Brown John's Body Read online

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  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy January 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  Brown John's Body

  _by_

  _Winston Marks_

  Erd Neff wanted as little to do with his fellow men as possible. So he lived alone in his big cash-vault. Alone, except for John....

  * * * * *

  Erd Neff dropped a thin bundle of currency into the $100 bill drawerof the flat-top desk and kicked the drawer shut with a dusty boot.

  He flicked the drip from his hooked nose, which was chronicallyirritated by the wheat dust of the warehouse, then he wiped hisfingers down the leg of his soiled denims. Across the 12 X 12,windowless room John stirred awake from the noise and began nosing inthe debris of his filthy cage.

  "Time for supper, John?" Neff tugged at the twine at his belt andexamined his $3 watch. He pinched a dozen grains of wheat from atwo-pound coffee can and let them sift through the wires of the cage.John pounced on the grain hungrily.

  "Wait a minute! What do you say, dammit?" Neff's hand reached for themarshmallow-toasting fork that hung from a hook on the wall. Hetouched the points, filed needle sharp. "What do you say?" herepeated, twanging the tines like a tuning fork.

  John skittered to the far corner, tearing new holes in the oldnewspaper with frantic claws. Cowering against the wires he spathalf-chewed flecks of wheat trying to say the magic words that wouldspare him from the fork. "Tinkoo! Tinkoo!" he squeaked, straining tomake the two syllables distinct.

  Neff hung up the fork, and John turned to lick at the old scabsclotted from earlier jabs, taking sullen inventory to be sure therewere no new crimson leaks in his louse-infested hide. Until two monthsago, he had been just one more gregarious specimen of MammaliaRodentia Simplicidentata Myomorphia Muridae decumanus. Now he hadanother name. Like each of his predecessors in the cage, he was alarge, brown rat called John--after Erd Neff's despised and deceasedfather. Neff named all his rats John.

  "Well, don't get fat."

  John finished the grain, pawed the air and squeaked, "Mur!"

  "More, hey? You talk fine when you're hungry."

  "Peef, mur, mur!" John begged. He did well with his vowels, but "I"and "s" sounds were beyond him. He said "f" for "s". "L's" he ignoredentirely.

  Neff gave him one more wheat head. "Okay, _get_ fat!"

  He turned to the door, lifted the inside, mechanical latch, shovedwith his foot and snatched his revolver from his hip-holster. Thevault door opened ponderously revealing an empty warehouse. Neffpeeked through the crack between the hinges to clear the areaconcealed by the door itself.

  One hoodlum hopeful had hidden there. Spotting him through the crack,Neff had simply beefed into the foot-thick slab of fireproof steel.Inertial plus surprise had disposed of that one. Neff hadn't even hadto shoot.

  * * * * *

  Tonight there was no one. Funny. The wheat country was getting tame,or else the tin-horns had learned their lesson. It was no secret thatErd Neff never visited the local bank, yet it had been more than sixmonths since anyone tried to hold him up.

  The local bank hated him plenty. He was costing them. His five loanoffices in the rich wheat county skimmed the cream of the mortgageloan business. Of course, nowadays most people paid off their loans,and the low interest rates he charged to lure the business barely paidexpenses. Yet, he still picked up an occasional foreclosure. Farmersstill got drunk, divorced, gambled, broke legs or committed suicideonce in awhile, and Neff's loan documents were ruthless aboutextensions of time.

  These foreclosed acreages he traded for grain elevators and warehouseswhen crops were small and operators were desperate. Then came thebumper years during and after World War II. Wheat on the ground and noplace to store it but in Erd Neff's sheds. It wasn't cheap to storewith Neff, and he had a virtual monopoly in Ulma County.

  Neff swung the great door back into place with its _whoosh--thunk_that sealed in air, sound and nearly a hundred thousand dollars incurrency. He levered the bolts into place and spun the expensivecombination lock.

