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L. Sprague De Camp - The Gnarly
Page 1
THE GNARLY MAN
DR. MATILDA SADDLER first saw the gnarly man on the evening of June ~
4th, 1g~6, at Coney Island. The spring meeting of the Eastern Section
of the American Anthropological Association had broken up, and Dr.
Saddler had had dinner with two of her professional colleagues, Blue
of Columbia and Jeffcott of Yale. She mentioned that she had never
visited Coney and meant to go there that evening. She urged Blue and
Jeff cott to come along, but they begged off.
Watching Dr. Saddler's retreating back, Blue of Columbia
crackled: "The Wild Woman from Wichita. Wonder if she's hunting
another husband?" He was a thin man with a small gray beard and a
who-the-Hell-are-you-Sir expression.
"How many has she had?" asked Jeff cott of Yale.
"Three to date. Don't know why anthropologists lead the most
disorderly private lives of any scientists. Must be that they study
the customs and morals of all these different peoples, and ask
themselves, 'If the Eskimos can do it why can't we?' I'm old enough
to be safe, thank God."
"I'm not afraid of her," said Jeffcott. He was in his early
forties and looked like a farmer uneasy in store-bought clothes. aI~m
so very thoroughly married."
"Yeah? Ought to have been at Stanford a few years ago, when she
was there. It wasn't safe to walk across the campus, with Tuthill
chasing all the females and Saddler all the males."~
Dr. Saddler had to fight her way off the subway train, as the
adolescents who infest the platform of the B.M.T.'s Stillwell Avenue
Station are probably the worst-mannered people on earth, possibly
excepting the Dobu Islanders of the Western Pacific. She didn't
much mind. She was a tall, strongly built woman in her late thirties,
who had been kept in trim by the outdoor rigors of her profession.
Besides, some of the inane remarks in Swift's paper on occulturation
among the Arapaho Indians had gotten her fighting blood up.
Walking down Surf Avenue toward Brighton Beach, she looked at
the concessions without trying them, preferring to watch the human
types that did and the other human types that took their money. She
did try a shooting gallery, but found knocking tin owls off their
perch with a .22 too easy to be much fun. Long-range work with an
army rifle was her idea of shooting.
The concession next to the shooting gallery would have been
called a sideshow if there had been a main show for it to be a
sideshow to. The usual lurid banner proclaimed the uniqueness of the
two-headed calf, the bearded woman, Arachne the spider-girl, and
other marvels. The piece de resistance was Ungo-Bungo the ferocious
ape-man, captured in the Congo at a cost of twenty-seven lives. The
picture showed an enormous Ungo-Bungo squeezing a hapless Negro in
each hand, while others sought to throw a net over him.
Although Dr. Saddler knew perfectly well that the ferocious
apeman would turn out to be an ordinary Caucasian with false hair on
his chest, a streak of whimsicality impelled her to go in. Perhaps,
she thought, she could have some fun with her colleagues about it.
The spieler went through his leather-lunged harangue. Dr.
Saddler guessed from his expression that his feet hurt. The tattooed
lady didn't interest her, as her decorations obviously had no
cultural significance, as they have among the Polynesians. As for the
ancient Mayan, Dr. Saddler thought it in questionable taste to
exhibit a poor microcephalic idiot that way. Professor Yogi's
legerdemain and fireeating weren't bad.
A curtain hung in front of Ungo-Bungo's cage. At the
appropriate moment there were growls and the sound of a length of
chain being slapped against a metal plate. The spieler wound up on a
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high note:
o . ladies and gentlemen, the one and only Ungo-Bungo!" The
curtain dropped.
The ape-man was squatting at the back of his cage. He dropped
his chain, got up, and shuffled forward. He grasped two of the bars
and shook them. They were appropriately loose and rattled alarmingly.
Ungo-Bungo snarled at the patrons, showing his even yellow teeth.
Dr. Saddler stared hard. This was something new in the ape-man
line. Ungo-Bungo was about five feet three, but very massive, with
enormous hunched shoulders. Above and below his blue swimming trunks,
thick grizzled hair covered him from crown to ankle. His short stout-
muscled arms ended in big hands with thick gnarled fingers. His neck
projected slightly forward, so that from the front he seemed to have
but little neck at all.
His face- Well, thought Dr. Saddler, she knew all the living
races of men, and all the types of freaks brought about by glandular
maladjustment, and none of them had a face like that. It was deeply
lined. The forehead between the short scalp hair and the brows on the
huge supraorbital ridges receded sharply. The nose, though wide, was
not apelike; it was a shortened version of the thick hooked Armenoid
or "Jewish" nose. The face ended in a long upper lip and a retreating
chin. And the yellowish skin apparently belonged to Ungo-Bungo.
The curtain was whisked up again.
Dr. Saddler went out with the others, but paid another dime,
and soon was back inside. She paid no attention to the spieler, but
got a good position in front of Ungo-Bungo's cage before the rest of
the crowd arrived.
Ungo-Bungo repeated his performance with mechanical precision.
Dr. Saddler noticed that he limped a little as he came forward to
rattle the bars, and that the skin under his mat of hair bore several
big whitish scars. The last joint of his left ring finger was
missing. She noted certain things about the proportions of his shin
and thigh, of his forearm and upper arm, and his big splay feet.
