Fathoms (Collected Writings)
Page 24
Millard Dee Grubbs had never, in all his years, looked like a man eaten by nothing but hate. Now he sat wedged between broken shelving and the floor. Behind him, now truly yelling, was a toddler, and before him a badly injured woman. She groaned and fought. I thought her brave but stupid. This particular woman had caused most of the hard talk about Sally. She had even listened to Millard Dee.
“Kidnap,” Pete said. “I have to aid this man.” He pulled a cigarette lighter from his pocket, together with a small scalpel. Then he turned the mother on her side. She spat white foam, sure sign of torn lung. “Your child is okay,” he told her. To me he said, “Keep her in that position. We can’t have the lungs filling up.” Then he turned to Millard Dee.
“I have no time for you,” Pete said. “Yet I can’t set you free. Now this is gonna hurt a little.” Swiftly, before I could understand what was happening, he sterilized the scalpel and sliced Millard Dee’s tongue. “You won’t sound much different,” he told Millard. “It’ll be dark where it’s always been dark.” To me, he said, “Go get us some help.”
The skeleton of Stinky Lou was still aflame but under control. When I yelled for aid, I got it. Men who had surely raided my store rushed back to my store. They seemed confused, like they had never seen a place torn up, and especially this friendly place.
The woman lived. The child was unharmed, but frightened. Millard Dee was being attended to by Pete. There was no singing of hymns to warrior gods. Quite a stir, and in the middle of that stir I realized the Hand was nowhere to be seen.
“‘The moving finger having writ moves on.’” I would have expected something Biblical from Millard Dee, but it was Pete who spoke. “’Taint Bible. Writ by a sharp Arab.”
We awoke a confused community with more than enough shame to go around. The fleet moved slowly, if at all. Millard Dee left town looking for help and ended up in a mental ward. Nobody thought of arresting Pete. He’d just move to the hills, and he’s the only doctor we’ve got.
“What was it?” I asked Pete while the community held a cleanup on my store. Insurance would handle the rest.
“Ourselves,” he told me. “The evils of good men’s past. It’s what you turn away from that can’t be turned away. It writes itself on the fog, just in case we forget. Call it regret. Call it history.”
“And it comes from where?”
“Evil men pay no attention. With Millard Dee, should have slit that tongue twenty-five years ago. Two people might still be alive. Of course, I couldn’t know that at the time. I’ve got the rest of my life for that regret.”
“Taking law into your own hands?”
“That’s what happened here twenty-five years ago and again last night.” Pete sighed. “Don’t know what happens to the spirit of Rufus Middling, but at least Annie and Sally got away.
“The poet I told you about. He was a great scientist as well. He had the soul to write about the greatness of people, and love. But because he was great, and fearless, he could also write about that part of the human that is pure horror.”
—for Val and Ants
About the Authors
Jack Cady (1932-2004) won the Atlantic Monthly “First” award in 1965 for his story, “The Burning.” He continued writing and authored nearly a dozen novels, one book of critical analysis of American literature, and more than fifty short stories. Over the course of his literary career, he won the Iowa Prize for Short Fiction, the National Literary Anthology Award, the Washington State Governor’s Award, the Nebula Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the World Fantasy Award.
Prior to a lengthy career in education, Jack worked as a tree high climber, a Coast Guard seaman, an auctioneer, and a long-distance truck driver. He held teaching positions at the University of Washington, Clarion College, Knox College, the University of Alaska at Sitka, and Pacific Lutheran University. He spent many years living in Port Townsend, Washington.
Resurrection House, through its Underland Press imprint, is publishing a comprehensive retrospective of his work in a project called The Cady Collection.
USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world, and she has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award. She edited The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from 1991 until 1997.
Praise for Jack Cady
An exceptional writer.
—Joyce Carol Oates
[Jack Cady is] a lasting voice in modern American literature.
—Atlanta Constitution
Jack Cady’s knack for golden sentences is an alchemy any other writer has to admire.
—Ivan Doig
Jack Cady is above all, a writer of great, unmistakable integrity and profound feeling. He never fakes it or coasts, and behind every one of his sentences is an emotional freight that bends it both outward, toward the reader, and inward, back to the source.
—Peter Straub
A writer whose words reverberate with human insight.
—Publishers Weekly
His structural control and the laconic richness of his style establish Cady in the front ranks of contemporary writers.
—Library Journal
When Cady settles into yarn-spinning, his stories have the humor and comfortable mastery of Faulkner or Steinbeck.
—National Review
The Cady Collection
NOVELS
The Hauntings of Hood Canal
Inagehi
The Jonah Watch
McDowell’s Ghost
The Man Who Could Make Things Vanish
The Off Season
Singleton
Street
Dark Dreaming [with Carol Orlock, as Pat Franklin]
Embrace of the Wolf [with Carol Orlock, as Pat Franklin]
OTHER WRITINGS
Phantoms
Fathoms
Ephemera
The American Writer
Fathoms is a collection of fictional stories (with the occasional non-fiction piece thrown in). Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used in an absolutely fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by the Estate of Jack Cady
Introduction © 2016 Kristine Katheryn Rusch
Original publication information about the respective stories is located at the end of this edition.
All rights reserved, which means that no portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is U022, and it has an ebook ISBN of 978-1-63023-043-2.
This book was printed in the United States of America, and it is published by Underland Press, an imprint of Resurrection House (Puyallup, WA).
Atlantis and Sargasso . . .
Cover Design by Darin Bradley
Art Direction by Jennifer Tough
Book Design by Aaron Leis
Collection Editorial Direction by Mark Teppo
First Underland Press edition: February 2016.
www.resurrectionhouse.com
Extended Copyright Info
“Fog,” “Jeremiah,” and “The Night We Buried Road Dog” first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 2004, 2000, and 1993, respectively.
“Halloween 1942,” “Israel and Earnest,” and “Support Your Local Griffin” first appeared in the collection Ghosts of Yesterday, published by Night Shade Books in 2003.
“A Poet in the School: Or, The Mystery of the Missing Mouse” first appeared in Crab Creek Review, 1999.
“The Forest Ranger,” “The Girl in the Orange Hat,” “Land,” “Play Like I’m Sheriff,” and “The Sounds of Silence�
� appeared in the collection The Burning and Other Stories, published by the University of Iowa Press in 1973.
“The Curious Candy Store” first appeared in Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine in 1990.
“Resurrection” first appeared in Western Ghosts: Haunting, Spine-Chilling Stories from the American West, published by Rutledge Hill Press in 1990.
“Daddy Dearest” first appeared in The UFO Files, published by DAW Books in 1998.
“Wintering” first appeared in The Slackwater Review, 1984.
“Some Remarks on the Literature of War” first appeared in Twigs, 1974.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Introduction
The Night We Buried Road Dog
Support Your Local Griffin
A Poet in the School: Or, The Mystery of the Missing Mouse
The Girl in the Orange Hat
Israel and Earnest
Halloween 1942
The Forest Ranger
The Curious Candy Store
Land
Resurrection
Daddy Dearest
The Sounds of Silence
Jeremiah
Wintering
Some Remarks on the Literature of War
Play Like I'm Sheriff
Fog
About the Authors
Praise for Jack Cady
The Cady Collection
Copyright Notice
Extended Copyright Information