The Carnelian Cube

Eight:

Finch realized that although he was still sleepy, sleep was past. Light bored into his eyelids—sunlight. He opened his eyes a crack, blinked them, rolled over and covered his face with one arm, then realized that he was too chilly and too cramped to he there any longer even if the light were gone.

What now? The recollection roused itself in his mind that he had gone to sleep with the carnelian cube in the hope of dreaming himself out of the pediculous world of too-reasonable reason as he had dreamed himself into it. An education in dreams:

Well, was it? Check the facts, then make inferences. Finch opened his eyes fully, sat up, and gave a groan of disappointment.

He ought to be back in that stuffy little room in Asia Minor, He was not. The sun-flooded scene was that of the previous night; dark streaks of forest disclosing a small, bright blue patch of the Tennessee River; on the slope above him, a state highway appearing out of the woods, winding a couple of turns around easy slopes, then disappearing again.

Still the dream. Oh, hell—

Wait, though. Wasn't there a difference? Finch could have sworn that the road had concrete posts connected with iron pipe at the convexity of the curves. Now there was none.

Or could he be sure? He decided he could not with regard to the guard-rail. But there was certainly no sign of Terry; nor for that matter of Terry's carnelian cube, which Finch had clutched tightly in his hand as he went to sleep. Nor was it, he assured himself by a brief search, anywhere in the short green grass where he had lain.

Finch ran a hand across his forehead, trying to grasp the rational of his experience with an effort like "that involved in trying to draw one's own reflection in water. Hold everything—

He stared at his own forearm, then down. One memory was certain. The night before he had been wearing a comfortable, conservatively colored pajama-like suit. Now he was attired as though for a cross-country hike, with laced boots and a violently tartan red-and-yellow wool shirt which he regarded with increasing disfavor.

Before he could meditate on the implications of this phenomenal change, a sound made him look up. An automobile was slowing to a stop on one of the curves where the guard-rail ought to be, but was not. An automobile as extraordinary as the shirt in which he found himself: its color a highly visible lavender, its hood almost big enough for a locomotive boiler, its body so long that he wondered how it could take the turns. As Finch watched, a second car, cream-colored, appeared behind the first and slid to a stop on screeching brakes. Doors opened softly and a set of Napoleonic field-marshals emerged.

At least this was Finch's first reaction to the four men who came lumbering down the hillside, embowered in gold braid. They were tall men and towering hats (two of them were shakos) made then look taller. Finch scrambled to his feet.

As he scrutinized the approaching faces, looking in vain for that of Terry or anyone else he knew, the largest field-marshal jerked a thumb toward the lavender automobile. "Come on," he said. "The boss wants a look at you."

Finch said: "My good man, tell your boss that if he wants to look at me, he can either contemplate my beauties from a distance or come down here where I am —ow!" The field-marshal had gripped him above the elbow with painful force.

"Come on," he repeated. "I ain't fooling!"

"Neither am I," said Finch, and the thought flashing through his mind that men so heavily bedecked could hardly move fast, he pivoted round on the held arm and let the field-marshal have a roundhouse swing squarely in the gorgeous midriff.

The man said "Uhhnk!" and sat down. Finch, poised for flight, half expecting the others to fall on him, halted as they unanimously burst into raucous laughter.

"My turn," said another of the group with red hair and sideburns projecting from beneath an admiral's fore-and-aft hat.

"No it ain't," shouted another. "I'm the original offspring of disaster; I'm the hound-dog of the angel of death. I eat porcupine-quills and drink caustic lye. Where I step the grass withers. Whoopee!" He slapped his chest with a jingling of accoutrements and began to peel off his coat. "Step aside and let me at him!"

"Shet your trap, Basil," growled one with a shako and hard blue eyes. "You ain't got a bit of sense. Reckon this settles whose turn it is." Finch saw that the man was covering him with a highly efficient and modern pistol. "Now you jest come along easy, mister, if you don't want to get your head blowed off. Hyperion, you got your in-sides unstirred yet?"

