by Chad Oliver
It would not literally be true to say that Pryorville was alive with preparations for the Pilgrimage, but it could not be denied that the town was definitely less dead than usual. The old Bayou Hotel (built in 1839) was freshly painted and the long iron railing that ran along the balcony gleamed in the morning sun. Every female in town was putting the finishing touches on her more or less authentic plantation costume and the log corral was suffering from its annual influx of horses for the parade. There were antique automobiles parked along the streets and even an old Conestoga wagon drawn up near the bridge outside of town. Confederate flags hung from every other window.
Grandpa marched through all this faded glory, his copy of General Sherman: American Hero clutched tightly under his arm. His lilting voice preceded him down the street and the strange words of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” blistered the spring air like a blasphemy. It was not that Grandpa had any use for Yankees; he was not as odd as all that. It was simply that he liked to annoy people. The town’s smugness and hypocrisy got under his hide. He sang the Yankee song for the same reason that he contrived to weave a little when he walked. Pryorville was dry as a bone—not even beer could be sold in the county—and a man had to look a trifle tipsy to maintain his self-respect.
And there was an unholy light in his eyes, a light of anticipation. It made everybody nervous.
Grandpa encountered the mayor, who was all dressed up in his cowboy suit and six-shooter. The mayor tried to ignore him, but Grandpa was a hard man to ignore. Grandpa managed to get in a few digs about shady oil operations before the man could get away. He then cornered Mrs. Audrey Busby in front of the hotel. Mrs. Busby was already decked out in her squaw-boots and Navaho jewelry.
“Ah, Mrs. Busby,” Grandpa said, bowing low. “How is the vacuum cleaner working out in the old wigwam?”
Mrs. Busby pursed her thin lips. “You ought not to make fun of the Red Man,” she said.
“I wasn’t,” he assured her.
“We could all learn a great deal from the Noble Savage,” Mrs. Busby informed him. “He knew how to live in harmony with Nature. He was an unspoiled child of the wilderness. He lived in freedom with the creatures of the woodlands.”
“The only good Indian,” Grandpa told her coldly, “is a dead Indian.”
While Mrs. Busby dug into her bag of Indian lore to find a suitable retort, Grandpa stamped into the hotel dining room and was delighted to spot Allan Garner breakfasting alone at a small table under a large chandelier. Allan was a local attorney and the town’s leading advocate of States’ Rights. He had been known to cry when “Dixie” was played.
“Mind if I join you?” Grandpa asked, sitting down.
Allan eyed the book which Grandpa plopped on the table without visible enthusiasm.
Grandpa enjoyed a splendid breakfast of ham, eggs, biscuits, and hominy, in the course of which he touched on many topics. He pointed out the superiority of General Grant to General Lee and discussed at length the role of the Supreme Court in American society.
“Say what you will, sir,” Allan Garner said, “plantation life Before the War was a gracious and dignified way of life. Now, mind you, I don’t hold with slavery in any form—”
“You just want free labor so you can sip your mint juleps in peace, hey?”
“I don’t drink,” Allan Garner said.
“A pity,” Grandpa observed. “It is a custom that has been known to change people into human beings.”
“One day, sir, you will go too far.”
For some reason, that remark sent Grandpa into a paroxysm of laughter. He was still cackling happily to himself after Allan had stormed out of the hotel.
Over his final cup of coffee, Grandpa decided that the ideal place to steal a television set would be his own house. To be sure, the set belonged to Cousin Bess, but that was a minor detail.
He settled his bill and strolled back up to the white house he shared with Cousin Bess. He let himself through the metal gate into the back yard, gazing without affection at the clucking hens in the fenced-off area. There were three self-satisfied cats under the back porch and Grandpa paused to pay his respects. He admired cats; they were an independent lot. The cats would survive, he thought, no matter what happened.
