The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  But the water was deep here; it had carved out new caverns beneath this surface in his ten years of absence. Champlin followed the girl down. He seized her and she came up in his arms. With one searching look, he swept away her pretense of hurt and drew a guilty smile from her lips.

  “That’s the same smile you gave me the first time I rescued you at the city beach,” he said, his dark eyes burning. “I’ll keep it in mind until I see you again. Let’s be off.”

  “Listen!” Elsa breathed.

  Above the lapping of the waters harsh voices sounded from the distance. A hundred yards or more along the shore cliff were three figures, silhouetted against the yellow dawn. Two of them were Disps, the third was a stocky ragged Grubber.

  “Look! They’re beating him!” the girl gasped.

  Champlin plunged for the shore. “They’ve got him for vulcatching!”

  Elsa had already learned about the crime of vulcatching. The name came from the vulcatcher, the yellow bird that would steal grain out of the fields. Grubbers who hid away some of their crops in caches, instead of turning it all in to the storehouses of the Higher-ups, were spied out by the Disps.

  Champlin paused at the brink of the cliff.

  “He’ll be lucky to get off with a beating!”

  Using their spears as rods, the Disps laid on. Their arms lashed the air with swift rhythm.

  “They—they’re killing—” The girl’s voice choked.

  “By God! It’s old Perribone!”

  Champlin bounded over the wall. Elsa tried to pull him back.

  “No, Wayne! Not yet! No!”

  He was away from her. Then he stopped, and his long shadow that fell before her was motionless. She saw, too, the strange thing that was about to happen.

  From a few yards beyond the lashing spears a new figure appeared—a bushy-bearded skeleton of a man wearing almost no clothes. He scrambled up over the jagged bank. A heavy stone was in each of his hands. He touched them to the ground as he bounded along, for one of his legs was twisted like a pretzel.

  He pounced with the strength of a madman. The Disps were caught unawares. His stones crushed down, the first on the back of a head, the second on a terrified face. The Disps went down.

  The wild man hammered them as if he were killing rattlesnakes. He pounded their flesh into the yellow earth.

  Champlin raced to the scene as hard as he could go. He saw his friend Perribone roll out of danger weakly. Then the beaten man lay still.

  But before Wayne Champlin reached them, the bushy-bearded, mad-eyed cripple loped over the cliff and out of sight as swiftly as he had come.

  Before Champlin now lay three bloody masses of human flesh. The two in the uniforms were battered beyond recognition.

  The third, old Perribone, opened his eyes to look up at his young friend.

  “Champ!” he whispered. “They told me you’d come—”

  “Take it easy, Perry,” said Champlin, examining the man’s lacerated flesh. “You’ve got to live. We need you!”

  The battered, white-faced man nodded weakly. But out of the corner of his eye he could see the two dead Disps. He realized that hell was about to break loose.

  From the Grubbers’ shanties people were coming—too many of them. Their glimpse of the fight had routed them out like hornets. They had forgotten caution.

  “Go back!” Champlin shouted. “For God’s sake, go back!” We waved at them frantically.

  It was too late. Observers in the Disps’ headquarters had seen the crowd gathering, and a crowd was their dish. Like a battalion of soldiers hurled out of a catapult, the purple and gold men stormed out of their barracks.

  In a moment they were on their way down the hill full speed. Not running, nor riding—but sliding! They came like a line of ski jumpers, sliding down the mile-long slippery slides that led from the food storehouses to all parts of the island. In a few minutes those chutes would convey the morning’s rations of food. But in an emergency like this, they bore the cruel instruments of death.

  On greased soles the Disps rode. Their silk shirts fluttered in the wind, the yellow feather of each headdress cut the air, each black sword or spear waved aloft with the promise of slaughter. In a swift stream they came on, as if skimming over the land in upright flight.

  “We’re in for it!” Champlin muttered. “Who was it that dashed these devils’ brains out, Perry? He’s a hero if he can get away with it.”

  Perribone stared glassily. He was about to die.

  “Who was it?” Champ demanded. “Was it old Jake Douzel?”

