Mastodonia (7 page)

“Lots of times. It looks something like a cat, but it isn't any cat. It's just got a head. You don't never see a body.”

“Have you ever talked with it?”

“Times I have. But it doesn't make no sense. It talks about things that I don't understand.”

“You mean it used words that you don't know.”

“Maybe. Maybe some words. Ideas mostly. Ideas I never heard of. Funny thing, it doesn't move its mouth and it doesn't make no sound. But I hear the words. Come to think of it, that's the way with Bowser. He never moves his mouth and there isn't any sound, but I hear the words.”

I said, “Hiram, pull up a chair and have some breakfast with us.”

He shuffled in embarrassment. “I don't know if I should. I already had my breakfast.”

“There's batter left,” said Rila. “I can make some hot ones.”

“You never pass up breakfast with me,” I said. “No matter how many other breakfasts you have had. Don't change because of Rila. She's a friend who came visiting. She'll be around, so get used to her.”

“Well, if it's all right,” said Hiram. “I'm partial, Miss Rila, to cakes with lots of syrup.”

Rila went to the stove and poured more batter on the griddle.

Hiram said, “Truth is, I can't feel friendly with this cat-face thing. At times, I'm a little scared of him. He's a funny-looking jigger, with just that great big head and no body you can see. That head of his looks like someone had up and painted a face on a big balloon. He never takes his eyes off you, and he never blinks.”

“The thing is,” I told him, “that Rila thinks it might be important for us to talk with him, but we can't talk with him. You're the only one who can.”

“You mean no one else can talk with him.”

“No one but you can talk with Bowser, either.”

“If you should agree to talk with Catface,” said Rila, “it must be a secret. No one but the two of us must know that you have talked with him, or what you talked about.”

“But Bowser,” protested Hiram. “I can't keep any secrets from Bowser. He is my best friend and I would have to tell him.”

“All right, then,” said Rila. “I guess it would do no harm if you told Bowser.”

“I promise you,” said Hiram, “that he will never tell a soul. If I ask him to, he'll never breathe a word of it.”

Rila looked at me, unsmiling. “Is it all right with you,” she asked, “if he lets Bowser in on it?”

“Just so long,” I said, “as it is understood Bowser will tell no one.”

“Oh, he won't,” Hiram promised. “I'll warn him not to.” And having said this, he turned his full attention to the stack of cakes, shoveling up great mouthfuls of them, leaving a smear of syrup clear across his face.

Nine cakes later, he was ready to resume the conversation.

“You said there was something important I should talk to this Catface about?”

“Yes, there is,” said Rila, “but it's a little hard to explain it exactly right.”

“You want me to talk to him about this thing you have in mind, then tell it back to you. Just the four of us will know …”

“The four of us?”

“Bowser,” I said. “You are forgetting Bowser is the fourth.”

“Oh, yes,” said Rila, “we must not forget old Bowser.”

Hiram asked, “It will be a secret just with the four of us?”

“That is right,” said Rila.

“I like secrets,” Hiram said, delighted. “They make me feel important.”

“Hiram,” Rila asked, “you know about time, don't you?”

“Time is what you see,” he said, “when you look at a clock. You can tell if it's noon or three o'clock or six.”

“That's true,” said Rila, “but it's more than that. You know about us living in the present and that when time goes by, it is known as the past.”

“Like yesterday,” Hiram suggested. “Yesterday is past.”

“Yes, that's right. And a hundred years is the past and so is a million years.”

“I don't see what difference it makes,” said Hiram. “All of it is past.”

“Have you ever thought how nice it would be if we could travel to the past? Go back to the time before the white men came, when there were only Indians. Or back to a time before there were any men at all.”

“I have never thought of it,” said Hiram. “I have never thought of it because I don't think it can be done.”

“We think Catface may know how to it. We'd like to talk with him to find out how to do it or if he'll help us do it.”

Hiram sat silently for a moment, struggling visibly to let it all sink in.

