Over the Darkened Landscape (28 page)

The others in the tribe react almost instantaneously, arms up and ready to throw their spears to finish this once and forever, but before they can do so the tooth is suddenly gone and Samuel realizes he can no longer see the cavemen. Instead, the only thing he can see is the large, smelly, hairy rear end of a very large mammoth.

No, scratch that. Several very large mammoths. Lots and lots of very large mammoths.

He jumps backward and would fall if not for tumbling right into the arms of Fanny Alice. The mammoths, every one of them, recognize the smell of the creatures who took away their young one all those millennia ago, and with trumpeting and a cataclysmic stamping of feet launch themselves toward them, bent on retribution. Samuel can’t see them, but he assumes that the entire tribe of cavemen turn and run. By the time the mammoths have disappeared from view, the streets are completely empty.

Samuel looks at Fanny Alice, and he can tell by the look on her face that she feels every bit as bewildered as he does. One, maybe, but an entire herd . . .! A question comes to his lips even as he knows she wonders the same thing: “What do we do now?”

*

Eight Weeks Later

Springtime in the north. Things still green up slower here than they do anywhere civilized, but Samuel wouldn’t have it any other way. The team sent from Edmonton arrived at the same time as the reporter from the Globe, having taken a train from Skagway after discovering that they needed to go through Vancouver. Time was wasted by both parties because of this, but knowledge of geography this far north is not the strong suit of most people who live in more temperate climes.

Of course they were all angry, even furious, when they arrived to discover what had been done to the body of the baby mammoth. The men who had been sent by the museum were especially furious at such a waste, while the reporter had gotten over his initial displeasure when he realized that there was a new and very different story in all this.

But moods changed when Samuel told them all that there was now a herd of woolly mammoths currently living only a few miles out of town, followed for the moment in their circuit by a freshly minted Paleolithic tribe of undetermined origin, some fifty strong. Very quickly more telegrams were sent out, and word came back that scientists and reporters were coming from all over the world, as well as Canadian Government officials who needed to deal with the situation of all these refugees from another time.

As for Samuel, he hopes that, once the caribou come through, the cavemen will abandon their attachment to the mammoths and move on to follow those much more plentiful and easy-to-kill animals. And then there’s their obsession with Samuel: twice now they’ve stalked him through the streets of Dawson, and twice now one of the woolly mammoth aunties has come to his rescue, all of this to the consternation of the other citizens of Dawson.

It’s not the attempts to kill him with spears that he minds so much as it is the smell of the mammoths that lingers on his clothes and in his hair.

Afterword

Whenever I open a single-author collection, one of the first things I look for is if the author has offered up story notes, insights or gems or even simple thoughts on what went on in the creation of the stories contained between the covers. I don’t know if this makes me a rare exception, but I kind of believe that most other authors think the same way I do. We all appreciate a good story, and we love to analyze the mechanics and the soul of the story as we do so, but for the tales that really hit us, we wish to learn more, to delve deeper into the author’s psyche and find out just what he or she was thinking, how such a strange and marvelous idea came to mind, even why the author chose that particular magazine or anthology.

I offer nothing so deep. Oh, sure, I’m about to tell you a few things about what you have read in the previous pages, but if you want interpretations, reasons, themes, then I suggest you look inside yourself. I just write ’em, and when I do I automatically assume that everything I write is a collaboration with you, the reader. Whatever you take from what you read, whatever your perception is, it’s yours and you are welcome to it. It doesn’t matter whether or not I meant anything by the color of those curtains in chapter 17: it does however matter what you think it meant.

And thus our world gets wider and infinitely more interesting.

But in the meantime, on to what I do have to say:

—“Body Solar” was, in addition to a nomination for nonfiction in the same year, the first work I had up for an award. It was the Prix Aurora Award, Canada’s version of the Hugo, given in Winnipeg when they hosted the World Science Fiction Convention. I lost both, the fiction award to Robert J Sawyer. It’s all good, as they say.

—“Canadaland” is, as you may note, heavily topical. I always find it a little difficult to think about something like this, out in the wild years after so many things have either refused to come true or else have changed (because, yes, the Canadian Football league was in the U.S., and the RCMP did indeed sign a deal with Disney). But then I think of how silly some things really have gotten and am thankful my prescience knows limits.

—“Frail Orbits” is one of several stories that came to me in a dream. Even though the only thing I could remember when I woke up was the boxing ring, I somehow knew why it was there and who the people in the room were.

