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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/32878-h.zip b/32878-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8146cb4 --- /dev/null +++ b/32878-h.zip diff --git a/32878-h/32878-h.htm b/32878-h/32878-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c8115b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/32878-h/32878-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1904 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Thy Rocks And Rills, by Robert Ernest Gilbert. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + +.linenum { + position: absolute; + top: auto; + left: 4%; +} /* poetry number */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + .poem span.i6 {display: block; margin-left: 6em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Thy Rocks and Rills, by Robert Ernest Gilbert + +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: Thy Rocks and Rills + +Author: Robert Ernest Gilbert + +Illustrator: Tom Beecham + +Release Date: June 18, 2010 [EBook #32878] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THY ROCKS AND RILLS *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h1>THY ROCKS AND RILLS</h1> + +<h2>By Robert Ernest Gilbert</h2> + +<h3>Illustrated by Tom Beecham</h3> + +<p>[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science +Fiction September 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence +that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#PRELUDE">PRELUDE</a><br /> +<a href="#INTERMEZZO">INTERMEZZO</a><br /> +<a href="#SONATA">SONATA</a><br /> +<a href="#DANSE_MACABRE">DANSE MACABRE</a><br /> +<a href="#GRAND_FINALE">GRAND FINALE</a><br /> +<a href="#RECESSIONAL">RECESSIONAL</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PRELUDE" id="PRELUDE"></a>PRELUDE</h2> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>They were out of place in the Manly Age—Stonecypher, a man +who loved animals; Moe, a bull who hated men. Together, they marched to +inevitably similar destinies....</i></div> + +<p>M. Stonecypher lifted his reed sun hat with the square brim, and used a +red handkerchief to absorb the perspiration streaking his forehead. He +said, "The pup'll make a good guard, 'especially for thrill parties."</p> + +<p>L. Dan's golden curls flickered in July 1 sunlight. The puppy growled +when Dan extended a gloved hand. "I don't want a guard," the hobbyist +said. "I want him for a dogfight."</p> + +<p>A startling bellow rattled the windows of the dog house and spilled in +deafening waves across the yard. Dan whirled, clutching his staff. Light +glinted on his plastic cuirass and danced on his red nylon tights. His +flabby face turned white. "What—" he panted.</p> + +<p>Stonecypher concealed a smile behind a long corded hand and said, "Just +the bull. Serenades us sometimes."</p> + +<p>Dan circled the dog house. Stonecypher followed with a forefinger +pressed to thin lips. In the paddock, the bull's head moved up and down. +It might or might not have been a nod.</p> + +<p>The crest of long red and blue-black hairs on the bull's neck and +shoulders created an illusion of purple, but the rest of the animal +matched the black of a duelmaster's tam. Behind large eyes encircled by +a white band, his skull bulged in a swelling dome, making the distance +between his short horns seem much too great.</p> + +<p>"He's purple!" Dan gasped. "Why in the Government don't you put him in +the ring?"</p> + +<p>Stonecypher gestured toward the choppy surface of Kings Lake, nine +hundred feet below. He said, "Coincidence. I make out the ringmaster's +barge just leavin' Highland Pier."</p> + +<p>"You're selling him?"</p> + +<p>"Yeah. If they take 'im. I'd like to see 'im in the ring on Dependence +Day."</p> + +<p>Glancing at the watch embedded in the left pectoral of his half-armor, +Dan said, "That would be a show! I'll take the dog and fly. I've a duel +in Highland Park at 11:46."</p> + +<p>"The pup's not for sale."</p> + +<p>"Not for sale!" Dan yelled. "You told—"</p> + +<p>"Thought you wanted a guard. I don't sell for dogfights."</p> + +<p>A sound like "Goood!" came from the paddocked bull.</p> + +<p>Dan opened his mouth wide. Whatever he intended to say died without +vocalization, for Catriona came driving the mule team up through the +apple orchard. The almost identical mules had sorrel noses, gray necks, +buckskin flanks, and black and white pinto backs and haunches. "Great +Government!" Dan swore. "This place is worse than a museum!"</p> + +<p>"Appaloosa mules," Stonecypher said.</p> + +<p>Catriona jumped from the seat of the mowing machine. Dan stared. +Compared to the standard woman of the Manly Age who, by dieting, +posturing, and exercise from childhood, transformed herself into a +small, thin, dominated creature, Catriona constituted a separate +species. She was taller than Dan, slightly plump, and her hair could +have been classed as either red or blonde. Green overalls became her +better than they did Stonecypher. With no trace of a smile on face or in +voice, Stonecypher said, "L. Dan, meet Catriona."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Like a hypnopath's victim, Dan walked to Catriona. He looked up at her +and whispered, but too loudly. Stonecypher heard. His hands clamped on +the hobbyist's neck and jerked. Dan smashed in the grass with sufficient +force to loosen the snaps of his armor. He rolled to his feet and swung +his staff.</p> + +<p>Stonecypher's left hand snatched the staff. His right fist collided with +Dan's square jaw. Glaring down at the hobbyist, Stonecypher gripped the +staff and rotated thick wrists outward. The tough plastic popped when it +broke.</p> + +<p>Scuttling backward, Dan regained his feet. "You inhuman brute!" he +growled. "I intended to pay for her!"</p> + +<p>"My wife's not for sale either," Stonecypher said. "You know how to +fly."</p> + +<p>Dan thrust out a coated tongue and made a noise with it. In a memorized +singsong, he declared, "I challenge you to a duel, in accordance with +the laws of the Government, to be fought in the nearest duelpen at the +earliest possible hour."</p> + +<p>"Stony, don't!" Catriona protested. "He's not wo'th it!"</p> + +<p>Stonecypher smiled at her. "Have to follow the law," he said. He +extended his tongue, blurted, and announced, "As required by the +Government, I accept your challenge."</p> + +<p>"We'll record it!" Dan snapped. He stalked toward the green and gold +butterflier parked in a field of seedling Sudan grass. Horns rattled on +the concrete rails of the paddock.</p> + +<p>"Burstaard!" the bull bellowed.</p> + +<p>Dan shied and trampled young grass under sandaled feet. His loosened +cuirass clattered rhythmically. Raising the canopy of the butterflier, +he slid out the radioak and started typing. Stonecypher and Catriona +approached the hobbyist. Catriona said, "This is cowa'dly! Stony nevah +fought a duel in his life. He won't have a chance!"</p> + +<p>"You'll see me soon then, woman. Where'd you get all that equipment? You +look like something in a circus."</p> + +<p>"Ah used to be in a cahnival," Catriona said. She kept Stonecypher in +place with a plump arm across his chest. "That's wheah you belong," she +told Dan. "That's all you'ah good fo'."</p> + +<p>"Watch how you address a man, woman," Dan snarled, "or you'll end in the +duelpen, too."</p> + +<p>Stonecypher snatched the sheet from the typer. The request read:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Duelmaster R. Smith, Watauga Duelpen, Highland Park, Tennessee. +L. Dan challenges M. Stonecypher. Cause: Interference with +basic amatory rights. July 1. 11:21 amest. </p></blockquote> + +<p>Stonecypher said, "The cause is a lie. You got no rights with Catriona. +Why didn't you tell 'em it's because I knocked you ears-over-endways, +and you're scared to fight without a gun?"</p> + +<p>Dan shoved the request into the slot and pulled the switch. "I'll kill +you," he promised.</p> + +<p>While the request was transmitted by radiophotography, minutes passed, +bare of further insults. Catriona and Stonecypher stood near the +concrete fence enclosing the rolling top of Bays Mountain. Interminable +labor had converted 650 acres of the top to arable land. Below the +couple, the steep side of the mountain, denuded of timber, dangerously +eroded, and scarred by limestone quarries, fell to the ragged shore of +Kings Lake. Two miles of water agitated by many boats separated the +shore and the peninsula, which resembled a wrinkled dragon with +underslung lower jaw distended. The town of Highland Park clung to the +jutting land, and the Highland Bullring appeared as a white dot more +than four miles from where Catriona and Stonecypher stood. The +ringmaster's barge was a red rectangle skirting Russel Chapel Island.</p> + +<p>Dan pulled the answer from the buzzing radioak. He walked over and held +the radiophoto an inch from Stonecypher's long nose. It read:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Request OK. Time: July 4. 3:47 pmest. </p></blockquote> + +<p>Two attached permits granted each duelist the privilege of carrying one +handgun with a capacity of not more than ten cartridges of not less +than .32 caliber. Below the permits appeared an additional message:</p> + +<blockquote><p>L. Dan due at Watauga Duelpen. 11:46 amest. For duel with J. +George. </p></blockquote> + +<p>"Government and Taxes!" Dan cursed. Throwing Stonecypher's permit, he +leaped into the green and gold butterflier and slammed the canopy. The +four wings of the semi-ornithopter blurred with motion, lifting the +craft into the sky. The forward wings locked with negative dihedral, the +rear wings angled to form a ruddevator, and the five-bladed propeller +whined, driving the butterflier in a shallow dive for the peninsula.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Catriona said, "Ah hope he's late, and they shoot him. Ah knew you'd +finally have to fight, but—"</p> + +<p>"You keep out of it next time," said Stonecypher. "I happen to know that +feller's killed two women in the pen. He don't care for nothin'. Oughta +known better than to let him come here. He made out like he wanted a +guard dog, and I thought—"</p> + +<p>"Nevah mind, Stony. Ah've got to help you. You nevah even fiahed a gun."</p> + +<p>"Later, Cat. The ringmaster may want to stay for dinner. I'll look after +the mules."</p> + +<p>Catriona touched Stonecypher's cheek and went to the house. Stonecypher +unharnessed the Appaloosa mules. While they rolled, he took, from an +empty hay rack, a rubber-tipped spear and a tattered cloth dummy. The +dummy's single arm terminated in a red flag.</p> + +<p>Stonecypher concealed spear and dummy beneath the floor of the dog +house. Going to the paddock, he patted the bull between the horns, which +had been filed to a needle point. "Still goin' through with it?" +Stonecypher asked.</p> + +<p>"Yaaaa," the bull lowed. "Yaooo kuhl Daan. Err'll kuhl uhhh kuhlerrs."</p> + +<p>"All right, Moe. I'll kill Dan, and you kill the killers." Stonecypher +stroked the massive hemisphere of the bull's jaw. "Goodbye, Moe."</p> + +<p>"Gooodba," the bull echoed. He lowered his nose to the shelled corn +seasoned with molasses, the rolled oats, and the ground barley in the +trough.</p> + +<p>Stonecypher walked down the road to the staircase of stone that dammed +the old Kingsport Reservoir, abandoned long before Kings Lake covered +the city. A red electric truck crawled up the steep road hewn from the +slope of the gap formed by Dolan Branch. When the truck had crossed the +bridge below the buttressed dam, Stonecypher spoke to the fat and +sweltering man seated beside the driver. "I'm M. Stonecypher. Proud for +you to visit my farm. Dinner's ready up at the house."</p> + +<p>"No, no time," smiled the fat man, displaying stainless steel teeth. +"Only time to see the bull. I thought we weren't going to make that +grade! Why don't those scientists develop synthetic elements, so that we +can have atomic power again? This radio-electric is so unreliable! I am +Ringmaster A. Oswell, naturally. This heat is excruciating! I had hoped +it would be cooler up here, but something seems to have happened to our +inland-oceanic climate this summer. Lead us to the bull, Stonecypher!"</p> + +<p>Clinging to the slatted truck bed, Stonecypher directed the stoic driver +to the paddock. The electric motor rattled and stopped, and Ringmaster +Oswell wheezed and squirmed from the cab. The ringmaster wore a vaguely +Arabic costume, in all variations of red.</p> + +<p>The bull lumbered bellowing around the fence. His horns raked white +gashes in the beech tree forming one corner. He tossed the feed trough +to splintering destruction.</p> + +<p>"Magnificent!" Oswell gasped. Then the ringmaster frowned. "But he looks +almost purple. His horns are rather short."</p> + +<p>"Stay back from the fence!" Stonecypher warned. "He's real wide between +the horns, ringmaster. I reckon the spread'll match up to standard. Same +stock my grandfather used to sell Boon Bullring before the water. +Wouldn't sell 'im, only the tenants are scared to come about the house."</p> + +<p>Oswell fingered his balloon neck and mumbled, "But he's odd. That long +hair on his neck ... I don't know...."</p> + +<p>The bull's horns lifted the mineral feeder from the center of the +paddock. The box rotated over the rails and crashed in a cloud of +floured oyster shells and phosphate salt at the ringmaster's feet.</p> + +<p>Oswell took cover behind the truck driver, who said, "Fergus'd like him. +Jeeze! Remember dat brown and white spotted one he kilt last year on +Forrest Day? Da crowd like ta never stopt yelling!"</p> + +<p>Ringmaster Oswell retreated farther, as, under the bull's onslaught, a +piece of concrete broke from the top rail, exposing the reinforcing rod +within. "Fergus does like strange ones," he admitted.</p> + +<p>Stonecypher said, "Don't let the mane bother you. There's one of these +long-haired Scotch cows in his ancestors. He's not really purple. Just +the way the light hits 'im."</p> + +<p>Oswell chewed lacquered fingernails with steel dentures. His bloodshot +eyes studied the spotted and speckled Appaloosa mules chasing around the +pasture, but the sight failed to register on his brain. "The crowd likes +a good show on Dependence Day," he proclaimed. "I considered trying a +fat Aberdeen Angus with artificial horns for laughs, but this may do as +well. I must find some shade! I'll take him, Stonecypher, if fifteen +hundred in gold is agreeable."</p> + +<p>"Sold," Stonecypher said. The word cracked in the middle.</p> + +<p>While the ringmaster, muttering about trying bulldogs sometime, retired +to the narrow shadow of the dog house, the driver backed the truck to +the ramp. Stonecypher opened the gate and waved his handkerchief. The +bull charged into the truck, and the driver locked the heavy doors.</p> + +<p>From within his red burnoose, Oswell produced a clinking bag. "Fifteen +hundred," he said. From other recesses, he withdrew documents, +notebooks, and a pencil. He said, "Here is a pass for you and one for +any woman-subject you may wish to bring. You'll want to see your first +bull on Dependence Day! And here is the standard release absolving you +of any damage the bull may do. Oh, yes! His name and number?"</p> + +<p>"Number?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, his brand."</p> + +<p>"Not branded. Make it Number 1. Name's Moe."</p> + +<p>Oswell chuckled. "Moe. Very good! Most breeders name them things like +Chainlightning and Thunderbird. Your GE number?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not a Government Employee."</p> + +<p>"You're not?" Oswell wheezed. "How unusual! Your colors? He'll wear your +colors in his shoulder."</p> + +<p>"Yeah. Black."</p> + +<p>"Black?"