The Purple Pterodactyls

The Huns

On one of our vacations at Lake Algonquin, my Aunt Frances said: "Willy, Phyllis wants you to come over to Panther Falls to help her sell Wilderfarm."

"Oh?" I said. "I didn't know Aunt Phyllis was planning to sell."

"Well, she is. Will you go?"

"Look, Aunt Frances, I'm a banker, not a real-estate broker; and I don't practice in New York State anyway—"

"You still know more about mortgages and things than poor Phyllis ever will."

"Why is she selling?"

"She says it's too much place to keep up by herself, now that her children have moved away. Says she's too old to manage. The fact is, she's just too fat. If she'd control her appetite ... Besides, she said something about peculiar things happening lately."

"Eh? What? If she's got spooks, let her get an exorcist. I've bumped into enough of that stuff to last me—"

"I didn't say spooks, Willy."

"Then what?"

"Some sort of terror gang, I take it."

"That's a job for the troopers."

Frances Colton sighed. "Willy, you are deliberately being evasive. I'm not asking you to cast out devils or fight a gang of juvenile delinquents. I'm only asking you to give poor Phyllis some advice on selling the place. Some developer wants to take it over. Will you go?"

I sighed in turn. "I was going to take Stevie trolling for bass tomorrow."

"If the weather's good, take him; but the first rainy day, you can go over to the Falls. It's only an hour."

Two days later, leaving Denise to cope with our three restless adolescents, I drove to Gahato. I stopped at Bugby's Garage for gas and an oil change. While this was being done, I stood in the drizzle in my slicker, watching the locals walk past. I said howdy to a few whom I knew.

Then I sighted Virgil Hathaway, with his hair in two long black braids. Virgil has been friendly ever since I arranged a small bank loan for him when he was hard up in the fifties. Nowadays, with all the publicity about the poor Indian, Virgil does all right; but he still remembers a favor.

"Hello, Virgil," I said. "How's Chief Soaring Turtle these days?"

Hathaway's copper-hued visage wringled into a grin. "Can't rightly complain, leastaways not as far as the old lady and me be concerned."

"Then what?"

He shrugged. "Oh, I dunno. The kids are grown up, and they've quit the Indian business."

"You mean they're assimilating?"

"Ayuh. The girl's working for the telephone company, and Calvin's got a job as an engineer. Makes more money in a week than I ever did in a month, selling my toy canoes and moccasins and things. Worst of it is, he's planning to marry some white girl."

"Ts, ts, Virgil; don't tell me you've got racial prejudices!"

"Yep, I guess I do. At this rate, there wunt be no more Indians left at all. All mixed into the mass."

"Well, you Penobscots acquired a good deal of white blood over the centuries."

Hathaway grinned. "Sure. In the old days, when we entertained a visiting white man, we sure entertained him. If he left a few half-breeds behind, that was more warriors for the tribe. But that's all over and done with. How be you?"

I brought Hathaway up to date on the Newbury family, adding: "I'm on my way to Panther Falls to help my aunt on a real-estate deal. Seems she's in trouble with some local group"

"Ayuh? What kind of trouble?"

"I don't know. Sore sort of terror, I hear."

"Jeepers! What you need, Willy, is some good old Indian medicine man to put a hex on 'em. Like that guy on the Tonawanda Reservation, who came through here nineteen years ago. He'd fix your terrorists."

"Thanks," I said. "I'll bear it in mind."

Wilderfarm, which Phyllis Wilder was planning to sell, adjoined another tract in the patrimony of my greatgrandfather. This other lot contained Floreando, the Victorian-rustic mansion that Abraham Newbury built in the eighties. One passed this house on the way to the farm. After my great-aunt and great-uncle died, none of the heirs wanted the place, which needed a platoon of servitors to make it livable. Where, nowadays, would anyone but an oil billionaire retain a platoon of servitors?

First came a grand share-out of movables. A swarm of Abraham Newbury's descendants carried off furniture, pictures, chinaware, and so on in cars, trucks, and station wagons. Then, just before the War, the property was sold. It passed through several hands; but I had not kept up with its vicissitudes.

With a sudden attack of nostalgia, I turned in between the two big stone pillars that flanked the graveled driveway. I wanted one more look, to revive my childhood memories of rollicking parties, with swarms of cousins riding, swimming, picnicking, and horsing around. My cousin Hereward—the one who became a playwright—used to put us through abridgments of Shakespere's plays; I once played Hamlet's father's ghost.

The big old three-story stone house was still there; so was the iron deer on the lawn. A porch ran three-quarters of the way around the building, ending on one side in a shingled, porte-cochere. An upstairs porch, surmounted by a conical roof like those on castle towers, jutted out from the second story. If Floreando did not have a resident ghost, it ought to have had.

I took the branch of the driveway leading back to the highway, instead of continuing on the loop, which went around the house and under the porte-cochere. I stopped the car and sat, remembering.

The fountain on the spacious lawn played no more. The grass was so long that it needed a scythe or a reaper instead of a mower. Something else, too, had changed.

