He had never reached the top in three minutes, though he had tried time after time. It had been important to his father for some reason, some human reason, and he had forgotten all about it until now.
Deel leaned the shotgun against the stones and slipped off his boots and took off his clothes. He tore his shirt and made a strap for the gun, and slung it over his bare shoulder and took up the ammo bag and tossed it over his other shoulder, and began to climb. He made it to the top. He didn’t know how long it had taken him, but he guessed it had been only about three minutes. He stood on top of Pancake Rocks and looked out at the night. He could see his house from there. He sat cross-legged on the rocks and stretched the shotgun over his thighs. He looked up at the sky. The stars were bright and the space between them was as deep as forever. If man could, he would tear the stars down, thought Deel.
Deel sat and wondered how late it was. The moon had moved, but not so much as to pull up the sun. Deel felt as if he had been sitting there for days. He nodded off now and then, and in the dream he was an ant, one of many ants, and he was moving toward a hole in the ground from which came smoke and sparks of fire. He marched with the ants toward the hole, and then into the hole they went, one at a time. Just before it was his turn, he saw the ants in front of him turn to black crisps in the fire, and he marched after them, hurrying for his turn, then he awoke and looked across the moonlit field.
He saw, coming from the direction of his house, a rider. The horse looked like a large dog because the rider was so big. He hadn’t seen the man in years, but he knew who he was immediately. Lobo Collins. He had been sheriff of the county when he had left for war. He watched as Lobo rode toward him. He had no thoughts about it. He just watched.
Well out of range of Deel’s shotgun, Lobo stopped and got off his horse and pulled a rifle out of the saddle boot.
“Deel,” Lobo called. “It’s Sheriff Lobo Collins.”
Lobo’s voice moved across the field loud and clear. It was as if they were sitting beside each other. The light was so good he could see Lobo’s mustache clearly, drooping over the corners of his mouth.
“Your boy come told me what happened.”
“He ain’t my boy, Lobo.”
“Everybody knowed that but you, but wasn’t no cause to do what you did. I been up to the house, and I found Tom in the ravine.”
“They’re still dead, I assume.”
“You ought not done it, but she was your wife, and he was messin’ with her, so you got some cause, and a jury might see it that way. That’s something to think about, Deel. It could work out for you.”
“He shot me,” Deel said.
“Well now, that makes it even more different. Why don’t you put down that gun, and you and me go back to town and see how we can work things out.”
“I was dead before he shot me.”
“What?” Lobo said. Lobo had dropped down on one knee. He had the Winchester across that knee and with his other hand he held the bridle of his horse.
Deel raised the shotgun and set the stock firmly against the stone, the barrel pointing skyward.
“You’re way out of range up there,” Lobo said. “That shotgun ain’t gonna reach me, but I can reach you, and I can put one in a fly’s asshole from here to the moon.”
Deel stood up. “I can’t reach you, then I reckon I got to get me a wee bit closer.”
Lobo stood up and dropped the horse’s reins. The horse didn’t move. “Now don’t be a damn fool, Deel.”
Deel slung the shotgun’s makeshift strap over his shoulder and started climbing down the back of the stones, where Lobo couldn’t see him. He came down quicker than he had gone up, and he didn’t even feel where the stones had torn his naked knees and feet.
When Deel came around the side of the stone, Lobo had moved only slightly, away from his horse, and he was standing with the Winchester held down by his side. He was watching as Deel advanced, naked and committed. Lobo said, “Ain’t no sense in this, Deel. I ain’t seen you in years, and now I’m gonna get my best look at you down the length of a Winchester. Ain’t no sense in it.”
“There ain’t no sense to nothin’,” Deel said, and walked faster, pulling the strapped shotgun off his shoulder.
Lobo backed up a little, then raised the Winchester to his shoulder, said, “Last warnin’, Deel.”
Deel didn’t stop. He pulled the shotgun stock to his hip and let it rip. The shot went wide and fell across the grass like hail, some twenty feet in front of Lobo. And then Lobo fired.
