Blind Man's Lantern Read online

you. He's quite a man, our AaronStoltzfoos. That's why we dropped him here."

  "Better him than me," the Engineer said.

  "Precisely," the Captain said. He turned to the Exec. "As soon as we'velifted, ask Colonel Harris to call on me in my cabin, Gene. Our Marineshad better fresh-up their swordsmanship and cavalry tactics if they'reto help our Inad Tuaregs establish that foundry on Qureysh."

  "It sometimes seems you're more Ship's Anthropologist than Captain," theEngineer remarked.

  "I'm an anthro-apologist, Hymie, like Mr. Kipling," the Captain said."_There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays.And--every--single--one--of--them--is--right!_" Bells rang, and the shipsurged. "Aaron and Martha, God keep you," the Captain said.

  * * * * *

  "Whoa!" Aaron shouted. He peered back toward the ship, floating up intograyness, the cavitation of her wake stirring the snow into patternslike fine-veined marble. "_Gott saygen eich_," he said, a prayer for hisdeparting friends.

  His wife shivered. "It's cold enough to freeze the horns off amooley-cow," she said. She glanced about at the snow-drifted littletrees and clutched her black cloak tighter. "I'm feared, Stoltz. There'snaught about us now but snow and black heathen."

  "It's fear that is the heathen," Aaron said. "_By the word of the Lordwere the heavens made; and the host of them by the breath of Hismouth._" He kissed her. "I welcome you to our new homeland, wife," hesaid.

  Behind them Wutzchen--"piglet"--grunted. Martha smiled back at the giantporker, perched amongst the cases and bags and household goods like thevictim of some bawdy chiavari. "I've never heard a pig mutter so," shesaid.

  "If he knew that his business here was to flatter the local lady-pigswith farrow, Wutzchen would hop out and run," Aaron said.

  "_Dummel dich_, Stoltz," Martha said. "I've got to make your supper yet,and we don't have so much as a stove lit in our tent."

  Stoltzfoos slapped the team back into motion. "What we need for ourjourney home are a few of the _altie lieder_," he said, reaching back inthe wagon for his scarred guitar. He strummed and hummed, then begansinging in his clear baritone: "_In da guut alt Suumer-zeit_ ...

  "... _In da guut alt Suumer-zeit_," Martha's voice joined him. As theyjolted along the path through the pine trees, heading towardDatura-village, near which their homestead stood, they sang the otherhomey songs to the music of the old guitar. "_Drawk Mich Zrick zu AltVirginye_," nostalgic for the black-garbed Plain-Folk left at home. ThenAaron's fingers danced a livelier tune on the strings: "_Ich fang 'nneie Fashun aw_," he crowed, and Martha joined in:

  "A new fashion I'll begin," they sang,

  "The hay I'll cut in the winter;

  "When the sun-heat beats, I'll loaf in the shade.

  "And feast on cherry-pie.

  "I'll get us a white, smearkase cow,

  "And a yard full of guinea-hen geese;

  "A red-beet tree as high as the moon,

  "And a patent-leather fence.

  "The chickens I'll keep in the kitchen," they sang; whereupon Marthabroke down laughing.

  "It's a new world, and for now a cold world; but it's God's world, withhome just up ahead," Aaron shouted. He pulled the wagon up next to thearctic tent that was to be their temporary farmhouse, beside the wagonloads of provision he'd brought before. He jumped down and swung Marthato earth. "Light the stove, woman; make your little kitchen bright,while I make our beasts feel welcome."

  The Amishwoman pushed aside the entrance flap of the tent. Enclosed wasa circle some twelve feet wide. The floor was bare earth. Once warmed bythe pump-up "naptha" lantern and the gasoline hotplate, it would becomea bog. Martha went out to the wagon to get a hatchet and set out for thenearby spinny of pines to trim off some twigs. Old Order manner forbiddecorative floor-coverings as improper worldly show; but a springycarpet of pine-twigs could be considered as no more than a wooden floor,keeping two Plain Folk from sinking to their knees in mud.

  The pots were soon boiling atop the two-burner stove, steaming thetent's air with onion-tangy _tzvivvele Supp_ and the savory pork-smellof _Schnitz un Knepp_, a cannibal odor that disturbed not a bitWutzchen, snoring behind the cookstove. Chickens, penned beneath thebed, chuckled in their bedtime caucus. The cow stood cheek-by-jowl withYonnie, warming him with platonic graciousness as they shared the hayAaron had spread before them. Martha stirred her soup. "When the bishopmarried me to you," she told Aaron, "he said naught of my having tosleep with a pig."

