The Technicolor Time Machine

8

“Stand still,” Gino shouted. “All you got to do is stand still and you can’t even do that.”

“Need a drink,” Ottar grumbled, and petulantly shook the housecarl with the matted hair who was standing in for Slithey. The man bleated and almost collapsed.

Gino swore and turned away from the viewfinder of the camera. “Barney,” he pleaded, “talk to those Stone Age slobs. This is supposed to be a love scene and they’re moving around like some kind of wrestling match on the hill there. They’re the worse stand-ins I ever worked with.”

“Just set up the shot, well be with you in a minute, Gino,” Barney said, turning back to his stars. Ruf had his arms folded, staring vacantly into space, looking very impressive indeed in the Viking outfit and blond beard. Slithey was leaning back in her safari chair while her wig was being combed, and she looked even more impressive with about twelve cubic feet of rounded flesh rising from the low-cut top of her dress.

“I’ll give it to you once more,” Barney said. “You’re in love and Ruf is leaving to go to battle and you may never see him again, so you are saying good-bye on the hill, passionately.”

“I thought I hated him?” Slithey said.

“That was yesterday,” Barney told her. “We’re not shooting in sequence, I explained this to you twice already this morning. Let me do it once more, briefly, and if I might have a small amount of your attention, too, Mr. Hawk. The picture opens when Thor, who is played by Ruf, comes with his Viking raiders to capture the farm on which you live, Slithey. You are Gudrid, the daughter of the house. In the battle all are killed by the Vikings except you, and Thor takes you as his prize. He wants you but you fight him because you hate him. But slowly he wins your heart until you fall in love with him. No sooner does this happen than he goes away on a Viking raid again and leaves you to wait for his return. That’s the scene we’re shooting now. He has left you, you run after him, you call to him, he rums and you come to him on the bill, right here. Is that clear…”

“Look,” Ruf said, pointing out to sea. “Here comes a ship.”

They all turned to look and, sure, enough, there was a Viking longship just clearing the headland and coming into the bay. The sail was furled, but the dragon’s head on the bow rose and fell as the oarsmen on each side hauled the ship through the water.

“Tomorrow!” Barney shouted. “Lyn, where are you? Didn’t you and Ottar arrange with this Finnboggi to bring his ship tomorrow?”

“They have a very loose sense of time,” Lyn said.

Barney hurled his hat to the ground and ran to the camera. “What about it, Gino?” he asked. “Is there a shot here? Anything you can get?”

Gino spun the turret to the big telescopic lens and jammed his face against the eyepiece. “Looks good,” he said, “a really nice shot.”

“Get it then, maybe we can salvage something from this.”

Ottar and the other northmen were running down the hill toward the house, nor did they stop when Barney shouted at them to keep out of the shot.

“What are they doing?” he asked, when they began to stream out, clutching weapons.

“I am sure I would not know,” Lyn told him. “Perhaps it is some custom of greeting I am not familiar with.”

Ottar and his men stood on the shore shouting and the men in the Viking ship shouted back.

“Get all this, Gino,” Barney ordered. “If it’s any good we can write it into the script.”

Under the thrust of the oars the longship ran up onto the beach, the dragon prow towering above the men waiting there. Almost before the ship had stopped moving the men aboard her had grabbed up the shields that were slung along the gunwales and jumped into the water. Like the men ashore, they also waved over their heads a varied collection of short swords and axes. The two groups met.

“How does it look?” Barney asked.

“Santa Maria!” Gino said. “They are killing each other.”

The clang of metal mingled with the hoarse cries as the men fought. No details could be made out of the turmoil by the watchers above—it was just a mass of struggling figures—until one man broke from the crowd and ran haltingly down the beach. He had been disarmed, he appeared to be wounded, and his antagonist was right behind him swinging an ax in wide circles. The chase was brief and the end was sudden. As the gap closed, the ax swooped down and the first man’s head jumped from his shoulders and bounded along the beach.

“They play for keeps…” Barney said in a choked voice.

“I do not think that this is Finnboggi and his men,” Lyn said. “I think this is a different ship that has arrived.”

Barney was a man of action, but not this kind of action. The sound of battle and the sight of the beheaded corpse and blood-drenched sand had a paralytic effect on him. What could he do? This was not his kind of world, his kind of affair. This was the kind of situation Tex or Dallas could handle. Where were they?

