Arslan. Part 10

Sanjar had started to venture out a little more. The hors.e.m.e.n were giving him riding lessons-something Arslan had insisted on doing himself, in the old days. Hunt had taken to horseback, too. On the bad mornings he would wash down his breakfast with a swig of vodka, saddle up the chestnut colt that Arslan had reserved for him, and flash down the road at a frantic gallop. Arslan himself rode everywhere now-rode, to give him his due, as well as he'd ever driven. Once I saw him, cantering past the school, suddenly dig his heels into the horse's sides and circle the long block at full gallop, dragging the horse's head sharp around the corners, and then canter quietly on down Market Street, straight-shouldered and blank-faced.

The flowers were getting to him. For once-maybe-he had started a fight he couldn't win.

He chose the fight. He could have stopped the decorations any time by guarding the graves, if not by more dramatic means. Instead, he chose this long, quiet struggle. He had taken me down the Morrisville road once to show me he could do things for himself. The evidence of something he had done for himself lay under the trampled flowers. Apparently he meant to win this fight the same way, by raw force of his own will and muscle. He was telling us he could trample all the flowers Kraftsville could grow. I thought not.

"You going trick-or-treat, Franklin?" It seemed like n.o.body's idea; it seemed like everybody's. By the middle of October, enough people had said it to me, with the right kind of grin, to make me decide this was it. Instead of a midsummer D-Day, we were going to have a bang-up Hallowe'en.

Only the older kids remembered going trick-or-treat, but they were all enthusiastic when the KCR spread the word it would be safe to go out again this year. I wanted Arslan and Nizam to be expecting a little innocent activity. Hallowe'en fell on a Sunday, and quite a dispute developed over whether it was right to allow trick-or-treating on the Sabbath. It was the nicest little smokescreen we could have asked for.

We had set the Sat.u.r.day night for the Trick; but for insurance we would be ready to go the night before. There would be a few kids out on Friday night-closely followed by nervous parents-and a few more little ones on Sat.u.r.day afternoon. At sundown the KCR would pa.s.s the word at top speed, and an immediate curfew would go into effect. At seven o'clock most of the troops would be eating supper; those on duty would be expecting to see people on the streets; Nizam would be in his lair; Arslan, if he followed his recent pattern, would already be in his room with a girl. At seven o'clock we would hit.

All our hope was to strike fast enough to secure the two necessary prizes: Nizam's headquarters, and Arslan. With Arslan and Nizam neutralized (dead, or preferably alive under lock and key) there would be n.o.body competent to command the whole body of troops. More important, we would have control of communications in the district, and contact with Arslan's headquarters all over the world. And we would have a little language problem.

We had-maybe-our traitor, if that was the right word, among the Russian officers, ready to declare himself commander of the troops and broadcast our message. But all our contacts had been very circ.u.mspect, and I wasn't counting on him too much. We would tell him what was going on when it was under way. I counted more on Hunt Morgan. Hunt could make himself understood by the Turkistanis, and one way or another-either to save the world or to save Arslan's life-I was sure he would act as interpreter for us.

If we got that far, we were just coming to the hard part. What we were betting was that n.o.body, not even the Turkistanis, really gave a d.a.m.n about Arslan's Plans. Either they were serving Arslan personally, or they were serving under duress. In the first case, they'd be our men as long as we held Arslan hostage (and if he had to be killed, they wouldn't have to know it); in the second, we could tell them about Plan Two and offer them the freedom to go home. But we had to face the possibility of hostile units. That meant raising the local population against them, or turning other units against them, or both. Whether Kraftsville turned out to be the Concord of the new American Revolution or just the first skirmish of Armageddon would depend very much on what kind of contact we made with Arslan's armies and with the American people during the first few days.

And if we failed at any point, I would have let loose the h.e.l.l on earth that I had sold my soul to prevent, seven years ago on the Morrisville road. But it was Arslan who had broken the contract.

Friday night, as it happened, we all ate together. Arslan swung into the house early, shouting for Hunt and his supper. Hunt was in the living room, pouring himself a drink. Luella was just sitting down with me to eat before the rush. She had been deep in making applesauce and apple b.u.t.ter all day. The stove was covered with steaming pots, and the whole house was full of the rich, spicy smell. "I'm using up the last of the cinnamon," she said. "It loses its flavor, anyway; you can't keep it forever." Supper was about as simple as it could be-baked ham, baked beans, and fresh hot applesauce. "That's one nice thing about a wood stove," Luella said; "if you're cooking anything on top, you might as well put something in the oven, too." She smiled at me tiredly.

