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nothing else happened, he edged over to the hole, wondering if he dared stick
his head in and take a look. But then he had a sort of vision of the hole
shutting again with his head in there and all at once his Adam's apple felt too
tight and he swallowed hard.
Then a head stuck out through the hole and Padre Manuel got almost dizzy,
thinking about being the first man on earth to see something alive from
another world. Then he blinked and squared his shoulders and took stock of
what it was that he was seeing for the first time.
It was a head all right, about as big as his, only with the hair tight and fuzzy.
It looked as if it had been shaved into patterns though it could have grown that
way. And there were two eyes that looked like nice round gray eyes until they
blinked, and then Madre de Dios!  the lids slid over from the outside edges
toward the nose and flipped back again like a sliding door. And the nose was a
nose, only with stuff growing in the nostrils that was tight and fuzzy like the
hair. It was hard to see how the thing could breathe through it.
Then the mouth. Padre Manuel felt creepy when he looked at the mouth.
There was no particular reason why, though. It was just a mouth with the
eyeteeth lapped sharply over the bottom lip. He'd seen people like that in his
time, though maybe not quite so long in the tooth.
Padre Manuel smiled at the creature and almost dodged when it smiled
back, because those teeth looked as if they jumped right out at him, white and
shiny.
"Buenos dias," said Padre Manuel.
"Buenos dias," said the creature, like an echo.
"Hello," said Padre Manuel, almost exhausting his English.
"Hello," said the creature, like an echo.
Then the conversation lagged. After a while Padre Manuel said, "Won't you
get out and stay for a while?" He waved his hand and stepped back.
Well, the space man slid his eyelids a couple of times, then the hole got
bigger downwards and he got out and got out and got out.
Padre Manuel backed away pretty fast when all that long longness crawled
out of the hole, but he came back wide-eyed when the space creature began to
push himself together, shorter and shorter and ended up about a head taller
than Padre Manuel and about twice as big around. He was almost man-looking
except that his hands were round pad things with a row of fingers clear around
them that he could put out or pull in when he wanted to. His hide was stretchy
looking and beautifully striped, silver and black. All tight together the way he
was now, it was mostly black with silver flashing when he moved and he had
funny looking knobs hanging along his ribs, but all in all he wasn't anything to
put fear into anyone.
Padre Manuel wished he could talk with the creature, to make him welcome
to this world, but words seemed to make only echoes. He fingered his breviary,
then on impulse, handed it to the creature. The creature turned it over in his
silvery tipped hands. It flared open at one of the well-worn pages and the
creature ran a finger over the print. Then he flipped the book shut. He ran his
finger over the cross on the cover and then he reached over and lifted the heavy
crucifix that swung from Padre Manuel's waist. He traced its shape with his
fingertip and then the cross on the book. He smiled at Padre Manuel and gave
the book back to him.
Padre Manuel was as pleased as if he'd spoken to him. The creature was a
noticing thing anyway. He ran his own hand over the book, feeling with a warm
glow (which he hoped was not too much of pride) that he had the only breviary
in the whole world that had been handled by someone from another world.
The space creature had reached inside the ship and now he handed Padre
Manuel a stack of metallic disks, fastened together near the top. Each disk was
covered with raised marks that tried to speak to Padre Manuel's fingertips like
writing for the blind. And some of the disks had raised pictures of strange
wheels and machinery-looking things.
Padre Manuel found one that looked like the ship. He touched the ship and
then the disk. He smiled at the creature and pushed the plates back together
and returned them to the creature. He was a noticing thing too.
The space creature ran his fingers lightly down Padre Manuel's face and
smiled. Padre Manuel thought with immense gratification, "He likes me!"
The creature turned from Padre Manuel, lifted his face, his nose flaring, and
waddled on short, heavy legs over to a greasewood bush and took a bite, his two
long teeth flashing white in the sun. He chewed leaves, stems and all and
swallowed. He squatted down and kind of sat without bending, and waited.
Padre Manuel sat, too. Then the creature unswallowed. Just opened his
mouth and out came the bite of greasewood, chewed up and wet. Well, he went
from tree to tree and bush to bush and tried the same thing and unswallowed
every mouthful. He even tried a mouthful of Johnson grass, but nothing stayed
down.
By this time, Padre Manuel had figured out that the poor creature must be
hungry. Often on these walks to the pasture, he would take an apple or some
crackers or something else to eat that he could have offered him, but it so
happened that this time he had nothing to offer. He was feeling sorry when the
creature shrugged himself so the knobs on his ribs waggled, and turned back
to the ship, scratching as though the knobs itched him. He crawled back into
the ship.
Padre Manuel went over cautiously, and almost got a look inside, but the
creature's face, teeth and all, pushed out of the hole right at him. Padre
Manuel backed away and the creature climbed out with a big box thing under
his arm. He scoonched himself all up together again and put the box down. He
motioned Padre Manuel to come closer and pointed at one side of the box and
said something that ended questiony. Padre Manuel looked at the box. There
was a hole in the top and some glittery stuff on the side of it just above a big
slot and the glittery stuff was broken. Only a few little pieces were hanging by
reddish wire things.
"What is it for?" he asked, making his voice as questiony as he could.
The creature looked at him and slid his eyelids a couple of times, then he
picked up a branch of greasewood and pushed it in the top of the box. Then he
waggled one hand in the slot and stuck a few of his fingers in his mouth. Padre
Manuel considered for a moment. It must be that the box was some kind of
food-making thing that had broken. That was why the poor creature was acting
so hungry. Que l stima!
á
"I'll get you something to eat, my son," said Padre Manuel. "You wait here."
And he hurried away, cutting across the corner of the alfalfa field in his hurry,
his cassock whispering through the purply blue flowers.
He was afraid someone might start asking questions and he wasn't one to
talk much about what he was doing until it was done, but Sor Concepción and
Sor Esperanza had taken the old buckboard and driven over to Gastelum's to
see if Chenchita would like to take a job at the Dude Ranch during the vacation
that had just begun. She had graduated from the tiny school at the mission
and something had to be found to occupy the time she was all too willing to
devote to the boys. Padre Manuel sighed and laid the note aside. God be
thanked that this offer of a job had come just now. The Gastelums could use
the money and Chenchita would have a chance to see that there was something
more in the world than boys.
Padre Manuel raided the kitchen and filled a box with all kinds of things
and went back out to the pasture.
Well, the creature tried everything. Most of it he un-swallowed almost as [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]