by Various
Wetzel, placid and silent, leaned on his rifle and calmly stuffed a cheek with a twist of black tobacco. "Reckon they be a little hard to talk to?" he asked in a soft voice.
I shrugged. "Only one way I know of to find out."
"Thet fancy pistol you got could kill 'em all afore they get them bows unlimbered."
"Are you suggesting I shoot them down without warning?"
It was his turn to shrug. "They be Indians."
The complete lack of feeling in his tone infuriated me. "You cold-blooded bastard! I happen to be a good part Indian myself."
He eyed me without expression but with a chill glitter to his eyes. "Aye. I ain't forgettin' thet," he said, and spat.
I took a slow breath and waited until I could trust my voice. "I'm going out there," I said quietly. "Cover me with your gun. But don't use it unless it's the only thing left to do. I don't want that trigger pulled until the last possible second. They may grab me, they may even knock me around a little. That I can take. But don't try to interfere until there's no other way out. Is that clear?"
"Aye."
I turned away from him. All I had to do now was step out from behind that tree and walk across the open ground. Each of my feet suddenly weighed a ton. Two steps into that clearing and the funeral could be Monday. Instinctively my hand crawled toward the .38 automatic hidden in my coveralls. It never got that far. Suicide was so final.
Wetzel's firm young mouth held an almost invisible sneer. Deliberately I took out a cigarette, lighted it with an airy gesture and a match, dragged deeply on it twice and threw it away. I said, "Lay off that gun like I told you," and walked slowly out into the clearing.
* * * * *
It got a rise out of them, all right. They were on their feet, arrows notched, before I had traveled three feet. I never even hesitated. Once I had gone this far, the bluff had to be carried all the way out. I kept my spine stiff, my head erect, my hands conspicuously empty at my sides. If my nerves were jumping I was the only one who knew about it.
It caught them just a shade off-balance, which was all I had hoped for. The one-sidedness of six drawn bows against one unimpressive and unarmed man eventually registered and the flint tips wavered, then turned aside.
The tallest of the braves--a lean number the color of an old penny--tossed his bow aside and deliberately stepped squarely in my path. There was an insolent arrogance in every line of his body--a body that topped my six feet a full three inches.
I said, "Hi-yo, Silver," and put my hip into his naked belly and grabbed his arm and threw him over my shoulder. He hit face first two yards away and plowed up a furrow of grass, flopped around a little, then lay still.
Nobody else moved, except me. I started for the spaceship again, not hurrying and not crawling, head still up, spine still stiff, eyes straight ahead. Feet slithered in the grass behind me and the sound made the skin between my shoulder blades twitch like an aching tooth. Every instinct that had anything to do with self-preservation was fighting to make me turn around.
That was when the robots moved. They seemed to come alive at the same instant, metal clanged on metal as they strode stiffly down the ramp to meet me. Violence hung over them as it hangs over a Patton tank.
Every step toward them was like pulling my foot out of quicksand. Only twelve kinds of a cretin would have gone on when faced with anything like this. I went on. I couldn't do anything else. Once you show an Indian a molecule of cowardice, you're twelve lines on the obituary page.
The space between us was down to a narrow ribbon of grass by this time. Four--three more steps and I would have to stop. Nobody could push aside a couple of tons of animated steel. Metal arms were lifting slowly, preparing to close on me. Inside me a silent voice screamed a prayer for Wetzel to pull that trigger and pump a bullet into one of those round, staring, faceted eyes....
The robots seemed to go dead. They hung there motionless, arms lifted, each with a massive foot caught in midstride.
What had stopped them at the last possible second I had no way of telling. All I did know was a sudden release of tension that left me with just enough strength to keep my feet moving.
I went on.
* * * * *
The edge of the ramp was getting uncomfortably close. I was here to see the head man, but I would prefer to see him out in the open. The thought of walking into that black hole left me as cold as a barefoot Eskimo.
