Land Beyond the Map

“Now that you know of my existence, the grounds have changed. It might have been before that you were an Englishman. It might have been that I didn’t like your color — anything.” The stranger’s voice held the excruciating quality of emery cloth on a wheel. “But now you have found out my name and quick enough to realize that a stranger speaking to you is me — well, I can only warn you for your own good. You’ll run into a great deal of trouble if you persist in looking for this map. It is not for you. It never was intended for you — or anyone else. Forget about the map, Mr. Crane, and go home!”

“Why are you searching so desperately for this map, McArdle?”

“If I could take my own advice… But it’s no concern of yours.” The stranger in the darkness was disconcerted by Crane’s matter-of-fact manner. His eloquence failed him.

“But it is of concern to me, McArdle. There is only one map. Why shouldn’t we pool resources, try to track it down together?”

McArdle’s bark of explosive sound, there in the rain-filled darkness, was not a laugh and Crane for a moment wondered if the man was sane. But anyone who would go to the lengths these two men were going for a map couldn’t be regarded as sane, could they? Yet — this was no ordinary map. Crane remembered that old car ride, and he thought of Allan Gould. His fists clenched at his sides as he spoke.

“You won’t tell me why you want this map, McArdle.

But it must be obvious to you that I know why. I’m looking for it as well, am I not?”

“A blind man, searching for a corpse in the night. That’s all you are, Crane.”

“A corpse! Is Allan Gould dead, then?”

“Dead, rotted, cremated — how do I know. He went… where he went.” McArdle took a step nearer, making Crane stiffen tensely. His tones changed, almost wheedled. “Just drop the whole thing, Crane. That girl with you will never find her cousin. That I promise you. Once you go in — that is, you’re running foul of a nasty death, Crane, a most unpleasant demise. You think that with the map you will find Gould. But I tell you that map is not for you — it is not for any man of this world! I’m trying to help you, Crane, to warn you. I know how to deal with the map when I find it—”

“If you find it,” Crane said savagely. “I suppose you’ll burn it. That’s all your sort ever have done, throughout history; burned the things they couldn’t understand.”

“But I do understand and you do not. And I cannot tell you anything about this map.”

“Cannot — or will not?”

“Make of that what you will. You have the crazy notion that if you find it you will also be able to find Gould. I tell you this is not so—”

“No?”

“Well, then — you may find Gould or what is left of him. But you will also be destroyed yourself!”

Crane’s impression of McArdle had altered violently during their conversation; the man’s emotions changed like a chameleon’s skin. Now Crane felt the blast of near hysterical anger barely controlled and a screaming frustration pouring up from a tortured mind. “That map will never be yours, Crane — never! It is mine! I — and I alone — will have that map! All you putrid little fools whining for things you cannot grasp, wonders you cannot understand — and interfering with me, getting in my way! But I will root you all out, every one of you… for the map is mine!

The hurricane of tumbled words stilled. McArdle caught himself on a breath, his somber form straightened against the drifting lines of rain.

Crane knew this man would tell him nothing more. Whatever else there was to learn about the map he must find for himself. And the determination to do just that flowed in a strong black tide within him, bolstered by his own anger.

A cruising taxi idled past with a lick of tires; neither man took any notice of it. Wind gusted more strongly, sheeting silver clouds across the ranked spears of rain beneath the lights, wrapping Crane’s raincoat around his legs, flinging stinging drops into his face. He felt the growing chill of the night. McArdle stood, tall and spare, rain glinting from the brim of his hat. Each droplet caught and split the distant lamplight so that, for an odd timeless instant, Crane glimpsed something more than a mere man standing there on the prosaic rain-slicked Belfast pavement.

Then he shook his shoulders; feeling the wetness seeping through, and brought himself back to the present. McArdle was just a man. That he could imagine anything else showed how off balance he was about all this. This damned map — this whole damned affair — was throwing him for a spineless, addle-pated ninny. He opened his clenched fists and moved his fingers slowly, feeling the blood pumping back.

“If you have nothing else to say, McArdle, then goodnight!”

He turned away, tensed again at this moment of arbitrary parting, still ready for anything that might happen.