She walked softly out of the shadow and dropped beside him, a slim, pretty girl a year younger than his seventeen years. They had been married less than a year; Linc was still amazed that Cassie could have loved him in spite of his bald, gleaming cranium. He ran his fingers through Cassie’s glossy, black hair, delighting in the sensuous feel of it, and the way it ran rippling across his palm.
“Tired, hon?”
“Nope. You feeling bad, Linc?”
“It’s nothing,” he said.
“You been acting funny ever since we raided that town,” Cassie murmured, taking his brown hand and tracing a pattern with her forefinger across the calloused palm. “You figure that wasn’t on the beam for us to do, maybe.”
“I dunno, Cassie,” he sighed, his arm circling her waist. “It’s the third raid this year—”
“You ain’t questioning Jesse James Hartwell?”
“S’pose I am?”
“Well, then,” Cassie said demurely, “you better start considering a quick drift for the two of us. Jesse don’t like no arguments.”
“No more do I,” Linc said. “Maybe there won’t be no more raids now we’re southering.”
“We got full bellies, anyhow, and that’s more than we had across the Canada line. I never saw a winter like this, Linc.”
“It’s been cold,” he acknowledged. “We can make out. Only thing is—”
“What?”
“I kinda wish you’d been along on the raids. I can’t talk to nobody else about it. I felt funny. There was voices inside my head, like.”
“That’s crazy. Or else conjure.”, “I’m no hex man. You know that, Cassie.”
“And you ain’t been smoking crazy weed.” She meant the marijuana that grew wild in the backlands. Her gaze sought his. “Tell me what it’s like, Linc. Bad?”
“It ain’t bad and it ain’t good. It’s mixed up, that’s all. It’s sort of like a dream, only I’m awake. I see pictures.”
“What pictures, Linc?”
“I don’t know,” he said, looking into the darkness where the brook chuckled and splashed. “Because half the time it ain’t me when that happens. I get hot and cold inside. Sometimes it’s like a music in my head. But when we raided that town it was plain bad, Cassie hon.” He seized a bit of wood and tossed it away. “I was like that chip tossed around in the water. Everything was pulling at me every which way.”
Cassie kissed him gently. “Don’t pay no mind to it. Everybody gets mixed up once in a while. Once we get more south, and the hunting’s good, you’ll forget your vapors.”
“I can forget ’em now. You make me feel better, just being with you. I love the smell of your hair, sweet.” Linc pressed his face against the cool, cloudy darkness of the girl’s braids.
“Well, I won’t cut it, then.”
“You better not. You got to have enough hair for both of us.”
“You think that matters to me, Linc? Boone Curzon’s bald, and he’s plenty handsome.”
“Boone’s old, near forty. That’s why. He had hair when he was young.”
Cassie pulled up some moss and patted it into shape on Linc’s head. She smiled at him half-mockingly. “How’s that? Ain’t nobody anywhere that’s got green hair. Feel better now?”
He wiped his scalp clean, pulled Passie closer and kissed her. “Wish I never had to leave you. I ain’t troubled when you’re around. Only these raids stir me up.”
“Won’t be no more of ’em, I guess.”
Linc looked into the dimness. His young face, seamed and bronzed by his rugged life, was suddenly gloomy. Abruptly he stood up.
“I got a hunch Jesse James Hartwell’s planning another.”
“Hunch?” She watched him, troubled. “Maybe it ain’t so.”
“Maybe,” Linc said doubtfully. “Only my hunches work pretty good most times.” He glanced back toward the fire. His shoulders squared.
“Linc?”
“He’s figgering on it, Cassie. Sitting there thinking about the chow we got at that last town. It’s his belly working on him. I ain’t going to string along with him.”
“You better not start nothing.”
“I’m gonna . . . talk to him,” Linc said almost inaudibly, and moved into the gloom of the trees. From the circle of firelight a man sent out a questioning challenge; the eerie hoot of an owl, mournful and sobbing. Linc understood the inflection and answered with the caw of a raincrow. Hedgehounds had a language of their own that they used in dangerous territory, for there was no unity among the tribes, and some Hedgehounds were scalpers. There were a few cannibal groups, too, but these degenerates were hated and killed by the rest whenever opportunity offered.
