Glory Road Page 5

  “You shouldn’t try to cheat him, Rufo. Have some mushrooms. Where’s the baggage? I want to get dressed.”

  “Over there.” He went back to wolfing fish. Rufo was proof that some people should wear clothes. He was pink all over and somewhat potbellied. However, he was amazingly well muscled, which I had never suspected, else I would have been more cautious about taking that cannon away from him. I decided that if he wanted to Indian-wrestle, I would cheat.

  He glanced at me past a pound and a half of trout and said, “Is it your wish to be outfitted now, my lord?”

  “Huh? Finish your breakfast. And what’s this ‘my lord’ routine? Last time I saw you you were waving a gun in my face.”

  “I’m sorry, my lord. But She said to do it…and what She says must be done. You understand.”

  “That suits me perfectly. Somebody has to drive. But call me ‘Oscar.’”

  Rufo glanced at Star, she nodded. He grinned. “Okay, Oscar. No hard feelings?”

  “Not a bit.”

  He put down the fish, wiped his hand on his thigh, and stuck it out. “Swell! You knock ’em down, I’ll stomp on ’em.”

  We shook hands and each of us tried for the knuckle-cracking grip. I think I got a little the better of it, but I decided he might have been a blacksmith at some time.

  Star looked very pleased and showed dimples again She had been lounging by the fire; looking line a hamadryad on her coffee break; now she suddenly reached out and placed her strong, slender hand over our clasped fists. “My stout friends,” she said earnestly. “My good boys. Rufo, it will be well.”

  “You have a Sight?” he said eagerly.

  “No, just a feeling. But I am no longer worried.”

  “We can’t do a thing,” Rufo said moodily, “until we deal with Igli.”

  “Oscar will dicker with Igli.” Then she was on her feet in one smooth motion. “Stuff that fish in your face and unpack. I need clothes.” She suddenly looked very eager.

  Star was more different women than a platoon of WACs—which is only mildly a figure of speech. Right then she was every woman from Eve deciding between two fig leaves to a modern woman whose ambition is to be turned loose in Nieman-Marcus, naked with a checkbook. When I first met her, she had seemed rather a sobersides and no more interested in clothes than I was. I’d never had a chance to be interested in clothes. Being a member of the sloppy generation was a boon to my budget at college, where blue jeans were au fait and a dirty sweat shirt was stylish.

  The second time I saw her she had been dressed, but in that lab smock and tailored skirt she had been both a professional woman and a warm friend. But today—this morning whenever that was—she was increasingly full of bubbles. She had delighted so in catching fish that she had had to smother squeals of glee. And she had then been the perfect Girl Scout, with soot smudged on her cheek and her hair pushed back out of hazard of the fire while she cooked.

  Now she was the woman of all ages who just has to get her hands on new clothes. I felt that dressing Star was like putting a paint job on the crown jewels—but I was forced to admit that, if we were not to do the “Me Tarzan, you Jane” bit right in that dell from then on till death do us part, then clothes of some sort, if only to keep her perfect skin from getting scratched by brambles, were needed.

  Rufo’s baggage turned out to be a little black box about the size and shape of a portable typewriter. He opened it.

  And opened it again.

  And kept on opening it—and kept right on unfolding its sides and letting them down until the durn thing was the size of a small moving van and even more packed. Since I was nicknamed “Truthful James” as soon as I learned to talk and am widely known to have won the hatchet every February 22 all through school, you must now conclude that I was the victim of an illusion caused by hypnosis and/or drugs.

  Me, I’m not sure. Anyone who has studied math knows that the inside does not have to be smaller than the outside, in theory, and anyone who has had the doubtful privilege of seeing a fat woman get in or out of a tight girdle knows that this is true in practice, too. Rufo’s baggage just carried the principle further.

  The first thing he dragged out was a big teakwood chest. Star opened it and started pulling out filmy lovelies.

  “Oscar, what do you think of this one?” She was holding a long, green dress against her with the skirt draped over one hip to display it. “Like it?”

  Of course I liked it. If it was an original—and somehow I knew that Star never wore copies—I didn’t want to think about what it must have cost. “It’s a mighty pretty gown,” I told her. “But—look, are we going to be traveling?”

