The Ghost of a Model T and Other Stories (13 page)

He had been away too long.

As he stepped out of the cage, he saw the vial upon the floor and stooped to pick it up. He had sipped from it, he remembered, that day (how long ago?) when he had stepped back into the room after long hours in the cage.

They had materialized it for him and they'd told him he should drink it and he could remember the bitter taste it had left upon his tongue.

Kitty and Eric were standing in the doorway, staring at him, and he looked up from the vial and stared in their direction.

“Alden,” Kitty asked, “what has happened to you?”

He shook his head at her. “It's all right,” he told her. “Nothing's happened. They just aren't there, is all.”

“Something happened,” she said. “You look younger by twenty years or more.”

He let the vial fall from his hand. He lifted his hands in front of him and in the light from overhead he saw that the wrinkles in the skin had disappeared. They were stronger, firmer hands. They were younger hands.

“It's your face,” Kitty said. “It's all filled out. The crow's feet all are gone.”

He rubbed his palm along his jaw and it seemed to him that the bone was less pronounced, that the flesh had grown out to pad it.

“The fever,” he said. “That was it—the fever.”

For he remembered dimly. Not remembered, maybe, for perhaps he had never known. But he was knowing now. That was the way it had always worked. Not as if he'd learned a thing, but as if he'd remembered it. They put a thing into his mind and left it planted there and it unfolded then and crept upon him slowly.

And now he knew.

The cage was not a teacher. It was a device they had used to study man, to learn about his body and his metabolism and all the rest of it.

And then when they had known all that need be known, they had written the prescription and given it to him.

Young man, the robot in the barnyard had said to him. But he had not noticed. Young man, but he had too many other things to think about to notice those two words.

But the robot had been wrong.

For it was not only young.

Not young alone—not young for the sake of being young, but young because there was coursing in his body a strange alien virus, or whatever it might be, that had set his body right, that had tuned it up again, that had given it the power to replace old and aging tissue with new.

Doctors to the universe, he thought, that is what they were. Mechanics sent out to tinker up and renovate and put in shape the protoplasmic machinery that was running old and rusty.

“The fever?” Eric asked him.

“Yes,” said Alden. “And thank God, it's contagious. You both caught it from me.”

He looked closely at them and there was no sign of it as yet, although Eric, it seemed, had begun to change. And Kitty, he thought, when it starts to work on her, how beautiful she'll be! Beautiful because she had never lost a certain part of beauty that still showed through the age.

And all the people here in Willow Bend—they, too, had been exposed, as had the people who were condemned to Limbo. And perhaps the judge as well, the high and mighty face that had loomed so high above him. In a little while the fever and the healthy youthfulness would seep across the world.

“We can't stay here,” said Eric. “The medics will be coming.”

Alden shook his head. “We don't need to run,” he said. “They can't hurt us now.”

For the medic rule was ended. There was now no need of medics, no need of little leagues, no need of health programs.

It would take a while, of course, for the people to realize what had happened to them, but the day would come when they would know for sure and then the medics could be broken down for scrap or used for other work.

He felt stronger than he'd ever felt. Strong enough, if need be, to walk back across the swamp to Limbo.

“We'd not got out of Limbo,” Kitty told him, “if it hadn't been for you. You were just crazy enough to supply the guts we needed.”

“Please remember that,” said Alden, “in a few more days, when you are young again.”

No More Hides and Tallow

This story, which was published in the March 1946 issue of
Lariat Story Magazine
, features as a minor character the only Native American to appear in Cliff's westerns— and it should be noted that this particular “Indian Joe” seems to have more in common with his namesake in “Huckleberry Finn”—a renegade who spent his time hanging out with white criminals—than with most of the stereotypical Indians in some westerns.

More importantly, though, this story reflects Cliff Simak's constant efforts to push the envelopes of the genres he worked in. In this case, he used the western genre to demonstrate the effect of the American Civil War on the frontier economy. For some time after the war, there was virtually no market for the cattle that had run wild on the range while many of the men were away fighting. And the people struggling to make a living from cattle, who had no way to bring them to the northern and eastern markets, just killed the animals in order to ship the hides and tallow from Texas seaports—leaving the rest of the carcasses to rot. It was the idea of driving cattle north to meet up with a railroad that would begin to pump money back into the frontier economy.

—dww

Lieutenant Ned Benton pulled the buckskin to a halt, sat a little straighter in the saddle, as if by sitting thus he might push the horizon back, see a little farther.

For here was a thing that he had hungered for, a thing that he had dreamed about through four years of blood and sweat, fears and hunger, cold and heat. Dreamed it in the dust of Gettysburg and the early morning mists of Mississippi camps, through the eternity of march and counter-march, of seeming victory and defeat that at last was deadly certain. A thing that had been with him always through the years of misery and toil and bitterness he had served with the Army of the South.

For this at last was Benton land…Benton acres stretching far beneath the setting sun of Texas. Benton land and Benton cattle…and no more hides and tallow. For there were wonderful things astir in the new towns to the north, towns with strange names that had sprung up beyond the Missouri's northward bend. Towns that wanted Texas cattle, not for hides and tallow, but for meat. Meat for the hungry east, meat that was worth good money.

