The Beyonders (9 page)

"Well, think of it now," Struve invited him. "Think of a lot of things. You say you don't want money, but money can buy whatever you might dream of. Or is it something else you might want? Women, perhaps? Beautiful women?"

"I never had no trouble wanting women," said Gander Eye, studying Struve intently as though choosing a place to hit him. "I've had a good plenty of them, one time another. But I ain't a-going to talk to you about that."

"Which does you great credit," said Struve. "But meanwhile, you're a musician. A true artist, or so I've been informed. How would you like to be a world-famous musician? Be called to the White House to play for the President? Go abroad and play before kings and queens, such of them as are still left?"

Gander Eye said nothing to that. He only kept looking at Struve.

"Ah," said Struve, in deep satisfaction, "I begin to think that perhaps I've mentioned a possibility that interests you."

At last Gander Eye relaxed and began to lounge where he stood. "The main thing I don't know is what you want from me."

"Just your friendship. Your helpful cooperation."

"Cooperation about what?" Gander Eye hooked his thumbs in his belt. "Smart as you let on to be, with all them things to give away, what way could I help you? Why should you give a damn shuck if I pick banjo or not, or if I'd have air' sort of luck a-picking before them kings and queens?"

"That's not fair to either of us, Mr. Gentry. Not kindness to me, nor justice to yourself. My interest happens to be in the future of Sky Notch, to help Sky Notch grow and be known. And if Sky Notch is to grow and be great, it will have to have wiser and better men to run it." Struve smiled at Gander Eye. "Men like you."

"When it comes to that," said Gander Eye, "what kind of business are you in, a-wanting to help Sky Notch?"

Struve shrugged massively. "You'll find that out when I take you into the business with me."

"My mother never raised me to go into no business without I knew what the business was," said Gander Eye.

"Your mother was a wise woman, then." Struve smiled. "You can call me a sort of advance agent for a diligent firm that might have the Beyonders for a name. Beyonders, Incorporated."

"Beyond what?" inquired Gander Eye.

"Just now, beyond the notice of folks who wouldn't understand the true nature of their activity. You seem to be thinking deeply, Mr. Gentry. What about?"

Gander Eye crinkled his brow. "I was recollecting a tale I heard back yonder when I was a boy. It was a dog met a wolf in the woods, and he said why didn't the wolf come and live with people. Said, you ate good like that and didn't have to be a-hunting for your food, you slept all warm in next to the fire, all like that. So the wolf inquired him, 'How come you're a-wearing that collar?' And the dog replied him, 'Oh, that's just got my master's name on it, tells who I belong to.' And the wolf said, 'Well, I do thank you, but I'll just keep on in these here woods where I ain't got no master with his name on me."

Struve puffed on his cigar. "I remember that fable, too. I believe it was written by La Fontaine. But there's a consideration to go along with it. Anywhere you may go, Mr. Gentry, you always see dogs. Prosperous, well fed-dogs, helping their masters hunt or guarding their masters' front doors, or just lying happily on the porch or in the yard. But I think you'd have to go a long way to see a wolf."

"Yes," agreed Gander Eye. "Wolves are a right much scarced out."

"In fact, you'd have to go into a town where there's a zoo. Where there may be a wolf, in there behind the bars. So much for the wolf's gospel of freedom and no collar."

Gander Eye had fallen silent. He saw a stir in the hemlock thicket behind the rock on which Struve leaned. The growth was a dense one, and he could not make out what stirred in its depths, only that it was there.

"Do you think you see something, Mr. Gentry? Something to scare you?"

The stir was some sort of shape. Gander Eye made out a dark, dark substance in there among the tussocks of green needles. He had seen a surface like that before, but not so close by daylight. The shape swayed there. It was the size of a man but not the form of a man, not quite. Now it stood still, and another shape stirred at its side. So there were two of them. Maybe more than two.

"You're scared, aren't you, Mr. Gentry?"

