Biddy and the Silver Man - (1)

A man came out of the sky and they took him and hanged him from the nearest tree thinking that they lynched a devil. But perhaps they crucified a saint instead--there in the beauty of the desert. And what place could be more worthy of being called a second Calvary?
    It was a typical blazing Arizona day. Pitiless sun distorting the desert and making Sage Bend look like a toy town off in the distance. Sage Bend and the surrounding desert were bone-dry, furnace-hot, and generally depressing, but there were compensations. Buck liked it and Biddy liked it because it was a country where a small crippled girl and a tiny burro could go almost anywhere they pleased without danger.
    Biddy was twelve. Polio had struck during her tenth year necessitating a clumsy brace on her left leg. Thus it was a little difficult to play with the children of Sage Bend and so Biddy's father had brought Buck in from the Circle-7 ranch to be her companion.
    Buck was a shaggy philosophical burro with ears almost as long as his legs. He was gentle, rugged, and small enough for Biddy to mount all by herself. Reliable, too. Buck would take Biddy anywhere she wanted to go but he insisted on getting home to the little corral behind the house at a reasonable hour so there was never any coming in after dark.
    *       *       *       *       *
    There were many places around Sage Bend where a child and a burro could go. Up in the foothills where Hoppy chased the bad men with Biddy and Buck racing along in front of the posse. Or to the caves and arroyos where an ogre or a giant sometimes captured a handsome prince and held him until Biddy and Buck came along to rescue him.
    They knew all the fascinating and magical places, these two, and they were now headed for a flat next to King Arthur's castle where there would be jousting that afternoon. Biddy said, "We'll have to hurry, Buck. We mustn't keep Sir Launcelot waiting or he won't toss us his handkerchief as he goes into the lists."
    Buck wig-wagged complete understanding with his ears and increased his speed not one iota. But he signified that there was plenty of time and that they would make it.
    "It will be a wonderful tourney, Buck. With all the knights and ladies."
    Buck agreed as he pattered up the gulch toward the ridges, his absurd little legs twinkling.
    "A wonderful day and--wait a minute, Buck."
    Buck stopped and flopped his ears while Biddy stared thoughtfully at a ridge.
    Biddy stared for quite a while with a little frown between her blue eyes. Then she looked all around as though to reassure herself of her location. "There's a cave up there, Buck."
    The news failed to stir any great interest in the burro.
    "It wasn't there before. That's the place where Roy Rogers caught those rustlers and licked all four of them single handed. There were some rocks, but not any cave." Biddy looked about swiftly and a tiny prickle touched the back of her neck and then was gone. It was so quiet around here; so suddenly still and waiting-like.
    *       *       *       *       *
    But that was foolish. It was always still up here in the ridges except for a horny toad maybe scraping faintly on a rock or a little dust-devil stirring the dry grass as it stood on its tail and whirled.
    Always quiet and she was being foolish. Roy or Hoppy or Davey Crockett wouldn't sit there half-afraid. Biddy said, "Let's go, Buck," and urged the burro to the left toward the rocks.
    The cave was clearly visible from the foot of the big boulders and Biddy waited for some moments before she slid off Buck and began climbing the hill. Her leg brace impeded her progress somewhat and clicked every time she took a step.
    "No, it couldn't have been here before," she said. "That spot was just a wall in the rock. That was where Roy Rogers fell back and was real groggy for a minute after the bad man smashed a ten-pound boulder right down on his head."
    But obviously, there was no solid rock wall now; instead, a rectangular opening clean and even as though cut out of soft butter with a sharp knife. Biddy moved resolutely forward. Ten feet from the opening, she stopped and glanced back at Buck for moral support. Buck slapped at a fly with his left ear and closed his eyes and gave all the moral support he had. Biddy stiffened her little chin and went on.
    It was a cave all right but the fact of its being was over-shadowed by what it contained. There was plenty of light to see without going inside and Biddy stood in the entrance and stared wide-eyed.
