Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction, page 247
Nor was the ferry the only antique survival on the trip. The cars were all ancient, obvious discards from Confederate or British American lines. Flat wheels were common; the worn-out locomotives dragged them protestingly over the wobbly rails and uneven roadbed. First-class passengers sat on napless plush or grease-glazed straw seats; second-class passengers stood in the aisles or on the platforms; third-class rode the roofs—safe enough at the low speed except for sudden jerks or jolts.
There were so many different lines, each jealous of exclusive rights of way, that the traveler hardly got used to his particular car before he had to snatch up his baggage and hustle for the connecting train, which might be on the same track or at the same sooty depot, but was more likely to be a mile away. Even the adjective “connecting” was often ironical for it was not unusual to find timetables arranged so a departure preceded an arrival by minutes, necessitating a stopover of anywhere from one hour to twelve.
If anything could have quieted my excitement on the trip it was the view through the dirt-sprayed windows. “Fruitless” and “unfulfilled” were the words coming oftenest to my mind. I had forgotten during the past six years just how desolate villages and towns could look when their jerry-built structures were sunk in apathetic age without even the false rejuvenation of newer jerry-building. I had forgotten the mildewed appearance of tenant farmhouses, the unconvincing attempt to appear businesslike of false-fronted stores with clutters of hopeless merchandise in their dim windows, or the inadequate bluff of factories too small for any satisfactory production.
Once away from New York it was clear how atypical the city was in its air of activity and usefulness. The countryside through which the tracks ran, between fields and pastures or down the center of main streets, should have been the industrial heart of a country bustling and vigorous. Instead one saw potentialities denied, projects withered, poverty, and dilapidation.
We crossed the Susquehanna on an old, old stone bridge that made one think of Meade’s valiant men, bloodily bandaged many of them, somnambulistically marching northward, helpless and hopeless after the Confederate triumph at Gettysburg, their only thought to escape Jeb Stuart’s pursuing cavalry. Indeed, every square mile now carried on its surface an almost visible weight of historical memories.
York seemed old, gray, and crabbed in the afternoon, but when I got off the train there I was too agitated with the prospect of being soon at Haggershaven to take any strong impression of the town. I inquired the way, and the surly response confirmed Barbara Haggerwells’s statement of local animosity. The distance, if my informant was accurate, was a matter of some ten miles.
I started off down the highway, building and demolishing daydreams, thinking of Tyss and Tirzah, Enfandin and Miss Haggerwells, trying to picture her father and the fellows of the Haven and for the thousandth time marshaling arguments for my acceptance in the face of scornful scrutiny. The early October sun was setting on the rich red and yellow leaves of the maples and oaks; I knew the air would become chilly before long, but exertion kept me warm. I counted on arriving at the Haven in plenty of time to introduce myself before bedtime.
Less than a mile out of town the highway assumed the familiar aspect of the roads around Wappinger Falls and Poughkeepsie: rutted, wavering, with deep, unexpected holes. The stone or rail fences on either side enclosed harvested cornfields, the broken stalks a dull brass with copper-colored pumpkins scattered through them. But the fences were in poor repair, and the oft-mended wooden covered bridges over the creeks all had signs, DANGEROUS, TRAVEL AT YOUR OWN RISK.
There were few to share the highway with me: a farmer with an empty wagon, urging his team on and giving me a churlish glance instead of an invitation to ride; a horseman on an elegant chestnut picking his course carefully among the chuckholes; and a few tramps, each bent on his solitary way, at once defensive and aggressive. The condition of the bridges accounted for the absence of minibiles. However, just about twilight a closed carriage, complete with coachman and footman on the box, rolled haughtily by, stood for a moment outlined atop the slope up which I was trudging, and then disappeared down the other side.
I paid little attention except—remembering my boyhood and my father’s smithy—to visualize automatically the coachman pulling back on the reins and the footman thrusting forward with the brake as they eased the horses downward. So when I heard first a shout and then feminine screams my instant conclusion was that the carriage had overturned on the treacherous downgrade, broken an axle, or otherwise suffered calamity.
