The Andre Norton Megapack

by Andre Norton

  “I don’t think that we’ll ever attempt to deny it,” Val laughed. “But you were right, Jeems—I mean Roderick,” he said to his newly discovered cousin, “you do have as much right here as we do.”

  Jeems colored. “Ah’m sorry for sayin’ that,” he confessed. “Ah thought yo’ were right smart and too good for us. An’ Ah’m sorry Ah played ha’nt. But Ah didn’t expec’ yo’ would evah see me, only the niggahs, an’ I didn’t care ’bout them. Ah always came when yo’ were ’way or in bed.”

  “Well, you’ve explained your interest in the place,” Val assented, “but what about the rival? Why did he appear?”

  “It started in a blackmail plot. Your family have been wealthy, you know,” explained LeFleur. “But then the scheme became more serious when the oil prospectors aroused interest in the swamp. Already several men whose property bounds yours have been approached by the Central American Oil Company with an offer for their land. It would not at all surprise me if you were asked to dispose of your swamp wasteland for a good price. And the rumor of oil is what made the rival, as you call him, try to press his false claim instead of merely holding it over you as a threat.”

  “The Luck is certainly doing its stuff,” Val observed. “Here’s the lost heir found, oil-wells bubbling at our back door—”

  “I would hardly say that, Mr. Valerius,” remonstrated LeFleur.

  “They may bubble yet,” the boy assured him airily. “I wouldn’t put it beyond the power of that length of Damascus steel to make wells bubble. Oil-wells bubbling,” Val continued from the point where the lawyer had interrupted him, “Rupert turning out to be the missing author—”

  “What was that?” demanded Creighton sharply. He was on the point of handing a small book to Jeems.

  “We just discovered that Rupert is your missing author,” Val explained. “Didn’t you guess when you heard the story of the missing Ralestone? The family went into town to tell you all about it; that’s why we were alone when the invaders arrived.”

  “Mr. Ralestone my missing author! No, I didn’t guess. I was too interested in the story—but I should have! How stupid!” He looked down at the book he still held and then put it into the swamper’s hand. “Between the pages of the prayer-book, covering the offices for St. Louis’ Day, you’ll find the birth certificate for Laurent St. Jean with his right name,” he said. “That’s a very important paper to keep, young man. Mr. Ralestone my author.” He wiped his forehead with the handkerchief from his breast-pocket. “How stupid of me not to have seen at once. But why—”

  “He had some idea that his stuff was no good when he didn’t hear from that agent,” Val explained, “so he just tried to forget the whole matter.”

  “But I have to see him, I have to see him at once.” The New Yorker looked about him as if by will-power alone he could summon Rupert to stand before him on the terrace.

  “Stay to supper and you will,” Val invited. “Ricky and I discovered him for you just as we promised we would. But then you’ve given us Rod in return. I am not,” Val told his cousin, “going to call you Rick even though there is a tradition for it. There are too many ‘Ricks’ complicating the family history now. I think you had better be ‘Rod’.”

  “Anythin’ yo’ say,” he grinned.

  For the third time that afternoon Val heard a car coming up the drive.

  “If this should turn out to be the Grand Chan of Tartary or the Lama of Peru I shall not be one iota surprised,” he announced. “After what I’ve been through this afternoon, nothing, absolutely nothing, would surprise me. Oh, it’s only the family.”

  With the impatience of one who has a good earth-shaking shock ready to administer, he watched his wandering relatives disembark. Charity and Holmes were still with them and a sort of aura of disappointment hung over the group. Then Ricky looked up and with a cry of joy came up the terrace steps in what seemed like a single leap.

  “Oh, Mr. Creighton,” she began when Val lifted his hand. “Let me tell it,” he begged, “I’ve been waiting for a chance like this for years.” Ricky was obediently silent, thinking that he wished to break the mystery of the author. But Jeems and LeFleur understood that it was to them Val appealed.

  “Val, what are you doing out of bed?” was Rupert’s first question.

  “Saving the old homestead while you went joy-riding. We had visitors this afternoon.”

  “Visitors? Who?” he began when his brother silenced him with a frown.

