Dearest

by H. Beam Piper

through to a spirit, and I'm afraid.... Wait! Can you crawl alittle? Enough to get over under those young pines?"

  "I think so." His left leg was numb, and he believed that it was broken."I can try."

  He managed to roll onto his back, with his head toward the clump of pineseedlings. Using both hands and his right heel, he was able to propelhimself slowly through the snow until he was out of the worst of thewind.

  "That's good; now try to cover yourself," Dearest advised. "Put yourhands in your coat pockets. And wait here; I'll try to get help."

  Then she left him. For what seemed a long time, he lay motionless in thescant protection of the young pines, suffering miserably. He began togrow drowsy. As soon as he realized what was happening, he wasfrightened, and the fright pulled him awake again. Soon he felt himselfdrowsing again. By shifting his position, he caused a jab of pain fromhis broken leg, which brought him back to wakefulness. Then the deadlydrowsiness returned.

  * * * * *

  This time, he was wakened by a sharp voice, mingled with a throbbingsound that seemed part of a dream of the cannonading in the Argonne.

  "Dah! Look-a dah!" It was, he realized, Sergeant Williamson's voice."Gittin' soft in de haid, is Ah, yo' ol' wuthless no-'count?"

  He turned his face, to see the battered jeep from "Greyrock," driven byArthur, the stableman and gardener, with Sergeant Williamson beside him.The older Negro jumped to the ground and ran toward him. At the sametime, he felt Dearest with him again.

  "We made it, Popsy! We made it!" she was exulting. "I was afraid I'dnever make him understand, but I did. And you should have seen him bullythat other man into driving the jeep. Are you all right, Popsy?"

  "Is yo' all right, Cunnel?" Sergeant Williamson was asking.

  "My leg's broken, I think, but outside of that I'm all right," heanswered both of them. "How did you happen to find me, Sergeant?"

  The old Negro soldier rolled his eyes upward. "Cunnel, hit war a mi'acleof de blessed Lawd!" he replied, solemnly. "An angel of de Lawd doneappeahed unto me." He shook his head slowly. "Ah's a sinful man, Cunnel;Ah couldn't see de angel face to face, but de glory of de angel wasbefoh me, an' guided me."

  They used his cane and a broken-off bough to splint the leg; theywrapped him in a horse-blanket and hauled him back to "Greyrock" and puthim to bed, with Dearest clinging solicitously to him. The fractured legknit slowly, though the physician was amazed at the speed with which,considering his age, he made recovery, and with his unfailingcheerfulness. He did not know, of course, that he was being assisted byan invisible nurse. For all that, however, the leaves on the oaks around"Greyrock" were green again before Colonel Hampton could leave his bedand hobble about the house on a cane.

  Arthur, the young Negro who had driven the jeep, had become one of themost solid pillars of the little A.M.E. church beyond the village, as aresult. Sergeant Williamson had also become an attendant at church for awhile, and then stopped. Without being able to define, or spell, or evenpronounce the term, Sergeant Williamson was a strict pragmatist. MostAfricans are, even five generations removed from the slave-ship thatbrought their forefathers from the Dark Continent. And SergeantWilliamson could not find the blessedness at the church. Instead, itseemed to center about the room where his employer and former regimentcommander lay. That, to his mind, was quite reasonable. If an Angel ofthe Lord was going to tarry upon earth, the celestial being wouldnaturally prefer the society of a retired U.S.A. colonel to that of apassel of triflin', no-'counts at an ol' clapboard church house. Be thatas it may, he could always find the blessedness in Colonel Hampton'sroom, and sometimes, when the Colonel would be asleep, the blessednesswould follow him out and linger with him for a while.

  * * * * *

  Colonel Hampton wondered, anxiously, where Dearest was, now. He had notfelt her presence since his nephew had brought his lawyer and thepsychiatrist into the house. He wondered if she had voluntarilyseparated herself from him for fear he might give her some sign ofrecognition that these harpies would fasten upon as an evidence ofunsound mind. He could not believe that she had deserted him entirely,now when he needed her most....

  "Well, what can I do?" Doctor Vehrner was complaining. "You bring mehere to interview him, and he just sits there and does nothing.... Willyou consent to my giving him an injection of sodium pentathol?"

