First Person Peculiar (15 page)
Read First Person Peculiar Online
Authors: Mike Resnick
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fantasy, #Anthologies, #Science Fiction, #Short Stories, #Anthologies & Short Stories
I was asked to write a Weird Western story, probably because of my Doc Holliday series of Weird Western novels from Pyr … but I didn’t want to just write a shorter version of the same kind of story, so I looked north and west and came up with this one.
The Sacred Tree
There was a time when the Yakima tribe lived in peace with its surroundings and its neighbors. We welcomed the changing of the seasons, the migration of the birds, the spawning of the fish. We harvested our crops, hunted for meat when we desired it, paid tribute to the sacred tree that protected our people. We had lived this way for many hundreds of years; we expected to live this way for many hundreds more.
Then the white man came.
We tried to be neighborly and accommodating at first, but whatever we offered he took, and whatever we did not offer he also took. It was when he began taking first our land and then our women, against our will and theirs, that we realized we had to do something.
Since it had been many years since we had gone to war, we had no war chief, and because I am the tribe’s medicine man, it was not long before my people came to me for guidance.
“Tell us how to rid our land of the White Eyes,” they begged me. “You are the wisest of us all, Uqualla. Your word is our command, and you must tell us how to be free of the White Eyes once and for all.”
“I will sit by the sacred tree that guards our village and commune with the spirits of those medicine men who came before me,” I replied. “Then you will have your answer.”
“Tomorrow?” they asked.
“I do not know,” I answered. “One cannot rush the spirits.”
That night, as I was eating the evening meal, prior to consulting the spirits, there was a small commotion on the trail approaching the village. Many of our dogs began barking, and finally two of the White Eyes rode into the middle of the village on horseback. One was Combs, who claimed to be the Indian Agent, whatever
that
was, for clearly he was not one of the People and we had never met in council with his leaders. The other I had never seen before: he was tall, with a black patch over his left eye, and he wore a pistol on each hip, with another tucked in his boot. “Hello, Uqualla,” said Combs, not deigning to dismount.
I stared at him and made no answer.
“This is Mr. Sims,” he said, indicating his one-eyed companion. “He will be working with me.”
He stared at me for a long moment.
“Have you nothing to say?” he said at last.
“You have asked no questions,” I replied.
“I’m about to,” he said. “How many men live in this village?”
“Why?” I said.
“My government wishes to know.”
“Again, why?” I replied.
“We will be conscripting every fifth able-bodied man to join the army.”
“What does ‘conscripting’ mean?” I asked.
“We will be asking them to take the oath of allegiance and serve three years in the cavalry, probably as scouts.”
“They will say no,” I told him.
“They will not have a choice,” answered Combs.
“Ah,” I said. “Conscripting means forcing.”
“Try not to look at it that way.”
“You will be forcing our men to join your wars against our brothers, with whom we have lived in peace for many years,” I pointed out. “How would
you
look at it?”
“I am sorry you cannot see it our way,” said Combs. “Now, how many men are in the village?”
“I will not answer,” I said.
“Pete?” said Combs, turning to his companion.
The man named Sims pulled out his pistol and shot two of our men before anyone realized what was happening. Both of them fell to the ground, dead.
“We won’t count those two,” said Combs. “
Now
how many men have you?”
“Forty-three,” I said, for I knew if I did not answer he would kill more.
“Good,” he said. “I will return next week with Mr. Sims and a number of his friends, and I will expect nine men to be ready to join us. I hope you will not consider doing anything foolish.”
He turned his horse and trotted away, followed by Sims, who looked disappointed that he had only been allowed to kill two of us.
Once they were gone, most of the village gathered around me. Only two of them spoke English, and I explained to the rest what Combs had said.
“So we must wear their uniforms and kill the Kalispel and the Quileute and the Suquamish or they will come here and kill us?” demanded Gray Wolf.
“I will not join the White Eyes to kill my brothers!” swore Screaming Hawk.
“Nor I!” cried half a dozen others.
