Murray Leinster (15 page)

Sam said peevishly, ‘Huh! Dunnsville will win that game by two runs!’

A local sportsman said pugnaciously:

‘Have you got any money that agrees with you? If you have, put it up and let somebody cover it!’

Sam wanted to draw back. But he had roused the civic pride of Bradensburg. He tried to temporize, and he was jeered at. In the end, indignandy, he dragged out all the money he had with him and bet it - eleven dollars. It was covered instantly, amid raucous laughter. And on the way back to Batesville he reflected unhappily that he was going to make eleven dollars out of knowing what was going to happen in the ninth inning of that ball game, but it looked like he’d lost Rosie.

He tried to call the other himself up again that night. There was no more answer than before. He unhooked the gadget and restored normal service to himself. He called Rosie’s house. She answered the phone herself.

‘Rosie,’ Sam said yearningly, ‘are you still mad with me?’

‘I never was mad with you,’ said Rosie, gulping.
^s
I’m mad with whoever was talking to you on that phone and knows all our private affairs. And I’m mad with you if you told him.’ ‘But I didn’t tell him!’ Sam said despairingly. ‘He’s me! All he has to do is just remember! I tried to call him again last night and again this morning,’ he added bitterly, ‘and he don’t answer. Maybe he’s gone off somewheres. I’m thinking it might be a - a kind of illusion, maybe.’

‘You said there’d be an elopement last night,’ said Rosie, her voice wabbling. ‘And there was. Joe Hunt and the Widow Backus. Just like you said!’

‘It - it could’ve been a coincidence,’ said Sam, not too hopefully.

‘I’m - w-waiting,’ Rosie said shakily,
to see if Dunnsville beats Bradensburg seven to five tomorrow, tied to the ninth, with George Peeby hitting a homer then with Fred Holmes on second base. If - if that happens, I’ll - I’ll die!’

‘Why?’ asked Sam.

‘Because/ Rosie wailed, ‘it’ll mean that I can’t m-marry you ever, because s-somebody else’d be looking over your shoulder and we wouldn’t ever be by ourselves all our lives, night or day!’

She hung up, weeping, and Sam swore slowly and steadily and with venom. As he swore, he worked to hook up his device again. And then Sam rang, and rang, and rang. But he didn’t answer.

Next day, in the big Fourth of July game, Dunnsville beat Bradensburg seven to five. It was tied to the ninth. Then George Peeby hit a homer with Fred Holmes on second base. Sam collected eleven dollars in winnings, but he could have wept.

He stayed home that night, brooding and every so often trying to call himself up on the device he had invented and been told - by himself - to modify. It was a nice gadget, but Sam did not enjoy it. It was a nice night, too. There was moonlight. But Sam did not enjoy that, either. Moonlight wouldn’t do Sam any good as long as there was another him in the middle of the week after next, refusing to talk to him so he could get out of the fix he was in.

But next morning the phone-bell woke him up. He swore at it out of habit until he got out of bed, and then he realized that his gadget was hooked in and Central was cut off. Then he made it in one jump to the instrument.

‘Hello!’

‘Don’t fret/ said his own voice, patronizingly. ‘Rosie’s going to make up with you.’

‘How in blazes d’you know what she’s going to do?’ Sam raged. ‘She won’t marry me with you hanging around! I’ve been trying to figure out a way to get rid of you—’

Hush up!’ said the voice on the telephone, impatiently, ‘I’m busy! I’ve got to go collect the money you’ve made for us.’

You collect money?’ roared Sam. ‘I get in trouble and you collect money?’

‘1 have to collect it/ his voice said with the impatient patience of one speaking to a small and idiot child, ‘before you can have it. Listen here! Where you are it’s Tuesday. You’re going over to Dunnsville today to fix some phones. You’ll be in Mr. Broaddus’s law office about half-past ten. You look out the window and notice a fella sitting in a car in front of the bank. Notice him good!’

‘1
won’t do it,’ Sam said defiantly. ‘I ain’t taking any orders from you! Maybe you’re me, but I make money and you collect it. For all I know you spend it before I get to it! I’m quitting this business right now! It’s cost me my own true love and all my life’s happiness and to hell with you!’

