He did not approach the house, contented to view it from the shelter of the trees. Satisfied that it was deserted, he sought a place where he could hide himself, finding it in a thick cluster of lilac trees that had spread over a comparatively wide area. On hands and knees he wormed his way deep into the thicket until he came to a spot near the center where there was room enough to lie down.
He rose to a sitting position, propping his back against a thick tangle of lilac trunks. He was engulfed in the greenery of the clump. It would be impossible for anyone passing by to know that he was there. He unshipped the quiver and laid it, with the bow, alongside him, then slipped off the backpack and untied the thongs that closed it. From it he took a slab of jerked meat and with his knife belt cut off a piece of it. It was tough to chew and had little flavor, but it was good food for the trail. It was light of weight, would not spoil, and was life sustaining— good solid beef, dried until there was little moisture left. He sat and munched it, feeling the tension draining out of him, draining, it seemed, into the ground on which he sat, leaving him tired and relaxed. Here, he thought, was momentary peace and refuge against the day. The worst was over now. He had crossed the city and was now in its western reaches.
He had faced the dangers of the city and had come through unscathed. Although, in thinking this, he realized, he was deluding himself. There had never been any actual danger, no threat directed at him. The set trap had been an accident. The intended game, most likely, had been a bear or deer and he had simply blundered into it. It had posed a danger born of his own carelessness. In a hostile, or even unknown, land a man did not travel trails. He stayed well off them, at worst paralleling them and keeping eyes and ears well open. Three years of woods-running had taught him this and he should have remembered it. He warned himself that he must not forget again. The years at the university had lulled him into a false security, had changed his way of thinking. If he was going to get through this foray into the west, he must revert to his old way of caution.
Sneaking up to take a look at the dance or celebration or whatever it might have been had been a piece of pure foolhardiness. He had told himself that he must see what was taking place, but in this he had only fooled himself; what he actually had done had been to act impulsively, and one man traveling alone must never act on impulse. And what had he found? Simply that for some unknown reason a tribe, or a combination of tribes, was holding some sort of festivity. That and the confirmation of what Wilson had written about the pyramiding of robotic brain cases.
Thinking about the brain cases, an involuntary shudder of apprehension ran through him. Even here, in the early morning light, safely hidden in a lilac clump, the memory of the brain cases could still trigger a strange residual and unreasoning fear. Why should this be so? he wondered. What about the brain cases could arouse such an emotion in a man?
A few birds were singing their morning songs. The slight breeze that had blown in the night had died with dawn and not a leaf was stirring. He finished with the jerky and put it back in the pack. He hitched himself away from the cluster of tree trunks against which he had been leaning and stretched out to sleep.
She was waiting for him when he crawled out of the lilac thicket in the middle of the afternoon. She stood directly in front of the tunnel he had made to force his way into the thicket, and the first indication he had that anyone was there came when he saw two bare feet planted in the grass at the tunnel's end. They were dirty feet, streaked with flaking mud, and the toenails were untrimmed and broken. He froze at the sight of them and his eyes traveled up the tattered, tarnished, grease-stained robe that reached down to her ankles. The robe ended and he saw her face—a face half hidden in a tangled mop of iron-gray hair. Beneath the mop of hair were a pair of steely eyes, now lighted with hidden laughter, the crow's-feet at the corners of them crinkled in merriment. The mouth was a thin slash and twisted, the lips close-pressed, as if trying to hold in a shout of glee. He stared up at her foolishly, his neck craned at a painful angle.
Seeing that he'd seen her, she cackled at him and did a shuffling jig.
"Aye, laddie, now I have you," she shouted. "I have you where I want you, crawling on your belly and kissing my feet. I had you spotted all the day and I've been waiting for you, being very careful not to disturb your beauty rest. It is shameful, it is, and you with the mark upon you.
His eyes flashed to each side of her, sick with apprehension, shamed at being trapped by an odious old hag who shouted gibberish at him. But she was alone, he saw; there was no one else about.
"Well, come on out," she told him. "Stand up and let us have a look at the magnificence of you. It's not often that Old Meg catches one like you."
He tossed the bow and quiver and the packsack out beyond the tunnel's mouth and got to his feet, confronting her.
"Now look at him," she chortled. "Is he not a handsome specimen? Shining in his buckskins with egg upon his face, account of being caught at his little tricks. And sure you thought no one was a-seeing you when you came sneaking in at dawn. Although I am not claiming that I saw you; I just felt you, that was all. Like I feel the rest of them when they come sneaking in. Although, truth to tell, you did better than the rest. You looked things over well before you went so cleverly to earth. But even then I knew the mark upon you.
"Shut up the clatter," he told her roughly. "What is this mark you speak of, and you say you felt me? Do you mean you sensed me?"
"Oh, but he's a clever one," she said. "And so well spoken, too, with a fine feeling for the proper words. ‘Sensed me, he says, and I Suppose that is a better word. Until now I did not clap eyes upon you, but I knew that you were there and I knew Where you went and kept track of you, sleeping there, all the livelong day. Aye, you cannot fool the old girl, no matter what you do."
"The mark?" he asked. "What kind of mark? I haven't any marks."
"Why, the mark of greatness, then. What other could it be, a fine strapping lad like you, out on a great adventure."
Angrily, he reached down to pick up his knapsack, slung it on his shoulder.
"If you've made all the fun you want of me," he said, "I'll be on my way.
She laid a hand upon his arm. "Not so fast, my bucko. It is Meg, the hilltop witch, that you are talking with. There are ways that I can help you, if I have a mind to, and I think I have a mind to, for you're a charming lad and one with a good heart in him. I sense that you need help and I hope you're not too proud to ask it. Although among the young there's always a certain arrogance of pride. My powers may be small and there are times they are so small I wonder if in truth I really am a witch, although many people seem to think so and that's as good as being one. And since they think I am, I set high fees on my work, for if I set a small fee, they'd think me a puny witch. But for you, my lad, there'll be no fee at all, for you are poorer than a church mouse and could not pay in any case.
"That's kind of you," said Cushing. "Especially since I made no solicitation of your help."
"Now listen to the pride and arrogance of him," said Meg. "He asks himself what an old bag like myself could ever do for him. Not an old bag, sonny, but one that's middle-aged. Not as good as I once was, but not exactly feeble, either. If you should want no more than a tumble in the hay, I still could acquit myself. And there's something to be said for a young one to learn the art from someone who is older and experienced. But that, I see, is not what you had in mind."
"Not exactly," Cushing said.
"Well, then, perhaps you'd like something better than trail fare to stuff your gut. The kettle's on and you'd be doing Meg a favor to sit at table with her. If you are bound to go, it might help the journey to start with a belly that is full. And I still read that greatness in you. I would like to know more about the greatness.