Far From This Earth

by Chad Oliver

  “Chow?” Cousin Bess echoed.

  The man’s face clouded up like a storm. “Yuh mean chow ain’t ready? You lookin’ for a whuppin’, Lucy?”

  “Lucy?” queried Cousin Bess, backing against the wall. “I fear there has been some terrible mistake. I declare I just don’t know …”

  “Damnation!” The man slammed his filthy hat down on the floor. He peered at her narrowly. “Why, you ain’t Lucy! Has that no-good she-coyote done run off again? Whar is she?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know, sir. My name is Cousin Bess—that’s what they call me—and I’m from Pryorville. This Lucy person—”

  The man raged through the cabin, peering under the bed and into the closets. He came back and confronted Cousin Bess darkly. “I don’t take kindly to your helpin’ to rustle off my wife, woman,” he said. “Ain’t you got no damned sense of decency?”

  Cousin Bess put her hands on her ample hips.” “I assure you I have never even heard of this Lucy creature of yours. And you mind your tongue, sir, when you talk to a lady!”

  The man cleared his whiskered throat and spat accurately on the dirt floor. He walked up to Cousin Bess and pinched her shoulder thoughtfully, as though sizing up a prize cow. “Lady, huh? Wal, Bess, I ain’t never been one to hold a grudge. A swap is a swap, that’s what I always say. My name is Amos, Amos Carrico, and I’ll be right happy to have you for my woman until Lucy comes back. Gimme a kiss.”

  Cousin Bess pressed her back into the wall, ignoring the splinters. She covered her face with her hands, blushing. “Now, Amos—”

  Amos Carrico let loose a bellow of laughter. “Shy, huh? Well, that’s a change! Never you mind, Bess. Lots of time for that sort of thing later. But a man’s got to eat, ain’t that so? I reckon you’re a mite confused yet, so I’ll rustle grub. You sidle on out and gut that pig I killed. And we’ll need firewood too, I reckon.”

  “Gut?” Cousin Bess faltered. “Pig?”

  Amos put his hamlike hands on his hips and surveyed her curiously. “What’s the matter with you, woman? You’re actin’ plumb strange. Git on out thar afore I take a stick to yuh.”

  “Stick,” said Cousin Bess. She considered fainting but thought better of it—Amos might chop her up for dinner. A horrible certainty was growing in her mind. God knew this was not the sort of life she had imagined for a Pioneer Wife, but she had better watch her step. And Amos wouldn’t be a bad looking man, once you got rid of those filthy clothes and that ugly beard….

  She bowed her head submissively and weaved out the door.

  How did one go about gutting a pig, anyway?

  Mrs. Audrey Busby felt like a malted milk.

  Every step she took jolted her from stem to stern and her feet were bleeding. She shook her head, feeling as though there were innumerable cobwebs in her brain. Realism in a parade was all very well, but things were obviously getting out of hand….

  When she finally managed to focus her eyes, the first thing she saw was a half-naked tattooed Indian riding in front of her on a spotted pony. Riding! And she was walking, eating his dust, and with a pack on her back at that!

  “You!” she cried. “You up there!”

  The brave pulled up his pony and looked back. His eyes were black as midnight and his face showed the unhappy results of a bout with smallpox. At first, he said nothing. Then he rode back and looked at Mrs. Busby closely. He stared at her for a long minute and then burst out laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” Mrs. Busby demanded.

  The Indian leaned down and fingered her elaborate feather headdress. He gawked at her Navaho jewelry and her tattered squaw-boots. He eyed her white skin suspiciously. He said something to her that was obviously a question, but it was in no language she knew.

  “Speak English, you,” Mrs. Busby said.

  The brave turned up his nose, snorted, and kicked his pony. The horse plodded on, leaving Mrs. Busby in the dust. She looked around, remembering that strange buzzing in her ears. It was a desolate, trackless land that she saw. In the distance she heard the mournful howl of what she hoped was only a coyote.

  The Indian was pulling away from her, and he did not look back.

  Well! Mrs. Audrey Busby wiped the sweat out of her eyes and began to run to catch up. It just wouldn’t do to be left out here all alone in this horrible wasteland. She cried a little but brightened visibly when she saw the village.