On the strip of lawn, between the porte-cochere and the trees, stood half a dozen shiny motorcycles in a row. These were no little one-lung gas-savers, but big, heavy, two and four-cylinder road bikes.

"You looking for somebody, mister?" said a voice.

A burly fellow in his twenties slouched up to my car. He put one hand of the roof and leaned forward, thrusting his face within a foot of mine. He had a mane of blond hair, hanging over his shoulders, chest, and back, and a full blond beard. He wore a suit of blue denim, with the pants tucked into heavy boots. These boots had half a dozen straps and buckles down the side, metal toes, and curved metal shin plates, rather like an ancient warrior's greaves.

"No," I said. "I just drove in to take a look. I used to play here when I was a kid."

"Oh," he said.

When the young man continued to stand beside the car, blocking my view to the right, I glanced the opposite way. The land across the Black River still rose, dim in the drizzle, in green tiers towards Tug Hill.

"Seen all you want to, mister?" the young man said at last.

"I think so," I said.

Having no intention of getting into a fight, I forbore to remark on his opacity. This youth was half my age and at least as big as I—and I am above average. He looked quite able to take a middle-aged banker apart.

"Who owns the place now?" I asked.

"The—the Lewis County Motorcycle Association."

"Oh." When the young man still stood, with beady blue eyes boring into me from under shaggy blond brows, I started up and drove back to the highway.

At the Farm, on the porch of the old white clapboard house, my aunt welcomed me with her usual extravagance. She hugged me to what they used to call her ample bosom. I said:

"Aunt Phyllis, you didn't use to have lightning rods on the farm, did you?"

"No, but so many places have been struck lately that I thought it wise."

"That's funny. I haven't heard of a change in the local climate."

"Neither have I," she wheezed. "I can't quote figures, but there have been a strange lot of local strikes. That's what set the Reverend Grier's house on fire. Some superstitious people think it was meant that way."

"How do you mean? Unless it's one of those climate-control experiments, I hadn't heard that anybody could govern the direction of lightning."

She shrugged, making her fat quiver. "I shouldn't say anything about anybody ..."

She broke off, listening. A snorelike, sawmillish noise was heard from the west. We looked in that direction, where the sun had begun to break through the rain clouds. A parade of motorcycle riders went past on the highway. A ray of the afternoon sun sparkled on their handlebars.

Aunt Phyllis jerked a thumb. "Especially them."

"The Lewis County Motorcycle Association?"

"Or the Huns, as they call themselves."

"What is all this? Are they staging a reign of terror?"

Aunt Phyllis made fluttery motions. "I oughtn't to talk about them—but so many queer things—you know, they say they make members of the gang do things that would turn a normal person's stomach, to show their manhood. And now, when somebody gets in their bad graces, his house gets hit by lightning or something. I called up the troopers to complain about one of their wild parties—they bring in their girls, and you can hear them clear to Boonville—so I got hit. It only knocked off a couple of shingles, praise be, but then I had the lightning rods put up. So now they just wheel in and out of the driveway, throwing beer cans and shouting vulgar things at me."

"Why doesn't somebody lower the boom of them?"

"It's hard to prove anything, because they all look alike in those helmets. Besides, their head man, young Nick, is the son of Jack Nicholson, the richest man in the county. Jack is getting a little senile now; but he's still a power in local politics, so nobody dares to touch his son. Jack's money bought Floreando."

"Trouble is," I said, "you've got a one-party system here. By the way, I drove in to Floreando to look it over."

"Run down, isn't it? But we have to expect it. Our family has come down in the world since Abraham's day. Only you, Willy, had the sense to get where the real money is, praise be."

"More by accident than design. I only hope I'm as able a banker as I might have been as an engineer." I told her about the Wagnerian character in blue denim.

"That would be Truman Vogel, Marshall Nicholson's second in command. Watch out for him. He kicked Bob Hawley with those iron boots and sent him to the hospital. They burned a cross on Doctor Rosen's lawn. They're talking about making this a white man's country."

I sighed. "The nuttier the program, the more nuts you'll find to join it. How about that sale of yours?"

I briefed Phyllis Wilder on the intricacies of mortgages, settlements, titles, agents, and lawyers. At the end, I promised to come back three or four days later, when the developer would have made a firm offer. Then I set out for Lake Algonquin, hoping to reach the Colton camp for dinner.

Passing through Panther Falls, I spied a name plate, saying "Isaiah Rosen, M.D.," on a lawn. I glanced at my car clock and drew up.

I had known Rosen slightly before the War, when I was an undergraduate and he a young physician who had taken over old Doc Prescott's practice. I remembered mentioning Rosen at one of the gatherings of cousins. My cousin Winthrop Colton—the one who was killed in the War— looked down his nose and said, with a kind of sniff: "Oh. You mean the Jew."

Such attitudes were common upstate in those days. Happily, things have changed, although you can still find pockets of such views among the old timers.

