by Don Wilcox
Bruce questioned him sharply. “Did you have orders to throw a monkey-wrench to force us down? . . . Did you? . . . Did Mary’s father command that low-down trick?”
“I’m afraid that was my own idea,” said Major Vickering. “You had already played havoc with my plans—”
“The next time you’ll do well to straighten out your plans before we start.”
“Next time!” Mary echoed bitterly. There was a heavy silence.
From the surrounding camp came the lusty snores of the potato giants, sleeping like the dead. It would have been no trick to escape them. Mary and Bruce knew that.
But to escape the giants only to fall into the hands of the snail-eaters would be jumping from the frying-pan into the fire.
In their private discussions they had pondered the possibility of gambling on their popularity with the giants, to gain the same advantages that Red Mouth had won for himself. They, too, might become the pets of these creatures. Then, as travel to the Mercury space ports became more common, some year there would be further explorations and they would be found.
Now Major Vickering himself brought up the same idea.
“Rescue might come eventually, if we made up our minds to live here a matter of years,” he said.
Bruce said emphatically, “That’s not for Mary and me. You can stay and live a hermit’s life if you want to.”
“I didn’t say I’d relish it,” the Major grumbled. “All I say is, if we’re stuck, we’re stuck. There are four of us, if you’d put in with us Red Mouth. We could find some favorable land to cultivate. We’d be far enough away from these damned giants so that they’d never bother to trail us. Isn’t that possible, Red Mouth?”
“Possible? Anything is possible.”
“Red Mouth, you know the dangers of this world. You could be the guard,” said Vickering. “And you, Bruce, you’re young and husky. You could till the soil for us. Mary, you could cook.”
“What would you do?” said Bruce. “I’m a business man” said Vickering. “Naturally the executive responsibilities would fall to me, since there has to be a leader.”
Bruce gave a sarcastic grunt. Mary stared into the darkness. Through the cracks between wall stakes she could see only the outlines of Red Mouth and the Major against the stars. It was easy to imagine the Major’s arrogant expression.
“It would be the beginning of a colony,” the Major went on. “It wouldn’t be as if we were four hermits. We’d be a society all our own. With one woman among us we could have a common family life.”
“Why, you damned rat!” Bruce snarled. “If this wall wasn’t between us I’d smash your face.”
“I’ll smack him for you,” Red Mouth volunteered.
“Hey, don’t get me wrong!” the Major yelped.
Smack! Thud! Whack! Pop!
Mary could see the dark blurs that were Red Mouth’s swinging fists. The Major went down, rolled over, crawled to his hands and knees, and then got up to run.
“Stop it,” Bruce commanded. “Come back here, both of you. You’ll have the whole camp awake.”
They came back to the prison wall like two truant schoolboys.
“Thanks, Red Mouth,” Bruce said quietly.
“The pleasure was all mine,” said Red Mouth. “But I still don’t know why you wanted him smacked.”
“It was all a mistake,” the Major whimpered. “I’m not in love with Bruce’s wife.”
“Aren’t you?” said Red Mouth innocently. “That’s funny. I—”
“Shut up, both of you,” Bruce snapped. “And no more talk about a colony. Mary and I have already decided what we’d do if worst came to, worst. Now it’s come, so we’re doing it.”
“What’s your plan?” asked the Major.
“We’ll take our chance against slow death,” said Bruce. “We’ll travel to the summit of the ridge with these giants and then we’ll keep going, on the straightest course we can cut. Somewhere halfway around this world there’s a patch of civilization with a space port and Earthbound ships.”
The Major refrained from comment. Anything he might say about an impossible journey would only accentuate his own guilt.
As if to break the heavy silence, he said, “Damn you, Red Mouth! My eye is swelling shut.”
There was another silence.
“We’d better sleep,” Mary said. “It isn’t long until Rippyick binds us and throws us onto the beetle. I’m glad I don’t know how far we have to go.”
“There’s a short cut along the ridge,” said Red Mouth. “I remember it.”
“Your memory is improving,” Bruce observed.
“I came over it myself. It was easy.”
“How easy?” said Bruce.
“As easy as a flat trail. And lots more fun. I picked it out myself. Do you want to try it?”
Three days later the four of them, together with Rippyick and six of his giant friends, branched off on a trail of higher elevation than the main trail.
Five days later Red Mouth and his three human companions were two miles in the lead of Rippyick and his party of six.
Three days later the going had become so difficult that Rippyick turned back. His prisoners, still accompanied by Red Mouth, were three or four miles ahead.
Mary, looking back over the trail, saw her captors turn to retrace their course. It was an hour for celebration.
“We’ve done it!” she cried. “We’ve outdistanced them. They’ve given up following.”
Bruce held her in his arms. She could read the warning in his expression. The trail was growing worse hourly, and he seemed weighed down by the thought that no real victory had been won. This was only the starting point.
However, he shared her happy mood. No longer prisoners in fetters, they were apparently as free as the birds. Red Mouth and Vickering joined them in a Feast of Freedom, and all quarrels were forgotten.
“We don’t know where we’re going, but we’re on our way,” Mary sang.
