beginning of school, he actually paid attention duringscience period when we were having the Solar System." Miss Amberly halfskipped, trying to match her steps with his strides. "The first day or so heleafed through that section a dozen times a day. Just looking, I guess,because apparently nothing sank in. On the test over the unit he filled in allthe blanks with baby and green cheese misspelled, of course."
They paused at the closed door of the classroom. "Here, I’ll unlock it,"said Miss Amberly. She bent to the keyhole, put the key in, lifted hard on theknob and turned the key. 'There's a trick to it. This new foundation is stillsettling."
They went into the classroom which seemed lonely and full of echoes with nostudents in it. Bennett nodded approval of the plants on the window sills andthe neatness of the library table.
"I have him sitting clear in back, so he won't disrupt any more of thechildren than absolutely necessary.""Disrupt? Miss Amberly, just exactly what does he do? Poke, punch, talk,tear up papers?"
Miss Amberly looked startled as she thought it over. "No. Between his wildsilent rages when he's practically impossible—you know those, he spends mostof them sitting in the corner of your office—he doesn't actually do anythingout of the way. At the very most he occasionally mutters to himself. He justsits there, either with his elbows on the desk and both hands over his ears,or he leans on one hand or the other and stares at nothing—apparently bored todeath. Yet any child who sits near him, gets restless and talkative and kindof— well, what-does-it-matter-ish. They won't work. They disturb others. Theycreate disturbances. They think that because Keeley gets along without doingany work, that they can too. Why didn't they pass him on a long time ago andget rid of him? He could stay in school a hundred years and never learnanything." Her voice was bitter.
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Bennett looked at Keeley's desk. The whole table was spiderwebbed withlines drawn in a silvery ink that betrayed a sort of bas-relief to hisinquiring fingers. At irregular intervals, blobs of gum or wax or some suchstuff was stuck, mostly at junctions of lines. There were two circles on thedesk, about elbow-sized and spaced about right to accommodate two leaningelbows. Each circle was a network of lines. Bennett traced with his finger twofine coppery wires that were stuck to the side of the desk. Following themdown into the desk drawer, he rummaged through an unsightly mass of papers andfished out two little metallic disks, one on each wire.
"Why those must be what he was looking for when he was so worked up lastweek," said Miss Amberly. "They look a little bit like a couple of bottle capsstuck together, don't they?"
Bennett turned them over in his hands, then he ran his fingers over themarked-up desk, noting that the lines ran together at the edge of the desk andended at the metal table support
Bennett laughed, "Looks like Keeley has been bitten by the radio bug. I'dguess these for earphones." He tossed the disks in his hand. "And all thesemysterious lines are probably his interpretation of a schematic diagram. Isuppose he gets so bored doing nothing that he dreamed this little game up forhimself. Where did he get this ink, though? It's not school ink." He ran hisfingers over the raised lines again.
"I don't know. He brings it to school in a little pill bottle," said MissAmberly. "I tried to confiscate it when he started marking things up again,but he seemed inclined to make an issue of it and it wasn't worth running therisk of another of his wild ones. The janitor says he can't wash the stuff offand the only time I've seen any rub off was when I wiped away the wet markstoday."
Bennett examined the metal disks. "Let's try this out," he said, halfjoking. He slid into the desk and leaned his elbows in the circles. He pressedthe disks to his ears. A look of astonishment flicked across his face.
"Hey! I hear something! Listen!"
He gestured Miss Amberly down to him and pressed the earphones to her ears.She closed her eyes against his nearness and could hear nothing but thetumultuous roar of her heart in her ears. She shook her head.
"I don't hear anything."
"Why sure! Some odd sort of . . ." He listened again. "Well, no. I guessyou're right," he said ruefully.
He put the earphones back in the desk.
"Harmless enough, I suppose. Let him have his radio if it gives him anysatisfaction. He certainly isn't getting any out of his schoolwork. This mightbe a way to reach him though. Next week I’ll check with a friend of mine andsee if I can get any equipment for Keeley. It might be an answer to ourproblem."
But next week Mr. Bennett had no time to do any checking with his friend.The school found itself suddenly in the middle of a virus epidemic.
Monday he stared aghast at the attendance report. Tuesday he started grimlydown his substitute list. Wednesday he reached the bottom of it. Thursday hegroaned and taught a third grade himself. Friday he dragged himself to thephone and told his secretary to carry on as best she could and went shakingback to bed. He was cheered a little by the report that the third gradeteacher had returned, but he had a sick, sunken feeling inside occasioned bythe news that for the first time Miss Amberly was going to be absent.
"But don't worry, Mr. Bennett," the secretary had said, "we have a goodsubstitute. A man substitute. He just got here from back east and he hasn'tfiled his certificate yet, but he came well recommended."
So Mr. Bennett pulled the covers up to his chin and wondered, quiteirrelevantly, if Miss Amberly had a sunken feeling too, because he was absent.
Miss Amberly's seventh grade buzzed and hummed when at eight-thirty Miss
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Amberly was nowhere to be seen. When the nine o'clock bell pulled all thestudents in from the playfield, they tumbled into their seats, eyes wide, asthey surveyed the substitute. Glory May took one look at the broad shouldersand black hair and began to fish the bobby pins out of her curls that weresupposed to stay up until evening so they would be perfect for the datetonight—with a seventeen-year-old high school man. The other girls stared athim covertly from behind books or openly with slack-jawed wonder.
The boys, with practiced eyes, looked him over and decided that even if oldlady Amberly was absent, they had better behave.
And of course, at ten past nine, Keeley sauntered in, carrying hisarithmetic book by one corner, the pages fluttering and fanning as he came.The substitute took little notice of him beyond asking his name and waitingfor him to slump into his desk before going on with the opening exercises.
Keeley arranged himself in his usual pose, the metal disks pressed to hisears, his elbows in the webbed circles. He sat for a minute blank-faced, andthen he began to frown. He pressed his hands tighter to his ears. He tracedthe lengths of the coppery wire with inquiring fingers. He checked the blobsand chunks of stuff stuck on the lines. He reamed his ears out with his little finger and listened again. Finally his squirming and wiggling called forth a"Please settle down, Keeley, you're disturbing the class," from thesubstitute.
"Go soak your head," muttered Keeley, half audibly. He pushed the earphonesback into the drawer and slouched sullenly staring at the ceiling.
By noon, Keeley, the blank-faced, no-doer, had become Keeley, thedisrupting Demon. He pulled hair and tore papers. He swaggered up the aisle tothe pencil sharpener, shoving books off every desk as he went. He shot paperclips with rubber bands and scraped his thumb nail down the blackboard, ahalf-dozen times. By some wild contortion, he got both his feet up on top ofhis desk, and when the impossible happened and he jackknifed under the deskwith his heels caught on the edge, it took the substitute and the two biggestboys to extract him.
By the time he got out of the cafeteria, leaving behind him a trail ofbroken milk bottles, spilled plates and streaked clothes, Miss Ensign wasgasping in the teachers' room, "And last year I prayed he'd wake up and beginto function. Lor-dee! I hope he goes back to sleep again!"
