Bradbury, Ray - SSC 11 (21 page)

 
          
 
The paper was there, neatly folded.

           
 
William put out his hand.

 
          
 
"Don't give him the pleasure," said
Robert.

 
          
 
William pulled his hand back. "You want
us to believe you filed a homestead claim?"

 
          
 
Ned shut up the smile inside his eyes. "I
do. I don't. Even if I was lying, I could still make Phoneix on my bike
quicker'n your jalopy." Ned surveyed the land with his binoculars.
"So just put down all the money you earned from two this afternoon, when I
filed my claim, from which time on you was trespassing my land."

 
          
 
Robert flung the coins into the dust Ned Hopper
glanced casually at the bright litter.

 
          
 
"The
U.S.
Government Mint!
Hot dog, nothing out there, but dumb bunnies willing to
pay for it!"

 
          
 
Robert turned slowly to look at the desert.

 
          
 
"You don't see nothing?"

 
          
 
Ned snorted. "Nothing, and you know
itl"

 
          
 
"But we do!" cried William.
"We—"

 
          
 
"William," said Robert.

 
          
 
"But, Bob!"

 
          
 
"Nothing out there. Like he said.”

 
          
 
More cars were driving up now in a great thrum
of engines.

 
          
 
"Excuse, gents, got to mind the box
office!" Ned strode off, waving. "Yes, sir, ma'am! This way! Cash in
advance!”

 
          
 
"Why?" William watched Ned Hopper
run off, yelling. “Why are we letting him do this?"

 
          
 
"Wait," said Robert, almost
serenely. "You'll see."

 
          
 
They got out of the way as a Ford, a Buick and
an ancient Moon motored in.

 
          
 
Twilight. On a hill about two hundred yards
above the Mysterious City Mirage viewpoint, William Bantlin and Robert
Greenhill fried and picked at a small supper, hardly bacon, mostly beans. From
time to time, Robert used some battered opera glasses on the scene below.

 
          
 
"Had thirty customers since we left this
afternoon," he observed. "Got to shut down soon, though. Only ten
minutes of sun left."

 
          
 
William stared at a single bean on the end of
his fork. “Tell me again: Why? Why every time our luck is good, Ned Hopper
jumps out of the earth."

 
          
 
Robert sighed on the opera-glass lenses and
wiped them on his cuff. "Because, friend Will, we are the pure in heart.
We shine with a light. And the villains of the world, they see that light
beyond the hills and say, “Why, now, there's some innocent, some sweet all-day
sucker.' And the villains come to warm their hands at us. I don't know what we
can do about it, except maybe put out the light.”

 
          
 
"I wouldn't want to do that" William
brooded gently, his palms to the fire. "It's just I was hoping this time
was comeuppance time. A man like Ned Hopper, living his white underbelly life,
ain't he about due for a bolt of lightning?”

 
          
 
"Due?" Robert screwed the opera
glasses tighter into his eyes. "Why, it just stnickl Oh, ye of little
faith!" William jumped up beside him. They shared the glasses, one lens
each, peering down. "Look!”

 
          
 
And William, looking, cried, "Peduncle Q.
Mackinaw!”

 
          
 
"Also, Gullable M. Crackers!”

 
          
 
For, far below, Ned Hopper was stomping around
outside a car. People gesticulated at him. He handed them some money. The car
drove off. Faintly you could hear Ned's anguished cries.

 
          
 
William gasped. “He's giving money back! Now
he almost hit that man there. The man shook his fist at him! Ned's paid him
back, too! Look—more fond farewells!"

 
          
 
"Yah-hee" whooped Robert, happy with
his half of the glasses.

 
          
 
Below, all the cars were dusting away now. Old
Ned did a violent kicking dance, threw his goggles into the dust, tore down the
sign, let forth a terrible oath.

 
          
 
"Dear me," mused Robert. "I'm
glad I can't hear them words. Come on, Willyl"

 
          
 
As William Bantlin and Robert Greenhill drove
back up to the Mysterious City turn-off, Ned Hopper rocketed out in a screaming
fury. Braying, roaring on his cycle, he hurled the painted cardboard through
the air. The sign whistled up, a boomerang. It hissed, narrowly missing Bob.
Long after Ned was gone in his banging thunder, the sign sank down and lay on
the earth, where William picked it up and brushed it off.

 
          
 
It was twilight indeed now and the sun
touching the far hills and the land quiet and hushed and Ned Hopper gone away,
and the two men alone in the abandoned territory in the thousand-treaded dust,
looking out at the sand and the strange air.

           
 
"Oh, no Yes," said Robert.

 
          
 
The desert was empty in the pink-gold light of
the setting sun. The mirage was gone. A few dust devils whirled and fell apart,
'way out on the horizon, but that was all.