Deel thought someone had shoved him. It felt that way. That someone had walked up unseen beside him and had shoved him on the shoulder. Next thing he knew he was lying on the ground looking up at the stars. He felt pain, but not like the pain he had felt when he realized what he was.
A moment later the shotgun was pulled from his hand, and then Lobo was kneeling down next to him with the Winchester in one hand and the shotgun in the other.
“I done killed you, Deel.”
“No,” Deel said, spitting up blood. “I ain’t alive to kill.”
“I think I clipped a lung,” Lobo said, as if proud of his marksmanship. “You ought not done what you done. It’s good that boy got away. He ain’t no cause of nothin’.”
“He just ain’t had his turn.”
Deel’s chest was filling up with blood. It was as if someone had put a funnel in his mouth and poured it into him. He tried to say something more, but it wouldn’t come out. There was only a cough and some blood; it splattered warm on his chest. Lobo put the weapons down and picked up Deel’s head and laid it across one of his thighs so he wasn’t choking so much.
“You got a last words, Deel?”
“Look there,” Deel said.
Deel’s eyes had lifted to the heavens, and Lobo looked. What he saw was the night and the moon and the stars. “Look there. You see it?” Deel said. “The stars are fallin’.”
Lobo said, “Ain’t nothin’ fallin’, Deel,” but when he looked back down, Deel was gone.
THE WHITE RABBIT
One moment he had been comfortably reading, for the umpteenth time, Alice in Wonderland, and the next moment it was too stuffy and hot to concentrate. The words seemed to melt and re-form before his eyes, and he found himself slipping in and out of sleep like nervous fingers first filling, then withdrawing from a glove.
Sleepy, but being a man of strict routine, he put the book aside, left his tacky hotel room - the Egyptians here in Cairo thought it a fine place - and took to the streets in the dead of night.
It was warm out, but more comfortable than his room. Out here was like sitting in an oven with the door open, as opposed to the room, which was more like sitting in an oven with the door closed.
Yet, in spite of the stickiness of the night, the air had an intoxicating feel. The streets, buildings, all that should be familiar, had an oddly haunting, slightly alien look about it, as if they had been replaced with facsimiles of the originals. Even his footsteps on the cobblestones seemed strangely distant. Odder yet, there was neither street urchin nor curled sleeping beggar in sight. More often than not, they lay against the walls of buildings, or in the doorways, like abandoned curs. But tonight... no one.
Wally Carpenter knew that to walk these streets late at night was to invite trouble, but he was not a fearful man. And besides, he carried in his coat pocket a fully loaded,.38 snub-nose revolver, with which he was rather proficient.
So it was with caution, but no particular dread, that Carpenter stalked Cairo's dark streets and pondered upon the seeming emptiness and uncharacteristic silence of the city. He wandered in a nearly aimless fashion, feeling for all the world as though he had been hijacked by space creatures and set down in a replica of the city he knew and loved; and presently his footsteps brought him to that area of Cairo known as the City of the Dead.
The place was quite a marvel. An entire city - houses, streets, and walls - devoted to the spirits of the recent and the long departed. It was s
aid that there were men in Cairo who had the ability to speak with these dead and for a fee they would summon the spirits of loved ones and communicate questions to them, and return their answers.
It was a mystical place, a place shrouded in legend, and not a good spot for a person, especially a non-Egyptian, to wander late at night. Robbers and lepers were said to frequent the city, and it was also said to be the home of demons and ghouls.
Carpenter was well aware of this, but it did not concern him. His revolver could dispatch robbers, and as for ghouls and such, he did not believe in them; they were the stuff of opium dreams and fevered imaginations, nothing more.
Once Carpenter had been a student, a promising one at that. He had majored in anthropology and archaeology, and those fields of endeavor had brought him to Egypt, land of antiquity, land of dreams.
But once he had dug in its sands and prowled its tombs, he lost interest in the physical work of the profession, decided he was more suited to the academic side of the subject. He determined to write a book, to deal in paper and ink instead of dirt and sweat.