Now a balding Rosen greeted me. "I remember you, Mr. Newbury. What can I do for you?"

"Not a medical problem," I said. "I've been seeing my aunt, Mrs. Wilder."

Rosen shook his head. "I keep telling her to cut back on carbohydrates."

I told Rosen about the Huns. "I hear you've had a brush with them, too?"

Rosen stared. "You might say so. The whole thing has an unpleasantly familiar sound. Not that I was in Europe during the Holocaust—1 was right here, building up a practice—but naturally I take an interest in such things. This campaign has already cut into my practice."

"What did you do to antagonize them?"

He shrugged. "With my background, I didn't need to do anything. When I heard that Marshall Nicholson was turning the motorcycle club into some kind of neo-pagan cult, complete with blood sacrifices, I told Jack Nicholson that his son needed psychiatric care. Old Jack scoffed, saying Nick had a right to freedom of religion like everyone else. Presumably the story got back, and that's what touched it off."

"The First Amendment doesn't let anyone sacrifice unbelievers to Mumbo Jumbo—at least, not unless the Supreme Court gets even goofier. What about these alleged supernatural feats? The lightning business."

Rosen snorted. "The usual moonshine. When lightning hits twice within a radius of half a mile, some folks suspect that God or a local witch has it in for someone in the target area. As a man of scientific training, I take no stock in such talk."

"I hope you're right," I said, "but I've had a scientific training, too, and I've seen enough oddities to be skeptical even of my own skepticism."

The next time I went to visit Aunt Phyllis, I drove down the line to Gahato. I stopped at Virgil Hathaway's curio shop, the sign before which read:

CHIEF SOARING TURTLE

INDIAN BEAD WORK-POTTERY

Hathaway was selling a customer a Navaho blanket made in Connecticut. When he had finished, I said:

"Virgil, those eyeglasses somehow don't fit the Amerind decor."

"I got to be able to read my own price tags," he said. "Anyway, it dunt matter nowadays. When I started the business, I used to play up to the kids, talking funny English and saying ugh and how. But kids are smarter'n they was."

"You still have your braids."

"Ayuh, but that's what-you-call-it functional. Saves me three or four bucks a month getting haircuts. What can I do for you?"

"You told me about some medicine man out at Tonawanda. How could I get in touch with him?"

"You mean Charlie Catfish. Ain't seen Charlie in two-three years, but we send Christmas cards." Hathaway consulted an address book and gave me a telephone number.

At the farm, Phyllis Wilder threw herself upon me, nearly knocking me flat. "Oh, Willy! Do you know what those wretched young thugs have done?"

"What now, Aunt Phyllis?" said I, staggering back in her embrace.

"They spoiled the deal with Mr. Fife, at least for now." Fife was the developer. "He came over with his surveyor to look the place over. While he was here, the Huns rode up the driveway on their motorcycles and circled the house yelling, like a tribe of Indians riding around a water hole. It scared Mr. Fife so he went away, saying he couldn't consider buying the place while the neighborhood was so disturbed."

"Did you call the troupers?"

"Yes, but by the time they got here the Huns were gone. Trooper Talbot told me afterwards they went to Floreando and talked to the Huns, but they just denied everything. I'd have to file a formal complaint, and I'm afraid of what they'd do. They'd be out on bail, delaying the case for months or years ... You'll stay the night, won't you, Willy? I'm so scared."

"Sure, I'll stay. Speaking of Indians, there's one I want to call. He might be able to help."

"An Indian? How do you mean? To get up a war party, the way they did two hundred years ago—but no, Willy, you wouldn't do anything so silly. You were always the sensible one, praise be. What then?"

"You'll see when he gets here—if he does. I thought—no, wait. I'll meet him in the village. If I like his looks, could you put him up here along with me?"

"I guess so. At my age, nobody'll suspect me of entertaining a redskin lover." She gave a girlish giggle.

I called the number that Hathaway had given me and asked for Charles H. Catfish. When a man answered, I gave Hathaway's name and sketched my aunt's difficulties. I ended:

"Hathaway suggested that you might be able to help out, by means of your—uh—your special powers."

"Mought," said Catfish, "If it was made worth my while. Means I got to take time off from my job."

"What do you do, Mr. Catfish?"

"I sell Chevrolets in Kenmore. What was you thinking of paying?"

After consultation with Phyllis Wilder, I went back to the telephone and agreed with Catfish on a daily retainer. He promised to meet me in Panther Falls the next day.

"What time?" I asked.

"How about lunch time?"

"You'd have to get up pretty early. It's a four or five-hour drive, even with the Thruway."

The voice chuckled. "I know. Getting up early don't bother me none. It's an old Indian habit."

That night nobody came near Wilderfarm. There were, however, ominous sounds from the direction of Floreando: drumming and chanting. I suppose it was cowardly of me not have gotten dressed and gone skulking over there to see what the Huns were up to.

