Thirteen Phantasms Read Online Free PDF Page A

period. Squires’s living-room floor was covered with display boxes and jars, and the room smelled of camphor and pipe smoke. There was the patter of soft rain through the open casements, but the weather was warm and easy despite the rain, and in the dim distance, out over the hills, there was the low rumble of thunder.
    The doorbell rang, and Squires, expecting another Newtonian, opened the heavy front door in the turreted entry hall. A large wooden crate sat on the porch, sheltered by the awning, and a post-office truck motored away north toward Kenneth Road, disappearing beyond a mist of rain. Latzarel looked over Squires’s shoulder at the heavy crate, trying to figure out what was wrong with it, what was odd about it. Something …
    “I’ll be damned,” he said. “The top’s screwed on from the inside.”
    “I’ll get a pry bar,” Hastings said from behind him.
    Latzarel heard a sound then, and he put his ear to the side of the box. There was the click of a screwdriver on metal, the squeak of the screw turning. “Don’t bother with the pry bar,” Latzarel said, winking at Squires, and he lit a match and held it to his pipe, cupping his hand over the bowl to keep the raindrops from putting it out.

Red Planet
     
    I’m going on a bus. By God! On a bus. Out of Dubuque on the midnight line and Greyhounding through the midwest firefly night. Sleeping in the recliner at sixty miles an hour across moon-brightened plains. Stop off in Memphis. Lunch in New Orleans. Breakfast here, dinner there. By God, around the country on a bus. Around the
world
on that sucker!
    Monty, grinning ear to ear, bag in hand, strides into the mouth of a red brick depot. He removes a crumpled hat, looks left, looks right, and smacks suitcase first into the tail end of an old grey lady in a red suit, pink hat, and lace veil, knocking baggage askew and the old lady onto dimpled knees, gasping and shaking.
    “I really am sorry ma’am, I …”
    “Beast!” she screams. “Beast!”
    “Pardon me ma’am, you see …”
    My God. Old lady’s setting in to pound me now with that there little bag on a string. Probably filled with rocks or dimes or something. Best set things to right. Make another effort to beg her pardon.
    Monty, hat in hand, opens his mouth, when a third voice pipes in. “Leave the lady be, young man.”
    Yes sir, will do sir, count on me sir. Lady can be and I’ll leave. Got to catch a bus. So sorry. Monty, backing off toward the ticket window, leaving the grey lady in a huff, she talking ever so plaintively to three old cohorts, all seemingly off on a tour of the Black Hills. To the rugged Dakotas to get a glimpse of those cold stone faces. Monty pondering slowly that northwest passage.
    Ah! I can see our man now. Rock-jawed and ripping down poop-out hill. Big stick in hand and a truckload of freedom on call. Fine subject for a granite hillside. Perhaps there lies the destination, in the great northwest. The home of the grizzly bear and the Indian.
    Monty, firmly astride his charger, strolls on up to the window with his country gait, his free hand trapped in his pocket and his grin once again spreading forth. “Beg your pardon, ma’am, but I’m in need of a bus ticket.”
    •
    “Yes, sir. Will you be traveling far?”
    “You’re dadburn right!” says Monty with a well-stifled whoop.
    The clerk glances up from the window and spies Monty’s chin, covered slightly with fuzz, Monty’s face toward the heavens. Monty examines an old round clock with its black Roman numerals and rust frame. He glances back down at the clerk with a grin suddenly sheepish.
    “I was just lookin’ at that there clock yonder on the wall.” Monty a bit disjointed and groping in rear pockets for his wallet.
    “Son, just where do you want to go?”
    “Well, I don’t rightly know. I’ve got plenty of money here. Which direction does this here bus go to?”
    “Well now, this here bus goes just about all over the place. There and back