My responsive burst of speed had almost carried me to the top when I heard the shots. First one, like the barking of an uncertain dog, followed by a volley, as though the pack were unleashed.
I ran to the side of the road, close to the field, where I could see with less chance of being seen. Already the dusk was playing tricks, distorting the shape of some objects and momentarily hiding others. It could not, however, falsify the scene in the gully below. Four men on horseback covered the carriage with drawn revolvers; a fifth, pistols also in hand, had dismounted. His horse, reins hanging down, was peacefully investigating the roadside weeds.
None of them attempted to stop the terrified rearing of the carriage team. Only their position, strung across the road, prevented a runaway. I could not see the footman, but the coachman, one hand still clutching the reins, was sprawled backward with his foot caught against the dashboard and his head hanging down over the wheel.
The door on the far side was swung open. I thought for a moment the passengers had managed to escape. However, as the unmounted highwayman advanced, waving his pistol, the other door opened and a man and two women descended into the roadway. Slowly edging forward I could now plainly hear the gang’s obscene whistles at sight of the women.
“Well boys, here’s something to warm up a cold night. Hang on to them while I see what the mister has in his pockets.”
The gentleman stepped in front, and with a slight accent said, “Take the girl by all means. She is but a peasant, a servant, and may afford you amusement. But the lady is my wife; I will pay you a good ransom for her and myself. I am Don Jaime Escobar y Gallegos, attached to the Spanish legation.”
One of the men on horseback said, “Well now, that’s real kind of you, Don High-me. We might have taken you up on that, was you an American. But we can’t afford no company of Spanish marines coming looking for us, so I guess we’ll have to pass up the ransom and settle for whatever you’ve got handy. And Missus Don and the hired girl. Don’t worry about her being a peasant; we’ll treat her and the madam exactly the same.”
“Madre de Dios,” screamed the lady. “Mercy!”
“It will be a good ransom,” said the Spaniard, “and I give you my word my government will not bother you.”
“Sorry, chum,” returned the gangster. “You foreigners have a nasty habit of interfering with our domestic institutions and hanging men who make a living this way. Just can’t trust you.”
The man on foot took a step forward. The nearest rider swung the maid up before him, and another horseman reached for her mistress. Again she screamed; her husband brushed the hand aside and put his wife behind him. At that the gangster raised his pistol and shot twice. The man and woman dropped to the ground. The maid shrieked till her captor covered her mouth.
“Now what did you want to do that for? Cutting our woman supply in half that way?”
“Sorry. Mighty damn sorry. These things always happen to me.”
Meanwhile another of the gang slid off his horse, and the two went through the dead, stripping them of jewelry and whatever articles of clothing caught their fancy before searching the luggage and the coach itself for valuables. By the time they had finished it was fully dark and I had crept to within a few feet of them, crouching reasonably secure and practically invisible while they debated what to do with the horses. One faction was in favor of taking them along for spare mounts; the other, arguing that they were too easily identifiable, for cutting them out and turning them loose. The second group prevailing, they at last galloped away.
A sudden thrashing in the cornstalks just beyond the fence startled me into rigidity. Something which might be human stumbled and crawled toward the carriage, snuffling and moaning, to throw itself down by the prostrate bodies, its anguished noises growing more high-pitched and chilling.
I was certain this must be a passenger who had jumped from the off side of the carriage at the start of the holdup, but whether man or woman it was impossible to tell. I moved forward gingerly, but somehow I must have betrayed my presence, for the creature, with a terrified groan, slumped inertly.
My hands told me it was a woman I raised from the ground, and the smell of her was the smell of a young girl. “Don’t be afraid, miss,” I tried to reassure her; “I’m a friend.”
I could hardly leave the girl lying in the road, nor did I feel equal to carrying her to Haggershaven which I reckoned must be about six miles farther. I tried shaking her, rubbing her hands, murmuring encouragement, all the while wishing the moon would come up, feeling somehow it would be easier to revive her in the moonlight.
