Murray Leinster

by The Best of Murray Leinster (1976)

  His own voice sounded singularly sarcastic, in reply: ‘You won’t do it? Wait and see!’

  So that morning the telephone company manager told Sam, when he reported for work, to drive over to Dunnsville and check on some lines there. Sam balked. He said there were much more important lines needing repair elsewhere. The company manager explained gently to Sam that Mr. Broaddus over in Dunnsville had been taken down drunk at a Fourth of July party and had fallen out of a window. He’d broken his leg. So it was a Christian duty to make sure he had a telephone in working order in his office, and Sam would get over there right away - or else:

  On the way to Dunnsville, brooding, Sam remembered that he’d known about Mr. Broaddus’s leg. He had told himself about it on the telephone. He ground his teeth. At half-past ten, he was fixing Mr. Broaddus’s telephone when he remembered about the man he was supposed to get a good look at, sitting in a car in front of the bank. He made a bitter resolution not to glance outside of the lawyer’s office under any circumstances. He meditated savagely that by this resolution the schemes of his other self in the future were abolished.

  Naturally, he presently went to the window and looked to see what he was abolishing.

  There was a car before the bank, with a reddish-haired man sitting in it. A haze came out of the exhaust-pipe, showing that the motor was running. None of this impressed Sam as remarkable. But, as he looked, two other men came running out of the bank. One of them was carrying a bag, and both of them had revolvers out and waving, and they piled into the car. The reddish-haired man gunned it, and it was abruptly a dwindling speck in a cloud of dust, getting out of town.

  Three seconds later old Mr. Bluford, president of die bank, came out yelling, and the cashier came after him, and it was a first-rate bank robbery they were yelling about. The men in the getaway-car had departed with thirty-five thousand dollars in lawful money unlawfully acquired. And all of it had happened so fast that Sam hardly realized what had happened when he went interestedly out to see what it was all about. He was instantly seized upon to do some work. The bank robbers had shot out the telephone cable out of town with a shotgun, so word of their dastardly deed couldn’t get ahead of them. Sam was needed to re-establish communications with the outside world.

  He did that little thing, absorbedly reflecting on the details of the robbery as he’d heard them. He was high up on a telephone pole and the sheriff and enthusiastic citizens were streaking past in cars to make his labors unnecessary, when the personal aspect of all this affair hit him.

  ‘Migawd!’ said Sam, shocked. ‘That me in the middle of next week told me to come over here and watch a bank robbery! But he didn’t let on what was going to happen so’s I could stop it!’ He felt an incredulous indignation come over him. ‘I woulda been a hero!’ he said resentfully. ‘Rosie woulda admired me! That other me is a bom crook!’

  Then he realized the facts. The other him was himself, only a week and a half distant. The other him was so far sunk in dastardliness that he permitted a crime to take place, with no more than sardonic amusement. And there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t even tell the authorities about this depraved character! They wouldn’t believe him unless he could get his other self on the telephone and make him admit his criminality, and then what could they do?

  Sam felt what little zest had seemed to be left in living go trickling away. He looked into the future and saw nothing desirable in it. He finished the repair of the shot-out telephone line painstakingly; then he went down to his truck and drove over to Rosie’s house. There wasn’t but one thing he could do.

  Rosie came to the door suspiciously.

  ‘I come to tell you good-by, Rosie,’ said Sam. ‘1 just found out I’m a criminal, so I aim to go and commit my crimes far away from my home and the friends who never thought Fd turn out this way. Good-by, Rosie!’

  ‘You, Sam!’ said Rosie. ‘What’s happened now?’

  He told her. About the bank robbery and how his own self -in the week after next - had known it was going to happen, and told Sam to go watch it without giving him information by which it could have been stopped.

  ‘He knew it after it happened,’ said Sam bitterly, ‘and he could’ve told me about it before! He didn’t. So he’s a accessory to the crime. And he is me, so that makes me a accessory, too. Good-by, Rosie, my own true love! You’ll never see me more!’

  ‘You set right down here,’ Rosie commanded, firmly. ‘You haven’t done a thing yet! So it’s that other you who’s a criminal. You haven’t got a thing to run away for.’

  ‘But I’m going to have!’ said Sam despairingly. ‘I’m doomed to be a criminal! It’s that me in the week after next! There’s nothing to be done!’

  ‘Says who?’ Rosie said grimly.l’m going to do something.’ ‘What?’ asked Sam.

  ‘I’m going to reform you,’ said Rosie, ‘before you start!’

  She was a determined girl, that Rosie. She marched into the house and got into her blue jeans. She went to her father’s woodshed, where he kept his tools, got a monkey wrench and put it in her hip pocket. When she came to the truck, Sam said: ‘What’s the idea, Rosie?’

  ‘I’m riding around with you,’ said Rosie, with a grim air. ‘You won’t do anything criminal with me on hand! And if that other you starts talking to you on the telephone I’m going to climb that pole and tell him where he gets off!’

  ‘If anybody could keep me from turning criminal,’ Sam acknowledged, ‘it’d be you, Rosie. But that monkey wrench -what’s it for?’

