by Lon Williams
Light reappeared.
This time it was he who was enveloped. In panic, he turned to flee.
Then he saw her. She stood before him, blocked his retreat.
“Miss Neverland!” he whispered, his throat tight.
“Yes, Winters,” she replied calmly. “I am Collinda Neverland.”
She was as Myra had described her, small, slender, dreamlike in beauty. She did not have that smile which had caused great division of opinion. Rather, she looked sad and forlorn.
Winters tried to swallow. He said squeakily, “Sorry I spied on you like this. If you’ll let me by, I’ll be on my way.”
She remained unmoved, said in disappointment, “I had not expected you, Winters. Why did you come?”
He gulped and said something about duty. “I come to arrest a murderer.”
“You shouldn’t have bothered. Since you’ve troubled yourself, however, you may come with me.”
“W-where are we going?”
Her manner was surprisingly exultant then. “Jason Inbred has come back. He is even now searching for my jewels.”
“H-he’s my man,” said Winters. “W-where’s he looking?”
“He is in my dressing room. Come, I will show you.”
She moved around him and lighted his way down a long aisle, up a flight of steps and along a backstage corridor. Ahead of them, light spread from a side room.
Collinda stopped, faced Winters again. “I have no relatives, Winters, nor any loved one. Nor have I, in my present abode, further need for rubies and diamonds. You are known to be generous, kind, and altogether deserving. What I have, therefore, I give to you. After tonight you will never see or hear me again. There are thirty panels in my room. Beginning at its door and proceeding left, count them bottom up to seven, across to five, then down to three. Press three, then seven, then five, and you will have them. Now, if you are truly brave.”
She moved on. At her dressing room door she disappeared. Winters, scared stiff, stepped inside, his gun hand slapping frantically, but vainly, for his gun.
Inbred, thumping one panel after another along a wall, turned at a sound and saw him. On a dressing table a candle burned; its flame tossed a flickering light. Inbred stared for an instant, then went for his gun. But suddenly there was no light.
Winters clawed at his empty holster, thought that either he had gone mad or that he was in a dreadful nightmare. With inspiration conceived in deadly peril, he dropped flat on his face. Flame stabbed from Inbred’s gun until six shots had roared deafeningly.
Awe-inspiring silence followed. Winters stared into smoke-filled blackness.
If there were such things as miracles, he was sure he witnessed one then. Over by Inbred pale light appeared. Winters saw Inbred standing there, lips parted in terror. He turned slowly, eyes wide as if staring at approaching doom.
He screamed, “No! No!”
Winters saw what he supposed Inbred had seen—a shining dagger, pointed at Inbred’s heart. It drew away, poised for an instant, then in a curving sweep plunged itself home.
Inbred’s scream encompassed all that was imaginable respecting terror and pain. His collapse, slow at first, ended with a thud and a sigh. Even Winters, whose sympathy for erring mortals was slight, felt pity.
When Inbred had fallen, Winters felt a touch at his side. Warily he moved his right hand to discover what had touched him. He found his gun in its holster, there was no other touch, nor any other sound.
THE DANCING TREES
Real Western Stories, August 1957
Deputy Marshal Lee Winters, nervous and confused from his recent skirmish with death, got caught by darkness in that cliff-bound, ghostly region southeast of Forlorn Gap significantly known and dreaded as Plutonia. A full, late-winter moon—which had risen soon after nightfall—cast weird patterns of light and shadow not at all conducive to peace of mind. Winters rode in hazy, constant dread and started fearfully at every new sound. When reality and fancy merged and became inseparable, he was scared even more, for then imagination alone limited the creation of bogies.
After an indefinite time of clatter and echo, he came to Little Dog Creek, where his horse Cannon Ball stopped to drink. Winters, reminded that he, too, was uncommonly thirsty, swung down, lay flat on his stomach and touched his lips to Little Dog’s bracing, clear water. Afterwards he washed his face to remove what he had thought was a trickle of blood.
But as he alternately washed and looked at his hands, he saw no stain, from this, he guessed that his gunfight with a wanted monkey at Monte Gaut’s ranch had ended luckier for him than he’d thought. Certainly he had been stunned and was still dizzy from concussion. Nevertheless, he reckoned that this supposed trickle on his face had been only a product of fear, hence was sweat, not blood.
