The Dancers of Noyo (11 page)

             
His face changed. He made a gesture with the wine glass, so wide and sweeping that wine slopped out on the floor near the door that led to the workshop. "Somebody told you!" he said angrily. "It isn't fair! Won't people ever forget? Won't the ever let me alone? I'm paying my debt to society!"

             
"I'm sorry," I said
placatingly
. "I didn't mean to offend you. Nobody told me anything. It was just a lucky guess on my part."

             
"Somebody
must
have told you
!
"

             
"No, really not.
Say, though, wouldn't it be a good idea to mop up the wine on the floor? If we take some paper towels—"

             
He made a gesture toward the towel rack on the wall. He was still fuming. I got towels and began blotting at the spilled wine. I saw that the jamb of the door that led to the workshop was badly splintered, as if the door, locked, had been violently burst open from the workshop side. It would have taken a lot of strength. But perhaps it had never happened—the door, at any rate, was in good shape.

             
"That looks better," I said, rising from my knees.

             
"Unh."
He glared at me, only a little less angry.
"T
m trying to do the right thing!
I don't deserve to be persecuted like this!" All his sentences were italicized.

             
I was getting sore. I couldn't think of anything to say. We looked at each other silently for a moment. "I
am
trying to do the right thing," he said, more calmly. "And I'll prove it. I'll do my best to help
you."

             
"Thanks," I answered, a little dryly.

             
"
You're a Pilgrim, aren't you? Making the Grail Journey? I've seen people like you on
Highway One before."

             
"Yes."

             
"Now here I might be able to help you," he said musingly. "Sit down, and I'll get us some more wine.
"

             
"
I could use some help," I said. I sat down in the chair he had indicated, in front of the Franklin stove. I was wondering whether he could possibly be the ally
Pomo
Joe had predicted. It didn't seem likely. I mistrusted him too much.

             
He brought the glasses back, refilled, and a plate of the cheese biscuits made in Petaluma. "There's something similar," he said thoughtfully, "between the, a
ir
, chemical conscience and the way the Grail Pilgrimage works."

             
"What's the similarity?" I asked. I looked around the big redwood-paneled room appraisingly. Two or three of Farnsworth's paintings were hanging on the walls, painted mainly in shades of red. Was it because of them or the splintered door jamb that I disliked the room so much? I rather thought it was the door jamb. My growing uneasiness seemed to center there.

             
"I shouldn't think the state of mind would be the same," I went on. "The state of mind of chemical-conscience people and Pilgrims, I mean. You don't, unh, live other fives than your own, do you?"

             
"No, though just after I have my shot I do have the sensation of being compelled to behave otherwise than the way
I
actually feel. It wears off after a while, and ... But what I meant about a similarity is in the way the chemical conscience and the Grail Journey state of mind are mediated."

             
"You know something about that?" I asked. I was getting very interested. And yet my uneasiness about the house was increasing. I thought with longing of the glass driveway outside, of running down it toward Highway One, of beginning to dance. The glass would make a pleasant crunching sound as I stamped in the dance. But if I left Farnsworth, I'd probably have another extra-life
...
I'd better stay here.

             
"I know something about the way the chemical conscience is mediated," he answered. He bit off the words precisely with his thin lips. "You see, the, ah, conscience is only partly physical,
partly a matter of a drug given the patient. At least half the effect is secured by means that one might describe as magical."

             
Magical
...
The word returned me to
a
fantasy that I had had just before Farnsworth picked me up: that I was wandering through a world magically wasted, full of dry lightnings, toward a crucial conflict with some malign sage. Magic had seemed to crackle and flash over the surface of the pavement; and when the Mercedes had stopped near me it had, for an instant, seemed
a
sorcerer's flying chariot.

             
"Well, I've certainly been having some strange experiences," I answered cautiously. "You mean they were somehow caused by magic? I'm not sure I understand what you mean."

             
He pressed his lips thoughtfully. "Well, in the, ah, chemical-conscience therapy there is an object,
a
material object, to which the patient's moral sentiments have been magically attached. Something of the same sort might be true of the experiences of Pilgrims on the Grail Journey."

             
"You mean, like in witchcraft?" I asked. I spoke from a fog; it wasn't that I was beginning to be somebody else than Sam McGregor, but that I was experiencing, in my own person, a sort of horror—of the house and of the man—that got between me and what I was saying. I tried to fight down the feeling; I was afraid of making a fool of myself. And yet the horror persisted. To feel horror-struck was, I supposed, better than having another extra-fife, and as long as I remained in Farnsworth's company it seemed that I was in little danger of abruptly becoming somebody else. But I was so on edge that when Farnsworth
raised
his wine glass and sipped from it, I almost jumped up from my chair.