  Rosie climbed into the seat beside him.

  ‘You start having criminal ideas,’ she told him, ‘and you’ll find out! Now you go on about your business and I and the monkey wrench will look after your morals! ’

  And things went on from there. This tender exchange of ideas happened only an hour or so after the robbery, and there was plenty of excitement around about that. But Sam went soberly about his work as telephone lineman. Rosie simply rode with him as a - well, it wasn’t as a bodyguard, but a sort of M.P. escort - Morals Police.

  It was good fortune that he’d been in Dunnsville when the robbery happened, because his prompt repair of the phone wires had spoiled the robbers’ getaway plans. They hadn’t gotten ten miles from Dunnsville before somebody fired a load of buckshot at them as their car roared past Lemons’ Store. They were past before they realized they’d been shot at. But the buckshot had punctured the radiator, and two miles on they were stuck. They pushed their car off the road behind some bushes and struck out on foot, and the sheriff ran smack past their car without seeing it. Then rain began to fall, and the bank robbers were wet and scared and desperate. They knew there’d be roadblocks set up everywhere, and they had that bag of money - part of it bills but a lot of it silver - and all of Tidewater was up in arms.

  They took evasive action. They hastily stuffed their pockets with small bills - there were no big ones - but dared not take too much lest they bulge. They hid the major part of their loot in a hollow tree. They separated, fast. One of them got on the Batesville-to-Rappahannock bus and disappeared that way. The other two stole a rowboat and got across the Severn. All of them went to nearby towns - while rain fell heavily and covered their trails - and went to bed with chest-colds from their wetting. They felt miserable. But the rain washed away the scent they’d left, and bloodhounds couldn’t do a thing.

  None of this meant anything yet to Sam. Rosie had taken charge of him, and she kept charge. She rode with him all the afternoon of the robbery. When quitting time came he took her home and prepared to retire from the scene.

  But she said grimly, ‘Oh, no you don’t! You’re staying right here! You’re going to sleep in my brother’s room, and my pa is

  going to put a padlock on the door so you don’t go roaming off to call up that no-account other you and get in more trouble!’ Sam said uneasily, ‘1 might mess things up if I don’t talk to him.’

  ‘He’s messed things up enough talking to you!�
�� Rosie said. ‘The idea of repeating our private affairs! He hadn’t ought to know them! And I’m not sure,’ she said ominously, ‘that you didn’t tell him! If you did, Sam Yoder—’

  Sam didn’t argue that point. There was no argument to make. He was practically meek until he discovered after supper that the schedule for the evening was a thrilling game of crib-bage played in the living room where Rosie’s mother and father were. He mentioned unhappily that they were acting like old married people without the fun of getting that way, but he said that only once. Rosie glared at him. And when bedtime came she shooed him into her brother’s room and her father padlocked him in. He did not sleep well. Next morning, there was Rosie in her blue jeans with a monkey wrench in her pocket, ready to go riding with him. She did. And the next day. And the next. And the next. Nothing happened. The state banking association put up five thousand dollars’ reward for the bank robbers, and the insurance company put up some more, but there wasn’t a trace of the criminals.

  There wasn’t a trace of criminality about Sam, either. Rosie rode with him, but there wasn’t any love-making. They exchanged not one single hand-squeeze, nor one melting glance, nor did they even play footsie while they were eating lunch in the truck outside a filling station. Their conduct was exemplary, and it wore on Sam. Possibly it wore on Rosie, too.

  Once Sam said morosely, as he chewed on a ham sandwich at lunchtime, ‘Rosie, I’m crazy about you, but this feels like I’ve been divorced without ever even getting married first.’

  And Rosie snapped, ‘If I told you how I feel, that other you in the week after next would laugh his fool head off. So shut up!’

  Things were bad, and they got no better. For nearly a week Rosie rode everywhere with Sam, in Sam’s truck. Their conduct was exemplary. They acted in a manner that Rosie’s parents would in theory have approved, but which they didn’t even begin to believe in. They did nothing the world could not have watched without their being embarrassed, and they said very little that all the world would not have been bored to hear.

  It must have been the eleventh of July when they almost snapped at each other and Rosie said bitterly, -Let me drive a while. I need to have to put my mind on something that it don’t make me mad to think about.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ Sam said gloomily. He stopped the truck and got out the door. !I don’t look for any happiness in this world any more, anyways.’

  He went around to the other side of the truck while she slid to the driver’s seat.

  She said, ‘Tomorrow’s going to be the twelfth.Do you realize it?’

  ‘It’ll be the twelfth,’ Sam admitted. ‘But what’s the difference?’

  ‘That’s the day,’ said Rosie, ‘where the other you was when he called you up the first time.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Sam morbidly. ‘It is.’

  ‘And so far,’ said Rosie, jamming her foot down on the accelerator viciously, ‘I’ve kept you honest. If you change into a scoundrel between now and tomorrow—’

  She changed to second gear. The truck jerked and bounced. ‘Hey!’ said Sam. ‘Watch your driving!’