Dr. Saddler paid a third dime. An idea was knocking at her mind
somewhere, trying to get in; either she was crazy or physical
anthropology was haywire or-something. But she knew that if she did
the sensible thing, which was to go home, the idea would plague her
from now on.
After the third performance she spoke to the spieler. "I think
your Mr. Ungo-Bungo used to be a friend of mine. Could you arrange
for me to see him after he finishes?"
The spieler checked his sarcasm. His questioner was so
obviously not a-not the sort of dame who asks to see guys after they
finish.
"Oh, him," he said. "Calls himself Gaffney-Clarence Aloysius
Gaff ney. That the guy you want?"
"Why, yes."
"Guess you can." He looked at his watch. "He's got four more
turns to do before we close. I'll have to ask the boss." He popped
through a curtain and called, "Hey, Morrie!" Then he was back. "It's
okay. Morrie says you can wait in his office. Foist door to the
right."
Morrie was stout, bald, and hospitable. "Sure, sure," he said,
waving his cigar. "Glad to be of soivice, Miss Saddler. Chust a mm
while I talk to Gaffney's manager." He stuck his head out. "Hey,
Pappas! Lady wants to talk to your ape-man later. I meant lady.
Okay." He returned to orate on the difficulties besetting the freak
business. "You take this Gaffney, now. He's the best damn ape-man in
the business; all that hair really grows outa him. And the poor guy
really has a face like that. But do people believe it? No! I hear 'em
going out, saying about how the hair is pasted on, and the whole
thing is a fake. It's mortifying." He cocked his head, listening.
"That rumble wasn't no rolly-coaster; it's gonna rain. Hope it's over
by tomorrow. You wouldn't believe the way a rain can knock ya
Page 3
receipts off. If you drew a coive, it would be like this." He drew
his finger horizontally through space, jerking it down sharply to
indicate the effect of rain. "But as I said, people don't appreciate
what you try to do for 'em. It's not just the money; I think of
myself as an ottist. A creative ottist. A show like this got to have
balance and proportion, like any other ott . .
It must have been an hour later when a slow, deep voice at the
door said, "Did somebody want to see me?"
The gnarly man was in the doorway. In street clothes, with the
collar of his raincoat turned up and his hat brim pulled down, he
looked more or less human, though the coat fitted his great sloping
shoulders badly. He had a thick knobby walking stick with a leather
loop near the top end. A small dark man fidgeted behind him.
"Yeah," said Morrie, interrupting his lecture. "Clarence, this
is Miss Saddler, Miss Saddler, this is our Mister Gaffney, one of our
outstanding creative ottists."
"Pleased to meetcha," said the gnarly man. "This is my manager,
Mr. Pappas."
Dr. Saddler explained, and said she'd like to talk to Mr.
Gaffney if she might. She was tactful; you had to be to pry into the
private affairs of Naga headhunters, for instance. The gnarly man
said he'd be glad to have a cup of coffee with Miss Saddler; there
was a place around the corner that they could reach without getting
wet.
As they started out, Pappas followed, fidgeting more and more.
The gnarly man said, "Oh, go home to bed, John. Don't worry about
me." He grinned at Dr. Saddler. The effect woul& have been unnerving
to anyone but an anthropologist. "Every time he sees me talking to
anybody, he thinks it's some other manager trying to steal me." He
spoke General American, with a suggestion of Irish brogue in the
lowering of the vowels in words like "man" and "talk." "I made the
lawyer who drew up our contract fix it so it can be ended on short
notice."
Pappas departed, still looking suspicious. The rain had
practically ceased. The gnarly man stepped along smartly despite his
limp. A woman passed with a fox terrier on a leash. The dog sniffed
in the direction of the gnarly man, and then to all appearances went
crazy, yelping and slavering. The gnarly man shifted his grip on the
massive stick and said quietly, "Better hang on to him, ma'am." The
woman departed hastily. "They just don't like me," commented Gaffney.
"Dogs, that is."
They found a table and ordered their coffee. When the gnariy
man took off his raincoat, Dr. Saddler became aware of a strong smell
of cheap perfume. He got out a pipe with a big knobbly bowl. It
suited him, just as the walking stick did. Dr. Saddler noticed that
the deep-sunk eyes under the beetling arches were light hazel.
"Well?" he said in his rumbling drawl.
She began her questions.
"My parents were Irish," he answered. "But I was born in South
Boston-let's see-forty-six years ago. I can get you a copy of my
birth certificate. Clarence Aloysius Gaffney, May 2, 1910." He seemed
to get some secret amusement out of that statement.
"Were either of your parents of your somewhat unusual physical
type?"
He paused before answering. He always did, it seemed. "Uh-huh.
Both of 'em. Glands, I suppose."
"Were they both born in Ireland?"
"Yep. County Sligo." Again that mysterious twinkle.
She paused. "Mr. Gaffney, you wouldn't mind having some
photographs and measurements made, would you? You could use the
photographs in your business."
"Maybe." He took a sip. "Ouch! Gazooks, that's hot!"
"What?"
"I said the coffee's hot."
Page 4
"I mean, before that."
