The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  “The hell we will,” David growled. “Save your death traps for the numbskulls.”

  “There’s a serious charge against you, young hothead,” said Propsander. “This is your chance to clear yourself, unless you’re afraid of the truth.”

  Of course David was afraid of the truth. He was on the spot. It was his father’s rashness that carried the moment for Propsander. Uncle Willard was still ready to play their bluff to the limit. He stripped to his trunks and dived into the pool.

  When the husky magician himself entered the water too, David’s suspicions eased and he followed, mumbling, “Lie detectors, huh!”

  Propsander emptied a bottle of green fluid into the water and tossed the bottle to the wall.

  “In a moment,” he said, walking to a depth that brought the water up to his chin, “I shall receive through the waves a transfer of your inner thoughts.”

  “None of that!” David snarled, and would have climbed out again. But a gesture from the Mong caused Zober to plunge into the pool and put the strong arm on David. David glanced at his weapon which he had temporarily parked on the ledge within easy reach. He calmed, like a child being persuaded to submit to an operation, and the magician proceeded.

  Now all four persons stood with their heads barely above the water, and the lively green liquid spread a thin film all around them. The tiny waves danced strangely.

  “The thoughts are coming,” Propsander said slowly. “It looks as if the boy was lying. If so, we’ll throw him over the rail. There are plenty of hungry lizards . . . wait a moment! What’s this?”

  CHAPTER XV

  Uncle Willard and David were almost as pale as the white tile. Loonza observed that the husky Zober was doing some thinking too. She whispered, “His thoughts might mess up everything! Why not? Whooo! Suppose he thinks Bud is guilty, and thinks it too hard. What would happen, George? Wouldn’t the magician get his thoughts instead of theirs?”

  “I wonder!”

  “What’ll we do, George, if they decide to throw Bud over?”

  “I’m going to get that gun!”

  Our whispered conversation brought a “S-s-sh!” from Propsander, and I paused, irresolute. If I could have slipped along stealthily for another ten steps—

  “Get up on the ledge, all of you!” Propsander barked.

  The green liquid film gave way to a splashing of clear water. David and Uncle Willard were obedient enough, but David’s nervous fingers waited on a little black death instrument in case of emergency.

  Propsander calmly brushed the water off his muscular arms, marched along the ledge, and stopped before the Mong with a slight bow.

  “Your honor, it appears that there are four persons who claim the rights to the Freeman fortune.”

  “Four!” Uncle Willard bellowed. The aged little Mong stepped back in surprise, and his bony arms quivered.

  “Explain!”

  “One moment.” Propsander pressed his forehead. “The thoughts are scrambled. Here! Here they come. I was mistaken.”

  “I should say you were,” David muttered.

  “Not four. Six!” Propsander declared. “Yes—six! Wait! Two of them are dead.”

  “Ye gods!” I blurted. “He’s crazy.” It wasn’t exactly a propitious time for me to get myself tangled up in what had been David’s and Uncles Willard’s show up to this moment. I can’t say whether they recognized my voice, but everyone turned as if to say, what’s this Paint-Face talking about?

  “There are six, as follows,” Propsander persisted. “These two men—that’s two. They’re not Freemans, but they’re related. Then there are the two Freeman brothers, George and Ken—and my thoughts tell me that they are dead—both of them. That’s four. Then in addition—”

  “That’s all,” David said.

  “No, there were two more, in the thoughts that entered my mind.”

  “Who the devil else?”

  “This is strange,” said Propsander, pressing his forehead and looking at the ceiling. “It comes to me that there are two Paint-Faces—both living—and each one believes he has a claim.”

  “Paint-Faces!” Uncle Willard roared. “This is an outrage! It’s a frame-up!” Then I marched into the circle, and Loonza’s tug at my arm failed to hold me back.

  “Try my thoughts! I can unscramble the whole thing for you in a minute.”

  I plunged into the pool. Propsander came in after me. The waters calmed, and the little waves began to dance over the surface.

