"You old lechers!" said the fat woman tightly.
Charley and Luke and Sam exchanged dismayed looks.
"Now, ma'am--" Charley began.
"Don't say anything, you old lechers," the fat woman spat. "I don't
want to hear your gloating, oily voices! Of all the lecherous,
salacious, lascivious things to do!"
"Why," Charley said doubtfully, "I guess we're a little old to be all
those things--"
"You're never too old to be evil-minded!" she snapped. "Even if your
bodies are too old for unGodliness!" Her positive and indicating gaze
raked them up and down, and she saw the cards which Charley held in his
lap.
"Playing cards, too!" she said, her lips curling. "Well, I guess _that_
follows!"
"Follows what, ma'am?" Luke asked puzzledly.
She saw the brown beer bottle resting on the box beside Charley's chair.
"_Alcohol!_" she hissed.
* * * * *
She stood glaring up at them, her breath coming fast and shallow, in a
half-crouch that led Charley Mason to wonder if she planned to climb
right over the porch rail and lace into them physically.
Then, as they watched in wary silence, her anger seemed to abate a
little; over a period of five seconds her fists slowly unclenched, her
breath slowed, she straightened.
She said in a low voice, "It's the work of the Devil. Anger is not the
answer."
"The Devil, ma'am?" Charley asked.
"_He_ has made you do this--it is a device to keep lewd and licentious
thoughts uppermost in your minds and corrupt your immortal souls. I
suppose I shouldn't blame you for listening to him ... so _few_ of us
_are_ able to resist his honeyed mouthings."
"Ma'am," Luke said, "I don't think you should get so excited on a hot
day like this. Maybe a cold coke--"
"I'll pray," the fat lady said. "I'll pray for the Lord to undo this
Devil's work. I'll pray that your souls be cleansed of the evil
thoughts the Dark One has put there." Her pale blue eyes seemed a
trifle fixed, and now she smiled, looking through the men who watched
her worriedly. "I--I'm almost proud that I should have suffered this
humiliation in order to help Him in His work--it is a small price to
pay, to have been the object of your lustful thoughts, if I can save
your souls by telling the Lord what you are doing and seeing to it
that He stops you!"
She gave them a pitying, sympathetic look. "You hate me now," she said,
"but when you are pure you will thank me."
She turned away and walked toward her car, head bowed.
After a moment Luke got up from the steps and sank into a chair on the
porch. "Does lust mean what I think it means?" he asked.
"Guess it does," Charley said.
"Well, back when I _could_ lust, I wouldn't ever have lusted _her_."
They watched her get in and drive off, head still down in an attitude
of prayer, eyes up so she could drive. The car reached the other end of
the main street, followed the road into the trees, and vanished.
Charley stared contemplatively across the yard at his outhouse.
"Work of the Devil, huh?" he mused. "Well, now doesn't that beat all! I
bet Heaven would kick that prayer right out of court!"
"No," said a firm voice. "It was heard."
* * * * *
The three old men turned and saw a tall, handsome, blond young man,
dressed in a neat and utterly clean white suit, standing in the
center of the yard. His face wore an expression of perfect peace and
abounding love.
Actually, he wasn't _quite_ standing in the yard yet. When they turned,
his feet were about four feet above the ground. As they watched, he
floated slowly down until he was standing straight, and tall and
smiling a little.
At that moment, _timelessness_ descended upon the scene--upon Charley
Mason's store, the yard, the outhouse. _Timelessness_ bounded the
area from one edge of Charley's yard to the other, and from the road
clear to the woods out back; and that _timelessness_ extended downward
to a perfect point at the very center of the Earth, and extended upward
in a perfect cone to Heaven; and within its boundaries nothing that
happened was visible to the outside world, or indeed even "happened"
so far as the outside world was concerned: for it all happened in
_timelessness_ ... in one of those particles of time-substance which
exists _between_ microseconds on Earth's time continuum: particles so
small that they are of use only to angels, who in their work must often
get between people and their intended deeds faster than seems possible.
The young man's calm eyes looked into the minds of the three old
men on the porch, and saw no evidence there of lewd or lascivious
thoughts of the magnitude reported by the fat lady in her prayer. This
did not surprise him, for exaggeration is the backbone of prayer, and
the Heavenly Workers are used to it. In particular are they used to
nuisances like the fat lady, who continually turn in false alarms.
Closing his eyes, the young man contacted his secretary-cherubim in
his office in Heaven. The cherubim immediately returned the dossiers
of Luke and Sam and Charley Mason to the Heavenly Files, with no
additional notations on the debit side.
That done--for nothing is so urgent in the eyes of Heaven as the latest
data on souls--the young man turned his attention to the outhouse.
He saw the cowbell, and his lips pursed.
He left the porch, walking lightly, and crossed the yard to the
outhouse. The three old men watched him dreamily, unmoving,
comprehending, gripped by _timelessness_ and a sense of wonder.
The young man opened the crescented door and went in. The chain yanked.
The cowbell went _Blongle, blongle, blok!_
The young man reappeared in the door and looked at the old men on the
porch. He pursed his lips again and shook his head reprimandingly. He
disappeared again.
A second later, the cowbell and chain and angle-iron disappeared too.
* * * * *
The young man came out, dusting his hands with a white handkerchief. He
came back across the yard and mounted the steps. He seated himself on
the porch railing, where he could face the three old men.
"Shame on you," he said.
The men cast their eyes downward.
"The lady's accusations were somewhat excessive," the young man said.
"Your motives seem not to have been primarily lascivious, and I have so
informed Heaven. But still ... don't you think you should be ashamed of
yourselves?" He paused. "You may nod if you wish."