  “Oh, let’s not go into that now,” Val said hurriedly. “There is something more important to be discussed. Since you left this afternoon we have had an addition to the family.”

  “An addition to the family,” puzzled Ricky. “What do you mean?”

  “Rick Ralestone has come back,” Val announced.

  “Val, hadn’t you better go back to bed?” suggested his sister.

  “Not now,” he grinned at her. “I haven’t lost my mind yet, nor am I raving. Ladies and gentlemen,” Val prepared to echo Creighton’s speech of an hour before, “permit me to introduce Roderick St. Jean de Roche Ralestone, the missing heir!”

  With an impish grin Val had never seen on his face before, Jeems clicked his heels in a creditable imitation of a court bow.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  Rupert Brings Home His Marchioness

  “Such a nice domestic scene,” Val observed.

  Ricky looked up from the bowl into which she was shelling peas. “Now just what do you mean by that?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Nothing, nothing at all. It’s getting so I can’t say a word around here without you suspecting some sort of a catch in it,” her brother complained. He shifted the drawing-board Rod had fixed up for him an inch or two. Although Val’s arm was at last out of the sling, he was not supposed to use it unless absolutely necessary.

  “Well, after that afternoon when you made the missing heir appear like a rabbit out of a hat—” began his sister.

  “Rod,” Val called down to where their cousin was busied over the stretching of the new badminton net, “did you hear that? She referred to you as a rabbit—deliberately.”

  “Hm-m,” Rod answered in absent-minded fashion. “That cat of Miss Charity’s just walked away with one of those feathered things yo’ bat ’round.”

  “Let us hope that he returns it in time,” Val said; “otherwise I can prophesy that you are going to spend the rest of the morning crawling around under hedges and things hunting for him and it. Ricky will not be balked. If she says that we are going to play badminton—well, we are going to play badminton.”

  “I think that you might help too.” Ricky attacked a fresh pod viciously as their cousin came up on the terrace. He stopped for a moment by Ricky’s chair, long enough to gather the pods together on the paper she had put down for them, piling them up in a more orderly fashion than she was capable of.

  “Doing what?” Val inquired. “You know that Lucy has chased everyone out of the house. And now that Rod has finished setting out the lawn sports, what is there left to do? By the way, did Sam mend that croquet mallet, the one with the loose head?”

  “The one that you broke hitting the stone with when you aimed at your ball yesterday?” she asked sweetly. “Yes, I saw to that this morning.”

  “Then what more is there to worry about? Let the party begin.” Val reached for his box of pencils.

  That afternoon promptly at three-thirty the Ralestones of Pirate’s Haven were going to give their first party. They had lived, eaten, and slept with the idea of a party for the past week until Rupert rebelled and disappeared for the morning, taking Charity with him. He declared before he left that the house was no longer habitable for anyone above the mental level of a party-mad monomaniac, a statement with which Val privately agreed. But Ricky did trap him before he got the roadster out and made him promise to bring home two pounds of salted nuts and some more ice, because she simply knew that they wouldn’t have enough.

  Ricky dropped the last of the p
eas into the bowl and leaned back in her canvas deck-chair. “I’m going to wear green,” she murmured dreamily, “with that leaf thing in my hair. And Charity’s going to wear her rose, the one that swishes when she walks.”

  “I think I’ll appear in saffron,” Val announced firmly. “Somehow I feel like saffron. How about you, Rod?”

  The thin, efficient, brown-faced person who was Roderick St. Jean de Roche Ralestone, to grant him his full name, stretched lazily and transferred a fistful of Ricky’s peas to his mouth, a mouth which was no longer sullen. At Val’s question he raised his shoulders in one of his French shrugs and considered.

  “Yellow, with lilies behind mah ears,” he grinned at Ricky. “Bettah give them somethin’ to stare at; they’ll all be powerful interested, anyway.”

  “Yes, the lost viscount,” Val agreed. “Of course, you’re really only a Lord like me, but it sounds better to say ‘the lost viscount.’ You’ll share the limelight with Rupert and the Luck, so you’d better take that pair of my flannels which haven’t turned quite yellow yet.”