  The vault, tucked away in the front, left-hand corner of the old framewarehouse expressed Neff's distrust and contempt for mankind. Concreteand steel. Bed, shower, toilet and desk. In this walk-in cash box hewas fireproof, bomb-proof, theft-proof and, most important of all,people-proof. There he consorted unmolested with the one mammal onearth he found interesting--John, the brown rat.

  He slid the broad warehouse door closed behind him with a cacophony ofdry screeches and padlocked it. The dusty street was deserted exceptfor a black sedan which two-wheeled the corner a block away and spedtoward him. Neff dropped his pistol back in its holster. "Now, whatthe hell--?"

  He waited on the splintery platform, a huge man, ugly of face,shortlegged and long-bodied with a belly swollen from regularovereating. His shaved head swivelled slowly as the police car leanedinto a skid-stop.

  Officer Collin Burns got out and stared up at the motionless statue insweat-dust stained denims. Burns was half Neff's 56 years, tall andthin. He wore gray, a silver star and a big black hat. He said, "I'lltake your gun, Erd."

  "Now what? I got a permit."

  "Not any more. It's revoked."

  "For why?"

  "There were witnesses this afternoon."

  "Witnesses? What in hell are you--oh, no! Not that damned dog?"

  "The puppy belonged to a little girl. You can't claim self-defensethis time."

  "He was coming down here chasing the cats away every day."

  "So you shot him, like you did Greeley's collie."

  "Cats count for more. You know well as I do, you can't control therats around a warehouse without cats."

  "You've shot five men, too, Erd. Three of them are dead."

  "I was cleared, you know damned well! Self-defense."

  "You're too handy with that pistol. Anyway, I didn't file thiscomplaint. It was the child's mother, and she made it stick with thechief. Give me the gun, Erd."

  "You got a warrant for my arrest?"

  "No, but I will have in an hour if you insist."

  "I got a perfect right to protect my property."

  "Not with a gun. Not any more."

  "I just get these punks convinced, and now you want to turn loose onme again. Who put you up to this Collin?"

  "You did. When you shot that pup. I'm not here to debate it. You'rebreaking the law from this minute on if you don't hand over the gun."

  "Dammit, Collin, you know how much money I got in there? You know howmuch I pack around on me sometimes?"

  "That's your business. You can use the bank and bondedmessengers--they get along with dogs."

  "Telling me how to run my business?"

  "I'm telling you to give me that gun. You'll get the same policeprotection as any other citizen."

  Neff sneered openly. "I'd a been dead thirty years ago depending oncops."

  "I don't doubt that a minute. You're easy to hate, Erd. Are you goingto give me that gun?"

  "No."

  "You like things the hard way, don't you?" Burns got back in the squadcar and drove off. Neff spat a crater in the wheat-littered dust andgot into his own car.

  * * * * *

  Two minutes later he turned up Main Street and stopped before cityhall. Inside the tiny police station he dropped his pistol on thecounter. Bud Ackenbush looke
d up from his desk. "You could have savedCollin some trouble."

  Neff stalked out without a word and crossed the street to the PalaceCafe. He ordered a double-thick steak, fried potatoes and pie. Heliked the way the waitresses scrambled for the chance to wait on him.Women didn't like him. He was ugly and smelled of sweat, and on thestreet women looked the other way when they met him. All but thewaitresses at the Palace. When he came in they showed their teeth andtongues and wiggled their hips. He was a 50-cent tipper.

  The important thing was it got him his steak, really double thick anddouble quick. People could be real efficient. Like brown John. Prod'em where they live and they'll do anything. Even talk to you.

  "You look kinda naked tonight, Erd," Gloria kidded.

  Neff wiped steak juice from his chin and stared at her breasts. Itused to excite him, but now it was just habit. It was better thanlooking at red-smeared lips that smiled and eyes that didn't, eyesthat said, "Don't forget the tip, you filthy bastard!"

  Funny. Hang a gun on any other citizen in town and people would stare.Take the gun off of Erd Neff and people make cracks.