His own voice sounded singularly sarcastic, in reply: ‘You won’t do it? Wait and see!’

So that morning the telephone company manager told Sam, when he reported for work, to drive over to Dunnsville and check on some lines there. Sam balked. He said there were much more important lines needing repair elsewhere. The company manager explained gently to Sam that Mr. Broaddus over in Dunnsville had been taken down drunk at a Fourth of July party and had fallen out of a window. He’d broken his leg. So it was a Christian duty to make sure he had a telephone in working order in his office, and Sam would get over there right away - or else:

On the way to Dunnsville, brooding, Sam remembered that he’d known about Mr. Broaddus’s leg. He had told himself about it on the telephone. He ground his teeth. At half-past ten, he was fixing Mr. Broaddus’s telephone when he remembered about the man he was supposed to get a good look at, sitting in a car in front of the bank. He made a bitter resolution not to glance outside of the lawyer’s office under any circumstances. He meditated savagely that by this resolution the schemes of his other self in the future were abolished.

Naturally, he presently went to the window and looked to see what he was abolishing.

There was a car before the bank, with a reddish-haired man sitting in it. A haze came out of the exhaust-pipe, showing that the motor was running. None of this impressed Sam as remarkable. But, as he looked, two other men came running out of the bank. One of them was carrying a bag, and both of them had revolvers out and waving, and they piled into the car. The reddish-haired man gunned it, and it was abruptly a dwindling speck in a cloud of dust, getting out of town.

Three seconds later old Mr. Bluford, president of die bank, came out yelling, and the cashier came after him, and it was a first-rate bank robbery they were yelling about. The men in the getaway-car had departed with thirty-five thousand dollars in lawful money unlawfully acquired. And all of it had happened so fast that Sam hardly realized what
had
happened when he went interestedly out to see what it was all about. He was instantly seized upon to do some work. The bank robbers had shot out the telephone cable out of town with a shotgun, so word of their dastardly deed couldn’t get ahead of them. Sam was needed to re-establish communications with the outside world.

He did that little thing, absorbedly reflecting on the details of the robbery as he’d heard them. He was high up on a telephone pole and the sheriff and enthusiastic citizens were streaking past in cars to make his labors unnecessary, when the personal aspect of all this affair hit him.

‘Migawd!’ said Sam, shocked. ‘That me in the middle of next week told me to come over here and watch a bank robbery! But he didn’t let on what was going to happen so’s I could stop it!’ He felt an incredulous indignation come over him. ‘I woulda been a hero!’ he said resentfully. ‘Rosie woulda admired me! That other me is a bom crook!’

Then he realized the facts. The other him was himself, only a week and a half distant. The other him was so far sunk in dastardliness that he permitted a crime to take place, with no more than sardonic amusement. And there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t even tell the authorities about this depraved character! They wouldn’t believe him unless he could get his other self on the telephone and make him admit his criminality, and then what could they do?

Sam felt what little zest had seemed to be left in living go trickling away. He looked into the future and saw nothing desirable in it. He finished the repair of the shot-out telephone line painstakingly; then he went down to his truck and drove over to Rosie’s house. There wasn’t but one thing he could do.

Rosie came to the door suspiciously.

‘I come to tell you good-by, Rosie,’ said Sam.
‘1
just found out I’m a criminal, so I aim to go and commit my crimes far away from my home and the friends who never thought Fd turn out this way. Good-by, Rosie!’

‘You, Sam!’ said Rosie. ‘What’s happened now?’

He told her. About the bank robbery and how his own self -in the week after next - had known it was going to happen, and told Sam to go watch it without giving him information by which it could have been stopped.

‘He knew it after it happened,’ said Sam bitterly, ‘and he could’ve told me about it before! He didn’t. So he’s a accessory to the crime. And he is me, so that makes me a accessory, too. Good-by, Rosie, my own true love! You’ll never see me more!’

‘You set right down here,’ Rosie commanded, firmly. ‘You haven’t done a thing yet! So it’s that other you who’s a criminal. You haven’t got a thing to run away for.’

