Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (285 page)

“Now what did you want to do that for? Cutting our woman supply in half that way?”

“Sorry. Mighty damn sorry. These things always happen to me.”

Meanwhile another of the gang slid off his horse, and the two went through the dead, stripping them of jewelry and whatever articles of clothing caught their fancy before searching the luggage and the coach itself for valuables. By the time they had finished it was fully dark and I had crept to within a few feet of them, crouching reasonably secure and practically invisible while they debated what to do with the horses. One faction was in favor of taking them along for spare mounts; the other, arguing that they were too easily identifiable, for cutting them out and turning them loose. The second group prevailing, they at last galloped away.

A sudden thrashing in the cornstalks just beyond the fence startled me into rigidity. Something which might be human stumbled and crawled toward the carriage, snuffling and moaning, to throw itself down by the prostrate bodies, its anguished noises growing more high-pitched and chilling.

I was certain this must be a passenger who had jumped from the off side of the carriage at the start of the holdup, but whether man or woman it was impossible to tell. I moved forward gingerly, but somehow I must have betrayed my presence, for the creature, with a terrified groan, slumped inertly.

My hands told me it was a woman I raised from the ground, and the smell of her was the smell of a young girl. “Don’t be afraid, miss,” I tried to reassure her; “I’m a friend.”

I could hardly leave the girl lying in the road, nor did I feel equal to carrying her to Haggershaven which I reckoned must be about six miles farther. I tried shaking her, rubbing her hands, murmuring encouragement, all the while wishing the moon would come up, feeling somehow it would be easier to revive her in the moonlight.

“Miss,” I urged, “get up. You can’t stay here—they may come back.”

Had I reached her? She stirred, whimpering with strange, muffled sounds. I dragged her to her knees and managed to get her arm over my shoulder. “Get up,” I repeated. “Get on your feet.”

She moaned. I pulled her upright and adjusted my hold. Supporting her around the waist and impeded by my valise, I began an ungraceful, shuffling march. I could only guess at how much time had been taken up by the holdup and how slow our progress would be. It didn’t seem likely we could get to Haggershaven before midnight, an awkward hour to explain the company of a strange girl. The possibility of leaving her at a hospitable farmhouse was remote; no isolated rural family in times like these would open their door with anything but deep suspicion or a shotgun blast.

We had made perhaps a mile, a slow and arduous one, when the moon rose at last. It was full and bright, and showed my companion to be even younger than I had thought. The light fell on masses of curling hair, wildly disarrayed about a face unnaturally pale and lifeless yet extraordinarily beautiful. Her eyes were closed in a sort of troubled sleep, and she continued to moan, though at less frequent intervals.

I had just decided to stop for a moment’s rest when we came upon one of the horses. The clumsily cut traces trailing behind him had caught on the stump of a broken sapling. Though still trembling he was over the worst of his fright; after patting and soothing him I got us onto his back and we proceeded in more comfortable if still not too dignified fashion.

It wasn’t hard to find Haggershaven; the side road to it was well kept and far smoother than the highway. We passed between what looked to be freshly plowed fields and came to a fair-sized group of buildings, in some of which I was pleased to see lighted windows. The girl had still not spoken; her eyes remained closed, and she moaned occasionally.

Dogs warned of our approach. From a dark doorway a figure came forward with a rifle under his arm. “Who is it?”

“Hodge Backmaker. I’ve got a girl here who was in a holdup. She’s had a bad shock.”

“All right,” he said, “let me hitch the horse. Then I’ll help you with the girl. My name’s Dorn. Asa Dorn.”

I slid off and lifted the girl down. “I couldn’t leave her in the road,” I offered in inane apology.

“I’ll water and feed the horse after. Let’s go into the main kitchen; it’s warm there. Here,” he addressed the girl, “take my arm.”

She made no response, and I half carried her, with Dorn trying helpfully to share her weight. The building through which we led her was obviously an old farmhouse, enlarged and remodeled a number of times. Gaslights of a strange pattern, brighter than any I’d ever seen, revealed Asa Dorn as perhaps thirty with very broad shoulders and very long arms, and a dark, rather melancholy face. “There’s a gang been operating around here,” he informed me; “tried to shake the Haven down for a contribution. That’s why I was on guard with the gun. Must be the same bunch.”

