“Pick it up,” I said, “and it will take off my arm.”
“Pick it up,” she said. “It has brought the rabbit to you. It has given it to you.”
So I stooped and picked up that crazy rabbit and the moment that I did, the wolf leaped up with a wriggling joy and rubbed against my legs so hard it almost tipped me over.
Chapter 16
We sat beside the fire and gnawed the last shreds of meat off the rabbit’s bones, while the wolf lay off to one side, its tail beating occasionally on the stony floor, watching us intently.
“What do you suppose happened to him?” Cynthia asked.
“He maybe went insane,” I said. “Or turned chicken after what happened to the other two. Or he may just be laying for us, lulling us to sleep. When he has the chance he’ll finish off the two of us.”
I reached out and pulled the metal rod just a little closer.
“I don’t think that at all,” said Cynthia. “You know what I think. He doesn’t want to go back.”
“Back to where?”
“Back to wherever it is that Cemetery keeps him. Think of it. He and the other wolves, however many there may be, may have been kept penned up for years and …”
“They wouldn’t keep them penned,” I said. “More likely they would turn them off until they needed them.”
“Then maybe that is it,” she said. “Maybe he doesn’t want to go back because he knows they’ll turn him off.”
I grunted at her. It was all damn foolishness. Maybe the best thing to do, I thought, was to pick up the metal rod and beat the wolf to death. The only thing, I guess, that stopped me was a suspicion that the wolf might take a lot of killing and that in the process I’d come out second best.
“I wonder what happened to the census-taker,” I said.
“The wolf scared him off,” said Cynthia. “He won’t be coming back.”
“He could at least have wakened us. Given us a chance.”
“It turned out all right.”
“But he couldn’t know it would.”.
“What do we do now?”
“I don’t know,” I said. And that was exactly right. I really didn’t know. Never in my life had I felt so unsure of what my next step should be. I had no real idea of where we were; we were lost, as far as I was concerned, in a howling wilderness. We were separated from the two stronger members of our party and our guide had deserted us. A metal wolf had made friends with us and I was far from sure of the sincerity of its friendship.
I caught the motion out of the corner of my eye and leaped to my feet, but there was nothing I could do about it except stand there and stare into the muzzles of the guns. Holding the guns were two men and one of them I recognized as the big brute who had stood in the forefront of the mob that Cynthia and I had faced, futile clubs in hand, back at the campsite of the ghouls just before Elmer had come bursting in to break up the confrontation. I was a bit surprised that I recognized him, for at the time I had been too busy watching all the others that made up the mob who had left off their attack on Bronco to zero in on us. But now I found that I did know him—the leering half-smile pasted on his face, the droopy eye, that ragged scar that ran across one cheek. The other one I did not recognize.
They had crept up to one corner of the cave and now they stood there, with their rifles pointed at us.
I heard Cynthia gasp in surprise and I said sharply to her, “Stay down: Don’t move.”
With a scratch of metal claws on rock, something came up to me and stood beside me, pressing hard against my leg. I didn’t look to see what it might be. I knew. It was Wolf, lining up with me against the guns.
The two with the guns apparently had not seen him, lying off to one side of us. And now that he moved into their view, the leering smile came off Big Brute’s face and his jaw sagged just a little. A nervous tic ran across the face of the other man. But they stood their ground.
“Gentlemen,” I said, “it appears to me a stand-off. You could kill us easy, but you wouldn’t live to get a hundred feet.”
They kept their guns pointed at us, but finally Big Brute lifted his and let the butt slide to the ground.
“Jed,” he said, “put up your shooting iron. These folks have outsmarted us.”
Jed lowered his gun.
“It seems to me,” said Big Brute, “that we have to cipher out a way for all of us to get out of this scrape without losing any hide.”
“Come on in,” I said, “but be careful of the guns.”
They came up to the fire, walking slowly and somewhat sheepishly.
