Over the River and Through the Woods

  During his lifetime, Clifford D. Simak was one of the giants of the science fiction field. Beginning with the International Fantasy Award, which he won for City, his collection of linked short stories, he won every major award during his long career and was acclaimed a Grand Master in 1977 by the Science-Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Four years later he won both the Hugo and the Nebula Award for his last major story, “The Grotto of the Dancing Deer.”

  Simak’s first published story, “World of the Red Sun,” appeared in 1931, in Hugo Gernsback’s Wonder Stories. But it wasn’t until the publication of “The Creator” in the March-April 1935 edition of the little-heralded Marvel Tales that Simak first began to attract attention. Written at a time when all the major markets were facing severe economic turmoil brought on by the Great Depression, “The Creator” was conceived by Simak as his last fling with science fiction, a story to be written for the sheer fun of doing so. In fact, he published nothing else between 1932 and 1938.

  Simak, however, did begin to write again, inspired by the editorial policies of John W. Campbell, producing stories that showed a remarkable leap forward in technique and craftsmanship from his earlier efforts. Soon, many of the stories that would make up City began to appear. But most of Simak’s best work didn’t begin appearing until the 1950s. Over the River and Through the Woods takes its stories from the second half of Simak’s career, a time when his stories had fully matured and he was at the top of his form.

  Like Ray Bradbury’s, many of Simak’s best stories incorporate the rural Midwest of his childhood. His work, gentle and often pastoral, stresses the midwestern values of individualism, compassion, and hard work. Yet something unusual always lurks just below the surface, waiting to make its presence felt. Perhaps because harder, crueler visions of the future have increased in popularity over the years, Simak’s fictions are refreshingly charming when compared with much of today’s science fiction.

  This is a work of fiction. All the events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  OVER THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE WOODS:

  THE BEST SHORT FICTION OF CLIFFORD D. SIMAK

  Copyright © 1996 by Tachyon Publications. Published by arrangement with the Estate of Clifford D. Simak, P.O. Box 8600, Minneapolis, MN 55408.

  Introduction copyright © 1996 by Poul Anderson

  Cover illustration by Michael Dashow

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof, in any form.

  A Tachyon Publication

  1459 18th Street #139

  San Francisco, CA 94107

  Published in conjunction with Dark Regions Press

  P.O. Box 6301

  Concord, CA 94524

  Edited by Jacob Weisman

  ISBN: 0-9648320-2-X

  First Edition: March 1996

  Printed in the United States of America by Dark Regions Press

  0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Permissions

  “A Death in the House,” copyright © 1959 by Galaxy Publishing Corp.; copyright renewed 1987 by Clifford D. Simak. First published in Galaxy Science Fiction, October 1959.

  “The Big Front Yard,” copyright © 1958 by Street and Smith Publications, Inc.; copyright renewed 1986 by Clifford D. Simak. First published in Astounding Science Fiction, October 1958.

  “Good Night, Mr. James” copyright © 1951 by World Edition, Inc.; copyright renewed 1979 by Clifford D. Simak. First published in Galaxy Science Fiction, March 1951.

  “Dusty Zebra,” copyright © 1954 by Galaxy Publishing Corp.; copyright renewed 1982 by Clifford D. Simak. First published in Galaxy Science Fiction, September 1954.

  “Neighbor,” copyright © 1954 by Street and Smith Publications, Inc.; copyright renewed 1982 by Clifford D. Simak. First published in Astounding Science Fiction, June 1954.

  “Over the River and Through the Woods,” copyright © 1965 by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company; copyright renewed 1993 by the Estate of Clifford D. Simak. First published in Amazing Stories, May 1965.

  “Construction Shack,” copyright © 1972 by UPD Publishing Corp. First published in Worlds of If, February 1973.

  “The Grotto of the Dancing Deer,” copyright © 1980 by Conde Nast Publications, Inc. First published in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, April 1980.