The gnarly man looked a little embarrassed. "Oh, you mean the
~gazooks'? Well, I-uh---once knew a man who used to say that."
"Mr. Gaffney, I'm a scientist, and I'm not trying to get
anything out of you for my own sake. You can be frank with me."
There was something remote and impersonal in his stare that
gave her a slight spinal chill. "Meaning that I haven't been so far?"
"Yes. When I saw you I decided that there was something
extraordinary in your background. I still think there is. Now, if you
think I'm crazy, say so and we'll drop the subject. But I want to get
to the bottom of this."
He took his time about answering. "That would depend." There
was another pause. Then he said, "With your connections, do you know
any really first-class surgeons?"
"But-yes, I know Dunbar."
"The guy who wears a purple gown when he operates? The guy who
wrote a book on God, Man, and the Universe?"
"Yes. He's a good man, in spite of his theatrical mannerisms.
\Vhv? What would you want of him?"
"sot what youre thinking, I'm satis~ed with mv-uh-~-unusual
physical type. But I have some old injuries-broken bones that didn't
knit properly-that I want fixed up. He'd have to be a good man,
though. I have a couple of thousand in the savings bank, but I know
the sort of fees those guys charge. If you could make the necessary
arrangements-"
"Why, yes, I'm sure I could. In fact I could guarantee it. Then
I was right? And you'll-" She hesitated.
"Come clean? Uh-huh. But remember, I can still prove I'm
Clarence Aloysius if I have to."
"Who are you, then?"
Again there was a long pause. Then the gnarly man said, "Might
as well tell you. As soon as you repeat any of it, you'll have put
your professional reputation in my hands, remember.
"First off, I wasn't born in Massachusetts. I was born on the
upper Rhine, near Mommenheim, and as nearly as I can figure out,
about the year ~o,ooo B.C."
Dr. Saddler wondered whether she'd stumbled on the biggest
thing in anthropology or whether this bizarre man was making Baron
Munchausen look like a piker.
I-Ic seemed to cuess her thoo~ht~~. 1 can't orov~ tln~t. of
course,
But so long as you arrange about that operation, I don't care whether
you believe me or not."
"But-but-how?"
"I think the lightning did it. We were out trying to drive some
bison into a pit. Well, this big thunderstorm came up, and the bison
bolted in the wrong direction. So we gave up and tried to find
shelter. And the next thing I knew I was lying on the ground with the
rain running over me, and the rest of the clan standing around
wailing about what had they done to get the storm-god sore at them,
so he made a bull's-eye on one of their best hunters. They'd never
said that about me before. It's funny how you're never appreciated
while you're alive.
"But I was alive, all right. My nerves were pretty well shot
for a few weeks, but otherwise I was all right except for some burns
on the soles of my feet. I don't know just what happened, except I
was reading a couple of nears ago that scientists had located the
machinery that controls the replacement of tissue in the medulla
ohiongata. I think mavhc the lightning did something to my medulla to
speed it
An'. ~va~ I never cot ~in older aftcr that. Physic~U~, that is~
And except for those broken bones I told you about. I was thirty-
three at the time, more or less. We didn't keep track of ages. I look
older now, because the lines in your face are bound to get sort of
Page 5
set after a few thousand years, and because our hair was always gray
at the ends. But I can still tie an ordinary Homo sapiens in a knot
if I want to."
"Then you're-you mean to say you're-you're trying to tell me
you're-" -
"A Neanderthal man? Homo neanderthalensis? That's right"
Matilda Saddler's hotel room was a bit crowded, with the gnarly man,
the frosty Blue, the rustic Jeffcott, Dr. Saddler herself, and Harold
McGannon the historian. This McGannon was a small man, very neat and
pink-skinned. He looked more like a New York Central director than a
professor. Just now his expression was one of fascination. Dr.
Saddler looked full of pride; Professor Jeffcott looked interested
but puzzled; Dr. Blue looked bored. (He hadn't wanted to come in the
first place.) The gnarly man, stretched out in the most comfortable
LhaiL and puffinc hic ever~rovu pipe. ~ecmed to bc ening tiirnerl~.
McGannon was asking a question. "Well, Mr.-.-Gaffney? I suppose
that's your name as much as any."
"You might say so," said the gnarly man. "My original name was
something like Shining Hawk. But I've gone under hundreds of names
since then. If you register in a hotel as 'Shining Hawk' it's apt to
attract attention. And I try to avoid that."
"Why?" asked MeGannon.
The gnarly man looked at his audience as one might look at
willfully stupid children. "I don't like trouble. The best way to
keep out of trouble is not to attract attention. That's why I have to
pull up stakes and move every ten or fifteen years. People might get
curious as to why I never got any older."
"Pathological liar," murmured Blue. The words were barely
audible, but the gnarly man heard them.
"You're entitled to your opinion, Dr. Blue," he said affably.
"Dr. Saddler's doing me a favor, so in return I'm letting you all
shoot questions at me. And I'm answering. I don't give a damn whether
you believe me or not."
MeGannon hastily threw in another question. "How is it that you
have a birth certificate, as you say you have?"
"Oh, I knew a man named Clarence Gaffney once. He got killed by
an automobile, and I took his name."
"Was there any reason for picking this Irish background?"
"Are you Irish, Dr. McGannon?"