Silently, he opened the screen door of the back porch and stepped inside. As long as Cousin Bess was awake, she was talking—to herself if necessary, although there were almost always kinfolk around. It made the whole thing ridiculously easy. He located Cousin Bess by her voice and calculated that she was in the kitchen making sandwiches with Sister May. Grandpa took off his boots and slipped through the high-ceilinged hall to what had once been the music room. There was still a piano, but the room’s focus was now the small TV set. Grandpa unplugged it, hefted the set with a grunt, and hauled it silently to the back porch. He put on his boots again and carried the set to the garage behind the chicken house. He put the set on the floor of his car and covered it with a mouldy feed bag. He climbed into his car—the only Volkswagen in town—and backed into the street.
He gunned the buglike little car along the highway, heading northeast. He was soon outside the limits of Pryorville, and three miles beyond town he turned down a side road into the cool piny woods. He drove six miles and then, just before he came to the boat dock on Catfish Bayou, he turned off again down an obscure dirt road that wound through the underbrush to an old shack at the water’s edge. The shack had been a fishing camp that belonged to Old Man McGee, but since McGee’s death it had been unused. Grandpa stopped long enough to unload the TV set on what was left of the pier, then got back in his car and drove on to Perry’s Boat Dock. He rented a rowboat from Junior Perry, declined an offer of worms and a cane pole, and rowed out into the bayou, puffing on his cigar. When he rounded the bend and was out of sight, he landed at Old Man McGee’s and loaded the pilfered TV set into the boat. Then he set out again.
The air was heavy and rich with the smells of scummy water, fish, and rotting vegetation. He rowed his way between great cypress trees, their gnarled roots twisting like snakes in the black shallow water. The sun was hot on his back but there was enough of a breeze to make things tolerable.
Grandpa rowed for almost an hour, cussing steadily, and finally arrived at one of the dreary little islands that dotted the bayou when the water was low. He tied the boat to a stump, heaved the TV set to his shoulder, and stepped out onto squishy, spongy soil. He followed the faint trail he had made to the center of the island, and placed the TV set on a dry flat rock. He mopped his brow.
It was done. The last payment had been made. He already had his reward, of course, but a bargain was a bargain—and anyhow the ship people controlled the power source.
A day and a half to go now.
He looked up, shading his eyes against the sun. He could see nothing. Since the first contact, the ship had remained invisible, only sending down a small sphere at night to pick up the loot that Grandpa brought to the island.
Well, no matter.
They were there.
Grandpa returned to his rowboat, cast off, and began the long pull back to Perry’s Boat Dock.
That night, while a fat yellow moon bathed the piny woods in silver, the spaceship lowered the spherical pickup to the island in Catfish Bayou, retrieved the TV set, and hauled it aboard. The scientists took it apart, studied it, entered its number in a field catalogue, and stored it with the rest of the ethnological specimens from Earth.
The Pilgrimage was still a full day off, but already the ship’s officers and men were clustered around the viewers that were trained on the streets of Pryorville far below. The primary function of the viewers was to gather social and cultural data on the natives but the pictures were being watched now with more than scientific enthusiasm. After all, you just didn’t run across a native with a twisted mind like Grandpa’s very often….
The day of the Pilgrimage dawned with a polished copper sun beginning its long climb into a cloudless blue sky. It was a pleasant
spring day, warm but not hot, and the tourists drove into Pryorville in gratifying numbers. Most of them were from Texas and Louisiana, but there were some from Oklahoma and other nearby states.
Pryorville had an interesting history and the Pilgrimage made the most of it. Before the arrival of the white men, the piny woods country had been the home of the Caddo Indians. Then, because of its position on the Catfish Bayou, Pryorville had become an important steamboat shipping center. Wagon trains brought in loads of buffalo hides and these were piled on the old stern-wheelers and carried to New Orleans via the Red River. Pryorville had boomed, with graceful Southern mansions and saloons going up in about equal numbers. It even boasted a famous murder case, when a local woman of something less than a spotless reputation, Sapphire Sadie, had been killed by a wealthy Yankee.