</p> + +<p>"Dead black."</p> + +<p>Oswell, scribbling, managed a faint smile. "Sorry I can't accept that +invitation to lunch." He struggled into the truck. "Hope this bull is +brave in the ring. Nice antique old place you have here! I don't see a +feed tower, but you surely don't use pasture—" The ringmaster's babble +passed down the road with the truck.</p> + +<p>Stonecypher watched the vehicle descend the dangerous grade. He lifted +his square hat from his black hair, dropped it on the ground, and +crushed the reeds under a booted foot.</p> + +<p>The temporary house, a squat cubical structure, stood at the end of a +spruce-lined path beside the ruin that a thrill party had made of the +century-old farm house. The plastic screen squeaked when Stonecypher +opened it. He stood on the white floor of the robot kitchen and dug a +fifty dollar gold piece from the bag Oswell had given him. Glaring at +the head of the woman with Liberty inscribed on her crown, he muttered, +"Thirty pieces of gold."</p> + +<p>Catriona called, "Oswell's lucky he couldn't stay foah dinnah! Ah had +the potassium cyanide all ready."</p> + +<p>Stonecypher passed through the diner door into a room containing more +yellowed history books and agricultural pamphlets than eating utensils. +Catriona waited by the table. She held a large revolver in her right +hand.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="INTERMEZZO" id="INTERMEZZO"></a>INTERMEZZO</h2> + + +<p>Stonecypher stood on Bay Knob, near the ruins of the old FM transmitter +station, looking down at the Tennessee Lakes. Catriona sat behind him +and held the revolver on her thigh. Stonecypher said, "I never see it +but I wonder how it looked before the water."</p> + +<p>Before him, North Fork, an arm of Kings Lake, twisted across the +Virginia line four and one-half miles away, while to Stonecypher's +right, Boone Lake sparkled like a gigantic, badly drawn V. He did not +look toward Surgoinsville Dam securing Kings Lake far to the west.</p> + +<p>The Tennessee Lakes were born in 1918 when Wilson Dam spanned the +Tennessee River at Muscle Shoals, Alabama; but their growth was retarded +for fifteen years, until an Act of Congress injected them with vitamins. +Then the mile-long bastions of concrete crawled between the ridges. +Norris, Wheeler, Pickwick Landing, Guntersville, Watts Bar, Kentucky, +Cherokee, Fort Henry, Boone, Sevier, Surgoinsville—almost innumerable +dams blocked the rivers. The rivers stopped and overflowed. The creeks +swelled into rivers.</p> + +<p>Congressional Committees investigated, the Supreme Court tested the dams +against the Constitution, ethnologists and archeologists hastily checked +for Indian relics; and the dams, infused with youthful vigor, matured. +Beginning with Norris, which backed up the Clinch and Powell Rivers to +inundate 25,000 acres and displace 3,000 families, the dams expanded +mighty aquatic muscles. The Tennessee, the Little Tennessee, the +Nolichucky, the Holston, the French Broad, the Watauga, the Hiwassee, +the Little Pigeon—all the rivers spread their waters into lengthy, +ragged lakes, changing the map of Tennessee more than any natural +cataclysm, such as the great earthquake of 1811, had ever done. The +Lakes provided jobs, electric power, flood control, soil conservation, a +fisherman's paradise, milder winters, cooler summers, and they covered +all the really good farming land in the eastern part of the state.</p> + +<p>Catriona loaded the revolver. It was an obsolete .357 Magnum with a +6-1/2 inch barrel, and the cartridge cases of the metal-piercing bullets +had a greenish sheen. "Now, put it in the holstah, and be ca'eful," +Catriona said.</p> + +<p>Stonecypher wore the holster, a leather silhouette studded with two +spring clips opening forward, on a belt and secured to his leg by a +thong. Gingerly, he took the revolver and slipped it under the clips. +"I've kept outa duels all my life," he said, "but, so long as it's for +you, I don't much mind."</p> + +<p>"Ah'll mind if he kills you. You do like I tell you, and you can beat +him. Why, mah best act in the How-To Cahnival was How to Win a Duel. +Cou'se, they didn't know ah was really drawin' befoah the buzzah +sounded. Why, ah used to set two plates ten yahds apaht, draw two +revolvahs, and shoot both plates, all in foah-tenths of a second!"</p> + +<p>Stonecypher grinned. "Sorry I missed that carnival first time it came +through here. I coulda seen you in that costume they poured on you, +three years earlier."</p> + +<p>"Nevah mind the veiled compliments. Now, try it!"</p> + +<p>Stonecypher faced the target, a sheet of plastiboard roughly sawed to +the shape of a man, and backed by a heap of earth removed from the new, +as yet dry, pond in which they stood. Catriona pressed a small buzzer +concealed in her palm. Stonecypher's big hand closed on the revolver +butt, pushing the weapon up and forward. The sound of the shot rattled +away over the mountain top.</p> + +<p>"That's good!" Catriona cried, consulting the sonic timer. "One and +two-tenths seconds from buzzah to shot!"</p> + +<p>"But I missed," Stonecypher protested. "Look bad on tevee."</p> + +<p>"You'll hit him. Watch the recoil next time."</p> + +<p>Stonecypher drew and fired a second wild shot. He snorted, "Confound +Westerns, anyhow!"</p> + +<p>"Weste'ns?"</p> + +<p>"Sure. That's where this duelin' started. Used to, almost ever' movie or +tevee was called a Western. Sort of a fantasy, because they were just +slightly based on real history. They generally showed a feller in a +flowered shirt, ridin' a Tennessee Walking Horse, and shootin' a gun. +Ever'body in these Westerns had a gun, and they all shot at each other.</p> + +<p>"The youngin's were hep on 'em, so they all wore toy guns, and a whole +generation grew up on Westerns. When they got big, they carried real +guns. I've heard my great-uncle tell about it, how before the Government +built duel-pens and passed laws, you couldn't hardly cross the Lakes +without runnin' into a bunch of fools on water skis shootin' at each +other."</p> + +<p>"You leave the histo'y books alone foah awhile," Catriona commanded, +"and practice. The tenants and ah'll tend to the wo'k. Try it loaded and +empty. Hook this little buzzah to the timeah, and practice. Ah've got to +go see the chickens."</p> + +<p>"'Bye, teacher." Stonecypher dropped the buzzer in his pocket and +watched her vanish into the grove. He fired the remaining shots, nicking +the target once. With the revolver holstered, he followed the path to +the summer pasture.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Belly-deep in red clover, twenty-four cows, twenty-four calves, and +twenty-four yearlings grazed or played in the shady field. Stonecypher +cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, "Smart-calves! +Smart-calves to school!"</p> + +<p>The entire herd turned sorrowful eyes on him. Seven of the calves and +four of the yearlings trotted to the gate, which Stonecypher held open, +and jostled out of the pasture. As the calves began to lie down under +the trees, a white heifer-calf nuzzled Stonecypher's hand and bawled, +"Paaapy gyoing a fyightt?"</p> + +<p>"Yeah, he's goin' to fight," Stonecypher answered. "Your pappy's gone to +the bullring. He suggested it, and made the choice himself. He's got +real courage. You oughta all be proud of him."</p> + +<p>The calves bawled their pride. Including those remaining in the pasture, +they presented a colorful variety of spots, specks, splotches, browns, +reds, blacks, and even occasional blue and greenish tinges. Stonecypher +sat facing them from a stump. He said, "I'm sorta late for the lesson, +today, so we'll get on with it. Some of this will be repetition for you +yearlings, but it won't hurt. If you get too bored, there's corn and +cottonseed meal in the trough, only be quiet about it.</p> + +<p>"Now. To look at you all, nobody would think you're the same breed of +cattle; but you, and your mammys, and Moe are the only Atohmy cattle on +Earth. It's usually hard to say exactly when a breed started; but you +all started a long, long time ago, on July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo, +New Mexico, when they exploded the first Atomic Bomb."</p> + +<p>At mention of Atomic Bomb, who had succeeded the Bogger Man as a means +of frightening children, one of the younger calves bawled. Her polled, +brindled mother ran in ungainly fashion to the fence and mooed with +great carrying power.</p> + +<p>"All right!" Stonecypher yelled. The cow closed her big mouth, but +stayed by the gate. "Can't go by what you hear the tenants tell their +kids," Stonecypher cautioned the calf. "Atomic Bomb is as dead as the +tank and the battleship.</p> + +<p>"Now, like I was sayin', the scientists put Atomic Bomb on a hundred +foot tower and blowed him up. There was a flash of fire, and an awful +racket, and the blast raised up a lot of dirt and dust from the ground. +All this dust achurnin' around in the cloud bumped into little bits of +metal and stuff that was highly radioactive. That means, the basic atoms +of matter had been thrown out of kilter, sorta deranged. The protons and +electrons in an atom oughta be about equal for it to be stable, but +these were shootin' off electrons, or beta particles, and givin' off +something like powerful x-rays, called gamma rays, and things like that.</p> + +<p>"Anyhow, this radiation affected all the sand and bits of rock and dirt +in that bomb cloud. This radiation is dangerous. Some of it will go +right through several inches of lead. Enough'll kill you. Your ancestors +were ten miles or so from where Atomic Bomb went off.</p> + +<p>"They were just plain Whiteface cattle. They weren't supposed to be +there, but I reckon none of the scientists bothered to warn 'em. The +dust started settlin' all over your ancestors. In about a week, there +were sores and blisters on their backs. The red hair dropped off. When +it grew back, it was gray.</p> + +<p>"The scientists got real excited when they heard about it, 'cause they +wanted to see how horrible they could make Atomic Bomb. So, they shipped +fifty-nine cattle up to Oak Ridge. That was a Government town, a hundred +miles southwest of here, where they made some of the stuff to put in +Atomic Bomb. The University of Tennessee was runnin' an experimental +farm there. They had donkeys, and pigs, and chickens, and other animals +that they exposed to radioactivity. Then they killed 'em and cut 'em up +to see what had happened. I know it's gruesome, but that's how it was.</p> + +<p>"The awful fact is, the scientists slaughtered more than half that +original Atohmy herd for experiments. Some of the rest, +they—uh—married. Wanted to see if the calves had two heads, or +something; if radioactivity had speeded up the mutation rate.</p> + +<p>"Back then, they didn't understand much about mutation. Some claimed a +little radioactivity would cause it, some said a whole lot, and some +said it wouldn't hurt a bit."</p> + +<p>"Whaa mootyaaonn?" asked the calf which was not yet assured of the +extinction of Atomic Bomb.</p> + +<p>"Well, you-all are all mutations. I've told you how life starts from one +cell. This cell has thread-like things in it called chromosomes, and the +chromosomes are made up of things called genes. Mutations, sort of +unexpected changes, can take place in either the chromosomes or the +genes. You see, when this one cell starts dividing, every gene makes a +copy of itself; but, sometimes, the copy is a little different from the +original. Lots of things, like x-rays and ultraviolet rays, heat, +chemicals, disease, can cause this. Radioactivity had caused mutation in +some experiment, so the scientists were anxious to see what happened +with these cattle.</p> + +<p>"Genes determine the way an animal develops. Two mutant genes can start +reactions that end up as a man with one leg, or maybe as a bull with the +intelligence of an eight-year-old man. Lots of mutations are recessive. +They may be carried along for generations. But, when two like mutant +genes come together in reproduction, the animal is bound to be something +different, the way you eleven calves are.</p> + +<p>"Now. The scientists watched the Atohmy cattle for fifteen or twenty +years, and nothin' much happened. They started sayin' radioactivity +wasn't dangerous, and a man could walk into a place right after Atomic +Bomb went off, and it wouldn't matter. They should be here to see the +mess in Japan today. All the time, though, I think the cattle were +changing. It may have been in little things like the length of hair, or +the shape of an eyeball, or the curve of a horn, so the scientists +couldn't tell without they made exact measurements all the time.</p> + +<p>"Then, a bull-calf was born. He had shaggy black hair, and his horns +grew in a spiral like a ram's. Some scientists said, 'I told you so! It +speeded the mutation rate!'</p> + +<p>"Others said, 'He's a natural mutation, or else, a throw-back to +prehistoric wild cattle. It happens in every breed. Atomic Bomb had +nothing to do with it.'</p> + +<p>"They married the bull, and then they fixed to slaughter 'im to see what +his insides was like. The bull fooled 'em, though. He came down with +contagious pleuro-pneumonia, the first case in years, 'cause it was +supposed to have been wiped out in this country away back in the +Nineteenth Century. They had to cremate the bull for fear the disease +would spread. Ever' one of the calves were normal Whitefaces.</p> + +<p>"Finally, the nineteen Atohmy cattle that were left were put up for +sale. My great-grandfather, Cary McPheeter, bought 'em and shipped 'em +here to Bays Mountain. He's the man started this farm where there was +nothin' but rattlesnakes, and trees, and rocks."</p> + +<p>"Whyy theyea selll um?" a red roan calf interrupted.</p> + +<p>"Well, they sold 'em 'cause Oak Ridge had been condemned. That was +several years after the German Civil War. It was peace time, for a +change, and folks were sick of Atomic Bomb. Anyhow, new, modern plants +for makin' the stuff had been built in secret places a lot easier to +defend. The women were cryin' for more automatic kitchens, so the Bureau +of Interior Hydro-electric Power (that's the name Federal Power, Inc., +went by then) put another dam across the Clinch River below Norris. Bush +Lake covered up Oak Ridge.</p> + +<p>"There wasn't much mutation, except for color, in you Atohmy cattle, +till seven years ago when your pappy, Moe, was born. I remember—"</p> + +<p>A hoarse excited voice shouted from a distance. "Thrill party!" it +cried. "Thrill party!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Stonecypher leaped off the stump, stamped his right foot to restore +circulation, and yelled on the run, "That's all today! Stay under the +trees!"</p> + +<p>He loped along the pasture fence and across the makeshift target range. +Two tenants, Teddy and Will, stood on the dirt heap with pitchforks in +their hands. Over Bay Knob, an old Model 14 butterflier hovered on +vibrating wings. Sloppy white letters on the sides of the aircraft +spelled such slang expressions as, "Flash the MAGNETS," +"SupercOlossalSoniC Flap ship," and "Redheads amble OTHer canop."</p> + +<p>An impossible number of middleschool-age boys bulged from the cabin +windows. Methodically, they dumped trash and garbage over the +transmitter station ruins. The butterflier wheeled and flapped over the +pasture. Red clover bent and writhed in the artificial wind from the +ornithopter wings. Cows bawled and ran wild. Calves fell over each +other.</p> + +<p>Stonecypher jumped the fence. He wrested the revolver from the holster. +"Clear out, or I'll shoot!" he howled.</p> + +<p>Voices spilled from the butterflier. "He got a handgun!"</p> + +<p>"Dis ain't legal!"