He was about to remount when a peevish, quarrelsome voice startled him. “So it’s you again, Winters.”
He whirled, ready for fight. What he saw, however, relieved his scare. Opposite to where he had knelt to wash his face, a small creature in human form sat at ease on a large stone. “Who are you?” Lee asked inhospitably.
“Humph! I’m surprised you don’t know me. I’m Elbert Vittitoe, mostly called Little Vittitoe in my day. Prospector, I was.”
Winters swallowed, suspecting that here was a ghost. “W-what are you doing there?”
“Oh, I live hereabouts,” Vittitoe replied casually. “They’s heaps of us lives hereabouts, Winters. Where you headed for?”
“I’m headed for home,” Winters replied unsociably.
“Forlorn Gap?”
“Yes. “
“Thinking of riding through Tallyho Canyon?”
“It it’s any of your business, yes.”
“I wouldn’t do it, Winters,” Vittitoe declared loftily.
“Why wouldn’t you?” Winters demanded with mounting resentment.
“Now, look here, Winters,” Vittitoe said impatiently, “why do I have to give a reason for everything? Ain’t my advice good enough without a lot of explaining? When I tell a man something important, I expect him to listen and not ask foolish questions. I said I wouldn’t go through Tallyho, if I was you, and I meant it or I wouldn’t have said it. You never did have much sense, Winters. You was always one of them fellers nobody couldn’t tell him nothing; it’s a mystery to me how you’ve managed to get along.”
“I can say that for you, too,” Winters responded warmly. “A runt like you ought to crawl in a knothole in some big tree and live with squirrels. I ain’t seen a desert rat yet that had goose-sense, and I figure you ain’t no exception. Taking advice from you would be like taking pills from a horse doctor. Good-night, and I hope a billy-goat chews your whiskers off.”
Little Vittitoe got up and shook a fist at Winters as he mounted and headed homeward. “I don’t have to hope for what’ll happen to you, Lee Winters; I know what will happen. I expect you’ll be squeezed as tight as a greasy rawhide.”
* * * *
Winters dismissed Vittitoe from his mind and soon afterwards turned into a canyon whose walls rose straight up so high their rims seemed set with stars. This, he recognized fearfully, was Tallyho. It helped little to reflect that he had hoped to ride through it by daylight, for it was not daylight now. Somewhere he had been delayed— possibly by lapse into unconsciousness. Indeed, now that he reflected upon it, his progress from Monte Gaut’s had been in great jumps between things distinctly remembered and periods of hazy dream, fear-filled and haunted by nameless images and imagined perils.
Now abruptly he remembered Little Vittitoe’s admonition against riding through Tallyho Canyon. Maybe he should have taken that advice, he thought with a cold shiver. Off to his left, where a smooth patch of ground lay, a circular path had been beaten. Stranger still, around that path two men were running, a pursued and a pursuer. Around and around they went, until they spied Winters; they stopped and stared at him.
He who had pursued closed his right fist and twisted it in a gesture of determinati
on. “Loan me that horse, Winters.”
Winters had pulled up. “I ain’t about to,” he said grouchily. “Who are you, anyhow? And why do you and that other bozo go ’round and ’round in a circle?”
“Winters, what I’ve heard about you is apparently true. You, if I may speak bluntly, are a most ignorant and unenlightened person, as well as one who would pass reasonably well for a tramp. And who am I? Sir, my name is Post Poner. He whom I pursue, and have pursued for so many ages, is known as Tempus Fugit. Why do I pursue him? Winters, even so simple a person as you should be able to answer that; I pursue him because I’m trying to catch him.”
“Well, well,” Winters commented sarcastically, “there could hardly be a more sensible reason than that.”
“Yet there is, Winters,” said Poner, “though I doubt if you have mental capacity for understanding it. In my young days I was ambitious but, unfortunately, given to putting off important decisions. It resulted that when opportunity at last presented itself, I was a little late. In other words, I was behind time. Angry beyond measure, I resolved that such should never happen to me again. In short, I determined to catch up with time.”
