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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Call Him Savage, by John Pollard
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Call Him Savage
+
+Author: John Pollard
+
+Illustrator: Sanford Kossin
+
+Release Date: March 24, 2010 [EBook #31758]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CALL HIM SAVAGE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         Transcriber's Note:
+
+    This etext was produced from Amazing Stories March 1954. Extensive
+    research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
+    publication was renewed.
+
+
+                           CALL HIM SAVAGE
+
+
+                           BY JOHN POLLARD
+
+
+                     Illustrator: Sanford Kossin
+
+
+     _Around the 15th of March each year, folks start saying,
+      "Give the country back to the Indians!" Well, that's what we
+      want to talk to you about._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+I didn't even hear her come in. What with the Sioux rising against the
+white settlement at the fork of the Platte, the attack being set for
+dawn, and Chief Spotted Horse's impassioned speech to his braves, I
+wouldn't have heard anything under a ninety-seven-decibel war whoop.
+
+Soft lips brushed the back of my neck and she said something.
+
+"That's fine," I said.
+
+"_Sam!_"
+
+I heard _that_, all right. I looked up from the typewriter. "Hey,
+that's a _nice_ nightgown!"
+
+"I said I think I'm getting a cold."
+
+"Well--with a nightgown like that...."
+
+"Silly!" Her smile would have corrupted a bishop. "You coming to bed?
+It's almost midnight."
+
+"Soon's I finish writing this chapter. Best thing I've ever done."
+
+"More Indians?"
+
+I reached for a cigarette. "Sure, more Indians. What else would one of
+the country's leading authorities on the original Americans be writing
+about? I hate to keep harping on the same subject, my sweet, but the
+dough from my last book bought you that mink stole you keep dangling
+in front of your girl friends."
+
+"If you make so much money at it, why are you still a reporter?"
+
+"I _like_ being a reporter."
+
+"What about _me_? Between reporting and Indians my love life is
+beginning to wither on the vine. You should have married a squaw."
+
+"Who says I didn't?" I gave her my best leer and reached out an
+exploring hand. She blushed and backed away, laughing. "Nothing doing,
+Sam Quinlan! You want me I'll be in bed."
+
+"Hey-hey!"
+
+She gave me a quick kiss, evaded my grasp and disappeared into the
+bedroom. I finished lighting the cigarette, typed a few more lines.
+But my working mood was gone, a casualty of a black lace nightgown.
+Finally I got up from the desk and snapped on the radio and, while it
+warmed up, strolled over to the living room window.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At this hour Washington was largely in bed. Away over to the east I
+could see the dim glow of lights marking the Mall, with the Capitol
+dome beyond that. Now that communism was dead, buried and unmourned in
+Russia and her satellites, with peace and prosperity booming from Iowa
+to Iran, even the President would be sleeping like a baby. Any day now
+I would be down to covering PTA meetings for the _Herald-Telegram_.
+That was okay with me; my big interest was "Saga of the Sioux"--the
+third in the series of books I was writing on the history of the
+American Indian.
+
+An early autumn breeze crawled in at the open window and moved the
+line of smoke from my cigarette. A quiet serene night, with the faint
+smell of burned leaves in the air and the promise of a cool, sunny,
+peaceful tomorrow. A lovely night, made far lovelier by the thought
+of the beautiful blonde waiting for me in the next room. After twelve
+years of marriage I still found her to be the most exciting and
+rewarding woman I had ever known.
+
+"... most of eastern Colorado," the radio said suddenly, "as well as
+the western fringes of Nebraska and Kansas."
+
+I turned the volume down. Weather report, probably, except that the
+announcer was making it sound like a declaration of war or a "sincere"
+commercial.
+
+"We repeat," the voice continued, "since 8:10 this evening, Eastern
+Standard Time, literally nothing has come out of that section of the
+country. All communication has ceased, outbound trains and planes are
+long overdue, highway traffic out of the area has stalled."
+
+"Sam?"
+
+"Yeah?"
+
+"You coming to bed?"
+
+"... tuned to this station for further bulletins con--"
+
+I clicked the set off. "Could I have three minutes for a fast shower?"
+
+"Umm ... I guess so."
+
+"I," I told her, "am coming to bed."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lois rattled the handle of the stall-shower door, and I shut off the
+water. "Yeah?"
+
+"Telephone, darling."
+
+"At _this_ hour? Who is it?"
+
+"Sounds like Purcell."
+
+"For Crisake!" I came out and grabbed a towel. "This is worse than one
+of those Hollywood farces about honeymooners. What's he want?"
+
+"I didn't dare ask him, he sounded so grumpy."
+
+I kissed her. "About that nightgown ..."
+
+"You're getting me all wet!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Purcell was night Editor at the _Herald-Telegram_, a small, intense,
+middle-aged, highly literate man. Years before, his wife had run off
+with a reporter, leaving Purcell with an undying hatred for all
+members of the profession.
+
+His voice, over the wire, cracked like a whip. "Sam?"
+
+"Listen, I'm off duty. You got any idea what time--"
+
+"You're wanted at the White House. Now."
+
+"The _White_ House? You mean--?"
+
+"The White House. The President wants to see you."
+
+"The _President_! Cut out the gags, will you? I'm in no--"
+
+"I don't kid with reporters, Sam. On your way."
+
+The phone went dead. I stood there staring stupidly at the receiver.
+Lois had to shake my arm to get my attention. "What did he want?"
+
+"The President wants to see me."
+
+"You're joking!"
+
+"Hunh-uh. Anybody but Pete Purcell, I'd agree." I put back the
+receiver and went over to the dresser for clean underwear. "Get back
+to bed, honey. I'll be home as soon as I get through running the
+Government. Can you imagine! The President wants to see _me_!"
+
+She yawned and stretched, looking like the June page on an _Esquire_
+calendar. "Well, so much for my sheerest nightgown."
+
+"Believe me, darling, if it wasn't the President--"
+
+"I know. It would be an Indian."
+
+I finished dressing while she sat on the bed with her knees drawn up
+to her chin, watching me. I kissed her thoroughly and patted her here
+and there and went downstairs. The night man in the garage under the
+building put down his _Racing Form_ and dug my Plymouth out of a
+welter of chrome and glass.
+
+I drove much too fast all the way.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A guard at the gate looked at my press pass and used a hidden
+telephone. Within not much more than seconds I was ushered into the
+Press Secretary's office. The Secretary, a badly shaken man if ever
+I'd seen one, had evidently been pacing the floor. He looked at me
+sharply out of pale, bloodshot eyes. "Your name Quinlan?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"May I see your identification?"
+
+I handed him my wallet. He flipped through the panels holding my press
+pass, social security card, driver's license and a picture of Lois in
+a bathing suit. When he failed to do more than give the latter a
+casual glance I knew this was a man with a troubled mind.
+
+I said, "Maybe you could give me kind of a hint on what's going on."
+
+"Going on?" he repeated absently.
+
+"You know--going on." I got off a nonchalant-type laugh that would
+have fooled anybody who was deaf. "I even heard that the President
+wanted to see me!"
+
+He gave me back the wallet. "Ah--yes. Come with me, please."
+
+We left the office and went down a hall, around some corners and down
+more halls, past a lot of doors, all of them closed. Finally he
+stopped in front of a pair of doors with shiny brass doorknobs,
+knocked twice, then turned the knob, said, "Mr. Quinlan, gentlemen,"
+shoved me through with a jerk of his chin, and closed the door behind
+me.
+
+I never saw him again.
+
+There was a long table down the center of a long narrow room. The
+woodwork was white and the walls papered a dark green, with
+walnut-framed pictures here and there of the kind of men you see in
+albums of Civil War vintage.
+
+But the men around the table were as modern as a jet bomber. There
+were five of them, three of whom I recognized on sight: Army Chief of
+Staff General Lucius Ohlmsted, Secretary of War Franklin McClave, and,
+seated at the far end of the table and looking even younger than his
+forty-nine years, the President of the United States.
+
+The remaining two were just a couple of men to me: dark business
+suits, clean collars, manicured fingernails and the type of faces you
+see twenty of on any city block.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I walked on down the room, feeling as conspicuous as a cheer leader at
+a wake, while five pairs of eyes sorted me over molecule by molecule.
+When I reached the near end of the table, I stopped, resisted an
+impulse to salute, and stood there at attention.
+
+The President managed to keep from smiling, although you could see he
+wasn't far from it. "Thanks for coming here so promptly, Mr. Quinlan.
+I'd like you to meet my associates."
+
+He reeled off names and titles. The two strangers were a Mr. Proudfit
+and a Mr. Kramer, occupations not disclosed. Kramer was small and
+ageless, with a weather-beaten face and a mouth like a steel trap;
+while Mr. Proudfit had the look of a benign monk, until you saw the
+tempered steel glint in his piercing eyes.
+
+When introductions were completed, I said, "How do you do?" once,
+including them all, and went on waiting. Nobody suggested I sit down,
+probably because there were only five chairs around the table to begin
+with and the room's two couches were too far away to keep me in the
+group. The President gave me the same winning smile that had pulled a
+couple million extra votes his way in the last election, and said,
+"Let me start off, Mr. Quinlan, by telling you that we've got a
+problem on our hands--one that may very well involve the peace and
+well-being of the entire country. The details are going to strain your
+credulity beyond human limits, I'm afraid--just as they have ours. But
+there is enough supporting evidence to what we've heard for us to do
+something about it. And that's where you come in."
+
+He paused, evidently waiting for a response from me. There was only
+one response I could make--even though I hadn't the slightest idea
+what he was talking about. "I'm at your service, Mr. President."
+
+His smile was a medal for my chest. "Thank you. At this point I'd
+better let Mr. Kramer take over."
+
+Kramer leaned back in his chair, placed the tips of his fingers
+together and stared searchingly at me over them. His voice, when he
+spoke, was as dry as his skin. "Mr.--ah--Quinlan, I understand you
+were born thirty-one years ago on a Potawatomi Indian reservation in
+the state of Michigan."
+
+I blinked. "That's right. Not many people know it."
+
+"You are part Indian, I believe?"
+
+"One quarter Potawatomi."
+
+"Also, I'm told that you are something of an authority on the history
+of the American Indian."
+
+"I've written books on the subject and expect to write a good many
+more."
+
+"You speak the language?"
+
+"What language?"
+
+He floundered a little. "Why--ah--the--ah--Indian language."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Look, Mr. Kramer," I said, "there are scores of Indian languages.
+Nobody in history, red man or white, could ever speak all of them.
+Fortunately most Indians belonged to one of several great families,
+and the language of each family was close enough for the tribes in
+that family to understand each other. I can handle the language of the
+Algonquin like a native, being part Potawatomi myself. I can get by in
+the tongue of the Iroquois, the Caddoan, the Siouan, and the
+Muskhogean. The Déné and Uto-Aztecan would give me considerable
+trouble, while the Penutian would be just about a blank."
+
+I stopped there, and shrugged. "Sorry. I didn't mean to turn this into
+a lecture."
+
+Kramer's weathered face stayed expressionless. "Are you familiar with
+the customs of Indians of, say, two hundred years ago?"
+
+"With their customs, clothing, religions, food, taboos, cultures,
+weapons, or anything else you can think of."
+
+Franklin McClave, the Secretary of War, cut in on us at this point. "I
+think, Bob," he said to Kramer, "that Mr. Quinlan qualifies for the
+job." His glance turned to me. "I'd like for you to meet a man waiting
+in the next room, Quinlan. I want you to hear his story, talk to him,
+ask him questions, then give us your opinion of the results. Do you
+mind?"
+
+I spread my hands. "Whatever you say."
+
+Kramer got to his feet and went over to a side door. He pushed it
+open, said something I didn't hear, then stepped rather quickly out of
+the way.
+
+A moment later young Daniel Boone came out!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of course, it wasn't really Daniel Boone at all. Leaving out the fact
+that the "dark and bloody ground" frontiersman had been dead nearly a
+hundred and fifty years, this man was a lot handsomer, with entirely
+different features. But he was wearing the fringed buckskin trousers
+and shirt, the beaded moccasins, the coonskin cap, and his coarse
+black hair hung almost to his shoulders. A powderhorn swung from his
+neck by a greasy cord, and he was holding on to a six-foot
+muzzle-loader as though it were his only contact with reality.
+
+I stood there with my chin two inches from the rug and gawked at him.
+He was scared to death. His deep-set brown eyes rolled fearfully from
+side to side, with too much white showing around the irises. His
+clutch on the gun grew even tighter, whitening the knuckles of his
+hand.
+
+Muscles crawled on my scalp. A strange tension seemed to fill the
+room. Kramer cleared his throat. "This man's name is Enoch Wetzel, Mr.
+Quinlan. I want him to tell you exactly what he told us earlier
+tonight."
+
+I felt the tendons in my legs tighten, pulling me into a slight
+crouch. I was back a hundred and seventy years in the past, with a
+dull anger starting to move around in me. "Wetzel," I said, making it
+sound like a dirty word. "Any relation to Lewis Wetzel?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The young man's eyes widened with astonishment and obvious relief.
+"Well, now, I reckon so! Lew's my uncle."
+
+"Lew Wetzel," I said between my teeth, "is a low, stinking, murdering
+skunk!"
+
+I ducked just in time to keep from being brained by the swinging stock
+of the long gun. I came up under it quicker than I'd ever moved before
+in my life and nailed him on the jaw with a solid right, getting my
+shoulder behind it. It was like hitting the Hall of Justice. He
+grunted and up came the rifle butt for another try.
+
+Suddenly the room was bulging with strangers. A dozen arms folded
+around the young man, the gun was ripped from his fingers and he hit
+the rug with a thump that shook the room. The buckskin-covered legs
+threshed briefly, then were still.
+
+I moistened my lips and backed away as sanity returned. I looked at
+the frozen faces around the table. "My fault, Mr. President. I can't
+blame you for thinking I'm as crazy as he is. But, as Mr. Kramer
+mentioned, I'm part Indian. Back in the seventeen hundreds a
+frontiersman named Lewis Wetzel murdered a lot of Indians--men, women
+and children. I suppose you might say I went atavistic, or something,
+at hearing this fellow claim he was Wetzel's nephew. He's a screwball,
+of course, and I owe you a good solid apology for starting a ruckus."
+
+The President wasn't smiling now. "Perhaps I should have told you
+before, Mr. Quinlan, we may desperately need this young man's
+assistance in the near future."
+
+I almost blurted out the wrong thing, but bit my lip instead and
+remained silent. The President's eyes swung to the heap of humanity on
+the floor. "Let him up, boys. I'll call you if I need you again."
+
+The six Secret Service men rose and stood Enoch Wetzel on his feet,
+then returned to the adjoining office, not looking too happy about
+leaving a madman with the Chief Executive. Wetzel pushed the long hair
+off his forehead and stood there glowering at me, spots of angry color
+in his dark cheeks.
+
+I said, "Forget it, Mac. I made a small mistake."
+
+His thin lips peeled back in a snarl. "Halfbreed!"
+
+I took it, although nothing was ever harder for me to do. Kramer
+hurriedly stepped into the breach. "Mr.--ah--Wetzel, we're waiting for
+you to repeat what you told us before."
+
+The tall, broad-shouldered young man turned from me to face the long
+table. There was a graceful dignity about him, in his posture, in the
+way he held his head, that you don't see often. Again I felt the hair
+move along my scalp. For a guy who was as nutty as peanut brittle, he
+was certainly convincing in his role of frontiersman. Turn back the
+clock far enough and this could have been one of General Anthony
+Wayne's scouts at the battle of Fallen Timbers. He even _smelled_ the
+part.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"My father got hisself put on by General Harmer as a scout a fortnight
+back. The General, on orders from President Washington, was to lead
+his sojers to the north after the Injuns up there. Pop allowed as I
+was ready to try my luck agin the abbregynes, so he took me along.
+
+"Three-four nights after we set out ahead the rest, Pop an' me come
+onto fresh Injun signs. We move powerful careful through the woods an'
+right soon we catch sight of camp fires. There's a whole grist of them
+red devils prancin' around, all fixed out in war paint--more of 'em as
+I ever see'd afore. Even Pop allows as how it bugs out _his_ eyes--and
+Pop's a man to do an amount of travelin'."
+
+It was a page torn out of technicolor nightmare: three of the world's
+most important men hanging onto the words of a madman who claimed to
+be an Eighteenth Century Indian scout in the employ of one of George
+Washington's generals. Yet the man's every word, every gesture,
+everything he wore, was as authentic to that period as the powder horn
+around his neck.
+
+"We draw back in the woods aways an' wait. It's gettin' along to'ard
+sun-up, an' Pop says he aims to get a better idea how many Injuns
+they is, an' what tribes. Most of the braves got nice new British guns
+an' General Harmer'll want to know about that."
+
+Wetzel's voice began to shake a little, remembering. "Pop an' me are
+hidin' in a clump of sumac when this here sudden racket starts up,
+equal to a hundred waterfalls goin' all at oncet. We look up in the
+air where it's comin' from, and holy hokey if fallin' right out of the
+sky ain't this round iron thing! Flat as a hoe-cake an' big around as
+an acre of land, with the fires of Hell breathin' at its edges!
+
+"Well sir, them Injuns lit a shuck out of there like the spirits was
+after them. My legs were tryin' to run, too. But Pop takes a holt on
+my arm an' says, 'By Janey, I aim to see this if'en I swing for it!'
+
+"It drops down," Wetzel continued, demonstrating with a slow graceful
+movement of his hand, "lookin' no less than a big shiny stove-lid, an'
+settles in the clearin' as light an' easy as the feather off'en a
+duck's back. It stands high as a Pennsylvany school house an' twicet
+the size around, an' no sound from it at all."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He stood slim and straight as a Shawnee arrow, smooth-faced and
+solemn, obviously not much past his twentieth birthday, yet by his own
+account born before the Declaration of Independence was on paper. He
+went on talking, sounding like a character out of James Fenimore
+Cooper. His story, boiled down and translated, came out something like
+this:
+
+The sudden arrival of the strange object had literally paralyzed the
+Indian encampment. The warriors dropped their weapons and called on
+the spirits to protect them, while a hole opened in the side of what
+couldn't be anything else but a spaceship. Then out of the opening
+came huge steel caricatures of men. There were over a dozen of these
+robots, each the height of two men, and their eyes were strange round
+circles of faceted glass. In single file they moved down the ramp and
+stalked through the ranks of fear-frozen Indians, disappearing into
+the forest.
+
+Enoch's father ordered his son to crawl up into a tree out of sight,
+then shouldered his rifle and slipped away through the bushes to get a
+better look at what was going on. Enoch "allowed" that his Pop was a
+"moughty" brave man, and none of his audience gave him an argument on
+that score.
+
+From his place among the leaves, Enoch watched his father melt into
+the trees. The sun was above the horizon by this time and the young
+frontiersman discovered that his present position was the equivalent
+of a box seat on the fifty-yard line.
+
+The next figure to emerge from the spaceship brought an amazed murmur
+from hundreds of throats. No twelve-foot robot this time, no alien
+monster beyond description. Very simply, this was an Indian.
+
+Yet what an Indian! He stood on the ramp, wearing only leather
+breeches and unadorned moccasins, muscles rippling across a powerful
+sun-tanned chest, his head thrown back in a posture of arrogant
+dignity. He wore a single crimson feather in his black topknot, and at
+his belt was a tomahawk only slightly less deadly looking than a
+howitzer.
+
+Arms folded across his chest, he swept his stunned audience with an
+eye like an eagle's, then began to speak. His voice, deep and ringing,
+carried beyond the edges of the crowd, so that Enoch was able to catch
+a portion of what he was saying.
+
+Wetzel admitted he understood very little of any of the Indian
+tongues. He thought the one he was hearing had its roots in the
+Delaware tribe, but admitted this was no more than a guess. However,
+it appeared that the visitor was summoning the chiefs of the assembled
+tribes to a meeting within the spaceship.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Evidently it took some doing. Faced with a familiar danger, there is
+no human more courageous than an Indian. But the thought of entering
+the yawning maw of that steel cavern would have shaken the nerves of
+Manabus himself.
+
+Finally the visiting Indian's oratory paid off, and nine or ten of the
+tribal leaders reluctantly entered the spaceship. Two robots took up
+positions on the ramp to discourage kibitzers, and after an hour or so
+in which nothing more happened, the rest of the camp returned pretty
+much to normal.
+
+Mid-afternoon came and passed, and still the meeting inside the ship
+went on. Enoch was finding the tree branch not the most comfortable
+place to spend a weekend, and he was growing steadily more uneasy by
+his father's continued absence.
+
+More hours passed. The sun was gone now and campfires began to dot the
+night. Orders or no orders, Enoch decided, he was going to find his
+Pop. With a stealth equal to that of any Indian, he dropped to the
+ground and began a cautious advance in the direction his father had
+taken hours before.
+
+Suddenly the bushes crashed apart directly in front of him, and his
+father came bounding through. Only a few yards back, its giant strides
+rapidly closing the gap, came one of the huge steel men.
+
+Enoch's gun flashed up and he fired without aiming. The bullet struck
+one of the robot's huge eyes, shattering the glass and sending the
+towering figure crashing headlong into a tree. At the same instant, an
+ear-shattering wail came from the fallen robot, and powerful rays of
+light flashed from the rim of the spaceship to bathe the spot where
+the two Wetzels stood.
+
+Mixed with the siren wail from the fallen man of steel came a chorus
+of blood-curdling warhoops as the Indians made out the figures of the
+two men, and a hundred braves came pouring across the clearing toward
+them. Instantly the two scouts took to their heels, darting through
+the inky blackness of the forest with the sure-footed celerity of long
+practice.
+
+They would have escaped easily under ordinary circumstances. But
+suddenly the blast of another siren sounded directly ahead and a lance
+of light impaled them. Blinded, they stumbled aside, only to be caught
+by still another beam.
+
+The two men split apart and dived for cover. Enoch, finding himself
+shielded from the rays by the thick bole of a tree, scrambled into its
+branches. A moment later the first wave of Indians passed below him.
+
+For fully ten minutes he crouched there among the leaves. The barrage
+of light, he discovered, had come from the towering robots, and he
+recalled the dozen or so steel monsters that had left the camp soon
+after the spaceship landed. Evidently they had been sent out to
+encircle the camp so that no one might leave or enter until the
+visitors permitted it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Finally Enoch heard the Indians returning toward camp. He knew they
+would search every tree hunting for him. Reloading his rifle, he
+dropped to the ground and adopting the only maneuver they would not
+expect, made his way cautiously back toward the camp.
