Gentle Invaders

by Hans Stefan Santesson

  GENTLE INVADERS

  BELMONT BOOKS—May 1969

  Copyright 1969 by Hans Stefan Santesson. All rights reserved.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  INTRODUCTION

  This anthology should perhaps have been dedicated to the Lutheran minister who, without knowing he did so, suggested the theme. Let me tell you what happened . . .

  Winter before last, on what turned out to be an extremely stormy night, I found myself speaking on Science Fiction at the Swedish Seamen’s Church, then located near Union Square, in New York, During the question period, Pastor Bjorn Sahlberg, who has since then become a good friend of mine, asked this question:

  “Assuming the Aliens do come here, how will we meet them? With guns! With force! Is this the Christian way?”

  He was right of course, but still I answered, “Let us first learn how to live like Christians, and then we can talk about behaving like Christians!”

  I am afraid there was a dead silence for at least half a minute before someone in the back asked a question. A safer question.

  But in the weeks and months that followed I found myself thinking again and again of this exchange, and of still another point he had made, moments earlier, with considerable justice.

  There’s no denying that much of science fiction has, consciously or less consciously, reflected the times in which it was written. Very much aware of our own uniqueness, we have found it hard to believe in even the possibility of nonhumanoid alien intelligences, and if these intelligences were nonhumanoid, the odds were that they had all of the vices which we tend to associate with that which is alien or strange, that which we do not know. The Bug-eyed Monsters of yesteryear mirrored these fears of ours, these fears of that which seemed to menace the status quo, the world which we knew, the world which we had grown up in and felt certain could not be bettered, at least in our time. We were accustomed to journalistic exaggerations, to talk of the “yellow menace,” to the certainty that every Chinatown (in common with Soho in more recent years) was a den of iniquity with sinister Orientals, henchmen all of Dr. Fu Manchu, lurking in shadowed doorways, waiting to entrap the innocent and the unwary. From this, to believing in snake men, crocodile men, ant things, monsters that coveted beautiful blonde cover girls, was an easy step. We find it all too easy to believe the worst of that which seems alien to us, whether it be a matter of our urban society—or of the worlds our children’s children may yet, the Gods willing, know . . .

  I have all my life fought, as an individual, against this social blindness, and it seemed to me to be important to prove, not only to Pastor Sahlberg but to others also, that there are a number of people in this field who, in their writings, have demonstrated their belief that we will one day somehow mature, in spite of these times, in spite of the immediate Tomorrows.

  The present anthology, GENTLE INVADERS, is a group of stories by these authors, describing the reactions, predictable and less predictable, to the eventual coming of the Aliens among us. Tonight’s headlines to the contrary, the apostles of Fear to the contrary, we may yet learn how to live together as one people, whatever our Faiths, whatever our ethnic backgrounds, before this coming . . ..

  The words, “Peace be with you,” are to be found in all languages, and in all religions . . .

  Hans Stefan Santesson

  January 1969

  I have a special feeling for the earlier stories, including this, of this writer whose first novel, THREE SHIPS AND THREE KINGS, has just been published by Doubleday. I hope that her publishers will, in time, want to publish a collection of these stories of hers, dealing with the strangers among us, as gentle and as sensitive as this story.

  SIT BY THE FIRE

  by

  MYRLE BENEDICT

  ’Twasn’t the fust time I’d seen her, the strange wild girl trampin’ over the hills, but ’twas the fust time she’d come close enough so’s I could actual see whut she looked like.

  She didn’t look mean, like the stories folks tole made her out to be. She looked Idnda lost, and awful young, like. She was just a little bitty thing, too.

  Now, I take that back about her lookin’ lost. She didn’t exactly. She looked more like somebody had done gone oS an’ left her, an’ she was jest bound to make do as best she could.

  She didn’t run off when she seen me. She helt her ground an’ stared at me, long an’ hard, like ’twas her as owned the meader an’ not me. She was right spunky, too. Didn’t look like the sight of a ol’ codger like me scairt her none.

  Lookin’ at her up close like that I could see she mighty close ’sembled my middle girl Virgie, her whut died when she wam’t much older than this here girL I belt out my hand an’ I spoke to her. I says, “Lookie here, girl, whut you doin’ on my propitty?” Only I says it real gentle like.

