Of Chiefs and Champions Page 13

  Squash Woman shrugged her narrow, bony shoulders. "The Old Ones were . . . the Old Ones, Ilsa Brighthair. The legends do not tell of their color. They had been long and long in that land, though they said that they were not of it, had come from another, some of them up the great rivers in great, long boats of wood and smaller boats of cured hides, the mightiest of them flying through the air—not in shiny boats as do you, mighty ones, but as do birds and bats, wearing only their skins—these guiding the lesser ones' boats."

  "They built dwellings of stone or stone and wood, they planted trees and vines they had brought with them, then they cleared the fields and sowed many and diverse foods. They prospered and increased, for they could converse with the monsters and all the lesser beasts, as well. Right many of the larger monsters served them freely, and with their help, the Old Ones were able to hunt down and slay many of the evil monsters and more dangerous beasts, so that the land was safe for them and for our folk and the good beasts and monsters."

  "And not only with monsters and beasts was their medicine very powerful. Even as you mighty ones can fly things through the air without ever touching them, so too could they. They caused great, heavy stones to so fly to build their dwellings, along with vast bundles of long, thick tree trunks; they caused water to spring forth from the ground where none ever before had been seen; they could summon the rain at their will and still raging winds."

  "Why did they go away? Our folk often have asked that question, without answer. The Old Ones just said that since they had become once more many, they must go. They slowly built many large boats of wood, went into them with their goods, and went off down the river that divides that bountiful but monster-infested land, and they were never again seen by the folk, any of them."

  "For perhaps as many as thirty or forty winters, the folk dwelt as always there, farming and fishing and hunting; but slowly the monsters that had been kept in check by the Old Ones increased and became bolder and bolder. Palisading villages did no good, for they were filled with evil medicine, and when their hunger for the flesh of the folk gnawed at their bellies, they could leap clear over the palisades or climb them or even tear them down. All of our strongest warriors could not stand for long against one of the creatures. Even when the monsters resembled porcupines, so filled were they with arrows and darts and lances, still could they easily kill and kill and escape back over the palisades with a poor unfortunate clamped between their fearsome jaws or grasped in a huge, manlike paw."

  "Others of the monsters trampled growing crops and ate ripe fruits, stripping vines and trees even of leaves, and our weapons were no more effective against full many of these than against the evil man-eaters of the night. Therefore, the chiefs all met in their council and decided that the folk all must go beyond the eastern mountains and find a place to dwell wherein were fewer monsters. It was so done, and the folk lived well in this land before the white men who wear iron came."

  "There were such monsters here, in this country, then, Mother?" queried Lisa.

  "Only a very few, Ilsa Brighthair," Squash Woman answered. "And all now are gone, unless some linger up in the high mountains still; our warriors slew them for food or out of fear for the folk, and the white-skinned men killed the few that were left, as they seem to slay or enslave every creature they encounter, saying in excuse that some mighty sachem far across the bitter water has claimed this land and everything upon it and sent them to do his bidding. He must be a very evil man, a monster in man form, this sachem." She added, as an afterthought, "But the monsters that lived in this land were not as large as those of the lands beyond the mountains. Nor were there as many different kinds of them, only the shaggy, horned beasts that the Old Ones had called aigedub, some huge bears, a few of the cat-monsters, and a few small herds of those beasts called 'mighty-claws' which, though they looked hideous and deadly, were slow-witted, slow-moving, always-gentle monsters. But by the year of my birth, all were long since gone from this land, all save a few of the aigedub, those which the iron wearers call bisontes. I know this from the mouths of the young warriors who have so soon since joined my folk. They say that south of here, the iron wearers sometimes go up into the mountains to hunt the beasts for their fine hides. If my folk and I are to go westward, back to that land, we will need many, many strong hides, Arsen. So you must cause to fly to us beasts with their skins still on, or at least the flayed skins, themselves."

  Not wishing to get the fanatically acquisitive old woman started listing her wants again, Arsen asked, "These man-shaped monsters in the lands beyond the mountains—do you recall what they were said to look like? How big were they?"

