The Fabulous Riverboat (29 page)

They went out behind the waterfall, which roared and splashed at them. The ledge curved around, following the lower half of the dam, until it ran out about twenty yards from the end. Here they climbed down steel rungs to the junction of the dam wall and the earth. From there, they walked cautiously along the channel which had been cut out of the earth. The roots of the grass still stuck out of the walls of the channel. The roots went deeper than any cuts made so far; it seemed impossible to kill the grass.

The sky was bright with the jampack of huge stars and the extensive glowing gas clouds. They were able to proceed swiftly in the pale darkness. After a half a mile, they went at right angles to the canal, heading toward John's ruined palace. Crouching in the shadows beneath the outflung branches of an irontree, they looked down on the plains below. There were men and women in the huts around them. The men were the victors, and the women were the victims. Sam quivered when he heard some of the screams and the calls for help, but he tried to push them out of his mind. To rush into any hut and try to rescue one women was to throw away their chances of doing any good for Parolando. And it would certainly result in their being captured or killed.

Yet, if he heard Gwenafra's voice, he knew that he would go to her rescue. Or would he?

The fires in the open hearths and the smelters were still blazing, and men and women were working in them. Evidently, Hacking had already put his slaves to work. Many guards stood around the buildings, but they were drinking liquor and ethyl alcohol.

The plains were well lit for as far as he could see with huge bonfires. Around them were many men and women, drinking and laughing. Occasionally a struggling and screaming woman was carried off into the shadows. Sometimes, she was not taken away. Sam and Lothar walked down the hill as if they owned

t, but they did not go near the buildings or the fires.

Nobody had challenged them, though they had come within twenty yards of a number of patrols. Most of the enemy seemed to be celebrating the victory with purple passion or any other liquor they had been able to get from the supplies of their prisoners. The exceptions were the Wahhabi Arabs, whose religion forbade drinking alcohol. And there were a few blacks who were not on duty but who were abstemious. These were disciples of Hacking, who did not drink.

Whatever the laxity now, discipline had been maintained during the day. The corpses had been taken away, and a big stockade of poles removed from other buildings had been set up on the plain just beside the first of the hills. Though Sam could not see within it, he surmised from the guard towers around it that prisoners were within it.

The two strolled along, staggering now and then as if they were drunk. They passed within twenty feet of three short dark men who spoke a strange language. Sam could not identify it, though it sounded "African." He wondered if these were not eighteenth-century Dahomeyans.

They walked boldly between a nitric acid factory and an excrement-treatment building and out onto the plain. And they stopped. Twenty yards ahead, Firebrass was in a bamboo cage so narrow that he could not sit down in it. His hands were tied behind him.

On a big X-frame of wood, upside down, his legs tied to the upper part of the X and his arms to the lower members, was Goring.

Sam looked around. A number of men, talking and drinking, stood in the big doorway of the excrement plant. Sam decided not to go any closer or to try to talk to Firebrass. He longed to know why he was in the cage, but he did not dare to ask him. It was necessary to find out all he could and then get back to the hideout inside the dam. So far, the situation looked hopeless. It was best to sneak out during the rains and leave the country. He could blow up the dam and wash out everything, including the forces of Soul City, but he did not want to lose the boat. As long as he had a chance to get that back, he would let the dam alone.

They went on by Firebrass' cage, hoping he would not see them and call to them. But he stood bent over, leaning his head against the bamboo bars. Goring groaned once. They kept on going and soon were around the corner of the building.

Their slow and seemingly drunken wanderings took them near a big building that had been occupied by Fred Rolfe, King John's supporter on the Council. The number of armed men on guard around it convinced Sam that Hacking was inside it.

It was a one-story house of lodgepole-pine logs and bamboo. Its windows were unblinded, and the light from within showed people inside. Suddenly, Lothar gripped Sam's arm and said, "There she is! Gwenafra!"

The torch light shone on her long honey-colored hair and very white skin. She was standing by the window and talking to someone. After a minute, she moved away, and the bushy hair and black face of Elwood Hacking moved across the bright square. Sam felt sick. Hacking had taken her for his woman for the night.