  He did feel naked.

  "I didn't order this damned succotash!"

  "It's free with the steak dinner, Erd."

  Go ahead, pinch my leg like the harvesting crews do. I'm free with thedinner, too. Like the ketchup. Like the mustard and the salt andpepper and the steak sauce and the sugar and the extra butter if youask for it, just don't forget the tip.

  Clarence Hogan, the fry-cook, came around the counter and leaned onthe booth table beside Gloria. "You don't like succotash? How aboutsome nice peas, Erd?"

  Clarence was Gloria's husband.

  Pimp!

  "Put some ice-cream on my pie," Neff said. He looked up at Clarence."No, I don't want any goddamned peas!"

  They brought his pie and left him alone. He finished it and felt inhis pocket for the tip. He changed his mind. To hell with Gloria andher fat leg! The steak was tough.

  He paid the check and went out. The sky was pink yet. Later in theweek the sunsets would be blood-red, as the great combines increasedin number and cruised the rippling ocean of wheat, leaving bristlywakes and a sky-clogging spray of dust.

  Neff's busiest season. Damn that dog! Damn Collin Burns!

  His hand brushed his leg where the leather holster should be. Damnedlaws that men made. Laws that acquitted him of homicide and thensnatched away his only weapon of self-defense because he shot ayapping dog.

  As he got in his car Collin Burns came out of the station. He tossedNeff's gun through the open window onto the seat. "Here's yourproperty. The Marshal came in, and he changed everybody's mind. It'sgoing to cost you a hundred dollars and a new pup for the little girl,probably. Here's the subpoena. Tuesday at ten."

  "I don't get it."

  "The Marshal said to let you fight your own battles."

  * * * * *

  Neff started the car and let the clutch out. The Marshal knew his wayaround. The transient harvesting crews were a wild bunch. If word gotout that Neff was unarmed, packing thousands of dollars the length ofthe county, the enforcement people would have a lot of extra work ontheir hands.

  He parked behind the warehouse, next to the railroad tracks.

  He came around front, unlocked the big door, pulled it shut behind himand bolted it. The warehouse was jet black now, but he knew every inchof the place. He could fire his pistol almost as accurately at a soundas at a visible target.

  He practiced on rats.

  Holding a pocket flash, he worked the combination. As the finaltumbler fell silently, a faint, raspy screech came to his ears, like aboard tearing its rusty nails loose under the persuasion of a wreckingbar. He listened a minute, then he levered the bolts back, steppedinto the vault-room, closed the door and shot the mechanical bolts.

  Sure. Someone was out there, but they'd get damned tired beforemorning. He flicked on the light and touched the other wall switchbeside it. The powerful blower and sucker fans cleared out the mustyair and rat-stink.

  John rustled in the cage, blinking at the sudden light. "Hi, Neff!Meat! Meat! Meat!"

  Smart little devil! Neff sometimes brought him a scrap from hisdinner, but he hadn't thought to tonight. He sucked at his teeth andpulled out a tiny string of steak. "Here. Bite my finger and I'll pokeboth your eyes out."

  John picked the thread of gristle from Neff's finger with hisfore-paws and devoured it, trembling with pleasure. Neff lifted thecage. "Okay, now let's have a few tricks."

  At once John made for the can of wheat. "Get outta there!" Neffscooped him up and dropped him on the desk, snapping his tail with aforefinger. John whirled, laid his ears back and opened his mouth. Atbay, the brown rat, Neff knew, is the most ferocious rodent of the2000 species, but Neff held his hand out daring John to bite.

  Neff knew all about rats. More than anybody in the world knew aboutrats. When you live among them for three decades you find out abouttheir cunning wariness, fecundity, secretiveness, boldness, omnivorousand voracious appetites. Fools reviled them as predators andscavengers. Neff appreciated them for what they really are: The mostadaptable mammal on earth.

