The sun was nearly gone now. Fewer and fewer animals. Their sounds faded all around. Birds stopped singing. The frenetic scrambling of squirrels halted as they prepared to bed down for the night. Far below, at the foot of these mountains, the ocean was turning to ink. The sun was lowering and the sea rose to meet it like a dark blue comforter.
Ahead, Michael could see an approaching corner.
How long had he been moving through the forest path? Fifteen minutes? Was it possible he’d gone the ten or so mile length of the path already?
That was one of the insane anomalies of running these marathons of his. Time got all out of whack. He’d think he was running ten miles and find he’d actually covered considerably more ground. Sometimes as much as double his estimate. He couldn’t ever figure that one out. But it always happened and he always just sort of anticipated it.
Welcome to the time warp, Jack.
He checked his odometer: Twenty-nine point eight.
Half there and some loose change.
The dirt path would be coming to an end in a few hundred yards. Then it was straight along the highway which ran atop the ridge of this mountain far above the Malibu coastline. The highway was bordered with towering streetlamps which lit the way like some forgotten runway for ancient astronauts. They stared down from fifty-foot poles and bleached the asphalt and roadside talcum white.
The path had ended now and he was on the deserted mountain-top road with its broken center line that stretched to forever. As Michael wiped his glistening face with a sleeve, he heard someone hitting a crystal glass with tiny mallets, far away. It wasn’t a pinging sound. More like a high-pitched thud that was chain reacting. He looked up and saw insects of the night swarming dementedly around a kleig’s glow. Hundreds of them in hypnotic self-destruction dive-bombed again and again at the huge bulb.
Eerie, seeing that kind of thing way the hell out here. But nice country to run in just the same. Gentle hills. The distant sea, far below. Nothing but heavy silence. Nobody ever drove this road anymore. It was as deserted as any Michael could remember. The perfect place to run.
What could be better? The smell was clean and healthy, the air sweet. Great decision, building his house up here last year. This was definitely the place to live. Pastureland is what his father used to call this kind of country when Michael was growing up in Wisconsin.
He laughed. Glad to be out of that place. People never did anything with their lives. Born there, schooled there, married there and died there was the usual, banal legacy. They all missed out on life. Missed out on new ideas and ambitions. The doctor slapped them and from that point on their lives just curled up like dead spiders.
It was just as well.
How many of them could take the heat of competition in Los Angeles? Especially a job like Michael’s? None of the old friends he’d gladly left behind in his home town would ever have a chance going up against a guy like himself. He was going to be the head of his law firm in a few more years. Most of those yokels back home couldn’t even spell success much less achieve it.
But to each his own. Regardless of how pointless some lives really were. But he was going to be the head of his own firm and wouldn’t even be thirty-five by the time it happened.
Okay, yeah, they were all married and had their families worked out. But what a fucking bore. Last thing Michael needed right now was that noose around his neck. Maybe the family guys figured they had something valuable. But for Michael it was a waste of time. Only thing a wife and kids would do is drag him down; hold him back. Priorities. First things first. Career. Then everything else. But put that relationship stuff off until last.
Besides, with all the inevitable success coming his way, meeting ladies would be a cinch. And hell, anyone could have a kid. Just nature. No big thing.
But success. That was something else, again. Took a very special animal to grab onto that golden ring and never let go. Families were for losers when a guy was really climbing. And he, of all the people he’d ever known, was definitely climbing.
Running had helped get him in the right frame of mind to do it. With each mileage barrier he broke, he was able to break greater barriers in life itself, especially his career. It made him more mentally fit to compete when he ran. It strengthened his will; his inner discipline.
Everything felt right when he was running regularly. And it wasn’t just the meditative effect; not at all. He knew what it gave him was an edge. An edge on his fellow attorneys at the firm and an edge on life.