  “H-m-m! Very interesting.” Propsander nodded slowly. “Are you sure?”

  All he could be sure of was that he was catching our sincerest thoughts. And he must have known that there was just a fraction of a percent of a chance that I might be mistaken. He knew—he must have known by now—that David and his father were mistaken in their very sincere belief that I had been killed.

  “So that’s how it is!” Propsander said. We climbed up to the ledge and he bowed before my aged great-step-uncle. “Boss—your honor—I beg to report that the two Freeman brothers are living.”

  “Stop it!” David cried. “You’re driving me mad. You don’t know a damned thing. We saw with our own eyes—” Both David and Uncle Willard were shouting in a rage. They knew that I, George Freeman, couldn’t be alive. They had seen to it that I had walked into the death trap. They had seen the skeleton there afterward, and with George Freeman’s garments clinging to it!

  If ever two men convicted themselves in a moment of explosive talk, these were the boys that did it. Then they caught themselves, and they realized that even the Paint-Faces standing back against the wall were laughing at them. They lapsed into a hard silence.

  “I’d advise you to forget that gun and listen to me,” Propsander said in a hard voice. “By your own laws we have enough on you to consign you to the ocean lizards without any more trial. According to this man’s thoughts, the two Freeman brothers beat the death trap by their own wits. The older one did it about two years ago. The other one—well, you saw that happen with your own eyes—but you didn’t see the underwater swim or the dressing of a skeleton that fooled you.”

  “That means that George Freeman is still alive?” David was up on his toes, shaking his hands like a trapped fighter. “Where is he? Does he know—”

  “I’m right here,” I said, folding my arms and taking two paces in David’s direction. “And there’s my brother Ken.” I pointed to Zober. “Now what do you think, David? Uncle Willard?” David and his father were almost beyond thinking. But David seized at a straw—an awfully frail straw.

  “Smear that paint off their faces!” he demanded. “I’ll bet they’re a pair of imposters. I’d know George Freeman’s voice anywhere—and this fellow doesn’t sound the least bit like—”

  The little old man in the blue and grey robe had a way of commanding silence simply by walking into the circle with his feeble brown hand outstretched.

  “What pleasant guests we have today, Propsander. They seem to doubt your thought reading.”

  Propsander shrugged. The whole thing had grown too much for him, what with the conflicting stories the water had brought him. He knew he had gotten what every man believed to be the truth; but the welter of misimpressions had made him dizzy.

  “If these two Paint-Faces are having pretty delusions that they are Freemans, there’s one easy way to tell. The real Freeman brothers would surely recognize the statue of their greatgrandfather.”

  I looked to Zober. He had not said one word to confirm or deny the revelation I had made. But it was plain to me now—everything. His size, his build, his silence to hold back the voice I would have recognized, his profile, his manner—yes, and his very noticeable interest in Loonza—all these were enough to convince me.

  And on top of all this, his thoughts, in the water—had been the source of

  Propsander’s information that there were still two living Freemans! Was that the way he had put it? Yes, two living Freemans with a claim to the fortune!

&
nbsp; It had to be. Why didn’t Zober speak up and come to my rescue? Between the two of us, we would have our cousin David and Uncle Willard so thoroughly flabbergasted that they’d be ready to plunge over the rail.

  “I don’t believe it!” David yelled again. “Smear their faces!”

  “We’ll clear their faces of paint,” said the cackling little voice of authority. “Then if these irate gentlemen refuse to recognize them, we’ll make them prove their identity by looking at my collection of statues. Any Freeman son worthy of the name should be able to pick his own great-grandfather out of the fifteen or twenty old specimens I’ve kept stored in a certain closet.”

  The guards removed our paint, and then we stood face-to-face—Zober and I.

  David and his father groaned. I was the real article and their groan practically proved it.

  But Zober? Was he my brother Ken?

  He was not! He was no one that I had ever seen before, in the flesh!

  CHAPTER XVI

  The one person who gave a cry of delight to discover who Zober really was, was Loonza!

