The Beyonders Read Online Free PDF Page A

bowing close to him. Then they drew back to their first formation.
    Slowly had put down her guitar and risen. She moved to join the circle. They made a space for her. Next moment, as though she had called him, Crispin was in the circle on the opposite side. They moved rhythmically with the others.

    "You'll wish you had salvation When the stars begin to fall."

    The circle made its wide turn, made it again, once more drew in close around the Captain. All bowed and backed away.

    "My Lord, what a morning
    When the stars begin to fall."

    Spread to full extent, the circle moved counterclockwise, then drew in yet again, all bowing inward to Captain Kimber and backing away. The music came to a sudden end, and the circle broke up. Captain Kimber stood in the center of the floor. He looked at Crispin, and Crispin looked back at him. Everyone else looked at both of them, not knowing what to expect.
    They had the only two beards in the room, the Captain's like a great white curtain, Crispin's short and brushed and brown.
    "Where did you learn our dance?" the Captain asked, in a voice like water running deep in a cave.
    "I didn't learn it," replied Crispin evenly. "I watched, and it didn't seem so much like a set of dance figures as a sort of multiple self-expression. I've seen Greeks do something like that, and Basque shepherds in Wyoming."
    "The Greeks are sure enough old people," said Captain Kimber.
    "So are the Basques," Crispin told him. "Some scientists think they go all the way back to Cro-Magnon man, the Stone Age."
    Captain Kimber gazed at Crispin with level blue eyes under white-thatched brows. "Usually nobody butts in on our dancing," he said. "Might could be you meant all right, but you'd ought to inquire us if you could."
    Crispin smiled disarmingly. "If I'd asked, maybe you'd have said no. But I've heard of you people, and I want to know you well." Again he smiled. "About the way you worship—your baptizing, for instance."
    Absolute silence fell. Several Kimber men seemed to glare. Captain Kimber stroked his beard.
    "You make yourself sound good," he pronounced, then fell silent himself, with his face going into deep lines of thought. He might have been extracting a square root in his mind. Finally:
    "These here Sky Notch folks let on to like you." The great bearded head turned. "Is that a fact, Slowly?"
    "Mr. Crispin's all right, Captain," said her gentle voice.
    "Well, let's see. It's the full of the moon day after tomorrow night. Slowly, it's for you to say. If you want to come over, you can fetch him with you."
    Everybody breathed deeply. It may have been relief, more likely it was amazement. No such permission had ever been given anyone from Sky Notch, not even Doc, not even Gander Eye. Captain Kimber walked over to the chairs where Doc and Gander Eye sat.
    "Why not some more music?" he asked. "Somebody else might could want to stomp out a dance. "
    "Why, sure," said Doc. "What'll we play, Gander Eye?"
    "Let's try 'Arkansas Traveller.' "
    They swung into the lively tune together. People got up and formed fours. Duffy made a step toward Slowly, reaching for her, but she had already taken Crispin's hand. The dancers moved into figures as Gander Eye called them:
    "Right and left . . . swing your partner . . . bird in a cage . . . down the middle . . ."
    The Kimbers stood off and watched courteously. When the dance was finished, the Kimbers applauded. Everybody applauded except for Duffy Parr. He had gone into the shadows at the back, drinking unhappily all by himself.

    The music and dancing were over. It was past midnight. Gander Eye and Duffy sat in the lean-to behind Duffy's station where Duffy ate and slept and sometimes sold blockade. Its walls were of imitation wood panelling, dull gray and hung with clothes and cooking utensils and calendars for this year, the year before, and the year before that. Above the square table where they sat hung a naked electric lamp, blazing white as a midwinter star. Duffy drank