Keeley simmered down a little after lunch until he tried the earphonesagain and then he sat sullenly glowering at his desk, muttering threateningly,a continuous annoying stream of disturbance. Finally the substitute saidplacidly, "Keeley, you're disturbing the class again."
"Aw shaddup! You meathead, you!" said Keeley.
There was a stricken silence in the room as everyone stared aghast atKeeley.
The substitute looked at him dispassionately. "Keeley, come here."
"Come and get me if you think you can!" snarled Keeley.
A horrified gasp swept the room and Angie began to sob in terror.
The substitute spoke again, something nobody caught, but the result wasunmistakable. Keeley jerked as though he had been stabbed and his eyes widenedin blank astonishment. The substitute wet his lips and spoke again, "Comehere, Keeley."
And Keeley came, stumbling blindly down the aisle, to spend the rest of theafternoon until Physical Ed hunched over his open book in the seat in thefront corner, face to wall.
At PE period, he stumbled out and stood lankly by the basketball court,digging a hole in the ground with the flapping sole of one worn shoe. Thecoach, knowing Keeley in such moods, passed him by with a snort ofexasperation and turned to the clamoring wildness of the rest of the boys.
When the three fifty-five bell rang, the seventh grade readied itself forhome by shoving everything into the drawers and slamming them resoundingly. Asusual, the worn one shot out the other side of the desk and it and itscontents had to be scrambled back into place before a wholly unnatural silence
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fell over the room, a silence through which could be felt almost tangibly, the
straining to be first out the door, first to the bus line, first in the
bus—just to be first.
The substitute stood quietly by his desk. "Keeley, you will stay after
school."
The announcement went almost unnoticed. Keeley had spent a good many half
hours after school this year with Miss Amberly sweating out page after page in
his tattered books.
Keeley sat in his own desk, his hands pressed tightly together, his heart
fluttering wildly in his throat as he listened to the receding clatter of
hurried feet across the patio. Something inside him cried. "Wait! Wait for
me!" as the sounds died away.
The substitute came down the aisle and turned one of the desks so he could
sit facing Keeley. He ran a calculating eye over Keeley's desk.
"Not bad," he said. "You have done well with what materials you had. But
why here at school where everyone could see?"
Keeley gulped. "Have you seen where I live? Couldn't keep nothing there.
Come a rain, wouldn't be no house left. Besides Aunt Mo's too dang nosey.
She'd ask questions. She know I ain't as dumb as I look. Ever body at school
thinks I'm a dope."
"You certainly have been a stinker today," grinned the substitute. "Your
usual behavior?"
Keeley squirmed. "Naw. I kinda like old lady Amberly. I was mad because I
couldn't get nothing on my radio. I thought it was busted. I didn't know you
was here."
"Well, I am. Ready to take you with me. Our preliminary training period
shows you to be the kind of material we want."
"Gee!" Keeley ran his tongue across his lips. "That's swell. Where's your
ship?"
"It's down by the county dump. Just beyond the hill in back of the tin can
section. Think you can find it tonight?"
"Sure. I know that dump like my hand, but…"
"Good. We'll leave Earth tonight. Be there by dark." The substitute stood
up. So did Keeley, slowly.
"Leave Earth?"
"Of course," impatiently. "You knew we weren't from Earth when we first
made contact."
"When will I get to come back?"
"There's no reason for you to, ever. We have work geared to your
capabilities to keep you busy and happy from here on out."
"But," Keeley sat down slowly, "leave Earth forever?"
"What has Earth done for you, that you should feel any ties to it?" The
substitute sat down again.
"I was born here."
"To live like an animal in a cardboard hut that the next rain will melt
away. To wear ragged clothes and live on beans and scrap vegetables except for
free lunch at school."
"I don't get no free lunch!" retorted Keeley, "I work ever morning in the
Cafeteria for my lunch. I ain't no charity case."
"But Keeley, you'll have whole clothes and good quarters and splendid food
in our training center."
"Food and clothes ain't all there is to living."
"No, I grant you that," admitted the substitute. "But the world calls you
stupid and useless. We can give you the opportunity to work to your full
capacity, to develop your mind and abilities to the level you're capable of
achieving instead of sitting day after day droning out kindergarten pap with a
roomful of stupid …"
"I won't have to do that all my life. When I get to high school. .."
"With marks like yours? No one's going to ask you how smart you are.
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They're going to see all the 4s and 5s and all the minuses on the citizenship
side of your card and you'll never make it into high school. Besides, Keeley,
you don't need all these petty little steps. Right now, you're trained in math
and physics past college level. You'll go crazy marking time."
"There's other stuff to learn besides them things."
"Granted, but are you learning them? Spell because."
"Bee—that's not important!"
"To this earth it is. What has changed you, Keeley? You were wild to go
…"
"I got to thinking," said Keeley. "All afternoon I been thinking. How come
you guys pick brains off of Earth? What's the matter with your world, where
ever it is? You guys ain't leveling with me somewhere."
The substitute met Keeley's eyes. "There's nothing sinister about us," he
said. "We do need brains. Our world is —different. We don't range from
imbeciles to geniuses like you do. The people are either geniuses on your
scale or just vegetables, capable of little more than keeping themselves
alive. And yet, from the vegetable ranks come the brains, but too seldom for
our present needs. We're trying to find ways to smooth out that gap between
the haves and the have-nots, and some years ago we lost a lot of our 'brains'
in an experiment that got out of hand. We need help in keeping civilization
going for us until more of the native-born fill in the vacancy. So we
recruit."
"Why not pick on grownups then? There's plenty of big bugs who'd probably
give an arm to even look at your ship."
"That's true," nodded the substitute, "but we like them young so we can
train them to our ways. Besides, we don't want to attract attention. Few
grownups could step out of the world without questions being asked, especially
highly trained specialists. So we seek out kids like you who are too smart for
their own good in the environments where they happen to be. Sometimes they
know they're smart. Sometimes we have to prove it to them. And they're never
missed for long when we take them. Who is there to ask questions if you should
leave with me?"
"Aunt Mo," snapped Keeley, "And—and—"
"A half-crazy old hag—no one else!"
"You shut up about Aunt Mo. She's mine. I found her. And there is too
someone else—Miss Amberly. She'd care!"
"Dried up old maid school teacher!" the substitute returned bitingly.
"For a genius, you're pretty dumb!" retorted Keeley. "She ain't so very old
and she ain't dried up and as soon as her and Mr. Bennett stop batting so many
words around, she won't be an old maid no more neither!"
"But two out of a world! That's not many to hold a fellow back from all we
could give you."
"Two's two," replied Keeley. "How many you got that will care if you get
back from here or not?"
The substitute stood up abruptly, his face expressionless. "Are you coming
with me, Keeley?"
"If I did, why couldn't I come back sometime?" Keeley's voice was pleading.
"I bet you know a lot of stuff that'd help Earth."
"And we should give it to Earth, just like that?" asked the substitute
coldly.
"As much as I should leave Earth, just like that," Keeley's voice was just
as icy.
"We could argue all night, Keeley," said the substitute. "Maybe it'd help
if I told you that Earth is in for a pretty sticky time of it and this is your
chance to get out of it."
"Can you guys time-travel too?" asked Keeley.
"Well, no. But we can take into consideration the past and the present and
postulate the future."