</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + + + +<p>"Whatcha say, tall, bones, and ugly?"</p> + +<p>Stonecypher aimed the Magnum at the shaven head in the pilot's seat. The +boys looked faint. Agitated air thundered as the butterflier lifted +straight up two hundred feet and glided away in the direction of +Surgoinsville Dam.</p> + +<p>Teddy and Will stood by with pitchforks unrelaxed. Will spat a globule +of tobacco juice. "The thangs these here psychologists git made law!" he +sneered. "You want me to make out a Thrill Damage Claim?"</p> + +<p>"No, Will," Stonecypher said, "just deduct it from taxes."</p> + +<p>Teddy looked at the revolver and said, "Ever'body oughta take guns to +them crazy youngin's. Reckon you'll git into trouble?"</p> + +<p>"No. It's an empty antique. That's legal. You guys did all right. Let +the calves back in, huh?"</p> + +<p>The tenants left by the gate, and, with a minimum of driving, urged the +calves into the pasture. Stonecypher watched the men pass through the +grove. Although the tenants undoubtedly recognized the peculiarities of +the calves, they never mentioned them. Since the late 1700's, through +Revolution, Civil War, automobile, the Department of Internal Revenue, +the multiple bureaus that had controlled the Lakes, the Moon rocket, and +the expedition to Pluto, these people had remained suspiciously +interested in strangers, suspicious of indoor plumbing, doubtful of the +Government, quick-tempered, and as immovable as Chimney Top. They had +exchanged little except log and frame houses for concrete. The tenants, +not really tenants, had been squatting on Bays Mountain when Cary +McPheeter bought the farm; and there they stayed.</p> + +<p>Stonecypher vaulted the fence. Catriona, with hands firmly planted on +hips, stood in the dry pond. Stonecypher said, "If I just knew what +these thrill parties think they're up to, it might help."</p> + +<p>Catriona shook her head of red-yellow hair. "Nevah mind them. Ah told +you to practice shootin', but the minute ah turn mah back, you run off +and staht teachin' those calves! You've got to practice, Stony! You've +nevah done any shootin', and L. Dan's killed ten people. Ah—"</p> + +<p>"Watch the tears, or you'll have red and green eyes," Stonecypher said. +Clumsily, he ejected the shells and reloaded the revolver. He occupied +two seconds in drawing and firing. The bullet struck dirt a yard to the +left of the target.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="SONATA" id="SONATA"></a>SONATA</h2> + + +<p>A short vicious thunderstorm lashed Bays Mountain on the afternoon of +July 3. As the storm passed, a blood-red butterflier, with a pusher +propeller in the tail and a plastic bull head on the nose, descended in +the young Sudan grass. Stonecypher dropped the saw—he had been clearing +away a beech limb the storm left in the abandoned paddock—and strolled +to greet Ringmaster A. Oswell.</p> + +<p>"Stonecypher!" the ringmaster announced. "That storm almost caught us!" +Oswell's stainless steel teeth clacked, and the breezes trailing the +thunderclouds ballooned his orange silk kimono. "I never liked these +butterfliers. They're too slow, and that swooping motion! Five hundred +miles per hour may seem fast to a man your age; but in my day, back +before petroleum was classified as armament, we had jets! Real speed!"</p> + +<p>"Come on up to the house, ringmaster," Stonecypher invited. "I'll mix up +some dextrose and citric acid."</p> + +<p>"No, no time," the fat man panted. "Only time to see you about that bull +you sold me. The storm took a limb of your beech tree! Almost the only +one left, I suppose. About that bull, Stonecypher, you know I was a bit +hesitant when I bought him, but my driver talked me into it. I'm so +disappointed I had him drafted immediately!"</p> + +<p>"But, what—" Stonecypher attempted to ask.</p> + +<p>"The young woman there in the butterflier is a much better driver and +pilot," Oswell babbled. "I wouldn't have believed it of a woman! She +weighs a good ninety-eight pounds, too! That bull—he has changed +completely since we put him under the stands. He eats well, but he shows +no spirit at all. Tomorrow is the big day, Stonecypher! I can't +disappoint the crowd! I thought he might be sick, but the vet says not. +That bull let the vet come into the cage and made absolutely no attempt +to kill him!"</p> + +<p>"But does Fergus—"</p> + +<p>"Fergus's manager saw the bull! He's all for it. Fergus made an +extremely poor showing on Memorial Day, and the manager thinks this odd +bull would provide a real comeback! I advised against it. This heat is +terrible! The storm didn't cool the air at all."</p> + +<p>Stonecypher maneuvered the perspiring ringmaster into the shade of the +beech. He said, "I wanta do the fair thing with you, ringmaster, so I'll +give you a guarantee, in writing if you want. If that bull's not the +bravest ever fought in Highland Bullring, I give you double-money-back."</p> + +<p>Oswell's face wobbled in a tentative smile. He counted his stubby +fingers. "Double-money-back?"</p> + +<p>"Yeah. I wanta get into the business. My grandfather used to sell bulls. +Then my father came along, and he wouldn't sell a one."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Yes, I once tried to reason with him, but—"</p> + +<p>"He had funny ideas," Stonecypher pressed his advantage. "I never did +understand the old man myself. He used to lecture me on something he +called the Man-Animal War. He said one of the worst things in the war +was the thousands of bulls that had been tortured to death."</p> + +<p>"Peculiar idea. Of course—"</p> + +<p>"He claimed bullfights slipped up on this country. Back when it wasn't +legal, they spaded up the ground real good. There were movies, and +books, and magazines, and foreign broadcasts, all ravin' about how brave +and noble it was for a bunch of men to worry and torture a stupid animal +like a bull, till he couldn't hardly hold his head up, and then run a +sword in 'im."</p> + +<p>"Naturally, you—"</p> + +<p>"I don't know how many times he told me a bull had more brains than a +horse, but less then a jackass. He said bullfightin' wasn't a sport, +even if the bull got a man sometimes: and he had the idea the worst +thing was the four or five horses, that ever' bull killed, took with +'im. They had some bloodless bullfights in California, and the nut +colonies out there like it so good, first thing you know, we really had +it. It came to East Tennessee 'cause this was one of the biggest +cattle-raisin' sections, before the Lakes took the grazin' land."</p> + +<p>"Surely, Stonecypher, you—"</p> + +<p>"My father always claimed if the bullfighters were near as brave as they +said, they'd take on a really intelligent animal sometimes, like a +man-eatin' tiger. He even thought a man was mentalill to fight a bull in +the first place." Stonecypher grinned. "No, you don't need to worry +about me, ringmaster. I hate to admit it, but the old man is the one who +was mentalill."</p> + +<p>Oswell revealed all of his steel teeth in a broad smile. "You had me +worried!" he wheezed. "Now, your offer."</p> + +<p>"I'll go even better," Stonecypher said, "just to show how set I am on +gettin' back in the business. If Moe's not brave, I got two yearlin's +you can have for free."</p> + +<p>"How generous! You've reassured me, Stonecypher. I have confidence, now, +that the show will be a great success! I must go! You have no conception +of the life a ringmaster leads before a fight. I won't require a written +guarantee. I trust you, Stonecypher! See you tomorrow, I hope! I never +liked July. If the Government would only make more Lakes, it might cool +off! I hope—"</p> + +<p>The whir of the red butterflier's wings terminated Oswell's discourse. +With a face like a gored bullkiller, Stonecypher watched the +ringmaster's departure. Another butterflier hovered above the mountain. +This one was green and gold with the canopy pushed back and a glint of +twin lenses in the cockpit.</p> + +<p>Will appeared at Stonecypher's side. He spat in a long arc and said, +"That's a new one, ain't it, peepin' from a butterfly? I reckon L. Dan +never got kilt in that other duel like I hoped he would. You want us to +git you outa this, Stonecypher?"</p> + +<p>"No, Will."</p> + +<p>"We can see you git to the Smokies. The Givernment'll never find you +down in there."</p> + +<p>"I'll be all right, Will. If he does kill me, take care of Catriona. And +look after the calf records."</p> + +<p>"Sure thang."</p> + +<p>Stonecypher walked slowly toward Catriona's open-topped sunbathing tent.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="DANSE_MACABRE" id="DANSE_MACABRE"></a>DANSE MACABRE</h2> + + +<p>Duelmaster R. Smith adjusted his black tam. "Do not touch your shooting +hand to your weapon until the buzzer sounds," he instructed. "Otherwise, +the weapon may be carried as you wish. At the slightest infringement of +the rules, a robot gun will kill you. If you have any elaborate last +words, say them now; because the pen is soundproof." He laughed an +obviously much rehearsed laugh.</p> + +<p>L. Dan wore orange tights today, but no armor, since the rules required +deulists to present naked torsos for probable bullets. Stonecypher faced +the duelmaster. "I reckon this room is the only place a man really has +free speech," he said. "You're deaf, and can't see good enough to read +lips, and me or him will soon be dead.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe in this duelin'. It gives a man who's wrong a chance to +kill one who's right. A man shouldn't oughta have to die because he's +right. Just like ever'thing else in this Manly Age. It's painful. That +oughta be our motto, More Pain, just like in the Machine Age it was More +Gadgets At Any Cost."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you go on tevee?" Dan jeered. "She'll soon forget you, +farmer."</p> + +<p>Stonecypher's words rolled over the hobbyist. "I reckon the Manly Age +came because a man started thinkin' he wasn't much of a man any more. He +was just as fast as his car, and just as strong as his electric lawn +mower. And a loud minority of the women was claimin' they could do +anything a man could, and maybe better. So the men started playin' +football in shorts and huntin' each other on game preserves, and the +women went back to the kitchen and bedroom. Lots of things that went on +undercover come out in the open. Cockfights, dogfights, coon-on-a-log, +duels, stallion fights, bullfights.</p> + +<p>"And people like you, L. Dan, went on livin'. You got no right to live. +You don't do any useful work. The Earth is slowly starvin', and you take +the grub out of some feller's mouth who might could help a little. +That's why—"</p> + +<p>"Time!" announced the duelmaster with his face close to a large clock on +the wall. He opened the door. Two men carrying a body on a stretcher +passed. The body had four bullet wounds in it.</p> + +<p>Dan said, "That drivel gives me a real reason to kill you, farmer. I'll +be good to her for a few days."</p> + +<p>As prearranged, Dan took the right branch of the corridor and +Stonecypher, the left. A hooded man gave Stonecypher the Magnum revolver +and shut him into a space resembling a windowed closet with a door on +either side. Stonecypher secured the revolver in the clip holster. His +bony hands formed knotted fists.</p> + +<p>The pen door slid back. Stonecypher stepped into a room thirty by ninety +feet with three bullet-marred concrete walls and a fourth wall of +bulletproof glass, behind which sat the ghoulish audience. Dan, crouched +and with his pistol in the crook of his left elbow, advanced. His right +hand fluttered an inch from the pistol butt.</p> + +<p>Stonecypher, grotesque with thin chest exposed and overall bib wrapped +around belt, waited. Two photoelectric robot machine guns followed each +movement of the duelists. A buzzer sounded. Dan's index finger failed to +reach the trigger, for a guardian machine gun removed the hobbyist's +head in a short efficient burst. The noise of a louder buzzer punctuated +the execution.</p> + +<p>When the soundproof inner door of the closet opened, the hooded man, who +had a pair of crossed pistols tattooed on the back of his right hand, +said, "He was too anxious."</p> + +<p>"Yeah," Stonecypher grunted.</p> + +<p>The man watched Stonecypher pass out to the street. Stonecypher snapped +up the bib of his overalls. An extremely rare bird, a robin, hopped from +his path and continued a fruitless search for insects. Stonecypher +walked down Watauga Street until the pavement vanished under the +brownish-green water of Kings Lake.</p> + +<p>Catriona squealed when she saw him. Ignoring all Correct Procedures, she +almost knocked him down and attempted to smother him. "Ah told you it +just took practice!" she blubbered. "You did it, Stony!"</p> + +<p>With muffled mumbles, Stonecypher managed to put her in the Tenite +canoe. The few people along the quay, who had witnessed the illegal +manner of their meeting, watched with shock, or with incredulity, or +with guarded admiration. When they saw that Stonecypher's hand rested on +a holstered revolver, they lost their curiosity.</p> + +<p>Wading, Stonecypher shoved the canoe off and hopped aboard. As he took +up the paddle, his hand trailed in the water and released the small +buzzer that had made possible Catriona's best carnival act.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>For July, the afternoon was cool. Blue-gray clouds drifted before larger +dirty white masses. To the southwest opened the mile-wide mouth of Horse +Creek; and, far beyond, the great blue pyramid of Chimney Top Mountain +stood defiantly above Sevier Lake. The world seemed water broken only by +partly submerged hills and mountains.</p> + +<p>Stonecypher gazed across the Lake at Bays Mountain and at the five +Cement Islands apparently floating against that backdrop. Softly, he +said, "Some folks call the big one Martyrs Island. There's a marble +pillar right in the middle. Nobody knows who put it there, and the +Government never bothered to knock it down. I reckon the poison ivy's +covered it by now, but I went and read the inscription, once, when I was +a boy. It says:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"They moved me off the Powell River.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They covered my farm with water.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I bought me another near Beans Station.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The water covered it.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I was getting old, but I built at Galloway Mill.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When they flooded that, I gave up and lived in Kingsport.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I will not move again."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The canoe bounded over the choppy water, one hundred feet above the +silted streets of the flooded city of Kingsport. Stonecypher said, "The +time I was there, you could still find a few copter-trooper helmets and +old cankered shells. Couple of years back, a diver brought up two skulls +off shore."</p> + +<p>Catriona's eyes remained moist, but she smiled. Her teeth were +beautiful. "It'll be all rahght, Stony. You can't change the wo'ld in +one day. You did fine, and Moe will too."</p> + +<p>"I told you to stay at the bullring," Stonecypher said.</p> + +<p>"Ah couldn't watch that! And those puny, little, mousy women stare and +talk about me, because theah's a little meat on mah cahcass. Oswell said +Moe would be last, anyhow. Ah was so wo'ied about you, ah couldn't sit +still."