Charles H. Catfish kept me waiting in Panther Falls for over an hour. I do not want to generalize, but I fear that punctuality is not an outstanding American Indian virtue. At last a new, shiny Chevrolet sedan drove up.

My medicine man was a roly-poly fellow, about my age, in a handsome sports jacket, a necktie bearing Amerind motifs, and big black horn-rims. He wore his stiff black hair in a crew-cut brush. One had to look twice at his copper complexion and Mongoloid features to realize that he was an Indian and not just a middle-aged, sun-tanned fat man.

"Hello, Mr. Newbury," he said. "What's your problem? When the palefaces get stuck, they come around to sons of bitches like me for help."

Over lunch at the Panther Falls Diner, I told Catfish about my aunt's troubles.

"Have to think," he said. "Maybe old Eitsinoha can help us out. She ain't what she used to be, on account of having so few followers; but still, a great spirit is a great spirit."

Catfish proved a garrulous joker and storyteller, al- though my aunts would not have approved of many of his jokes.

"A few years ago," he said, "a damn funny thing happened to me. There was an assembly of professors from all over the world, at Ithaca—some learned society. Well, the guys at Cornell wanted to show these frogs and squareheads and dagoes some Indian stuff. Now, I got friends who try to keep up the old dances and ceremonies, and sometimes we put 'em on for pay. So I says, what the hell.

"I got Brant Johnson and Joe Ganogeh, and Joe's two boys, and we went to Ithaca with our feathers and junk. Of course, I know no real old-time Iroquois ever wore a Plains Indian war bonnet. Joe's older boy was the only one with anything like a proper Seneca hair crest and leggings. But these foreigners would never know the difference.

"So we did the corn dance and the war dance and the rest, beside Lake Cayuga, where all these wise guys were having a picnic. They gave us a good hand—all but one frog, a Catholic priest in a long gown and a berry hat. He stood with his back to us.

"When somebody asked why he wasn't watching, he said: 'Je dimontre contre les injustices infliges sur les peaux-rouges!' You know French? This guy didn't know I knew it, on account of I've worked in Quebec. Then one of the Russkies snarled at him: 'Oui, et maintenant par les francais dans 1'Algerie!' This was when the Algerians were giving the French such a hard time that the frogs pulled out a little later.

"It was nice to have somebody sympathize with the injustices inflicted on the redskins; but I'd rather he'd watched us dancing and trying to earn an honest dollar."

We left the diner and stood on the sidewalk while Catfish finished one of his stories. As he spoke, I saw two men marching in step towards us. One was the big, burly youth with long blond hair, with whom I had spoken the time I drove in to Floreando.

The other, also young, was smaller and slighter—about average in size—and clean-shaven. Instead of blue denim, he wore whipcord riding breeches and real riding boots. I wear similar breeches and boots when I ride a horse; but I am of an older generation. Among young riders today, one doesn't often see such an outfit except on formal occasions, like a horse show. Otherwise it is blue jeans, often with high-heeled cowboy boots.

As the pair approached, I saw them check their stride. While they hesitated, the Siegfried type in blue denim said something to the other. Then they walked straight towards us. The smaller, he of the peg-topped breeches, looked me in the eye and said:

"Excuse me, but aren't you Mrs. Wilder's nephew, Wilson Newbury?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'm Marshall Nicholson. I'm pleased to know people of the old families." He stuck out a hand, which I shook without enthusiasm, "and—uh—" He looked a question at Catfish, who said:

"Charlie Catfish."

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Catfish. This is Truman Vogel." Nicholson looked sharply at Catfish. "Indian?"

"Yes, sir. Seneca."

"Mr. Newbury," said Nicholson, "Truman told me how you dropped in on us last week. I'm sorry I wasn't there to meet you. I also understand you've been hearing things about our little club."

"Well?"

"People will insist on misunderstanding us, you know. They tell all sorts of silly stories, just because we like to ride the hogs. I thought you might drop over to Floreando to talk it over. That's kind of an ancestral home of yours, isn't it? You, too, Mr. Catfish, If you'd like to come."

The young man had a good deal of charm, although experience had made me wary of charmers. Catfish and I exchanged looks.

"Please!" said Nicholson. "We're really harmless."

"Okay," I said. "When?"

"Right now, if you've got nothing else on."

Catfish and I formed a motorcade behind the two motorcycles. We wheeled into the driveway between the pillars and up to the porte-cochere. This time, no other motorcycles were parked beside the building.

The huge living room had changed since my boyhood. The floor was bare and much scratched. Gone were the ancestral pictures of men in wreath beards and high collars and women in poke bonnets. The bookshelves were empty save for a few sets of collected sermons, which none of Abraham's descendants had wanted. The only other reading matter in sight consisted of piles of motorcycle magazines and comic books.

One window had been broken and crudely patched with a sheet of plastic. The few pieces of furniture looked beat-up; that may have been a case of all the better pieces' being taken away by the heirs.

