by Fritz Leiber
Texas had an army deep in Mongolia, when its general, a 19-year-old, 13-foot military genius of the Alexander breed, succumbed to early heart disease. At the same time, the Seventh Bent-Back Revolution was successful. Within a year all tall Texans were dead, unless there is truth' in report of small Texan colonies in Australia and Antartica. They had gone the way of the dinosaurs and Peking Man. Their size was developed at the expense of more important survival traits — too big for their ego and their dreams.
Far away the Rachel-Jane
Sings amid a hedge of thorns:—
“Love and life, eternal youth—
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet.”
“The Santa Fe Trail,” by Vachel Lindsay
What was left of Texas became the curious nation of Anarquia Mehico — if a self-styled “anarchy” may be called a nation.
Its boundary with Russia is approximately the ancient one between the old United States and Canada. The furry ones have become more and more arctic, uninterested in temperate-zone conquests. Besides, all the land to the south is badly contaminated by radioactivity from the moholes.
Anarquia is a curious and fairly promising nation, I gather, though it must devote much of its thought and energy to purifying its poisoned air, soil, water, people and germ plasm. The combination of Latin, Indian and short Texan (honorary Mex) seems not a bad one. Tall Texas left much salvageable industry, while the Mexes, gaining ground with each revolution, became a more prudent and industrious race.
At any rate, the La Cruz Theater and the Sack have found new funds there to help to pay their rent to Circumluna. The donor was the Mendoza-Earp Foundation for Serendipitous Studies, founded by the Carlos and the Elmo Oilfield, whom I once knew.
Carlos lived to a great age for a Terran, dying only a quarter century ago, while Elmo disappeared in Africa some fifty years before that, during a mysterious “fixing” mission for the Pacific Black Republic. He left Mendoza, by illegal channels of course, a considerable fortune.
Recalling how he both sucked me in and took care of me, remembering his tall tales and belly realism, but above all else his irreverent good humor, I like to think of him still going on with his “fixing” somewhere.
— Fritz Leiber —
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