  When she seen me holdin’ my hand out like that, she jumped a few steps back, like she was scairt I was gonna throw somethin’ at her.

  “Now hold on, girl,” I says. “I ain’t gonna hurt ya none. Now whut’s a pritty leetle thing like you a-doin’ out in the open all the time? Ain’t you ’fraid you’ll get hurt, or maybe et up by a mountain-lion or somethin’?”

  For the first time her face kinda softened, like she’d heard an’ understood all I was sayin’ only she didn’t want to let on none.

  “No,” she says, so soft I could scarce hear her. “I ain’t afeared o’ that.”

  Then, like it had just dawned on her she’d said a spoken word, she turned an’ woulda scooted back into the brush if I hadn’t said anythin’.

  “Wait a minute,” I says. “You don’t have to run off. Not from me. Shecks, I’m jest a ol’ man, livin’ up here on the side o’ the mountain, all done. You don’t have to be afeared o’ me.”

  She turned, an’ kinda looked at me, like she didn’t know whether to b’lieve me or not.

  “Come on,” I says. “Whyn’t you an’ me go down to my cabin an’ talk? There’s a mite o’ com pone and I got some ice-cole buttermilk back in th’ spring-house. Won’t hurt you none, by the looks o’ you.”

  She opened her mouth an’ then closed it again.

  “I ain’t tryin’ to force you, girl,” I says. “I’m a-goin’ back, an’ if’n you want to come, come, an’ if’n you want to go without supper, do.”

  I turned around an’ started back down the path to my little cabin. I’m a ol’ man, an’ all my children have gone off an’ married My ol’ woman, she died some years back, an’ I live up here all alone. I tend my field an’ the garden patch, an’ I’m a sight better off than a lot o’ old men whut goes an’ lives off’n their kids. Folks say I’m crotchety, but I ain’t. I got a real nice life up here, an’ I don’t want no meddlin’ busybody from down in the village messin’ it up tryin’ to “help.” That Miz Perkins, in partic’lar. She’s th’ do-goodinist Woman I ever seen. Thinks it’s a cryin’ shame my kids “neglect” their pa like they do. Well, I don’t call it neglectin’. I raised ’em up to stand on their two hind legs an’ look after themselves, an’ I expect them to let me da th’ same thing.

  I got inside my cabin, an’ left th’ door open a little. It was nice an’ cool, after the heat of Indian Summer. I went out to th’ spring-house an’ got th’ pitcher o’ cole buttermilk an’ brung it back to th’ house. I poured out two glasses full, an’ set the pan o’ com pone on th’ table. I didn’t bother none to look an’ see ifn th’ wild girl follered me or not.

  Pretty soon I heard a little rustlin’ sound, like a mouse makes in a comcrib, only a lot softer, an’ then I heard her a-gulpin’ that buttermilk like she was starved. I pushed the pitcher toward her a little, an’ let her be. She’d drank down three glasses o’ buttermilk afore she said anythin’.<
br />
  “That was good,” she says.

  I turned around an’ looked at her. She was a-sittin’ on the edge o’ her chair, like she was a-measurin’ the distance to the door in case she had to run for it. She had a milk moustache on her, where she’d been too greedy with th’ buttermilk, like a kid. She had on a darkish sort of dress an’ it was all dirty an’ tore from th’ brambles. She didn’t have on no shoes, an’ I could tell she was used to wearin’ shoes, ’cause her feet was little an’ white an’ looked soft, even though they was pretty dirty right now. She was kinda pale, an’ had dark hair, all wild an’ tumbled lookin’.

  She saw me lookm’ at her feet an’ drew them up under her, like she was a-shamed.

  “Whut’s your name, chile?” I says. “Whut’r you doin’ out roamin’ the mountain? Ain’t you got no folks?”

  “N-No, I ain’t,” she says. “I ain’t got nobody.”

  “Whut are you so scared about? I ain’t gonna hurt you.”

  “You ain’t for sure?” she asks like a kid.

  “I ain’t for sure. Now, how come you’re actin’ like a rabbit caught in a snare?”

  “I—I don’t like this place.”

  “Well, I don’t blame you none, if’n all you’ve done lately is run away from ever’body, an’ not let any of ’em get in hailin’ distance.”