One thing had been added. The living room had a huge fireplace, and over it ran a long stone mantel. On this shelf stood a score of helmets, of the sort worn in the Ring operas. The one in the center had a pair of metal wings, while all the others had horns. I suppose they were made of papier-mache and covered with metal foil, but I had no chance to examine them closely.

"Sit down, gentlemen," said Nicholson. "Can we get you a beer?"

"Thanks," I said. As Vogel went out, Nicholson explained:

"You see, Willy—mind if I call you Willy?—this isn't just one more hell-raising gang of young punks, you know. They were that when I took 'em over, but now I've given them a goal, a direction in life."

"What direction?"

"Nothing less than national regeneration—the restoration of the American spirit, making this a country fit for heroes. But you can't build a sound house of rotten wood, you know. That means we've got to cull out the rotten material."

Vogel returned with three cans of beer. He served one each to Catfish and me and took the third himself. I asked Nicholson: "Aren't you having any?"

"No. I don't drink." The young man gave a nervous little laugh. "You might call me a kind of health nut. But to get back: You've got to have sound materials to build a sound structure, you know. This applies to human institutions just as much as it does to houses and bridges. You've got to cull out the unsound."

"Who are the sound and who the unsound, then?"

"Oh, come off it, Willy! As a member of an old Anglo-Saxon family, you ought to know. The sound are the old original Nordic Aryan stock, which came over from the British Isles and other parts of northern Europe and made this country what it is—or at least, what it was before we let in hordes of biologically inferior niggers and kikes and spicks."

When I sat silently, he continued: "The scientific evidence is overwhelming, only it's been smudged and covered up and lied about by the Marxists. But I won't go into all the angles yet. Most people have been so brain-washed by liberal propaganda that they think you're a nut if you tell them a few plain facts, you know. If I can continue this discussion latter, I'll prove my points." He turned to Catfish. "Charlie, I hear you've got the special powers belonging to some Indians. Is that right?"

Evidently, someone had already spread the word of my hiring an aboriginal shaman. How the news got out I do not know. Perhaps my garrulous aunt had told one of her friends over the telephone while I was out of the house. Knowing small towns, I should not have been surprised.

Catfish's round red face remained blank. He said: "I learned a few old-time prayers and ceremonies when I was young, yes."

"We can use a man like you in our movement. You people have valuable qualities."

"I'm not exactly a Nordic Aryan, Mr. Nicholson," said Catfish.

"Don't worry about that. When we take over, well make th Indians honorary Aryans."

I spoke up: "Nick, how do you expect to make friends and influence people by letting your gang terrorize my old aunt?"

"Why, we never terrorize anybody! We believe in being kind to old ladies, especially old ladies of sound Anglo- Saxon stock. But—" He hesitated. "—you know, when I took the club over, they were just like any other motorcycle gang. You've got to work with the material you have. You can't expect everybody to be a—a spotless Puritan and a perfect gentleman, just as you can't chop down a tree with a razor blade. I've brought 'em a long way, but they still get a little rowdy at times. That'll pass. If the boys knew you were among our supporters, I'm sure Mrs. Wilder wouldn't have any more trouble. Now, can we count on your help, you two?"

"I'd have to think it over," I said, and Catfish mumbled something to the same effect.

I rose without awaiting further argument and said: "It's been very interesting, Nick. Maybe we can look in on you again." When Nicholson opened his mouth as if to protest, I pointed to the mantelpiece, saying: "Those Viking helmets made me wonder. If you're so hot on the. Nordic type, why do you call yourselves Huns? According to history, the Huns were Mongolians—little square, slant-eyed men in fur caps, who came galloping out of the Gobi Desert on shaggy ponies. Not at all Nordic."

"Oh, that," said Nichcolson. "The club called themselves Huns before I became leader. 'The Goths' would have been a better name, but I haven't yet been able to sell them on it. I will eventually. I'll also make 'em switch from Japanese bikes to Harley-Davidsons and Husqvarnas. If they're going to buy imports, at least they can import them from a Nordic country like Sweden."

"Thanks for the beer," I said, and went.

We left Nicholson and Vogel standing on the porch and staring after us. I led Catfish back to the highway and thence to the farm. When we had parked and gotten out, Catfish said:

"Jeepers! Felt like I'd put my hand into a hole and found it full of rattlers. You didn't kid 'em with your talk of thinking it over. They know you've got your tomahawk out for them. And don't think they meant that crap about the noble red man, either. If I'm any kind of medicine man, they'll try to get in the first lick first."

"I suppose so," I said. "Here comes my aunt. Aunt Phyllis, this is Charles H. Catfish; Charlie, this is Mrs. Wilder."

Catfish, who had been looking solemn even for an Indian, grinned. "Delighted, ma'am. I was just telling your nephew that's the way I thought a woman ought to be built. If I didn't have a wife and five kids to support already, I'd take a shine to you myself."

Giggling, Phyllis Wilder led us into the house. Here, things were in disorder. Piles of old clothes and children's discarded playthings littered the rooms. I asked:

"Are you packing up already, Aunt Phyllis, before the place is sold?"

