“Go ahead.”
“In the first place there isn’t a distinguished anthropologist in the world but what you’ll find one equally distinguished who will call him a diamond-studded liar. They can’t agree on the simplest elements of their alleged science. In the second place, there isn’t a corporal’s guard of really decent exhibits to back up their assertions about the ancestry of mankind. I never saw so much stew from one oyster. They write book after book and what have they got to go on?—The Dawson Man, the Pekin Man, the Heidelberg Man and a couple of others. And those aren’t complete skeletons, a damaged skull, a couple of teeth, maybe another bone or two.”
“Oh now, Phil, there were lots of specimens found of Cro-Magnon men.”
“Yes, but they were true men. I’m talking about submen, our evolutionary predecessors. You see, I was trying to prove myself wrong. If man’s ascent had been a long steady climb, submen into savages, savages to barbarians, barbarians perfecting their cultures into civilization . . . all this with only minor setbacks of a few centuries, or a few thousand years at the most . . . and with our present culture the highest the race had ever reached . . . If all that was true, then my idea was wrong.
“You follow me, don’t you? The internal evidence of the brain proves that mankind, sometime in its lost history, climbed to heights undreamed of today. In some fashion the race slipped back. And this happened so long ago that we have found no record of it anywhere. These brutish submen, that the anthropologists set such store by, can’t be our ancestors; they are too new, too primitive, too young. They are too recent; they allow for no time for the race to develop these abilities whose existence we have proved. Either anthropology is all wet, or Joan can’t do the things we have seen her do.”
The center of the controversy said nothing. She sat at the wheel, as the big car sped along, her eyes closed against the slanting rays of the setting sun, seeing the road with an inner impossible sight.
Five days were spent in coaching Huxley and a sixth on the open road. Sacramento lay far behind them. For the past hour Mount Shasta had been visible from time to time through openings in the trees. Phil brought the car to a stop on a view point built out from the pavement of U.S. Highway 99. He turned to his passengers. “All out, troops,” he said. “Catch a slice of scenery.”
The three stood and stared over the canyon of the Sacramento River at Mount Shasta, thirty miles away. It was sweater weather and the air was as clear as a child’s gaze. The peak was framed by two of the great fir trees which marched down the side of the canyon. Snow still lay on the slopes of the cone and straggled down as far as the timberline.
Joan muttered something. Ben turned his head. “What did you say, Joan?”
“Me? Nothing—I was saying over a bit of poetry to myself.”
“What was it?”
“Tietjens’ Most Sacred Mountain:
“‘Space and the twelve clean winds are here;
And with them broods eternity—a swift white peace, a presence manifest.
The rhythm ceases here. Time has no place. This is the end that has no end.’”
Phil cleared his throat and self-consciously broke the silence. “I think I see what you mean.”
Joan faced them. “Boys,” she stated, “I am going to climb Mount Shasta.”
Ben studied her dispassionately. “Joan,” he pronounced, “You are full of hop.”
“I mean it. I didn’t say you were going to—I said I was.”
“But we are responsible for your safety and welfare—and I for one don’t relish the thought of a fourteen-thousand foot climb.”
“You are not responsible for my safety; I’m a free citizen. Anyhow a climb wouldn’t hurt you any; it would help to get rid of some of that fat you’ve been storing up against winter.”
“Why,” inquired Phil, “are you so determined so suddenly to make this climb?”
“It’s really not a sudden decision, Phil. Ever since we left Los Angeles I’ve had a recurring dream that I was climbing, climbing, up to some high place . . . and that I was very happy because of it. Today I know that it was Shasta I was climbing.”
“How do you know it?”
“I know it.”
“Ben, what do you think?”
The doctor picked up a granite pebble and shied it out in the general direction of the river. He waited for it to come to rest several hundred feet down the slope. “I guess,” he said, “we’d better buy some hobnailed boots.”