  “It was . . . still, it couldn’t be,” the dying man gasped. “Jake’s been dead . . . three . . . years.”

  CHAPTER III

  Behind the Bars

  Leaping from the ends of the hillside chutes, the Disps came on the run. At once Wayne Champlin and his dying friend and the two crushed corpses were encircled with swordsmen. A second circle formed around the first; the circumference of spears pointed outward to hold off the gathering throngs of Grubbers.

  The captain of the Disciplinarians strode up last of all. A path opened for him and he marched to the center of the ring, fuming with rage. Upon critical inspection of his two dead men he roared like a wounded bull.

  He swung his broadsword menacingly and took a step toward Wayne Champlin.

  “Well?”

  “They were beating Perribone with spears,” Champlin spoke up sharply. “Someone came past and stopped them.”

  “Stopped them!” the captain bellowed. “Someone! You’ll roast in the Fury’s teeth for this!”

  “Sorry, but I can’t claim the honors,” Champlin snapped.

  “Honors!” the captain fumed. “Why, you damned defiant—Who the devil are you? Where’d you come from?”

  “I’m a Grubber. I was born here.”

  “You’re a stranger! I never saw you before.”

  “I’ve seen you,” Champlin replied coolly. “You’re Ivan Scorpledge, the captain of the Disps.”

  The captain drew back in surprise.

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Champlin continued, biting his words savagely, “that you conducted John Champlin and his wife to the Shrine some sixteen years ago!”

  Captain Scorpledge went white. His memory shot back to the incident of a first-born child who miraculously escaped the Purple Fury, but whose parents paid with their own lives when their guilt of hiding him was found out.

  “Young Champlin!” Ivan Scorpledge hissed through his teeth. “I think I’m going to enjoy this.”

  A sickly moan escaped the lips of old Perribone. His back was broken, his lifeblood was leaking away, but he was still keenly conscious of what was happening.

  “Champ . . . didn’t . . . kill . . .”

  “No? Then who did?”

  “Jake . . . Douzel . . .”

  “More of your damned ghost stuff! Get up from there, Perribone! You’ll answer to the Purple Fury! Get up!” The dying man responded with a slight sneer. There wasn’t any get-up left in him.

  “What the hell?” one of the officers muttered. “A mangled body’s no good to the Purple Fury. Besides he won’t live till feeding time.”

  “You’re right!” Scorpledge snapped, and with that he swung his sword overhead and brought it down with terrific force. The stroke severed Perribone’s head from his body.

  Elsa, watching from the edge of the cliff, saw the head fall away. She saw the swords wave and heard the Disps shout their orders. On the instant the circle broke into motion. With Champlin, their only prisoner, in the center of the formation, the Disps tore away on a dead run.

  Zigzagging along the hill trails at full speed their shouts fell into a rhythmic, savage, deep-throated chant.

  “Feed the Fury! Feed the Fury! Feed the Purple Fur-ee!”

  In their wake they left a few fallen Grubbers, stout-hearted, foolhardy rebels who had given chase only to be struck down with spears. The dashing Disps stopped near the summit, at the low black door in the
hillside: a prison cell carved in the living rock.

  Elsa was stunned beyond words. Listlessly she joined the throngs of Grubbers. They were a panting, fuming lot, full of flaming fury, but without a ghost of a chance to fight.

  “We’re paralyzed!” muttered Shorty Joe sullenly. “We were all set to follow Champ. Here we are like so many limbs on a tree and a cyclone carries the trunk away.”

  “Trunk,” Elsa echoed absently. Then she thought of the traveling bag that Champ had brought. Champ had spoken of weapons—

  But the Disps were a jump ahead. A small detachment had been left to take care of the bodies, and another small party had started to search the shoreline for the rumored ghost of Jake Douzel.

  This group had at once stumbled upon the two bags of luggage. They came up over the bank proudly carrying their plunder. Several of them were armed with shining pistols, and adorned with arrogant grins as if confident that they had nipped a revolution in the bud. Hooting and jeering, they chased away.

