that circled suddenly above them. And Vladimir’s face contorted in a grin
of direst cruelty. He called over his shoulder and rode forward until he
was just out of throwing-knife range. Then he shouted once more.
At Stephan’s low-toned order a cloud of knives went licking through the
air and fell at his horse’s feet. And Vladimir grinned savagely and rode
up, quite up, among the Strange People.
They cowered as he drew close to them. They crawled upon the ground as he
stared savagely about him. They shook in seeming terror as he snarled a
phrase or two at them. Cunningham gripped his revolver, his eyes blazing
amid all his bewilderment. He had never seen such beastly cruelty upon the
face of any living man. Maria clung close to him, shaking in unearthly
terror.
Vladimir rode his horse toward a cowering group. They rolled away, gasping
in apparent horror, as the horse was upon them. Not one lifted a finger to
defend himself. They seemed stricken with utter, craven terror. They
crawled abjectly upon the ground before him.
Vladimir came upon the bullet-headed servant he had sent to kill
Cunningham. The man fawned up at his master, bound hand and foot as he
was. Vladimir gazed at him sardonically and spoke in a purring tone. Then
he deliberately shot the man dead.
The Strange People cringed. Then Vladimir saw Cunningham. He rode over and
stared down with cold, beastly eyes.
“Ah, my friend,” he purred. “You know the secret of my folk, you say.
Perhaps you lie, but it does not matter. You saw the end of my servant,
did you not? That was for failing to kill you as I ordered. Do you
remember that after that you struck me?”
Cunningham’s fingers itched on trigger.
“I do,” he said curtly. “You’d better run away, Vladimir. My friend Gray
has some unbribed officers in those planes that are going to land in a
minute or so.”
Vladimir laughed.
“What difference?” he asked amusedly. “My people are cowed, now. They will
swear to anything I choose to tell them. All that I need to do is hand
over some of them to be hanged. One or two will go for killing my servant.
They will confess to whatever I say. And I will take the others away with
me.”
“You’re sure?” asked Cunningham grimly. “Quite sure?”
“But certainly,” Vladimir laughed again. “They are afraid I will tell who
they are. But you---- Time is short.” He glanced at Stephan and his voice
rasped. “Take away his weapons!”
Stephan approached Cunningham, cowering from the menace of Vladimir’s
eyes. He seemed to be in the ultimate of terror, but as he drew near to
Cunningham, and Vladimir could not see his face, he smiled grimly. There
was no terror on his face then. He made a reassuring gesture.
“Take it!” rasped Vladimir harshly. “Disarm him!”
Stephan’s lips moved but Cunningham could not quite understand what he
wished to convey. But he had two revolvers and he thrust one into
Stephan’s hand and drew and jerked the other behind him while Stephan’s
body covered the movement.
“Ah,” purred Vladimir as Stephan drew back and handed over the weapon.
“You see it is necessary to kill you, Cunningham. My folk will take the
blame for it. I shall probably let Stephan hang for your murder. They need
a lesson, you understand. But I will be merciful. A bullet through the
heart----”
He raised Cunningham’s own revolver, but he never fired it. As his arm
lifted, Cunningham’s own weapon came around. But Cunningham did not fire
either. There was a panted ejaculation and a dozen Strangers seemed to
spring from the earth. With the savagery and directness of so many
panthers they leaped upon Vladimir. He was hidden from view in a mass of
savagely stabbing figures who clung to him in a grim silence. Vladimir
screamed just once, and his revolver went off with a deafening explosion.
One of the Strangers rolled to the ground, coughing, while he grinned in
spite of his agony.
And then Vladimir fell with a crash to the ground and lay still.
There was a shout from the Strangers. Men yelled and the younger ones
darted out to where their knives had been tossed before Vladimir. They
came racing back with armfuls of the shining blades. They distributed them
swiftly, grinning as they did so.
And in less than two minutes from the time Vladimir had ridden up to the
peak where the Strangers lay barricaded, he had died and the Strangers
were again lying in wait for the attack that they were sure would result
in their annihilation.
But the great airplanes came coasting down heavily. Their motors shut off
one by one and they zoomed to lose speed and pancaked with sudden
awkwardness to the earth. This was no ideal landing-place. Three of them
alighted safely. One was tilted sidewise by a sudden gust of wing and
crumpled up a wing against a tree. Two others crashed their landing-gear
on boulders on the rocky hillside.