</p> + +<p>Only a few boats, mainly those of piscatorial maniacs, were on the lake. +Stonecypher glared at them and muttered, "I hope I did right by Moe. He +wanted to fight. Maybe, Catriona, if I'd had you when I found out he +could talk—not just mimic—I'd of raised him different. Maybe I +shouldn't have shown him that bullfight movie, but I wondered what the +only bull to see a bullfight from outside the ring thought about it.</p> + +<p>"That led him to wantin' to know all about the Man-Animal War. I told +him the best I could, how one of a man's basic drives is to exterminate, +ever' since prehistoric times when he did in the wooly mammoth and +rhinoceros. The dodo, quagga, passenger pigeon, great auk, aurochs, Key +deer, bison, African elephant, gorilla, tiger—there's an awful list. +Why, five hundred species of mammals, alone, have become extinct since 1 +A.D., 'bout four hundred of them since 1850. A man'll even kill off +other men, like the Neanderthals and the Tasmanians!" Stonecypher rested +the paddle and grinned, faintly, at Catriona reclining in the bow. "I +guess you've heard this before."</p> + +<p>"Go rahght ahead, Stony," Catriona sighed. "Ah like to heah yoah speech. +It's the only time you really get angry, and you look so fine and +noble."</p> + +<p>"Yeah. Well. I told Moe how a man exterminates useful or harmless +species, and then he lets dangerous ones, like rats, eat him out of +house and home. Course, I explained this was just kinship. Folks used to +argue man come from a monkey, or from spontaneous combustion, or +something. Now we got fossil proof he's not like anything anybody ever +saw. He's a case of straight line development all the way back to the +first mammal, a sort of rat."</p> + +<p>The canoe glided past Highland Pier. Every type of small watercraft, +from a punt, through an electric motorboat, to a sloop, had docked. More +boats lined the shore on either side of the pier. The flying field +contained so many butterfliers and copters that there seemed no +possibility of any of them taking off. Human voices welled in a mob roar +from the great open cylinder of the bullring. A huge banner draped on +the curving white wall proclaimed, in ten-foot letters:</p> + +<h4>DEPENDENCE DAY<br /> +BULLFIGHT<br /> +HONOR THE GREAT<br /> +GOVERNMENT ON WHICH<br /> +WE DEPEND<br /> +SIX BULLS—THREE KILLERS</h4> + + +<p>Stonecypher ran the canoe aground in a patch of dead weeds, exposed by a +slight lowering of the lake level, and helped Catriona over the rocks +that lined the bank. He said, "I told Moe other things men do to +animals. All the laboratory butchery, done because it would be cruel to +treat a man like that, but it's all right with a animal, like takin' out +a dog's brains and lettin' 'im live. I told him about huntin', how the +kudu become extinct 'cause a bunch of fools wanted to see who could kill +the one with the biggest horns.</p> + +<p>"I told him the things done to domestic animals. Dehornin', +emasculatin', brandin', slaughterin' with sledge hammers and butcher +knives, keepin' 'em in filthy barns. A man tells hisself he's superior +to other animals. If he does somethin' bad, he uses words like inhuman, +brutal, animal instincts, instead of admittin' it's just typical +behavior. And the psychologists take some animal, say a dog, and put him +in a maze, something the dog never saw before. If the dog don't run the +maze in two seconds flat, they say he's a pretty stupid animal. He just +operates on instinct, but they can't say how instinct operates. They'll +have a time explainin' Moe's instincts.</p> + +<p>"I reckon the American bison made Moe madder than anything. They killed +the bison off, 'cept for protected herds, in the Nineteenth Century. A +hundred years later, the herds had got pretty big, so they declared open +season on bison. No more bison."</p> + +<p>A recorded voice growled, "No guns permitted in ring. Deposit gun in +slot. No guns permitted in ring."</p> + +<p>Stonecypher moved his permit in ineffectual passes before the electric +eye. He shrugged, dropped the revolver into the slot, and left his thumb +print. Catriona displayed the passes Ringmaster Oswell had given them. +The teveer blinked, and the gate granted admission. They rode the +escalator to the sixth tier and squirmed through pandemonium to their +seats.</p> + +<p>The male portion of the crowd wore every possible style and color of +dress, in complete emancipation from the old business suit uniform, but +the women wore sober false-bosomed sundresses and expressed excitement +in polite chirps. Stonecypher pressed his mouth against Catriona's ear +and whispered through the din, "You got to understand, Cat, whatever +happens, Moe wanted it. He says he can scare some killers into givin' up +bullfights and maybe help stop it."</p> + +<p>"He'll do fine, Stony."</p> + +<p>Several spectators stopped venting their wrath on the unfortunate man in +the ring to gawk at the couple. Catriona's unorthodox physique aroused +sufficient amazement; but, in addition, Stonecypher gave her the front +seat and took the rear one, the correct place for a woman, himself.</p> + +<p>Below, through a rain of plastibottles and rotten eggs, a tired man +walked to the barrier which Oswell advertised as the only wooden fence +in seven states. Behind the killer, a small electric tractor dragged out +the bloody carcass of a bull.</p> + +<p>A gasping, gibbering little man grabbed Stonecypher's arm and yelped, +"Illard is the clumsiest killer, he ran the sword in three times, and +the kid with the dagger had to stick twice before they finished, Big +Dependence Day Bullfight my jet! This is the worst in years, Fergus made +the only clean kill all afternoon, and I flew every one of eighteen +hundred miles myself to see it, this last bull better be good!" The +little man waved his bag of rotten eggs.</p> + +<p>Although the bullfight followed the basic procedures established by +Francisco Romero in the Spain of 1700, changes had occurred, including +the elimination of all Spanish words from the vocabulary of the +spectacle since the unpleasant dispute with the Spanish Empire twenty +years before. The gaudy costumes worn by participants had been replaced +by trunks and sneakers.</p> + +<p>A purring grader smoothed the sand. The crowd quieted, except for those +near the box of Ringmaster Oswell. They suggested in obscene terms that +their money be refunded. A trumpet recording blared. A scarlet door, +inscribed, "Moe of Bays Mountain Farm," opened. The crowd awaited the +first wild rush of the bull. It failed to materialize.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="GRAND_FINALE" id="GRAND_FINALE"></a>GRAND FINALE</h2> + + +<p>Slowly, Moe came through the doorway. Above, on a platform inside the +barrier, stood a gray-haired man who stuck identifying, streamered darts +into bovine shoulders. His hand swept down, carrying Stonecypher's +chosen colors, black.</p> + +<p>Moe's walk upset the man's timing. His arm moved too soon. Moe's front +hooves left the ground. Horns hooked. The gray-haired man screamed and +dropped the dart. With a spike of horn through his arm, between bone and +biceps, he gyrated across the barrier. He screamed a second time before +cloven hooves slashed across his body.</p> + +<p>The crowd inhaled, then cheered the unprecedented entrance. Killer +Fergus's team stood rigid, not comprehending. Then men dashed through +shielded openings in the barrier, yelling and waving pink and yellow +capes to draw the bull from his victim.</p> + +<p>Moe ignored the distraction, trotted nonchalantly to the center of the +ring, and turned his bulging head to examine the spectators jabbering at +his strange appearance. The short horns, the round skull, the +white-banded eyes, the mane that seemed slightly purple under the cloudy +sky, and the exaggerated slope from neck to rump that made the hind legs +too short—together they amounted to a ton of muscle almost like a bull. +"Where'd you trap it, Oswell?" someone near the ringmaster's box yelled.</p> + +<p>Forgetting the mess Illard had made with the previous bull, the crowd +commented. "It's the last of the bison!"</p> + +<p>"He's poiple! Lookit! Poiple!"</p> + +<p>"The bull of the woods!"</p> + +<p>"Howya like 'im, Fergus?"</p> + +<p>Killer Fergus posed behind the barrier and studied his specialty, an odd +bull. Two stickers, Neel and Tomas, flourished capes to test the bull's +charge, with Neel chanting, "Come on, bull! Come on, bull! Come on! +Bull, bull, bull!"</p> + +<p>Moe did not charge. He moved, in a speculative walk, toward the chanting +Neel who tantalized with the cape and retreated with shuffling steps. +The charge, when it came, occurred almost too fast for sight. Neel +wriggled on the horns, struck the sand, and the horns lifted him again. +He smashed against the barrier. Tomas threw his cape over the bull's +face. The left horn pinned the cape to Tomas's naked chest over the +heart.</p> + +<p>Moe retired to the center of the ring and bellowed at the crowd, which, +delirious from seeing human blood, applauded. Blood covered Moe's horns, +dripped through the long hair on his neck, and trickled down between his +eyes.</p> + +<p>Quavering helpers removed the bodies. The first lancer, livid and +trembling, rode a blindfolded horse into the ring. "He'll fix this +horse!" the crowd slavered. "We'll see guts this time!"</p> + +<p>Moe charged. The lancer backed his mount against the barrier and gripped +his weapon, a stout pike. Sand sprayed like water as Moe swerved. On the +left side of the horse, away from the menacing pike, Moe reared. The +lancer left the saddle. A tangle of naked limbs thrashed across the +wooden fence and thudded against the wall of the stands.</p> + +<p>Twenty-five thousand people held their breaths. The blindfolded horse +waited with dilated nostrils and every muscle vibrating in terror. Moe +produced a long red tongue and licked the horse's jaw.</p> + +<p>Fergus dispersed the tableau. Red-haired, lean, and scarred with many +past gorings, the popular killer stalked across the sand dragging his +cape and roaring incomprehensible challenges. In the stands, the cheer +leaders of the Fergus Fanclub lead a welcoming yell. "Yeaaaa, Fergus! +Fergus! Fergus! Rah, rah, rah!"</p> + +<p>Moe wandered through the helpers trying to distract him from the horse +and looked at the killer. Fergus stamped his foot, shook the cape, and +called, "Bull! Come on! Charge!" Moe completely circled the killer, who +retired in disgust when another lancer rode into the ring. "Stick him +good!" Fergus directed.</p> + +<p>The pike pointed at the great muscles of Moe's back, as the bull +charged. Moe's head twisted in a blur of violence. Teeth clamped on the +shaft behind the point. Too surprised to let go, the lancer followed his +weapon from the saddle. He released his hold when Moe walked on him.</p> + +<p>Like some fantastic dog stealing a fresh bone, the bull trotted around +the ring, tail high and pike in mouth. The crowd laughed. Wild-eyed men +carried out the trampled lancer.</p> + +<p>A third, and extremely reluctant, lancer reined his horse through the +gate. A pike in the mouth of a ton of beef utterly unnerved the man. He +stood in the saddle and jumped over the barrier where a rain of rotten +eggs from the booing fans spattered him thoroughly.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>An uninjured bull pawed alone in the sand when the trumpet recording +announced the end of the lancers' period. The crowd noises softened to a +buzz of speculation, questions, and comment, as the realization that +weird events had been witnessed slowly penetrated that collective mind. +The bull had not touched a horse, no pike had jabbed the bull, and five +men had been killed or injured.</p> + +<p>"Great Government!" a clear voice swore, "That ain't no bull, it's a +monster!" This opinion came from a sticker in Illard's team. Fergus +attempted to persuade the man to help, since both of Fergus's stickers +were dead. Part of the crowd agreed with the sticker's thought, for +people began moving furtively to the exits with cautious glances at the +animal in the ring. They, of course, could not know that the bull had +been trained, with rubber-tipped pikes and dummies, in every phase of +the bullfight; that he knew the first, and only, law of staying alive in +the ring, "Charge the man and not the cloth."</p> + +<p>The clouds that had obscured the sky all day formed darker masses tinted +with pink to the east, and the black dot of a turkey buzzard wheeled +soaring in the gloom. Carrying, in either hand, a barbed stick sparkling +with plastic streamers, Fergus walked into the ring. His assistants +cautiously flanked him with capes.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<p>Moe dropped the pike and charged in the approved manner of a bull. +Fergus raised the sticks high and brought them down on the humped back, +although the back was not there. The sticks dropped in the sand.</p> + +<p>As the killer leaped aside in the completion of a reflex action, a horn +penetrated the seat of his trunks. The Fergus Fanclub screamed while +their hero dangled in ignominy from the horn. Moe ignored the flapping, +frantic capes. The killer gingerly gripped a horn in either hand and +tried to lift himself off. Gently, Moe lowered his head and deposited +the man beside an opening. Fergus scrabbled to safety like a rat to a +hole.</p> + +<p>Four helpers with capes occupied the ring. When they saw death +approaching on cloven hooves, two of them cleared the fence. The third +received a horn beside his backbone and tumbled into the fourth. A dual +scream, terrible enough to insure future nightmares, echoed above the +screeching of the crowd. Moe tossed the bodies again and again across +the bloody sand.</p> + +<p>Silence slithered over the Highland Bullring and over a scene +reminiscent of the ring's bloody parent, the Roman Arena. Men sprawled +gored, crushed, and dead across the sand. A section of the blood-specked +barrier leaned splintered and cracked, almost touching the concrete +wall. Unharmed, Fergus stood on one side of the battleground, Illard on +the other.</p> + +<p>Fergus reached over the wooden fence for red flag and sword. Turning his +back on the heaving Moe, who stood but ten feet behind, the killer faced +the quaking flesh that was Ringmaster Oswell, high up in the official +box. The killer's voice shook, but the bitter satire came through the +sound of departing boats and aircraft. Fergus said, "I dedicate this +bull to Ringmaster Oswell who has provided for us this great Dependence +Day Bullfight in honor of the Great Government on which we all depend." +He turned and faced the bull.</p> + +<p>Moe, for once, rushed the red flag, the only thing that made bullfights +possible. His great shoulders presented a fair target for the sword.</p> + +<p>Fergus, perhaps the only bull-fighter ever to be gored in the brain, +died silently. The sword raked a shallow gash long Moe's loin.</p> + +<p>In the sixth tier of the stands, saliva drooled from the slack mouth of +the little man seated beside Stonecypher. "Now's your chance, Illard!" +the man squalled. "Be a hero! The last of the bullfighters! Kill him, +Illard!"</p> + +<p>Illard walked on shaking legs over bodies he did not see. He was short, +for a killer, and growing bald. He picked up the sword Fergus had +dropped, looked into the gory face of the bull, and toppled in the +sticky sand. The sword quivered point-first beside his body.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="RECESSIONAL" id="RECESSIONAL"></a>RECESSIONAL</h2> + + +<p>A wind whipped down into Highland Bullring. Riding the wind, blacker +than the clouds, the inquisitive turkey buzzard glided over the rim of +the stands with air whistling through the spatulate feathers of rigid +wings. The buzzard swooped a foot above Moe's horns and soared swiftly +over the opposite side of the ring.