Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 67 — page 143: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION “O.K.” said Sam. “Minute. I'll get my zipper.” : When Sam was ready, they set off at a brisk pace up the dirt road. An owl hooted, a rabbit rustled. After the rocks had become more numerous and the path narrower and steeper, they passed through a little grove of oaks, and then turned left and up to the brow of the hill. Then they slipped and skidded down the slope, hopped like goats from toe hold to toe hold. Then with a final leap they landed on the platform of the cave which topped the precipitous side of the old quarry. Sam looked out over to Little Corinth. ““Gee,”” he said, “‘it’s swell to be free.” Billy pushed aside the can- vas at the cave mouth and his face seemed old and twisted in the moonlight. “Free?” he said. ‘‘That’s what they think’”’ Jeb Vogelsang was also a general dealer. His trade paid off as far as Billy was con- cerned. The cave, which ran back into the rock for about twenty feet, was furnished with goods purloined from uncle’s store. Chief items in- cluded two camp beds, a 142 small table, three chairs and an oil lamp. ‘Finished, Sam ?’’ Sam wiped round his plate with a hunk of bread and stuffed the lot into his mouth. “Yup. Wash up?’ ‘““Morning’Il_ do.’ Billy’s thin face looked sharper than ever in the glow of the lamp. “Gotta stay tonight. Impor- tant. °S why I wanted you here—to help——” What was there deep inside Billy which sometimes rose to the surface? “Help with what? Why?” Then Billy told him. At first Sam wanted to jeer, then he became seriously attentive, and finally, at the end of the tale, he was looking quite alarmed. “Gramps Marson said you got Indian blood. That’s magic stuff you just told me.” Billy leaped to his feet and gripped Sam by the shoulders. . “TI gotta have a friend on this! "F I told them. down there’’—he gestured at the curtain of canvas beyond which lay the sleeping little town—“they’d be after me like I was mad. I ain’t mad! It happens, I tell yer. It started as dreams, just a voice. Then it was shape, a comiclooks.conn