  "Ah, but I thought you knew that to be the purpose of Christianmarriage, woman," Aaron said, standing close.

  "It's Wutz I mean," she said. "Truly, I mind not a bit living as in oneof those automobile-wagons, since it's with you, and only for a littlewhile."

  "I'll hire a crew of our neighbors to help with the barn tomorrow,"Aaron said. "That done, you'll have but one pig to sleep with."

  After grace, they sat on cases of tobacco to eat their meal from a tableof feed sacks covered with oilcloth. "The man in the ship's littlekitchen let me make and freeze pies, Stoltz," Martha said. "He said we'dhave a deepfreeze big as all outdoors, without electric, so use it. Eattill it's all, _Maan_; there's more back."

  Yonnie bumped against Aaron's eating-elbow. "No man and his wife haveeaten in such a zoo since Noah and his wife left the ark," Aaron said.He cut a slice of Schnitz-pie and palmed it against the bull's big snoutto be snuffled up. "He likes your cooking," he said.

  "So wash his face," Martha told him.

  * * * * *

  Outside the tent there was a clatter of horse-iron on frozen ground."What the die-hinker is that?" Aaron demanded. He stood and picked upthe naphtha lantern.

  Outside, Aaron saw a tall black stranger, astride a horse as pale as thelittle Murnan moons that lighted him. "_Rankeshi dade!_" the visitorbellowed.

  "May your life be a long one!" Aaron Stoltzfoos repeated in Hausa.Observing that his caller was brandishing a clenched fist, the Amishmanobserved the same ambiguous courtesy. "If you will enter, O WelcomeStranger, my house will be honored."

  "Mother bless thee, Bearded One," the Murnan said. He dismounted,tossing his reins to one of the four retainers who remained onhorseback. He entered the tent after Aaron; and stared about him at theanimals, letting his dark eyes flick across Martha's unveiled face. Atthe Amishman's invitation, the visitor sat himself on a tobacco case,revealing as he crossed his legs elaborately embroidered trousers andboot tops worked with designs that would dazzle a Texan. Martha bustledabout hiding the remains of their meal.

  The Murnan's outer dress was a woolen _riga_, the neckless gown of hisWest-African forefathers, with a blanket draped about his shoulders,exactly as those ancestors had worn one in the season of the cold windcalled harmattan. Aaron introduced himself as Haruna, the Hausa versionof his name; and the guest made himself known as Sarki--Chief--of thevillage of Datura. His given name was Kazunzumi. Wutzchen snuffled inhis sleep. The Sarki glanced at the huge pig and smiled. Aaron relaxed abit. The Islamic interdict on swine had been shed by the Murnans whenthey'd become apostates, just as Colonial Survey had guessed.

  Stoltzfoos' Hausa, learned at the Homestead School at GeorgetownUniversity, proved adequate to its first challenge in the field, thoughhe discovered, with every experimenter in a new language, that his mostuseful phrase was _magana sanoo-sanoo_: "please speak slowly." Aaron letthe Chief commence the desultory conversation that would precede talk ofconsequence. Martha, ignored by the men, sat on the edge of the bed,reading the big German-language Bible. Aaron and Kazunzumi sang on inthe heathen tongue about weather, beasts, and field-crops.

  The Sarki leaned forward to examine Aaron's beard and shaven upper lip,once; and smiled. The Murnan does not wear such. He looked at Marthamore casually now, seeing that the husband was not disgraced by hiswife's naked face; and remarked on the whiteness of her skin in the sametones he'd mentioned Wutzchen's remarkable girth.

  Aaron asked when the snows would cease, when the earth would tha
w. TheSarki told him, and said that the land here was as rich as manure.Gradually the talk worked round to problems involving carpenters, nails,lumber, hinges--and money. Aaron was pleased to discover that thenatives thought nothing of digging a cellar and raising a barn inmidwinter, and that workers could be easily hired.

  Suddenly Sarki Kazunzumi stood and slapped his palms together. The tentflap was shoved open. Bowed servants, who'd shivered outside for over anhour,