"Sounds kind of guessy to me. The future ain't an already built road. We're
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making some of it right now that I betcha wasn't in your figgering. Nope. Ifwe're in for a sticky time, I'll get stuck too, and maybe do some of theunsticking."
"That's your decision?"
"Yep." Keeley stood up and began to stack his books.
The substitute watched him silently, then he said, "Suppose I shouldinsist?"
Keeley grinned at him. "I can be awful dumb. Ask anybody."
"Very well. It has to be voluntary or not at all. You might as well give methose earphones." He held out his hand. "They'll be of no use to you with ourtraining ship gone."
Keeley snapped the wires and hefted the disks in his hand. Then he put themin his pocket.
"I'll keep them. Someday I’ll figure out how come this setup works withoutwords. If I can't, we've got men who can take stuff like this and figger outthe other end of it."
"You're not so dumb, Keeley," the substitute smiled suddenly.
"No, I'm not," said Keeley. "And I'm gonna prove it. Starting Monday, I'mgonna set my mind to school. By then I oughta be up with the class. I onlyhave to look a coupla times at a page to get it."
The substitute paused at the door. "Your last chance, Keeley. Coming orstaying?"
"Staying. Thanks for the help you gave me."
"It was just an investment that didn't pay off," said the substitute. "ButKeeley…"
"Yeah?"
"I'm glad you're staying. I was born on Earth."
The Grunder
Almost before Crae brought the car to a gravel-spraying stop in front of theMurmuring Pines Store and Station, Ellena had the door open and was out andaround the corner marked His and Hers. Crae stared angrily after her, his jawset and his lips moving half-audibly. Anger burned brightly in his brain andthe tight, swollen sickness inside him throbbed like a boil. It was all herfault— all because she had to smile at every man—she had to entice everymale—she always—! And then the fire was gone and Crae slumped down into theashes of despair. It was no use. No matter how hard he tried—no matter what hedid, it always ended this way.
This was to have been it. This trip into the White Mountains—a long happyfishing trip for the two of them to celebrate because he was learning to curbhis jealousy, his blind, unreasoning, unfounded jealousy that was wreckingeverything he and Ellena had planned for a life together. It had gone so well.The shadowy early morning beginning, the sweep up the hills from the baking,blistering valley, the sudden return to spring as they reached pine country,the incredible greenness of everything after the dust and dryness of thedesert.
And then they had stopped at Lakeside.
She said she had only asked how the fishing was. She said they had knownthe same old-timers. She said—! Crae slid lower in the car seat, writhinginside as he remembered his icy return to the car, his abrupt backing awayfrom the laughing group that clustered around Ellena's window, his measured,insane accusations and the light slowly dying out of Ellena's eyes, the quiet,miserable turning away of her white face and her silence as the car roaredon—through hell as far as the two of them were concerned—through the rollingtimberland to Murmuring Pines.
Crae wrenched himself up out of his futile rememberings and slid out of thecar, slamming the door resoundingly. He climbed the three steps up to thesagging store porch and stopped, fumbling for a cigarette.
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"Wife trouble?"
Crae started as the wheezy old voice from the creaking rocking chair brokethrough his misery. He stared over his half-raised cigarette into the fadedblue eyes that peered through dirty bifocals at him. Then he put the cigarettein his mouth and cupped his palms around his light.
"What's it to you?" he half snapped, but even his hair-triggered temperseemed to have deserted him.
"Nothing, son, nothing." The chair rocked violently, then slowed down."Only thing is, I kinda wondered, seeing her kite outa the car like that andyou standing there, sulling up. Sit down a spell. I'm Eli. Old Eli."
Inexplicably, Crae sat down on the top step and said, "You're right, Eli.Plenty of trouble, but it's me—not my wife."
"Oh, that-a-way." The frowsy old head nodded.
"Yeah," muttered Crae, wondering dismally why he should be spilling hisguts to a busted-down old coot like this one. "Jealous, crazy jealous."
"Can't trust her, huh?" The chair rocked madly a moment, then slowed again.
"I can too!" flared Crae.
"Then what's the kick?" The old man spat toward the porch railing. "Way Isee it, it takes a certain amount of co-operation from a woman before she cango far wrong. If you can trust your wife, whatcha got to worry about?"
"Nothing," muttered Crae. "I know I've got nothing to worry about. But,"his hand clenched on his knee, "if only I could be sure! I know there's nological reason for the way I feel. I know she wouldn't look at anyone else.But I can't feel it! All the knowing in the world doesn't do any good if youcan't feel it."
"That's a hunk of truth if I ever heard one," wheezed the old man, leaningacross his fat belly and poking a stubby finger at Crae. "Like getting turnedaround in directions. You can say 'That's East' all you want to, but if itdon't feel like East then the sun goes on coming up in the North."
There was a brief pause and Crae lifted his face to the cool pine-heavybreeze that hummed through the trees, wondering again why he was spreadinghis own private lacerations out for this gross, wheezing, not-too-clean oldstranger.
"Them there psy-chiatrists—some say they can help fellers like you."
Crae shook his head, "I've been going to a counselor for three months. Ithought I had it licked. I was sure—" Crae's voice trailed off as heremembered why he had finally consented to go to a counselor.
"Bring a child into an atmosphere like this?" Ellena's voice was anagonized whisper, "How can we Crae, how can we? Anger and fear and mistrust.Never—not until—"
And his bitter rejoinder. "It's you and your slutting eyes that make 'thisatmosphere.' If I don't watch out you'll be bringing me someone else's child—"
And then his head was ringing from the lightning quick blow to his face,before she turned, blazing-eyed and bitter, away from him.
"No go, huh?" The old shoulders shrugged and the old man wiped one handacross his stubby chin.
"No go, damn me, and our vacation is ruined before it begins.""
"Too bad. Where you going? Big Lake?"
"No. South Fork of East Branch. Heard they've opened the closed part of thestream. Should be good fishing."
"South Fork?" The chair agitated wildly, then slowed. "Funny coincidence,that."
"Coincidence?" Crae glanced up.
"Yeah. I mean you, feeling like you do, going fishing on South Fork."
"What's my feelings got to do with it?" asked Crae, doubly sorry now thathe had betrayed himself to the old feller. What good had it done? Nothingcould help—ever —but still he sat.
"Well, son, there's quite a story about South Fork. Dunno when it started.Might be nothing to it." The faded eyes peered sharply through the glasses at
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him. "Then again, there might."
"What's the deal?" Crae's voice was absent and his eyes were on the His and
Hers signs. "I've been coming up here for five years now and I never heard any
special story."
"Seems there's a fish," said the old man. "A kinda special kinda fish. Not
many see him and he ain't been seen nowhere around this part of the country
'ceptin on South Fork. Nobody's ever caught him, not to land anyway."
"Oh, one of those. Patriarch of the creek. Wily eluder of bait. Stuff like
that?"
"Oh, not exactly." The rocking chair accelerated and slowed. "This here one
is something special."
"I'll hear about it later, Pop." Crae stood up. Ellena was coming back down
the path, outwardly serene and cool again. But she went in the side door into
the store and Crae sat down slowly.
'They say it's a little longer than a man and maybe a man's reach around."
The old man went on as though not interrupted.
