Prelude M. Stonecypher lifted his reed sun hat with the square brim, and used a red handkerchief to absorb the perspiration streaking his forehead. He said, "The pup"ll make a good guard, especially for thrill parties."
L. Dan"s golden curls flickered in July 1 sunlight. The puppy growled when Dan extended a gloved hand.
"I don"t want a guard," the hobbyist said. "I want him for a dogfight."
A startling bellow rattled the windows of the dog house and spilled in deafening waves across the yard.
Dan whirled, clutching his staff. Light glinted on his plastic cuira.s.s and danced on his red nylon tights. His flabby face turned white. "What-" he panted.
Stonecypher concealed a smile behind a long corded hand and said, "Just the bull. Serenades us sometimes."
Dan circled the dog house. Stonecypher followed with a forefinger pressed to thin lips. In the paddock, the bull"s head moved up and down. It might or might not have been a nod.
The crest of long red and blue-black hairs on the bull"s neck and shoulders created an illusion of purple, but the rest of the animal matched the black of a duelmaster"s tam. Behind large eyes encircled by a white band, his skull bulged in a swelling dome, making the distance between his short horns seem much too great.
"He"s purple!" Dan gasped. "Why in the Government don"t you put him in the ring?"
Stonecypher gestured toward the choppy surface of Kings Lake, nine hundred feet below. He said, "Coincidence. I make out the ringmaster"s barge just leavin" Highland Pier."
"You"re selling him?"
"Yeah. If they take "im. I"d like to see "im in the ring on Dependence Day."
Glancing at the watch embedded in the left pectoral of his half-armor, Dan said, "That would be a show!
I"ll take the dog and fly. I"ve a duel in Highland Park at 11:46."
"The pup"s not for sale."
"Not for sale!" Dan yelled. "You told-"
"Thought you wanted a guard. I don"t sell for dogfights."
A sound like "Goood!" came from the paddocked bull.
Dan opened his mouth wide. Whatever he intended to say died without vocalization, for Catriona came driving the mule team up through the apple orchard. The almost identical mules had sorrel noses, gray necks, buckskin flanks, and black and white pinto backs and haunches. "Great Government!" Dan swore. "This place is worse than a museum!"
"Appaloosa mules," Stonecypher said. Catriona jumped from the seat of the mowing machine. Dan stared. Compared to the standard woman of the Manly Age who, by dieting, posturing, and exercise from childhood, transformed herself into a small, thin, dominated creature, Catriona const.i.tuted a separate species. She was taller than Dan, slightly plump, and her hair could have been cla.s.sed as either red or blonde. Green coveralls became her better than they did Stonecypher. With no trace of a smile on face or in voice, Stonecypher said, "L. Dan, meet Catriona."
Like a hypnopath"s victim, Dan walked to Catriona. He looked up at her and whispered, but too loudly.
Stonecypher heard. His hands clamped on the hobbyist"s neck and jerked. Dan smashed in the gra.s.s with sufficient force to loosen the snaps of his armor. He rolled to his feet and swung his staff.
Stonecypher"s left hand s.n.a.t.c.hed the staff. His right fist collided with Dan"s square jaw. Glaring down at the hobbyist, Stonecypher gripped the staff and rotated thick wrists outward. The tough plastic popped when it broke.
Scuttling backward, Dan regained his feet. "You inhuman brute!" he growled. "I intended to pay for her!"
"My wife"s not for sale either," Stonecypher said. "You know how to fly."
Dan thrust out a coated tongue and made a noise with it. In a memorized singsong, he declared, "I challenge you to a duel, in accordance with the laws of the Government, to be fought in the nearest duelpen at the earliest possible hour."
"Stony, don"t!" Catriona protested. "He"s not wo"th it!"
Stonecypher smiled at her. "Have to follow the law," he said. He extended his tongue, blurted, and announced, "As required by the Government, I accept your challenge."