  Table of Contents

  Introduction by Poul Anderson

  A Death in the House

  The Big Front Yard

  Good Night, Mr. James

  Dusty Zebra

  Neighbor

  Over the River and Through the Woods

  Construction Shack

  The Grotto of the Dancing Deer

  Bonus

  Rule 18

  Introduction

  by Poul Anderson

  Forgetfulness is a mark of these times. Deluged and obsessed with new input of every kind, although originality seems to get scarcer and scarcer, people let the work of the past drop from their minds. Soon it disappears from their bookstores, libraries, theaters, concert halls, and screens. Soon after that, younger people come along who have never heard of it. Oh, yes, there are enduring exceptions. You can still find Tolstoy, watch Shakespeare, or hear Beethoven. But—to name three writers well-known half a century ago—where now are Stephen Vincent Benét, James Branch Cabell, and Lord Dunsany? On my bookshelves, maybe on yours, but on how many more?

  They did wonderful fantasy, among other things. The same water of Lethe laps through science fiction. Already such splendid makers of it as Alfred Bester, Henry Kuttner, Fritz Leiber, Catherine L. Moore, Clifford D. Simak, Cordwainer Smith, and Theodore Sturgeon are slipping into obscurity. Only trade paperbacks of some few of their books linger in print. It is mass market editions that attract new customers. What a pity that the next generation is missing out on the experiences that mine enjoyed. What a loss of example and inspiration to the creative talents of today.

  I hope this isn’t too dour an opening for a few remarks about Clifford Simak. That would be altogether inappropriate. The spirit in his stories is humane, tolerant, generally cheerful and optimistic. Mainly I want to explain why the revival of these stories you will find here is praiseworthy. May we see much more, along with the work of other giants. And let this happen not as solemn scholarship, but for fun. Let the new generation share the old pleasures. They remain as fresh as this morning’s sunrise.

  Also, to speak of the past is fitting in connection with Simak. His roots went deep. From them he drew the vividness and vitality of even his widest-ranging tales.

  For instance, take his most famous book, City. Appearing in magazines over a period of years, when gathered together these narratives proved to be an epic spanning centuries and universes, the triumphs and tensions and tragedies and ultimate transcendence in humankind’s many-branching destiny. Yet it is, throughout, a quiet epic, whether a scene be laid on the huge planet Jupiter or beside an anthill on Earth. Most of the action centers on a single old house, the Webster family who live there, the intelligent dogs who succeed them, and Jenkins, the robot who attends them all.

  Nobody but Clifford Donald Simak could have written City. Born in Wisconsin in 1904, he became a journalist in Minneapolis, Minnesota, rising from reporter to a leading position on the editorial staff. A devoted husband and father as well, he couldn’t have had a lot of spare time for writing science fiction. I have heard that he did it by sheer discipline. Each day at home he would go into his study, close the door, and devote at least one full hour to his latest story. Perhaps not a single word would come forth, but he spent that hour trying.

  He was, in fact, a t
horough professional. I remember well some advice he gave me early in my career. I was having a manuscript rejected everywhere because it was too long for its plot. “The way to shorten a story,” he told me, “is to write the last part of it.” This was said in pure helpfulness. He was never condescending or arrogant. Rather, he treated everyone, down to the lowliest neophyte writer or fan, as his equal, his neighbor. He listened more than he talked. To all of us he was just plain Cliff.

  Not that he lacked salt. Once a colleague passed through Minneapolis. Cliff, Gordon Dickson, and I gave him lunch at a downtown restaurant. He was a jovial sort and the occasion went pleasantly. He was, though, an ardent socialist, who at one point made a claim about the impossibility of learning the truth from the kept American press. Cliff replied in his gentle fashion that he had been a newsman his whole working life, and had never seen a story censored or killed merely because somebody wouldn’t like it. He paused, then added that he’d have to take that back. A while ago he’d been sent down to Kensington to do a piece on the runestone found there, allegedly left by medieval Norse explorers. He arrived with an open mind, carried out his research, and concluded it was a fake. “No,” said his editor, “we can’t print that in Minnesota!”