"Not enough to matter."
"Okay. I didn't want to hurt any feelings. It's my best bet.
There are real Irishmen with upper lips like mine."
Dr. Saddler broke in. "I meant to ask you, Clarence." She put a
lot of warmth into his name. "There's an argument as to whether your
people interbred with mine, when mine overran Europe at the end of
the Mousterian. It's been thought that the 'old black breed' of the
west coast of Ireland might have a little Neanderthal blood."
He grinned slightly. "Well-yes and no. There never was any back
in the Stone Age, as far as I know. But these long-lipped Irish are
my fault."
"How?"
"Believe it or not, but in the last fifty centuries there have
been some women of your species that didn't find me too repulsive.
Usually there were no offspring. But in the Sixteenth Century I went
to Ireland to live. They were burning too many people for witchcraft
in
the rest of Europe to suit me at that time. And there was a woman.
The result this time was a flock of hybrids-cute little devils they
were. So the 'old black breed' are my descendants."
"What did happen to your people?" asked McGannon. 'Were they
killed off?"
The gnarly man shrugged. "Some of them. We weren't at all
warlike. But then the tall ones, as we called them, weren't either.
Page 6
Some of the tribes of the tall ones looked on us as legitimate prey,
but most of them let us severely alone. I guess they were almost as
scared of us as we were of them. Savages as primitive as that are
really pretty peaceable people. You have to work so hard, and there
are so few of you, that there's no object in fighting wars. That
comes later, when you get agriculture and livestock, so you have
something worth stealing.
"I remember that a hundred years after the tall ones had come,
there were still Neanderthalers living in my part of the country. But
they died out. I think it was that they lost their ambition. The tall
ones were pretty crude, but they were so far ahead of us that our
things and our customs seemed silly. Finally we just sat around and
lived on what scraps we could beg from the tall ones' camps. You
might say we died of an inferiority complex."
"What happened to you?" asked McGannon.
"Oh, I was a god among my own people by then, and naturally I
represented them in dealings with the tall ones. I got to know the
tall ones pretty well, and they were willing to put up with me after
all my own clan were dead. Then in a couple of hundred years they'd
forgotten all about my people, and took me for a hunchback or
something. I got to - be pretty good at flintworking, so I could earn
my keep. When metal came in I went into that, and finally into
blacksmithing. If you put all the horseshoes I've made in a pile,
they'd-well, you'd have a damn big pile of horseshoes anyway."
"Did you limp at that time?" asked McGannon.
"Uk-huh. I busted my leg back in the Neolithic. Fell out of a
tree, and had to set it myself, because there wasn't anybody around.
Why?"
"Vulcan," said McGannon softly.
"Vulcan?" repeated the gnarly man. "Wasn't he a Greek god or
something?"
"Yes. He was the lame blacksmith of the gods."
"You mean you think that maybe somebody got the idea from
me? That's an interesting idea. Little late to check up on it,
though." Blue leaned forward, and said crisply, "Mr. Gaffney, no real
Neanderthal man could talk as entertainingly as you do. That's shown
by the poor development of the frontal lobes of the brain and the
attachments of the tongue muscles."
The gnarly man shrugged again. "You can believe what you like.
My own clan considered me pretty smart, and then you're bound to
learn something in fifty thousand years."
Dr. Saddler said, "Tell them about your teeth, Clarence."
The gnarly man grinned. "They're false, of course. My own
lasted a long time, but they still wore out somewhere back in the
Paleolithic. I grew a third set, and they wore out too. So I had to
invent soup."
"You what?" It was the usually taciturn Jeff cott.
"I had to invent soup, to keep alive. You know, the bark-dish-
andhot-stones method. My gums got pretty tough after a while, but
they still weren't much good for chewing hard stuff. So after a few
thousand years I got pretty sick of soup and mushy foods generally.
And when metal came in I began experimenting with false teeth. I
finally made some pretty good ones. Amber teeth in copper plates. You
might say I invented them too. I tried often to sell them, but they
never really caught on until around 1750 A.D. I was living in Paris
then, and I built up quite a little business before I moved on." He
pulled the handkerchief out of his breast pocket to wipe his
forehead; Blue made a face as the wave of perfume reached him.
"Well, Mr. Caveman," snapped Blue sarcastically, "how do you
like our machine age?"
The gnarly man ignored the tone of the question. "It's not bad.
Lots of interesting things happen. The main trouble is the shirts."
"Shirts?"
"Uh-huh. Just try to buy a shirt with a 20 neck and a 29
Page 7
sleeve. I have to order 'em special. It's almost as bad with hats and
shoes. I wear an 8-1/2 and a 13 shoe." He looked at his watch. "I've
got to get back to Coney to work."
McGannon jumped up. "Where can I get in touch with you again,
Mr. Gaffney? There's lots of things I'd like to ask you."
The gnarly man told him. "I'm free mornings. My working hours
are two to midnight on weekdays, with a couple of hours off for
dinner. Union rules, you know."
"You mean there's a union for you show people?"
"Sure. Only they call it a guild. They think they're artists,
you know."
Blue and Jeffcott watched the gnarly man and the historian
walking slowly toward the subway together. Blue said, "Poor old Mac!