             
Farnsworth looked at me from under his eyebrows with curiously direct and limpid eyes.
"Witchcraft?
In a way.
I think that in the case of the Grail Pilgrims a material object has been made the focus for an immaterial force. This force has been controlling what you experienced. Call it witchcraft if you like."

             
He bent over the Franklin stove and poked at the ashes in it. "I'll make a fire," he said. "It's cool
tonight."

             
While he was gone I looked at the door jamb and wondered what had splintered it. When Farnsworth came back with the wood and had got the fire going, he said, "The object might be back in Noyo, or it might be something you're carrying. Whichever it is, it must have been possessed in some special way."

             
I tried to think. Farnsworth's big hands were clasped loosely around the poker. Finally I said, "Would I know what the object was?"

             
"Oh, no, not consciously.
But you may be able to remember. Was anything given to you, or taken away from you, just before you left on the Pilgrimage?"

             
"They took my motorbike away from me," I said. "And they gave me some food and a bundle of wooden passports."

             
"It probably isn't the motorbike," Farnsworth said. "It's too big a thing to act as a focus where only one man is concerned. It might be the food, but I don't think so. It's most likely the bundle of passports. Most likely they've smeared the passports with one of your body secretions—urine or sweat or tears or blood. That would do the trick."

             
"But—Gee-Gee came running after me with them!"

             
"Who's Gee-Gee?" Farnsworth asked.

             
I explained about Gee-Gee and the Russian Gulchers, ending, "They'd let me go off without the passports, and I don't think they'd have done that if the passports were necessary for my having more extra-lives. They certainly wanted me to have more of the lives, so I'd be sure never to regain my own identity."

             
Farnsworth shrugged. "It may have been a simple oversight. Or it might have been a trick to find out how confused as to your identity you actually were. Do you mind letting me see the passports?"

             
I handed them to him silently. He looked them over, his
li
ps pursed. Then he said, "You don't really need them, do you?"

             
"No. In fact, I don't understand why the Noyo Dancer gave them to me. They're really no use."

             
"Um-hu
m
."
He pinched his lips thoughtfully. "Look," he said, "I'd like to try something. It may make you uncomfortable for a minute, but I think you'll feel better afterward. OK?"

             
I remembered my distrust of him. Still, I didn't think he could do much mischief while I was watching him, though I felt a sudden longing for my bow. (What had happened to it? I must have left it behind at Russian Gulch.) "All right," I said.

             
He looked at the slips of wood a moment longer. Then he opened the doors of the Franklin stove and tossed them into the heart of the flame.

             
It may have been only suggestion, but I felt sweat break out on my forehead. The room seemed stiflingly hot. The slips of wood had caught fire and were burning brightly. Then, as the fire died away and the wood fell into ashes, I drew a deep breath. For the first time in ten days or so, I felt almost completely normal. It was wonderful. A cloud had passed away from my mind.

             
Farnsworth was watching me smilingly. "You feel better, don't you? I thought you would. Of course, the extra-lives
will
remain a part of your personality, as if they had actually happened. We can't help that. But I don't think it will bother you too much."

             
"No ... I don't know how to tell
you how grateful I am. You've done something, unh, wonderful for me."

             
"You see, a person who's had the chemical conscience can be of some real help," he said lightly.
"How about another drink to celebrate?"

             
"I
really oughtn't to accept any more favors from you," I said. (Actually, I was longing to get away from him, though I felt a perfectly real gratitude.) "I ought to be on my way."

             
"Oh, come now! Even if you're planning on going on with the Grail Journey, you can't make much progress at night. Why don't you stay here tonight? You can get on your way early in the morning. I'll just make up a bed for you—" He smiled at me.

             
I couldn't think how to refuse. Finally I said, rather awkwardly, "OK, thanks."

             
Farnsworth began to bustle around, getting sheets and blankets out of a rough redwood cupboard. "Here," he said as he started to leave the living room with his armload, "you might like to look over this scrapbook. You can read about me and see how much the chemical therapy has changed me." He laughed as he pushed the scrapbook toward me, but he seemed painfully nervous and I wondered why.

             
Left alone, I opened the scrapbook and began to leaf through it. I put it down almost immediately. Farnsworth, it seemed, had been a viciously sadistic murderer who had killed his victims by driving iron stakes into their arteries.

             
I glanced toward the front door. I couldn't remember whether or not I had seen him lock it when we first entered the shack. As quietly as I could—I was, of course wearing moccasins—I went toward it. Farnsworth came out of the bedroom just as I was about to touch the knob.