+
+He had hoped to skirt the camp itself and find an avenue to freedom in
+the opposite direction. But his hopes were almost immediately dashed,
+for he soon made out the darting rays of light marking more of the
+robots.
+
+Enoch was trapped. Taking advantage of every possible means of cover,
+he inched ahead, changing his direction a dozen times, until he
+suddenly stopped short, his path barred by the towering spaceship
+itself. Staying within the dense shadows at its base, he began to
+skirt the ship, hoping to find a place where he could hide out until
+the enemy gave up the search.
+
+But again his luck failed to hold. This time he was stopped by a wall
+of metal fully ten feet high, which turned out to be one side of the
+entrance ramp to the spaceship. Circling it would bring him right into
+the camp, to climb over it was impossible; to turn back, useless. This
+was the end of the line!
+
+As he stood there trying to figure out his next move, he caught the
+sound of a guarded movement some distance behind him. Instantly he
+dropped to the grass, his long rifle ready to take at least one of his
+enemies with him. And that was when he learned that the bottom of the
+ramp was nearly two feet above the ground.
+
+Even Macy's shopping service couldn't have furnished him with a better
+hiding place. Enoch wriggled himself under the edge and lay there
+breathing quietly, while, a moment later, three pairs of moccasined
+feet moved over the spot where he had been hiding.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some time passed. He could hear voices very near and the rustle of
+feet moving through the grass. Then came the dull thud of metal
+against metal over his head in a rhythmic tempo like the tread of
+marching soldiers. Hardly had this ceased before he heard another
+sound which he could not identify, and the ramp itself began to move!
+
+It was drawing in toward the ship, very slowly. To stay where he was
+would mean the loss of his hiding place; to try to run away would
+almost certainly be fatal. And so Enoch acted in the only way left to
+him.
+
+By hooking his arms and legs around the girders forming the underside
+of the ramp, he was able to lift himself clear of the ground. It meant
+being carried into the ship, but even that, he decided, was better
+than falling into the hands of Indians.
+
+He clung there like a sloth to a branch. Fortunately the beams were
+recessed enough to prevent his being scraped off when he reached the
+opening into the hull. When the ramp finally ground to a halt he found
+himself in darkness beyond anything in his experience. There was cold
+metal under him now and he lowered himself gingerly onto it. When he
+tried to crawl into the open, he discovered that the edges of the ramp
+were now flush with the floor.
+
+Suddenly a deep humming note tore at his ears, became a shrill whine,
+then passed into silence. The floor seemed to press harder and harder
+into his back, his lungs fought for air, a sharp burst of light seemed
+to explode soundlessly before his bulging eyes and consciousness left
+him....
+
+The rasp of metal against metal aroused him. The ramp was moving
+again. Once more he attached himself to its girders and was slowly
+carried from the spaceship. Sunlight on the grass told him the night
+had passed, and the moment the ramp came to a halt, he dropped to the
+ground and squirmed into the open. He was close enough to the ship to
+keep from being seen by those aboard, and he slipped quickly around
+one side before making a break for the shelter of a clump of trees
+bordering the clearing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"And that, Mr. Quinlan," Kramer said, "just about brings you up to
+date. At 4:07 this afternoon Mr. Wetzel was found by the crew of an
+Army tank twelve miles west of Burdette, Colorado. He told his story
+to the colonel in charge of that perimeter of operations, and was then
+flown directly to Washington." He paused and allowed himself a
+humorless smile. "I assume you have some questions?"
+
+I said, "I'm not going to ask if you take this man's story seriously.
+Considering the positions of the men in this room you obviously do.
+What I'd like to know is why?"
+
+Kramer hesitated. "Let me ask you this, Quinlan," he said, choosing
+his words carefully. "Based solely on this man's costume and speech,
+would you say he is an impostor?"
+
+"No," I told him promptly. "Frontiersmen dressed exactly that way, the
+long gun is authentic and his pronunciation, phrases and idiom comes
+straight out of pre-Revolutionary times. But I still fail to see why
+you give a second thought to his story."
+
+"You don't think it true?"
+
+"My God, man, how can it be? Unless you're trying to tell me that this
+character was brought here by a time machine!"
+
+"One moment, Mr. Quinlan." Secretary of War McClave was back in the
+picture. "Let me tell you why we do not regard Mr. Wetzel as a mental
+case. Shortly after one o'clock this afternoon, Rocky Mountain Time, a
+section of Washington County, Colorado, roughly thirty miles in
+circumference was suddenly cut off from the rest of the country--cut
+off as completely as though it never existed. Telephone lines ceased
+to function, a radio station in the same area went off the air in the
+middle of a soap commercial. All traffic, vehicular and foot, ceased
+to come out of it. The Governor of Colorado sent in a detachment of
+the National Guard; nothing has been heard from it since. Air
+observers report all cars and trains appear to have stalled. Two
+planes trying a bit of hedge-hopping apparently conked out and were
+forced to land. No radio contact with them."
+
+I said, "I heard some of this on a news broadcast shortly before
+midnight tonight. According to the announcer the area involved was
+larger than thirty miles."
+
+McClave nodded soberly. "The affected area is expanding steadily. It
+now reaches as far west as Strasburg, Colorado, and as far east as
+the Nebraska state line. The north and south limits seem to be
+somewhat narrower."
+
+I looked at him and at the other men around the table. Their faces
+held a quiet tautness, and General Ohlmsted's hand, holding a cigar,
+was shaking a little. "And," I said, "you feel that this spaceship
+holds the answer. Is that it?"
+
+"It's all we have to go on," the President said softly.
+
+"One more question," I said. "Where do I fit into this?"
+
+There was a moment's awkward silence, broken by the creak of the chair
+holding the man who had been introduced to me as a Mr. Proudfit. His
+round face smiled at me almost jovially.
+
+"I expect I'm the one to explain that, Mr. Quinlan. Wetzel tells us
+the man in charge of the spaceship appeared to be an Indian. It seems
+our best move is to send an emissary into the blacked-out section to
+learn the reason for this--well--this attack. Such a representative
+should be qualified to deal intelligently with this--this Indian.
+Somebody able to understand the Indian temperament. In short, Mr.
+Quinlan, you!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I rubbed a hand along the back of my neck and smiled. "You know, this
+whole thing is utterly mad! Indians, time machines, robots,
+spaceships! But then these days the most fertile imaginations can't
+seem to keep up with reality. If you gentlemen want me to try to get
+to this Indian and ask him what's the big idea, I'll do my best. Not
+because I want to, but because I wouldn't know how to go about
+refusing the President of my country."
+
+Some of the tension seemed to go out of the room. The President said,
+"You won't find me or your country ungrateful, Mr. Quinlan," and the
+Secretary of War nodded approvingly, and General Ohlmsted's cigar
+stopped shaking. Proudfit took out a sheaf of papers from an inner
+pocket of his coat, leafed through them quickly and handed one to me.
+"This authorizes you as a representative of the United States
+Government, answerable only to the President, and with full authority
+to act accordingly."
+
+"Fine," I said, putting it away. "Maybe I can use it on these robots
+Wetzel mentioned!"
+
+Proudfit looked at his strap-watch. "An Army jet bomber will take you
+and Mr. Wetzel to a point as close to Burdette, Colorado, as can be
+managed. Wetzel tells us he can locate the spaceship from that point.
+We don't know, of course, how closely guarded the ship is--or even if
+it's guarded at all. But Wetzel is confident his training and
+background as a frontiersman and Indian fighter can get you there
+under cover of darkness. Once you reach the spaceship, the rest is up
+to you."
+
+"And if I don't make it?"
+
+Proudfit spread his hands. "Two companies of Army regulars entered
+that area at 6:30 tonight. They were fully armed, with orders to use
+those arms if necessary. Nothing has been heard from them since. We're
+sending you on the theory that where many can't get through perhaps
+one or two can. You have until noon--slightly more than eleven hours
+from now--to get word to us. If we don't hear from you by then or if
+the 'dead' area continues to expand after that time, then we throw our
+Sunday punch!"
+
+Enoch Wetzel was still standing exactly as he had while telling his
+story. I walked over to him. "Let's get one thing straight, mister. If
+you and I are going to work together, we leave personal feelings out
+of it. A few minutes ago I passed a remark or two about one of your
+relatives and you tried to knock my head off. I'm willing to forget it
+if you are. But I don't want any more cracks out of you about my being
+a half-breed. Is that clear?"
+
+He eyed me stonily, then without change of expression spat on the rug
+within a quarter-inch of my left shoe. I felt the muscles in my arms
+twang like plucked wires as I resisted the impulse to swing on him.
+"Is that your answer, Wetzel?"
+
+"I'll git you thar," he said tonelessly. "I promised these yere
+gennelmen I'd do thet much. But it don't hold I gotta cotton to you."
+
+We stood there staring into each other's eyes. There was a wall of
+hatred between us that could never be destroyed, a wall not fashioned
+by us but by our forefathers generations before. Yet a chain of
+incredible events had made us allies against an alien foe. In spite of
+our mutual dislike we must work together.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I turned back to Proudfit. "I'll need a pair of heavy black basketball
+shoes, dark coveralls, a good heavy sweater, a .38 Colt automatic with
+plenty of ammunition, and a compass."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The bomber pilot was a fresh-faced youngster who chewed gum and
+claimed to have been the second-ranking tennis player in Des Moines,
+Iowa. He shook hands gravely with me, eyed Wetzel and his strange garb
+and out-size rifle with blank-faced wonder, and mentioned that it was
+a nice night for flying.
+
+The plane took off at 1:27. We were due over our target by 4:00
+o'clock Eastern Standard Time, or 2:00 Mountain Time. The plans called
+for the bomber to fly at a high altitude, then come in on Burdette
+with jets off and drop us by 'chute. Wetzel had balked for a while at
+the idea of stepping off into space, but a brief but patient
+explanation of how a parachute worked finally brought him grudgingly
+around.
+
+The trip seemed to take forever. I was torn by a thousand doubts,
+saddened by not being allowed to say goodbye to Lois, not a little
+afraid of what I would likely run into in Colorado. And all the while,
+my companion, out of his normal world and time, surrounded by wonders
+beyond his wildest nightmares, slept sound as an infant....
+
+A hand shook me awake. In the faint glow of a flashlight I made out
+the face of the co-pilot. "Twenty minutes, Mr. Quinlan."
+
+Wetzel was already on his feet. The co-pilot helped us don the
+'chutes, and five minutes before arrival opened the heavy side door. A
+rush of wind tore in, but there was no other sound. The jets had
+already cut off and the plane was gradually losing altitude in a
+shallow dive. As this was not a plane used for parachute troops there
+was no wire to hook the 'chute cord to. It meant we would have to pull
+our own, but both of us had been thoroughly versed in what to do.
+
+"Get ready," shouted the co-pilot.
+
+I grasped the door frame and waited, my heart pounding in my ears.
+Wetzel stood directly behind me, the muzzle-loader in his hand, the
+tail of his coonskin cap bouncing in the wind, his eyes narrowed.
+
+"Five," the co-pilot said suddenly. "And a four, and a three, and a
+two, and a one--_target_!"
+
+I dived headfirst into blackness. I spun madly earthward, but in the
+back of my mind a calm voice counted off the seconds. Then I yanked at
+the ring-cord, black folds of nylon rustled above me, I heard a sharp
+report like the crack of a giant whip, the straps at my shoulders
+yanked painfully, and I was floating gently down toward the
+night-shrouded surface of Colorado.
+
+I landed in a meadow, if that was what they called it this far west. I
+came down hard but in the way they had told me would prevent injury.
+There was no wind to yank me about before I could unship the
+parachute, and within seconds I was on my feet and searching for some
+sign of Enoch Wetzel.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Unexpectedly a hand struck me lightly on the back. I was jumping aside
+and reaching for my gun when the frontiersman's quiet voice reached
+me. "You scare mighty easy for an Injun."
+
+I said, "We should be about a mile, two at the most, south of the road
+where that Army tank picked you up yesterday afternoon. Let's find
+it."
+
+"Aye."
+
+The land was by no means as flat as I had expected. Fortunately most
+of it was relatively open, with only scattered clumps of trees and
+bushes. There were too many small unexplained night sounds, but none
+of these appeared to alarm Wetzel in the slightest, so I managed to
+ignore them. Once we flushed a long-eared rabbit, and it was five
+minutes before I could get my heart out of my throat.
+
+A barbed-wire fence, the first we had encountered, told me we had
+reached a road. It wasn't paved or even graveled--just a ribbon of
+dirt pointing east and west as straight as an Apache lance. Nothing
+moved along it in either direction as far as I could see. A line of
+telephone poles bordered one side.
+
+"Recognize any landmarks?" I asked.
+
+Wetzel shook his head.
+
+"We're probably east of where you were found," I said. "We might as
+well start walking."
+
+He grunted in agreement and we started out. It was a lovely starlit
+night, no moon at this hour, and a lot warmer than I had expected for
+October in Colorado. Now and then the road dipped and climbed, and as
+we reached the crest of the third hill, I saw a good-sized farmhouse
+set well back from the road among a group of out-buildings.
+
+I pointed to the house. "Maybe they can tell us what's been happening
+around here."
+
+Wetzel nodded and we turned in at a fieldstone path leading across the
+large yard to the front door. There were no lights visible from
+within, no dog barked, no rustle of livestock in the barns or pens.
+
+I saw him just before I stepped on his head. He was lying across the
+path in the shadow cast by a gnarled tree, a stocky man in overalls
+and a blue work shirt. A double-barrelled twelve-gauge shotgun lay on
+the ground near his right hand. One side of his chest was black with a
+sticky substance that could have been only one thing, and the top of
+his head was black in the same way, except that no hair was there
+anymore....
+
+"_Scalped!_" I whispered hoarsely.
+
+Enoch Wetzel stooped suddenly and picked up the shotgun and wordlessly
+held it out to me. My jaw fell in astonishment. The twin barrels were
+bent into a rude V.
+
+I licked my lips and backed away. "Let's get out of here, Wetzel."
+
+He tossed the gun aside and we turned back to the road. Neither of us
+said anything for fully a mile. "No human hands could have done that
+to a gun," I said. "I'm beginning to believe what you said about
+robots. Robots that take scalps!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Another hill, another valley ... and Wetzel caught hold of my arm. "I
+come across them sojers about here," he said.
+
+"Okay. From now on you act as guide."
+
+We went on. Several times Wetzel's long, swinging, tireless stride
+left me behind and he was forced to wait until I caught up with him
+again. I had the feeling that I was holding him back, and there was
+something faintly contemptuous in his obvious patience. But the life
+of a book-writing newspaper man hadn't prepared me for cross-country
+marathons, and there was nothing to be done about it now.
+
+The fairly level, open ground was giving place to a heavily wooded
+countryside. After another mile of winding roadway, Wetzel suddenly
+turned aside and plunged into the forest. It was as dark as the inside
+of an undertaker's hat, and after I had banged into a few dozen trees
+and tripped over a few dead branches, making enough racket to alert
+half the state, Wetzel slowed his pace to a crawl.
+
+Finally I grabbed one of the fringed sleeves of his buckskin shirt to
+stop him and sank down on a fallen log. "How much farther?"
+
+He leaned his folded arms on the muzzle of his long gun and I could
+feel his deep-set eyes studying me without approval. "'Nother hour;
+p'rhaps more. Dependin' on you."
+
+"Sure," I said with understandable bitterness. "I'm not the man my
+granddaddy was. Nobody is. When I take a walk it's down to the corner
+for a pack of cigarettes. Anything farther than that I use a horseless
+carriage. We don't need steel muscles and superior woodcraft these
+days, brother. Just enough eyesight to read the directions on the can,
+ears sharp enough to hear the boss bawling you out, enough nose to
+smell the whiskey on your neighboring straphanger's breath, reflexes
+quick enough to avoid being run down by some politician's Cadillac. If
+I'd have known I was going to be called on to go batting around a
+jungle, I'd have been down to the Y five days a we--"
+
+He moved like a striking snake. A hand was clapped over my mouth and a
+knee forced me to the ground. Before I could make an effort to fight
+back, he placed his mouth close to my ear. "Danger! 'Tis death for so
+much as a broken twig!"
+
+He removed his hand and I could breathe again. We lay there side by
+side close to a huge tree, deep in the shadows. And then faintly as
+from far off I heard the crackle of disturbed undergrowth and, slowly
+louder and louder, an evenly spaced thumping sound that seemed to
+shake the earth.
+
+Through the trees it came, directly toward the spot where Wetzel and I
+hugged the ground. It loomed against the night, a tower of steel on
+jointed legs, a horrible travesty of the human figure, a head like
+King Arthur's helmet. Starlight picked out two round faceted eyes of
+glass.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My suddenly dry mouth puckered with the taste of terror. I did not
+breathe; even my heart seemed to beat no more. I wanted to close my
+eyes, but even the lids seemed paralyzed.
+
+For almost a full minute the giant robot remained standing less than
+ten feet from where Wetzel and I were lying. It seemed to sense the
+presence of something of flesh and blood nearby. Its head turned
+slowly from side to side in little uneven jerks that put ice cubes in
+my veins. Finally the mammoth feet began their rhythmic thumping and a
+moment later it disappeared among the trees.
+
+After what seemed a long time Wetzel rose to his feet. I got up slowly
+and leaned against the tree. "In a little while," I said softly, "I'll
+wake up. I'll be in bed with my wife, under the nice clean white
+sheets, and I'll know all this was a nightmare brought on by that
+canned salmon we had for dinner."
+
+This, I told myself sharply, wasn't getting me anywhere except next
+door to hysteria. I ground my teeth together, shuddered uncontrollably
+for a second or two, then was all right again. Or nearly so.
+
+"Let's go," I said.
+
+An hour or so later, after taking a twisting route through what seemed
+to be the Belgian Congo, Wetzel halted under the spreading branches of
+a towering cottonwood. With his lips close to my ear, he whispered,
+"It's a-settin' out thar midst open ground." He gestured at the wall
+of blackness hemming us in--blackness you could have cut into hunks
+with an ax. "I'm thinkin' thar's plenty 'o them iron critters roamin'
+'round twixt us an' it. You aimin' to await the dawn?"
+
+"You," I said, "said it!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The dawn came up nice and quiet. Blackness turned gray and then a
+pearl pink--and there she was: a hundred yards from us, of some
+gleaming metal resembling aluminum, twenty feet high and covering
+about as much ground as a caretaker's cottage. It resembled nothing
+more than a soup plate turned bottom up to dry.
+
+A tall, semi-circular opening showed black in one side, with a sloping
+metallic ramp reaching from it to the ground. Two robots guarded the
+entrance, stiff and towering and without movement, the early light
+glistening along their jointed bodies.
+
+In sharp contrast to this scene from the distant future was the
+anachronistic spectacle of six Indians, in war paint, fringed
+buckskin and stripped to the waist, squatting around a small cooking
+fire near the ship. Within easy reach of each was a long bow and a
+quiver of arrows.
+
+Nothing about them gave me a certain clue as to which Indian family
+they belonged to. The single feather in each scalp lock was pure white
+with a vivid red tip. Two of them wore the black paint of untried
+warriors, and all were gnawing on strips of meat grilled over the
+fire.
+
+Wetzel, placid and silent, leaned on his rifle and calmly stuffed a
+cheek with a twist of black tobacco. "Reckon they be a little hard to
+talk to?" he asked in a soft voice.
+
+I shrugged. "Only one way I know of to find out."
+
+"Thet fancy pistol you got could kill 'em all afore they get them bows
+unlimbered."
+
+"Are you suggesting I shoot them down without warning?"
+
+It was his turn to shrug. "They be Indians."
+
+The complete lack of feeling in his tone infuriated me. "You
+cold-blooded bastard! I happen to be a good part Indian myself."
+
+He eyed me without expression but with a chill glitter to his eyes.
+"Aye. I ain't forgettin' thet," he said, and spat.
+
+I took a slow breath and waited until I could trust my voice. "I'm
+going out there," I said quietly. "Cover me with your gun. But don't
+use it _unless_ it's the only thing left to do. I don't want that
+trigger pulled until the last possible second. They may grab me, they
+may even knock me around a little. That I can take. But don't try to
+interfere until there's no other way out. Is that clear?"
+
+"Aye."
+
+I turned away from him. All I had to do now was step out from behind
+that tree and walk across the open ground. Each of my feet suddenly
+weighed a ton. Two steps into that clearing and the funeral could be
+Monday. Instinctively my hand crawled toward the .38 automatic hidden
+in my coveralls. It never got that far. Suicide was so final.
+
+Wetzel's firm young mouth held an almost invisible sneer. Deliberately
+I took out a cigarette, lighted it with an airy gesture and a match,
+dragged deeply on it twice and threw it away. I said, "Lay off that
+gun like I told you," and walked slowly out into the clearing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It got a rise out of them, all right. They were on their feet, arrows
+notched, before I had traveled three feet. I never even hesitated.
+Once I had gone this far, the bluff had to be carried all the way out.
+I kept my spine stiff, my head erect, my hands conspicuously empty at
+my sides. If my nerves were jumping I was the only one who knew about
+it.
+
+It caught them just a shade off-balance, which was all I had hoped
+for. The one-sidedness of six drawn bows against one unimpressive and
+unarmed man eventually registered and the flint tips wavered, then
+turned aside.
+
+The tallest of the braves--a lean number the color of an old
+penny--tossed his bow aside and deliberately stepped squarely in my
+path. There was an insolent arrogance in every line of his body--a
+body that topped my six feet a full three inches.
+
+I said, "Hi-yo, Silver," and put my hip into his naked belly and
+grabbed his arm and threw him over my shoulder. He hit face first two
+yards away and plowed up a furrow of grass, flopped around a little,
+then lay still.
+
+Nobody else moved, except me. I started for the spaceship again, not
+hurrying and not crawling, head still up, spine still stiff, eyes
+straight ahead. Feet slithered in the grass behind me and the sound
+made the skin between my shoulder blades twitch like an aching tooth.
+Every instinct that had anything to do with self-preservation was
+fighting to make me turn around.
+
+That was when the robots moved. They seemed to come alive at the same
+instant, metal clanged on metal as they strode stiffly down the ramp
+to meet me. Violence hung over them as it hangs over a Patton tank.
+
+Every step toward them was like pulling my foot out of quicksand. Only
+twelve kinds of a cretin would have gone on when faced with anything
+like this. I went on. I couldn't do anything else. Once you show an
+Indian a molecule of cowardice, you're twelve lines on the obituary
+page.