</p> + +<p>That started the panic, although Moe's charge accentuated it. He crashed +into the sagging section of the barrier. Cloven hooves scraped the +wooden inclined plane, and Moe stopped with front feet in the first tier +of the stands. He bellowed.</p> + +<p>The bull killed only one spectator, a man on whom he stepped. The +hundreds who died killed themselves or each other. They leaped from the +towering rim of the ring, and they jammed the exits in writhing heaps.</p> + +<p>Moe's precarious stance slipped. Slowly, he slid back into the ring, +where Ringmaster Oswell, quivering in a red toga, gestured from the +darkness under the stands. The fat man squeaked and waved. Moe's charge +embodied the genuine fighting rage of a maddened bull. The scarlet door +closed behind him.</p> + +<p>Stonecypher, with fists bloody and a heap of unconscious fear-crazed +spectators piled before him, sat down. "Well, Moe," he whispered, "I +reckon you got even for a few of the bulls that's been tortured to death +to amuse a bunch of nuts. Maybe it wasn't the right way to do it. I +don't know. If I'd only had the gun—"</p> + +<p>Catriona turned a white mask of a face up to Stonecypher. "They killed +him, in theah?"</p> + +<p>"Sure. Bullfightin' never was a sport. The bull can't win. If he's not +killed in the ring, he's slaughtered under the stands."</p> + +<p>"You have moah smart-bulls, Stony."</p> + +<p>The black copter came in with the sunset and hovered over the sand. The +face of Duelmaster Smith peered out under his black tam, while a hooded +man, with pistols tattooed on his hand, aimed an automatic rifle. The +duelmaster smiled at Stonecypher and cried, "You really should have +waited until you were farther out in the Lake, before you dropped that +little buzzer in the water."</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Thy Rocks and Rills, by Robert Ernest Gilbert + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THY ROCKS AND RILLS *** + +***** This file should be named 32878-h.htm or 32878-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/8/7/32878/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: Thy Rocks and Rills + +Author: Robert Ernest Gilbert + +Illustrator: Tom Beecham + +Release Date: June 18, 2010 [EBook #32878] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THY ROCKS AND RILLS *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + THY ROCKS AND RILLS + + By Robert Ernest Gilbert + + Illustrated by Tom Beecham + +[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science +Fiction September 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence +that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + +[Sidenote: _They were out of place in the Manly Age--Stonecypher, a man +who loved animals; Moe, a bull who hated men. Together, they marched to +inevitably similar destinies...._] + + + + +PRELUDE + + +M. Stonecypher lifted his reed sun hat with the square brim, and used a +red handkerchief to absorb the perspiration streaking his forehead. He +said, "The pup'll make a good guard, 'especially for thrill parties." + +L. Dan's golden curls flickered in July 1 sunlight. The puppy growled +when Dan extended a gloved hand. "I don't want a guard," the hobbyist +said. "I want him for a dogfight." + +A startling bellow rattled the windows of the dog house and spilled in +deafening waves across the yard. Dan whirled, clutching his staff. Light +glinted on his plastic cuirass and danced on his red nylon tights. His +flabby face turned white. "What--" he panted. + +Stonecypher concealed a smile behind a long corded hand and said, "Just +the bull. Serenades us sometimes." + +Dan circled the dog house. Stonecypher followed with a forefinger +pressed to thin lips. In the paddock, the bull's head moved up and down. +It might or might not have been a nod. + +The crest of long red and blue-black hairs on the bull's neck and +shoulders created an illusion of purple, but the rest of the animal +matched the black of a duelmaster's tam. Behind large eyes encircled by +a white band, his skull bulged in a swelling dome, making the distance +between his short horns seem much too great. + +"He's purple!" Dan gasped. "Why in the Government don't you put him in +the ring?" + +Stonecypher gestured toward the choppy surface of Kings Lake, nine +hundred feet below. He said, "Coincidence. I make out the ringmaster's +barge just leavin' Highland Pier." + +"You're selling him?" + +"Yeah. If they take 'im. I'd like to see 'im in the ring on Dependence +Day." + +Glancing at the watch embedded in the left pectoral of his half-armor, +Dan said, "That would be a show! I'll take the dog and fly. I've a duel +in Highland Park at 11:46." + +"The pup's not for sale." + +"Not for sale!" Dan yelled. "You told--" + +"Thought you wanted a guard. I don't sell for dogfights." + +A sound like "Goood!" came from the paddocked bull. + +Dan opened his mouth wide. Whatever he intended to say died without +vocalization, for Catriona came driving the mule team up through the +apple orchard. The almost identical mules had sorrel noses, gray necks, +buckskin flanks, and black and white pinto backs and haunches. "Great +Government!" Dan swore. "This place is worse than a museum!" + +"Appaloosa mules," Stonecypher said. + +Catriona jumped from the seat of the mowing machine. Dan stared. +Compared to the standard woman of the Manly Age who, by dieting, +posturing, and exercise from childhood, transformed herself into a +small, thin, dominated creature, Catriona constituted a separate +species. She was taller than Dan, slightly plump, and her hair could +have been classed as either red or blonde. Green overalls became her +better than they did Stonecypher. With no trace of a smile on face or in +voice, Stonecypher said, "L. Dan, meet Catriona." + + * * * * * + +Like a hypnopath's victim, Dan walked to Catriona. He looked up at her +and whispered, but too loudly. Stonecypher heard. His hands clamped on +the hobbyist's neck and jerked. Dan smashed in the grass with sufficient +force to loosen the snaps of his armor. He rolled to his feet and swung +his staff. + +Stonecypher's left hand snatched the staff. His right fist collided with +Dan's square jaw. Glaring down at the hobbyist, Stonecypher gripped the +staff and rotated thick wrists outward. The tough plastic popped when it +broke. + +Scuttling backward, Dan regained his feet. "You inhuman brute!" he +growled. "I intended to pay for her!" + +"My wife's not for sale either," Stonecypher said. "You know how to +fly." + +Dan thrust out a coated tongue and made a noise with it. In a memorized +singsong, he declared, "I challenge you to a duel, in accordance with +the laws of the Government, to be fought in the nearest duelpen at the +earliest possible hour." + +"Stony, don't!" Catriona protested. "He's not wo'th it!" + +Stonecypher smiled at her. "Have to follow the law," he said. He +extended his tongue, blurted, and announced, "As required by the +Government, I accept your challenge." + +"We'll record it!" Dan snapped. He stalked toward the green and gold +butterflier parked in a field of seedling Sudan grass. Horns rattled on +the concrete rails of the paddock. + +"Burstaard!" the bull bellowed. + +Dan shied and trampled young grass under sandaled feet. His loosened +cuirass clattered rhythmically. Raising the canopy of the butterflier, +he slid out the radioak and started typing. Stonecypher and Catriona +approached the hobbyist. Catriona said, "This is cowa'dly! Stony nevah +fought a duel in his life. He won't have a chance!" + +"You'll see me soon then, woman. Where'd you get all that equipment? You +look like something in a circus." + +"Ah used to be in a cahnival," Catriona said. She kept Stonecypher in +place with a plump arm across his chest. "That's wheah you belong," she +told Dan. "That's all you'ah good fo'." + +"Watch how you address a man, woman," Dan snarled, "or you'll end in the +duelpen, too." + +Stonecypher snatched the sheet from the typer. The request read: + + Duelmaster R. Smith, Watauga Duelpen, Highland Park, Tennessee. + L. Dan challenges M. Stonecypher. Cause: Interference with + basic amatory rights. July 1. 11:21 amest. + +Stonecypher said, "The cause is a lie. You got no rights with Catriona. +Why didn't you tell 'em it's because I knocked you ears-over-endways, +and you're scared to fight without a gun?" + +Dan shoved the request into the slot and pulled the switch. "I'll kill +you," he promised. + +While the request was transmitted by radiophotography, minutes passed, +bare of further insults. Catriona and Stonecypher stood near the +concrete fence enclosing the rolling top of Bays Mountain. Interminable +labor had converted 650 acres of the top to arable land. Below the +couple, the steep side of the mountain, denuded of timber, dangerously +eroded, and scarred by limestone quarries, fell to the ragged shore of +Kings Lake. Two miles of water agitated by many boats separated the +shore and the peninsula, which resembled a wrinkled dragon with +underslung lower jaw distended. The town of Highland Park clung to the +jutting land, and the Highland Bullring appeared as a white dot more +than four miles from where Catriona and Stonecypher stood. The +ringmaster's barge was a red rectangle skirting Russel Chapel Island. + +Dan pulled the answer from the buzzing radioak. He walked over and held +the radiophoto an inch from Stonecypher's long nose. It read: + + Request OK. Time: July 4. 3:47 pmest. + +Two attached permits granted each duelist the privilege of carrying one +handgun with a capacity of not more than ten cartridges of not less +than .32 caliber. Below the permits appeared an additional message: + + L. Dan due at Watauga Duelpen. 11:46 amest. For duel with J. + George. + +"Government and Taxes!" Dan cursed. Throwing Stonecypher's permit, he +leaped into the green and gold butterflier and slammed the canopy. The +four wings of the semi-ornithopter blurred with motion, lifting the +craft into the sky. The forward wings locked with negative dihedral, the +rear wings angled to form a ruddevator, and the five-bladed propeller +whined, driving the butterflier in a shallow dive for the peninsula. + + * * * * * + +Catriona said, "Ah hope he's late, and they shoot him. Ah knew you'd +finally have to fight, but--" + +"You keep out of it next time," said Stonecypher. "I happen to know that +feller's killed two women in the pen. He don't care for nothin'. Oughta +known better than to let him come here. He made out like he wanted a +guard dog, and I thought--" + +"Nevah mind, Stony. Ah've got to help you. You nevah even fiahed a gun." + +"Later, Cat. The ringmaster may want to stay for dinner. I'll look after +the mules." + +Catriona touched Stonecypher's cheek and went to the house. Stonecypher +unharnessed the Appaloosa mules. While they rolled, he took, from an +empty hay rack, a rubber-tipped spear and a tattered cloth dummy. The +dummy's single arm terminated in a red flag. + +Stonecypher concealed spear and dummy beneath the floor of the dog +house. Going to the paddock, he patted the bull between the horns, which +had been filed to a needle point. "Still goin' through with it?" +Stonecypher asked. + +"Yaaaa," the bull lowed. "Yaooo kuhl Daan. Err'll kuhl uhhh kuhlerrs." + +"All right, Moe. I'll kill Dan, and you kill the killers." Stonecypher +stroked the massive hemisphere of the bull's jaw. "Goodbye, Moe." + +"Gooodba," the bull echoed. He lowered his nose to the shelled corn +seasoned with molasses, the rolled oats, and the ground barley in the +trough. + +Stonecypher walked down the road to the staircase of stone that dammed +the old Kingsport Reservoir, abandoned long before Kings Lake covered +the city. A red electric truck crawled up the steep road hewn from the +slope of the gap formed by Dolan Branch. When the truck had crossed the +bridge below the buttressed dam, Stonecypher spoke to the fat and +sweltering man seated beside the driver. "I'm M. Stonecypher. Proud for +you to visit my farm. Dinner's ready up at the house." + +"No, no time," smiled the fat man, displaying stainless steel teeth. +"Only time to see the bull. I thought we weren't going to make that +grade! Why don't those scientists develop synthetic elements, so that we +can have atomic power again? This radio-electric is so unreliable! I am +Ringmaster A. Oswell, naturally. This heat is excruciating! I had hoped +it would be cooler up here, but something seems to have happened to our +inland-oceanic climate this summer. Lead us to the bull, Stonecypher!" + +Clinging to the slatted truck bed, Stonecypher directed the stoic driver +to the paddock. The electric motor rattled and stopped, and Ringmaster +Oswell wheezed and squirmed from the cab. The ringmaster wore a vaguely +Arabic costume, in all variations of red. + +The bull lumbered bellowing around the fence. His horns raked white +gashes in the beech tree forming one corner. He tossed the feed trough +to splintering destruction. + +"Magnificent!" Oswell gasped. Then the ringmaster frowned. "But he looks +almost purple. His horns are rather short." + +"Stay back from the fence!" Stonecypher warned. "He's real wide between +the horns, ringmaster. I reckon the spread'll match up to standard. Same +stock my grandfather used to sell Boon Bullring before the water. +Wouldn't sell 'im, only the tenants are scared to come about the house." + +Oswell fingered his balloon neck and mumbled, "But he's odd. That long +hair on his neck ... I don't know...." + +The bull's horns lifted the mineral feeder from the center of the +paddock. The box rotated over the rails and crashed in a cloud of +floured oyster shells and phosphate salt at the ringmaster's feet. + +Oswell took cover behind the truck driver, who said, "Fergus'd like him. +Jeeze! Remember dat brown and white spotted one he kilt last year on +Forrest Day? Da crowd like ta never stopt yelling!" + +Ringmaster Oswell retreated farther, as, under the bull's onslaught, a +piece of concrete broke from the top rail, exposing the reinforcing rod +within. "Fergus does like strange ones," he admitted. + +Stonecypher said, "Don't let the mane bother you. There's one of these +long-haired Scotch cows in his ancestors. He's not really purple. Just +the way the light hits 'im." + +Oswell chewed lacquered fingernails with steel dentures. His bloodshot +eyes studied the spotted and speckled Appaloosa mules chasing around the +pasture, but the sight failed to register on his brain. "The crowd likes +a good show on Dependence Day," he proclaimed. "I considered trying a +fat Aberdeen Angus with artificial horns for laughs, but this may do as +well. I must find some shade! I'll take him, Stonecypher, if fifteen +hundred in gold is agreeable." + +"Sold," Stonecypher said. The word cracked in the middle. + +While the ringmaster, muttering about trying bulldogs sometime, retired +to the narrow shadow of the dog house, the driver backed the truck to +the ramp. Stonecypher opened the gate and waved his handkerchief. The +bull charged into the truck, and the driver locked the heavy doors. + +From within his red burnoose, Oswell produced a clinking bag. "Fifteen +hundred," he said. From other recesses, he withdrew documents, +notebooks, and a pencil. He said, "Here is a pass for you and one for +any woman-subject you may wish to bring. You'll want to see your first +bull on Dependence Day! And here is the standard release absolving you +of any damage the bull may do. Oh, yes! His name and number?" + +"Number?" + +"Yes, his brand." + +"Not branded. Make it Number 1. Name's Moe." + +Oswell chuckled. "Moe. Very good! Most breeders name them things like +Chainlightning and Thunderbird. Your GE number?" + +"I'm not a Government Employee." + +"You're not?" Oswell wheezed. "How unusual! Your