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Title: Dames
Author: Murray Leinster
Release date: March 31, 2025 [eBook #75758]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: Short Stories, Inc, 1939
Credits: Roger Frank and Sue Clark
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAMES ***
DAMES
By MURRAY LEINSTER
Author of “Buck Comes Home,” etc.
The Man Swimming In the Fog Found Himself in As Much of
a Fog in Another Matter. Hell--Dames!
Even before the echoes came, the man felt gloomily certain that he was
going to drown. When they did come, the nearest one--the one on which
his hopes were set--was definitely farther away than it had been. And
that meant that it was quite useless to swim. A current was carrying him
away from whatever headland echoed the distant steamer’s fog-horn.
He could not see anything. A thick pall of mist hung about him,
curiously tinted by an unseen sun. It allowed him to view a circle
twenty feet from his eyes in every direction. In that circle there was
nothing but oily water, stirring sluggishly in long swells of
complicated outline. The distant steamer hooted, and echoes came, and
somewhere he heard the staccato beat of a power-boat’s motor. Fishermen
in the Inside Passage take no account of fog. But the power boat was far
away, and the nearest echo was still farther this time than before, and
the man knew more gloomily still that there was no possible way for him
to escape drowning.
He turned on his back to float. He had not shed his clothing before, and
it was too late to do it now. He had to paddle to keep his head
above-water. When his strength gave out and he could not paddle any
longer, he would drown. He swore a little--rather resentfully than in
desperation--and paddled. Only his face showed drawn and weary.
The steamer’s fog-horn grew more distant and more distant still. The
echoes grew fainter. The man who was presently to drown seemed to
concentrate all his attention upon the mere feat of staying at the top
of the water for as long a time as possible. But he had already been
swimming for a very long time. Presently he struggled a little. His face
went under. He thrashed, and ripples spread about him. He floated once
more. He spat out water, weakly, and continued to paddle.
His eyes were peevish, and once he spoke aloud to the encircling mist.
One word, and that with a scornful bitterness: “Dames!” It was as if he
epitomized his own life. His ears were below the surface, so he heard
nothing at all. There was little to hear except the single staccato
power boat. But he did not even hear that. He paddled.
He went under again. Again he thrashed, and floated once more. But he
was near the end. Presently his mouth opened convulsively. The motor
boat was near, but he was hardly able to hear it. He went under. His
arms thrashed feebly. He came up and made choked sounds. He came up yet
again and uttered a cry which was not altogether human. From that time
onward it seemed as if his body fought for life without any help from
his intelligence. He fought the water blindly. He splashed weakly, and
struggled and writhed.
The cry and the splashing was enough to cause the power boat to swerve.
It came gliding out of the mist just as the struggles of the exhausted
body were about to cease. A hand reached out swiftly and stayed the
sinking of that body. A rather small hand, but a capable one. The
putt-putt-putting of the motor stopped. Then a dim figure in the mist
struggled manfully to draw the utterly limp figure of the swimmer into
the boat.
* * * * *
He dropped on the floor-boards of the power boat and watched with a
desperate alertness for some sign of suspicion or of doubt in his
rescuer. A girl had rescued him. If she was pretty, he did not notice
it. For one reason, he was exhausted.
She reached forward to the engine and cut the ignition. She listened
sharply to the racket of echoes that came back through the fog, even
after their source had ceased. She cut the spark in again before the
fly-wheel had stopped. The engine resumed with a valorous uproar. She
considered, frowning. Then her face cleared.
“About right.”
She swung the tiller. The man understood. She was using the echoes as he
had tried to use them; as the steamer no longer audible used them; as a
means of guidance in the fog. The boat swerved. Wraiths of mist flowed
past. The fog remained impenetrable. The world seemed curiously hushed,
save for the racket of the motor and its echoes.
“I came over from the mainland,” said the girl. “On my way the fog came
down, but I kept on. We’re used to it, around here.”
“Where are you takin’ me?” asked the man.
“Home,” said the girl briefly. “I’ve got to attend to the chickens.
Maybe the fog’ll lift and I can get you back to the mainland before
long. Ours is the only house on our island. Is it important for you to
get back quickly?”
The man hesitated. Then he said, “I don’t know. It depends on what”--he
licked his lips--“on what my prisoner did.”
The girl peered at him through the mist.
“Prisoner?”