"Pretty big—" Crae muttered absently, then snapped alert. "Hey! What are
you trying to pull? A fish that size couldn't get in South Fork, let alone
live there. Bet there aren't ten places from Baldy to Sheep's Crossing as deep
as five feet even at flood stage. What kind of line you trying to hand me?"
"Told you it was kinda special." The old man creased his eyes with a
gap-toothed grin. "This here fish don't live in the creek. He don't even swim
in it. Just happens to rub his top fin along it once in a while. And not just
this part of the country, neither. Heard about him all over the world, likely.
This here fish is a Grunder—swims through dirt and rocks like they was water.
Water feels to him like air. Air is a lot of nothing to him. Told a feller
about him once. He told me might be this here Grunder's from a nother
dy-mention." The old man worked his discolored lips silently for a moment "He
said it like it was supposed to explain something. Don't make sense to me."
Crae relaxed and laced his fingers around one knee. Oh, well, if it was
that kind of story—might as well enjoy it.
"Anyway," went on the old man, "like I said, this here Grunder's a special
fish. Magic, us old-timers would call it. Dunno what you empty,
don't-believe-nothing-without-touch-it-taste-it-hear-it-proof younguns would
call it. But here's where it hits you, young feller." The old finger was
jabbing at Crae again. "This here Grunder is a sure cure for jealousy. All you
gotta do is catch him, rub him three times the wrong way and you'll never
doubt your love again."
Crae laughed bitterly, stung by fear that he was being ridiculed. "Easy to
say and hard to prove, Pop. Who could catch a magic fish as big as that on
trout lines? Pretty smart, fixing it so no one can prove you're a ring-tailed
liar."
"Laugh, son," grunted the old man, "while you can. But who said anything
about a trout line? Special fish, special tackle. They say the Grunder won't
even rise nowhere without special bait." The old man leaned forward, his
breath sounding as though it came through a fine meshed screen. "Better
listen, son. Laugh if you wanta, but listen good. Could be one of these fine
days you'll wanta cast a line for the Grunder. Can't ever sometimes tell."
The tight sickness inside Crae gave a throb and he licked dry lips.
"There's a pome," the old man went on, leaning back in his chair, patting
the front of his duty checked shirt as he gasped for breath. "Old as the
Grunder most likely. Tells you what kinda tackle."
"Make your line from her linen fair.
Take your hook from her silken hair.
A broken heart must be your share
For the Grunder."
The lines sang in Crae's mind, burning their way into his skeptical brain."What bait?" he asked, trying to keep his voice light and facetious. "Must
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be kind of scarce for a fish like that."
The faded old eyes peered at him. "Scarce? Well, now that depends," the oldman said. "Listen."
"This is your bait, or your lure or flies,
Take her sobs when your lady cries,
Take the tears that fall from her eyes
For the Grunder."
Crae felt the sting of the words. The only time he'd seen Ellena cry overhis tantrums was the first time he'd really blown his top. That was the timeshe'd tried to defend herself, tried to reason with him, tried to reassure himand finally had dissolved into tears of frustration, sorrow anddisillusionment. Since then, if there had been tears, he hadn't seen them—onlyfelt her heart breaking inch by inch as she averted her white, still face fromhis rages and accusations.
"My wife doesn't cry," he said petulantly.
"Pore woman," said the old man, reaming one ear with his little finger."Anyway, happen some day you'll want to go fishing for the Grunder, you won'tforget."
The sound of Ellena's laughter inside the store drew Crae to his feet.Maybe they could patch this vacation together after all. Maybe Ellena couldput up with him just once more. Crae's heart contracted as he realized thatevery "once more" was bringing them inevitably to the "never again" time forhim and Ellena.
He went to the screen door of the store and opened it. Behind him, he couldhear the creak of the old man's chair.
"Course you gotta believe in the Grunder. Nothing works, less'n you believeit. And be mighty certain, son, that you want him when you fish for him. Onceyou hook him, you gotta hold him 'til you stroke him. And every scale on hisbody is jagged edged on the down side. Rip hell outa your hand firststroke—but three it's gotta be. Three times—"
"Okay, Pop. Three times it is. Quite a story you've got there." Crae letthe door slam behind him as he went into the shadowy store and took thegroceries from an Ellena who smiled into his eyes and said, "Hello, honey."
A week later, the two of them lolled on the old army blanket on thespread-out tarp, half in the sun, half in the shade, watching the piling ofdazzling bright summer thunderheads over Baldy. Stuffed with mountain trout,and drowsy with sun, Crae felt that the whole world was as bright as the skyabove them. He was still aglow from catching his limit nearly every day sincethey arrived, and that, along with just plain vacation delight, filled himwith such a feeling of contentment and well-being that it overflowed in asudden rush of tenderness and he yanked Ellena over to him. She laughedagainst his chest and shifted her feet into the sun.
"They freeze in the shade and roast in the sun," she said, "Isn't itmarvelous up here?"
"Plumb sightly, ma'am," drawled Crae.
"Just smell the spruce," said Ellena, sitting up and filling her lungsecstatically.
"Yeah, and the fried fish," Crae sat up, too, and breathed in noisily. "Andthe swale, and," he sniffed again, "just a touch of skunk."
"Oh, Crae!" Ellena cried reproachfully, "Don't spoil it!" She pushed himflat on the blanket and collapsed, laughing, against him.
"Oof!" grunted Crae. "A few more weeks of six fish at a sitting and all therest of the grub you're stashing away and I'll have to haul you home in astock trailer!"
"Six fish!" Ellena pummeled him with both fists. "I'm darn lucky to salvagetwo out of the ten when you get started—and I saw you letting your belt outthree notches. Now who's fat stuff!"
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They scuffled, laughing helplessly, until they both rolled off the blanket
onto the squishy black ground that was still wet from spring and the nearness
of the creek. Ellena shrieked and Crae, scrambling to his feet yanked her up
to him. For a long minute they stood locked in each other's arms, listening to
the muted roar of the little falls just above camp and a bird crying, "See me?
See me?" from the top of a spruce somewhere.
Then Ellena stirred and half-whispered, "Oh, Crae, it's so wonderful up
here. Why can't it always—" Then she bit her lip and buried her face against
him.
Crae's heart reluctantly took up it's burden again. "Please God, it will
be," he promised. "Like this always." And she lifted her face to his kiss.
Then he pushed her away.
"Now, Frau, break out the corn meal and the frying pan again. I'm off to
the races." He slipped the creel on and picked up his rod. "I'm going down
where the old beaver dam used to be. That's where the big ones are, I’ll
betcha."
" 'By, honey," Ellena kissed the end of his sunburned nose. "Personally, I
think I'll have a cheese sandwich for supper. A little fish goes a long way
with me."
"Woman!" Crae was horrified. "What you said!"
He looked back from the top of the logging railroad embankment and saw
Ellena squatting down by the creek, dipping water into the blackened five
gallon can they used for a water heater. He yelled down at her and she waved
at him, then turned back to her work. Crae filled his lungs with the crisp
scented air and looked slowly around at the wooded hills, still cherishing
drifts of snow in their shadowy folds, the high reaching mountains that lifted
the spruce and scattered pines against an achingly blue sky, the creek,
brawling its flooded way like an exuberant snake flinging its shining loops
first one way and then another, and his tight little, tidy little camp tucked
into one of the wider loops of the creek.
