Argosy, September 1955 — page 52: what you’re looking at

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

50 H. E. BATES **T’m in no trouble—honest, I’m not in any trouble.” “What, then? ” “1 don’t know—a sort of hell,’’ she said. ‘‘ Get the bag and T’ll tell you about it. You made me feel better about it already.” Suddenly where her body had been there was a space. Some trick of refraction, a twist in the glare of sun on whiteness, sup- pressed his power of sight. Instead of her shining body there was a naked gap on the path. As he walked down it to fetch her bag he found he could not see very well. He was aware of groping again, his canvas shoes slither- ing on scalding dark platters of rock, waking loose stones to curve out on flights of vicious perfection to the steaming haze below. The infuriating whistle of Manuel brought him back to himself. *“ Have you seen Miss Vane’s bag?” he shouted. “Yes, sir. Here it is, sir, with the lunch things.” Manson grasped the white bag and turned back up the path. ** Aren’t you going to the top, sir? ” ‘* Mind your own business!” he said. He stopped. ‘‘ Oh— another thing. I think we'll be starting back tomorrow. You’d better get back and start packing.”’ ** Very well, sir,”’ Manuel said. High above the mountainside the pees hypnotic buzzard had risen again to hold the sky in its claws. It woke in Manson a sudden hatred for the place. The sky of summer seemed to reflect, in a curious harsh and lifeless glare, the depressing slate-like glaze of the high naked edge of plateau. Below, the trees were fired and lost in smouldering ashen dust. From far away a glint of steel in minute winks shot from the mass of pines with the effect of blue glass-paper. A moment or two later he heard once again that curious sound that was like the dry flap of shaken linen, startling in the thin air. He heard it at the moment of turning the last of the spirals in the path before reaching Miss Vane. And as he heard it and turned his head, he lost his sense of focus again, and a rock fell. It fell this time from under his feet. It seemed to cross, a second later, a shadow that might have been caused by the buzzard suddenly whipping earthwards to kill. Instead he saw that it was another rock. It fell with bewildering swiftness from under his too smooth canvas shoes, taking with it a black and slaty shower. This shower was the entire corner of the path. As it fell it seemed to suck him down. For a second or two he was aware of © a conscious effort to save himself. Then, clutching with ferocity at Miss Vane’s white bag, he fell too. His impression of death was sharp and instantaneous. It was a flame leaping up to meet him like the uprising ball of sun. Its inescapable extinction was like the extinction of Miss Vane’s white body on the path. It was there one moment and then, in a final trick of refraction, was black and void. He half picked himself up in a shower of slate and slate-dust, conicbooks.Gou §