The 18th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK ™: Jerome Bixby Read online

  2200 Fifth Avenue

  New York, N. Y.

  Dear Fred,

  Well, here's a new story. I've cleared it with Joe ... he says it's okay to use his name; you know his sense of humor. I've used your name, too, but you can change it if you want to, being the shy retiring sort you are.

  Frankly, I'm a little dubious about the yarn. It's the result of last Friday's poker-session.... I actually did have the déjà vu sensation, as you'll recall. On the way home I stopped in to pick up a chaser, feeling tired as all hell (like I always do—these long grinds are too much for me, I guess, just like the guy in the story) and the idea came to me to slap the old "we are fodder" angle into the thing as it happened and write it up.

  But it's still an old plot. And one angle is left unexplained: how is the narrator able to know all about the slizzers and write about them after Joe gives him the déjà vu treatment?

  Well, maybe the readers won't mind. I've gotten away with bigger holes than that. Try it on Bob Lowndes ... I still owe him on that advance. It's up his alley, hope-a-hope.

  Jerry

  * * * *

  Oct. 22, 1952

  Jerome Bixby

  862 Union Street

  Brooklyn, N. Y.

  Dear Jerry,

  I don't go for "The Slizzers." It just ain't convincing. As you say, it's an old idea ... and besides—again as you say—how does the narrator know what happened?

  The manuscript looks good in my wastebasket. Forget about it.

  Sympathies.

  Fred

  * * * *

  Oct. 23, 1952

  Frederik Boles, Author's Agent

  2200 Fifth Avenue

  New York, N. Y.

  Dear Wet Blanket (and aren't you a little old for that?)

  Respectfully nuts to you. After proper browbeating I think I'll try the yarn on Lowndes ... it's no masterpiece, but I think it's got a chance; he likes an off trail bit, now and then. I made a carbon, natch, so your ditching of the original comes to naught.

  Funny thing ... every time I read it over I get the doggonedest déjà vu feeling. Real dynamic thing ... almost lifts my hair. Hope it does the same for the readers, them as can read. Maybe Joe didn't quite do the job of making me forget what happened that night, ha, ha. Say! ... maybe that could explain the narrator's remembering what happened ... or maybe—hey! A real idea!

  Remember Joe's kidding us about monsters?—remember, you got a little sore because he was holding up the game, you money-hungry son? I think I'll rewrite the ending to include that! ... which oughta take care of the narrator's remembering: Joe can be sort of a dopey slizzer, a blat-mouth, and his screwy theory (which is true in the story, or will be when I write it in—say, isn't this involved!) can trigger our hero's memory just a bit, shake the block a mite, undiddle the synapses etc ... and then I'll have you, platinum-butt, step in to head Joe off, under pretense of a poker itch.

  You know, it's wonderful the way there are hot story ideas in plain old everyday things! S'long ... gonna revise.

  Jerry

  * * * *

  Oct. 23, 1952

  Mr. Robert W. Lowndes

  COLUMBIA PUBLICATIONS, Inc.

  241 Church Street,

  New York 13, New York

  MASTER,

  Herewith a story, "The Slizzers," which Fred and I don't quite see eye to eye on. He thinks it stinks on ice. I'm sure you will disagree to the tune of nice money.

  J.

  ENCL: THE SLIZZERS

  * * * *

  1952 OCT 24 AM 9 06

  NB168 PD=NEW YORK NY 63 110B=

  JEROME BIXBY=

  862 UNION ST APT 6H=

  BKLYN=

  JERRY=

  URGE STRONGLY THAT YOU DON'T TRY TO SELL SLIZZERS STOP IT'S JUST NO DAMN GOOD STOP YOU'VE GOT YOUR REPUTATION TO THINK OF STOP WHY LOUSE UP YOUR GOOD NAME WITH A LEMON AT THIS LATE DATE STOP KILL IT STOP I'VE TALKED IT OVER WITH JOE AND HE ISN'T FEELING HUMOROUS ANY MORE STOP PREFERS NOT TO HAVE NAME USED STOP REPEAT KILL THE THING FOR YOUR OWN GOOD=

  FRED

  * * * *

  1952 OCT 24 AM 11 14

  KL300 PD=NEW YORK NY 12 604B=

  JEROME BIXBY=

  862 UNION ST APT 6H=

  BKLYN=

  SON=

  LIKE SLIZZERS STOP PREPOSTEROUS BUT CUTE STOP DISAGREE WITH FRED TO THE TUNE OF NICE MONEY BUT NICE MONEY STAYS IN MY POCKET STOP YOU NOW OWE ME ONLY FIFTY DOLLARS OF ADVANCE AUGUST 16 STOP DO I HEAR A SCREAM POOR BOY=

  BOB

  * * * *

  Oct. 24, 1952

  Frederik Boles, Author's Agent

  2200 Fifth Avenue

  New York, N. Y.

