More Stories from the Twilight Zone (36 page)

“To my way o' thinking, yer the one who ought to ‘git.' And do so quicker'n a cornered jackrabbit.”

All eyes were drawn to the speaker, an impossibly tall fellow who had quietly slipped out from the backroom. In simple clothes, fists clenched, he obviously served as the establishment's bouncer, on hand to stop confrontations before they erupted. Momentarily, the ill-mannered assailant stood stock-still; big as he was, this newcomer had him beat by an inch. While the bouncer spoke in a soft voice, all understood this was not a man to be trifled with. Still, the amount of brew that the oaf had consumed filled him with false courage. He lunged forward, furious.

“This is a man's world and this is a man's saloon!” he insisted, raising his right arm. Faster than anyone could imagine, the bouncer casually grabbed hold of the oncoming fist, twisting the brute's arm, then swung the fellow about so the bouncer could easily escort him to the doorway. A mild shove and the ill-mannered lout flew out onto the street, angrily shrieking as he stalked off. Arms crossed over his chest, the bouncer waited, making certain the drunk wouldn't try to return. He stopped by the table on his way through the main room, right in front of Anne Semple, nodding humbly.

“Sorry for the slight scuffle,” he apologized. “He won't be botherin' you ag'in.”

With an irresistible smile, the tall man, whom Anne guessed to be about fifty, bowed graciously and left. Once he'd returned to the backroom, Anne eyeballed her colleagues. Even before she could speak, the delighted look in each man's eyes made clear they knew what she was going to say.

“That's him. That's Davy Crockett!”

 

“Citizens of the great state of Tennessee. It has been my privilege, first as a Democrat, then a Whig, to represent your interests in the halls of Congress. Now, you have seen fit to vote me out of office. Well, lemme jes' say: You can all go to hell; I'm goin' to Texas.”

The tall bouncer put down the script, considering the group of
men and one woman seated before him. He stood on the stage of the theater where
Wildfire
was set to premiere in two months' time, having accompanied the producing team when, after lunch, they convinced him to join them for a few minutes. Now, he could not believe what he was hearing.

“So far as I'm concerned,” Thomas, set to direct, shrugged, “he's our man.”

“Precisely what I was looking for,” Anne agreed.

“Now, hold on a dang-burned moment,” the subject of their approval interrupted as all the others buzzed happily. He stepped down, approaching them where they'd gathered in the front row, close to the stage. “You people better think this through. I'm no actor.”

Anne sweetly smiled as she explained what the group had decided that very morning. “But you see, Mr.—”

“Newman. D. C. Newman.”

“You see, Mr. Newman, we don't want an actor. Rather, we've been looking for someone who has the stature to embody David Crockett for an entire generation.”

“Huh! Still ain't certain I'm yer best bet.”

“We are!” the group exclaimed in unison.

“Look at it this way,” Anne coaxed. “Clearly, you come from Tennessee; the accent is so authentic! If not for us, or yourself, please do this for the country.”

“How's performin' in some show supposed to help—”

“There's going to be a war. No sensible person in the United States or Mexico wants it, yet war is coming at us like a loose wagon rolling downhill. As a nation, we must be prepared. Not just militarily, but patriotically. That's why I decided to mount this play; I want to employ the figure of Crockett to reignite pride in being an American.”

Michael agreed. “You say those lines so naturally, it's as if you were born to recite them.”

“In truth,” Thomas added, “it's almost as if you'd written them yourself, the conviction is so complete.”

“I don't see how we can pull it off without you,” Anne concluded. “And, as I said, before we happened to discover you, we were agreed that the show ought to be shut down.”

“A happy coincidence,” George ventured.

“That, or—” The man who'd identified himself as Newman paused, searching for precisely the right word. “Fate?”

“Fate or coincidence.” Anne nodded. “I guess that all depends on how one views the world: chaotic or meaningful.”

“Huh! When you put it that way, guess I can't refuse.”