“The radio,” he said, belatedly remembering the transceiver slung over his shoulder; he thumbed it to life and hurriedly sent out a call for the stunt men.

“He’s seen us, he’s turning—he’s coming this way,” Gino shouted. “What a tremendous shot.”

Instead of returning to the battle, the killer was lumbering up the slope toward them, shaking the ax and calling out hoarsely. The handful of movie people on the hill watched his approach, yet did not move. This was all so alien that they could think of themselves only as onlookers, they could not imagine themselves being involved in the murderous business taking place below. The attacking Viking lumbered closer and closer, until the black marks of the ocean spray and the perspiration stains were clearly visible on the coarse red wool of his blouse—and the red spatters of blood on his ax and arm.

He went toward Gino, breathing heavily, perhaps thinking that the camera was some kind of weapon. The cameraman stayed in position until the last possible instant—filming his enraged attacker—jumping away just as the ax came down. The blade smashed into one leg of the tripod, bending it and almost knocking the camera to the ground.

“Hey—watch out for the equipment!” Barney shouted, then regretted it instantly as the sweating, maddened Viking turned toward him.

Gino was crouched, his arm before him, with the glistening blade of a knife projecting from his fist in a very efficient manner, undoubtedly the result of his childhood training in the slums of Naples. The instant the Viking turned his attention away, Gino lunged.

The blow should have gone home but, for all his size, the Viking was as quick as a cat. He spun about and the blade slid into the slab of muscle in his side. Bellowing with sudden pain, he continued the motion, bringing up the ax so the haft caught Gino on the head, knocking him sprawling. Still shouting angrily, the man seized Gino by the hair, twisting his head down so his neck was taut and bared, at the same time raising the ax for a decaptitating blow.

The shot made a clear, hard sound and the Viking’s body jerked as the bullet caught him in the chest. He turned, mouth open with voiceless pain, and Tex—they had not even been aware the jeep had driven up—steadied his hand on the steering wheel and fired the revolver twice more. Both bullets hit the Viking in the forehead and he collapsed, dead before he hit the ground.

Gino pushed the man’s lifeless weight off his legs and stood up, shakily, going at once to the camera. Tex started the jeep’s engine again. The others were still too stunned by the suddenness of the attack to move.

“You want me to go down there and give our extras a hand?” Tex asked, pushing fresh cartridges into his gun.

“Yes,” Barney said. “We have to stop this mess before any more people are killed.”

“I can’t guarantee that won’t happen,” Tex suggested ominously, and started the jeep down the hill.

“Cut,” Barney called out to the cameraman. “We can fit a lot of things into this film—but not jeeps.”

Tex had jammed something into the button so that the horn blared continuously, and kept the gears in compound low so that the gear box screeched and the motor roared. At a bumpy five miles an hour he raced toward the battle.

Ottar and his men had seen the jeep often enough before to be accustomed to it, but this was not true of the invading Vikings. They saw what could only have been some sort of bellowing monster approaching, and understandably refused to stand before its charge. They scattered to right and left while Tex skidded the jeep in a tight circle at the water’s edge, knocking down one of the men who hadn’t moved quickly enough. Ottar and his followers rallied behind the jeep and pressed in on the divided enemy. The invaders broke and ran, clambering back into the longship and grabbing up the oars again.

This was where the engagement should have ended, and it would have if Tex had not been carried away with battle fever. Before the ship had started to move astern he ran to the front of the jeep and pulled a great length of steel cable from the drum under the front bumper. There was a loop at the end and he took this up and clambered up onto the jeep’s hood, spinning it in larger and larger circles as he climbed. His rebel yell was clearly audible above the other shouts as he released the cable. Straight up the loop rose to settle neatly over the dragon’s head onto the high stem post. He gave it a pull to settle it home, then leisurely Jumped down and dropped into the driver’s seat.

With slow grace the longship began to glide astern as the oars churned up a froth. Tex lit a cigarette and let the cable run out until twenty, thirty feet of it stretched between the ship and the jeep. One of the Vikings aboard the ship was hacking at the steel cable, with no results other than the ruination of the edge of his ax. Tex reached out his shoe and kicked the power takeoff into gear. The cable rose dripping from the water, grew taut and bar-straight, and the longship shuddered through its length and halted. Then, slowly, but steadily, it was dragged back onto the beach. The oars splashed and dug deep into the water to no avail.

