And on the Eighth Day (11 page)

“Do I have your meaning, Elroï?” the Chronicler asked in a cracked tremolo. “Whence you come, the years have numbers, not names?”

“Yes.”

“Thunderation! And do the people (
smick!
) have numbers as well?

“No, names, unless they misbehave. Yes, this is our year 1944.”

“(
Smick!
) 1944
what
, Elroï?”

“A.D.
That stands for
Anno Domini
. In the Year of Our Lord. Of the Christian era.”

“Ne-e-e-ever (
smick!
) heard-of-it.”

“Which year is it, Chronicler, according to the Quenan calendar?”

The Chronicler had been peering into a scroll taken at Ellery’s request from its repository jar in his record room. He looked up from the scroll at Ellery’s question, amazed.

“The year it is
now
? (
Smick!
) Blessed be the Wor’d! How should I know?”

Half amused, half confused, “Who, then, should know?” Ellery asked.

“Why, no one! No one at all! (
Smick!
) A year’s got no name till it’s over, you know. How could it? The Crownsil meets on Lastday and decides which name to give it. The year that has just gone past was recently named The Year the Black Ewe Had Twins. Before that there was The Year of the Big Plums. Then The Year of the Caterpillars. Then The Year of the Great Wind. Then …”

Ellery followed him back, back, back … through The Year of the Lost Harvest, The Year the Earth Shook, The Year of the Great Rains, The Year the Teacher Took Barzill to Wife, and so on; until, finally, The Year of the Eastern Pilgrimage, when the Quenanites had made their exodus from San Francisco. Which, indeed, had been 1873.

“So you see (
smick!
), we have been in our Valley years to the number … seventy, yes! (
smick!
) seventy. That’s how many years I have counted for you. And the number may be confirmed by the old writings.” The Chronicler gestured toward the scroll. The writing was in the same strange “Chancery hand” Ellery had seen the Successor employ in the scriptorium. Was it possible that some Teacher or Successor in a long-gone generation had been employed by a London law firm—perhaps even before the days when Dickens was reporting parliamentary debates?

Possible? In this place, Ellery thought, anything was possible.

“The old writings,” Ellery murmured. “Do they record anything, Chronicler, about the fifty silver dollars?”

Up jumped the Chronicler, stuffing the scroll into its jar and replacing the cover. “They do, they do!” He trotted back, replaced the jar on its shelf, took down another jar, and trotted back with it. “Let me see (
smick!
) ‘Year of the Last Pilgrimage’—yes, hmm, hmm.” He ran his finger down a column, failed to find what he sought, rolled the scroll up on one side, unrolled it on another. “Hah! Look—”

There it was, in the same archaic writing, on the yellowed paper,
this year the crownsil debated what to do with the fifty silver dollars, which some suggested that, we possessing greater wealth than this which needs be counted, it be buried and forgotten, but instead the crownsil voted that it be deposited in the sanquetum, there to lie until such time as may be otherwise decided
.

The strange letters danced before his eyes. Ellery drooped. He was exhausted again. What was the matter with him? He struggled with his thoughts.

Fifty … He had failed to count the coins in the two columns. But surely they hadn’t been as many as fifty?

“What happened to the rest of the silver dollars, Chronicler?”

The old official looked puzzled. “Rest of them (
smick!
)! Nay, Guest, I know nothing of that. Only the Teacher—blessed be the Wor’d for his continuing presence amongst us—is permitted to enter the forbidden room. The dollars are kept there, with the holy book.”

“Yes, the holy book. What does its title mean?

“The Book of Mk’n?”

“Mk’n? I thought the Teacher called it Mk’h?”

The Chronicler frowned at his own error. “According to the old writings—and all is written with the pen of remembrance—the lost book was thought to be the Book of Mk’n. That is, by those who held that there
was
such a book. Others (
smick!
) have held that there was not. But so the Teacher called it, and his father before him—Mk’n. Then, five years ago, in The Year of Many Birds, the Teacher found the lost book; and after he had studied the old writings again, he believed that we had always misread or miswritten the title—that it was Mk’h and not Mk’n. And since then we have called it the Book of Mk’h. For all is as the Teacher says.”

“But what does the title
mean
?”

The old man shrugged. “Who knows? Do names always have a meaning?”