“I’m a sort of G-man,” said the man, not altogether convincingly. “I was
takin’ a prisoner down to Seattle by boat. We were up on deck together
an’ I wasn’t looking close, so--well, I guess he slugged me. The first
thing I knew I was in the water an’ the steamer was a long way off. I
heard echoes an’ I headed for ’em, swimmin’. It was the only chance I
had.”
The girl looked at him again. She cut the motor momentarily. The echoes
were deafening in the interval before the resumption of the motor-roar.
“You did pretty well, at that,” she observed. “What do you think your
prisoner did?”
“He--uh--well,” said the man lamely, “maybe he jumped over himself, with
a life-preserver. Or maybe he just hid. Without me to raise a fuss, he
might just walk ashore when the steamer docks.”
* * * * *
Through the racket of the motor there came the staggered beating of an
echo almost as loud as the motor itself. The girl cut off the engine
altogether. Echoes resounded startlingly, and as startlingly died away
to nothing. The power boat went on of its own momentum, with a sound of
bubbling at its bow. There was a curious, muffled silence. Then the
boat’s keel grated loudly on sand and pebbles. It stopped short,
crunching.
“Here we are,” said the girl.
The man got up with tremendous effort. The girl sat still for an
instant. She regarded him steadily.
“Did you ever hear of Butch Traynor?” The man jerked his head around.
“Butch Traynor? No. Why?”
“I just wondered,” said the girl. “You G-men ought to get after him.”
The man got out of the boat into six inches of water. The feel of
solidness under his feet was peculiar. He saw a stretch of sand, with
ripples lapping at it. A vaguely darker area in the fog which was
probably a headland. He hauled tiredly at the boat. The girl stepped up
to the bow and jumped lightly ashore. The man followed her up on the
beach and tethered the boat to stakes--drying-stakes for nets--which
came close down to the water’s edge. The girl vanished. Moving about,
the man saw vague shapes dimly through the mist. Rocks. A boat drawn up
and turned over for repair. He heard cacklings somewhere near. A minor
tumult of flapping, unseen wings. The clatter of a tin pan. He heard the
girl moving about. A door opened and closed. Presently a pump squeaked.
All this in invisibility.
He blundered toward the noises. The girl started when she saw him. She
made a swift, frightened movement. Then she said:
“Oh, it’s you!”
She turned away. He said, almost humbly:
“Is there any chance of gettin’--uh--some dry clo’es?”
She hesitated.
“I suppose so. I’ll look.”
She moved off through the mist. He followed her, chilled and exhausted.
He saw a house take form gradually through the fog. A small house,
hardly more than a cabin. Three--four rooms, perhaps. There was
something missing, though. It was seconds before the man realized that
there was no smoke coming from the chimney. The fog was undisturbed
above the stubby brick stack.
She came out of the house. She stood quite still. After an instant he
identified the pose. She was listening. He listened, too. No sound
except the formless noises of a flock of newly-fed fowl. The indefinite,
liquid sound of the water about the boat. Occasional, unrythmic tapping
noises which were the drips of condensed mist from overhanging objects.
“You can go in,” said the girl briefly “The room on the right. I’ve put
out some of my father’s things. They won’t fit so well, but they’re
dry.”
The man went inside the cabin. The smell was of emptiness. The house was
furnished frugally, but it had not the odor of occupancy. He went into
the room on the right. There were clothes laid out. Fisherman’s clothes.
He stripped off his own wet garments and clothed himself in them. He went
out again.
The girl was standing on the tiny porch, again, listening. She held up
her hand.
“Wait!--I think I hear a boat.”
* * * * *
The man strained his ears. He heard nothing but the same muffled sounds
of the fog; ripples on the beach, and irregular dripping impacts, and
the noise of the chickens feeding. But as the girl stood immobile, her
face frowningly intent, he thought he heard a motor too. He could not be
sure if it was real or imaginary. In any case it was infinitely faint.
“I’m not sure,” said the girl abruptly. Then she added, with a trace of
grimness, “If it is a boat, it’s Butch Traynor.”
The man said:
“This Butch Traynor. You mean he might come here? An’--uh--you don’t
want him to?”
“Yes,” said the girl.
She made an impatient, irresolute gesture.
“But,” said the man, “what does he want?”
The girl said, “Me.”
“But----”
“Have you got a revolver?” she demanded.
He shook his head.
“I guess--I guess my pris’ner took it after he’d knocked me out.” Then
he added uneasily, “This--uh--Butch Traynor--”
“He says he wants to marry me,” said the girl hardly. “He says so! But
he’s got a bad name, and he’s earned it. If a man cuts another man’s
fishing-nets away, he’s pretty low. Butch Traynor’s done that.