Gwenafra had not looked frightened. She had seemed relaxed, but Gwenafra, though volatile and uninhibited most of the time, could be self-restrained when the occasion demanded. He pulled Lothar away.

"There's nothing we can do now, and you'd be throwing away any chance she might have at all."

They drifted around for a while, observing the other factories and noting that the bonfires stretched both ways along the walls as far as their eye could detect. In addition to the Soul Citizens, there were the Ulmaks and a number of Orientals. Sam wondered if these could be the Burmese, Thai, and Ceylonese New Stone Age peoples living across The River from Selinujo.

To get out of Parolando, they would have to go over the wall. And they would have to steal several small boats if they were to get down The River to Selinujo. They had no idea about what had happened to Publiujo or Tifonujo, but they suspected that these countries would be next on Hacking's list. To escape just to the north to Chernsky's Land was foolish. Iyeyasu would be moving on that as soon as he found out about the invasion here, if he had not already done that.

It was ironic that they would flee to the very country the citizens of which had been forbidden entrance to Parolando.

They decided they would return to the dam now, tell what they had seen and make plans. The best chance to get away would be when it rained.

They rose and started to walk about, skirting the huts which housed the enemy and the captive women.

They had just passed into the shade of a gigantic irontree when Sam felt something tighten around his neck from behind. He tried to yell, to turn around, to struggle, but the big hand squeezed, and he became unconscious.

He awoke gasping and coughing, still under the irontree. He started to get up, but a deep voice growled, "None o' that! Sit still, or I'll split yer skull with this ax!"

Sam looked around. Lothar, his hands tied behind him and a gag in his mouth, was sitting propped up under a half-grown fir tree sixty feet away. The man who had spoken was a very big man with excessively broad shoulders, a deep chest and brawny arms. He wore a black kilt and black cape, and he held the handle of a medium-sized ax. Sheaths at his belt held a steel tomahawk and a steel knife, and a Mark I pistol was stuck in his belt. He said, "You be Sam Clemens?"

"That's right," Sam said, his voice low, also. "What does this mean? Who are you?"

The big man jerked a head full of thick hair at Lothar. "I moved him away so he couldn't hear what we have to say. A man we both know sent me."

Sam was silent for a minute and then he said, "The Mysterious Stranger?"

The big man grunted. "Yes. That's what he said you called him. Stranger's good enough. I guess you know what it's all about, so there's not much use us jawing too long about it. You satisfied that I've talked with him?"

"I'd have to be," Sam said. "It's obvious that you've met him. You're one of the Twelve he's picked. It was a he, wasn't it?"

"I didn't jump him to find out," the man said. "I tell you, this child ain't ever run up against a human, red, black, or white, that ever threw a scare-fit into me. But that Stranger, he's the one that'd make a grizzly scoot just by looking at him. Not that I'm afraid of him, you understand, it's just that he makes me feel... strange. Like I was a feather-plucked bluejay."

"Enough of that. My handle's Johnston. Mought as well give you my history, since it'll save a lot of jawing later.

John Johnston. I was born in New Jersey about 1827, I reckon, and died in Los Angeles in the veterans' hospital in 1900. Between times, I was a trapper in the Rocky Mountains. Up to when I came to this River, I killed me hundreds of Injuns, but I ain't never had to kill a white man, not even a Frenchman. Not till I got here. Since then, well, I collected quite a few white scalps."

The man stood up and moved out into the starlight. His hair was dark but looked as if it would be a bright red in the noonday sun.

"I talk a hell of a lot more'n I used to," he said. "You can't get away from people in this valley. People give a child bad habits."

They walked over to Lothar. On the way, Sam said, "How'd you happen to get here? And at this time?"

"The Stranger told me where to find you, told me about you and your big boat, the Misty Tower, and all that. Why hash it all over? You know. I agreed to find you and go with you on your boat. Why not? I don't like being set down here. There ain't no elbow room; you can't turn around without knocking noses. I was about thirty thousand miles upRiver when I wake up one night, and there's that man sitting in the shadows. We had a long talk with him doing most of it. Then I got up and set out. I heard about some of what was going on here way up The River. I snuck into here while the fighting was still going on, and I been looking for you ever since. I listened to them blacks talking; they said they couldn't find your body. So I been skulking around, seeing what I could see. Once, I had to kill me one a those Ayrabs cause he stumbled across me. I was hungry, anyway."