"This is it," he thought happily. "From perfection like this, we can't help
getting straightened out. All I needed was a breathing spell."
Then he set out with swinging steps down the far side of the embankment.
Crae huddled deeper in his light Levi jacket as he topped the rise on the
return trip. The clouds were no longer white shining towers of pearl and blue,
but heavy rolling gray, blanketing the sky. The temperature had dropped with
the loss of the sun, and he shivered in the sudden blare of wind that slapped
him in the face with a dozen hail-hard raindrops and then died.
But his creel hung heavy on his hip and he stepped along lightly, still
riding on his noontime delight. His eyes sought out the camp and he opened his
mouth to yell for Ellena. His steps slowed and stopped and his face smoothed
out blankly as he looked at the strange car pulled up behind theirs.
The sick throbbing inside him began again and the blinding flame began to
flicker behind his eyes. With a desperate firmness he soothed himself and
walked slowly down to camp. As he neared the tent, the flap was pushed open
and Ellena and several men crowded out into the chill wind.
"See," cried Ellena, "Here's Crae now." She ran to him, face aglow—and eyes
pleading. "How did you do, honey?"
"Pretty good." Somewhere he stood off and admired the naturalness of his
answer. "Nearly got my limit, but of course the biggest one got away. No
fooling!"
Ellena and the strange faces laughed with him and then they were all
crowding around, admiring the catch and pressing the bottle into his cold
hands.
"Come on in the tent," Ellena tugged at his arm. "We've got a fire going.
It got too cold to sit outdoors."
Then she was introducing the men in the flare and hiss of the Coleman
lantern while they warmed themselves at the little tin stove that was
muttering over the pine knots just pushed in.
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"This is Jess and Doc and Stubby and Dave." She looked up at Crae. "My
husband, Crae."
"Howdy," said Crae.
"Hi, Crae." Jess stuck out a huge hand. "Fine wife you got there. Snatched
us from death's door. Hot coffee and that ever lovin' old bottle. We were
colder'n a dead Eskimo's—wup—ladies present."
Ellena laughed. "Well, lady or not, I know the rest of that one. But now
that we've got fish again, why don't you men stay for supper?" She glanced
over at Crae.
"Sure," said Crae, carefully cordial. "Why not?"
"Thanks," said Jess. "But we've stayed too long now. Fascinating woman,
your wife, Crae. Couldn't tear ourselves away, but now the old man's home—" He
roared with laughter. "Guess we better slope, huh, fellers? Gotta pitch camp
before dark."
"Yeah. Can't make any time with the husband around," said Stubby. Then he
leaned over and stage-whispered to Ellena, "I ain't so crazy "bout fishing.
How ’bout letting me know when he's gone again?"
After the laughter, Crae said, "Better have another jolt before you get out
into the weather." So the bottle made the rounds slowly and finally everyone
ducked out of the tent into the bleakly windy out-of-doors. The men piled into
the car and Jess leaned out the window.
"Thought we'd camp up above you," he roared against the wind, "but it's
flooded out. Guess well go on downstream to the other campground." He looked
around admiringly. "Tight little setup you got here."
"Thanks," yelled Crae. "We think so too."
"Well, be seeing you!" And the car surged up the sharp drop from the road,
the little trailer swishing along in back. Crae and Ellena watched them
disappear over the railroad.
"Well," Crae turned and laid his fist against Ellena's cheek and pushed
lightly. "How about chow, Frau? Might as well get supper over with. Looks like
we're in for some weather."
"Okay, boss," Ellena's eyes were shining. "Right away, sir!" And she
scurried away, calling back, "But you'd better get the innards out of those
denizens of the deep so I can get them in the pan."
"Okay." Crae moved slowly and carefully as though something might break if
he moved fast. He squatted by the edge of the stream and clumsily began to
clean the fish. When he had finished, his hands were numb from the icy snow
water and the persistent wind out of the west, but not nearly as numb as he
felt inside. He carried the fish over to the cook bench where Ellena shivered
over the two-burner stove.
"Here you are," he said slowly and Ellena's eyes flew to his face.
He smiled carefully. "Make them plenty crisp and step it up!"
Ellena's smile was relieved. "Crisp it is!"
"Where's a rag to wipe my shoes off with? Shoulda worn my waders. There's
mud and water everywhere this year."
"My old petticoat's hanging over there on the tree—if you don't mind an
embroidered shoe rag."
Crae took down the cotton half-slip with eyelet embroidery around the
bottom.
"This is a rag?" he asked.
She laughed. "It's ripped almost full length and the elastic's worn out. Go
ahead and use it."
Crae worked out of his wet shoes and socks and changed into dry. Then he
lifted one shoe and the rag and sat hunched over himself on the log. With a
horrible despair, he felt all the old words bubbling and the scab peeling off
the hot sickness inside him. His fist tightened on the white rag until his
knuckles cracked. Desperately, he tried to change his thoughts, but the
bubbling putrescence crept through his mind and poured its bitterness into his
mouth and he heard himself say bitterly,
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"How long were they here before I showed up?"
Ellena turned slowly from the stove, her shoulders drooping, her face
despairing.
"About a half hour." Then she straightened and looked desperately over at
him. "No, Crae, please. Not here. Not now."
Crae looked blindly down at the shoe he still held in one hand. He clenched
his teeth until his jaws ached, but the words pushed through anyway—biting and
venomous.
"Thirty miles from anywhere. Just have to turn my back and they come
flocking! You can't tell me you don't welcome them! You can't tell me you
don't encourage them and entice them and—" He slammed his shoe down and
dropped the rag beside it. In two strides he caught her by both shoulders and
shook her viciously. "Hellamighty! You even built a fire in the tent for them!
What's the matter, woman, are you slipping? You've got any number of ways to
take their minds off the cold without building a fire!"
"Crae! Crae!" She whispered pleadingly.
"Don't 'Crae, Crae' me!" he backhanded her viciously across the face. She
cried out and fell sideways against the tree. Her hair caught on the rough
stub of a branch as she started to slide down against the trunk. Crae grabbed
one of her arms and yanked her up. Her caught hair strained her head backwards
as he lifted. And suddenly her smooth sun-tinted throat fitted Crae's two
spasmed hands. For an eternity his thumbs felt the sick pounding of her pulse.
Then a tear slid slowly down from one closed eye, trickling towards her ear.
Crae snatched his hand away before the tear could touch it. Ellena slid to
her knees, leaving a dark strand of hair on the bark of the tree. She got
slowly to her feet. She turned without a word or look and went into the tent.
Crae slumped down on the log, his hands limp between his knees, his head
hanging. He lifted his hands and looked at them incredulously, then he flung
them from him wildly, turned and shoved his face hard up against the rough
tree trunk.
"Oh, God!" he thought wildly. "I must be going crazy! I never hit her
before. I never tried to—" He beat his doubled fists against the tree until
the knuckles crimsoned, then he crouched again above his all-enveloping misery
until the sharp smell of burning food penetrated his daze. He walked blindly
over to the camp stove and yanked the smoking skillet off. He turned off the
fire and dumped the curled charred fish into the garbage can and dropped the
skillet on the ground.
