The Man the Martians Made
Page 4
size twelves, but I felt much morecomfortable in a size or two larger than that.
What made it worse, Molly liked me. I was involved with her, but no oneknew how much. No one knew whether we'd quarreled or not, or howinsanely jealous I could be. No one knew whether Molly had onlypretended to like Ned while carrying a torch for me, and how dangerouslycomplex the situation might have become all along the line.
I stood very still, listening. The whispering was so loud now it drownedout the sighing of the wind. I looked down at my shoes. They were cakedwith mud and soggy and discolored. Day after day I'd trudge back andforth from the canal to the shacks in the blazing sunlight withoutgiving my feet a thought until the ache in them had become intolerable,rest an absolute necessity.
There was only one thing to do--call Kenny's bluff so fast he wouldn'thave time to hurl another accusation at me.
I handed Bill both of my shoes. He looked at me and nodded. I waited,listening to the whispering rise and fall, watching him stoop and fitthe shoes into the prints on the sand.
He straightened suddenly. His face was expressionless, but I could seethat he was waging a terrible inward struggle with himself.
"Your shoes come pretty close to filling out those prints, Tom," hesaid. "I can't be sure--but a wax impression test should pretty wellclear this up." He gripped my arm and nodded toward the shacks. "Betterstick close to me."
Kenny took a slow step backward, his jaw tightening, his eyes searchingBill's face. "Wax impression test, hell!" he said. "You've got yourmurderer. I'm going to see he gets what's coming to him--right now!"
Bill shook his head. "I'll do this my way," he said.
Kenny glared at him, then laughed harshly. "You won't have a chance," hesaid. "The boys won't stand for it. I'm going to spread the word around,and you'd better not try to stop me."
That did it. I'd been holding myself in, but I had a sudden,overpowering urge to send my fist crashing into Kenny's face, to sendhim crashing to the sand. I started for him, but he jumped back andstarted shouting.
I can't remember exactly what he shouted. But he said just enough to puta noose around my neck. Every man and woman between the shacks and thewell swung about to stare at me. I saw shock and rage flare in the eyesof men who usually had steady nerves. They were not calm now--not one ofthem.
IV
It all happened so fast I was caught off balance. In the harsh Martiansunlight human emotions can be as unstable as a wind-lashed dune.
A crazy thought flashed through my mind: Will Molly believe this too?Will she join these madmen in their wild thirst for vengeance? My needfor her was suddenly overwhelming. Just seeing her face would havehelped, but now more men had emerged from the shacks and I couldn't seebeyond them. They were heading straight for me and I knew that even Billwould be powerless to stop them.
You can't argue with an avalanche. It was rolling straight toward me,gathering momentum as it came--not one man or a dozen, but a solid wallof human hate and unreason.
Bill stood his ground. He had drawn his gun, and he started shoutingthat the prints couldn't have been made by my shoes. I chalked that upto his credit and resolved never to forget it.
I knew I'd have to make a dash for it. I ran as fast as I could, keepingmy eyes on the glimmer of sunlight on rising dunes, and deep hollowswhich a carefully placed bullet could have quickly changed into a burialmound.
A sudden crackling burst of gunfire ripped through the air. Directly inmy path the sand geysered up as the bullets ripped and tore at it.Somebody wasn't a good marksman, or had let blind rage unnerve him andspoil his aim. A lot of somebodies--for the firing increased and becamealmost continuous for an instant, a dull crackling which drowned out thewhispering and the sighing of the wind.
Then abruptly all sound ceased. Utter stillness descended on thedesert--an unnatural, terrifying stillness, as if nature herself hadstopped breathing and was waiting for someone to scream.
I must have been mad to turn. A weaving target has a chance, but atarget standing motionless is a sitting duck and his life hangs by ahair. But still I turned.
Something was happening between the well and the shacks which halted thepursuit dead in its tracks. One of the shacks was wrapped in dartingtongues of flame, and a woman was screaming, and a man close to her wasgrappling with something huge and misshapen which loomed starkly againstthe dawn glow.