    The main thing inside was a big box with funny knobs and dials on it; a box of some kind of shining metal that almost hurt your eyes when you looked at it. There were other things too--a lot of wires and a funny looking chair and a thing that might have been a loudspeaker of some kind maybe.
    Biddy's mind raced. The Eastern Bloc? She turned her eyes up into the sky where she could just make out the space station up there a thousand miles away going around the Earth like another moon watching day and night to see to it the people and the children of the Western Bloc were always safe.
    Maybe this box belonged to the Eastern Bloc. They had their own space station but Biddy was just ready to bet they wanted to do something to ours! Maybe this was some kind of a machine they sneaked in here and built that would blow up our station. A pretty mean thing to do but the Eastern Bloc did all kinds of mean things.
    *       *       *       *       *
    Biddy was suddenly frightened--real-frightened, not just play-frightened--because what if the men would come out of the cave or from someplace and tie her up and not let her go back and tell Pop and Mom what she'd seen? Then the space station would be blown up and not even Davey Crockett could help because this wasn't like on television where people got killed but not really. This was serious.
    Biddy turned slowly, hoping now that the silence would stay as it was and not break into the sound of heavy boots coming after her. It was awfully hard but she went back down the hill slowly, because when she went fast her brace rattled and made a lot of noise.
    It seemed like a very long time before she was on Buck, urging him out of the arroyo and back toward Sage Bend.
    And she got a little annoyed at how calmly Buck took it, ambling along at his usual rate and not at all impressed by the danger. But then what could you do with a stupid old burro that didn't even know how to wear armor properly and always shook the plume off his helmet and ate it...?
    *       *       *       *       *
    Dan Parker was tired. He held the jeep on the rutty road from the Circle-7 to Sage Bend and thought of the cold bottle of beer that was waiting for him at home. This twelve-mile drive every morning and night was rough, but what could a man do? A man couldn't put his wife and kid in a bunkhouse with a dozen hands, and there was no other place for Jane and Biddy at the ranch. The house in Sage Bend wasn't so bad, though. The rent was cheap and there were a few friends Jane could talk to.
    Dan wiped the dried sweat off his face and wondered why it cost so damn much just to live. Of course, in his case, there was a reason. A big reason. Biddy getting hit with polio had cleaned him out and put him in debt. Not that he begrudged it of course. She was alive and that was the main thing. That damned brace cut him every time he looked at it, but she was alive and healthy again. He had no complaints even if it took him the next ten years to pay off.
    He was lucky in a lot of ways. Being foreman at the Circle-7 paid little enough but it was still better than an ordinary cow hand's pay. And young Davey getting hit with polio in spite of all the serums about the same time it had clubbed Biddy down. Funny how bad luck for some was good luck for others. Davey getting hit was tragedy for the boy and for old Sam Taber, his father. But it had been good luck for Dan Parker because if Davey hadn't been crippled he'd be foreman himself and Dan Parker getting straight hand-money. Yeah, bad luck for some--good luck for others. Not that he gloried in Davey's misfortune, but a man had to look out for his own and the cards had just fallen that way.
    Sage Bend came into sight and as Dan approached, he saw a plodding figure in the middle of the road moving in the same direction. The sight irritated Dan. Even when he got close enough to see the white cane tapping on ahead of the shuffling feet, he was still irritated.
    Why did Art Haney have to be like that? He was blind, sure, and everybody felt sorry for him, but he didn't have to rub it in your face. He could hear the jeep coming and could move over out of the way but no, he had to stay smack where he was until you pulled to a dead stop and honked. Then he would jump as though you'd just missed running him down and cower on the side of the road. Didn't want anybody to miss the fact that he was blind and helpless--as if they could!
    Dan stopped and honked and watched Art put on his pathetic little act and felt guilty because it didn't stir him. Maybe he was hardened, but what the hell? Every time you came down the road. There's a limit.
    Dan called, "Hi Art."
    The answering voice had a falsetto that sounded faked. "Oh, it's you, Dan. Blind man can't tell a thing like that."