"We"ll record it!" Dan snapped. He stalked toward the green and gold b.u.t.terflier parked in a field of seedling Sudan gra.s.s. Horns rattled on the concrete rails of the paddock.
"Burstaard!" the bull bellowed.
Dan shied and trampled young gra.s.s under sandaled feet. His loosened cuira.s.s clattered rhythmically.
Raising the canopy of the b.u.t.terflier, he slid out the radioak and started typing. Stonecypher and Catriona approached the hobbyist. Catriona said, "This is cowa"dly! Stony nevah fought a duel in his life. He won"t have a chance!"
"You"ll see me soon then, woman. Where"d you get all that equipment? You look like something in a circus."
"Ah used to be in a cahnival," Catriona said. She kept Stonecypher in place with a plump arm across his chest. "That"s wheah you belong," she told Dan. "That"s all you"ah good fo"."
"Watch how you address a man, woman," Dan snarled, "or you"ll end in the duelpen, too."
Stonecypher s.n.a.t.c.hed the sheet from the typer. The request read: Duelmaster R. Smith, Watauga Duelpen, Highland Park, Tennessee. L. Dan challenges M. Stonecypher.
Cause: Interference with basic amatory rights. July 1. 11:21 amest.
Stonecypher said, "The cause is a lie. You got no rights with Catriona. Why didn"t you tell "em it"s because I knocked you ears-over-endways, and you"re scared to fight without a gun?"
Dan shoved the request into the slot and pulled the switch. "I"ll kill you," he promised.
While the request was transmitted by radiophotography, minutes pa.s.sed, bare of further insults. Catriona and Stonecypher stood near the concrete fence enclosing the rolling top of Bays Mountain. Interminable labor had converted 650 acres at the top to arable land. Below the couple, the steep side of the mountain, denuded of timber, dangerously eroded, and scarred by limestone quarries, fell to the ragged sh.o.r.e of Kings Lake. Two miles of water agitated by many boats separated the sh.o.r.e and the peninsula, which resembled a wrinkled dragon with underslung lower jaw distended. The town of Highland Park clung to the jutting land, and the Highland Bullring appeared as a white dot more than four miles from where Catriona and Stonecypher stood. The ringmaster"s barge was a red rectangle skirting Russel Chapel Island.
Dan pulled the answer from the buzzing radioak. He walked over and held the radiophoto an inch from Stonecypher"s long nose. It read:
Request OK. Time: July 4. 3:47 pmest.
Two attached permits granted each duelist the privilege of carrying one handgun with a capacity of not more than ten cartridges of not less than .32 caliber. Below the permits appeared an additional message:
L. Dan due at Watauga Duelpen. 11:46 amest. For duel with J. George.
"Government and Taxes!" Dan cursed. Throwing Stonecypher"s permit, he leaped into the green and gold b.u.t.terflier and slammed the canopy. The four wings of the semi-ornithopter blurred with motion, lifting the craft into the sky. The forward wings locked with negative dihedral, the rear wings angled to form a ruddevator, and the five-bladed propeller whined, driving the b.u.t.terflier in a shallow dive for the peninsula.
Catriona said, "Ah hope he"s late, and they shoot him. Ah knew you"d finally have to fight, but-"
"You keep out of it next time," said Stonecypher. "I happen to know that feller"s killed two women in the pen. He don"t care for nothin". Oughta known better than to let him come here. He made out like hewanted a guard dog, and I thought-"
"Nevah mind, Stony. Ah"ve got to help you. You nevah even fiahed a gun."
"Later, Cat. The ringmaster may want to stay for dinner. I"ll look after the mules."
Catriona touched Stonecypher"s cheek and went to the house. Stonecypher unharnessed the Appaloosa mules. While they rolled, he took, from an empty hay rack, a rubber-tipped spear and a tattered cloth dummy. The dummy"s single arm terminated in a red flag.
Stonecypher concealed spear and dummy beneath the floor of the dog house. Going to the paddock, he patted the bull between the horns, which had been filed to a needle point. "Still goin" through with it?"