colors? He'll wear your +colors in his shoulder." + +"Yeah. Black." + +"Black?" + +"Dead black." + +Oswell, scribbling, managed a faint smile. "Sorry I can't accept that +invitation to lunch." He struggled into the truck. "Hope this bull is +brave in the ring. Nice antique old place you have here! I don't see a +feed tower, but you surely don't use pasture--" The ringmaster's babble +passed down the road with the truck. + +Stonecypher watched the vehicle descend the dangerous grade. He lifted +his square hat from his black hair, dropped it on the ground, and +crushed the reeds under a booted foot. + +The temporary house, a squat cubical structure, stood at the end of a +spruce-lined path beside the ruin that a thrill party had made of the +century-old farm house. The plastic screen squeaked when Stonecypher +opened it. He stood on the white floor of the robot kitchen and dug a +fifty dollar gold piece from the bag Oswell had given him. Glaring at +the head of the woman with Liberty inscribed on her crown, he muttered, +"Thirty pieces of gold." + +Catriona called, "Oswell's lucky he couldn't stay foah dinnah! Ah had +the potassium cyanide all ready." + +Stonecypher passed through the diner door into a room containing more +yellowed history books and agricultural pamphlets than eating utensils. +Catriona waited by the table. She held a large revolver in her right +hand. + + + + +INTERMEZZO + + +Stonecypher stood on Bay Knob, near the ruins of the old FM transmitter +station, looking down at the Tennessee Lakes. Catriona sat behind him +and held the revolver on her thigh. Stonecypher said, "I never see it +but I wonder how it looked before the water." + +Before him, North Fork, an arm of Kings Lake, twisted across the +Virginia line four and one-half miles away, while to Stonecypher's +right, Boone Lake sparkled like a gigantic, badly drawn V. He did not +look toward Surgoinsville Dam securing Kings Lake far to the west. + +The Tennessee Lakes were born in 1918 when Wilson Dam spanned the +Tennessee River at Muscle Shoals, Alabama; but their growth was retarded +for fifteen years, until an Act of Congress injected them with vitamins. +Then the mile-long bastions of concrete crawled between the ridges. +Norris, Wheeler, Pickwick Landing, Guntersville, Watts Bar, Kentucky, +Cherokee, Fort Henry, Boone, Sevier, Surgoinsville--almost innumerable +dams blocked the rivers. The rivers stopped and overflowed. The creeks +swelled into rivers. + +Congressional Committees investigated, the Supreme Court tested the dams +against the Constitution, ethnologists and archeologists hastily checked +for Indian relics; and the dams, infused with youthful vigor, matured. +Beginning with Norris, which backed up the Clinch and Powell Rivers to +inundate 25,000 acres and displace 3,000 families, the dams expanded +mighty aquatic muscles. The Tennessee, the Little Tennessee, the +Nolichucky, the Holston, the French Broad, the Watauga, the Hiwassee, +the Little Pigeon--all the rivers spread their waters into lengthy, +ragged lakes, changing the map of Tennessee more than any natural +cataclysm, such as the great earthquake of 1811, had ever done. The +Lakes provided jobs, electric power, flood control, soil conservation, a +fisherman's paradise, milder winters, cooler summers, and they covered +all the really good farming land in the eastern part of the state. + +Catriona loaded the revolver. It was an obsolete .357 Magnum with a +6-1/2 inch barrel, and the cartridge cases of the metal-piercing bullets +had a greenish sheen. "Now, put it in the holstah, and be ca'eful," +Catriona said. + +Stonecypher wore the holster, a leather silhouette studded with two +spring clips opening forward, on a belt and secured to his leg by a +thong. Gingerly, he took the revolver and slipped it under the clips. +"I've kept outa duels all my life," he said, "but, so long as it's for +you, I don't much mind." + +"Ah'll mind if he kills you. You do like I tell you, and you can beat +him. Why, mah best act in the How-To Cahnival was How to Win a Duel. +Cou'se, they didn't know ah was really drawin' befoah the buzzah +sounded. Why, ah used to set two plates ten yahds apaht, draw two +revolvahs, and shoot both plates, all in foah-tenths of a second!" + +Stonecypher grinned. "Sorry I missed that carnival first time it came +through here. I coulda seen you in that costume they poured on you, +three years earlier." + +"Nevah mind the veiled compliments. Now, try it!" + +Stonecypher faced the target, a sheet of plastiboard roughly sawed to +the shape of a man, and backed by a heap of earth removed from the new, +as yet dry, pond in which they stood. Catriona pressed a small buzzer +concealed in her palm. Stonecypher's big hand closed on the revolver +butt, pushing the weapon up and forward. The sound of the shot rattled +away over the mountain top. + +"That's good!" Catriona cried, consulting the sonic timer. "One and +two-tenths seconds from buzzah to shot!" + +"But I missed," Stonecypher protested. "Look bad on tevee." + +"You'll hit him. Watch the recoil next time." + +Stonecypher drew and fired a second wild shot. He snorted, "Confound +Westerns, anyhow!" + +"Weste'ns?" + +"Sure. That's where this duelin' started. Used to, almost ever' movie or +tevee was called a Western. Sort of a fantasy, because they were just +slightly based on real history. They generally showed a feller in a +flowered shirt, ridin' a Tennessee Walking Horse, and shootin' a gun. +Ever'body in these Westerns had a gun, and they all shot at each other. + +"The youngin's were hep on 'em, so they all wore toy guns, and a whole +generation grew up on Westerns. When they got big, they carried real +guns. I've heard my great-uncle tell about it, how before the Government +built duel-pens and passed laws, you couldn't hardly cross the Lakes +without runnin' into a bunch of fools on water skis shootin' at each +other." + +"You leave the histo'y books alone foah awhile," Catriona commanded, +"and practice. The tenants and ah'll tend to the wo'k. Try it loaded and +empty. Hook this little buzzah to the timeah, and practice. Ah've got to +go see the chickens." + +"'Bye, teacher." Stonecypher dropped the buzzer in his pocket and +watched her vanish into the grove. He fired the remaining shots, nicking +the target once. With the revolver holstered, he followed the path to +the summer pasture. + + * * * * * + +Belly-deep in red clover, twenty-four cows, twenty-four calves, and +twenty-four yearlings grazed or played in the shady field. Stonecypher +cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, "Smart-calves! +Smart-calves to school!" + +The entire herd turned sorrowful eyes on him. Seven of the calves and +four of the yearlings trotted to the gate, which Stonecypher held open, +and jostled out of the pasture. As the calves began to lie down under +the trees, a white heifer-calf nuzzled Stonecypher's hand and bawled, +"Paaapy gyoing a fyightt?" + +"Yeah, he's goin' to fight," Stonecypher answered. "Your pappy's gone to +the bullring. He suggested it, and made the choice himself. He's got +real courage. You oughta all be proud of him." + +The calves bawled their pride. Including those remaining in the pasture, +they presented a colorful variety of spots, specks, splotches, browns, +reds, blacks, and even occasional blue and greenish tinges. Stonecypher +sat facing them from a stump. He said, "I'm sorta late for the lesson, +today, so we'll get on with it. Some of this will be repetition for you +yearlings, but it won't hurt. If you get too bored, there's corn and +cottonseed meal in the trough, only be quiet about it. + +"Now. To look at you all, nobody would think you're the same breed of +cattle; but you, and your mammys, and Moe are the only Atohmy cattle on +Earth. It's usually hard to say exactly when a breed started; but you +all started a long, long time ago, on July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo, +New Mexico, when they exploded the first Atomic Bomb." + +At mention of Atomic Bomb, who had succeeded the Bogger Man as a means +of frightening children, one of the younger calves bawled. Her polled, +brindled mother ran in ungainly fashion to the fence and mooed with +great carrying power. + +"All right!" Stonecypher yelled. The cow closed her big mouth, but +stayed by the gate. "Can't go by what you hear the tenants tell their +kids," Stonecypher cautioned the calf. "Atomic Bomb is as dead as the +tank and the battleship. + +"Now, like I was sayin', the scientists put Atomic Bomb on a hundred +foot tower and blowed him up. There was a flash of fire, and an awful +racket, and the blast raised up a lot of dirt and dust from the ground. +All this dust achurnin' around in the cloud bumped into little bits of +metal and stuff that was highly radioactive. That means, the basic atoms +of matter had been thrown out of kilter, sorta deranged. The protons and +electrons in an atom oughta be about equal for it to be stable, but +these were shootin' off electrons, or beta particles, and givin' off +something like powerful x-rays, called gamma rays, and things like that. + +"Anyhow, this radiation affected all the sand and bits of rock and dirt +in that bomb cloud. This radiation is dangerous. Some of it will go +right through several inches of lead. Enough'll kill you. Your ancestors +were ten miles or so from where Atomic Bomb went off. + +"They were just plain Whiteface cattle. They weren't supposed to be +there, but I reckon none of the scientists bothered to warn 'em. The +dust started settlin' all over your ancestors. In about a week, there +were sores and blisters on their backs. The red hair dropped off. When +it grew back, it was gray. + +"The scientists got real excited when they heard about it, 'cause they +wanted to see how horrible they could make Atomic Bomb. So, they shipped +fifty-nine cattle up to Oak Ridge. That was a Government town, a hundred +miles southwest of here, where they made some of the stuff to put in +Atomic Bomb. The University of Tennessee was runnin' an experimental +farm there. They had donkeys, and pigs, and chickens, and other animals +that they exposed to radioactivity. Then they killed 'em and cut 'em up +to see what had happened. I know it's gruesome, but that's how it was. + +"The awful fact is, the scientists slaughtered more than half that +original Atohmy herd for experiments. Some of the rest, +they--uh--married. Wanted to see if the calves had two heads, or +something; if radioactivity had speeded up the mutation rate. + +"Back then, they didn't understand much about mutation. Some claimed a +little radioactivity would cause it, some said a whole lot, and some +said it wouldn't hurt a bit." + +"Whaa mootyaaonn?" asked the calf which was not yet assured of the +extinction of Atomic Bomb. + +"Well, you-all are all mutations. I've told you how life starts from one +cell. This cell has thread-like things in it called chromosomes, and the +chromosomes are made up of things called genes. Mutations, sort of +unexpected changes, can take place in either the chromosomes or the +genes. You see, when this one cell starts dividing, every gene makes a +copy of itself; but, sometimes, the copy is a little different from the +original. Lots of things, like x-rays and ultraviolet rays, heat, +chemicals, disease, can cause this. Radioactivity had caused mutation in +some experiment, so the scientists were anxious to see what happened +with these cattle. + +"Genes determine the way an animal develops. Two mutant genes can start +reactions that end up as a man with one leg, or maybe as a bull with the +intelligence of an eight-year-old man. Lots of mutations are recessive. +They may be carried along for generations. But, when two like mutant +genes come together in reproduction, the animal is bound to be something +different, the way you eleven calves are. + +"Now. The scientists watched the Atohmy cattle for fifteen or twenty +years, and nothin' much happened. They started sayin' radioactivity +wasn't dangerous, and a man could walk into a place right after Atomic +Bomb went off, and it wouldn't matter. They should be here to see the +mess in Japan today. All the time, though, I think the cattle were +changing. It may have been in little things like the length of hair, or +the shape of an eyeball, or the curve of a horn, so the scientists +couldn't tell without they made exact measurements all the time. + +"Then, a bull-calf was born. He had shaggy black hair, and his horns +grew in a spiral like a ram's. Some scientists said, 'I told you so! It +speeded the mutation rate!' + +"Others said, 'He's a natural mutation, or else, a throw-back to +prehistoric wild cattle. It happens in every breed. Atomic Bomb had +nothing to do with it.' + +"They married the bull, and then they fixed to slaughter 'im to see what +his insides was like. The bull fooled 'em, though. He came down with +contagious pleuro-pneumonia, the first case in years, 'cause it was +supposed to have been wiped out in this country away back in the +Nineteenth Century. They had to cremate the bull for fear the disease +would spread. Ever' one of the calves were normal Whitefaces. + +"Finally, the nineteen Atohmy cattle that were left were put up for +sale. My great-grandfather, Cary McPheeter, bought 'em and shipped 'em +here to Bays Mountain. He's the man started this farm where there was +nothin' but rattlesnakes, and trees, and rocks." + +"Whyy theyea selll um?" a red roan calf interrupted. + +"Well, they sold 'em 'cause Oak Ridge had been condemned. That was +several years after the German Civil War. It was peace time, for a +change, and folks were sick of Atomic Bomb. Anyhow, new, modern plants +for makin' the stuff had been built in secret places a lot easier to +defend. The women were cryin' for more automatic kitchens, so the Bureau +of Interior Hydro-electric Power (that's the name Federal Power, Inc., +went by then) put another dam across the Clinch River below Norris. Bush +Lake covered up Oak Ridge. + +"There wasn't much mutation, except for color, in you Atohmy cattle, +till seven years ago when your pappy, Moe, was born. I remember--" + +A hoarse excited voice shouted from a distance. "Thrill party!" it +cried. "Thrill party!" + + * * * * * + +Stonecypher leaped off the stump, stamped his right foot to restore +circulation, and yelled on the run, "That's all today! Stay under the +trees!" + +He loped along the pasture fence and across the makeshift target range. +Two tenants, Teddy and Will, stood on the dirt heap with pitchforks in +their hands. Over Bay Knob, an old Model 14 butterflier hovered on +vibrating wings. Sloppy white letters on the sides of the aircraft +spelled such slang expressions as, "Flash the MAGNETS," +"SupercOlossalSoniC Flap ship," and "Redheads amble OTHer canop." + +An impossible number of middleschool-age boys bulged from the cabin +windows. Methodically, they dumped trash and garbage over the +transmitter station ruins. The butterflier wheeled and flapped over the +pasture. Red clover bent and writhed in the artificial wind from the +ornithopter wings. Cows bawled and ran wild. Calves fell over each +other. + +Stonecypher jumped the fence. He wrested the revolver from the holster. +"Clear out, or I'll shoot!" he howled. + +[Illustration] + +Voices spilled from the butterflier. "He got a handgun!" + +"Dis ain't legal!" + +"Whatcha say, tall, bones, and ugly?" + +Stonecypher aimed the Magnum at the shaven head in the pilot's seat. The +boys looked faint. Agitated air thundered as the butterflier lifted +straight up two hundred feet and glided away in the direction of +Surgoinsville Dam. + +Teddy and Will stood by with pitchforks unrelaxed. Will spat a globule +of tobacco juice. "The thangs these here psychologists git made law!" he +sneered. "You want me to