A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, April 1950 — page 100: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

400 A. MERRITT’S FANTASY po: -from. morning till night. One minute e was up a palm tree identifying the leaves. Next minute he was in some Hai- ‘tian hut asking questions about native medicine. I told him the jungles were dan- gerous as anything and that a Marine had been butchered in the bush; but he paid about as much attention as he might’ve paid a well-meaning but over-anxious traffic cop. Off by himself he’d go, grubbing after traces of his precious Arawaks, looking for his miniature mummies. Meantime he collected butterflies and animals. No jungle patch was too thorny, no swamp too fe- verish for Peabody when he thought he spotted some rare specimen. What 2# guy! Every time he picked up some new bug: or bat he’d come hollering into camp _as if the Cacos were after him, wildly ex- cited over his-latest find. He just didn’t realize that a war was going on. It was all I could do to get him to carry a gun. McCoy was more responsible. He was the taxidermist of the outfit; stuffed the specimens that Peabody fetched in. Pea- body declared he was a greater taxidermist than fukeley, and I guess Peabody was right. That Siskin was certainly an artist. He could skin a pig with a penknife. His mounted animals and birds were so life- like they looked on the point of moving, and he rigged up a tarantula that looked so natural it scared the Haitian camp-boy half out of his wits. That Irish lad had other accomplish- ments, too. He’d hunted big game in Africa and he was a whacking good shot with a rifle, the match of any Marine in the outpost. Nights around Peabody’s campfire he sang a fine brogue tenor; he could hold his rum without getting too braggy, and I saw he knew how to handle men—and women. He kept Peabody’s black boys jumping, and: he knew how to handle Peabody. Treated the absent-minded professor like a father. Got him to eat his meals and wear his rubbers when it rained. Fetched him out of the jungle after dark and watched over him generally. He sort of took a humorous, tolerant attitude toward Peabody. “Sure, we was friends together as small 5 wre he told me. “I’d never got through school if Wilf hadn’t passed me the an- swers. Ain’t he the smart one, though? Took me to Africa with him on his first expedition, an’ we've been together ever since. All of us been friends since kids. Mrs. Peabody, too.” He said it casually, I'd been wondering where Jenny Lavine And she’d came in. Friends since kids. admired Wilf, too, for his college degrees. Why else would she have married a se dle-shaped bug hunter like Peabody? Yes, and through all my official worry over those three, I’d been wondering some- thing else. In a close-bunched little com- munity like an outpost in the jungle, you learn more about people in a week than you would in a city in five years. After a week at Morne Noir under my nose, I learned something about Peabody and Mc- Coy and Mrs. Peabody. Mrs. Peabody was crazy about McCoy. She wore it on her sleeve. She dreamed it in her eyes. She said it with flowers. Poor Jenny Louise. cook the meals and house-clean the tents. She and Peabody shared the big tent, and McCoy had the one next door. It was Mc- It was her job to Coy’s tent that got the house-cleaning. It _. was McCoy who got the first dish of stew. It was McCoy’s boots she’d be shining all afternoon, his shirt she’d be mending so tenderly, his temperature she tried to take all the time. “Terrence!” The way she’d say it; like a sigh. Not that she didn’t look after her husband. .But her eyes would be on Mc- Coy when the two returned from the jun- gle after dark. Well, I could see how it was. She’d married brains, but she just couldn’t help it about brawn. Then the three had trav- eled around the world together, and with- out quite realizing it, Jenny Lou’s heart had got the better of her good intentions. McCoy was handsome and smart and the muscles on his arms were like rip- pling mahogany. He had Irish charm; he ~ : could sing like a County Cavin thrush; he — = was gallant, witty and gay. Her husband _ was only interested in fauna and midget mummies; but it was her husband’s best friend who complimented her on her cook- ing or Sunday frock. You can see how Jenny Louise would fall for a Terrence McCoy. x (E(0) 9) r Gi @)