‘But I’m going to have!’ said Sam despairingly. ‘I’m doomed to be a criminal! It’s that me in the week after next! There’s nothing to be done!’

‘Says who?’ Rosie said grimly.
l’m
going to do something.’ ‘What?’ asked Sam.

‘I’m going to reform you,’ said Rosie, ‘before you start!’

She was a determined girl, that Rosie. She marched into the house and got into her blue jeans. She went to her father’s woodshed, where he kept his tools, got a monkey wrench and put it in her hip pocket. When she came to the truck, Sam said: ‘What’s the idea, Rosie?’

‘I’m riding around with you,’ said Rosie, with a grim air. ‘You won’t do anything criminal with me on hand! And if that other you starts talking to you on the telephone I’m going to climb that pole and tell him where he gets off!’

‘If anybody could keep me from turning criminal,’ Sam acknowledged, ‘it’d be you, Rosie. But that monkey wrench -what’s it for?’

Rosie climbed into the seat beside him.

‘You start having criminal ideas,’ she told him, ‘and you’ll find out! Now you go on about your business and I and the monkey wrench will look after your morals! ’

And things went on from there. This tender exchange of ideas happened only an hour or so after the robbery, and there was plenty of excitement around about that. But Sam went soberly about his work as telephone lineman. Rosie simply rode with him as a - well, it wasn’t as a bodyguard, but a sort of M.P. escort - Morals Police.

It was good fortune that he’d been in Dunnsville when the robbery happened, because his prompt repair of the phone wires had spoiled the robbers’ getaway plans. They hadn’t gotten ten miles from Dunnsville before somebody fired a load of buckshot at them as their car roared past Lemons’ Store. They were past before they realized they’d been shot at. But the buckshot had punctured the radiator, and two miles on they were stuck. They pushed their car off the road behind some bushes and struck out on foot, and the sheriff ran smack past their car without seeing it. Then rain began to fall, and the bank robbers were wet and scared and desperate. They knew there’d be roadblocks set up everywhere, and they had that bag of money - part of it bills but a lot of it silver - and all of Tidewater was up in arms.

They took evasive action. They hastily stuffed their pockets with small bills - there were no big ones - but dared not take too much lest they bulge. They hid the major part of their loot in a hollow tree. They separated, fast. One of them got on the Batesville-to-Rappahannock bus and disappeared that way. The other two stole a rowboat and got across the Severn. All of them went to nearby towns - while rain fell heavily and covered their trails - and went to bed with chest-colds from their wetting. They felt miserable. But the rain washed away the scent they’d left, and bloodhounds couldn’t do a thing.

None of this meant anything yet to Sam. Rosie had taken charge of him, and she kept charge. She rode with him all the afternoon of the robbery. When quitting time came he took her home and prepared to retire from the scene.

But she said grimly, ‘Oh, no you don’t! You’re staying right here! You’re going to sleep in my brother’s room, and my pa is

going to put a padlock on the door so you don’t go roaming off to call up that no-account other you and get in more trouble!’ Sam said uneasily,
‘1
might mess things up if I don’t talk to him.’

‘He’s messed things up enough talking to you!’ Rosie said. ‘The idea of repeating our private affairs! He hadn’t ought to know them! And I’m not sure,’ she said ominously, ‘that you didn’t tell him! If you did, Sam Yoder—’

Sam didn’t argue that point. There was no argument to make. He was practically meek until he discovered after supper that the schedule for the evening was a thrilling game of crib-bage played in the living room where Rosie’s mother and father were. He mentioned unhappily that they were acting like old married people without the fun of getting that way, but he said that only once. Rosie glared at him. And when bedtime came she shooed him into her brother’s room and her father padlocked him in. He did not sleep well. Next morning, there was Rosie in her blue jeans with a monkey wrench in her pocket, ready to go riding with him. She did. And the next day. And the next. And the next. Nothing happened. The state banking association put up five thousand dollars’ reward for the bank robbers, and the insurance company put up some more, but there wasn’t a trace of the criminals.