  Rod shook his head. “This time Ah have mah own. Ah went in town shoppin’ yesterday. It’s mah turn to share clothes. Youah brothah told me to get yo’ some shirts. So Ah did. Lucy put them in the top drawer.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Val begged, aroused by this news, “that we are actually able to afford some new clothes again?”

  Rod nodded and Ricky sat up. “Don’t be silly,” she said, “we’re comfortably well off. With Rupert writing books, and a lot of oil or something in the swamp, why, what have we got to worry about? And next fall Rod’s going to college and I’m taking that course in dress designing and Rupert’s going to write another book and—and—” Her inventive powers failed as Holmes came out on the terrace.

  “Hello there.” Val glanced at his watch. “I don’t want to seem inhospitable, but you’re about four hours too early. We haven’t even crawled into our party duds.”

  “So I see. But this isn’t a social call. By the way, where’s Charity?”

  “Oh, she went off with Rupert this morning,” answered Ricky. “And I think it was mean of them, running out on us that way, when there was so much to do.”

  It seemed to Val that there was a faint shadow of irritation across the open good nature of Holmes’ smile when he heard her answer. “That damsel is becoming very elusive nowadays,” he observed as he sat down. “But now for business.”

  “More business? Not another oil-well!” Ricky expressed her surprise vividly with upflung hands.

  “Not an oil-well, no. Just this—” He pulled Val’s black note-book from his pocket. “Now I am not going to tell you that I have shown them to a publisher and that he wants fifty thousand or so at five dollars apiece. But I did show them to that friend I spoke of. He isn’t very well known at present but he will be some day. His name is Fenly Moss and he is interested in animated cartoons. He has some ideas that sound rather big to me.

  “Fen says that these animal drawings of yours show promise and he wants to know whether you ever thought of trying something along his line?”

  Val shook his head, impatient to hear the rest.

  “Well, he’s in town right now on his vacation and he’s coming out to see you tomorrow. I advise you, Ralestone, that if Fen makes you the proposition I think he’s going to, to grab it. It’ll mean hard work for you and plenty of it, but there is a future to it.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” the boy began when Holmes frowned at him half-seriously. “None of that. I was really doing Fen a favor, but you needn’t tell him that. Do you know how long Charity and your brother are going to be gone?”

  “No. But they’ll be back for lunch,” Ricky said. “If they remember lunch—they’re getting so vague lately. Val went out to call them to dinner last night and it took him a good five minutes to get them out of the garden.”

  “Five? Nearer ten,” scoffed her brother.

  Holmes got up abruptly. “Well, I’ll be drifting. When is this binge of yours?”

  “Three-thirty, which really means four,” answered Ricky. “Aren’t you going to stay to lunch?”

  The New Yorker shook his head. “Sorry, I’ve another engagement. Thanks just the same.”

  “Thank you!” Val waved the note-book as he vanished. “Wonder why he hurried off that way?”

  “Mad to think that Miss Charity was gone,” answered Rod shrewdly. “Yo’ve had that board long enough.” He calmly possessed himself of Val’s drawing equipment. “Time to rest.”

  “Yes, grandfather,” his cousin assented meekly.

  Ricky slapped at a fly. “It seems to get hotter and hotter,” she said. From the breast pocket of her sport dress she produced a handkerchief and mopped her face. Then she looked at the handkerchief in surprise.

  “What’s the matter? Some face come off along with the paint?” asked Val.

  “No. But I just remembered what this is—our clue!”

  “You mean the handkerchief we found in the hall? I wonder who—”

  Rod reached up and took it out of her hand.

  “Mine. Miss Charity gave me a dozen last Christmas.”

  “Then you left it there,” Ricky laughed. “Well, that solves the last of our mysteries.”

  “All present or accounted for,” Val agreed as around the house came Rupert and their tenant.

  “So there you are,” began Ricky. “And I’d like to know what you’ve been doing all morning—”

  “Would you really?” asked Rupert.

  Ricky stared at him for a long moment and then she arose before transferring her gaze to Charity. It might have been sunburn or the heat Ricky had complained of which colored the cheeks of the Boston Biglow.