  “My—my heartbreak!” she uttered with a funny little cry, half comic, half tragic; and she went to him and caught his hand and held it to her lips. “I—I thought you were killed!”

  “I’m afraid it was George Freeman’s brother who was killed,” said Zober in a rich, mild voice. I liked the strength of the man. I was busy observing the points of similarity and contrast between him and my late brother—and of course my heart was sinking with a terrible disappointment over Ken. Ken had not come to life after all. No—no such miracle. It was all a false hope . . . But what a quick attachment I felt for this strange, fine looking Zober, now that he was revealed in face and voice. He was speaking gentle words to Loonza, who was almost sobbing with gladness. “I thought you would forget me . . . You are so young. . .”

  “But you’re young too,” Loonza said. The two of them seemed oblivious to us, their audience, and no one—not even the baffled cousin David—interrupted their seemingly sacred moment. “Pretty little Loonza . . . I have never told you. . . But I’m not as young as—I mean, my age—it’s a troublesome thing. Still—what is age—what difference—if you really care—” Loonza sensed that the private conversation was a trifle too public for comfort. Or did she perhaps hold back a wisp of her romantic feeling from Zober—a part of her heart that now belonged to me? At any rate she turned to me.

  “George? Why didn’t you say something, George? Aren’t you going to speak to your brother Ken?”

  “He isn’t my brother,” I said. “I was wrong.”

  “Ugh.” This from Propsander, who by now had lost all faith in his ability to arrive at the truth by examining other people’s thoughts. “We don’t know a thing, Boss. Not a damn thing.”

  “If you’re not Ken Freeman,” Loonza wailed, “then what is your name?”

  “My name is Ken Freeman,” said Zober with a gracious nod, very, very serious, and studying me as intently as I was studying him. “But I’m not his brother. I’m his great-grandfather.” Two of the Paint-Faces almost slipped and fell into the pool. Bud blinked hard. Loonza’s fingertips fluttered to her lips.

  “Say it again, please,” she said, though her words came out a whisper.

  “The little old man should know me,” Zober said, and he began to smile. It was a restrained smile, but it expressed a terrible accusation. “I am his oldest ghagstic statue. If he will dust out the closet where he has stored fifteen or twenty old specimens, he will find one missing. I was never dead. I was out—in suspended animation, as they say. But after nearly eighty years, the elements wore through my coating, and I found myself to be alive, in my decaying shell. So I set myself free.” My little aged, gnarled great-step-uncle was oozing backward, wincing.

  Zober came toward me and placed a hand on my shoulder.

  “I hope my appearance won’t upset you. I am your great-grandfather Freeman, son, and I take great pleasure in meeting you. In fact, I have been watching you rather closely. As soon as I learned that a member of an invading party had beat the death trap, I said to myself, that must be a relative of mine.”

  “How did you know—I mean—”

  “When I crept out of my shell, many months ago, I floundered about, hiding like a stowaway, until your brother Ken arrived with an expedition. That was when I got acquainted with Loonza, and I attempted to learn about this land into which I had been reborn, so to speak. Without announcing my identity to anyone, I attached myself to your brother’s party. But I wasn’t quick enough on the dangers to save us from the tragedy of the Purple Walk. It might have caught all of us. By chance I was the one who escaped. Then, in my effort to play safe while I wedged my way into the good graces of my gentle murderer, Mr. Montgomery, my stepbrother, I painted my face.”

  To my surprise, the little Mong said, “You’ve been an excellent assistant, Ken. I’m rather glad I preserved you.”

  Zober smiled. “I am rather glad, myself. To be quite honest, you are right, Montgomery, when you say that I would have exploited this land ruthlessly eighty years ago, and that my actions would have been attended by all manner of wasteful conflict among jealous industrialists on the earth. In the past several months I have been listening to your philosophies and learning my lessons. I have learned them well.”

