A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller [72]
“Oh,” he grunted. “You! I thought you’d be dead by now. What are you doing out here?”
“I brought back your prodigal, Benjamin,” said Dom Paulo. He tugged at a leash and the blue-headed goat trotted up from behind the pony. It bleated and strained at the rope upon seeing the hermit. “And… I thought I’d pay you a visit.”
“The animal is the Poet’s,” the hermit grunted. “He won it fairly in a game of chance-although he cheated miserably. Take it back to him, and let me counsel you against meddling in worldly swindles that don’t concern you. Good day.” He turned toward the arroyo.
“Wait, Benjamin. Take your goat, or I’ll give it to a peasant. I won’t have it wandering around the abbey and bleating into the church.”
“It’s not a goat,” the hermit said crossly. “It’s the beast which your prophet saw, and it was made for a woman to ride. I suggest you curse it and drive it into the desert. You notice, however, that it divideth the hoof and cheweth the cud.” He started away again.
The abbot’s smile faded. “Benjamin, are you really going back up that hill without even a ‘hello’ for an old friend?”
“Hello,” the Old Jew called back, and marched indignantly on. After a few steps he stopped to glance over his shoulder. “You needn’t look so hurt,” he said. “It’s been five years since you’ve troubled to come this way, ‘old friend.’ Hah!”
“So that’s it!” muttered the abbot. He dismounted and hurried after the Old Jew. “Benjamin, Benjamin, I would have come-I have not been free.”
The hermit stopped. “Well, Paulo, since you’re here…”
Suddenly they laughed and embraced.
“It’s good, you old grump,” said the hermit.
“I a grump?”
“Well, I’m getting cranky too, I guess. The last century has been a trying one for me.”
“I hear you’ve been throwing rocks at the novices who come hereabouts for their Lenten fast in the desert. Can this be true?” He eyed the hermit with mock reproof.
“Only pebbles.”
“Miserable old pretzel!”
“Now, now, Paulo. One of them once mistook me for a distant relative of mine-name of Leibowitz. He thought I had been sent to deliver him a message-or some of your other scalawags thought so. I don’t want it to happen again, so I throw pebbles at them sometimes. Hah! I’ll not be mistaken for that kinsman again, for he stopped being any kin of mine.”
The priest looked puzzled. “Mistook you for whom? Saint Leibowitz? Now, Benjamin! You’re going too far.”
Benjamin repeated it in a mocking singsong: “Mistook me for a distant relative of mine-name of Leibowitz, so I throw pebbles at them.”
Dom Paulo looked thoroughly perplexed. “Saint Leibowitz has been dead a dozen centuries. How could-” He broke off and peered warily at the old hermit. “Now, Benjamin, let’s don’t start that tale wagging again. You haven’t lived twelve cent-”
“Nonsense!” interrupted the Old Jew. “I didn’t say it happened twelve centuries ago. It was only six centuries ago. Long after your Saint was dead; that’s why it was so preposterous. Of course, your novices were more devout in those days, and more credulous. I think Francis was that one’s name. Poor fellow. I buried him later. Told them in New Rome where to dig for him. That’s how you got his carcass back.”
The abbot gaped at the old man as they walked through the mesquite toward the water hole, leading the horse and the goat. Francis? he wondered. Francis. That could be the Venerable Francis Gerard of Utah, perhaps?-to whom a pilgrim had once revealed the location of the old shelter in the village, so that story went-but that was before the village was there. And about six centuries ago, yes, and-now this old gaffer was claiming to have been that pilgrim? He sometimes wondered where Benjamin had picked up enough knowledge of the abbey’s history to invent such tales. From the Poet, perhaps.
“That was during my earlier career, of course,” the Old Jew went on, “and perhaps such a mistake was understandable.”
“Earlier career?”
“Wanderer.”
“How do you expect me to believe such nonsense?”
“Hmm-hnnn! The Poet believes me.”
“Undoubtedly!