The World Shuffler (11 page)

“Wait!” Lafayette shouted. “I give up, you’re too smart for me. I’ll ... I’ll talk!”

“Very well.” The captain jabbed him. “Talk!”

“Well, let’s see ... where shall I begin,” O’Leary stalled.

“Start with when Lou had to step into the bushes,” the sergeant suggested.

“Yes, well, as soon as Lou stepped into the bushes, I, ah ...”

“You hit him over the head, right?” a trooper contributed.

“Right. And then, er ...”

“Then when we held up and sent a couple guys back to see what was taking Lou so long, you bopped them on the knob too, right?”

“That’s it—”

“And then, while the rest of us was beating the brush for the boys which they hadn’t come back, you nips in and whisks her Ladyship away from under the nose of Les, which he was holding the nags, right?”

“Who’s telling this, you or me?” O’Leary inquired tartly.

“So where is she now?”

“How do I know? I was busy hitting Lou over the head and whisking around under Les’s nose, remember?”

“How come you know the boys’ names? You been casing this job a long time, hey?”

“Never mind that, Quackwell,” the captain barked. “We’re wasting time. The lady’s whereabouts, you, or I’ll stretch your neck i’ the instant!”

“She’s—she’s at the hunting lodge of Lorenzo the Lanky!”

“Lorenzo the Lanky? And where might this lodge be found?”

“It’s, er, right up this trail a few miles.”

“Liar,” the officer barked. “This road leads nowhere save to the chateau of milady’s Aunt Prussic!”

“Are you sure of that?” Lafayette shot back.

“Certainly. Milady herself so informed me.”

“Well, your intelligence apparatus needs overhauling,” Lafayette snapped. “It’s the talk of the locker rooms that Lorenzo the Lanky lives up this way. Or maybe Lochinvar—or is it Lothario? ...”

“I fail to grasp the import of your slimy innuendos, varlet,” the captain said in a deadly tone. “Wouldst have me believe that milady deliberately misled me? That she in fact had arranged some clandestine rendezvous with this Lorenzo, here in the depths of the Chantspels?”

“It wouldn’t be very clandestine, with a dozen pony soldiers hanging around,” O’Leary pointed out.

“You mean—you think she ditched us on purpose?” The N.C.O. scowled ferociously.

“Use your heads,” Lafayette said. “If I’d taken her, do you think I’d leave her and come nosing back around here, just so you could catch me?”

“Enough of your vile implications, knave!” the captain barked. “Stand back, men! I’ll deal with this blackguard!”

“Hey, hold it, Cap,” the sergeant said, tugging at his forelock. “Begging the captain’s pardon, but what the guy says makes sense. It was her Ladyship that said we ought to go back and look for Whitey and Fred, right?”

“Yeah, and also, come to think about it, I never heard before about her having no aunt living out in the boondocks,” a trooper added.

“Preposterous,” the captain said in a tone lacking in conviction. “Her Ladyship would never thus cozen me, her faithful liegeman, in such fashion!”

“I dunno, Cap. Dames. Who knows from dames, what they might do?”

“Mind your tongue!” The captain yanked at his tunic with a decisive gesture. “I’ll soil my ears with no more of the knave’s preposterous inventions. On with the hanging!”

“Now, don’t be hasty, fellows,” O’Leary yelled. “I’m telling you the truth! Lady Andragorre is probably just a few miles ahead; we ought to be galloping to overtake her instead of standing around here arguing!”

“He seeks to mislead us!” the captain snapped. “Doubtless milady lies trussed where he left her, mere yards from this spot!”

“He’s out of his skull!” Lafayette protested. “He’s afraid to go after her! This is just an excuse to muddy the waters and turn back!”

“Enough! Prepare the criminal for execution!”

“Wait!” Lafayette cried as the noose dropped around his neck. “Can’t we settle this like gentlemen?”

A sudden silence fell. The sergeant was looking at the captain, who was frowning blackly at O’Leary.

“You demand the treatment accorded a gentleman? On what grounds?”

“I’m Sir Lafayette O’Leary, a—a charter member of the National Geographic Society!”

“Looks like he’s got something, Cap,” the sergeant said. “With credentials like them, you can’t hardly accord the guy short shrift.”

“He’s right,” Lafayette said hastily. “I’m sure that on sober reflection you can see it wouldn’t look at all well if you lynched me.”

“ ‘Tis a parlous waste of time,” the captain growled. “But—very well. Remove the rope.”