Linc walked into camp. He was a big, sturdy, muscular figure, his strong chest arched under the fringed buckskin shirt he wore, his baldness concealed now by a squirrelhide cap. Temporary shelters had been rigged up, lean-tos, thatched with leaves, gave a minimum of privacy, and several squaws were busily sewing. At the cookpot Bethsheba Hartwell was passing out bear steaks. Jesse James Hartwell, an oxlike giant with a hook nose and a scarred cheek that had whitened half of his beard, ate meat and biscuits with relish, washing them down with green turtle soup—part of the raid’s loot. On an immaculate white cloth before him was spread caviar, sardines, snails, chow chow, antipasto, and other dainties that he sampled with a tiny silver fork that was lost in his big, hairy hand.
“C’mon and eat, skinhead,” Hartwell rumbled. “Where’s your squaw? She’ll get mighty hungry.”
“She’s coming,” Linc said. He didn’t know that Cassie was crouching in the underbrush, a bared throwing-knife in her hand. His thoughts were focused on the chief, and he could still sense what he had called his hunch, and which was actually undeveloped telepathy. Yes, Hartwell was thinking about another raid.
Linc took a steak from Bethsheba. It didn’t burn his calloused hands. He squatted near Hartwell and bit into the juicy, succulent meat. His eyes never left the bearded man’s face.
“We’re out of Canada now,” he said at last. “It’s warming up some. We still heading south?”
Hartwell nodded. “You bet. I don’t figure on losing another toe with frostbite. It’s too cold even here.”
“There’ll be hunting, then. And the wild corn’s due soon. We’ll have a-plenty to eat.”
“Pass the biscuits, Bethsheba. Urp. More we eat, Linc, the fatter we’ll get for next winter.”
Linc pointed to the white cloth. “Them don’t fatten you up none.”
“They’re good anyhow. Try some of these here fish eggs.”
“Yeah—pfui. Where’s the water?”
Hartwell laughed. Linc said, “We going north come summer?”
“We ain’t voted on it yet. I’d say no. Me, I’d rather head south.”
“More towns. It ain’t safe to go on raiding, Jesse.”
“Nobody can’t find us once we get back in the woods.”
“They got guns.”
“You scared?”
“I ain’t scared of nothing,” Linc said. “Only I sort of know you’re thinking about another raid. And I’m telling you to count me out.” Hartwell’s heavy shoulders hunched. He reached for a sardine, ate it slowly, and then turned his head toward the boy. His lids were half-lowered.
“Yaller?” But he made it a question, so a fight wasn’t obligatory.
“You seen me fight a grizzly with a knife.”
“I know,” Hartwell said, rubbing the white streak in his beard. “A guy can turn yaller, though. I ain’t saying that’s it, understand. Just the same, nobody else is trying to back out.”
“On that first raid we was starving. The second—well, that might pass too. But I don’t see no percentage in raiding just so you can eat fish eggs and worms.”
“That ain’t all of it, Linc. We got blankets, too. Things like that we needed. Once we lay our hands on a few guns—”
“Getting too lazy to pull a bow?”
“If you’re s
poiling for a fight,” Hartwell said slowly, “I can oblige you. Otherwise shut up.”
Linc said, “O.K. But I’m serving notice to count me out on any more raids.”
In the shadows Cassie’s hand tightened on the dagger’s hilt. But Hartwell suddenly laughed and threw his steakbone at Linc’s head. The boy ducked and glowered.
“Come the day your belt starts pinching, you’ll change your mind,” Hartwell said. “Forget about it now. Git that squaw of yours and make her eat; she’s too skinny.” He swung toward the woods. “Cassie! C’mon and have some of this fish soup.”
Linc had turned away, readjusting his cap. His face was less somber now, though it was still thoughtful. Cassie holstered her knife and came out into the firelight. Hartwell beckoned to her.
“Come and get it,” he said.
