by Mike Resnick
I was struck dumb for a minute. Then I raced out the door and ran for the waterfront with the Major, the Rodent, and the Dutchman close on my heels. When we arrived the Dutchman pointed out the pier where the ship was docked, and we got there just in time to see it putting out to sea.
Von Horst, still dressed in his British police uniform, was standing on the deck, and as his eyes fell upon us a broad smile spread over his face. Then he bowed deeply, straightened up, and gave us a snappy German military salute just before the fog obscured him and the boat (and the Tabernacle of Saint Luke) from my vision.
I left my companions weeping and cursing on the pier, silently promised the Lord never to offer my pearls to swine again, gathered up my few worldly possessions, and left quietly so as not to disturb the desk clerk. Then, pausing only long enough to refresh my spirit at Maurice's, I left the sinful city of Dar-es-Salaam behind me and set forth once again to do the Good Lord's bidding.
Chapter 3
THE VAMPIRE
How I met Herbie Miller and made eighteen thousand dollars in twenty-seven days came about like this:
Shortly after I took my leave of Dar-es-Salaam I did a little computing and figured out that fifty British pounds, which was all I had in my pocket, wasn't quite enough to start building my tabernacle. So I went out into the wilderness (of which there was an awful lot back in those days) and had a little conference with my Silent Partner, Who advised me that if I was to properly carry on His work I'd need considerably more in the way of a grubstake. It was about this time that Karamojo Bell and Deaf Banks and Pondoro Taylor and John Alfred Jordan were making big names and even bigger fortunes for themselves by the killing of elephants, and I figured that with God to guide my bullets, knocking off a few tons of ivory shouldn't be so very difficult.
Of course, I did have a couple of minor problems. For one thing, I didn't know the first thing about tracking or killing elephants, and in fact had never even held a rifle in my hands. For another, elephant licenses were very expensive, though since the Tabernacle of Saint Luke was to be a nonprofit enterprise I felt certain that the purchasing of licenses didn't really apply to me. Just the same, Kenya and Tanganyika were pretty well patrolled by game wardens and various other gendarmes who might view the license situation more narrowly, which meant that I would have to go to the Interior to find my fortune. I had heard tell of huge herds of elephants in the Lado Enclave, a large and savage area just west of Uganda. This wasn't officially in Africa's dark Interior, but it was Interior enough for me, since I didn't know where to begin looking for it.
I took the East African Railway to the railhead in Uganda, a long and arduous trip which left me barely enough money to buy an old military rifle. I spent my last couple of pounds buying bullets, and then asked the local constabulary to direct me to the Enclave. He waved his hand in a northerly direction which covered approximately three-quarters of Uganda, and so, armed only with my rifle and a copy of the Good Book, I began my career as an ivory hunter.
I had walked about fifteen miles when night fell, and I spent a chilly few hours communing with God and Nature out in the African bush. I awoke stiff and hungry, especially hungry, and decided to hone my aim while shooting down a little something for breakfast.
I began walking through the grasslands and came upon an old waterbuck grazing alone. Seventeen shots later he was still grazing, and I began to realize that there was more to hunting than I had been led to believe. After my first two shots thudded home into a tree some fifty feet from him, he didn't even bother to run away, but just stared at me for a moment and then went back to his grazing.
I kept walking north for the better part of a week, living on a diet of fruits and berries, and wondering how I was going to kill an entire herd of elephants unless they stood in a nice long nose-to-tail line so that my bullets were bound to hit something. The vegetation was getting pretty lush, which meant that the ticks and flies and spiders and mosquitoes were out in force. Then one afternoon I saw a native village in the distance, and remembering my experience with Kitunga's friends and relations, I decided to give it a wide berth. As I was doing so I came to an undersized and undernourished white man staked out in the sun.
“Good day to you, brother,” I said, walking up to him.
“Good afternoon, friend,” he replied, turning his head to get a better look at me.