+
+The space between us was down to a narrow ribbon of grass by this
+time. Four--three more steps and I would _have_ to stop. Nobody could
+push aside a couple of tons of animated steel. Metal arms were lifting
+slowly, preparing to close on me. Inside me a silent voice screamed a
+prayer for Wetzel to pull that trigger and pump a bullet into one of
+those round, staring, faceted eyes....
+
+The robots seemed to go dead. They hung there motionless, arms lifted,
+each with a massive foot caught in midstride.
+
+What had stopped them at the last possible second I had no way of
+telling. All I did know was a sudden release of tension that left me
+with just enough strength to keep my feet moving.
+
+I went on.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The edge of the ramp was getting uncomfortably close. I was here to
+see the head man, but I would prefer to see him out in the open. The
+thought of walking into that black hole left me as cold as a barefoot
+Eskimo.
+
+The ramp. It was a good six feet wide, made of what seemed to be some
+form of an aluminum alloy, and was waiting to be walked on. I started
+up its shallow slope, the rubber soles of my basketball shoes
+soundless on the smooth surface.
+
+He appeared suddenly, without warning, in the doorway. He was quite
+tall, slim in the hips, and his naked shoulders seemed almost as wide
+as the opening. Elaborate beadwork designs had been worked into the
+buckskin breeches, and his headdress resembled a Sioux warbonnet, its
+twin rows of red-tipped feathers hanging almost to his moccasins. A
+hunting knife hung in a snake-skin sheath at his right hip. He was as
+gauntly handsome as a Blackfoot--and they don't come any
+better-looking than that.
+
+He stood there, arms folded across his chest, looking as immovable as
+Pike's Peak. This time I stopped. My back was as stiff as his, my head
+as erect, my shoulders as square if not as wide. For a long time we
+stood that way staring straight into each other's eyes, our
+expressions blank, our tongues locked.
+
+When enough time had passed for me to open the conversation without
+being accused of impetuousness, I said, "I am Long Rock, of the
+Potawatomi. I have come in peace, to hold counsel with you."
+
+My words, in the language of the Delaware because of Wetzel's earlier
+remark, had no immediate effect, which was par for the course with any
+Indian. Not even his eyelids moved. The silence went on, building into
+tension. Anyone unfamiliar with the ways of the Indian would have
+taken another stab at it. I knew better. I had made my pitch; now it
+was strictly up to him.
+
+Finally his strong lips came unstuck. "I am Lo-as-ro, War Chief of the
+Kornesh." It was the Delaware tongue, all right, but with inflexions
+and nuances strange to me. "How is it that your skin is white but you
+speak in the way of the Orbiwah?"
+
+That last word, I judged, was what the Indian in general was called
+wherever this specimen had come from. I said, "In my blood is the
+blood of the Orbiwah. That is why I am here, sent by the Great Chief
+of all white men."
+
+We squatted down facing each other on the ramp. At once a young brave
+brought out a long, elaborately carved peace-pipe. Lo-as-ro put the
+bit to his mouth and puffed smoke toward the four cardinal points of
+the compass, then passed the pipe to me. The tobacco was far more
+aromatic than any I had come across before.
+
+With the amenities out of the way, the Chief said, "Why has the White
+Chief sent you to me?"
+
+"To welcome you to the land of the white man."
+
+"I come not to the land of the white man in peace."
+
+My eyes were as cold as his own. "This we do not understand. The white
+man has no quarrel with the tribe of Kornesh."
+
+"The white man," Lo-as-ro said sonorously, "has taken from the Orbiwah
+his land and his home. He has driven the Orbiwah into small areas. He
+has killed buffalo and the bison and the deer, leaving the Orbiwah to
+eat the meat of the horse or to starve. The Orbiwah has been made foul
+with the diseases of the white man."
+
+"All this," I said, "was long, long ago. Perhaps it was not right, but
+it is the way of life that the strong prevail and the weak perish."
+
+His expression darkened. "You say this--you with the blood of the
+Orbiwah in your veins?"
+
+"I speak only true words, noble Lo-as-ro. The white men are in number
+as the leaves of the forest, the Orbiwah few and helpless."
+
+One of his hands made a graceful motion. "I have come to return the
+land to the Orbiwah, to restore him to the greatness of his fathers.
+Once more the land shall be alive with game, the rivers filled with
+fish. Once more shall the Orbiwah hunt with the weapons of his
+fathers. I have spoken."
+
+"From whence do you come?" I asked.
+
+He pointed dramatically toward the sky. "From a great distance. Up
+there are many worlds."
+
+"Tell me of your world," I said.
+
+The telling took a long time but not a word of it was dull. According
+to Lo-as-ro, his world was a planet revolving about one of the stars
+in the Big Dipper. It was slightly smaller than Earth, with about the
+same climates and development of life. It was peopled with only one
+race, the Orbiwah, who lived much as the Indians in America did before
+the arrival of the white man. Recently spaceships from another planet
+in the same solar system had landed on the Orbiwah world. These
+newcomers were friendly, had no thought of conquest, and possessed a
+science and culture of amazing proportions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From them the Orbiwah learned of a planet on which were men of their
+own kind. Lo-as-ro, fired by the thought of establishing contact with
+people like himself, had borrowed spaceships manned by robots and
+crossed the void to Earth. For weeks they had hovered in our
+atmosphere, at first saddened, then angered, by the fate meted out to
+the Indians.
+
+Since the spaceships were able to move through Time into the past,
+Lo-as-ro hit on the idea of going back to the days when the Indian was
+still in control of most of America. With the power at his control he
+could force the white man from the continent and restore the land to
+those who owned it.
+
+Arriving near the close of the Eighteenth Century, he found a sizeable
+encampment of Indians, brought the ship down among them, and summoned
+the chiefs to a Council of War, where he outlined to them his plan. To
+his astonishment he found the chiefs suspicious of outside help and
+confident that they could defeat the white man alone. In vain did
+Lo-as-ro explain that they were doomed; they could not, or would not,
+believe that he had visited the future. He offered to take them ahead
+and let them see for themselves--an offer that was quickly refused.
+
+Whereupon Lo-as-ro decided to return to the Present and wrest the land
+from the white man and hand it over to the downtrodden remnants of a
+once-powerful race. It was on that return trip that Wetzel had arrived
+in the present century.
+
+When Lo-as-ro finished, I leaned back against the side of the ship and
+lit a cigarette, bringing a startled grunt from the chief. I said,
+"You cannot defeat the white man, Lo-as-ro. He has weapons such as you
+have never dreamed: machines that can throw things that explode and
+kill hundreds of braves at one time, machines that travel through the
+air as does the one you came in, things that can wipe out all life
+within a circle as wide as a brave can ride around in one day on a
+fast horse.
+
+"No, noble Lo-as-ro. Return to your world and leave this one to the
+white man. He took it long ago and he will never give it up. I have
+spoken."
+
+The chief of the Orbiwah smiled grimly. "In the ship in which I
+arrived on your world is a small machine. It is working for me now.
+Within its reach no weapon is useful, no explosion can take place, no
+signal can be sent. Only Man is not touched by this machine, but when
+it works he has no weapons with which to fight. Each hour the
+influence of this machine widens. Soon all this land will be helpless.
+Then the robots will take charge and those who oppose them will be
+slain."
+
+I thought of the "dead spot" I had first heard about on the newscast
+the night before, and how it was steadily growing. I remembered the
+slain farmer with the missing scalp, the two companies of soldiers
+helpless without radio, guns and transportation. I thought of a
+mechanized America helpless before a few score of these spaceships ...
+and I knew that counter-violence would be useless.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Give the country back to the Indians!" The cry of the over-burdened
+citizen. It seemed it was about to come to that!
+
+For a long time I sat there, thinking, trying to hit on an answer that
+would save my country. And when the answer finally stirred at the back
+of my mind, it was so completely bizarre that I almost missed it
+entirely....
+
+"Noble Lo-as-ro," I said, "I must return to the Great White Father and
+tell him what I have learned. I will tell him that there is nothing to
+be done to oppose the Chief of the Kornesh. Within a few hours I will
+return with his reply."
+
+Lo-as-ro inclined his fine head in assent. "Let it be so."
+
+"Until my return," I said, "let the influence of the machine draw back
+until it holds helpless only a small section of land about your ship.
+Only in this way will I be able to return quickly to the White Chief."
+
+Again Lo-as-ro agreed. I took my leave of him ceremoniously, and a few
+minutes later Wetzel and I were hurrying back toward the highway.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Four hours later I was on my way back, this time with four companions.
+The plane landed us at the edge of the newly set "dead spot" and the
+five of us forced our way through the forest until we reached the
+clearing where the spaceship still crouched.
+
+A silent group of Indians watched us as we crossed the open ground.
+This time the two robots flanking the doorway did not leave their
+posts. As I came up the ramp with my companions, Lo-as-ro appeared in
+the doorway of the ship.
+
+He eyed me and the others without expression. I said, "Noble Lo-as-ro,
+I have brought with me four of my world's Orbiwah. They have come to
+hear your plan for them and their people. I have told them nothing of
+what you said to me, only that you have come from another world and
+are of their blood."
+
+One by one I presented my companions. Yellow Arm was Johnny Armin, an
+old school friend of mine; Iron Eagle, with whom I had spent a year in
+Korea, had his telephone listed under the name of Luke Riegel; Strong
+Wind was Sidney Storm, whom I had met while spending a year in
+Southern California; and Lone Pine, known as Lionel Patterson, lived a
+few doors down the street from me in Washington and shot eighteen
+holes any day in the low seventies.
+
+The color of their skins, the unmistakable cast of their features,
+made up the only passport they needed. At the chief's invitation we
+squatted in a rude circle at the top of the ramp, and the peace-pipe
+was brought out and passed around.
+
+Presently Lo-as-ro began to speak. The magnificent voice rolled out in
+tones like a cathedral organ, explaining how the American Indian was
+to assume his rightful place in a world of his own. It was a vivid
+picture, painted by an orator equal to any of the almost legendary
+Indian speakers, and they don't come any better.
+
+Unfortunately I was the only one present who could understand him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When it was over and Lo-as-ro was smiling in confident expectation of
+their gratified excitement, Johnny Armin gave me a baffled glance.
+"What the hell was _that_ all about, Sam?"
+
+I said, "You guys don't know how lucky you are. The chief, here, is
+going to fix it up for you to go back to the good old days. Be noble
+red men. No more taxes, no more taxis. Live out in the fresh air,
+sleep under the star-studded sky, drink the unchlorinated spring
+water."
+
+"_What!_"
+
+"You heard me. And he can do it, too. He's got the tools to flatten
+the country."
+
+They stared at me and at each other, horror and anger hardening their
+faces. Lo-as-ro had stopped smiling and was glancing about the circle
+in obvious bewilderment.
+
+"You mean he's doing all that for _us_?" Storm demanded.
+
+"For all Indians," I said. "Free them from the iron heel of the
+oppressor, and all that."
+
+"Nuts, brother!" Iron Eagle snapped. "Tell him I'm a graduate of
+Carnegie Tech, make twenty-five grand a year with Standard Oil, and
+vote the Republican ticket. If he thinks for a goddam minute I'm going
+to chasing around on a pinto pony hunting buffalo, he's got rocks in
+his head!"
+
+"And that goes for me--double!" Lone Pine growled. "I never heard
+anything so screwy!"
+
+I repeated what they had said, putting it into words Lo-as-ro could
+understand. He had the look of a man who couldn't believe his ears.
+"They speak with stupid tongues," he cried. "Do they deny the blood of
+their fathers?"
+
+"They live as they want to live, noble chief," I said. "They are
+grateful for your wish to help but they ask me to decline the offer."
+
+He came to his feet with a bound, his lean face hardening into a
+copper mask of anger. "These are not true Orbiwah!" he thundered.
+"These are as women, soft with idleness and pleasure, weakened by
+their white conquerors. The land is not for them; it is for those
+forced to live in degradation and squalor, dying of hunger and
+disease, ignored by the white chiefs. It is they who shall be given
+back the ways of their fathers, that they may become a great Orbiwah
+nation once more. I have spoken!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Look at these braves," I said. All of us were standing now. "Of all
+the Orbiwah in this world it is such as these who could hope to
+survive under the conditions you wish to establish. The Orbiwah _you_
+describe would starve amid a thousand buffalo, they would fall from
+their horses, they would flee in battle. Take away the protection of
+the white chiefs and they would die."
+
+The chief of the tribe of Kornesh curled his lips in a sneer. "The
+protection given by the white chiefs is the protection of death. They
+do not care what happens to the Orbiwah. I have seen it with my own
+eyes."
+
+"You're right," I said promptly. "The Orbiwah has been badly treated
+too long. I shall return to the Great White Chief and tell him this:
+unless the life of the Orbiwah is made good, unless he has fine
+shelter, plenty of food, warm clothes for his back and the right to be
+as other men, you will return and force the white man from this land.
+It will take much time, but it shall come to pass. _I_ have spoken."
+
+Doubt flickered in his eyes. "Perhaps your words are empty. How do I
+know they are true?"
+
+"When twenty summers have passed," I said, "come back again. Look upon
+the Orbiwah and learn if they still suffer want and privation. If
+their life is not better for what has happened today, then you need
+never trust the white man again."
+
+For a long moment he stood stiff as steel, staring into my eyes. Then
+his hand shot up, palm out, in a gesture of farewell, and he turned
+and disappeared into the spaceship.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I got a barrage of questions then. I held up a hand to quiet my
+friends. "Some other time, gentlemen. I've got to get to Washington
+just as fast as a jet plane can get me there."
+
+"If it's that urgent," Luke said, "call him on the phone and reverse
+the charges."
+
+I scowled at him. "Call who?"
+
+"The President. Isn't he the reason you're in such a hurry?"
+
+"No! I've got to get to bed."
+
+"Bed? If you're that tired--"
+
+"Who said anything about being tired?" I demanded. "Being tired has
+nothing to do with it."
+
+"Then what--"
+
+"It seems," I said, "there's a black lace nightgown...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Call Him Savage, by John Pollard
+
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+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Call Him Savage, by John Pollard
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Call Him Savage, by John Pollard
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Call Him Savage
+
+Author: John Pollard
+
+Illustrator: Sanford Kossin
+
+Release Date: March 24, 2010 [EBook #31758]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CALL HIM SAVAGE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<div class="tr"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p>
+<p class="center">This etext was produced from Amazing Stories March 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="400" height="556" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter img1" style="width: 800px;">
+<img src="images/image_001.jpg" width="800" height="550" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h1>CALL HIM SAVAGE</h1>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>BY JOHN POLLARD</h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>Illustrator: Sanford Kossin</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Around the 15th of March each year, folks start saying,
+"Give the country back to the Indians!" Well, that's what we
+want to talk to you about.</i></p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_i.jpg" alt="I" width="16" height="40" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp; didn't even hear her come in. What with the Sioux rising against the
+white settlement at the fork of the Platte, the attack being set for
+dawn, and Chief Spotted Horse's impassioned speech to his braves, I
+wouldn't have heard anything under a ninety-seven-decibel war whoop.</p>
+
+<p>Soft lips brushed the back of my neck and she said something.</p>
+
+<p>"That's fine," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Sam!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>I heard <i>that</i>, all right. I looked up from the typewriter. "Hey,
+that's a <i>nice</i> nightgown!"</p>
+
+<p>"I said I think I'm getting a cold."</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;with a nightgown like that...."</p>
+
+<p>"Silly!" Her smile would have corrupted a bishop. "You coming to bed?
+It's almost midnight."</p>
+
+<p>"Soon's I finish writing this chapter. Best thing I've ever done."</p>
+
+<p>"More Indians?"</p>
+
+<p>I reached for a cigarette. "Sure, more Indians. What else would one of
+the country's leading authorities on the original Americans be writing
+about? I hate to keep harping on the same subject, my sweet, but the
+dough from my last book bought you that mink stole you keep dangling
+in front of your girl friends."</p>
+
+<p>"If you make so much money at it, why are you still a reporter?"</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>like</i> being a reporter."</p>
+
+<p>"What about <i>me</i>? Between reporting and Indians my love life is
+beginning to wither on the vine. You should have married a squaw."</p>
+
+<p>"Who says I didn't?" I gave her my best leer and reached out an
+exploring hand. She blushed and backed away, laughing. "Nothing doing,
+Sam Quinlan! You want me I'll be in bed."</p>
+
+<p>"Hey-hey!"</p>
+
+<p>She gave me a quick kiss, evaded my grasp and disappeared into the
+bedroom. I finished lighting the cigarette, typed a few more lines.
+But my working mood was gone, a casualty of a black lace nightgown.
+Finally I got up from the desk and snapped on the radio and, while
+it warmed up, strolled over to the living room window.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>At this hour Washington was largely in bed. Away over to the east I
+could see the dim glow of lights marking the Mall, with the Capitol
+dome beyond that. Now that communism was dead, buried and unmourned in
+Russia and her satellites, with peace and prosperity booming from Iowa
+to Iran, even the President would be sleeping like a baby. Any day now
+I would be down to covering PTA meetings for the <i>Herald-Telegram</i>.
+That was okay with me; my big interest was "Saga of the Sioux"&mdash;the
+third in the series of books I was writing on the history of the
+American Indian.</p>
+
+<p>An early autumn breeze crawled in at the open window and moved the
+line of smoke from my cigarette. A quiet serene night, with the faint
+smell of burned leaves in the air and the promise of a cool, sunny,
+peaceful tomorrow. A lovely night, made far lovelier by the thought
+of the beautiful blonde waiting for me in the next room. After twelve
+years of marriage I still found her to be the most exciting and
+rewarding woman I had ever known.</p>
+
+<p>"... most of eastern Colorado," the radio said suddenly, "as well as
+the western fringes of Nebraska and Kansas."</p>
+
+<p>I turned the volume down. Weather report, probably, except that the
+announcer was making it sound like a declaration of war or a "sincere"
+commercial.</p>
+
+<p>"We repeat," the voice continued, "since 8:10 this evening, Eastern
+Standard Time, literally nothing has come out of that section of the
+country. All communication has ceased, outbound trains and planes are
+long overdue, highway traffic out of the area has stalled."</p>
+
+<p>"Sam?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah?"</p>
+
+<p>"You coming to bed?"</p>
+
+<p>"... tuned to this station for further bulletins con&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I clicked the set off. "Could I have three minutes for a fast shower?"</p>
+
+<p>"Umm ... I guess so."</p>
+
+<p>"I," I told her, "am coming to bed."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Lois rattled the handle of the stall-shower door, and I shut off the
+water. "Yeah?"</p>
+
+<p>"Telephone, darling."</p>
+
+<p>"At <i>this</i> hour? Who is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sounds like Purcell."</p>
+
+<p>"For Crisake!" I came out and grabbed a towel. "This is worse than one
+of those Hollywood farces about honeymooners. What's he want?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't dare ask him, he sounded so grumpy."</p>
+
+<p>I kissed her. "About that nightgown...."</p>
+
+<p>"You're getting me all wet!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Purcell was night Editor at the <i>Herald-Telegram</i>, a small, intense,
+middle-aged, highly literate man. Years before, his wife had run off
+with a reporter, leaving Purcell with an undying hatred for all
+members of the profession.</p>
+
+<p>His voice, over the wire, cracked like a whip. "Sam?"</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, I'm off duty. You got any idea what time&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You're wanted at the White House. Now."</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>White</i> House? You mean&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"The White House. The President wants to see you."</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>President</i>! Cut out the gags, will you? I'm in no&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't kid with reporters, Sam. On your way."</p>
+
+<p>The phone went dead. I stood there staring stupidly at the receiver.
+Lois had to shake my arm to get my attention. "What did he want?"</p>
+
+<p>"The President wants to see me."</p>
+
+<p>"You're joking!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hunh-uh. Anybody but Pete Purcell, I'd agree." I put back the
+receiver and went over to the dresser for clean underwear. "Get back
+to bed, honey. I'll be home as soon as I get through running the
+Government. Can you imagine! The President wants to see <i>me</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>She yawned and stretched, looking like the June page on an <i>Esquire</i>
+calendar. "Well, so much for my sheerest nightgown."</p>
+
+<p>"Believe me, darling, if it wasn't the President&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know. It would be an Indian."</p>
+
+<p>I finished dressing while she sat on the bed with her knees drawn up
+to her chin, watching me. I kissed her thoroughly and patted her here
+and there and went downstairs. The night man in the garage under the
+building put down his <i>Racing Form</i> and dug my Plymouth out of a
+welter of chrome and glass.</p>
+
+<p>I drove much too fast all the way.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>A guard at the gate looked at my press pass and used a hidden
+telephone. Within not much more than seconds I was ushered into the
+Press Secretary's office. The Secretary, a badly shaken man if ever
+I'd seen one, had evidently been pacing the floor. He looked at me
+sharply out of pale, bloodshot eyes. "Your name Quinlan?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"May I see your identification?"</p>
+
+<p>I handed him my wallet. He flipped through the panels holding my press
+pass, social security card, driver's license and a picture of Lois in
+a bathing suit. When he failed to do more than give the latter a
+casual glance I knew this was a man with a troubled mind.</p>
+
+<p>I said, "Maybe you could give me kind of a hint on what's going on."</p>
+
+<p>"Going on?" he repeated absently.</p>
+
+<p>"You know&mdash;going on." I got off a nonchalant-type laugh that would
+have fooled anybody who was deaf. "I even heard that the President
+wanted to see me!"</p>
+
+<p>He gave me back the wallet. "Ah&mdash;yes. Come with me, please."</p>
+
+<p>We left the office and went down a hall, around some corners and down
+more halls, past a lot of doors, all of them closed. Finally he
+stopped in front of a pair of doors with shiny brass doorknobs,
+knocked twice, then turned the knob, said, "Mr. Quinlan, gentlemen,"
+shoved me through with a jerk of his chin, and closed the door behind
+me.</p>
+
+<p>I never saw him again.</p>
+
+<p>There was a long table down the center of a long narrow room. The
+woodwork was white and the walls papered a dark green, with
+walnut-framed pictures here and there of the kind of men you see in
+albums of Civil War vintage.</p>
+
+<p>But the men around the table were as modern as a jet bomber. There
+were five of them, three of whom I recognized on sight: Army Chief of
+Staff General Lucius Ohlmsted, Secretary of War Franklin McClave, and,
+seated at the far end of the table and looking even younger than his
+forty-nine years, the President of the United States.</p>
+
+<p>The remaining two were just a couple of men to me: dark business
+suits, clean collars, manicured fingernails and the type of faces you
+see twenty of on any city block.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>I walked on down the room, feeling as conspicuous as a cheer leader at
+a wake, while five pairs of eyes sorted me over molecule by molecule.