  "Well, I don't know, now," T. Barnwell Powell objected. "I've heard ofthat drug--one of the so-called 'truth-serum' drugs. I doubt iftestimony taken under its influence would be admissible in a court...."

  "This is not a court, Mr. Powell," the doctor explained patiently. "AndI am not taking testimony; I am making a diagnosis. Pentathol is arecognized diagnostic agent."

  "Go ahead," Stephen Hampton said. "Anything to get this over with....You agree, Myra?"

  Myra said nothing. She simply sat, with staring eyes, and clutched thearms of her chair as though to keep from slipping into some dreadfulabyss. Once a low moan escaped from her lips.

  "My wife is naturally overwrought by this painful business," Stephensaid. "I trust that you gentlemen will excuse her.... Hadn't you bettergo and lie down somewhere, Myra?"

  She shook her head violently, moaning again. Both the doctor and theattorney were looking at her curiously.

  "Well, I object to being drugged," Colonel Hampton said, rising. "Andwhat's more, I won't submit to it."

  "Albert!" Doctor Vehrner said sharply, nodding toward the Colonel. Thepithecanthropoid attendant in the white jacket hastened forward, pinnedhis arms behind him and dragged him down into the chair. For an instant,the old man tried to resist, then, realizing the futility and undignityof struggling, subsided. The psychiatrist had taken a leather case fromhis pocket and was selecting a hypodermic needle.

  Then Myra Hampton leaped to her feet, her face working hideously.

  "No! Stop! Stop!" she cried.

  Everybody looked at her in surprise, Colonel Hampton no less than theothers. Stephen Hampton called out her name sharply.

  "No! You shan't do this to me! You shan't! You're torturing me! you areall devils!" she screamed. "Devils! _Devils!_"

  "Myra!" her husband barked, stepping forward.

  With a twist, she eluded him, dashing around the desk and pulling open adrawer.

  For an instant, she fumbled inside it, and when she brought her hand up,she had Colonel Hampton's .45 automatic in it. She drew back the slideand released it, loading the chamber.

  Doctor Vehrner, the hypodermic in his hand, turned. Stephen Hamptonsprang at her, dropping his drink. And Albert, the prognathousattendant, released Colonel Hampton and leaped at the woman with thepistol, with the unthinking promptness of a dog whose master is indanger.

  Stephen Hampton was the closest to her; she shot him first, point-blankin the chest. The heavy bullet knocked him backward against a smalltable; he and it fell over together. While he was falling, the womanturned, dipped the muzzle of her pistol slightly and fired again; DoctorVehrner's leg gave way under him and he went down, the hypodermic flyingfrom his hand and landing at Colonel Hampton's feet. At the same time,the attendant, Albert, was almost upon her. Quickly, she reversed theheavy Colt, pressed the muzzle against her heart, and fired a thirdshot.

  T. Barnwell Powell had let the briefcase slip to the floor; he wasstaring, slack-jawed, at the tableau of violence which had been enactedbefore him. The attendant, having reached Myra, was looking down at herstupidly. Then he stooped, and straightened.

  "She's dead!" he said, unbelievingly.

  Colonel Hampton rose, putting his heel on the hypodermic and crushingit.

  "Of course she's dead!" he barked. "You have any first-aid training?Then look after these other people. Doctor Vehrner first; the otherman's unconscious; he'll wait."

  "No; look after the other man first," Doctor Vehrner said.

  Albert gaped back and forth between them.

  "Goddammit, you heard me!" Colonel Hampton roared. It was SlaughterhouseHampton, w
hose service-ribbons started with the Indian campaigns,speaking; an officer who never for an instant imagined that his orderswould not be obeyed. "Get a tourniquet on that man's leg, you!" Hemoderated his voice and manner about half a degree and spoke to Vehrner."You are not the doctor, you're the patient, now. You'll do as you'retold. Don't you know that a man shot in the leg with a .45 can bleed todeath without half trying?"

  "Yo'-all do like de Cunnel says, 'r foh Gawd, yo'-all gwine wish yo'had," Sergeant Williamson said, entering the room. "Git a move