He had heard about it before he crossed the Mississippi…about the great herds streaming northward, braving wind and storm and blizzards, crossing rivers, moving with a trail of dust that mounted in the sky like a marching banner. And it was no more than the start…for Texas was full of cattle. Half wild cattle that no one had paid much attention to except to kill for hides and tallow when there was need of money. Not much money…just enough to scrape by on, to maintain a half dignified poverty.

But that was changed now, for the herds were going north. Herds that spelled riches. Riches that would give the old folks the comforts they had always wanted, but had never talked about. Money for the house that he and Jennie had planned when he came home from the war. Money for the horses and the painted fence around the house….

He clucked to the buckskin and the animal moved forward, down the faint trail that ran through the knee high grass running like a moving sea, stirred by the wind across the swales.

Only a little while now, Benton told himself. Only a little while until I ride in on the ranch buildings. He shut his eyes, remembering them, as he had shut his eyes many times before in those long four years…seeing once again the great grey squared timber house beneath the cottonwoods, hearing the excited barking of old Rover, the frightened scuttering of the chickens that his mother kept.

He opened his eyes, saw the horseman coming down the trail…a horseman who had topped the swale while he had been day dreaming of the house and cottonwoods.

Squinting his eyes against the sun, Benton recognized the man. Jake Rollins, who rode for Dan Watson's Anchor brand. And remembered, even as he recognized him, that he did not like Jake Rollins.

Rollins urged his big black horse to one side of the trail and stopped. Benton pulled in the buckskin.

“Howdy, Jake,” he said.

Rollins stared, eyes narrowing.

“You spooked me for a minute, Ned,” said Rollins. “Didn't look for you…”

“The war's over,” Benton told him. “You must have heard.”

“Sure. Sure I heard, all right, but…” He hesitated, then blurted it out. “But we heard that you was dead.”

Benton shook his head. “Close to it a dozen times, but they never did quite get me.”

Rollins laughed, a nasty laugh that dribbled through his teeth. “Them Yanks are damn poor shots.”

It isn't funny, Benton thought. Nothing to make a joke of. Not after a man has seen some of the things I have.

“They aren't poor shots,” Benton told him. “They're plain damn fools for fighting. Hard to lick.”

He hesitated, staring across the miles of waving grass. “In fact, we didn't lick them.”

“Folks will be glad to see you home,” Rollins told him, fidgeting in the saddle.

“I'll be glad to see them, too,” Benton replied soberly.

And he was thinking: I don't like this man. Never liked him for his dirty mouth and the squinted, squeezed look about him. But it's good to see him. Good to see someone from home. Good to hear him talk familiarly about the folks one knows.

Rollins lifted the reins as a signal and the horse started forward.

“I'll be seeing you,” said Rollins.

Benton touched the buckskin with a spur and even as he did the warning hit him straight between the shoulder blades…the little dancing feet that tapped out danger. The signal that he'd known in battle, as if there were something beyond eyes and ears to guard a man and warn him.

Twisting swiftly in the saddle, he was half out of it even before he saw the gun clutched in Rollins' hand and the hard, blank face that had turned to ice and granite beneath Rollins' broad-brimmed hat.

The spur on Benton's left boot raked viciously across the buckskin's flank as he pulled it from the stirrup and the horse reared in fright and anger, hoofs clawing empty air, bit chains rattling as he shook his head.

The gun in Rollins' hand spoke with sudden hate and Benton felt the buckskin jerk under the impact of the bullet. Then his feet were touching ground and he was dancing away to give the horse room to fall while his hands swung for his sixguns.

Rollins' guns hammered again, but his horse was dancing and the slug went wild, hissing ankle high through the waving grass.

For an instant the ice-hard face of the mounted man melted into fear and within that instant Benton's right gun bucked against his wrist.

Rollins' horse leaped in sudden fright and Rollins was a rag doll tied to the saddle, flapping and jerking to the movement of the horse…a wobbling, beaten, spineless rag doll that clawed feebly at the saddle horn while crimson stained his bright blue shirt.

Rollins slumped and slid and the horse went mad. Leaping forward, Benton seized the dragging reins, swung his weight against its head while it fought and shied and kicked at the dragging, bumping thing that clung to the off-side stirrup.

Still hanging tightly to the reins, Benton worked his way around until he could seize the stirrup and free the boot that was wedged within it. The horse calmed down, stood nervously, snorting and suspicious.

Rollins lay sprawled grotesquely in the trampled grass. Benton knew he was dead. Death, he told himself, staring at the body, has a limpness all its own, a certain impersonality about it that is unmistakable.

Slowly, he led Rollins' horse back to the trail. His own horse lay there, dead, shot squarely through the throat where it had caught the bullet when it reared.

Benton stood staring at it.

A hell of a way, he thought, a hell of a way to be welcomed home.