  “I know. But they was all so big . . . an’ I was scared,”

  “Why ain’t you so scared o’ me?”

  “I dunno. You don’t seem like th’ other folks I’ve seen. You ain’t never yelled at me, nor flang a stone at me. You know when to let a body be.”

  “Who’d want to throw a stone at you?”

  “Oh, one o’ them kids over on th’ yonder side o’ th’ hill.”

  “Well, I ain’t gonna let nobody harm you, neither. Fact is, you c’n stay right here, if’n you’ve a mind to. ’Tain’t nobody here close ’cept me, an’ I’m a ol’ man, an’ I wouldn’t mind havin’ a purty young thing like you to sorta liven up th’ place.”

  She looked at me, suspicious-like. “Why?” she says.

  “Oh, I dunno. Maybe it’s cause you look like Virgie, a little. That’s my middle girl. She died some years back, when she wam’t much older ’n you. B’sides, you need some place to stay, don’t you?”

  “I reckon.”

  “Wull, that’s settled, then. You c’n sleep up in the loft. I’ll fix Virgie’s ol’ bed for you up there, an’ you can have it all for yourself. Whut’s your name, anyway, bein’ as how you’ll be livin’ here?”

  “I don’t rightly have no proper name,” she says real soft. “If’n you don’t care, I’d ’predate it if’n you’d just call me . . . Virgie.”

  So the strange wild girl come to live with me. Once she’d gentled down an’ decided to stay, she was a real joy to have around. She fixed up some of th’ ol’ dresses she’d found in a trunk, an’ I went down to th’ gen’rl store and bought her some bright stuff so’s she could sew some dresses for herself. She fixed up that loft so bright an’ purty, an’ give the walls a fresh coat o’ whitewash, an’ even whitewashed th’ walls in th’ rest o’ th’ cabin. She put up green curtains at th’ winders an’ put a red-an’-white checkered cloth on the table. She even made me change m’ overhauls twicet a week an’ trim m’ hair an’ beard, too, an’ made me wash m’ hands b’fore I eat. She was a hoorbl’ cook, an’ she got better as she went along.

  We give out down at the store that she was a distant relation, with no parents, so she’d come to live with me. There was a few who knew in their hearts that she was th’ wild girl, but they never knew for certain, ’cause we never told.

  But even them as thought they knew, stopped their talk in time an’ come to look on her as my actual kin. She even called me “Uncle Reb.” That’s m’ name, Rebel. M’ folks named me that ’cause I was borned whitest th’ War was goin’ on.

  Warn’t no surprise t’ me, when spring come ’round again that some o’ th’ young whelps down in th’ village decided to come a-courtin’ Virgie.

  Now, Virgie, she’d done got over all her wildness an’ shyness when she was around me, but when them lazy louts started drapin’ themselves over th’ porch rail, it come right back.

  She’d sit there, pleased in a female way with all th’ attention, but scairt, too, o’ them big lumberin’ boys. An’ one evenin’, after ’Kiah Piersall had been there, she come in a-cryin’. “Virgie, what’s that big ox done to you?” I says,

  “Oh, Uncle Reb, he ain’t done nothin’, exactly,” she says. “Only he—he tr-tried to kiss me, an’ he was so hot an’ the flesh around his eyes was so swollen, an’ I was afeared!” She set down in the chair I’d made her an’ huddled up in a heap. “He says he wants t’ marry me, an’ Uncle Reb, I just caintl I caint!”

  “Whut do you mean, you caint? Now it’s a fact that these menfolks hereabouts ain’t whut you’d ’xactly call prizes, but you’re gonna have t’ marry somebody, some o’ these days, Virgie.”

  “Oh, no, I ain’t,” she says, lookin’ up sudden. “I ain’t gonna marry nobody!”

  “Why sure you are, Virgie. I knowed that when I took you in. You caint spend the rest o’ your life lookin’ after a ol’ man. You gotta have a life o’ your own, with a husbin’ to look after you, an’ kids, maybe. I ain’t goima be here always, an’ you just cain’t go through life without nobody. ’Tain’t natural.”

  Her face went real white, an’ I thought she was a-goin’ t’ swoon, but she didn’t. There was two spots o’ red in her cheeks, an’ her voice shook a little. “Uncle Reb, I didn’t know whut I was gettin’ myself into, when I come here. I don’t like it much, but I’m here, an’ there’s not much I c’n do about it now. But I just want t’ be left alone I That’s why I come to live with you. You let me be. I thought you understood maybe, but you don’t neither.”