"It's delicious." I smiled back at her. This was probably the last supper I'd be eating with her here for a while. It might very well be the last of all. And the smell of the apple b.u.t.ter was very good.

But Arslan and Hunt came in, Hunt carrying gla.s.s and bottle. "Coffee," Arslan ordered. He was on the make tonight; the fury was avid, and everything in sight was fair game. He took Hunt's bottle and poured vodka into his coffee till it brimmed the cup; his teeth showed as he lifted it and drank. "You are very trusting, sir," he said to me. His eyes flashed. He dug into the beans with vengeance.

"That depends on who you ask me to trust."

"I ask you to trust no one, least of all my soldiers. But you have approved that your people's children should go out alone in the night. Would it not have been wiser to consult with me before you approved this?"

"We'll be watching them."

He smiled cruelly. "As you watched, the day I came to Kraftsville?"

I shoved back my plate. "If anything happens to any of those kids, General, you've got a revolution on your hands." It was the literal truth. My pistol shot-or any other-would be the signal to start things rolling.

Light leaped in his eyes. He turned his square hands above his plate, half-smiling. "No, sir," he said softly. "But perhaps a revolt. There will be more important revolts."

I got up. "You'd better see that they're left alone. Be careful if you don't want to lose me, General."

He gazed up at me, balancing, daring. "Do you imagine that this is important to me?"

"If it isn't, you've gone to a lot of trouble for nothing."

He smiled slowly. "Ah," he whispered, and went back to his beans.

Luella bent her head over her plate, but not before I saw her drawn mouth and look of misery. I hadn't eaten very much. I was sorry. Hunt sat stiffly upright, eyes down, swirling the liquor in his gla.s.s. Arslan smiled around the table; he was pleased with his work.

It couldn't have been more than twenty minutes before Arslan was at my bedroom door, bottle in hand. He stood eyeing me a moment before he came all the way in, kicking the door shut behind him, and stretched himself on my bed, propped on his left elbow. "Have you considered the significance of flowers, sir?" he asked softly.

"I've never given it much thought." Thirty-six hours from now, one of us would be a corpse or a captive. It was easy enough to picture Arslan bound hand and foot, blood and sweat on his face (there'd be no other way), with his black hair lank on his forehead and his black eyes watchful and undefeated; but I couldn't picture him dead, any more than I could myself.

He was a young man-a very young man to have destroyed so much. But his skin was weathered, and his eyes haggard. "What is a flower in itself, sir? It is an organ of reproduction, and like other organs of reproduction, it gives pleasure. No doubt the pleasure of the bee is greater than the pleasure of the gardener. Pleasure, sir"-his face grew fierce, intent and serious-"pleasure is the supreme immediate end; but in the economy of the world it is only instrumental. The flower of the pea is as exquisite as the flower of the rose. The scent of the lilac is a tool with which the lilac constructs its seeds." He looked down into his bottle with an expression of intense wonderment, and slowly, feelingly, drank.

"And yet there are sterile flowers, sir. The flower of the potato, the j.a.panese cherry blossom; to what end do they bloom? This is the monstrosity that man has bred: the sterile flower. And yet there were already sterile flowers when man ran on his knuckles with the apes. Who bred the wild yam? Who bred the saxifrage?" He glared at me as if he could compel an answer. Then he drank again, and his face smoothed. "Is this not beautiful, sir?" he asked purringly. "The flower that gives pleasure fruitlessly? Is it not beautiful that nature is so-unnatural?" He showed his teeth in a slow grimace. "Why do your people put flowers upon graves, sir? What is the meaning of this custom?"

"I suppose, like most customs, it means about whatever people put into it."

He hunched his shoulders forward a little, searching my face. "I tell you a curious thing, sir," he said confidentially. "I am in pain. You understand that I am accustomed to facts; facts do not trouble me. But there is a pain that does not cease." He grinned savagely. "Ah, this gives you satisfaction, sir. Good. Good." A hot look glowed in his taut face. He lifted three cigarettes from the pack in his s.h.i.+rt pocket and plugged the mouth of the bottle with them, and in one powerful, deliberate movement he swung his legs down and his arm in a sideward arc. The bottle smashed against the opposite wall, spewing liquor, and he was sitting upright on the edge of the bed. "Hunt!" he roared.