    "Want a ride into town?"
    "No--no. I'll hobble along and make it myself. A blind man doesn't like to think he's dependent on everybody. Tries to do the best he can."
    "Okay. See you later."
    "Sure, but I won't see you, Dan. Could of once, but can't any more."
    *       *       *       *       *
    Dan Parker jammed down the gas pedal and the jeep rammed forward kicking up a cloud of dust that left Art Haney coughing. Dan immediately felt guilty. Mean trick, but he hadn't done it on purpose. Just thoughtless.
    He rolled the jeep into town and lifted a hand as he passed the jail. Cecil Bates, sheriff of the county, lifted one in return but his expression never changed. Sour--that was the word, Dan thought. Cecil felt himself wasted in a country sheriff's job. Fancied himself of big-town caliber, but all he did was park on a chair in front of the jail and think about it. Sour was the word all right. In fact, Dan thought, sour was the word for the whole damned town of Sage Bend. Come to think of it, there wasn't a happy person in the place.
    Except Biddy.
    Dan parked the jeep and went in the house and got a bottle of beer out of the refrigerator. He went on through and out into the backyard where Jane was taking down the last of the wash. Damn--it seemed women were always washing. Come home and everytime they were hanging clothes or taking them down.
    He stopped in the doorway and looked at Jane. Looked to actually see her which was not the same as the ordinary looking people usually did. There was a stoop in her slim shoulders and something--well, something in the way she carried her body. Tired-like. She'd been so deuced pretty when he'd married her; so pretty he'd just had to have her and that was the only way. Why kid himself? He'd married her because he wanted her and love, if there really was such a thing, had come afterward. But it had come; or maybe it was habit. Anyhow, he couldn't think of life anymore except in terms of Jane and Biddy.
    But it would be nice if just one more time--just one night--there could be the old spark, the old breathless fire that flamed so briefly and had now smouldered down into a sort of tired consideration--an habitual companionship with each knowing the other's habits and likings and responding automatically.
    But what the hell? What could you expect in this day and age? With tension for breakfast and dinner and supper. With those two space stations floating around up there waiting to blow the world up. Watching day and night. There was little room to think of anything else.
    *       *       *       *       *
    Jane turned with an armful of clothes and saw him. Her smile was a quick up-turning of her lips and then it was gone. "Home, dear? Have a hard day?"
    "Rough. We moved three hundred head in from the north range to the loading platforms."
    Jane pushed past him and laid the clothes on the kitchen table. She straightened and pushed a wisp of hair out of her eyes. "Three hundred head. That's quite a few. What are they worth apiece, Dan?"
    "Around two hundred and fifty dollars probably."
    "And with all that money old Sam can't give you a little raise. I think it's a sin."
    "It isn't clear money, hon. Not by any means."
    "All the same--"
    Dan caught her as she tried to pass and kissed her. She responded after a fashion but when it was over it was over. "I've got to get the potatoes on. You go sit on the front porch, I'll call you."
    "Where's Biddy?"
    Jane stopped with a gesture of frustration as though this was something she'd forgotten. "Oh, that child! I sent her to her room, Dan."
    "To her room? Why?"
    "I just had to. We've got to do something about that imagination of hers. She can't separate reality from fantasy anymore."
    "What was it this time?"
    "Something about a cave up in the ridges with a big metal box in it. The Eastern Bloc is going to use it to blow our station out of the sky."
    *       *       *       *       *
    Dan shrugged. "Kids live in their own world, honey. Isn't sending her to her room a little rough?"
    "I had to. She was going down to tell Cecil Bates about it. Can you imagine what--?"
    Dan laughed. "He'd have probably arrested her for spreading rumors. I'll take her out on the porch and talk to her, okay?"
    "Just so you keep her out of my hair until I get supper ready."
    Dan opened the door of Biddy's room and said, "Hi, pigeon. Hot in there?"
    "Not bad, Pop. There's a breeze through the window."