“Well, I’m glad we’re all going to be friends,” Lafayette said. “Now, I—”

“Out pistols!”

“Wha—what are you going to do with those?” Lafayette inquired as the troopers unlimbered foot-long horse pistols, busied themselves with flint and priming.

“Take up your stance against yon tree, sir knight,” the captain barked. “And be quick about it. We haven’t got all night!”

“Y-you mean this tree?” Lafayette half-stumbled over gnarly roots. “Why? What ...?”

“Ready, men! Aim!”

“Stop!” O’Leary called in a cracking voice. “You can’t shoot me!”

“You demanded a gentleman’s death, did you not? Aim—”

“But—you’re not going to fire from
that
range?” Lafayette protested. “I thought you fellows were marksmen!”

“We took first place in the police tournament last June,” the sergeant stated.

“Why don’t I just move back a little farther?” Lafayette suggested. “Give you a chance to show your skill.” He backed ten feet, bumped another tree.

“Ready!” the captain called. “Aim—”

“Still too close,” Lafayette called, wagging a finger. “Let’s make it a real challenge.” He hastily scrambled back an additional four yards.

“That’s far enough!” the captain bellowed. “Stand and receive your fate, sirrah!” He brandished his saber. “Ready! Aim!” As the officer’s lips formed the final word, there was a sudden, shrill yowl from the dense brush behind him. All eyes snapped in the direction from which the nerve-shredding sound had come.

‘‘ Night cat!’’ a man blurted. Without waiting for a glimpse of the creature, Lafayette bounded sideways, dived behind the tree, scrambled to his feet, and pelted full speed into the forest, while shouts rang and guns boomed and lead balls screamed through the underbrush around him.

The moon was out, shining whitely on the split-log front of a small cabin situated in the center of a hollow ringed in by giant trees. Lafayette lay on his stomach under a bramble bush, aching all over from a combination of hangover, fatigue, and contusions. It had been thirty minutes since the last halloo had sounded from the troops beating the brush for him, twenty since he had topped the rim of the bowl and seen the dim-lit windows of the hut below. In that time nothing had stirred there, no sound had broken the stillness. And nothing, Lafayette added, had interfered with the development of a classic case of chilblains. The temperature had dropped steadily as the night wore on; now ice crystals glittered on the leaves. Lafayette blew on his hands and stared at the lighted window of the tiny dwelling below.

‘‘ She has to be down there,” he assured himself. “Where else could she be, in this wilderness?” Of course, he continued the line of thought, whoever kidnapped her is probably there too, waiting with loaded pistols to see if anyone’s following ...”

“On the other hand, if I stay here I’ll freeze,” O’Leary countered decisively. He tottered to his feet, beat his stiffening arms across his chest, eliciting a hacking cough, then began to make his way cautiously down the shadowy slope. At a distance he circled the house, pausing at intervals, alert for sounds of approaching horsemen or awakening householders; but the silence remained unbroken. The flowered curtains at the small windows blocked his view of the interior.

Lafayette slipped up close to the narrow back door, flanked by a pile of split wood and a rain barrel; he put an ear against the rough panels.

There was a faint creaking, an even fainter, intermittent popping sound. A low voice was moaning words too faint to distinguish. Lafayette felt a distinct chill creep up his backbone. Early memories of Hansel and Gretel and the witch’s cottage rose to vivid clarity.

“Nonsense,” he told himself sternly. “There’s no such thing as a witch. There’s nobody in there but this Lorenzo operator, and poor Lady Andragorre, probably tied hand and foot, scared to death, hoping against hope that someone will come along and rescue her, poor kid. So why am I standing around waiting? Why don’t I kick the door down and drag this Lorenzo out by the scruff of the neck, and ...”

The popping sound rose to a frantic crescendo and ceased abruptly. There was a soft whoosh.’, a faint clank of metal. The creaking resumed, accompanied now by a stealthy crunching, as of a meat grinder crushing small bones.

“Maybe he’s torturing her, the monster!” Lafayette took three steps back, braced himself, and hurled himself at the door. It flew wide at the impact, and he skidded to the center of a cozy room where a fire glowed on a grate, casting a rosy light on an elderly woman seated in a rocker on a hooked rug, a cat in her lap and a blue china bowl at her elbow.

“Why, Lorenzo, welcome back,” she said in tones of mild surprise. She held out the bowl. “Have some popcorn.”

