Jenkins shook his head. “No, you were not the first.”
Jenkins walked across the grass and laid his hand upon Peter’s shoulder.
“Come home with me, Peter.”
Peter shook his head. “No. I’ll sit here with Lupus until the morning comes. And then I’ll call in his friends and we will bury him.”
He lifted his head to look into Jenkins’ face. “Lupus was a friend of mine. A great friend, Jenkins.”
“I know he must have been,” said Jenkins. “But I’ll be seeing you?”
“Oh, yes,” said Peter. “I’m coming to the picnic. The webster picnic. It’s in a week or so.”
“So it is,” said Jenkins, speaking very slowly, thinking as he spoke. “So it is. And I will see you then.”
He turned around and walked slowly up the hill.
Peter sat down beside the dead wolf, waiting for the dawn. Once or twice, he lifted his hand to brush at his cheeks.
They sat in a semicircle facing Jenkins and listened to him closely.
“Now, you must pay attention,” Jenkins said, “That is most important. You must pay attention and you must think real hard and you must hang very tightly to the things you have—to the lunch baskets and the bows and arrows and the other things.”
One of the girls giggled. “Is this a new game, Jenkins?”
“Yes,” said Jenkins, “sort of. I guess that is what it is—a new game. And an exciting one. A most exciting one.”
Someone said: “Jenkins always thinks up a new game for the webster picnic.”
“And now,” said Jenkins, “you must pay attention. You must look at me and try to figure out the thing I’m thinking—”
“It’s a guessing game,” shrieked the giggling girl. “I love guessing games.”
Jenkins made his mouth into a smile. “You’re right,” he said. “That’s exactly what it is—a guessing game. And now if you will pay attention and look at me—”
“I want to try out these bows and arrows,” said one of the men. “After this is over, we can try them out, can’t we, Jenkins?”
“Yes,” said Jenkins patiently, “after this is over you can try them out.”
He closed his eyes and made his brain reach out for each of them, ticking them off individually, sensing the thrilled expectancy of the minds that yearned towards his, felt the little probing fingers of thought that were dabbing at his brain.
“Harder,” Jenkins thought. “Harder! Harder!”
A quiver went across his mind and he brushed it away. Not hypnotism—nor yet telepathy, but the best that he could do. A drawing together, a huddling together of minds—and it was all a game.
Slowly, carefully, he brought out the hidden symbol—the words, the thought and the inflection. Easily he slid them into his brain, one by one, like one would speak to a child, trying to teach it the exact tone, the way to hold its lips, the way to move its tongue.
He let them lay there for a moment, felt the other minds touching them, felt the fingers dabbing at them. And then he thought them aloud—thought them as the cobbly had thought them.
And nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. No click within his brain. No feeling of falling. No vertigo. No sensation at all.
So he had failed. So it was over. So the game was done.
He opened his eyes and the hillside was the same. The sun still shone and the sky was robin’s egg.
He sat stiffly, silently and felt them looking at him.
Everything was the same as it had been before.
Except—There was a daisy where the clump of Oswego tea had bloomed redly before. There was a pasture rose beside him and there had been none when he had closed his eyes.
“Is that all there’s to it?” asked the giggly girl, plainly disappointed.
“That is all,” said Jenkins.
“Now we can try out the bows and arrows?” asked one of the youths.
“Yes,” said Jenkins, “but be careful. Don’t point them at one another. They are dangerous. Peter will show you how.”
“We’ll unpack the lunch,” said one of the women. “Did you bring a basket, Jenkins?”
“Yes,” said Jenkins. “Esther has it. She held it when we played the game.”
“That’s nice,” said the woman. “You surprise us every year with the things you bring.”
And you’ll be surprised this year, Jenkins told himself. You’ll be surprised at packages of seeds, all very neatly labeled.
For we’ll need seeds, he thought to himself. Seeds to plant new gardens and to start new fields—to raise food once again. And we’ll need bows and arrows to bring in some meat. And spears and hooks for fish.
Now other little things that were different began to show themselves. The way a tree leaned at the edge of the meadow. And a new kink in the river far below.
Jenkins sat quietly in the sun, listening to the shouts of the men and boys, trying out the bows and arrows, hearing the chatter of the women as they spread the cloth and unpacked the lunches.
I’ll have to tell them soon, he told himself. I’ll have to warn them to go easy on the food—not to gobble it up all at one sitting. For we will need that food to tide us over the first day or two, until we can find roots to dig and fish to catch and fruit to pick.
Yes, pretty soon I’ll have to call them in and break the news to them. Tell them they’re on their own. Tell them why. Tell them to go ahead and do anything they want to. For this is a brand-new world.
Warn them about the cobblies.
Although that’s the least important. Man has a way with him—a very vicious way. A way of dealing with anything that stands in his path.
Jenkins sighed.
Lord help the cobblies, he said.
The Hangnoose Army Rides to Town!
As was often the case with Cliff Simak’s Westerns, his journals do not show that he ever wrote a story with the name under which this one was published; so I’ll admit I’m guessing when I note that his journals do show that he was paid $175 in 1945 for a story with the title “Hang Your Guns on a Gallows Tree”—the only other evidence to support this guess is the fact that the sheriff who is the hero of this story was planning to leave the business of law enforcement—that is, to hang up his guns.
The sheriff just referred to is named Parker, which happened to have been the maiden name of Cliff’s beloved grandmother, but the best thing about this story is the fact that Cliff was able to indulge in a few bits of rather poetic language that clearly show the author’s familiarity with, and love for, the countryside.
This story originally appeared as the first story in the September 1945 issue of Ace-High Western Stories.
CHAPTER ONE
Delayed Payment
Sheriff Clint Parker reined his buckskin gelding to a halt on the ridge above the little coulee that sheltered the Atkins ranch buildings. He stared at them, remembering every nook and cranny.
They were small and weather-beaten, with a look of poverty about them. There was the barn where he and Luke had played as youngsters, the creek in which they had gone fishing and the fence, that old Matt had sworn he’d fix, but was still sagging with a tired and drunken look.
An old ranch dog spotted the intruders, and limped down off the porch. He stood at the gate barking furiously.
Frank Betz, foreman of the Turkey Track, growled at Parker, “What you stopping for—losing your nerve?”