I had not seen it happen. I had not looked away. I could not have missed its happening and yet I had. Atwood had been there one moment and the next there’d been the bowling balls.
And this was what had happened here, in the bright sunshine of an autumn afternoon. One moment a man had been walking through the weeds and then he’d not been walking. He was nowhere to be seen.
I stood up cautiously, with the rule held at ready, and peered down the hillside.
There was nothing to be seen except the waving weeds, and it was only in that one spot, in that spot where the man had disappeared, that the weeds were waving. All else on the entire hillside was standing deathly still.
The scent of skunk came stronger to my nostrils, drifting up the hill.
And there was something damned funny going on.
The weeds were waving wildly, as if there were something thrashing in them, but there was no sound. There was no sound at all.
I moved down the hill, with the rifle still at ready.
And suddenly there was something in my pocket, fighting to get out. As if a mouse or rat had sneaked into my pocket and now was trying to get free.
I made a wild grab at the pocket, but even as I did the thing came out of it. It was a tiny ball of black, like one of those small, soft rubber balls they give tiny kids to play with.
It popped out of my pocket and dodged my grasping fingers and fell into the grass, squirming madly through the grass, heading for that place where the weeds were waving.
I stood and watched it go and wondered what it was. And all at once I knew. It was the money. It was that part of the money I still had in my pocket—the money I had been given at the Belmont house.
Now it had changed back into what it had been before and was hurrying toward the place where that other thing, the one shaped like a man, had suddenly disappeared.
I gave a yell and ran toward the weeds, throwing aside all caution.
For there was something going on and I must find out what it was.
The scent of skunk was almost overpowering and, despite myself, I started veering off, and then I saw out of the corner of my eye what was going on.
I stopped and stared, not quite understanding.
There were bowling balls down there in the weeds, gamboling wildly and ecstatically and with complete abandon. They spun and rolled and leaped into the air.
And up out of that patch of weeds rose the nauseating eye-watering, spine-tingling smell left by a passing skunk that something had disturbed.
It was more than I could stand. I retreated, gagging.
Running for the car, I knew, in something less than triumph, that at last I’d found a chink in the bowling balls’ almost perfect armor.
XXXIV
They liked perfume, the Dog had said. Once they had seized the Earth, they would barter it for a consignment of perfumes. It was the thing they lived for; it was their one and only source of pleasure. It was the thing they valued beyond all else.
And here on Earth, on a weedy swale running down an autumn hillside, they’d found one that they liked. For there was no other way in which one could interpret their ecstatic gamboling. And one, apparently, that had a strong enough appeal to force them to give up whatever purpose they might have held in mind.
I got into the car and backed it out onto the road and drove back toward the main highway.
Apparently the bowling balls, I thought, had not found the other perfumes of Earth worth particular attention, but they’d gone crazy on the skunk. And while it made no sense to me, I suppose that, naturally, it must make some sort of sense to a bowling ball.
There must be a way, I told myself, that the human race could use the newfound knowledge to advantage, some way in which we could cash in on this matter of the bowling balls’ love affair with skunks.
I remembered back to the day before when Gavin had put Joy’s story about the skunk farm on page one. But the skunks in that particular instance had been different kinds of skunks.
I thought around in circles, and all the thinking came to nothing. And, I thought at last, how infuriating it would be if this one sign of the alien’s weakness could not serve some human purpose.
For it was, so far as I could see, the only chance we had. In every other department, they had us licked without a chance of recourse.
But if there were a way to use this thing we had, I couldn’t think of one. If there had been other people, if there had been more than myself alone, I might have thought of something. But, except for Joy, there wasn’t anyone.
I reached the outskirts of the city, and I’m afraid I wasn’t paying the attention that I should have to my driving. I hit a stoplight and sat there thinking and didn’t see the light change.
The first I knew of it was when a cab shot past me, with the irate driver leaning out.
“Knothead!” he yelled at me. There were some other things he said, probably worse than knothead, that I didn’t catch, and the other cars behind me began an angry honking.
I got out of there.
But now I knew, I thought. Now there was a way. Well, maybe not a way, but at least an idea.
I searched my memory all the way back to the motel and the memory finally came—the name of that other cabdriver, the one who had talked so enthusiastically about hunting coons.
I drove into the courtyard and parked before the unit and sat there for a while trying to get it figured out.
Then I got out of the car and walked to the restaurant. In the phone booth, I hunted up the name of Larry Higgins and dialed the number.
A woman’s voice answered and I asked for Larry. I waited while she went to call him.
“This is Higgins speaking.”
“Maybe you remember me,” I said, “and again you mightn’t. I’m the man you took to the Wellington Arms last night. You were telling me about hunting coons.”
“Mister, I tell everyone who’ll listen about hunting coons. It’s a passion with me, see.”
