“I’m clean out of policies. You would just accuse me of trying to be logical. Got any ideas about how to find anybody?”
“Maybe. Somebody has been hunting upstream from here.”
“So? Know who it is?”
“I’ve seen him only at a distance. Nobody from my class. Half a head shorter than you are, light hair, pink skin—and a bad sunburn. Sound familiar?”
“Could be anybody,” Rod answered, thinking fretfully that the description did sound familiar. “Shall we see if we can pick up some sign of him?”
“I can put him in your lap. But I’m not sure we want him.”
“Why not? If he’s lasted this long, he must be competent.”
“Frankly, I don’t see how he has. He’s noisy when he moves and he has been living in one tree for the past week.”
“Not necessarily bad technique.”
“It is when you drop your bones and leavings out of the tree. It was jackals sniffing around that tipped me off to where he was living.”
“Hmm…well, if we don’t like him, we don’t have to invite him.”
“True.”
Before they set out Jack dug around in the gloomy cave and produced a climbing line. “Rod, could this be yours?”
Rod looked it over. “It’s just like the one I had. Why?”
“I got it the way I got Colonel Bowie, off the casualty. If it is not yours, at least it is a replacement.” Jack got another, wrapped it around and over body armor. Rod suspected that Jack had slept in the armor, but he said nothing. If Jack considered such marginal protection more important than agility, that was Jack’s business—each to his own methods, as the Deacon would say.
The tree stood in a semi-clearing but Jack brought Rod to it through bushes which came close to the trunk and made the final approach as a belly sneak. Jack pulled Rod’s head over and whispered in his ear, “If we lie still for three or four hours, I’m betting that he will either come down or go up.”
“Okay. You watch our rear.”
For an hour nothing happened. Rod tried to ignore tiny flies that seemed to be all bite. Silently he shifted position to ward off stiffness and once had to kill a sneeze. At last he said, “Pssst!”
“Yeah, Rod?”
“Where those two big branches meet the trunk, could that be his nest?”
“Maybe.”
“You see a hand sticking out?”
“Where? Uh, I think I see what you see. It might just be leaves.”
“I think it’s a hand and I think he is dead; it hasn’t moved since we got here.”
“Asleep?”
“Person asleep ordinarily doesn’t hold still that long. I’m going up. Cover me. If that hand moves, yell.”
“You ought not to risk it, Rod.”
“You keep your eyes peeled.” He crept forward.
The owner of the hand was Jimmy Throxton, as Rod had suspected since hearing the description. Jimmy was not dead, but he was unconscious and Rod could not rouse him.
Jim lay in an aerie half natural, half artificial; Rod could see that Jim had cut small branches and improved the triple crotch formed by two limbs and trunk. He lay cradled in this eagle’s nest, one hand trailing out.
Getting him down was awkward; he weighed as much as Rod did. Rod put a sling under Jim’s armpits and took a turn around a branch, checking the line by friction to lower him—but the hard part was getting Jim out of his musty bed without dropping him.
Halfway down the burden fouled and Jack had to climb and free it. But with much sweat all three reached the ground and Jim was still breathing.
Rod had to carry him. Jack offered to take turns but the disparity in sizes was obvious; Rod said angrily for Jack to cover them, front, rear, all sides; Rod would be helpless if they had the luck to be surprised by one of the pseudo-lions.
The worst part was the climbing traverse over loose shale up to the cave. Rod was fagged from carrying the limp and heavy load more than a kilometer over rough ground; he had to rest before he could tackle it. When he did, Jack said anxiously, “Don’t drop him in the drink! It won’t be worthwhile fishing him out—I know.”
“So do I. Don’t give silly advice.”
“Sorry.”
Rod started up, as much worried for his own hide as for Jim’s. He did not know what it was that lived in that stream; he did know that it was hungry. There was a bad time when he reached the spot where the jutting limestone made it necessary to stoop to reach the shelf. He got down as low as possible, attempted it, felt the burden on his back catch on the rock, started to slip.
