Crompton Divided (17 page)

Loomis whispered, ‘Crompton?’

No answer.

‘Crompton! Can you hear me? I’ll put you back in command. Just get us out of this overgrown greenhouse. Get us back to Earth or Aaia! Crompton, I don’t want to die!’

Still no answer.

‘All right, Crompton,’ Loomis said in a husky whisper. ‘You win. Take over! Do anything you want. I surrender, it’s all yours. Just please,
take over!
’

‘Thank you,’ Crompton said icily, and took over control of the Crompton body.

In ten minutes he was back in the commander’s tent, saying that he had changed his mind again. The commander nodded wearily, deciding that he would never understand people.

Soon Crompton was seated in the center of a large dugout canoe, with trade goods piled up around him. The paddlers set up a lusty chant and pushed onto the river. Crompton turned and watched until the Vigilantes’ tents were lost around a bend in the river.

31

To Crompton that trip down the Blood River was like a passage to the beginning of time. The six natives dipped their paddles in silent unison, and the canoe glided like a water spider over the broad, slow-moving stream. Gigantic ferns hung over the river’s bank, and quivered when the canoe came near, and stretched longingly toward them on long stalks. Then the paddlers would raise the warning shout and the canoe would be steered back to midstream, and the ferns would droop again in the midday heat. They came to places where the trees had interlaced overhead, forming a dark, leafy tunnel. Then Crompton and the paddlers would crouch under the canvas of the tents, letting the boat drift through on the current, hearing the soft splatter of corrosive sap dropping around them. They would emerge again to the glaring white sky, and the natives would man their paddles.

‘Ominous,’ Loomis said nervously.

‘Yes, quite ominous,’ Crompton agreed, growing overawed by his surroundings.

The Blood River carried them deep into the interior of the continent. At night, moored to a midstream boulder, they could hear the war-hums of hostile Yggans. One day, four canoes of Yggans pulled into the stream behind them. Crompton’s men leaned into their paddles and the canoe sprinted forward. The hostiles clung doggedly to them, and Crompton took out his rifle and waited. But his paddlers, inspired by fear, increased their lead, and soon the raiders were lost behind a bend of the river.

They breathed more easily after that. But at a narrow bend they were greeted by a shower of arrows from both banks. One of the paddlers slumped across the gunwale, pierced four times. The rest leaned to their paddles, and soon were out of range.

They dropped the dead paddler overboard, and the hungry creatures of the river squabbled over his disposition. After that a great armored creature with crablike arms swam behind the canoe, his round head raised above the water, waiting doggedly for more food. Even rifle bullets wouldn’t drive him away, and his presence gave Crompton nightmares.

The creature received another meal when two paddlers died of a grayish mold that crept up their paddles. The crablike creature accepted them and waited for more. He was a nuisance, but he protected his own: a raiding party of hostiles, seeing him, raised a great shout and fled back into the jungle. He clung behind them for the final hundred miles of the journey. And, when they came at last to a moss-covered wharf on the riverbank, he watched for a while, and then turned back upstream.

The paddlers pulled to the ruined dock. Crompton climbed onto it and saw a piece of wood daubed with red paint. Turning it over he saw written on it blood delta. population 92.

Nothing but jungle lay beyond. They had reached Dan Stack’s final retreat.

32

A narrow, overgrowth path led from the wharf to a clearing in the jungle. Within the clearing was what looked like a ghost town. Not a person walked on its single dusty street, and no faces peered out of the low, unpainted buildings. The little town baked silently under the white noonday glare, and Crompton could hear no sound but the scuffle of his own footsteps in the dirt.

‘I don’t like this,’ Loomis said.

Crompton walked slowly down the street. He passed a row of storage sheds with their owner’s names crudely printed across them. He passed an empty saloon, its door hanging by one hinge, its mosquito-netting windows ripped. He went past three deserted stores, and came to a fourth which had a sign reading stack & finch. supplies.

Crompton entered. Trade goods were in neat piles on the floor, and more goods hung from the ceiling rafters. There was no one inside.