  A strong shudder shook her frail little body and she shook her head. "Arsen, you and the other people of mighty powers must agree to protect my folk from these Stink Monsters, are we to go back to our old lands. The Old Ones slew them in great numbers, but none of our warriors could seem to even hurt them badly when they came over our palisades in search of men and women and children to eat. They eat other beasts, but they seem to prefer folk, and they will perform mighty feats to get at them. It is said that they were all covered with long hair, except for the upper parts of their hideous faces. Their teeth were mostly like a man's teeth, but much, much larger, and the stabbing teeth were all four longer and sharper, more alike to those of a bear or a wolf than a man. Half again as tall as the very tallest warrior of those days were they, with arms that hung almost to their knees. Their hands were really hands, just as folk have, but they were many times the size of the biggest of men's hands, with long, black nails as strong as bear claws and otterlike webs between four of the massive fingers. Their feet were very like to the feet of men, as well, but much larger, and they also could be used almost like hands. Their heads came to a blunt point on top."

  "They lived in caves, in burrows under the banks of rivers and lakes and pools or behind waterfalls. They did not see well in the light of the sun, so they hunted at night or, sometimes, on the dark days of winter. Their only tools were sticks, and their only weapons huge tree-trunk clubs. They were very fearful of fire, but nothing else daunted them. The Old Ones said that they were descendants of ancient creatures that once, long ago, almost became men themselves, but failed in the effort and so have hated true folk ever since, delighting in eating folk and wreaking great evil upon them."

  "Mother, you say that the folk, even the strongest, bravest of the warriors, could not seem to slay or seriously harm these creatures," asked Lisa, "so how, then, did the Old Ones do it?"

  "It is as I have said, Ilsa Brighthair," said Squash Woman. "The Old Ones set beast upon beast, monster upon monster. They smoked the fiends from out their caves or dug open their burrows and then set their tamed and trained monster cats upon the Stink Monsters. Other times, they sealed the caves so thoroughly that not even the thews of a Stink Monster could shift the rocks and win free, but they must eat each other until all were gone. Unfortunately, the Old Ones were never able to root out and slay all of the terrible Stink Monsters, but for all of the many, many years that these people of powers were in the land to actively hunt the fiends, then they avoided all the places of true folk and only sated their craving for flesh of true folk occasionally, when they could catch a man or woman or child alone in a lonely place. But that was not often, for the Old Ones had set the other monsters and beasts with whom they conversed and who all hated the Stink Monsters to watch for them, attack them, drive them back to their caves and lakes and burrows and away from true folk; most active against them were the monster cats, the longnose-bigtooth monsters, and the huge, gentle bigclaws monsters. And in bad winters of deep snows, when the wolf packs joined forces to hunt for meat of any kind, lest they starve, the Old Ones often could direct the packs into the caves and burrows of the Stink Monsters."

  "Well, what do you think she was talking about, honey?" asked Arsen later, in his tent, with Lisa and Greek John. "Could there be super-gorillas here, in North America, do you think? Or is this Stink Monster just
something the Indians have used all these years to scare the shit out of rowdy kids?"

  Lisa's blond head shook slowly. "No, Arsen, I somehow get the impression that this Stink Monster is no bugaboo, but a very real and highly dangerous creature, a proven man-eater with tremendous strength and vitality. What do you think?"

  He shrugged. "Hell, I don't know, honey. I'd always heard and assumed it to be true that the climate in most of this country is just too cold for apes of any kind. I know the zoos have to pamper gorillas and like that the same way doctors and hospitals pamper bubble-babies."

  "That's not necessarily true, not in all cases," put in John. "Some gorillas need a hot climate, but I've read that some of them are mountain animals, too. And I've seen movies of some big monkeys that live in fucking Japan, for God's sake, and the snow didn't seem to bother them any. Then, there's always the Abominable Snowman, and I've always figured that to be some kind of rare, elusive ape. They live in the snow on the highest, coldest mountains in the world . . . and, hell, lots of people have seen them, they say, in this country, too."

