John Dalmas - The Lion of Farside

"I'm not Varia, I'm Liiset."

He looked around at the others, then back to the first. "No," he said, "you're Varia. Why are you trying to fool me like that?"

She started to cry, and they sat down on a fallen tree by the Sycamore Bend, he with his arms around her. "Honey," he said, "it's not going to work with all four of you. It's not. You're the only one I want." Still weeping, she started to fade out of his arms, less substantial than the transparent Varia back on the farm. "Don't go away!" he cried. "I came all this way to get you back!"

He awoke shouting, lunging to his feet, the heavy buffalo gun clopping against bare bedrock. He didn't notice, his mind still caught up in the dream. Oh God! he thought, don't let it be like that! Then blinking, looked around, breathing hard. It was quiet and peaceful, the full moon shining down between sparse trees. This was still Missouri in the U.S. of A., he was sure of it. Had midnight come and gone? The only directions he knew for certain were up and down. The moon could still be east of south, or… He found the dipper and the pointers, then the Pole Star faint in the moonlight. Not midnight yet; not for a while. He bent, picked up his rifle and sighted on the moon. The sights were undamaged, hadn't struck the rock. With a sigh he turned up his collar, sat back down against the pine, and letting his eyes close again, slept.

With a deep thrumming resonance, the gate spit him out of nightmare, rolling across the ground in bright sunlight. He woke like a frightened tomcat, hair on end, and scrambled staggering to his feet, grabbing for a rifle that wasn't there. So he snatched at his holster, drew the.44, and looked around wild-eyed. Four men stood a little way off, watching him and laughing, talking some foreign lingo he might have heard once before, when Varia and Idri had lashed each other that day in Evansville.

The men started toward him, and bracing his legs against residual dizziness, Macurdy drew his revolver. His wits began to adjust, and he was aware that they carried short spears pointed his way. He pointed the revolver back at them, and when they kept coming, jabbed it in their direction. They stopped eight or ten feet away, spears at the ready. A stride forward and thrust, by any of them, and he'd be meat. One, the leader, said something to him, he had no idea what.

"Stay back," he answered. "I don't want to hurt no one."

The man spoke more sharply, and jabbed the spear at him, its point almost reaching him. Macurdy jumped backward and pulled the trigger-and nothing happened. He felt the hammer release and strike, heard it click, but no shot fired. He pulled again, and again nothing. He knew he'd loaded all six chambers. Staring around, he spied the rifle lying in the grass too far away.

The man had been saying something more. Now the others moved behind Macurdy, who looked at the revolver and swung the cylinder out. From each chamber, a center-fire cartridge peered back at him, two of them indented by the firing pin. The spearmen watched curiously. Reseating the cylinder, he tried again, and once more it clicked, so he slid the weapon back into its holster. Then a spear jabbed his left buttock, and with a yell, Macurdy jumped forward. Once more the leader spoke, beckoning, and Macurdy followed him.

On this side, the gate was in a grassy grove of large old basswood trees. The place looked nothing like Injun Knob; there wasn't even a knoll, a hump. Within a couple of minutes they were out of the woods, crossing open pasture. Several times more the spear jabbed one buttock or the other. Limping now, Macurdy felt blood trickling down the back of both legs. At each jab he jumped, and someone laughed. Glancing over his shoulder, he identified his tormentor, then the leader snapped another order and the jabbing ceased.

The pasture ended at a wide potato field. Macurdy could see a crew of men hoeing some distance away. He trudged between the potato hills, three spearmen spread behind him while their leader walked ahead. Across the field was a considerable village of log buildings.

His captors took him to a small hut, one of numerous surrounded by a twelve-foot palisade. The leader opened the door, and-Macurdy turned abruptly, grabbed the shaft of the spear that had jabbed him, wrenched it free, and doing a horizontal haft stroke, struck his tormentor on the side of the head with the hard hickory shaft. The man staggered sideways and Macurdy was on him, grabbed him by his waistband and his wadmal shirt and slammed him head first against the log wall. Then let him fall, and stood with his hands raised above his own head in submission.

The leader barked rapid words, then strode over to the fallen man, and bending, spoke to him. When the man didn't move, he kicked him, and made some rough comment. Briefly he looked Macurdy in the eye, then grunted an order to the remaining two spearsmen. One jabbed their captive hard in the belly with a spear butt, and Macurdy doubled over. The other struck him above an ear, and he fell to his knees. Moccasin-like boots began kicking him, and he dropped the rest of the way, curling up in a ball. Someone rolled him onto his back astraddle of him, fists striking at his face. Except to shield himself with his forearms, Macurdy made no resistance, and after half a minute, the leader barked another order. Reluctantly, Macurdy's pummeler got to his feet.

Macurdy got slowly to his own. Hands grasped him, frog-marched him to the door of the hut and propelled him inside, where he fell sprawling on the floor. A moment later his sheepskin jacket was thrown in after him.

The floor he lay on was dirt. The only light came through the door, and through foot-square windows, one each in three of the walls. Beneath one of them was a trestle table with a bench on one side and a water bucket. The place smelled of wood smoke and damp ground.

An old man stood in a corner, and after a moment spoke to him-in American! "You're wearing Farside clothes!"

Macurdy got to hands and knees, then stood up, fingers exploring his face gingerly. "My name's Curtis Macurdy," he said. "From Washington County, Indiana originally, but I've been working at Neeley's Corners, in Missouri." He examined the old man, perhaps six feet tall once, now gaunt and somewhat bent, with one shoulder carried lower than the other. And bearded. Macurdy wasn't used to beards, hadn't seen half a dozen beards in his life.

The old man sat down as if weighted by Macurdy's gaze. "Did you just now"-he waved vaguely-"arrive through the, ah, aperture between universes?"

"I came through the gate on Injun Knob."

"How do you feel?"

Macurdy reached back, feeling his behind. "Not too good. That sonofabitch I slammed against the wall had been jabbing my rear end with his spear all the way from the woods." He stepped to the door and peered out. The unconscious man had been taken away, but one of the others had been left on guard. The man scowled at Macurdy, and gestured threateningly with his spear.

"Okay," Macurdy said placatingly in his direction. "Okay. I'm not looking for trouble. I don't doubt you're good to your wife and mother, and all I want to do is get along."

He backed away from the door, bent painfully and picked up his jacket, then straightened and looked the cabin over. It was about twelve by twelve feet, and low roofed. On one wall hung two sleeping pads, long sacks of straw. A pair of split-plank shelves had been built on another. At the windowless end was a mud and stick fireplace; a copper kettle and ladle hanging beside it. Embers glowed beneath a blanket of wood ash.

"And you just arrived?" the man asked. "Just now?"

"Yep."

"You don't feel ill?"

"Nope."

"Remarkable. When my companion and I came through, eight years ago, we arrived desperately ill. I had a fever, cramps, and severe diarrhea for two days. My companion was so ill, I feared for his life. I've been told that two young men died after coming through, some years before we did."