Wings of the phoenix

He had a dream of Phoenix rising glorious from the bleak ashes of the world and a conviction that only he could make the dream real. To do this he needed two items: a woman, to produce the children of Phoenix, and books, to educate them. And so he searched the ruined land and the broken cities.

He had certain qualities that favored the success of his dreams: intelligence (BA, MA in English Literature), marksmanship (sharpshooter's medal, ROTC), and cunning (inherent). But he had one other quality that was most important to his survival and to the realization of his dream. That quality showed itself the day he found the girl in the broken city.

Silence lay over this city like a thick sea; it flowed like rivers in summer down long streets; it pooled stagnant in the backwash of alleys and dead-ends. Past sky-scrapers it drifted, like eddies drift past towers in Atlantis. Overhead, pigeons dived like gulls beneath its surface, but their cries were not the cries of gulls.

A voice broke the silence that was drowning him. He spun crouching, the M-1 ready, and saw a girl running toward him. "Gad!" he said. (He had always felt that "Gad!" was a gentleman's expletive.) Seeing that she was not armed, he lowered the M-1. The girl, who was fat and dirty, crashed into him, flinging puffy arms around his neck. "Save me!" she yelled.

Her yellow hair, streaked with dirt and sunlight, was against his face; he breathed stale powder and sweat. For exactly this occasion he had a speech prepared. "Earth Mother! At last, the Earth Mother! Now will I lift Phoenix from the bleak ashes of the world!"

"From everything! From the lonesomeness and the rats and the no movies and the no fun anywhere and from Rocky!"

Abruptly she plopped to the street and started to cry. Her fat face quivered as she wheezed, and her nose ran. Impassively, he sat on the curb, handing her his handkerchief. From his jacket pocket he took a briar pipe, filled it with dried tobacco, and lit it. The Earth Mother cried. He smoked and waited.

September sun lay bright in the street, with shadows of elms on the lawn across from them. A porch swing creaked in the wind, and something too big to be a rat went past the porch and under the trees that everywhere were closing in on the cities. The Earth Mother's cries faded to sniffles. She blew her nose, wiped her eyes, and gave him his handkerchief. "Keep it," he said, coughing.

"Thanks. Oh, it's so good to see somebody else. You don't know how lonesome it's been here with nobody around but that goofy Rocky. I been praying somebody would come. Somebody real cool-looking, like you." She leaned toward him, blinking her eyes.

"Joe Nowhere, that's who he is. Rides around on his goofy motorcycle all the time. He's mean, and real square. Like a cube, you know?"

He stared at her incredulously. Holding the pipe in his left hand, he put his right hand over his face. "I didn't really expect you to be pretty, but Gad, did you have to be a thoroughgoing idiot?" Eventually he lowered his hand. "If he's that bad, why didn't you run away?"

"Where to? Out there it's all empty and scary. Here it's something like it used to be."

"That lousy jerk," she said to herself. "The things he did to me! He pushed me around all the time, too."

For this situation too, he had a speech ready. Dramatically, he stood up. "Let me take you away from all this! Come, I offer you the chance to mother the new race!"

She said, "Okay, I'll go," and bounced to her feet, arms spread wide. He managed to catch her wrists, and said, "First, take me to the town library."

"What for? For books to feed the soul of Phoenix! I tell you, our civilization will not repeat the mistakes of this one!"

She shrugged. "So okay. It ain't far from where I live, anyway." All the way down the street she told him how glad she was to be going away with him, and all down another street where no elms were, only sidewalks with broken glass on them. They walked past doorless apartments, gutted stores, and rusting, overturned cars. The scuffing of their shoes mingled with the stupid cooing of pigeons and the scuttling of rats.

They found no books in the library, only a skeleton with a high-heeled shoe on its left foot. As they walked down the steps the Earth Mother said, "I guess they burned them when it got cold."

"There were other things to burn," he said. In her apartment she packed two suitcases while he searched the other apartments for books. He found about a dozen paperbacks, Westerns and detectives, which he kicked into a corner. When he went back to her apartment she was pounding on the lid of a suitcase. He said, "Well, don't stand there smirking. Pick them up and we'll be off."

Hesitating, she said, "But I don't even know your name. We ought to know each other's names. Mine's Darlene."

They walked half a block down the middle of the street that was shadowed now by big late-summer clouds. With pride in his voice he said, "My name is C. Herbert Markel, the third." She had no answer to that.

