A For Anything

15

The patrol slogged down the stony mountain trail. The sun was burning overhead in a bright, clear sky. Bringing up the rear, Dick looked with distaste at the bobbing heads of the six foot-soldiers, the rumps of the two pack animals. His throat ached for water, but there was no use risking another rebuff by asking Lindley to halt the column while he refilled his canteen.

The transport had dropped them with what seemed to Dick very short supplies. There was a rule, of course, against carrying a Gismo into hostile territory; they were "roughing it," Lindley said.

Up ahead, a voice was lifted in nasal song: "A girl who played poker with Tucker, was deadly afraid that -- " Lindley, who looked frail as a pipestem, was enjoying himself.

Two days ago, Clay had come to him with an air of suppressed excitement. "Dick, something big is about to happen."

"You mean the turnover?"

"Hush! Yes, that's what I mean. How did you know?"

"You've been building me up to it for weeks, haven't you? I wondered when you were going to say something."

"They wouldn't let me be more definite till now. All right, look, this is your chance to get on the right side. There's a man named Lindley in your regiment who's about to be sent out on a routine mission. When he comes back, he's going to get a promotion and a new assignment, to the Chief Armorer's office. Now, we have to have a man in that spot, and it can't be Lindley -- he's untrustworthy. So we're going to get you assigned to that mission under Lindley. All you have to do is ... make sure he doesn't come back."

There was no question in Dick's mind which side he was on, in spite of the traditional loyalty of Buckhill to the Boss's family. Such considerations did not bother him at all. What was bothering him was this business of Lindley. It wasn't that he liked the man, either: Lindley was a pale-haired, pink-skinned, popeyed man with an intensely irritating condescension of manner, and a really reptilian irony. It would actually be a pleasure to kill him ... and that was the trouble.

Whenever he thought about Buckhill -- infrequently, nowadays, there was so much else to occupy his mind -- he was sobered to realize how deeply he had changed in a matter of a few months. He could still remember the anguish and horror he had felt, that afternoon on the lawn, when Cashel fell.

Now, that image was all blurred and mixed up with the memory of Keel's body dropping into the moonlit canyon. Two duels, two deaths, and now he was being asked to bloody his hands again.

What if he found he liked it? ...

Toward noon they stopped and broke out duped rations, watering the horses from a tiny stream that rushed down the valley side. Lindley, reclining at ease with his pack for a pillow, examined the hill above them through a pair of binoculars. "Ah," he said suddenly. "Sergeant, take two boys and see if there's anybody home up there -- right there, above that big gray boulder."

The slob saluted, motioned to two others; in a few moments they were out of sight in the thick second growth ;of hemlock and spruce. Dick trained his own binoculars on the spot Lindley had indicated. All he could make out was a tangle of dead branches, like a heap of deadwood washed down in the spring floods, or like an impossibly big bird's nest.

After a while he saw the soldiers' mottled green uniforms appear among the trees. Lindley's squawk-box came to life and said, "Nobody here, misser."

"Anything inside?"

"Just some junk, misser -- couple of skins, bones. Garbage."

"All right," Lindley said indifferently, "photograph it, leave a trap and come down."

Dick looked with puzzlement at the two Polaroid snapshots the sergeant brought back: they showed a man-high tangle of sticks, rudely interlaced, matted with dead leaves and mud. The interior view showed a few well-gnawed bones, probably of deer and rabbit, and a small heap of stiff-looking skins. There was a shard of pottery in the litter.'

"Ever see a lair like that?" Lindley asked, taking the pictures.

"No, never. What kind of animal is it?"

"Human animal," said Lindley, scribbling on the backs of the snapshots. "Worst and most vile scavenger in the world. Poisonous bits, too. Well, we'll surprise this one if he comes back. Probably he won't."

"Are you saying that somebody lived in that pile of branches?"

"House, if you please," said Lindley, with his ironic pop-eyed stare. "Don't they have anything like that in your part of the country?"

"No. There are a few colonies of fishers in the swampland, but they live in something that looks like a house, at least -- some even have chimneys."

"That's because you keep the Indians out," Lindley commented. "A mistake, if you don't mind my saying so. Give me a nice clean Comanche any time."

Dick was staring up the hillside. "What do they do in the winter?"

"Oh, starve. Freeze. They've forgotten how to make fire, you know. Some of them last through, eating all the grease they can get. There's plenty of game, of course, but they can only catch cripples. Very bad nutrition. They have scurvy and rickets, not to mention lice, fleas, ticks and mites." He looked at his watch. "Time to be moving. Sergeant, saddle up."

