Out of Their Minds (15 page)

“I could sit here all day,” said Kathy, “and keep on looking at the castle, but I suppose that we should start if we ever are to get there. I don't think I can walk; do you mind a lot?”

“There was a time in Korea,” I told her, “during a retreat, when my cameraman got it in the thigh and I had to carry him. We had stayed behind a bit too long and …”

She laughed at me happily. “He was much bigger,” I told her, “and much less lovable and most dirty and profane. He showed no gratitude.”

“I promise you my gratitude,” she said. “It is so wonderful.”

“Wonderful?” I asked, “with a busted ankle and in a place like this …”

“But the castle!” she cried. “I never thought I'd see a castle like that—the kind of castle I used to dream about.”

“There is one thing,” I said. “I'll say it once and I'll not mention it again. I am sorry, Kathy.”

“Sorry? Because I got a busted ankle?”

“No, not that,” I said. “Sorry that you're here at all. I shouldn't have let you mix into this. I never should have let you get the envelope. I never should have phoned you from that little place—from Woodman.”

She crinkled up her face. “But there was nothing else that you could do. By the time you phoned, I had read the paper and I was involved. That was why you called.”

“They might not have touched you, but once we were in the car, heading east for Washington …”

“Horton, pick me up,” she said, “and let's be on our way. If we're late getting to the castle, they may not let us in.”

“All right,” I said. “The castle.”

I got up and stooped to lift her, but as I did the brush rattled to one side of the path and a bear stepped out. He was walking upright and wore a pair of red shorts with white polka dots on them, held up by a single suspender looped across a shoulder. He carried a club across the other shoulder and he grinned most engagingly at us.

Kathy shrank back against me, but she didn't scream, although she had every right to, for this bear, despite his grin, had a look of disrepute about him.

Out of the brush behind him stepped a wolf, who carried no club and also tried to smile at us, but his smile was less engaging and somehow sinister. After the wolf came a fox and all three of them stood there in a row, grinning at us in right good fellowship.

“Mr. Bear,” I said, “and Mr. Wolf and Br'er Fox. How are you today?”

I tried to keep my voice light and even, but I doubt that I succeeded, for I didn't like these three. I wished most earnestly I'd brought along the ball bat.

Mr. Bear made a little bow. “We are gratified,” he said, “that you recognize us. And it is most fortunate we meet. I take it that the two of you are new to these environs.”

“We have just arrived,” said Kathy.

“Well, then,” said Mr. Bear, “it is good we are well met. For we have been searching for a partner in a goodly undertaking.”

“There is a chicken roost,” said Br'er Fox, “that needs some looking into.”

“I am sorry,” I told them. “Maybe later on. Miss Adams has sprained her ankle and I must get her somewhere for medical attention.”

“Now that is too bad,” said Mr. Bear, trying to look sympathetic. “A sprained ankle, I would think might be a painful burden for anyone to carry. And especially for milady, who is so beautiful.”

“But there is this chicken roost,” said Br'er Fox, “and with evening comin' on …”

Mr. Bear rumbled throatily at him. “Br'er Fox, you have no soul. You have nothing but a stomach that is forever empty. The chicken roost, you see,” he said to me, “is an adjunct to the castle and it is well guarded by a pack of hounds and various other carnivores and there is no hope for such as the three of us to gain entry to it. Which is a crying shame, for those hens have grown overfat and would make toothsome eating. We had thought, perhaps, that if we could enlist a human we might sit down and work out a plan that had some promise of success. We have approached certain of them, but they are cowardly creatures, not to be depended on. Harold Teen and Dagwood and a great many others of them and they all are hopeless. We have a luxurious den not very far from here where we could sit down and evolve a plan. There would be a comfortable pallet for milady and one of us could go and fetch Old Meg with potions for the injured ankle.”

“No, thank you,” Kathy said. “We are going to the castle.”

“You may be too late,” said Br'er Fox. “They are over-meticulous with the closing of the gate.”

“We must hurry, then,” said Kathy.

