Jack mann, p.18
Lin Carter - Jandar 06, page 18
“ ‘The call of the wild,’ I guess,” Jandar chuckled.
“Yes! Or maybe ‘springtime for Bozo’ says it best,” I laughed. I went towards the place where Bozo stood, and called him. He came waddling to me, growling over his shoulder to the female, who lurked timidly just beyond the brush, watching us. I got down on my knees and embraced him. The great brute sighed and rubbed his wrinkled brow against me, burrowing into my chest, and licked my face.
“Well, then, big boy; well, then! You’ve found a lady othode for yourself, have you? I guess she needs you more than I do, you old Bozo, you! Goodbye, now, old fellow. Be a good boy… ”
I rubbed the place behind his ears and he closed his great eyes in bliss and grumbled deep in his throat. Then his lady-friend whined from the edge of the shrubbery and, reluctantly, he pulled himself out of my arms and went trotting into the woods, but with many a backwards glance. He paused for a long moment on the edge of the jungle. Then the forest swallowed him up.
Behind me the night lit up with golden glory, and I turned away from my last sight of Bozo and said my farewells.
“It is time, Prince Lankar,” said Zastro.
I nodded, and began removing my garments.
The bottom of the jade-lined well was matted with fallen leaves which were crisp and sharp against my bare hide. Above me, the, circular opening was filled with brilliant stars. Soon, when my calls had roused the camp, it was ringed with staring faces which soon broke into delighted grins. The Cambodian native boys had seldom seen a naked white man at the bottom of a well, and I suppose it was an absurd spectacle.
They got me out of the well and Sir Malcolm tossed an old army blanket about my shoulders, wrapping it about me against the chill of the jungle night. And then Noel was there, laughing and weeping at the same time, hugging and kissing me, her cheeks wet against my face.
“About time you got back!” she smiled through happy tears. “I’d begun to think you’d settled down with some Callistan princess! Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said, “and the Callistan princesses are all spoken for already, so you didn’t have to worry. I’m sorry it took me so long to get back home, but I couldn’t manage it any quicker. Honey, I hope you didn’t worry about me too much … ”
Sir Malcolm broke up the circle of grinning natives with a roar, and sent them scurrying about their business. Noel and I went off to our tent, arms about each other’s waist, talking happily.
“We found your rings at the bottom of the well,” she said. “I have them safe. Your clothes, too.”
“So you guessed what happened to me, then?”
“Of course! And if that beam of light had come on again, maybe I would have come after you. I don’t know why you should have all the exciting things happen to you-I’d like an adventure or two, all to myself! You’ve got to tell me everything that happened … ”
“I will,” I said. We entered the tent and I exchanged the old army blanket for the clothing I had left behind me so many days before.
“You certainly look in fine shape,” my wife observed seriously, examining me with thoughtful eyes. “You’ve put on a few pounds; and you’ve even gotten a tan. How did you manage to stand it all that time with no cigarettes?”
“It wasn’t easy,” I laughed. “But when you’re three hundred and ninety million miles away from the nearest cigarette machine, you damn well get accustomed to doing without! Ahh-and here’s something else I missedl” Sir Malcolm’s native cook had thrust open our tent flap to grin his hello and to offer me a steaming tin cup of coffee. It smelled indescribably delicious, the aroma suddenly stimulating my taste buds, filling my mouth with saliva. I took a long swallow of the hot beverage, and it seemed to me that I had never drunk anything more delicious in my life.
My wife watched as I downed the coffee with gusto, relishing every drop. Her head was tilted a little on one side, so that her dark blonde hair fell over one cheek. She smiled fondly.
“The cigarettes are in the duffel bag,” she said, “if you want some.”
I was tempted powerfully; but the urge to smoke had died out many days ago, and I had long since ceased to miss the taste.
“I’ve gone without them for weeks, now, and I’ve gotten used to it. Guess I’ll keep it up for a while; you always wanted me to stop smoking, anyway, remember?”
She marveled at this display of willpower. Then she threw back her head and laughed, long hair tousling on her shoulders.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing … nothing at all! I was just thinking-the way you smoke, it would take something as unprecedented as a surprise trip to the fifth moon of Jupiter, to get you to give ‘em up!”