    The gruesome leg brace smote him as usual and his inward tightening against it was so habitual that he hardly noticed the slight tension of his chest muscles. He said, "How about coming out on the porch and telling me all about this cave?"
    "Is it all right with Mom?"
    "Uh-huh. I fixed it."
    "She told you about the cave and the box?"
    "Just mentioned it in passing. Told me to get the details from you."
    He picked her up and carried her out front where they sat down side by side on the front steps and looked out across the miserable little desert town. Dan's eyes fell on the tavern front over near the depot. There would be at least half a dozen drunks in there and after sundown there would be foremen from the ranches roundabout talking them into going back to work.
    "The cave wasn't there before."
    "It wasn't?"
    "No. It's the place I always played Roy Rogers, but I went there yesterday and there was a door in the rock."
    "The door was open?"
    "Wide open. I went inside and there was a big shiny box in there."
    Maybe a man was better off in the city--in the war plants. "Well what do you know about that!"
    "Pop! You aren't listening."
    "Oh yes, I am."
    "But you don't believe me."
    "I sure do."
    "The box had a lot of tubes and dials on it."
    Of course, now they'd taken the profit out of war there wasn't much more money there either unless you worked fifteen hours a day. "Was Roy there waiting for you?"
    "Pop! It wasn't make believe! The box was really there and the Eastern Bloc is going to use it to wreck our space station."
    "They'd better not!" That was another thing. If the blow ever fell and all the brains thought it was sure to, a man had better have his family as far from a city as possible.
    "I thought maybe they would capture Buck and me so we couldn't tell on them but there wasn't anybody there. We got away all right."
    Not that it would do much good. The radiation would get everybody eventually. Maybe it would be better to be killed quick and get it over with.
    "Pop--I'm not fibbing to you--"
    Dan roused himself from his somber thoughts. "I know you're not honey. Listen, let's go out and give Buck some water and about that time Mom will have supper ready. What do you say?"
    Biddy sighed. "All right Pop...."
    *       *       *       *       *
    The sun blazed down on the desert just as it had yesterday and would do tomorrow. Biddy sat on the dozing Buck and looked across the rocks at the place she'd first seen the doorway. It had taken a lot of courage to come back here after being so scared before and after nobody had believed her. They'd said there hadn't been any door at all--that she'd only been make-believing.
    And maybe--just maybe--they had been right, because there wasn't any door there now.
    Biddy urged Buck on up the slope. She went fearfully at first, then with more courage because everything looked very quiet and peaceful, really. Maybe the horrid people from the Eastern Bloc had realized how silly it was--trying to blow up our station--and had packed up and gone home. It wasn't scary at all now. Biddy urged Buck right up to the wall and he stood there with his eyes half-closed catching a nap. And that was good because you couldn't fool animals about people. If there had been anyone around, Buck would have known, all right.
    "Hello, little girl."
    A chill went through Biddy. Not the cold kind, the tickly kind, as she turned and saw the man. Buck turned and saw him too and then went back to sleep.
    The speaker was a man and Biddy wondered how on earth she could have missed him. He was sitting on a rock beside the place the doorway had been and while Biddy wanted to be scared and thought she ought to be scared, she wasn't able to feel that way about the man at all.
    He got up from his rock and stood there smiling at her. He was very tall--taller than Pop who was no shorty himself--and had a kind of yellow hair that was thick and curly. There seemed to be a shiny circle around the hair but then Biddy saw that was just the sun and the way the man was standing.
    It was hard to say how old the man really was. He was about like Pop, but in some ways he seemed a lot younger than that and in some ways much older. It was very confusing. He was kind of slim but he had a lot of muscle too--probably the way Davey Crockett would look with his shirt off maybe.
    Biddy raised one leg and the man said, "Need any help?"
    "No--no I can make it all right."
    "That horse seems to be built right to your size."
    Biddy laughed. "Buck's not a horse."
    "He's not? Or should I say she's not?"
