"You got into this of your own free will."
"Yes, but I did not know that theengs like theese were going to 'appen.
I just thought--"
"Mercedes, if you open your mouth again, I'll knock your teeth down your
throat!" Retch said.
Mercedes was silent.
As they came in to the shore, the two men who had been visible on the
beach disappeared. Off to the left something else came into view. It was
a small cabin plane, wrecked there in what had apparently been an
attempt at a forced landing.
Before they reached the shore, the fat sun had wallowed itself out of
sight into the sea. In the dusk, the island looked like a vast, rocky
pinnacle thrust up out of the Pacific Ocean, or out of the ocean of
time--Parker couldn't tell which. Mysterious, silent, it waited in the
darkness like a vast sleeping monster on the surface of the sea, a
monster on which Spanish galleons and planes had been wrecked. Parker,
his nerves jumpy, halfway expected it to vanish beneath the surface
before they reached it.
But it didn't vanish. It remained fixed, solid, firm. When they stepped
from the raft, the sand under their feet was solid, the crunch of it
reassuring.
* * * * *
A breeze whispered through the trees. The island was quiet, too quiet.
It seemed to brood in the darkness. In the vast stillness that hung like
a pall over the place, the only sound was that of a bird, chittering
sleepily in the dark woods.
It was the most out-of-place sound Bill Parker had ever heard.
It seemed to affect the others. At the bird-sound they were suddenly
quiet, listening.
"To hell with it, it's nothing," Gotch said. "Come on."
Following a well defined path, they moved inland, toward the base of the
cliff. Through the trees, Parker glimpsed fires. As he moved closer, he
saw the source of the lights, the cooking fires of a village set against
the base of the cliff.
"Ho!" Peg-leg called, announcing their arrival.
As they entered the village, the inhabitants came rushing out to them.
They were the queerest lot of human beings Parker had ever seen.
Spaniards, bearded grandees in tattered and mended bits of ancient
finery, Indians, squat, stalwart, Englishmen, tall and blond, a motley
crew.
They looked like the relics of half a dozen different nations, drawn
from the fringes of time. Their garments did not belong in the 20th
century. Their weapons were knives, swords, bell-mouthed pistols. Their
language was a mixture of Spanish, English, Portuguese, and Indian
dialects.
"What kind of a mad-house is this?" Parker muttered. "Get away, you!"
The last was spoken to a slender Spaniard who was trying to jerk
Parker's leather jacket from his back.
The man snarled at him, drew back.
"Get out of our way!" Retch yelled. The crowd made way for him. Calling
greetings, snarling, Retch seemed very much at home here.
Mercedes looked hopelessly confused and at a loss. She stared around her
as if she was appalled at what she saw. Parker drew the obvious
inference. Mercedes had never been here before. All this was as new to
her as it was to him. But Retch had been here.
Off in the woodland behind them somewhere a bird chirped, the same
sleepy quiet sound that Parker had heard as they landed. Now it was
louder, nearer, and even more out of place than it had been before.
The people around Parker also heard the sound. Startled faces turned
toward the dark forest.
The sound came again, louder now. Parker was certain it was the call of
a bird.
But if it was the chirp of a bird, it was frightening these people. Why
should a bird-sound in the night frighten grown men? Utter silence fell.
Even Gotch was still. Parker saw that the man's face had turned gray,
that all the bristling bravado had passed out of him.
Even Retch, showing signs of strain and growing temper, was silent.
"The Jezbro!" someone whispered.
At the words, the strain and temper coming up in Retch burst the
surface. "There is no such thing as the Jezbro!" His voice was almost a
scream. "It's only superstitious nonsense--" His shouting voice went
into silence as the sound came again.
The chirp was louder now. It was no longer one bird chirping in the dark
night, it was a dozen. And it wasn't quite the sound of a bird any
longer, it was a musical tinkle, an air-borne throbbing somewhat similar
to the sound of a harp, a softly ringing chime. Parker could easily
imagine that somewhere among those dark trees was a harper, moving
closer.
The harpist did not seem to be upon the ground. He--or she--seemed to be
up in the air, somewhere near the tree tops, moving in the dark night.
As the sound came louder, a man in the village suddenly went down on his
knees, then another and another, until the whole group, including Gotch,
were kneeling. Even Mercedes went to her knees in response to deep
internal, superstitious pressures. Only Retch and Parker stood erect as
two men strong enough to face the sound coming from the night.
"Get down, you fools!" Peg-leg's voice had real anguish in it.
"Get down, hell!" Retch answered. He had a gun in each hand, his own and
the one he had taken from Parker.
"Beel! Beel!" Mercedes was jerking at Parker's leg. "What is 'appening?"
"Something," Parker answered. "I don't know what." There was fear in
him. He could feel it in his heart, sense it in his bones, taste in his
mouth. He rose above it.
The sound swept through the air. It came out over the trees above them.
On the ground, the kneelers moaned in response.
