Hank

“ As they drew on to Tiburon, a white steam yacht passing in the distance sent the music of a band along the breeze. It was playing “Suwanee.” Closer in now, Hank went below. Hank, for all his leathery old face, was far more emotional than George, and his mind, for all his will power, would keep jumping over the barrier of B. C.’s atrocious act to the old days when he had loved B. C. as a man and brother.
Tommie was in the after cabin and invisible, and Hank, alone, sat down at the table and leaned his arms on it, staring at the grains in the wood and listening. ”

“ Hank shook his head. "Jim, I showed you them dials on the dashboard. They control the future-past Time element. And—and they're the gadgets which wasn't completed yet!"
I pawed my hair feverishly.
"But if they weren't connected ... if we're neither in the future nor in the past ... where are we? And who in the world are they?" ”

“ My pal Hank was swinging from another skylight chain a few yards away, while Grimper made it three-on-a-ratch. The government agent was the luckiest of us all. He was out cold, and so he didn't have to listen—as did Cleaver and I—to the gleeful chucklings of the saboteurs. ”

“ Hank said, "Now, Helen, don't git in there yet! It ain't quite finished, an'—"
She ignored him with magnificent aplomb. "I'm glad one of us has good common-sense," she said. "If you're going to be an inventor, someone has to keep an eye on you to make sure your inventions are practical.
"Just as I thought! These cushions aren't at all comfortable. They're not wide enough, either. Get in here, Jim. Beside me—that's right! And you, too, Hank. ”

“ Hank's eyes clouded. "There could be—"
I laughed at him. "For once, pal, you're caught in a middle. Your theory is just as good as Jamieson's, but no better. You can't prove it. So how about a couple rounds of checkers before we turn in?"
Hank temporarily forgot whatever new conjecture had occurred to him. He looked a bit petulant as he aimed a shot of liquid brown at the distant bronze jug.
"Now, looky here, Jim—you don't deny things would be a heap diff'rent if you an' me'd never met, an' I'd stayed home on my turnip farm?" ”

“ I interrupted flatly. "Hank, this is going too far! You admit we've been in the United States—all right, make it the North American continent if you want to!—all along. But we've seen men of a dozen different races, heard a dozen tongues spoken—"
Hank scratched his head.
"Well, now, Jim, I guess you know I'm not what you mought call a scholar. But I done read up a leetle bit about hist'ry. An' it 'pears to me like all them things we seen could o' happened, if things had tooken jest the littlest bit of shift somewheres in the past. ”

“ Hank's face was impassive.
"No, sir," he replied calmly. "I knew a feller down in Montana, a fat little fellow named Sank, that made a pile out of sheer carefulness—he never came in under a pair an' never bet under a straight flush—who got that bug in his sombrero. Paid a man down in New York 5,000 dollars to worry out a choice assortment of ancestors. ”

“ Hank just said, "Why, 'lo, Mr. Grimper! I was hopin' you'd snap out of it purty soon. Die? Why, we ain't agonna die. Not sence them Nazies was too dumb to tie us up."
My heart gave a sudden leap; I had to swallow before I could choke, "Tie us—What do you mean, Hank? We are tied—and to something far above our heads. We can't even reach the bar we're chained to—"
"We don't have to, Jim. They give us a loophole almost within reach. You notice that there skylight chain is a right thin one. I can't get these rope loops off'n my wrists but I think I c'n squeeze the skylight chain through a loop." ”

“ And Hank, a haunted look in his eyes, said, "Sorry, Jim—but that's another o' the drawbacks to this time-travel business. You c'n see things an' hear 'em and smell 'em, but you can't tetch 'em. Because as fur's you're concerned, they ain't, an' as fur's they're concerned, you don't exist!"
Helen MacDowell stared at him. ”

“ That Hank’s got it in him to be a tough character, and it’d be next door to a miracle if he ever changed his ways.”
“Do you think he will, Paul?” demanded Jud, flatly. 206
“Ask me something easy,” laughed the scout-master. “It all depends on Hank himself. If he once took a notion to make a man of himself, I believe he could do it no matter what happened. He’s got the grit, but without the real desire that isn’t going to count for much. Time alone will tell.” ”