As they reached the intersection leading to the street where he had left his car, he stopped abruptly. From behind them came a metallic growling that grew to an outrageous sputtering and roaring. They turned and saw a man on a motorcycle weaving spectacularly down the street, in and out between the debris. He cornered past a rusting old Chevrolet, circled, and curved to a stop a few yards away. The man leaned the motorcycle on its kick-stand, pushed back his black cap and said, "Hey, doll, where you going with this square?"

Rocky had a sheathed hunting knife in his black, rivet-studded belt, but no other weapons. His jacket, shirt, pants, and boots were black, as was the motorcycle. He glared at Markel. "What's your move, square man? Where in hell you going with my broad?"

Patting the stock of the M-1, Markel said, "I think you fail to realize the situation. You're in no position to chop up anybody."

Rocky laughed, then jerked his head at the Earth Mother. "Get with it, doll. Come here to Rocky. Get away from that square."

Squinting his already narrowed eyes, Rocky said, "You do and I'll get you, doll. I'll get you both."

Again Markel patted the stock of the M-1. "You haven't a chance. Now start that monstrosity and get out of here before I kill you."

Rocky laughed. "So go ahead, kill me. I'll hunt you down anyway. You dig me, man? I said, you kill me and I'll still get you. I'll hunt you down."

Still laughing, Rocky leaned back and folded his arms. Markel shot him. Rocky, his mouth wide with laughter, fell backward from the motorcycle. Markel walked around the motorcycle and shot him again, twice. Then he stood over him, until he was sure that Rocky was dead.

And that was the quality Markel had that was most important to his survival, and to the realization of his dream.

Leaving Rocky lying in the street, they walked to the car, a 1962 convertible. In the back seat Markel put the Earth Mother's suitcases, in with the spare wheels, ammunition boxes, sleeping bag, gasoline cans, cooking utensils, canned food, clothes, rope, car tools, and other necessities. Opening the trunk, he showed her the books he had collected so far, calling out some of the titles.

When he finished, she said, "You got any books on how to build houses, or fix toilets, or how to grow stuff? You know, like corn, or tomatoes?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Anybody can do that." He slammed the trunk shut, and they got into the convertible. He turned it around and drove to the highway. Where the highway turned west they had a last look at the city, bleak in the sun, with sunlight in the broken windows. Dust blew in the gutters, and pigeons drifted into the streets.

Then the outskirts of the city were behind them, and then the suburbs, and they went down the long, empty highway. Dusk came soft on the fields and hills, and blue in the valleys. "The world is ours," said Markel.

Before dark he stopped, driving several yards across a meadow to park near a small stream. Gathering deadwood and twigs, he made a fire while the Earth Mother, following his orders, fixed supper. After supper Markel said, "I think you've succeeded where the bombs and bugs failed. I do think you poisoned me." He drank two tin cups of bicarbonate (he was prepared for all emergencies) and felt somewhat better.

"This is kind of fun, I guess," she said. "Like a picnic I went on once. Everybody had a swell time and we all sang. I remember that real good." She sat staring at the fire. "We had lights hanging all around at night, though. It wasn't scary dark like this."

It was very dark, with a chill wind, when Markel got the sleeping bag and blankets from the convertible; these he spread on the grass several yards from the stream. After that he brushed his teeth at the stream, put out the fire, and rolled up in the blankets, the M-1 beside him. Just before he fell asleep he heard the Earth Mother squirming and shifting in the sleeping bag.

He awoke in blackness. The Earth Mother was snoring in counterpoint to some crickets but neither of these sounds had awakened him. He took hold of the M-1, rolled over, and got to his knees. A few yards away the convertible was a solid black bulk in the lesser black of night, the highway a blacker strip beyond it. There was no moon. He heard the Earth Mother's snores, the crickets' sad chirping. The rain sound of leaves in wind. Then he heard the sound that had awakened him, a faint growling in the distance. Immobile, he listened. The sound stopped. Making no noise, he got to his feet and, crouching double, ran to the convertible. The growling came again. Far off between the black fields a silver needle stabbed briefly then curved away. The growling faded, and died in a series of sputters.

Markel eased across the wet grass to the highway's edge where he knelt with the M-1 ready across one knee. He stayed there a long time, but the sound did not come again, nor did the silver needle. Finally he went back to the blankets but he didn't sleep.