A few hours later they were filing into a steep little valley, past hillsides blue and fragrant with lupines, down to the foaming stream that sparkled under the cottonwoods. Dick saw a fish leap, a clean arc in the sunlight; the air was full of the thunder and spray of the water, the rocks in the stream glistened with it. He swallowed involuntarily, feeling an itch to dismount and clamber down among those stones.

To his astonishment, Lindley gave the signal to halt. In a few moments, the horses were pegged out under the trees, two soldiers were scrambling for firewood, and Lindley himself was squatting tailor-fashion beside the stream, rummaging in his pack.

"What now?" asked Dick, coming up.

"Now," said Lindley, fitting together the sections of a fly rod, "we wait. We are at the agreed spot, at the agreed time. Our contact may please himself to turn up today, or he may not. In the meantime -- " he handed Dick the rod, and began to assemble another -- "we fish."

Dick chose a colorful, wet fly from Lindley's collection, and cast upstream with care, but little finesse was needed: the stream was swarming with trout. Between them they had landed a dozen in less than half an hour, all of the same species, unfamiliar to Dick, with red-spotted sides and a yellow dorsal fin.

After dinner they lay at ease on their sleeping bags, watching the sky darken and the first stars come out. Crickets were thrumming in the fields above; a fresh, cool air drifted up from the stream, invisible now behind the dark tree-trunks. The dying fire glowed red. A little distance away, one of the tethered horses stamped and nickered. Lindley rolled over on one elbow; Dick saw his eyes glisten in the half-light.

From up the slope came a hail: "Halt! Who goes there?"

The answer came in a low, guttural voice: "Friend."

"Advance and be recognized, friend."

Lindley had his revolver in one hand; with the other, he stubbed out his cigarette in a shower of tiny red sparks. Dick sat up. At first he could see nothing, then he made out two shadowy forms descending the slope. At Lindley's command, one of the other soldiers threw a handful of branches on the fire. The dry twigs blazed up; in the wavering light, Dick saw the approaching man's face. It was flat and brown, the nose wide, the hair coarse and black under a dirty felt hat. Gold rings glittered in the man's ears; he was dressed in a leather jacket and blue Levi's that clung to his bandy legs.

"Hello, Johnny," said Lindley, rising. "That's all right, Pierce; go back to your post. Sit down, Johnny -- you like coffee?"

The Indian grunted and sat down. "This is Johnny Partridge," said Lindley. "He's a Klamath; his people were chased out of Oregon by the Arapaho about fifty years ago. Not many of them left; Johnny does odd jobs for us now and then, don't you, Johnny?"

"Do good job," said the Indian, taking a steaming mug of coffee from one of the soldiers. He sipped it noisily and handed it back. "More sugar."

"That's right, four spoons for Johnny," said Lindley. His pink face was keen and cruel in the firelight "And plenty sugar, plenty tobacco for Johnny, if he gives us good information."

"Two rifle," said Johnny, raising his hand. "Hundred box cartridge."

"One rifle and ten boxes of cartridges," said Lindley, "If the information is good enough, Johnny."

"Plenty good. White man big medicine cross. Plenty trouble." With his hand he sketched a Gismo-shape in the air, so accurately that Dick, was half convinced. How could anybody out here in the wilderness have got hold of a Gismo? .

"Heaven only knows," Lindley had said the day before, "but it's just possible, and of course we have to be sure."

Now Lindley was saying, "You see big medicine cross yourself, Johnny?"

A vigorous nod. "Plenty big medicine. You come now, I show you."

"Think there's anything to it?" Dick asked Lindley as they were mounting.

"Oh, probably not. Johnny's never seen a real Gismo, only pictures. He's an incorrigible liar, anyhow; all Indians are." The column was forming; Lindley chirruped to his horse and trotted off to the head, leaving Dick to bring up the rear as before.

The roar of the stream fell behind them; the darkness closed in. Dick could barely see past his horse's head, except when they were mounting a rise and the rest of the column was silhouetted against the stars. There was no sound in the world except for the plodding of the horses' hooves and the faint jingle and creak of harness.

When the moon rose, low in the south, they were picking their way around the shore of a quiet lake, one sheet of dull silver beyond the jagged shapes of the pines. They rode, with brief rests, most of the night; the moon had set again when they came to a halt at last near the crest of a ridge.

"We rest here until dawn," said Lindley in low tones, gathering them around him. "No fires, no smoking, no loud talking. Sergeant, post two guards; the rest of you sleep if you can."

There was frost on the ground, and the air had turned bitter chill. Dick dozed fitfully in his sleeping bag, and woke to feel Lindley shaking him.