  Dear Fred,

  Your telegram came too late, and besides, the hell with it. Sent the yarn to Bob yesterday (groceries and rent wait for no man, you know) and he bought it, like the sensitive and discerning editor he is. What're you and Joe getting your tails in an uproar about? It's only a gag, so relax. Joe'll change his mind when he sees his name in print.

  Would like to have included another angle, by the way: if the narrator's amnesia-job had been botched, wouldn't the slizzers decide pretty damn quick that he was a menace to them and get rid of him? Think I'll send Bob a line or two to stick on the end ... you know, the old incompleted sentence deal ... just as if, while the narrator was finishing the story, the slizzers came in and

  THE DRAW

  Originally published in Amazing Stories, Mar. 1954.

  Joe Doolin's my name. Cowhand—work for old Farrel over at Lazy F beyond the Pass. Never had much of anything exciting happen to me—just punched cows and lit up on payday—until the day I happened to ride through the Pass on my way to town and saw young Buck Tarrant's draw.

  Now, Buck'd always been a damn good shot. Once he got his gun in his hand he could put a bullet right where he wanted it up to twenty paces, and within an inch of his aim up to a hundred feet. But Lord God, he couldn't draw to save his life—I'd seen him a couple of times before in the Pass, trying to. He'd face a tree and go into a crouch, and I'd know he was pretending the tree was Billy the Kid or somebody, and then he'd slap leather—and his clumsy hand would wallop his gunbutt, he'd yank like hell, his old Peacemaker would come staggering out of his holster like a bear in heat, and finally he'd line on his target and plug it dead center. But the whole business took about a second and a half, and by the time he'd ever finished his fumbling in a real fight, Billy the Kid or Sheriff Ben Randolph over in town or even me, Joe Doolin, could have cut him in half.

  So this time, when I was riding along through the Pass, I saw Buck upslope from me under the trees, and I just grinned and didn't pay too much attention.

  He stood facing an old elm tree, and I could see he'd tacked a playing card about four feet up the trunk, about where a man's heart would be.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw him go into his gunman's crouch. He was about sixty feet away from me, and, like I said, I wasn't paying much mind to him.

  I heard the shot, flat down the rocky slope that separated us. I grinned again, picturing that fumbly draw of his, the wild slap at leather, the gun coming out drunklike, maybe even him dropping it—I'd seen him do that once or twice.

  It got me to thinking about him, as I rode closer.

  He was a bad one. Nobody said any different than that. Just bad. He was a bony runt of about eighteen, with bulging eyes and a wide mouth that was always turned down at the corners. He got his nickname Buck because he had buck teeth, not because he was heap man. He was some handy with his fists, and he liked to pick ruckuses with kids he was sure he could lick. But the tipoff on Buck is that he'd bleat like a two-day calf to get out of mixing with somebody he was scared of—which meant somebody his own size or bigger. He'd jaw his way out of it, or just turn and slink away with his tail along his belly. His dad had died a couple years before, and he lived with his ma on a small ranch out near the Pass. The place was falling to pieces, because Buck wouldn't lift a hand to do any
work around—his ma just couldn't handle him at all. Fences were down, and the yard was all weedgrown, and the house needed some repairs—but all Buck ever did was hang around town, trying to rub up against some of the tough customers who drank in the Once Again Saloon, or else he'd ride up and lie around under the trees along the top of the Pass and just think—or, like he was today, he'd practise drawing and throwing down on trees and rocks.

  Guess he always wanted to be tough. Really tough. He tried to walk with tough men, and, as we found out later, just about all he ever thought about while he was lying around was how he could be tougher than the next two guys. Maybe you've known characters like that—for some damfool reason they just got to be able to whup anybody who comes along, and they feel low and mean when they can't, as if the size of a man's fist was the size of the man.

  So that's Buck Tarrant—a halfsized, poisonous, no-good kid who wanted to be a hardcase.