+When I reached the near end of the table, I stopped, resisted an
+impulse to salute, and stood there at attention.</p>
+
+<p>The President managed to keep from smiling, although you could see he
+wasn't far from it. "Thanks for coming here so promptly, Mr. Quinlan.
+I'd like you to meet my associates."</p>
+
+<p>He reeled off names and titles. The two strangers were a Mr. Proudfit
+and a Mr. Kramer, occupations not disclosed. Kramer was small and
+ageless, with a weather-beaten face and a mouth like a steel trap;
+while Mr. Proudfit had the look of a benign monk, until you saw the
+tempered steel glint in his piercing eyes.</p>
+
+<p>When introductions were completed, I said, "How do you do?" once,
+including them all, and went on waiting. Nobody suggested I sit down,
+probably because there were only five chairs around the table to begin
+with and the room's two couches were too far away to keep me in the
+group. The President gave me the same winning smile that had pulled a
+couple million extra votes his way in the last election, and said,
+"Let me start off, Mr. Quinlan, by telling you that we've got a
+problem on our hands&mdash;one that may very well involve the peace and
+well-being of the entire country. The details are going to strain your
+credulity beyond human limits, I'm afraid&mdash;just as they have ours. But
+there is enough supporting evidence to what we've heard for us to do
+something about it. And that's where you come in."</p>
+
+<p>He paused, evidently waiting for a response from me. There was only
+one response I could make&mdash;even though I hadn't the slightest idea
+what he was talking about. "I'm at your service, Mr. President."</p>
+
+<p>His smile was a medal for my chest. "Thank you. At this point I'd
+better let Mr. Kramer take over."</p>
+
+<p>Kramer leaned back in his chair, placed the tips of his fingers
+together and stared searchingly at me over them. His voice, when he
+spoke, was as dry as his skin. "Mr.&mdash;ah&mdash;Quinlan, I understand you
+were born thirty-one years ago on a Potawatomi Indian reservation in
+the state of Michigan."</p>
+
+<p>I blinked. "That's right. Not many people know it."</p>
+
+<p>"You are part Indian, I believe?"</p>
+
+<p>"One quarter Potawatomi."</p>
+
+<p>"Also, I'm told that you are something of an authority on the history
+of the American Indian."</p>
+
+<p>"I've written books on the subject and expect to write a good many
+more."</p>
+
+<p>"You speak the language?"</p>
+
+<p>"What language?"</p>
+
+<p>He floundered a little. "Why&mdash;ah&mdash;the&mdash;ah&mdash;Indian language."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"Look, Mr. Kramer," I said, "there are scores of Indian languages.
+Nobody in history, red man or white, could ever speak all of them.
+Fortunately most Indians belonged to one of several great families,
+and the language of each family was close enough for the tribes in
+that family to understand each other. I can handle the language of the
+Algonquin like a native, being part Potawatomi myself. I can get by in
+the tongue of the Iroquois, the Caddoan, the Siouan, and the
+Muskhogean. The D&eacute;n&eacute; and Uto-Aztecan would give me considerable
+trouble, while the Penutian would be just about a blank."</p>
+
+<p>I stopped there, and shrugged. "Sorry. I didn't mean to turn this into
+a lecture."</p>
+
+<p>Kramer's weathered face stayed expressionless. "Are you familiar with
+the customs of Indians of, say, two hundred years ago?"</p>
+
+<p>"With their customs, clothing, religions, food, taboos, cultures,
+weapons, or anything else you can think of."</p>
+
+<p>Franklin McClave, the Secretary of War, cut in on us at this point. "I
+think, Bob," he said to Kramer, "that Mr. Quinlan qualifies for the
+job." His glance turned to me. "I'd like for you to meet a man waiting
+in the next room, Quinlan. I want you to hear his story, talk to him,
+ask him questions, then give us your opinion of the results. Do you
+mind?"</p>
+
+<p>I spread my hands. "Whatever you say."</p>
+
+<p>Kramer got to his feet and went over to a side door. He pushed it
+open, said something I didn't hear, then stepped rather quickly out of
+the way.</p>
+
+<p>A moment later young Daniel Boone came out!</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Of course, it wasn't really Daniel Boone at all. Leaving out the fact
+that the "dark and bloody ground" frontiersman had been dead nearly a
+hundred and fifty years, this man was a lot handsomer, with entirely
+different features. But he was wearing the fringed buckskin trousers
+and shirt, the beaded moccasins, the coonskin cap, and his coarse
+black hair hung almost to his shoulders. A powderhorn swung from his
+neck by a greasy cord, and he was holding on to a six-foot
+muzzle-loader as though it were his only contact with reality.</p>
+
+<p>I stood there with my chin two inches from the rug and gawked at him.
+He was scared to death. His deep-set brown eyes rolled fearfully from
+side to side, with too much white showing around the irises. His
+clutch on the gun grew even tighter, whitening the knuckles of his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>Muscles crawled on my scalp. A strange tension seemed to fill the
+room. Kramer cleared his throat. "This man's name is Enoch Wetzel, Mr.
+Quinlan. I want him to tell you exactly what he told us earlier
+tonight."</p>
+
+<p>I felt the tendons in my legs tighten, pulling me into a slight
+crouch. I was back a hundred and seventy years in the past, with a
+dull anger starting to move around in me. "Wetzel," I said, making it
+sound like a dirty word. "Any relation to Lewis Wetzel?"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The young man's eyes widened with astonishment and obvious relief.
+"Well, now, I reckon so! Lew's my uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"Lew Wetzel," I said between my teeth, "is a low, stinking, murdering
+skunk!"</p>
+
+<p>I ducked just in time to keep from being brained by the swinging stock
+of the long gun. I came up under it quicker than I'd ever moved before
+in my life and nailed him on the jaw with a solid right, getting my
+shoulder behind it. It was like hitting the Hall of Justice. He
+grunted and up came the rifle butt for another try.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the room was bulging with strangers. A dozen arms folded
+around the young man, the gun was ripped from his fingers and he hit
+the rug with a thump that shook the room. The buckskin-covered legs
+threshed briefly, then were still.</p>
+
+<p>I moistened my lips and backed away as sanity returned. I looked at
+the frozen faces around the table. "My fault, Mr. President. I can't
+blame you for thinking I'm as crazy as he is. But, as Mr. Kramer
+mentioned, I'm part Indian. Back in the seventeen hundreds a
+frontiersman named Lewis Wetzel murdered a lot of Indians&mdash;men, women
+and children. I suppose you might say I went atavistic, or something,
+at hearing this fellow claim he was Wetzel's nephew. He's a screwball,
+of course, and I owe you a good solid apology for starting a ruckus."</p>
+
+<p>The President wasn't smiling now. "Perhaps I should have told you
+before, Mr. Quinlan, we may desperately need this young man's
+assistance in the near future."</p>
+
+<p>I almost blurted out the wrong thing, but bit my lip instead and
+remained silent. The President's eyes swung to the heap of humanity on
+the floor. "Let him up, boys. I'll call you if I need you again."</p>
+
+<p>The six Secret Service men rose and stood Enoch Wetzel on his feet,
+then returned to the adjoining office, not looking too happy about
+leaving a madman with the Chief Executive. Wetzel pushed the long hair
+off his forehead and stood there glowering at me, spots of angry color
+in his dark cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>I said, "Forget it, Mac. I made a small mistake."</p>
+
+<p>His thin lips peeled back in a snarl. "Halfbreed!"</p>
+
+<p>I took it, although nothing was ever harder for me to do. Kramer
+hurriedly stepped into the breach. "Mr.&mdash;ah&mdash;Wetzel, we're waiting for
+you to repeat what you told us before."</p>
+
+<p>The tall, broad-shouldered young man turned from me to face the long
+table. There was a graceful dignity about him, in his posture, in the
+way he held his head, that you don't see often. Again I felt the hair
+move along my scalp. For a guy who was as nutty as peanut brittle, he
+was certainly convincing in his role of frontiersman. Turn back the
+clock far enough and this could have been one of General Anthony
+Wayne's scouts at the battle of Fallen Timbers. He even <i>smelled</i> the
+part.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"My father got hisself put on by General Harmer as a scout a fortnight
+back. The General, on orders from President Washington, was to lead
+his sojers to the north after the Injuns up there. Pop allowed as I
+was ready to try my luck agin the abbregynes, so he took me along.</p>
+
+<p>"Three-four nights after we set out ahead the rest, Pop an' me come
+onto fresh Injun signs. We move powerful careful through the woods an'
+right soon we catch sight of camp fires. There's a whole grist of them
+red devils prancin' around, all fixed out in war paint&mdash;more of 'em as
+I ever see'd afore. Even Pop allows as how it bugs out <i>his</i> eyes&mdash;and
+Pop's a man to do an amount of travelin'."</p>
+
+<p>It was a page torn out of technicolor nightmare: three of the world's
+most important men hanging onto the words of a madman who claimed to
+be an Eighteenth Century Indian scout in the employ of one of George
+Washington's generals. Yet the man's every word, every gesture,
+everything he wore, was as authentic to that period as the powder horn
+around his neck.</p>
+
+<p>"We draw back in the woods aways an' wait. It's gettin' along to'ard
+sun-up, an' Pop says he aims to get a better idea how many Injuns
+they is, an' what tribes. Most of the braves got nice new British guns
+an' General Harmer'll want to know about that."</p>
+
+<p>Wetzel's voice began to shake a little, remembering. "Pop an' me are
+hidin' in a clump of sumac when this here sudden racket starts up,
+equal to a hundred waterfalls goin' all at oncet. We look up in the
+air where it's comin' from, and holy hokey if fallin' right out of the
+sky ain't this round iron thing! Flat as a hoe-cake an' big around as
+an acre of land, with the fires of Hell breathin' at its edges!</p>
+
+<p>"Well sir, them Injuns lit a shuck out of there like the spirits was
+after them. My legs were tryin' to run, too. But Pop takes a holt on
+my arm an' says, 'By Janey, I aim to see this if'en I swing for it!'</p>
+
+<p>"It drops down," Wetzel continued, demonstrating with a slow graceful
+movement of his hand, "lookin' no less than a big shiny stove-lid, an'
+settles in the clearin' as light an' easy as the feather off'en a
+duck's back. It stands high as a Pennsylvany school house an' twicet
+the size around, an' no sound from it at all."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>He stood slim and straight as a Shawnee arrow, smooth-faced and
+solemn, obviously not much past his twentieth birthday, yet by his own
+account born before the Declaration of Independence was on paper. He
+went on talking, sounding like a character out of James Fenimore
+Cooper. His story, boiled down and translated, came out something like
+this:</p>
+
+<p>The sudden arrival of the strange object had literally paralyzed the
+Indian encampment. The warriors dropped their weapons and called on
+the spirits to protect them, while a hole opened in the side of what
+couldn't be anything else but a spaceship. Then out of the opening
+came huge steel caricatures of men. There were over a dozen of these
+robots, each the height of two men, and their eyes were strange round
+circles of faceted glass. In single file they moved down the ramp and
+stalked through the ranks of fear-frozen Indians, disappearing into
+the forest.</p>
+
+<p>Enoch's father ordered his son to crawl up into a tree out of sight,
+then shouldered his rifle and slipped away through the bushes to get a
+better look at what was going on. Enoch "allowed" that his Pop was a
+"moughty" brave man, and none of his audience gave him an argument on
+that score.</p>
+
+<p>From his place among the leaves, Enoch watched his father melt into
+the trees. The sun was above the horizon by this time and the young
+frontiersman discovered that his present position was the equivalent
+of a box seat on the fifty-yard line.</p>
+
+<p>The next figure to emerge from the spaceship brought an amazed murmur
+from hundreds of throats. No twelve-foot robot this time, no alien
+monster beyond description. Very simply, this was an Indian.</p>
+
+<p>Yet what an Indian! He stood on the ramp, wearing only leather
+breeches and unadorned moccasins, muscles rippling across a powerful
+sun-tanned chest, his head thrown back in a posture of arrogant
+dignity. He wore a single crimson feather in his black topknot, and at
+his belt was a tomahawk only slightly less deadly looking than a
+howitzer.</p>
+
+<p>Arms folded across his chest, he swept his stunned audience with an
+eye like an eagle's, then began to speak. His voice, deep and ringing,
+carried beyond the edges of the crowd, so that Enoch was able to catch
+a portion of what he was saying.</p>
+
+<p>Wetzel admitted he understood very little of any of the Indian
+tongues. He thought the one he was hearing had its roots in the
+Delaware tribe, but admitted this was no more than a guess. However,
+it appeared that the visitor was summoning the chiefs of the assembled
+tribes to a meeting within the spaceship.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Evidently it took some doing. Faced with a familiar danger, there is
+no human more courageous than an Indian. But the thought of entering
+the yawning maw of that steel cavern would have shaken the nerves of
+Manabus himself.</p>
+
+<p>Finally the visiting Indian's oratory paid off, and nine or ten of the
+tribal leaders reluctantly entered the spaceship. Two robots took up
+positions on the ramp to discourage kibitzers, and after an hour or so
+in which nothing more happened, the rest of the camp returned pretty
+much to normal.</p>
+
+<p>Mid-afternoon came and passed, and still the meeting inside the ship
+went on. Enoch was finding the tree branch not the most comfortable
+place to spend a weekend, and he was growing steadily more uneasy by
+his father's continued absence.</p>
+
+<p>More hours passed. The sun was gone now and campfires began to dot the
+night. Orders or no orders, Enoch decided, he was going to find his
+Pop. With a stealth equal to that of any Indian, he dropped to the
+ground and began a cautious advance in the direction his father had
+taken hours before.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the bushes crashed apart directly in front of him, and his
+father came bounding through. Only a few yards back, its giant strides
+rapidly closing the gap, came one of the huge steel men.</p>
+
+<p>Enoch's gun flashed up and he fired without aiming. The bullet struck
+one of the robot's huge eyes, shattering the glass and sending the
+towering figure crashing headlong into a tree. At the same instant, an
+ear-shattering wail came from the fallen robot, and powerful rays of
+light flashed from the rim of the spaceship to bathe the spot where
+the two Wetzels stood.</p>
+
+<p>Mixed with the siren wail from the fallen man of steel came a chorus
+of blood-curdling warhoops as the Indians made out the figures of the
+two men, and a hundred braves came pouring across the clearing toward
+them. Instantly the two scouts took to their heels, darting through
+the inky blackness of the forest with the sure-footed celerity of long
+practice.</p>
+
+<p>They would have escaped easily under ordinary circumstances. But
+suddenly the blast of another siren sounded directly ahead and a lance
+of light impaled them. Blinded, they stumbled aside, only to be caught
+by still another beam.</p>
+
+<p>The two men split apart and dived for cover. Enoch, finding himself
+shielded from the rays by the thick bole of a tree, scrambled into its
+branches. A moment later the first wave of Indians passed below him.</p>
+
+<p>For fully ten minutes he crouched there among the leaves. The barrage
+of light, he discovered, had come from the towering robots, and he
+recalled the dozen or so steel monsters that had left the camp soon
+after the spaceship landed. Evidently they had been sent out to
+encircle the camp so that no one might leave or enter until the
+visitors permitted it.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Finally Enoch heard the Indians returning toward camp. He knew they
+would search every tree hunting for him. Reloading his rifle, he
+dropped to the ground and adopting the only maneuver they would not
+expect, made his way cautiously back toward the camp.</p>
+
+<p>He had hoped to skirt the camp itself and find an avenue to freedom in
+the opposite direction. But his hopes were almost immediately dashed,
+for he soon made out the darting rays of light marking more of the
+robots.</p>
+
+<p>Enoch was trapped. Taking advantage of every possible means of cover,
+he inched ahead, changing his direction a dozen times, until he
+suddenly stopped short, his path barred by the towering spaceship
+itself. Staying within the dense shadows at its base, he began to
+skirt the ship, hoping to find a place where he could hide out until
+the enemy gave up the search.</p>
+
+<p>But again his luck failed to hold. This time he was stopped by a wall
+of metal fully ten feet high, which turned out to be one side of the
+entrance ramp to the spaceship. Circling it would bring him right into
+the camp, to climb over it was impossible; to turn back, useless. This
+was the end of the line!</p>
+
+<p>As he stood there trying to figure out his next move, he caught the
+sound of a guarded movement some distance behind him. Instantly he
+dropped to the grass, his long rifle ready to take at least one of his
+enemies with him. And that was when he learned that the bottom of the
+ramp was nearly two feet above the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Even Macy's shopping service couldn't have furnished him with a better
+hiding place. Enoch wriggled himself under the edge and lay there
+breathing quietly, while, a moment later, three pairs of moccasined
+feet moved over the spot where he had been hiding.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Some time passed. He could hear voices very near and the rustle of
+feet moving through the grass. Then came the dull thud of metal
+against metal over his head in a rhythmic tempo like the tread of
+marching soldiers. Hardly had this ceased before he heard another
+sound which he could not identify, and the ramp itself began to move!</p>
+
+<p>It was drawing in toward the ship, very slowly. To stay where he was
+would mean the loss of his hiding place; to try to run away would
+almost certainly be fatal. And so Enoch acted in the only way left to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>By hooking his arms and legs around the girders forming the underside
+of the ramp, he was able to lift himself clear of the ground. It meant
+being carried into the ship, but even that, he decided, was better
+than falling into the hands of Indians.</p>
+
+<p>He clung there like a sloth to a branch. Fortunately the beams were
+recessed enough to prevent his being scraped off when he reached the
+opening into the hull. When the ramp finally ground to a halt he found
+himself in darkness beyond anything in his experience. There was cold
+metal under him now and he lowered himself gingerly onto it. When he
+tried to crawl into the open, he discovered that the edges of the ramp
+were now flush with the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a deep humming note tore at his ears, became a shrill whine,
+then passed into silence. The floor seemed to press harder and harder
+into his back, his lungs fought for air, a sharp burst of light seemed
+to explode soundlessly before his bulging eyes and consciousness left
+him....</p>
+
+<p>The rasp of metal against metal aroused him. The ramp was moving
+again. Once more he attached himself to its girders and was slowly
+carried from the spaceship. Sunlight on the grass told him the night
+had passed, and the moment the ramp came to a halt, he dropped to the
+ground and squirmed into the open. He was close enough to the ship to
+keep from being seen by those aboard, and he slipped quickly around
+one side before making a break for the shelter of a clump of trees
+bordering the clearing.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"And that, Mr. Quinlan," Kramer said, "just about brings you up to
+date. At 4:07 this afternoon Mr. Wetzel was found by the crew of an
+Army tank twelve miles west of Burdette, Colorado. He told his story
+to the colonel in charge of that perimeter of operations, and was then
+flown directly to Washington." He paused and allowed himself a
+humorless smile. "I assume you have some questions?"</p>
+
+<p>I said, "I'm not going to ask if you take this man's story seriously.
+Considering the positions of the men in this room you obviously do.
+What I'd like to know is why?"</p>
+
+<p>Kramer hesitated. "Let me ask you this, Quinlan," he said, choosing
+his words carefully. "Based solely on this man's costume and speech,
+would you say he is an impostor?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I told him promptly. "Frontiersmen dressed exactly that way, the
+long gun is authentic and his pronunciation, phrases and idiom comes
+straight out of pre-Revolutionary times. But I still fail to see why
+you give a second thought to his story."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't think it true?"</p>
+
+<p>"My God, man, how can it be? Unless you're trying to tell me that this
+character was brought here by a time machine!"</p>
+
+<p>"One moment, Mr. Quinlan." Secretary of War McClave was back in the
+picture. "Let me tell you why we do not regard Mr. Wetzel as a mental
+case. Shortly after one o'clock this afternoon, Rocky Mountain Time, a
+section of Washington County, Colorado, roughly thirty miles in
+circumference was suddenly cut off from the rest of the country&mdash;cut
+off as completely as though it never existed. Telephone lines ceased
+to function, a radio station in the same area went off the air in the
+middle of a soap commercial. All traffic, vehicular and foot, ceased
+to come out of it. The Governor of Colorado sent in a detachment of
+the National Guard; nothing has been heard from it since. Air
+observers report all cars and trains appear to have stalled. Two
+planes trying a bit of hedge-hopping apparently conked out and were
+forced to land. No radio contact with them."</p>
+
+<p>I said, "I heard some of this on a news broadcast shortly before
+midnight tonight. According to the announcer the area involved was
+larger than thirty miles."</p>
+
+<p>McClave nodded soberly. "The affected area is expanding steadily. It
+now reaches as far west as Strasburg, Colorado, and as far east as
+the Nebraska state line. The north and south limits seem to be
+somewhat narrower."</p>
+
+<p>I looked at him and at the other men around the table. Their faces
+held a quiet tautness, and General Ohlmsted's hand, holding a cigar,
+was shaking a little. "And," I said, "you feel that this spaceship
+holds the answer. Is that it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's all we have to go on," the President said softly.</p>
+
+<p>"One more question," I said. "Where do I fit into this?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's awkward silence, broken by the creak of the chair
+holding the man who had been introduced to me as a Mr. Proudfit. His
+round face smiled at me almost jovially.</p>
+
+<p>"I expect I'm the one to explain that, Mr. Quinlan. Wetzel tells us
+the man in charge of the spaceship appeared to be an Indian. It seems
+our best move is to send an emissary into the blacked-out section to
+learn the reason for this&mdash;well&mdash;this attack. Such a representative
+should be qualified to deal intelligently with this&mdash;this Indian.
+Somebody able to understand the Indian temperament. In short, Mr.
+Quinlan, you!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>I rubbed a hand along the back of my neck and smiled. "You know, this
+whole thing is utterly mad! Indians, time machines, robots,
+spaceships! But then these days the most fertile imaginations can't
+seem to keep up with reality. If you gentlemen want me to try to get
+to this Indian and ask him what's the big idea, I'll do my best. Not
+because I want to, but because I wouldn't know how to go about
+refusing the President of my country."</p>
+
+<p>Some of the tension seemed to go out of the room. The President said,
+"You won't find me or your country ungrateful, Mr. Quinlan," and the
+Secretary of War nodded approvingly, and General Ohlmsted's cigar
+stopped shaking. Proudfit took out a sheaf of papers from an inner
+pocket of his coat, leafed through them quickly and handed one to me.
