“Right,” Arslan approved, like a teacher who’s finally dragged the right answer out of a dull class. “Now you.”
And Cully, with his embarrassed air, mumbled through the same oath, impatiently coached by J. G. when he stumbled. “I ain’t putting my hand on no Bible,” Flaxman protested. But he did, while J. G. held the rifle for him.
“Now,” Cully said with relief. “Drop that knife and get down here.”
“Back up,” Arslan commanded quietly. “Open the door, and wait there.”
Shufflingly they did as they were told. I saw Hunt brace himself, bunching the muscles of his good leg, and knew he meant to plunge at Flaxman. But Flaxman knew it, too, and gave him a wide berth.
Slowly Arslan made his way down the stairs, stood swaying a moment, and crossed the room more briskly. He was barefoot. He smelled of sickness and sweat. The threadbare khaki clung to him in wet stripes. He didn’t look at Hunt. Beside me he stopped and opened his hand, and the knife clattered dully on the floor. At the same time he steadied himself against me with his two-fingered right hand. I felt the hooked fingers tap my wrist, with something between them; I closed my hand over them quickly and they pulled away, leaving the folded paper in my palm.
He stepped forward. I squeezed my hand against the pit of my stomach, where waves of pain ballooned outwards in pulse after pulse. The three faces at the door beamed with triumph, with the lust of cruelty. And who could blame them? Who could blame them?
Flaxman kept the rifle leveled, not at Arslan, but at me. Cully reached for the crippled arm, but J. G. struck out with one foot in a sudden sideways kick, and Arslan sprawled, half through the open door onto the porch. Hunt made a sound, a piteous small moan of protest. J. G. reached down; cloth ripped as he pulled Arslan upright. Cully seized his arm, twisting it up behind his back, and they crowded through the door. Flaxman waited till they got to the wagon. Then he gave a cheerful wave of the gun, slammed the door, and hurried after them.
A thick ink line crossed the paper. Above it was written in Arslan’s open hand, “Wait With Hunt,” and below, “Sanjar—Follow—If I am dead, try Spassky
I brought down the pistol from my bedroom, and I got myself a drink of pure cream and sat hunched by the window. Hunt’s voice was frantic and coarse. “What are you waiting for? You own this town. Why the hell don’t you stop them?”
“That’s government. This is a private matter.” For all I could do, I kept wondering how Jesus had looked when He fell with the cross.
“Spahsky,” he said, correcting my pronunciation, “is the ranking Russian officer on this continent—or was when there were ranks. He’s the one who raised the irregulars against Nizam and got word to Arslan.” His slim hands were folding, unfolding, smoothing, refolding the paper. “One of the few loyal people left. He sent four separate crews south, far enough so that Nizam’s receivers wouldn’t pick them up, to broadcast calls to Arslan. And he was sharp enough to see what was happening and do that in time.” He folded, folded again, opened, read, refolded. “So Kraftsville’s going to burn after all.”
“Oh, God,” I said wearily. “What’s the use?”
He laughed harshly. “What’s the difference? Aren’t we all dead?” He clenched his trembling fist on the folded paper and burst out, “Nothing about Arslan is private!”
I looked at him. “Try to get things straight in that brain for once, Hunt. Neither the KCR nor the government could possibly lift a finger for Arslan.”
“Well, Sanjar, at least. If your dainty stomach allows, why don’t you get the hell out of here and look for Sanjar?”
“I don’t put much faith in their Bible oaths, and I judge Arslan didn’t either.”
“For Christ’s sake! For Christ’s sake!” he cried furiously. Tears were spilling into his soft beard.
I did go out to the shed and saddle Sanjar’s horse. Arslan was still Arslan; he would take a lot of killing, and they would be in no hurry about it. Still, he had looked very frail. He had said, with all his pedagogic assurance, “I am dying.” And the ugly thought never left my mind that if he died too soon to suit them, they would be back in a hurry for Hunt.
