The Man Who Talled Tales: Collected Short Stories of R.A. Lafferty

by R. A. Lafferty

  “Swim it. But he's already crossed it, he can swim anything. You should see him swim in our big river back home.”

  Ah, the simplicity of that twelve-year-old boy of the Australopithecus species!

  We didn't go on the dinosaur hunt the next day either, though we all had our gear at Barnaby's house and were ready to start. There was silence from the dinosaur all that day, but in the evening he was heard from. He broke up the bridge across the Arkansas River at Fort Smith, and ate selected sections of it. If this dino was a myth he had the biggest teeth of any myth ever seen; myths hardly ever bite out whole sections of bridges like that. And, after the snack at the bridge, he covered the twenty-five miles of very rough country from Fort Smith to Sallisaw, Oklahoma in one hour. Then he seemed to fade away into the deep brush or brush-swamp as he did every night. He didn't like to travel in the dark, apparently.

  Nor was he really an early riser. But he was always on the move again long before mid-morning. Now he was close enough that we could go out in the morning and be almost certain of running into him, or the rumor of him. We had our gear at Barnaby's. Hunting gear, that is: but what is really the proper gear for a dinosaur hunt?

  “We'll go down in that direction early in the morning,” Barnaby said. “A thing that big can't stay hidden, and I don't believe he wants to hide. Roy Mega has the gun mounted on a ten ton truck. It isn't really a very big gun, it's just a very powerful gun that fires explosive contact shells. But if only we had some way to flush out the big dino and make him turn to bay, then—”

  “My dog can do it,” Austro said confidently. “And he will be here just about dawn. Then we'll start the hunt with him.”

  “You're sure that he'll be here, Austro?” Drakos joshed the boy.

  “I'm sure of it. Carrock, George, we understand each other. We're in contact all the time.”

  “I have a shaky feeling about this, Austro,” Barnaby said. “You drew a picture of that dog once, when you asked if you could have him come here. There was something funny about that dog, but I forget what it was. Could you draw another picture of it, and of yourself?”

  “Oh sure. I'll do that right now.” And Austro began to draw with his famous skill. He drew himself very well as a short and powerful and action-balanced boy. And he drew the dog at two-thirds his own height, funny-shaped, the hairiest animal ever seen, and grinning a toothy grin out of a triangular head. Ah, it was the same dog that Austro always drew for his Rocky McCrocky comic strip, which he passed out to the kids of the neighborhood every week.

  “Well, the shaky feeling must be coming from something else,” Barnaby said, “and not from that dog there. I've still got a feeling about something, though. But, Austro, your dog there, I just don't believe that he could bring the tyrannosaurus rex to bay, or even make the big animal aware of him. I don't believe that your dog can really fight, Austro.”

  “I bet he can,” Drakos said. “That funny triangular shaped head would give real reinforcement to a crushing bite. He has one muscular wedge of a head. That dog of Austro's could take the leg off a fellow if he were so minded.”

  “No, he's a good dog,” Austro said. “He hardly ever takes legs off guys.”

  We had decided to have a midnight supper at Barnaby's and then sleep over there. In the early morning we would start out on our hunt with or without Austro's famous dog. The dinosaur had been making a pretty straight path in our direction for near five hundred miles. “We have a destiny with him,” Cris Benedetti said. We all felt that way.

  “Well, what is it that we really have a destiny with?” Harry O'Donovan asked. “Is it Illusion, or Time Anomaly, or Hoax, or False Identification, or Dream, or Mechanism, or Special Creation, or Incredible Survival?”

  “Fry up a dozen eggs, Austro, and a few rashers of bacon; and make some of your hot biscuits,” Barnaby said. “Only illusions can be discussed on empty stomachs, but both facts and illusions can be discussed on full stomachs; and we don't know which we deal with here.”

  “Oh yes, I fry them now,” Austro said. “But if we only had here some dog's eggs such as we have at home, then I'd make you all a real egg feast.”

  “Does your own dog lay eggs, Austro?” Barnaby asked.

  “No. Not yet anyhow.”

  “Is your dog a female?”

  “Don't know. It's too hairy to tell.”