The air was peaceful again. No more friction developed, though Linc, Cassie knew, was in a quarrelsome mood. But Hartwell’s good humor was proof against any but direct insults. He passed around the whiskey bottle he had looted—a rare treat, since the tribe could distill smoke only when they settled for a while, which wasn’t often. Linc didn’t drink much. Long after the fire had been smothered and snores came from the lean-tos around him, he lay awake, troubled and tense.
Something—someone—was calling him.
It was like one of his hunches.
It was like what he had felt during the raids. It was like Cassie’s nearness, and yet there was a queer, exciting difference. There was a friendliness to that strange call that he had never felt before.
Dim and indefinable, a dweller hidden deep in his mind woke and responded to that call of a kindred being.
After a while he rose on one elbow and looked down at Cassie. Her face was partly veiled by the deeper blackness of her hair. He touched its soft, living warmth gently. Then he slipped noiselessly out of the shelter and stood up, staring around.
There was a rustling of leaves, and the chuckling of the brooklet. Nothing else. Moonlight dappled the ground here and there. A wood-rat rustled softly through the wild grasses. The air was very cold and crisp, with a freshness that stung Linc’s cheeks and eyes.
And suddenly he was frightened. Old folktales troubled him. He remembered his foster mother’s stories of men who could turn to wolves, of the Wendigo that swept like a vast wind above the lonely forests, of a Black Man who bought souls—the formless, dark fears of childhood rose up in nightmare reality. He had killed a grizzly with his knife, but he had never stood alone at night in the woods, while a Call murmured in his mind—silently—and made his blood leap up in fiery response.
He was afraid, but the bait was too strong. He turned south, and walked out of the camp. Instinctive training made his progress noiseless. He crossed the brook, his sandals inaudible on the stones, and mounted a slope. And there, sitting on a stump waiting for him, was a man.
His back was toward Linc, and nothing could be seen but the hunched torso and the bald, gleaming head. Linc had a momentary horrible fear that when the man turned, he might see his own face. He touched his knife. The confused stirring in his brain grew chaotic.
“Hello, Linc,” a low voice said.
Linc had made no sound, and he knew it. But, somehow, that dark figure had sensed his approach. The Black Man—?
“Do I look black?” the voice asked. The man stood up, turning. He was sneering—no, smiling—and his face was dark and seamed. He wore town clothes.
But he wasn’t the Black Man. He didn’t have a cloven hoof. And the warm, sincere friendliness subtly radiating from his presence was reassuring to Linc in spite of his suspicions.
“You called me,” Linc said. “I’m trying to figure it out.” His eyes dwelt on the bald cranium.
“My name’s Barton,” the man said. “Dave Barton.” He lifted something gray—a scalp?—and fitted it carefully on his head. The sneer indicated amusement.
“I feel naked without my wig. But I had to show you I was a . . . a—” He sought for the word that would fit the telepathic symbol.
“That you were one of us,” he finished.
“I ain’t—”
“You’re a Baldy,” Barton said, “but you don’t know it. I can read that from your mind.”
“Read my mind?” Linc took a backward step.
“You know what Baldies are? Telepaths?”
“Sure,” Linc said doubtfully. “I heard stories. We don’t know much about town life. Listen,” he said with fresh suspicion, “how’d you come to be out here? How’d—”
“I came looking for you.”
“Me? Why?”
Barton said patiently, “Because you’re one of Us. I can see I’ve got to explain a lot. From the beginning, maybe. So—”
He talked. It might have been more difficult had they not been Baldies. Though Linc was telepathically untrained, he could nevertheless receive enough mental confirmation to clarify the questions in his mind. And Barton spoke of the Blowup, of the hard radiations—so much Greek to Linc, until Barton used telepathic symbolism—and, mostly, of the incredible fact that Linc wasn’t merely a hairless freak in his tribe. There were other Baldies, a lot of them.
That was important. For Linc caught the implications. He sensed something of the warm, deep understanding between telepaths, the close unity of the race, the feeling of belonging that he had never had. Just now, alone in the woods with Barton, he was conscious of more genuine intimacy than he had ever felt before.
He was quick to understand. He asked questions. And, after a while, so did Barton.
“Jesse James Hartwell’s behind the raids. Yeah, I was in on ’em. You mean you all wear them wigs?”