The ramp. It was a good six feet wide, made of what seemed to be some form of an aluminum alloy, and was waiting to be walked on. I started up its shallow slope, the rubber soles of my basketball shoes soundless on the smooth surface.
He appeared suddenly, without warning, in the doorway. He was quite tall, slim in the hips, and his naked shoulders seemed almost as wide as the opening. Elaborate beadwork designs had been worked into the buckskin breeches, and his headdress resembled a Sioux warbonnet, its twin rows of red-tipped feathers hanging almost to his moccasins. A hunting knife hung in a snake-skin sheath at his right hip. He was as gauntly handsome as a Blackfoot--and they don't come any better-looking than that.
He stood there, arms folded across his chest, looking as immovable as Pike's Peak. This time I stopped. My back was as stiff as his, my head as erect, my shoulders as square if not as wide. For a long time we stood that way staring straight into each other's eyes, our expressions blank, our tongues locked.
When enough time had passed for me to open the conversation without being accused of impetuousness, I said, "I am Long Rock, of the Potawatomi. I have come in peace, to hold counsel with you."
My words, in the language of the Delaware because of Wetzel's earlier remark, had no immediate effect, which was par for the course with any Indian. Not even his eyelids moved. The silence went on, building into tension. Anyone unfamiliar with the ways of the Indian would have taken another stab at it. I knew better. I had made my pitch; now it was strictly up to him.
Finally his strong lips came unstuck. "I am Lo-as-ro, War Chief of the Kornesh." It was the Delaware tongue, all right, but with inflexions and nuances strange to me. "How is it that your skin is white but you speak in the way of the Orbiwah?"
That last word, I judged, was what the Indian in general was called wherever this specimen had come from. I said, "In my blood is the blood of the Orbiwah. That is why I am here, sent by the Great Chief of all white men."
We squatted down facing each other on the ramp. At once a young brave brought out a long, elaborately carved peace-pipe. Lo-as-ro put the bit to his mouth and puffed smoke toward the four cardinal points of the compass, then passed the pipe to me. The tobacco was far more aromatic than any I had come across before.
With the amenities out of the way, the Chief said, "Why has the White Chief sent you to me?"
"To welcome you to the land of the white man."
"I come not to the land of the white man in peace."
My eyes were as cold as his own. "This we do not understand. The white man has no quarrel with the tribe of Kornesh."
"The white man," Lo-as-ro said sonorously, "has taken from the Orbiwah his land and his home. He has driven the Orbiwah into small areas. He has killed buffalo and the bison and the deer, leaving the Orbiwah to eat the meat of the horse or to starve. The Orbiwah has been made foul with the diseases of the white man."
"All this," I said, "was long, long ago. Perhaps it was not right, but it is the way of life that the strong prevail and the weak perish."
His expression darkened. "You say this--you with the blood of the Orbiwah in your veins?"
"I speak only true words, noble Lo-as-ro. The white men are in number as the leaves of the forest, the Orbiwah few and helpless."
One of his hands made a graceful motion. "I have come to return the land to the Orbiwah, to restore him to the greatness of his fathers. Once more the land shall be alive with game, the rivers filled with fish. Once more shall the Orbiwah hunt with the weapons of his fathers. I have spoken."
"From whence do you
come?" I asked.
He pointed dramatically toward the sky. "From a great distance. Up there are many worlds."
"Tell me of your world," I said.
The telling took a long time but not a word of it was dull. According to Lo-as-ro, his world was a planet revolving about one of the stars in the Big Dipper. It was slightly smaller than Earth, with about the same climates and development of life. It was peopled with only one race, the Orbiwah, who lived much as the Indians in America did before the arrival of the white man. Recently spaceships from another planet in the same solar system had landed on the Orbiwah world. These newcomers were friendly, had no thought of conquest, and possessed a science and culture of amazing proportions.
* * * * *
From them the Orbiwah learned of a planet on which were men of their own kind. Lo-as-ro, fired by the thought of establishing contact with people like himself, had borrowed spaceships manned by robots and crossed the void to Earth. For weeks they had hovered in our atmosphere, at first saddened, then angered, by the fate meted out to the Indians.