  “What if we had an egg of tyrannosaurus rex himself, herself?” Harry O'Donovan asked. “How big would it be, George?”

  “Oh, not in proportion, but still big. Maybe a hundred times the size of an ostrich egg, which is twenty times as big as a hen's egg. But if we had one we could feast on it for a long time.”

  “Is there any way such an egg could be preserved for a very long time?” Harry asked.

  “You mean preserved for a period in excess of sixty million years, Harry?” George asked him. “No, there isn't. It would be easier for a population to be preserved intact in some obscure part of the world than for an egg to be preserved. That also is impossible, of course; but there are degrees of impossibility. It's less impossible than that a solitary egg should be preserved. We'd consult experts on this, but there aren't any.”

  “But what most likely sort of place could have preserved dinos?” Harry insisted.

  “Subtropic or tropic,” George Drakos said. “Plenty of water, lake, river, or swamp. All dinos were wading animals. It's almost certain that they rested or slept with most of their weight supported by water. Tyrant rex has been found with stones in his craw, and they may have aided him in eating some vegetation. But mostly he was a meat-eater. For rex to have survived would require a great amount of meat, which would require a much greater amount of vegetation. It would be a region of lush greenery, possibly a savanna sloping from mountains to river-linked lakes. I don't believe it could have been a heavily forested country. Forests are a delusion: one just hasn't enough bulk of edible plants to support a chain of giant feeders. But it could well be on the edge of mountains, and on the edge of forests, and on the edge of swamps; sharing the resources of all of them in a central valley or slope. The trouble is that such a place couldn't have remained undiscovered on earth. It's the essence of fertile places that they're open places. There couldn't be a hidden Valley of the Dinosaurs for the reason that all rich valleys are open valleys, and dinosaurs are hard to hide.”

  “I know a rich hidden valley,” Austro said, but who pays attention to a twelve-year-old kid?

  “There has to be a Valley of the Dinosaurs,” Cris Benedetti said, “since the least impossible of the explanations requires it.”

  We had eaten eggs and bacon and hot biscuits. And cold musk melons and tomatoes. We had drunk Arkansas wine in honor of Arkansas the Mother of Monsters, and of our coming dinosaur. We had talked talk that isn't recorded here.

  “And it's dawn in four hours, men,” Barnaby said. So we spread sleeping sacks on the floor of one of the big rooms there, and we entered into the soft cocoons.

  “Drakos, is there more than one species of Tyrannosaurus Rex?” Harry O'Donovan asked.

  “There're slightly different species or races of them. The one photographed and sketched in Arkansas seems to be Tyrannosaurus Rex Gunaslopesienus. Good night all.”

  We slept.

  And we woke gently four hours later. We woke to a pleasant sound and to a pleasant motion. The pleasant sound was that of a happy dog barking and a happy kid whooping and laughing. The happy kid was Austro.

  The pleasant motion was that of the house swaying like a boat. It was a well-built house, and it was holding together for quite a bit of swaying.

  Part of the wall of the room we were in fell away, and part of the ceiling fell; so we could see by the early light Austro in the story above us, laughing at a huge head. It was the head of a tyrannosaurus rex, the most vicious of the dinosaurs; and its great neck was wedged into our own room.

  “Look at him! Look at him!” Austro whooped. “He lost all his hair when he swam the ocean, and it's j
ust starting to grow back. Carrock, he is one peeled-looking dog.”

  “Carrock,” whooped the happy rex dog.

  “Austro, is that your dog?” Barnaby asked as he came from the lower bowels of the house. Barnaby seemed to be rubbing something away from the corner of his eye, and he looked sad.

  “Sure it's my dog!” Austro hollered. “I told you he'd be here. Hey, let's start on the hunt! I'll show you that my dog can bring anything to bay.”

  “I was right to have a shaky feeling over this,” Barnaby said, and there was something the matter with his eyes. “Austro, you drew your dog as—”

  “I drew him hairy all over, yes. But the ocean water made his hair all fall out, he says. Too salty. It'll grow back, but he sure is a funny-looking dog now.”