“Lovely day,” I said, wondering what to say or do next.
“Think it may rain, though,” he said.
I looked up at the sky. “Not enough clouds. The rainy season is just about over. By the way, brother, are you trussed up on the ground for any particular reason?”
“None that I happen to agree with, friend,” he said. “It was done to me by a vile and barbarous tribe called the Ankole. I wonder if you, being a God-fearing Christian and a white man to boot, would mind cutting me loose of these here stakes?”
“Well, brother,” I said, “it does seem the Christian thing to do. On the other hand, I passed an Ankole village not too far from here, and they might not understand a gesture of Christian charity.” I sat down beside him to mull it over in my mind. “What did you do that set them against you?”
“They objected to some of my personal tastes and habits,” he said, blinking his eyes to get some of the sweat out.
“You're not some kind of moral degenerate, are you?” I said, my good pious blood starting to boil about the edges.
“Perish the thought, neighbor!” he said vigorously. “It was a simple misunderstanding. Now won't you be a gentleman and cut a fellow white man free?”
“I've got to weigh the question carefully,” I said, shooting a glance in the direction of the village to see if any of them were approaching us.
“Well, in the meantime,” he said, his skin kind of twitching, “you wouldn't have any insect repellent with you, would you, friend?”
“Sorry,” I said. “You must be right uncomfortable.”
“Well, it's getting kind of warm, what with the sun beating down on me and insects crawling all over me,” he admitted. “How about some gin? Being staked out like this is mighty dry work.” A tsetse fly landed on his face and began crawling up his nose.
“What's your name, brother?” I asked, shooing the fly away.
“Miller,” he said. “Herbie Miller, from Amarillo, Texas.”
“Well, I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Brother Miller,” I said, extending my hand and then quickly withdrawing it when I realized that he was in no position to respond in kind. “And I'm the Honorable Doctor Lucifer Jones, pastor of the Tabernacle of Saint Luke.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Herbie. “I'd get up, but...”
“I quite understand, Brother Miller. What's a fellow like you doing out here in the wilderness anyway?”
“I was fighting as a mercenary for the British against the Germans in Tanganyika during the Great War, but they threw me out, and I've been wandering around Africa ever since.”
“Why did they throw you out?” I asked.
“Personality conflict,” he said.
“With the whole British army?”
“I'd like to go into the matter in greater detail,” said Herbie, “but there's a poisonous scorpion crawling up my leg, and I fear that my story may come to an abrupt and painful end if you don't do something about him, Doctor Jones, sir.”
I flicked the scorpion away and stomped on it. Then the Good Lord took a hand in the proceedings and hit me with another of His revelations.
“When you were in the army, did you ever have occasion to fire a rifle?” I asked.
“I most certainly did,” said Herbie. “You know, I'd even settle for a little taste of vodka.”
“How good a shot were you?”
“A crackerjack shot, sir,” said Herbie. “But you needn't worry, Doctor Jones. I'd never turn on the man who set me free, and besides, I don't have any weapons with me.”
“You ever shoot an elephant?” I asked.
“On occasion,” he said. Then his face tensed up. “Don't tell me there's an elephant about to charge us!”
“Wouldn't think of it,” I said, pulling out a jackknife and cutting his bonds.
“Thank you, Doctor Jones,” he said, rising to his feet and rubbing some circulation back into his extremities.
I threw a friendly arm around his shoulders. “Think nothing of it, Brother Miller. After all, what are partners for?”
“Partners?” he said.
I nodded.
We left the area right quick, not wishing to run into any Ankole tribesmen who might not understand the fact that I couldn't leave a fellow white man to the mercies of the elements, and headed on up to the outpost of Arua, just a handful of miles from the Uganda-Congo border.
“How much money do you have?” I asked Herbie.
“Maybe five pounds,” he said, pulling out some faded, miscolored bills and a handful of coins.
“Give it to me,” I said, “and wait for me about a mile west of town.”