“He’s done other things. There’s talk of a killing or two that can’t be
proved on him. And he says he wants to marry me!”
“But--uh--”
“If you want to believe it,” said the girl. She added fiercely, “He says
he’ll make me! My father made him stop coming here, but if he thought I
was here alone he’d come after me. He says he’s going to make me marry
him. You figure out how!”
The man made an uneasy gesture.
“My father broke his leg,” said the girl resentfully. “A bad break. We
had to take him over to the mainland. My mother’s staying there with
him. I’ve been coming back here every day or so to attend to the
chickens. If Butch Traynor heard I came over today--”
She stopped, again to listen. Her brow was dark. The man did not look at
her, though she was good enough to look at. Sun-browned and full-bodied
and firm-fleshed and young. Her hands clenched.
She seemed almost to tremble with inner rage. But she listened keenly.
“We could start back now,” said the man uneasily. “He couldn’t see you
in the fog. You could use a--compass, maybe. An’ he would go right past
you without knowin’ it.”
“With a motor making as much noise as mine does?” demanded the girl.
“His boat’s faster, too.”
“You could listen for his engine,” said the man urgently, “an’ if you
heard it, cut yours off an’ drift. He couldn’t find you then!”
“I’ve got to attend to things here!” said the girl fiercely. “This is
all we have to live on, while my father’s helpless.”
* * * * *
She moved off into the mist. The man stood still. Twice he licked his
lips affrightedly as if at some inner vision. The girl opened the door
of some invisible structure behind the pall of white. The man heard her
moving about. She went to the chicken-yard again. More cacklings and
flutterings. She was in the chicken-yard for a long time. Time always
passes more slowly to a man when he is waiting for a woman to accomplish
something in which he takes no interest. To this man it seemed an age,
an aeon, in which he stood in the blank white fog while indefinite
noises told of cryptic things the girl was doing. Gathering eggs;
doubtless. Filling water-trays; probably. Refilling whatever devices
gave the chickens feed. Doing this thing and that.
It seemed hours that he stood there, alone. Actually, he was so weary
that it was painful merely to stand. And he listened more for the
completion of the girl’s tasks than for any outer sound, so that when he
did notice the noise of a motor it was very near. It was not faint. It
was not distant. It was a plainly audible chugg-chugg-chugg-chugg that
was steady and rhythmic and coming closer.
He heard it, startled. He went in search of the girl, calling guardedly.
He came upon her standing with a bucket of eggs in her hand, listening
as he had listened. Her eyes were bright and hard. She breathed quickly.
“I heard a boat,” said the man, uncertainly.
“It’s Butch Traynor,” said the girl, tight-lipped. “I know the motor.
He’s--after me.”
“We can--uh--get your boat started,” said the man.
“Are you afraid?” she asked bitterly.
“I don’t want any more trouble,” said the man, humbly. “I had plenty
already.”
The girl said in queenly scorn, “Go and hide, then! I’ll----”
She put down the bucket and hurried away into the mist. The man
followed, again and very tiredly. He saw her coming out of the cottage.
She thrust something out of sight inside her dress. The man saw the
glint of steel. A knife, probably.
“Go and hide!” she repeated bitterly. “He’d be bound to catch up to me
some time. He’s been following me around long enough!”
She hurried away once more, deathly pale, her hands shaking, her eyes
like flames. The man went slowly after her. He had been exhausted. He
was not much less than exhausted now.
* * * * *
The sound of the motor out on the water stopped abruptly. It started
again, and stopped, and started. For echoes.
Its timbre changed. The boat out there in the white mist had changed
its course. Now echoes came from every side through the fog; sharp and
ringing repetitions of the motor’s sound. And now, too, and very
abruptly, the color of the mist altered. It had been faintly golden from
an unseen sun. That golden tint deepened.
The man reached the sand-and-pebble beach and saw the girl standing in
desperate defiance, facing the water. The oily ripples of the little bay
were blue, now, instead of slaty gray.
The motor in the invisible boat cut off. A man moved, out there in the
fog. There were bubbling sounds, of a cutwater parting the surface. A
grinding sound. A shadow in the mist.
* * * * *
The man moved heavily toward the source of the sound. A figure loomed
through the now-golden fog, running along the beach. The man looked at a
drawn, unshaven face which stared at him unbelievingly.
“Who the hell are you?” demanded a taut voice.