He stood uncertain, noticing for the first time the scattered sprinkling of
rain patterning the top of the split-log table near the stove. He started
automatically for the car to roll the windows up.
And then he saw Ellena standing just outside the tent Afraid to move or
speak, he stood watching her. She came slowly over to him. In the half-dusk he
could see the red imprint of his hand across her cheek. She looked up at him
with empty, drained eyes.
"We will go home tomorrow." Her voice was expressionless and almost steady.
"I'm leaving as soon as we get there."
"Ellena, don't!" Crae's voice shook with pleading and despair.
Ellena's mouth quivered and tears overflowed. She dropped her sodden,
crumpled Kleenex and took a fresh one from her shirt pocket. She carefully
wiped her eyes.
"'It's better to snuff a candle . . .'" Her voice choked off and Crae felt
his heart contract. They had read the book together and picked out their
favorite quote and now she was using it to—
Crae held out his hands, "Please, Ellena, I promise—"
"Promise!" Her eyes blazed so violently that Crae stumbled back a step.
"You've been trying to mend this sick thing between us with promises for too
long!" Her voice was taut with anger. "Neither you nor I believe your promises
any more. There's not one valid reason why I should try to keep our marriage
going by myself. You don't believe in it any more. You don't believe in me any
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more—if you ever did. You don't even believe in yourself! Nothing will work if
you don't believe—" Her voice wavered and broke. She mopped her eyes carefully
again and her voice was measured and cold as she said, "Well leave for home
tomorrow—and God have mercy on us both."
She turned away blindly, burying her face in her two hands and stumbled
into the tent.
Crae sat down slowly on the log beside his muddy shoes. He picked up one
and fumbled for the cleaning rag. He huddled over himself, feeling as though
life were draining from his arms and legs, leaving them limp.
"It's all finished," he thought hopelessly. "It's finished and I'm finished
and this whole crazy damn life is finished. I've done everything I know.
Nothing on this earth can ever make it right between us again."
You don't believe, you don't believe. And then a wheezy old voice whistled
in his ear. Nothing works, less'n you believe it. Crae straightened up,
following the faint thread of voice. Happen some day you'll want to go
fishing— you won't forget.
"It's crazy and screwy and a lot of hogwash," thought Crae. "Things like
that can't possibly exist."
You don't believe. Nothing works, lessen— A strange compound feeling of
hope and wonder began to well up in Crae. "Maybe, maybe," he thought
breathlessly. Then— "It will work. It's got to work!"
Eagerly intent, he went back over the incident at the store. All he could
remember at first was the rocking chair and the thick discolored lips of the
old man, then a rhythm began in his mind, curling to a rhyme word at the end
of each line. He heard the raspy old voice again—
Happen some day you'll want to go fishing, you won't forget. And the lines
slowly took form.
"Make your line from her linen fair.
Take your hook from her silken hair.
A broken heart must be your share
For the Grunder."
"Why that's impossible on the face of it," thought Crae with a pang of
despair. "The broken heart I've got—but the rest? Hook from her hair?" Hair?
Hairpin—bobby pin. He fumbled in his shirt pocket. Where were they? Yesterday,
upcreek when Ellena decided to put her hair in pigtails because the wind was
so strong, she had given him the pins she took out. He held the slender piece
of metal in his hand for a moment then straightened it carefully between his
fingers. He slowly bent one end of it up in an approximation of a hook. He
stared at it ruefully. What a fragile thing to hang hope on.
Now for a line—her linen fair. Linen? Ellena brought nothing linen to camp
with her. He fumbled with the makeshift hook, peering intently into the dusk,
tossing the line of verse back and forth in his mind. Linen's not just cloth.
Linen can be clothes. Body linen. He lifted the shoe rag. An old slip—ripped.
In a sudden frenzy of haste, he ripped the white cloth into inch wide
strips and knotted them together, carefully rolling the knobby, ravelly
results into a ball. The material was so old and thin that one strip parted as
he tested a knot and he had to tie it again. When the last strip was knotted,
he struggled to fasten his improvised hook onto it. Finally, bending another
hook at the opposite end, sticking it through the material, splitting the end,
he knotted it as securely as he could. He peered at the results and laughed
bitterly at the precarious makeshift. "But it'll work," he told himself
fiercely. "It'll work. I'll catch that damn Grunder and get rid once and for
all of whatever it is that's eating me!"
And for bait? Take the tears that fall from her eyes …
Crae searched the ground under the tree beside him. There it was, the
sodden, grayed blob of Kleenex Ellena had dropped. He picked it up gingerly
and felt it tatter, tear-soaked and rain-soaked, in his fingers. Remembering
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her tears, his hand closed convulsively over the soaked tissue. When he loosedhis fingers from it, he could see their impress in the pulp, almost as he hadseen his hand print on her cheek. He baited the hook and nearly laughed againas he struggled to keep the wad of paper in place. Closing one hand tightlyabout the hook, the other around the ball of cotton, he went to the tent door.For a long, rain-emphasized moment he listened. There was no sound frominside, so with only his heart saying it, he shaped, "I love you," with hismouth and turned away, upstream.
The rain was slanting icy wires now that stabbed his face and cut through
his wet jacket. He stood on the rough foot bridge across the creek and leaned
over the handrail, feeling the ragged bark pressing against his stomach. He
held his clenched fists up before his face and stared at them.
"This is it," he thought. "Our last chance—My last chance." Then he bent
his head down over his hands, feeling the bite of his thumb joints into his
forehead. "O God, make it true—make it true!"
The he loosed the hand that held the hook, tapped the soggy wad of Kleenex
to make sure it was still there and lowered it cautiously toward the roaring,
brawling creek, still swollen from the afternoon sun on hillside snow. He
rotated the ball slowly, letting the line out. He gasped as the hook touched
the water and he felt the current catch it and sweep it downstream. He yelled
to the roaring, rain-drenched darkness, "I believe! I believe!" And the limp,
tattered line in his hand snapped taut, pulling until it cut into the flesh of
his palm. It strained downstream, and as he looked, it took on a weird
fluorescent glow, and skipping on the black edge of the next downstream curve,
the hook and bait were vivid with the same glowing.
Crae played out more of the line to ease the pressure on his palm. The line
was as tight and strong as piano wire between his fingers.
Time stopped for Crae as he leaned against the rail watching the bobbing
light on the end of the line— waiting and waiting wondering if the Grunder was
coming, if it could taste Ellena's tears across the world. Rain dripped from
the end of his nose and whispered down past his ears.
Then out of the darkness and waiting, lightning licked across the sky and
thunder thudded in giant, bone-jarring steps down from the top of Baldy. Crae
winced as sudden vivid light played around him again, perilously close. But no
thunder followed and he opened his eyes to a blade of light slicing cleanly
through the foot bridge from side to side. Crae bit his lower lip as the light
resolved itself into a dazzling fin that split the waters, slit the willows
and sliced through the boulders at the bend of the creek and disappeared.
