Алан Дин Фостер - Mad Amos Malone

Standing next to the lamp and blowing out a long match was a thickly bearded white man of indeterminate age. There was silver in his beard and hair, but in odd places. He reminded the young Indian more of a black bear than a man, and the profusion of visible hair did nothing to dispel the image.

In the middle of the room was a wide bed. The top sheets had been turned down, but the bottom linen was as yet undisturbed.

A quick examination of the visitor was enough to satisfy the guest that no harm was intended. So, in addition to putting down the extinguished match, he also put aside the big LeMat pistol he’d been holding in his other hand.

“Come on in, son.”

“I am in.”

“Well, then, come on in farther, dammit.”

The visitor obeyed, staring at the stained long johns that were all that stood between the giant and nakedness of an unpredictable nature.

“What brings you to civilization, son, as the locals delude themselves into callin’ it?”

“You crazy big man?”

“Haw! Guess I shouldn’t laugh, though. Most folks’d agree with you. My name’s Malone. Amos Malone. Or Mad Amos Malone, if you prefers the colloquial.”

“I do not understand your words.”

“You got company. Folks can be weird about namin’ other folks. Unconventional I may be, but not the other. Leastwise, I think not.”

“Amos Malone, I have trouble. My people have trouble.”

“Well, now, I’m sorry t’ hear that. What did you say your name was?”

“Cheshey.”

“Okay, Cheshey. Now, if you’ll just tell me… Cheshey? You got a grandpappy called Ma-Hok-Naweh?”

“That is my grandfather, yes.” Cheshey began to feel more secure in this small dark room with the crazy big white man.

Malone turned reflective. “Good ol’ Ma-Hok-Naweh. Chief medicine man to the Papagos. Great man, your grandpappy. What brings his grandson so far north?”

“Do you know of the Big House that stands between here and the home of my people?”

“Casa Grande? Sure I do. A place full o’ long memories and much magic. Spirit home.”

Now Cheshey was nodding eagerly. “Crazy white men want to run the trail for their Iron Horse right next to it. Grandfather says the shaking the Iron Horse makes will make Big House fall down. If this happens, times will be made very bad for us as well as for white man.”

Malone frowned and stroked his impenetrable beard. “Sure as hellfire would. I’d heard that the new Southern Pacific was goin’ to cut north so they could make a station here in Phoenix. Goin’ to lay track right alongside the Big House, huh? We’d better do somethin’ about that right quick. Your grandpappy’s correct.”

“He waits for us at the Big House. He told me to find you here, said you would help. Would you really help us against your own people?”

“What makes you think the railroad men are my people, son? There’s only two kinds of folk in this world: the good folk and the bad folk. Mine’s the good folk. They come in all shapes and colors, just like the bad ones. Don’t never let nobody tell you different.”

“I will remember, Amos Malone,” Cheshey said solemnly. “You must come quick, while there is still time. You have a horse?”

“If you can call Worthless a horse. I’m comin’ as fast as I can, young feller-me-lad.” As he spoke, he was dragging on his buckskins, then the goatskin boots. When at last he was ready, he paused for a final lingering glance at the still-unused bed. “Real sheets,” he muttered darkly. “I almost made it. Them railroad people better listen to reason, ’cause I’m mad enough at ’em already.”

Of course, they didn’t.

“Let me make certain I understand you, sir. You want me to move the route of the line several miles eastward to make sure that the vibrations from passing trains won’t knock over a pile of Indian rocks?”

“That’s about the sum of it,” Malone agreed.

The foreman took his feet off the desk, rose, and stalked over to the wall where the map was hung. The only reason he didn’t laugh at his outlandish visitor outright was because he had the distinct feeling that to have done so would have been unhealthy. He would have to be satisfied with being in the right.

He ran one finger along the map.

“Look here, sir. I didn’t buy this godforsaken territory from the Mexicans, and I wouldn’t give you a mug of fresh spit for the lot of it! There’s nothing here but cactus, sagebrush, mesquite that sucks the water out of the earth, and Indians too poor to spit it back again. But buy it we did, and the Southern Pacific is chartered to span it from Texas to California. I aim to see that done exactly as laid out by the company’s surveyors.”

“But why d’you have to pass so close to Casa Grande?”

“If you must know, I think some fool with a sextant and too much time on his hands decided the old relic might be worth a passing glance from passengers.”

“Not if it falls down, it won’t.”

“That’s not my problem; that’s the Indians’ problem.” He walked back to his desk so he could be closer to the Colt that resided in the top compartment there. “Anyway, the decision’s already been made. What’s the big ruckus over an old stone tepee, anyway?”

“It’s not a tepee. This ain’t the Plains Country, friend. Big House is thousands o’ years old.”

“Sure looks it, but how do you know that?”

“You can taste it. The air in them old rooms reeks o’ antiquity. So do the red clay pots you dig up inside sometimes. It was built by a people the local Indians call the Ancient Ones. Still the tallest building in this territory, if you don’t count a few mission steeples. You go shakin’ it to bits, and there’ll be hell to pay.”

“Are the Indians making threats, Mr. Malone? I have the authority to request Army protection, if necessary.”

“No, they ain’t makin’ threats. I’m just relayin’ to you what ol’ Ma-Hok-Naweh told me last night.”

“Ma-Hok… you mean that old savage who’s been living up there?” The foreman smiled. “I think we can handle any attack he might mount.”

Malone leaned forward and put a big hand on the desk. The wood creaked under the rough, callused skin. There were some mighty peculiar scars in the skin between the thumb and big finger. “Listen, friend, I don’t think you understand me. You’re not just dealin’ with one senior shaman. You’re dealin’ with the Ancient Ones. Now, if’n I was you, I’d make it a point to shift the line a mile or so to the east.” Having had his say, he turned without a good-bye and strode out.

The foreman was glad to see him leave. It would make a good story to tell the work gangs. Mountain men were kind of rare hereabouts, and it wasn’t every day you got a visit from one big as a house and crazier than a bedbug.

It was cold in the desert that night. In the Sonoran summer you prayed every day for the heat to dissipate, and then in the winter you prayed for it to return. Those who survived and prospered in such country realized early on that whatever deity was involved, it had made its decision about the land a long time ago, and constant pleading for change would get you nothing but a sore throat that no change in the weather would make any better.

At Malone’s back, Casa Grande—the Big House—the place of the Ancient Ones, rose four stories toward the new moon. Windows like square black eyes gaped at the clouds milling uncertainly overhead. A big rattler slithered into a crack in the caliche, and Malone listened to the final surprised squeak of a startled kangaroo rat.

For a while he concentrated on listening to the sounds of the snake swallowing. Then he let his gaze come to rest on the figure seated across the small fire from him.