Phil paused and the two behind him on the narrow path were forced to stop, too. “Joan,” he asked, with a worried tone, “is this the way we came?”
They huddled together, icy wind cutting at their faces like rusty razor blades and gusts of snow eddying about them and stinging their eyes, while Joan considered her answer. “I think so,” she ventured at last, “but even with my eyes closed this snow makes everything look different.”
“That’s my trouble, too. I guess we pulled a boner when we decided against a guide . . . but who would have thought that a beautiful summer day could end up in a snow storm?”
Ben stamped his feet and clapped his hands together. “Let’s get going,” he urged. “Even if this is the right road, we’ve got the worst of it ahead of us before we reach the rest cabin. Don’t forget that stretch of glacier we crossed.”
“I wish I could forget it,” Phil answered him soberly. “I don’t fancy the prospect of crossing it in this nasty weather.”
“Neither do I, but if we stay here we freeze.”
With Ben now in the lead they resumed their cautious progress, heads averted to the wind, eyes half closed. Ben checked them again after a couple of hundred yards. “Careful, gang,” he warned, “the path is almost gone here, and it’s slippery.” He went forward a few steps. “It’s rather—” They heard him make a violent effort to recover his balance, then fall heavily.
“Ben! Ben!” Phil called out, “are you all right?”
“I guess so,” he gasped. “I gave my left leg an awful bang. Be careful.”
They saw that he was on the ground, hanging part way over the edge of the path. Cautiously they approached until they were alongside him. “Lend me a hand, Phil. Easy, now.”
Phil helped him wiggle back onto the path. “Can you stand up?”
“I’m afraid not. My left leg gave me the devil when I had to move just now. Take a look at it, Phil. No, don’t bother to take the boot off; look right through it.”
“Of course. I forgot.” Phil studied the limb for a moment. “It’s pretty bad, fella—a fracture of the shin bone about four inches below the knee.”
Coburn whistled a couple of bars of Suwannee River, then said, “Isn’t that just too, too lovely? Simple or compound fracture, Phil?”
“Seems like a clean break, Ben.”
“Not that it matters much one way or the other just now. What do we do next?”
Joan answered him. “We must build a litter and get you down the mountain!”
“Spoken like a true girl scout, kid. Have you figured how you and Phil can maneuver a litter, with me in it, over that stretch of ice?”
“We’ll have to—somehow.” But her voice lacked confidence.
“It won’t work, kid. You two will have to straighten me out and bed me down, then go on down the mountain and stir out a rescue party with proper equipment. I’ll get some sleep while you’re gone. I’d appreciate it if you’d leave me some cigarets.”
“No!” Joan protested. “We won’t leave you here alone.”
Phil added his objections. “Your plan is as bad as Joan’s, Ben. It’s all very well to talk about sleeping until we get back, but you know as well as I do that you would die of exposure if you spent a night like this on the ground with no protection.”
“I’ll just have to chance it. What better plan can you suggest?”
“Wait a minute. Let me think.” He sat down on the ledge beside his friend and pulled at his left ear. “This is the best I can figure out: We’ll
have to get you to some place that is a little more sheltered, and build a fire to keep you warm. Joan can stay with you and keep the fire going while I go down after help.”
“That’s all right,” put in Joan, “except that I will be the one to go after help. You couldn’t find your way in the dark and the snow, Phil. You know yourself that your direct perception isn’t reliable as yet—you’d get lost.”
Both men protested. “Joan, you’re not going to start off alone—”
“We can’t permit that, Joan.”
“That’s a lot of gallant nonsense. Of course I’m going.”
“No.” It was a duet.
“Then we all stay here tonight, and huddle around a fire. I’ll go down in the morning.”
“That might do,” Ben conceded, “if—”
“Good evening, friends.” A tall, elderly man stood on the ledge behind them. Steady blue eyes regarded them from under shaggy white eyebrows. He was smooth shaven but a mane of white hair matched the eyebrows. Joan thought he looked like Mark Twain.