Winters pointed with his thumb. “You mean that other feller is time?”
“Winters,” said Poner, “for once you have shown a spark of intelligence. That other fellow, indeed, is time.”
Poner was tall, athletic. Tempus Fugit seemed frail, hardly meat and bone enough to command a second look. Judged half-heartedly, he was of small value. Both men were nude, except for loin cloths, sandals and—in Fugit’s case—ankle contraptions that looked like small wings.
“Can’t figure it,” said Winters with a feeling of contempt. “You look much bigger and faster than him. Why can’t you catch him?”
“Winters, I give you credit for sense not indicated by your unimpressive appearance. That is a question I’ve often asked myself. Why can’t I catch him? But there’s been no answer. Whether I go fast or slow, Tempus keeps his distance ahead of me. It never varies. Let me show you.”
* * * *
Poner started at a trot; so did Fugit. When suddenly Poner put on speed, Fugit did likewise. Failure to gain must have enraged Poner. He speeded up until all that Winters could see was a circular, luminous blur.
Tiring of what appeared to him a great piece of nonsense, Winters was about to ride on when another figure caught his eye. This one was raggedly dressed and stooped. He walked about aimlessly, but continually looked down.
“Be-confound!” Lee exclaimed. “What kind of queer business is this? What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing, Winters, if it’s any concern of yours.”
“I reckon it ain’t,” said Winters. “That don’t keep me from being curious, however. Who are you and what are you looking for?”
Without desisting from his search, this shabby stranger flung back his insulting reply. “Winters, I can say only one complimentary thing about you. I must admit that you ride a fine, big horse. It’s too bad that such a magnificent animal has to be disfigured by having for a rider one so uncouth and insignificant looking as yourself. In forgiveness of your bad manners, sir, my name is Regretful Shade. As to what I’m doing, it is quite simple. I’m looking for yesterday, which I lost hereabouts.”
In his night rides through Forlorn Gap’s surrounding mountains, Winters had encountered some mighty odd characters. Yet he couldn’t recall having before seen such queer ones as these.
“Strikes me,” he said, “I’ve run into a bunch of cuckoos.” Once more he was about to leave, when his road was suddenly blocked by two fierce characters with knives. They were going around and around each other, parrying and watching for a chance to make a deadly thrust.
Winters, suspecting suddenly that these monkeys were in cahoots against him for some mysterious reason, became furiously angry. “Get out of my road,” he stormed. “If you’ve got to fight, do it somewheres else.”
They stopped and stared maliciously at Winters. “Ah,” one said with a sneer, “it’s Deputy Marshal Lee Winters. Sir, that’s pretty harsh language to be directed at Hokey Pokey here and Braggy Doshey there.”
“Yeah?” said Winters. Despite their evident craftiness, ferocity and treachery, they were men of excellent stature. “You look like men of moderate good sense,” said Winters discreetly. “Why do you fight?”
Braggy Doshey, darker and fiercer of demeanor than his adversary, put his shoulders back proudly. “Winters, so long ago that time between is without measure, Pokey and I engaged in a manly encounter in which I was victor.”
“It was not a fair fight,” said Pokey sullenly. He eyed Winters wickedly. “I’ll kill anybody who says it was.”
“That has always been his complaint, Winters,” said Doshey. “He keeps coming back and insisting that next time he will win. Countless times we have engaged; each time I have won. Still he is not satisfied. His excuses are inexhaustible. So here we are once more, fighters without equals in life or in death, yet with no better cause for combat than pride and vanity.”
They backed off and once more went at each other. Moonlight glistened from polished, silvery blades. Arms and bodies moved so fast that Winters saw little more than those flashes. While he watched, their treachery swiftly revealed itself. As they whirled about each other, they drew closer and closer to him. Certain that they intended to slice him to shreds, Winters gripped his sixgun, readied himself to meet knives with fire.
But something occurred from an unexpected source, of a nature as unsuspected as it was magic. Winters forgot his peril and listened. From far off in Tallyho Canyon came notes of eerie, enchanting music.