+"This authorizes you as a representative of the United States
+Government, answerable only to the President, and with full authority
+to act accordingly."</p>
+
+<p>"Fine," I said, putting it away. "Maybe I can use it on these robots
+Wetzel mentioned!"</p>
+
+<p>Proudfit looked at his strap-watch. "An Army jet bomber will take you
+and Mr. Wetzel to a point as close to Burdette, Colorado, as can be
+managed. Wetzel tells us he can locate the spaceship from that point.
+We don't know, of course, how closely guarded the ship is&mdash;or even if
+it's guarded at all. But Wetzel is confident his training and
+background as a frontiersman and Indian fighter can get you there
+under cover of darkness. Once you reach the spaceship, the rest is up
+to you."</p>
+
+<p>"And if I don't make it?"</p>
+
+<p>Proudfit spread his hands. "Two companies of Army regulars entered
+that area at 6:30 tonight. They were fully armed, with orders to use
+those arms if necessary. Nothing has been heard from them since. We're
+sending you on the theory that where many can't get through perhaps
+one or two can. You have until noon&mdash;slightly more than eleven hours
+from now&mdash;to get word to us. If we don't hear from you by then or if
+the 'dead' area continues to expand after that time, then we throw our
+Sunday punch!"</p>
+
+<p>Enoch Wetzel was still standing exactly as he had while telling his
+story. I walked over to him. "Let's get one thing straight, mister. If
+you and I are going to work together, we leave personal feelings out
+of it. A few minutes ago I passed a remark or two about one of your
+relatives and you tried to knock my head off. I'm willing to forget it
+if you are. But I don't want any more cracks out of you about my being
+a half-breed. Is that clear?"</p>
+
+<p>He eyed me stonily, then without change of expression spat on the rug
+within a quarter-inch of my left shoe. I felt the muscles in my arms
+twang like plucked wires as I resisted the impulse to swing on him.
+"Is that your answer, Wetzel?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll git you thar," he said tonelessly. "I promised these yere
+gennelmen I'd do thet much. But it don't hold I gotta cotton to you."</p>
+
+<p>We stood there staring into each other's eyes. There was a wall of
+hatred between us that could never be destroyed, a wall not fashioned
+by us but by our forefathers generations before. Yet a chain of
+incredible events had made us allies against an alien foe. In spite of
+our mutual dislike we must work together.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>I turned back to Proudfit. "I'll need a pair of heavy black basketball
+shoes, dark coveralls, a good heavy sweater, a .38 Colt automatic with
+plenty of ammunition, and a compass."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The bomber pilot was a fresh-faced youngster who chewed gum and
+claimed to have been the second-ranking tennis player in Des Moines,
+Iowa. He shook hands gravely with me, eyed Wetzel and his strange garb
+and out-size rifle with blank-faced wonder, and mentioned that it was
+a nice night for flying.</p>
+
+<p>The plane took off at 1:27. We were due over our target by 4:00
+o'clock Eastern Standard Time, or 2:00 Mountain Time. The plans called
+for the bomber to fly at a high altitude, then come in on Burdette
+with jets off and drop us by 'chute. Wetzel had balked for a while at
+the idea of stepping off into space, but a brief but patient
+explanation of how a parachute worked finally brought him grudgingly
+around.</p>
+
+<p>The trip seemed to take forever. I was torn by a thousand doubts,
+saddened by not being allowed to say goodbye to Lois, not a little
+afraid of what I would likely run into in Colorado. And all the while,
+my companion, out of his normal world and time, surrounded by wonders
+beyond his wildest nightmares, slept sound as an infant....</p>
+
+<p>A hand shook me awake. In the faint glow of a flashlight I made out
+the face of the co-pilot. "Twenty minutes, Mr. Quinlan."</p>
+
+<p>Wetzel was already on his feet. The co-pilot helped us don the
+'chutes, and five minutes before arrival opened the heavy side door. A
+rush of wind tore in, but there was no other sound. The jets had
+already cut off and the plane was gradually losing altitude in a
+shallow dive. As this was not a plane used for parachute troops there
+was no wire to hook the 'chute cord to. It meant we would have to pull
+our own, but both of us had been thoroughly versed in what to do.</p>
+
+<p>"Get ready," shouted the co-pilot.</p>
+
+<p>I grasped the door frame and waited, my heart pounding in my ears.
+Wetzel stood directly behind me, the muzzle-loader in his hand, the
+tail of his coonskin cap bouncing in the wind, his eyes narrowed.</p>
+
+<p>"Five," the co-pilot said suddenly. "And a four, and a three, and a
+two, and a one&mdash;<i>target</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>I dived headfirst into blackness. I spun madly earthward, but in the
+back of my mind a calm voice counted off the seconds. Then I yanked at
+the ring-cord, black folds of nylon rustled above me, I heard a sharp
+report like the crack of a giant whip, the straps at my shoulders
+yanked painfully, and I was floating gently down toward the
+night-shrouded surface of Colorado.</p>
+
+<p>I landed in a meadow, if that was what they called it this far west. I
+came down hard but in the way they had told me would prevent injury.
+There was no wind to yank me about before I could unship the
+parachute, and within seconds I was on my feet and searching for some
+sign of Enoch Wetzel.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Unexpectedly a hand struck me lightly on the back. I was jumping aside
+and reaching for my gun when the frontiersman's quiet voice reached
+me. "You scare mighty easy for an Injun."</p>
+
+<p>I said, "We should be about a mile, two at the most, south of the road
+where that Army tank picked you up yesterday afternoon. Let's find
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Aye."</p>
+
+<p>The land was by no means as flat as I had expected. Fortunately most
+of it was relatively open, with only scattered clumps of trees and
+bushes. There were too many small unexplained night sounds, but none
+of these appeared to alarm Wetzel in the slightest, so I managed to
+ignore them. Once we flushed a long-eared rabbit, and it was five
+minutes before I could get my heart out of my throat.</p>
+
+<p>A barbed-wire fence, the first we had encountered, told me we had
+reached a road. It wasn't paved or even graveled&mdash;just a ribbon of
+dirt pointing east and west as straight as an Apache lance. Nothing
+moved along it in either direction as far as I could see. A line of
+telephone poles bordered one side.</p>
+
+<p>"Recognize any landmarks?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>Wetzel shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"We're probably east of where you were found," I said. "We might as
+well start walking."</p>
+
+<p>He grunted in agreement and we started out. It was a lovely starlit
+night, no moon at this hour, and a lot warmer than I had expected for
+October in Colorado. Now and then the road dipped and climbed, and as
+we reached the crest of the third hill, I saw a good-sized farmhouse
+set well back from the road among a group of out-buildings.</p>
+
+<p>I pointed to the house. "Maybe they can tell us what's been happening
+around here."</p>
+
+<p>Wetzel nodded and we turned in at a fieldstone path leading across the
+large yard to the front door. There were no lights visible from
+within, no dog barked, no rustle of livestock in the barns or pens.</p>
+
+<p>I saw him just before I stepped on his head. He was lying across the
+path in the shadow cast by a gnarled tree, a stocky man in overalls
+and a blue work shirt. A double-barrelled twelve-gauge shotgun lay on
+the ground near his right hand. One side of his chest was black with a
+sticky substance that could have been only one thing, and the top of
+his head was black in the same way, except that no hair was there
+anymore....</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Scalped!</i>" I whispered hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p>Enoch Wetzel stooped suddenly and picked up the shotgun and wordlessly
+held it out to me. My jaw fell in astonishment. The twin barrels were
+bent into a rude V.</p>
+
+<p>I licked my lips and backed away. "Let's get out of here, Wetzel."</p>
+
+<p>He tossed the gun aside and we turned back to the road. Neither of us
+said anything for fully a mile. "No human hands could have done that
+to a gun," I said. "I'm beginning to believe what you said about
+robots. Robots that take scalps!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Another hill, another valley ... and Wetzel caught hold of my arm. "I
+come across them sojers about here," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Okay. From now on you act as guide."</p>
+
+<p>We went on. Several times Wetzel's long, swinging, tireless stride
+left me behind and he was forced to wait until I caught up with him
+again. I had the feeling that I was holding him back, and there was
+something faintly contemptuous in his obvious patience. But the life
+of a book-writing newspaper man hadn't prepared me for cross-country
+marathons, and there was nothing to be done about it now.</p>
+
+<p>The fairly level, open ground was giving place to a heavily wooded
+countryside. After another mile of winding roadway, Wetzel suddenly
+turned aside and plunged into the forest. It was as dark as the inside
+of an undertaker's hat, and after I had banged into a few dozen trees
+and tripped over a few dead branches, making enough racket to alert
+half the state, Wetzel slowed his pace to a crawl.</p>
+
+<p>Finally I grabbed one of the fringed sleeves of his buckskin shirt to
+stop him and sank down on a fallen log. "How much farther?"</p>
+
+<p>He leaned his folded arms on the muzzle of his long gun and I could
+feel his deep-set eyes studying me without approval. "'Nother hour;
+p'rhaps more. Dependin' on you."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure," I said with understandable bitterness. "I'm not the man my
+granddaddy was. Nobody is. When I take a walk it's down to the corner
+for a pack of cigarettes. Anything farther than that I use a horseless
+carriage. We don't need steel muscles and superior woodcraft these
+days, brother. Just enough eyesight to read the directions on the can,
+ears sharp enough to hear the boss bawling you out, enough nose to
+smell the whiskey on your neighboring straphanger's breath, reflexes
+quick enough to avoid being run down by some politician's Cadillac. If
+I'd have known I was going to be called on to go batting around a
+jungle, I'd have been down to the Y five days a we&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He moved like a striking snake. A hand was clapped over my mouth and a
+knee forced me to the ground. Before I could make an effort to fight
+back, he placed his mouth close to my ear. "Danger! 'Tis death for so
+much as a broken twig!"</p>
+
+<p>He removed his hand and I could breathe again. We lay there side by
+side close to a huge tree, deep in the shadows. And then faintly as
+from far off I heard the crackle of disturbed undergrowth and, slowly
+louder and louder, an evenly spaced thumping sound that seemed to
+shake the earth.</p>
+
+<p>Through the trees it came, directly toward the spot where Wetzel and I
+hugged the ground. It loomed against the night, a tower of steel on
+jointed legs, a horrible travesty of the human figure, a head like
+King Arthur's helmet. Starlight picked out two round faceted eyes of
+glass.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>My suddenly dry mouth puckered with the taste of terror. I did not
+breathe; even my heart seemed to beat no more. I wanted to close my
+eyes, but even the lids seemed paralyzed.</p>
+
+<p>For almost a full minute the giant robot remained standing less than
+ten feet from where Wetzel and I were lying. It seemed to sense the
+presence of something of flesh and blood nearby. Its head turned
+slowly from side to side in little uneven jerks that put ice cubes in
+my veins. Finally the mammoth feet began their rhythmic thumping and a
+moment later it disappeared among the trees.</p>
+
+<p>After what seemed a long time Wetzel rose to his feet. I got up slowly
+and leaned against the tree. "In a little while," I said softly, "I'll
+wake up. I'll be in bed with my wife, under the nice clean white
+sheets, and I'll know all this was a nightmare brought on by that
+canned salmon we had for dinner."</p>
+
+<p>This, I told myself sharply, wasn't getting me anywhere except next
+door to hysteria. I ground my teeth together, shuddered uncontrollably
+for a second or two, then was all right again. Or nearly so.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's go," I said.</p>
+
+<p>An hour or so later, after taking a twisting route through what seemed
+to be the Belgian Congo, Wetzel halted under the spreading branches of
+a towering cottonwood. With his lips close to my ear, he whispered,
+"It's a-settin' out thar midst open ground." He gestured at the wall
+of blackness hemming us in&mdash;blackness you could have cut into hunks
+with an ax. "I'm thinkin' thar's plenty 'o them iron critters roamin'
+'round twixt us an' it. You aimin' to await the dawn?"</p>
+
+<p>"You," I said, "said it!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The dawn came up nice and quiet. Blackness turned gray and then a
+pearl pink&mdash;and there she was: a hundred yards from us, of some
+gleaming metal resembling aluminum, twenty feet high and covering
+about as much ground as a caretaker's cottage. It resembled nothing
+more than a soup plate turned bottom up to dry.</p>
+
+<p>A tall, semi-circular opening showed black in one side, with a sloping
+metallic ramp reaching from it to the ground. Two robots guarded the
+entrance, stiff and towering and without movement, the early light
+glistening along their jointed bodies.</p>
+
+<p>In sharp contrast to this scene from the distant future was the
+anachronistic spectacle of six Indians, in war paint, fringed
+buckskin and stripped to the waist, squatting around a small cooking
+fire near the ship. Within easy reach of each was a long bow and a
+quiver of arrows.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing about them gave me a certain clue as to which Indian family
+they belonged to. The single feather in each scalp lock was pure white
+with a vivid red tip. Two of them wore the black paint of untried
+warriors, and all were gnawing on strips of meat grilled over the
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>Wetzel, placid and silent, leaned on his rifle and calmly stuffed a
+cheek with a twist of black tobacco. "Reckon they be a little hard to
+talk to?" he asked in a soft voice.</p>
+
+<p>I shrugged. "Only one way I know of to find out."</p>
+
+<p>"Thet fancy pistol you got could kill 'em all afore they get them bows
+unlimbered."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you suggesting I shoot them down without warning?"</p>
+
+<p>It was his turn to shrug. "They be Indians."</p>
+
+<p>The complete lack of feeling in his tone infuriated me. "You
+cold-blooded bastard! I happen to be a good part Indian myself."</p>
+
+<p>He eyed me without expression but with a chill glitter to his eyes.
+"Aye. I ain't forgettin' thet," he said, and spat.</p>
+
+<p>I took a slow breath and waited until I could trust my voice. "I'm
+going out there," I said quietly. "Cover me with your gun. But don't
+use it <i>unless</i> it's the only thing left to do. I don't want that
+trigger pulled until the last possible second. They may grab me, they
+may even knock me around a little. That I can take. But don't try to
+interfere until there's no other way out. Is that clear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aye."</p>
+
+<p>I turned away from him. All I had to do now was step out from behind
+that tree and walk across the open ground. Each of my feet suddenly
+weighed a ton. Two steps into that clearing and the funeral could be
+Monday. Instinctively my hand crawled toward the .38 automatic hidden
+in my coveralls. It never got that far. Suicide was so final.</p>
+
+<p>Wetzel's firm young mouth held an almost invisible sneer. Deliberately
+I took out a cigarette, lighted it with an airy gesture and a match,
+dragged deeply on it twice and threw it away. I said, "Lay off that
+gun like I told you," and walked slowly out into the clearing.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>It got a rise out of them, all right. They were on their feet, arrows
+notched, before I had traveled three feet. I never even hesitated.
+Once I had gone this far, the bluff had to be carried all the way out.
+I kept my spine stiff, my head erect, my hands conspicuously empty at
+my sides. If my nerves were jumping I was the only one who knew about
+it.</p>
+
+<p>It caught them just a shade off-balance, which was all I had hoped
+for. The one-sidedness of six drawn bows against one unimpressive and
+unarmed man eventually registered and the flint tips wavered, then
+turned aside.</p>
+
+<p>The tallest of the braves&mdash;a lean number the color of an old
+penny&mdash;tossed his bow aside and deliberately stepped squarely in my
+path. There was an insolent arrogance in every line of his body&mdash;a
+body that topped my six feet a full three inches.</p>
+
+<p>I said, "Hi-yo, Silver," and put my hip into his naked belly and
+grabbed his arm and threw him over my shoulder. He hit face first two
+yards away and plowed up a furrow of grass, flopped around a little,
+then lay still.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody else moved, except me. I started for the spaceship again, not
+hurrying and not crawling, head still up, spine still stiff, eyes
+straight ahead. Feet slithered in the grass behind me and the sound
+made the skin between my shoulder blades twitch like an aching tooth.
+Every instinct that had anything to do with self-preservation was
+fighting to make me turn around.</p>
+
+<p>That was when the robots moved. They seemed to come alive at the same
+instant, metal clanged on metal as they strode stiffly down the ramp
+to meet me. Violence hung over them as it hangs over a Patton tank.</p>
+
+<p>Every step toward them was like pulling my foot out of quicksand. Only
+twelve kinds of a cretin would have gone on when faced with anything
+like this. I went on. I couldn't do anything else. Once you show an
+Indian a molecule of cowardice, you're twelve lines on the obituary
+page.</p>
+
+<p>The space between us was down to a narrow ribbon of grass by this
+time. Four&mdash;three more steps and I would <i>have</i> to stop. Nobody could
+push aside a couple of tons of animated steel. Metal arms were lifting
+slowly, preparing to close on me. Inside me a silent voice screamed a
+prayer for Wetzel to pull that trigger and pump a bullet into one of
+those round, staring, faceted eyes....</p>
+
+<p>The robots seemed to go dead. They hung there motionless, arms lifted,
+each with a massive foot caught in midstride.</p>
+
+<p>What had stopped them at the last possible second I had no way of
+telling. All I did know was a sudden release of tension that left me
+with just enough strength to keep my feet moving.</p>
+
+<p>I went on.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The edge of the ramp was getting uncomfortably close. I was here to
+see the head man, but I would prefer to see him out in the open. The
+thought of walking into that black hole left me as cold as a barefoot
+Eskimo.</p>
+
+<p>The ramp. It was a good six feet wide, made of what seemed to be some
+form of an aluminum alloy, and was waiting to be walked on. I started
+up its shallow slope, the rubber soles of my basketball shoes
+soundless on the smooth surface.</p>
+
+<p>He appeared suddenly, without warning, in the doorway. He was quite
+tall, slim in the hips, and his naked shoulders seemed almost as wide
+as the opening. Elaborate beadwork designs had been worked into the
+buckskin breeches, and his headdress resembled a Sioux warbonnet, its
+twin rows of red-tipped feathers hanging almost to his moccasins. A
+hunting knife hung in a snake-skin sheath at his right hip. He was as
+gauntly handsome as a Blackfoot&mdash;and they don't come any
+better-looking than that.</p>
+
+<p>He stood there, arms folded across his chest, looking as immovable as
+Pike's Peak. This time I stopped. My back was as stiff as his, my head
+as erect, my shoulders as square if not as wide. For a long time we
+stood that way staring straight into each other's eyes, our
+expressions blank, our tongues locked.</p>
+
+<p>When enough time had passed for me to open the conversation without
+being accused of impetuousness, I said, "I am Long Rock, of the
+Potawatomi. I have come in peace, to hold counsel with you."</p>
+
+<p>My words, in the language of the Delaware because of Wetzel's earlier
+remark, had no immediate effect, which was par for the course with any
+Indian. Not even his eyelids moved. The silence went on, building into
+tension. Anyone unfamiliar with the ways of the Indian would have
+taken another stab at it. I knew better. I had made my pitch; now it
+was strictly up to him.</p>
+
+<p>Finally his strong lips came unstuck. "I am Lo-as-ro, War Chief of the
+Kornesh." It was the Delaware tongue, all right, but with inflexions
+and nuances strange to me. "How is it that your skin is white but you
+speak in the way of the Orbiwah?"</p>
+
+<p>That last word, I judged, was what the Indian in general was called
+wherever this specimen had come from. I said, "In my blood is the
+blood of the Orbiwah. That is why I am here, sent by the Great Chief
+of all white men."</p>
+
+<p>We squatted down facing each other on the ramp. At once a young brave
+brought out a long, elaborately carved peace-pipe. Lo-as-ro put the
+bit to his mouth and puffed smoke toward the four cardinal points of
+the compass, then passed the pipe to me. The tobacco was far more
+aromatic than any I had come across before.</p>
+
+<p>With the amenities out of the way, the Chief said, "Why has the White
+Chief sent you to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"To welcome you to the land of the white man."</p>
+
+<p>"I come not to the land of the white man in peace."</p>
+
+<p>My eyes were as cold as his own. "This we do not understand. The white
+man has no quarrel with the tribe of Kornesh."</p>
+
+<p>"The white man," Lo-as-ro said sonorously, "has taken from the Orbiwah
+his land and his home. He has driven the Orbiwah into small areas. He
+has killed buffalo and the bison and the deer, leaving the Orbiwah to
+eat the meat of the horse or to starve. The Orbiwah has been made foul
+with the diseases of the white man."</p>
+
+<p>"All this," I said, "was long, long ago. Perhaps it was not right, but
+it is the way of life that the strong prevail and the weak perish."</p>
+
+<p>His expression darkened. "You say this&mdash;you with the blood of the
+Orbiwah in your veins?"</p>
+
+<p>"I speak only true words, noble Lo-as-ro. The white men are in number
+as the leaves of the forest, the Orbiwah few and helpless."</p>
+
+<p>One of his hands made a graceful motion. "I have come to return the
+land to the Orbiwah, to restore him to the greatness of his fathers.
+Once more the land shall be alive with game, the rivers filled with
+fish. Once more shall the Orbiwah hunt with the weapons of his
+fathers. I have spoken."</p>
+
+<p>"From whence do you come?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>He pointed dramatically toward the sky. "From a great distance. Up
+there are many worlds."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me of your world," I said.</p>
+
+<p>The telling took a long time but not a word of it was dull. According
+to Lo-as-ro, his world was a planet revolving about one of the stars
+in the Big Dipper. It was slightly smaller than Earth, with about the
+same climates and development of life. It was peopled with only one
+race, the Orbiwah, who lived much as the Indians in America did before
+the arrival of the white man. Recently spaceships from another planet
+in the same solar system had landed on the Orbiwah world. These
+newcomers were friendly, had no thought of conquest, and possessed a
+science and culture of amazing proportions.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>From them the Orbiwah learned of a planet on which were men of their
+own kind. Lo-as-ro, fired by the thought of establishing contact with
+people like himself, had borrowed spaceships manned by robots and
+crossed the void to Earth. For weeks they had hovered in our
+atmosphere, at first saddened, then angered, by the fate meted out to
+the Indians.</p>
+
+<p>Since the spaceships were able to move through Time into the past,
+Lo-as-ro hit on the idea of going back to the days when the Indian was
+still in control of most of America. With the power at his control he
+could force the white man from the continent and restore the land to
+those who owned it.</p>
+
+<p>Arriving near the close of the Eighteenth Century, he found a sizeable
+encampment of Indians, brought the ship down among them, and summoned
+the chiefs to a Council of War, where he outlined to them his plan. To
+his astonishment he found the chiefs suspicious of outside help and
+confident that they could defeat the white man alone. In vain did
+Lo-as-ro explain that they were doomed; they could not, or would not,
+believe that he had visited the future. He offered to take them ahead
+and let them see for themselves&mdash;an offer that was quickly refused.</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon Lo-as-ro decided to return to the Present and wrest the land
+from the white man and hand it over to the downtrodden remnants of a
+once-powerful race. It was on that return trip that Wetzel had arrived
+in the present century.</p>
+
+<p>When Lo-as-ro finished, I leaned back against the side of the ship and
+lit a cigarette, bringing a startled grunt from the chief. I said,
+"You cannot defeat the white man, Lo-as-ro. He has weapons such as you
+have never dreamed: machines that can throw things that explode and
+kill hundreds of braves at one time, machines that travel through the
+air as does the one you came in, things that can wipe out all life
+within a circle as wide as a brave can ride around in one day on a
+fast horse.</p>
+
+<p>"No, noble Lo-as-ro. Return to your world and leave this one to the
+white man. He took it long ago and he will never give it up. I have
+spoken."</p>
+
+<p>The chief of the Orbiwah smiled grimly. "In the ship in which I
+arrived on your world is a small machine. It is working for me now.