Then Gray leaped out of the first to land, shouting frantically to the
besiegers to fire no more. Men jumped from the others and spread
themselves about the peak. They were alert grim figures with rifles which
they handled with familiar ease. And Gray came running up to the embattled
Strangers, his hands high above his head, and shouting that he was a
friend.
17
“Planes had to land at the Junction last night,” said Gray curtly to
Cunningham. “Didn’t get here until sunset and couldn’t land in unfamiliar
territory after dark, particularly this kind of territory. I went on and
met them last night. We took off at sunrise. What happened? Any fighting?”
“Several of us shot,” said Cunningham grimly. “Nobody killed that I know
of. But every house in the hills has been looted and burnt.”
“Fools!” snapped Gray. “But they’d do that.--What’s that?”
He was staring at a sprawled heap on the ground.
“That was Vladimir,” said Cunningham calmly. “He’d just shot his servant
for failing to kill me, and was shooting me down in cold blood when the
Strangers jumped him. You don’t get a murder case out of this, Gray. They
killed him to save my life.”
“Glad of it,” said Gray restlessly. “Now----”
“By the badge you’ve stuck on your coat,” said Cunningham grimly, “you’re
a detective of some sort. And I suppose those chaps who came in the planes
are Federal men. What do you want with the Strangers, Gray?”
Gray stirred uneasily. Then he faced Cunningham squarely.
“I’m in the immigration service,” he said flatly. “These people are
aliens, smuggled in. You can guess the rest of it yourself.”
“I can’t,” said Cunningham savagely. “There’s more to it than that, and
they won’t tell me; not even Maria.”
Stephan spoke quietly. “Do you know who and what we are?”
“I do,” said Gray curtly. “You’re----”
Stephan stopped him with an upraised palm. His face was the color of
ashes.
“Then you know,” he said tonelessly, “why we prefer to die here. And since
our young friend will not leave us of his own will, my young men will
carry him, bound----”
“Try it,” said Cunningham briefly. “If there’s fighting, I fight. If Maria
dies, I die. That’s all.”
He brought his remaining weapon into view and held it grimly.
Gray stared from one to the other.
He shrugged his shoulders almost up to his ears and waved his hands
helplessly. And then he said quickly, “Since I know, and the soldiers
know, there’s no harm in telling Cunningham.”
Maria, her lips bloodless, whispered, “Tell him. It is best.”
But it was to Gray that Stephan turned. His back was toward Cunningham as
he made a gesture for Gray’s benefit alone. Cunningham could not see, but
it seemed as if Stephan had thrust up the wide sleeve of his embroidered
jacket. And Gray licked his lips and said, “Oh, my God!”
“I tell you my own story,” said Stephan quietly. “The others are much the
same. Twenty years ago I was the son of a village headman in Daghestan,
which is in southern Russia. And there came upon me suddenly this--this
thing which has made me one of the Strangers.”
Gray, shuddering, nodded. Cunningham raised his head.
“What thing?” he demanded.
“My own people would have stoned me when they knew,” said Stephan grimly.
“My own father would have killed me. And I was a fool then. I desired
still to live. I had heard whispers of this America, in which the son of
the Governor of Daghestan had found a mine of gold so rich that he must
work it secretly. It lay in a hidden valley, unknown to other men, and it
was worked by--Strangers, who were safe in that one small valley so long
as they served the lord Vladimir, while anywhere else in the world all men
would kill them.”
“Why?” demanded Cunningham fiercely.
Stephan did not answer directly.
“I went down from the mountains that I loved, away from all my kin, and I
went to the Governor of Daghestan and said that I wished to work in the
mine of his son. And he sent me to a place, closely guarded, where there
were others who were--as I was. And a long time later a boat came, and it
took us many days upon the sea, and landed us secretly by night, and we
traveled secretly, hiding, for many more days. And we came to the hidden
valley ruled by the lord Vladimir and found two hundred other Strangers
turned to slaves and working in the gold-mine he had discovered. They told
us we would have done better to be stoned in our own villages than to
come. We were driven to work with whips. If we rebelled we were shot down
by the guards, who carried guns.”
Gray moved suddenly.
“This was twenty years ago?” he demanded. “And you were kept a prisoner in
that valley all that time, by guards with guns?”
“All of us,” said Stephan quietly. He thrust with his foot at the body of
Vladimir, lying in the dust before him. “That was our master. He had us
taught the English language so that if other people came upon the valley
we would seem to be of this nation. Three times--no, four times--wandering
men came into the valley. None of them ever left it. They were killed by
the guards....”