  I will always regret not having seen more of Cliff than I did. He wasn’t much for beer parties, conventions, or other such activities; he lived in a suburb, I in the city, and presently I moved to the West Coast. Afterward we exchanged a few letters and met in person now and then, cordially but briefly. Among my fondest memories is that of the last time. I was back in Minneapolis on business. Gordon Dickson and I took Cliff to dinner, and ended in my room talking with him for several hours. It was very good talk. He was at once down-to-earth and as civilized a person as I have ever known.

  By then he was retired and widowed, but dauntlessly writing fiction full-time, and grand books those are. Ill health eventually put a stop to that. I don’t believe anybody heard any complaint from him. He died in his sleep in 1988.

  When he dealt with his Midwestern land and people, he was one of the finest regional writers the United States has had. He knew them, he was them, and he gave them to us in his own homely words, which he nevertheless made into poetry. A random example from City: “Dusk was falling, the dusk of early spring, a dusk that smelled of early pussy willows.” You’ll see many a comparable passage in the selections here. They don’t usually lend themselves so readily to quotation. The Midwestern language is easygoing, understated, taking its time to make its point. But in Cliff Simak’s hands, that point will reach to your heart.

  By no means did he confine himself to his native soil. The yarns he spun can stretch to the ends of space-time and beyond. They can encompass other planets, cold light-years, non-human beings, high-tech machines, strange civilizations to come. More often than not, however, their protagonists bear the same basic, unpretentious strength and decency as himself and the folk from which he sprang. I don’t think this is a failure of imagination; rather, it is profound insight. These values may be unfashionable nowadays, but they are not extinct and they will return, because they are the values by which we survive.

  Please don’t suppose from this that Cliff ever got preachy, florid, or otherwise dismal. He had a healthy streak of irreverence and a great sense of humor. Above all, he was a crackling hell of a storyteller. A glance over the contents of the present volume will show his variety.

  “A Death in the House” expresses the ideal of kindliness, but unsentimentally and in the eerie context of a meeting with a creature totally alien.

  “The Big Front Yard” again brings the cosmos home to our everyday world, a favorite motif of the author’s, in a lighter vein. The pomposity and officiousness of certain people, governmental and local, come in for some wicked satire.

  “Goodnight Mr. James” is a horror story, with the worst horror lying in the casual cruelty of a society not terribly unlike ours.

  “Dusty Zebra” is hilarious.

  “Neighbor” is Americana worthy of Mark Twain or John Steinbeck, though placed in Simak country.

  “Over the River and Through the Woods” is low-key heartbreak.

  “Construction Shack” is straight interplanetary science fiction—no, not quite. It will neatly lead you up the garden path and leave you there with a surprised grin on your face.

  “The Grotto of the Dancing Deer” takes us back to present-day Europe and a prehistoric habitation. Cliff didn’t really need cosmic settings to evoke the immensity of time. He could do it with as simple a prop as a bone flute.

  These stories are a well-chosen sample. Plenty more Simak awaits rediscovery, both novels and shorter pieces. I hope this book will be not just a memorial but a beginning.

  A Death In The House

  Old Mose Abrams was out hunting cows when he found the alien. He didn’t know it was an alien, but it was alive and it was in a lot of trouble and Old Mose, despite everything the neighbors said about him, was not the kind of man who could bear to leave a sick thing out there in the woods.

  It was a horrid-looking thing, green and shiny, with some purple spots on it, and it was repulsive even twenty feet away. And it stank.

  It had crawled, or tried to crawl, into a clump of hazel brush, but hadn’t made it. The head part was in the brush and the rest lay out there naked in the open. Every now and then the parts that seemed to be arms and hands clawed feebly at the ground, trying to force itself deeper in the brush, but it was too weak; it never moved an inch.