“But you didn’t just tell me. We talked about it. I told you I hunted ducks and pheasant and you asked me to go coon hunting sometime. You told me—”
“Hey, there,” he said, “I remember now, Sure, I remember you. I picked you up outside a bar. But I can’t go hunting tonight. I got to work tonight. You were lucky just to catch ‘ me in. I was about to leave.”
“But I don’t—”
“Some other night, though. Tomorrow will be Sunday. | How’s Sunday night? Or Tuesday. I’ll be off on Tuesday | night. It’s more fun, I tell you, mister—”
“But I didn’t call you about hunting.”
“You mean you don’t want to go? I tell you, once you’ve done it—”
“Sure, some night,” I told him. “Some night real soon. I’ll j call you and we’ll fix a time.”
“OK, then. Call me any time.”
He was ready to hang up and I had to hurry. “But there was this other thing. You were telling me about this old man who had a way with skunks.”
“Yeah, that old geezer is a caution. Honest, I tell you—”
“Could you tell me how to find him?”
“Find him?”
“Yes. How can I get to his place?”
“You want to see him, huh?”
“Sure, I’d like to see him. I’d like to talk with him.”
“What you want to talk about?”
“Well…”
“Look, it’s this way. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you. He’s a nice old guy. I wouldn’t want no one bothering him. He’s the kind of fellow other folks could poke a lot of fun at.”
“You told me,” I said, “that he was trying to write a book.”
“Yeah, I told you that.”
“And he’s getting no place with it. You told me that yourself. You said it was a shame, that he had a book to write but he’d never get it done. Well, I’m a writer and I got to thinking that maybe with a little help …”
“You mean that you would help him?”
>
“Not for free,” I said.
“He hasn’t nothing he could pay you.”
“He wouldn’t have to pay me anything. I could write the book for him, if he’s got a book. Then we could split the money we got out of the book.”
Higgins considered for a moment. “Well, that should be all right. He won’t never get a cent the way he’s going at that book. He sure could use some help.”
“OK, then, how do I find the place?”
“I could take you out some night.”
“I want to see him now if I can. I’ll be leaving town tomorrow.”
“All right, then. I guess it is all right. You got a pencil and some paper?”
I told him that I had.
“His name is Charley Munz, but people call him Windy. You go out Highway 12 and …”
I wrote down the directions as he gave them to me.
I thanked him when he had finished.
“Call me some other time,” be said, “and we’ll fix up some hunting.”
I told him that I would.
I found another dime and called the office. Joy still was there.
“Did you get the groceries, Parker?”
I told her that I had but that I had to leave again. “I’ll put the groceries inside,” I said. “Did you notice—was the refrigerator working?”
“I think so,” she said. Then she asked, “Where are you going, Parker? You sound worried. What is going on?”
“I’m going to see a man about some skunks.”
She thought I was kidding her about the story she had written and she got sore about it.
“Nothing of the sort,” I told her. “I mean it. There’s an old man by the name of Munz up the river valley. He’s probably the only man in the-world who makes pets of unadulterated skunks.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not,” I said. “A gabby cabdriver by the name of Larry Higgins told me all about it.”
“Parker,” she said, “you’re up to something. You went out to the Belmont house. Did something happen there?”
“Not much. They made me an offer and I said I’d think it over.”
“Doing what?”
“Their press agent. I guess you’d call it that.”
“Are you going to take it?”
“I don’t know,” 1 said.
“I’m scared,” she told me. “More scared than I Was last night. I tried to talk to Gavin about it and I tried to talk with Dow. But I couldn’t force myself to. What’s the sense of talking? No one would believe us.”
“Not a soul,” I said.
“I’m coming home. In just a little while. I don’t care what Gavin finds for me to do; I’m going to leave here. You won’t be gone for long, will you?”
“Not for long,” I promised. “I’ll put the groceries in the unit and you get dinner started.”
We said good-bye and I walked back to the car.
I lugged the groceries into the unit and put the milk and butter and some other stuff in the refrigerator. The rest I left sitting on the table. Then I dug out the rest of the money I had hidden and crammed my pockets with it.
And having done all that, I went to see the old man about his skunks.
XXXV
I parked down at the end of the farmer’s yard, the way Higgins had told me to do, off to one side of the gate that led down to the barns, so I wouldn’t block the way if someone wanted to come through. There didn’t seem to be anyone around, but a smiling, tail-waving, nondescript farm dog came out to bounce around in an unofficial welcome.
I patted him and talked to him a little and he went along with me when I went through the gate and walked through the barnyard. But at the wire gap which led into a field of clover, I told him to go back. I didn’t want to take him down to the old man’s shack and have him upset a bunch of friendly skunks.
He wanted to argue with me. He indicated that it would be nice the two of us going out into the field, adventuring together. But I insisted that he go back and I paddled his rump to emphasize my words and he finally went, looking back over his shoulder to see if I might possibly relent.
When he was gone, I went across the field, following the rutted wagon road which showed faintly through the stand of clover. Late-fall grasshoppers went scuttering out of the hay as I strode along, making angry whirring noises as they scudded up the field.