“ Shake hands on that, Hank. Don't you forget it, that you'll find plenty of fellows willing to give you a lift, just as quickly as some others want to give you a drag down. It all depends on where the other chap is standing himself. You come and see me to-morrow, some time. I'm Frank Langdon, and my father is the president of the First National Bank."
"This is mighty white of you, fellers," muttered the other, apparently ashamed.
"You can never pay it back to us, Hank, but some time pass it along; hold out a helping hand to some other poor chap in trouble. ”

“ Quickly he related the incident of their meeting Peg, and of his boast.
"They'll never do it, mark me," declared Hank, after he had been put in possession of the main facts. "Thet noise ain't human! I been a-hearin' it for the last forty years, an' I give ye my word it's gittin' wuss right along. The reds believe as how it's the voice of the Great Spirit talkin' to 'em. An' honest now, Frank, thems my sentiments to a dot." ”

“ I snorted. "Where do you get the community spirit? All you did was point the telescope where Hank told you! Oh—he's places, doing things. I'll tell him you want him."
And less than an hour later I bumped into H. Logan MacDowell, himself, in person, and not the captive balloon he looked like, to meet the same query.
"James, my dear lad," puffed the erstwhile Prexy of our former Alma Mammy. "I have been endeavoring to ascertain the whereabouts of our erudite rural companion. If you could enlighten me—"
"If you mean," I interpreted, "where's Hank, I guess he's home." ”

“ Hank said seriously, "Well, reckon as how you might call it the after-world, Jim. In a way. It's the world which is to be. But here comes the feller that can explain everything."
For the door had opened, and in walked the chap whom we had seen thrice in my apartment, the effervescent spirit of electricity, the blue-green mystic, the first mate of the Saturn—Lancelot Biggs! ”

“ He disappeared, and Hank, left alone, stood at the wheel, the warm wind gently lifting his hair and his hawk eyes wandering from the binnacle to the far off rock and from the rock to the sea line.
Ten minutes passed and then George appeared, a cup of coffee in his hand.
245
“Shove her on the deck for a minute,” said Hank, “and have a look with those binoculars. Something funny about that rock, seems to me.” ”

“ Hank said woefully, "There's millions of 'em, mebbe billions. Mebbe trillions; I dunno. I was just 'sperimentin', tryin' to find which course this here machine took—if any—so I'd know—"
Helen's eyes were deep with surmise. She said, "Do you mean, Hank, that any of these different existences might have been the history of the United States if other things had happened?"
"Might have been," agreed Hank, "and is. You gotta get that clear in your minds. These places is just as real to the people in 'em as our world is to us. ”

“ You know history often repeats itself. Once before, just when we seemed to need Hank the worst way, he came riding along as if he had heard us call. And I was wondering whether he might not be somewhere around here right now."
"That would be just prime, if only we could get in touch with him," Bob declared. "And, as your father wouldn't send Hank alone, there'd be one more cowboy along. That would make a party of four. Why, those three rascals would just shrivel, and throw up the sponge, if they saw us break in on 'em. But Frank, how about making the old range call?" ”

“ I told him honestly, "to be here to find out."
"'Pears to me," mused Hank, "like they will. That's green wood, you know. Don't burn as quick as seasoned timber would. Yep, I 'low as how them spies won't do as much damage as they planned on."
"That," I moaned, "will be a great consolation to us when they bury our ashes!"
"Our which?" Hank stared at me curiously. "Oh, you mean—Why, hell, Jim, we ain't dead yet!"
At this point another voice intruded itself into the conversation. The dry, resigned voice of Mr. Grimper. ”

“ Hank said, "Jim—Helen—whut I got to say ain't nice. From the minute we started this trip, I been worryin' about one thing. The other 'me' which we met back there in the room realized it, too, an' he was also worried. You see, like Jim oughta realize atter he couldn't grab aholt o' that likker bottle—we can't eat or drink while we're travelin' in this crate!"
"We can't—!" I realized, suddenly and completely, that he was right. That was one of the things he had tried to make clear. We had no real existence to these other worlds, nor they to us. ”