Since the spaceships were able to move through Time into the past, Lo-as-ro hit on the idea of going back to the days when the Indian was still in control of most of America. With the power at his control he could force the white man from the continent and restore the land to those who owned it.
Arriving near the close of the Eighteenth Century, he found a sizeable encampment of Indians, brought the ship down among them, and summoned the chiefs to a Council of War, where he outlined to them his plan. To his astonishment he found the chiefs suspicious of outside help and confident that they could defeat the white man alone. In vain did Lo-as-ro explain that they were doomed; they could not, or would not, believe that he had visited the future. He offered to take them ahead and let them see for themselves--an offer that was quickly refused.
Whereupon Lo-as-ro decided to return to the Present and wrest the land from the white man and hand it over to the downtrodden remnants of a once-powerful race. It was on that return trip that Wetzel had arrived in the present century.
When Lo-as-ro finished, I leaned back against the side of the ship and lit a cigarette, bringing a startled grunt from the chief. I said, "You cannot defeat the white man, Lo-as-ro. He has weapons such as you have never dreamed: machines that can throw things that explode and kill hundreds of braves at one time, machines that travel through the air as does the one you came in, things that can wipe out all life within a circle as wide as a brave can ride around in one day on a fast horse.
"No, noble Lo-as-ro. Return to your world and leave this one to the white man. He took it long ago and he will never give it up. I have spoken."
The chief of the Orbiwah smiled grimly. "In the ship in which I arrived on your world is a small machine. It is working for me now. Within its reach no weapon is useful, no explosion can take place, no signal can be sent. Only Man is not touched by this machine, but when it works he has no weapons with which to fight. Each hour the influence of this machine widens. Soon all this land will be helpless. Then the robots will take charge and those who oppose them will be slain."
I thought of the "dead spot" I had first heard about on the newscast the night before, and how it was steadily growing. I remembered the slain farmer with the missing scalp, the two companies of soldiers helpless without radio, guns and transportation. I thought of a mechanized America helpless before a few score of these spaceships ... and I knew that counter-violence would be useless.
* * * * *
"Give the country back to the Indians!" The cry of the over-burdened citizen. It seemed it was about to come to that!
For a long time I sat there, thinking, trying to hit on an answer that would save my country. And when the answer finally stirred at the back of my mind, it was so completely bizarre that I almost missed it entirely....
"Noble Lo-as-ro," I said, "I must return to the Great White Father and tell him what I have learned. I will tell him that there is nothing to be done to oppose the Chief of the Kornesh. Within a few hours I will return with his reply."
Lo-as-ro inclined his fine head in assent. "Let it be so."
"Until my return," I said, "let the influence of the machine draw back until it holds helpless only a small section of land about your ship. Only in this way will I be able to return quickly to the White Chief."
Again Lo-as-ro agreed. I took my leave of him ceremoniously, and a few minutes later Wetzel and I were hurrying back toward the highway.
* * * * *
Four hours later I was on my way back, this time with four companions. The plane landed us at the edge of the newly set "dead spot" and the five of us forced our way through the forest until we reached the clearing where the spaceship still crouched.
A silent group of Indians watched us as we crossed the open ground. This time the two robots flanking the doorway did not leave their posts. As I came up the ramp with my companions, Lo-as-ro appeared in the doorway of the ship.
He eyed me and the others without expression. I said, "Noble Lo-as-ro, I have brought with me four of my world's Orbiwah. They have come to hear your plan for them and their people. I have told them nothing of what you said to me, only that you have come from another world and are of their blood."
One by one I presented my companions. Yellow Arm was Johnny Armin, an old school friend of mine; Iron Eagle, with whom I had spent a year in Korea, had his telephone listed under the name of Luke Riegel; Strong Wind was Sidney Storm, whom I had met while spending a year in Southern California; and Lone Pine, known as Lionel Patterson, lived a few doors down the street from me in Washington and shot eighteen holes any day in the low seventies.