‘Anyone here?’ Crompton called. He got no answer, and went back to the street.

At the end of the town he came to a sturdy, barnlike building. Sitting on a stool in front of it was a tanned and moustached man of perhaps fifty. He had a revolver thrust into his belt. His stool was tilted back against the wall, and he appeared to be half asleep.

‘Dan Stack?’ Crompton asked.

‘Inside,’ the man said.

Crompton walked to the door. The moustached man stirred, and the revolver was suddenly in his hand.

‘Move back away from that door,’ he said.

‘Why? What’s wrong?’

‘You mean you don’t know?’ the moustached man asked.

‘No! Who are you?’

‘I’m Ed Tyler, peace officer appointed by the citizens of Blood Delta and confirmed in office by the commander of the Vigilantes. Stack’s in jail. This here place is the jail, for the time being.’

‘How long is he in for?’

‘Just a couple of hours.’

‘Can I speak to him?’

‘Nope.’

‘Can I speak to him when he gets out?’

‘Sure,’ Tyler said, ‘but I doubt he’ll answer you.’

‘Why?’

The peace officer grinned wryly. ‘Stack will be in jail only a couple of hours on account of this afternoon we’re taking him
out
of the jail and hanging him by the neck until he’s dead. After we’ve performed that little chore you’re welcome to all the talking you want with him. But like I said, I doubt he’ll answer you.’

Crompton was too tired to feel much shock. He asked, ‘What did Stack do?’

‘Murder.’

‘A native?’

‘Hell, no,’ Tyler said in disgust. ‘Who gives a damn about natives? Stack killed a
man
name of Barton Finch. His own partner. Finch isn’t dead yet, but he’s going fast. Old Doc says he won’t last out the day, and that makes it murder. Stack was tried by a jury of his peers and found guilty of killing Barton Finch, as well as breaking Billy Redburn’s leg, busting two of Eli Talbot’s ribs, wrecking Moriarty’s Saloon, and generally disturbing the peace. The judge – that’s me – prescribed hanging by the neck as soon as possible. That means this afternoon, when the boys are back from working on the new dam.’

‘When did the trial take place?’ Crompton asked.

‘This morning.’

‘And the murder?’

‘About three hours before the trial.’

‘Quick work,’ Crompton said.

‘We don’t waste no time here in Blood Delta,’ Tyler said proudly.

‘I guess you don’t,’ Crompton said. ‘You even hang a man before his victim’s dead.’

‘I told you Finch is going fast,’ Tyler said, his eyes narrowing. ‘Watch yourself, stranger. Don’t go around impugning the justice of Blood Delta, or you’ll find yourself in plenty of trouble. We don’t need no fancy lawyer’s tricks to tell us right from wrong.’

Loomis whispered urgently to Crompton, ‘Leave it alone, let’s get out of here.’

Crompton ignored him. He said to the sheriff, ‘Mr. Tyler, Dan Stack is my half brother.’

‘Bad luck for you,’ Tyler said.

‘I’d really appreciate seeing him. Just for five minutes. Just to give him a last message from his mother.’

‘Not a chance,’ the sheriff said.

Crompton dug into his pocket and took out a grimy wad of bills. ‘Just two minutes.’

‘Well, maybe I could – damn!’

Following Tyler’s gaze, Crompton saw a large group of men coming down the dusty street.

‘Here come the boys,’ Tyler said. ‘Not a chance now, even if I wanted to. I guess you can watch the hanging, though.’

Crompton moved back out of the way. There were at least fifty men in the group, and more coming. For the most part they were lean, leathery, hard-bitten no-nonsense types, and most of them carried sidearms and wore moustaches. They conferred briefly with the sheriff.

‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ Loomis warned.

‘There’s nothing I
can
do,’ Crompton said.

Sheriff Tyler opened the barn door. A group of men entered and came out dragging a man. Crompton was unable to see what he looked like, for the crowd closed around him.