It was unthinkable to him how the other guys at the firm didn’t take advantage of it. Getting ahead was what it was all about. A guy didn’t make it in L.A. or anywhere else in the world unless he kept one step ahead of the competition. Keep moving and never let anything stand in the way or slow you down. That was the magic.
And Michael knew the first place to start that trend was with himself.
He got a chill. Thinking this way always made him feel special. Like he had the formula; the secret. Contemplating success was a very intoxicating thing. And with his running now approaching the hour and a half mark, hyperventilation was heightening the effect.
He glanced at his odometer: Forty-three, point six.
He was feeling like a champion. His calves were burning a little and his back was a bit tender but at this rate, with his breathing effortless and body strong, he could do sixty. But fifty was the goal. After that he had to go back and get his briefs in order for tomorrow’s meeting. Had to get some sleep. Keep the machine in good shape and you rise to the top. None of that smoking or drinking or whatever else those morons were messing with out there. Stuff like that was for losers.
He opened his mouth a little wider to catch more air. The night had gone to a deep black and all he could hear now was the adhesive squishing of his Nikes. Overhead, the hanging branches of pepper trees canopied the desolate road and cut the moonlight into a million beams.
The odometer: Forty-six, point two. His head was feeling hot but running at night always made that easier. The breezes would swathe like cool silk, blowing his hair back and combing through his scalp. Then he’d hit a hot pocket that hovered above the road and his hair would flop downward, the feeling of heat returning like a blanket. He coughed and spit.
Almost there.
He was suddenly hit by a stray drop of moisture, then another. A drizzle began. Great. Just what he didn’t need. Okay, it wasn’t raining hard; just that misty stuff that atomizes over you like a lawn sprinkler shifted by a light wind. Still, it would have been nice to finish the fifty dry.
The road was going into a left hairpin now and Michael leaned into it, Nikes gripping octopus-tight. Ahead, as the curve broke, the road went straight, as far as the eye could see. Just a two-lane blacktop laying in state across these mountains. Now that it was wet, the surface went mirror shiny, like a ribbon on the side of tuxedo pants. Far below, the sea reflected a fuzzy moon, and fog began to ease up the mountainside, coming closer toward the road.
Michael checked the odometer, rubbing his hands together for warmth. Forty-nine, point eight. Almost there and other than being a little cold, he was feeling like a million bucks. He punched happily at the air and cleared his throat. God, he was feeling great! Tomorrow, at the office, was going to be a victory from start to finish.
He could feel himself smiling, his face hot against the vaporing rain. His jogging suit was soaked with sweat and drizzle made him shiver as it touched his skin. He breathed in gulps of the chilled air and as it left his mouth it turned white, puffing loosely away. His eyes were stinging from the cold and he closed them, continuing to run, the effect of total blackness fascinating him.
Another stride. Another.
He opened his eyes and rubbed them with red fingers. All around, the fog breathed closer, snaking between the limbs of trees and creeping silently across the asphalt. The overhead lights made it glow like a wall of colorless neon.
The odometer.
Another hundred feet and he
had it!
The strides came in a smooth flow, like a turning wheel. He spread his fingers wide and shook some of the excess energy that was concentrating and making him feel buzzy. It took the edge off but he still felt as though he was zapped on a hundred cups of coffee. He ran faster, his arms like swinging scythes, tugging him forward.
Twenty more steps.
Ten plus ten. Five times . . . Christ, the math thing back. He started laughing out loud as he went puffing down the road, sweat pants drooping.
The sky was suddenly zippered open by lightning and Michael gasped. In an instant, blackness turned to hot white and there was that visual echo of the light as it trembled in the distance, then fluttered off like a dying bulb.
Michael checked his odometer.
Five more feet! He counted it: Five/breath/four/breath/ three/breath/two/one and there it was, yelling and singing and patting him on the back and tossing streamers!
Fifty miles! Fifty goddamn miles!
It was fucking incredible! To know he could really, actually do it suddenly hit him and he began laughing.