That decision made, he often walked the streets at night, made his mental notes and later consigned them to paper, saved them up against the day he would write his book on the wonders and marvels of Egypt. In the meanwhile, he read his archaeology, mythology and anthropology texts, and in his spare time, for pure amusement, he read and reread Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, as well as its sequel, Through the Looking Glass. Carroll's was the only fiction he truly cared for. It relaxed him, made him smile, and each time he read the books, he found something new and fascinating within. In fact, Alice and her adventures were still in his head as he reached the City of the Dead and made his way within.
Walking among the ruins he could smell the rank ripeness of decay, as well as the mixed and confusing odors of Cairo proper. But the smells seemed oddly received by his senses, as if they were being filtered to him from another dimension. It was quiet and peaceful here, like stepping off the earth and standing on the face of the moon.
But even as he dwelled on the solitude, there came a scuttling sound to his right. Carpenter turned quickly, saw a figure move from one clump of shadows to another, flitter once in the moonlight, then disappear totally into darkness.
Carpenter almost pulled the revolver from his coat pocket. It could be a robber, but most likely it was a beggar or a leper who had taken refuge here, much in the same way tramps back in the states slept in graveyards to avoid being disturbed. If the latter were the case, then there would be little to fear. If it was a robber, then he had his revolver.
He strained his eyes into the darkness, but saw nothing. Presently, he began to walk again. He had not gone ten feet when he heard the scuttling again, and this time, as he turned, he saw the author of the noise.
Out of the shadows hopped a huge white rabbit wearing a checkered waistcoat and vest. The rabbit stopped, gave Carpenter a disinterested glance, then plucked a pocket watch from his waistcoat pocket.
"Oh my goodness, goodness," the rabbit said in remarkably plain English. "I shall be late. Yes, yes, yes, so very late."
Turning, and with a succession of rapid hops, the rabbit disappeared back into the shadows.
Carpenter shook his head; blinked a few times. Yes, it was an intoxicating night, all right, but this was ridiculous. Six-foot rabbits in Cairo? In the City of the Dead? Shades of Harvey. He must be dreaming.
Suddenly there came the sound of melodious humming. Carpenter recognized the tune. It was the song that George Armstrong Custer had adopted as his personal theme. What was it called? "Garry Owen"? Yes, something like that.
The humming faded off into the night. Pulling his revolver, Carpenter strolled briskly into the shadows, determined to find out why there was a rabbit-suited joker hopping about in the City of the Dead humming "Garry Owen."
He could hear the humming again. It seemed to come from far away. Carpenter continued forward and the velvet night closed tight around him. He came to an obstruction and, lighting a match, he saw that it was an adobe wall. Just to his left was a large, round opening. It appeared to have been knocked into the clay. Beyond the wall, he could hear the faint humming of "Garry Owen."
Stooping, match in one hand, revolver in the other, Carpenter stepped through the opening.
Once on the other side he stopped and looked about. No rabbit.
The match went out. But there was no need for it now. It was suddenly very bright, much brighter than before. Above him the moon shone like an aluminum skillet and the stars looked down like millions of bright, animal eyes peering out of the darkness of a wood.
"Odd, quite odd," Carpenter said aloud. He thought I must be sitting at home in my chair fast asleep, having fallen off reading Alice in Wonderland, and now I'm dreaming all this. "Curiouser and curiouser!" he said in self-mockery.
"Oh my, my," the rabbit's voice came again, and the big bunny seemed to come out of nowhere and hop by. The rabbit's white, fluffy tail bobbed before Carpenter like a bounding ball.
"Hey you, wait a minute!" Carpenter yelled.
The rabbit stopped, turned to look over its shoulder. "Goodness, goodness, what is it? Make it quick. I'm so late, so very late."
Carpenter, feeling a bit stupid about the revolver, returned it to his coat pocket. It hardly seemed sporting to shoot a giant bunny. He walked quickly over to the rabbit, shook his head and said, "It's not a suit."
"What?" the rabbit said.
