The Martian Chronicles Part 18

He pulled the door wider to let her see. The cold wind blew and the thin rain fell upon the soil and the figure stood looking at them with distant eyes. The old woman held to the doorway.

"Go away!" she said, waving one hand. "Go away!"

"Doesn't it look like Tom?" asked the old man.

The figure did not move.

"I'm afraid," said the old woman. "Lock the door and come to bed. I won't have anything to do with it."

She vanished, moaning to herself, into the bedroom.

The old man stood with the wind raining coldness on his hands.

"Tom," he called softly. "Tom, if that's you, if by some chance it is you, Tom, I'll leave the door unlatched. And if you're cold and want to come in to warm yourself, just come in later and lie by the hearth; there's some fur rugs there."

He shut but did not lock the door.

His wife felt him return to bed, and shuddered. "It's a terrible night. I feel so old," she said, sobbing.

"Hush, hush," he gentled her, and held her in his arms. "Go to sleep."

After a long while she slept.

And then, very quietly, as he listened, he heard the front door open, the rain and wind come in, the door shut. He heard soft footsteps on the hearth and a gentle breathing. "Tom," he said to himself, Lightning struck in the sky and broke the blackness apart.

In the morning the sun was very hot.

Mr. LaFarge opened the door into the living room and glanced all about, quickly.

The hearthrugs were empty.

LaFarge sighed. "I'm getting old," he said.

He went out to walk to the ca.n.a.l to fetch a bucket of clear water to wash in. At the front door he almost knocked young Tom down carrying in a bucket already filled to the brim. "Good morning, Father!"

"Morning Tom." The old man fell aside. The young boy, barefooted, hurried across the room, set the bucket down, and turned, smiling. "It's a fine day!"

"Yes, it is," said the old man incredulously. The boy acted as if nothing was unusual. He began to wash his face with the water.

The old man moved forward. "Tom, how did you get here? You're alive?"

"Shouldn't I be?" The boy glanced up.

"But, Tom, Green Lawn Park, every Sunday, the flowers and ... " LaFarge had to sit down. The boy came and stood before him and took his hand. The old man felt of the fingers, warm and firm. "You're really here, it's not a dream?"

"You do do want me to be here, don't you?" The boy seemed worried. want me to be here, don't you?" The boy seemed worried.

"Yes, yes, Tom!"

"Then why ask questions? Accept me!"

"But your mother; the shock ... "

"Don't worry about her. During the night I sang to both of you, and you'll accept me more because of it, especially her. I know what the shock is. Wait till she comes, you'll see." He laughed, shaking his head of coppery, curled hair. His eyes were very blue and clear.

"Good morning, Lafe, Tom." Mother came from the bedroom, putting her hair up into a bun. "Isn't it a fine day?"

Tom turned to laugh in his father's face. "You see?"

They ate a very good lunch, all three of them, in the shade behind the house. Mrs. LaFarge had found an old bottle of sunflower wine she had put away, and they all had a drink of that. Mr. LaFarge had never seen his wife's face so bright. If there was any doubt in her mind about Tom, she didn't voice it. It was completely natural thing to her. And it was also becoming natural to LaFarge himself.

While Mother cleared the dishes LaFarge leaned toward his son and said confidentially, "How old are you now, Son?"

"Don't you know, Father? Fourteen, of course."

"Who are you, really? really? You can't be Tom, but you are You can't be Tom, but you are someone someone. Who?"

"Don't." Startled, the boy put his hands to his face.

"You can tell me," said the old man. "I'll understand. You're a Martian, aren't you? I've heard tales of the Martians; nothing definite. Stories about how rare Martians are and when they come among us they come as Earth Men. There's something about you-you're Tom and yet you're not."

"Why can't you accept me and stop talking?" cried the boy. His hands completely s.h.i.+elded his face. "Don't doubt, please don't doubt me!" He turned and ran from the table.

"Tom, come back!"

But the boy ran off along the ca.n.a.l toward the distant town.

"Where's Tom going?" asked Anna, returning for more dishes. She looked at her husband's face. "Did you say something to bother him?"

"Anna," he said, taking her hand. "Anna, do you remember anything about Green Lawn Park, a market, and Tom having pneumonia?"

"What are are you talking about?" She laughed. you talking about?" She laughed.

"Never mind," he said quietly.

In the distance the dust drifted down after Tom had run along the ca.n.a.l rim.

At five in the afternoon, with the sunset, Tom returned. He looked doubtfully at his father. "Are you going to ask me anything?" he wanted to know.

"No questions," said LaFarge.

The boy smiled his white smile. "Swell."

"Where've you been?"

"Near the town. I almost didn't come back. I was almost"-the boy sought for a word-"trapped."

"How do you mean, 'trapped'?"

"I pa.s.sed a small tin house by the ca.n.a.l and I was almost made so I couldn't come back here ever again to see you. I don't know how to explain it to you, there's no way, I can't tell you, even I I don't know; it's strange, I don't want to talk about it." don't know; it's strange, I don't want to talk about it."

"We won't then. Better wash up, boy. Suppertime."

The boy ran.

