Chapter III

He came walking across a hogback and Markel, watching through his binoculars, grinned and inspected the M-1 again. For an hour he watched Rocky, until he was hidden by the slope. Time passed: silver, morning time. Then a yell shattered the stillness and Markel was up and running down the path.

Where the ledge began to dip onto the slope he found Rocky. He almost bumped into him. Rocky hung upside down over the path, his right ankle noosed in a rope that was tied to a bowed sapling, his head about on a level with Markel's. "Crisake! Get me down outta here!" Rocky said.

Markel stood silent. Coming up behind Markel, the Earth Mother stopped, saw Rocky, and screamed half-heartedly.

"Hey, doll! Get me down outta here, will you?" Rocky said.

"I don't want nothing to do with vampires," she said.

"You outta your mind? Come on, get me down!"

Markel said, "I told you he wasn't a vampire."

"Yeah? Then why ain't he dead?"

Markel jabbed Rocky's chest with the muzzle of the M-1. "Precisely what I want to know, Rocky. As our girl friend puts it, why ain't you dead?"

"Look, man, I'm getting dizzy. Cut me down, then we'll talk."

"I'll give the orders, Rocky. What are you, Rocky?"

"That's a nowhere question. What am I--I'm dizzy, man, dizzy! You gonna talk all day?"

The Earth Mother said, "You look kind of funny upside-down like that."

Markel said, "Why do you keep coming back to life, Rocky?"

"Who, me? I ain't never been dead, man."

"The truth, Rocky, or I'll leave you hanging here. How did you survive the fall over the cliff and the bullets in the city?"

"Man, you wouldn't believe me if I did tell you."

She said, "Better tell him, Rocky. You're getting red in the face."

"Will you cut me down, Dad? If I tell you?"

Markel jabbed him again with the M-1. Rocky said, "Okay, okay. When I fell over the cliff I landed in a bunch of trees and they broke my fall. Back in the city you put a bullet in a pitcher of my mother what I always carry in my chest pocket. Didn't kill me at all."

"Oh, Gad!" said Markel. Like a plumb-bob Rocky had turned slowly on the rope until his back was to them. Placing the M-1 on the ground, Markel reached up and, with some difficulty, pulled Rocky's leather jacket down so that it bunched around his shoulders. Ignoring Rocky's complaints, he ripped Rocky's shirt open. Rocky's skin was unmarked by bullet scars or broken bones. Markel squeezed Rocky's left arm that had been broken, and stepped back, his face pale. Theory was one thing, confirmation of it something different. Markel said, "He's as whole as you or I. Rocky, how long have you known you're superhuman?"

Coughing, Rocky said, "You're talking like a bughead, man."

"He looks horrible. Why don't you cut him down?" said the Earth Mother.

Again Rocky coughed. "Square man, cut me down, will you? Look, all I wanted from you was somebody to talk to. I was only bluffing about chopping you up. I can't take having nobody to talk to, you dig that, can't you? Let me go with you; let's make a deal."

The Earth Mother said, "Yeah, why don't you let him come along?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Besides, I can't stand vampires," Markel said, picking up the M-1. "Your last chance, Rocky."

Flailing the air, Rocky said, "You're bugging me, man. To hell with you." Then his arms hung limp and his eyes closed.

Cutting Rocky down from the rope, Markel carried him to the camp, where he sat him against a tree, tying his hands behind it. "Go make some coffee. This may take a long time," Markel said.

"What are you going to do?" said the Earth Mother.

"Find a way to kill him, of course."

* * * * *

Rocky came to shortly afterward, glaring angrily at Markel. Markel stood over him. "Rocky, you can save yourself a lot of trouble by just telling me about it, and how you do it."

Rocky spat on the ground. "And after, you'll knock me off again, huh? Listen, I wouldn't tell you the right time, square man."

Markel sighed. "Typical peasant arrogance," he said, shooting Rocky squarely in the forehead.

According to Markel's wrist watch Rocky stayed dead--that is, without pulse or respiration--for seven hours and forty-six minutes. During the first three hours Markel sat incredulously, not believing his eyes, watching the bullet hole in Rocky's head stop bleeding and slowly close, until there was no evidence of a wound. Rocky woke up cursing him.

The next morning, immediately after breakfast, Markel stabbed Rocky through the heart with Rocky's knife. The wound closed in slightly under four hours, after which respiration began again. Rocky remained unconscious for six more hours; he was dead, in all, for nine hours and twelve minutes.

Markel bashed Rocky's head in with a dead branch. In twelve hours and thirty-one minutes Rocky was awake and cursing, his skull completely healed.

Making a noose in the rope, Markel hanged Rocky from a pine tree near the cliff, shoving him from an outcrop to break his neck. His neck broke. Time for recovery: fourteen hours eight minutes. Rocky's neck: completely healed.

"It takes an average of three hours longer for his bones to heal than for his tissues," said Markel as he and the Earth Mother ate breakfast. Rocky had not been fed since the trials had started; Markel was also trying to starve him.

"You talk about him like he was a bug, or something," said the Earth Mother. Her eyes were red and she ate very little. After the first day she had spent most of her time in the lean-to, not watching what Markel did to Rocky.

Markel speared a canned apricot with his fork. "I'll get him. He's vulnerable somewhere." But the Earth Mother, staring into the woods, didn't answer him.

Markel tied Rocky's hands and feet, weighted him with stones, rolled him into the cold pool, and kept him there six hours. When he dragged him out, Rocky was blue, his flesh icy. He looked deader than he ever had. Respiration began nine hours and eight minutes later.

For hours afterward Markel sat staring at Rocky. Dusk came and the ledge was blue with shadows when Markel got up and began to pile twigs and branches around Rocky. From the campfire he took a burning branch and walked to where Rocky lay, conscious but silent. "Rocky," he said. "I think this is it. I'll put you out first; it will be less painful that way."

"Don't do me no favors," said Rocky.

Tilting the burning branch to keep it flaming, Markel said, "Rocky, I want you to know I'm not doing this just to torment you. You're in my way, that's all."

Rocky laughed and looked at the sky.

Markel lowered the flaming branch; it quivered violently. "Damn it!" said Markel. Like many people, he had a horror of fire, of burning alive. And even if Rocky were unconscious, he would still be alive in the flames. Turning, Markel threw the burning branch at the campfire and walked away angrily. Behind him Rocky said, "You losing your guts, square man?"

* * * * *

All that night Markel sat thinking by the campfire. Slightly before dawn he had the answer; it was so simple that he wondered why he hadn't thought of it before. The point was, if you can't kill an indestructible man you can still stop him.

When the Earth Mother came out of the lean-to she found Markel standing by both rolled packs. Answering her questioning glance he said, "We're leaving right now, for the convertible."

"You really mean it? Oh, that's swell. What about Rocky? You're going to let him go, aren't you?"

Markel fastened the pack to her shoulders and told her to go on ahead, that he would catch up to her in a few minutes. He waited impatiently until she was out of sight down the path.

Then he knocked Rocky unconscious and cut off his head.

At the pool he washed his hands, and, adjusting his pack, walked down the path. There, not far from the camp, stood the Earth Mother, her face pale. "Don't come near me!" she yelled, "I saw you! I saw what you did!"

"I told you to go on ahead," said Markel quietly.

She pushed at the air. "Get away! Bloody hands! Bloody!"

When he came near her she slapped at him wildly, but he caught her wrists. "Don't get excited. I had to do it; you know that." Sobbing hoarsely, she went limp against him and he led her unresisting down the path.

Down the slope they went and through the clean, morning frost. They walked back toward the convertible, over hogbacks and through valleys. The wind was cold and dead leaves blew around them. When night came the Earth Mother spoke for the first time since morning. "It was such a terrible thing to do," she said, looking into the shadows. "Cutting off his head. Did you have to do that? Couldn't you of let him go, or come with us? He said he was only lonesome, like us."

"Of course I had to do it. It was the only way to stop him. If I had let him go he'd have followed us forever, you know that. He wanted you and he wanted revenge." Markel lit his pipe with a burning twig from the fire. "He stood in the way of Phoenix, and our new world."

The Earth Mother said, "Horrible, so horrible."

Markel blew smoke. "As for letting him come along, well, he'd have knifed me the first time I turned my back. He was nothing but a gutter rat, a hood. There's no room in our new world for clods like that."

* * * * *

The convertible, still covered with branches, stood where they had left it, and in a while they drove south again toward the place of Phoenix. Now the wind blew steadily, full of dry autumn. Ahead of them like an arrow the highway went, empty of overturned cars or abandoned junk, empty except for grass in its cracks and for blowing dust. They saw birds and quick small animals, but nothing else.

So they went on and some nights the Earth Mother cried in her sleep. And one night Markel dreamed again of the golden bird trapped in the flame. Reaching out, Markel tried to help the golden bird but the flames were too strong, and he awoke. Sleepily, he looked around. The Earth Mother was gone.

They had camped on a low hill above a farm. Markel lit his pipe, pulled on his shoes, and searched near the camp. Not finding her, he walked down through the fields to the farmhouse. She was in the kitchen of the dusty, dried house, sitting at the table. Markel leaned against the door-jamb, aware that he was very much relieved. After all, she was essential to his dream, and although he didn't like to admit it to himself, he had become rather used to her.

He said, "Well, what's all this about?"

She got up and walked to the window. "There used to be cows in fields like that, cows with bells around their necks, and people walking there. Now there's no cows, and no people. Now there's nothing." Her silhouette against the window, he saw, was less thick than it had been; she actually had lost weight. She said, "Will we ever find a place where there's people? Are there really any people anywhere on Earth except us?"

"Certainly," he said lightly. "Lots of people, all watching television."

"Where?"

"Oh, Patagonia, Central Africa, the South Seas."

She said, "No. Nobody anywhere. No cows and no people."

After searching the farmhouse for books, and finding none, Markel took her back through the blowing fields to the convertible.

* * * * *

The sun was hot and the trees were soft-looking and blurred; moss drooped from some of them. But the autumn wind still blew and big clouds leaned across the sky. Accustomed to the Earth Mother's constant jabbering, Markel was perturbed because she had said very little since they had left the woods. She stared out at the road for hours or listened to the silent radio, and Markel did not like it.

The highway speared through faded wild-grain fields, through rusty meadows. The autumn death came soft to the land, not like the death that had come to the cities.

"Listen!" exclaimed the Earth Mother.

Startled, Markel turned. She was twisting the volume-knob on the radio. "Listen to that!" she said.

Markel heard only the burr of their tires on macadam and the wind against the windshield. "Listen to what?"

"This crazy music! Listen, doesn't it flip you?" Smiling, she stared dreamily at the radio. "Those saxes, ain't they the most?" She moved her head rhythmically.

Stopping the convertible, Markel grabbed the Earth Mother's arms. He said, "Stop it! There is no music! You're imagining things!"

"Those saxes, oh, are they swinging! Listen!" Her eyes were looking through Markel, looking into a world of music, and lights, and movies, and people.

"There's nothing, do you understand? You're hearing things! Stop it!" He shook her roughly. Her eyes clouded and she tried to push him away.

"Come out of it! There's no music. You don't hear music!"

"Let me go! Let me hear it! Oh, it's fading, fading!"

He kept shaking her and slowly her eyes cleared. She stopped trying to push him away. She said, "It's over, the pretty music is over."

"You're all right now," Markel said, letting go of her arms.

* * * * *

Now the highway arrowed straight no longer, climbing again into low hills. Up they went past peeling billboards, motels, chinaware stands, gas stations, and roadside diners. "We're coming to a city," the Earth Mother said. "I'll bet there'll be people in it, lots and lots of people."

"It will be like all the other cities," Markel said.

She leaned close and patted his arm, as though he were a child. "I'll bet you even find some books there," she said.

An hour later they drove into the city. This was a city of winds. Harp-winds twanged through wires and steel braces; drum-winds banged torn awnings and loose windows; wind-trumpets shouted through broken walls and called muted past high steeples and chimneys. Sunlight lay thick in the streets and on the roofs, but the winds owned this city, like the blowing winds own Babylon, and Petra, and Chaldean Ur.

Down a street that opened on a wide square they went and Markel parked by a statue of a horseman in the middle of the square. Before he had shut off the motor the Earth Mother was out of the convertible. Standing by the statue she called, "Hey! Is there anybody here?" Then she ran to the sidewalk.

Markel, reaching for the M-1, his eyes on the girl, suddenly stiffened. The wind blew a sound to him, a faint growling sound. He did not believe the sound, knew it to be a trick of his imagination, yet he sat stunned, unable to think. Then the Earth Mother screamed. Markel got out of the car and went after her.

She was on the sidewalk, calling into doorways. "Come out! I know you're here! Come out!"

Shouting, she walked past a drug store and a bakery. "You hiding in there? Come out!"

She started to run. "Please don't hide! I know you're in there! Come out!" Then she screamed again.

She ran down the street screaming, she pounded on doors and windows, she screamed until the echoes ran together and the square was filled with one incessant long scream.

She was still screaming when Markel caught up to her. He hit her on the jaw, once, and she sagged limp against him. With the echoes of her screams all around him he carried her to the statue and put her down on the base.

She lay quiet, the wind moving her hair that was yellow as the wheat fields. Looking down at her, Markel remembered all the yellow-haired girls who had walked in the sun, all the proud girls in the proud cities. He put his hand on her hair, wondering why he had ever thought she was ugly. Now she was almost slim and almost beautiful. He remembered how she had felt, close against him in the car that day in the rain, and how she had cried in the nights. Suddenly he knelt and kissed her dry lips.

Dust blew past him and behind him glass fell in a trumpet blast of wind. It occurred to him then that perhaps no dream was better than the touch of yellow hair in the sun or the kiss of dry lips. And in that moment C. Herbert Markel the Third became a part of all humanity, because for the first time he knew pity, regret, and the beginnings of love.

"Hello, square man," said a voice behind him.

* * * * *

Slowly, like a drunken man, Markel got up and turned. Two yards away stood Rocky, his hunting knife held low in his right hand. Incredulously, Markel stared at Rocky's head. It was about half as large as it had been previously. Approximately the size of a cantaloupe, it sat incongruously on Rocky's thick neck. "Good God," said Markel.

Rocky said, "Rocky never dies." He tossed the knife in the air, caught it deftly by its point. "It grew back, square man."

Markel saw that this unquestionably was Rocky: the same black clothes, ragged now and dirty, the same narrowed eyes in the sullen but now doll-sized face. Casually, Rocky said, "I woke up feeling a little beat, and first thing I see is my old head, laying where you left it. Man, this bugs me till I reach up and feel around, and there I am, with a new head."

Markel let out his breath. Never before had there been a man like Rocky. And Markel saw the irony of it. He said, "Rocky, the unkillable clod, the idiot superman."

Grinning, Rocky said, "Yeah, call me names while you got the chance, because now you get yours, square man."

Staring at Rocky's knife, Markel was suddenly aware that he had left the M-1 in the convertible.

Gesturing toward the Earth Mother, Rocky said, "She flip her lid?"

Markel said mechanically, "She's all right. A touch of hysteria, that's all."

"Good. I want her to watch me work on you and see what I do to squares what steal my broad."

Gauging the distance between them, Markel figured his chances. He was bigger than Rocky; if he could stay away from the knife he could handle him. It would depend on Rocky's speed with the knife. Markel knew, desperately, that he had to win. If Rocky won, the world would belong to the deathless clod.

"I owe you plenty, square man. For all them times dead I owe you. And now I'm going to cut you like nobody's ever been cut."

Behind Markel there was a rustle of clothes, a scraping on cement, then a loud gasp. Rocky looked past Markel to the base of the statue.

Markel said, "Darlene! Don't be frightened! Get the M-1 from the front seat of the car. When he moves, shoot him!"

Hesitant footsteps shuffled on cement, and the car door clicked. Rocky did not move. "She ain't got the guts," he said. Noiselessly, Markel moved toward Rocky, but quick as thought Rocky spun, the knife ready. Markel stopped, tense.

"I can't wait, square man. I just can't wait to start working on you."

"You haven't a chance, Rocky. After she shoots you I'll chop you into a hundred pieces and burn every one. Even a freak like you won't recover from that." Rocky, his left arm out to balance himself, came at Markel, the knife low and steady in his right hand. Behind Markel the car door clanged shut. Rocky came on, the knife silver in the sun.

Without raising his voice Markel said, "Now!" and waited.

The M-1 cracked. All the sunlight in the square flamed at Markel as the bullet slammed into his back, and then he was falling into the flame and the flame engulfed him, but it was hard, like cement, and he dug his fingers into it to keep from falling into the blackness beyond it.

Beyond the flame someone was crying. A woman's voice said, "I couldn't let him hurt you again, Rocky, not again." Through the flame came a golden bird, hopping grotesquely because it had no wings. The bird was crying, and Markel reached out to it. But the flame flared silver between them and, still reaching for the golden bird, Markel slid from the hard flame into blackness. And that was the end of Markel and his dream.

That was the end of all dreams.