The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  “You are not that swift.”

  “Shall I show you?”

  But Donna cried, “No, Joe. Don’t kill them. Make them listen. Tell them that if they kill us they will not end this trouble. The horn thieving will go right on.”

  Londeenoko’s eyebrows jumped. “So you admit your gang is so highly organized—”

  “We admit nothing,” Joe snapped, “except that we know who the horn thief is. I’ll bring him and his gang to you if you give me a chance.”

  The half grown boy, recently dehorned, squeeked his comment to this boast.

  “Give him a chance, and I will help him, because he set me free.”

  It was a small, piping voice, but it weighed heavily, in that moment, against the roar of Londeenoko. The big, crusty man hesitated. The boy happened to be one of his many grandchildren. If there was one thing that Londeenoko tried to avoid it was an argument from his children and grandchildren, They had a way of banding together and upsetting his firmest decisions.

  “We will hold court here and now,” Londeenoko growled. “I will appoint my officers—”

  “Here comes the judge!” Someone shouted.

  Judge Mobar, attended by one servant, came stalking up through a thicket from the direction of the river. The circle broke to make a place for him.

  As usual, he was a dramatic figure in his official robe, wearing the overlapping squares of bright green paint on his face. His eyes were depths of darkness. His dark hair was bushy over his ears. His horns were highly polished.

  Three apples hung upon his horns, and this might have been taken to signify that he had come on a long jaunt through the forest.

  The young judge took command immediately.

  His servant escorted him across to Londeenoko, who gave him the dignified greeting befitting any judge.

  “I did not know you were in this part of the valley,” Londeenoko said, half apologetically.

  “I see that you have captured the foreigner who is known to have proposed our most horrible crime wave,” said the judge. “I trust you did not intend to let him escape.”

  “No verdict has been reached,” said Londeenoko.

  “Verdict? Do you imply,” the young judge said sharply, “that you would have held court without me?”

  Londeenoko showed his fighting face. “You were absent when we organized the ring of spears, Mobar. How were we to know that you had not returned to your land ‘Up North’ ? No one has seen you recently—”

  “Spare me your excuses,” Mobar said. His young face was hard. The green squares on his cheeks and forehead, bright in the sunlight, gave him a metallic cast. It was difficult for anyone to defy him, if only from his stern mouth and deep eyes. “As you see, I am here at the time I am needed. We will proceed with the case.”

  Judge Mobar seemingly had won out over Londeenoko, as usual.

  Yet some whispers around the circle were evidence that Londeenoko’s sharp thrust had hit home. It had reminded the crowd that Mobar was comparatively new and not well known. He had come as an itinerant judge, from “Up North”—that mysterious realm of the unknown, from which anyone might be said to come if he did not wish to tell precisely where he had been.

  To Joe, Mobar said, “Step forward, you. Another step . . . There . . . Now answer my questions. Where do you come from?”

  Joe looked to Donna. She nodded for him to go ahead and answer.

  “From another planet called the Earth.”

  “What is your business?”

  “I am the city clerk of Bellrap.”

  “Bellrap? What is Bellrap?”

  Joe had to explain the nature of his Earth city and the duties of a city clerk. He admitted that he came in a ship that could travel through space, and that another Earthman was with him, but he did not mention Donna.

  “We have already surrounded the ship,” Londeenoko interrupted, much to the judge’s obvious discomfort. “We have stationed guards and have bound the sleeping man who occupied this ship—”

  The judge scowled deeply. “Were any evidences found to explain these dehorning crimes?”

  Someone replied that stacks of horns had been discovered in the ship.

  “I will examine the ship myself in a few minutes,” said the judge. “What do you call this weapon that you hold?”

  “A ray pistol,” said Joe.

  “Did you bring it from the Earth?”

  “No.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “I borrowed it.”

  “It came from another planet, you will admit?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you will also admit that you have friends from other planets who are helping you with your dehorning crimes.”

