Thunder and Roses (13 page)

She glanced at him sharply, opened her mouth to tell him he might just be taken at his word around here, then thought better of it. “Sit down,” she ordered. She bustled up a foaming glass of beer and set it beside him. “I’ll get her down to sign for the wire,” she said. The man half lowered the glass into which he had been jowls-deep, began to speak, found he was alone in the room, laughed suddenly and richly, wiped off the mustache of suds, and dived down for a new one.

Mrs. Forsythe grinned and shook her head as she heard the laughter, and went straight to Alistair’s study. “Alistair!”

“Stop pushing me about the ductility of tungsten, Tiny! You know better than that. Figures are figures, and facts are facts. I think I see what you’re trying to lead me to. All I can say is that if such a thing is possible, I never heard of any equipment that could handle it. Stick around a few years and I’ll hire you a nuclear power plant. Until then, I’m afraid—”

“Alistair!”

“—there just isn’t … hm-m-m? Yes, Mother?”

“Telegram.”

“Oh. Who from?”

“I don’t know, being only one fortieth of one percent as psychic as that doghouse Dunninger you have there. In other words, I didn’t open it.”

“Oh, Mum, you’re silly. Of course you could have … oh, well, let’s have it.”

“I haven’t got it. It’s downstairs with Discobolus Junior, who brought it. No one,” she said ecstatically, “has a right to be so tanned with hair that color.”

“What
are
you talking about?”

“Go on down and sign for the telegram and see for yourself. You will find the maiden’s dream with his golden head in a bucket of suds, all hot and sweaty from his noble efforts in attaining this peak without spikes or alpenstock, with nothing but his pure heart and Western Union to guide him.”

“This maiden’s dream happens to be tungsten treatment,” said Alistair with some irritation. She looked longingly at her work sheet, put down her pencil, and rose. “Stay here, Tiny. I’ll be right back as soon as I have successfully resisted my conniving mother’s latest scheme to drag my red hairing across some young buck’s path to matrimony.” She paused at the door. “Aren’t you staying up here, Mum?”

“Get that hair away from your face,” said her mother grimly. “I am not. I wouldn’t miss this for the world. And don’t pun in front of that young man. It’s practically the only thing in the world I consider vulgar.”

Alistair led the way down the stairs and through the corridor to the kitchen, with her mother crowding her heels, once fluffing out her daughter’s blazing hair, once taking a swift tuck in the back of the girl’s halter. They spilled through the door almost together. Alistair stopped and frankly stared.

For the young man had risen and, still with the traces of beer foam on his modeled lips, stood with his jaws stupidly open, his head a little back, his eyes partly closed as if against a bright light. And it seemed as if everyone in the room forgot to breathe for a moment.

“Well!” Mrs. Forsythe exploded after a moment. “Honey, you’ve made a conquest. Hey, you, chin up, chest out.”

“I beg your humble pardon,” muttered the young man, and the phrase seemed more a colloquialism than an affectation.

Alistair, visibly pulling herself together, said, “Mother, please,” and drifted forward to pick up the telegram that lay on the kitchen table. Her mother knew her well enough to realize that her hands and her eyes were steady only by a powerful effort. Whether the effort was in control of annoyance, embarrassment, or out-and-out biochemistry was a matter for later thought. At the moment Mrs. Forsythe was enjoying the situation tremendously.

“Please wait,” said Alistair coolly. “There may be an answer to this.” The young man simply bobbed his head. He was still a little wall-eyed with the impact of seeing Alistair, as many a young man had been before. But there were the beginnings of his astonishing
smile around his lips as he watched her rip the envelope open.

“Mother! Listen!

“How old is this tropical savage?” asked Mrs. Forsythe.

“He’s not a savage and I don’t know how old he is and I can’t see what that has to do with it. I think he’s about my age or a little older.” She looked up and her eyes were shining.

“Deadly rival,” said Mrs. Forsythe to the messenger consolingly. “Rotten timing here, somewhere.”

“I—” said the young man.

“Mother, we’ve got to fix something to eat. Do you suppose he’ll be able to stay over? Where’s my green dress with the … oh, you wouldn’t know. It’s new.”

“Then the letters weren’t all about the dog,” said Mrs. Forsythe with a Cheshire grin.

“Mum, you’re impossible. This is … is important. Alec is … is …”

Her mother nodded. “Important. That’s all I was pointing out.”

The young man said, “I—”

Alistair turned to him. “I do hope you don’t think we’re totally mad. I’m sorry you had such a climb.” She went to the sideboard and took a quarter out of a sugar bowl. He took it gravely.

Thank you, ma’am. If you don’t min’, I’ll keep this piece of silver for the rest o’ my everlahstin’.”

“You’re wel—What?”