“You want to go into the past?” he asked. “Why would you want to do that?”

“You know about history?”

“Sure, I know about history. They tried to teach me it when I went to school, but I wasn't any good at it. I never could remember all them dates. It was all about the wars they fought and who was president and a lot of stuff like that.”

“There are people,” Rila said, “called historians who make it their business to study history. There are a lot of things they are not sure about because people who wrote about it wrote it wrong. But if they could go back in time and see what happened and talk to people who were living then, they would understand it better and could write better histories.”

“You mean we could go back and see what happened a long, long time ago? Actually go and see it?”

“That's what I mean. Would you like to do that, Hiram?”

“Well, I don't rightly know,” said Hiram. “Seems to me you could get into a lot of trouble.”

I broke in. “As a matter of fact,” I said, “you wouldn't have to go unless you wanted to. All we want you to find out, if you can, is whether Catface really knows how to do it and if he can show us how.”

Hiram shrugged. “I'd have to prowl around at night. Probably out there in the orchard. He shows up sometimes in the daytime, but it's mostly at night.”

“Would you mind doing that?” I asked. “You could sleep daytimes.”

“Not if Bowser could go with me. Night is a lonesome time, but if Bowser was with me, I wouldn't feel so lonesome.”

“I suppose that would be all right,” I said, “if you put a leash on Bowser and keep him close beside you. And another thing: when you see the Catface, just stand there talking to him. Never walk toward him.”

“Mr. Steele, why shouldn't I never walk toward him?”

“I can't tell you that,” I said. “You've just got to trust me. We know one another fairly well and you know I'd never tell you wrong.”

“I know you wouldn't,” Hiram said to me. “You don't need to tell me why. If you say so, it's all right. Me and Bowser will never walk toward him.”

“And you'll do it?” Rila asked. “You'll talk with Catface?”

“I'll do what I can,” said Hiram. “I don't rightly know what's going to happen, but I'll do my best.”

TEN

Willow Bend is a small town, its business section no more than a block long. On one corner stands a small supermarket, across from it a drugstore. Straggling up the street are a hardware store, a barber shop, a shoe store, a bakery, a clothing shop, a combined real-estate and travel bureau, an electrical store and repair shop, a post office, a movie house, a bank and a beer joint.

I found a place to park the car in front of the drugstore and went around to open the door for Rila. Ben Page came hurrying across the street to intercept us.

“Asa,” he said, “it's been a long time since I've seen you. You don't get down this way too often.”

He held out a hand and I took it. “As often as I need,” I said. I turned to Rila and said, “Miss Elliot, meet Ben Page. Ben is our mayor and the banker.”

Ben thrust out his hand to Rila. “Welcome to our town,” he said. “Are you staying for a while?”

“Rila is a friend,” I said. “We were in the Middle East together on a dig some years ago.”

“I don't know how long I'm staying,” Rila said.

“You from New York?” asked Ben. “Someone told me you were from New York.”

“How the hell could anyone know?” I asked. “You're the first person she has met.”

“Hiram, I guess,” said Ben. “He said the license plates were New York plates. He told me someone had shot Bowser with an arrow. Is that right?”

“Someone did,” said Rila.

“I tell you we got to do something with these kids,” said Ben. “They're up to something all the time. They have no respect for nothing. They are just running wild.”

“Maybe it wasn't a kid,” I said.

“Who else would it be? It's just the kind of thing they'd do. They're a bunch of monsters, I tell you. Some of them let the air out of my tires the other night. Came out of the picture show and I had four flats.”

“Now why would they do that?” asked Rila.

“I don't know. They just hate everyone, I guess. When you and I were kids, Asa, we never did stuff like that. We used to go fishing, remember, and hunting in the fall. And there was the time you had all of us digging in that sinkhole.”

“I am still digging in it,” I said.

“I know you are. Finding anything?”

“Not much,” I said.

