Cemetery World

Chapter 10

Bronco had said that he could manage, but it was slow going. The hillside was steep and rough and it was a long way down to the valley and Bronco fell three times before we reached the valley floor. Each time I managed to heave him up, but it took a lot of work and a lot of time.

Behind us, for a while, a brilliance waved and flickered in the sky and it must have been the barn, for a haystack would have burned out more quickly. But by the time we reached the valley the brilliance was gone. The barn either had burned down or the fire had been put out.

The traveling was easier in the valley. The ground was fairly level, although there were rough stretches here and there. There were fewer trees and the moon shed more light than it had on the heavily wooded hillside. Off to our left somewhere a stream was flowing. We did not come across it, but every now and then we could hear the chuckle of its water when apparently it flowed across a gravel bar.

We moved through an eerie world of silver magic and from the hills on either side came, at intervals, a far-off whickering and sometimes other sounds. Once a great bird came floating down above us, with not a whisper from its wings, veering to slide off above a clump of trees.

"If only," Bronco said, "I had got one leg damaged on either side, it would have caused no trouble, but this business of two legs on one side and four legs on the other is most confusing and makes me ridiculously lopsided."

"You are doing splendidly," said Cynthia. "Does it hurt?"

"I have no hurt," said Bronco. "I cannot have a hurt."

"You think Cemetery did it," Cynthia said to me. "And so does Elmer, and so, I would suppose, do I. But surely we can't pose a threat…"

"Anyone," I said, "who does not bow down to Cemetery is automatically a threat. They have been here so long, have held the Earth so long, that they cannot bear the slightest interference."

"But we are no interference."

"We could be. If we get back to Alden, if we get off Earth with what we came to get, we could interfere with them. We could present a picture of the Earth that is not Cemetery. And it just might catch on, it might gain some public and artistic recognition. The people might be pleased to think the Earth was not entirely Cemetery."

"Even so," she said, "it would hurt them in no way. They still could carry on their business. There would be really nothing changed."

"It would hurt their pride," I said.

"But pride is such a little thing to hurt-purely personal thing. Whose pride? The pride of Maxwell Peter Bell, the pride of other little autocrats the like of Maxwell Bell. Not the pride of Cemetery. Cemetery is a corporation, a massive corporation. It thinks in terms of income, in the annual business volume, in profits and in costs. There is no place in its ledgers for such a thing as pride. It must be something else, Fletch. It can't be entirely pride."

She could be right, I told myself. It could be something more than pride, but what?

"They are used to ruling," I said. "They can buy anything they want. They hired someone to throw that bomb at Bronco. Even when there was a chance that others would get hurt. Because they don't care, you see. Just so they get what they want, they do not really care. And they get things cheap. Because of who they are, no one can question what they offer. We know the price of that bomb and it was cheap enough. A case of whiskey. Maybe, if they are to keep an upper hand, they must demonstrate, very forcibly, what happens to those people who slip from beneath their thumb."

"You keep saying they," said Cynthia. "There is no they here, there is no Cemetery. There is only one man here."

"That is true," I said, "and that is why pride could be a factor. Not so much the pride of Cemetery as the pride of Maxwell Bell."

The valley spread before us, a broad road of grasses, broken by little clumps of trees and rimmed in by the dark and wooded hills. Off to the left was the stream, but it had been some time since we had heard any sound of it. The ground was level and Bronco was able to proceed without too much trouble, although it was painful to witness his awkward, hobbling gait. But even so, he was easily able to keep up with our human walking.

There was no sign of Elmer. I held my wrist close to my face and my watch said that it was almost two o'clock. I had no idea when we had left the clearing, but thinking back on it, it seemed to me that it could not have been much later than ten, which meant we'd been four hours on the road. I wondered if something might have happened to Elmer. It would not have taken him much time to break into the tool house and get whatever he might need. He would have had to pick up the packs we'd left behind and he'd be hauling quite a load, but even so, the weight should not slow him too much and he'd still travel fairly fast.

If he didn't show up by daylight, I decided, we'd have to find some place where we could hole up and keep a watch for him. Neither Cynthia nor myself had had any sleep to speak of since we'd reached the Earth and I was beginning to feel it and I supposed that she was, too. Bronco didn't need to sleep. He could keep a watch for Elmer while we did some sleeping.

"Fletcher," Cynthia said. She had stopped just ahead of me and I bumped into her. Bronco skidded to a halt. "Smoke," she said. "I smell smoke. Wood smoke." I smelled no smoke. "You're imagining it," I said. "There is no one here."

The valley didn't have the feel of people. It had the feel of moonlight and grass and trees and hills, of light and shadow, night air and flying things. Back in the hills there was the whickering every now and then and other night-time noises, but there were no people, no sense or feel of people.

Then I smelled the smoke, the faintest whiff of it, an acrid tang in the air, there one moment, gone the next.

"You're right," I said. "There is a fire somewhere."

"Fire means people," Bronco said.

"I've had my belly full of people," Cynthia said. "I don't want to see anyone for another day or two."

"Me either," Bronco said.

We stood there, waiting for another whiff of smoke, but it did not Come.

"There might be no one around," I said. "A tree struck by lightning days ago and still burning. An old camp fire that no one bothered to put out, still smoldering."

"We should get under cover," Cynthia said, "not stay standing out here where anyone can see us."

"There is a grove over to the left," said Bronco. "We could get there rather rapidly."

We turned toward the left, heading for the grove, moving slowly and cautiously. And I thought how silly it all would seem when daylight came, for the fire that produced the smoke could be several miles away. Probably there was no reason to be fearful of it, even so. Provided they were there, whoever had built that fire might be very decent people.

Almost at the grove we stopped to listen and from the direction of the grove came the sound of running water. That was good, I thought. I was getting thirsty. The trees more than likely grew along the stream that ran down through the valley.

We moved in among the trees, half-blinded by the denseness of the shadows underneath them after the bright moonlight in the open and as we moved into the shadows some of them rose up and clubbed me to the ground.