Jack’s hand steadied him and shoved him from behind. Then they were sprawled safe on the shelf and Rod gasped and tried to stop the trembling of his abused muscles.
They bedded Jimmy down and Jack took his pulse. “Fast and thready. I don’t think he’s going to make it.”
“What medicines do you have?”
“Two of the neosulfas and verdomycin. But I don’t know what to give him.”
“Give him all three and pray.”
“He might be allergic to one of them.”
“He’ll be more allergic to dying. I’ll bet he’s running six degrees of fever. Come on.”
Rod supported Jim’s shoulders, pinched his ear lobe, brought him partly out of coma. Between them they managed to get the capsules into Jim’s mouth, got him to drink and wash them down. After that there was nothing they could do but let him rest.
They took turns watching him through the night. About dawn his fever broke, he roused and asked for water. Rod held him while Jack handled the waterskin. Jim drank deeply, then went back to sleep.
They never left him alone. Jack did the nursing and Rod hunted each day, trying to find items young and tender and suited to an invalid’s palate. By the second day Jim, although weak and helpless, was able to talk without drifting off to sleep in the middle. Rod returned in the afternoon with the carcass of a small animal which seemed to be a clumsy cross between a cat and a rabbit. He encountered Jack heading down to fill the water skin. “Hi.”
“Hi. I see you had luck. Say, Rod, go easy when you skin it. We need a new water bag. Is it cut much?”
“Not at all. I knocked it over with a rock.”
“Good!”
“How’s the patient?”
“Healthier by the minute. I’ll be up shortly.”
“Want me to cover you while you fill the skin?”
“I’ll be careful. Go up to Jim.”
Rod went up, laid his kill on the shelf, crawled inside. “Feeling better?”
“Swell. I’ll wrestle you two falls out of three.”
“Next week. Jack taking good care of you?”
“You bet. Say, Rod, I don’t know how to thank you two. If it hadn’t been for—”
“Then don’t try. You don’t owe me anything, ever. And Jack’s my partner, so it’s right with Jack.”
“Jack is swell.”
“Jack is a good boy. They don’t come better. He and I really hit it off.”
Jim looked surprised, opened his mouth, closed it suddenly. “What’s the matter?” Rod asked. “Something bite you? Or are you feeling bad again?”
“What,” Jim said slowly, “did you say about Jack?”
“Huh? I said they don’t come any better. He and I team up like bacon and eggs. A number-one kid, that boy.”
Jimmy Throxton looked at him. “Rod…were you born that stupid? Or did you have to study?”
“Huh?”
“Jack is a girl.”
7
“I Should Have Baked a Cake”
THERE FOLLOWED A LONG SILENCE. “Well,” said Jim, “close your mouth before something flies in.”
“Jimmy, you’re still out of your head.”
“I may be out of my head, but not so I can’t tell a girl from a boy. When that day comes, I won’t be sick; I’ll be dead.”
“But…”
Jim shrugged. “Ask her.”
A shad
ow fell across the opening; Rod turned and saw Jack scrambling up to the shelf. “Fresh water, Jimmy!”
“Thanks, kid.” Jim added to Rod, “Go on, dopy!”
Jack looked from one to the other. “Why the tableau? What are you staring for, Rod?”
“Jack,” he said slowly, “what is your name?”
“Huh? Jack Daudet. I told you that.”
“No, no! What’s your full name, your legal name?”
Jack looked from Rod to Jimmy’s grinning face and back again. “My full name is… Jacqueline Marie Daudet—if it’s any business of yours. Want to make something of it?”
Rod took a deep breath. “Jacqueline,” he said carefully, “I didn’t know. I—”
“You weren’t supposed to.”
“I—Look, if I’ve said anything to offend you, I surely didn’t mean to.”
“You haven’t said anything to offend me, you big stupid dear. Except about your knife.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“You mean about girls being poison? Well, did it ever occur to you that maybe boys are pure poison, too? Under these circumstances? No, of course it didn’t. But I don’t mind your knowing now…now that there are three of us.”