The color of their skins, the unmistakable cast of their features, made up the only passport they needed. At the chief's invitation we squatted in a rude circle at the top of the ramp, and the peace-pipe was brought out and passed around.
Presently Lo-as-ro began to speak. The magnificent voice rolled out in tones like a cathedral organ, explaining how the American Indian was to assume his rightful place in a world of his own. It was a vivid picture, painted by an orator equal to any of the almost legendary Indian speakers, and they don't come any better.
Unfortunately I was the only one present who could understand him.
* * * * *
When it was over and Lo-as-ro was smiling in confident expectation of their gratified excitement, Johnny Armin gave me a baffled glance. "What the hell was that all about, Sam?"
I said, "You guys don't know how lucky you are. The chief, here, is going to fix it up for you to go back to the good old days. Be noble red men. No more taxes, no more taxis. Live out in the fresh air, sleep under the star-studded sky, drink the unchlorinated spring water."
"What!"
"You heard me. And he can do it, too. He's got the tools to flatten the country."
They stared at me and at each other, horror and anger hardening their faces. Lo-as-ro had stopped smiling and was glancing about the circle in obvious bewilderment.
"You mean he's doing all that for us?" Storm demanded.
"For all Indians," I said. "Free them from the iron heel of the oppressor, and all that."
"Nuts, brother!" Iron Eagle snapped. "Tell him I'm a graduate of Carnegie Tech, make twenty-five grand a year with Standard Oil, and vote the Republican ticket. If he thinks for a goddam minute I'm going to chasing around on a pinto pony hunting buffalo, he's got rocks in his head!"
"And that goes for me--double!" Lone Pine growled. "I never heard anything so screwy!"
I repeated what they had said, putting it into words Lo-as-ro could understand. He had the look of a man who couldn't believe his ears. "They speak with stupid tongues," he cried. "Do they deny the blood of their fathers?"
"They live as they want to live, noble chief," I said. "They are grateful for your wish to help but they ask me to decline the offer."
He came to his feet with a bound, his lean face hardening into a copper mask of anger. "These are not
true Orbiwah!" he thundered. "These are as women, soft with idleness and pleasure, weakened by their white conquerors. The land is not for them; it is for those forced to live in degradation and squalor, dying of hunger and disease, ignored by the white chiefs. It is they who shall be given back the ways of their fathers, that they may become a great Orbiwah nation once more. I have spoken!"
* * * * *
"Look at these braves," I said. All of us were standing now. "Of all the Orbiwah in this world it is such as these who could hope to survive under the conditions you wish to establish. The Orbiwah you describe would starve amid a thousand buffalo, they would fall from their horses, they would flee in battle. Take away the protection of the white chiefs and they would die."
The chief of the tribe of Kornesh curled his lips in a sneer. "The protection given by the white chiefs is the protection of death. They do not care what happens to the Orbiwah. I have seen it with my own eyes."
"You're right," I said promptly. "The Orbiwah has been badly treated too long. I shall return to the Great White Chief and tell him this: unless the life of the Orbiwah is made good, unless he has fine shelter, plenty of food, warm clothes for his back and the right to be as other men, you will return and force the white man from this land. It will take much time, but it shall come to pass. I have spoken."
Doubt flickered in his eyes. "Perhaps your words are empty. How do I know they are true?"
"When twenty summers have passed," I said, "come back again. Look upon the Orbiwah and learn if they still suffer want and privation. If their life is not better for what has happened today, then you need never trust the white man again."
For a long moment he stood stiff as steel, staring into my eyes. Then his hand shot up, palm out, in a gesture of farewell, and he turned and disappeared into the spaceship.
* * * * *
I got a barrage of questions then. I held up a hand to quiet my friends. "Some other time, gentlemen. I've got to get to Washington just as fast as a jet plane can get me there."