  “Don’t understand whut?” I says, but she didn’t ’pear to hear me.

  “I c’n always go back an’ roam th’ hills. I c’n go far away, an’ maybe find somebody else who’ll take me in for a while, but I don’t want to. I like it here, an’ I like you, Uncle Reb. Only don’t make me mix with other folks!”

  “You don’t seem to mind goin’ down to th’ store, or gom’ t’ meeting’, or to th’ barndance once in a while.”

  “That kinda mmn’ isn’t too bad, Uncle Reb. It’s th’ springtime mrntf I’m a-talkin’ about—th’ kind o’ spring an’ fall misdn’ that’s in th’ blood,”

  I laughed. “Honey, if’n it’s in your blood, it’s not anythin’ to be afeared of.”

  “But, Uncle Reb, you don’t understand! It ain’t in my blood . . . the folks I come from, they don’t even remember it, ’xcept as it was writ down in books. But you folks, you got it so strong it likes to make a body faint from just bein’ close to it!”

  “Virgie, I don’t understand what you’re sayin’, for a fact.”

  “Uncle Reb, listen to me. I’m not like folks around here. I’m not like anybody you ever met. I—I don’t think it’s quite proper for me t’ mix too close with you folks. All I want is a roof over my head, an’ good food, an’ to be let alone!”

  She meant it, I could tell. “Aw right, Virgie,” I says. “I don’t rightly understand why, but I’ll go ’long with you, if’n that’s whut you want.”

  “It is, Uncle Reb,” she says, an’ she lowered her eyes so’s they caught the light for a minute an’ shone out like two amber stones.

  Springtime come an’ went, an’ when summer had come, th’ young menfolk settled down a little. Virgie took f going t’ th’ barndance once in a while again. But she quit it whenever th’ autumn moon started shinin’ big an’ yeller along th’ ridge o’ th’ hills.

  When th’ fust snow come, she really settled in for th’ winter. Of an evenin’, she’d sit by the fire, all skwoonched up with her eyes shut, for all th’ world like th’ ol’ red cat whut come t’ live with us.

  Virgie hadn’t been with me too long when a
ol’ red mamma-cat come trailin’ by an’ took up with her. I didn’t care if’n Virgie kept it, ’cause it could keep down th’ mice in th’ house, so long as it didn’t bring in too many kittens.

  So anyhow, of an evenin’ them two’d curl up afore th’ fire an’ toast themselves an’ th’ cat’d purr an’ hold its head up for Virgie to pet it. She never give it no name, just called it Cat, but it seemed to know that’s who she meant when she called it.

  I think that’s the time Virgie was happiest, when th’ snow lay deep on th’ ground, an’ there was no call to go outdoors, nor no call for nobody else to, either.

  Come spring again, Virgie started to shed the good, healthy plump she’d built up in th’ winter. Th’ young men started cornin’ back, jest the same as last year, an’ Virgie, she got as snappy as a ol’ turtle.

  “Uncle Reb, it’s gettin’ me, too,” she says one day. “I c’n feel this spring-thing, almost like you-all can.”

  “Oh, hush your mouth,” I says. “I’m gettin’ just a little tired o’ your complainin’ ’cause the boys is after you. There’s more’n one gal down to th’ village whut would give a pretty to be in your shoes, let me tell you.”

  “I don’t want th’ boys after me!” she says, an’ run off to hide.

  I couldn’t help snortin’. She was a silly little thing, not t’ ’predate that she had th’ whole part o’ th’ young men at her heels. I couldn’t see it, m’self. She was too little. Man lives in th’ hills, needs a woman big an’ strong ’cough to help ’im. But she did have a strange sort o’ face, with th’ big eyes an’ little chin, an’ with that cloudy dark hair an’ the pretty way she had o’ talkin’, she didn’t need to say more’n a dozen words b’fore th’ boy she was a-talkin’ to was plumb gone.

  I didn’t pay it too much mind when she didn’t come home to supper. But she was gone all th’ next day, too, an’ didn’t come in ’til ’way after dark. I could tell she’d been cryin’.