“But, Jacqueline—”
“Call me ‘Jack,’ please.” She twisted her shoulders uncomfortably. “Now that you know, I won’t have to wear this beetle case any longer. Turn your backs, both of you.”
“Uh…” Rod turned his back. Jimmy rolled over, eyes to the wall.
In a few moments Jacqueline said, “Okay.” Rod turned around. In shirt and trousers, without torso armor, her shoulders seemed narrower and she herself was slender now and pleasantly curved. She was scratching her ribs. “I haven’t been able to scratch properly since I met you, Rod Walker,” she said accusingly. “Sometimes I almost died.”
“I didn’t make you wear it.”
“Suppose I hadn’t? Would you have teamed with me?”
“Uh…well, it’s like this. I…” He stopped.
“You see?” She suddenly looked worried. “We’re still partners?”
“Huh? Oh, sure, sure!”
“Then shake on it again. This time we shake with Jimmy, too. Right, Jim?”
“You bet, Jack.”
They made a three-cornered handshake. Jack pressed her left hand over the combined fists and said solemnly, “All for one!”
Rod drew Colonel Bowie with his left hand, laid the flat of the blade on the stacked hands. “And one for all!”
“Plus sales tax,” Jimmy added. “Do we get it notarized?”
Jacqueline’s eyes were swimming with tears. “Jimmy Throxton,” she said fiercely, “someday I am going to make you take life seriously!”
“I take life seriously,” he objected. “I just don’t want life to take me seriously. When you’re on borrowed time, you can’t afford not to laugh.”
“We’re all on borrowed time,” Rod answered him. “Shut up, Jimmy. You talk too much.”
“Look who’s preaching! The Decibel Kid himself.”
“Well…you ought not to make fun of Jacqueline. She’s done a lot for you.”
“She has indeed!”
“Then—”
“‘Then’ nothing!” Jacqueline said sharply. “My name is ‘Jack.’ Rod. Forget ‘Jacqueline.’ If either of you starts treating me with gallantry we’ll have all those troubles you warned me about. ‘Pure poison’ was the expression you used, as I recall.”
“But you can reasonably expect—”
“Are you going to be ‘logical’ again? Let’s be practical instead. Help me skin this beast and make a new water bag.”
The following day Jimmy took over housekeeping and Jack and Rod started hunting together. Jim wanted to come along; he ran into a double veto. There was little advantage in hunting as a threesome whereas Jack and Rod paired off so well that a hunt was never hours of waiting, but merely a matter of finding game. Jack would drive and Rod would kill; they would pick their quarry from the fringe of a herd, Jack would sneak around and panic the animals, usually driving one into Rod’s arms.
They still hunted with the knife, even though Jack’s gun was a good choice for primitive survival, being an air gun that threw poisoned darts. Since the darts could be recovered and re-envenomed, it was a gun which would last almost indefinitely; she had chosen it for this reason over cartridge or energy guns.
Rod had admired it but decided against hunting with it. “The air pressure might bleed off and let you down.”
“It never has. And you can pump it up again awfully fast.”
“Mmm…yes. But if we use it, someday the last dart will be lost no matter how careful we are…and that might be the day we would need it bad. We may be here a long time, what do you say we save it?”
“You’re the boss, Rod.”
“No, I’m not. We all have equal say.”
“Yes, you are. Jimmy and I agreed on that. Somebody has to boss.”
Hunting took an hour or so every second day; they spent most of daylight hours searching for another team mate, quartering the area and doing it systematically. Once they drove scavengers from a kill which seemed to have been butchered by knife; they followed a spoor from that and determined that it was a human spoor, but were forced by darkness to return to the cave. They tried to pick it up the next day, but it had rained hard in the night; they never found it.
Another time they found ashes of a fire, but Rod judged them to be at least two weeks old.
After a week of fruitless searching they returned one late afternoon. Jimmy looked up from the fire he had started. “How goes the census?”
“Don’t ask,” Rod answered, throwing himself down wearily. “What’s for dinner?”