Benton pulled up the big black horse on top of the rise that dipped down to the ranch buildings and sat looking at them, saw that they were old and dingy and very quiet. Once they had seemed large and bright and full of life, but that might have been, he told himself, because then he had not seen anything with which he might compare them. Like the plantations along the Mississippi or the neat, trim farms of the Pennsylvania countryside or the mansions that looked across Virginia rivers.

A thin trickle of smoke came up from the kitchen chimney and that was the only sign of life. No one stirred in the little yard, no one moved about the barn. There was no sound, no movement. Only the lazy smoke against the setting sun.

Benton urged the black horse forward, moved slowly down the hill.

No one came out on the porch to greet him. There was no Rover bounding around a corner to warn him off the place. There was no call from the bunkhouse, no whooping from the barn.

Once Benton tried to yell himself, but the sound dried in his throat and his tongue rebelled and he rode on silently.

One dreary rooster looked up from his scratching as he reached the hitching post, stared at him for a moment with a jaundiced eye that glared from a tilted head, then went back to scratching.

Slowly, Benton climbed the rickety steps that led to the porch, reached for the front door knob, then hesitated. For a moment he stood, unmoving…at last lifted his fist to knock.

The knocking echoed hollowly in the house beyond the door and he knocked again. Slow footsteps came across the floor inside and the door swung open.

A man stood there…an old man, older than Benton had remembered him, older than he had ever thought he'd look

“Pa!” said Benton.

For a long instant the old man stood there in the door, staring at him, as if he might not recognize him. Then one hand came out and clutched Benton's arm, clutched it with a bony, firm and possessive grip.

“Ned!” the old man said. “My boy! My boy!”

He pulled him in across the threshold, shut the door behind them, shutting out the empty yard and silent barn, the scratching rooster and the rickety steps that led up the slumping porch.

Benton reached out an arm across the old man's shoulders, hugged him close for a fleeting moment. How small, he thought, how stringy and how boney…like an old cow pony, all whanghide and guts.

His father's voice was small, just this side of a whisper.

“We heard that you got killed, Ned.”

“Didn't touch me,” Benton told him. “Where's Ma?”

“Your ma is sick, Ned.”

“And Rover? He didn't come to meet me.”

“Rover's dead,” said his father. “Rattler got him. Wasn't so spry no more and he couldn't jump so quick.”

Silently, side by side, walking softly in the darkening house, they made their way to the bedroom door, where the old man stepped aside to let his son go ahead.

Benton halted just inside the door, staring with eyes that suddenly were dim at the white-haired woman propped up on the pillows.

Her voice came to him across the room, small and quavery, but with some of the old sweetness that he remembered.

“Ned! We heard…”

He strode swiftly forward, dropped on his knees beside the bed.

“Yes, I know,” he told her. “But it was wrong. Lots of stories like that and a lot of them are wrong.”

“Safe,” said his mother, as if it were something that defied belief. “Safe and alive and home again. My boy! My darling!”

He held her close while one thin hand reached up and stroked his hair.

“I prayed,” his mother said. “I prayed and prayed and…”

She was sobbing quietly in the coming darkness and her hand kept on stroking his hair and for a moment he recaptured the little baby feeling and the security and warmth and love that lay within it.

A board creaked beneath his father's footsteps and Benton looked up, seeing the room for the first time since he had entered it. Plain and simple almost to severity. Clean poverty that had a breath of home. The lamp with the painted chimney sitting on the battered dresser. The faded print of the sheep grazing beside a stream. The cracked mirror that hung from a nail pounded in the wall.

“I have been sick,” his mother told him, “but now I'm going to get well. You're all the medicine that I need.”

Across the bed his father was nodding vigorously.

“She will, too, son,” he said. “She grieved a lot about you.”

“How is everyone else?” asked Benton. “I'll go out and see them in the morning, but tonight I just want to…”

His father shook his head again. “There ain't no one else, Ned.”

“No one else! But the hands…”

“There ain't no hands.”

Silence came across the room, a chill and brittle silence. In the last rays of sunlight coming through the western window his father suddenly was beaten and defeated, an old man with stooped shoulders, lines upon his face.

“Jingo Charley left this morning,” his father told him. “He was the last. Tried to fire him months ago, but he wouldn't leave. Said things would come out all right. But this morning he just up and left.”

“But no hands,” said Benton. “The ranch…”

“There ain't no ranch.”

Slowly, Benton got to his feet. His mother reached out for one of his hands, held it between the two of hers.

“Don't take on, now,” she said. “We still got the house and a little land.”

“The bank sold us out,” his father said. “We had a little mortgage, your mother sick and all. Bank went broke and they sold us out. Watson bought the place.”

“But he was right good about it all,” his mother said. “Old Dan Watson, he let us keep the house and ten acres of land. Said he couldn't take everything that a neighbor had.”

“Watson didn't have the mortgage?”

His father shook his head. “No, the bank had it. But the bank went broke and had to sell its holdings. Watson bought it from the bank.”

“Then Watson foreclosed?”

“No, the bank foreclosed and sold the land to Watson.”