Gander tightened his fingers on his belt. "No, sir," he said. "I'm just as sorry as can be, but I ain't scared a hoot."

Even as he spoke, he knew that he spoke the truth.

Struve drew a deep sigh, as though disappointed. "I'm obliged to say that I believe you. But you're going to be scared eventually, and you'll be sorry about that, too."

"You can kill me," said Gander Eye, "but you can't scare me."

In yonder among the hemlocks, the dark shapes stirred. Gander Eye thought they made a sound, a sort of soft, hissing sound, not unlike a snake.

"There are several excellent reasons why you won't be killed," said Struve, blowing smoke. "However, I predict that you'll be scared one of these days. That's a healthy little experience, Mr. Gentry. It's supposed to increase the secretions of the thyroid and pituitary glands, and those help the brain. If you get scared, maybe you'll get sensible. Does that figure?"

"Never you mind if it figures," said Gander Eye coldly. "Let me just tell you one thing. If you scare me, kill me trying to do it. I don't figure to live being scared."

"Request noted," said Struve. He tapped ashes. "I hope to see you again, talk to you again. Just now, have a happy day."

He turned his broad back and walked in among the hemlocks where those things, whatever they might be, waited.

Gander Eye watched him go. He saw the branches of the hemlocks stir behind Struve's going, watched them fall quiet again. He stood for long enough to draw half a dozen breaths, then he headed quickly up the trail toward the road once more. Once he glanced back into the hollow at the pool and the cavern far below. Nothing moved there, except a blink of the blue light.

He was glad that nobody stirred on the road, Kimbers or anything else. He strode away down toward Sky Notch, that familiar place where he had always felt confident and able to deal with anything. He could still deal with some things. He might even deal with Struve down there, if not up here. How had Struve learned so much about Gander Eye Gentry? Who had told him?

Trudging along the stony, rutted way, thinking and wondering, he saw that he came near that masked ambush of rocks poised ready to slam down into the road. On the journey up, he had gone clear down to the creek to miss that point. Now, he assured himself, he must not. He had told Struve that he couldn't be scared. He had better show that that was the truth, if Struve were up there watching, even if Struve had his hand on one of those locust poles to trigger the rain of rocks down, down upon Gander Eye Gentry.

He made himself walk more slowly. He glanced sidelong at one of the troughlike paths for the rocks to come down, walked past it, counting his steps as he came to the lower channel. He passed that one, too. But the avalanche could catch him if it were set off, could strike him on the sloping road and smash him into bloody shreds.

For more than a mile he walked, in a tense expectancy that was not fulfilled.

Back in Sky Notch, back at his house, he went into the kitchen, brought out a jar of blockade, and poured himself a drink. He swallowed it at a single gulp and lighted a cigarette.

All right, he had lots to wonder about and lots of answers to find. He'd better do some heavy thinking. Maybe he'd go and talk to Jim Crispin, tell him to get out his canvas and his paints and start work on that picture of the baptizing. If you posed for someone to paint you, it was bound to be true that you just stood still and said nothing. You could think all that time, you could even decide what to do about whatever needed deciding.

IX

Next morning came with slaty clouds and repeated gusts of rain. Crispin had invited Doc to eat breakfast with him, and Doc enjoyed it immensely.

"I've eaten eggs morning after another, during a longish life, but these are about the best I've ever tasted," said Doc laying down his fork. "What's your secret formula, Jim?"

"Oh, nothing exactly secret," smiled Crispin, refilling both their coffee cups. "The most important thing I did, I think, was separate the yolks and whites and beat them both. Then I stirred grated cheese and shredded green pepper into the yolks, and finally I put the whites back in."

"Give your recipe to Slowly," requested Doc. "Or, better still, come over and show her how to do it. As a former research scientist, I'll watch with considerable interest."

"Research scientist," Crispin said after him, and spread jam on a fragment of toast. "You were a research scientist, you say. You must have known some distinguished men in various fields of research."

