The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Volume 1

by Gordon Van Gelder

  “Cloth for the chief,” he said, handing over a bolt of linen and a bolt of wool, spun and loomed in New Hampshire especially for this occasion and painfully, expensively carted to New York.

  “Pretty toys for the chief,” he said, handing over a large, only slightly rusty alarm clock and a precious typewriter, both of them put in operating order by batteries of engineers and artisans working in tandem (the engineers interpreting the brittle old documents to the artisans) for two and a half months.

  “Weapons for the chief,” he said, handing over a beautifully decorated cavalry saber, the prized hereditary possession of the Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, who had protested its requisitioning most bitterly. (“Damn it all, Mr. President, do you expect me to fight these Indians with my bare hands?”

  “No, I don’t, Johnny, but I’m sure you can pick up one just as good from one of your eager junior officers. “)

  Three Hydrogen Bombs examined the gifts, particularly the typewriter, with some interest. Then he solemnly distributed them among the members of his council, keeping only the typewriter and one of the sapphires for himself. The sword he gave to his son.

  Makes Much Radiation tapped the steel with his fingernail. “Not so much,” he stated. “Not-so-much. Mr. Thomas came up with better stuff than this from the Confederate States of America for my sister’s puberty ceremony.” He tossed the saber negligently to the ground. “But what can you expect from a bunch of lazy, good-for-nothing whiteskin stinkards?”

  When he heard the last word, Jerry Franklin went rigid. That meant he’d have to fight Makes Much Radiation—and the prospect scared him right down to the wet hairs on his legs. The alternative was losing face completely among the Sioux.

  “Stinkard” was a term from the Natchez system and was applied these days indiscriminately to all white men bound to field or factory under their aristocratic Indian overlords. A “stinkard” was something lower than a serf, whose one value was that his toil gave his masters the leisure to engage in the activities of full manhood: hunting, fighting, thinking.

  If you let someone call you a stinkard and didn’t kill him, why, then you were a stinkard—and that was all there was to it.

  “I am an accredited representative of the United States of America,” Jerry said slowly and distinctly, “and the oldest son of the Senator from Idaho. When my father dies, I will sit in the Senate in his place. I am a free-born man, high in the councils of my nation, and anyone who calls me a stinkard is a rotten, no-good, foul-mouthed liar!”

  There—it was done. He waited as Makes Much Radiation rose to his feet. He noted with dismay the well-fed, well-muscled sleekness of the young warrior. He wouldn’t have a chance against him. Not in hand-to-hand combat—which was the way it would be.

  Makes Much Radiation picked up the sword and pointed it at Jerry Franklin. “I could chop you in half right now like a fat onion,” he observed. “Or I could go into a ring with you knife to knife and cut your belly open. I’ve fought and killed Seminole, I’ve fought Apache, I’ve even fought and killed Comanche. But I’ve never dirtied my hands with paleface blood, and I don’t intend to start now. I leave such simple butchery to the overseers of our estates. Father, I’ll be outside until the lodge is clean again.” Then he threw the sword ringingly at Jerry’s feet and walked out.

  Just before he left, he stopped, and remarked over his shoulder: “The oldest son of the Senator from Idaho! Idaho has been part of the estates of my mother’s family for the past forty-five years! When will these romantic children stop playing games and start living in the world as it is now?”

  “My son,” the old chief murmured. “Younger generation. A bit wild. Highly intolerant. But he means well. Really does. Means well.”

  He signaled to the white serfs who brought over a large chest covered with great splashes of color.

  While the chief rummaged in the chest, Jerry Franklin relaxed inch by inch. It was almost too good to be true: he wouldn’t have to fight Makes Much Radiation, and he hadn’t lost face. All things considered, the whole business had turned out very well indeed.

  And as for the last comment—well, why expect an Indian to understand about things like tradition and the glory that could reside forever in a symbol?