Gray stirred, his eyes moving fascinatedly from one to another of the
Strange People.
“But we had been free men, once,” said Stephan proudly. “We wept at first
because we were--Strangers. Then we grew ready to fight because we were
men. Many times, in those twenty years, we planned revolt. There were two
or three Strangers among us who were from this nation. One of them became
my wife and the mother of Maria. She had been a teacher in the schools,
and she taught us much. But Vladimir seemed to hear our secret thoughts.
Every time he forestalled our plans and punished us horribly for daring to
think of revolt. Men said that he stretched threads of metal to our houses
and that our words traveled to him along those threads, so that he knew
always what we planned.”
“Telephones,” said Gray, fascinated, “but in the walls. Of course he could
listen in.”
“So at last we made our plans in the woods of the valley.” Stephan spread
out his hands. “We stole of the gold we dug. We gave it to five of our
number, and they fled away. They bought horses and food--many horses and
much food. They found a hiding-place for us. And while they were doing
that, Vladimir was torturing us to learn where they had gone and why. But
though four men and a woman died, they did not tell. And suddenly, in a
night, we Strangers who were slaves of Vladimir, we fled from the valley.
We killed the guards with our knives and vanished, hiding in the secret
place the first five men had found. It was secret and secure. And
then----”
Stephan hesitated.
“My wife, who was of this nation, had been born in these hills here. She
told us of these hills as of Paradise. So we sent again a few of our
number here. With the gold we had brought away, we bought ground. Then, a
little by a little, all of us came. We kept far from other people. We did
them no harm. Now they want to kill us, because Vladimir doubtless told
them before he died that we were lepers, and because we are lepers, we
must die.”
He turned grimly to Cunningham and bared his forearm. And the skin of that
forearm was silvery.
Cunningham’s tongue would not move. Gray shivered.
“I’ll--I’ll admit,” he said shakenly, “I didn’t bargain for this. Good
God!” He stared at the somber-faced Strangers with a queer terror. Then he
shook himself suddenly. “But look here----!”
Cunningham found himself speaking hoarsely. “Not Maria!” he gasped. “Not
Maria!”
Stephan’s face, the color of ashes, had only compassion upon it as he
watched Cunningham.
“Wait a bit,” cried Gray. “Wait a bit! Stephan! That--that thing on your
arm. It comes first on the elbows and knees, where the clothing rubs!
Redness first, then this?”
“That is it,” said Stephan quietly. “We have seen our children appear so.
We have tried--ah, how we have tried!--to keep them from being Strangers
too. But it is in the blood. Maria has showed it not even yet. But in time
to come----”
“Nobody,” panted Gray excitedly, “ever got it over fifty years of age!”
“Those who have come to us,” said Stephan, “have always been young.”
Gray struck his hands together.
“But it shouldn’t be that way!” he cried. “It should take all ages. It
should show on the face and hands! Not one of you shows it on the face or
hands. There should be a dark band across the forehead. The fingertips
should be silver, and the fingers should be twisted and bent. . . . Have
you ever seen a doctor?”
Stephan smiled grimly. “That”--he pointed again to Vladimir’s body--“when
that was our master, he had a doctor to keep us alive. And there was never
any doubt.”
“I was at Ellis Island,” said Gray excitedly. “I know what I’m
talking----”
“It is finished,” said Stephan grimly. “We die. Go and send your soldiers
or your people to kill us.”
“Cunningham, make him listen----”
“Go on, Gray,” said Cunningham hoarsely. His face was ashen. “They’d only
put us in some--some horrible colony somewhere. I--I don’t want to live
after this. If they want to die, let them. I’m going to stay and--and get
killed with them, if I can.”
“Idiot!” snapped Gray. “I’ve been telling you for half an hour that the
symptoms are all wrong. And I was on Ellis Island and I know what they
have got! And I know how they got it. Why, you idiot, don’t you see that
Vladimir was getting his father to send him slaves to work that damned
mine? That the only way they could be kept as slaves would be to make them
think they’d be killed if anybody else knew what he knew about them? They
didn’t get that thing naturally. They were deliberately inoculated with
_psoriasis_, a sub-tropical skin affection that looks enough like leprosy
to give anybody a start, but doesn’t make a person unfit to work! These
poor devils thought they were lepers, and they had a skin affection that
is about as serious as dandruff! Creosote ointment or arsenic taken
internally will cure it in ten days, and without one of those two things
it lasts for years. Cooped up as they were, they reinfected each other.