Okay, now to get that incredible sensation of almost standing still while walking it off. Have to keep those muscles warm. If not he’d get a chill and cramps and feel like someone was going over his calves with a carpet knife.
Hot breath gushed visibly from his mouth. The rain was coming faster in a diagonal descent, back-lit by lightning, and the fog bundled tighter. Michael took three or four deep breaths and began trying to slow. It was incredible to have this feeling of edge. The sense of being on top of everything! It was an awareness he could surpass limitations. Make breakthroughs. It was what separated the winners from the losers when taken right down to a basic level. The winners knew how much harder they could push to go farther. Break those patterns. Create new levels of ability and confidence.
Win.
He tried again to slow down. His legs weren’t slowing to a walk yet and he sent the message down again. He smiled. Run too far and the body just doesn’t want to stop.
The legs continued to pull him forward. Rain was drenching down from the sky; he was soaked to the bone. Hair strung over his eyes and mouth and he coughed to get out what he could as it needled coldly into his face.
“Slow down,” he told his legs; “Stop, goddamit!”
But his feet continued on, splashing through puddles which laked here and there along the foggy road.
Michael began to breathe harder, unable to get the air he needed. It was too wet; half air, half water. Suddenly, more lightning scribbled across the thundering clouds and Michael reached down to stop one leg.
It did no good. He kept running, even faster, pounding harder against the wet pavement. He could feel the bottoms of his Nikes getting wet, starting to wear through. He’d worn the old ones; they were the most comfortable.
Jesus fucking god, he really couldn’t stop!
The wetness got colder on his cramping feet. He tried to fall but kept running. Terrified, he began to cough fitfully, his legs continuing forward, racing over the pavement.
His throat was raw from the cold and his muscles ached. He was starting to feel like his body had been beaten with hammers.
There was no point in trying to stop. He knew that, now. He’d trained too long. Too precisely.
It had been his single obsession.
And as he continued to pound against the fog-shrouded pavement all he could hear was a cold, lonely night.
Until the sound of his own pleading screams began to echo through the mountains, and fade across the endless gray road.
Redbeard
Gene Wolf
In Birmingham, England, October 1983, a New York-born American writer of fantasy was honored as the sole Guest of Honor at the eighth annual British Fantasycon. He was one of three Guests of Honor at WorldFanCon 1983. The same alopecian author extraordinaire won the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel of 1982. The book was Sword of the Lictor—And the writer was that gifted working pro (born May 7, 1931), Illinois resident Gene Wolfe.
Who has also written Peace, The Shadow of the Torturer, The Fifth Head of Cerberus, and a must-read story feast entitled Gene Wolfe’s Book of Days—and who won the Science Fiction Writers of America’s yearned-for Nebula Award.
Wolfe, called “un Proust de I’espace” L’Express, Paris) as well as “one of the finest modern sf writers” (The Science Fiction Encyclopedia), “served a hitch in the army during the Korean War” and “got the Combat Infantry Badge.” He has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Houston and married Rosemary upon graduation in 1956. “Now I’m a full-time writer,” he adds.
For your pleasure, amiable Gene has created one of those lazily-read yarns which lean back and pull you in, then set about telling you things you need to know—or remember—while munching on your nerves and surprising you all the way. It would be against common decency to tell you more about Gene Wolfe’s chilling-but-human “Redbeard.”
It doesn’t matter how Howie and I became friends, except that our friendship was unusual. I’m one of those people who’ve moved into the area since . . . Since what? I don’t know; some day I’ll have to ask Howie. Since the end of the sixties or the Truman Administration or the Second World War. Since something.
Anyway, after Mara and I came with our little boy, John, we grew conscious of older strata. They are the people who were living here before. Howie is one of them; his grandparents are buried in the little family cemeteries that are or used to be attached to farms—all within twenty miles of my desk. Those people are still here, practically all of them, like the old trees that stand among the new houses.