"The Grunder!" he called out hoarsely and unreeled the last of his line,
stumbling to the end of the bridge to follow in blind pursuit through the
darkness. As his feet splashed in the icy waters, the Grunder lifted in a high
arching leap beyond the far willows. Crae slid rattling down the creek bank
onto one knee. The swift current swung him off balance and twisted him so that
his back was to the stream, and he felt the line slip through his fingers.
Desperately, he jerked around and lunged for the escaping line, the surge of
the waters pushing him face down into the shallow stream. With a gurgling sob,
he surfaced and snatched the last turn of the winding strip from where it had
snagged on the stub of a water-soaked log.
He pulled himself up onto the soggy bank, strangling, spewing water,blinking to clear his eyes. Soaked through, numbed by the cold water and theicy wind, with shaking hands he fashioned a loop in the end of the line andsecured it around his left wrist, his eyes flicking from loop to line, makingsure the hook and bait were still there. He started cautiously downstream,slipping and sliding through the muck, jarring into holes, tripping on rises,intent on keeping his bait in sight. A willow branch lashed across his eyesand blinded him. While he blinked away involuntary tears, trying to clear thedazzle that blurred his sight, the Grunder swept back upstream, passing soclose that Crae could see the stainless steel gleam of overlapping scales,
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serrated and jagged, that swept cleanly down its wide sides to a gossamer tailand up to a blind-looking head with its wide band of brilliant blue,glittering like glass beads, masking its face from side to side where eyesshould have been. Below the glitters was its open maw, ringed about withflickering points of scarlet.
Crae squatted down in the mud, staring after the Grunder, lost, bewilderedand scared. He clasped his hands to steady the bobbing steel-like ribbon ofline that gouged into his wrist and jerked his whole arm. Was the Grundergone? Had he lost his last chance? He ducked his head to shelter his face fromthe drenching downpour that seethed on the water loud enough to be heard abovethe roar of a dozen small falls.
Then suddenly, without warning, he was jerked downstream by his left arm,scraping full length along the soggy bank until his shoulder snagged on astunted willow stump. He felt the muscles in his shoulder crack from thesudden stop. He wormed his way up until he could get hold of the line with hisright hand, then, twisting forward, he braced both feet against the stump andheaved. The line gave slightly. And then he was cowering beneath lifted armsas the Grunder jumped silently, its tail flailing the water to mist, its headshaking against the frail hook that was imbedded in its lower jaw.
"Got it!" gasped Crae, "Got it!" That was the last rational thought Craehad for the next crashing eternity. Yanked by the leaping, twisting, fightingGrunder, upstream and downstream, sometimes on his feet, sometimes draggedfull length through the tangled under-brush, sometimes with the Grundercharging him head on, all fire and gleam and terror, other times with only thethread of light tenuously pointing the way the creature had gone, Crae had noworld but a whirling, breathless, pain-filled chaos that had no meaning orpoint beyond Hold on hold on hold on.
Crae saw the bridge coming, but he could no more stop or dodge than arailway tunnel can dodge a train. With a crack that splintered into a flare oflight that shamed the Grunder in brilliance, Crae hit the bridge support.
Crae peeled his cheek from the bed of ooze where it was cradled and lookedaround him blindly. His line was a limp curve over the edge of the bank. Heavywith despair, he lifted his hand and let it drop. The line tightened andtugged and went limp again. Crae scrambled to his feet. Was the Grunder gone?Or was it tired out, quiescent, waiting for him? He wound the line clumsilyaround his hand as he staggered to the creek and fell forward on the shelvingbank.
Beneath him, rising and falling on the beat of the water, lay the Grunder,its white fire dimming and brightening as it sank and shallowed, the wide blueheadband as glittering, its mouth fringe as crimson and alive as the firsttime he saw it. Crae leaned over the bank and put a finger to the silveryscales of the creature. It didn't move beyond its up and down surge.
"I have to stroke it," he thought. "Three times, three times the wrongway." He clamped his eyes tight against the sharply jagged gleam of everyseparate scale.
Rip hell outa your hand first stroke, but three it's gotta be.
"I could do it," he thought, "if it were still struggling. If I had tofight, I could do it. But in cold blood—!"
He lay in the mud, feeling the hot burning of the sick thing inside him,feeling the upsurge of anger, the sudden sting of his hand against Ellena'sface, her soft throat under his thumbs again. An overwhelming wave ofrevulsion swept over him and he nearly gagged.
"Go ahead and rip hell out!" he thought, leaning down over the bank. "Ripout the hell that was in it when I hit her!"
With a full-armed sweep of his hand, he stroked the Grunder. He ground histeeth together tight enough to hold his scream down to an agonized gurgle asthe blinding, burning pain swept up his arm and hazed his whole body. He couldfeel the fire and agony lancing and cauterizing the purulence that had beenpoisoning him so long. Twice again his hand retraced the torture— and all the
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accumulation of doubt and fear and uncertainty became one with the physicalpain and shrieked out into the night.
When he lifted his hand for the third time, the Grunder leaped. High abovehim, flailing brilliance against the invisible sky, a dark stain marking itfrom tail to head, the Grunder lifted and lifted as though taking to the air.And then, straightening the bowed brightness of its body, it plunged straightdown into the creek, churning the water to incandescence as it plunged,drenching Crae with sand-shot spray, raising a huge, impossible wave in theshallow creek. The wave poised and fell, flattening Crae, half senseless, intothe mud, his crimson hand dangling over the bank, the slow, red drops fallinginto the quieting water, a big, empty cleanness aching inside him.
Dawn light was just beginning to dissolve the night when he staggered intocamp, tripping over the water buckets as he neared the tent. He stood swayingas the tent flap was flung open hastily. Ellena, haggard, red-eyed and wornplunged out into the early morning cold. She stood and looked at him standingawkwardly, his stiffening, lacerated hands held out, muddy water dripping fromhis every angle. Then she cried out and ran to him, hands outstretched, loveand compassion shining in her eyes.
"Crae! Honey! Where have you been? What happened to you?"
And Crae stained both her shoulders as his hands closed painfully over themas he half whispered, "I caught him. I caught the Grunder—everything's allright—everything—"
She stroked his tired and swollen face, anxiety in her eyes. "Oh, Crae—Inearly went crazy with fear. I thought—" she shook her head and tears ofgladness formed in her eyes "—but you're safe. That's all that matters. Crae—"
He buried his face in the softness of her hair. He felt sure. For the first time he felt really sure. "Yes, dear?"
"Crae—about what I said—I'm sorry—I didn't mean it, oh, I couldn't livewithout you—"
Gladness swelled within him. He pushed her gently from him and looked intoher tear-streaked face. "Ellena —let's go home—"
She nodded, smiling. "All right, Crae, we’ll go home— But first we’ll havea good breakfast."
He laughed, a healthy, hearty laugh. "We’ll do even better than that! We’llstop by at the camp of our four visitors. They owe us both a good meal for thedrinks!"
Her eyes glowed at his words. "Oh, Crae—you really mean it? You're not—"
He shook his head. "Never again, honey. Never."
The porch of the Murmuring Pines Store and Station was empty as Craestopped the car there at noon. Crae turned to Ellena with a grin. "Be back ina minute, honey, gotta see a man about a fish."
Crae left the car, walked up the steps and pushed open the screen door. Askinny, teen-age girl in faded Levis put down her comic book and got off ahigh stool behind a counter. "Help you, mister?"