The man who had so nearly drowned said hungrily:
“Listen! They tell me you’re in trouble with the law. You bumped off a
couple men--”
“Who the hell are you?” cried Butch Traynor fiercely. “What’re you doing
here? Where’s Ellen? What’ve you done with her?”
“N-nothin’,” said the man. He swallowed, and went on desperately.
“Listen! If you’re in trouble with the law--”
The girl’s voice came, strained and defiant:
“You Butch Traynor, what’re you doing on our land? Didn’t my father tell
you to stay away?”
The new man said savagely, “I came here for you, and by God I’m going to
take you away with me!”
“Listen!” said the man from the water, desperately, “If you’re in
trouble with the law, I want to--”
Butch Traynor went swiftly to the girl. He seized her two arms in his
hands and said hoarsely:
“I’ve argued enough! I can’t stand any more! I won’t stand any more! Are
you comin’ peaceful, or--”
The girl did not shrink. She cried passionately:
“If you did carry me off, if I couldn’t kill you I’d kill myself! But
you won’t! That man there is a detective. A Federal man! He’s seen
enough now--”
Butch Traynor turned upon the man who had so nearly been drowned. He was
a young man, Butch Traynor. His muscles were hard and his jaw was
craggy. His clothes were rough and his manner grim. He looked at the man
from the water. Then he released the girl and came purposefully toward
him. His hands worked.
“Listen!” said the man from the water, humbly. “She’s got me wrong. She
picked me up from the water just now, drownin’. I’d jumped off the
steamer for Seattle. I ain’t a G-man. I’m--”
* * * * *
Butch Traynor stared at him with little ugly lights in his eyes; the
battle light of the male who is brought to desperation by a woman and
seeks combat as a necessary, explosive alleviation of his state. He
continued to advance. The small waves rippled on the shore. The
fog-wraiths drifted by, damp and clammy and golden-white from the
sunlight above. The girl stood still. Butch Traynor was very near,
crouched a little, his lips twisted in a silent snarl.
“Listen!” stammered the man from the water. “I--bumped off a guy an’
beat it. They caught me up in Seward. A bull was bringin’ me down to
Seattle for trial an’--an’ I jumped off the ship. Tryin’ to make a
getaway. I’d rather die drownin’ than go through with all that. If you
got trouble with the law, like she said--”
Butch Traynor put out his hands and closed them about the other man’s
throat. The knees of the man from the water buckled under him. “Say,
listen!” he panted, choking. “Listen--”
He sagged to the ground as Butch Traynor contemptuously released him.
Butch Traynor went back to the girl.
“Your brave defender,” he said bitterly, “won’t fight. I’m taking you
along. You can walk to the boat if you will. You might want to. But
you’re going!”
The man from the water beat on the ground with his fists, raging
suddenly. Then he got heavily to his feet.
“I’ll kill you,” cried the girl fiercely, “or else myself! You know I
will!”
“You lie,” said Butch Traynor with an elaborate, raging courtesy, “you
used to care for me. Then you got some damned idea in your head--”
“Beast!” panted the girl. “Take your hands off me!”
“Then walk! To the boat!”
There was the sound of a scuffle. The man from the water clutched a
heavy stone. He made whispering, raging noises to himself. He moved very
heavily--exhaustedly--through the mist to the two figures who swayed
together. The girl cried out in a voice filled with hate:
“I tell you--”
The man from the water raised his stone and struck terribly, from
behind. It should have crushed in Butch Traynor’s skull. But an
unexpected movement, in the struggle with the girl, made it partly miss.
It did not brain Butch Traynor. Instead, the stone only scraped his
skull. But it landed with paralyzing force upon his shoulder.
It numbed that whole arm. And the girl, struggling, jerked free her
hand. It darted out of sight and back into view again. Steel flashed. It
struck. Butch Traynor swore. His right arm had been numbed before the
stroke landed.
Then the girl gasped.
* * * * *
There was a half-second of silence. The man from the water half drew
back in panic as Butch Traynor whirled upon him. Desperately he raised
the stone again. Then something like a wildcat sprang upon him. It was
the girl. She swarmed upon the man with the stone, striking and
scratching and crying out incoherently. He gave back dazedly, and
dropped the stone, and would have run away but that he tripped and fell
sprawling.
Butch Traynor pulled her off. There was blood running down his shirt,
and at sight of it the girl cried out again and struggled to be free.
But her panted rage was directed at the man from the water.