Perhaps ten minutes later a boat floated down the serene surface of the ca.n.a.l, a tall lank man with black hair poling it along with leisurely drives of his arms. "Evening, Brother LaFarge," he said, pausing at his task.

"Evening Saul, what's the word?"

"All kinds of words tonight. You know that fellow named Nomland who lives down the ca.n.a.l in the tin hut?"

LaFarge stiffened. "Yes?"

"You know what sort of rascal he was?"

"Rumor had it he left Earth because he killed a man."

Saul leaned on his wet pole, gazing at LaFarge. "Remember the name of the man he killed?"

"Gillings, wasn't it?"

"Right. Gillings. Well, about two hours ago Mr. Nomland came running to town crying about how he had seen Gillings, alive, here on Mars, today, this afternoon! He tried to get the jail to lock him up safe. The jail wouldn't. So Nomland went home, and twenty minutes ago, as I get the story, blew his brains out with a gun. I just came from there."

"Well, well," said LaFarge.

"The darnedest things happen," said Saul. "Well, good night, LaFarge."

"Good night."

The boat drifted on down the serene ca.n.a.l waters.

"Supper's hot," called the old woman.

Mr. LaFarge sat down to his supper and, knife in hand, looked over at Tom. "Tom," he said, "what did you do this afternoon?"

"Nothing," said Tom, his mouth full. "Why?"

"Just wanted to know." The old man tucked his napkin in.

At seven that night the old woman wanted to go to town. "Haven't been there in months," she said. But Tom desisted. "I'm afraid of the town," he said. "The people. I don't want to go there."

"Such talk for a grown boy," said Anna. "I won't listen to it. You'll come along. I I say so." say so."

"Anna, if the boy doesn't want to ... " started the old man.

But there was no arguing. She hustled them into the ca.n.a.lboat and they floated up the ca.n.a.l under the evening stars, Tom lying on his back, his eyes closed; asleep or not, there was no telling. The old man looked at him steadily, wondering. Who is this, he thought, in need of love as much as we? Who is he and what is he that, out of loneliness, he comes into the alien camp and a.s.sumes the voice and face of memory and stands among us, accepted and happy at last? From what mountain, what cave, what small last race of people remaining on this world when the rockets came from Earth? The old man shook his head. There was no way to know. This, to all purposes, was Tom.

The old man looked at the town ahead and did not like it, but then he returned to thoughts of Tom and Anna again and he thought to himself: Perhaps this is wrong to keep Tom but a little while, when nothing can come of it but trouble and sorrow, but how are we to give up the very thing we've wanted, no matter if it stays only a day and is gone, making the emptiness emptier, the dark nights darker, the rainy nights wetter? You might as well force the food from our mouths as take this one from us.

And he looked at the boy slumbering so peacefully at the bottom of the boat. The boy whimpered with some dream. "The people," he murmured in his sleep. "Changing and changing. The trap."

"There, there, boy." LaFarge stroked the boy's soft curls and Tom ceased.

LaFarge helped wife and son from the boat.

"Here we are!" Anna smiled at all the lights, listening to the music from the drinking houses, the pianos, the phonographs, watching people, arm in arm, striding by in the crowded streets.

"I wish I was home," said Tom.

"You never talked that way before," said the mother. "You always liked Sat.u.r.day nights in town."

"Stay close to me," whispered Tom. "I don't want to get trapped."

Anna overheard. "Stop talking that way; come along!"

LaFarge noticed that the boy held his hand. LaFarge squeezed it. "I'll stick with you, Tommy-boy." He looked at the throngs coming and going and it worried him also. "We won't stay long."

"Nonsense, we'll spend the evening," said Anna.

They crossed a street, and three drunken men careened into them. There was much confusion, a separation, a wheeling about, and then LaFarge stood stunned.

Tom was gone.

"Where is he?" asked Anna irritably. "Him always running off alone any chance he gets. Tom!" she called.

Mr. LaFarge hurried through the crowd, but Tom was gone.

"He'll come back; he'll be at the boat when we leave," said Anna certainly, steering her husband back toward the motion-picture theater. There was a sudden commotion in the crowd, and a man and woman rushed by LaFarge. He recognized them. Joe Spaulding and his wife. They were gone before he could speak to them.

Looking back anxiously, he purchased the tickets for the theater and allowed his wife to draw him into the unwelcome darkness.

Tom was not at the landing at eleven o'clock. Mrs. LaFarge turned very pale.

"Now, Mother," said LaFarge, "don't worry. I'll find him. Wait here."

"Hurry back." Her voice faded into the ripple of the water.

He walked through the night streets, hands in pockets. All about, lights were going out one by one. A few people were still leaning out their windows, for the night was warm, even though the sky still held storm clouds from time to time among the stars. As he walked he recalled the boy's constant references to being trapped, his fear of crowds and cities. There was no sense in it, thought the old man tiredly. Perhaps the boy was gone forever, perhaps he had never been. LaFarge turned in at a particular alley, watching the numbers.

"h.e.l.lo there, LaFarge."

A man sat in his doorway, smoking a pipe.

"h.e.l.lo, Mike."

"You and your woman quarrel? You out walking it off?"