After a while Ellery left and sought out the Teacher. He asked if he might borrow a donkey and take a brief leave of the Valley.

“You will be back,” the patriarch said. It was neither a question or a request.

“Of course.”

“Then go, Elroï, and the Wor’d go with you.”

Ellery had not been certain of his motives in fixing on a Quenanite beast for his journey instead of taking his car, and the long, uncomfortable donkey ride did not make them quite clear. Finally he decided that he had been moved simply by a sense of fitness. In the land of the prophet one went mounted in the manner of the prophet. (And a rude manner it was: no proper saddle, only a worn felt pad; a frayed grass rope for bridle and bit; and a long reed in place of whip or quirt.)

He was also undecided whether Otto Schmidt,
Prop.
, was more surprised to see his customer of a few days before come “riding on the foal of an ass” than to see him again at all. At last the storekeeper’s mouth closed and a delighted smile spread so widely across his moon-face that his smudge of mustache threatened to reach his ears.

“It’s you!” he cried.

“Hello, Mr. Schmidt,” Ellery said, dismounting. “Where can I tether Lightning?”

The stout little man bustled forward. “Here, here in the shade. Let me get him a bucket of water and some bread. Oh, you brought feed. Here, let me fix it for him. Well! Mr. Quinn, was it? Or Kean? My goodness, where you been? And how come you’re riding this here old jackass? What happened to your car …?”

Ellery walked into the store, inhaling the cool, damp aroma of ancient wood and cinnamon and coffee and vinegar and cloves and kerosene. Everything was as he had last seen it: the spirals of flypaper, the faded color-photo of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the worn counter with its brass measure set into the top (and how long ago was it, Ellery wondered, that calico or canvas or gingham or unbleached muslin had been measured off on it?), the antique soda-pop cooler …

He sat down at one of the tables and immediately winced. An occasional canter on the Central Park bridle path had not been really adequate training for a three-hour ride through the desert on the back of a vigorous male donkey.

“Well, by golly!” Mr. Schmidt had scurried in, beaming. “You found the road like I told you? You get to Vegas? Say! Is that why you’re on the jack? I bet you lost your car playing crap. Or was it in the slot machines? Or—it’s none of my business, of course.”

Ellery smiled noncommittally. “Any chance of getting something to eat, Mr. Schmidt? Or I’ll have to eat Lightning.”

“Surest thing you know! You’re in luck! Bill Hone, you wouldn’t know him, makes a special side trip through here once a week on his way from Hamlin to Vegas. I give him my ration stamps and he picks the meat up for me. Well! Bill was by this morning and he left me some of the nicest steak I’ve seen since I was cutting meat back in the old home town. How about a T-bone and maybe a couple of eggs? And there’s some boiled potatoes I could country-fry, and I baked up a batch of peach tarts …” He ran down, evidently searching his mind for additions to the menu.

Ellery swallowed the water in his mouth.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Starting with some coffee?” And added, “Will you join me?”

“Well, by golly!” said Otto Schmidt. “I will …!”

The coffee was fresh and strong; the steaks had been pan-broiled over a slow fire. Ellery found his sense of purpose slipping away in the pleasure of once more eating civilized food. How long ago had it been? There was no time in Quenan, and not much more awareness of its passage here in the End-of-the-World Store. With an effort he pulled his dawdling mind back to the business that had brought him.

“What can you tell me about the silver dollar the old fellow gave you last Sunday, Mr. Schmidt?”

Otto Schmidt paused, a crisp brown-edged chunk of potato halfway to his mouth, a drip of egg on his mustache. He stared. He blinked; his smile faded. Then the potato continued to its destination, and he chewed it slowly.

“So. You met up with those two hermits. Well, they’re kind of queer, but live and let live is my motto. They don’t bother no one and I hope no one bothers them—”

“Mr. Schmidt,” Ellery said gently. “Otto. No one’s going to bother them. Or you. I simply want to know about that silver dollar I saw him give you.”

The corpulent little storekeeper declared earnestly that there was no law against silver dollars. Gold, now, he said, that was different. In ’35—no, ’34—time went by so slow out here you lost track—a fellow came through in a touring car with rubber curtains buying old gold—

“Otto.”