  “I will not. I am not engaged in any dehorning crimes.”

  “Will you show us how the ray gun operates?” said Mobar. “There is a heap of fallen apples against that tree trunk. Shoot at them.”

  Joe shot into the heap. With a slight turn of his wrist, he disintegrated six or seven apples and cut holes through others. He sliced a niche four-fifths of the way through the tree trunk. The tree trembled and a shower of apples fell.

  Then he held the gun, as harmless as a cob-pipe, in his hands, and waited for the agitated judge to proceed.

  “This demonstration proves,” said Mobar, “that this Earth man is equipped to slice horns off our heads. You admit this, do you not?”

  Joe admitted it, but he added, “Look, judge, if I were slicing your horns off, I would never go to the trouble of tying you to a tree. You know that all of these victims have been bound. And the jobs look like they’ve been done with meat cleaver or a hack saw. Now if we were doing it—well, step out, judge, and I’ll show you how easy it would be if I were using—”

  “Silence!” Mobar snapped. “There will be no further demonstrations. Where did the gun come from? From your Earth?”

  Again Donna nodded for him to go ahead and answer, so Joe said, “Venus.”

  Mobar turned to his servant. “Examine the gun and see if the Earth man is telling the truth—”

  The servant approached to take the gun. Joe hesitated.

  “Let him examine it,” Donna advised.

  Joe looked at the servant’s extended hands. They were caked with a layer of yellow mud. They had apparently been dipped in the slime of the nearby ravine recently, for they were not dry between the fingers. Those mysterious hands waited for the weapon. Joe started to hand it over, when—

  PLOP!

  An over-ripe apple fell and struck one of the hands, scoured a patch of yellow mud away, to reveal that scars marked the flesh of that hand.

  Joe took two backward steps. He gripped the ray gun firmly.

  “Get away from me, Scar-Hands! he barked. “Stand where you are, everyone. You want to know who the real horn thief is, don’t you?”

  “Yes!” Londeenoko shouted above dozens of others.

  “Well, I’m telling you right now, because he’s right in this circle, wearing artificial horns. He is—”

  Smack!

  The poison apple, thrown by someone Joe did not see, struck him squarely on the back of the head. He felt a stinging sensation. Almost instantly he went naggie-mad.

  CHAPTER XXI

  Joe knew he was mad. A hundred wild impulses struck him at once. The strongest impulse was to knock down a tree. Any man, woman, or naggie would crash into a tree, Joe remembered, when seized by naggie-madness. And that was his uncontrollable desire.

  Joe crashed into the first tree he saw. He struck it hard with his left shoulder. The trunk cracked off its base and the whole tree fell. (Joe forgot that previously he had almost cut the tree down with his gun.)

  Now all the men around him knew he was naggie-mad, and he was fully aware of it. But he was nonetheless mad. The heat of the naggie poison circulated through his body like wild fire.

  Donna called to him in a shrill terrified voice. She wanted him to run.

  He wanted to run, but there were
so many other things he wanted to do at the same time. He wanted to clip Londeenoko’s mustache off. So, with his deadly accurate ray gun, he clipped the mustache off.

  The men were hastily forming three concentric circles, and the innermost was a small, fierce circle of lowered heads with deadly horns that all pointed at him. It was moving toward him.

  He wanted to play leap frog over it, and over the second and third circles, too. But first he wanted to trim Scar Hands’ toenails. So he shot in that direction.

  “I didn’t know you could dance,” he yelled at Scar-Hands. “Dance some more! . . . That’s wonderful. More! More! Dance till your horns flop off!”

  Then he wanted to give Mobar a haircut where the hair was too puffy around his ears. He wanted to see how black that hair was under the wig. So he shot in that direction. Not all of his aims were perfect. He was too full of mad, wild impulses to care about the results.

  “Let the chips fall where they may! he yelled, clipping another lock of Mobar’s hair. “Turn your face, you green-faced checkerboard. I’ll trim your profile. I’ll change your color, like the Martian said.”