I stooped to pick her up, but Mr. Bear reached out a paw and stopped me. “Surely,” he said, “you are not about to dismiss with so little thought this matter of the chickens. You like chickens, do you not?”

“Of course he likes them,” said the wolf, who had not spoken until now. “Man is as confirmed a carnivore as any of us.”

“But finicky,” said Br'er Fox.

“Finicky,” said Mr. Bear, aghast. “Those are the plumpest hens these old eyes have ever seen. They'd be finger-licking good and surely there could be no one who would want to pass them by.”

“Some other time,” I told them, “I'd view your proposition with overwhelming interest, but as of the moment we must be getting on.”

“Some other time, perhaps,” Mr. Bear said, bleakly.

“Yes, some other time,” I said. “Please look me up again.”

“When you are hungrier,” Mr. Wolf suggested.

“That might make a difference,” I admitted.

I lifted Kathy and held her cradled in my arms. For a moment I wasn't sure they would let us go, but they stepped aside and I went down the path.

Kathy shivered. “What terrible creatures,” she said. “Standing there and grinning at us. Thinking we would join in their chicken thievery.”

I wanted to look back, to be sure they are still there and not stalking along behind us. But I didn't dare to look, for it would have made them think I was afraid of them. I was afraid of them, but that made it all the more important that I not show it.

Kathy put her arms around my neck and hung on with her head against my shoulder. It was much more satisfactory, I told myself, carrying her than that benighted, foulmouthed cameraman. And, besides, she didn't weigh as much.

By now the path had led off the fairly open ridgetop into deep and stately woods and only on occasion could I see the castle through some accidental woodland vista and then only portions of it. The sun was falling close to the western horizon and the depths of the woods were filled with smoky twilight and in their shaded recesses I became aware of many furtive stirrings.

The path forked and became two and there was another signpost, with two pointing arrows this time, one pointing to the castle, the other to the inn. But just a few yards down the path leading to the castle a massive iron gate barred any further progress, and stretching out on either side of it was a high fence of heavy steel mesh, with barbed wire on top of it. A gaily striped kiosk stood to one side of the gate and a man-at-arms leaned against it with a halberd held very sloppily. I walked up to the gate and had to kick it to attract his attention.

“Ye be late,” he growled. “The gate is closed at sunset and the dragons are let loose. It would be worth your life to go a furlong down that road.”

He came to the gate and peered closer at us.

“You have a damsel with you. Is she in distress?”

“Her ankle's hurt,” I said. “She cannot walk.”

He sniggered. “If such be the case,” he said, “it might be arranged to provide escort for the damsel.”

“For both of us,” said Kathy, sharply.

He wagged his head in mock sadness. “I stretch the point to let one past. I cannot stretch for both.”

“Someday,” I said, “it will not be a point but your neck that will be stretched.”

“Begone!” he shouted, angrily. “Begone and take your slut along. At the inn, the witch will mutter spells to mend the ankle.”

“Let's get out of here,” said Kathy, frightened.

“My friend,” I said to the man-at-arms, “I shall make a point, when I am less encumbered, of coming back and raising lumps on you.”

“Please,” said Kathy. “Please, let's get out of here!”

I turned around and left. Behind us, the man-at-arms roared threats and banged the gate bars with his halberd. I turned down the path that led to the inn and once out of sight of the castle gate stopped and let Kathy to the ground, crouching down beside her.

She was crying, more with anger, it seemed to me, than with fear.

“No one,” she said, “has ever called me a slut.”

I did not point out to her that manners and language of that sort sometimes went with castles.

She raised her arm and pulled my head down close beside her face. “If it hadn't been for me,” she said, “you could have clobbered him.”

“That was all talk,” I told her. “There was a gate between us and he had that fancy stabber.”

“He said there was a witch down at the inn,” she said.

I turned my head and kissed her gently on the cheek.

“Are you trying to take my mind off witches?”

“I thought it might help,” I said.

“And there was that fence,” she said. “A wire fence. Who ever heard of a fence around a castle? Back in those days they hadn't even invented wire.”

“It's getting dark,” I said. “We'd better head for the inn.”

“But the witch!”