“—said his name was Haggemeyer, he’d been in Mexico with Black Jack Pershing chasing Pancho Villa. He’d set up his own business afterwards in Laredo but the depression wiped him out—”

“Otto …”

“—borrowed some money against his pension and was going around buying up old gold. He showed me his license—had to have a license for gold—”

“
Otto!
”

The storekeeper stopped, looking apprehensive.

“Otto, nobody’s accusing you of breaking the law. Here, take a look at these.”

Ellery produced his wallet. As police card followed police card, Otto Schmidt’s eyes opened wider and wider. At the sight of the two letters from Washington, they bulged.

“Sayyy! You must be a pretty important fellow.” His eyes shone as he leaned over the table. “Does this have anything to do with the war effort?”

Ellery recast the question. “Do I have anything to do with the war effort?” And answered it, quite truthfully, “Yes, I have.”

Otto leaned back, unmistakably awed. With one final “
Well!
” and a muttered, “That’s okay, then,” he got up and went over to his safe—a safe as short and squat as he was, with the flaked remains of an American flag and eagle still faintly visible in faded red, white, blue, and yellow on its door. He came back with a battered old ledger.

“You got to understand the situation when I bought this place,” he said with false-hearty defensiveness. “I don’t know how long this old hermit had been dealing with the former owner, but they didn’t trade for cash money; no, sir. The hermit and his wagon would come around every now and then with produce—hides, wool, flaxseed oil, honey, beeswax—truck like that; and the fellow who had the store would give him credit.

“Then came the depression. Then came me. But the depression was still on, and in a little while I found out that my suppliers, my wholesalers, wouldn’t take produce any more—not in such small quantities anyway. Cash on the barrelhead, they said. Credit? ‘Credit is dead,’ I told the old hermit. ‘No more produce. Has to be cash.’ ‘What’s that?’ he asked me. Well, I put my hand in my pocket and I had a lone silver dollar and I pulled it out and showed it to him. That old man looked at the silver dollar, then he looked at me like I’d shown him a dirty picture. And out he goes without saying a word.

“Next time he showed up was November, 1930. Here it is, written down, see?
November 12, 1930. Hermit. Carson City silver dollar, 1873.
I didn’t know much about old coins, still don’t, but I figured it’s got to be worth a lot more than just one hundred cents, and I told him so. I was due to make a visit to L.A., and I offered to take his coin with me and see what I could get for it. He agreed, though I could see he was kind of struggling with himself.”

Otto had taken the silver dollar around to various dealers in downtown Los Angeles, and he had finally sold it for the highest price offered in 1930—$90. When the old man of the hills returned to the End-of-the-World Store, they made a deal: the proprietor would retain $18 for his trouble and the old hermit would be credited with $72 against his account.

The old man visited the store once or twice a year, and Otto noted each transaction in the ledger. Sometimes the hermit would bring one of the
CC
1873 dollars with him, sometimes not depending on the state of his account. When one of the coins passed hands, Otto held onto it until his next trip to Los Angeles, where he would shop around for the best price, sell the coin, keep 20 percent commission for himself (to Ellery’s amusement, the figure was between a literary agent’s commission and an art dealer’s), and credit the balance to the hermit’s account

“And that’s the way it’s been for thirteen and a half years,” the little storekeeper said. “The old bird seems to have a whole supply of ’em—I figured he must be some kind of prospector from way back who went a little nutty from too much sun, and the younger fellow’s his grandson or something.”

“How many
CC dollars
has he turned over to you since the first time?”

“Including last Sunday? Well, I got to figure …” Figure Otto did, with moistened finger riffling and rumbling the pages, while Ellery fidgeted. Finally the storekeeper announced, “Nineteen, all told.” Ellery’s first thought was that there was something wrong about the number. The thought kept niggling, but he could not come to terms with it. Impatiently he asked Schmidt what kind of things the old man bought on his visits.

“Oh, rock salt, kerosene, nails, stuff like that. No, never candy or wine or anything fancy. Seed? Not that I remember. But lots of paper. Must do a heap of writing. And, oh, yes! he once bought a piece of furniture.”

“
Furniture!
”

Otto Schmidt nodded. “Sure was funny, what happened that day—the book and all. I can remember, Mr. Green—Breen—?”