“I got to be getting on,” said Ben. “I have some people coming in to see me. It was good to meet you, Miss Elliot. I hope you have a pleasant visit.”

We watched after him as he went bounding down the sidewalk.

“An old pal of yours?” asked Rila. “One of the gang?”

“One of the gang,” I said.

We went across the street and into the supermarket. I got a cart and started wheeling it down the aisle.

“We'll need potatoes and some butter,” I said, “and soap, and I guess a lot of other things.”

“Don't you make out a list?”

“I'm a disorganized housekeeper,” I said. “I try to keep it in my head and I always miss an item or two.”

“You know a lot of people in this town?”

“Some. Some from when I was a boy, folks who stayed on and never left. Other new ones I have met since I came back.”

Slowly we loaded the cart. I forgot some items and Rila, running through a hypothetical shopping list, reminded me of others I would have forgotten. Finally, I wheeled the cart up to the checkout counter. Herb Livingston was ahead of us, putting down an armload of purchases.

“Asa,” he said, the way he always talks, as if he is breathless with delight at seeing you. “I was going to phone you for a news item. I heard you had company.”

“Rila,” I said, “meet Herb Livingston. He is another of the old gang, and now he owns the weekly paper.”

Herb beamed. “I am glad that you came to see us,” he told Rila. “I hear you're from New York. New York City, I mean. We don't get many people from New York.” He pulled a notebook from his jacket pocket and a short pencil from his shirt pocket. “What is your last name, if I may ask?”

“Elliot,” said Rila. “Two
l
's and one
t
.”

“And you're visiting Asa. I mean that's why you're here.”

“We are friends of long standing,” said Rila shortly. “We worked together on an archaeological dig in Turkey back in the late fifties.”

Herb made hentracks in his notebook. “And what are you doing now?”

“I'm in the import-export business.”

“I see,” said Herb, scribbling furiously. “And you're staying out on the farm with Asa.”

“That's right,” said Rila. “I came to be with Asa. I am staying with him.”

When we got back to the car, Rila said to me, “I'm not sure I like your friends.”

“Don't pay any attention to Herb,” I said. “As a newspaperman, he is a little short on tact.”

“What I can't understand is why he should be interested in me. My being here simply isn't news.”

“To the Willow Bend
Record
, it is. Nothing ever happens here. Herb has to fill the paper with comings and goings. Mrs. Page holds a card party with three tables and it's a social event. Herb writes it up in detail. Tells who was there and who won the prizes.”

“Asa, you don't mind? Maybe I should leave.”

“Hell, no,” I said. “Why should I mind? Flying in the face of convention? You can't do anything that doesn't fly in the face of convention in a place like this. And with this time-travel business, with Hiram going after Catface, it would be plain desertion if you left. You've got to see this thing through with me. I need you.”

She settled into the seat as I got behind the wheel. “I hoped you would say that,” she said. “I don't know about this time-travel business, but I do want to stay. Half of the time I believe travel in time is possible and the rest of the time I tell myself, Rila, stop being a fool. But I'm curious about Hiram. Nothing more than Hiram? He must have another name.”

“His name,” I said, “is Hiram Biglow, but most people have forgotten the Biglow part of it. He's just Hiram, that's all. He was born in Willow Bend, and at one time he had an older brother, but the brother ran away from home and, so far as I know, has not been heard of since. The family was an old family, reaching back into the time the town was founded. His father's name was Horace, an only son of a son of one of the founders of Willow Bend. The family lived in the old ancestral home, one of those Victorian piles set back from the street, with an iron fence enclosing a lawn filled with trees. I remember that I used to hang on the fence when I was a kid and wonder what it would be like to live in a place like that. My family was relatively poor at the time, and we lived in just an ordinary house, and the Biglow place seemed like a mansion to me.”

“But you told me Hiram lives in a shack down by the river.”

“He does and I am getting to that. Hiram's father was the town banker, in partnership with Ben Page's father …”