Vodka dripped down the wall. A piece of flying gla.s.s had landed on my knee. I flipped it off with my finger, and it hit his leg and dropped onto his shoe. He picked it up and looked at it searchingly.

Hunt opened the door. "Bring me another bottle," Arslan said suavely. Hunt nodded, taking it all in with a little scornful smile, and lifted his hand into sight. It held an unopened bottle of vodka. Arslan's laugh exploded. He dropped the gla.s.s fragment onto the bed beside him and accepted the new bottle. "Shut the door." He opened the bottle swiftly, took a long swig, and nestled it between his knees. "Therefore, or in part therefore, I am going."

Hunt took a step forward from the door. "Where?"

"To Russia. Probably then to India."

I didn't care where. "When?" I asked harshly.

He gave me a smile of luminous sweetness. "Tonight," he said. He lifted the bottle by the neck and swung it gently back and forth. "The main transmitter and receiver have been dismantled. The rest of the communications equipment"-he glanced at his watch-"has just left headquarters. Sanjar," he added smoothly, "is already out of the district." He set the bottle on the floor and leaned forward confidingly. "You see, sir, that I wish to save Kraftsville."

He had spread his hand a little too soon. But I had to be on my feet and out of reach, and I'd better be between Hunt and the door, and my first shot should be by the window, to put the KCR into action.

Hunt brushed past me and confronted Arslan. "This time are you asking me?" he cried huskily.

Arslan's face went cold. "No. You stay, Hunt."

Hunt swayed on his feet. "I'm going with you." His voice was hard and shrill with desperation. Three strides got me to the window; as I turned I had the gun in my hand.

That instant the world stopped turning for me. The whole room seemed illuminated with a terrific clarity. I felt every muscle in my body. I was contented. There would be no more lying now.

Hunt had turned his desolate face towards me. On the far edge of the bed, Arslan had to look almost over his shoulder. He made no move, but his face was afire with excitement. "Ah, there it is," he said quietly.

I turned the gun a little away from them, to fire the signal shot. But as I turned it, the long moment ended, exploded in a splintering burst, and flying specks of my blood and bone sprinkled my face. Flickeringly I saw Arslan fling himself across the bed, rolling over and up onto his feet in front of me, and stoop and rise and dance back. He stood before me with a pistol in each hand.

I knew two things in the smeared dimness that throbbed through the room: he had fired the signal shot; and with all the guns on his side, I had nothing more to lose. I plunged towards the door. Keep him cut off from his men till the KCR got here-that was the last-ditch idea that moved my legs.

Hunt met me in a rush, and we grappled together. I heard myself remarking, up in some attic of my brain, He's stronger than I thought. Now the shock of the bullet was wearing off, and one wave after another of hot pain washed up my right arm. I threw Hunt down and slammed against the dresser, driving it in front of the door. Through the drumming in my head I heard feet on the stairs. I gave the dresser a last thrust and caught Hunt as he came up again.

He hadn't tried to use his knife-the famous knife that had been Arslan's own. My vision cleared as if a curtain had risen. I hugged him to me with my left arm, catching his right hand between our chests. Arslan's men were at the door.

Hunt had stopped struggling. He stood trying to control his breath. Arslan was standing a little back from the window. He holstered one of the pistols casually and called out something; the sounds at the door stopped.

"You can let me go now," Hunt said composedly. "Consider me hors de combat."

I wasn't about to let him go. Other things being equal, Arslan would maybe rather not kill me, but he would almost certainly go at least a little out of his way to keep from killing Hunt. And the only thing Hunt had showed me so far was that neither of us could afford to trust him.

Then the first shots sounded from the schoolground. Arslan smiled at me expectantly. A machinegun answered under the window.

"Sir," he said, "I am leaving Kraftsville to you." He lifted the lamp from the table. The machinegun spoke again. I heard running footsteps outside; the Land Rover started up; something else-one of the trucks-was coming down the street. My whole right arm to the shoulder felt swollen and half-solid, like a balloon full of blood. I was getting dizzy. He shouted one more order, and then he hurled the lamp in a looping overhead pitch that lifted the shadows and shook them over us. He swept the curtain aside, and struck the screen a sidearm blow. Fire swarmed up the cotton spread, from the shattered lamp at the bed's foot. The screen clattered on the porch roof. I let go of Hunt and lunged forward, carrying him along with my rush till he pulled away from me. Arslan was already out of the window.