“
I
will kill,” said Tall Badger, and all eyes turned to him. “But I will kill whom
I
want to kill. And right now I want to kill Combs and the one-eyed man!”
“Can your magic protect us, Uqualla?” asked Thunder Bear.
“I do not know,” I said truthfully. “It can probably protect you against the two who came tonight, but if you kill them they will be followed by four, and then fifteen, and then one hundred. I must seek guidance.” I paused at looked at them. “I will sit by the sacred tree and speak all night with the spirits, and tomorrow morning I will know the answer.”
One by one they returned to their dwellings, and I did as I had said I would. I communed with the Great Spirit that lives within the sacred tree, and by morning I had the answer.
They approached me at sunrise, my people, and asked for my guidance.
“I will not tell you to attack the White Eyes,” I began. “They have guns that fire many times, and you have only arrows and knives, and once you have unleashed an arrow you cannot get it back.”
“Are you forbidding us to kill them, then?” demanded Screaming Hawk.
I shook my head. “I am only saying that I am not ordering you to do so.”
“But
if
we do …” said Thunder Bear.
“
If
you do, then I will protect you.”
“Will you grow us as tall as the sacred tree?” he asked. “Or will the White Eyes’ bullets bounce off us?”
I shook my head. “You will still be men, and you can still be killed.”
“Then what do you mean when you say that you protect us?” demanded Gray Wolf.
“Listen,” I said, “and I shall tell you.”
When I was finished, they all looked doubtful.
“Is it possible?” asked Tall Badger at last.
“It is possible,” I assured him. “But only if you return here. I cannot protect you in the land of the White Eyes, or even in the lands of the Quileute or the Kalispel.”
“We shall do as you say,” promised Gray Wolf.
The four of them mounted their ponies and rode away from the village of the People, and I did not see them again for three days. Then I noticed clouds of dust on the horizon, and a moment later the four of them raced into the village and dismounted in front of me.
“We have ridden fast and far,” said Thunder Bear.
“Did you accomplish your purpose?” I asked.
“Combs and One-Eye are both dead,” said Thunder Bear, spitting on the ground.
“But more White Eyes will be here soon,” added Gray Wolf.
“Do they know which of the People they are looking for?” I asked.
“They saw Screaming Hawk, and they saw me,” said Gray Wolf. “They may have seen the others. I do not know.”
“You said to come to you when our mission was accomplished,” said Tall Badger. “We have done as you said. Are you still prepared to protect us?”
“Have I ever lied to the People?” I replied.
“Whatever it is you must do, you had better do it soon,” said Screaming Hawk, peering off into the distance. “Because here come our pursuers.”
“Gather around the sacred tree,” I said, “and I shall chant the spell that will protect you.”
And so I did.
The White Eyes arrived five minutes later, six of them, all armed with both pistols and rifles. They knew exactly who they were looking for. They walked past the sacred tree and entered the village, shoving men and women aside, walking into every dwelling, threatening to kill us if we did not reveal the location of their prey. But we pled ignorance, and invited them to remain as long as they wished.
“Damn it!” said their leader. “I know Gray Wolf is a member of your tribe, and so is Bright Hawk or Screaming Hawk or whatever the hell kind of hawk he thinks he is.”
“You may search again,” I said. “We will not stop you.”
“As if you could!” he snorted contemptuously.
“Stay as long as you wish.”
He made a face as if remaining was the most unpleasant thing he could imagine. They made one last brief search of the village, then mounted their horses.
“If I find out you
were
hiding them …” began the leader. He drew his gun, aimed it at a dog, and pulled the trigger. The dog yelped and fell over, whining and twitching in agony. “I’ll do to you and five of your men exactly what I did to the dog.”
“But he’ll aim better,” said a second man, and all the White Eyes laughed.
Then they rode away, and one of the women took a spear and ended the dog’s suffering.
The next morning I was approached by Kamaiakan.
“That was my dog they killed,” he said. “I will go into the kingdom of the White Eyes until I find the man who shot him, and then I will kill him.” He paused. “Will you protect me?”