Coburn recovered first. “Good evening,” he answered, “if it is a good evening—which I doubt.”
The stranger smiled with his eyes. “My name is Ambrose, ma’am. But your friend is in need of some assistance. If you will permit me, sir—” He knelt down and examined Ben’s leg, without removing the boot. Presently he raised his head. “This will be somewhat painful. I suggest, son, that you go to sleep.” Ben smiled at him, closed his eyes, and gave evidence by his slow, regular breathing that he was asleep.
The man who called himself Ambrose slipped away into the shadows. Joan tried to follow him with perception, but this she found curiously hard to do. He returned in a few minutes with several straight sticks which he broke to a uniform length of about twenty inches. These he proceeded to bind firmly to Ben’s left shin with a roll of cloth which he had removed from his trouser pocket.
When he was satisfied that the primitive splint was firm, he picked Coburn up in his arms, handling the not inconsiderable mass as if it were a child. “Come,” he said.
They followed him without a word, back the way they had come, single file through the hurrying snowflakes. Five hundred yards, six hundred yards, then he took a turn that had not been on the path followed by Joan and the two men, and strode confidently away in the gloom. Joan noticed that he was wearing a light cotton shirt with neither coat nor sweater, and wondered that he had come so far with so little protection against the weather. He spoke to her over his shoulder,
“I like cold weather, ma’am.”
He walked between two large boulders, apparently disappeared into the side of the mountain. They followed him and found themselves in a passageway which led diagonally into the living rock. They turned a corner and were in an octagonal living room, high ceilinged and paneled in some mellow, light-colored wood. It was softly illuminated by indirect lighting, but possessed no windows. One side of the octagon was a fireplace with a generous hearth in which a wood fire burned hospitably. There was no covering on the flagged floor, but it was warm to the feet.
The old man paused with his burden and indicated the comfortable fittings of the room—three couches, old-fashioned heavy chairs, a chaise longue—with a nod. “Be seated, friends, and make yourselves comfortable. I must see that your companion is taken care of, then we will find refreshment for you.” He went out through a door opposite the one by which they had entered, still carrying Coburn in his arms.
Phil looked at Joan and Joan looked at Phil. “Well,” he said, “what do you make of it?”
“I think we’ve found a ‘home from home’. This is pretty swell.”
“What do we do next?”
“I’m going to pull that chaise lounge up to the fire, take off my boots, and get my feet warm and my clothes dry.”
When Ambrose returned ten minutes later he found them blissfully toasting their tired feet before the fire. He was bearing a tray from which he served them big steaming bowls of onion soup, hard rolls, apple pie, and strong black tea. While doing so he stated, “Your friend is resting. There is no need to see him until tomorrow. When you have eaten, you will find sleeping rooms in the passageway, with what you need for your immediate comfort.” He indicated the door from which he had just come. “No chance to mistake them; they are the lighted rooms immediately at hand. I bid you goodnight now.” He picked up the tray and turned to leave.
“Oh, I say,” began Phil hesitantly, “This is awfully good of you, Mister, uh—”
“You are very welcome, sir. Bierce is my name. Ambrose Bierce. Goodnight.” And he was gone.
CHAPTER FIVE
* * *
“—THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY”
WHEN PHIL ENTERED the livingroom the next morning he found a small table set with a very sound breakfast for three. While he was lifting plate covers and wondering whether good manners required him to wait until joined by others, Joan entered the room. He looked up.
“Oh! It’s you. Good morning, and stuff. They set a proper table here. Look.” He lifted a plate cover. “Did you sleep well?”
“Like a corpse.” She joined his investigations. “They do understand food, don’t they? When do we start?”
“When number three gets here, I guess. Those aren’t the clothes you had on last night.”
“Like it?” She turned around slowly with a swaying mannequin walk. She had on a pearl grey gown that dropped to her toes. It was high-waisted; two silver cords crossed between her breasts and encircled her waist, making a girdle. She was shod in silver sandals. There was an air of ancient days about the whole costume.