  Of course, the women weren’t wearing proper clothing at all, which was going to be awkward. Mrs. Busby giggled slightly. Still, whatever had happened, these were Indians.

  “Wait for me!” she called, running forward with one hand holding on her feather headdress.

  Now, if she could just remember whether one called them wigwams or wickiups….

  The man who had once been the mayor of Pryorville suddenly found himself at one end of a long, dusty street. A blazing sun burned down from a cloudless blue sky. False-fronted stores and roaring saloons lined the street.

  Saloons? In Pryorville? By God, they were carrying this Pilgrimage thing too far!

  The mayor hitched up his cowboy pants and jammed his big hat down more firmly over his eyes. He felt decidedly odd. Somewhere along the way, he had lost his horse. Fine thing. Had to be expected though, with all the foreign riffraff in town.

  Funny. This wasn’t Pryorville at all—

  At the other end of the street, a dark figure was walking slowly toward him. The figure was bent slightly into an all-too-familiar crouch. He had a gun tied down on his hip.

  The mayor stood absolutely still, too terrified to move. His own Colt was in his holster but the mayor had abruptly lost his interest in gunfights. He affixed a wan smile to his face and watched the man coming toward him.

  The other man came closer. A tall, skeletal man. A man standing almost six feet tall and he couldn’t have weighed over 115 pounds. He was neatly dressed in an expensive felt sombrero and a funereal black suit. He coughed slightly, sounding like death itself. He stopped. His eyes were cold as ice.

  “My God,” the mayor whispered, “it’s Doc Holliday. Aren’t you dead?”

  “Not yet,” Doc said quietly. “How about you?”

  “Who, me?” The mayor’s hands were trembling violently and he took care to keep them far, far away from the butt of his Colt. “No, I’m not dead. At least, I don’t think I am.”

  “Hard to tell sometimes,” Doc observed. “Quite a Colt you got there, stranger.”

  The mayor swallowed hard. “That old thing?” He laughed weakly. “Just carry it for laughs. Just loaded with blanks, you know. With blanks. Blanks.”

  “Man ought not to pack hardware like that unless he figures on using it.”

  “True,” said the mayor agreeably. “Oh, very true.” With infinite caution he loosened his gun belt and let it fall into the dust of the street. “Truer words were never spoken. Perhaps you would—ah—care for a drink, Doc old man?”

  “I could use a quart or two,” said Doc Holliday. “That’s right neighborly of you, stranger. Yes, I definitely feel that I could handle a quart or two.”

  “So could I,” said the mayor.

  He followed the thin gunman into the nearest saloon, wondering idly what the political situation was in this town. In any event, it would certainly do no harm to have Doc Holliday on his side….

  For one wild moment, after the buzzing in his ears had stopped, Allan Garner thought that he had died and gone to a Dixie Valhalla. There it was, just as he had seen it in his dreams: a magnificent white mansion high on a green hill, stately pillars lining a long cool porch, the sound of birds in the great magnolia trees.

  He felt a choking sensation in his chest. He couldn’t imagine what had happened, and he didn’t care. He knew he was in the Old South—knew it by the sight and sound and feel of it. Dear old Dixie!

  He was here; that was all that mattered.

  Look away, look away …

  Ah, a lovely girl moving gracefully across the green lawn. A lovely So
uthern belle, all crinoline and cotton—

  Look away, look away …

  And listen! The banjos ringing down in the slave quarters, the happy darkies who knew their place singing and laughing, no NAACP to stir them up and make trouble—

  Oh, it was heaven!

  But it was all so far away, up there on the great green hill. Why was he down here in the valley? A sudden cold sweat broke out on the palms of his hands. He looked down at himself. No, he was still himself, thank God, still Allan Garner, still dressed in the black suit and string tie he had been wearing for the Pilgrimage. But—

  He turned around and saw it. An old rotting shack with gaping holes for windows and the boards warping off its sagging sides. A skinny chicken scraping in the hard dirt of the yard. A smell of something rancid from the kitchen.

  He knew what it was. You didn’t have to draw any pictures for Allan Garner.