  “Right away.”

  “I don’t see any taxicabs. Aren’t you likely to get that torn?”

  “It doesn’t tear. However, I didn’t mean to wear it; I just meant to show it to you. Isn’t it lovely? Shall I model it for you? Rufo, I want those high-heeled sandals with the emeralds.”

  Rufo answered in that language he had been cursing in when he arrived. Star shrugged and said, “Don’t be impatient, Rufo; Igli will wait. Anyhow, we can’t talk to Igli earlier than tomorrow morning; milord Oscar must learn the language first.” But she put the green gorgeousness back in the chest.

  “Now here is a little number,” she went on, holding it up, “which is just plain naughty: it has no other purpose.”

  I could see why. It was mostly skirt, with a little bodice that supported without concealing—a style favored in ancient Crete, I hear, and still popular in the Overseas Weekly, Playboy, and many night clubs. A style that turns droopers into bulgers. Not that Star needed it.

  Rufo tapped me on the shoulder. “Boss? Want to look over the ordnance and pick out what you need?”

  Star said reprovingly, “Rufo, life is to be savored, not hurried.”

  “We’ll have a lot more life to savor if Oscar picks out what he can use best.”

  “He won’t need weapons until after we reach a settlement with Igli.” But she didn’t insist on showing more clothes and, while I enjoyed looking at Star, I like to check over weapons, too, especially when I might have to use them, as apparently the job called for.

  While I had been watching Star’s style show, Rufo had laid out a collection that looked like a cross between an army-surplus store and a museum—swords, pistols, a lance that must have been twenty feet long, a flame-thrower, two bazookas flanking a Tommy gun, brass knucks, a machete, grenades, bows and arrows, a misericorde—

  “You didn’t bring a slingshot,” I said accusingly.

  He looked smug. “Which kind do you like, Oscar? The forked sort? Or a real sling?”

  “Sorry I mentioned it. I can’t hit the floor with either sort.” I picked up the Tommy chopper, checked that it was empty, started stripping it. It seemed almost new, just fired enough to let the moving parts work in. A Tommy isn’t much more accurate than a pitched baseball and hasn’t much greater effective range. But it does have virtues—you hit a man with it, he goes down and stays down. It is short and not too heavy and has a lot of firepower for a short time. It is a bush weapon, or for any other sort of close-quarters work.

  But I like something with a bayonet on the end, in case the party gets intimate—and I like that something to be accurate at long range in case the neighbors get unfriendly from a distance. I put it down and picked up a Springfield—Rock Island Arsenal, as I saw by its serial number, but still a Springfield. I feel the way about a Springfield that I do about a Gooney Bird; some pieces of machinery are ultimate perfection of their sort, the only possible improvement is a radical change in design.

  I opened the bolt, stuck my thumbnail in the chamber, looked down the muzzle. The barrel was bright and the lands were unworn—and the muzzle had that tiny star on it; it was a match weapon!

  “Rufo, what sort of country will we be going through? Like this around us?”

  “Today, yes. But—” He apologetically took the rifle out of my hands. “It is forbidden to use fir
earms here. Swords, knives, arrows—anything that cuts or stabs or mauls by your own muscle power. No guns.”

  “Who says so?”

  He shivered. “Better ask Her.”

  “If we can’t use them, why bring them? And I don’t see any ammunition around anyhow.”

  “Plenty of ammunition. Later on we will be at—another place—where guns may be used. If we live that long. I was just showing you what we have. What do you like of the lawful weapons? Are you a bowman?”

  “I don’t know. Show me how.”

  He started to say something, then shrugged and selected a bow, slipped a leather guard over his left forearm, picked out an arrow. “That tree,” he said, “the one with the white rock at the foot of it. I’ll try for about as high off the ground as a man’s heart.”

  He nocked the shaft, raised and bent and let fly, all in one smooth motion.

  The arrow quivered in the tree trunk about four feet off the ground.

  Rufo grinned. “Care to match that?”