The young man seemed to get even taller. “I greatly appreciate your hospitality, Miss Forsythe. I have you at a disadvantage, ma’am, and one I shall correct.” He put a crooked forefinger between his lips and blew out an incredible blast of sound.

“Tiny!” he roared. “Here to me, dahg, an’ mek me known!”

There was an answering roar from upstairs, and Tiny came tumbling down, scrabbling wildly as he took the turn at the foot of the stairs and hurtled over the slick flooring to crash joyfully into the young man.

“Ah, you beast,” crooned the man, cuffing the dog happily. His accent thickened. “You thrive yourself here wid de lady-dem, you gray-yut styoupid harse. You glad me, mon, you glad me.” He grinned at the two astonished women. “Forgive me,” he said as he pummeled Tiny, pulled his ears, shoved him away, and caught him by the jaws. “For true, I couldn’t get in the first word with Mrs. Forsythe, and after that I couldn’t help meself. Alec my name is, and the telegram I took from the true messenger, finding him sighing and sweating at the sight of the hill there.”

Alistair covered her face with her hands and said, “Oooh.”

Mrs. Forsythe whooped with laughter. When she found her voice she demanded, “Young man, what is your last name?”

“Sundersen, ma’am.”

“Mother! Why did you ask him that?”

“For reasons of euphony,” said Mrs. Forsythe with a twinkle. “Alexander Sundersen. Very good. Alistair—”

“Stop! Mum, don’t you dare—”

“I was going to say, Alistair, if you and our guest will excuse me, I’ll have to get back to my knitting.” She went to the door.

Alistair threw an appalled look at Alec and cried, “Mother! What are you knitting?”

“My brows, darling. See you later.” Mrs. Forsythe chuckled and went out.

It took almost a week for Alec to get caught up with the latest developments in Tiny, for he got the story in the most meticulous detail. There never seemed to be enough time to get in all the explanations and anecdotes, so swiftly did it fly when he and Alistair were together. Some days he went into the city with Alistair in the morning and spent the day buying tools and equipment for his estate. New York was a wonder city to him—he had been there only once before—and Alistair found herself getting quite possessive about the place,
showing it off like the contents of a jewel box. And then Alec stayed at the house a couple of days. He endeared himself forever to Mrs. Forsythe by removing, cleaning, and refacing the clutch on the Blue Kangaroo, simplifying the controls on the gas refrigerator so it could be defrosted without a major operation, and putting a building jack under the corner of the porch that threatened to sag.

And the sessions with Tiny were resumed and intensified. At first he seemed a little uneasy when Alec joined one of them, but within half an hour he relaxed. Thereafter, more and more he would interrupt Alistair to turn to Alec. Although he apparently could not understand Alec’s thoughts at all, he seemed to comprehend perfectly when Alec spoke to Alistair. And within a few days she learned to accept these interruptions, for they speeded up the research they were doing. Alec was almost totally ignorant of the advanced theory with which Alistair worked, but his mind was clear, quick, and very direct. He was no theorist, and that was good. He was one of those rare grease-monkey geniuses, with a grasp of the laws of cause and effect that amounted to intuition. Tiny’s reaction to this seemed to be approval. At any rate, the occasions when Alistair lost track of what Tiny was after occurred less and less frequently. Alec instinctively knew just how far to go back, and then how to spot the turning at which they had gone astray. And bit by bit they began to identify what it was that Tiny was after. As to why—and how—he was after it, Alec’s experience with old Debbil seemed a clue. It was certainly sufficient to keep Alec plugging away at a possible solution to the strange animal’s stranger need.

“It was down at the sugar mill,” he told Alistair, after he had become fully acquainted with the incredible dog’s actions and they were trying to determine the why and the how. “He called me over to the chute where cane is loaded into the conveyors.

“ ‘Bahss,’ he told me, ‘dat t’ing dere, it not safe, sah.’ And he pointed through the guard over the bull gears that drove the conveyor. Great big everlahstin’ teeth it has, Miss Alistair, a full ten inches long, and it whirlin’ to the drive pinion. It’s old, but strong for good. Debbil, what he saw was a bit o’ play on the pinion shaf’.

“ ‘Now, you’re an old fool,’ I told him.

“ ‘No, bahss,’ ” he says. ‘Look now, sah, de t’ing wit’ de teet’—dem, it not safe, sah. I mek you see,’ and before I could move meself or let a thought trickle, he opens the guard up and thrus’ his han’ inside! Bull gear, it run right up his arm and nip it off, neat as ever, at the shoulder. I humbly beg your pardon, Miss Alistair.”

“G-go on,” said Alistair, through her handkerchief.