It was all over then but the mopping up. Whatever enthusiasm had carried the raiders ashore had been wiped out by this last maneuver. Weapons splashed over the sides and the men raised their arms in surrender. Only one of them had any fight left, the man in the bow who had been hacking at the cable. With bis ax in one hand, round shield in the other, he jumped ashore and charged the jeep. Tex cocked his revolver and waited, but Ottar joined the fight and cut off the attack. Both men shouted insults at each other as they circled warily at the water’s edge. Tex carefully released the hammer and slid the gun back into its holster when he saw that all other action had stopped as the two champions joined battle.

Ottar, drenched with perspiration and already elated by the fighting, was working himself into a berserker rage, roaring and biting at the rim of his shield and running forward until the waves were up to his thighs. The invading chieftain stood scant yards away, glowering out from under the edge of his iron helmet, shouting his own guttural insults. Ottar beat the flat of his ax against his shield with thudding sledge blows—then suddenly charged, swinging his ax in a looping blow at the other’s head. The invader’s shield swung up to deflect the ax, but the force of the stroke was so powerful that it drove the man to his knees.

There was a note of pure joy in Ottar’s bellow as he swung his ax again and again, never slowing, with the relentless measure of a woodsman felling a tree. The invader could not bring his own ax up, in fact he was leaning on his ax arm for support against the rain of blows. Pieces of wood few from the shield and a wave sent spray swirling around them.

For an instant the rhythm of ax on shield slowed as Ottar swung his weapon high and brought it straight down with all his strength at the other’s head. The shield went up, but could not stop it. The ax glanced from it, scarcely slowed, and hewed down into the Viking’s thigh. He howled with pain and swung his own ax in a backhand blow. Ottar jumped away, dodging it easily, and paused a moment to see the effect of his stroke. The invader struggled to a standing position, with all of his weight on his good leg, and it could be seen that the other was cut halfway through and pouring out blood. At this happy sight Ottar threw away his sword and ax and gave a shout of victory. The wounded Viking tried to attack him, but he dodged away, laughing at the clumsy attempt. All the northmen on shore—and most of the men in the ship— were laughing at the wounded man’s helpless anger. He kept crawling after Ottar, making feebler and feebler attempts to bring down his dancing enemy.

Ottar must have realized that this kind of fun could end only in his enemy’s death by bleeding, because he ran in suddenly and hit the man on the back, pushing him face downward into the frothing water. Then, with one foot on the Viking’s ax hand, he seized the man’s head in both hands and ground his face down into the sand and gravel, holding it there despite the frantic writhings until his enemy perished. Drowned in the few inches of bubbling sea. All the men on the beach and in the ship cheered.

On the hill above there was only a shocked silence, broken by Ruf Hawk, who stumbled away to throw up. Barney noticed for the first time that Gino was back at the camera. “Did you get the fight?” he asked, painfully aware that his voice cracked as he said it.

“All in here,” Gino said, slapping the film container. “Though from this far away I’m not sure I got all the details.”

“That’s all for the best,” Barney said. “Let’s wind up the shooting for the day, the light will be going soon and I don’t think anyone wants to work with that around…” He nodded toward the grisly scene on the beach below.

“Doesn’t bother me,” Slithey said. “Reminds me of the slaugherhouse where my father worked when we lived in Chicago. I used to bring him his lunch every day.”

“Not all of us have your advantage,” Barney said. “Seven-thirty tomorrow on the dot, we’ll pick up where we left off today.” He started down the hill toward the noisy mob scene below.

The dead and wounded from both groups had been pulled into a heap above the line of the waves, and the victors were already looting the ship of its supplies, starting with the ale. The surviving attackers had been grouped together under guard and were being harangued by Ottar, who strode back and forth before them, shouting and waving his fists for punctuation. Whatever he said seemed to do the job because, before Barney reached the foot of the hill, the northmen, invaders and defenders both, turned and started toward the house. Only one man remained behind and Ottar struck him a wicked blow on the head with his fist, stretching him on the ground, and two of the housecarls carried him off. Ottar was groping in the sea for his ax when Barney came up.