  I didn’t answer. I knew I could not, except by accident. I had once owned a bow, a birthday present. I hadn’t hit much with it and soon the arrows were lost. Nevertheless I made a production out of selecting a bow, and picked the longest and heaviest.

  Rufo cleared his throat apologetically. “If I may make a suggestion, that one will pull quite hard—for a beginner.”

  I strung it. “Find me a leather.”

  The leather slipped on as if it had been made for me and perhaps it had. I picked an arrow to match, barely looked at it as they all seemed straight and true. I didn’t have any hope of hitting that bloody tree; it was fifty yards away and not over a foot thick. I simply intended to sight a bit high up on the trunk and hope that so heavy a bow would give me a flattish trajectory. Mostly I wanted to nock, bend, and loose all in one motion as Rufo had done—to look like Robin Hood even though I was not.

  But as I raised and bent that bow and felt the power of it, I felt a surge of exultance—this tool was right for me! We fitted.

  I let fly without thinking.

  My shaft thudded a hand’s breadth from his.

  “Well shot!” Star called out.

  Rufo looked at the tree and blinked, then looked reproachfully at Star. She looked haughtily back. “I did not,” she stated. “You know I would not do that. It was a fair trial…and a credit to you both.”

  Rufo looked thoughtfully at me. “Hmm—Would you care to make a small bet—you name the odds—that you can do that again?”

  “I won’t bet,” I said. “I’m chicken.” But I picked up another arrow and nocked it. I liked that bow, I even liked the way the string whanged at the guard on my forearm; I wanted to try it, feel married to it, again.

  I loosed it.

  The third arrow grew out of a spot between the first two, but closer to his. “Nice bow,” I said. “I’ll keep it. Fetch the shafts.”

  Rufo trotted away without speaking. I unstrung the bow, then started looking over the cutlery. I hoped that I would never again have to shoot an arrow; a gambler can’t expect to draw a pat hand every deal—my next shot would likely turn around like a boomerang.

  There was too much wealth of edges and points, from a two-handed broadsword suitable for chopping down trees to a little dagger meant for a lady’s stocking. But I picked up and balanced them all…and found there the blade that suited me the way Excalibur suited Arthur.

  I’ve never seen one quite like it so I don’t know what to call it. A saber, I suppose, as the blade was faintly curved and razor sharp on the edge and sharp rather far back on the back. But it had a point as deadly as a rapier and the curve was not enough to keep it from being used for thrust and counter quite as well as chopping away meat-axe style. The guard was a bell curved back around the knuckles into a semi-basket but cut away enough to permit full moulinet from any guard.

  It balanced in the forte less than two inches from the guard, yet the blade was heavy enough to chop bone. It was the sort of sword that feels as if it were an extension of your body.

  The grip was honest sharkskin, molded to my hand. There was a motto chased onto the blade but it was so buried in curlicues that I did not take time to study it out. This girl was mine, we fitted! I returned it and buckled belt and scabbard to my bare waist, wanting the touch of it and feeling like Captain John Carter, Jeddak of Jeddaks, and the Gascon and his three friends all in one.

  “Will you not dress, milord Oscar?” Star asked.

  “Eh? Oh, certainly—I was just trying it on for size. But—Did Rufo fetch my clothes?”

  “Did you, Rufo?”

  “His clothes? He wouldn’t want those things he was wearing in Nice!”

  “What’s wrong with wearing Lederhosen with an aloha shirt?” I demanded.

  “What? Oh, nothing at all, milord Oscar,” Rufo answered hastily. “Live and let live I always say. I knew a man once who wore—never mind. Let me show you what I fetched for you.”

  I had my choice of everything from a plastic raincoat to full armor. I found the latter depressing because its presence implied that it might be needed. Except for an army helmet I had never worn armor, didn’t want to, didn’t know how—and didn’t care to mix with rude company that made such protection desirable.

  Besides, I didn’t see a horse around, say a Percheron or a Clydesdale, and I couldn’t see myself hiking in one of those tin suits. I’d be slow as crutches, noisy as a subway, and hot as a phone booth. Sweat off ten pounds in five miles. The quilted longjohns that go under that ironmongery would have been too much alone for such beautiful weather; steel on top would turn me into a walking oven and leave me too weak and clumsy to fight my way out of a traffic ticket.