+Within its reach no weapon is useful, no explosion can take place, no
+signal can be sent. Only Man is not touched by this machine, but when
+it works he has no weapons with which to fight. Each hour the
+influence of this machine widens. Soon all this land will be helpless.
+Then the robots will take charge and those who oppose them will be
+slain."</p>
+
+<p>I thought of the "dead spot" I had first heard about on the newscast
+the night before, and how it was steadily growing. I remembered the
+slain farmer with the missing scalp, the two companies of soldiers
+helpless without radio, guns and transportation. I thought of a
+mechanized America helpless before a few score of these spaceships ...
+and I knew that counter-violence would be useless.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"Give the country back to the Indians!" The cry of the over-burdened
+citizen. It seemed it was about to come to that!</p>
+
+<p>For a long time I sat there, thinking, trying to hit on an answer that
+would save my country. And when the answer finally stirred at the back
+of my mind, it was so completely bizarre that I almost missed it
+entirely....</p>
+
+<p>"Noble Lo-as-ro," I said, "I must return to the Great White Father and
+tell him what I have learned. I will tell him that there is nothing to
+be done to oppose the Chief of the Kornesh. Within a few hours I will
+return with his reply."</p>
+
+<p>Lo-as-ro inclined his fine head in assent. "Let it be so."</p>
+
+<p>"Until my return," I said, "let the influence of the machine draw back
+until it holds helpless only a small section of land about your ship.
+Only in this way will I be able to return quickly to the White Chief."</p>
+
+<p>Again Lo-as-ro agreed. I took my leave of him ceremoniously, and a few
+minutes later Wetzel and I were hurrying back toward the highway.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Four hours later I was on my way back, this time with four companions.
+The plane landed us at the edge of the newly set "dead spot" and the
+five of us forced our way through the forest until we reached the
+clearing where the spaceship still crouched.</p>
+
+<p>A silent group of Indians watched us as we crossed the open ground.
+This time the two robots flanking the doorway did not leave their
+posts. As I came up the ramp with my companions, Lo-as-ro appeared in
+the doorway of the ship.</p>
+
+<p>He eyed me and the others without expression. I said, "Noble Lo-as-ro,
+I have brought with me four of my world's Orbiwah. They have come to
+hear your plan for them and their people. I have told them nothing of
+what you said to me, only that you have come from another world and
+are of their blood."</p>
+
+<p>One by one I presented my companions. Yellow Arm was Johnny Armin, an
+old school friend of mine; Iron Eagle, with whom I had spent a year in
+Korea, had his telephone listed under the name of Luke Riegel; Strong
+Wind was Sidney Storm, whom I had met while spending a year in
+Southern California; and Lone Pine, known as Lionel Patterson, lived a
+few doors down the street from me in Washington and shot eighteen
+holes any day in the low seventies.</p>
+
+<p>The color of their skins, the unmistakable cast of their features,
+made up the only passport they needed. At the chief's invitation we
+squatted in a rude circle at the top of the ramp, and the peace-pipe
+was brought out and passed around.</p>
+
+<p>Presently Lo-as-ro began to speak. The magnificent voice rolled out in
+tones like a cathedral organ, explaining how the American Indian was
+to assume his rightful place in a world of his own. It was a vivid
+picture, painted by an orator equal to any of the almost legendary
+Indian speakers, and they don't come any better.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately I was the only one present who could understand him.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>When it was over and Lo-as-ro was smiling in confident expectation of
+their gratified excitement, Johnny Armin gave me a baffled glance.
+"What the hell was <i>that</i> all about, Sam?"</p>
+
+<p>I said, "You guys don't know how lucky you are. The chief, here, is
+going to fix it up for you to go back to the good old days. Be noble
+red men. No more taxes, no more taxis. Live out in the fresh air,
+sleep under the star-studded sky, drink the unchlorinated spring
+water."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>What!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"You heard me. And he can do it, too. He's got the tools to flatten
+the country."</p>
+
+<p>They stared at me and at each other, horror and anger hardening their
+faces. Lo-as-ro had stopped smiling and was glancing about the circle
+in obvious bewilderment.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean he's doing all that for <i>us</i>?" Storm demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"For all Indians," I said. "Free them from the iron heel of the
+oppressor, and all that."</p>
+
+<p>"Nuts, brother!" Iron Eagle snapped. "Tell him I'm a graduate of
+Carnegie Tech, make twenty-five grand a year with Standard Oil, and
+vote the Republican ticket. If he thinks for a goddam minute I'm going
+to chasing around on a pinto pony hunting buffalo, he's got rocks in
+his head!"</p>
+
+<p>"And that goes for me&mdash;double!" Lone Pine growled. "I never heard
+anything so screwy!"</p>
+
+<p>I repeated what they had said, putting it into words Lo-as-ro could
+understand. He had the look of a man who couldn't believe his ears.
+"They speak with stupid tongues," he cried. "Do they deny the blood of
+their fathers?"</p>
+
+<p>"They live as they want to live, noble chief," I said. "They are
+grateful for your wish to help but they ask me to decline the offer."</p>
+
+<p>He came to his feet with a bound, his lean face hardening into a
+copper mask of anger. "These are not true Orbiwah!" he thundered.
+"These are as women, soft with idleness and pleasure, weakened by
+their white conquerors. The land is not for them; it is for those
+forced to live in degradation and squalor, dying of hunger and
+disease, ignored by the white chiefs. It is they who shall be given
+back the ways of their fathers, that they may become a great Orbiwah
+nation once more. I have spoken!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"Look at these braves," I said. All of us were standing now. "Of all
+the Orbiwah in this world it is such as these who could hope to
+survive under the conditions you wish to establish. The Orbiwah <i>you</i>
+describe would starve amid a thousand buffalo, they would fall from
+their horses, they would flee in battle. Take away the protection of
+the white chiefs and they would die."</p>
+
+<p>The chief of the tribe of Kornesh curled his lips in a sneer. "The
+protection given by the white chiefs is the protection of death. They
+do not care what happens to the Orbiwah. I have seen it with my own
+eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"You're right," I said promptly. "The Orbiwah has been badly treated
+too long. I shall return to the Great White Chief and tell him this:
+unless the life of the Orbiwah is made good, unless he has fine
+shelter, plenty of food, warm clothes for his back and the right to be
+as other men, you will return and force the white man from this land.
+It will take much time, but it shall come to pass. <i>I</i> have spoken."</p>
+
+<p>Doubt flickered in his eyes. "Perhaps your words are empty. How do I
+know they are true?"</p>
+
+<p>"When twenty summers have passed," I said, "come back again. Look upon
+the Orbiwah and learn if they still suffer want and privation. If
+their life is not better for what has happened today, then you need
+never trust the white man again."</p>
+
+<p>For a long moment he stood stiff as steel, staring into my eyes. Then
+his hand shot up, palm out, in a gesture of farewell, and he turned
+and disappeared into the spaceship.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>I got a barrage of questions then. I held up a hand to quiet my
+friends. "Some other time, gentlemen. I've got to get to Washington
+just as fast as a jet plane can get me there."</p>
+
+<p>"If it's that urgent," Luke said, "call him on the phone and reverse
+the charges."</p>
+
+<p>I scowled at him. "Call who?"</p>
+
+<p>"The President. Isn't he the reason you're in such a hurry?"</p>
+
+<p>"No! I've got to get to bed."</p>
+
+<p>"Bed? If you're that tired&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Who said anything about being tired?" I demanded. "Being tired has
+nothing to do with it."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It seems," I said, "there's a black lace nightgown...."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Call Him Savage, by John Pollard
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CALL HIM SAVAGE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 31758-h.htm or 31758-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/7/5/31758/
+
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Call Him Savage, by John Pollard
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Call Him Savage
+
+Author: John Pollard
+
+Illustrator: Sanford Kossin
+
+Release Date: March 24, 2010 [EBook #31758]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CALL HIM SAVAGE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         Transcriber's Note:
+
+    This etext was produced from Amazing Stories March 1954. Extensive
+    research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
+    publication was renewed.
+
+
+                           CALL HIM SAVAGE
+
+
+                           BY JOHN POLLARD
+
+
+                     Illustrator: Sanford Kossin
+
+
+     _Around the 15th of March each year, folks start saying,
+      "Give the country back to the Indians!" Well, that's what we
+      want to talk to you about._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+I didn't even hear her come in. What with the Sioux rising against the
+white settlement at the fork of the Platte, the attack being set for
+dawn, and Chief Spotted Horse's impassioned speech to his braves, I
+wouldn't have heard anything under a ninety-seven-decibel war whoop.
+
+Soft lips brushed the back of my neck and she said something.
+
+"That's fine," I said.
+
+"_Sam!_"
+
+I heard _that_, all right. I looked up from the typewriter. "Hey,
+that's a _nice_ nightgown!"
+
+"I said I think I'm getting a cold."
+
+"Well--with a nightgown like that...."
+
+"Silly!" Her smile would have corrupted a bishop. "You coming to bed?
+It's almost midnight."
+
+"Soon's I finish writing this chapter. Best thing I've ever done."
+
+"More Indians?"
+
+I reached for a cigarette. "Sure, more Indians. What else would one of
+the country's leading authorities on the original Americans be writing
+about? I hate to keep harping on the same subject, my sweet, but the
+dough from my last book bought you that mink stole you keep dangling
+in front of your girl friends."
+
+"If you make so much money at it, why are you still a reporter?"
+
+"I _like_ being a reporter."
+
+"What about _me_? Between reporting and Indians my love life is
+beginning to wither on the vine. You should have married a squaw."
+
+"Who says I didn't?" I gave her my best leer and reached out an
+exploring hand. She blushed and backed away, laughing. "Nothing doing,
+Sam Quinlan! You want me I'll be in bed."
+
+"Hey-hey!"
+
+She gave me a quick kiss, evaded my grasp and disappeared into the
+bedroom. I finished lighting the cigarette, typed a few more lines.
+But my working mood was gone, a casualty of a black lace nightgown.
+Finally I got up from the desk and snapped on the radio and, while it
+warmed up, strolled over to the living room window.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At this hour Washington was largely in bed. Away over to the east I
+could see the dim glow of lights marking the Mall, with the Capitol
+dome beyond that. Now that communism was dead, buried and unmourned in
+Russia and her satellites, with peace and prosperity booming from Iowa
+to Iran, even the President would be sleeping like a baby. Any day now
+I would be down to covering PTA meetings for the _Herald-Telegram_.
+That was okay with me; my big interest was "Saga of the Sioux"--the
+third in the series of books I was writing on the history of the
+American Indian.
+
+An early autumn breeze crawled in at the open window and moved the
+line of smoke from my cigarette. A quiet serene night, with the faint
+smell of burned leaves in the air and the promise of a cool, sunny,
+peaceful tomorrow. A lovely night, made far lovelier by the thought
+of the beautiful blonde waiting for me in the next room. After twelve
+years of marriage I still found her to be the most exciting and
+rewarding woman I had ever known.
+
+"... most of eastern Colorado," the radio said suddenly, "as well as
+the western fringes of Nebraska and Kansas."
+
+I turned the volume down. Weather report, probably, except that the
+announcer was making it sound like a declaration of war or a "sincere"
+commercial.
+
+"We repeat," the voice continued, "since 8:10 this evening, Eastern
+Standard Time, literally nothing has come out of that section of the
+country. All communication has ceased, outbound trains and planes are
+long overdue, highway traffic out of the area has stalled."
+
+"Sam?"
+
+"Yeah?"
+
+"You coming to bed?"
+
+"... tuned to this station for further bulletins con--"
+
+I clicked the set off. "Could I have three minutes for a fast shower?"
+
+"Umm ... I guess so."
+
+"I," I told her, "am coming to bed."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lois rattled the handle of the stall-shower door, and I shut off the
+water. "Yeah?"
+
+"Telephone, darling."
+
+"At _this_ hour? Who is it?"
+
+"Sounds like Purcell."
+
+"For Crisake!" I came out and grabbed a towel. "This is worse than one
+of those Hollywood farces about honeymooners. What's he want?"
+
+"I didn't dare ask him, he sounded so grumpy."
+
+I kissed her. "About that nightgown ..."
+
+"You're getting me all wet!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Purcell was night Editor at the _Herald-Telegram_, a small, intense,
+middle-aged, highly literate man. Years before, his wife had run off
+with a reporter, leaving Purcell with an undying hatred for all
+members of the profession.
+
+His voice, over the wire, cracked like a whip. "Sam?"
+
+"Listen, I'm off duty. You got any idea what time--"
+
+"You're wanted at the White House. Now."
+
+"The _White_ House? You mean--?"
+
+"The White House. The President wants to see you."
+
+"The _President_! Cut out the gags, will you? I'm in no--"
+
+"I don't kid with reporters, Sam. On your way."
+
+The phone went dead. I stood there staring stupidly at the receiver.
+Lois had to shake my arm to get my attention. "What did he want?"
+
+"The President wants to see me."
+
+"You're joking!"
+
+"Hunh-uh. Anybody but Pete Purcell, I'd agree." I put back the
+receiver and went over to the dresser for clean underwear. "Get back
+to bed, honey. I'll be home as soon as I get through running the
+Government. Can you imagine! The President wants to see _me_!"
+
+She yawned and stretched, looking like the June page on an _Esquire_
+calendar. "Well, so much for my sheerest nightgown."
+
+"Believe me, darling, if it wasn't the President--"
+
+"I know. It would be an Indian."
+
+I finished dressing while she sat on the bed with her knees drawn up
+to her chin, watching me. I kissed her thoroughly and patted her here
+and there and went downstairs. The night man in the garage under the
+building put down his _Racing Form_ and dug my Plymouth out of a
+welter of chrome and glass.
+
+I drove much too fast all the way.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A guard at the gate looked at my press pass and used a hidden
+telephone. Within not much more than seconds I was ushered into the
+Press Secretary's office. The Secretary, a badly shaken man if ever
+I'd seen one, had evidently been pacing the floor. He looked at me
+sharply out of pale, bloodshot eyes. "Your name Quinlan?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"May I see your identification?"
+
+I handed him my wallet. He flipped through the panels holding my press
+pass, social security card, driver's license and a picture of Lois in
+a bathing suit. When he failed to do more than give the latter a
+casual glance I knew this was a man with a troubled mind.
+
+I said, "Maybe you could give me kind of a hint on what's going on."
+
+"Going on?" he repeated absently.
+
+"You know--going on." I got off a nonchalant-type laugh that would
+have fooled anybody who was deaf. "I even heard that the President
+wanted to see me!"
+
+He gave me back the wallet. "Ah--yes. Come with me, please."
+
+We left the office and went down a hall, around some corners and down
+more halls, past a lot of doors, all of them closed. Finally he
+stopped in front of a pair of doors with shiny brass doorknobs,
+knocked twice, then turned the knob, said, "Mr. Quinlan, gentlemen,"
+shoved me through with a jerk of his chin, and closed the door behind
+me.
+
+I never saw him again.
+
+There was a long table down the center of a long narrow room. The
+woodwork was white and the walls papered a dark green, with
+walnut-framed pictures here and there of the kind of men you see in
+albums of Civil War vintage.
+
+But the men around the table were as modern as a jet bomber. There
+were five of them, three of whom I recognized on sight: Army Chief of
+Staff General Lucius Ohlmsted, Secretary of War Franklin McClave, and,
+seated at the far end of the table and looking even younger than his
+forty-nine years, the President of the United States.
+
+The remaining two were just a couple of men to me: dark business
+suits, clean collars, manicured fingernails and the type of faces you
+see twenty of on any city block.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I walked on down the room, feeling as conspicuous as a cheer leader at
+a wake, while five pairs of eyes sorted me over molecule by molecule.
+When I reached the near end of the table, I stopped, resisted an
+impulse to salute, and stood there at attention.
+
+The President managed to keep from smiling, although you could see he
+wasn't far from it. "Thanks for coming here so promptly, Mr. Quinlan.
+I'd like you to meet my associates."
+
+He reeled off names and titles. The two strangers were a Mr. Proudfit
+and a Mr. Kramer, occupations not disclosed. Kramer was small and
+ageless, with a weather-beaten face and a mouth like a steel trap;
+while Mr. Proudfit had the look of a benign monk, until you saw the
+tempered steel glint in his piercing eyes.
+
+When introductions were completed, I said, "How do you do?" once,
+including them all, and went on waiting. Nobody suggested I sit down,
+probably because there were only five chairs around the table to begin
+with and the room's two couches were too far away to keep me in the
+group. The President gave me the same winning smile that had pulled a
+couple million extra votes his way in the last election, and said,
+"Let me start off, Mr. Quinlan, by telling you that we've got a
+problem on our hands--one that may very well involve the peace and
+well-being of the entire country. The details are going to strain your
+credulity beyond human limits, I'm afraid--just as they have ours. But
+there is enough supporting evidence to what we've heard for us to do
+something about it. And that's where you come in."
+
+He paused, evidently waiting for a response from me. There was only
+one response I could make--even though I hadn't the slightest idea
+what he was talking about. "I'm at your service, Mr. President."
+
+His smile was a medal for my chest. "Thank you. At this point I'd
+better let Mr. Kramer take over."
+
+Kramer leaned back in his chair, placed the tips of his fingers
+together and stared searchingly at me over them. His voice, when he
+spoke, was as dry as his skin. "Mr.--ah--Quinlan, I understand you
+were born thirty-one years ago on a Potawatomi Indian reservation in
+the state of Michigan."
+
+I blinked. "That's right. Not many people know it."
+
+"You are part Indian, I believe?"
+
+"One quarter Potawatomi."
+
+"Also, I'm told that you are something of an authority on the history
+of the American Indian."
+
+"I've written books on the subject and expect to write a good many
+more."
+
+"You speak the language?"
+
+"What language?"
+
+He floundered a little. "Why--ah--the--ah--Indian language."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Look, Mr. Kramer," I said, "there are scores of Indian languages.
+Nobody in history, red man or white, could ever speak all of them.
+Fortunately most Indians belonged to one of several great families,
+and the language of each family was close enough for the tribes in
+that family to understand each other. I can handle the language of the
+Algonquin like a native, being part Potawatomi myself. I can get by in
+the tongue of the Iroquois, the Caddoan, the Siouan, and the
+Muskhogean. The Dene and Uto-Aztecan would give me considerable
+trouble, while the Penutian would be just about a blank."
+
+I stopped there, and shrugged. "Sorry. I didn't mean to turn this into
+a lecture."
+
+Kramer's weathered face stayed expressionless. "Are you familiar with
+the customs of Indians of, say, two hundred years ago?"
+
+"With their customs, clothing, religions, food, taboos, cultures,
+weapons, or anything else you can think of."
+
+Franklin McClave, the Secretary of War, cut in on us at this point. "I
+think, Bob," he said to Kramer, "that Mr. Quinlan qualifies for the
+job." His glance turned to me. "I'd like for you to meet a man waiting
+in the next room, Quinlan. I want you to hear his story, talk to him,
+ask him questions, then give us your opinion of the results. Do you
+mind?"
+
+I spread my hands. "Whatever you say."
+
+Kramer got to his feet and went over to a side door. He pushed it
+open, said something I didn't hear, then stepped rather quickly out of
+the way.
+
+A moment later young Daniel Boone came out!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of course, it wasn't really Daniel Boone at all. Leaving out the fact
+that the "dark and bloody ground" frontiersman had been dead nearly a
+hundred and fifty years, this man was a lot handsomer, with entirely
+different features. But he was wearing the fringed buckskin trousers
+and shirt, the beaded moccasins, the coonskin cap, and his coarse
+black hair hung almost to his shoulders. A powderhorn swung from his
+neck by a greasy cord, and he was holding on to a six-foot
+muzzle-loader as though it were his only contact with reality.
+
+I stood there with my chin two inches from the rug and gawked at him.
+He was scared to death. His deep-set brown eyes rolled fearfully from
+side to side, with too much white showing around the irises. His
+clutch on the gun grew even tighter, whitening the knuckles of his
+hand.
+
+Muscles crawled on my scalp. A strange tension seemed to fill the
+room. Kramer cleared his throat. "This man's name is Enoch Wetzel, Mr.
+Quinlan. I want him to tell you exactly what he told us earlier
+tonight."
+
+I felt the tendons in my legs tighten, pulling me into a slight
+crouch. I was back a hundred and seventy years in the past, with a
+dull anger starting to move around in me. "Wetzel," I said, making it
+sound like a dirty word. "Any relation to Lewis Wetzel?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The young man's eyes widened with astonishment and obvious relief.
+"Well, now, I reckon so! Lew's my uncle."
+
+"Lew Wetzel," I said between my teeth, "is a low, stinking, murdering
+skunk!"
+
+I ducked just in time to keep from being brained by the swinging stock
+of the long gun. I came up under it quicker than I'd ever moved before
+in my life and nailed him on the jaw with a solid right, getting my
+shoulder behind it. It was like hitting the Hall of Justice. He
+grunted and up came the rifle butt for another try.
+
+Suddenly the room was bulging with strangers. A dozen arms folded
+around the young man, the gun was ripped from his fingers and he hit
+the rug with a thump that shook the room. The buckskin-covered legs
+threshed briefly, then were still.
+
+I moistened my lips and backed away as sanity returned. I looked at
+the frozen faces around the table. "My fault, Mr. President. I can't
+blame you for thinking I'm as crazy as he is. But, as Mr. Kramer
+mentioned, I'm part Indian. Back in the seventeen hundreds a
+frontiersman named Lewis Wetzel murdered a lot of Indians--men, women
+and children. I suppose you might say I went atavistic, or something,
+at hearing this fellow claim he was Wetzel's nephew. He's a screwball,
+of course, and I owe you a good solid apology for starting a ruckus."