“Well, sir, old Debbil was an idiot for true, and he only died the way he lived, rest him. He was old and he was all eaten out with malaria and elephantiasis and the like, that not even Dr. Thetford could save him. But a strange thing happened. As he lay dyin’, with the entire village gathered roun’ the door whisperin’ plans for the wake, he sent to tell me come quickly. Down I run, and for the smile on his face I glad him when I cross the doorstep.”

As Alec spoke, he was back in the Spanish-wall hut, with the air close under the palm-thatch roof and the glare of the pressure lantern set on the tiny window ledge to give the old man light to die by. Alec’s accent deepened. “ ‘How you feel, mon?’ I ahsk him. ‘Bahss, I’m a dead man now, but I got a light in mah hey-yud.’

“ ‘Tell me then, Debbil.’

“ ‘Bahss, de folk-dem say, ol’ Debbil, him cyahn’t remembah de taste of a mango as he t’row away de skin. Him cyahn’t remembah his own house do he stay away t’ree day.’

“ ‘Loose talk, Debbil.’

“ ‘True talk, Bahss. Foh de Lahd give me a leaky pot fo’ hol’ ma brains. But Bahss, I do recall one t’ing now, bright an’ clear, and you must know. Bahss, de day I go up the wahtah line, I see a great jumbee in de stones of de gov’nor palace dere.’ ”

“What’s a jumbee?” asked Mrs. Forsythe.

“A ghost, ma’am. The Crucians carry a crawlin’ heap of superstitions. Tiny! What eats you, mon?”

Tiny growled again. Alec and Alistair exchanged a look. “He doesn’t want you to go on.”

“Listen carefully. I want him to get this. I am his friend. I want to help you help him. I realize that he wants as few people as possible to find out about this thing. I will say nothing to anybody unless and until I have his permission.”

“Well, Tiny?”

The dog stood restlessly, swinging his great head from Alistair to Alec. Finally he made a sound like an audible shrug, then turned to Mrs. Forsythe.

“Mother’s part of me,” said Alistair firmly. “That’s the way it’s got to be. No alternative.” She leaned forward. “You can’t talk to us. You can only indicate what you want said and done. I think Alec’s story will help us to understand what you want and help you to get it more quickly. Understand?”

Tiny gazed at her for a long moment, said,
“Whuff,”
and lay down with his nose between his paws and his eyes fixed on Alec.

“I think that’s the green light,” said Mrs. Forsythe, “and I might add that most of it was due to my daughter’s conviction that you’re a wonderful fellow.”

“Mother!”

“Well, pare me down and call me Spud! They’re
both
blushing!” said Mrs. Forsythe blatantly.

“Go on, Alec,” choked Alistair.

“Thank you. Old Debbil told me a fine tale of the things he had seen at the ruins. A great beast, mind you, with no shape at all, and a face ugly to drive you mad. And about the beast was what he called a ‘feelin’ good.’ He said it was a miracle, but he feared nothing. ‘Wet it was, Bahss, like a slug, an’ de eye it have is whirlin’ an’ shakin’, an’ I standin’ dar feelin’ like a bride at de altar step an’ no fear in me.’ Well, I thought the old man’s mind was wandering, for I knew he was touched. But the story he told was
that
clear, and never a single second did he stop to think. Out it all came like a true thing.

“He said that Tiny walked to the beast and that it curved over him like an ocean wave. It closed over the dog, and Debbil was rooted there the livelong day, still without fear, and feelin’ no smallest desire to move. He had no surprise at all, even at the thing he saw restin’ in the thicket among the old stones.

“He said it was a submarine, a mighty one as great as the estate house and with no break nor mar in its surface but for the glass part let in where the mouth is on a shark.

“And then when the sun begun to dip, the beast gave a shudderin’
heave and rolled back, and out walked Tiny. He stepped up to Debbil and stood. Then the beast began to quiver and shake, and Debbil said the air aroun’ him heavied with the work the monster was doing, tryin’ to talk. A cloud formed in his brain, and a voice swept over him. ‘Not a livin’ word, Bahss, not a sound at all. But it said to forget. It said to leave dis place and forget, sah.’ And the last thing old Debbil saw as he turned away was the beast slumping down, seeming all but dead from the work it had done to speak at all. ‘An’ de cloud live in mah hey-yud, Bahss, f’om dat time onward. I’m a dead man now, Bahss, but de cloud gone and Debbil know de story.’ ” Alec leaned back and looked at his hands. “That was all. This must have happened about fifteen months pahst, just before Tiny began to show his strange stripe.” He drew a deep breath and looked up. “Maybe I’m gullible. But I knew the old man too well. He never in this life could invent such a tale. I troubled myself to go up to the governor’s palace after the buryin’. I might have been mistaken, but something big had lain in the deepest thicket, for it was crushed into a great hollow place near a hundred foot long. Well, there you are. For what it’s worth, you have the story of a superstitious an’ illiterate old man, at the point of death by violence and many years sick to boot.”