make out a Thrill Damage Claim?" + +"No, Will," Stonecypher said, "just deduct it from taxes." + +Teddy looked at the revolver and said, "Ever'body oughta take guns to +them crazy youngin's. Reckon you'll git into trouble?" + +"No. It's an empty antique. That's legal. You guys did all right. Let +the calves back in, huh?" + +The tenants left by the gate, and, with a minimum of driving, urged the +calves into the pasture. Stonecypher watched the men pass through the +grove. Although the tenants undoubtedly recognized the peculiarities of +the calves, they never mentioned them. Since the late 1700's, through +Revolution, Civil War, automobile, the Department of Internal Revenue, +the multiple bureaus that had controlled the Lakes, the Moon rocket, and +the expedition to Pluto, these people had remained suspiciously +interested in strangers, suspicious of indoor plumbing, doubtful of the +Government, quick-tempered, and as immovable as Chimney Top. They had +exchanged little except log and frame houses for concrete. The tenants, +not really tenants, had been squatting on Bays Mountain when Cary +McPheeter bought the farm; and there they stayed. + +Stonecypher vaulted the fence. Catriona, with hands firmly planted on +hips, stood in the dry pond. Stonecypher said, "If I just knew what +these thrill parties think they're up to, it might help." + +Catriona shook her head of red-yellow hair. "Nevah mind them. Ah told +you to practice shootin', but the minute ah turn mah back, you run off +and staht teachin' those calves! You've got to practice, Stony! You've +nevah done any shootin', and L. Dan's killed ten people. Ah--" + +"Watch the tears, or you'll have red and green eyes," Stonecypher said. +Clumsily, he ejected the shells and reloaded the revolver. He occupied +two seconds in drawing and firing. The bullet struck dirt a yard to the +left of the target. + + + + +SONATA + + +A short vicious thunderstorm lashed Bays Mountain on the afternoon of +July 3. As the storm passed, a blood-red butterflier, with a pusher +propeller in the tail and a plastic bull head on the nose, descended in +the young Sudan grass. Stonecypher dropped the saw--he had been clearing +away a beech limb the storm left in the abandoned paddock--and strolled +to greet Ringmaster A. Oswell. + +"Stonecypher!" the ringmaster announced. "That storm almost caught us!" +Oswell's stainless steel teeth clacked, and the breezes trailing the +thunderclouds ballooned his orange silk kimono. "I never liked these +butterfliers. They're too slow, and that swooping motion! Five hundred +miles per hour may seem fast to a man your age; but in my day, back +before petroleum was classified as armament, we had jets! Real speed!" + +"Come on up to the house, ringmaster," Stonecypher invited. "I'll mix up +some dextrose and citric acid." + +"No, no time," the fat man panted. "Only time to see you about that bull +you sold me. The storm took a limb of your beech tree! Almost the only +one left, I suppose. About that bull, Stonecypher, you know I was a bit +hesitant when I bought him, but my driver talked me into it. I'm so +disappointed I had him drafted immediately!" + +"But, what--" Stonecypher attempted to ask. + +"The young woman there in the butterflier is a much better driver and +pilot," Oswell babbled. "I wouldn't have believed it of a woman! She +weighs a good ninety-eight pounds, too! That bull--he has changed +completely since we put him under the stands. He eats well, but he shows +no spirit at all. Tomorrow is the big day, Stonecypher! I can't +disappoint the crowd! I thought he might be sick, but the vet says not. +That bull let the vet come into the cage and made absolutely no attempt +to kill him!" + +"But does Fergus--" + +"Fergus's manager saw the bull! He's all for it. Fergus made an +extremely poor showing on Memorial Day, and the manager thinks this odd +bull would provide a real comeback! I advised against it. This heat is +terrible! The storm didn't cool the air at all." + +Stonecypher maneuvered the perspiring ringmaster into the shade of the +beech. He said, "I wanta do the fair thing with you, ringmaster, so I'll +give you a guarantee, in writing if you want. If that bull's not the +bravest ever fought in Highland Bullring, I give you double-money-back." + +Oswell's face wobbled in a tentative smile. He counted his stubby +fingers. "Double-money-back?" + +"Yeah. I wanta get into the business. My grandfather used to sell bulls. +Then my father came along, and he wouldn't sell a one." + +"Yes. Yes, I once tried to reason with him, but--" + +"He had funny ideas," Stonecypher pressed his advantage. "I never did +understand the old man myself. He used to lecture me on something he +called the Man-Animal War. He said one of the worst things in the war +was the thousands of bulls that had been tortured to death." + +"Peculiar idea. Of course--" + +"He claimed bullfights slipped up on this country. Back when it wasn't +legal, they spaded up the ground real good. There were movies, and +books, and magazines, and foreign broadcasts, all ravin' about how brave +and noble it was for a bunch of men to worry and torture a stupid animal +like a bull, till he couldn't hardly hold his head up, and then run a +sword in 'im." + +"Naturally, you--" + +"I don't know how many times he told me a bull had more brains than a +horse, but less then a jackass. He said bullfightin' wasn't a sport, +even if the bull got a man sometimes: and he had the idea the worst +thing was the four or five horses, that ever' bull killed, took with +'im. They had some bloodless bullfights in California, and the nut +colonies out there like it so good, first thing you know, we really had +it. It came to East Tennessee 'cause this was one of the biggest +cattle-raisin' sections, before the Lakes took the grazin' land." + +"Surely, Stonecypher, you--" + +"My father always claimed if the bullfighters were near as brave as they +said, they'd take on a really intelligent animal sometimes, like a +man-eatin' tiger. He even thought a man was mentalill to fight a bull in +the first place." Stonecypher grinned. "No, you don't need to worry +about me, ringmaster. I hate to admit it, but the old man is the one who +was mentalill." + +Oswell revealed all of his steel teeth in a broad smile. "You had me +worried!" he wheezed. "Now, your offer." + +"I'll go even better," Stonecypher said, "just to show how set I am on +gettin' back in the business. If Moe's not brave, I got two yearlin's +you can have for free." + +"How generous! You've reassured me, Stonecypher. I have confidence, now, +that the show will be a great success! I must go! You have no conception +of the life a ringmaster leads before a fight. I won't require a written +guarantee. I trust you, Stonecypher! See you tomorrow, I hope! I never +liked July. If the Government would only make more Lakes, it might cool +off! I hope--" + +The whir of the red butterflier's wings terminated Oswell's discourse. +With a face like a gored bullkiller, Stonecypher watched the +ringmaster's departure. Another butterflier hovered above the mountain. +This one was green and gold with the canopy pushed back and a glint of +twin lenses in the cockpit. + +Will appeared at Stonecypher's side. He spat in a long arc and said, +"That's a new one, ain't it, peepin' from a butterfly? I reckon L. Dan +never got kilt in that other duel like I hoped he would. You want us to +git you outa this, Stonecypher?" + +"No, Will." + +"We can see you git to the Smokies. The Givernment'll never find you +down in there." + +"I'll be all right, Will. If he does kill me, take care of Catriona. And +look after the calf records." + +"Sure thang." + +Stonecypher walked slowly toward Catriona's open-topped sunbathing tent. + + + + +DANSE MACABRE + + +Duelmaster R. Smith adjusted his black tam. "Do not touch your shooting +hand to your weapon until the buzzer sounds," he instructed. "Otherwise, +the weapon may be carried as you wish. At the slightest infringement of +the rules, a robot gun will kill you. If you have any elaborate last +words, say them now; because the pen is soundproof." He laughed an +obviously much rehearsed laugh. + +L. Dan wore orange tights today, but no armor, since the rules required +deulists to present naked torsos for probable bullets. Stonecypher faced +the duelmaster. "I reckon this room is the only place a man really has +free speech," he said. "You're deaf, and can't see good enough to read +lips, and me or him will soon be dead. + +"I don't believe in this duelin'. It gives a man who's wrong a chance to +kill one who's right. A man shouldn't oughta have to die because he's +right. Just like ever'thing else in this Manly Age. It's painful. That +oughta be our motto, More Pain, just like in the Machine Age it was More +Gadgets At Any Cost." + +"Why don't you go on tevee?" Dan jeered. "She'll soon forget you, +farmer." + +Stonecypher's words rolled over the hobbyist. "I reckon the Manly Age +came because a man started thinkin' he wasn't much of a man any more. He +was just as fast as his car, and just as strong as his electric lawn +mower. And a loud minority of the women was claimin' they could do +anything a man could, and maybe better. So the men started playin' +football in shorts and huntin' each other on game preserves, and the +women went back to the kitchen and bedroom. Lots of things that went on +undercover come out in the open. Cockfights, dogfights, coon-on-a-log, +duels, stallion fights, bullfights. + +"And people like you, L. Dan, went on livin'. You got no right to live. +You don't do any useful work. The Earth is slowly starvin', and you take +the grub out of some feller's mouth who might could help a little. +That's why--" + +"Time!" announced the duelmaster with his face close to a large clock on +the wall. He opened the door. Two men carrying a body on a stretcher +passed. The body had four bullet wounds in it. + +Dan said, "That drivel gives me a real reason to kill you, farmer. I'll +be good to her for a few days." + +As prearranged, Dan took the right branch of the corridor and +Stonecypher, the left. A hooded man gave Stonecypher the Magnum revolver +and shut him into a space resembling a windowed closet with a door on +either side. Stonecypher secured the revolver in the clip holster. His +bony hands formed knotted fists. + +The pen door slid back. Stonecypher stepped into a room thirty by ninety +feet with three bullet-marred concrete walls and a fourth wall of +bulletproof glass, behind which sat the ghoulish audience. Dan, crouched +and with his pistol in the crook of his left elbow, advanced. His right +hand fluttered an inch from the pistol butt. + +Stonecypher, grotesque with thin chest exposed and overall bib wrapped +around belt, waited. Two photoelectric robot machine guns followed each +movement of the duelists. A buzzer sounded. Dan's index finger failed to +reach the trigger, for a guardian machine gun removed the hobbyist's +head in a short efficient burst. The noise of a louder buzzer punctuated +the execution. + +When the soundproof inner door of the closet opened, the hooded man, who +had a pair of crossed pistols tattooed on the back of his right hand, +said, "He was too anxious." + +"Yeah," Stonecypher grunted. + +The man watched Stonecypher pass out to the street. Stonecypher snapped +up the bib of his overalls. An extremely rare bird, a robin, hopped from +his path and continued a fruitless search for insects. Stonecypher +walked down Watauga Street until the pavement vanished under the +brownish-green water of Kings Lake. + +Catriona squealed when she saw him. Ignoring all Correct Procedures, she +almost knocked him down and attempted to smother him. "Ah told you it +just took practice!" she blubbered. "You did it, Stony!" + +With muffled mumbles, Stonecypher managed to put her in the Tenite +canoe. The few people along the quay, who had witnessed the illegal +manner of their meeting, watched with shock, or with incredulity, or +with guarded admiration. When they saw that Stonecypher's hand rested on +a holstered revolver, they lost their curiosity. + +Wading, Stonecypher shoved the canoe off and hopped aboard. As he took +up the paddle, his hand trailed in the water and released the small +buzzer that had made possible Catriona's best carnival act. + + * * * * * + +For July, the afternoon was cool. Blue-gray clouds drifted before larger +dirty white masses. To the southwest opened the mile-wide mouth of Horse +Creek; and, far beyond, the great blue pyramid of Chimney Top Mountain +stood defiantly above Sevier Lake. The world seemed water broken only by +partly submerged hills and mountains. + +Stonecypher gazed across the Lake at Bays Mountain and at the five +Cement Islands apparently floating against that backdrop. Softly, he +said, "Some folks call the big one Martyrs Island. There's a marble +pillar right in the middle. Nobody knows who put it there, and the +Government never bothered to knock it down. I reckon the poison ivy's +covered it by now, but I went and read the inscription, once, when I was +a boy. It says: + + "They moved me off the Powell River. + They covered my farm with water. + I bought me another near Beans Station. + The water covered it. + I was getting old, but I built at Galloway Mill. + When they flooded that, I gave up and lived in Kingsport. + I will not move again." + +The canoe bounded over the choppy water, one hundred feet above the +silted streets of the flooded city of Kingsport. Stonecypher said, "The +time I was there, you could still find a few copter-trooper helmets and +old cankered shells. Couple of years back, a diver brought up two skulls +off shore." + +Catriona's eyes remained moist, but she smiled. Her teeth were +beautiful. "It'll be all rahght, Stony. You can't change the wo'ld in +one day. You did fine, and Moe will too." + +"I told you to stay at the bullring," Stonecypher said. + +"Ah couldn't watch that! And those puny, little, mousy women stare and +talk about me, because theah's a little meat on mah cahcass. Oswell said +Moe would be last, anyhow. Ah was so wo'ied about you, ah couldn't sit +still." + +Only a few boats, mainly those of piscatorial maniacs, were on the lake. +Stonecypher glared at them and muttered, "I hope I did right by Moe. He +wanted to fight. Maybe, Catriona, if I'd had you when I found out he +could talk--not just mimic--I'd of raised him different. Maybe I +shouldn't have shown him that bullfight movie, but I wondered what the +only bull to see a bullfight from outside the ring thought about it. + +"That led him to wantin' to know all about the Man-Animal War. I told +him the best I could, how one of a man's basic drives is to exterminate, +ever' since prehistoric times when he did in the wooly mammoth and +rhinoceros. The dodo, quagga, passenger pigeon, great auk, aurochs, Key +deer, bison, African elephant, gorilla, tiger--there's an awful list. +Why, five hundred species of mammals, alone, have become extinct since 1 +A.D., 'bout four hundred of them since 1850. A man'll even kill off +other men, like the Neanderthals and the Tasmanians!" Stonecypher rested +the paddle and grinned, faintly, at Catriona reclining in the bow. "I +guess you've heard this before." + +"Go rahght ahead, Stony," Catriona sighed. "Ah like to heah yoah speech. +It's the only time you really get angry, and you look so fine and +noble." + +"Yeah. Well. I told Moe how a man exterminates useful or harmless +species, and then he lets dangerous ones, like rats, eat him out of +house and home. Course, I explained this was just kinship. Folks used to +argue man come from a monkey, or from spontaneous combustion, or +something. Now we got fossil proof he's not like anything anybody ever +saw. He's a case of straight line development all the way back to the +first mammal, a