A human shape? I could not be sure. It seemed monstrous, with a bulgebetween its shoulders which gave a grotesque and distorted aspect to theshadow which its weaving bulk cast upon the sand. I could see the shadowclearly across three hundred feet of sand. It lengthened and shortened,as if an octopus-like ferocity had given it the power to distort itselfat will, lengthening its tentacles and then whipping them back again.
But it was not an octopus. It had legs and arms, and it was crushing theman in a grip of steel. I could see that now. I stared as the otherswere staring, their backs turned to me, their blind hatred for meblotted out by that greater horror.
I suddenly realized that the shape was human. It had the head andshoulders of a man, and a torso that could twist with muscular purpose,and massive hands that could maul and maim. It threw the hapless manfrom it with a sudden convulsive contraction of its entire bulk. I hadnever seen a human being move in quite that way, but even as itsviolence flared its manlike aspect became more pronounced.
A frightful thing happened then. The woman screamed and rushed towardthe brutish maniac with her fingers splayed. The swaying figure bent,grabbed her about the waist, and lifted her high into the air. I thoughtfor a moment he was about to crush her as he had crushed the man. But Iwas wrong. She was hurled to the sand, but with a violence so brutalthat she went instantly limp.
Then the brutal madman turned, and I saw his face. If ever monstrouscruelty and malign cunning looked out of a human countenance it lookedout of the eyes that stared in my direction, remorseless in their hate.
I could not tear my gaze from his face. The hate in it could be sensed,even across a blinding haze of sunlight that blotted out the sharpcontours of physical things. But more than hate could be sensed. Therewas something tremendous about that face, as if the evil which hadravaged it had left the searing brand of Lucifer himself!
For an instant the madman stood motionless, his ghastly brutalityunchallenged. Then Jeff Winters started for it. Jeff had come to Marsalone and grown more solitary with every passing day. He was a brooding,ingrown man, secretive and sullen, with a streak of wildness which heusually managed to control. He went for the madman like a giganticterrier pup, shaggy and ferocious and contemptuous of death.
The big figure turned quickly, raised his arm, and brought his closedfist down on Jeff's skull. Jeff collapsed like a shattered plaster cast.His body seemed to break and splinter, and he sprawled forward on thesand.
He did not get up.
Frank Anders had guns on both hips, and he drew them fast. No one knewwhat kind of man Anders was. He hardly ever complained or made aspectacle of himself. A little guy with sandy hair and cold blue eyes,he had an accuracy of aim that did his talking for him.
His guns suddenly roared. For an instant the air between his hands andthe maniac was a crackling wall of flame. The brute swayed a little butdid not turn aside. He went straight for Anders with both arms spreadwide.
He caught Anders about the waist, lifted him up, and slammed his bodydown against the sand. A sickness came over me as I stared. The madmanbashed Anders' head against the ground again and again. Then suddenlythe big arms relaxed and Anders sagged limply to the ground.
For an instant the madman swayed slowly back and forth, like ablood-stained marionette on a wire. Then he moved forward with aterrible, shambling gait, his head lowered, a dark, misshapen shadowseeming to lengthen before him on the sand like a spindle of flame.
The clearing was abruptly tumultuous with sound. The fury which had beenunleashed against me turned upon the monster and became a closed circleof deadly, intent purpose hemming him in--and he was ca
ught in acrossfire that hurled him backwards to the sand.
He jumped up and lunged straight for the well. What happened then waslike the awakening stages of some horrible dream. The madman shambledpast the well, the air at his back a crackling sheet of flame. Thebarrage behind him was continuous and merciless. The men were organizednow, standing together in a solid wall, firing with deadly accuracy anda grim purpose which transcended fear.
The madman went clumping on past me and climbed a dune with hisshoulders held straight. With a sunset glare deepening about him, hewent striding over the dune and out of sight.
* * * * *
I turned and stared back at the camp. The pursuit had passed the welland was headed for me. But no one paid the slightest attention to me.Twelve men passed me, walking three abreast. Bill came along in theirwake, his eyes stony hard. He reached out as he passed me, gripping myshoulder, giving me