I always thought he had sense. Looks like he's swallowed this
Gaffney's ravings hook, line, and sinker."
"I'm not so sure," said Jeff cott, frowning. "There's something
funny about the business."
"What?" barked Blue. "Don't tell me that you believe this story
of being alive fifty thousand years? A caveman who uses perfume? Good
God!"
"N-no," said Jeffcott. "Not the fifty thousand part. But I
don't think it's a simple case of paranoia or plain lying either. And
the perfume's quite logical, if he were telling the truth."
"Huh?"
"Body odor. Saddler told us how dogs hate him. He'd have a
smell different from ours. We're so used to ours that we don't even
know we have one, unless somebody goes without a bath for a couple of
months. But we might notice his if he didn't disguise it."
Blue snorted. "You'll be believing him yourself in a minute.
It's an obvious glandular case, and he's made up this story to fit.
All that talk about not caring whether we believe him or not is just
bluff. Come on, let's get some lunch. Say, did you see the way
Saddler looked at him every time she said 'Clarence'? Wonder what she
thinks she's going to do with him?"
Jeffcott thought. "I can guess. And if he is telling the truth,
I think there's something in Deuteronomy against it"
The great surgeon made a point of looking like a great surgeon,
to pince-nez and Vandyke. He waved the X-ray negatives at the gnarly
man, pointing out this and that.
"We'd better take the leg first," he said. "Suppose we do that
next Tuesday. When you've recovered from that we can tackle the
shoulder."
The gnarly man agreed, and shuffled out of the little private
hospital to where McGannon awaited him in his car. The gnarly man
described the tentative schedule of operations, and mentioned that he
had made arrangements to quit his job at the last minute. "Those two
are the main things," he said. "I'd like to try professional wres
thug again some day, and I can't unless I get this shoulder fixed so
I can raise my left arm over my head."
"What happened to it?" asked McGannon.
The gnarly man closed his eyes, thinking. "Let me see. I get
things mixed up sometimes. People do when they're only fifty years
old, so you can imagine what it's like for me.
"In 42 B.C. I was living with the Bituriges in Gaul. You
remember that Caesar shut up Werkinghetorich-Vercingetorix to you-in
Alesia, and the confederacy raised an army of relief under
Caswallon."
"Caswallon?"
The gnarly man laughed shortly. "I meant Wercaswallon.
Caswahlon was a Briton, wasn't he? I'm always getting those two mixed
up.
"Anyhow, I got drafted. That's all you can call it; I didn't
Page 8
want to go. It wasn't exactly my war. But they wanted me because I
could pull twice as heavy a bow as anybody else.
"When the final attack on Caesar's ring of fortifications came,
they sent me forward with some other archers to provide a covering
fire for their infantry. At least that was the plan. Actually I never
saw such a hopeless muddle in my life. And before I even got within
bow-shot, I fell into one of the Romans' covered pits. I didn't land
on the point of the stake, but I fetched up against the side of it
and busted my shoulder. There wasn't any help, because the Gauls were
too busy running away from Caesar's German cavalry to bother about
wounded men."
The author of God, Man, and the Universe gazed after his
departing patient. He spoke to his head assistant. "What do you think
of him?"
"I think it's so," said the assistant. "I looked over those X-
rays pretty closely. That skeleton never belonged to a human being."
"Hmm. Hmm," said Dunbar. "That's right, he wouldn't be human,
would he? Hmm. You know, if anything happened to him-"
The assistant grinned understandingly. "Of course there's the
S.P.C.A."
"We needn't worry about them. Hmm." He thought, you've been
slipping: nothing big in the papers for a year. But if you published
a complete anatomical description of a Neanderthal man-or if you
found out why his medulla functions the way it does-hmm-of course it
would have to be managed properly-
"Let's have lunch at the Natural History Museum," said
MeGannon. "Some of the people there ought to know you."
"Okay," drawled the gnarhy man. "Only I've still got to get
back to Coney afterward. This is my last day. Tomorrow Pappas and I
are going up to see our lawyer about ending our contract. It's a
dirty trick on poor old John, but I warned him at the start that this
might happen."
"I suppose we can come up to interview you while you're-ah-
convalescing? Fine. Have you ever been to the Museum, by the way?"
"Sure," said the gnarly man. "I get around."
"What did you-ah-think of their stuff in the Hall of the Age of
Man?"
"Pretty good. There's a little mistake in one of those big wall
paintings. The second horn on the woolly rhinoceros ought to slant
forward more. I thought about writing them a letter. But you know how
it is. They say 'Were you there?' and I say 'Uh-huh' and they say
'Another nut."
"How about the pictures and busts of Paleohithic men?"
"Pretty good. But they have some funny ideas. They always show
us with skins wrapped around our middles. In summer we didn't wear
skins, and in winter we hung them around our shoulders where they'd
do some good.
"And then they show those tall ones that you call Cro-Magnon
men clean shaven. As I remember they all had whiskers. What would
they shave with?"
"I think," said McGannon, "that they leave the beards off the
busts to-ah-show the shape of the chins. With the beards they'd all
look too much alike."
"Is that the reason? They might say so on the labels." The
gnarly man rubbed his own chin, such as it was. "I wish beards would
come back into style. I look much more human with a beard. I got
along fine in the Sixteenth Century when everybody had whiskers.