"No, Willy. But I am clearing out some of the junk collected by four generations. Here's one item." From a pile, she picked up a brown canvas hunting jacket with big pockets. "This belonged to Peter." (Peter Wilder was her late husband.) "Would you like it?"

"I took off my own coat and tried on the jacket. "It fits fine," I said. "Thanks; this'll be useful." I told her about our visit to Floreando.

"Oh, dear!" she said. "They'll be up to some devilment. Can you help us, Mr. Catfish?"

"I can try," said Catfish. "Have you got a room where I can be let alone for the rest of the afternoon?"

"Sure. Right at the head of the stairs."

I helped Catfish to carry in three large suitcases. He shut himself in the room. Soon there came the tapping of a little drum and vocal noises, I suppose a chant in Seneca.

Aunt Phyllis and I sat downstairs, traded family gossip, and talked about the prospective sale of the Farm. The sun was low when Charles Catfish appeared at the head of the stairs. He came down slowly, and his voice sounded weak and husky. There was nothing of the jolly joker about him now.

"I've been in the spirit world," he said. "Eitsinoha will do what she can. She says the Huns got some spirit from across the water. Some name like 'Dawner.' That mean anything to you?"

I thought. "Of course! She must mean Donner or Donar, the old Germanic thunder god. The Scandinavians called him Thor, but Wagner used the German form in Das Rheingold. What can your—uh—what's-her-name do for us?"

"Don't expect too much. The powers of spirits are limited, even big-league spirits like these. They can tell you things in dreams and trances; they can do things to the weather; they can fix cards and dice. But it's no use asking Eitsinoha to pick up young Nicholson and dunk him in the Black River. Oh, before I forget!"

Catfish brought out a flat pint whiskey bottle and set it down, saying: "I found this empty in one of them piles of stuff, Mrs. Wilder. Hope you don't mind me using it. Willy, what's in that there bottle looks and tastes like ordinary water; but, if you can get Nick to drink it, it'll change his attitude for sure."

I put the bottle in one of the pockets of the hunting coat. "How am I supposed to do that?"

"I dunno. You'll have to figure something out. Do I smell something cooking, ma'am?"

"Yes," said Phyllis Wilder. "Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes, praise be. Willy, you can be bartender. The stuffs in the cupboard to the left of the stove. Well, Mr. Catfish, what'll we do if—if they raid us again?"

"Do you keep a gun, Aunt Phyllis?" I asked.

"I have a little twenty-two, for woodchucks in my garden."

"Better think twice about using agun," said Catfish. "The way they got the laws fixed in New York State now, if you find a burglar climbing out the window of your house with his loot, you dassen't shoot him. If you do, they'll put you in jail for using 'excessive force.' Then if he dies, you'll take the rap for manslaughter. If he lives, he'll sue you for a million bucks and prob'ly get a judgment. We Indians were more practical. When we found some guy stealing our stuff, we killed him, and that was that."

I had gone to my room around eleven and was just beginning to undress when all hell broke loose. The roar of motorcycles around the house was mingled with yells, whoops, and the crash of breaking glass.

I buttoned up and raced downstairs. Phyllis Wilder and Charlie Catfish were almost as quick.

"Aunt Phyllis, telephone the troopers!" I said.

Although fluttering and wheezing, she picked up the telephone. After a few seconds, she said: "Oh, dear me, it's dead! They must have cut the wires."

"Let me try," I said. She had been right.

Catfish said: "Tell me where the nearest barracks is. I'll drive over and get 'em, while you take care of Mrs. Wilder."

Phyllis Wilder gave directions, while the uproar outside. A bottle crashed through a window and landed at my feet.

Catfish ducked out into the car port but was back in a few minutes. "She's dead, too. Must have tore out the wires or pulled the distributor head. Suppose you try yours, Willy."

I did, with the same results. While I was explaining my failure, a stone whizzed through one of the windows and hit me on the forehead. I staggered and almost went down.

I am usually—if I say so myself—a pretty even-tempered, self-controlled man. In my business, one has to be. About once a year, however, the pressure builds up and I blow my top.

In the corner of the living room was a pile of disused toys, including a junior-sized baseball bat. As I recovered my balance, my eye fell upon that bat. In two steps I grabbed it up. Then I ran out the front door.

"Willy!" wailed Aunt Phyllis. "Come back! You'll be killed!"

At that moment, if I had been told that I faced execution by firing squad for use of excessive force, I would not have cared. I was an idiot, of course, but this is what happened.

When the first motorcyclist loomed out of the dark, I took him across the front of the helmet with the bat. I heard the plastic crunch, and the cyclist was flipped backwards out of his saddle. The motorcycle disappeared riderless into the dark.

Then they were all around me, their headlight beams thrusting like lances. The Huns could not all get at me at once because they were encumbered by their vehicles. I jumped about like a matador dodging bulls and whacked away. Some of the yells implied that I had gotten home. Then something hit me over the ear ...