At breakfast the Earth Mother, her face bloated with sleep, said, "You ain't eating much and your eyes are all blood-shot like you didn't get no sleep."

"Any sleep," he said, pushing away the plate of greasy canned meat. The coffee was hot, at least, and after he lit his pipe he felt better. He sat beside the girl while she scrubbed the tins in the stream. "Are you sure there was nobody in the city but you and Rocky?"

She wiped a greasy fork in the grass. "Yeah, I'm sure, I oughta know. There was only the two of us for a long time, till you came. Before, there was a whole lot of people, but everybody got sick and swelled up. They all died except me and Rocky. He didn't even get sick, like I did."

He was silent as they put the blankets and utensils in the convertible and stayed silent all morning as he drove between fields heavy with late-summer haze. The Earth Mother yawned. "How come you ain't said nothing all morning?"

"Yeah?" She switched on the radio, dialed it, listened, then switched it off. "I forget. I used to keep doing that all the time back in the apartment. But nothing ever happened, just like now."

"Not quite, but it's almost true. It's hard for someone like you to believe, I suppose."

"Shut up! Listen!" Markel turned, staring back down the highway. In the distance he heard a faint growling. The Earth Mother opened her mouth; Markel shoved her back against the seat. "Listen! Did you hear that?"

They listened in the empty highway. Wind blew across the fields and high over them a hawk hung motionless. Again came the growling, louder, like a swarm of angry bees. It stopped. "You heard that, didn't you?" said Markel.

"You're deaf! Stupid deaf and dumb and blind! Damn it, didn't you hear anything?"

For four or five minutes he drove without speaking. Then he said, "A motorcycle."

He had it reasoned out by supper time. There were lots of vehicles still around in good working order. And, although people were scarce, it was logical enough to assume that some scarce traveler was taking the same route they were. It was logical to assume that, because Markel had put three bullets into Rocky. He explained his logical theory to the Earth Mother. Concluding, he said, "And perhaps I really heard a car, not a motorcycle. Distance can be deceiving."

"Rocky was flipped on motorcycles. He had five or six around, always working on them. He used to ride all around just to pass the time."

She said, "It's Rocky, you know it is! It's him, there's no other motorcycle riders around here!"

She screamed, a falsetto blast that knifed the dark night. "A ghost! A horrible ghost!" Scrabbling to her feet, she ran screaming around the grove. She tripped over the blankets, but didn't fall; she caromed from the hood of the convertible, but kept going; she waved her arms and, screaming louder, headed toward Markel. When she came close he slapped her, hard. She stopped, then fell backward. After that she didn't scream any more.

Markel decided later, lying on his back looking at the stars, that she was much too emotional to be the mother of the children of Phoenix. She was also stupid, illiterate, and boring. A strong, peasant body was her only asset. He would have preferred a woman closer to his own intelligence, but that, of course, was impossible. Remembering some of the women he had seen in other cities, he shuddered, and decided to make the best of the Earth Mother.

Later that night he dreamed. In this dream a golden bird floundered through fire that flamed blue and silver. The bird tried to fly away but the flames forced it down, and the golden bird sobbed. Markel awoke but heard only the Earth Mother crying in the dark. "Oh," he said drowsily and went back to sleep.

When he heard the motorcycle again, just before noon the next day, he decided to find out precisely who was driving it. It was very simple: all he had to do was let the driver catch up to them. So he stopped the convertible halfway up a long hill road that edged a cliff. He got out his binoculars and studied the road, which looped down the hill, straightened, and curled to the horizon. After a long wait in the hot sun he saw a black dot on the horizon. The dot moved, grew larger. Markel silently handed the binoculars to the Earth Mother.

She surprised him; she didn't scream. She calmly gave back the binoculars and said, "It's Rocky. He don't look like a ghost."

Markel ran, dragging her to the convertible. "You drive, and do exactly as I tell you." He got beside her, the M-1 ready, while she started the car. "Wait," he said. They waited until the noise of the motorcycle roared around the curve just below them. "Now! Pull out!" said Markel. She swung the convertible onto the road and a few minutes later the motorcycle curved up around the bend.