  Arsen snorted. "Oh, hell, John, don't tell me you actually fell for that Sasquatch shit? Man, you need a fucking keeper! Yeah, I've read all that crap too—eight-foot-tall hairy apes wandering in the woods up in Oregon and Washington State, turning over bulldozers and tossing full drums of gas and tractor wheels around for fun. Shit, man, that's all it is, shit, you fucking shithead!"

  John stood up, both his fists clenched. "Good night, Lisa," he said, then stomped out of the tent.

  Lisa sighed. "You didn't need to do that, Arsen, whether you agree with him or not. You can be one hell of a nice, caring guy, but you can be foul-mouthed and vicious, too. John could've been very much help to us in possibly identifying some of those strange animals you saw over beyond the mountains. He makes a hobby of paleontology, you know."

  "Well, hell, honey, he is a shithead to believe garbage like that giant-apemen-in-the-Northwest crap," said Arsen stubbornly.

  "Arsen." She laid a cool hand on his. "Did it ever occur to you that maybe he believes because he might have more facts he's gleaned here and there than you do? As I say, he makes a hobby of the study of prehistoric animals."

  "Well," he said, "I didn't see anything that looked like a fucking ape of any kind when I was over there three different times."

  "Remember what Squash Woman said, that these monsters were cave-dwelling, nocturnal hunters? Of course you wouldn't have seen them, then, by day."

  "But to change the subject, Arsen, when do you intend to tell the others that since you made the Class Five projector and acquired the Class Seven, you could send those who want to go back to our world back at any time? Or did you intend to tell any of us, ever?"

  "Aw, goddammit to hell!" he burst out. "How in hell did you figure that out, honey? Have you told anybody else about it?"

  She smiled and said gently, "Arsen, it wasn't really difficult to figure that if you could bring armored personnel carriers and heavy cases of rifles and sides of beef from that world of ours to this one with those heavy-duty projectors, then you could just as easily reverse the transfer with people, with us. And I confirmed my suppositions from the brain or whatever of the carrier I've been using. No, I've not yet told anybody else. I felt that that should be your job."

  "Look, honey," he said fast and earnestly, "I don't know how I can say this to get it through to you so's you'll believe me, I mean really believe me. Honey, what happens to Squash Woman and all the others—both the ones here and the ones the Spanish are holding on that island—that's important to me, more important than anything in all my whole life that I can remember has been, and to do what I know needs to be done to get them to a safe place where they won't always be in danger of starving every year if the slavers don't get them first, I know I need the help of you and all the rest, so I just can't send you all back until I'm sure I can do the rest alone."

  "I know you're thinking about Rose, but can't you see? If just one goes back, every fucking body and his fucking brother is going to be on her to tell what happened to her and where she's been and where the others are, and when she finally breaks down and tells them the truth, they'll prob'ly lock her up in a fucking nuthouse. I'm just as sorry as hell, but I think what I'm doing right now is the best thing I could do, when you think about everything, honey."

  She nodded. "I thought so. You mean to stay here, don't you?"

  He, too, nodded. "Just as long as these folks need me, honey, I'll stay here and do all I can for them."

  "But what about your parents, Arsen?" she demanded. "What about your father's business and his plans for you to take it over? And didn't I hear something once about a wife? What about her?"

  He frowned and said, "I've visited both of my parents, honey. It was the first thing I did when I learned all that I could do with that first carrier. The carrier showed me what to do to their minds to make them understand. As for the Ademian Enterprises business, Papa is nothing but a figurehead, anyway. The board of directors runs the companies—Vasil Ademian, my grandpapa, set it up that way before he retired. Papa's got a whole lot of power, but if he left today, things would go perking right along the same way without him."

  "What about your wife, Arsen?" she probed.