The men nodded, eyes dreamy.
"After all," the young man said, "isn't that rather a snide trick to
play on tired travelers who seek your hospitality?"
Charley Mason's mouth worked; his Adam's apple bobbed.
"Speak," said the young man.
"Gosh," Charley said in a low voice, "it was just a little joke. We
never had nothing else in mind--"
"I know," the young man said. "I have discounted that element. I am
speaking of the unkindness of the prank--the discomfiture which you
impose on its victims."
"Oh," said Charley. "I--gosh, it just embarrassed them a little bit,
that's all. I mean ... that's all, isn't it?"
"No," said the young man sternly, "there is more. Think a moment,
humans, upon that common structure in the yard ... think deeply, and
you will realize that there is much more to it than meets the eye."
"Guess so," mumbled Charley.
"It is a haven ... a place of wondrous solitude ... a refuge for those
who would contemplate without interruption, as many a weary traveler
yearns for."
"Guess so."
"In what other situation can you be so completely alone ... in a
perfect isolation not only permitted but sanctioned by your society?
Why, humans, I could tell you of the most extraordinary moments of
piety, of philosophical reflection, of artistic conception which we
have recorded as occurring under such circumstances...."
"I never thought of it that way, I guess," Charley said slowly. "I
always did sort of think it leveled you off, though."
The young man eyed them soberly.
"In late afternoon," he said, "in the confines of the rustic outhouse,
settled happily, hearing the quaint and natural sounds of the insects
in the field, the flutterings of birds from branch to branch ... do you
know that in this day it is the only waking place where one may flee
for the inner life?"
The old men looked down guiltily.
"It is ever a reminder of one's mortality," the young man said.
"It is Man in his true aristocratic state," he said.
"And yet at his most humble," he said.
"And now I will leave," he said. "I hope you have seen the light, and
will no longer impose your crude, cruel joke on those who trust you for
a moment's peace."
He stood up. "I hardly think that it was the work of the Devil,
however, as the lady seemed to think--"
A cloud seemed to come over the sun--but there were no clouds, so
perhaps the sun dimmed. The birds in the trees were suddenly silent.
Even the rustling leaves seemed to pause. It grew still darker, and a
chill breeze sprang up.
A head, whose face was dark and sharp and saturnine, appeared in the
center of the yard.
* * * * *
As the young man and the three old men watched, a tall, dark, gaunt man
in a neatly tailored black suit rose from the ground and stood eying
them mockingly.
"Wasn't it?" he said in a thin, dry voice, and laughed.
The young man's lips tightened. He said nothing. The three old men were
shrunken back in their chairs, staring.
The Devil--or perhaps the man in black was only _part_ of the Devil,
for mysterious and complex are the ways he influences from his bronze
throne in the exact center of midwestern Gehenna--turned and sauntered
to the outhouse. He entered.
A moment later the cowbell and chain and angle-iron reappeared--though
not quite as they had been. The chain seemed a little heavier, the
cowbell a little larger and more shiny.
The chain was yanked. The cowbell went _Blongle, blongle, blok,
blok!_--a metallic sound of triumph.
The man in black came out smirking. He made his way across the yard and
mounted the porch steps. The young man frowned and lifted a shoulder so
the fabrics of their clothing would not touch.
The man in black went to the opposite end of the porch and sat down in
a chair there. He looked out over the bridge and the murmuring creek
and the trees beyond and took a pipe from a pocket. From another pocket
he took a live coal, which he dropped into the pipe. He puffed, and
sulphur-smell filled the air.
The young man got up, sighing and bracing his hands on his knees. He
stood for a moment regarding the man in black levelly. Then he went
down the steps and across the yard and into the outhouse.
Chain, cowbell and mounting vanished.
The man in black rose, still smiling. He passed the three old men,
trailing sulphur smoke from his pipe. They shrank back, eyes wide. He
went down into the yard and toward the outhouse.
When he was halfway there, the young man emerged. They locked eyes, the
young man's cool and determined, the other's hot and mocking and quite
as determined.
They passed each other, saying not a word.
As the young man reached the porch steps, there came from the outhouse
a loud _Blongle, blongle, blongle, blok, blok_, and he paused, one foot
on the steps, lips thinned. He seated himself deliberately, and only
then did he look around.
The new bell was twice as large as the former. The chain was heavier.
It hung from a heavy cast-iron mounting.
The man in black came out. He sauntered back to the porch and seated
himself.
* * * * *
Half a non-existent hour passed--non-existent, because it passed in
_timelessness_. The young man sat quietly, seeming to ponder; the
man in black sat as quietly, smoking his sulphur; the three old men
sat like mice, their eyes shuttling back and forth between the two
antagonists.
At last the young man got up and walked slowly to the outhouse. The
cowbell and its paraphernalia vanished. This time with a flash of white
light.
The man in black dropped a new lump of smoking sulphur into his pipe
and tamped it down with his thumb. He walked to the outhouse and
replaced the bell with a still bigger one. He yanked at the chain, and
raucous bellsound filled the yard.
He came back, and they sat around a while longer.
The young man went out. The new bell vanished with a flash like
diamond-blue lightning.
The man in black sauntered out. In an enormous mounting atop the
outhouse appeared a three-foot church bell.
Its chain yanked down.
_Bong-g-g--bong-g-g--bong-g-g...._
The young man hurried across the yard, shoulders stiff. So quickly that
the man in black, eyes mocking, was forced to stand aside at the very
door of the outhouse to permit him to enter.
The church bell and mounting vanished. With a clap of indignant thunder.
The man in black resumed his chair on the porch. The young man came
slowly back across the yard and sat on the steps.