“He’d have killed you, Butch!” she gasped fiercely. “He tried to brain
you from behind! He--”
“Yeah,” said Butch Traynor savagely, “while you knifed me from the
front!”
The blood on his shirt spread rapidly. The girl went deathly pale.
“I’ll--I’ll bandage it, Butch. I--thought you’d catch my hand. I--knew
you were strong and quick.”
Butch Traynor’s face was very savagely grim.
“Go get the bandage,” he ordered curtly. “No need bleedin’. An’ no need
of your lyin’, either. Go on!”
She turned. She ran. She came back with white cloth she was tearing into
strips as she ran. The man on the ground watched dumbly. Then a look of
cunning expectation came on his face. It oddly matched the granite-like
expression on the face of Butch Traynor. The girl was panting--half
sobbing.
“I hurried, Butch,” she said desperately. “Is it still bleeding?”
Butch Traynor’s jaws clamped tightly.
“Maybe,” he said deliberately, “maybe I’d better do the bandagin’
myself. You might have some kinda trick in mind. You used to care some
about me, but now--”
“I do!” panted the girl, more desperately still. Her fingers trembled as
she tore at his ripped shirt to bare the wound she herself had made.
“I--I do! Listen, Butch! Granny Holmes told you I was coming over here
today. She told you I’d be by myself! Did--didn’t she?”
He watched her grimly, while she swiftly made a compress and put it in
place with shaking hands.
“I told her to do it,” she panted. “We’d--quarreled. And--I wouldn’t
give in. But--I wanted you to make me give in! Don’t you see? If you
loved me enough you wouldn’t let me lose you! You’d--you’d make me marry
you!”
Butch Traynor regarded her as grimly as before. He was young, and his
face was drawn. He looked at her with no softening of his expression.
“L-listen, Butch!” she cried. “There’s that man there! I--picked him up,
swimming. He told me he was a G-man. But he told you he’s an--an escaped
prisoner. There’ll be a reward for him! You can--get money for taking
him in. I’ll tie him up for you! I’ll run the boat! I’ll do anything--”
“How about marryin’ me?” asked Butch Traynor grimly.
She clung to him, pressing close. And she sobbed.
“Oh, Butch! Yes! Please! Please!”
* * * * *
The fog was thinner. Instead of a horizon of twenty feet, with all
beyond it emptiness, now one could see almost forty feet with clarity,
and distinguish vague shapes at sixty. The golden tint was more
pronounced. The waves were still oily, and the small uncertain swells
were still mere undersurface surgings of the water. Now and again
irregular lanes of clear vision opened in the mist. Some times one might
see, momentarily, for as much as a hundred yards.
The shore, though, remained quite unseen until the power boat was almost
upon it. Then Butch Traynor cut the ignition. The two boats--the
rearmost one towed--went on with diminishing speed until the prow of the
first touched land.
“You get out here,” said Butch Traynor grimly. “I don’t know anything
about you, an’ I don’t want to know. But I’m not havin’ my wife in court
tellin’ how she picked you up swimmin’. Get out!”
The man from the water got up shakily. But he stopped to say in a last
flicker of hope:
“Listen! She said y’were in trouble with the law. An’ if y’ are, why--”
“Hell!” said Butch Traynor. “You can’t believe a crazy woman. She was
crazy. Crazy mad. With me. That’s all.”
The girl said urgently, “He tried to kill you, Butch! You oughtn’t let
him go!”
“So did you try to kill me,” said Butch Traynor curtly. To the man he
added, “Git!”
He shoved off the boat with his one good arm. The man from the water
heard its motor catch. It backed out, with the other, empty boat bumping
clumsily about it. It started off down the coast. The man on shore saw
it move into one of the erratic lanes of clearness in the golden mist.
Sunlight actually struck upon it. The two figures in it were clearly
visible. The girl sat almost humbly before the man, who held the tiller.
Just before they vanished in the lessening mist, she reached over and
stroked his hand hopefully.
The man on shore turned. The mist was thinning. Before it thinned too
much he had to be far away and hidden. He had to stay hidden until the
world believed him drowned. His chances were not excellent, but they
were fair. He began to climb the leaf-littered bank, on the top of which
virgin timber began.
But as he climbed and before he became absorbed again in the business of
being a fugitive, for one fleeting instant he thought of the pair he had
just left. And he spat.
“Dames!” said the murderer disgustedly. “Hell!”
[Transcriber’s note: This story appeared in the August 10, 1939 issue
of Short Stories magazine.]
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