“That's all the money I have in the world,” he protested. “How do I know you'll come back?”
I tossed the rifle to him. “Keep this as security.”
He began walking to the west, and I entered the outpost and sought out the local bar. I waited for the better part of an hour, until a pair of men dressed in British military uniforms came in. Inside of five minutes everyone else had left and I walked up to the bar, announcing in a loud voice that I'd like to buy a drink for everyone in the house. They looked around, figured out that I meant them, and invited me to join them at their table.
“Pleased to meet you, brothers,” I said. “I'm the Honorable Right Reverend Doctor Jones, preaching my way across this savage continent.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” said the older of the two men. “I'm Captain Michael Holmes, and this is Lieutenant Richard Thorpe. Where are you heading for?”
“Wherever I can bring peace and contentment to my fellow man,” I said devoutly. “I'll go anyplace where the spirit of these godless savages needs uplifting.”
“That's highly commendable,” said Lieutenant Thorpe. “I wish there were more people like you, Padre.”
“Why, thank you kindly, Brother Thorpe,” I said, signaling the bartender to bring the bottle. “Have another drink.”
We got to talking for a while then, and drinking pretty hard, and before long we were all loosened up and pretty good friends.
“I just think it's wonderful,” said Captain Holmes after a long silence.
“What is?” I asked.
“A man of God going fearlessly through the bush, bringing the Word and the Spirit to the savages.”
“There's no resisting the call once it comes to rest on you, brother,” I said modestly. “However, I'd be Iying if I didn't tell you that I'm far from fearless.”
“Certainly you are,” objected Captain Holmes. “How could you be a coward, rubbing shoulders with cannibals and pygmies and the like?”
“I'll tell you, Brother Holmes,” I said. “Not all of us are afraid of the same things. Now, as for me, I know that all men are God's children, so I don't have no fear when I walk into a native village. But that don't mean I ain't afraid of other things.”
“Such as?”
“Such as elephants, Brother Holmes,” I said with a shudder. “Creatures of Satan they are, with them incredible proboscises and little red eyes, and able to crush the life out of a man so easy-like.” I downed another drink emphatically.
“Nothing to worry about, Padre,” said Thorpe. “There's no elephants within twenty miles of here.”
“A comfort,” I said. “A definite comfort. But my call has been made clear to me, brothers. I got to go through some place called the Conclave or something like that, and I'm told that it's absolutely rife with bloodthirsty pachyderms.”
“You mean the Lado Enclave?” asked Holmes.
“The very spot!” I said. “The very spot indeed. I don't suppose I could, as one good Christian to another, ask one of you gentlemen to escort me safely through there so's I don't fall prey to some elephant's dark and bloodthirsty desires?”
“I'm afraid not, Padre,” said Thorpe. “We're on duty here. But elephants are a pretty peaceful lot, by and large. If you see any, just give them a wide berth.”
“Do one of you gentlemen have a map of the area?” I asked, pouring them each another drink.
Holmes pulled a map out of his vest pocket and unfolded it. “Here you are, Reverend Jones,” he said.
I found the Lado Enclave right quick, and estimated it to be a day-and-a-half march to the north and west. Then I picked a pencil out of my pocket and handed it to Thorpe.
“I wonder, Brother Thorpe,” I said, “if you could mark the areas of the Enclave I'll most want to avoid?”
“You mean places with...”
I nodded and gulped in terror. “Right. With elephants.”
He looked at the map, then drew seven or eight circles at various parts of the Enclave. “Okay, Reverend Jones,” he said at last. “These represent the greatest concentrations of the herds. If you just walk around these areas you should be okay. You may run into a stray elephant now and then, but you'll avoid most of them.”
“I don't know how to thank you, brothers,” I said, folding up the map and sticking it inside my shirt. “You can't begin to know what a service you've done for the Lord this day.”
