_A man came out of the sky and they took him and hanged him from
the nearest tree thinking that they lynched a devil. But perhaps
they crucified a saint instead--there in the beauty of the desert.
And what place could be more worthy of being called a second
Calvary?_
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Fantastic February 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It was a typical blazing Arizona day. Pitiless sun distorting the
desert and making Sage Bend look like a toy town off in the distance.
Sage Bend and the surrounding desert were bone-dry, furnace-hot, and
generally depressing, but there were compensations. Buck liked it and
Biddy liked it because it was a country where a small crippled girl and
a tiny burro could go almost anywhere they pleased without danger.
Biddy was twelve. Polio had struck during her tenth year necessitating
a clumsy brace on her left leg. Thus it was a little difficult to play
with the children of Sage Bend and so Biddy's father had brought Buck
in from the Circle-7 ranch to be her companion.
Buck was a shaggy philosophical burro with ears almost as long as his
legs. He was gentle, rugged, and small enough for Biddy to mount all by
herself. Reliable, too. Buck would take Biddy anywhere she wanted to go
but he insisted on getting home to the little corral behind the house
at a reasonable hour so there was never any coming in after dark.
* * * * *
There were many places around Sage Bend where a child and a burro could
go. Up in the foothills where Hoppy chased the bad men with Biddy and
Buck racing along in front of the posse. Or to the caves and _arroyos_
where an ogre or a giant sometimes captured a handsome prince and held
him until Biddy and Buck came along to rescue him.
They knew all the fascinating and magical places, these two, and they
were now headed for a flat next to King Arthur's castle where there
would be jousting that afternoon. Biddy said, "We'll have to hurry,
Buck. We mustn't keep Sir Launcelot waiting or he won't toss us his
handkerchief as he goes into the lists."
Buck wig-wagged complete understanding with his ears and increased his
speed not one iota. But he signified that there was plenty of time and
that they would make it.
"It will be a wonderful tourney, Buck. With all the knights and ladies."
Buck agreed as he pattered up the gulch toward the ridges, his absurd
little legs twinkling.
"A wonderful day and--wait a minute, Buck."
Buck stopped and flopped his ears while Biddy stared thoughtfully at a
ridge.
Biddy stared for quite a while with a little frown between her blue
eyes. Then she looked all around as though to reassure herself of her
location. "There's a cave up there, Buck."
The news failed to stir any great interest in the burro.
"It wasn't there before. That's the place where Roy Rogers caught those
rustlers and licked all four of them single handed. There were some
rocks, but not any cave." Biddy looked about swiftly and a tiny prickle
touched the back of her neck and then was gone. It was so quiet around
here; so suddenly still and waiting-like.
* * * * *
But that was foolish. It was always still up here in the ridges
except for a horny toad maybe scraping faintly on a rock or a little
dust-devil stirring the dry grass as it stood on its tail and whirled.
Always quiet and she was being foolish. Roy or Hoppy or Davey Crockett
wouldn't sit there half-afraid. Biddy said, "Let's go, Buck," and urged
the burro to the left toward the rocks.
The cave was clearly visible from the foot of the big boulders and
Biddy waited for some moments before she slid off Buck and began
climbing the hill. Her leg brace impeded her progress somewhat and
clicked every time she took a step.
"No, it couldn't have been here before," she said. "That spot was just
a wall in the rock. That was where Roy Rogers fell back and was real
groggy for a minute after the bad man smashed a ten-pound boulder right
down on his head."
But obviously, there was no solid rock wall now; instead, a rectangular
opening clean and even as though cut out of soft butter with a sharp
knife. Biddy moved resolutely forward. Ten feet from the opening, she
stopped and glanced back at Buck for moral support. Buck slapped at
a fly with his left ear and closed his eyes and gave all the moral
support he had. Biddy stiffened her little chin and went on.
It was a cave all right but the fact of its being was over-shadowed
by what it contained. There was plenty of light to see without going
inside and Biddy stood in the entrance and stared wide-eyed.