“Raw buck, roast buck, and burned buck. I tried baking some of it in wet clay. It didn’t work out too well, but I’ve got some awfully good baked clay for dessert.”
“Thanks. If that is the word.”
“Jim,” Jack said, “we ought to try to bake pots with that clay.”
“I did. Big crack in my first effort. But I’ll get the hang of it. Look, children,” he went on, “has it ever occurred to your bright little minds that you might be going about this the wrong way?”
“What’s wrong with it?” Rod demanded.
“Nothing…if it is exercise you are after. You are and scurrying over the countryside, getting in and nowhere else. Maybe it would be better to sit back and let them come to you.”
“How?”
“Send up a smoke signal.”
“We’ve discussed that We don’t want just anybody and we don’t want to advertise where we live. We want people who will strengthen the team.”
“That is what the engineers call a self-defeating criterion. The superior woodsman you want is just the laddy you will never find by hunting for him. He may find you, as you go tramping noisily through the brush, kicking rocks and stepping on twigs and scaring the birds. He may shadow you to see what you are up to. But you won’t find him.”
“Rod, there is something to that,” Jack said.
“We found you easily enough,” Rod said to Jim. “Maybe you aren’t the high type we need.”
“I wasn’t myself at the time,” Jimmy answered blandly. “Wait till I get my strength back and my true nature will show. Ugh-Ugh, the ape man, that’s me. Half Neanderthal and half sleek black leopard.” He beat his chest and coughed.
“Are those the proportions? The Neanderthal strain seems dominant.”
“Don’t be disrespectful. Remember, you are my debtor.”
“I think you read the backs of those cards. They are getting to be like waffles.” When rescued, Jimmy had had on him a pack of playing cards, and had later explained that they were survival equipment.
“In the first place,” he had said, “if I got lost I could sit down and play solitaire. Pretty soon somebody would come along and—”
“Tell you to play the black ten on the red jack. We’ve hear
d that one.”
“Quiet, Rod. In the second place, Jack, I expected to team with old Stoneface here. I can always beat him at cribbage but he doesn’t believe it. I figured that during the test I could win all his next year’s allowance. Survival tactics.”
Whatever his reasoning, Jimmy had had the cards. The three played a family game each evening at a million plutons a point. Jacqueline stayed more or less even but Rod owed Jimmy several hundred millions. They continued the discussion that evening over their game. Rod was still wary of advertising their hide-out.
“We might burn a smoke signal somewhere, though,” he said thoughtfully. “Then keep watch from a safe spot. Cut ’em, Jim.”
“Consider the relative risks—a five, just what I needed! If you put the fire far enough away to keep this place secret, then it means a trek back and forth at least twice a day. With all that running around you’ll use up your luck; one day you won’t come back. It’s not that I’m fond you, but it would bust up the game.”
“Whose crib?”
“Jack’s. But if we burn it close by and in sight, then we sit up here safe and snug. I’ll have my back to the wall facing the path, with Jack’s phht gun in my lap. If an unfriendly face sticks up—blooie! Long pig for dinner. But if we like them, we cut them into the game.”
“Your count.”
“Fifteen-six, fifteen-twelve, a pair, six for jacks and the right jack. That’s going to cost you another million, my friend.”
“One of those jacks is a queen,” Rod said darkly.
“Sure enough? You know, it’s getting too dark to play. Want to concede?”
They adopted Jim’s scheme. It gave more time for cribbage and ran Rod’s debt up into billions. The signal fire was kept burning on the shelf at the downstream end, the prevailing wind being such that smoke usually did not blow back into the cave—when the wind did shift was unbearable; they were forced to flee, eyes streaming.
This happened three times in four days. Their advertising had roused no customers and they were all getting tired of dragging up dead wood for fuel and green branches for smoke. The third time they fled from smoke Jimmy said, “Rod, I give up. You win. This is not the way to do it.”
“No!”
“Huh? Have a heart, chum. I can’t live on smoke—no vitamins. Let’s run up a flag instead. I’ll contribute my shirt.”