  It was groaning, too, but not too loud—just the kind of keening sound a lonesome wind might make around a wide, deep eave. But there was more in it than just the sound of winter wind; there was a frightened, desperate note that made the hair stand up on Old Mose’s nape.

  Old Mose stood there for quite a spell, making up his mind what he ought to do about it, and a while longer after that working up his courage, although most folks offhand would have said that he had plenty. But this was the sort of situation that took more than just ordinary screwed-up courage. It took a lot of foolhardiness.

  But this was a wild, hurt thing and he couldn’t leave it there, so he walked up to it and knelt down, and it was pretty hard to look at, though there was a sort of fascination in its repulsiveness that was hard to figure out—as if it were so horrible that it dragged one to it. And it stank in a way that no one had ever smelled before.

  Mose, however, was not finicky. In the neighborhood, he was not well known for fastidity. Ever since his wife had died almost ten years before, he had lived alone on his untidy farm and the housekeeping that he did was the scandal of all the neighbor women. Once a year, if he got around to it, he sort of shoveled out the house, but the rest of the year he just let things accumulate.

  So he wasn’t as upset as some might have been with the way the creature smelled. But the sight of it upset him, and it took him quite a while before he could bring himself to touch it, and when he finally did, he was considerably surprised. He had been prepared for it to be either cold or slimy, or maybe even both. But it was neither. It was warm and hard and it had a clean feel to it, and he was reminded of the way a green corn stalk would feel.

  He slid his hand beneath the hurt thing and pulled it gently from the clump of hazel brush and turned it over so he could see its face. It hadn’t any face. It had an enlargement at the top of it, like a flower on top of a stalk, although its body wasn’t any stalk, and there was a fringe around this enlargement that wiggled like a can of worms, and it was then that Mose almost turned around and ran.

  But he stuck it out.

  He squatted there, staring at the no-face with the fringe of worms, and he got cold all over and his stomach doubled up on him and he was stiff with fright—and the fright got worse when it seemed to him that the keening of the thing was coming from the worms.

  Mose was a stubborn man. One had to be stubborn to run a runty farm like this. Stubborn and insensitive in a lot of ways. But not insensitive, of course, to a thing i
n pain.

  Finally he was able to pick it up and hold it in his arms and there was nothing to it, for it didn’t weigh much. Less than a half-grown shoat, he figured.

  He went up the woods path with it, heading back for home, and it seemed to him the smell of it was less. He was hardly scared at all and he was warm again and not cold all over.

  For the thing was quieter now and keening just a little. And although he could not be sure of it, there were times when it seemed as if the thing were snuggling up to him, the way a scared and hungry baby will snuggle to any grown person that comes and picks it up.

  Old Mose reached the buildings and he stood out in the yard a minute, wondering whether he should take it to the barn or house. The barn, of course, was the natural place for it, for it wasn’t human—it wasn’t even as close to human as a dog or cat or sick lamb would be.

  He didn’t hesitate too long, however. He took it into the house and laid it on what he called a bed, next to the kitchen stove. He got it straightened out all neat and orderly and pulled a dirty blanket over it, and then went to the stove and stirred up the fire until there was some flame.

  Then he pulled up a chair beside the bed and had a good, hard, wondering look at this thing he had brought home. It had quieted down a lot and seemed more comfortable than it had out in the woods. He tucked the blanket snug around it with a tenderness that surprised himself. He wondered what he had that it might eat, and even if he knew, how he’d manage feeding it, for it seemed to have no mouth.

  “But you don’t need to worry none,” he told it. “Now that I got you under a roof, you’ll be all right. I don’t know too much about it, but I’ll take care of you the best I can.”

  By now it was getting on toward evening, and he looked out the window and saw that the cows he had been hunting had come home by themselves.

  “I got to go get the milking done and the other chores,” he told the thing lying on the bed, “but it won’t take me long. I’ll be right back.”