"That's one of the ways I remember when things happened, by the
haircuts and whiskers that people had. I remember when a wagon I was
driving in Milan lost a wheel and spilled flour bags from hell to
breakfast. That must have been in the Sixteenth Century, before I
went to Ireland, because I remember that most of the men in the crowd
that collected had beards. Now-wait a minute-
Page 9
maybe that was the Fourteenth. There were a lot of beards then too."
"Why, why didn't you keep a diary?" asked McGannon with a groan
of exasperation.
The gnarly man shrugged characteristically. aAnd pack around
six trunks full of paper every time I moved? No, thanks."
"I-ah-don't suppose you could give me the real story of Richard
III and the princes in the Tower?"
"Why should I? I was just a poor blacksmith or farmer or
something most of the time. I didn't go around with the big shots. I
gave up all my ideas of ambition a long time before that. I had to,
being so different from other people. As far as I can remember, the
only real king I ever got a good look at was Charlemagne, when he
made a speech in Paris one day. He was just a big tall man with Santa
Claus whiskers and a squeaky voice."
Next morning McGannon and the gnarly man had a session with
Svedberg at the Museum, after which McGannon drove Gaffney around to
the lawyer's office, on the third floor of a seedy old office
building in the West Fifties. James Robinette looked something like a
movie actor and something like a chipmunk. He glanced at his watch
and said to McGannon: "This won't take long. If you'd like to stick
around I'd be glad to have lunch with you." The fact was that he was
feeling just a trifle queasy about being left with this damn queer
client, this circus freak or whatever he was, with his barrel body
and his funny slow drawl.
When the business had been completed, and the gnarly man had
gone off with his manager to wind up his affairs at Coney, Robinette
said, "Whew! I thought he was a halfwit, from his looks. But there
was nothing halfwitted about the way he went over those clauses.
You'd have thought the damn contract was for building a subway
system. What is he, anyhow?"
McGannon told him what he knew.
The lawyer's eyebrows went up. "Do you believe his yarn?"
"I do. So does Saddler. So does Svedberg up at the Museum.
They're both topnotchers in their respective fields. Saddler and I
have interviewed him, and Svedberg's examined him physically. But
it's just opinion. Fred Blue still swears it's a hoax or a case of
some sort of dementia. Neither of us can prove anything."
"Why not?"
"Well-ah-how are you going to prove that he was or was not
alive a hundred years ago? Take one case: Clarence says he ran a
sawmill in Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1906 and '07, under the name of
Michael Shawn. How are you going to find out whether there was a
sawmill operator in Fairbanks at that time? And if you did stumble on
a record of a Michael Shawn, how would you know whether he and
Clarence were the same? There's not a chance in a thousand that
there'd be a photograph or a detailed description you could check
with. And you'd have an awful time trying to find anybody who
remembered him at this late date.
"Then, Svedberg poked around Clarence's face, and said that no
human being ever had a pair of zygomatic arches like that. But when I
told Blue that, he offered to produce photographs of a human skull
that did. I know what'll happen: Blue will say that the arches are
practically the same, and Svedberg will say that they're obviously
different. So there we'll be."
Robinette mused, "He does seem damned intelligent for an
apeman."
"He's not an ape-man really. The Neanderthal race was a
separate branch of the human stock; they were more primitive in some
ways and more advanced in others than we are. Clarence may be slow,
but he usually grinds out the right answer. I imagine that he was-ah-
brilliant, for one of his kind, to begin with. And he's had the
benefit of so much experience. He knows us; he sees through us and
our motives." The little pink man puckered up his forehead. "I do
Page 10
hope nothing happens to him. He's carrying around a lot of priceless
information in that big -head of his. Simply priceless. Not much
about war and politics; he kept clear of those as a matter of self-
preservation. But little things, about how people lived and how they
thought thousands of years ago. He gets his periods mixed up
sometimes, but he gets them straightened out if you give him time.
"I'll have to get hold of Pell, the linguist. Clarence knows
dozens of ancient languages, such as Gothic and Gaulish. I was able
to check him on some of them, like vulgar Latin; that was one of the
things that convinced me. And there are archeologists and
psychologists. . .
"If only something doesn't happen to scare him off. We'd never
find him. I don't know. Between a man-crazy female scientist and a
publicity-mad surgeon-I wonder how it'll work out."
The gnarly man innocently entered the waiting room of Dunbar's
hospital. He as usual spotted the most comfortable chair and settled
luxuriously into it.
Dunbar stood before him. His keen eyes gleamed with
anticipation behind their pince-nez. "There'll be a wait of about
half an hour, Mr. Gaffney," he said. "We're all tied up now, you
know. I'll send Mahler in; he'll see that you have anything you
want." Dunbar's eyes ran lovingly over the gnarly man's stumpy frame.
What fascinating secrets mightn't he discover once he got inside it?
Mahler appeared, a healthy-looking youngster. Was there
anything Mr. Gaffney would like? The gnarly man paused as usual to
let his massive mental machinery grind. A vagrant impulse moved him
to ask to see the instruments that were to be used on him.
Mahler had his orders, but this seemed a harmless enough
request. lie went and returned with a tray full of gleaming steel.
