Adventure Magazine Cover — page 42: what you’re looking at

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

32 “How far did you pack me, Birdsong?” he asked after.a moment. ‘“‘Not far, Brother Lassiter, from about right up there—” he pointed at a distant indeterminate spot in the towering cliffs— ‘“‘to about there’’—the top of the detritus. The promoter stared up and shivered. Birdsong noted the ngor and pEoceneed in his nasal drawl: “Why don’t you make ready to meet your God, Brother Lassiter? You’rea sinner and you know it.” Lassiter looked around impatiently at the question. Birdsong continued: “The only sure thing in life is death, Brother Lassiter. All of us has got to die. Your time may come before morning; hadn’t you better get ready to meet your Maker?” It annoyed Lassiter to have Birdsong talking of death. Death, whose black robes he had brushed half an hour ago, had again withdrawn itself to a respectful distance. In his heart, Lassiter felt that death would show a certain consideration for the worth and consequence of Charles Lassiter. Death would come at the end of a long and useful life. It was crude of Birdsong to bring up such a remote unpleasantness. So he changed the subject by asking— “What is that droning sound, bees?” Birdsong listened. “Tt sounds like Mollie spinning.” They were rounding a huge fallen boul- der. Nunes, who was in front, came to a stop just beyond the obstruction. With a gesture he drew the attention of ise com- rades. ABOUT fifty feet down the slope, among a scarlet grouping of poin- ~~“ settias stood a vast brown man. His back was to the trio. His huge tun of a body had the hump- backed look characteristic of the exceed- ingly obese. He had no neck. A great head fitted down into an expanse of shoul- ders. His straight black hair was done up into a sort of knot on top of his head, and was decorated with a blue heron feather. At first he seemed to wear no clothes, but as he made certain bending movements in his work, a breech clout became visible among the rolls of flesh about his hips and buttocks. The invisible clout, quipa-palm sandals and the feather formed his raiment. He sweated prodigiously. Drops of Adventure sweat trickled down his brown bulk as if he stood under an invisible fountain. In the brilliant sunshine these trickling drops gave him the appearance of being sequined with moving jewels. When he bent his arms, his elbows were but the gentlest of curves. The colossus was engaged in an operation as delicate as he was gross. He was tying, or rather sticking, a long glistening cord from one flaming poinsettia to another. He had quite a network. Among the flowers droned dozens of humming birds. They made a blur of color moving about among the scarlet racemes. While the men stared, one of these living jewels settled on a cord to rest. It stuck. The fat man waddled to it and picked off the little captive before it had time to gum its wings. He bit off its head. Then he pressed in his abdomen with a grunt, stooped and laid the beheaded bird in a basket. The basket glowed with other humming birds. It was half full. Its brilliancy was greater than that of jewels. As the mammoth straightened, he caught a side glimpse of his audience. He came to a stand, took four paddling steps to turn his bulk and face his observers. The eyes that regarded Lassiter were shining black slits in a rolling brown ex-: panse. His jowls spread out over his chest. Yet with it all there was a poise, a dignity about the naked brown man as ponderous as his corpus. Nunes removed his sombrero and began in his usual Quichua: “Sefor, you see before you three alms- men of God, not priests but honest thieves who come begging you to receive a little book of miraculous virtues. This holy book is good for aches, wounds, sores, scalds, boils, ulcers, carbuncles, the dengue, mar- asmus and the calentures. A tea made from its leaves removes the discomforts of pregnant women. Balky donkeys have been known to labor willingly when the dust off of this sacred volume was blown into their ears. A long drought was miracu- lously broken by——”’ There was much more to Nunes’ oration and the vast man heard it to the end with a mountain-like patience. When the Col- ombian came to a definite stop, the behe- moth disregarded it all with a completeness that was droll and turned to Lassiter. ‘‘Where did you men come from?” he asked in a queer sort of Quichua. DOOLK C©@