I laughed, not that I really felt like laughing. “Mostly,” I told her, “witches are just old eccentric women no one understands.”

“Maybe you are right,” she said.

I lifted her and got on my feet.

She held up her face and I kissed her upon the mouth. Her arms tightened about me and I held her body close, feeling the warmth and the sweetness of her. For a long moment there was nothing in the empty universe but the two of us and it was only slowly that I came back to a realization of the darkening woods and of the furtive stirrings in it.

A short way down the path I saw a faint rectangle of light that I knew must be the inn.

“We're almost there,” I told her.

“I won't be any bother, Horton,” she promised. “I'll not do any screaming. No matter what there is, I'll never scream.”

“I'm sure you won't,” I said. “And we'll get out of here. I don't know exactly how, but somehow we'll make it out of here, the two of us together.”

Seen dimly in the deepening dark, the inn was an old ramshackle building, huddled beneath a grove of towering, twisted oaks. Smoke plumed from the chimney in the center of the roofline and the feeble window-light shone through diamond panes of glass. The inn yard was deserted and there seemed no one about. Which was just as well, I told myself.

I'd almost gotten to the doorway when a bent, misshapen figure moved into it, a black, featureless body outlined by the dim light from inside.

“Come on in, laddie,” shrilled the bent-over creature. “Don't stand gawping there. There is naught to harm you. Nor milady, either.”

“Milady has sprained her ankle,” I said. “We had hoped …”

“Of course,” the creature cried. “You've come to the most likely place to have a job of healing. Old Meg will stir up a posset for it.”

I could see her somewhat more clearly now and there could be no doubt that she was the witch of which the man-at-arms had told us. Her hair hung in wispy, ragged strands about her face and her nose was long and hooked, reaching for an upcurved chin and almost reaching it. She leaned heavily upon a wooden staff.

She stepped back and I moved through the door. A fire that blazed smokily upon the hearth did little to relieve the darkness of the room. The smell of wood smoke mingled with and sharpened the other undefinable odors that lay like a fog upon the place.

“Over there,” said Meg, the witch, pointing with her staff. “The chair over by the fire. It is of good construction, made of honest oak and shaped to fit the body, with a wood sack for a seat. Milady will be comfortable.”

I carried Kathy over to the chair and lowered her into it.

“All right?” I asked.

She looked up at me and her eyes were shining softly in the firelight.

“All right,” she said, and her words were happy.

“We're halfway home,” I told her.

The witch went hobbling past us, thumping her staff upon the floor and muttering to herself. She crouched beside the fire and began stirring a pan of steaming liquid set upon the coals. The firelight, flaring up, showed the ugliness of her, the incredible nose and chin, the enormous wart upon one cheek, sprouting hairs that looked like spider legs.

Now that my eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness, I began to make out some of the details of the room. Three rough plank tables stood along the front wall and unlighted candles, set in candlesticks upon the tables, leaned askew like pale and drunken ghosts. A large hutch cabinet at one end of the room held mugs and bottles that glinted faintly in the stuttering firelight flickering in the room.

“Now,” said the witch, “just a bit of powdered toad and a pinch of graveyard dust and the posset will be finished. And once we fix the damsel's ankle, then there will be food. Aye, yes, there will be food.”

She cackled shrilly at a joke I could only guess at—something about the food, perhaps.

From some distance off came the sound of voices. Other travelers, I wondered, heading for the inn? A company of them, perhaps.

The voices grew louder and I stepped to the door to look in the direction from which they came. Coming up the track, climbing the hill, were a number of people and some of them were carrying flaring torches.

Behind the crowd came two men riding horses, but as I watched the procession, I saw after a little time that the one who rode behind the other rode a donkey, not a horse, with his feet almost dragging on the ground. But it was the man who rode in front who attracted my attention and very well he might. He loomed tall and gaunt and was dressed in armor, with a shield upon one arm and a long lance carried on one shoulder. The horse was as gaunt as he was and it walked with a stumbling gait and with its head held low. As the procession approached closer I saw, in the light cast by the torches, that the horse was little better than a bag of bones.