By and large we don’t mix much. We’re only dimly aware of them, and perhaps they’re only dimly aware of us. Our friends are new people too, and on Sunday mornings we cut the grass together. Their friends are the children of their parents’ friends, and their own uncles and cousins; on Sunday mornings they go to the old clapboard churches.
Howie was the exception, as I said. We were driving down U.S. 27—or rather, Howie was driving, and I was sitting beside him smoking a cigar and having a look around. I saw a gate that was falling down, with a light that was leaning way over, and beyond it, just glimpsed, a big, old, tumbledown wooden house with young trees sprouting in the front yard. It must have had about ten acres of ground, but there was a boarded-up fried-chicken franchise on one side of it and a service station on the other. “That’s Redbeard’s place,” Howie told me.
I thought it was a family name, perhaps an anglicization of Barbarossa. I said, “It looks like a haunted house.”
“It is,” Howie said. “For me, anyway. I can’t go in there.” We hit a chuck hole, and I looked over at him.
“I tried a couple times. Soon as I set my foot on that step, something says, ‘This is as far as you go, Buster,’ and I turn around and head home.”
After a while I asked him who Redbeard was.
“This used to be just a country road,” Howie said. “They made it a Federal Highway back about-the time I was born, and it got a lot of cars and trucks and stuff on it. Now the Interstate’s come through, and it’s going back to about what it was.
“Back before, a man name of Jackson used to live there. I don’t think anybody thought he was much different, except he didn’t get married till he was forty or so. But then, a lot of people around here used to do that. He married a girl named Sarah Sutter.”
I nodded, just to show Howie I was listening.
“She was a whole lot younger than him, nineteen or twenty. But she loved him—that’s what I always heard. Probably he was good to her, and so on. Gentle. You know?”
I said a lot of young women like that preferred older man. “I guess. You know where Clinton is? Little place about fifteen miles over. There had been a certain amount of trouble around Clinton going on for years, and people were concerned about it. I don’t believe I said this Jackson was from Clinton, but he was. His dad had run a store
there and had a farm. The one brother got the farm and the next oldest the store. This Jackson, he just got some money, but it was enough for him to come here and buy that place. It was about a hundred acres then.
“Anyhow, they caught him over in Clinton. One of those chancy things. It was winter, and dark already, and there’d been a little accident where a car hit a school bus that still had quite a few kids riding home. Nobody was killed as far as I heard or even hurt bad, but a few must have had bloody noses and so forth, and you couldn’t get by on the road. Just after the deputy’s car got there this Jackson pulled up, and the deputy told him to load some of the kids in the back and take them to the Doctor’s.
“Jackson said he wouldn’t, he had to get back home The deputy told him not to be a damned fool. The kids were hurt and he’d have to go back to Clinton anyhow to get on to Mill Road, because it would be half the night before they got that bus moved.
“Jackson still wouldn’t do it, and went to try and turn his pickup around. From the way he acted, the deputy figured there was something wrong. He shined his flash in the back, and there was something under a tarp there. When he saw that, he hollered for Jackson to stop and went over and jerked the tarp away. From what I hear, now he couldn’t do that because of not having a warrant, and if he did, Jackson would have got off. Back then, nobody had heard of such foolishness. He jerked that tarp away, and there was a girl underneath, and she was dead. I don’t even know what her name was. Rosa or something like that, I guess. They were Italians that had come just a couple of years before.” Howie didn’t give Italians a long, but there had been a trifling pause while he remembered not to. “Her dad had a little shoe place,” he said. “The family was there for years after.
“Jackson was arrested, and they took him up to the county seat. I don’t know if he told them anything or not. I think he didn’t. His wife came up to see him, and then a day or so later the sheriff came to the house with a search warrant. He went all through it, and when he got to going through the cellars, one of the doors was locked. He asked her for the key, but she said she didn’t have it. He said he’d have to bust down the door, and asked her what was in there. She said she didn’t know, and after a while it all came out—I mean, all as far as her understanding went.
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