The fire was to keep us busy, maybe, but neither of us was having any. Hunt dived through the window. How I got through I didn't know.

Arslan was running lightly along the edge of the porch roof, fuzzy in the darkness. At the corner he half turned to us, and his hand came up in a quick gesture of salute or warning. The light of the flames from the bedroom glinted on his face. Hunt had almost reached him when he dropped over the edge. Instantly, it seemed to me, the truck motor roared. There was one more burst of machinegun fire, somebody yelled something, and beyond the roofs edge I saw the truck and the Land Rover scream into Pearl Street, their lights coming on like explosions.

We teetered on the gentle slope of the s.h.i.+ngles. I waved my good arm. "Joel!" I bellowed. "Pete Larner! All of you get up here! We've got to put out a fire!"

Hunt came back to me with a step, facing me close. He shook with racking laughter. "That's right, Mr. Bond," he said. "Your house is burning. You'd better take care of your G.o.dd.a.m.n house."

"A few weeks, a few eons-in other words, presumptively never. That's when Arslan will come back."

That was what Hunt said. He had made his movement of self-preservation very promptly. He had attached himself to me the instant Arslan deserted him, but he had also a.s.serted his independence, or at least his aloofness, by doing it with a very scornful air.

And for half an hour on the porch roof, it was Hunt who had taken care of me. He had caught me when I swayed and eased me down away from the roofs edge. He had held me back when I half sat up and raved at the KCR men to leave me alone and get to work on the fire. He had put the tourniquet on my arm, and he had jumped off the roof and gone for Dr. Allard.

Later I found myself lying on a strange bed in a strange room. But it was Arslan's bed, Arslan's room. "Is it out?" I demanded.

"Yes, yes, it's out," Luella answered.

"Where's Joel Munsey?"

"He's dead," Hunt said from somewhere in the shadows.

"He's the only one," Luella added quickly.

"Then get me Leland Kitchener-or anybody that knows what's going on."

Hunt put himself forward. "Okay, I can tell you. The town's all yours. The troops are apparently all in camp-those that are still here. n.o.body's fighting anybody. The school is cleaned out. Nizam got his unit out with practically no action. Joel Munsey's dead, Leland Kitchener has a few bullets in him, and you're the rest of the casualty list." His voice was bra.s.sy. "You had a nice little revolution going, Mr. Bond, but it never had a chance to get off the ground. Oh, yes, and your bed's ruined-that's all. But you have a couple of extra rooms now, anyway."

I looked at my arm lying beside me and was a little surprised to see fingers at the end of the bandages. Luella was holding my left hand. "I'm sorry I couldn't let you know beforehand," I told her.

"Thank goodness you didn't."

"Where's Leland?"

"Downstairs. The doctor's down there with him."

I took a good breath and started to get up. There were a lot of things to find out.

We couldn't tell how many Russians were still in the camp. The only men we saw were manning the machineguns along the fence. We had no way of attacking that kind of fortress, and I had no intention of trying it. There was no sign of our friendly officer. Either Nizam had got him, or he'd chickened out, or he'd been Arslan's man all along.

Except for the impacted Russians, the district was empty of troops; but, as the KCR soon found out, the border was as solidly guarded as ever, only now it was guarded from the other side. We had gained nothing but the half-mile-wide border strip. It wasn't that our coup had failed; it had just ceased to be applicable.

The bemusing thing was that Arslan had escaped from Kraftsville. He had known the plot, or at least known of it. He could hardly have doubted he could smash it. Instead, he had secretly packed up his valuables and fled. He had come into Kraftsville like a young lion, rampant and triumphant, but in the end he had climbed out a window and run down a roof, and his getaway car had been waiting.

There was a weird feeling everywhere, like the shock when an unpleasant noise you've gotten used to suddenly stops. No more soldiers! The Russians stayed inside their fence. On Tuesday Kraftsville boiled over. Boys romped through the school and Nizam's headquarters, breaking windows and tumbling desks down the stairs. By midafternoon an orgy of visiting was in progress. The wagons were coming to town again. Impromptu picnics and covered-dish suppers were being put together. Reunions were being planned. The churches were announcing prayer services. Quite a few people were looking for Arslan's liquor supply, and several of them came to me about it. As far as I was concerned, he'd either used it up or taken it with him-and in case anybody looked through my furnace-room window, I sent Hunt down to cover the cases with some boxes of Luella's fruit jars.