Unhappily for Pryorville, the far-sighted city fathers had looked upon the new railroad as a passing fad and had refused permission when it wished to extend its service to the Pryorville area. The railroad had gone through Deputy instead, and as a result Pryorville had been left with its steamboats and its memories. It became a town that resolutely faced the past; it died on the vine. Every year in the spring, the antique-filled old houses were opened up to the tourists, a play was put on about Sapphire Sadie, and there was a parade that served as a kind of historical pageant of the romanticized past of Pryorville.
The town lived for the Pilgrimage. In fact, the Pilgrimage was an accurate reflection of what Pryorville had become: artificial, prim, bloodless.
And today was the day.
Everyone was in costume.
Sandwiches were piled high at the concessions.
Cousin Bess was putting the finishing touches on the full homespun dress and bonnet of a Pioneer Wife. Her usually sluggish blood raced in her veins. She was a confirmed and vocal admirer of what she often referred to as the pioneer spirit, and she only felt really alive once a year at the Pilgrimage.
The mayor was already in the saddle. He rode a splendid bay stallion but the total effect was somewhat marred by the mayor’s rotund body and flopping white hat. He was all decked out in his idea of a cowboy suit, which he affected because it gave him a good excuse to pack a gun. He rode happily up and down the street, practicing his chain-lightning draw and firing blank cartridges at all the tourists. His old Colt boomed like a cannon and the mayor was in his element. He was firmly convinced that he was a born glacial-eyed gunman.
Mrs. Audrey Busby, her aches and pains forgotten, was not only dressed like an Indian—in her own mind, she was an Indian. From squaw-boots to feather headdress, she was a walking museum. Her painted face was frozen into complete immobility. She talked in very short sentences. She looked at the town around her with something like contempt. Not for her the confining houses and crowded streets of the paleface world! No, she was free, free as the wind, and all she wanted was to get back to her wigwam—or was it a wickiup?
Allan Garner, a trim dark-haired figure in his black suit and string tie, was standing in the hotel looking out the window. He was not overly impressed with what he saw. To him, although he had lived there all his life, Pryorville represented the decay of the South. The old way of life had never been the same After the War—he thought of it as the War Between the States, of course. His heart was with the plantation he had never had. He longed for the gracious life, when ladies and gentlemen could sit out on a great white porch beneath the stars and listen to the far-off strumming of the banjos. He viewed the Pilgrimage as a poor substitute for the real thing, but it was better than nothing.
Men, women, and children lined Main Street, waiting.
The parade was due to start at ten o’clock.
At precisely five minutes before ten, Grandpa Erskine slipped into the attic of the house he shared with Cousin Bess. He went directly to a curious machine he had hidden in a packing case. He stroked his white beard, slapped his thigh, and closed a gleaming toggle switch.
In the spaceship far above the streets of Pryorville, the lights dimmed briefly as a mighty surge of power was drained from the atomic plant and directed through the machine in Grandpa Erskine’s attic. Almost every man on the ship crowded around the viewers, grinning. This was going to be a parade worth seeing….
At a few minutes after ten, the parade came into view. The tourists and Pryorville citizens lining Main Street gave a hearty cheer. They could hear the music from the Pryorville High School Band. The high-stepping girls in their boots and short satin skirts came first, smiling at the whistles from the crowd.
Then the band marched by.
In the last row, the tuba-players looked a trifle nervous.
Behind the tuba-players came the Indians.
At first, the crowd did not notice anything out of the ordinary. They laughed and waved at the Indians. They pointed and gawked. Two boys strained their lungs and gave out with what they fondly imagined to be war-whoops. One gentleman dressed up like a gambler pulled out a small pistol and fired it into the air.