"Faster," Markel said. The convertible shot up and around the next bend, swerved close to the guard-rail, angled across the road, then straightened out. A moment later Rocky came leaning around the curve at a 30° angle; he swerved, leveled out, and came after them like a bullet. "Now! Slow down!" Markel shouted into the wind. He braced his left arm across the back of the seat and aimed the M-1.

Like a runaway jet Rocky came, a poor target crouched behind the plexiglas windshield. Markel fired and missed. For a split second the convertible swerved again and Markel held his breath. Rocky slowed, but he didn't slow enough. Markel's next shot hit the motorcycle's front tire. It blew like a popped balloon. The motorcycle wobbled, spun, tilted on its front wheel, and smashed into the guard-rail. Like a diver, Rocky jackknifed out of the seat, the motorcycle somersaulting beneath him. Then both of them fell slowly down the cliff side.

The Earth Mother stopped the convertible without being told. "Back it up," Markel said. At the place where Rocky went over the cliff she braked it; they got out and went to the edge of the cliff.

The cliff dropped past sumac trees to a boulder-filled creek about a hundred feet below. Partly in the creek lay the smashed motorcycle and several feet away was Rocky, against a boulder. He was oddly twisted and very still.

He drove back down the hill to a point where the cliff met the road. Leaving the Earth Mother in the convertible he walked along the creek and found Rocky had broken both legs, his left arm, and his clavicle. Also, Rocky was not breathing and had no pulse. Satisfied, Markel went back to the convertible and the Earth Mother.

That, then, ended the episode, in Markel's mind. And now that Rocky was really dead they could drive south leisurely. Markel planned to winter on the Gulf Coast, perhaps to build the new home of Phoenix there. So they went south through days yellow and warm in the September sun. Except for the emptiness, it was like being on a vacation tour.

There had not been emptiness like this in the land for three centuries. Nobody walked the farmlands where tractors rusted in the fields, no planes split the sky where birds soared, no car but theirs moved on the highway. They drove through towns that were like bleached bones in the sun. They passed peeling billboards, fading motels, battered, rusting cars, long, immobile freight trains—the scrap from a million dreams. Once they saw a big yellow tomcat prowling the edge of the highway like a lion; he snarled at them as they passed.

"On the contrary, I think it fitting and just. Give the animals a chance, I say. Man had his chance and he botched it. In ten years the trees will obliterate this man-made ugliness and the land will be clean again."

"Somebody will see it. We and our children. The new race of man, guardians of Phoenix."

"Not the kind of music and movies you keep talking about. We'll have no clods sponging up drivel from television sets."

"Yeah? Well, it sounds pretty square to me. I don't know if I want to be the mother of a bunch of squares like that."

Markel groaned, slapping his forehead with his left hand. "Gad! Why do I endure your stupidity day after day? Listen, the world you knew is dead, irrevocably dead. The new world is going to be completely, utterly different from it. Can't you grasp that?"

"You think that's going to be great, don't you? So what'll be so great and different about this new race you keep yakking about?"

"Anybody that square won't know how to make bombs, or nothing else," she answered, turning on the radio.

That, Markel decided, was the most annoying of her habits, even more so than her constant preening in her hand mirror, or her nasal, off-key singing of popular songs, or her ungrammatical speech. He spent a lot of time trying to correct her grammar but it was a frustrating job. He was able to resign himself to her only by concentrating on his dream. In that he was constant.

They were in the foothills of mountains when the first autumn rain fell. Parking at the side of the road, Markel put up the convertible's top and they sat watching the rain. "It's kind of romantic, ain't it?" the Earth Mother said. "I always liked the rain." The thin rain drifted across the road, past a big barn and a farmhouse, past cornfields and yellow wheat and into wet woods. The Earth Mother leaned closer to him. "Just think, there's nobody here but us."

Autumn chill seeped into the car, but the girl was warm. Markel said, "Yes, only us alive in the vast desolation of the Earth." He looked across her shoulder at the gray, slanting sky and the low black clouds like blurred ink-blots. "But there will be more of us, strong intelligent children, inheritors of the earth, guardians of Phoenix."

Moving closer, the Earth Mother put fat arms around his neck and breathed like a bellows in his ear. Beyond the wet woods lightning spider-webbed the blotted sky. She kissed him, a fat-lipped kiss, and the rain drummed small on the roof. Markel felt strong and all-powerful. The rain fell harder and the wind blew the sad, wet smell of autumn into the car. She kissed him again, and Markel forgot the ruined world and Phoenix, everything but the drowsy warmth of the car and the fat softness of the Earth Mother. There was no sound but the rain.