The seated man had recovered his breath and was struggling to his feet, slapping the dust from his tight breeches. He extended a large hand toward Finch.

"Put her there!" he bellowed. "Anybody that can set Hyperion Weems back on his arse is worth knowing! What's your name?"

"Finch Arthur Poet," said Finch.

"Huh? That's a hell of a funny name. I once knowed a guy named Dishwasher, and they's a poet up in Memphis, but you're the first one named that I ever seen."

"Arthur Finch, if you prefer it that way," said Finch. "They turned my name around on me, the last place I stayed."

Hyperion Weems emitted a whistle and gave Finch a sidewise glance; "You mean to say a individual like you let someone monkey with his name?"

"Come on," said the man with the pistol. "Less chatter and more progress." He emphasized the point by jabbing Finch in the kidney with the muzzle.

Not much ingratiated, Finch marched up the hill, At the top a gentle voice issued from the lavender car. "Turn around, suh, so I can look you over. Little big in the belly for active membership, but I reckon we can find use for you."

"Am I supposed to be grateful?" asked Finch.

"Why," said the voice, "I wouldn't put it that way, suh. You wouldn't be wandering round the country in those clothes, suh, looking for a place to light^ unless you were a member of the unemployed. I'm offering you membership in a very exclusive Utr'y club, yes indeedy, very exelusive. We don't ask nobody to be honored twice, mostly because they couldn't hyar us if we were so to debase ourselves."

"Better hurry, Colonel," said the man with the gun. "The Arcadians ain't far behind."

"Get in, suh," said the voice. Finch had identified its owner as a powerfully built man of about his own age, in a white cotton suit, black string tie and wide black hat. A gray moustache and goatee went with the ensemble, though the man's face did not. It was an egregriously unpleasant face, with a nose that must have been broken in four different ways, and eyes of such an abnormally pale blue-gray that they made the pupils look like pin-points.

Another prod with the pistol reinforced the invitation. Finch, remembering the policeman's maxim that you can't wrassle a bull, climbed in, followed by Hyperion Weems and the man with the gun. The colored driver slid the vast contraption into motion without a perceptible jerk.

They picked up speed steadily; at Florence there was no slowing down, only a warning blat from a tremendous horn, and the car sped through with natives scrambling for safety. As they rolled out of town along Route 72 there was another blat far in the rear. The Colonel said: "Step on it, Janus!"

The bridge over the Tennessee flashed by. Finch's stomach began to contract in little twinges of apprehension, though none of the other passengers appeared disturbed. At each turn the car began to take little tentative skids. The road changed from asphalt to gravel, on whose washboard surface the wheels drummed. On a particularly acute curve the rear end skidded wide till the whole countryside revolved, and Finch expected to see them headed back the way they had come. Janus twirled the wheel this way and that; the car swung through a series of pendulumlike oscillations before settling down to a steady course. Finch felt cold sweat on his face, and his knuckles were white where they gripped the sides of his jump-seat.

The Colonel's voice was smooth as honey: "Can't you go maybe a little faster, Janus?" Finch gulped and took his eyes from the road. "Hyear they come, Colonel," said Hyperion Weems. "Do yo' stuff," said the Colonel.

Finch noticed that the man in the white suit had not even turned his head. He forced himself to look out the rear window. The cloud of dust obscured almost everything but" an occasional glimpse of the cream-colored car following, and it was a couple of moments before he could pick out the referent of Weems' remark—a third car, perhaps a quarter-mile behind, and following at a pace as furious as their own.

Weems spun a crank and a shelf opened out in the front of the passenger section of the limousine. Instead of the travelling bar it might have contained this held a pair of rifles in a velvet-lined case. A second crank opened a trap-door up and back in the roof. There was a movable shutter in this object; Weems carefully laid aside his hat, braced himself erect facing the rear, and poked the rifle through the opening. His head and shoulders were out of the car proper, but protected against fire from the rear by the trapdoor.