"You see," he said, "these are called scalpels."
Presently the gnarly man asked, "What's this?" He picked up a
peculiar-looking instrument. -
"Oh, that's the boss's own invention. For getting at the
midbrain."
"Midbrain? What's that doing here?"
"Why, that's for getting at your-that must be there by
mistake-" Little lines tightened around the queer hazel eyes.
"Yeah?" He remembered the look Dunbar had given him, and Dunbar's
general reputation. "Say, could I use your phone a minute?"
"Why-I suppose-what do you want to phone for?"
"I want to call my lawyer. Any objections?"
"No, of course not. But there isn't any phone here."
"What do you call that?" The gnarly man rose and walked toward
the instrument in plain sight on a table. But Mahler was there before
him, standing in front of it.
"This one doesn't work. It's being fixed."
"Can't I try it?"
"No, not till it's fixed. It doesn't work, I tell you."
The gnarly man studied the young physician for a few seconds.
"Okay, then I'll find one that does." He started for the door.
"Hey, you can't go out now!" cried Mahler.
"Can't I? Just watch me!"
"Hey!" It was a full-throated yell. Like magic more men in
white coats appeared. Behind them was the great surgeon. "Be
reasonable,
Mr. Gaffney," he said. "There's no reason why you should go out now,
you know. We'll be ready for you in a little wliile."
"Any reason why I shouldn't?" The gnarly man's big face swung
on his thick neck, and his hazel eyes swiveled. All the exits were
blocked. "I'm going."
"Grab him!" said Dunbar.
The white coats moved. The gnarly man got his hands on the back
of a chair. The chair whirled, and became a dissolving blur as the
men closed on him. Pieces of chair flew about the room, to fall with
Page 11
the dry sharp pink of short lengths of wood. When the gnarly man
stopped swinging, having only a short piece of the chair back left in
each fist, one assistant was out cold. Another leaned whitely against
the wall and nursed a broken arm.
"Go on!" shouted Dunbar when he could make himself heard. The
white wave closed over the gnarly man, then broke. The gnarly man was
on his feet, and held young Mahler by the ankles. He spread his feet
and swung the shrieking Mahler like a club, clearing the way to the
door. He turned, whirled Mahler around his head like a hammer
thrower, and let the now mercifully unconscious body fly. His
assailants went down in a yammering tangle.
One was still up. Under Dunbar's urging he sprang after the
gnarly man. The latter had gotten his stick out of the umbrella stand
in the vestibule. The knobby upper end went whoowh past the
assistant's nose. The assistant jumped back and fell over one of the
casualties. The front door slammed, and there was a deep roar of
"Taxi!"
"Come on!" shrieked Dunbar. "Get the ambulance outl"
James Robinette sat in his office on the third floor of a seedy
old office building in the West Fifties, thinking the thoughts that
lawyers do in moments of relaxation.
He wondered about that damn queer client, that circus freak or
whatever he was, who had been in a couple of days before with his
manager. A barrel-bodied man who looked like a halfwit and talked in
a funny slow drawl. Though there had been nothing halfwitted about
the acute way he had gone over those clauses. You'd think the damn
contract had been for building a subway system.
There was a pounding of large feet in the corridor, a startled
protest from Miss Spevak in the outer office, and the strange
customer was before Robinette's desk, breathing hard.
"I'm Gafiney," he growled between gasps. "Remember me? I
think they followed me down here. They'll be up any minute. I want
your help."
"They? Who's they?" Robinette winced at the impact of that
damned perfume.
The gnarly man launched into his misfortunes. He was going well
when there were more protests from Miss Spevak, and Dr. Dunbar and
four assistants burst into the office.
"He's ours," said Dunbar, his glasses agleam.
"He's an ape-man," said the assistant with the black eye.
"He's a dangerous lunatic," said the assistant with the cut
lip.
"We've come to take him away," said the assistant with the torn
pants.
The gnarly man spread his feet and gripped his stick like a
baseball bat.
Robinette opened a desk drawer and got out a large pistol. "One
move toward him and I'll use this. The use of extreme violence is
justified to prevent commission of a felony, to wit, kidnapping."
The five men backed up a little. Dunbar said, "This isn't
kidnapping. You can only kidnap a person, you know. He isn't a human
being, and I can prove it."
The assistant with the black eye snickered. "If he wants
protection, he better see a game warden instead of a lawyer."
"Maybe that's what you think," said Robinette. "You aren't a
lawyer. According to the law he's human. Even corporations, idiots,
and unborn children are legally persons, and he's a damn sight more
human than they are."
"Then he's a dangerous lunatic," said Dunbar.
"Yeah? Where's your commitment order? The only persons who can
apply for one are (a) close relatives and (b) public officials
charged with the maintenance of order. You're neither."
Dunbar continued stubbornly. "He ran amuck in my hospital and
Page 12
nearly killed a couple of my men, you know. I guess that gives us
some rights."
"Sure," said Robinette. "You can step down to the nearest
station and swear out a warrant." He turned to the gnarly man. "Shall
we slap a civil suit on 'em, Gaffney?"
"I'm all right," said the individual, his speech returning to
its normal slowness. "I just want to make sure these guys don't
pester me anymore."