  “And there was never a good reason to suppose that the dinos weren't hairy,” George Drakos said. “I mentioned that the atrichos or hairless aspect of the paintings and photographs was suspicious and unscientific. Now I understand the reason.”

  “I know that.” Barnaby shook the words out. He was taken by some emotion. “But when you drew your dog, Austro, you drew him as about two-thirds your own height. He's—well, he's much larger than that.”

  “Ah, here people draw things by physical size,” Austro explained. “But on the Guna slopes we draw them of a size according to their importance. Me, I'm a boy, so I'm half again as important as a dog. So I drew me half again as big. Come on, let's get the hunt started! These last days I've been communicating to my dog how much fun it will be, and he's crazy to get started. He's not scared of that thing no matter how big it is.”

  “Austro, there isn't going to be any hunt,” Barnaby said in a choked voice.

  “Aw-aw!” said Austro.

  “Aw-aw!” said his hundred-foot-long dog.

  “It's all a case of mistaken identity,” Barnaby said as he wiped something from his face.

  “Ow-wow-wow!” Austro moaned.

  “Ow-wow-wow!” the big dog moaned more powerfully.

  “We can't go hunt the dinosaur because your dog is the dinosaur,” Barnaby said sadly.

  “Ow-wow-wow!” Austro moaned. “No big one to hunt? Carrock!”

  “Ow-wow-wow!” the dino dog moaned. “Carrock!”

  “No, Austro,” Barnaby said. “Your dog's a hundred feet long, and there isn't any bigger animal on earth.”

  “Ow-wow-wow!” Austro began to cry. “We had our hearts set to hunt.”

  “Ow-wow-wow!” The big dog was crying tub-sized dinosaur tears and almost shaking the sturdy house down.

  “Kids, I wish there was a big one,” Barnaby was begging. “I wish there was a really big animal to hunt. Oh, how I've wished it all my life! I thought this would be it, and this is busted. Oh, it's so desolate to grow up and look around and see that there aren't any big ones. It's to be cheated. Dog could have been it to others; but dog is only dog to himself, and to you, and to me.”

  I had never realized how much boy there was left in Barnaby, for real tears were running down his face.

  “Ow-wow-wow!” those three kids wept together.

  And Some in Velvet Gowns

  1.

  To catch on Earth an al-i-en,

  Sift every sand and strain each ooze,

  And find him out in town or fen,

  Unless he isn't wearing shoes.

  —“Alien Identification Handbook Boogie” (third verse)

  Have you noticed how brightly colored everything is lately? That big hearing room downtown hadn't had that much color in it since the cast of Brightskin was arrested and brought in for a denunciatory hearing. And one vivid patch in that glittering velvet color medley was the red-flushed face of the angry Judge Daniel Doomdaily.

  He had six shackled and manacled prisoners in the dock (they were even chained together by iron collars), and they looked like a rowdy and defiant bunch. These six were Delphina Oakley, Bridget Upjones, Evangeline Guillford, Elmer Fairfoot, Rollo Marquette and Caleb Outback. They had been in town for less than ten days, but it seemed as if they had been there forever. They were an advance pilot group for that town, they said plainly.

  And the judge had six attesting citizens there. These seemed both puzzled and entertained by the goings-on, and only a little bit contrite for failing in their plain civil vigilance. These six were Sam and Sara Joplin, Fulgence and Hazel Sorrel, Buck Bigchester and Thelma Brightbrass.

  And the judge had two aides who were supposed to sustain his prosecutions. These were Madras O'Connell, a comely young woman, and Anthony Krebs, who was a plain-looking young man.

  “What is the matter with you people that you couldn't tell what they were?” Judge Doomdaily boomed at the six attesting citizens. “But for the accidental discovery of their program, small thanks to you, they would have completed the pilot phase of their takeover and transference. How could you have been deceived by them? The more you look at them the phonier they get. Anthony Krebs and Madras O'Connell, please begin to phrase up the case against the perfidious aliens.”

  (The six manacled and shackled prisoners in the dock were the aliens.)