“It’s swell. Why is it a girl always looks prettier in simple clothes?”
“Simple—hmmf! If you can buy this for three hundred dollars on Wilshire Boulevard, I’d like to have the address of the shop.”
“Hello, troops.” Ben stood in the doorway. They both stared at him. “What’s the trouble?”
Phil ran his eye down Ben’s frame. “How’s your leg, Ben?”
“I wanted to ask you about that. How long have I been out? The leg’s all well. Wasn’t it broken after all?”
“How about it, Phil?” Joan seconded. “You examined it—I didn’t.”
Phil pulled his ear. “It was broken—or I’ve gone completely screwy. Let’s have a look at it.”
Ben was dressed in pajamas and bathrobe. He slid up the pajama leg, and exposed a shin that was pink and healthy. He pounded it with his fist. “See that? Not even a bruise.”
“Hmm—you haven’t been out long, Ben. Just since last night. Maybe ten or eleven hours.”
“Huh?”
“That’s right.”
“Impossible.”
“Maybe so. Let’s eat breakfast.”
They ate in thoughtful silence, each under pressing necessity of taking stock and reaching some reasonable reorientation. Toward the end of the meal they all happened to look up at once. Phil broke the silence,
“Well . . . How about it?”
“I’ve just doped it out,” volunteered Joan. “We all died in the snow storm and went to Heaven. Pass the marmalade, will you, please?”
“That can’t be right,” objected Phil, as he complied, “else Ben wouldn’t be here. He led a sinful life. But seriously, things have happened which require explanation. Let’s tick ’em off. One: Ben breaks a leg last night, it’s all healed this morning.”
“Wait a minute—are we sure he broke his leg?”
“I’m sure. Furthermore, our host acted as if he thought so too—else why did he bother to carry him? Two: our host has direct perception, or an uncanny knowledge of the mountainside.”
“Speaking of direct perception,” said Joan, “have either of you tried to look around you and size up the place?”
“No, why?”
“Neither have I.”
“Don’t bother to. I tried, and it can’t be done. I can’t perceive past the walls of the room.”
“Hmm—we’ll put tha
t down as point three. Four: our host says that his name is Ambrose Bierce. Does he mean that he is the Ambrose Bierce? You know who Ambrose Bierce was, Joan?”
“Of course I do—I got eddication. He disappeared sometime before I was born.”
“That’s right—at the time of the outbreak of the first World War. If this is the same man, he must be over a hundred years old.”
“He didn’t look that old by forty years.”
“Well, we’ll put it down for what it’s worth. Point five:—We’ll make this one an omnibus point—why does our host live up here? How come this strange mixture of luxury hotel and cliff dwellers cave anyhow? How can one old man run such a joint? Say, have either of you seen anyone else around the place?”
“I haven’t,” said Ben. “Someone woke me, but I think it was Ambrose.”
“I have,” offered Joan. “It was a woman who woke me. She offered me this dress.”
“Mrs. Bierce, maybe?”
“I don’t think so—she wasn’t more than thirty-five. I didn’t really get acquainted—she was gone before I was wide awake.”
Phil looked from Joan to Ben. “Well, what have we got? Add it up and give us an answer.”
“Good morning, young friends!” It was Bierce, standing in the doorway, his rich, virile voice resounding around the many-sided room. The three started as if caught doing something improper.
Coburn recovered first. He stood up and bowed. “Good morning, sir. I believe that you saved my life. I hope to be able to show my gratitude.”
Bierce bowed formally. “What service I did I enjoyed doing, sir. I hope that you are all rested?”
“Yes, thank you, and pleasantly filled from your table.”
“That is good. Now, if I may join you, we can discuss what you wish to do next. Is it your pleasure to leave, or may we hope to have your company for a while longer?”
“I suppose,” said Joan, rather nervously, “that we should get started down as soon as possible. How is the weather?”