Pokey and Doshey stopped their fight. Regretful Shade quit looking down and stood erect. That circular blur where Poner and Fugit went around and around, disappeared. Pursuer and pursued stood apart and listened, terrible, angry frowns on their faces.
“That wretched Orpheus again!” Poner exclaimed with an angry sigh.
“Always disturbing our endeavors!” sighed Fugit with strange bitterness.
Pokey put away his knife. “Two seconds more, and we would have had another victim,” he said coldly and maliciously.
Doshey momentarily resisted this musical enchantment. He glared at Winters, as a panther about to leap upon its prey. His body quivered with wrath. But soon he, too, thrust his knife into its sheath.
Regretful Shade was last to succumb. “We’ve had enough of this,” he said menacingly. “Orpheus must die.”
Frowns which at first had distorted all of their faces melted into reluctant, embittered surrender.
“Let us go,” said Pokey.
“Yes,” said Fugit. “Time flies.”
Winters was puzzled that they should not have liked this music. He could explain their displeasure only in that it had mysteriously deterred them in their purpose to kill him. As for him, never before had he heard music so wonderful. It came from strings instead of pipes. Everything within him stirred in harmony. Sensations of pleasure repeated themselves over and over. Rocks quivered, too. Earth and sky filled with sound, sweet, tender and stirring beyond description. One urge vanquished all else, an irresistible longing to come closer, to be near that enchanting fountain, to drink of it forever.
He pressed Cannon Ball gently and rode forward. Regretful Shade and his evil conspirators trotted rhythmically yet vengefully ahead.
“This Orpheus,” Winters called to Post Poner, “who is he anyhow?”
“That you should ask such a question,” Poner replied pityingly. “Nothing should so proclaim your abysmal ignorance. When hated Orpheus plays his lyre and sings his enchanting songs, streams of water change their courses to be near him, all things that live give ear to sweet forgetfulness, even those long dead awake to listen. Yet you would ask, Who is this Orpheus!”
“That’s one way to find out,” said Winters.
With further progress, his mind cleared as to who Orpheus was. Myra Winters had read to him, Lee now remembered, somethi
ng about a musician by that name. According to his recollection from old books, Orpheus was a faithful lover, as well as a wondrous musician. He had married a beautiful maiden who, according to Myra’s pronunciation, was named U-riddy-see. In print it was Eurydice. Lee called it Eurie Dice, but as to which was correct he would have bet on Myra’s version any day.
Again, according to books, Eurydice was of such beauty that gods cast longing eyes upon her—which meant, of course, that wives of those lustful gods saw her through eyes of envy and jealousy. When Orpheus married her, the interest of divinities did not cease. Somebody— whether male or female he could not recall—arranged for a snake to bite poor lovely Eurydice, from which bite she died.
Winters’ recollections were interrupted by appearance of an extraordinary scene, encountered when he had rounded a turn in Tallyho Canyon. Tallyho was much wider here, its floor a green, grass-carpeted flat, a large portion of it encircled by aspen trees. Just ahead on a stone, crudely carved to resemble a chair, sat a young man with a lyre whose strings he touched dreamily.
Winters and his companions slowed and stared intently. A spell of rhythmic motion kept them swaying gently.
“Accursed Orpheus!” Winters heard Poner mutter in a tone of deep, murderous hatred.
Those other queer characters struggled vainly against their spell. Their hatred of Winters was surpassed only by their hatred of Orpheus. They spread apart, became stealthy in their movements, thus betrayed an intent to surround and attack that most hated one.
Winters, resentful of their criminal intentions, rode forward until he was within a few feet of Orpheus. Here he saw a young man in tunic and sandals of such charm as he had before seen only in women. His face was fair, beardless and without blemish. His hair, seen by moonlight strangely brilliant now, was lighter than gold, thick with waves and almost long enough to touch his shoulders. In profile he looked weary. His head was bent, as in sleep.
When Cannon Ball’s shadow stirred at his feet, Orpheus glanced up, startled. His fingers became motionless. Sounds of movement ceased, except when musical echoes revived them briefly. After staring a moment Orpheus brightened into alert expectancy. He did not salute his visitor, as man to man, but touched his lyre, played joyously, and as strings vibrated spoke gently in song:
