The Compleat Bolo Read Free Page A

voice that rumbled like a subterranean volcano.
    "The understatement of the year, pop." I tried to get up. Nausea knotted my stomach.
    "You have to rest," the old man said, looking concerned. "Before the Baron's men come . . ." He paused, looking at me as though he expected me to say something profound.
    "I want to know where the people are that live here!" My yell came out as weak as church-social punch. "A woman and a boy . . ."
    He was shaking his head. "You have to do something quick. The soldiers will come back, search every house—"
    I sat up, ignoring the little men driving spikes into my skull. "I don't give a damn about soldiers! Where's my family? What's happened?" I reached out and gripped his arm. "How long was I down there? What year is this?"
    He only shook his head. "Come eat some food. Then I can help you with your plan."
    It was no use talking to the old man; he was senile.
    I got off the cot. Except for the dizziness and a feeling that my knees were made of papier-mâché, I was all right. I picked up the hand-formed candle, stumbled into the hall.
    It was a jumble of rubbish. I climbed through, pushed open the door to my study. There was my desk, the tall bookcase with the glass doors, the gray rug, the easy chair. Aside from a layer of dust and some peeling wallpaper, it looked normal. I flipped the switch. Nothing happened.
    "What is that charm?" the old man said behind me. He pointed to the light switch.
    "The power's off," I said. "Just habit."
    He reached out and flipped the switch up, then down again. "It makes a pleasing sound."
    "Yeah." I picked up a book from the desk; it fell apart in my hands.
    I went back into the hall, tried the bedroom door, looked in at heaped leaves, the remains of broken furniture, an empty window frame. I went on to the end of the hall and opened the door to the bedroom.
    Cold night wind blew through a barricade of broken timbers. The roof had fallen in, and a sixteen-inch tree trunk slanted through the wreckage. The old man stood behind me, watching.
    "Where is she, damn you?" I leaned against the door frame to swear and fight off the faintness. "Where's my wife?"
    The old man looked troubled. "Come, eat now . . ."
    "Where is she? Where's the woman who lived here?"
    He frowned, shook his head dumbly. I picked my way through the wreckage, stepped out into knee-high brush. A gust blew my candle out. In the dark I stared at my back yard, the crumbled pit that had been the barbecue grill, the tangled thickets that had been rose beds—and a weathered length of boards upended in the earth.
    "What the hell's this . . . ?" I fumbled out a permatch, lit my candle, leaned close, and read the crude letters cut into the crumbling wood: VIRGINIA ANNE JACKSON. BORN JAN. 8 1957. KILL BY THE DOGS WINTER 1992.
     
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    The Baron's men came twice in the next three days. Each time the old man carried me, swearing but too weak to argue, out to a lean-to of branches and canvas in the woods behind the house. Then he disappeared, to come back an hour or two later and haul me back to my rag bed by the fire.
    Three times a day he gave me a tin pan of stew, and I ate it mechanically. My mind went over and over the picture of Ginny, living on for twelve years in the slowly decaying house, and then—
    It was too much. There are some shocks the mind refuses.
    I thought of the tree that had fallen and crushed the east wing. An elm that size was at least fifty to sixty years old—maybe older. And the only elm on the place had been a two-year sapling. I knew it well; I had planted it.
    The date carved on the headboard was 1992. As nearly as I could judge another thirty-five years had passed since then at least. My shipmates—Banner, Day, Mallon—they were all dead, long ago. How had they died? The old man was too far gone to tell me anything useful. Most of my questions produced a shake of the head and a few rumbled words about charms, demons, spells, and the Baron.
    "I don't believe in