The Collection (116 page)

Kurt Wunderly said, “That should make a good play, Mr.
Bryce, but you're being absurd. Now put down that empty gun and---”

I laughed. “If you didn't know Herman was here, how do you
know this gun is empty? Because you unloaded it before you gave it back to him,
to play safe! You weren't in the hall when he clicked it at me. You
couldn't
have known it was empty, if you're innocent.”

I heard Mac give a low whistle.

I wanted to push the point home while I was at it, so I lied
a little. My glimpse of the intruder's face in Mac's mirror had been too brief
and too distant. But I said: “I can identify him, Mac. Before he reached around
the corner in your study and turned out the light, I had a good look at his
face in the mirror behind you---and his fingerprint will be on that light
switch, and---”

The other proof came in a way I wasn't expecting. Kurt
Wunderly yanked his hand out of his bathrobe pocket, and it held the thirty-two
revolver that he'd taken away from Mac back at Mac's place.

He said, “You're too clever, Bryce. That forces me to go
through with it---with one alteration. It will be found that Herman killed you
and MacCready also.”

I guess I began to sweat a little when I saw what I'd done.
Mac and I were each maybe three yards from Kurt Wunderly, and not standing
together. But if we tried to rush him, he'd be sure to get one of us. And this
time he wasn't going to take any chances; I saw from his face that he was going
to shoot us down here and now, and then take the time necessary to get the
stage set before he went for help.

For some reason he picked Mac first---maybe to save me for
last, I don't know. But he pointed the gun Mac's way, and said “Sorry,
MacCready, but---” and I had to do something.

Just to stall an instant I said the first damn fool thing
that popped into my head. I said, “It's a good thing I happened to have a shell
to fit this scattergun, Wunderly. Drop your pistol!”

I knew as I said it that there wasn't a chance on earth that
I'd be believed. People don't carry around small-gauge shotgun shells on the
chance they'll find a gun to put them in. But it did divert his attention from
Mac for the second. He swung the gun back my way.

The scattergun was hanging at my side and I brought it up as
though to fire it. I saw Kurt Wunderly grin as he waited for the empty click that
would call my bluff---before he shot me. But I didn't pull the trigger. I kept
my hand arcing out with the gun in it, and let go of the gun, sailing it right
at his face.

He triggered the revolver then and it spat noise and flame
at me. But five pounds of cold steel being thrown into a man's face is enough
to spoil his aim, even if he's easily able to duck the missile. That shot came
close, undoubtedly, but it didn't hit me.

And Mac had leaped in the second he saw what I was doing,
and had Kurt Wunderly by the wrist before he could fire again. I got there
myself a split second later, and between us we had no trouble handling him. We
tied him and put him on the couch beside Herman.

Mac went across to a decanter of whiskey on the buffet and
poured himself a drink with a hand that shook just a trifle. He said, “Five
minutes, and we'll go for help. How did you figure out---?”

“Playwright's instinct, Mac. I told you that second act just
didn't jell, and you thought I was talking through my hat. But I know how I can
make
it jell. I got a dilly of an idea for that play I have to write.
Listen, I start off with a lonely house and a homicidal---”

“Save it. I'll come down to New York and see it on the
boards.” He looked at the decanter of whiskey in his hand and then at me,
incredulously. “Mean to say you're not having one with me?”

I shook my head firmly. “On the wagon till the play's
complete. Or---say, I don't even
want
a drink. Mac, is there anything in
this shock treatment of yours? And you didn't by any chance
arrange
all
this just to---?”

He'd just downed the drink he'd poured---and he choked on
it. When he could talk again he said, “You crazy---” and raised the decanter as
though he was going to throw it at me. Then the reaction hit us, and we had an
arm around each other's shoulders and laughed until it brought tears to our
eyes.

The Road to Einar

It was raining like the very devil, and I couldn't see more
than twenty feet ahead. The road was a winding mountain road, full of
unexpected turns and dips apparently laid out by someone with more experience
constructing roller coasters than highways.

Worse, it was soft gooey mud. I had to drive fast to keep
from sinking in, and I had to drive slow to keep from going off the outer edge
into whatever depth lay beyond.