“Miss,” I urged, “get up. You can’t stay here—they may come back.”
Had I reached her? She stirred, whimpering with strange, muffled sounds. I dragged her to her knees and managed to get her arm over my shoulder. “Get up,” I repeated. “Get on your feet.”
She moaned. I pulled her upright and adjusted my hold. Supporting her around the waist and impeded by my valise, I began an ungraceful, shuffling march. I could only guess at how much time had been taken up by the holdup and how slow our progress would be. It didn’t seem likely we could get to Haggershaven before midnight, an awkward hour to explain the company of a strange girl. The possibility of leaving her at a hospitable farmhouse was remote; no isolated rural family in times like these would open their door with anything but deep suspicion or a shotgun blast.
We had made perhaps a mile, a slow and arduous one, when the moon rose at last. It was full and bright, and showed my companion to be even younger than I had thought. The light fell on masses of curling hair, wildly disarrayed about a face unnaturally pale and lifeless yet extraordinarily beautiful. Her eyes were closed in a sort of troubled sleep, and she continued to moan, though at less frequent intervals.
I had just decided to stop for a moment’s rest when we came upon one of the horses. The clumsily cut traces trailing behind him had caught on the stump of a broken sapling. Though still trembling he was over the worst of his fright; after patting and soothing him I got us onto his back and we proceeded in more comfortable if still not too dignified fashion.
It wasn’t hard to find Haggershaven; the side road to it was well kept and far smoother than the highway. We passed between what looked to be freshly plowed fields and came to a fair-sized group of buildings, in some of which I was pleased to see lighted windows. The girl had still not spoken; her eyes remained closed, and she moaned occasionally.
Dogs warned of our approach. From a dark doorway a figure came forward with a rifle under his arm. “Who is it?”
“Hodge Backmaker. I’ve got a girl here who was in a holdup. She’s had a bad shock.”
“All right,” he said, “let me hitch the horse. Then I’ll help you with the girl. My name’s Dorn. Asa Dorn.”
I slid off and lifted the girl down. “I couldn’t leave her in the road,” I offered in inane apology.
“I’ll water and feed the horse after. Let’s go into the main kitchen; it’s warm there. Here,” he addressed the girl, “take my arm.”
She made no response, and I half carried her, with Dorn trying helpfully to share her weight. The building through which we led her was obviously an old farmhouse, enlarged and remodeled a number of times. Gaslights of a strange pattern, brighter than any I’d ever seen, revealed Asa Dorn as perhaps thirty with very broad shoulders and very long arms, and a dark, rather melancholy face. “There’s a gang been operating around here,” he informed me; “tried to shake the Haven down for a contribution. That’s why I was on guard with the gun. Must be the same bunch.”
We bustled our charge into a chair before a big fieldstone fireplace which gave the large room its look of welcome, though the even heat came from sets of steam pipes under the windows. “Should we give her some soup? Or tea? Or shall I get Barbara or one of the other women?”
His fluttering brushed the outside of my mind. Here in the light I instinctively expected to see some faint color in the girl’s cheeks or hands, but there was none. She looked no more than sixteen, perhaps because she was severely dressed in some school uniform. Her hair, which had merely been a disordered frame for her face in the moonlight, now showed itself as deeply black, hanging in thick, soft curls around her shoulders. Her features, which seemed made to reflect emotions—full, mobile lips, faintly slanted eyes, high nostrils—were instead impassive, devoid of vitality, and this unnatural quiescence was heightened by the dark eyes, now wide open and expressionless. Her mouth moved slowly, as though to form words, but nothing came forth except the faintest of guttural sounds.
“She’s trying to say something.” I leaned forward as though by sympathetic magic to help the muscles which seemed to respond with such difficulty.
“Why,” exclaimed Dorn, “she’s…dumb!”
She looked agonizedly toward him. I patted her arm helplessly.