Believing themselves pariahs, they were afraid to run away from Vladimir
until they had to. And he was trying to bluff them back to work in his
mine. Don’t you see, you idiot? Don’t you see? It was a trick to get
workers for his mine, workers who wouldn’t dare be disloyal to him. And
when they had run away, why, he had to get them back or they might find
out themselves what he’d done and tell where his mine was and about all
the crimes he’s committed these twenty years back. Don’t you see,
Cunningham, don’t you see?”
He turned to Stephan, who was staring at him incredulously.
“If you don’t think I’m telling the truth,” he snapped, “I’ll go and kiss
every pretty girl in camp to prove it! You’ve been here twenty years. I
can’t touch you. I can’t deport you. And I’m mighty glad of it! As for
killing Vladimir and his brother, I’m going to do my best to get you
medals for the performance. I’m going to set my men on these fool farmers
and chase ’em home. We’ll sue them for the houses they’ve burnt. We’ll put
that sheriff in jail. We’ll--we’ll---- Cunningham, you lucky son-of-a-gun,
I’m going to be best man and kiss the bride!”
But Cunningham was already preceding him in that occupation.
18
It was a very, very long time later. Cunningham was sitting peacefully
upon the veranda of a house among tall mountains. His eyes roved the
length of a valley that was closed in at the farther end by precipitous
cliffs. There were small, contented sounds from the house behind him.
A motor-car rolled up a smooth, graded roadway. A man by the road saw the
occupant of the car and shouted a greeting. Cunningham sprang to his feet
and ran down to meet it.
Gray tumbled out of the car and gripped Cunningham’s hand.
“I brought my fishing-rods,” he announced exuberantly. “Where’s that
stream you were writing about?”
“Find it in the morning,” said Cunningham happily. “How d’you like our
valley?”
Gray came up the steps and stared out at the empty space below him. There
were tall buildings down in the valley floor--great concrete buildings,
with a tall shaft-house where motors whirred and an engine puffed.
“There ain’t any such place!” announced Gray firmly. “I’m dreaming it! I
found a concrete road leading here. I passed half a dozen motor-trucks on
the way. And one scoundrel waved at me from a steering-wheel and I’ll
swear he’s the chap that had a knife in the small of my back once, ready
to stick it in.”
“Quite likely,” admitted Cunningham, grinning. “He is quite glad, now,
that he did not stick it in. I’ve spread the news that you were the one
who proved their title to the valley, through twenty years’ occupation.”
Gray squirmed, then grinned.
“Might be useful,” he admitted, “to be popular here, in case there are any
more fire-ceremonies going on.”
Cunningham’s face was serious for a moment.
“They were desperate, then,” he said. “They’d tried the Christian God and
things still looked black. So they called upon some ancient deities that
their forefathers had worshiped.... You mustn’t blame them, Gray.”
“I don’t.” Gray grinned. “But I do want to study their dialect,
Cunningham.”
“Go ahead. It’s disappearing. We’re going in for politics, and boy scouts,
and radios. We are a long way from a railroad, but our mine has built a
road to it, and we have a motor-truck line that’s as good as a trolley any
day. We’re highly civilized now, Gray.”
He opened the door into the house. And there was Maria to smile and give
Gray her hand.
“Your husband,” said Gray, “has been boasting outrageously about what’s
happened in the valley since you people came back.”
“He did it all,” said Maria proudly. “Nobody does anything, ever, without
asking him.”
Gray chuckled and lifted an eyebrow at Cunningham.
“You haven’t seen the prize exhibit yet,” said Cunningham hastily.
“Chief!”
There was a movement and Stephan came up a flight of steps that led
outside. There was a tiny figure balanced on his shoulders. Stephan
twinkled as he saw Gray, and he set his burden on the ground.
“I found him,” he announced proudly, “going down the hillside with his
air-rifle. He was going to hunt bears. That is a grandson!”
Gray stooped and beckoned. The small figure came shyly forward.
“Son,” said Gray gravely, “don’t you waste your time on small game like
bears. Wait until you grow up a bit, and see a picture of a pretty girl in
a magazine, and you find out where she is. And then--why, then you can
start out on the route to romance and adventure.”
THE END
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in serial form in the March,
April and May, 1928 issues of _Weird Tales_ Magazine.]