sort of rat." + +The canoe glided past Highland Pier. Every type of small watercraft, +from a punt, through an electric motorboat, to a sloop, had docked. More +boats lined the shore on either side of the pier. The flying field +contained so many butterfliers and copters that there seemed no +possibility of any of them taking off. Human voices welled in a mob roar +from the great open cylinder of the bullring. A huge banner draped on +the curving white wall proclaimed, in ten-foot letters: + + DEPENDENCE DAY + BULLFIGHT + HONOR THE GREAT + GOVERNMENT ON WHICH + WE DEPEND + SIX BULLS--THREE KILLERS + +Stonecypher ran the canoe aground in a patch of dead weeds, exposed by a +slight lowering of the lake level, and helped Catriona over the rocks +that lined the bank. He said, "I told Moe other things men do to +animals. All the laboratory butchery, done because it would be cruel to +treat a man like that, but it's all right with a animal, like takin' out +a dog's brains and lettin' 'im live. I told him about huntin', how the +kudu become extinct 'cause a bunch of fools wanted to see who could kill +the one with the biggest horns. + +"I told him the things done to domestic animals. Dehornin', +emasculatin', brandin', slaughterin' with sledge hammers and butcher +knives, keepin' 'em in filthy barns. A man tells hisself he's superior +to other animals. If he does somethin' bad, he uses words like inhuman, +brutal, animal instincts, instead of admittin' it's just typical +behavior. And the psychologists take some animal, say a dog, and put him +in a maze, something the dog never saw before. If the dog don't run the +maze in two seconds flat, they say he's a pretty stupid animal. He just +operates on instinct, but they can't say how instinct operates. They'll +have a time explainin' Moe's instincts. + +"I reckon the American bison made Moe madder than anything. They killed +the bison off, 'cept for protected herds, in the Nineteenth Century. A +hundred years later, the herds had got pretty big, so they declared open +season on bison. No more bison." + +A recorded voice growled, "No guns permitted in ring. Deposit gun in +slot. No guns permitted in ring." + +Stonecypher moved his permit in ineffectual passes before the electric +eye. He shrugged, dropped the revolver into the slot, and left his thumb +print. Catriona displayed the passes Ringmaster Oswell had given them. +The teveer blinked, and the gate granted admission. They rode the +escalator to the sixth tier and squirmed through pandemonium to their +seats. + +The male portion of the crowd wore every possible style and color of +dress, in complete emancipation from the old business suit uniform, but +the women wore sober false-bosomed sundresses and expressed excitement +in polite chirps. Stonecypher pressed his mouth against Catriona's ear +and whispered through the din, "You got to understand, Cat, whatever +happens, Moe wanted it. He says he can scare some killers into givin' up +bullfights and maybe help stop it." + +"He'll do fine, Stony." + +Several spectators stopped venting their wrath on the unfortunate man in +the ring to gawk at the couple. Catriona's unorthodox physique aroused +sufficient amazement; but, in addition, Stonecypher gave her the front +seat and took the rear one, the correct place for a woman, himself. + +Below, through a rain of plastibottles and rotten eggs, a tired man +walked to the barrier which Oswell advertised as the only wooden fence +in seven states. Behind the killer, a small electric tractor dragged out +the bloody carcass of a bull. + +A gasping, gibbering little man grabbed Stonecypher's arm and yelped, +"Illard is the clumsiest killer, he ran the sword in three times, and +the kid with the dagger had to stick twice before they finished, Big +Dependence Day Bullfight my jet! This is the worst in years, Fergus made +the only clean kill all afternoon, and I flew every one of eighteen +hundred miles myself to see it, this last bull better be good!" The +little man waved his bag of rotten eggs. + +Although the bullfight followed the basic procedures established by +Francisco Romero in the Spain of 1700, changes had occurred, including +the elimination of all Spanish words from the vocabulary of the +spectacle since the unpleasant dispute with the Spanish Empire twenty +years before. The gaudy costumes worn by participants had been replaced +by trunks and sneakers. + +A purring grader smoothed the sand. The crowd quieted, except for those +near the box of Ringmaster Oswell. They suggested in obscene terms that +their money be refunded. A trumpet recording blared. A scarlet door, +inscribed, "Moe of Bays Mountain Farm," opened. The crowd awaited the +first wild rush of the bull. It failed to materialize. + + + + +GRAND FINALE + + +Slowly, Moe came through the doorway. Above, on a platform inside the +barrier, stood a gray-haired man who stuck identifying, streamered darts +into bovine shoulders. His hand swept down, carrying Stonecypher's +chosen colors, black. + +Moe's walk upset the man's timing. His arm moved too soon. Moe's front +hooves left the ground. Horns hooked. The gray-haired man screamed and +dropped the dart. With a spike of horn through his arm, between bone and +biceps, he gyrated across the barrier. He screamed a second time before +cloven hooves slashed across his body. + +The crowd inhaled, then cheered the unprecedented entrance. Killer +Fergus's team stood rigid, not comprehending. Then men dashed through +shielded openings in the barrier, yelling and waving pink and yellow +capes to draw the bull from his victim. + +Moe ignored the distraction, trotted nonchalantly to the center of the +ring, and turned his bulging head to examine the spectators jabbering at +his strange appearance. The short horns, the round skull, the +white-banded eyes, the mane that seemed slightly purple under the cloudy +sky, and the exaggerated slope from neck to rump that made the hind legs +too short--together they amounted to a ton of muscle almost like a bull. +"Where'd you trap it, Oswell?" someone near the ringmaster's box yelled. + +Forgetting the mess Illard had made with the previous bull, the crowd +commented. "It's the last of the bison!" + +"He's poiple! Lookit! Poiple!" + +"The bull of the woods!" + +"Howya like 'im, Fergus?" + +Killer Fergus posed behind the barrier and studied his specialty, an odd +bull. Two stickers, Neel and Tomas, flourished capes to test the bull's +charge, with Neel chanting, "Come on, bull! Come on, bull! Come on! +Bull, bull, bull!" + +Moe did not charge. He moved, in a speculative walk, toward the chanting +Neel who tantalized with the cape and retreated with shuffling steps. +The charge, when it came, occurred almost too fast for sight. Neel +wriggled on the horns, struck the sand, and the horns lifted him again. +He smashed against the barrier. Tomas threw his cape over the bull's +face. The left horn pinned the cape to Tomas's naked chest over the +heart. + +Moe retired to the center of the ring and bellowed at the crowd, which, +delirious from seeing human blood, applauded. Blood covered Moe's horns, +dripped through the long hair on his neck, and trickled down between his +eyes. + +Quavering helpers removed the bodies. The first lancer, livid and +trembling, rode a blindfolded horse into the ring. "He'll fix this +horse!" the crowd slavered. "We'll see guts this time!" + +Moe charged. The lancer backed his mount against the barrier and gripped +his weapon, a stout pike. Sand sprayed like water as Moe swerved. On the +left side of the horse, away from the menacing pike, Moe reared. The +lancer left the saddle. A tangle of naked limbs thrashed across the +wooden fence and thudded against the wall of the stands. + +Twenty-five thousand people held their breaths. The blindfolded horse +waited with dilated nostrils and every muscle vibrating in terror. Moe +produced a long red tongue and licked the horse's jaw. + +Fergus dispersed the tableau. Red-haired, lean, and scarred with many +past gorings, the popular killer stalked across the sand dragging his +cape and roaring incomprehensible challenges. In the stands, the cheer +leaders of the Fergus Fanclub lead a welcoming yell. "Yeaaaa, Fergus! +Fergus! Fergus! Rah, rah, rah!" + +Moe wandered through the helpers trying to distract him from the horse +and looked at the killer. Fergus stamped his foot, shook the cape, and +called, "Bull! Come on! Charge!" Moe completely circled the killer, who +retired in disgust when another lancer rode into the ring. "Stick him +good!" Fergus directed. + +The pike pointed at the great muscles of Moe's back, as the bull +charged. Moe's head twisted in a blur of violence. Teeth clamped on the +shaft behind the point. Too surprised to let go, the lancer followed his +weapon from the saddle. He released his hold when Moe walked on him. + +Like some fantastic dog stealing a fresh bone, the bull trotted around +the ring, tail high and pike in mouth. The crowd laughed. Wild-eyed men +carried out the trampled lancer. + +A third, and extremely reluctant, lancer reined his horse through the +gate. A pike in the mouth of a ton of beef utterly unnerved the man. He +stood in the saddle and jumped over the barrier where a rain of rotten +eggs from the booing fans spattered him thoroughly. + + * * * * * + +An uninjured bull pawed alone in the sand when the trumpet recording +announced the end of the lancers' period. The crowd noises softened to a +buzz of speculation, questions, and comment, as the realization that +weird events had been witnessed slowly penetrated that collective mind. +The bull had not touched a horse, no pike had jabbed the bull, and five +men had been killed or injured. + +"Great Government!" a clear voice swore, "That ain't no bull, it's a +monster!" This opinion came from a sticker in Illard's team. Fergus +attempted to persuade the man to help, since both of Fergus's stickers +were dead. Part of the crowd agreed with the sticker's thought, for +people began moving furtively to the exits with cautious glances at the +animal in the ring. They, of course, could not know that the bull had +been trained, with rubber-tipped pikes and dummies, in every phase of +the bullfight; that he knew the first, and only, law of staying alive in +the ring, "Charge the man and not the cloth." + +The clouds that had obscured the sky all day formed darker masses tinted +with pink to the east, and the black dot of a turkey buzzard wheeled +soaring in the gloom. Carrying, in either hand, a barbed stick sparkling +with plastic streamers, Fergus walked into the ring. His assistants +cautiously flanked him with capes. + +[Illustration] + +Moe dropped the pike and charged in the approved manner of a bull. +Fergus raised the sticks high and brought them down on the humped back, +although the back was not there. The sticks dropped in the sand. + +As the killer leaped aside in the completion of a reflex action, a horn +penetrated the seat of his trunks. The Fergus Fanclub screamed while +their hero dangled in ignominy from the horn. Moe ignored the flapping, +frantic capes. The killer gingerly gripped a horn in either hand and +tried to lift himself off. Gently, Moe lowered his head and deposited +the man beside an opening. Fergus scrabbled to safety like a rat to a +hole. + +Four helpers with capes occupied the ring. When they saw death +approaching on cloven hooves, two of them cleared the fence. The third +received a horn beside his backbone and tumbled into the fourth. A dual +scream, terrible enough to insure future nightmares, echoed above the +screeching of the crowd. Moe tossed the bodies again and again across +the bloody sand. + +Silence slithered over the Highland Bullring and over a scene +reminiscent of the ring's bloody parent, the Roman Arena. Men sprawled +gored, crushed, and dead across the sand. A section of the blood-specked +barrier leaned splintered and cracked, almost touching the concrete +wall. Unharmed, Fergus stood on one side of the battleground, Illard on +the other. + +Fergus reached over the wooden fence for red flag and sword. Turning his +back on the heaving Moe, who stood but ten feet behind, the killer faced +the quaking flesh that was Ringmaster Oswell, high up in the official +box. The killer's voice shook, but the bitter satire came through the +sound of departing boats and aircraft. Fergus said, "I dedicate this +bull to Ringmaster Oswell who has provided for us this great Dependence +Day Bullfight in honor of the Great Government on which we all depend." +He turned and faced the bull. + +Moe, for once, rushed the red flag, the only thing that made bullfights +possible. His great shoulders presented a fair target for the sword. + +Fergus, perhaps the only bull-fighter ever to be gored in the brain, +died silently. The sword raked a shallow gash long Moe's loin. + +In the sixth tier of the stands, saliva drooled from the slack mouth of +the little man seated beside Stonecypher. "Now's your chance, Illard!" +the man squalled. "Be a hero! The last of the bullfighters! Kill him, +Illard!" + +Illard walked on shaking legs over bodies he did not see. He was short, +for a killer, and growing bald. He picked up the sword Fergus had +dropped, looked into the gory face of the bull, and toppled in the +sticky sand. The sword quivered point-first beside his body. + + + + +RECESSIONAL + + +A wind whipped down into Highland Bullring. Riding the wind, blacker +than the clouds, the inquisitive turkey buzzard glided over the rim of +the stands with air whistling through the spatulate feathers of rigid +wings. The buzzard swooped a foot above Moe's horns and soared swiftly +over the opposite side of the ring. + +That started the panic, although Moe's charge accentuated it. He crashed +into the sagging section of the barrier. Cloven hooves scraped the +wooden inclined plane, and Moe stopped with front feet in the first tier +of the stands. He bellowed. + +The bull killed only one spectator, a man on whom he stepped. The +hundreds who died killed themselves or each other. They leaped from the +towering rim of the ring, and they jammed the exits in writhing heaps. + +Moe's precarious stance slipped. Slowly, he slid back into the ring, +where Ringmaster Oswell, quivering in a red toga, gestured from the +darkness under the stands. The fat man squeaked and waved. Moe's charge +embodied the genuine fighting rage of a maddened bull. The scarlet door +closed behind him. + +Stonecypher, with fists bloody and a heap of unconscious fear-crazed +spectators piled before him, sat down. "Well, Moe," he whispered, "I +reckon you got even for a few of the bulls that's been tortured to death +to amuse a bunch of nuts. Maybe it wasn't the right way to do it. I +don't know. If I'd only had the gun--" + +Catriona turned a white mask of a face up to Stonecypher. "They killed +him, in theah?" + +"Sure. Bullfightin' never was a sport. The bull can't win. If he's not +killed in the ring, he's slaughtered under the stands." + +"You have moah smart-bulls, Stony." + +The black copter came in with the sunset and hovered over the sand. The +face of Duelmaster Smith peered out under his black tam, while a hooded +man, with pistols tattooed on his hand, aimed an automatic rifle. The +duelmaster smiled at Stonecypher and cried, "You really should have +waited until you were farther out in the Lake, before you dropped that +little buzzer in the water." + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Thy Rocks and Rills, by Robert Ernest Gilbert + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THY ROCKS AND RILLS *** + +***** This file should be named 32878.txt or 32878.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/8/7/32878/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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