“ Hank visioned forgiveness in her aroused interest. He sprang to her side, pointed at the various dials and gadgets. "This takes you to the past, so you can watch history being made. Or into the future—"
Helen, being a woman, had no time for nonsense like that. She got right down to fundamentals. "It's not streamlined," she said. "I don't like the color, and the dashboard isn't pretty. Where's the cigarette-lighter? ”

“ The only thing that could break down the analytical perfection of Horse-sense Hank was a gimmick! A gimmick is a polite way of describing a cheap gambling trick.
"The durned crook!" Hank was howling. "He gypped me! I knew the nineteen was due! Just as sure as fate it was due!"
Those were the last intelligible words for quite a while. For at that instant some resourceful employee jerked a switch, plunging the College Clubbe into darkness. People began to scream and struggle and run. I heard the meaty impact of flesh on flesh, then the clatter of ivory tokens on the polished flooring. ”

“ They began to appreciate the fact that they had shipped in San Francisco, not an ordinary sailor man with blue eyes, but a personality absolutely outside the ambit of ordinary experience.
“It’s getting on my spine,” said Hank one day, as he sat in the fusty cabin smoking with George. “The man seems gone dead, no shame or nothing, just as if he’d never seen us before; unless he gets an order, and then he jumps to it.” ”

“ Saturday morning, long before ten, every boy was at our house, that being nearest to the cave. Each one carried a lot of good things to eat, so we should not have to go home for dinner unless we wanted to.
Besides his dinner Hank had with him a little camera, which his folks had given to him on his birthday because he promised not to make any more awful smells with chemicals in the cellar. [27] Hank was always mixing things to see what would happen and he pretty near blew his house up at one time. He is an inventor, too, and says that when he grows up he is going to make a flying machine. ”

“ Even when Hank explained that the same effect would be visible to a man standing in the middle of the floor of a gigantic room while the walls receded, as would be visible to a man shrinking in the middle of a normal-sized room. They didn't get it, but they tried. They took it home to sleep on.
So grew the fame of Horse-sense Hank. And while all this was going on, another thing was happening, too. Hank was seeing Helen MacDowell, practically every night. And—well, if you've ever seen a supercharged carton of honey and dynamite like Helen, you know the inevitable results. ”

“ Hank said, "Now, ca'm down, Jim. Me'n me figgered this all out, an' it's the oney way we can get back to normal. You see, we an' ourselves in the other ship is almost identical. Within five minutes or so of each other we got the same brains, mem'ries an' bodies.
"It's absolutely impossible for us here in this car to ever get back to exactly the sitchyation we left. ”

“ One night I came on them—Hank and Willomene—walkin' among the pines where the road goes down the hill. Yu' should have saw that pair o' lovers. Her big shape was plain and kind o' steadfast in the moon, and alongside of her little black Hank! And there it was. Of course it ain't nothing to be surprised at that a mean and triflin' man tries to seem what he is not when he wants to please a good woman. But why does she get fooled, when it's so plain to other folks that are not givin' it any special thought? All the rest of the men and women at the Mammoth understood Hank. ”

“ After that, he perched up on the little rock pinnacle just behind the station, and stared down the mountain toward Toll-Gate Flat, where she lived. He saw Hank ride into the balsam thicket; and he, too, thought of several things he regretted not having said to Hank. What rotten luck it was that he should be held up here on that pinnacle while Hank Brown could ride at his leisure down into that tiny valley! The government ought to gather up all the Hank Browns in the country and put them up on such places as these, and let decent fellows do the riding around. ”

“ My dad's the right sort, Hank. Serve him decently, and you'll never want a better friend. But at the same time he hates deceit, and will not put up with a sneak. You've got the chance of your life to make good."
"And I'm going to make good, all right, or bust tryin'. I'll never get over the white way you fellers acted with me, never, if I live a hundred years!" said Hank in a broken voice.
Frank took him over to the bank, where Mr. Langdon was favorably impressed with his looks, and engaged him, after he had learned what he knew about the running of a car. ”