Then the people took a closer look and a sudden silence fell. If there was one thing that an Indian in a parade was not supposed to look like, it was a genuine Indian. But these …
There were five Indian men. They walked barefoot down the tarred street. They wore simple skin breechclouts and their brown skins were elaborately tattooed. Their black hair had been pulled out, leaving the head bald except for scalp locks. Two of the men carried hardwood war clubs spiked with garfish teeth. Two others carried bows, and the fifth man had a stone-tipped lance and a small oval shield.
Two Indian women followed the men. They were on the stocky side and they wore wrap-around cloth skirts, shell necklaces, and nothing else.
It was obvious that Mrs. Audrey Busby would not appear in public dressed like that.
The Indians had a healthy smell about them. They walked down Main Street as if they owned the place. When one of the local women passed out on the sidewalk, one brave fingered his scalping knife thoughtfully but did not break formation.
From the porch of the white house on the corner there came a cackle of satisfied laughter. Grandpa Erskine leaned back in his wicker rocking chair and watched the authentic Pryorville history march by in the parade.
There was a battered, muddy wagon pulled by fly-covered oxen. A woman with a bandana tied over her gray hair cracked a long black whip and cussed the oxen with a skill that brought an appreciative smile to Grandpa’s lips. A freckle-faced boy leaned out of the back of the wagon and used Main Street as a heaven-sent latrine. Out in front of the wagon a grizzled man rode along with a very long rifle balanced on his saddle. When a dog ran into the street and barked, the man casually put a slug through its head.
Oh, they were all there: the dirt-caked buffalo hunters staring at the young girls with frank hunger, the cowboys firing bullets into shop windows, the weary red-eyed Confederate soldiers.
And Sapphire Sadie was there, riding in a handsome carriage. In person, she was a far cry from the dainty lady in the white dress who played her part in the play. Sapphire Sadie was all woman, and there was no possible doubt about her profession.
Long before the parade had run its course, the audience had vanished. There was a mass exodus of tourists and the Pryorville citizens locked themselves in their houses.
The show went on, however.
Firewater began to flow freely. The Indians set up camp in a vacant lot and the squaws began to cook the dead dog. Sapphire Sadie set up shop in the Bayou Hotel and there were great gusts of ribald laughter from the poker table. The cowboys and the buffalo hunters began a house-to-house canvass looking for Southern belles. There were two excellent gunfights within half an hour, the more fatal of which was conducted with shotguns at twenty paces. The soldiers wandered around wearily, looking for their regiment.
On the porch of the house he no longer shared with Cousin Bess, Grandpa rubbed his hands together gleefully. “Tarnation,” he said, fumbling for a cigar. “There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight!�
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Grandpa had only one minor regret.
He wished that he could have witnessed the other end of the great time somersault.
The men on the spaceship could witness it, and did. It was a fundamental natural law that matter could be neither created nor destroyed. If certain persons were snatched out of the past by the Selective Temporal Dislocator—Grandpa insisted on calling it a Time Machine—then certain contemporary persons had to be sent back along the time stream to replace them. Great care was taken, of course, to make certain that no modern person was sent into an uncongenial era. It might perhaps cause a small amount of inconvenience to the natives, but Grandpa had earned his reward by his faithful collection of ethnological specimens. The STD would not function after the ship’s power source was removed; for those concerned it was going to be a one-way trip. The ship’s crew had enjoyed the parade, but the other end of the line was even better. They clustered around the Temporal Viewers with rare enthusiasm….
Cousin Bess came to with a start. The last thing she remembered clearly was dressing in her Pioneer Wife outfit of homespun dress and bonnet for the parade. Then there had been that awful buzzing in her ears—a touch of the sun, likely.
There came a clump of heavy boots on the porch. Porch? Where was she? This log cabin—
The door banged open and a dirty man with a fierce black beard swept into the cabin like a hurricane. Cousin Bess had never seen the man before in her life.
“Howdy, gal!” he boomed, squinting in the cabin’s gloom and swatting her playfully on her Pioneer Wife Posterior. “Whar’s chow?”