They had reached Lothar, but Sam straightened up at the last words. "Hungry?" he said. "You mean... ?"

The man did not reply. Sam said, "Say, uh, you... you wouldn't be that Johnston called 'Liver Eating' Johnston, would you? The Crow Killer?"

The voice rumbled, "I made me peace with the Crows and became their brother. And I quit eating human liver some time after. But a man has to eat."

Sam shivered. He stooped down and untied Lothar's bonds and removed the gag. Lothar was furious, but he was also curious. And, like Sam, he seemed to find Johnston a little awing. The man exuded a peculiar savage force. Without even half trying, Sam thought I'd hate to see him in action.

They walked back to the dam. Johnston did not say anything for a long time. Once, he disappeared, leaving Sam feeling strange and cold. Johnston was about six and a half feet tall and looked as if he weighed two hundred and eighty pounds, all bone and muscle. But he moved as silently as a tiger's shadow..

Sam jumped. Johnston was back. Sam said, "What happened?"

Johnston said, "Never mind. You say you didn't get around much. I been all over this place; I know the sitchyation passing well. Lots a your people to the north and the south got away over the walls. If they'd a stood up, they might've licked the blacks. But the blacks ain't won by a long shot. Iyeyasu is getting ready to move against them. I wouldn't be surprised none if he invades tonight. I scouted around his place some before I came here. He ain't going to put up with the blacks owning all this iron and the boat. He will take it away from them or know why."

Sam groaned. It made no difference whether Hacking or Iyeyasu had the boat, if he couldn't get it. But by the time they were inside the dam, he felt better. Maybe the two forces would destroy each other, and the Parolandanoj who'd fled could come back and take over. All wasn't lost yet.

Moreover, the appearance of the Herculean Liver Eating Johnston heartened him. The Mysterious Stranger had not entirely abandoned him. He was still planning, and he had sent a damn good man for fighting, if the stories about him could be believed. Johnston was the sixth man the Stranger had chosen. The other six would show up sometime. But then one had been lost. Odysseus had disappeared.

Still he could show up again. The River was a great place for bad pennies, if you could call the Twelve that. They were bad for somebody. For the Stranger's people, the Ethicals, Sam hoped.

In the dam, Johnston had to be introduced and the situation explained. Joe Miller, wrapped in towels, sat up and shook hands with Johnston. And Johnston, awe in his voice, said, "Night and day, this man-child seed many queer things. But I ain't never seed one like you. You didn't have to crush my hand, friend."

"I didn't try," Joe said. "You look pretty big and thtrong to me. Bethideth, I been thick."

About half an hour before the rains, they moved out. The land was relatively quiet by then. The celebrators had gone to bed, and everybody had cleared away from the fires in expectation of the rain. But the guard towers and the factories were full of enemy guards, and these had stopped drinking. Apparently, Hacking had called a halt to it.

Johnston, like a giant ghost, drifted away while they leaned against the side of the sulfuric acid factory. Ten minutes later, he was suddenly beside them.

"I been giving those blacks the ear," he said. "That Hacking is shore one smart nigger. All that drinking and whooping it up and staggering around, why, that's all put on! That's fer the benefit of spies from Iyeyasujo. Hacking knows the Jap is going to attack tonight, and he's making it look like it's gonna be easy. But his men are worried. They're short of gunpowder."

Sam was startled by the news. He asked Johnston if he had overheard anything else.

"Yeah, I heard a couple of them Citizens talking about why Hacking decided he had to attack us. He knew Iyeyasu was going to do it, so he decided he had to jump the gun. If he didn't, the Jap would have control of the metal and the amphibians and everything, and he'd just conquer Soul City next and then have everything. Them jackasses was laughing fit to kill. They said it was King John arranged with Hacking to take over. And then Hacking blew up King John in his own house because he didn't trust John. Said John was a traitor and even if he wasn't, he was a whitey and couldn't be trusted."