"Several," nodded Doc. "I remember having a quarrel with one. He was dead against any effort to reach the moon. Said it would never succeed, which of course it did. He felt that the money should be spent in cancer research."

"And you disagreed with him?" prompted Crispin.

"I said that there's enough money in America for the successful handling of both moon shots and cancer research, and that I'd gladly pay my share of the taxes needed to get to the moon. I honor those adventurers. If I were a younger man, I'd like to go flying to some other world."

Crispin eyed him thoughtfully, hand to brown-bearded chin. "You don't feel that your friend was a true scientist, then."

"Oh, he was a true scientist, all right," said Doc, nodding his head. "He was such a damned true scientist, there wasn't any room in his thoughts for anything but science. He reminded me of what Aristippus said about men who studied only the sciences and neglected the philosophies—that they were like those ancient idlers who came to pay suit to Penelope and then stayed out in the antechamber, making love to the servant girls."

"Aristippus?" said Crispin.

"He was a Greek philosopher who had the bad judgment to be philosophizing around the time of Plato and Aristotle, who took up most of the attention then and later," Doc informed him. "Probably I'd never have noticed him myself if I hadn't read about him in Francis Bacon."

"You're a philosopher yourself," said Crispin. "Let me ask, how would your philosophy serve you if you happened to meet members of an expedition from another world, an unknown world beyond any star we know?"

"I'd be dazzled, naturally. I'd consider such an experience a privilege and an inspiration."

"Then—"

Crispin broke off. There was a knock at the door. Crispin rose and opened it, and in came Gander Eye, shedding his waterproof coat and shaking drops from the brim of his old slouch hat. "Howdy," he greeted them.

"Good morning, Gander Eye," said Doc. "You're too late if you came looking for breakfast. I ate the last crumb and could have eaten more."

"No thanks, I had me something at my place." Gander Eye turned toward Crispin. "I come to wonder when you want me to stand up and be painted into your picture."

"Why not right away?" asked Crispin. "Right now? Some preliminary sketches, anyway."

Doc took a mouthful of coffee. He looked interested. "You're going to do some portraits, are you, Jim?" He glanced toward where the painting of the Sky Notch church stood propped against a rear wall. "I'd expect them to be as good as your landscapes."

"Yes, sir," agreed Gander Eye, studying the picture in his turn. "That there sure enough looks just like Main Street."

"I wasn't trying to be photographic." Crispin was at a table, picking up a drawing block and a heavy-leaded pencil. "But this picture won't be a photograph, Gander Eye, it will be an impression. Incidentally, you and I are going to work hard on it, and I won't be going out of this cabin to pass the time of day very much for a while. Doc, I'd take it kindly if you'd help pass the word around for people not to disturb me."

"I've got an idea about that," said Doc, rising and picking up his raincoat. "I have an old red flag at home, a signal flag the lumber cutters used to stick up at the lower end of a chute when they were sliding logs down and wanted to warn people. It just wound up in my possession. You can fly that in front of your door when you don't want to be disturbed, and I'll see that everybody knows that if they see it, that means you aren't to be bothered for anything short of Judgment Day."

He went out into the rain. Crispin stood and thought, the drawing block and the pencil lowered in his hands.

"Judgment Day," he repeated softly.

"Yes, sir, that's what Doc said," Gander Eye assured him. "What you want me to do, Jim? Stand up or sit down or what?"

"Oh." Crispin looked up. "Oh, yes. Well, first of all I want you to take off your shirt and undershirt."

"Don't wear me no undershirt." Gander Eye stripped off his checked shirt and dropped it on a chair in a corner. Crispin surveyed his broad chest and knotted shoulders.

"You're an exceedingly well-set-up man, Gander Eye. Now, stand over there. When we have sunlight, it will come in just right through the front window. But we don't need much light at first, I'll be only doodling around with a pencil. Turn a little way in this direction. That's good, about like that."