“Always happy to help a man of the cloth,” said Thorpe. “As for thanking us, it's not necessary—though if you run across any ivory poachers, you might report them to us on your next swing through here.”
“I certainly will,” I said, “though I can't understand why anyone would kill elephants.”
“I would have thought you'd approve,” said Holmes.
“For vengeance, yes,” I said. “But for profit? That's breaking the Second and Ninth Commandments.”
I took my leave of them then, and wandered off to meet Herbie.
“What have you been doing?” he demanded when I got there.
“Securing our fortune,” I said, throwing the map down in front of him. “I supply the brainpower, you supply the marksmanship, and we split the take.”
“Fifty-fifty?” he asked.
“One-third, one-third, one-third,” I corrected him.
“Come again?” said Herbie.
“One-third for you, one-third for me, and one-third for the Lord.”
He kept insisting that this was really a two-to-one split for me, so after some further haggling we finally decided on fifty-five percent of the first ten thousand pounds for me, forty-five percent for Herbie, and the Lord had an option on the next three thousand pounds.
We decided that we'd better be up and on the trail bright and early the next morning, so we turned in almost immediately. During the middle of the night I felt a sharp pain in the side of my neck, and, figuring it was some small lizard or beetle, I tried to flick it off with my hand, and wound up poking Herbie in the eye.
“Goddamnit!” he screamed, rubbing his eye vigorously. “What did you want to go and do that for, Lucifer?”
“Why don't you tell me just what you were doing bending over my neck?” I snapped.
“It's personal,” moaned Herbie, still holding his hand over his eye.
“It's more than personal,” I said. “It's perverted! Kissing a man's neck when he's sleeping!”
“I wasn't kissing you, Lucifer,” he whined. “Honest I wasn't.”
“Just see that it don't happen again,” I said, and lay back down on my blanket.
And not ten minutes later I felt this pain in my neck again.
“Herbie!” I yelled, and he must have jumped five feet into the air. “What the hell is going on?”
“Well, Lucifer,” he sighed, “you might as well know the truth.”
“That you're some kind of moral degenerate?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I'm a vampire,”
he said.
“You mean like goes around sucking blood and such?” I said.
He nodded sadly. “I wish I wasn't. I mean, you have no idea the strain it puts me under, but I am and that's all there is to it.”
“How long have you been a vampire?”
“Oh, about ten years now. Maybe eleven. You know, Lucifer, I don't think there's any group anywhere in the world that's more misunderstood than us vampires. I mean, I hope you don't think I like nabbing people in the neck and drinking their blood.” He shuddered. “It's disgusting!”
“Then why do you do it?”
“I'm compelled to, just like you're compelled to drink water,” he answered. “It's not a matter of choice.”
“But I've seen you in the sunlight,” I said. “I thought vampires couldn't do that.”
“European vampires can't,” said Herbie. “It's like a whole different union.”
“I've seen you eat meat,” I said.
“I've seen you eat meat, too,” he shot back. “Doesn't stop you from needing water, does it?”
“Is this why you were kicked out of the army?” I asked.
He nodded.
“And why the Ankole had you staked out?”
“Yes,” he said. “Believe me, Lucifer, I'm a better person for being able to talk about it. I'm not like this all the time, really I'm not. Most of the time I'm just as normal as you are. It's just that sometimes I ... well, I get this craving.”
“Do you have it now?” I asked.
He stared long and hard at my neck. “No,” he said with a relieved sigh. “I think it's gone now.” He paused for a moment, then nodded vigorously. “Yes, I'm sure it's gone.”
“Good,” I said, walking over and tying him to a tree. “I'll let you loose in the morning.” I went back to my blanket and lay down. “I think I'll probably be tying you up every night. Nothing personal, you understand.”
“I understand. You've no idea how comforting it is to be able to talk about this with someone,” he said, just as I was drifting off to sleep. “You know, some missionaries have set up a hospital over in Masindi, and they probably have a fair supply of blood there. I don't suppose we could—”