The rain fell harder, clanging on the hood, splatting on the windows. It pounded like forgotten battle-drums on the roof, growing louder, blurring into staccato. The staccato slurred into a steady hum. The hum lifted like the far-off buzzing of bees. Or like the growling of a motorcycle.

"Motorcycle!" yelled Markel. The Earth Mother screamed and fell back on the seat, dragging him with her. He pulled loose, sat up, and rolled down the window. Rain needled his face. Under the rain sounds he heard it, distant but unmistakable, the growling of a motorcycle.

He twisted the ignition key. "Motorcycle," he said. He kicked the gas pedal. The convertible jerked forward, sending the Earth Mother rolling to the floor. "Motorcycle." He kicked the car forward again and onto the road where it ground into second gear. "Get up! Don't just lie there, you fat pig! It's a motorcycle!" Another lurch banged the girl's head on the dashboard. She got one arm on the seat, screaming, "I can't hear nothing! You deefed me! I'm deef."

The car lurched spasmodically, then stalled. He punched the starter and booted the gas pedal; this time the car bucked so violently that he was thrown backwards. "Motorcycle!" he yelled, feet in the air.

The Earth Mother was rolling on the floor again. "You're trying to kill me! First you deef me then you try to kill me!"

He managed to get his foot back on the accelerator and the car spurted down the road. Markel fought the car grimly and got it under control, making it lurch in smoother leaps. When they finally rolled with reasonable normalcy down the road he looked into the rear-view mirror, but the road was empty. He drove furiously until he heard no sound but the rain. Banging his fist on the steering wheel, he said, "Gad! Am I to be pursued forever across a dead world by a deathless demon on a motorcycle?"

When the rain stopped they took to the woods on foot. This time Markel did not try to rationalize the situation; he knew it was Rocky on the motorcycle. Markel's usual self-control was shaken and he needed time to think. He drove the convertible as far into the woods as he could and began throwing things from the back seat.

"Let him follow us in here on that damn motorcycle," he said. He made two packs; in one he put canned food, cooking utensils and some tools; in the other he put extra ammunition, extra shoes, a medicine kit, rope, and several boxes of matches. This latter pack he tied to the Earth Mother's shoulders, fastening it with makeshift straps. Before they left he locked the convertible and covered it with branches and brush. He intended eventually to come back for the books.

That first day in the forest they made very little progress. He got tired of picking the Earth Mother up when she fell, and she complained loudly about their pace. It was different in the woods: there were no ruins to anchor them to the past; the forest was aloof from even the ruined world. "I don't like it here. It's worse than the towns," the Earth Mother said, sprawling against a tree.

"You'll get used to it." Markel yanked a twig from a fallen branch and chewed it. He said softly, "But why doesn't he die? It doesn't make sense. If I were not a rational, intelligent, thinking being, I'd be frightened right now.

Rolling over to face her, he propped himself on his elbow. "You associated with Rocky for a long time. What was he like?"

"He was a slob, like I already told you. A real nowhere slob." She stared up at the leaves. "Sometimes he was okay, but what I couldn't stand was he was so stupid."

"No, no, that's not what I mean. Did he seem different in any way? Physically, for example?"

"No, I mean did he seem different in the way he reacted to pain, or injury? You told me he didn't get sick when the plague hit the city."

She didn't answer for a while. "Yeah," she said thoughtfully. "I forgot. Yeah, he did. Once he fell off his motorcycle and gave his head a hit on a brick wall. I thought he was dead; he didn't breathe or nothing. And then just when I was getting real scared, in he walks, looking like nothing happened."

Markel rubbed his chin. "How long was it between the time he fell and the time he returned?"

Markel's thoughts went tangentially down a dark, twisted path. "Where was Rocky born? What did he do before the bombings? Did he ever say anything about the fall, how he felt, or anything—"

"Take it easy, will you? Like I said, I never seen him before the bombings. He was just there in the town, I guess."

What it narrowed down to, he decided, was this: when ordinary men died they stayed dead. But Rocky died and recovered from death; therefore Rocky was not an ordinary man. The question, then: what, precisely, was Rocky? Logically, he could be only one of two things: a supernormal man or a supernatural one. Supernormal in that he was revived from death by bodily processes superior to those of normal men; or supernatural like a zombie or a vampire, both of which reputedly defied death. Markel preferred the supernormal theory; he didn't think highly of folk legends. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense.