We bustled our charge into a chair before a big fieldstone fireplace which gave the large room its look of welcome, though the even heat came from sets of steam pipes under the windows. “Should we give her some soup? Or tea? Or shall I get Barbara or one of the other women?”

His fluttering brushed the outside of my mind. Here in the light I instinctively expected to see some faint color in the girl’s cheeks or hands, but there was none. She looked no more than sixteen, perhaps because she was severely dressed in some school uniform. Her hair, which had merely been a disordered frame for her face in the moonlight, now showed itself as deeply black, hanging in thick, soft curls around her shoulders. Her features, which seemed made to reflect emotions—full, mobile lips, faintly slanted eyes, high nostrils—were instead impassive, devoid of vitality, and this unnatural quiescence was heightened by the dark eyes, now wide open and expressionless. Her mouth moved slowly, as though to form words, but nothing came forth except the faintest of guttural sounds.

“She’s trying to say something.” I leaned forward as though by sympathetic magic to help the muscles which seemed to respond with such difficulty.

“Why,” exclaimed Dorn, “she’s…dumb!”

She looked agonizedly toward him. I patted her arm helplessly.

“I’ll go get—” he began.

A door opened and Barbara Haggerwells blinked at us. “I thought I heard someone ride up, Ace. Do you suppose…” Then she caught sight of the girl. Her face set in those lines of strange anger I had seen in the bookstore.

“Miss Haggerwells—”

“Barbara—”

Dorn and I spoke together. Either she did not hear us or we made no impression. She faced me in offended outrage. “Really, Mr. Backmaker, I thought I’d explained there were no facilities here for this sort of thing.”

“You misunderstand,” I said, “I happened—”

Dorn broke in. “Barbara, she’s been in a holdup. She’s dumb…”

Fury made her ugly. “Is that an additional attraction?”

“Miss Haggerwells,” I tried again, “you don’t understand—”

“I think I understand very well. Dumb or not, get the slut out of here! Get her out right now, I say!”

“Barbara, you’re not listening—”

She continued to face me, her back to him. “I should have remembered you were a ladies’ man, Mr. Self-taught Backmaker. No doubt you imagined Haggershaven to be some obscene liberty hall. Well, it isn’t! You’d be wasting any further time you spent here. Get out!”

XI.

OF HAGGERSHAVEN

I suppose—recalling the inexplicable scene with Little Aggie—I was less astonished by her frenzy than I might have been. Besides, her rage and misunderstanding were anticlimactic after the succession of excitements I had been through that day. Instead of amazement I felt only uneasiness and tired annoyance.

Dorn steered Barbara out of the room with a combination of persuasion and gentle force disguised as solicitous soothing, leaving the girl and me alone. “Well,” I said, “well…”

The large eyes regarded me helplessly.

“Well, you’ve certainly caused me a lot of trouble…”

Dorn returned with two women, one middle-aged, the other slightly younger, who flowed around the girl like soapy water, effectually sealing her away from all further masculine blunders, uttering little bubbly clucks and sudsy comfortings.

“Overwork, Backmaker,” Dorn mumbled. “Barbara’s been overworking terribly. You mustn’t think—”

“I don’t,” I said. “I’m just sorry she couldn’t be made to realize what actually happened.”

“Hypersensitive; things that wouldn’t ordinarily…It’s overwork. You’ve no idea. She wears herself out. Practically no nerves left.”

His face, pleading for understanding, looked even more melancholy than before. I felt sorry for him and slightly superior; at the moment, at least, I didn’t have to apologize for any female unpredictability. “Okay, okay, there doesn’t seem to be any great harm done. And the girl appears to be in good hands now.”

“Oh she is,” he answered with evident relief at dropping the subject of Barbara’s behavior. “I don’t think there’s anything more we can do for her now; in fact I’d say we’re only in the way. How about meeting Mr. Haggerwells now?”

“Why not?” The last episode had doubtless finished me for good so far as Barbara was concerned; whatever neutral report she might have given her father originally could now be counted on for a damning revision. I might as well put a nonchalant face on matters before returning to the world outside Haggershaven.