  “Star, you said that—” I stopped. She had finished dressing and hadn’t overdone it. Soft leather hiking shoes—buskins really—brown tights, and a short green upper garment halfway between a jacket and a skating dress. This was topped by a perky little hat and the whole costume made her look like a musical comedy version of an airline hostess, smart, cute, wholesome, and sexy.

  Or maybe Maid Marian, as she had added a double-curve bow about half the size of mine, a quiver, and a dagger. “You,” I said, “look like why the riot started.”

  She dimpled and curtsied. (Star never pretended. She knew she was female, she knew she looked good, she liked it that way.) “You said something earlier,” I continued, “about my not needing weapons just yet. Is there any reason why I should wear one of these space suits? They don’t look comfortable.”

  “I don’t expect any great danger today,” she said slowly. “But this is not a place where one can call the police. You must decide what you need.”

  “But—Damn it. Princess, you know this place and I don’t. I need advice.”

  She didn’t answer. I turned to Rufo. He was carefully studying a treetop. I said, “Rufo, get dressed.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Milord Oscar?”

  “Schnell! Vite, vite! Get the lead out.”

  “Okay.” He dressed quickly, in an outfit that was a man’s version of what Star had selected, with shorts instead of tights.

  “Arm yourself,” I said, and started to dress the same way, except that I intended to wear field boots. However, there was a pair of those buskins that appeared to be my size, so I tried them on. They snuggled to my feet like gloves and, anyway, my soles were so hardened by a month barefooted on l’Île du Levant that I didn’t need heavy boots.

  They were not as medieval as they looked; they zipped up the front and were marked inside Fabriqué en France.

  Pops Rufo had taken the bow he had used before, selected a sword, and had added a dagger. Instead of a dagger I picked out a Solingen hunting knife. I looked longingly at a service .45, but didn’t touch it. If “they,” whoever they were, had a local Sullivan Act, I would go along with the gag.

  Star told Rufo to pack, then squatted down with me at a sandy place by the stream and drew a sketch map—route south, dropping downgrade
and following the stream except for short cuts, until we reached the Singing Waters. There we would camp for the night.

  I got it in my head. “Okay. Anything to warn me about? Do we shoot first? Or wait for them to bomb us?”

  “Nothing that I expect, today. Oh, there’s a carnivore about three times the size of a lion. But it is a great coward; it won’t attack a moving man.”

  “A fellow after my own heart. All right, we’ll keep moving.”

  “If we do see human beings—I don’t expect it—it might be well to nock a shaft…but not raise your bow until you feel it is necessary. But I’m not telling you what to do, Oscar; you must decide. Nor will Rufo let fly unless he sees you about to do so.”

  Rufo had finished packing. “Okay, let’s go,” I said. We set out. Rufo’s little black box was now rigged as a knapsack and I did not stop to wonder how he could carry a couple of tons on his shoulders. An anti-grav device like Buck Rogers, maybe. Chinese coolie blood. Black magic. Hell, that teakwood chest alone could not have fitted into that backpack by a factor of 30 to 1, not to mention the arsenal and assorted oddments.

  There is no reason to wonder why I didn’t quiz Star as to where we were, why we were there, how we had got there, what we were going to do, and the details of these dangers I was expected to face. Look, Mac, when you are having the most gorgeous dream of your life and just getting to the point, do you stop to tell yourself that it is logically impossible for that particular babe to be in the hay with you—and thereby wake yourself up? I knew, logically, that everything that had happened since I read that silly ad had been impossible.

  So I chucked logic.

  Logic is a feeble reed, friend. “Logic” proved that airplanes can’t fly and that H-bombs wont work and that stones don’t fall out of the sky. Logic is a way of saying that anything which didn’t happen yesterday won’t happen tomorrow.

  I liked the situation. I didn’t want to wake up, whether in bed, or in a headshrinker ward. Most especially I did not want to wake up still back in that jungle, maybe with that face wound still fresh and no helicopter. Maybe little brown brother had done a full job on me and sent me to Valhalla. Okay, I liked Valhalla.