  But he'd never be, not in a million years. That's what made it funny—and kind of pitiful too. There wasn't no real strength in him, only a scared hate. It takes guts as well as speed to be tough with a gun, and Buck was just a nasty little rat of a kid who'd probably always counterpunch his way through life when he punched at all. He'd kite for cover if you lifted a lip.

  I heard another shot, and looked up the slope. I was near enough now to see that the card he was shooting at was a ten of diamonds—and that he was plugging the pips one by one. Always could shoot, like I said.

  * * * *

  Then he heard me coming, and whirled away from the tree, his gun holstered, his hand held out in front of him like he must have imagined Hickock or somebody held it when he was ready to draw.

  I stopped my horse about ten feet away and just stared at him. He looked real funny in his baggy old levis and dirty checkered shirt and that big gun low on his hip, and me knowing he couldn't handle it worth a damn.

  "Who you trying to scare, Buck?" I said. I looked him up and down and snickered. "You look about as dangerous as a sheepherder's wife."

  "And you're a son of a bitch," he said.

  I stiffened and shoved out my jaw. "Watch that, runt, or I'll get off and put my foot in your mouth and pull you on like a boot!"

  "Will you now," he said nastily, "you son of a bitch?"

  And he drew on me ... and I goddam near fell backwards off my saddle!

  I swear, I hadn't even seen his hand move, he'd drawn so fast! That gun just practically appeared in his hand!

  "Will you now?" he said again, and the bore of his gun looked like a greased gate to hell.

  I sat in my saddle scared spitless, wondering if this was when I was going to die. I moved my hands out away from my body, and tried to look friendlylike—actually, I'd never tangled with Buck, just razzed him a little now and then like everybody did; and I couldn't see much reason why he'd want to kill me.

  But the expression on his face was full of gloating, full of wildness, full of damn-you recklessness—exactly the expression you'd look to find on a kid like Buck who suddenly found out he was the deadliest gunman alive.

  And that's just what he was, believe me.

  Once I saw Bat Masterson draw—and he was right up there with the very best. Could draw and shoot accurately in maybe half a second or so—you could hardly see his hand move; you just heard the slap of hand on gunbutt, and a split-second later the shot. It takes a lot of practise to be able to get a gun out and on target in that space of time, and that's what makes gunmen. Practise, and a knack to begin with. And, I guess, the yen to be a gunman, like Buck Tarrant'd always had.

  When I saw Masterson draw against Jeff Steward in Abilene, it was that way—slap, crash, and Steward was three-eyed. Just a blur of motion.

  But when Buck Tarrant drew on me, right now in the Pass, I didn't see any motion atall. He just crouched, and then his gun was on me. Must have done it in a millionth of a second, if a second has millionths.

  It was the fastest draw I'd ever seen. It was, I reckoned, the fastest draw anybody's ever seen. It was an impossibly fast draw—a man's hand just couldn't move to his holster that fast, and grab and drag a heavy Peacemaker up in a two foot arc that fast.

  It was plain damn impossible—but there it was.

  And there I was.

  * * * *

  I didn't say a word. I just sat and thought about things, and my horse wandered a little farther up the slope and then stopped to chomp grass. All the time, Buck Tarrant was standing there, poised, that wild gloating look in his eyes, knowing he could kill me anytime and knowing I knew it.

  When he spoke, his voice was shaky—it sounded like he wanted to bust out laughing, and not a nice laugh either.

  "Nothing to say, Doolin?" he said. "Pretty fast, huh?"

  I said, "Yeah, Buck. Pretty fast." And my voice was shaky too, but not because I felt like laughing any.

  He spat, eying me arrogantly. The ground rose to where he stood, and our heads were about on a level. But I felt he was looking down.

  "Pretty fast!" he sneered. "Faster'n anybody!"

  "I reckon it is, at that," I said.

  "Know how I do it?"

  "No."

  "I think, Doolin. I think my gun into my hand. How d'you like that?"

  "It's awful fast, Buck."

  "I just think, and my gun is there in my hand. Some draw, huh!"

  "Sure is."

  "You're damn right it is, Doolin. Faster'n anybody!"

  I didn't know what his gabbling about "thinking his gun into his hand" meant—at least not then, I didn't—but I sure wasn't minded to question him on it. He looked wild-eyed enough right now to start taking bites out of the nearest tree.