I was in the living room, looking at the old clock for probably the hundredth time, when the kitchen window rattled. I strode in to meet Sanjar as he pulled a heavy string of fish over the sill after him. His grin faded as he turned; I put the crumpled note into his hand. “J. G. Sims, Cully Johnson, and Harry Flaxman. They came for Hunt, and Arslan persuaded them to take him instead. They went in Flaxman’s wagon; looked like they headed for his place—that’s just north of Blue Creek on the Morrisville road. An hour ago. Flaxman’s got a rifle.” The paper fluttered downwards. “I saddled your horse.” I held out the pistol.
He took it in both hands. For a moment more he held still, barely crouched, his eyes flitting wildly. Then he spun back to the window and was up and out. I watched him sprint to the shed; a few seconds later he was on horseback, tearing across the back garden and disappearing into the trees. When he showed again in the glimpse of road beyond the burned stable, he was going at a smooth gallop.
I gave Hunt the knife Arslan had dropped, locked the doors, and went the quietest way round to Jack Allard’s. “Well, who’s getting murdered now?” he greeted me.
“I’m not sure, but you’d better bring everything you’ve got.”
By the time we got back to the house, Sanjar had been gone half an hour. That was plenty of time for him to get to Flaxman’s. I told the doctor to make himself at home, and started after him.
I heard something coming over the hill and pulled my horse off of the road into the high brush. It was Flaxman’s wagon, but Sanjar was driving. I hailed him. He pulled up and sat wordless while I tied my horse to the tailgate beside his and climbed in. “You drive,” he said shortly, dropping the reins in my lap. He swung over the back of the seat, knelt beside a heap of sacking on the wagon bed, and pulled back the top sack. Arslan’s face was unrecognizable. “Go easy,” Sanjar ordered huskily.
Four times during that slow ride home, Arslan moaned—a thin, inarticulate sound, horrible because it was so helplessly unconscious. I drove into the back yard and stopped as close as I could get to the back door. The doctor came out, and we rigged up a litter from hoe handles and sacks and carried him in. Hunt was sleeping heavily. “I gave him a little something to knock him out,” Jack explained. “I don’t know what you might be bringing home.”
What we had brought home had been pretty well worked over with the classic tire chains, though fists alone must have caved in the face. They had burned his naked feet, but apparently they hadn’t had the time, or the imagination, to get into anything more refined.
“I’d say he’ll live—if he weren’t already about two-thirds dead of malaria. Mind you, you don’t exactly die of malaria, any more than you die of flu; but when it’s knocked out all your resistance, it can get into your liver or your brain, or it can just weaken you to the point where any little infection will finish you off.” He gestured with his pipe towards the ceiling. “That’s why we’re not through up there yet. We’re going to keep scrubbing him till he wishes he was back at Flaxman’s. Every little laceration he’s picked up probably in the last three weeks is infected already, and of course now there isn’t a patch of undamaged skin on him any bigger than the palm of your hand. The burns aren’t much to speak of. The main thing is, I can’t tell yet just what’s ruptured inside.” He puffed thoughtfully. “And then of course he hasn’t lost a hell of a lot of blood, but he probably couldn’t afford to lose any.”
“How about transfusions?”
“Thought you’d say that, but I wasn’t going to suggest it if you didn’t. It’s just a little bit riskier than it used to be since we’ve gone primitive. You know your blood group? That’s all right, I’ll just run a little direct agglutination test.” He got up. “Sanjar gets first chance, but we may need all we can get.” In the kitchen doorway he paused. “And when he comes to himself—if he ever does—I wish you’d point out to him that it’s absolutely his own fault if he dies. Absolutely.”
The first transfusion was Sanjar’s blood. The second was mine. There was no change that I could see in the swollen, multicolored face, but the whistling breath slowed and steadied, and the doctor grunted with satisfaction.
Hunt woke near midnight. As soon as the fuzziness of the drug wore off enough for him to understand what had happened, he lashed out at us desperately. He was furious at the doctor for having put him to sleep, at me for having let Arslan be taken, at Sanjar for no logical reason. What really hurt him was that he couldn’t see Arslan and couldn’t help him. Their blood was incompatible.