“It is not I who protects the People, but the Great Spirit who speaks to me through the sacred tree.”
“Will the Spirit and the tree protect me? I will kill him regardless, but I do not wish to leave my two daughters without a father.”
“The tree will protect you, Great Eagle, as it protected the four men yesterday.”
“I am Kamaiakan,” he corrected me.
I shook my head. “From this day forward, you are Great Eagle.”
“But I am named for the greatest chief in our history,” he protested.
“If you want my protection, and the protection of the sacred tree, you are Great Eagle,” I said. “What is your decision?”
He considered for a moment, then nodded his head. “I am Great Eagle.”
I laid a hand upon his shoulder. “Go and do what must be done.”
He thanked me, and a moment later he was riding south and east, into the morning sun.
The next four days were uneventful. Then Great Eagle returned, dismounted, and approached me.
“The deed is done,” he announced.
“You killed just the one?” I asked.
“Just the man who killed my dog.”
“Were you seen?”
“It was the middle of the night. I was seen, but I do not think I was identified.”
“Do not stray far from the village, Great Eagle,” I told him.
“I will go only to other villages of the People to find a dog for my daughters.”
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
“Then when?”
“I will tell you when.”
The White Eyes’ law officer—they called him a sheriff, but I do not know how he differed from the previous one, who was called a marshal—appeared the next day, accompanied by two other men who also wore metal stars on their shirts. They searched the village and questioned many of the men and women, but they could not find Great Eagle, and finally they returned to the city of the White Eyes.
A few hours later I told Great Eagle he could now leave to find a dog for his daughters.
Thus it went for the next year. The White Eyes would find some new way to threaten or harm the People, and Gray Wolf and the others would visit the city of the White Eyes under cover of night and take their revenge, then come back here where the power of the sacred tree would hide and protect them.
After a year things changed. I do not know if the White Eyes got new leadership, or if they merely tired of riding out to our village and never finding what they were looking for, but after that year there were no more abuses, at least not to the Yakima.
I could not be sure that this new condition would continue, and so I explained to my warriors that they owed a tribute to the sacred tree, and that the tribute was their everlasting presence and vigilance. They all agreed, even Great Eagle, though it meant that he would rarely, if ever, hold his daughters again, and from that day forth they have been mute guards of the People, ready to come forth and avenge any wrongs done against us by the White Eyes.
And the White Eyes? They have ceased being enemies and have become something entirely new. The term is “tourists”, and when they visit the land of the People, armed not with pistols and rifles, but with cameras and dollars, the first thing they see, and the thing that most fascinates them, is the sacred tree.
Of course, we see different things when we look at it. I see my warriors, silently guarding the People as they pledged to do, ready to manifest themselves and come forth whenever it should prove necessary. The “tourists” see only a hawk, a bear, a wolf, a badger and an eagle.
They call it a totem pole, and now and then they remark that the eyes of the creatures seem to be following them, watching their every movement as they walk through the village that they once thought to conquer.
There is another tree at the far end of the village, not sacred but profane. It displays hideous creatures, their faces contorted by their death throes for all eternity. The “tourists” think them only monsters from legend, created by the wood-carver’s art, but when I look at them I can see the faces of Combs and Sims and others who did us harm, begging for a release that will never come.
***
This one was a positive delight to write. Harry the Book is a continuing character, a bookie in a Damon Runyonesque fantasy New Year, and this is his twelfth story. (3 or 4 more and I’ll have enough for a collection.) It was commissioned by Gardner Dozois for Rip-Off, the anthology’s conceit being that each story must begin with a line from a public domain classic. I used the opening line of Carol’s favorite book, Pride and Prejudice.
The Evening Line
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife,” says Benny Fifth Street.
“I don’t want to hear this,” replies Plug Malone.
“I do not think that what you want enters into this,” says Benny.
“What is this all about?” asks Joey Chicago, who is polishing glasses behind the bar. Well, not really polishing them, but at least flicking a semi-damp towel over them.