I awoke on the floor of the living room at Floreando. For a few seconds, I knew not where I was. I had an atavistic suspicion that I was in Hell; then I saw that the devils were merely the Huns in the horned helmets. My head throbbed like a forging hammer.

"Ah," said Nicholson's voice. "He's coming to."

I turned my head, wincing, and saw that Nicholson was wearing the winged helmet.

"Just what Donar ordered," continued Nick. "Hey, grab him!"

I had started to sit up. Four of them pounced upon me, hauled me to a chair, and sat me in it. They tied my wrists to the chair behind my back and my ankles to the front legs.

Now that my vision had cleared and my memory had sorted itself out, I saw that I had indeed done some execution among the Huns. One had his arm in a sling. Another had a bandage around his head under the helmet. A third was trying to staunch a flow of blood from a broken nose.

Many of them wore plastic protectors, like those of football players, on shoulders, chests, and knees. Together with the operatic helmets and the massive boots, the effect was startlingly medieval.

"Get the sacrifice ready, Truman," said Nicholson. "We'll use that old stump in the woodshed. Chuck, stoke up the furnace. Remember, we've got to burn up every last piece of bone or tooth. Carry him out, you guys."

The chair was hoisted and borne through the long hall to the kitchen and out the back door. Floreando had a huge woodshed, dating from the days when firewood was the only source of heat. Some ancestor had put in steam heat around 1900, but the woodshed still maintained a supply of wood for the fireplaces. Even in midsummer, the nights there get pretty cool.

A single light bulb illumined the area. The "stump" of which Nicholson had spoken was a cylindrical piece of tree trunk, about thirty inches high and the same in diameter. One of the Huns was whetting a double-bitted lumberman's ax.

"Now," said Nicholson, "you know the invocation to Donar. Gary, you keep hold of Newbury. He might try to wriggle away, tied up as he is, while we're looking elsewhere. Now, are you all ready with the responses? Great Donar, lord of the lightning-—"

Overhead, lightning flashed and distant thunder rumbled.

"Hey, leader!" said a Hun. "He's got something in his pocket."

"Search him," said Nicholson.

From Uncle Peter's hunting coat, the speaker brought out the pint bottle. He chuckled: "Why, the old rumdum!"

"Throw it away," said Nicholson.

"No, Nick, wait!" said Truman Vogel. "No use wasting good booze." He unscrewed the cap and sniffed. Then he wet a finger and tasted. "Oh, shit! Seems to be plain water. Now what would he carry a bottle of water around for? It's not like he was out hunting or fishing."

The prospect of having one's head chopped off, and moreover by an amateur executioner who would probably make a messy job of it, is a wonderful stimulant to thinking. "Hey!" I yelled, although I suspect it came out as a croak. "Give me that!" The effort made my head throb.

"Won't do you no good," said Vogel. "What is this stuff, anyway?"

"I can't tell you. Catfish swore me to secrecy."

"Oh, yeah? We'll see about that. Gary, just tighten those ropes a little."

Gary obeyed. I put on an act—and not entirely an act—of a man bravely resisting torture and then succumbing to pain.

"Okay, I'll tell!" I gasped. "It's the magical Iroquois water. Their medicine men make it, to give their warriors the strength to overcome all their enemies. When they get enough, they hope to drive all the whites into the ocean."

"Oh," said Nicholson. "Well, maybe it'll work for us. I've got enemies to overcome, too. Let's see it."

He took the bottle from Vogel, sniffed, and tasted. "Seems harmless."

"Don't!" I cried. "You don't know what it'll do to you!"

"Fuck you, buster," said Nicholson. "You won't be here to worry about that, you know." He tilted up the bottle with a gurgling sound.

"Seems like good, clean water," he said. "Okay, on with the ceremony."

"And off with his head," said Vogel. A titter ran through the Huns. "Stan, you and Mike haul Newbury over to the stump,"

"You want we should untie him?" said a Hun.

"God, no! He's no pushover, even if he is a gray-haired old geezer. Take the chair and all and put him so his neck is facedown on the stump—uh—well, you know what I mean."

I was dragged, still bound, to the stump and laid across it. By twisting my neck, I could still see what was going on. The Hun with the ax stood up and spat on his hands.

"Now repeat after me," said Nicholson: "Great Donar, lord of the lightning—"

"Great Donar, lord of the lightning—" said the other Huns.

"And god of the immortal, indomitable Nordic Aryan race—

"And god of the immortal, indomitable Nordic Aryan race—"

"We sacrifice a man unto thee—"

"We sacrifice a man unto thee—"

There was a violet flash in the clouds overhead, and thunder rumbled.

"In return, we ask that thou smiteth our enemies with thy lightnings—" Nicholson's knowledge of Jacobean English grammar was weak. The Huns responded as usual.

"Beginning with Phyllis Wilder, Isaiah Rosen, and Paul Grier—"

"And that thou giveth us a sign—"

Again a flash and a rumble, but more faintly.

"Louder, we pray, great Donar!"