Bruce and Major Vickering caught up the tune. They all sang. And Red Mouth walked on his hands, danced on his hands, and turned cartwheels.
Everyone was happy except the pack beetle, who gazed sad-eyed at the rocky trail ahead and scratched his head thoughtfully with his front foot.
CHAPTER VIII
Fugitives on the Divide
Never once did Mary relax her suspicions of her traveling companions. Major Vickering had demonstrated that he was thoroughly unprincipled. He was keeping in line only because Bruce forced him to do so. Bruce had a physical and moral strength that stood as her constant protection.
On the surface, however, everything ran smoothly. Now that they had lost Rippyick, perhaps for good, they laughed and joked—very much like one happy family.
Red Mouth recounted some of his mischievous tumbling tricks that had kept the potato giants on their mettle.
Major Vickering repeated a story he had told before, about his favorite hoax on the public. He had never been in the army. He had acquired the title in a lodge play. As a nickname it had proved such an advantage that he had worked it on the public wherever he went.
“Your father fell for it like a ton of bricks,” the Major guffawed. “That’s why he hired me in the first place.”
Everyone laughed, Mary included.
Bruce added to the fun by giving an imaginary account of the rent-a-space-ship agent setting out to find his lost property and tracing it to the bottom of a bottomless swamp.
Then they got off on a rehash of their cleverness in getting Rippyick to take the short cut with them.
But this line of conversation changed the mood from comedy to more sobering thoughts. As Mary well knew, they had chosen a course that very nearly followed the very backbone of the ridge. Somewhere on the south slope of that divide the snail-eaters were also marching.
And so they were ostensibly a scouting party. It was with this function in mind that Rippyick had been persuaded to try this upper trail. He had brought his pack beetle with the p
risoners because they were his property and he was afraid to trust them to soft-hearted fellows like Vammerick.
And then, suppose some snail-eaters should be met, face to face, and should try to do Rippyick injury. What could be simpler than to buy them off with three or four snails’ worth of good food, bound hand and foot?
Thus Rippyick had been persuaded to bite off more mountain trail than he could chew. The nimble Red Mouth, jumping and running alongside the pack beetle, had excited it just enough to keep it gaining ground. Once well ahead, he had turned a deaf ear to the commands from the rear to wait for the rest of the party.
The scouting duties had proved to be simple. The snail-eaters were far enough ahead so that there were no encounters. Red Mouth had only to wave a branch from time to time as a signal to the caravan on the lower trail that all was well.
Now Mary and her good husband and their two fellow-travelers finished their feast and made ready to start on. They repacked their supply of food. They discarded some of Rippyick’s surplus luggage. The large, coarsely woven, red sleeping mat was much too large and heavy for anyone’s use but a giant’s. The faithful beetle seemed glad to be relieved of it and heaved its back with a gesture of a friendly thank you.
The caravan could be seen plodding along an indistinct trail two miles down the mountainside. Major Vickering waved a branch for several minutes and finally got an answering wave from the head of the procession.
Everything packed, Red Mouth drew himself up proudly, called the signal and marched ahead. He was a picturesque figure, as Mary often observed. He was slender, well muscled, and quite handsome in spite of the absurd ring of red clay he insisted on wearing around his mouth. He wore no shoes. On the belt of his ragged trunks, his only garment, he always wore that odd-shaped brass and steel ornament, a reminder of some former contact with a civilization that he couldn’t remember.
He pranced ahead with the air of a drum major. Suddenly, as Mary watched him, she knew what he was.
Of course, it was all so obvious. Why hadn’t she thought of it before?
The discovery excited her and she started to tell Bruce.
“Would you like to know, dear, what Red Mouth’s life was like before he came to Mercury, while he lived on the Earth?”
Bruce answered carelessly, “I wasn’t aware that you and Red Mouth had been carrying on any private conversations about your former lives.”
“But we haven’t,” Mary said, suddenly on the defensive. “I really don’t know. I was just curious—”
Bruce wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were searching the trail far ahead. Mary thought it best to say nothing more. She certainly didn’t want Bruce to feel that she had any interest in Red Mouth.
And then she wondered. Suppose Bruce were already jealous of this jumping-jack’s obvious attraction to her. What could she do?
“He’s taking us into a maze of trouble,” said Bruce. “Do you see what he’s doing, Mary?”
“What do you mean?” A note of alarm was in her voice.
“See those ragged rocks and cliffs we’re getting into?”
“Oh, that,” said Mary, suddenly relieved.
“What did you think I meant?”
“I was afraid you might be losing your trust in him,” she said.
“When it comes to that, Vickering is the one I mistrust,” said Bruce. “But I can see from here we’ll never get this beetle across the next mile of travel. Red Mouth thought this trail was easy because he’s a first cousin to a flea. If there’s anything you want off the beetle’s back, we’d better remove it now.” A few minutes later the trouble Bruce had predicted was at hand.
The beetle got a front foot caught in a crevice between rocks. Vickering thought the beast was stalling, and he shouted at it with a vengeance. The beast lurched forward before anyone had a chance to stop it. The foot was torn off.
“Bad,” said Red Mouth. “Very bad.” He wasn’t explicit as to whether he meant the luck or the Major’s rashness.