He followed the crowd as they carried the man to the far edge of town, where a rope had been thrown across one limb of a sturdy tree.

‘Up with him!’ the crowd shouted.

‘Boys!’ came the muffled voice of Dan Stack. ‘Let me speak!’

‘To hell with that,’ a man shouted. ‘Up with him!’

‘My last words!’ Stack shrieked.

The sheriff called out, ‘Let him say his piece, boys. It’s a condemned man’s right. Go ahead, Stack, but don’t take too long about it.’

They had put Stack on a wagon, the noose around his neck, the free end held by a dozen hands. At last Crompton was able to see him. He stared, fascinated by this long-sought-for segment of himself.

Dan Stack was a large, solidly built man. His thick, deeply lined features showed the marks of passion and hatred, fear and sudden violence, secret sorrow and secret vice. He had wide, flaring nostrils, a thick-lipped mouth set with strong teeth, and narrow, treacherous eyes. Coarse black hair hung over his inflamed forehead, and there was a dark stubble on his fiery cheeks. His face betrayed his stereotype – the Cholerie Humor of Air, caused by too much hot yellow bile, bringing a man quickly to anger and divorcing him from reason.

Stack was staring overhead at the glowing white sky. Slowly he lowered his head, and the bronze fixture on his right hand flashed red in the steady glare.

‘Boys,’ Stack said. ‘I’ve done a lot of bad things in my time.’

‘You’re telling
us?
’ someone shouted. ‘I’ve been a liar and a cheat,’ Stack shouted. ‘I’ve struck the girl I loved and struck her hard, wanting to hurt. I’ve stolen from my own dear parents. I’ve brought red murder to the unhappy natives of this planet, and to some humans besides. Boys, I’ve not lived a good life!’

The crowd laughed at his maudlin speech.

‘But I want you to know,’ Stack bellowed, ‘I want you to know that I’ve struggled with my sinful nature and tried to conquer it. I’ve wrestled with the old devil in my soul, and fought him the best fight I knew how. I joined the Vigilantes and for two years I was as straight a man as you’ll find. Then the madness came over me again, and I killed.’

‘You through now?’ the sheriff asked.

‘But I want you to know one thing,’ Stack shrieked, his eyeballs rolling in his red face. ‘I admit the bad things I’ve done, I admit them freely and fully. But boys,
I did not kill Barton Finch!
’

‘All right,’ the sheriff said, ‘if you’re through now we’ll get on with it.’

‘Finch was my friend, my only friend in the world! I was trying to help him, I shook him a little to bring him to his senses. And when he didn’t come around, I guess I lost my head and busted up Moriarty’s Saloon and fractured a couple of the boys. But before God I swear I didn’t harm Finch!’

‘Are you finished now?’ the sheriff asked.

Stack opened his mouth, closed it again, and nodded. ‘All right, boys!’ the sheriff said. ‘Let’s go!’

Men began to move the wagon upon which Stack was standing. And Stack, with a look of helpless desperation on his face, caught sight of Crompton.

And recognized him for who he was.

Loomis was speaking to Crompton very rapidly. ‘Watch out, take it easy, don’t do anything, don’t believe him, look at his record, remember his history, he’ll ruin us, smash us to bits. He’s dominant, he’s powerful, he’s homicidal, he’s evil.’

Crompton, in a fraction of a second, remembered Dr. Vlacjeck’s estimate of his chances for a successful Reintegration.

Madness, or worse. …

‘Totally depraved,’ Loomis was saying, ‘evil, worthless, completely hopeless!’

But Stack was part of him! Stack too longed for transcendence, had fought for self-mastery, had failed and fought again. Stack was
not
completely hopeless, no more than Loomis or he himself was completely hopeless.

But was Stack telling the truth? Or had that impassioned speech been a last-minute bid to the audience in hope of a reprieve?

He would have to assume Stack’s good faith. He would have to give Stack a chance.

As the wagon was pushed clear, Stack’s eyes were fastened upon Crompton’s. Crompton made his decision to let Stack in.