  It was his house.

  He began to sob hysterically. Oh, the ignominy of it!

  “A sharecropper!” he screamed. “A sharecropper!”

  He fell to the earth, whimpering. And somehow he knew.

  “Grandpa Erskine,” he cried, beating his fists into the hard-packed dirt. “Oh, you evil old man. Oh, you traitor to the Cause….”

  Meanwhile, the gentleman in question was having a high old time. He was all dressed up in his finest suit, his beard was freshly trimmed and combed, and he reeked of Wild Stag Lotion. He sat jovially at the poker table—it had been a prized antique belonging to cousin Bess but there was no need to worry about her any longer—and raked in the chips.

  Grandpa snapped his fingers. “More firewater,” he said.

  A grinning Indian complied, helping himself to a shot as he did so.

  “It’s yore deal, Sapphire,” drawled a grizzled buffalo hunter, neatly dropping an ash from his cigar on the rug.

  Sapphire Sadie adjusted her shawl to let more flesh peek through and shuffled the cards with expert, perfumed fingers.

  Outside, the shooting and the hollering was still going on.

  Grandpa was radiant with satisfaction. He felt, somewhat inaccurately, that a lifetime of toil had reaped a truly bountiful harvest.

  “Mighty nice little town you got here,” a cowboy said, studying his cards. “Mighty neighborly.”

  “You’re dang tootin’,” Grandpa beamed. “Oh, we’ve had our ups and downs, and I’d be the first to admit it. But we’re up now, and we’re gonna stay up. All we ever needed was a mite of new blood.” He fired up a fresh cigar. “Let’s have another round of that firewater, Sitting Bull!”

  The Indian staggered toward the bottle, singing an obscure but definitely happy song.

  The spaceship had completed its mission. Far above the Earth its great jets flamed and the ship flashed back into the darkness that was its home. Behind it, had there been anyone to hear, there lingered the soft warm silver of celestial laughter.

  THE WIND BLOWS FREE

  Have you ever heard, with your ears or with your soul, the far wind that stirs the world? Have you ever felt the deep beat of the sea, the sea that is the heart of the Earth?

  Samuel Kingsley had never known these things.

  That may have been his trouble.

  Samuel Kingsley was born with a fever in his bones and a fire in his blood. As a baby, he was difficult. His parents had to work to keep their initial joy from changing into impatient anger. Sam screamed his head off, he fought his food, he clawed at his bed. He seldom smiled, and he was not affectionate.

  He was bright enough, of course, or he would have been destroyed.

  His childhood was little better, a stubborn series of scrapes and bruises and general mayhem. Sam was big for his age, and strong. He walked his own path and fought discipline like a wild stallion. He had no friends.

  Sam was, in short, a maverick. He was unbranded. He should never have happened where he did, and when he did. But he was there, emphatically there, like a burr in the hide of a long-complacent animal.

  He got into his first serious trouble when he was sixteen.

  It was the day of his first big dance. He had to get dressed up in his best synthetic blue suit, which he detested, and the whole thing was very formal and proper, despite the fact that there were only twelve boys and girls of eligible age. The girls were poised and full of giggles, and the boys were shy, big-footed and gawky.

  Sam liked the girls fine, but dancing bored him stiff.

  And he wasn’t shy.

  When he was discovered to be absent from the dance, and it was noticed that a girl named Susan Merrill was also missing, the police were called. They found the two youngsters in one of the dark forbidden corridors. Susan, a blonde of pleasant proportions for her age, was unhurt but hysterical. Sam was defiant.

  He knew that he had broken not one law but two. The black tunnels, those mysterious caves that burrowed into the hidden recesses of the Ship, were taboo except to older crewmen. And it was unheard-of for a boy and a girl to be alone together before they were married.

  Sam didn’t care. He had acted on impulse and had no regrets.

  Because he was so young, and because the Council still did not know quite what to make of him, Sam got off the hook with a very light sentence. He was confined to his house for a solid year, and denied all privileges. His parents made it as rough on him as they could, but he was used to that.