The harping sound leaped up, became a melody of weird notes filling the
night air. Mingled with the eerie music were the moans from the
prostrate humans.
Looking upward, Parker caught a glimpse of something moving through the
sky. It blotted out the light of the stars and it looked a lot like a
bird but like no bird he had ever seen before. It was too big to be any
bird that had ever flown through Earth's air, but yet it flew. As it
flew, it made the sound of a gigantic harp.
* * * * *
The bird passed over the village, moving along the cliff. As it slid
into the distance, the harp music faded slowly away, became again the
sound of a sleepy bird.
Around the village, the prostrate humans moaned, stirred, began to rise.
"What the hell was that thing?" Parker gasped.
"The damned fools call it the Jezbro!" Retch snarled. "The yellow
cowards are afraid of it. I don't know what it is."
Parker was silent. To him, Retch sounded like a man scared right down to
the soles of his shoes but desperately trying to pretend he wasn't.
"It was a warning sent by them," Peg-leg whispered, gesturing up toward
the cliff in the darkness. "A warning to us to mend our ways."
"It was no such thing!" Retch shouted.
Peg-leg did not argue. He got slowly and silently to his feet. The group
was silent, perturbed, and afraid. Even Gotch was silent. Whatever had
passed overhead, had cast a pall of fear over them.
"You bilious, yellow-livered cowards!" Retch raged at them.
They made no response. The fear the Jezbro had inspired in them seemed
to have made even his anger unimportant.
"But what is the Jezbro?" Parker questioned again. "I mean--"
"I told you it's nothing and that's enough of an answer. Hey!" The guns
that Retch held came up sharply as another figure came soundlessly out
of the forest and moved toward them. An old, bent, wrinkled Indian who
hobbled along with the aid of a staff.
"Oh, it's you, Pedro!" Retch said. "What the hell do you want?"
For all the sign he gave, the Indian, Pedro, did not hear Retch's
question. He hobbled straight to Parker.
"_En la manana Padre Rozeno huit nole el hombre e la mujer._ Father
Rozeno will see the man and the woman in the morning." The voice was
broken with age.
"I don't get it," Parker said. The Indian was already turning. He had
delivered his message, his errand was finished.
"That damned Rozeno is not going to see anybody in the morning!" Retch
yelled.
The Indian staffed his way into the forest. He still seemed not to hear
Retch.
"Tell him they won't be there!" Retch screamed.
Pedro's back went out of the firelight as he moved into the trees.
Retch seemed almost to go mad. His face turned purple. Both guns came to
focus on the spot where the Indian had disappeared.
"Why shoot him?" Parker said. "He was just a messenger."
"Damn it!" Slowly, while the group watched impassively, Retch got
himself under control. Suddenly he began to laugh. Strangely his
laughter in this moment was more horrible than his anger had been.
"He sent for you, and the woman. All right, he'll get you. But I'll go
with you. If he wants you, I'll take you to him." Again the laughter
sounded.
"Who is Rozeno?" Parker asked.
"He is, or he was once, a Spanish priest. He and Ulnar think they rule
this island. They are the two men we saw watching us from the shore.
You'll see them in the morning."
That was the last word Retch said on the subject. He took Gotch apart,
to talk to him. Peg-leg found food for Parker, but refused to talk. "Na,
na, my son, when the Jezbro passes over us as a great bird--when it goes
through the woods at night as a great howling beast--we do not talk
about it."
Parker pressed for more information, but the old man turned stubbornly
silent. Later he found Parker a place to sleep in his own hut. Parker
had the impression that, all during the night Peg-leg, sat on guard at
the entrance.
But nothing came in the night. In the morning Retch was there, saying,
with grim bitterness, that now it was time to go up the cliff to see
Rozeno and Ulnar. Mercedes, looking wan and bedraggled, with hate in her
hot black eyes, was with him. So was Gotch. Gotch did not look in the
least happy.
"What's biting you?" Parker said to Retch.
"Nothing."
"I get the impression something around here is just about scaring the
pants off of you."
"You're crazy!" Retch's voice was a snarl. "I'm not afraid of anything
around here--you--or anybody else." As he spoke, the man's face was a
mask and his eyes were wild.
"Sure, okay, I get it," the pilot answered.
They moved along the cliff until they came to a ledge that sloped
upward.
"We go up here," Gotch grunted.
* * * * *
As they went upward, they rose above the tops of the trees. Sparkling
thinly in the morning sunlight, the sea came into sight. Circling the
shoreline at a distance of about a mile, a curtain of mist was visible.
It seemed to close in above them too, shielding the island like a thin,
shining dome.
"That's a strange fog," Parker said.
"It's not a fog," Retch answered. "I don't know exactly what it is, but
when it is there, the island is invisible. If you are on the other side
of it, you see nothing at all."
"Um," Parker said. They continued upward. The ledge twisted, curved,
went around the rising cliff. Slowly Parker became aware that the rising
ledge was not a natural formation, it was a pathway cut into the face of
the cliff.