—“Voyage to the Moon” is, I hope, self-explanatory. It’s great fun messing with fairy tales, and I don’t know why I don’t do it more often.

—“Last Call” is deeply personal, and even though some of the realities have changed, it is a point of pride that I have heard nice things from people at NASA. The main character is (sorta) named after a certain hard SF author who had given me input on the story. The original art for this story, a wonderful take on Klimt by Robert Pasternak, hangs on a wall in my house, and is the only piece of that sort that my wife allows up where the rest of the world can see it. I can only hope that the story has the same effect on you the reader that it has had on so many others.

—“The Cats of Bethlem” arose out of an episode of
Antiques Roadshow
on PBS. This is one of those stories where it can be hard to separate historical fact from fiction.

—“More Painful Than the Dreams of Other Boys” is one of two stories in this volume that was written because Claude Lalumière would not leave me alone. It’s nice to have an editor who wants you to write for him and who insists on getting it. If we didn’t live on opposite sides of the continent I fear he would often camp on my doorstep instead.

—“The Day Michael Visited Happy Lake,” originally published under a nom de plume, is an homage to a favorite author from my childhood, and came about when my mother found some of said author’s books at, yes, a church rummage sale, and bought them for me to replace the ones she had so callously thrown away, as mothers are wont to do. Reading the inscription inside one of those books and wondering whatever had happened to that young boy brought me here. And no, I won’t tell: if you’re curious, you get to figure out on your own who the author was. I will note with some glee, however, that Julie Czerneda, who had asked me for a story for
Fantastic Companions
, found herself trying to find my own creations on Google.

—“Clink Clank” is a simple meditation on the sort of thing that used to give me the willies when I was a kid.

—“Northwest Passage” is all true, except for the parts that aren’t. The lost-in-the-past part of the story actually happened to my grandfather and his father, although the names have of course been changed. Grandpa lived to read this story in
Realms of Fantasy
, and the comment that sticks with me after all these years is “We didn’t have no goddamned peaches when I was up north.” But he said that with a smile. This and the remaining tales are from my “Magic Canada” stories, which take actual events and/or people from our past and change things up with fantastical elements. These will grow up to be something more some day, I promise.

—“Cold Ground” is what happens when I don’t read the submission guidelines closely enough. That the editors of an alternate history anthology were willing to take a story that also had magic was a lucky thing for me. The story came about from a chat with Jack Chalker at the Winnipeg Worldcon, when he practically pinned me against the wall to talk about how Canada was willing to name a public building after a man who had once been considered a traitor, and to tell me that he believed the only reason Canada hanged Riel was to prove they could.

—“Over the Darkened Landscape” was great fun to write, and I hope to utilize its central characters in more Canadian mysteries. If Canadian history is not your strong suit, remember, Google is your friend.

—“Ancients of the Earth” was the result of more prodding from Claude, and this one is based on something that might be more apocryphal than real. But that’s okay. It really was too good to pass up.

—
Derryl Murphy, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan July 2012

Acknowledgements

I am greatly indebted to the editors who were willing to take chances on me, be it out of the slush or when they came knocking, for these stories and for others. I’ve already mentioned Claude and Julie, but let me now also single out the gang at
On Spec
, in particular Jena Snyder, Diane Walton, Susan MacGregor, and Barry Hammond. Patrick Swenson here at Fairwood gets an emphatic nod, too, as do all of my author friends who have helped with advice or support over the years: Rob Sawyer, Allen Steele, Frank M. Robinson, Holly Phillips, Peter Watts, Doug Smith, Sandra Kasturi, Candas Jane Dorsey, and too many more to name here. And finally, as is always the case, my wonderful wife JoAnn must be brought to your attention, for her support, advice, and patience.

About the Author

Derryl Murphy is currently toiling in the depths of the Canadian prairies, alongside his wife and boys and (usually) faithful dog. He is the author of the urban fantasy/hard science fiction novel
Napier’s Bones
, a math-as-magic story, and finalist for Best Novel for a Prix Aurora Award. Derryl has also written a whole bunch of short fiction, as well as, with William Shunn, the novella
Cast a Cold Eye
, still available from PS Publishing.

Besides working on his next novel, Derryl uses his copious spare time in pursuit of All Things Soccer, and although he no longer plays, he does ref, and coach, and cheer on his sons, who are both much, much better than he was at their age.