  He spat again and looked me up and down. "You know, you can go to hell, Joe Doolin. You're a lousy, God damn, white-livered son of a bitch." He grinned coldly.

  Not an insult, I knew now, but a deliberate taunt. I'd broken jaws for a lot less—I'm no runt, and I'm quick enough to hand back crap if some lands on me. But now I wasn't interested.

  He saw I was mad, though, and stood waiting.

  "You're fast enough, Buck," I said, "so I got no idea of trying you. You want to murder me, I guess I can't stop you—but I ain't drawing. No, sir, that's for sure."

  "And a coward to boot," he jeered.

  "Maybe," I said. "Put yourself in my place, and ask yourself why in hell I should kill myself?"

  "Yellow!" he snarled, looking at me with his bulging eyes full of meanness and confidence.

  My shoulders got tight, and it ran down along my gun arm. I never took that from a man before.

  "I won't draw," I said. "Reckon I'll move on instead, if you'll let me."

  And I picked up my reins, moving my hands real careful-like, and turned my horse around and started down the slope. I could feel his eyes on me, and I was half-waiting for a bullet in the back. But it didn't come. Instead Buck Tarrant called, "Doolin!"

  I turned my head. "Yeah?"

  He was standing there in the same position. Somehow he reminded me of a crazy, runt wolf—his eyes were almost yellowish, and when he talked he moved his lips too much, mouthing his words, and his big crooked teeth flashed in the sun. I guess all the hankering for toughness in him was coming out—he was acting now like he'd always wanted to—cocky, unafraid, mean—because now he wore a bigger gun than anybody. It showed all over him, like poison coming out of his skin.

  "Doolin," he called. "I'll be in town around three this afternoon. Tell Ben Randolph for me that he's a son of a bitch. Tell him he's a dunghead sheriff. Tell him he'd better look me up when I get there, or else get outa town and stay out. You got that?"

  "I got it, Buck."

  "Call me Mr. Tarrant, you Irish bastard."

  "Okay ... Mr. Tarrant," I said, and reached the bottom of the slope and turned my horse along the road through the Pass. About a hundred yards farther on, I hipped around in the saddle and looked back. He was practising again—the crouch, the fantastic draw, the shot.

  I rode o
n toward town, to tell Ben Randolph he'd either have to run or die.

  * * * *

  Ben was a lanky, slab-sided Texan who'd come up north on a drive ten years before and liked the Arizona climate and stayed. He was a good sheriff—tough enough to handle most men, and smart enough to handle the rest. Fourteen years of it had kept him lean and fast.

  When I told him about Buck, I could see he didn't know whether he was tough or smart or fast enough to get out of this one.

  He leaned back in his chair and started to light his pipe, and then stared at the match until it burned his fingers without touching it to the tobacco.

  "You sure, Joe?" he said.

  "Ben, I saw it four times. At first I just couldn't believe my eyes—but I tell you, he's fast. He's faster'n you or me or Hickock or anybody. God knows where he got it, but he's got the speed."

  "But," Ben Randolph said, lighting another match, "it just don't happen that way." His voice was almost mildly complaining. "Not overnight. Gunspeed's something you work on—it comes slow, mighty slow. You know that. How in hell could Buck Tarrant turn into a fire-eating gunslinger in a few days?" He paused and puffed. "You sure, Joe?" he asked again, through a cloud of smoke.

  "Yes."

  "And he wants me."

  "That's what he said."

  Ben Randolph sighed. "He's a bad kid, Joe—just a bad kid. If his father hadn't died, I reckon he might have turned out better. But his mother ain't big enough to wallop his butt the way it needs."

  "You took his gun away from him a couple times, didn't you, Ben?"

  "Yeah. And ran him outa town too, when he got too pestiferous. Told him to get the hell home and help his ma."

  "Guess that's why he wants you."

  "That. And because I'm sheriff. I'm the biggest gun around here, and he don't want to start at the bottom, not him. He's gonna show the world right away."

  "He can do it, Ben."

  He sighed again. "I know. If what you say's true, he can sure show me anyhow. Still, I got to take him up on it. You know that. I can't leave town."

  I looked at his hand lying on his leg—the fingers were trembling. He curled them into a fist, and the fist trembled.

  "You ought to, Ben," I said.

  "Of course I ought to," he said, a little savagely. "But I can't. Why, what'd happen to this town if I was to cut and run? Is there anyone else who could handle him? Hell, no."