It was the old man. I gave him the bottle. He used it as a pointer to indicate one side of the circle and then he tucked its neck into his whiskers and tilted back his head. The bottle gurgled and his Adam’s apple jerked in concert with the gurgling.
Looking where he’d pointed, I saw a man standing quietly there. He wore a black robe of some sort that came down to his feet and that had a cowl on it, covering his head, so that all that showed of him was the white smear of his face.
The old man sputtered, half strangled, and took the bottle from his face. He used it to point again.
“The census-taker,” he said.
The people were drawing back and away from the census-taker, and on the platform the musicians sat limp, mopping their faces with their shirt sleeves.
The census-taker stood there for a moment, with all the people gaping at him, then he floated-he didn’t walk, he floated-to the center of the dancing circle. The man with the reed instrument lifted it to his lips and began a piping that at first was the sound of the wind moving through the grasses of a meadow, then grew louder, trilling a string of notes that one could almost see hanging in the air. The violins came in softly as a background to the piping and as if from some distant place the guitars twanged a hollow sound and then the violins sobbed and the piping went insane and the guitars were humming like vibratory drums.
Out in the circle, the census-taker was dancing, not with his feet-you couldn’t see his feet because of the robe he wore-but with his body swaying like a dish cloth hanging on a line and whipping in the wind, a strange, distorted, dangling dance such as a puppet would perform.
He was not alone. There were others with him, many shadowy shapes that had come from nowhere and were dancing with him, the firelight shining through the unsubstantial shimmer of their ghostly bodies. They were simply shapes at first, but as I stared at them, astonished, they began to take on more definite form and feature, although they did not gain in substantiality. They still were nebulous and hazy, but now they were people rather than just shapes, and I saw with horror that they wore the costumes of many different races from far among the stars. There a bewhiskered brigand in the kilt and cape of that distant planet that was called, curiously enough, End of Nothing; there the jolly merchant with his stately toga from the planet Cash, and between them, dancing with abandon in a tattered gown, a rope of gems about her neck, a girl who could have been from nowhere else but the pleasure planet Vegas.
She didn’t touch me and I didn’t hear her come, but with some sense I did not know I had, I became aware that Cynthia was beside me. I looked down at her and she was staring up at me, with mingled fear and wonder on her face. Her lips moved, but I couldn’t hear her because of the loudness of the music.
“What did you say?” I asked, but she had no time to answer, for in the instant that I spoke, a concussion slapped me over and I went down on the ground so hard that the breath was knocked out of me. I landed on my side and rolled over on my back and I saw, with some surprise, Bronco flying through the air, with all eight legs spraddled out grotesquely, while all around burning togs and brands were flying and a puff of smoke floated up to dim the brilliance of the moon.
I tried to breathe and couldn’t and a sudden panic hit me-that I’d never breathe again, that I was done with breathing. Then I did breathe, taking in great gulps of air, and each gulp was so agonizing that I tried to stop, but couldn’t.
All over the clearing, I saw, people had been thrown to the ground. Some of them were getting up and others were trying to get up and there were many others who were just lying there.
I struggled to my knees and saw that Cynthia, beside me, was also trying to get up and I put out a hand to help her. Bronco was sprawled out on the ground and as I watched, he finally gained his feet, but two of his legs, both on the same side, dangled, and he stood there unsteadily on the other six.
A thunder of feet went past me and Elmer was at Bronco’s side, holding him erect, propping him, helping him to move. I got to my feet and pulled Cynthia up beside me. Elmer and Bronco were coming toward us and Elmer yelled at us, “Get out of here! Up across the hill!”
We turned and ran, coming to the fence on which the old man, Henry, and myself had squatted half the afternoon. And coming to it, I knew that the crippled Bronco could never make his way across it. I grabbed a post with both my hands and tried to pull it loose and force it down. It wiggled back and forth, but I could not topple it.
“Let me,” said Elmer, close beside me. He lifted a foot and kicked and the boards splintered and came loose. Cynthia had crawled through the fence and was running up the hill. I ran after her.
I took one quick look behind me as I ran and saw that one of the haystacks close beside the barn was burning, set
afire, most likely, by one of the flaming brands sent flying through the air by the explosion that had crippled Bronco. People were running aimlessly in the light of the burning stack.
Looking back, not watching where I was going, I ran into a cornstack and, toppling it, went down on top of it.
By the time I disentangled myself and was on my feet again, Elmer and Bronco had gone on past me and were disappearing over the brow of the moonlit hill. I sprinted after them. My face and hands smarted and burned from their forcible contact with the sun-dried corn leaves and when I put my hand up to my face it came away wet and sticky with blood oozing from the cuts the dry, sharp leaves had inflicted on my skin.
I went plunging down the hill below the brow and far ahead of me saw the whiteness of Cynthia’s jacket, almost at the woods that ran below the field. Not far behind her were Bronco and Elmer. Bronco had caught the hang of being helped along by Elmer and they were moving rapidly.
The stubs of the cut corn and the autumn-dried weeds that had grown between the rows rasped against my trousers as I ran and behind me I heard the shouts and bellows from the clearing beyond the field.
I reached the fence that ran between the field and woods and there was a gateway through it where Elmer had kicked the boards loose. I plunged through the opening and in among the trees, and here, while there still was moonlight shining through the branches, I had to slow my pace for fear of crashing headlong into one of the trees.
Someone hissed at me, off to one side, and I slowed and swung around. I saw that the three of them were grouped beneath an oak with low-growing branches. Bronco was braced on his six legs and doing fairly well. Elmer was climbing down out of the tree, dragging bundles with him. “I brought them out here and cached them,” he said, “shortly after dark. I had it in my mind something like this might happen.”
“Do you know what happened?” “Someone threw a bomb,” said Elmer. “Cemetery bomb,” I said. “They had that case of booze.”
“Payment,” Elmer said.
“I suppose so. I had wondered. It was damn good whiskey.”
“But what about the census-taker and the ghosts?” asked Cynthia. “If they were ghosts.” “Diversion,” Elmer said.
I shook my head. “It gets too complicated. Everyone couldn’t have been in on it.”
“You underestimate our friends,” said Elmer. “What did you say to Bell?”
“Not a great deal. I resisted being taken over.” Elmer grunted. “That’s lese majeste,” he said.
“What do we do now?” asked Cynthia. Elmer said to Bronco, “Can you manage for a while without me?”
“If I go slow,” said Bronco.
“Fletch will be with you. He can’t hold you up like I can, but if you should fall he can boost you up. With him helping, you can manage. I have to get some tools.”
“You have your kit of tools,” I said. And that was right. He had all those replacement hands and a lot of other things. They were stored in a compartment in his chest.