I took a quick glance at Cynthia. She still was crouched upon the floor, but she wasn’t scared. She was hard as nails.
“Fletch,” she said, “the gentlemen must be hungry, coming all this way. Why don’t you ask them to sit down while I open up a can or two. We haven’t too much, traveling light, but I put in some stew.”
The two of them looked at me and I nodded rather curtly.
“Please do,” I said.
They sat down and laid their guns beside them.
Wolf didn’t stir; he stood and looked at them.
Big Brute made a questioning gesture at him.
“He’s all right,” I said. “Just don’t make any sudden moves.”
I hoped that I was right. I couldn’t quite be sure.
Cynthia, digging into one of the packs, had a stew pan out. I poked the fire together and it blazed up brightly.
“Now,” I said, “suppose you tell me what this is all about?”
“You stole our horses,” Big Brute said.
Jed said, “We were hunting them.”
I shook my head. “You could have followed the trail blindfolded. You should have had no trouble. There were a lot of horses.”
“Well,” said Big Brute, “we found the place where you hid out and we found the note. Jed here, he was able to get it puzzled out. And we knew about this cave.”
“It’s a camping place,” said Jed. “We camp here ourselves, every now and then.”
It still didn’t make too much sense, but I didn’t press it. Big Brute, however, went on to explain. “We figured you weren’t alone. Someone must have been with you. Someone who knew the country. People like you wouldn’t strike out on your own. And this place here is a hard day’s march.”
Jed said, “What I can’t figure is the wolf. We never counted on no wolf. We thought by this time he’d be halfway home.”
“You knew about the wolves?”
“We saw the tracks. Three of them. And we found what was left of the other two.”
“Not you,” I said. “You came straight from the place where we slept. You had to. You wouldn’t have had the time …”
“Not us,” said Jed. “We didn’t see it. Some of the rest of us. They let us know.”
“They let you know?”
“Sure,” said Big Brute. “We keep one another posted.”
“Telepathy,” said Cynthia, softly. “It has to be telepathy.”
“But telepathy …”
“A survival factor,” she said. “The people who were left on Earth after the war would have needed survival factors. And with mutations, there might have been a lot of factors. Fine things to have if they didn’t kill you first. Telepathy would have been good to have and it would not have killed you.”
“Tell me,” I said to Big Brute, “what happened to Elmer—to the other two who were with us?”
“The metal things,” said Jed.
“That’s right. The metal things.”
Big Brute shook his head.
“You mean that you don’t know?”
“We can find out.”
“Well, then, you find out.”
“Look, mister,” said Jed, “we need a bargaining point. This is our bargaining point.”
“The wolf is ours,” I said. “And the wolfs right here.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t be sitting here dickering,” said Big Brute. “Maybe we should throw in
together.”
“That’s why you came sneaking up on us, to throw in with us?”
“Well, no,” said Jed. “Not exactly. We had blood in our eye, for sure. You busted up our camp and run us off and then you took our horses. There ain’t nothing more low-down ‘than running off a man’s horses. We weren’t feeling it very friendly, to tell the truth.”
“But things have changed now. You are willing to be friendly?”
“Look at it this way,” said Big Brute. “Someone set the wolves on you and the only ones who could have sent out the wolves was Cemetery and we sort of calculate anyone Cemetery doesn’t like has to be a friend of ours.”
“What have you got against Cemetery?” Cynthia asked. She had moved over to the fire, standing beside Big Brute, with the stew pan in her hand. “You’ve been stealing from Cemetery. You’ve been digging up the graves. Seems to me you would be out of business if it wasn’t for Cemetery.”
“They don’t play fair,” Jed whined. “They set traps for us. All sorts of wicked traps. They cause us all sorts of trouble.”
Big Brute was still bewildered. “How come you made up with that wolf?” he asked. “Those things aren’t supposed to make friends with anyone. They’re man-killers, every one of them.”
