He must be very rich, said John simply. Im glad. I like very rich people.
The richer a fella is, the better I like him. There was a look of passionate frankness upon his dark face. I visited the Schnlitzer-Murphys last Easter. Vivian Schnlitzer-Murphy had rubies as big as hens eggs, and sapphires that were like globes with lights inside them
I love jewels, agreed Percy enthusiastically. Of course I wouldnt want any one at school to know about it, but Ive got quite a collection myself. I used to collect them instead of stamps.
And diamonds, continued John eagerly. The Schnlit-zer-Murphys had diamonds as big as walnuts
Thats nothing. Percy had leaned forward and dropped his voice to a low whisper. Thats nothing at all. My father has a diamond bigger than the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.[9]
II
The Montana[10] sunset lay between two mountains like a gigantic bruise from which dark arteries spread themselves over a poisoned sky. An immense distance under the sky crouched the village of Fish, minute, dismal, and forgotten. There were twelve men, so it was said, in the village of Fish, twelve somber and inexplicable souls who sucked a lean milk from the almost literally bare rock upon which a mysterious populatory force had begotten them. They had become a race apart, these twelve men of Fish, like some species developed by an early whim of nature, which on second thought had abandoned them to struggle and extermination.
Out of the blue-black bruise in the distance crept a long line of moving lights upon the desolation of the land, and the twelve men of Fish gathered like ghosts at the shanty depot to watch the passing of the seven oclock train, the Transcontinental Express from Chicago. Six times or so a year the Transcontinental Express, through some inconceivable jurisdiction, stopped at the village of Fish, and when this occurred a figure or so would disembark, mount into a buggy that always appeared from out of the dusk, and drive off toward the bruised sunset. The observation of this pointless and preposterous phenomenon had become a sort of cult among the men of Fish. To observe, that was all; there remained in them none of the vital quality of illusion which would make them wonder or speculate, else a religion might have grown up around these mysterious visitations. But the men of Fish were beyond all religion the barest and most savage tenets of even Christianity could gain no foothold on that barren rock so there was no altar, no priest, no sacrifice; only each night at seven the silent concourse by the shanty depot, a congregation who lifted up a prayer of dim, anaemic wonder.
On this June night, the Great Brakeman,[11] whom, had they deified any one, they might well have chosen as their celestial protagonist,[12] had ordained that the seven oclock train should leave its human (or inhuman) deposit at Fish. At two minutes after seven Percy Washington and John T. Unger disembarked, hurried past the spellbound, the agape, the fearsome eyes of the twelve men of Fish, mounted into a buggy which had obviously appeared from nowhere, and drove away.
After half an hour, when the twilight had coagulated into dark, the silent negro who was driving the buggy hailed an opaque body somewhere ahead of them in the gloom. In response to his cry, it turned upon them a luminous disk which regarded them like a malignant eye out of the unfathomable night. As they came closer, John saw that it was the tail-light of an immense automobile, larger and more magnificent than any he had ever seen. Its body was of gleaming metal richer than nickel and lighter than silver, and the hubs of the wheels were studded with iridescent geometric figures of green and yellow John did not dare to guess whether they were glass or jewel.
Two negroes, dressed in glittering livery such as one sees in pictures of royal processions in London, were standing at attention beside the car and as the two young men dismounted from the buggy they were greeted in some language which the guest could not understand, but which seemed to be an extreme form of the Southern negros dialect.
Get in, said Percy to his friend, as their trunks were tossed to the ebony roof of the limousine. Sorry we had to bring you this far in that buggy, but of course it wouldnt do for the people on the train or those Godforsaken fellas in Fish to see this automobile.
Gosh! What a car! This ejaculation was provoked by its interior. John saw that the upholstery consisted of a thousand minute and exquisite tapestries of silk, woven with jewels and embroideries, and set upon a background of cloth of gold. The two armchair seats in which the boys luxuriated were covered with stuff that resembled duvetyn, but seemed woven in numberless colors of the ends of ostrich feathers.
What a car! cried John again in amazement.
This thing? Percy laughed. Why, its just an old junk we use for a station wagon.
By this time they were gliding along through the darkness toward the break between the two mountains.
Well be there in an hour and a half, said Percy, looking at the clock. I may as well tell you its not going to be like anything you ever saw before.
If the car was any indication of what John would see, he was prepared to be astonished indeed. The simple piety prevalent in Hades has the earnest worship of and respect for riches as the first article of its creed had John felt otherwise than radiantly humble before them, his parents would have turned away in horror at the blasphemy.
They had now reached and were entering the break between the two mountains and almost immediately the way became much rougher.
If the moon shone down here, youd see that were in a big gulch, said Percy, trying to peer out of the window. He spoke a few words into the mouthpiece and immediately the footman turned on a search-light and swept the hillsides with an immense beam.
Rocky, you see. An ordinary car would be knocked to pieces in half an hour. In fact, itd take a tank to navigate it unless you knew the way. You notice were going uphill now.
They were obviously ascending, and within a few minutes the car was crossing a high rise, where they caught a glimpse of a pale moon newly risen in the distance. The car stopped suddenly and several figures took shape out of the dark beside it these were negroes also. Again the two young men were saluted in the same dimly recognizable dialect; then the negroes set to work and four immense cables dangling from overhead were attached with hooks to the hubs of the great jeweled wheels. At a resounding Hey-yah! John felt the car being lifted slowly from the ground up and up clear of the tallest rocks on both sides then higher, until he could see a wavy, moonlit valley stretched out before him in sharp contrast to the quagmire of rocks that they had just left. Only on one side was there still rock and then suddenly there was no rock beside them or anywhere around.
It was apparent that they had surmounted some immense knife-blade of stone, projecting perpendicularly into the air. In a moment they were going down again, and finally with a soft bump they were landed upon the smooth earth.
The worst is over, said Percy, squinting out the window. Its only five miles from here, and our own road tapestry brick all the way. This belongs to us. This is where the United States ends, father says.
Are we in Canada?
We are not. Were in the middle of the Montana Rockies.[13] But you are now on the only five square miles of land in the country thats never been surveyed.