Gander Eye carried out the directions.

"Now," said Crispin, "don't look at me, took there at the far end of the room. Lift your head just a trifle. Stand just like that. And lift up your arms."

"Like this?"

"Not as high as that, don't stretch them. Not quite as if you're giving orders, not quite as if you're saying a blessing, but a little bit of both of those things."

He surveyed Gander Eye's pose, walked close to him, and took him by the right wrist to alter the position of the arm.

"That's better," he approved. "Hold it like that for me a while, and remember how you're standing. Your feet, head, arms, everything."

"You mean, just like the way I am now?"

"Yes, because you'll have to stand that way again. I'll let you rest in a minute or two. I want to get something down on paper."

Crispin sat to draw. The pencil scurried swiftly.

"Don't tighten your arms, I want to get the muscles down right." He drew with sure strokes. "I wish I had muscles like that. How did you manage to get them?"

"Oh," said Gander Eye, "one way another. A chopping down trees. A-digging holes. A-skinning deer and all like that. Just a-moving 'round, I reckon."

"Keep your head up the way it is. Look over there where I told you."

Obediently Gander Eye stood still while Crispin sketched. At last Crispin said, "All right, thanks, you can relax now. I've got something here I can work into a study."

Still he plied the pencil. Gander Eye stepped over and looked at the drawing.

"Shoo, Jim, do I look like that to you?"

"Not in the least as yet. I made skeleton lines of you and now I'm working some flesh onto them."

"You got like shadows on it, too."

"I did that just with the eraser of this pencil," Crispin explained. "Smudging in the third dimension."

He rose, put the block of paper on the table, and picked up a corncob pipe. "Now," he said, "I've got to think awhile. Study awhile, as you say. If you want coffee, there's still some in the pot."

Gander Eye poured a cup and found a chair for himself. He drew the shirt over his bare shoulders, for the dampness of the morning made things slightly chilly. He, too, thought.

"Hark at me, Jim," he ventured after a time. "Might could you know a fellow named Struve?"

Crispin glanced up from his work. His eyes turned sharp. "Named what?" he said.

"Struve is his name."

"How do you spell it?"

Gander Eye shook his head. "I don't rightly know that. He just said his name to me."

"It's what I'd call an unusual name," said Crispin, still without answering Gander Eye's question.

"Well, he's a right unusual fellow," said Gander Eye. "I run onto him up in the woods on Dogged Mountain. He allowed something or other about how they was big things a-coming about to happen in Sky Notch. Said Sky Notch would be a right important town all of a sudden."

Crispin drew a line and then ran the ball of his thumb over it. "Would you like that?" he asked.

"Can't say to a fact if I would or not. Hell, Jim, I've always took things in Sky Notch the way they are. We're little here and we're out of the way, but we have fun sometimes. You don't need the things here you'd need in a big town." He sipped hot coffee. "I reckon if I'd a-wanted things different, I'd have gone to Asheville or some such of a place and got me a job there."

"How would you like to help Sky Notch be bigger and better?" inquired Crispin. "Maybe be the mayor here, or on the town board?"

"I vow, Jim, that there's what this Struve fellow inquired me. "

"He must be public-spirited, then."

"No, sir, I don't hanker to be the mayor," said Gander Eye. "It looks like to me that Derwood Ballinger has him a lot of hard work, a-listening all the time to them county political bosses."

"The mayor of this town should be in a position where county political bosses had to listen to him," said Crispin. "Did you finish drinking your coffee? Then stand up there again, exactly the way you stood before. I want to see how these lines I made fall into place when I compare them to the real thing."

Gander Eye resumed his pose. Crispin studied it with deepest concentration, asked for slight alterations in the angles of the arms and head, then drew almost frantically on a fresh sheet of paper. At last he said that Gander Eye might relax again.

"Let's call that enough posing for you today," he decided. "I'm going into preparation for my ground."