"Okay. Now listen, Dunbar. One hostile move out of you and
we'll have a warrant out for you for false arrest, assault and
battery, attempted kidnapping, criminal conspiracy, and disorderly
conduct. We'll throw the book at you. And there'll be a s'uit for
damages for sundry torts, to wit, assault, deprivation of civil
rights, placing in jeopardy of life and limb, menace, and a few more
I may think of later."
"You'll never make that stick," snarled Dunbar. "We have all
the witnesses."
"Yeah? And wouldn't the great Evan Dunbar look sweet defending
such actions? Some of the ladies who gush over your books might
suspect that maybe you weren't such a damn knight in shining armor.
We can make a prize monkey of you, and you know it."
"You're destroying the possibility of a great scientific
discovery, you know, Robinette."
"To hell with that. My duty is to protect my client. Now beat
it, all of you, before I call a cop." His left hand moved
suggestively to the telephone.
Dunbar grasped at a last straw. "Hmm. Have you got a permit for
that gun?"
"Damn right. Want to see it?"
Dunbar sighed. "Never mind. You would have." His greatest
opportunity for fame was slipping out of his fingers. He drooped
toward the door.
The gnarly man spoke up. "If you don't mind, Dr. Dunbar. I left
my hat at your place. I wish you'd send it to Mr. Robinette here. I
have a hard time getting hats to fit me."
Dunbar looked at him silently and left with his cohorts.
The gnarly man was giving the lawyer further details when the
telephone rang. Robinette answered: "Yes . . . Saddler? Yes, he's
here
- Your Dr. Dunbar was going to murder him so he could dissect
him . . . Okay." He turned to the gnarly man. "Your friend Dr.
Saddler is looking for you. She's on her way up here."
"Herakles!" said Gaffney. "I'm going."
"Don't you want to see her? She was phoning from around the
corner. If you go out now you'll run into her. How did she know where
to call?"
"I gave her your number. I suppose she called the hospital and
my boarding house, and tried you as a last resort. This door goes
into the hail, doesn't it? Well, when she comes in the regular door
I'm going
out this one. And I don't want you saying where I've gone. Nice to
have known you, Mr. Robinette."
"Why? What's the matter? You're not going to run out now, are
you? Dunbar's harmless, and you've got friends. I'm your friend."
"You're durn tootin' I'm gonna run out. There's too much
trouble. I've kept alive all these centuries by staying away from
trouble. I let down my guard with Dr. Saddler, and went to the
surgeon she recommended. First he plots to take me apart to see what
makes me tick. If that brain instrument hadn't made me suspicious I'd
have been on my way to the alcohol jars by now. Then there's a fight,
and it's just pure luck I didn't kill a couple of those internes or
whatever they are and get sent up for manslaughter. Now Matilda's
after me with a more than friendly interest. I know what it means
when a woman looks at you that way and calls you 'dear.' I wouldn't
Page 13
mind if she weren't a prominent person of the kind that's always in
some sort of garboil. That would mean more trouble sooner or later.
You don't suppose I like trouble, do you?"
"But look here, Gaffney, you're getting steamed up over a lot
of damn-"
"Ssst!" The gnarly man took his stick and tiptoed over to the
private entrance. As Dr. Saddler's clear voice sounded in the outer
office, he sneaked out. He was closing the door behind him when the
scientist entered the inner office.
Matilda Saddler was a quick thinker. Robinette hardly had time
to open his mouth when she flung herself at and through the private
door with a cry of "Clarence!"
Robinette heard the clatter of feet on the stairs. Neither the
pursued nor the pursuer had waited for the creaky elevator. Looking
out the window he saw Gaffney leap into a taxi. Matilda Saddler
sprinted after the cab, calling, "Clarence! Come back!" But the
traffic was light and the chase correspondingly hopeless.
They did hear from the gnarly man once more. Three months later
Robinette got a letter whose envelope contained, to his vast
astonishment, ten ten-dollar bills. The single sheet was typed even
to the signature.
Dear Mr. Robinette:
I do not know what your regular fees are, but I hope that the
enclosed will cover your services to me of last July.
Since leaving New York I have had several jobs. I pushed a hack
(as we say) in Chicago, and I tried out as pitcher on a bush-league
baseball team. Once I made my living by knocking over rabbits and
things with stones, and I can still throw fairly well. Nor am I bad
at swinging a club like a baseball bat. But my lameness makes me too
slow for a baseball career.
I now have a job whose nature I cannot disclose because I do
not wish to be traced. You need pay no attention to the postmark; I
am not living in Kansas City, but had a friend post this letter
there.
-
Ambition would be foolish for one in my peculiar position. I am
satisfied with a job that furnishes me with the essentials and allows
me to go to an occasional movie, and a few friends with whom I can
drink beer and talk.
I was sorry to leave New York without saying good-bye to Dr.
Harold McGannon, who treated me very nicely. I wish you would explain
to him why I had to leave as I did. You can get in touch with him
through Columbia University.
If Dunbar sent you my hat as I requested, please mail it to me,
General Delivery, Kansas City, Mo. My friend will pick it up. There
is not a hat store in this town where I live that can fit me.
With best wishes, I remain,
Yours sincerely,
Shining Hawk
alias Clarence Aloysius Gaffney