As fields, forest and tumbledown shacks fled past in a long blur, the rifle crashed. A glimpse through the dust showed Finch that someone in their companion car was shooting, too, and so, presumably, was the pursuer. There was a sharp clank, as though someone had struck the body of the limousine with a hammer.

"Hit low down," said Weems. The Colonel's face was impassive to provide evidence that the car was well armored. He turned toward Finch, and indicated the man who had poked him with the pistol.

"Suh, become acquainted with one of the brightest ornaments of our association. Mistuh Hector Sigurd Rex Atlas Imperator Plantagenet Smith, who is known to one and all as 'Impy', a name of his individual choice, suh."

Clank went another hit, and crack went Weems' rifle. Clinging with one hand to steady himself against the rocking car, Finch extended the other to meet that of Impy, who said: "Glad to make yo' 'quaintance, Mr. Finch-Poet."

A spider-web of cracks appeared on the pane of the rear window. Suddenly Weems yelled: "Whoopee! Look at 'em!" The pursuing automobile was rolling sidewise along the road, over and over; it would make a couple of revolutions, leap into the air, then come down and roll some more. Just as a curve took them out of sight, it slewed once and came to rest in the ditch.

Weems sat down and slapped his chest. "Yeow! That's Hyperion Weems's shootin'. They got armor over most of them front tires, but I got him, I got him."

"How do you know it was you and not Basil?" said the Colonel. "He was closer to the target."

"Wasn't neither of them," said Impy, drily. "It was a hog."

"Huh?" demanded Weems.

"Sure. I was watching out just the minute fore'n they turned over. Just a plain old big black hog ran out of the Cornfield and dived under their wheels."

"Why, you—"

"Okay, wanna go back and gather up the ham? Oughta be pretty well barbecued if they caught fire."

"Got ham to home," said Weems, grimacing. Finch noticed he looked slighdy pale as he returned the rifle to its rack, and Impy laughed.

"He cain't stand blood," said the gunman. "For an active club-member, what has nine good killings, it's a unick phenomenon."

"Who were those behind us?" asked Finch.

The Colonel said: "Janus, you can slow down now." As the car dropped off to a mere sixty miles an hour, he turned to Finch: "Those, suh, were members of that cabal of subversive scoundrels, the Bummingham Arcadians, gone to perdition as they richly deserve for not respecting the sacred rights of individuality that are the palladium of every citizen of this broad land."

"Whose individuality did they step on?" asked Finch. "Why, mine, of co'se. Suh, is it possible, are you from so remote and benighted a jurisdiction, that you have not already recognized Colonel Richard Fitzhugh Lee? Perish the thought! Suh, I have the honor to be president of that stalwart brotherhood of unstained patriots, the Pegasus Litr'y Society of Memphis. We, suh, have handled the book business of Memphis with incorruptible integrity that has brought us the plaudits of all the citizens whose lives and homes we have protected. In the natural order of business we decided to extend the blessings of our operations and the services of our organization. The Arcadians took the narrow-minded and selfish view that the reading of Bummingham was their private monopoly, and sought to enfo'ce their criminal desires by shooting a couple of our agents. Suh, the blood of Southern manhood boils at the thought. Could we overlook such a violation of the code and the Constitution? No, a thousand times.

"I called on the Arcadians to remonstrate. During the course of the negotiations, they made an unprovoked and dastardly attack on the members of our society, on the ground that the president of the Arcadians had broken his wo'thless neck while discussing matters with us. Though outnumbered three to one, we escaped with the loss of only one man, whom you will now replace. So, suh, you perceive the quality of the organization you are invited to join."

"I see," said Finch. "I suppose if I must, I must."

"You fail to understand, yes indeedy, you do," said Colonel Lee, shaking a finger at Finch. "This is a purely voluntary association, respecting the most sacred rights of the individual. Why, suh, the Pegasus Litr'y Society concentrates in its exclusive membership the beauty and chivalry of the august city of Memphis, which epitomizes the beauty and chivalry of the state of Tennessee, which means of the whole sunay Southland. For variety, individuality and plain damn eccentricity, you wiH not find our peers."