  When his father stood up under the cracked roof of Madison Square Garden and roared across to the Vice-President of the United States: “The people of the sovereign state of Idaho will never and can never in all conscience consent to a tax on potatoes. From time immemorial, potatoes have been associated with Idaho, potatoes have been the pride of Idaho. The people of Boise say no to a tax on potatoes, the people of Pocatello say no to a tax on potatoes, the very rolling farmlands of the Gem of the Mountain say no, never, a thousand times no, to a tax on potatoes!”—when his father spoke like that, he was speaking for the people of Boise and Pocatello. Not the crushed Boise or desolate Pocatello of today, true, but the magnificent cities as they had been of yore... and the rich farms on either side of the Snake River... And Sun Valley, Moscow, Idaho Falls, American Falls, Weiser, Grangeville, Twin Falls....

  “We did not expect you, so we have not many gifts to offer in return,” Three Hydrogen Bombs was explaining. “However, there is this one small thing. For you.”

  Jerry gasped as he took it. It was a pistol, a real, brand-new pistol! And a small box of cartridges. Made in one of the Sioux slave workshops of the Middle West that he had heard about. But to hold it in his hand, and to know that it belonged to him!

  It was a Crazy Horse .45, and, according to all reports, far superior to the Apache weapon that had so long dominated the West, the Geronimo .32. This was a weapon a General of the Armies, a President of the United States, might never hope to own—and it was his!

  “I don’t know how—Really, I—I—”

  “That’s all right,” the chief told him genially. “Really it is. My son would not approve of giving firearms to palefaces, but I feel that palefaces are like other people—it’s the individual that counts. You look like a responsible man for a paleface: I’m sure you’ll use the pistol wisely. Now your message.”

  Jerry collected his faculties and opened the pouch that hung from his neck. Reverently, he extracted the precious document and presented it to the chief.

  Three Hydrogen Bombs read it quickly and passed it to his warriors. The last one to get it, Bright Book Jacket, wadded it up into a ball and tossed it back at the white man.

  “Bad penmanship,” he said. “And ‘receive’ is spelled three different ways. The rule is: ‘i before e, except after c.’ But what does it have to do with us? It’s addressed to the Seminole chief, Osceola VII, requesting him to order his warriors back to the southern bank of the Delaware River, or to return the hostage given him by the Government of the United States as an earnest of good will and peaceful intentions. We’re not Seminole: why show it to us?”

  As Jerry Franklin smoothed out the wrinkles in the paper with painful care and replaced the document in his pouch, the Confederate Ambassador, Sylvester Thomas, spoke up. “I think I might explain,” he suggested, glancing inquiringly from face to face. “If you gentlemen don’t mind... ? It is obvious that the United States Government has heard that an Indian tribe finally crossed the Delaware at this point, and assumed it was the Seminole. The last movement of the Seminole, you will recall, was to Philadelphia, forcing the evacuation of the capital once more and its transfer to New York City. It was a natural mistake: the communications of the American States, whether Confederate or United”—a small, coughing, diplomatic laugh here—” have not been as good as might have been expected in recent years. It is quite evident that neither this young man nor the government he represents so ably and so well, had any idea that the Sioux had decided to steal a march on his majesty, Osceola VII, and cross the Delaware at Lambertville.”

  “That’s right,” Jerry broke in eagerly. “That’s exactly right. And now, as the accredited emissary of the President of the United States, it is my
duty formally to request that the Sioux nation honor the treaty of eleven years ago as well as the treaty of fifteen—I think it was fifteen—years ago, and retire once more behind the banks of the Susquehanna River. I must remind you that when we retired from Pittsburgh, Altoona, and Johnstown, you swore that the Sioux would take no more land from us and would protect us in the little we had left. I am certain that the Sioux want to be known as a nation that keeps its promises.”

  Three Hydrogen Bombs glanced questioningly at the faces of Bright Book Jacket and Hangs A Tale. Then he leaned forward and placed his elbows on his crossed legs. “You speak well, young man,” he commented. “You are a credit to your chief.... Now, then. Of course the Sioux want to be known as a nation that honors its treaties and keeps its promises. And so forth and so forth. But we have an expanding population. You don’t have an expanding population. We need more land. You don’t use most of the land you have. Should we sit by and see the land go to waste—worse yet, should we see it acquired by the Seminole who already rule a domain stretching from Philadelphia to Key West? Be reasonable. You can retire to— to other places. You have most of New England left and a large part of New York State. Surely you can afford to give up New Jersey.”