This time, the thunder was barely audible. Nicholson said: "He's not in a good mood tonight."

"Let's give Newbury the business, quick," said Vogel. "It's Thursday, and we can't wait a week for his day to come around again."

"Ready with that ax, Frank!" said Vogel. "Wait till I give the signal. But—that's funny. Was war ich—what was I— going to say? I—ah—ach—" He stared about in a puzzled way. "Was fur ein Unsinn—" He gasped and clutched at his throat.

"You been poisoned, Nick?" asked Vogel. The other Huns murmured excitedly.

Recovering himself, Nicholson shouted, gesticulating fiercely: "Wir wollen wiederherstellen die Einheit des Geistes und des Willens der deutschen Nation! Die Rasse liegt night in der Sprache, sondern im Blute!"

The Huns looked bewilderedly at one another. One said: "Hey, Truman, is he off his nut?"

"God, I dunno," said Vogel. "We can't take him to that Jew doctor—"

A Hun ran around the corner of the woodshed into the light. "The fuzz!" he shouted. "Split, you guys!"

With muffled exclamations, the Huns scurried away. I have never seen human beings scatter so quickly. There was a sudden glare of motorcycle headlights and the roar of motors. Away went the Huns, wheeling over lawns and through woods, as two state police cars turned into the driveway. By the time four troopers appeared around the corner of the woodshed, pistols at ready, the only persons present were myself, still tied to that chair, and Marshall Nicholson. The gang leader held his right upper arm out stiffly while the forearm pumped up and down with a clockworky motion, as if he were pounding an invisible desk with his fist as he ranted:

"... Wer ein uolk retten will, kann nur heroisch denken! Der heroische Gedanke aber muss srehfs bereits sein, auf die Zustimmung der Gegenwart Verzicht zu leisten, wenn die Wahrhaftigkeit und die Wahrheit es erfordert!"

"We left the house after they carried you off," said Charlie Catfish, "and hiked along the road till we found a place to 'phone."

"Oh, my poor feet!" moaned Phyllis Wilder.

We stood in Doctor Rosen's crowded waiting room, with two troopers holding the handcuffed Marshall Nicholson. Jack Nicholson sat with his face in his hands. Young Nick was still orating in German. Questions in English brought no response.

Rosen finished his examination, or as much of it as he could do with an obstreperous patient. He said:

"Mr. Newbury, do you speak German?"

"A little. I got fairly fluent in Germany after the War, but I've forgotten most of it."

"I read it, but I don't speak it worth a damn. Ask him when he was born."

"Warm waren Sie Geboren?' I said to Nick.

He paused in his harangue. "Warum?"

"Tut nichts! Sagen Sie mir."

"Der zwanzigst April, achtzehnhundert neunundachtzig."

"April twentieth, eighteen eighty-nine," I told Rosen. One trooper murmured: "That'd make him older than his father."

Rosen said: "Mr. Nicholson, what was your son's birthdate?"

Old Nicholson looked up. "April thirtieth, nineteen forty-five."

"Has he ever studied German?"

"Not that I know of. He never finished High."

Rosen stood for a minute in thought. "You'll have to commit him, Mr. Nicholson," he said. "I don't know any way around it. I'll get the papers. There's a good place in Utica ..."

This happened before that court decision, that a loony must be allowed to run loose until he proves he is dangerous by killing somebody. After the troopers and the Nicholsons had gone, I asked Rosen:

"Doc, what was all that about birth dates?"

"Mr. Newbury, I've told you I don't believe for a second in supernatural stuff. But it is a strange coincidence that Adolf Hitler was born April 20, 1889; and that he killed himself in Berlin on the very day Marshall Nicholson was born. Moreover, I've read Hitler's speeches in the original."

"You have? That seems strange."

"Not at all. When you know somebody is out to kill you, it's only sensible to learn all you can about him, so you can protect yourself. The German that Nick was spouting seemed to be nothing but excerpts from Hitler's speeches. I'd have to check—I can't remember them word for word— but it certainly sounded familiar. Mr. Catfish, what was in that water Mr. Newbury got Nick to drink?"

"Just tap water," said Catfish, "but I prayed to Eitsinoha to give it the power to take away a man's memory." To me he added: "Donar gave her quite a tussle, but every spirit's strongest on its home ground."

"You mean," I said, "that Nick is a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler? I can see how that might work. If you wiped out his memory of this life, that would leave him the memory of his previous life. So he'd think he was still Hitler and be very much confused. One moment he's in the bunker, getting ready to shoot himself; the next, he's in a woodshed in upstate New York—"

"Please, please!" said Rosen. "I've told you, I don't believe in that nonsense. My business is curing folks of what ails them, and for that I need a strictly scientific outlook. But I thought it might interest you. Do you need a lift home, now that your cars are disabled?"

"No, thanks," I said. "Trooper Talbot offered to drive us back to the Farm. He should be waiting outside."

"Well, good-night, then. And Mrs. Wilder, you simply must learn to resist the sweets and starches!" -