Our return tickets had been bought and paid for before we had left New York, but we hadn’t made return reservations, not knowing just when we would want to leave. So we hadn’t forfeited the tickets or missed our flight. And when at last we did get home to take up the orderly confusion of our everyday lives, it was to be greeted by several hysterical dogs who had been wondering where we were and why the familiar routine of their lives had been so thoroughly disrupted, and by my sister-in-law who was grateful to be able to turn the care and feeding of the mutts back into our hands again, and by my agent who had been fretting over my prolonged absence while frantically stalling publishers whose contracts were sitting on his desk unsigned, awaiting my signature.
“Some vacation that was,” my wife grumbled one evening, sprawled wearily on the living room couch in front of the tv, after a day of housekeeping. “I’ll never be able to understand how I can work myself to the bone before we go away, getting the house cleaned up so we can leave it-then come back and work myself to the bone getting it cleaned up all over again. Mysterious stuff!”
“I guess so,” I said. “But it was fun, wasn’t it? The mysterious East-exotic Phnom Penh-the Lost City of Arangkor,”
“Sure,” she grinned. “There I was, stuck in the middle of the jungle, eating canned soup and fighting off mosquitos as big as horses, and looking my best in a set of baggy khakis splashed up to here with mud-and there you were, gallivanting around Callisto, fighting Mind Wizards and rescuing people, with a bunch of Callistan princesses giving you the eye!”
“I told you before, there weren’t -any princesses,” I reminded her.
“Maybe! But when you get to talking about the trip, sometimes you get all musty-eyed and tendervoiced
“I guess I do,” I admitted. “I can explain that, though. Remind me to tell you about Bozo, sometime.”
“ ‘Bozo’? Well, that’s more like it. I can’t imagine a princess named Bozo. Is it this mysterious Bozo you miss so badly?”
“Yep.” And I began to tell her the whole story. And when I was finished her suspicions were allayed. After all, even wives can’t very well feel jealous of sixlegged, purple-furred othodes.
A POSTSCRIPT
This book was written over the next few months after we returned to Hollis. The typescript was all finished, handcorrected, and about ready to be handed in to my editor at Dell when the letter arrived with the Phnom Penh postmark. It had appeared in the well and Sir Malcolm had forwarded it along to me.
The letter was written in a familiar hand with a thaptor quill pen in watery ink on dun-colored parchment. It read like this:
Shondakor,
9thxapac, 20thchore, fifth day of third zome. Dear Mr. Carter,
We hope you arrived in Cambodia safely and that Mrs. Carter was not too distraught at your lengthy absence. By now you must be back in New York working on new books.
Your friends here all ask to be remembered to you. That rascal Glypto has been making life miserable for poor old Abziz. Lukor and the others have returned, the missing Mind Wizard is dead, and Ylana and Tomar are back safely-I’ll tell you all about it when I have a chance to write you at length. Taran is a cadet in training with the legions, and is having the time of his life.
Just the other day we were out hunting along the edges of the Kumala, and who should appear but Bozo! He wouldn’t let anybody else near him, but seemed glad to see me. And took my sleeve in his mouth and drew me over to the edge of the woods. Then he growled and before long Mrs. Bozo came out of the brush, still very timid of people.
She was shy, but the pups were anything but! Yes, the pups (there is no other word for them, if you can imagine fat miniature Bozos about eleven inches long, scarcely able to toddle). There are eight of them in all, four little boy-pups and four little girl-pups, and the cutest fat little fellows imaginable!
They came waddling right up to be petted and licked my hands and sniffed at my ankles and in general behaved with complete fearlessness-under the proud eyes of Bozo, who sat with tongue lolling, grinning froggishly all the while, and under the more-than-slightly-nervous eyes of their mother, who doesn’t hold with human beings at all and seemed convinced I would kidnap her babies on the spot. She didn’t relax until a whuff! from their father sent them waddling back to her side.
Just thought you’d like to know how things turned out. So the Bozo mystery is solved, and there’s another story with a happy ending for you.
Very best wishes, JANDAR OF CALLISTO
Page 93
Lankar Of Callisto, Lin Carter - Jandar 06