The main thing inside was a big box with funny knobs and dials on it; a
box of some kind of shining metal that almost hurt your eyes when you
looked at it. There were other things too--a lot of wires and a funny
looking chair and a thing that might have been a loudspeaker of some
kind maybe.
Biddy's mind raced. The Eastern Bloc? She turned her eyes up into
the sky where she could just make out the space station up there a
thousand miles away going around the Earth like another moon watching
day and night to see to it the people and the children of the Western
Bloc were always safe.
Maybe this box belonged to the Eastern Bloc. They had their own space
station but Biddy was just ready to bet they wanted to do something to
ours! Maybe this was some kind of a machine they sneaked in here and
built that would blow up our station. A pretty mean thing to do but the
Eastern Bloc did all kinds of mean things.
* * * * *
Biddy was suddenly frightened--real-frightened, not just
play-frightened--because what if the men would come out of the cave or
from someplace and tie her up and not let her go back and tell Pop and
Mom what she'd seen? Then the space station would be blown up and not
even Davey Crockett could help because this wasn't like on television
where people got killed but not really. This was serious.
Biddy turned slowly, hoping now that the silence would stay as it was
and not break into the sound of heavy boots coming after her. It was
awfully hard but she went back down the hill slowly, because when she
went fast her brace rattled and made a lot of noise.
It seemed like a very long time before she was on Buck, urging him out
of the _arroyo_ and back toward Sage Bend.
And she got a little annoyed at how calmly Buck took it, ambling along
at his usual rate and not at all impressed by the danger. But then what
could you do with a stupid old burro that didn't even know how to wear
armor properly and always shook the plume off his helmet and ate it...?
* * * * *
Dan Parker was tired. He held the jeep on the rutty road from the
Circle-7 to Sage Bend and thought of the cold bottle of beer that was
waiting for him at home. This twelve-mile drive every morning and night
was rough, but what could a man do? A man couldn't put his wife and
kid in a bunkhouse with a dozen hands, and there was no other place
for Jane and Biddy at the ranch. The house in Sage Bend wasn't so bad,
though. The rent was cheap and there were a few friends Jane could talk
to.
Dan wiped the dried sweat off his face and wondered why it cost so damn
much just to live. Of course, in his case, there was a reason. A big
reason. Biddy getting hit with polio had cleaned him out and put him in
debt. Not that he begrudged it of course. She was alive and that was
the main thing. That damned brace cut him every time he looked at it,
but she was alive and healthy again. He had no complaints even if it
took him the next ten years to pay off.
He was lucky in a lot of ways. Being foreman at the Circle-7 paid
little enough but it was still better than an ordinary cow hand's pay.
And young Davey getting hit with polio in spite of all the serums about
the same time it had clubbed Biddy down. Funny how bad luck for some
was good luck for others. Davey getting hit was tragedy for the boy and
for old Sam Taber, his father. But it had been good luck for Dan Parker
because if Davey hadn't been crippled he'd be foreman himself and Dan
Parker getting straight hand-money. Yeah, bad luck for some--good luck
for others. Not that he gloried in Davey's misfortune, but a man had to
look out for his own and the cards had just fallen that way.
Sage Bend came into sight and as Dan approached, he saw a plodding
figure in the middle of the road moving in the same direction. The
sight irritated Dan. Even when he got close enough to see the white
cane tapping on ahead of the shuffling feet, he was still irritated.
Why did Art Haney have to be like that? He was blind, sure, and
everybody felt sorry for him, but he didn't have to rub it in your
face. He could hear the jeep coming and could move over out of the way
but no, he had to stay smack where he was until you pulled to a dead
stop and honked. Then he would jump as though you'd just missed running
him down and cower on the side of the road. Didn't want anybody to miss
the fact that he was blind and helpless--as if they could!
Dan stopped and honked and watched Art put on his pathetic little act
and felt guilty because it didn't stir him. Maybe he was hardened, but
what the hell? Every time you came down the road. There's a limit.