Thomas Haggerwells, large-boned like his daughter, with the ginger hair faded and a florid, handsome complexion, made me welcome. “Historian, ay, Backmaker? Delighted. Combination of art and science; Clio, most enigmatic of the muses. The ever-changing past, ay?”

“I’m afraid I’m no historian yet, Mr. Haggerwells. I’d like to be one. If Haggershaven will let me be part of it.”

He patted me on the shoulder. “The fellows will do what they can, Backmaker; you can trust them.”

“That’s right,” said Dorn cheerfully; “you look strong as an ox, and historians can be kept happy with books and a few old papers.”

“Ace is our cynic,” explained Mr. Haggerwells; “very useful antidote to some of our soaring spirits.” He looked absently around and then said abruptly, “Ace, Barbara is quite upset.”

I thought this extreme understatement, but Dorn merely nodded. “Misunderstanding, Mr. H.”

“So I gathered.” He gave a short, self-conscious laugh. “In fact that’s all I did gather. She said something about a woman.…”

“Girl, Mr. H., just a girl.” He gave a quick outline of what had happened, glossing over Barbara’s hysterical welcome.

“I see. Quite an adventure in the best tradition, ay Backmaker? And the victims killed in cold blood; makes you wonder about civilization. Savagery all around us.” He began pacing the flowered carpet. “Naturally we must help the poor creature. Shocking, quite shocking. But how can I explain to Barbara? She…she came to me,” he said, half proudly, half apprehensively. “I wouldn’t want to fail her; I hardly know…”He pulled himself together. “Excuse me, Backmaker. My daughter is high-strung. I fear I’m allowing concern to interfere with our conversation.”

“Not at all, sir,” I said. “I’m very tired; if you’ll excuse me…”

“Of course, of course,” he answered gratefully. “Ace will show you your room. Sleep well—we’ll talk more tomorrow. And Ace—come back here afterward, will you?”

Barbara Haggerwells had both Dorn and her father well cowed, I thought as I lay awake. Clearly she could brook not even the suspicion of rivalry, even when it was entirely imaginary. It would be rather frightening to be her father, or—as I suspected Ace might be—her lover, and subject to her tyrannical dominance.

But it was neither Barbara nor overstimulation from the full day which caused my insomnia. A torment, successfully suppressed for hours, invaded me. Connecting the trip of the Escobars—“attached to the Spanish legation”— with the counterfeit pesetas was pure fantasy. But what is logic? I could not argue myself into reasonableness. I could not quench my feeling of responsibility with ridicule nor convincingly charge myself with perverse conceit in magnifying my trivial errands into accountability for all that flowed from the Grand Army—for much which might have flowed from the Grand Army. Guilty men cannot sleep because they feel guilty. It is the feeling, not the abstract guilt which keeps them awake.

Nor could I pride myself on my chivalry in rescuing distressed maidens. I had only done what was unavoidable, grudgingly, without warmth or charity. There was no point in being aggrieved by Barbara’s misinterpretation with its disastrous consequences to my ambitions. I had not freely chosen to help; I had no right to resent a catastrophe which should properly have followed a righteous choice.

At last I slept, only to dream Barbara Haggerwells was a great fish pursuing me over endless roads on which my feet bogged in clinging, tenacious mud. Opening my mouth to shout for help was useless; nothing came forth but a croak which sounded faintly like my mother’s favorite “Gumption!”

In the clear autumn morning my notions of the night dwindled, even if they failed to disappear entirely. By the time I was dressed Ace Dorn showed up; we went to the kitchen where Ace introduced me to a middle-aged man, Hiro Agati, whose close-cut stiff black hair stood perfectly and symmetrically erect all over his head.

“Dr. Agati’s a chemist,” remarked Ace, “condemned to be head chef for a while on account of being too good a cook.”

“Believe that,” said Agati, “and you’ll believe anything. Truth is they always pick on chemists for hard work. Physicists like Ace never soil their hands. Well, so long as you can’t eat with the common folk, what’ll you have, eggs or eggs?”

Agati was the first Oriental I’d ever seen. The great anti-Chinese massacres of the 1890s, which generously included Japanese and indeed all with any sign of the epicanthic eye fold, had left few Asians to have descendants in the United States. I’m afraid I stared at him more than was polite, but he was evidently used to such rudeness for he paid no attention.