  “I am honored,” said the Mong. “But all the while I believed that the Freemans might come into the picture again—sooner or later. Does any Paint-Face recall that a certain skeleton has been stored for many months in the little station under the rock? I placed it there one day—you didn’t miss it, your honor—and my purpose was this. I guessed that some time the younger Freeman son might come, looking for his lost brother. And I foresaw that he might be forced to walk the Leopard Walk. If so, and if he were both resourceful and lucky, he might discover in it a means of saving his own life.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Some day I hope that death trap can be removed,” Zober said.

  The little old man gave a low cackle that might have been amusement or the signal of an evil plan. Then he and Zober were challenging each other with their eyes, and the old man spoke what he knew was in the other’s mind.

  “I presume you think, now that you have emerged, that this world again belongs to you.”

  Zober smiled. “That’s a question that will be decided by time. You’ve developed it into quite a world, Montgomery. You possess its resources. But you don’t possess the people. You’ve given them a chance to live their own lives without much interference. That’s as it should be. I couldn’t improve on it. If I were to ‘own’ this region, there’s not much that I would want to change—except the death trap.”

  “Well answered,” said the little old man. “I tried to tell you such things long ago—-before I murdered you. You wouldn’t listen then.”

  “It’s much easier for youth to take wisdom from an old man than from someone near his own age,” Zober said.

  “Then let me ask you this. If you were in command of this world, what would you do with culprits like these—these greedy invaders—”

  His little brown arm made a gesture toward David and Uncle Willard, but he broke off short. Both men were standing with their backs against the wall, holding guns on us.

  “You’ll not do a damned thing about us!” David snapped. “Get to the window, every damned one of you.” Propsander gave a raw laugh. “Yeah? There’s better’n a hundred foot drop below that window.”

  “That’s the very point,” David snarled. “Get moving.”

  CHAPTER XVII

  It was a fast scramble, with the husky magician starting things off. You might like him or you might hate him, but you had to admire his boldness in that moment. You might believe in his strange powers of reading other people’s thoughts, or you might think him a fake, playing a high-powered bluff; but you had to give him credit for playing his power to the limit.

  He raised both hands, palms forward, and moved towa
rd David.

  “Those guns won’t shoot, you saps! I fixed ’em for you. They’re dead. They’re—”

  “Is that so?” David shot Propsander through the heart. The bang of his pistol caused a nervous ripple over the waters of the tile-walled pool.

  Propsander fell forward and dived at David’s feet in his last convulsive moment of life. David leaped and a second shot went wild. We were all plunging forward—all of us toward the two. In the same instant a bowl tilted and tipped.

  In the split-second of my rush for David Pemberton, I caught the strange sight out of the corner of my eye. Those water hornets! They had jumped, all in unison, toward David and his father. They struck the inner wall of the bowl like a mallet, and it tipped and fell. The water and the hornets spilled around the feet of the two men. They attacked at the ankles!

  I saw a flash of fire from Uncle Willard’s gun, and one of the Paint-Faces clutched at his belly and bolted into the wall. Then Uncle Willard slipped and lost his footing, and wailed. His gun clattered to the floor, and an on-rushing Paint-Face kicked it into the pool.

  David shot at me twice, and one bullet cut a line along my forearm. The second was aimed for a kill, and that’s how I would have taken it, if the dying magician hadn’t been there. His shoulders sagged against David’s ankles, and the resulting sidestep encountered the wriggling water hornets. With a yowl, David slipped back.

  I was on him then, and had the gun out of his hands. He came at me. I struck at him. Then I flung the gun at him, he dodged, and it went sailing out the window. He wasn’t coming back for more. But he chose the wrong avenue of escape, for there was Zober—my noble ancestor—in his path.

  David backed away. He bolted toward another room. Zober was ahead of him, and Zober’s wide chest and fine muscles bluffed him out.

  “Wouldn’t you like to go down and try the Leopard Walk?” Zober asked. I’m sure he hadn’t guessed what was coming when he put that question. No one knew—unless it was some of those devilish water hornets. For David, in his rush to cross around the end of the room, struck them again, and skidded.