 
          
 
William let out a huge groan of bereavement.
''He did it! Ned! Ned Hopper, come back, you! Oh, damn it, Ned, you spoiled it
all! Blast you to perdition!" He stopped. "Bob, how can you stand
there!?"

 
          
 
Robert smiled sadly. "Right now I'm
feeling sorry for Ned Hopper."

 
          
 
"Sorry!"

 
          
 
"He never saw what we saw. He never saw
what anybody saw. He never believed for one second. And you know what?
Disbelief is catching. It rubs off on people."

 
          
 
William searched the disinhabited land.
"Is that what happened?"

 
          
 
"Who knows?" Robert shook his head.
"One thing sure: when folks drove in here, the city, the cities, the
mirage, whatever, was there. But it's awful hard to see when people stand in
your way. Without so much as moving, Ned Hopper put his big hand across the
sun. First thing you know, theater's closed for good."

 
          
 
"Can't we—" William hesitated.
"Can't we open it up again?”

 
          
 
"How? How do you bring a thing like that
back?”

 
          
 
They let their eyes play over the sand, the
hills, the few long clouds, the sky emptied of wind and very still.

 
          
 
"Maybe if we just look out the sides of
our eyes, not direct at it, relax, take it easy ..."

 
          
 
They both looked down at their shoes, their
hands, the rocks at their feet, anything. But at last William mourned, “Are we!
Are we the pure in heart?"

 
          
 
Robert laughed just a little bit. "Oh,
not like the kids who came through here today and saw anything they wanted to
see, and not like the big simple people born in the wheat fields and by God's
grace wandering the world and will never grow up. We're neither the little
children nor the big children of the world, Willy, but we are one thing: glad
to be alive. We know the air mornings on the road, how the stars go up and then
down the sky. That villain, he stopped being glad a long time ago. I hate to
think of him driving his cycle on the road the rest of the night, the rest of
the year.”

           
 
As he finished this, Robert noticed that
William was sliding his eyes carefully to one side, toward the desert.

 
          
 
Robert whispered carefully, "See
anything?"

 
          
 
A single car came down the highway.

 
          
 
The two men glanced at each other. A wild look
of hope flashed in their eyes. But they could not quite bring themselves to
fling up their hands and yell. They simply stood with the painted sign held in
their arms.

 
          
 
The car roared by.

 
          
 
The two men followed it with their wistful
eyes.

 
          
 
The car braked. It backed up. In it were a
man, a woman, a boy, a girl. The man called out, "You closed for the
night?"

 
          
 
William said, "It's no use—"

 
          
 
Robert cut in. "He means, no use giving
us money! Last customer of the day, and family, free! On the housel"

 
          
 
"Thank you, neighbor, thank you!"

 
          
 
The car roared out onto the viewpoint.

 
          
 
William seized Robert's elbow. "Bob, what
ails you? Disappoint those kids, that nice family?"

 
          
 
"Hush up," said Robert, gently.
"Come on."

 
          
 
The kids piled out of the car. The man and his
wife climbed slowly out into the sunset. The sky was all gold and blue now, and
a bird sang somewhere in the fields of sand and lion-pollen.

 
          
 
"Watch," said Robert.

 
          
 
And they moved up to stand behind the family
where it lined up now to look out over the desert.

 
          
 
William held his breath.

 
          
 
The man and wife squinted into the twilight
uneasily.

 
          
 
The kids said nothing. Their eyes flexed and
filled with a distillation of late sunlight

 
          
 
William cleared his throat. "It's late.
Uh—can't see too well."

 
          
 
The man was going to reply, when the boy said,
"Oh, we can see fine!"

 
          
 
"Sure!" The girl pointed.
"There!"

 
          
 
The mother and father followed her gesture, as
if it might help, and it did.

 
          
 
"Lord," said the woman, "for a
moment I thought . . . But now—Yes, there it is!"

 
          
 
The man read his wife's face, saw a thing
there, borrowed it and placed it on the land and in the air.

           
 
"Yes," he said, at last. "Oh,
yes."

 
          
 
William stared at them, at the desert and then
at Robert, who smiled and nodded.

 
          
 
The faces of the father, the mother, the
daughter, the son were glowing now, looking off at the desert.

 
          
 
"Oh," murmured the girl, "is it
really there?"

 
          
 
And the father nodded, his face bright with
what he saw that was just within seeing and just beyond knowing. He spoke as if
he stood alone in a great forest church.

 
          
 
"Yes. And, Lord, it's beautiful."

 
          
 
William started to lift his head, but Robert
whispered, "Easy. It's coming. Don't try. Easy, Will."