“Would you mind telling me what all that was about?” Barney said.

“Did you see how I hit the leg?” Ottar said; brandishing the retrieved ax over his head. “Hit him. Krasc! Leg next to off.”

“Very well played, I saw it all. My congratulations. But who was he—and what were they doing here?”

“He was called Torfi. Whiskey?” The last was added in an exultant shout as Tex dropped the freed cable into the sand and dug a pint bottle out from under the jeep’s seat.

“Whiskey,” Tex said. “Not your favorite brand, but it’ll do. That’s a great backhand you got with that thing.”

Ottar rolled his eyes with pleasure, then closed them tight as he raised the pint bottle to his lips and drained it.

“Wish I could do that,” Tex said enviously.

Barney waited until the bottle was empty and Ottar had hurled it into the sea with a happy cry before he asked, “This Torfi. What was the trouble with him?”

The aftereffects of the battle—and the whiskey—hit Ottar at the same time and he sat down suddenly on the pebbles, shaking his great head. “Torfi, the son of Valbrand,” he said as he got his breath back, “the son of Valthjof, the son of Orlyg came to Sviney… Torfi killed the men of Kropp twelve of them together. He also made the killing of the Holesmen, and he was at Hellisfitar, with Hlugi the Black and Sturii the Godi when eighteen cave-living people were killed there. They also burned, in his own house, Audun the son of Smidkel at Bergen.” He stopped and nodded his head sagely as though he felt he had communicated vital information.

“Well?” Barney asked, puzzled. “What does all that mean?”

Ottar looked at him and frowned. “Smidkel married Thorodda, my sister.”

“Of course,” Barney said. “How could I have forgotten that. So this Torfi has been in trouble with your brother-in-law and this means trouble with you, and it all ends up when he tries a bit of manslaughter here. What a way to live. Who were the men with him?”

Ottar shrugged and climbed to his feet, pulling himself up on the jeep’s front wheel. “Vikings, raiders. Go to raid England. They don’t like Torfi now because he comes here first instead of raiding England. Now they go with me to raid England. They go in my new longship.” He pointed the ax at the dragon ship and roared with laughter.

“And that one man who didn’t want to join you?”

“One Haki, brother of Torfi. I make him a slave. Sell him back to his family.”

“I gotta give these guys credit,” Tex said. “No beating about the bush.”

“You can say that again,” Barney said, looking in open wonder at the Viking, who at that moment seemed a giant of a man in every way. “Climb into the jeep, Ottar, we’ll drive you back to the house.”

“Ottar ride the cheap,” he said enthusiastically, throwing his ax and shield in, then climbing over the side.

“Not in the driver’s seat,” Tex told him. “That comes much later.”

The supplies looted from the longship had included a dozen kegs of ale, most of which had been broached in front of the house, where a victory celebration was already in progress. There seemed to be no ill will held toward the former invaders, who mixed with the victors and matched them drink for drink. Haki, who had been tied hand and foot and flung under a bench, seemed to be the only one who wasn’t enjoying himself. A hubbub of welcoming shouts heralded Ottar’s appearance, and he went at once to the nearest barrel that had a knocked-in head, plunging his cupped hands into the ale and drinking from them. As the shouting died away a rumbling exhaust could be heard and Barney turned to see one of the film company pickups come bouncing along the beach. It skidded to a stop in a rain of fine gravel and Dallas leaned out.

“We been trying to contact you on the radio for ten minutes, maybe more,” he said.

Barney looked down at the radio and saw that all the power had been turned off. “There’s nothing wrong here,” he said. “I just made a mistake and switched this thing off.”

“Well there’s plenty wrong at the camp, that’s why we’ve been trying to call you—”

“What! What do you mean?”

“It’s Ruf Hawk. He came back all excited, wasn’t looking where he was going. He tripped over a sheep, you know them dirty gray ones, they look just like rocks. Anyway he fell over it and broke his leg.”

“Are you trying to tell me that—on the third day of shooting this picture—that my leading man has broken his leg?”

Dallas looked him straight in the eyes, not without a certain sympathy, and slowly nodded his head.