  John was smart but no smarter than the rest. Neff had proved this byteaching every rat he captured alive to talk.

  Impossible they had told him. Even parrots and parakeets only imitatesounds in their squawking--yes, and pet crows. Animals don't havethinking brains, they said. They react, trial and error, stimulus andresponse, but they don't _think_.

  Neff didn't know about the others, but he knew about rats.

  Keep them hungry and lonely for a mate. Hurt them. Torture them. Tohell with this reward business. Rats are like men. Mentally lazy.They'll go for bait, sure, but they'll go faster to escape pain--athousand times faster.

  And rats have lived with man from the first. They have a feeling forlanguage like the human brat. Between partitions, inches from a man'shead when he lies in bed talking to his wife, under a man's feet whilehe's eating, over his head in the warehouse rafters while he'sworking. Always, just inches or feet away from man, running throughsewers, hiding in woodpiles, freight-cars, ships, barns,slaughter-house, skulking down black alleys, listening, hiding,stealing, always listening.

  Yes, rats know about man, but rats had never known a man like ErdNeff, a man who hated all mankind. A man who chose a rat for acompanion in preference to one of his own kind. Rats named Johnlearned about Neff. They learned that his tones and inflections hadspecific meaning. They learned very fast under the stabbing prod ofthe marshmallow fork. With just enough food to keep them alive, theirblind ferocity changed into painful attention. They learned to squeakand squawk and form the sounds into a pattern with their motiletongues. In weeks and months, they learned what the human brat learnedin years.

  "Stand up like a goddamned man!"

  * * * * *

  John stood up, his tail the third point of the support.

  "Say the alphabet."

  "Eh--bih--fih--dih--ih--eff--jih--etch--"

  Neff lit a cigar and watched the smoke float away from the ceilingblower and vanish into the overhead vent in the far corner. He bobbedone foot in time to the squeaky rhythm of the recitation. He took noexception to John's failure with "I," "s", and "z". The other Johnshad been unable to handle them, too.

  "Hungrih, Neff. Hungrih!"

  The big man picked out three grains of wheat. He noticed the can wasalmost empty. One by one he handed the kernels to his pet, waiting forJohn's "Tinkoo!" in between.

  "Mur! Mur!"

  "Lazy tongue! It's _more_, not mur!"

  John dropped to all fours and retreated. Usually Neff slapped him inthe belly when he used that tone. But Neff was bemused tonight. Hekept listening for sounds, sounds that he knew could never penetratethe thick walls.

  They were out there, he was sure. Another damned fool or two, flashinga light around, trying to figure out something. Neff remembered onepair who had even tr
ied nitroglycerin. He saw the burns on the outsideof the door the next morning.

  Amateurs! Nobody knew for sure just how much money Neff kept in theold desk, and big-time pros wouldn't tackle a job like this without apretty fair notion of the loot. For all they knew, maybe he mailed itto an out-of-town bank.

  "Okay, fetch the pencil."

  John jumped from the desk and moved toward the open door of theshower-stall where Neff had thrown the pencil stub. He paused by thewheat can, then scurried on to get the pencil. He climbed Neff's legand dropped the pencil into the open palm.

  "Smart punks up at State College. So you can't teach a rat anythingbut mazes and how to go nuts from electric shocks, eh? Wouldn't theybe surprised to meet you, John?"

  "Hungrih!"

  "You're always hungry!"

  "Meat! Meat!"

  "Yeah. You can sound your "e's" real good when you say, 'meat.' Someday I'll cut off your tail and feed it to you." He laughed, grabbedJohn by the coarse hair of his back and slipped him back under thecage.

  Then he undressed down to his underwear, turned out the light and layon the narrow iron bed. John rustled in his cage for a minute, thenthere was only the faint hum of the blower and sucker motors in theventilating system. The incoming and outgoing air was baffled andtrapped to kill sounds, and spring-loaded sliding doors poised to jamshut and seal off the room if anyone tampered with the exteriorgrilles in the