Stonecypher asked.
"Yaaaa," the bull lowed. "Yaooo kuhl Daan. Err"ll kuhl uhh kuhlerrs."
"All right, Moe. I"ll kill Dan, and you kill the killers." Stonecypher stroked the ma.s.sive hemisphere of the bull"s jaw. "Goodbye, Moe."
"Gooodba," the bull echoed. He lowered his nose to the sh.e.l.led corn seasoned with mola.s.ses, the rolled oats, and the ground barley in the trough.
Stonecypher walked down the road to the staircase of stone that dammed the old Kingsport Reservoir, abandoned long before Kings Lake covered the city. A red electric truck crawled up the steep road hewn from the slope of the gap formed by Dolan Branch. When the truck had crossed the bridge below the b.u.t.tressed dam, Stonecypher spoke to the fat and sweltering man seated beside the drive. "I"m M.
Stonecypher. Proud for you to visit my farm. Dinner"s ready up at the house."
"No, no time," smiled the fat man, displaying stainless steel teeth. "Only time to see the bull. I thought we weren"t going to make that grade! Why don"t those scientists develop synthetic elements, so that we can have atomic power again? This radio-electric is so unreliable! I am Ringmaster Oswell, naturally. This heat is excruciating! I had hoped it would be cooler up here, but something seems to have happened to our inland-oceanic climate this summer. Lead us to the bull, Stonecypher!"
Clinging to the slatted truck bed, Stonecypher directed the stoic driver to the paddock. The electric motor rattled and stopped, and Ringmaster Oswell wheezed and squirmed from the cab. The ringmaster wore a vaguely Arabic costume, in all variations of red.
The bull lumbered bellowing around the fence. His horns raked white gashes in the beech tree forming on corner. He tossed the feed trough to splintering destruction.
"Magnificent!" Oswell gasped. Then the ringmaster frowned. "But he looks almost purple. His horns are rather short."
"Stay back from the fence!" Stonecypher warned. "He"s real wide between the horns, ringmaster. I reckon the spread"ll match up to standard. Same stock my grandfather used to sell Boon Bullring before the water. Wouldn"t sell "im, only the tenants are scared to come about the house."
Oswell fingered his balloon neck and mumbled, "But he"s odd. That long hair on his neck . . . I don"t know . . ." The bull"s horns lifted the mineral feeder from the center of the paddock. The box rotated over the rails and crashed in a cloud of floured oyster sh.e.l.ls and phosphate salt at the ringmaster"s feet.
Oswell took cover behind the truck driver, who said, "Fergus"d like him. Jeeze! Remember dat brown and white spotted one he kilt last year on Forrest Day? Da crowd like ta never stopt yelling!"
Ringmaster Oswell retreated farther as, under the bull"s onslaught, a piece of concrete broke from the top rail, exposing the reinforcing rod within. "Fergus does like strange ones," he admitted.
Stonecypher said, "Don"t let the mane bother you. There"s one of these long-haired Scotch cows in his ancestors. He"s not really purple. Just the way the light hits "im."
Oswell chewed lacquered fingernails with steel dentures. His bloodshot eyes studied the spotted and speckled Appaloosa mules chasing around the pasture, but the sight failed to register on his brain. "The crowd likes a good show on Dependence Day," he proclaimed. "I considered trying a fat Aberdeen Angus with artificial horns for laughs, but this may do as well. I must find some shade! I"ll take him, Stonecypher, if fifteen hundred in gold is agreeable."
"Sold," Stonecypher said. The word cracked in the middle.
While the ringmaster, muttering about trying bulldogs sometime, retired to the narrow shadow of the dog house, the driver backed the truck to the ramp. Stonecypher opened the gate and waved his handkerchief. The bull charged into the truck, and the driver locked the heavy doors.