The sun was a faint greenish glow on the horizon; he could see the shapes of men and horses only as flat cardboard cutouts in the gray half-light. "Come with me," said Lindley.

They climbed to the top of the ridge, and lay down on the needle-carpeted ground, facing across the canyon. Beyond Lindley, Dick could make out the flat-hatted shape of Johnny Partridge. The other side of the canyon was a gray blank between the trunks of the pines. "Johnny claims he can see them already," Lindley remarked in an undertone, "but I think he is lying. Keep your eye on the skyline over there."

The sky insensibly brightened; there were silvery streaks, pale and cold, over the eastern horizon. Shadows could be distinguished, and a little color crept back into the world. Somewhere behind them a coyote was barking, a sleepy, lonesome sound. Dick could see now that the opposite crest was heavily wooded in small evergreens, with a few towering lodgepole pines. He blinked. At one moment the scene was absolutely deserted; the next, the shadows under the branches of the trees opposite were full of oval shapes -- dozens of them, all at the same height above the ground. As he watched, he actually saw a doorway appear in one of them and a tiny man-shape clamber down an invisible hanging ladder.

"Ah!" said Lindley beside him. There was a click and a rustle as he brought his rifle up to firing position. Dick saw him squinting through the scope; then he lowered the rifle again with a sigh. "Nice target, but we must have patience. Did you see him, Jones?"

"Yes."

"They're something new in this district -- weren't here when I came through two years ago. According to Johnny, they're a mixed crowd, half-breed Arapaho and Sarsi, escaped prisoners and that kind of thing, all interbred with degenerate whites. A cut above our friends of yesterday, though; they've got up to the monkey level."

The bottom of the canyon was a dry watercourse, choked with deadwood; the opposite slope was steeply eroded. "What I want you to do," Lindley said, "is to get across there as quietly as you can, but don't take all day about it. I'll give you three boys and Johnny for an interpreter; the rest of us will stay here and snipe."

The shadows were just beginning to darken when Dick and his squad reached the top of the trail. Somewhere a cur began to bark, and then another. One of the tree houses shook abruptly, and a head popped out of the doorway.

Behind them there was the short, sharp bark of a rifle. Splinters flew beside the primitive's head, and he ducked back inside with a shrill cry. Other tree houses began to shake; there was a confusion of emerging bodies, dogs barking, voices calling urgently back and forth in the morning air. Back on the other ridge, the rifles spoke again and again: a body fell thrashing into the brush at the foot of a tree.

At Dick's gesture, the soldiers had spread out along the edge of the village. He looked around for Johnny Partridge; there he was, to the right. "Tell them to bring it out," said Dick.

The Indian nodded. He threw back his head and uttered a short burst of guttural syllables, high-pitched, that made his throat pulse like an animal's.

After a moment, a hidden voice answered. Johnny Partridge listened, then turned. "They say no white man medicine cross here. Big liars."

Dick shrugged. "All right, we'll do it the hard way. Tell them -- "

He was interrupted by a shout of warning from across the canyon. He caught a glimpse of a dark figure in the doorway of one of the huts, one arm raising a stick; then the hut erupted in a shower of splinters. The guns across the canyon were firing almost continuously; every shot was going into the same hut. The primitive's body leaned out, and Dick had time to see the long bow in one hand before it toppled and crashed below. Something dark began to drip from the woven bottom of the hut.

Dick turned distastefully away.

"Tell them," he said, "the same thing will happen to any of them that try that again. Tell them to stay in their huts till we say to come down."

Johnny Partridge translated, in another high-pitched gush of syllables. There was silence.

Dick pointed to the nearest hut. "This one first."

The Indian moved nearer, shouted again. After a moment the curtain moved and a timid, hating face peeped out. The primitive tossed down a rope-and-stick ladder, climbed down it and stood empty-handed, looking from face to face with a feral alertness. Dick gestured to the soldier on his left. "Up you go."

The soldier saluted and scrambled up the ladder. There was an instant howl when he disappeared inside; the hut shook violently, and after a moment the soldier reappeared, struggling with another primitive. They toppled out, but both saved themselves by clutching at the doorway. The soldier, uppermost, gave the primitive a boot down, and she -- it was a female -- sullenly descended beside the male. Like him, she was black-haired and yellowish-skinned; she had broad shoulders and pendulous breasts. Neither wore anything but a strip of bark, fore and aft.

"Anything up there?" Dick demanded.

The soldier hesitated. "I didn't have time to look good, misser."

"Up you go, then." The soldier climbed, disappeared, put his head out. "Nothing here, misser." He came down.