I reached the end of the field and went through another wire gap, still following the wagon traces through heavily timbered pasture. The sun was westering and the place was filled with shadows and down in the hollow some squirrels were holding carnival, scampering in the fallen leaves and shinnying up the trees.
The road plunged down the hillside and went across the hollow and up the other slope, perched below a great rock ledge that punched out of the hillside, I came upon the cabin and the man I sought.
The old man sat in a rocking chair, an old, rickety chair, that creaked and groaned as if it were about to fall apart. The chair rested on a little area that had been leveled off and paved with native limestone slabs that the old man probably had quarried and hauled up the hill from the dry stream bed that twisted down the valley. A dirty sheepskin pelt had been thrown over the back of the chair and the skinned-out forelegs swayed like tassels as he rocked.
“Good evening, stranger,” said the old man, unperturbed and calm, as if a stranger dropping in on him were an occurrence of every afternoon. I realized that I probably was no surprise to him, that he had watched me angle down the hillside along the wagon track and come across the valley. He could have watched me all the way and I had been unaware of him, since I did not know where to look to find him.
For now I realized for the first time how the shack blended into the hillside and the rock outcropping as if it were as much a part of this wooded pasture landscape as the trees and rocks. It was low and not too large and the logs of which it had been built had weathered until they were a neutral tone that had no color in them. A washstand stood beside the door. A tin • washbasin and a bucket of water, with the handle of a dipper protruding from it, stood upon the bench. Beyond the bench was a pile of firewood, and the blade of a double-bitted ax was stuck in a chopping block.
“You are Charley Munz?” I asked.
The old man said: “That is who I am. How’d you make out to find me?”
“Larry Higgins told me.”
He bobbed his head, “Higgins is a good man. If Larry Higgins told you, I guess you are all right.”
At one time he’d been a big man, but he’d been whittled down by age. His shirt hung loose upon a heavy pair of shoulders and his trousers were rumpled with the unfilled look characteristic of old men. He was bare-headed, but his iron-gray hair made it look as if he wore a cap, and he had a short and somewhat untidy beard. I could not make up my mind whether he meant it to be a beard or if he simply hadn’t shaved for weeks.
I told him who I was and said I was interested in skunks and knew about his book.
“It sounds,” he said, “as if you’d like to squat and talk awhile.”
“If it’s all right with you.”
He got out of the chair and headed for the shack. “Sit down,” he said. “If you’re going to stay awhile, sit down.”
I looked around, too obviously, I fear, for a place to sit. “In the chair,” he said. “I got it warm for you. I’ll pull up a block of wood. Do me a world of good. I been sitting comfortable all the afternoon.”
He ducked into the shack and I sat down in the chair. I felt a heel at doing it, but he’d have been offened, I suppose, if I hadn’t done it.
The chair was comfortable and I could look across the valley and it was beautiful. The ground was paved with fallen leaves that still had not lost their colors and there were a few trees that still stood in tattered dress. A squirrel ran along a fallen log and stopped at the end of it, to sit there, looking at me. He jerked his tail a few times, but he wasn’t scared.
It was beautiful and ca
lm and peaceful with a quietness that I had not known for years. I could understand how the old man could have sat there comfortable through the golden afternoon. There was a lot to rest one’s eyes on. I felt the peace descend upon me and the calmness running through me and I wasn’t even startled when the skunk came waddling around the corner of the shack.
The skunk stopped and stared at me, with one dainty forepaw lifted, but a moment later proceeded up the yard, walking very slowly and sedately. It wasn’t, I suppose, a particularly big one, but it looked big to me, and I was careful to keep on sitting quietly; I didn’t move a muscle.
The old man came out of the shack. He had a bottle in his hand.
He saw the skunk and cackled into delighted laughter. “Gave you a scare, I bet!”
“Just for a moment,” I told him. “But I sat still and it didn’t seem to mind.”
“This here is Phoebe,” he said. “A confounded nuisance. No matter where you go, she’s always underfoot.”
He kicked a block over from the woodpile and upended it. He sat down on it ponderously and uncorked the bottle, then handed it to me.
“Talking gets one thirsty,” he declared, “and I ain’t had no one to drink with in a month of Sundays. I take it, Mr. Graves, that you’re a drinking man.”
I’m afraid I almost lapped my chops. I hadn’t had a drink all day and I had been so busy I hadn’t even thought of it, but now I knew I needed one.
“I’ve been known to drink, Mr. Munz,” I said. “I will not turn it down.”
I tilted up the bottle and took a modest slug. It wasn’t top-notch whiskey, but it tasted good. I wiped the bottle’s neck on my sleeve and passed it over to him. He had a moderate drink and passed it back to me.
Phoebe, the skunk, came over to him and stood up and put her forepaws on his knees. He reached down a hand and boosted her up into bis lap. She settled down in it.
I watched, fascinated, and so far forgot myself as to take a couple of drinks, one atop the other, getting one up on my host.