They pulled up at Corinth for fuel and food, stopping at a plain-looking place decorated with a pair of gasoline pumps and a sign announcing only that it was kept by someone named Brian MacPherson. As the cream-colored car came to rest behind theirs, the red-headed Basil strutted from it. "Wow!" he yelled, jumping in the air and clicking his heels together. "Did you-all see me spill them Arcadians? Blam, right through the left front wheel! Man, I can melt a hole in a glass pane by glarin' at it; I can kill a horse by spittin' on it! Where my shadow falls the vegetation succumbs—"

"Yeah," said Impy, rubbing a thumb against one of the shiny bullet-marks on the rear of the lavender limousine. "We seen that hog, too."

"Oh," said Basil, then grinned. "Well, that there hog just heard that Basil Stewart • was comin' past, that's all. His mind was so opset that he up and committed suicide, that's all, so I git the credit anyhow you-all look at it. Say, What they got to eat hyeh? Ain't had a mouthful since Bummingham—"

"Food! Grub!" roared Hyperion Weems, drumming on the counter with large fists, so that salt-shakers and paper-napkin-holders danced again. Impy put two fingers in his mouth and emitted a shrill whistle, but as the rear door swung open to admit their host, they fell silent, and with reason.

The proprietor was at least as large as Hyperion Weems with a huge head of curly brass-yellow hair and a vast chest-protector beard. His costume consisted solely of a broad leather strap around each wrist, sandals, and a gee-string made of the skin of some spotted feline, or at least a skin that looked like that of a spotted feline.

"What's this heathen reerie?" demanded this unconventional restauranteur. "Mind your manners, or I'll be throwing ye oot on your hurdies!"

"We want food," said Basil Stewart. "Make mine a tenderloin steak, two inches thick and bloody on the inside, with a big heap of sweet potatoes and one fresh pea."

"What's the pea for?" asked Finch.

"Vitamins. Doc Proctor says I need 'em or my hair will fall out."

"Ye needna bother wi' special orders," said the big man behind the counter. "This is nature's hoose, and ye'll take what God gives ye by the hand of Brian McPhairson. Oh, Ian\ Six portions of Diet Number Four." He cocked his head toward the kitchen, and said with an air of apology. "Ye must excuse my grandson; he's a mere wean, and hasna learned that good courtesy asks quick service. lan\"

"Coming, grampop," said a young voice, and the owner hove through the door: an adolescent, clad like the bearded man but if possible, even larger and more muscular. On his arms and hands the mere wean balanced six salads, which he placed before the customers.

Hyperion Weems found his voice first, though it was somewhat shrill: "You mean we is expected to eat this— cow fodder?"

"Gimme some whiskey, quick," said the field marshall Finch had not yet identified by name. "I feel faint."

MacPherson snorted as he poured and laid before them six glasses of nearly colorless fluid. "Neither steaks nor whuskey shall ye have from me," he said, "but halthy salads wi' celery-juice and gusty nuts to your dessert, I've lived on God's bounty so for forty years, and I'm no weakling, as I'd have ye mark."

He smote his chest till it resounded like a bass drum. "If ye'll rely on proper food and exercise instead o' godless dissipation and those ignorant poisoners who ca' themselves doctors, ye'd learn what real health is. Fa' tae, noo, wi* good appetite and the blessing of the A'mighty."

"Come on, boys," said Colonel Lee. "Suh, the honor of the Pegasus will not permit our tasses in food and drink to be dictated to us."

"No ye don't!" roared MacPherson. "Ye ha' come to me for nourishment, and nourished ye shall be." The inner doorway was suddenly filled with five more leopard-skinned giants. As Impy fumbled for a gun one of the new-comers pounced on him. Finch had a brief and apprehensive glimpse of the two locked in struggle for the zenith-pointed firearm, which went off with a roar. Then in a moment the whole party of visitors was disarmed and on their stools, with a blonde Hercules behind each. "Eat!" said MacPherson.