+
+The President wasn't smiling now. "Perhaps I should have told you
+before, Mr. Quinlan, we may desperately need this young man's
+assistance in the near future."
+
+I almost blurted out the wrong thing, but bit my lip instead and
+remained silent. The President's eyes swung to the heap of humanity on
+the floor. "Let him up, boys. I'll call you if I need you again."
+
+The six Secret Service men rose and stood Enoch Wetzel on his feet,
+then returned to the adjoining office, not looking too happy about
+leaving a madman with the Chief Executive. Wetzel pushed the long hair
+off his forehead and stood there glowering at me, spots of angry color
+in his dark cheeks.
+
+I said, "Forget it, Mac. I made a small mistake."
+
+His thin lips peeled back in a snarl. "Halfbreed!"
+
+I took it, although nothing was ever harder for me to do. Kramer
+hurriedly stepped into the breach. "Mr.--ah--Wetzel, we're waiting for
+you to repeat what you told us before."
+
+The tall, broad-shouldered young man turned from me to face the long
+table. There was a graceful dignity about him, in his posture, in the
+way he held his head, that you don't see often. Again I felt the hair
+move along my scalp. For a guy who was as nutty as peanut brittle, he
+was certainly convincing in his role of frontiersman. Turn back the
+clock far enough and this could have been one of General Anthony
+Wayne's scouts at the battle of Fallen Timbers. He even _smelled_ the
+part.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"My father got hisself put on by General Harmer as a scout a fortnight
+back. The General, on orders from President Washington, was to lead
+his sojers to the north after the Injuns up there. Pop allowed as I
+was ready to try my luck agin the abbregynes, so he took me along.
+
+"Three-four nights after we set out ahead the rest, Pop an' me come
+onto fresh Injun signs. We move powerful careful through the woods an'
+right soon we catch sight of camp fires. There's a whole grist of them
+red devils prancin' around, all fixed out in war paint--more of 'em as
+I ever see'd afore. Even Pop allows as how it bugs out _his_ eyes--and
+Pop's a man to do an amount of travelin'."
+
+It was a page torn out of technicolor nightmare: three of the world's
+most important men hanging onto the words of a madman who claimed to
+be an Eighteenth Century Indian scout in the employ of one of George
+Washington's generals. Yet the man's every word, every gesture,
+everything he wore, was as authentic to that period as the powder horn
+around his neck.
+
+"We draw back in the woods aways an' wait. It's gettin' along to'ard
+sun-up, an' Pop says he aims to get a better idea how many Injuns
+they is, an' what tribes. Most of the braves got nice new British guns
+an' General Harmer'll want to know about that."
+
+Wetzel's voice began to shake a little, remembering. "Pop an' me are
+hidin' in a clump of sumac when this here sudden racket starts up,
+equal to a hundred waterfalls goin' all at oncet. We look up in the
+air where it's comin' from, and holy hokey if fallin' right out of the
+sky ain't this round iron thing! Flat as a hoe-cake an' big around as
+an acre of land, with the fires of Hell breathin' at its edges!
+
+"Well sir, them Injuns lit a shuck out of there like the spirits was
+after them. My legs were tryin' to run, too. But Pop takes a holt on
+my arm an' says, 'By Janey, I aim to see this if'en I swing for it!'
+
+"It drops down," Wetzel continued, demonstrating with a slow graceful
+movement of his hand, "lookin' no less than a big shiny stove-lid, an'
+settles in the clearin' as light an' easy as the feather off'en a
+duck's back. It stands high as a Pennsylvany school house an' twicet
+the size around, an' no sound from it at all."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He stood slim and straight as a Shawnee arrow, smooth-faced and
+solemn, obviously not much past his twentieth birthday, yet by his own
+account born before the Declaration of Independence was on paper. He
+went on talking, sounding like a character out of James Fenimore
+Cooper. His story, boiled down and translated, came out something like
+this:
+
+The sudden arrival of the strange object had literally paralyzed the
+Indian encampment. The warriors dropped their weapons and called on
+the spirits to protect them, while a hole opened in the side of what
+couldn't be anything else but a spaceship. Then out of the opening
+came huge steel caricatures of men. There were over a dozen of these
+robots, each the height of two men, and their eyes were strange round
+circles of faceted glass. In single file they moved down the ramp and
+stalked through the ranks of fear-frozen Indians, disappearing into
+the forest.
+
+Enoch's father ordered his son to crawl up into a tree out of sight,
+then shouldered his rifle and slipped away through the bushes to get a
+better look at what was going on. Enoch "allowed" that his Pop was a
+"moughty" brave man, and none of his audience gave him an argument on
+that score.
+
+From his place among the leaves, Enoch watched his father melt into
+the trees. The sun was above the horizon by this time and the young
+frontiersman discovered that his present position was the equivalent
+of a box seat on the fifty-yard line.
+
+The next figure to emerge from the spaceship brought an amazed murmur
+from hundreds of throats. No twelve-foot robot this time, no alien
+monster beyond description. Very simply, this was an Indian.
+
+Yet what an Indian! He stood on the ramp, wearing only leather
+breeches and unadorned moccasins, muscles rippling across a powerful
+sun-tanned chest, his head thrown back in a posture of arrogant
+dignity. He wore a single crimson feather in his black topknot, and at
+his belt was a tomahawk only slightly less deadly looking than a
+howitzer.
+
+Arms folded across his chest, he swept his stunned audience with an
+eye like an eagle's, then began to speak. His voice, deep and ringing,
+carried beyond the edges of the crowd, so that Enoch was able to catch
+a portion of what he was saying.
+
+Wetzel admitted he understood very little of any of the Indian
+tongues. He thought the one he was hearing had its roots in the
+Delaware tribe, but admitted this was no more than a guess. However,
+it appeared that the visitor was summoning the chiefs of the assembled
+tribes to a meeting within the spaceship.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Evidently it took some doing. Faced with a familiar danger, there is
+no human more courageous than an Indian. But the thought of entering
+the yawning maw of that steel cavern would have shaken the nerves of
+Manabus himself.
+
+Finally the visiting Indian's oratory paid off, and nine or ten of the
+tribal leaders reluctantly entered the spaceship. Two robots took up
+positions on the ramp to discourage kibitzers, and after an hour or so
+in which nothing more happened, the rest of the camp returned pretty
+much to normal.
+
+Mid-afternoon came and passed, and still the meeting inside the ship
+went on. Enoch was finding the tree branch not the most comfortable
+place to spend a weekend, and he was growing steadily more uneasy by
+his father's continued absence.
+
+More hours passed. The sun was gone now and campfires began to dot the
+night. Orders or no orders, Enoch decided, he was going to find his
+Pop. With a stealth equal to that of any Indian, he dropped to the
+ground and began a cautious advance in the direction his father had
+taken hours before.
+
+Suddenly the bushes crashed apart directly in front of him, and his
+father came bounding through. Only a few yards back, its giant strides
+rapidly closing the gap, came one of the huge steel men.
+
+Enoch's gun flashed up and he fired without aiming. The bullet struck
+one of the robot's huge eyes, shattering the glass and sending the
+towering figure crashing headlong into a tree. At the same instant, an
+ear-shattering wail came from the fallen robot, and powerful rays of
+light flashed from the rim of the spaceship to bathe the spot where
+the two Wetzels stood.
+
+Mixed with the siren wail from the fallen man of steel came a chorus
+of blood-curdling warhoops as the Indians made out the figures of the
+two men, and a hundred braves came pouring across the clearing toward
+them. Instantly the two scouts took to their heels, darting through
+the inky blackness of the forest with the sure-footed celerity of long
+practice.
+
+They would have escaped easily under ordinary circumstances. But
+suddenly the blast of another siren sounded directly ahead and a lance
+of light impaled them. Blinded, they stumbled aside, only to be caught
+by still another beam.
+
+The two men split apart and dived for cover. Enoch, finding himself
+shielded from the rays by the thick bole of a tree, scrambled into its
+branches. A moment later the first wave of Indians passed below him.
+
+For fully ten minutes he crouched there among the leaves. The barrage
+of light, he discovered, had come from the towering robots, and he
+recalled the dozen or so steel monsters that had left the camp soon
+after the spaceship landed. Evidently they had been sent out to
+encircle the camp so that no one might leave or enter until the
+visitors permitted it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Finally Enoch heard the Indians returning toward camp. He knew they
+would search every tree hunting for him. Reloading his rifle, he
+dropped to the ground and adopting the only maneuver they would not
+expect, made his way cautiously back toward the camp.
+
+He had hoped to skirt the camp itself and find an avenue to freedom in
+the opposite direction. But his hopes were almost immediately dashed,
+for he soon made out the darting rays of light marking more of the
+robots.
+
+Enoch was trapped. Taking advantage of every possible means of cover,
+he inched ahead, changing his direction a dozen times, until he
+suddenly stopped short, his path barred by the towering spaceship
+itself. Staying within the dense shadows at its base, he began to
+skirt the ship, hoping to find a place where he could hide out until
+the enemy gave up the search.
+
+But again his luck failed to hold. This time he was stopped by a wall
+of metal fully ten feet high, which turned out to be one side of the
+entrance ramp to the spaceship. Circling it would bring him right into
+the camp, to climb over it was impossible; to turn back, useless. This
+was the end of the line!
+
+As he stood there trying to figure out his next move, he caught the
+sound of a guarded movement some distance behind him. Instantly he
+dropped to the grass, his long rifle ready to take at least one of his
+enemies with him. And that was when he learned that the bottom of the
+ramp was nearly two feet above the ground.
+
+Even Macy's shopping service couldn't have furnished him with a better
+hiding place. Enoch wriggled himself under the edge and lay there
+breathing quietly, while, a moment later, three pairs of moccasined
+feet moved over the spot where he had been hiding.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some time passed. He could hear voices very near and the rustle of
+feet moving through the grass. Then came the dull thud of metal
+against metal over his head in a rhythmic tempo like the tread of
+marching soldiers. Hardly had this ceased before he heard another
+sound which he could not identify, and the ramp itself began to move!
+
+It was drawing in toward the ship, very slowly. To stay where he was
+would mean the loss of his hiding place; to try to run away would
+almost certainly be fatal. And so Enoch acted in the only way left to
+him.
+
+By hooking his arms and legs around the girders forming the underside
+of the ramp, he was able to lift himself clear of the ground. It meant
+being carried into the ship, but even that, he decided, was better
+than falling into the hands of Indians.
+
+He clung there like a sloth to a branch. Fortunately the beams were
+recessed enough to prevent his being scraped off when he reached the
+opening into the hull. When the ramp finally ground to a halt he found
+himself in darkness beyond anything in his experience. There was cold
+metal under him now and he lowered himself gingerly onto it. When he
+tried to crawl into the open, he discovered that the edges of the ramp
+were now flush with the floor.
+
+Suddenly a deep humming note tore at his ears, became a shrill whine,
+then passed into silence. The floor seemed to press harder and harder
+into his back, his lungs fought for air, a sharp burst of light seemed
+to explode soundlessly before his bulging eyes and consciousness left
+him....
+
+The rasp of metal against metal aroused him. The ramp was moving
+again. Once more he attached himself to its girders and was slowly
+carried from the spaceship. Sunlight on the grass told him the night
+had passed, and the moment the ramp came to a halt, he dropped to the
+ground and squirmed into the open. He was close enough to the ship to
+keep from being seen by those aboard, and he slipped quickly around
+one side before making a break for the shelter of a clump of trees
+bordering the clearing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"And that, Mr. Quinlan," Kramer said, "just about brings you up to
+date. At 4:07 this afternoon Mr. Wetzel was found by the crew of an
+Army tank twelve miles west of Burdette, Colorado. He told his story
+to the colonel in charge of that perimeter of operations, and was then
+flown directly to Washington." He paused and allowed himself a
+humorless smile. "I assume you have some questions?"
+
+I said, "I'm not going to ask if you take this man's story seriously.
+Considering the positions of the men in this room you obviously do.
+What I'd like to know is why?"
+
+Kramer hesitated. "Let me ask you this, Quinlan," he said, choosing
+his words carefully. "Based solely on this man's costume and speech,
+would you say he is an impostor?"
+
+"No," I told him promptly. "Frontiersmen dressed exactly that way, the
+long gun is authentic and his pronunciation, phrases and idiom comes
+straight out of pre-Revolutionary times. But I still fail to see why
+you give a second thought to his story."
+
+"You don't think it true?"
+
+"My God, man, how can it be? Unless you're trying to tell me that this
+character was brought here by a time machine!"
+
+"One moment, Mr. Quinlan." Secretary of War McClave was back in the
+picture. "Let me tell you why we do not regard Mr. Wetzel as a mental
+case. Shortly after one o'clock this afternoon, Rocky Mountain Time, a
+section of Washington County, Colorado, roughly thirty miles in
+circumference was suddenly cut off from the rest of the country--cut
+off as completely as though it never existed. Telephone lines ceased
+to function, a radio station in the same area went off the air in the
+middle of a soap commercial. All traffic, vehicular and foot, ceased
+to come out of it. The Governor of Colorado sent in a detachment of
+the National Guard; nothing has been heard from it since. Air
+observers report all cars and trains appear to have stalled. Two
+planes trying a bit of hedge-hopping apparently conked out and were
+forced to land. No radio contact with them."
+
+I said, "I heard some of this on a news broadcast shortly before
+midnight tonight. According to the announcer the area involved was
+larger than thirty miles."
+
+McClave nodded soberly. "The affected area is expanding steadily. It
+now reaches as far west as Strasburg, Colorado, and as far east as
+the Nebraska state line. The north and south limits seem to be
+somewhat narrower."
+
+I looked at him and at the other men around the table. Their faces
+held a quiet tautness, and General Ohlmsted's hand, holding a cigar,
+was shaking a little. "And," I said, "you feel that this spaceship
+holds the answer. Is that it?"
+
+"It's all we have to go on," the President said softly.
+
+"One more question," I said. "Where do I fit into this?"
+
+There was a moment's awkward silence, broken by the creak of the chair
+holding the man who had been introduced to me as a Mr. Proudfit. His
+round face smiled at me almost jovially.
+
+"I expect I'm the one to explain that, Mr. Quinlan. Wetzel tells us
+the man in charge of the spaceship appeared to be an Indian. It seems
+our best move is to send an emissary into the blacked-out section to
+learn the reason for this--well--this attack. Such a representative
+should be qualified to deal intelligently with this--this Indian.
+Somebody able to understand the Indian temperament. In short, Mr.
+Quinlan, you!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I rubbed a hand along the back of my neck and smiled. "You know, this
+whole thing is utterly mad! Indians, time machines, robots,
+spaceships! But then these days the most fertile imaginations can't
+seem to keep up with reality. If you gentlemen want me to try to get
+to this Indian and ask him what's the big idea, I'll do my best. Not
+because I want to, but because I wouldn't know how to go about
+refusing the President of my country."
+
+Some of the tension seemed to go out of the room. The President said,
+"You won't find me or your country ungrateful, Mr. Quinlan," and the
+Secretary of War nodded approvingly, and General Ohlmsted's cigar
+stopped shaking. Proudfit took out a sheaf of papers from an inner
+pocket of his coat, leafed through them quickly and handed one to me.
+"This authorizes you as a representative of the United States
+Government, answerable only to the President, and with full authority
+to act accordingly."
+
+"Fine," I said, putting it away. "Maybe I can use it on these robots
+Wetzel mentioned!"
+
+Proudfit looked at his strap-watch. "An Army jet bomber will take you
+and Mr. Wetzel to a point as close to Burdette, Colorado, as can be
+managed. Wetzel tells us he can locate the spaceship from that point.
+We don't know, of course, how closely guarded the ship is--or even if
+it's guarded at all. But Wetzel is confident his training and
+background as a frontiersman and Indian fighter can get you there
+under cover of darkness. Once you reach the spaceship, the rest is up
+to you."
+
+"And if I don't make it?"
+
+Proudfit spread his hands. "Two companies of Army regulars entered
+that area at 6:30 tonight. They were fully armed, with orders to use
+those arms if necessary. Nothing has been heard from them since. We're
+sending you on the theory that where many can't get through perhaps
+one or two can. You have until noon--slightly more than eleven hours
+from now--to get word to us. If we don't hear from you by then or if
+the 'dead' area continues to expand after that time, then we throw our
+Sunday punch!"
+
+Enoch Wetzel was still standing exactly as he had while telling his
+story. I walked over to him. "Let's get one thing straight, mister. If
+you and I are going to work together, we leave personal feelings out
+of it. A few minutes ago I passed a remark or two about one of your
+relatives and you tried to knock my head off. I'm willing to forget it
+if you are. But I don't want any more cracks out of you about my being
+a half-breed. Is that clear?"
+
+He eyed me stonily, then without change of expression spat on the rug
+within a quarter-inch of my left shoe. I felt the muscles in my arms
+twang like plucked wires as I resisted the impulse to swing on him.
+"Is that your answer, Wetzel?"
+
+"I'll git you thar," he said tonelessly. "I promised these yere
+gennelmen I'd do thet much. But it don't hold I gotta cotton to you."
+
+We stood there staring into each other's eyes. There was a wall of
+hatred between us that could never be destroyed, a wall not fashioned
+by us but by our forefathers generations before. Yet a chain of
+incredible events had made us allies against an alien foe. In spite of
+our mutual dislike we must work together.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I turned back to Proudfit. "I'll need a pair of heavy black basketball
+shoes, dark coveralls, a good heavy sweater, a .38 Colt automatic with
+plenty of ammunition, and a compass."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The bomber pilot was a fresh-faced youngster who chewed gum and
+claimed to have been the second-ranking tennis player in Des Moines,
+Iowa. He shook hands gravely with me, eyed Wetzel and his strange garb
+and out-size rifle with blank-faced wonder, and mentioned that it was
+a nice night for flying.
+
+The plane took off at 1:27. We were due over our target by 4:00
+o'clock Eastern Standard Time, or 2:00 Mountain Time. The plans called
+for the bomber to fly at a high altitude, then come in on Burdette
+with jets off and drop us by 'chute. Wetzel had balked for a while at
+the idea of stepping off into space, but a brief but patient
+explanation of how a parachute worked finally brought him grudgingly
+around.
+
+The trip seemed to take forever. I was torn by a thousand doubts,
+saddened by not being allowed to say goodbye to Lois, not a little
+afraid of what I would likely run into in Colorado. And all the while,
+my companion, out of his normal world and time, surrounded by wonders
+beyond his wildest nightmares, slept sound as an infant....
+
+A hand shook me awake. In the faint glow of a flashlight I made out
+the face of the co-pilot. "Twenty minutes, Mr. Quinlan."
+
+Wetzel was already on his feet. The co-pilot helped us don the
+'chutes, and five minutes before arrival opened the heavy side door. A
+rush of wind tore in, but there was no other sound. The jets had
+already cut off and the plane was gradually losing altitude in a
+shallow dive. As this was not a plane used for parachute troops there
+was no wire to hook the 'chute cord to. It meant we would have to pull
+our own, but both of us had been thoroughly versed in what to do.
+
+"Get ready," shouted the co-pilot.
+
+I grasped the door frame and waited, my heart pounding in my ears.
+Wetzel stood directly behind me, the muzzle-loader in his hand, the
+tail of his coonskin cap bouncing in the wind, his eyes narrowed.
+
+"Five," the co-pilot said suddenly. "And a four, and a three, and a
+two, and a one--_target_!"
+
+I dived headfirst into blackness. I spun madly earthward, but in the
+back of my mind a calm voice counted off the seconds. Then I yanked at
+the ring-cord, black folds of nylon rustled above me, I heard a sharp
+report like the crack of a giant whip, the straps at my shoulders
+yanked painfully, and I was floating gently down toward the
+night-shrouded surface of Colorado.
+
+I landed in a meadow, if that was what they called it this far west. I
+came down hard but in the way they had told me would prevent injury.
+There was no wind to yank me about before I could unship the
+parachute, and within seconds I was on my feet and searching for some
+sign of Enoch Wetzel.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Unexpectedly a hand struck me lightly on the back. I was jumping aside
+and reaching for my gun when the frontiersman's quiet voice reached
+me. "You scare mighty easy for an Injun."
+
+I said, "We should be about a mile, two at the most, south of the road
+where that Army tank picked you up yesterday afternoon. Let's find
+it."
+
+"Aye."
+
+The land was by no means as flat as I had expected. Fortunately most
+of it was relatively open, with only scattered clumps of trees and
+bushes. There were too many small unexplained night sounds, but none
+of these appeared to alarm Wetzel in the slightest, so I managed to
+ignore them. Once we flushed a long-eared rabbit, and it was five
+minutes before I could get my heart out of my throat.
+
+A barbed-wire fence, the first we had encountered, told me we had
+reached a road. It wasn't paved or even graveled--just a ribbon of
+dirt pointing east and west as straight as an Apache lance. Nothing
+moved along it in either direction as far as I could see. A line of
+telephone poles bordered one side.
+
+"Recognize any landmarks?" I asked.
+
+Wetzel shook his head.
+
+"We're probably east of where you were found," I said. "We might as
+well start walking."
+
+He grunted in agreement and we started out. It was a lovely starlit
+night, no moon at this hour, and a lot warmer than I had expected for
+October in Colorado. Now and then the road dipped and climbed, and as
+we reached the crest of the third hill, I saw a good-sized farmhouse
+set well back from the road among a group of out-buildings.
+
+I pointed to the house. "Maybe they can tell us what's been happening
+around here."
+
+Wetzel nodded and we turned in at a fieldstone path leading across the
+large yard to the front door. There were no lights visible from
+within, no dog barked, no rustle of livestock in the barns or pens.
+
+I saw him just before I stepped on his head. He was lying across the
+path in the shadow cast by a gnarled tree, a stocky man in overalls
+and a blue work shirt. A double-barrelled twelve-gauge shotgun lay on
+the ground near his right hand. One side of his chest was black with a
+sticky substance that could have been only one thing, and the top of
+his head was black in the same way, except that no hair was there
+anymore....
+
+"_Scalped!_" I whispered hoarsely.
+
+Enoch Wetzel stooped suddenly and picked up the shotgun and wordlessly
+held it out to me. My jaw fell in astonishment. The twin barrels were
+bent into a rude V.
+
+I licked my lips and backed away. "Let's get out of here, Wetzel."