Cynthia was still standing beside Big Brute, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking across the creek to the hill. I wondered rather idly what she was looking at, but it was only a passing thought.
“If you want to throw in with us,” I said, “how about beginning by telling us where to find the metal beings.”
I didn’t really trust them; I knew we couldn’t trust them. But I thought it was worth going along with them a ways if they could give us some idea of Elmer and Bronco’s whereabouts.
“I don’t know,” said Big Brute. “I honestly don’t know if we should tell you that or not.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cynthia move. Her arm came up and I saw what she meant to do, although I couldn’t understand, for the life of me, why she was doing it. There was no way for me to stop her, and even if there were, I would not have done it, for I knew she must have good reason. There was only one thing for me to do and I did it. I lunged for Jed’s rifle, which lay on the rocky floor beside him and as I moved, Cynthia brought the stew pan down as hard as she could manage, on top of Big Brute’s head.
Jed snatched at his gun, both of us grabbing hold of it. We rose to our feet, both of us hanging onto it, wrestling for it, trying to jerk it from the other’s grasp.
Events were happening much too fast for me to take any lasting notice of them. I saw Cynthia, Big Brute’s rifle clutched in her hands and at the ready. Big Brute was crawling around the floor on his hands and knees, shaking his head, as if he were attempting to rattle his brains back together into a solid mass, and a little way beyond him the stew pan lay canted on its side, battered out of shape. Wolf was a streak of churning silver, racing across the cave, heading for the entrance, and out on the opposite hillside dark figures were running. And somewhere out there, too, dull pops were sounding and humming bees came into the cave to thud against its walls.
Jed’s face was all twisted up, either in fear or anger (I could not decide which, but, strangely, in the midst of all that was going on, I found the time to wonder). His mouth was open, as if he might be yelling, but he wasn’t yelling. His teeth were yellowed fangs and his breath was foul. He wasn’t as big as I was, nor as heavy, but he was a wiry customer, quick and tough and full of fight, and I knew, even as I fought for it, that he’d finally get that gun away from me.
Big Brute had tottered to his feet and was backing slowly away from the fire, staring with horrified fascination at Cynthia, who pointed his rifle at him.
It all seemed to have gone on for a long while, although I don’t imagine it had been more than a few seconds, and it seemed as if it might keep on forever. Then, quite suddenly, Jed buckled in the middle. He loosed his grip on the gun and slid sidewise, tumbling to the floor, and I saw then the slow seep of red that stained his back.
Cynthia yelled at me, “Fletch, let’s get away! They are shooting at us!”
But they were, I saw, not shooting any longer. They were fleeing for their lives, small dark figures of leaping, dodging men scrambling up the hillside. Two or three of them, I saw, were busily climbing trees. Up the hill, after them, flashed a steel machine and as I watched, it caught one of them in its sharp, steel jaws and shook the body for an instant before it tossed it to one side.
There was no sign of Big Brute. He had gotten clean away.
“Fletch, we can’t stay here,” said Cynthia, and I quite agreed with her. It was no place to stay, with the ghouls snapping at our heels. Now, while Wolf had them on the run, was the time to get away.
She already had reached one corner of the cave and was scrambling down the hillside, and I followed her. I lost my footing on the steepness of the rubble and, flat upon my back, skidded almost to the creek before I could gain my feet again. When I fell I dropped the gun and was turning back to get it when something went buzzing past my ear and threw up a small spurt of earth and rock on the inclined bank not more than three feet ahead of me. I rolled over rapidly and looked up to the ridge. A puff of blue smoke was floating up from a tree where a scarecrow figure crouched.
I forgot about the gun.
Cynthia was running down the narrow hollow that carried the creek and I ran after her. Behind me a couple of guns went off, but the balls must have flown far wide of us, for I didn’t hear them hum nor did I see them strike. In a few more seconds, I told myself, we’d be out of range. Homemade guns carrying balls of lead powered by homemade powder could not have had much carrying power.