  The Grubbers turned to the food chutes and awaited their breakfasts. Elsa was one of them now. The food that slid down the long slides was far too scanty; for however much the keepers of the storehouse might put in at the top, each of the upper levels had the privilege of taking out all they wanted. Only a small fraction of the food found its way to the chute bottom.

  But such as there was, the Grubbers shared freely with Elsa.

  Through the day they talked in low voices. They went about their work as usual. Frequently a party of Disps would come chasing around the hillside, or their colors would be seen flying down the food chutes. But the Grubbers were not easily intimidated. Desperate plans grapevined through their ranks. They must save their leader!

  By nightfall the consoling rumor arrived. The Purple Fury had not yet whispered a judgment regarding Wayne Champlin’s guilt. Until a whisper was heard, Champlin would stay in prison.

  Elsa could not sleep. Her new friends had warned her that it would be suicidal to attempt to visit the prison. The Grubbers’ own scouts had tried, were still trying, under the blanket of darkness. She must wait until communication was established. Champ, if he could be contacted, would be sure to have a plan.

  Shortly before dawn Elsa heard low voices. A scout had gotten through the sleepy guards for a moment’s chat—enough to learn that Champ did have a plan. If he were only allowed to stay in prison long enough—

  Elsa didn’t wait to hear more. She slipped out the rear door of the shanty and threaded her way through the waning blackness.

  Wayne Champlin was alert to everything. The smell of limestone, mingled with the fumes from the Purple Shrine, filled his nostrils. The dampness of the stone cell was upon his ears, for he had spent the long hours listening to the mysterious roar that resounded through the floor of his cell.

  “It’s only the roaring gas that feeds that damned blaze,” he kept telling himself. Then he would listen again; then curse himself for conjuring up demons. Demons! Shrine! Sacred fires—

  Hell! His smattering of geology blasted those superstitions to bits. Why, this was nothing but an inexhaustible gas well!

  But that fact got him nowhere. If he couldn’t break out of this jail before some smooth-tongued Summiteer laid claim to hearing the demon’s whisper, his little mutinous flash in the pan was over.

  Champlin had no doubt on one score. He wouldn’t be chewed up by any mythical monster. He’d be cremated!

  Yet if they would only dilly-dally around a few days till he could get his plan well laid it wouldn’t make any difference what happened to him. Except for Elsa. Elsa! Had she seen?

  Did she know he was here—or had she struck out for the mainland when he left her? Had she seen him fall, on that chase up the hillside—seen him fight and try to break out, only to be jabbed with spears like a tiger and dragged by a rope to these prison bars . . .

  “Champ!” came a low whisper. “Champ! Are you there?”

  Champlin came up with a start. Through the nearly impenetrable gray of the dawn he saw Elsa, her half-clad white form camouflaged against the limestone wall just outside his bars. At once his face was against hers.

  “Champ!” the girl breathed. “Your hands!” She felt the bloodstains over his arms and chest.

  “I’m okay,” he whispered tensely. “But you won’t be if you stay here.” In desperate tones he warned her. “Don’t waste any time getting back. Have Shorty Joe get through tomorrow night if he can, and I’ll give him my plan. And be sure to get the guns I brought—”

  An awakening groan from one of the guards cut their conversation off.

  Champlin gave the girl’s arm a slight push, a signal for her to run. The guards roused up. Elsa ran.

  Abruptly she stopped. In the road before her stood Ivan Scorpledge. She could not mistake his hulking outline nor his jarring growl.

  A path leading up the hill was barely visible in the gray light. Up was a dangerous direction, but she had no time to think of that. She bounded like a rabbit.

  Scorpledge plunged after her like a wolf, seized her hair, grabbed her shoulder. His ugly brutal smile bore down upon her.

  “So you’re the gal that came with Cham—”

  Slap! Her hand struck him across the cheek.

  He laughed through his teeth. “Scrappy little devil, ain’t you! You’ve got a kiss for me, I’ll bet!”

  The grip on the girl’s wrist tightened. She uttered a half-stifled cry. She squirmed and fought, but the big man hurled her brutally to the earth and laughed at her.

  At that instant footsteps came slap-slapping down the path from one of the vaguely visible mansions. Scorpledge recoiled.