+
+He tossed the gun aside and we turned back to the road. Neither of us
+said anything for fully a mile. "No human hands could have done that
+to a gun," I said. "I'm beginning to believe what you said about
+robots. Robots that take scalps!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Another hill, another valley ... and Wetzel caught hold of my arm. "I
+come across them sojers about here," he said.
+
+"Okay. From now on you act as guide."
+
+We went on. Several times Wetzel's long, swinging, tireless stride
+left me behind and he was forced to wait until I caught up with him
+again. I had the feeling that I was holding him back, and there was
+something faintly contemptuous in his obvious patience. But the life
+of a book-writing newspaper man hadn't prepared me for cross-country
+marathons, and there was nothing to be done about it now.
+
+The fairly level, open ground was giving place to a heavily wooded
+countryside. After another mile of winding roadway, Wetzel suddenly
+turned aside and plunged into the forest. It was as dark as the inside
+of an undertaker's hat, and after I had banged into a few dozen trees
+and tripped over a few dead branches, making enough racket to alert
+half the state, Wetzel slowed his pace to a crawl.
+
+Finally I grabbed one of the fringed sleeves of his buckskin shirt to
+stop him and sank down on a fallen log. "How much farther?"
+
+He leaned his folded arms on the muzzle of his long gun and I could
+feel his deep-set eyes studying me without approval. "'Nother hour;
+p'rhaps more. Dependin' on you."
+
+"Sure," I said with understandable bitterness. "I'm not the man my
+granddaddy was. Nobody is. When I take a walk it's down to the corner
+for a pack of cigarettes. Anything farther than that I use a horseless
+carriage. We don't need steel muscles and superior woodcraft these
+days, brother. Just enough eyesight to read the directions on the can,
+ears sharp enough to hear the boss bawling you out, enough nose to
+smell the whiskey on your neighboring straphanger's breath, reflexes
+quick enough to avoid being run down by some politician's Cadillac. If
+I'd have known I was going to be called on to go batting around a
+jungle, I'd have been down to the Y five days a we--"
+
+He moved like a striking snake. A hand was clapped over my mouth and a
+knee forced me to the ground. Before I could make an effort to fight
+back, he placed his mouth close to my ear. "Danger! 'Tis death for so
+much as a broken twig!"
+
+He removed his hand and I could breathe again. We lay there side by
+side close to a huge tree, deep in the shadows. And then faintly as
+from far off I heard the crackle of disturbed undergrowth and, slowly
+louder and louder, an evenly spaced thumping sound that seemed to
+shake the earth.
+
+Through the trees it came, directly toward the spot where Wetzel and I
+hugged the ground. It loomed against the night, a tower of steel on
+jointed legs, a horrible travesty of the human figure, a head like
+King Arthur's helmet. Starlight picked out two round faceted eyes of
+glass.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My suddenly dry mouth puckered with the taste of terror. I did not
+breathe; even my heart seemed to beat no more. I wanted to close my
+eyes, but even the lids seemed paralyzed.
+
+For almost a full minute the giant robot remained standing less than
+ten feet from where Wetzel and I were lying. It seemed to sense the
+presence of something of flesh and blood nearby. Its head turned
+slowly from side to side in little uneven jerks that put ice cubes in
+my veins. Finally the mammoth feet began their rhythmic thumping and a
+moment later it disappeared among the trees.
+
+After what seemed a long time Wetzel rose to his feet. I got up slowly
+and leaned against the tree. "In a little while," I said softly, "I'll
+wake up. I'll be in bed with my wife, under the nice clean white
+sheets, and I'll know all this was a nightmare brought on by that
+canned salmon we had for dinner."
+
+This, I told myself sharply, wasn't getting me anywhere except next
+door to hysteria. I ground my teeth together, shuddered uncontrollably
+for a second or two, then was all right again. Or nearly so.
+
+"Let's go," I said.
+
+An hour or so later, after taking a twisting route through what seemed
+to be the Belgian Congo, Wetzel halted under the spreading branches of
+a towering cottonwood. With his lips close to my ear, he whispered,
+"It's a-settin' out thar midst open ground." He gestured at the wall
+of blackness hemming us in--blackness you could have cut into hunks
+with an ax. "I'm thinkin' thar's plenty 'o them iron critters roamin'
+'round twixt us an' it. You aimin' to await the dawn?"
+
+"You," I said, "said it!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The dawn came up nice and quiet. Blackness turned gray and then a
+pearl pink--and there she was: a hundred yards from us, of some
+gleaming metal resembling aluminum, twenty feet high and covering
+about as much ground as a caretaker's cottage. It resembled nothing
+more than a soup plate turned bottom up to dry.
+
+A tall, semi-circular opening showed black in one side, with a sloping
+metallic ramp reaching from it to the ground. Two robots guarded the
+entrance, stiff and towering and without movement, the early light
+glistening along their jointed bodies.
+
+In sharp contrast to this scene from the distant future was the
+anachronistic spectacle of six Indians, in war paint, fringed
+buckskin and stripped to the waist, squatting around a small cooking
+fire near the ship. Within easy reach of each was a long bow and a
+quiver of arrows.
+
+Nothing about them gave me a certain clue as to which Indian family
+they belonged to. The single feather in each scalp lock was pure white
+with a vivid red tip. Two of them wore the black paint of untried
+warriors, and all were gnawing on strips of meat grilled over the
+fire.
+
+Wetzel, placid and silent, leaned on his rifle and calmly stuffed a
+cheek with a twist of black tobacco. "Reckon they be a little hard to
+talk to?" he asked in a soft voice.
+
+I shrugged. "Only one way I know of to find out."
+
+"Thet fancy pistol you got could kill 'em all afore they get them bows
+unlimbered."
+
+"Are you suggesting I shoot them down without warning?"
+
+It was his turn to shrug. "They be Indians."
+
+The complete lack of feeling in his tone infuriated me. "You
+cold-blooded bastard! I happen to be a good part Indian myself."
+
+He eyed me without expression but with a chill glitter to his eyes.
+"Aye. I ain't forgettin' thet," he said, and spat.
+
+I took a slow breath and waited until I could trust my voice. "I'm
+going out there," I said quietly. "Cover me with your gun. But don't
+use it _unless_ it's the only thing left to do. I don't want that
+trigger pulled until the last possible second. They may grab me, they
+may even knock me around a little. That I can take. But don't try to
+interfere until there's no other way out. Is that clear?"
+
+"Aye."
+
+I turned away from him. All I had to do now was step out from behind
+that tree and walk across the open ground. Each of my feet suddenly
+weighed a ton. Two steps into that clearing and the funeral could be
+Monday. Instinctively my hand crawled toward the .38 automatic hidden
+in my coveralls. It never got that far. Suicide was so final.
+
+Wetzel's firm young mouth held an almost invisible sneer. Deliberately
+I took out a cigarette, lighted it with an airy gesture and a match,
+dragged deeply on it twice and threw it away. I said, "Lay off that
+gun like I told you," and walked slowly out into the clearing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It got a rise out of them, all right. They were on their feet, arrows
+notched, before I had traveled three feet. I never even hesitated.
+Once I had gone this far, the bluff had to be carried all the way out.
+I kept my spine stiff, my head erect, my hands conspicuously empty at
+my sides. If my nerves were jumping I was the only one who knew about
+it.
+
+It caught them just a shade off-balance, which was all I had hoped
+for. The one-sidedness of six drawn bows against one unimpressive and
+unarmed man eventually registered and the flint tips wavered, then
+turned aside.
+
+The tallest of the braves--a lean number the color of an old
+penny--tossed his bow aside and deliberately stepped squarely in my
+path. There was an insolent arrogance in every line of his body--a
+body that topped my six feet a full three inches.
+
+I said, "Hi-yo, Silver," and put my hip into his naked belly and
+grabbed his arm and threw him over my shoulder. He hit face first two
+yards away and plowed up a furrow of grass, flopped around a little,
+then lay still.
+
+Nobody else moved, except me. I started for the spaceship again, not
+hurrying and not crawling, head still up, spine still stiff, eyes
+straight ahead. Feet slithered in the grass behind me and the sound
+made the skin between my shoulder blades twitch like an aching tooth.
+Every instinct that had anything to do with self-preservation was
+fighting to make me turn around.
+
+That was when the robots moved. They seemed to come alive at the same
+instant, metal clanged on metal as they strode stiffly down the ramp
+to meet me. Violence hung over them as it hangs over a Patton tank.
+
+Every step toward them was like pulling my foot out of quicksand. Only
+twelve kinds of a cretin would have gone on when faced with anything
+like this. I went on. I couldn't do anything else. Once you show an
+Indian a molecule of cowardice, you're twelve lines on the obituary
+page.
+
+The space between us was down to a narrow ribbon of grass by this
+time. Four--three more steps and I would _have_ to stop. Nobody could
+push aside a couple of tons of animated steel. Metal arms were lifting
+slowly, preparing to close on me. Inside me a silent voice screamed a
+prayer for Wetzel to pull that trigger and pump a bullet into one of
+those round, staring, faceted eyes....
+
+The robots seemed to go dead. They hung there motionless, arms lifted,
+each with a massive foot caught in midstride.
+
+What had stopped them at the last possible second I had no way of
+telling. All I did know was a sudden release of tension that left me
+with just enough strength to keep my feet moving.
+
+I went on.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The edge of the ramp was getting uncomfortably close. I was here to
+see the head man, but I would prefer to see him out in the open. The
+thought of walking into that black hole left me as cold as a barefoot
+Eskimo.
+
+The ramp. It was a good six feet wide, made of what seemed to be some
+form of an aluminum alloy, and was waiting to be walked on. I started
+up its shallow slope, the rubber soles of my basketball shoes
+soundless on the smooth surface.
+
+He appeared suddenly, without warning, in the doorway. He was quite
+tall, slim in the hips, and his naked shoulders seemed almost as wide
+as the opening. Elaborate beadwork designs had been worked into the
+buckskin breeches, and his headdress resembled a Sioux warbonnet, its
+twin rows of red-tipped feathers hanging almost to his moccasins. A
+hunting knife hung in a snake-skin sheath at his right hip. He was as
+gauntly handsome as a Blackfoot--and they don't come any
+better-looking than that.
+
+He stood there, arms folded across his chest, looking as immovable as
+Pike's Peak. This time I stopped. My back was as stiff as his, my head
+as erect, my shoulders as square if not as wide. For a long time we
+stood that way staring straight into each other's eyes, our
+expressions blank, our tongues locked.
+
+When enough time had passed for me to open the conversation without
+being accused of impetuousness, I said, "I am Long Rock, of the
+Potawatomi. I have come in peace, to hold counsel with you."
+
+My words, in the language of the Delaware because of Wetzel's earlier
+remark, had no immediate effect, which was par for the course with any
+Indian. Not even his eyelids moved. The silence went on, building into
+tension. Anyone unfamiliar with the ways of the Indian would have
+taken another stab at it. I knew better. I had made my pitch; now it
+was strictly up to him.
+
+Finally his strong lips came unstuck. "I am Lo-as-ro, War Chief of the
+Kornesh." It was the Delaware tongue, all right, but with inflexions
+and nuances strange to me. "How is it that your skin is white but you
+speak in the way of the Orbiwah?"
+
+That last word, I judged, was what the Indian in general was called
+wherever this specimen had come from. I said, "In my blood is the
+blood of the Orbiwah. That is why I am here, sent by the Great Chief
+of all white men."
+
+We squatted down facing each other on the ramp. At once a young brave
+brought out a long, elaborately carved peace-pipe. Lo-as-ro put the
+bit to his mouth and puffed smoke toward the four cardinal points of
+the compass, then passed the pipe to me. The tobacco was far more
+aromatic than any I had come across before.
+
+With the amenities out of the way, the Chief said, "Why has the White
+Chief sent you to me?"
+
+"To welcome you to the land of the white man."
+
+"I come not to the land of the white man in peace."
+
+My eyes were as cold as his own. "This we do not understand. The white
+man has no quarrel with the tribe of Kornesh."
+
+"The white man," Lo-as-ro said sonorously, "has taken from the Orbiwah
+his land and his home. He has driven the Orbiwah into small areas. He
+has killed buffalo and the bison and the deer, leaving the Orbiwah to
+eat the meat of the horse or to starve. The Orbiwah has been made foul
+with the diseases of the white man."
+
+"All this," I said, "was long, long ago. Perhaps it was not right, but
+it is the way of life that the strong prevail and the weak perish."
+
+His expression darkened. "You say this--you with the blood of the
+Orbiwah in your veins?"
+
+"I speak only true words, noble Lo-as-ro. The white men are in number
+as the leaves of the forest, the Orbiwah few and helpless."
+
+One of his hands made a graceful motion. "I have come to return the
+land to the Orbiwah, to restore him to the greatness of his fathers.
+Once more the land shall be alive with game, the rivers filled with
+fish. Once more shall the Orbiwah hunt with the weapons of his
+fathers. I have spoken."
+
+"From whence do you come?" I asked.
+
+He pointed dramatically toward the sky. "From a great distance. Up
+there are many worlds."
+
+"Tell me of your world," I said.
+
+The telling took a long time but not a word of it was dull. According
+to Lo-as-ro, his world was a planet revolving about one of the stars
+in the Big Dipper. It was slightly smaller than Earth, with about the
+same climates and development of life. It was peopled with only one
+race, the Orbiwah, who lived much as the Indians in America did before
+the arrival of the white man. Recently spaceships from another planet
+in the same solar system had landed on the Orbiwah world. These
+newcomers were friendly, had no thought of conquest, and possessed a
+science and culture of amazing proportions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From them the Orbiwah learned of a planet on which were men of their
+own kind. Lo-as-ro, fired by the thought of establishing contact with
+people like himself, had borrowed spaceships manned by robots and
+crossed the void to Earth. For weeks they had hovered in our
+atmosphere, at first saddened, then angered, by the fate meted out to
+the Indians.
+
+Since the spaceships were able to move through Time into the past,
+Lo-as-ro hit on the idea of going back to the days when the Indian was
+still in control of most of America. With the power at his control he
+could force the white man from the continent and restore the land to
+those who owned it.
+
+Arriving near the close of the Eighteenth Century, he found a sizeable
+encampment of Indians, brought the ship down among them, and summoned
+the chiefs to a Council of War, where he outlined to them his plan. To
+his astonishment he found the chiefs suspicious of outside help and
+confident that they could defeat the white man alone. In vain did
+Lo-as-ro explain that they were doomed; they could not, or would not,
+believe that he had visited the future. He offered to take them ahead
+and let them see for themselves--an offer that was quickly refused.
+
+Whereupon Lo-as-ro decided to return to the Present and wrest the land
+from the white man and hand it over to the downtrodden remnants of a
+once-powerful race. It was on that return trip that Wetzel had arrived
+in the present century.
+
+When Lo-as-ro finished, I leaned back against the side of the ship and
+lit a cigarette, bringing a startled grunt from the chief. I said,
+"You cannot defeat the white man, Lo-as-ro. He has weapons such as you
+have never dreamed: machines that can throw things that explode and
+kill hundreds of braves at one time, machines that travel through the
+air as does the one you came in, things that can wipe out all life
+within a circle as wide as a brave can ride around in one day on a
+fast horse.
+
+"No, noble Lo-as-ro. Return to your world and leave this one to the
+white man. He took it long ago and he will never give it up. I have
+spoken."
+
+The chief of the Orbiwah smiled grimly. "In the ship in which I
+arrived on your world is a small machine. It is working for me now.
+Within its reach no weapon is useful, no explosion can take place, no
+signal can be sent. Only Man is not touched by this machine, but when
+it works he has no weapons with which to fight. Each hour the
+influence of this machine widens. Soon all this land will be helpless.
+Then the robots will take charge and those who oppose them will be
+slain."
+
+I thought of the "dead spot" I had first heard about on the newscast
+the night before, and how it was steadily growing. I remembered the
+slain farmer with the missing scalp, the two companies of soldiers
+helpless without radio, guns and transportation. I thought of a
+mechanized America helpless before a few score of these spaceships ...
+and I knew that counter-violence would be useless.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Give the country back to the Indians!" The cry of the over-burdened
+citizen. It seemed it was about to come to that!
+
+For a long time I sat there, thinking, trying to hit on an answer that
+would save my country. And when the answer finally stirred at the back
+of my mind, it was so completely bizarre that I almost missed it
+entirely....
+
+"Noble Lo-as-ro," I said, "I must return to the Great White Father and
+tell him what I have learned. I will tell him that there is nothing to
+be done to oppose the Chief of the Kornesh. Within a few hours I will
+return with his reply."
+
+Lo-as-ro inclined his fine head in assent. "Let it be so."
+
+"Until my return," I said, "let the influence of the machine draw back
+until it holds helpless only a small section of land about your ship.
+Only in this way will I be able to return quickly to the White Chief."
+
+Again Lo-as-ro agreed. I took my leave of him ceremoniously, and a few
+minutes later Wetzel and I were hurrying back toward the highway.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Four hours later I was on my way back, this time with four companions.
+The plane landed us at the edge of the newly set "dead spot" and the
+five of us forced our way through the forest until we reached the
+clearing where the spaceship still crouched.
+
+A silent group of Indians watched us as we crossed the open ground.
+This time the two robots flanking the doorway did not leave their
+posts. As I came up the ramp with my companions, Lo-as-ro appeared in
+the doorway of the ship.
+
+He eyed me and the others without expression. I said, "Noble Lo-as-ro,
+I have brought with me four of my world's Orbiwah. They have come to
+hear your plan for them and their people. I have told them nothing of
+what you said to me, only that you have come from another world and
+are of their blood."
+
+One by one I presented my companions. Yellow Arm was Johnny Armin, an
+old school friend of mine; Iron Eagle, with whom I had spent a year in
+Korea, had his telephone listed under the name of Luke Riegel; Strong
+Wind was Sidney Storm, whom I had met while spending a year in
+Southern California; and Lone Pine, known as Lionel Patterson, lived a
+few doors down the street from me in Washington and shot eighteen
+holes any day in the low seventies.
+
+The color of their skins, the unmistakable cast of their features,
+made up the only passport they needed. At the chief's invitation we
+squatted in a rude circle at the top of the ramp, and the peace-pipe
+was brought out and passed around.
+
+Presently Lo-as-ro began to speak. The magnificent voice rolled out in
+tones like a cathedral organ, explaining how the American Indian was
+to assume his rightful place in a world of his own. It was a vivid
+picture, painted by an orator equal to any of the almost legendary
+Indian speakers, and they don't come any better.
+
+Unfortunately I was the only one present who could understand him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When it was over and Lo-as-ro was smiling in confident expectation of
+their gratified excitement, Johnny Armin gave me a baffled glance.
+"What the hell was _that_ all about, Sam?"
+
+I said, "You guys don't know how lucky you are. The chief, here, is
+going to fix it up for you to go back to the good old days. Be noble
+red men. No more taxes, no more taxis. Live out in the fresh air,
+sleep under the star-studded sky, drink the unchlorinated spring
+water."
+
+"_What!_"
+
+"You heard me. And he can do it, too. He's got the tools to flatten
+the country."
+
+They stared at me and at each other, horror and anger hardening their
+faces. Lo-as-ro had stopped smiling and was glancing about the circle
+in obvious bewilderment.
+
+"You mean he's doing all that for _us_?" Storm demanded.
+
+"For all Indians," I said. "Free them from the iron heel of the
+oppressor, and all that."
+
+"Nuts, brother!" Iron Eagle snapped. "Tell him I'm a graduate of
+Carnegie Tech, make twenty-five grand a year with Standard Oil, and
+vote the Republican ticket. If he thinks for a goddam minute I'm going
+to chasing around on a pinto pony hunting buffalo, he's got rocks in
+his head!"
+
+"And that goes for me--double!" Lone Pine growled. "I never heard
+anything so screwy!"
+
+I repeated what they had said, putting it into words Lo-as-ro could
+understand. He had the look of a man who couldn't believe his ears.
+"They speak with stupid tongues," he cried. "Do they deny the blood of
+their fathers?"
+
+"They live as they want to live, noble chief," I said. "They are
+grateful for your wish to help but they ask me to decline the offer."
+
+He came to his feet with a bound, his lean face hardening into a
+copper mask of anger. "These are not true Orbiwah!" he thundered.
+"These are as women, soft with idleness and pleasure, weakened by
+their white conquerors. The land is not for them; it is for those
+forced to live in degradation and squalor, dying of hunger and
+disease, ignored by the white chiefs. It is they who shall be given
+back the ways of their fathers, that they may become a great Orbiwah
+nation once more. I have spoken!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Look at these braves," I said. All of us were standing now. "Of all
+the Orbiwah in this world it is such as these who could hope to
+survive under the conditions you wish to establish. The Orbiwah _you_
+describe would starve amid a thousand buffalo, they would fall from
+their horses, they would flee in battle. Take away the protection of
+the white chiefs and they would die."
+
+The chief of the tribe of Kornesh curled his lips in a sneer. "The
+protection given by the white chiefs is the protection of death. They
+do not care what happens to the Orbiwah. I have seen it with my own
+eyes."
+
+"You're right," I said promptly. "The Orbiwah has been badly treated
+too long. I shall return to the Great White Chief and tell him this:
+unless the life of the Orbiwah is made good, unless he has fine
+shelter, plenty of food, warm clothes for his back and the right to be
+as other men, you will return and force the white man from this land.
+It will take much time, but it shall come to pass. _I_ have spoken."
+
+Doubt flickered in his eyes. "Perhaps your words are empty. How do I
+know they are true?"
+
+"When twenty summers have passed," I said, "come back again. Look upon
+the Orbiwah and learn if they still suffer want and privation. If
+their life is not better for what has happened today, then you need
+never trust the white man again."
+
+For a long moment he stood stiff as steel, staring into my eyes. Then
+his hand shot up, palm out, in a gesture of farewell, and he turned
+and disappeared into the spaceship.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I got a barrage of questions then. I held up a hand to quiet my
+friends. "Some other time, gentlemen. I've got to get to Washington
+just as fast as a jet plane can get me there."
+
+"If it's that urgent," Luke said, "call him on the phone and reverse
+the charges."
+
+I scowled at him. "Call who?"
+
+"The President. Isn't he the reason you're in such a hurry?"
+
+"No! I've got to get to bed."
+
+"Bed? If you're that tired--"
+
+"Who said anything about being tired?" I demanded. "Being tired has
+nothing to do with it."
+
+"Then what--"
+
+"It seems," I said, "there's a black lace nightgown...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Call Him Savage, by John Pollard
+
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