“I hit three longshots in a row when I was at Aqueduct this afternoon,” explains Malone, “and no matter what Harry’s stooge says, I plan to enjoy my winnings on my own.”
“I am his flunky, not his stooge,” replies Benny with dignity.
“Big difference,” snorts Malone. “Either way, I am not in want of a wife.”
I am sitting in my office, which happens to be the third booth at Joey Chicago’s 3-Star Tavern, sipping an Old Peculiar and minding my own business, which at the moment consists of doping out the odds for the fight card at the Garden that night, when Benny turns to me. “What do you think, Harry?”
“I think Kid Testosterone lasts about thirty seconds of the first round against Tidal Wave McTavish,” I say. “Forty-five if he’s lucky.”
“No, I mean about all the women who will soon be pursuing Plug Malone with a single-minded intensity.”
“How much did you win today?” I ask Malone.
He looks furtively around to make sure no one else is listening. “Fifty-three large,” he answers.
“That is nothing,” says Gently Gently Dawkins, munching on a candy bar as he enters the tavern. “I myself am a fifty-eight large.”
“We are talking about money, not pants sizes,” says Benny. “Our friend Plug Malone has had a remarkable run of luck at Aqueduct.”
“Spend it fast,” says Dawkins, “before some filly spends it for you.”
“No one knows except you three, and Joey Chicago here,” says Malone. “No one
will
know.”
“That’s like saying no one will notice an earthquake because it happens on the next block,” says Dawkins.
“Then no one will care,” says Malone. “I will share a confidence with you. My real name is Jeremiah Malone. I know you think Plug is for the chaw of tobacco I usually have in my mouth except when I am in classy establishments like this one”—he glares at Joey Chicago—“
where they do not even have the courtesy to furnish a spittoon,
but in truth is it is short for Plug Ugly, which is a nickname they gave back at P.S. 48 and which has stuck with me ever since. I am the ugliest, least attractive husband material in Manhattan, maybe in all of New York. You have never seen me with a woman. Women take one look at me and run in the opposite direction.”
“Which direction is the opposite direction?” asks Dead End Dugan, who has been more than a little confused ever since he became a zombie, and is standing in the farthest, darkest corner of the tavern.
“Do not bother yourself with such trivialities,” I tell him. “Go back to staring peacefully at a wall and thinking dead thoughts.”
“You’re the boss, Harry,” replies Dugan, and suddenly he is as still and silent as a statue again. Benny and Gently Gently do most of my errands for me, but every now and then, when someone is reluctant to make good his marker, it is nice to have a six foot ten inch zombie on my team.
“So what are the odds of Malone’s looks frightening away potential brides?” asks Benny.
“Yesterday, three thousand to one no one will give him a second look,” I answer. “Since he won the fifty-three large, half a million to one that they will.”
“But nobody knows!” wails Malone.
“It goes out on the wind, like news of antelope drinking at a waterhole goes out to a hungry lioness,” I say. “They’ll start showing up any minute now.”
No sooner do the words leave my lips than Mimsy Borogrove walks in. She slithers right past my two flunkies and sidles up to Malone, who acts like he has never been sidled up to before.
“Got a light, Big Boy?” she half says and half breathes.
“A light
what
?” asks Malone.
“Come back to my place and we’ll talk about it,” she says, reaching out for him.
“Unhand that man!” says a voice from the doorway, and we all turn to see Almost Blonde Annie standing there.
“Unhand me?” repeats Malone, staring at his hands in horror and then trying to tuck them into his pockets. “But I
need
them!”
“Of course you do,” says Almost Blonde Annie. “After all, you have to sign the marriage license.”
“I beg your pardon,” says Mimsy Borogrove, “but I got here first.”
“And I got here last,” says Snake-Hips Levine, entering the tavern and undulating right up to Malone. “Come on, Sweetie,” she says. “We don’t want to have anything to do with these other broads.”
“Do I know you?” asks Malone.