And the "why" of it? Mutation, of course. Furthermore, where else would you find a mutant with superior survival qualities but among the survivors?

Markel tapped out his pipe and told the Earth Mother his theory. She listened, eyes widening. Suddenly she grabbed her hair in both hands. "Ohmygod! A vampire! All that time I stayed with a vampire!"

For the next few days he was preoccupied, hardly speaking to her as they walked slowly through the forest that lifted into the mountains. The Earth Mother's feet blistered and swelled, her shoulders were rubbed raw by the pack straps, but Markel drove her steadily forward. On the fourth day he shot a pheasant, roasting it that evening while the Earth Mother sat with her feet in a pool. They had camped on a wide ledge backed by a cliff; a thin waterfall splashed down this cliff and pooled on the ledge before sloping down the mountain.

Markel poked coals around the mud-covered pheasant. "Put them back in the water. I'm not interested in your fat feet."

"Yeah, you ain't interested in nothing but your lousy Phoenix. I say to hell with your lousy Phoenix, that's what I say! Besides, my feet ain't fat. I been losing weight every day with all this walking."

Sullenly, she came to the fire and they ate in silence. Eventually, Markel said, "I suppose it is rather rough on you, at that."

"Rough? I could take that, if you'd only treat me like a human being." She leaned forward eagerly. "Am I so awful you can't even touch me? Am I so fat and stupid?"

She sat listlessly, her hands in her lap. "All right. But I'm so scared here, it's so lonesome. Nothing but trees, trees."

"You're actually safer here than in the cities. The trees and animals won't hurt you. It's only people you have to be afraid of."

"You think maybe there's some people in a city somewhere, with bright lights and drug stores, lots of people?"

"Isn't there, not ain't there." He stared at her appraisingly. She was a clod, but even a clod, he supposed, could feel sadness and regret for all the lost, familiar things. On a low level, of course. Tossing the drumstick bone into the fire he said, "Why not face facts? There's no city like that."

For days they climbed further into the mountains. On the eighth day they followed a narrow path between pines along a ridge and into a group of weathered houses little more than shacks. A store and a gas station dominated the single street. In the store they found some cans of vegetables and dried packs of cigarettes. A small radio sat on a shelf behind a counter; the Earth Mother switched it on, listened, then turned it off. Smoking a very dry cigarette, Markel stood on the porch, looking down the street.

Suddenly he unslung the M-1, dropped to one knee, and fired. A man in black lurched from the doorway of a shack, took two steps forward, then sagged to his knees. Markel fired again and the man fell face forward in the dust.

Markel walked to the man. It was not Rocky. This was an old man with white hair and whiskers. He wore a black shirt and ragged overalls and he was gaunt. He looked at Markel with surprise and reproach in his eyes; then he died.

In a shed behind one of the shacks he found a pick and shovel, with which he dug a grave. It took him most of the afternoon in the hot sun. Then he buried the old man, rolling him into the grave with the pick handle.

"We're going back," he said, walking to where the Earth Mother sat on the steps of the store.

"Back to the ledge, to wait for Rocky. We can't spend the rest of our lives running from him, and wasting ammunition on every man wearing black."

They went back then to the waterfall, where Markel could command a slope on three sides and where the cliff protected his back. They settled down to wait for Rocky and they both knew Rocky would find them. Markel waited grimly, because if his theory were correct Rocky was a threat to his dream.

Against the cliff Markel built a crude lean-to and the Earth Mother picked flowers, hanging them around the walls. Markel, working constantly, made several traps for Rocky in the area around the ledge. When he finished these there was nothing to do but wait.

Markel liked it there. Big autumn clouds shadowed the ledge; mist drifted in the green valleys in the mornings and at night the loons called through the wind in the woods. The Earth Mother grew tan in the sun and she sang to herself. Markel sat by the waterfall, cleaning and polishing the M-1. And, inevitably, one morning Rocky came.

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.

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?"

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

"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?"

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?"

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."

"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.

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."

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."

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.

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!"

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."

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.

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?"

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.

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.

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."

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."

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.

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.

"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.

"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.

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.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Wings of the phoenix

WINGS of the PHOENIX

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