"I'm looking for Eli," he said. "The old feller that was out on the porchabout two weeks ago when I stopped by here. Old Eli, he called himself."
"Oh, Eli," said the girl. "He's off again."
"Off? He's gone away?" asked Crae.
"Well, yes, but that isn't what I meant exactly," said the girl. "You see,Eli is kinda touched. Ever once in a while he goes clear off his rocker. Youmusta talked to him when this last spell was starting to work on him. Theytook him back to State Hospital a coupla days later. Something you wanted?"
"He told me about a fish," said Crae tentatively.
"Hoh!" the girl laughed shortly, "The Grunder. Yeah. That's one way we cantell he's getting bad again. He starts on that Grunder stuff."
Crae felt as though he'd taken a step that wasn't there. "Where'd he getthe story?"
"Well, I don't know what story he told you," said the girl. "No tellingwhere he got the Grunder idea, though. He's had it ever since I can remember.
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It's only when he gets to believing it that we know it's time to start
watching him. If he didn't believe—"
If he didn't believe. Crae turned to the door. "Well, thanks," he said, "I
hope he gets well soon." The screen door slammed shut behind him. He didn't
hear it. He was hearing the sound of water smashing over rocks, surging
against the creek banks. Then the sound faded, and the sun was bright around
him.
"Crae! Is everything all right?"
It was Ellena calling to him from the car. He took a deep breath of the
clean, crisp air. Then he waved to her. "Everything's fine!" he called, and in
two steps, cleared the porch and was on his way to the car.
Things
Viat came back from the camp of the Strangers, his crest shorn, the devi
ripped from his jacket, his mouth slack and drooling and his eyes empty. He
sat for a day in the sun of the coveti center, not even noticing when the
eager children gathered and asked questions in their piping little voices.
When the evening shadow touched him, Viat staggered to his feet and took two
steps and was dead.
The mother came then, since the body was from her and could never be alien,
and since the emptiness that was not Viat had flown from his eyes. She signed
him dead by pinning on his torn jacket the kiom—the kiom she had fashioned the
day he was born, since to be born is to begin to die. He had not yet given his
heart, so the kiom was still hers to bestow. She left the pelu softly alight
in the middle of the kiom because Viat had died beloved. He who dies beloved
walks straight and strong on the path to the Hidden Ones by the light of the
pelu. Be the pelu removed, he must wander forever, groping in the darkness of
the unlighted kiom.
So she pinned the kiom and wailed him dead.
There was a gathering together after Viat was given back to the earth.
Backs were bent against the sun, and the coveti thought together for a
morning. When the sun pointed itself into their eyes, they shaded them with
their open palms and spoke together.
"The Strangers have wrought an evil thing with us." Dobi patted the dust
before him. "Because of them, Viat is not. He came not back from the camp.
Only his body came, breathing until it knew he would not return to it."
"And yet, it may be that the Strangers are not evil. They came to us in
peace. Even, they brought their craft down on barrenness instead of scorching
our fields." Deci's eyes were eager on the sky. His blood was hot with the
wonder of a craft dropping out of the clouds, bearing strangers. "Perhaps
there was no need for us to move the coveti."
"True, true," nodded Dobi. "They may not be of themselves evil, but it may
be that the breath of them is death to us, or perhaps the falling of their
shadows or the silent things that walk invisible from their friendly hands. It
is best that we go not to the camp again. Neither should we permit them to
find the coveti."
"Cry them not forbidden, yet!" cried Deci, his crest rippling. "We know
them not. To taboo them now would not be fair. They may come bearing gifts
…"
"For gifts given, something always is taken. We have no wish to exchange
our young men for a look at the Strangers." Dobi furrowed the dust with his
fingers and smoothed away the furrows as Viat had been smoothed away.
"And yet," Veti's soft voice came clearly as her blue crest caught the
breeze, "it may be that they will have knowledge for us that we have not.
Never have we taken craft into the clouds and back."
"Yes, yes!" Deci's eyes embraced Veti, who held his heart. "They must have
much knowledge, many gifts for us."
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"The gift of knowledge is welcome," said Tefu in his low rumble. "But gifts
in the hands have fangs and bonds."
"The old words!" cried Deci. "The old ways do not hold when new ways
arrive!"
"True," nodded Dobi. "If the new is truly a way and not a whirlwind or a
trail that goes no place. But to judge without facts is to judge in error. I
will go to the strangers."
"And I." Tefu's voice stirred like soft thunder. "And I? And I?" Deci's
words tumbled on themselves and the dust stirred with his hurried rising.
"Young—" muttered Tefu.
"Young eyes to notice what old eyes might miss," said Dobi. "Our path is
yours." His crest rippled as he nodded to Deci.
"Deci!" Veti's voice was shaken by the unknown. "Come not again as Viat
came. The heart you bear with you is not your own."
"I will come again," cried Deci, "to fill your hands with wonders and
delights." He gave each of her cupped palms a kiss to hold against his return.
Time is not hours and days, or the slanting and shortening of shadows. Time
is a held breath and a listening ear.
Time incredible passed before the ripple through the grass, the rustle
through reeds, the sudden sound of footsteps where it seemed no footsteps
could be. The rocks seemed to part to let them through.
Dobi led, limping, slow of foot, flattened of crest, his eyes hidden in the
shadow of his bent head. Then came Tefu, like one newly blind, groping,
reaching, bumping, reeling until he huddled against the familiar rocks in the
fading sunlight.
"Deci?" cried Veti, parting the crowd with her cry. "Deci?"
"He came not with us," said Dobi. "He watched us go." "Willingly?" Veti's
hands clenched over the memory of his mouth. "Willingly? Or was there force?"
"Willingly?" The eyes that Tefu turned to Veti saw her not. They looked
within at hidden things. "Force? He stayed. There were no bonds about him." He
touched a wondering finger to one eye and then the other. "Open," he rumbled.
"Where is the light?" 'Tell me," cried Veti. "Oh, tell me!" Dobi sat in the
dust, his big hands marking it on either side of him.
"They truly have wonders. They would give us many strange things for our
devi." His fingers tinkled the fringing of his jacket. "Fabrics beyond our
dreams. Tools we could use. Weapons that could free the land of every
flesh-hungry kutu."
"And Deci? And Deci?" Veti voiced her fear again.
"Deci saw all and desired all. His devi were ripped off before the sun slid
an arm's reach. He was like a child in a meadow of flowers, clutching,
grabbing, crumpling and finding always the next flower fairer."
Wind came in the silence and poured itself around bare shoulders.
"Then he will return," said Veti, loosening her clenched hand. "When the
wonder is gone."
"As Viat returned?" Tefu's voice rumbled. "As I have returned?" He held his
hand before his eyes and dropped his fingers one by one. "How many fingers
before you? Six? Four? Two?"
"You saw the Strangers, before we withdrew the coveti. You saw the strange
garments they wore, the shining roundness, the heavy glitter and thickness.
Our air is not air for them. Without the garments, they would die."
"If they are so well wrapped against the world, how could they hurt?" cried
Veti. 'They cannot hurt Devi. He will return."
"I returned," murmured Tefu. "I did but walk among them and the misting of