He had left the district to me and the KCR. But it was still a sealed box, with an explosive charge in the middle of it. We might have twenty-four hours of respite or forever; there was no way to know except by living it.

As it turned out, we had five years.

PART TWO.

Hunt Morgan.

Chapter 13.

I had dreamed, asleep and awake, so many variations of his return. I had even considered the possibility of not recognizing him. And when he came at last, the only shock I felt, standing unnoticed in the twilit doorway, was at seeing a stranger in our living room. Then the question arose in my mind, as it were abstractly, Is this Arslan? Yes, I answered, and felt nothing. I saw that he was not a large man-something I had known before, but not realized. His face was plain-a face without attraction or notable characteristic, a face with nothing special in it. Then he turned his head a little, and I thought definitely, No. Not Arslan. Not only his anonymous countenance but his whole build seemed different. The Arslan who inhabited my nightmares was a more ma.s.sive person. Then he spoke to Franklin, and his voice was strange to me, and then, in the same moment, all familiar, and I knew him. And still I felt nothing. Or, rather, I felt an empty excitement, an emotion without content; aroused, but to nothing; awaiting the contact that should fill me with fear or with desire.

He was ugly. He had gotten a little stringy beard like Genghiz Khan, and his right hand and arm were horribly mutilated, transformed into a scar-striped claw.

And then he looked at me.

Ah, that was what I had forgotten-had thought I remembered, remembering only words; when Arslan looked at you, he looked at you altogether, and anyone else's most penetrating stare was a casual glance in comparison. I felt his look go through me like an X-ray (that burned, pierced and burned, sweet as Liebestod); and knowing everything he wanted, he smiled at me, his inescapable smile, all joyfulness. "Hunt," he said. And he said, "Sanjar is with the horses. Help him bring in the saddlebags."

If I could have refused him, he would not have commanded me. I went out in the blue dusk to the shed and found Sanjar watering a gorgeous pair. In the twilight their coats were slatey-black; bays, perhaps. He must be nine now. I would never have recognized him. "I saw you go by a minute ago," he said. "We got some things for you in the bags." He looked very tired, but he grinned merrily at me. He was a beautiful boy; and, seeing that, I saw how like Arslan he was; and Arslan was beautiful to me again. "Don't you have any horses?" he asked.

"Not this year."

He frowned with quick concern and gestured around the shed."Did they die?" I noticed that he had served the horses from our chickens' supply of oats. Not, however, prodigally.

"Don't worry," I said. "Nothing contagious." And he smiled again, a very winning, open smile. He stood hardly higher than my waist. "How was he wounded?" I asked. Soon I must say Arslan aloud again; but not yet.

"Phosphorus," he answered cheerily. "North of Athens. That was the only real fighting we got, that and in Canada. We got these"-he patted a sleek flank-"from Nizam in Ontario. Your corn looks good. When are you going to harvest?"

"About two weeks." I wondered if he talked so easily to everyone, or if he thought of me as an old friend.

"They're tired," he said fondly. He was so tired himself that when he picked up a pair of saddlebags his arms trembled. "We rode from Marshalltown since daylight. We left the regiment at Colton." I picked up the other pair of saddlebags. "Look." He steadied his against the doorframe and flipped one open. "We're going to learn Spanish." He pulled out two small books and handed them over to me. They were beautiful-leatherbound, printed in Madrid; one volume of Lope de Vega, and one of Garcia Lorca. I had to smile. Yes, he was real; he was altogether Arslan, unqualified and undeniable.

A little girl lay curled asleep in the corner of the couch. Arslan opened the saddlebags beside her, displaying his largesse triumphantly. "Salt; the baggage train will bring more. Seeds: tea, barley, opium poppy, rice. Vodka: two liters only. Needles. Cloves. Whetstones. Penicillin. And this for you, Hunt." It was a packet of notebook paper. "Novocaine. Solder." The salt aside, they were all luxuries, the most useful and satisfying luxuries, the very things whose lack we had cursed a thousand times.

He laid his left hand on Sanjar's shoulder. "Now sleep," he said.

Sanjar stood up, with that clear smile, and all the rest of him hazy with weariness. "Upstairs?" The true crown prince.

Arslan nodded. "The old place. Do you remember?"

"I remember." They grinned together, a contact very beautiful.

Franklin rose, grim and displeased, to lead the way upstairs. It was an act of-what? compa.s.sion? conspicuous gallantry?-that he did not detail me for the job of chambermaid. And I was alone with Arslan and the sleeping girl.