At the realization, the pilot felt a touch of awe rise in him. This
ledge was old. It must have been cut into this cliff long before
Columbus had sailed westward.
Off in the distance beyond the curtain of mist was the coast of
California, the beaches bright with bathers, the cities wrapped in warm
sunshine, the roads alive with traffic. Over there in the distance were
orange groves and millions of people.
Here on this island, behind this mist, unknown to millions of people so
close to it, was something that did not belong in the 20th century, or
in any other century Parker could imagine.
His back felt cold. In him, somewhere, was gnawing anger. This island,
this place, was real. Back in his past a horrible wrong had been done, a
wrong that now could never be corrected. He put the thought out of his
mind.
The ledge turned into the cliff and became a tunnel that had been carved
into solid stone. The walls of the tunnel were as smooth as polished
marble. What tools could men have used in the old days to cut a tunnel
with walls so smooth that they looked like glass? Modern equipment could
not have done the job so well.
Niches in the wall of the tunnel admitted light and gave them glimpses
of the island.
"Where the hell will we find--Oh, Pedro!" Retch spoke. The Indian
messenger of the night before had appeared in the tunnel. He beckoned to
them. They followed him into a large room cut out of solid stone.
It was one of the cleanest and most simply furnished rooms Parker had
ever seen. It contained hand-made chairs along the wall and a big table,
also hand-made. Light from a wall slit flowed into the room.
Seated behind the table, illumined by the light flowing in from the wall
slit behind them, were Rozeno and Ulnar. Rozeno had a thin nose, the
narrow face of the typical high bred Spaniard. Ulnar was short and
squat, his cheeks were flat, his nose hooked. Both had black eyes that
were utterly fathomless.
The faces were old, wrinkled, and kind. Parker took one look at this
priest, and instantly liked him. As he glanced at Rozeno, saw the
kindness on that face, he also saw, out of the corners of his eyes,
Retch drawing a gun.
In that split second he knew why Retch had laughed so violently the
night before, when Retch had said that he would go with them to see
Rozeno and Ulnar.
Retch intended to kill both of them; to shoot them as they sat there at
that table, unarmed and defenseless; shoot them like dogs!
The gun was already in Retch's hand. Parker's fist went out, up,
connected with Retch's jaw, a blow that had all the pilot's strength
behind it.
Retch's head was twisted to one side. He reeled away from Parker's blow.
The snarl that came from his lips was the snarl of a wild animal. Metal
thudded as the gun hit the floor. The room echoed with sound--Mercedes
screaming. Parker followed Retch, followed him as a dog follows a rat.
He caught a wild man.
Retch stumbled against the wall, caught himself on one of the hand-made
chairs, jerked himself up, and drove at Parker. The pilot met the charge
head on. They went down locked together.
Retch was a tornado erupting with violent fury. He threw Parker away
from him, leaped to his feet. Parker pulled himself to one knee. The
fallen pistol lay in front of him. He snatched it up.
Retch was coming toward him. He saw the gun in Parker's hand, hesitated.
"I'll kill you," the pilot said.
* * * * *
Retch caught himself. For an instant he seemed to hang in the air before
Parker, yellow glaring in his eyes as he tried to make up his mind
whether or not to buck the gun.
"Get your hands up," Parker said.
Slowly the yellow went out of Retch's eyes.
"Get your hands up!" Parker repeated.
This time Retch obeyed him. Parker backed him against the wall, took the
second pistol from his pocket, his own gun.
"Damn you!" Retch snarled. Parker saw that the man was not speaking to
him but to Gotch, he saw also that during all this Gotch had not moved.
The man stood transfixed; afraid to move.
Parker turned to the two men behind the table. They had not moved
either, though Ulnar looked as if he was about to come to his feet.
Rozeno sat very still. There was sadness on his face.
"Go away," he gestured toward Retch. "And you, too, Gotch, go away."
"You mean we can go after--" Gotch faltered.
"I don't want to see either of you again," Rozeno said. There was actual
living pain in his voice. "Go!"
"Wait a minute," Parker spoke quickly.
"Yes, my son?" Rozeno's face lost its sadness when he looked at Parker,
it came alive with sudden animation.
"You don't mean to tell me you are going to let these two go?" the pilot
protested.
"Of course."
"But Retch tried to kill you."
"I know--"
"And he'll try it again. There's something here that's driving him
crazy. I don't know what it is but he knows. If you turn him loose--I
would just as soon turn loose a rattlesnake, Johnny Retch."
Parker's words were hard, blunt, forceful. But for all the effect they
had on the old priest, he might as well not have spoken them. Rozeno
smiled. "I do not think Retch or Gotch will ever harm us. They have no
means to harm us." He made a gesture with his hands, spoke a single
word, "Go!"
Retch and Gotch went quickly from the room, like men who were very glad
to go.
"I hope you know what you are doing," Parker said, saw that Rozeno was
not looking at him. The old priest was watching Mercedes.
"You may stay here, with us," Rozeno added.