From within his red burnoose, Oswell produced a clinking bag. "Fifteen hundred," he said. From other recesses, he withdrew doc.u.ments, notebooks, and a pencil. He said, "Here is a pa.s.s for you and one for any woman-subject you may wish to bring. You"ll want to see your first bull on Dependence Day! And here is the standard release absolving you of any damage the bull may do. Oh, yes! His name and number?"
"Number?"
"Yes, his brand."
"Not branded. Make it Number 1. Name"s Moe."
Oswell chuckled. "Moe. Very good! Most breeders name them things like Chainlightning and Thunderbird. Your GE number?"
"I"m not a Government Employee."
"You"re not?" Oswell wheezed. "How unusual! Your colors? He"ll wear your colors in his shoulder."
"Yeah. Black."
"Black?"
"Dead black."
Oswell, scribbling, managed a faint smile. "Sorry I can"t accept that invitation to lunch." He struggled into the truck. "Hope this bull is brave in the ring. Nice antique old place you have here! I don"t see a feedtower, but you surely don"t use pasture-" the ringmaster"s babble pa.s.sed down the road with the truck.
Stonecypher watched the vehicle descend the dangerous grade. He lifted his square hat from his black hair, dropped it on the ground, and crushed the reeds under a booted foot.
The temporary house, a squat cubical structure, stood at the end of a spruce-lined path beside the ruin that a thrill party had made of the century-old farm house. The plastic screen squeaked when Stonecypher opened it. He stood on the white floor of the robot kitchen and dug a fifty dollar gold piece from the bag Oswell had given him. Glaring at the head of the woman with Liberty inscribed on her crown, he muttered, "Thirty pieces of gold."
Catriona called, "Oswell"s lucky he couldn"t stay foah dinnah! Ah had the pota.s.sium cyanide all ready."
Stonecypher pa.s.sed through the diner door into a room containing more yellowed history books and agricultural pamphlets than eating utensils. Catriona waited by the table. She held a large revolver in her right hand.
Intermezzo
Stonecypher stood on Bay k.n.o.b, near the ruins of the old FM transmitter station, looking down at the Tennessee Lakes. Catriona sat behind him and held the revolver on her thigh. Stonecypher said, "I never see it but I wonder how it looked before the water."
Before him, North Fork, an arm of Kings Lake, twisted across the Virginia line four and one-half miles away, while to Stonecypher"s right, Boone Lake sparkled like a gigantic, badly drawn V. He did not look toward Surgoinsville Dam securing Kings Lake far to the west.
The Tennessee Lakes were born in 1918 when Wilson Dam spanned the Tennessee River at Muscle Shoals, Alabama; but their growth was r.e.t.a.r.ded for fifteen years, until an Act of Congress injected them with vitamins. Then the mile-long bastions of concrete crawled between the ridges. Norris, Wheeler, Pickwick Landing, Guntersville, Watts Bar, Kentucky, Cherokee, Fort Henry, Boone, Sevier, Surgoinsville-almost innumerable dams blocked the rivers. The rivers stopped and overflowed. The creeks swelled into rivers.
Congressional Committees investigated, the Supreme Court tested the dams against the Const.i.tution, ethnologists and archeologists hastily checked for Indian relics; and the dams, infused with youthful vigor, matured. Beginning with Norris, which backed up the Clinch and Powell Rivers to inundate 25,000 acres and displace 3,000 families, the dams expanded mighty aquatic muscles. The Tennessee, the Little Tennessee, the Nolichucky, the Holston, the French Broad, the Watauga, the Hiwa.s.see, the Little Pigeon-all the rivers spread their waters into lengthy, ragged lakes, changing the map of Tennessee more than any natural cataclysm, such as the great earthquake of 1811, had ever done. The Lakes provided jobs, electric power, flood control, soil conservation, a fisherman"s paradise, milder winters, cooler summers, and they covered all the really good farming land in the eastern part of the state. Catriona loaded the revolver. It was an obsolete .357 Magnum with a 6 inch barrel, and the cartridge cases of the metal-piercing bullets had a greenish sheen. "Now, put it in the holstah, and be ca"eful,"
Catriona said.