The narrow valley was tortuous traveling. The hills came down steeply on either side, in a sharp V formation, and there was no level ground. The surface was cluttered by massive boulders that through the ages had come rolling down the hillsides. In some places gigantic trees grew in the narrowness of the notch between the hills. There was no sort of trail to follow; nothing in its right mind would travel down this valley short of sheer necessity. It was a matter of finding the best path that one could, dodging around the rocks and trees, leaping the brook when it swung across one’s path.
I caught up with Cynthia when she was slowed down by an enormous pile of boulders, and after that we went together. I saw that she didn’t have Big Brute’s gun.
“I dropped it,” she said. “It was heavy. It kept getting in my way.”
“It’s just as well,” I said. And it was just as well. Each of the guns carried a single charge and we had no balls or powder to reload (even if we’d known how to reload) once that charge was fired. They were awkward things to handle and I had a hunch a man would have to do a lot of shooting with them before he could come anywhere near hitting what he was aiming at.
We came to a place where another little V-shaped valley came into the one we had been following.
“Let’s go up that one,” Cynthia said. “They know we came down this one.”
I nodded. If they followed, they might suspect we had chosen the easier course, continuing down the hollow from the cave.
“Fletch,” she said, “we haven’t got a thing. We ran off without our packs.”
I hesitated. “I could go back,” I said. “You go on up the hollow. I’ll catch up with you.”
“We can’t separate again,” she said. “We have to stick together. None of this would have happened if we’d stayed with Elmer.”
“Wolf has got them treed,” I said. “Either treed or running.”
“No,” she said. “Some of them up the trees have guns. And there are too many of them for Wolf to handle. They’ll scatter. He can’t chase them all.”
“You saw them,” I said. “That’s why you hit the big one with the pan.”
“I saw them,” she said, “slithering down the hillside. But I might have hit him anyhow. We couldn’t trust them, Fletch. And you aren’t going back.
I’d have to go with you and I am scared to go.”
I gave in. I couldn’t honestly decide whether it was giving in or not wanting to go back, myself.
“Later on,” I said. “Later on, when this is all over, we can come back and get the stuff.” Knowing that we probably never would. Or that it might not be there if we did go back.
We started up the hollow. It was as bad as the one we had come down; worse because now we were climbing.
I let Cynthia go ahead and I did some worrying. We must have been in a real panic, both of us, when we left the cave. It would have been simple, using no more than a minute’s time, to have grabbed up the packs. But we hadn’t done it and now we were without food and blankets, without anything at all. Except fire, I thought. I had the lighter in my pocket. I felt a little better, although not much, when I realized we still had fire.
The way was grueling and there were times when we had to stop to rest. Listening for some sound back at the cave, I heard nothing and began to wonder, rather dazedly, if what I remembered had really happened there. I knew, of course, it had.
We were nearing the top of the ridge and the valley petered out. We clambered to the crest. The ridge was heavily wooded and when we reached the top, we were in a fairyland of beauty. The trees were massive blocks of red and yellow and in some of them were climbing vines that provided slashes of deep gold and brilliant crimson. The day was clear and warm. Looking at the color, I remembered that first day—only a few days ago, but seeming more like weeks—when we had left the Cemetery and gone down the hill to the first autumn-painted forest I had ever seen.
We stood, watching back the way that we had come.
“Why should they be hunting us?” asked Cynthia. “Sure, we took their horses, but if that is all it is, they should be hunting the horses and not us.”
“Revenge, maybe,” I said. “A twisted idea of getting even with us. Probably only a part of them are after us. The others must be following the horses.”
“That may be it,” she said, “but I can’t bring myself to think so. There is something more than that.”
“It’s Cemetery,” I said and I wasn’t entirely clear what I meant by saying it, although it did seem that Cemetery was somehow involved in everything that happened. But as soon as I said it, the whole pattern formed inside my mind.