“Naturally. It’s a big civilization, and we belong to it. We’re part of the whole set-up.”
“And . . . and nobody laughs at you for being bald?”
“Do I look bald?” Barton asked. “There are drawbacks, sure. But there are plenty of advantages.”
“I’ll say!” Linc breathed deeply. “People . . . the same sort . . . your own sort—” He was inarticulate.
“The non-Baldies didn’t always give us an even break. They were afraid of us, a little. We’re trained from childhood never to take advantage of our telepathic powers with humans.”
“Yeah, I can see that. It makes sense.”
“Then you know why I came, don’t you?”
“I can sort of understand it,” Linc said slowly. “These raids . . . people might start thinking a Baldy’s involved—I’m a Baldy!”
Barton nodded. “Hedgehounds don’t matter. A few raids—we can take care of them. But to have one of Us involved is bad medicine.”
“I told Jesse James Hartwell tonight I was having no part in any more raiding,” Linc said. “He won’t push me.”
“Yes—That helps. Listen, Linc. Why don’t you come home with me?”
Years of training made Linc pause. “Me? Go into a town? We don’t do that.”
“You?”
“The . . . Hedgehounds. I ain’t a Hedgehound, am I? Gosh, this is—” He rubbed his jaw. “I’m all mixed up, Barton.”
“Tell you what. Come with me now, and see how you like our sort of life. You never were trained to use your telepathic function, so you’re like a half-blind man. Take a look at the set-up, and then decide what you want to do.”
On the verge of mentioning Cassie, Linc paused. He was half afraid that if he spoke of her, Barton might withdraw his offer. And, after all, it wasn’t as if he intended to leave Cassie permanently. It’d be just for a week or two, and then he could come back to the tribe.
Unless he took Cassie with him now—
No. Somehow he’d feel shamed in admitting that he, a Baldy, had married a Hedgehound. Though he was proud of Cassie herself, all right. He’d never give her up. It was only—
He was lonely. He was horribly, sickeningly lonely, and what he had glimpsed in Barton’s mind and Barton’s words drew him with overpowering force. A world where he belonged, where no one
called him skinhead, where he’d never feel inferior to the bearded men of the tribe. A wig of his own.
Just for a few weeks. He couldn’t miss this chance. He couldn’t! Cassie would be waiting for him when he came back.
“I’ll go with you,” he said. “I’m ready right now. O.K.?”
But Barton, who had read Linc’s mind, hesitated before he answered. “O.K.,” he said at last. “Let’s go.”
Three weeks later Barton sat in McNey’s solarium and shaded his eyes wearily with one hand. “Linc’s married, you know,” he said, “to a Hedgehound girl. He doesn’t know we know it.”
“Does it matter?” McNey asked. He was looking very tired and troubled.
“I suppose not. But I thought I’d better mention it, because of Alexa.”
“She knows her own mind. And she must know about Linc being married, too, by this time. She’s been giving him telepathic coaching for weeks.”
“I noticed that when I came in.”
“Yeah,” McNey said, rubbing his forehead. “That’s why we’re being oral. Telepathic conversations distract Linc when there’s more than one; he’s still learning selectivity.”
“How do you like the boy?”
“I like him. He’s not . . . quite what I’d expected, though.”
“He grew up with the Hedgehounds.”
“He’s one of Us,” McNey said with finality.
“No symptoms of paranoid tendencies?”
“Definitely not. Alexa agrees.”
“Good,” Barton said. “That relieves me. It was the one thing I was afraid of. As for the Hedgehound girl, she’s not one of Us, and we can’t afford to weaken the race by intermarriage with humans.
That’s been an axiom almost since the Blowup, My own feeling is that if Linc marries Alexa or any other one of Us, it’s all to the good, and we can forget about previous entanglements.”
“It’s up to her,” McNey said. “Any more Hedgehound raids?”
“No. But they’re the least of my troubles. Sergei Callahan’s gone underground. I can’t locate him, and I want to.”
“Just to kill him?”
“No. He must know other key paranoids. I want to drag that information out of him. He can’t blur his mind permanently—and once I get him where I want, he’ll have few secrets left.”
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