  He remembered clipping a niche along one side of Mobar’s face. And while he still was obsessed by the desire to draw the outline of the judge’s features, it seemed high time for him to move. The spears were coming at him.

  “Let the lady out!” he screamed but Donna was already on the outside of the third ring, he discovered. Where she was, he wanted to be. So he played leap-frog over the three rings.

  A flying spear ripped under his left arm, tearing the flesh. A pin-prick. What did he care for flying spears? He cleared the last barrier of men, cutting two spears out of the air. The men ducked and fell to the ground to avoid the unseen ray of his gun. A spray of foliage showered from a tree caught in its path.

  He ran at Donna as if to strike her with his head.

  “L-o-o-k o-u-t!” he yelled, in a weird, wild voice.

  The brambles a few yards beyond would be a sticky place for her to land if he knocked her off her feet. Why not land in them himself? He leaped over her head. His strength, increased by the light gravity of Mars, had never been so great as now.

  He sank into the brambles, but came up with a bound and broke into a dead run. The scratches burned his arms and legs, and the torn flesh in his side smarted in the wind. But these were nothing to the explosive fire that filled his whole body-naggie madness!

  He was all of the planet’s mad men rolled into one.

  He was all of the swiftest footracers of Mars, rolled into one.

  He was a bulldozer with invisible wings. If he dodged trees instead of smashing at them headfirst, it was only because he was looking for bigger game.

  He whirled when a spear slid along the ground near his feet. He saw them coming, no longer with spears, but with most determined horns. He pointed the pistol over his right shoulder, and shot a zigzag line through the overhead branches as he ran. A green shower fell to the path in his wake. His pursuers found themselves in a tangle.

  Long before he reached the river he had outdistanced them, all but one.

  He still held his gun. It could destroy anything. Persons? Of course. Trees? The very largest. The river? Perhaps.

  What of the powerful waterfalls? Could he cut it into pieces with the disintegration ray?

  He dodged tree and rocks, he leaped bushes, he followed the river to the falls. He wished the people of Bellrap could see him now—the strongest, wildest, maddest creature that ever lived! The freest, the least controlled. He was Joe Banker, the “naggie-man” of Mars!

  He looked back. Donna dodged behind a tree. She alone had followed him all this distance. He could see the line of her pink shoulder, the green-and-white stripes of her abbreviated sport costume.

  So she was still following him.

  She would see him disintegrate the waterfalls.

  He shot the ray at the falls, but nothing happened. He could see the line that marked the penetration of the ray, but the water filled it instantly. The gun was no good.

  “It’s no good! No good!” Joe yelled, and he threw the gun to the ground.

  He would fight the waterfalls with his bare hands. The falls were powerful, but so was he. He would show them!

  He climbed up on a rock, and made ready to dive. He looked back. He knew Donna was screaming at him not to do it. That was because she didn’t understand. He was an Earth man. He liked a fair fight.

  But there was better rock than this to dive from, so he climbed down and went to it. Then he discovered a still taller one. He clambered up its steep sides. The scratches and prickles and torn flesh were nothing to the fire that burned inside him. He was naggie-mad.

  He made ready to dive.

  But suppose he should encounter a huge fish with horns! He should have his gun.

  Donna had the gun now.

  That was all right. Let her come along. If they met a huge fish with horns, she could collect the souvenirs.

  “You go first!” he shouted to her.

  She began to back away. Maybe she didn’t hear.

  “Ladies first!” he yelled at the top of his voice.

  She was running away. He would have to catch her and throw her in. Then he would plunge in after her.

  Whenever the clouds hung heavy or the breezes blew strong through the forest of falling apples, the villagers chased for shelter. They ran no risks of being struck by an orange-colored apple. It was well known that poison apples frequently fell during rains or windstorms.

  Now the clouds had gathered, and the horned pursuers took heed and gave up their chase for today.

