The Dancers of Noyo by Margaret St. Clair Read Free Book Online Page B

"Have the Grail Vision in a smokehouse at Russian Gulch? It isn't reasonable."
     
                  "Oh, shure . People have it all the time, Tham ." She moved her head, and the light coming in through the smokehouse door lit up the side of her childish face, showing it to be heavily lined. When I had first seen her, I had thought she was a little old woman. Then she had moved, and I had realized that she was a child.
     
                  She giggled, and reached out with a ghastly amorousness toward my chest. I drew away from her instinctively. She was under age, she was unattractive, and the girls of my own tribe all had had contraceptives implanted. I was in no state of sexual deprivation, or disposed to be uncritical. I reached for my bow, lying on the hide beside me, and got to my feet.
     
                  "Where're you going?" Gee-Gee asked, watching me apprehensively.
     
                  "I'm going to get started on my way down Highway One. I can put a few miles out of the way before it gets dark."
     
                  She stared at me for a moment. Then she opened her mouth and gave vent to a piercing shriek. It had a clarion quality, a high-pitched penetration, through which the word "Help!" was occasionally audible.
     
                  I swallowed. Then I started to run. But before I could get to the smokehouse door, two male Russian Gulchers had come pelting in.
     
                  "What's he doin to ya , Gee-Gee?" the taller one demanded.
     
                  "He—he—" She seemed on the verge of angry tears. "He tried to — and he tore my dress." She exhibited a small rip in the thin, faded blue fabric.
     
                  "Rape, hunh ?" said the shorter man. "Can't you pricks from Noyo even be normal when it comes to shoving the meat? You ought to be ashamed of yourself! A little bitty girl like that!"
     
                  "1 didn't," I said. I tried to push past him to the door. We scuffled. I hit him on the jaw, and he hit me beside the right eye.
     
                  The other man joined in the fight. There were two of them, but they were both older than I and rather slow. I managed to hold my own. But then three other Russian Gulchers burst through the door and began hitting me. I went down under a hail of blows.
     
                  In the end, they tied me up with long witches of Clematis ligusticifolia . This is a very strong fiber. The Pomo used to make deer nets out of it. They dumped me in a sort of jail, a low, rickety old summer cabin, and stationed a guard in front of the door.
     
                  I looked around me. My heart was still thumping unpleasantly as a result of the fighting, and the places they had hit me hurt. My eye was beginning to swell up, and I couldn't see any too well, but there didn't seem to be much in the cabin except a bucket and a chair-high section of redwood log. The window had redwood shakes nailed across it like bars.
     
                  I hobbled over to the window and peered out. The Gulchers were lying around in the sun indolently. After a minute I saw an astonishingly familiar figure walking out of the sweathouse. I squinted. Yes, it was Brotherly Love.
     
                  Brotherly. What was he doing here? Russian Gulch is only a few miles from Noyo, but we never visited each other. Things were apt to disappear mysteriously when the Gulchers were around.
     
                  Brotherly went behind a clump of ceanothus. He came out riding my motorbike.
     
                  I must have made some sort of noise, for my guard jumped up, scowling. "Get away from that window!" he yelled. He shook a club of mountain mahogany at me.
     
                  I went back to the redwood slab and sat down on it. I was badly puzzled. I didn't know why the Gulchers had elected to