  He grimaced. "Her and me haven't lived together but about a week since I got back from Nam, honey. While I was away, it looks like she got in with a whole bunch of Commie-loving peaceniks from the Unitarian Church. I knew it was something wrong even before I left Nam, 'cause her letters started to get longer and longer and crazier and crazier. Do you know she wanted me to desert from the Corps and surrender to the Cong? You ever heard anything that shit-brained in your life?"

  "Then, when I got back, the fourth night I was home, she called in some army vet, a Commie-loving traitor, to try to talk me into joining a bunch of other traitors in something called Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Well, I heard all his fucking shit I could take hearing, then I gave the fucker his lumps and drop-kicked his Commie-loving ass out the apartment and down the steps with my dear wife beating on me with ever thing that come to hand all the time I was doing it until I finally backhanded her across the room."

  "When I came back up after I'd thrown that damn fucker out on the street with him screaming he was going to call the cops on me for beating up on him—and he was bigger than me, too—she'd locked me out, so I kicked the door in, and then one the fucking neighbors did call the cops. But the ones came was good joes, they seemed to be on my side and finally left without doing or saying much except to hold the noise down and that it might be better if one of us left for the night, anyway."

  "I prob'ly should ought to of left, like they said, but I didn't. She locked me out of the bedroom, so I slept on the sofa. The next day was a Saturday, so she didn't go to school and it was just as good she didn't have to, because she had a class-A-one shiner from where I'd backhanded her. Well, honey, she didn't eat breakfast, she just started taking pills and washing them down with whiskey until she ran out of whiskey and switched to wine, and all the time she was talking a blue streak."

  "She called me and the Corps and the army and the country and the President everything in the fucking book, let me know she really hated her own damn country and everything it stood for and had tried to do since World War Two. She said that me and President Johnson and President Nixon should ought to be tried and hanged for the war criminals we were, just like they'd hung the Nazis. She said that my whole family were part of the industrial-defense complex that made napalm to burn up babies with and that the only reason she married me in the first place was she knew how rich my family was."

  "She just kept on and on for hours, chugging down more pills and more wine until there wasn't any more of it and she switched to beer. When she started telling me about all the lovers—men and women, too—she'd had while I was gone and how much better than me they all were, I went in and started repacking my bags and she followed me and just kept screaming at me u
ntil I turned around and cold-cocked her."

  "Then I phoned my uncle Boghos, who's a doctor, and told him all about it and got the name of a good psychiatrist and carried her down to the car and drove her to this private sanitarium, downtown. I left her there and the next time I saw her was in court with one of her peacenik-lawyer buddies. She got a legal separation and support out of me . . . but that Red bitch will play hell collecting with me in this world and her in that one, and since nobody's ever turned up my body, I'm not legally dead and so she can't collect my life insurance. She may actually have to quit school and go to work for a living, because with what-all Papa has learned from me and other people, it'll be a cold-ass day in hell when he gives her any money."

  "The psychiatrist that Uncle Boghos recommended said that she's not treatably nuts. She's what he called an incomplete personality, and that that, plus her drug and alcohol problems, would make her next to impossible for me to try to live with. I guess if we'd had longer together before I went away in the Corps, I'd of known it was more than just cute nuttinesses was wrong with her, but then Uncle Rupen says that hindsight is an exact science, too."

  "Aren't you worried about your uncle and about Jenny Bostwick, at all?" asked Lisa.

  He grinned. "Me worry about Uncle Rupen? Hell, no! Listen, my Uncle Rupen is old-country Armenian, not born in the U.S., like the rest of the family that are still living. Honey, he's a born survivor; you could drop him in a fucking pile of shit and he'd land with his hand on a fucking fifty-carat diamond. And don't you worry about Jenny, either. Uncle Rupen'll take good care of her. He use to say that it seemed like it was a good thing God never gave him any kids of his own, since ever time he turned around, he found himself taking care of other people's kids and, lots of times, those other people, too."

  "But, honey, why were you so interested all of a sudden about my wife? You been dancing with the band nearly three years and you never asked before. Well, you never asked me, anyway."