 

There was no reason to wait for the reviews to pour in; audience reaction told them all on opening night they had a hit on their hands. When Jeremiah Nimrod faced off with a bear (more correctly, a man in a fur suit) and grinned him down to the ground, or outboasted as well as outfought Mike Fink, the burliest of all river men, the full house of men, women, and children broke into spontaneous applause.

One major change had been made. In the original script, Nimrod was to whip a band of Indians. The star, for truly Newman was best considered that as he made no pretenses to being an actor, insisted such stuff be removed. “Crockett was a blood brother t' the Cherokee. He hated every minute he spent in the army,” he blurted to Anne as they conferred in her office. “I don't want to play such scenes.”

She stared at him. “Since when did you become such an expert about Colonel Crockett?”

That caught him off guard. She watched as he stumbled to find the words. “Uh, ever since I agreed to do this part, I been researchin' over at the library. If folks are goin' to think of me as him, I'd best be well-prepared.”

“I see.” Anne nodded, sounding none too convinced. “But don't you agree that most people recall Crockett as a great Indian fighter?”

“He hated that reputation.” Quickly, Newman added, “At least, from what I have read, that's what I gather.”

“All right, then, we'll rewrite the scene so that you will fight a group of outlaws on the trail instead.”

“That'd be fine an' dandy.”

So that's what took the place of an Indian battle when the play debuted in mid-May. As the crowd cheered Nimrod/Crockett/Newman after he'd saved a fair damsel in distress, the onstage embodiment of heroism caught his breath. Out of the corner of his eye, he sized up the audience. Immediately, he noticed a familiar face in row three: Angus McCracken, the lovable crackpot who'd brought him here.

For a moment, Crockett worried that the little fellow, theater lights dancing off glasses perched on his nose, might stand up, shout something, give him away. Not a chance. As they briefly made eye contact, Crockett could tell that McCracken appeared happy for him. Clearly, the scientist understood the positive impact this show could have, particularly after they concluded the Philadelphia run and took the play on the road all over America.

Davy sensed McCracken hoped he'd found the purpose to his being here. But the tall man sensed his unwitting mentor in the reserved seating knew him well enough to grasp how he felt now: This was something, at least. Something good. But would the show be enough to satisfy Davy Crockett's hope of striking the kind of blow for freedom he'd been all ready to offer just before being swept through time and space? No.

However nice this might be, whatever good they might achieve, Crockett had grown to believe if this was all there was, it
wouldn't satisfy him. He'd still spend his life wishing he'd died defending the Alamo. He must find a way to do more.

 

The theater company received a royal welcome when they reached Washington, D.C., three months later. President Polk himself was in attendance on the first evening and clapped harder and longer than anyone else at the end. The company performed
Wildfire
for three full weeks before they headed on to the next city. Rarely was there an empty seat to be found. David Crockett—or Newman, as he billed himself when he played Nimrod—took satisfaction in their impact. As Anne had predicted, a new wave of patriotism swept the land.

But it went beyond that. In each city where the show was performed, parents brought their children to see it. And then bought them souvenir coonskin caps before heading home, as well as little flags the kids waved. This happened none too soon, for U.S. and Mexican troops eyed one another ever more warily across the Rio Grande. Their play was no longer another of many road shows crisscrossing provincial America, but the centerpiece of a “From Sea to Shining Sea” movement, as well as a virtual Davy Crockett craze.

“Mr. Newman!” Anne ecstatically told her star as they met for lunch at the elegant hotel where top members of the company stayed while in D.C. “We've received an invitation to visit the White House. The president and his wife want to meet us in person!” To Anne's surprise, the tall man seated before her did not look any too thrilled.

Whew! That don't sound so good,
Crockett mused.
Met Polk many a time. While that was almost ten years ago, fer him if not fer me, likely he'd recognize me. Seein' me up thar' onstage was one thing, what with the lights an' commotion. But standin' face to face? Ooooh! That never occurred to me . . .

“Sure sounds like an honor,” he replied.