  In spite of himself, in spite of his ambassadorial position, Jerry Franklin began yelling. All of a sudden it was too much. It was one thing to shrug your shoulders unhappily back home in the blunted ruins of New York, but here on the spot where the process was actually taking place—no, it was too much.

  “What else can we afford to give up? Where else can we retire to? There’s nothing left of the United States of America but a handful of square miles, and still we’re supposed to move back! In the time of my forefathers, we were a great nation, we stretched from ocean to ocean, so say the legends of my people, and now we are huddled in a miserable corner of our land, starving, filthy, sick, dying, and ashamed. In the North, we are oppressed by the Ojibway and the Cree, we are pushed southward relentlessly by the Montagnais; in the South, the Seminole climb up our land yard by yard; and in the West, the Sioux take a piece more of New Jersey, and the Cheyenne come up and nibble yet another slice out of Elmira and Buffalo. When will it stop—where are we to go?”

  The old man shifted uncomfortably at the agony in his voice. “It is hard; mind you, I don’t deny that it is hard. But facts are facts, and weaker peoples always go to the wall... Now, as to the rest of your mission. If we don’t retire as you request, you’re supposed to ask for the return of your hostage. Sounds reasonable to me. You ought to get something out of it. However, I can’t for the life of me remember a hostage. Do we have a hostage from you people?”

  His head hanging, his body exhausted, Jerry muttered in misery, “Yes. All the Indian nations on our borders have hostages. As earnests of our good will and peaceful intentions.”

  Bright Book Jacket snapped his fingers. “That girl. Sarah Cameron— Canton—what’s-her-name.”

  Jerry looked up. “Calvin?” he asked. “Could it be Calvin? Sarah Calvin? The daughter of the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court?”

  “Sarah Calvin. That’s the one. Been with us for five, six years. You remember, Chief? The girl your son’s been playing around with?”

  Three Hydrogen Bombs looked amazed. “Is she the hostage? I thought she was some paleface female he had imported from his plantations in southern Ohio. Well, well, well. Makes Much Radiation is just a chip off the old block, no doubt about it.” He became suddenly serious. “But that girl will never go back. She rather goes for Indian loving. Goes for it all the way. And she has the idea that my son will eventually marry her. Or some such.”

  He looked Jerry Franklin over. “Tell you what, my boy. Why don’t you wait outside while we talk this over? And take the saber. Take it back with you. My son doesn’t seem to want it.”

  Jerry wearily picked up the saber and trudged out of the wigwam.

  Dully, uninterestedly, he noticed the band of Sioux warriors around Sam Rutherford and his horses. Then the group parted for a moment, and he saw Sam with a bottle in his hand. Tequila! The damned fool had let the Indians give him tequila—he was drunk as a pig.

  Didn’t he know that white men couldn’t drink, didn’t dare drink? With every inch of their unthreatened arable land under cultivation for foodstuffs, they were all still on the edge of starvation. There was absolutely no room in their economy for such luxuries as intoxicating beverages—and no white man in the usual course of a lifetime got close to so much as a glassful of the stuff. Give him a whole bottle of tequila and he was a stinking mess.

  As Sam was now. He staggered back and forth in dipping semicircles, holding the bottle by its neck and waving it idiotically. The Sioux chuckled, dug each other in the ribs and pointed. Sam vomited loosely down the rags upon his chest and belly, tried to take one more drink, and fell over backwards. The bottle continued to pour over his face until it was empty. He was snoring loudly. The Sioux shook their heads, made grimaces of distaste, and walked away.

  Jerry looked on and nursed the pain in his heart. Where could they go? What could they do? And what difference did it make? Might as well be as drunk as Sammy there. At least you wouldn’t be able to feel.

  He looked at the saber in one hand, the bright new pistol in the other. Logically, he should throw them away. Wasn’t it ridiculous when you came right down to it, wasn’t it pathetic—a white man carrying weapons?

  Sylvester Thomas came out of the tent. “Get your horses ready, my dear sir,” he whispered. “Be prepared to ride as soon as I come back. Hurry!”

  The young man slouched over to the horses and followed instructions— might as well do that as anything else. Ride where? Do what?