  “Rod! Val!” cried Ricky. “Where are your manners?” As she sank forward in a deep and graceful curtsy she added, “Can’t you see that Rupert has brought home his Marchioness?”

  “Now that,” said Val, as he held out his hand to the new mistress of Pirate’s Haven, “is what I call ‘Ralestone Luck.’”

  RIDE PROUD, REBEL! (1961)

  FROM GENERAL N. BEDFORD FORREST’S FAREWELL TO HIS COMMAND, MAY 9, 1865, GAINESVILLE, ALABAMA.

  The cause for which you have so long and so manfully struggled, and for which you have braved dangers, endured privations and sufferings, and made so many sacrifices, is today hopeless.…

  Civil war, such as you have passed through naturally engenders feelings of animosity, hatred and revenge. It is our duty to divest ourselves of all such feelings; and, as far as in our power to do so, to cultivate friendly feelings toward those with whom we have so long contended, and heretofore so widely, but honestly, differed.…

  …In bidding you farewell, rest assured that you carry with you my best wishes for your future welfare and happiness. Without, in any way, referring to the merits of the cause in which we have been engaged, your courage and determination, as exhibited on many hard-fought fields, have elicited the respect and admiration of friend and foe. And I now cheerfully and gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to the officers and men of my command, whose zeal, fidelity and unflinching bravery have been the great source of my success in arms.

  I have never, on the field of battle, sent you where I was unwilling to go myself; nor would I now advise you to a course which I felt myself unwilling to pursue. You have been good soldiers; you can be good citizens. Obey the laws, preserve your honor, and the Government to which you have surrendered can afford to be, and will be, magnanimous.

  N. B. Forrest, Lieutenant General

  CHAPTER 1

  Ride with Morgan

  The stocky roan switched tail angrily against a persistent fly and lipped water, dripping big drops back to the surface of the brook. His rider moved swiftly, with an economy of action, to unsaddle, wipe the besweated back with a wisp of last year’s dried grass, and wash down each mud-spattered leg with stream water. Always care for the mount first—when a man’s life, as well as the safety of his missi
on, depended on four subordinate legs more than on his own two.

  Though he had little claim to a thoroughbred’s points, the roan was as much a veteran of the forces as his groom, with all a veteran’s ability to accept and enjoy small favors of the immediate present without speculating too much concerning the future. He blew gustily in pleasure under the attention and began to sample a convenient stand of spring green.

  His mount cared for, Drew Rennie swung up saddle, blanket, and the meager possessions which he had brought out of Virginia two weeks ago, to the platform in a crooked tree overhanging the brook. He settled beside them on the well-seasoned timbers of the old tree house to rummage through his saddlebags.

  The platform had been there a long time—before Chickamauga and the Ohio Raid, before the first roll of drums in ’61. Drew pulled a creased shirt out of the bags and sat with it draped over one knee, remembering.…

  Sheldon Barrett and he—they had built it together one hot week in summer—had named it Boone’s Fort. And it was the only thing at Red Springs Drew had really ever owned. His dark eyes were fixed now on something more than the branches about him, and his mouth tightened until his face was not quite sullen, only shuttered.

  Five years ago—only five years? Yes, five years next month! But the past two years of his own personal freedom—and war—those seemed to equal ten. Now there was no one left to remember the fort’s existence, which made it perfect for his present purpose.

  The warmth of the sun, beating down through yet young leaves, made Drew brush his battered slouch hat to the flooring and luxuriate in the heat. Sometimes he didn’t think he’d ever get the bite of last winter’s cold out of his bones. The light pointed up every angle of jaw and cheekbone, making it clear that experience—hard experience—and not years had melted away boyish roundness of chin line, narrowed the watchful eyes ever alert to his surroundings. A cavalry scout was wary, or he ceased to be a scout, or maybe even alive.

  Shirt in hand, Drew dropped lightly to the ground and with the same dispatch as he had cared for his horse, made his own toilet, scrubbing his too-thin body with a sigh of content as heartfelt as that the roan had earlier voiced.