"Ground?" echoed Gander Eye, mystified.

"The color I put on the canvas, what I'll work up my scene on. It's a night piece, and I need to find out what night looks like."

"Well, good luck."

Gander Eye went out into a new patter of rain.

Alone, Crispin fetched out a rectangular palette and squeezed several tubes to put half a dozen blobs of paint upon it. He experimented as painstakingly as a master chemist, with blue and black in various combinations. Frowningly he compared dabs of the mixed colors. At last his bearded lips relaxed in a slight smile of approval. He took a slender, dull-edged palette knife to scrape away all the mixtures but one, and worked up more of that particular tint. It was the color of night.

Then he examined his stack of canvases and chose one fully five feet long and nearly four high, and fixed it lengthwise to his easel. He put on a disreputable old plaid shirt, smeared with innumerable dried dabs of paint. He drew his chair close, sat down, and began to lay on a ground of the night-colored mixture.

It was a task he undertook with great seriousness. He used his brush with all the care he might have spent on the finishing touches of a work. The ground was by no means done to his liking when he stopped at noon to go to Doc's house for lunch. The rain had slackened away, and the clouds overhead had faded to an oystery pallor.

"Come in, come in," Doc greeted him, opening the door. "Slowly here is giving us green beans and bacon and new potatoes. Slowly, I want Jim to show you a certain miracle he can do with eggs and peppers and grated cheese. It's fit for a king, or for people like us."

"I'll be right glad to learn how," said Slowly. "How are you, Mr. Jim?"

"Just a bit worried at the moment," replied Crispin. "I wish this rain would hold off long enough for me to go on to the store and see if they might have an old-fashioned kerosene lantern."

"Are you having trouble with your lights?" Slowly asked.

"None in the least." Crispin smiled at her. "I want to study a lantern for the color and value of its light, to use in my picture."

"So happens I've got an old lantern at my place," said Slowly. "Let me fetch it when I come there today for what I'm to do. When do you want me?"

"Shall we say about three o'ciock? And thank you for lending me the lantern. I'll need it for only a day or two."

Crispin enjoyed his lunch, but he did not stay to talk afterward. Back at his cabin, he returned to preparing the night ground for his study of the baptism. He finished that stage of the work at last and left it to dry on the easel while he mixed colors on another corner of the palette and set about a new experiment, using a dull black card. Slowly appeared at mid-afternoon, the lantern in her hand. She wore a blouse and slacks, and her hair was caught behind her neck in a bow of blue ribbon.

"Are you near about ready to start with me, Mr. Jim?" she asked. "What's all that you're painting, all that kind of little round lemony-colored things?"

"Lemony-colored," he said after her. "That's not a bad description of the tint. I was practicing to paint the foil moon, and the moon's not golden yellow, whatever the songs say. Lemon is more like it. Or perhaps a fresh-cut slice of a pale cheese, like Munster. The lantern light would be closer to golden. Thank you for lending it to me."

He handed her a sheet torn from the drawing block.

"Here's how Gander Eye looked to me when he was posing."

She took the paper and gazed at it thoughtfully. "Hey, you drew in his legs," she pointed out. "I heard you say this would be just from the waist up, like as if we might be standing in water."

"I drew all of Gander Eye for the sake of the study. He'll have legs in the picture at that, even though they're hidden from sight."

She seemed to puzzle over that, and Crispin smiled. "In any case," he said, "Gander Eye is a splendid physical specimen. He'd be a proper subject for a sculptor of the heroic. And so, I judge, would you be."

She drew herself up tensely, as though for a plunge into a cold bath. "When do we start, Mr. Jim?"

"I want to go to work right away. You can go into the bedroom there and get ready. I put an old red robe there if you want it. "

She walked into the bedroom and closed the door. Crispin gazed after her a long moment before he took his drawing block again. She came out, her blouse off and the robe over her arm.