  “What the hell?” snapped a strange voice. “Trying to make off with my girl friend?”

  “Your girl friend?” Scorpledge barked. “What the devil are you Summiteers doing up this time of morning?”

  The arrogant young Summiteer retorted with sharp sarcasm,

  “Saying our prayers to the Purple Fury. And I just heard a whisper, Scorpledge,” he faced the big man with an insulting glare, “that the girl’s going to be mine as soon as—”

  Elsa heard no more, for she leaped to her feet and scampered away. Her heart was beating furiously. She thought surely the men would pursue her; but they were deadlocked in a glare at each other. She raced down the zigzag trail to report her findings to Shorty Joe Sanburn.

  Through the swift, intense day she wondered about the sarcastic young Summiteer. Evidently he had awakened out of a light sleep, for he had been dressed in sleeping garments. Little did she guess that he had watched her through field glasses on the previous day, and was watching her now, plotting and planning her fate.

  But most of all, she wondered about Champ and whether Shorty Joe could reach him before another dawn, and what their plans would be when Champ learned that the guns were gone.

  Before another dawn—fate was destined to strike!

  CHAPTER IV

  Into the Inferno

  The sun went down, the sky darkened. Torchlights ascended the spiral roads.

  As in the grip of a nightmare, Elsa followed along with the others. The Grubbers were whiter and quieter than ever before. They seemed stunned, paralyzed. Or were they strung through with electric tensions that would unleash all hell at the touch of a trigger?

  They carried their few corn knives, their largest torches, their wooden-handled metal-tipped tools. They carried stones. They trudged as if they were walking an endless treadmill.

  Now the Higher-ups were all assembled in orderly fashion, and their section of the hilltop was demarcated by a fence of spears. Above them the Shrine burned with its usual brilliance, no more nor less. Their orange torches were pale in contrast; just as their lust for this orgy, so they pretended, was pale beside that of the smoky monster, their god.

  A large party of the purple and gold Disps now rushed, in step to the rhythmic “Feed the Fury!” to the hillside prison.

  Elsa edged away from the thronging Grubber
s. She skipped into a deep shadow, followed it down the hillside a short distance. It was the shadow of the long-armed machine—the feeding chute. She hesitated, wondering whether she could dash to the prison door before the Disps finished their bloodthirsty ritual of chanting and circling.

  Suddenly the arm of the feeding machine swung to one side, and the girl stood in the full light of the purple blaze. She ran.

  “One word with him!” she cried through her breath. “One last word!”

  “Get back!” a voice shouted at her. It was the young Summiteer who had challenged Ivan Scorpledge. “Don’t be a fool!”

  Then Ivan Scorpledge himself took up the cry, as if prompted by his superior.

  “Get the hell out of here!”

  Other Grubbers had followed Elsa in her foolhardy dash, and at once the whole weight of the Grubber mob surged toward the prison.

  Stones flew through the air. Torches turned into clubs to whip through the blackness, sending off comet tails of red sparks. Hoes and rakes and axes flashed, and here and there a corn knife gleamed.

  The ranks of the Disps trembled momentarily. Swords slashed out and corn knives went down. But it was not a sword nor a spear nor a club that cut the battle short. It was the barking of pistols.

  Crack-crack-crack! Crack-crack!

  Five Grubbers tumbled and kicked and changed to lifeless heaps for their fellows to stumble and trip upon.

  Crack! Crack! A woman and her husband fell. The arrow-head of the mob stalled. The Disps nimbly advanced, gunmen foremost.

  The Grubbers moved the only way they could move—backward. Even as they retreated, a few of them fell wounded or dead.

  “Hold it!” the arrogant young Summiteer snapped, and the hulking captain of the Disciplinarians repeated the order in a loud voice.

  “Hold it! Keep ’em back! Get on with the ceremony!”

  The battle had dealt the severest of setbacks to the Grubbers. Held at bay, they viewed their unfortunate comrades strewn about the ground. They waited, eying the poised guns, hoping for a chance to pick up their wounded. They had not forgotten the brutality that had befallen the dying Perribone . . .