“I’ll go get—” he began.
A door opened and Barbara Haggerwells blinked at us. “I thought I heard someone ride up, Ace. Do you suppose…” Then she caught sight of the girl. Her face set in those lines of strange anger I had seen in the bookstore.
“Miss Haggerwells—”
“Barbara—”
Dorn and I spoke together. Either she did not hear us or we made no impression. She faced me in offended outrage. “Really, Mr. Backmaker, I thought I’d explained there were no facilities here for this sort of thing.”
“You misunderstand,” I said, “I happened—”
Dorn broke in. “Barbara, she’s been in a holdup. She’s dumb…”
Fury made her ugly. “Is that an additional attraction?”
“Miss Haggerwells,” I tried again, “you don’t understand—”
“I think I understand very well. Dumb or not, get the slut out of here! Get her out right now, I say!”
“Barbara, you’re not listening—”
She continued to face me, her back to him. “I should have remembered you were a ladies’ man, Mr. Self-taught Backmaker. No doubt you imagined Haggershaven to be some obscene liberty hall. Well, it isn’t! You’d be wasting any further time you spent here. Get out!”
XI.
OF HAGGERSHAVEN
I suppose—recalling the inexplicable scene with Little Aggie—I was less astonished by her frenzy than I might have been. Besides, her rage and misunderstanding were anticlimactic after the succession of excitements I had been through that day. Instead of amazement I felt only uneasiness and tired annoyance.
Dorn steered Barbara out of the room with a combination of persuasion and gentle force disguised as solicitous soothing, leaving the girl and me alone. “Well,” I said, “well…”
The large eyes regarded me helplessly.
“Well, you’ve certainly caused me a lot of trouble…”
Dorn returned with two women, one middle-aged, the other slightly younger, who flowed around the girl like soapy water, effectually sealing her away from all further masculine blunders, uttering little bubbly clucks and sudsy comfortings.
“Overwork, Backmaker,” Dorn mumbled. “Barbara’s been overworking terribly. You mustn’t think—”
“I don’t,” I said. “I’m just sorry she couldn’t be made to realize what actually happened.”
“Hypersensitive; things that wouldn’t ordinarily…It’s overwork. You’ve no idea. She wears herself out. Practically no nerves left.”
His face, pleading for understanding, looked even more melancholy than before. I felt sorry for him and slightly superior; at the moment, at least, I didn’t have to apologize for any female unpredictability. “Okay, okay, there doesn’t seem to be any great harm done. And the girl appears to be in good hands now.”
“Oh she is,” he answered with evident relief at dropping the subject of Barbara’s behavior. “I don’t think there’s anything more we can do for her now; in fact I’d say we’re only in the way. How about meeting Mr. Haggerwells now?”
“Why not?” The last episode had doubtless finished me for good so far as Barbara was concerned; whatever neutral report she might have given her father originally could now be counted on for a damning revision. I might as well put a nonchalant face on matters before returning to the world outside Haggershaven.
Thomas Haggerwells, large-boned like his daughter, with the ginger hair faded and a florid, handsome complexion, made me welcome. “Historian, ay, Backmaker? Delighted. Combination of art and science; Clio, most enigmatic of the muses. The ever-changing past, ay?”
“I’m afraid I’m no historian yet, Mr. Haggerwells. I’d like to be one. If Haggershaven will let me be part of it.”
He patted me on the shoulder. “The fellows will do what they can, Backmaker; you can trust them.”
“That’s right,” said Dorn cheerfully; “you look strong as an ox, and historians can be kept happy with books and a few old papers.”
“Ace is our cynic,” explained Mr. Haggerwells; “very useful antidote to some of our soaring spirits.” He looked absently around and then said abruptly, “Ace, Barbara is quite upset.”
I thought this extreme understatement, but Dorn merely nodded. “Misunderstanding, Mr. H.”
“So I gathered.” He gave a short, self-conscious laugh. “In fact that’s all I did gather. She said something about a woman.…”