  He lifted Sam Rutherford up and tied him upon his horse. Go back home? Back to the great, the powerful, the respected capital of what had once been the United States of America?

  Thomas came back with a bound-and-gagged girl in his grasp. She wriggled madly. Her eyes crackled with anger and rebellion. She kept trying to kick the Confederate Ambassador.

  She wore the rich robes of an Indian princess. Her hair was braided in the style currently fashionable among Sioux women. And her face had been stained carefully with some darkish dye.

  Sarah Calvin. The daughter of the Chief Justice. They tied her to the pack horse.

  “Chief Three Hydrogen Bombs,” the Negro explained. “He feels his son plays around too much with paleface females. He wants this one out of the way. The boy has to settle down, prepare for the responsibilities of chieftainship. This may help. And listen, the old man likes you. He told me to tell you something.”

  “I’m grateful. I’m grateful for every favor, no matter how small, how humiliating.”

  Sylvester Thomas shook his head decisively. “Don’t be bitter, young sir. If you want to go on living you have to be alert... and you can’t be alert and bitter at the same time. The chief wants you to know there’s no point in your going home. He couldn’t say it openly in council, but the reason the Sioux moved in on Trenton has nothing to do with the Seminole on the other side. It has to do with the Ojibway-Cree-Montagnais situation in the North. They’ve decided to take over the Eastern Seaboard—that includes what’s left of your country. By this time, they’re probably in Yonkers or the Bronx, somewhere inside New York City. In a matter of hours, your government will no longer be in existence. The chief had advance word of this and felt it necessary for the Sioux to establish some sort of bridgehead on the coast before matters were permanently stabilized. By occupying New Jersey he is preventing an Ojibway-Seminole junction. But he likes you, as I said, and wants you warned against going home.”

  “Fine, but where do I go? Up a rain cloud? Down a well?”

  “No,” Thomas admitted without smiling. He hoisted Jerry up on his horse. “You might come back with me to the Confederacy—” He paused, and when Jerry’s sullen expression did not change, he went on, “Well, then, may I suggest— and mind you, this is my advice, not t
he chiefs—head straight out to Asbury Park. It’s not far away—you can make it in reasonable time if you ride hard. According to reports I’ve overheard, there should be units of the United States Navy there, the Tenth Fleet, to be exact.”

  “Tell me,” Jerry asked, bending down. “Have you heard any other news? Anything about the rest of the world? How has it been with those people—the Russkies, the Sovietskis, whatever they were called—the ones the United States had so much to do with years ago?”

  “According to several of the chiefs councilors, the Soviet Russians were having a good deal of difficulty with people called Tatars. I think they were called Tatars. But, my good sir, you should be on your way.”

  Jerry leaned down farther and grasped his hand. “Thanks,” he said. “You’ve gone to a lot of trouble for me. I’m grateful.”

  “That’s quite all right,” said Mr. Thomas earnestly. “After all, by the rocket’s red glare, and all that. We were a single nation once.”

  Jerry moved off, leading the other two horses. He set a fast pace, exercising the minimum of caution made necessary by the condition of the road. By the time they reached Route 33, Sam Rutherford, though not altogether sober or well, was able to sit in his saddle. They could then untie Sarah Calvin and ride with her between them.

  She cursed and wept. “Filthy paleface! Foul, ugly, stinking whiteskins! I’m an Indian, can’t you see I’m an Indian? My skin isn’t white—it’s brown, brown!”

  They kept riding.

  Asbury Park was a dismal clatter of rags and confusion and refugees. There were refugees from the north, from Perth Amboy, from as far as Newark. There were refugees from Princeton in the west, flying before the Sioux invasion. And from the south, from Atlantic City—even, unbelievably, from distant Camden— were still other refugees, with stories of a sudden Seminole attack, an attempt to flank the armies of Three Hydrogen Bombs.

  The three horses were stared at enviously, even in their lathered, exhausted condition. They represented food to the hungry, the fastest transportation possible to the fearful. Jerry found the saber very useful. And the pistol was even better—it had only to be exhibited. Few of these people had ever seen a pistol in action: they had a mighty, superstitious fear of firearms...