  “Madras O'Connell, come to the vesting room at once!” the loudspeaker blared in the voice of Over-Judge Kenneth Richram, or anyhow one of the over-judges. “Oh, damn, Kenneth, I'm in session!” Judge Doomdaily argued with the loudspeaker. “And Madras is a special-knowledge person for this session. Someone else will have to do what you want. I need her here.” And the judge patted Madras with judicial friendliness.

  “Madras O'Connell, come to the vesting room at once,” the loudspeaker overruled by its great volume. “Be quiet, Doomdaily. I outrank you and I wouldn't want it any other way. Get that girl in here.”

  But Madras O'Connell had already disappeared out of the hearing room.

  “Sam Joplin!” Judge Doomdaily snorted. “You should be the most important and most knowledgeable man in your neighborhood, and you allowed yourself to be taken in by these six shoddy fakes who aren't even human. Look at the damnable aliens! They don't even have skin. I don't know what it is that they do have.” “We paint ourselves so you can't see,” said Bridget Upjones, who was an alieness in the dock. “Maybe someday you get all the skin burned off of you and have to use cosmetics.”

  “They haven't skin, they haven't hair, they haven't human shape,” the judge went on. “They haven't human smell or sound. All they have is gaudy clothes to cover their abomination. Why were you fooled into accepting these dangerous deceivers for human?”

  “I don't know,” Sam Joplin said. “They look like humans until you really look at them. And they're such nice folks!”

  “Nice folks!” Doomdaily trumpeted. “Do the corruptions and destructions of the human elements of twelve cities in our part of the state look as if they were nice folks? It is only by accident that we learned they had taken over in these places. Madras, where is that report? Madras! Oh, she was called to the vesting room. To the vesting room? I don't even know what a vesting room is, but all at once I'm sure that we don't have one here. Simple citizens, cast your eyes on these six aliens! They are an eroding and occupying disease.”

  “Only five of us aliens now,” said Elmer Fairfoot, who was one of the damnable aliens in the dock.

  “Five of you?” Judge Doomdaily shrieked. “One, two, three, four, five, six. I can count. There are six of you.”

  But the unnumbered aliens laughed.

  “No, judge-man,” said Rollo Marquette, who was another of the perfidious aliens. “There are only five of us here now. We have ourselves painted so it looks like there are six of us.”

  Madras O'Connell came down from the mysterious vesting room. “You look different, Madras,” Judge Doomdaily said, and he patted her with judicial restraint.

  “I'm supposed to look just about the same, if you don't look too close,” Madras said.

  “Look at them! Look at them!” Doomdaily bellowed as he turned his attention back to the aliens. All right, look at them. But the eye was caught
by very many things before it really got to the aliens themselves. It was caught by their extravagant clothing. Well, there was a lot of bright clothing in those days, but not of such scorchy and flamboyant colors as the aliens wore. These were new and compensating and fulfilling colors. If one tried to see the clothing apart from the aliens who were in it, the colors were almost out of control. It was the aliens who tamed them by wearing them.

  But all the aliens were dressed in this multicolored bright velvet, the men in doublets of old renaissance style, the ladies in gowns from the gownier days. These stranger folks were almost hypnotic in their getups, and the combinations of their bright garb and their dull selves did total out to approximate human shape and color.

  But a closer look (“Oh, why do we never take that closer look till after the barn door is stolen!” Judge Doomdaily lamented) showed that the garments by themselves were impossibly unhuman, and that the persons of the aliens were even more unhuman in an opposite direction. Then why did these people, in combination with their contrived clothing and clinging ambients, look completely human? Well, they looked completely human until they were dissected by the analytical eye.

  “Well, we have you in the dock now, and in chains,” Doomdaily gloated. “In chains? I never ordered any chains. We didn't have any chains. Where did they come from? We don't use chains anymore.

  “And you, you reprehensible aliens, you would have corrupted and occupied the citizens of Center City as you have occupied those of Pondereek and Blackwell and Newkirk and Fairfax and Pawnee and Perry and Billings and Lucien and Redrock and Gray Horse and Pawhuska and Ponca City itself? Did you believe that our law enforcement was equally slack here? Oh, what has happened to my fine questioning mind? I still see things that cannot be, and I almost accept them. Where did these chains, manacles, shackles, iron collars, come from? How did they get into my hearing room?”