"All right. They can go up again. Tell them we don't want their women."

When the Indian translated, the two primitives looked incredulous. They glanced at each other, then slowly climbed the ladder.

There was a struggle at the next hut, and the next; then it grew easier. Every hut in the village was emptied and examined.

The Gismo was not there.

Johnny Partridge barked a question at the last hutful of primitives, a male, female and a half-grown boy. The male answered briefly. Johnny Partridge asked another question. The male said something short and pithy, and then spat.

The Indian's eyes were glittering as he turned to Dick. "I ask him, where white man big medicine cross. He say he don't know. Then I ask him where old holy man. He say old man dead. Big liar. Find old man, find big medicine cross!"

Dick peered into the forest beyond the village. There was nothing to be seen; they might waste days beating around these woods.

"Big cowards," said Johnny Partridge. "Little bit hurt, they talk, okay?"

Dick hesitated. "Go ahead."

Johnny Partridge stepped forward, seized the boy and jerked him away from his parents. The boy stumbled and fell to his knees. Holding him by the hair, Johnny Partridge put a knife against his throat.

The parents came forward a step, with cries of alarm, then stopped, looking at the soldiers' leveled rifles. Johnny Partridge asked his question; the boy said something in a high, strangled voice. The Indian asked again. The knifepoint nicked the skin; the boy felt blood running down his chest. He spoke again in a terrified gabble.

Johnny Partridge looked pleased. The parents uttered sounds of horror; guttural questions came from every side of the clearing, and the parents shouted in reply. In a moment the village was in an uproar.

"Come on," said Johnny Partridge, jerking the boy to his feet. "We go quick, he show place."

Dick saw angry faces glaring down from the hut doorways in every direction. A gun barked from across the canyon, and a warning shot splintered through one of the huts. The gabble of voices grew louder.

As Johnny Partridge pushed the boy forward, the parents fell on him. They swayed together in a tangle of limbs. At Dick's motion, one of the soldiers stepped up and clubbed them with his rifle butt, one after the other. Johnny Partridge was streaming with blood from a torn ear and a scratch over one eye, but he had kept his grip on the boy's arm. They moved on.

The boy was sobbing, almost doubled over with his hand held by the Indian in the small of his back. He led the way past a muddy spring into the forest. After a few yards they came to another clearing, rudely planted with stunted corn. Beyond that, an almost imperceptible trail led deeper into the trees.

The clamor behind them swelled again. They heard a fusillade of shots, then a crashing in the forest on either side. Running footsteps came up behind them. Turning, Dick saw the soldier beside him swing up his rifle, heard the crash of the shot, loud among the trees, and saw the running primitive pitch forward.

Voices were calling on either side. "Better hurry it up," said Dick to Johnny Partridge. The Indian nodded, and they swung off at a trot. The firing had stopped.

The trail bent and ended suddenly in front of a sandstone cliff. In the cliff was a cave opening, closed by a hide curtain. The curtain twitched aside and a primitive leaned out, bow in hand. One of the soldiers went down with a feathered arrow in his shoulder. The other two fired together and the primitive fell, bringing the curtain down with him. Dick heard a long wail of despair from the woods.

Inside, the cave was dark and smoky; it smelled of excrement, rotten meat, garbage and other things. On one side, the floor was heaped with skins, ugly, earth-colored pots and jars, a clutter of smaller articles. From a pole jammed across the roof of the cave hung a green side of meat, swarming with flies.

At the rear, the cave narrowed and there was another hide curtain. In front of this stood an old male.

He was emaciated, dirty and unkempt: his wild eyes stared out of a tangle of grayish hair. He was dressed in a garment made of cloth, that might once have been magnificent by the primitives' standards, but it was frayed and tattered now, gray and greasy and stiff with dirt; his bony chest showed through it and it hung in festoons to his knees. He waved his clawed hands at them, mouthing something toothlessly. His mad eyes rolled; he did a little shuffling dance, back and forth in front of the hide curtain.

"Crazy man," said Johnny Partridge, respectfully. "Very old, very holy."

"Get him out of the way," Dick said.

The nearest soldier made a pass with his rifle butt; the old male leaped nimbly back and disappeared through the curtain. At Dick's gesture, another soldier ripped the curtain down.

In the dancing light that came from a wick in a little pot of oil, the old male was grimacing and gibbering with fear, flinging out his arms and then drawing them back. There was not much else in the cave: just a kind of rude altar scooped out of the sandstone, and on the altar, standing upright, a cross of wood.

Just that. Not a Gismo.

Two pitiful crossed sticks, bound together by sinew, with a snakeskin dangling from either side.