With sour looks and downcast faces, they pecked at the salads. "Ow!" yelled Basil Stewart suddenly.

"What's the matter, Wullie?" rumbled the proprietor.

The monster behind Stewart explained: "Pop, this dissipator was trying to stuff his watercress into that fancy coat of his, so you'd think he et it."

"Beat his harnies out against the wall if he tried it again," said MacPherson, amiably. Then his face softened. "N:i, ha," he said. "Ye ha' na your hairts in it. Hunger makes a good sauce, but the word of God a better. I'll even read ye a bit from the Good Book." He fumbled beneath the counter and produced a massive Bible.

"I will read," he said, and paused to let the book fall open, "—from the Eighty-Ninth Psalm:

" 'Thou rulest the raging of the sea; when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them.

" 'Thou has broken Rahab in pieces, as one that is slain; thou hast scattered thine enemies with the strong arm'"

He broke off and stared at them with the beard quivering. "Ye will understand by than," he said, "that King David has reference not to yon godly harlot who sheltered Joshua and the spies of Israel, as is told in Joshua, the second chapter; but to harlottery in the general term—"

"I beg pardon," said Finch. "It doesn't mean anything of the kind, any more than the scarlet woman in the Revelation has reference to a Red Indian. Eighty-nine is a very late Psalm, at least the third century. 'Rahab' must be taken as referring to the Egyptians, who were invading Judea at that time."

"And whaur would ye be having so daft a theory?-" asked MacPherson, heavily. "Ye meat-eaters will be spouting rank modernism."

"That only proves that if you keep a theory, like a garment, long enough, it will be new again," retorted Finch. "You'll find it originally stated in Kirkaldie's 'Bible for the Glasgow Schools', which was approved by John Knox. While you have your Bible there, you might take a look at the early part of the Gospel of Matthew, about the fourth or fifth verse. You'll find Rahab used to mean Egypt there, I fancy, in the genealogy of Jesus. The trouble with you Old Testament specialists is that you think everything in the New Testament is modernism."

"I'll no go again' the word o' Kirkaldie," said the blond giant, visibly shaken, as he fluttered the pages to look up the reference to Matthew. "Aye, there 'tis. My hand to ye, sir-rr, and my thanks for saving me a great error in doctrine. For that and nae more, nae more at all, ye shall have your meals at half their price, which is a dollar twenty-five each." He beamed.

"Suh, you outrage us," said Colonel Lee. "Why, for that amount I can have the finest meal in the restaurants of Memphis, the best cooking in the golden southland."

"Nae doot—a meal o' poisonous stairches and the flesh o' God's creatures. My meals will neither drive ye into sin nor fill you vitals wi' reeking venom, and 'tis but logic ye should pay the dooble. There'll be an extra five dollars, too, for mailing your guns after ye. Dinna think I'd be so rash as let ye gae wi' them while ye're in so contrairy a mind. Come on noo, hand it ower, or my bairns and I will collect by our ain ways."

The Colonel silently produced a wallet and handed over the required amount.

"Thank you, suh," he said to Finch, as they were beyond the door. "Your conversation with that low-born rascal kept it from being a good deal worse. He forgot the nuts."

As they reached the car, Hyperion Weems began to turn the crank that opened the rifle-compartment.

"Don't do that!" said Colonel Lee, sharply.

"Why, boss," said Weems, "hain't we going back there to see how red they are inside?"

"No suh, we are not. Drive on, Janus."

"At least we oughta challenge 'em to a square fight. That big one with the scar—"

"C'm down, suh. If I hear one more word out of you-all, I'll turn you in to the authorities myself, for violation of the code. That man, suh, is an original acting within his own rights on his home ground." Then he added reflectively: "And besides, maybe we could find a use for him."

"I got a use for him a'ready," said Impy, with a grin. "I know a few people back in Memphis that are going to hear about MacPherson and his wonderful steak-house. Heh, heh."