The limping beetle was quite excited and difficult to control. They finally succeeded in removing some more baggage. The remainder they repacked to the rear, away from the injured foot.
Mary’s surprise she found herself feeling very sympathetic toward this great, dumb creature, probably a younger brother to the one that had once nearly bitten her head off. It’s all in what you get used to, she thought. She had learned that there were safe ways and unsafe ways to deal with Mercury’s peculiar livestock.
Just now, however, all the rules were breaking down. The crippled beast went panicky and ran pell-mell over a cliff. There was a dull crushing sound that welled up from the depths. In that moment the luckless beetle gave his all.
The party proceeded on foot, with much less surplus baggage to trouble them.
It soon became apparent that the Major was going to miss the beetle more than anyone. The party had noticed that he had taken considerable care of the goods, often climbing aboard the beast to rearrange or fasten down some bit of equipment. Now it was plain that these actions had been for the purpose of saving his own feet. He began to lag.
Mary saw him stop to adjust his binoculars. Again he was focussing on the caravan two miles below without bothering to signal.
This action was another trick of delay. It was the Major’s way of resting.
Red Mouth and Bruce exchanged glances.
“That’s three times in the last half hour,” Bruce mentioned, “that we’ve stopped to check up on the caravan. They’ll be getting ahead of us.”
“I was trying to discover whether Rippyick got back to the others safely,” said the Major.
As if anyone cared about the fate of such a spiteful lout as Rippyick. Mary and Bruce, from then on, didn’t bother to stop and wait for the Major. They moved ahead at all possible speed.
Red Mouth skipped along, first ahead, then behind, then out to one side to gather some edible roots and berries so that lunch could be eaten without a stop.
What eventually stopped the party was a chasm. Heat and cold had cracked this gigantic mountain rock, and the deep break cut squarely across the path of their progress.
Mary wondered. The demon of suspicion and jealousy was always cropping up.
Suppose Red Mouth knew that Bruce couldn’t make such a jump. Would he urge the action anyway? The drop would be at least five hundred feet.
Looking down the line of the chasm in either direction, they could see the desirability of taking a chance. At least a half day’s walk would be required to get around this hazard if they could not jump it.
“I’ll help you over, Mary,” Red Mouth said. Instantly he picked her up in his strong arms, ran three steps and leaped.
Mary caught her breath. The chasm was flying past, then the rock’s edge was under Red Mouth’s feet. She was safely on the other side. And in her throat there was a stifled scream. Somehow she had remained silent, and now she looked up at Red Mouth in wonderment for what he had done.
Then she glanced back at Bruce. He was staring, perhaps with anger for Red Mouth’s rashness, perhaps with jealousy. But he was determined that this game would not be lost by him. He came running like an eagle about to take off from its nest. He quickened his stride just before he reached the edge, and then Mary did scream. Her vision in that split second was too horrifying. Her eyes tried to shut out the sight.
The leap was short. His toes reached for the edge but slipped off. Only his arms in a mad scramble caught him. For an instant he hung there. A slight rolling of pebbles under him—or a slight push—could have thrown him down to death.
Red Mouth reached him instantly, grabbed him by the hair and clothing, and hauled him to safety.
He got up and brushed his clothes, and tried to laugh away the alarm in Mary’s countenance, the trembling of her body.
“I had to do it,” he said. “I knew I’d catch with my hands if my feet missed.”
From the other side came the distressed complaint of Major Vickering. “What
about me?”
“You’d better cut down to the other trail,” said Red Mouth. “You’re not going to make this one, I can tell you that right now. Here’s a good enough place for you to hike down. You’ll make it if you take your time.”
“Help me over this ditch,” said the Major sullenly. “You’re not going to leave me to be pawned off by those giants.”
“If you’ll make the jump, we’ll try to catch you,” said Red Mouth. “How else can we help?”
They argued about the matter and considered trying a very risky plan. They would make a rope of their clothes and throw to him.
Red Mouth wore so little clothing that he refused to volunteer anything. The belt with the single metal ornament was something not to be loaned to either strangers or friends.
But Bruce’s trousers and the Major’s, knotted together would make a life-line three yards long, assuming that the Major could first throw his garment safely across the chasm.
“What am I supposed to do while all this goes on?” Mary asked.
As the plan went, the free end of the line was to be thrown out to the Major as he leaped, after the other end had been made secure on Bruce’s side of the chasm.
“I’ll walk on ahead,” Mary volunteered. “The path looks perfectly clear for a full mile ahead.”
“Watch for crevices,” Bruce warned; and Red Mouth added that there would be more like this one but much narrower and less dangerous.
So as the men went to their task of making a line, Mary hiked on ahead.
Within a short time she saw she was coming to another chasm. It was narrow, however, one that a lazy beetle might walk across without noticing. She paused and glanced back wondering whether the others were coming.
She saw that they were still at the same station, still with their clothes on, talking and gesturing. Evidently the Major had cold feet and was trying to work out a better plan.
Mary hesitated, wondering whether she should go back to them. The walk ahead was an easy one, down grade, all in the clear. She might as well cross and go ahead.