  Consequently, only Donna saw Joe going through his horrible antics. She alone followed the wild trail of his comings and goings.

  That he was in terrific physical torment, she did not doubt. He was completely unpredictable. Any new chance impulse might set him off on a new tangent.

  When he failed to overtake Donna to throw her in the river, he threw a log in, instead. It splashed beautifully, and darted over the falls, and he yelled, “There you go, Donna!”

  Then, “I’ll catch up with you!” and he threw another log in. “There goes Joe Banker! He used to sing tenor in the Bellrap quartet!”

  Joe turned and ran, then, crashed into a tree. The blow was a knockout. He passed out cold.

  CHAPTER XXII

  Donna was carrying him. A falling apple had awakened him. The wind was whipping the trees. The low rumble was not thunder, but apples thumping down the slopes and filling the ravines.

  He was a heavy load for her, and she was having a hard climb against the wind. Darkness was coming on. Her horns were loaded with apples, all of them. She hadn’t taken time to rid herself of the extra weight.

  A wild exultation filled Joe’s heart. He awakened laughing.

  “I never would have believed it. I love being mad if it earns me this! Let me carry you awhile.”

  “Quiet,” said Donna. Her eyes were wide, frightened. “Do not squirm. I will take you back to the ship. You were stunned by a hard blow. I do not know whether you were seriously injured, but I—”

  “Injured! I feel wonderful. Let me carry you!”

  “Do not shout. If the villagers hear you they will kill you.”

  Joe gave forth a shout that would have put the loudest roar of Londeenoko to shame. He shouted because he was happy. He was with Donna.

  “Just let them try to kill me for that!”

  “They could do it, and they may.”

  “Impossible. I’m too happy to be killed. Hooo-whoopie!”

  Donna ran with him. Often she looked back through the falling apples and spattering raindrops to see whether any Ring of Death was following.

  Suddenly she stumbled on a rolling apple and fell. Her arms released him. He scrambled to his feet, yelling. “So you want to play!” He grabbed all the apples and began throwing them at her.

  She lowered her horns to catch the first volley—her instinctive self-protection. At
the same time, she ran backward, watching his every move.

  He stooped to pick up an armload of apples. He looked up to see that she was running away. He threw at her. He threw at everything, the trees, the clouds, the village a mile away, the falling raindrops. Then he raced after her, but she was swift.

  She still had the gun, and now she played his game of cutting down branches as she ran, to obstruct his path. When she felled a tree, he shouted gleefully.

  “Now we’ll play. I’ll throw the whole darned tree at you and see if I can knock you down!”

  But it was a heavy tree and he couldn’t lift it. So he kicked it. Then he grabbed his foot, and gave a howl of pain, laughing at the same time.

  Donna was far ahead of him, descending a ravine that Joe remembered. Her space ship would be there. Maybe she would enter to escape the storm. The rain was growing heavier.

  He heard the click of the airlocks. He sprinted down the bank.

  “Wait for me. It’s raining.”

  A spotlight turned on him. He stopped to wash his hands in it. It looked so warm in the thick darkness, and his hands were wet and cold.

  The spotlight moved. Joe moved to keep up with it. It was shining from the side of the ship. The ship was moving. Joe ran and tried to keep abreast. The ship leaped ahead a short distance, then waited. Then hopped again.

  “So you want to play games!” Joe yelled. “Just give me a chance to climb aboard.”

  Donna gave him no such chance. But she was playing a game, all right. She was leading him back to the camp of the Venus scientist.

  It was almost morning. The rain had ceased.

  Ruffledeen the chef and Axotello the scientist were holding a conference around the fire. Uncle Keller was snoring gently on the soft camp bed nearby. A wide canvas roof had been hung high among the trees to protect Ruffledeen’s camp kitchen.

  The fire was low. Two lights hung from posts to enable Ruffledeen to sort through his pack of recipes. He and the scientist were comparing notes. For many of the special cakes on the chef’s list there were corresponding records in the scientist’s file.