    This man was so funny. "Buck's a boy."
    "Oh."
    "And he's a burro, not a horse."
    "Well what do you know about that? Can you imagine me calling him a horse? Will you pardon me?"
    *       *       *       *       *
    Biddy took a couple of steps toward the man, then stopped uncertainly. "I--are you--?"
    "Why don't you come over here and sit down with me?"
    "Is--is it all right?"
    "I don't know why not."
    "I thought maybe you were from the Eastern Bloc." That was foolish of course. Nobody as nice as this man could be from the horrid East.
    "No. I'm not from there." The man's clear gray eyes were on Biddy's brace as she approached.
    "Then where are you from?"
    That seemed to take a little thought. "Well, let's say I'm from the sky bloc."
    "There is a sky bloc?"
    "Oh, yes. A very big, big one. After all, the sky is very big isn't it?"
    "Yes, that's right. But what are you doing here?"
    That was obviously an even tougher one to answer. "Oh, I've got a little job to do."
    "You aren't going to blow up our space station, are you?"
    "No, that is, I hope not."
    "You mean that maybe you will?"
    *       *       *       *       *
    The man's smile said everything was going to be all right and because little girls understood smiles and believed them even more than words, it wasn't necessary to go into the subject any further. "What's your name?"
    The man said some funny word that Biddy couldn't understand. She laughed and he laughed too and then said, "Why don't you call me Joe? That's a nice easy name to remember."
    "It's a nice name. Do you live in the cave there where the shiny box is?"
    The smile left Joe's face. "You were inside the cave?"
    "Yesterday. You left the door open."
    "Yes. I'm staying there for a while." Joe changed the subject quickly. "What's the matter with your leg?"
    "I had polio."
    "Polio? You were sick?"
    "Yes, I was very sick, but I didn't die, so I was very lucky. I only had my leg get so I can't use it."
    "Only that, eh?" Joe mused and seemed intensely interested in the brace. "What a crude conception of efficiency," and when Biddy asked what? he said, "Oh nothing. May I look at that mechanism?"
    "You mean my brace?"
    "Yes."
    Biddy came close and the man concentrated on the brace. Except that Biddy thought he was more interested in her leg. His hands were very gentle and then he looked up suddenly and said, "How would you like to see the things I have inside the cave, child?"
    "You can call me Biddy if you want to. My name is Ruth but Biddy's my nickname."
    "It's a nice one. Let's go inside."
    Joe had a small thing on his shirt and it was only when he reached up and touched it and the door of the cave swung open that Biddy noticed the peculiar way he was dressed. And it was strange, she thought, that she hadn't even seen the tight-fitting silver colored shirt and the pants that were silver too and almost like skin they were so tight to his legs. But even in noticing them now, Biddy didn't say anything because they really weren't strange at all. Not when Joe wore them.
    Joe took her hand and led her into the cave. He said, "Now don't be afraid. None of this is made to hurt little girls."
    "What's it for?"
    "It's called a primary relay station."
    "Like our space station?"
    "No--not exactly. This station hasn't any guns. At least it hasn't the kind of guns you know about."
    "I'm glad. I'm afraid of atom and hydroshells. They kill people and poison them and make them suffer."
    "This station doesn't do that. It reaches out into space and brings in all kinds of power. It's a magnet, you might say."
    "What are you going to do with the power you bring in, Joe?"
    "Now that's a very interesting question." Joe smiled. "Maybe we'll tickle little girls with it."
    Biddy laughed. "You're just joking with me."
    "No, I'm not. Tell you what we'll do. Suppose I give you a little sample?"
    "That would be fun."
    *       *       *       *       *
    Joe seemed to be wondering about the machine in the cave with one part of his mind and talking to Biddy with the other. Not wondering exactly, but kind of like Pop when he tried to rig the jeep up to pull the big rock out of the backyard by just turning the back wheels. Pop had done it too. He was smart about making things do the things they hadn't been built to do and Joe looked as though he was trying to do the same thing with his machine.