They'd told me, forty miles back in Scardale, that I'd
better not try to reach the Einar Observatory until the storm was over. And I
was discovering now that they'd known what they were talking about.

Then, abruptly and with a remark I won't record, I slammed
on the brakes. The car slithered to a stop and started to sink.

Dead ahead in the middle of the narrow road, right at the
twenty-foot limit of my range of vision, was a twin apparition that resolved
itself, as I slid to a stop five feet from it, into a man leading a donkey
toward me.

There was a big wooden box on each side of the donkey, and
there definitely wasn't going to be room for one of us to pass the other.

About twenty yards back behind me, I remembered, was a wider
place in the road. But backward was uphill. I put the car into reverse and
gunned the engine. The wheels spun around in the slippery mud, and sank deeper.

I cranked down the glass of the window and over the beat of
the storm I yelled, “I can't back. How far behind you is a wider place in the
road?”

The man shook his head without answering. I saw that he was
an Indian, young and rather handsome. And he was magnificently wet.

Apparently he hadn't understood me, for a shake of the head
wasn't any answer to my question. I repeated it.

“Two mile,” he yelled back.

I groaned. If I had to wait while he led that donkey two
miles back the way he had come, there went my chances of reaching Einar before
dark. But he wasn't making any move to turn the beast around. Instead, he was
untying the rope that held the wooden boxes in place.

“Hey, what's---” And then I realized that he was being
smart, not dumb. The donkey, unencumbered by the load, could easily pass my car
and could be reloaded on the other side.

He got one of the boxes off and came toward me with it.
Alongside my car, he reached up and put it on the roof over my head.

I opened my mouth to object, and thought better. The box
seemed light and probably wouldn't scratch the top enough to bother about.

Instead, I asked him what was in the boxes.

“Rattlesnakes.”

“Good Lord,” I said. “What for?”

“Sell 'em tourists---rattles, skins. Sell 'em venom
drugstore.”

“Oh,” I said. And hoped the boxes wouldn't break or leak
while they were on my car. A few loose rattlers in the back seat would be all I
needed.

“Want buy big rattler? Diamondback? Cheap.”

“No thanks,” I told him.

He nodded, and led the donkey along the edge of nowhere past
the car. Then he came back and got the boxes to reload on the donkey.

I yelled back, “Thanks!” and threw the shift into low.
Downhill, it ought to start all right. But it didn't.

I opened the door and leaned out to look down at the wheels.
They had sunk in up to the hubs.

The donkey, the rattlesnakes, and the Vanishing American
were just starting off. I yelled.

The Indian came back. “Change 'em mind? Buy rattler?”

“Sorry, no. But could that creature of yours give this car a
pull?”

He stared down at the wheels. “Plenty deep.”

“It's headed downhill, though. And if I started the engine
while he pulled, it ought to do it.”

“Got 'em tow rope?”

“No, but you got the rope those boxes are tied with.”

“Weak. No pull 'em.”

“Five bucks,” I said.

He nodded, went back to the donkey and untied the boxes. He
put them down in the mud this time and tied the rope to my front bumper,
looping it several thicknesses. Then he led the donkey back front and hitched
it.

We tried for ten minutes---but the car was still stuck. I
leaned out and yelled a suggestion: “Let the donkey pull while you rock the
car.”

We tried that. The wheels spun again, madly, and then caught
hold. The car lurched forward suddenly---too suddenly---and what I should have
foreseen happened. I slammed the brakes on, too late.

The donkey had stopped dead the minute the pull relaxed. The
radiator of the car struck the creature's rump a glancing blow, and the donkey
went over the edge. The car jerked sidewise toward the edge of the road, and
there was a crackling sound as the rope broke.

Regardless of the knee-deep mud, I got out and ran to the
edge.

The Indian was already there, looking down. He said, “It
isn't deep here. But damn' it, I haven't got my gun along. Lend me your crank
or a heavy wrench.”

I hardly noticed the change in his English diction. I said,
“I've got a revolver. Can you get down and up again?”