“Wouldn’t you like to?” says Snake-Hips. “Look at me,” she continues, running her hands over her body just the way any healthy male of the species would like to. “Isn’t this worth fifty-two thousand, two hundred and twelve dollars?”
“Fifty-three thousand,” says Mimsy.
Snake-Hips shakes her head, and everything else she has just naturally shakes with it. “Fifty-two thousand, two hundred and twelve. The other seven hundred and eighty-eight dollars was the money he bet that was returned to him when he cashed in.” She stares compassionately at Mimsy. “You’d better get a new source of information, Honey.”
Gently Gently Dawkins leans over to me. “Perhaps we should do a little something to save him from this veritable plague of potential fiancés,” he whispers.
“I am a bookie, not a marriage counselor,” I say. “Plug Malone’s pre-marital problems are his own.”
“I think Mimsy may take a poke at Snake-Hips,” says Dawkins. “What will we do then?”
“I will practice my trade and offer eight-to-five that Snake-Hips takes her out in straight falls,” I answer.
As we are conversing, four more women have entered the tavern, and now it is Joey Chicago who approaches me.
“Harry,” he says, “we have a problem. All these women are taking up space at the bar, and none of them are buying any drinks.”
“I hope you are not suggesting that I should buy drinks for the house,” I reply. “Along with everything else, I have long suspected that Almost Blonde Annie has a hollow leg.”
“Can’t Milton cast a spell that either makes them buy drinks or go home?” he asks, “I will tear up your tab if he does.”
“All right,” I say, because my tab has reached almost six dollars, and I hate spending my own money. “I will talk to him.”
“Good. Where is he?”
“Where else?” I say. “In his office,” I head off to the men’s room, which is where Big-Hearted Milton, my personal mage, has set up shop for the past two years. I find him, as usual, sitting cross-legged inside a pentagram he has drawn on the floor just next to the row of sinks, and there is a black candle burning at each point of it.
“Milton,” I say, “I need you to cast a spell.”
He holds a finger up to his lips. “In a minute.”
He began chanting in a language that bears a striking resemblance to ancient Mesopotamian, or possibly French, and finally he snaps his fingers and all the candles immediately go out.
“Hah!” he says, getting to his feet. “
That
will show her!”
“Mitzi McSweeney again,” I say. I do not ask, because these days it is always Mitzi McSweeney.
“We are sitting at a table in Ming Toy Epstein’s Almost Kosher Chop Suey House, and she remarks that one of her garters is pinching her, so I reach under the table to adjust it, and she hits me in the face with a plate of sweet and sour pork.” He frowns. “Me, who hasn’t had pork since he was bar mitzvahed!”
“So what kind of terrible curse did you put on her this time?” I ask in bored tones, because somehow Milton’s curses never seem to wind up bothering anyone but Milton.
“Oh, it’s a good one,” he assures me with an evil smile. “Since it is her garter that causes this humiliation, I curse every garter she owns. Now none of them will work!”
“That is very brilliant, Milton,” I say. “Now whenever she is out in public …”
“… her garters will unsnap …” he laughs.
“Right,” I say. “And she will have to stop right there on the street and lift her skirt and try to re-snap them, and of course some handsome man will see this lovely lady with even lovelier legs in distress and will come to her aid, and try to help attach her stockings and doubtless introduce himself and tag along with her in case the garters give her further trouble, which of course they will.”
“Damn!” growls Milton. “Why didn’t
I
think of that?”
He relights the candles, stands in the middle of the pentagram, chants something in another unknown language, makes a mystical gesture, and then rejoins me by the door.
“All done,” he announces. “Now, what can I do for you?”
“Not for me,” I say. “It seems that Plug Malone made a big score and is being whelmed over by women.”
“What is wrong with that?” asks Milton.
“They are taking up space at the bar and not buying anything, and Joey Chicago wants them to spend money or go home.”
“Hell, have Plug Malone treat ’em all.”
“There is a school of thought that opines that Plug Malone has never so much as spoken to a woman, except perhaps for his mother,” I say.