  He did his lessons contemptuously. When he could sneak out at night, he did so. The lights were low at night, and he could prowl the black caves all the way to the locked doors that sealed the people from the rest of the Ship. If he was unable to get out of the house, he read books he had stolen. Like most boys, he liked best the ones he was not supposed to read.

  Sam liked sex in his books, because he was healthy and had a normal curiosity. And something in him responded to stories of rebels, to tales of men who struck out on their own. He dreamed of clipper ships, their sails taut against the wind. He dreamed of setting out into a green wilderness, with only a gun for company.

  There were no seas on the Ship.

  There was no wilderness.

  And he had been taught that guns were evil. Not as evil, perhaps, as that greater evil no one talked about, but evil nevertheless.

  At night, lying in his bed, he would slam his big fist into the plastic of his wall in an agony of frustration and bitterness, slam it until the blood smeared his knuckles and he could taste it in his mouth.

  He knew tears, and the terrible loneliness of a boy who was out of step. No one ever heard him sobbing into the coldness and the silence of the long nights, and no one would have understood.

  By his eighteenth year, Sam had grown big and raw-boned. Even his size was against him. He stood a rangy six-foot-four, and weighed better than two hundred pounds. His hair was black and untidy, and his eyes were dark. He was not a handsome man, but he had a strength in him, a power you could feel.

  Sam was marked by his body. At eighteen, he was by far the biggest man on the Ship. He stood out like a pine in a forest of ferns, and he accentuated the difference by walking proudly erect, with his head thrown back.

  He was a solitary animal, and therefore suspect. He was lonely, a man born out of his time, but he made no advances to others.

  Since he was eighteen, and legally an adult, he had to take part in the annual observance of Heritage Day, on the eighth of February.

  Bob Thomas came to get him.

  Bob was the natural leader of his age-group, He was a pleasant-looking boy, with an easy manner and an unforced politeness that endeared him to his elders. He was the sort that accepted life as he found it, growing up to embody the ideals and traditions of his culture. He would have done well in Greece, or in Rome, or in England in her days of glory. He did well on the Ship. In time, he would make the Control Room. It was as inevitable for him as breathing.

  “Ready for the big deal, Sam?”

  “Sure.”

  “We’ll pick up the others and get on down to
the Show, okay? I think we ought to be a little early; shows the big boys we’re on the ball.”

  “OK, Bob.” Sam found it impossible to dislike Bob, although hate came easily to him. Bob was independent enough to be a man in his own right, but he kept his independence within approved bounds. He even had a sense of humor. And Bob was big enough to put up a scrap. Sam respected strength as he respected few other things. He and Bob had fought it out once, and Sam had been hard pressed to win. Much to his surprise, Bob had not reported him, and had even lied about the bruises on his face.

  As a matter of fact, Bob was the closest thing to a friend he had ever had. There had been a few girls, but that was different.

  They walked down the street, actually a sort of catwalk, past the rows of identical cabins that people called houses. Their footsteps echoed hollowly in the great chamber. Above and below them, huge metal girders spanned the belly of the Ship. The slope of the Ship’s gray walls was their heaven and their earth, as though they lived inside a vast bowl. Branching off from the main street, smaller catwalks led to dark passages—corridors to the Control Room, to the engine room, the hydroponics chamber. Some of them even went Outside, or so it was rumored. Only the specially selected members of the Crew could use any of these passages; there were others that were taboo to all. And there were legends, myths, about things that lived in some of those black caves…..

  The Show was in the central square. It was a perfectly ordinary tri-di theater, and today it was even more solemn than usual. Men in full-dress uniforms stood in a double column through which they had to march. The priest blessed them before they took their seats. Patriotic music flowed from the speakers.

  It was all fairly impressive, Sam supposed, but he was not moved. Of course, this was the first time he had been permitted inside the Show on Heritage Day, but he expected nothing more than a mild anticlimax. After all, it was no secret what went on in there. He had had it drummed into him as far back as he could remember.

  Still, it ought to be more interesting than the usual pallid fare.

  He took his seat in the front row with the others of his age-group. Bob had the aisle seat, of course, and Sam found himself next to Susan Merrill. He grinned at her broadly and she flushed and kept her eyes on the screen.