"I am dreaming, must be. Giant rabbits, indeed." The rabbit turned completely about and faced Carpenter, wriggled its ample pink nose, flashed its pink eyes. "Let's not dismiss rabbits, shall we?" The rabbit produced a small fan and patted it into the palm of his other paw (hand?).
"This is ridiculous," Carpenter said. "I can't wake up."
"Is it now? Can't you now?" the rabbit said sharply.
"A crazy dream. I feel as if I've fallen down a rabbit hole."
"Quite possible, quite possible," the rabbit said. "There are holes all over the universe, you know. Whitechapel, England; Fail River, Massachusetts. All over. They pop up all manner of places, yes they do."
"This is all rather inconceivable," Carpenter said.
"Is it now?" the rabbit said as if truly surprised. "'What song the Sirens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture.'" The rabbit bowed. "Sir Thomas Browne."
"Yes... Very nice. Where am I? Can this be the City of the Dead? A dream?"
"'There are countless roads on all sides of the grave,'" the rabbit said. "Cicero."
"Now what kind of answer is that?" Carpenter said. The rabbit produced the pocket watch from his waistcoat pocket again. "Oh filly fuddles, I am wasting time. Come, come if you must, but hurry."
For a moment Carpenter stood dumbfounded, then finally followed the rabbit, who was making rather remarkable time with his hops. It was quite a merry chase, and presently Carpenter came upon the rabbit again. The big bunny was sitting on a stone bench next to a metal light pole reading a newspaper. A piece of paper taped to the light pole fluttered in the wind, and a handful of large bugs swarmed in the overhead glow. At the rabbit's feet a horde of passionflowers grew, along with purple-flowered belladonna plants.
"I thought you were late," Carpenter said.
"Late?" the rabbit asked.
"I thought... Oh, never mind. I can't believe I'm talking to a rabbit."
"And why not?" the rabbit said, dropping the paper to his lap. His nose wriggled in an impatient sort of way.
"Well, you couldn't be real."
The rabbit crossed his left leg over his right knee and swung his foot nervously. The newspaper fluttered to the ground. "My goodness, but you are silly. So hard to convince, so hard." The rabbit raised his voice, pointed at Carpenter. "Believe it hard enough and it is true."
"But six-foot rabbits! Rabbits are small, insignificant creatures."
The rabbit stood to its
full height. "I'll have you know we are quite revered, quite. Why, the very god of Egypt's antiquity was rabbit-headed. Yes he was, he was."
Carpenter considered. Yes, in fact, Osiris, God of the Dead, was often depicted as a rabbit-headed god. In that guise he was usually known as Wenenu.
"But where am I?" Carpenter asked the rabbit.
"You are here, that is where you are," the rabbit said. "My goodness, such silly questions."
Carpenter scratched his head. "You said there were holes all over the universe. Could I have fallen into one of those?"
"Oh, quite possible, quite. There are holes all over the place. Whitechapel, for instance." And with that, the rabbit went into a little dance, chanted a rhyme.
"Jack the Ripper's dead.
And lying on his bed.
He cut his throat
With sunlight soap.
Jack the Ripper's dead."
The rabbit paused and said, "Fall River also." The dance began again, a sort of highlander jig.
"Lizzie Borden took an ax
And gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done
She gave her father forty-one!"
The rabbit stopped dancing, leaned forward, showed Carpenter its two front teeth, both as bright and thick as huge sugar cubes. "Or did she?" the rabbit whispered.
"Very nice," Carpenter said, getting into the spirit of things. "A very fine dance."
"Oh," the rabbit said with obvious pleasure, "you really think so?"
"I do."
The rabbit made an effort to appear modest. "Well, I do have a certain knack for it, you know?"
"I can see that."
"Can you now? Good, good." Then, almost confessionally, "There are a lot of rabbits, you know. Pop up anywhere and everywhere." The rabbit gave Carpenter a sly wink. "Take a look at that paper on the light pole there, sir. Very enlightening, very."
Carpenter turned to the light pole, to the paper fluttering there. The wind had picked up and was making quite a production of it. It nearly managed to rip the taped paper from the pole. Carpenter reached his glasses from his pocket, put them on for a look-see.