Milton cracks open the door and takes a peek at the bar.
“Her?” he says. “And her too? And is that Sugar Lips Sally? And …”
He studies each of the dozen women who have gathered so far, and shakes his head in wonderment. “I have not seen such an outstanding field since the 1997 Belmont Stakes,” he says at last.
“So can you do one or the other?” I say. “Send them home or get them to part with some money?”
“I will not send them home,” announces Milton. “There is always a chance Mitzi McSweeney will refuse to see me again, She complains that she is getting arthritis in her hand after the last forty times she bloodied my nose.”
“All right,” I say. “Then cast a spell that makes them spend their money.”
“Look at all those skin-tight dresses, Harry,” he says. “They cannot possibly be hiding three dollars between them. I will hex Malone into buying drinks for all of them.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I think Joey Chicago will go for that.”
So Milton mutters a spell, and suddenly Malone gets the strangest, most puzzled expression on his face, and announces that he is buying for everyone in the house.
“Everyone?” repeats Joey Chicago with a happy smile.
“Every man and woman in the place,” Malone assures him.
“What about zombies?” asks Gently Gently.
“Do zombies drink?” asks Almost Blonde Annie.
“I don’t know,” admits Malone. “Hey, Dugan!” he shouts. “Do zombies drink?”
Dead End Dugan blinks his eyes a couple of times, and frowns. “I don’t know,” he answers. “It’s been so long …”
“Besides, even if he started, it would probably all pour out through those holes in his chest,” says Benny Fifth Street.
“Probably,” agrees Dugan unhappily. “Or maybe where I got my throat slit. That was … let me think … the fourth time.”
“How many times have you been killed?” asks Malone.
“Five that I can remember,” says Dugan.
“That’s horrible!” says Snake-Hips Levine with a shudder that attracts the attention of every man in the place.
“It hardly hurt at all after the third time,” Dugan assures her. He makes a face. “I really hated it when they dumped me overboard though. You think they’d have been more considerate, what with all the ice in the East River.”
While all this high-brow discussion of life and death is occurring—or to be totally accurate, death and more death—word seems to have gone out on the wind that Malone is paying, because suddenly almost a dozen men enter the tavern and ask for drinks.
Brontosaur Nelson, who is a midget wrestler, asks for a tall one, which cracks everyone up, and the laughter attracts Loose Lips Louie, who is just walking by, and Impervious Irving, who is between bodyguard jobs, and Charlie Three-Eyes (who has a scar where he claims his third eye used to be, though word on the street is that it is simply where his ever-loving wife bites him when she finds he has been watching Bubbles La Tour’s Dance of Sublime Surrender at the Rialto every night, and try as he will he cannot convince her that he goes for the music, which any ever-loving spouse will agree is like buying
Playboy
for the articles.).
Everyone keeps drinking and having a good time, and finally Loose Lips Louie says, “So who’s the lucky lady, Plug?” and two seconds later you can hear a pin drop. And this is not a figure of speech; Gently Gently is loosening the pin that is holding his shirt together where he has popped a button after his fourth hot fudge sundae of the day, and so silent does the tavern become that I can hear it hit the floor fifteen feet away.
“I’m not the marrying type,” says Malone.
“Are you the type who buys drinks for the house?” asks Loose Lips Louie,
“Certainly not,” says Malone.
“Well, there you have it,” says Loose Lips Louie. “Now, who’s the lucky lady?”
Malone looks like a deer caught in the headlights, except no deer ever looks so frightened, even when surrounded by a pack of elephants or whatever it is that has a taste for freshly-killed deer, and suddenly he frowns and points a finger at Milton.
“This is your doing!” he yells. “I would never stand for drinks unless I was hexed, and you’re the only mage here.
You’re
the reason all these gorgeous man-hungry women are after me!”
“If I am the reason all these women are here,” answers Milton calmly, “than I am also the reason you win fifty-three large at Aqueduct, and I would like my fee, please.”