“Sure,” he said. I got the revolver and handed it to him,
and he went down. I could see him for the first few yards and then he was lost
in the driving rain. There wasn't any shot, and in about ten minutes he
reappeared.

“Didn't need it,” he said, handing me back the pistol. “He
was dead, poor fellow.”

“What are you going to do now?” I asked him.

“I don't know. I suppose I'll have to stash those boxes and
hike out.”

“Look,” I said, “I'm bound for the Einar Observatory. Come
on with me, and you can get a lift from there back to town the first time a car
makes the trip. How much was that donkey worth?”

“I'll take the lift,” he said, “and thanks. But losing
Archimedes was my own damn fault. I should have seen that was going to happen.
Say, better get that car moving before it gets stuck again.”

It was good advice and just in time. The car barely started.
I kept it inching along while he tied the boxes on back and then got in beside
me.

“Those boxes,” I said. “Are they really rattlers, or was
that off the same loaf as the Big Chief Wahoo accent?”

He smiled. “They're rattlesnakes. Sixty of them. Chap in
Scardale starting a snake farm to supply venom to pharmaceutical labs hired me
to round him up a batch.”

“I hope the boxes are good and tight.”

“Sure. They're nailed shut. Say, my name's Charlie
Lightfoot.”

“Glad to know you,” I told him. “I'm Bill Wunderly. Going to
take a job up at Einar.”

“The hell,” he said. “You an astronomer, or going on as an
assistant?”

“Neither. Sort of an accountant-clerk. Wish I did know
astronomy.”

Yes, I'd been wishing that for several years now, ever since
I'd fallen for Annabel Burke. That had been while Annabel was taking her
master's degree in math, and writing her thesis on probability factors in
quantum mechanics.

Heaven only knows how a girl with a face like Annabel's and
a figure like Annabel's can possibly be a mathematics shark, but Annabel is.

Worse, she had the astronomy bug. She loved both telescopes
and me, but I came out on the losing end when she chose between us. She'd taken
a job as an assistant at Einar, probably the most isolated and inaccessible
observatory in the country.

Then a month ago Annabel had written me that there was to be
an opening at the observatory which would be within the scope of my talents.

I wrote a fervid letter of application, and now I was on my
way to take the job. Nor storm nor mud nor dark of night nor boxes of
rattlesnakes could stop me from getting there.

“Got a drink?” Charlie asked.

“In the glove compartment,” I told him. “Sorry I didn't
think to offer it. You're soaked to the skin.”

He laughed. “I've been wet before and it hasn't hurt me. But
I've been sober, and it has.”

“You go to Haskell, Charlie?”

“No. Oxford. Hit hisn't the 'unting that 'urts the 'orse;
hit's the 'ammer, 'ammer---”

“You're kidding me.”

“No such luck.” I heard the gurgle of liquid as he tilted
the bottle. Then he added, “Oil. Pop's land.”

I risked an unbelieving look out of the corner of my eye.
Charlie's face was serious.

He said, “You wonder why I hunt rattlesnakes. For one
reason, I like it, and for another--- Well, if this was a quart instead of a
pint, I could show you.”

“But what happened to the oil money?”

“Pop's still got it. But the third time I went to jail, I
stopped getting any of it. Not that I blame him. Say, take it easy down this
hill. The bridge at the bottom was washed out four years ago, last time there
was a big storm like this one.”

But the bridge was still there, with the turbid waters of a
swollen stream swirling almost level with the plank flooring. I held my breath
as we went across it.

“It'll be gone in an hour,” Charlie said, “if it keeps
raining this hard. You haven't another bottle of that rye, have you?”

“No, I haven't. How do you catch rattlers, Charlie?”

“Pole with a loop of thin rope running through a hole in the
end. Throw the loop over a snake and pull the loop tight. Then you can ease the
pole in and grab him by the back of the neck.”

“How about the ones you don't see?”

“They strike. But I wear thick shoes and I've got heavy
leather leggings under my trousers. They never strike high, so I'm safe as long
as I stay upright on level ground.” He chuckled. “You ought to hear the sound
of them striking those puttees. When you step in a nest of them, it sounds like
rain on a tin roof.”