A family just then stopped by the table, the children anxious to meet the person they referred to not as the actor D.C. Newman or even the character Jeremiah Nimrod, but as the spirit of the man they adored. “Hi ya, Davy!” One little tyke hopped right up on his lap and hugged him, causing the big man to smile.

“You're less excited than I thought you'd be,” Anne said after the fans had left, speaking of the invitation.

“No, no. That'd be swell.”

Nonetheless, when the appointment came around, the star could not attend due to illness. Though two fine doctors came by and found nothing wrong, he insisted his attendance might ruin the event for the others and that he'd best stay in bed. But he asked that they please send the president his best regards.

In fact, President Polk looked downtrodden that the man he most wanted to meet did not show. Still, he and Mrs. Polk graciously showed their guests the White House. Polk was particularly proud to display the only known painting of the actual Congressman Crockett completed in his lifetime. In 1824, more than eleven years earlier, Crockett had agreed to pose, not like most politicians in a fine suit, but wearing authentic buckskins, his rifle Old Betsey cradled in one arm, happily waving his hat with the other.

“I thought you'd enjoy seeing this,” Polk told Anne. “Here is the real man, the great man, himself.” While President Polk waited for her reaction, Anne could only gasp. Her face turned white, then red. “Miss Semple, is anything wrong?”

“No, Mr. President,” she coughed. “It is a wonderful likeness. So real I feel I could almost reach out and—”

“I know! Such a shame Mr. Newman isn't standing beside you at this moment. He's convinced the entire country that he
is
Crockett. Wouldn't it have been fascinating to compare him with the real thing?”

 

“You're him. I know that's impossible, yet . . . you are. And please don't tell me I'm crazy.”

“Annie Semple,” the big man standing on the balcony of his suite, overlooking the lights of the capitol, said as he turned, “you're ‘bout the least crazy person I ever met.”

After returning from the White House, Anne had marched directly to the rooms where Newman had lived since their arrival in Washington and rapped on the door. No answer. Anne knocked more fiercely and, from the far distant side of the suite, he had called out: “Come on in, Annie,” as if there was no doubt in his mind who'd arrived.

“How can this be?” Anne asked, staring up into his eyes as she traversed the room. “You clearly aren't a day over fifty. Yet you—he—would be sixty by now.”

“Ain't so easy to explain.”

“Try me.”

For the next two hours, under the cover of darkness, the two strolled the D.C. streets together. David Crockett told Anne precisely what had occurred, starting from the moment Angus employed his time machine to pluck the last Texas fighting man left inside the Alamo out of smoke and darkness, in so doing bringing him almost a decade forward in time.

“If it was anyone but you telling me this, I'd say that you were mad. Or the greatest tall-tale teller this side of . . .” She laughed.

This side of who?”

“This side of Davy Crockett. From what I've garnered in my research, he loved to tell whoppers on the stump.”

“And there are those who've always held that I'm crazy. Andy Jackson for one, when I turned down his offer to run as his vice-presidential candidate.”

“Why in heaven did you do that?”

Crockett grew glum. “ 'Cause I woulda had t' back down on my Indians' rights crusade. I had no intention of—”

“That's what I love about you.” She eyeballed Crockett. “You do realize, David, that I'm in love with you?”

“Oh, come on, now, Annie. I'm at least twenty years older than—”

“Thirty, counting the decade you slipped by. Then again, I've always been attracted to older men.”

Crockett firmly but gently took Anne's hands. “You ain't in love with me. You're in love with an idea.”

“You
are
an idea. The living embodiment of everything that's best about America.”

“Don't go to overpraisin' me. I got m' faults, too.”

“Thank goodness. Otherwise I might think you were God, returned for a Second Coming.”

Crockett howled at that. “Not even close.”

They paused under one of the modern lamplights. “Close enough for me. David, do you believe Mr. McCracken will ever be able to fix that machine of his?”

Crockett thought about that for a moment. “Nah. He was out there in the audience that first night. So he knows how t' locate me. I have no doubt he's been workin' away t' the best of his ability. Had he come up with something, he'd a-been in touch long ago.”