Sitting by the fire with a bowl of crisp, lightly buttered and salted kernels on one knee and a cup of thick cocoa on the other, Lafayette attempted to bring his reeling thoughts to order. His hostess was stitching away at a quilt she had exhumed from a chest under the window, chattering in a scratchy monotone. He couldn’t seem to follow just what it was she was saying—something about a little cuckoo fluttering from flower to flower and ...

“Who chops the wood?”

“Why, ah, I have a man who comes in on Tuesdays. But you were saying about Lady Andragorre ...?”

“I wasn’t saying. But I don’t know where she is; I came alone. Well, thanks for the goodies—”

“You’re not leaving,” the old lady said sharply. She smiled. “I won’t think of it.”

Lafayette pulled on his cloak, went to the door. “I’m afraid I have to decline your hospitality—” He broke off at a sudden sound, turned in time to see the old lady behind him, her had swinging down edge-on in a murderous chop at his temple. He ducked, took the blow on a forearm, yelled at the pain, countered a second vicious swing, aimed a stiff-fingered punch at his hostess’s ribs, took a jab to the solar plexus, and fell backward over the rocker.

“Double-crosser!” the old lady yelled. “Selling out to that long-nosed Rodolpho, after all I’ve promised to do for you! Of all the cast-iron stitch-welded gall, to come waltzing in here pretending you never saw me before!” Lafayette rolled aside as the old lady bounded across the chair, barely fending her off with a kick to the short ribs as he scrambled to his feet.

“Where is she, curse you? Oh, I should have left you tending swine back in that bog I picked you out of—”

Abruptly the old girl halted in mid-swing, cupped an ear. Faintly, O’Leary heard the thud of approaching hooves.

“Blast!” The old woman bounded to the door, snatched a cloak from the peg, whirled it about herself.

“I’ll get you for this, Lorenzo!” she keened in a voice that had dropped from a wheezy soprano to a ragged tenor. “Just you wait, my boy! I’ll extract a vengeance from you that will make you curse the day you ever saw the Glass Tree!” She yanked the door open and was gone into the night.

Belatedly, O’Leary sprang after her. Ten feet from the door, she stood fiddling with her buttons. As O’Leary leaped, she emitted a loud buzzing hum, bounded into the air, and shot away toward the forest, rapidly gaining altitude, her cloak streaming behind her.

“Hey,” Lafayette called weakly. Suddenly he was aware of the rising thunder of hooves. He dashed back inside, across the room, out the back door, and keeping the house between himself and the arriving cavalry, he sprinted for the shelter of the woods.

Dawn came, gray and blustery, hardly lessening the darkness. Lafayette sat in deep gloom under a tree big enough to cut a tunnel through, shivering. His head ached; his stomach had a slow fire in it; his eyeballs felt as if they had been taken out, rolled in corn meal, and Southern-fried. The taste in his mouth resembled pickled onions— spoiled ones. In the branches overhead, a bird squawked mournfully.

“This is it,” Lafayette muttered, “the low point of my career. I’m sick, freezing, starving, hung-over, and dyspeptic. I’ve lost my horse, Lady Andragorre’s trail—everything. I don’t know where I’m going, or what to do when I get there. Also, I’m hallucinating. Flying old ladies, ha! I probably imagined the whole business about the cottage. A dying delirium, maybe I was actually shot by those bumbling incompetents in the yellow coats. Maybe I’m dead!”

He felt himself over, failed to find any bullet holes.

“But this is ridiculous. If I were dead, I wouldn’t have a headache.” He hitched up his sword belt, tottered a few feet to a small stream, knelt, and sluiced ice water over his face, scrubbed at it with the edge of his cloak, drank a few swallows.

“O.K.,” he told himself sternly. “No use standing around talking to myself. This is a time for action.

“Swell,” he replied. “What action?

“I could start walking,” he suggested. “It’s only about twenty miles back to Port Miasma.

“Rodolpho isn’t likely to be overjoyed to see me coming back empty-handed,” he countered. “But I’ll probably have a chance to explain my reasons—to Groanwelt. Anyway, I don’t know which direction it is.” Lafayette peered upward through the canopy of high foliage. Not even a faint glow against the visible patches of gray sky indicated the position of the sun.

“Besides which, I can’t run off and leave the Lady Andragorre to her fate.

“All right, I’m convinced: I press on. Which way is on?”

He turned around three times, with his eyes shut, stopped, and pointed.

“That way.”

“You know,” O’Leary confided in himself as he started off in the indicated direction, “this talking to myself isn’t such a bad idea. It opens up whole new vistas.