  ‘Don’t you tell me how to drive, Sam Yoder!’ snapped Rosie. ‘But if I get killed before tomorrow—’

  Rosie changed gear again - too soon. The truck bucked, so she jammed down the accelerator again, and it almost leaped off the road.

  ‘If you get killed before tomorrow,’ raged Rosie, infuriated because of innumerable things and the misbehavior of the truck on top of the rest. ‘If you get killed before tomorrow, it’ll serve you right! I’ve been thinking and thinking and thinking. And -even if I stop you from being a crook, there’ll always be that -other you, knowing everything we say and do—’ She was hitting forty miles an hour and the speed was still going up. ‘So there’d still be no use - no hope anyway—’

  She sobbed, partly in rage and partly in despair. The roadway curved sharply just about there, and she swung the truck crazily around it - and there was a car standing only halfway off the road. Sam grabbed for the steering wheel, but there wasn’t time. The light half-truck, still accelerating, hit the parked car with the noise of dozens of empty oil drums falling downstairs. The truck was slued halfway around and bounced back, and then it charged forward and slammed into the parked car a second time. Then it stalled.

  Somebody yelled at Sam. He got out of the truck, looked at the damage and tried to figure out how it was that neither he nor Rosie had been killed. Then he tried despairingly to think how he was going to explain to the telephone company that he’d let Rosie drive.

  The voice yelled louder. Right at the edge of the woodland there was a reddish-haired character screaming at him and tugging at his hip pocket. The words he used were not fit for Rosie’s shell-like ears - even if they did probably come near matching the way she felt. The reddish-haired man said more naughty words at the top of his voice. His hand came away from his hip pocket with something glittering in it.

  Sam was swinging when the glitter began, and he connected before the pistol bore. There was a sort of squashy smacking sound, and the reddish-haired man lay down in the road and was still.

  ‘Migawd!’ said Sam blankly. ‘This was the fella in front of the bank! He’s one of those bank robbers!’

  He stared. There was a loud crashing in the brushwood. The accident had happened at the edge of some woodland, and Sam did not need a high IQ to know that the friends of the red-haired man must be on the way. A second later he saw them. Rosie was just getting out of the car then. She was very pale, and there wasn’t time to tell her to get started up if possible and away from there. One of the two running men was carrying a canvas bag with the words Bank of Dunnsville on it. They came for Sam. As they came they expressed opinions of the state of things, of Sam, of the cosmos - of everything but the weather -in terms even more reprehensible than the first man had used.

  They saw the reddish-haired man lying down on the ground. One of them - he’d come out into the road behind the truck and was running for Sam - jerked out a pistol. He was in the act of raising it to use it on Sam at a range of something like six feet when there was a peculiar noise behind him. It was a sort of hollow clunkl That even at such a time needed to have attention paid to it. The man jerked his head around to see.

  And the clunkl had been made by Rosie’s monkey wrench, falling imperatively on the head of another man who had come out of the woods. She had carried it to use on Sam. She used it on a total stranger. He fell down and lay peacefully still.

  Then Sam swung a second time, on the man behind him.

  Then there was silence, save for the sweet singing of birds among the trees and the whirrings and other insect noises of crcatures in the grass and brushwood.

  Presently there were other noises, but they were made by Rosie. She wept, hanging onto Sam.

  He unwound her arms from around his neck, went thoughtfully to the back of the truck and got some phone wire and his pliers. He fastened the men’s hands together behind them, and then he tied their feet. He piled the three bank robbers in the back of the light truck together with the money they had stolen.

  Presently they came to, one by one, and Rosie and Sam explained ‘severely that they must watch their language in the presence of a lady. But the three seemed so dazed by what had befallen them that Sam and Rosie didn’t have much trouble.

  Rosie’s parents would have been pleased at how completely proper their behavior was while they took the three bank robbers into town and turned them over to the sheriff. Rosie’s parents would also have been surprised.

  That night Rosie sat out on the porch with Sam, and they discussed the particular events of the day in some detail. But Rosie was still cagey about the other Sam. So Sam decided to assert himself.

  About half-past nine he said firmly, ‘Well then, Rosie, I guess I’d better be getting along home. I’ve got to try one more time to call myself up on the telephone and tell me to mind my own business.’

  ‘Says who?’ said Rosie grimly
. ‘Oh, no you’re not! You’re staying locked up right here tonight, and I’m riding with you tomorrow.; If I kept you honest this far, I can keep it up till sundown tomorrow! Then maybe it’ll stick!’

  Sam protested, but it didn’t work. Rosie was adamant. Not only about keeping him from being a crook, but from having any fun to justify his virtue. She shooed him into her brother’s room, and her father locked him in. Sam did not sleep very well, because it looked like virtue wasn’t even its own reward and the future looked dark indeed. He sat up, brooding. It must have been close to dawn when the obvious hit him like a ton of bricks..

  Then he gazed blankly at the wall and said, ‘Migawd! O’course!’

  He grinned, all by himself, as though he would split his throat. And at breakfast he practically sang as he stuffed himself with pancakes and syrup, and Rosie’s utterly depressed expression changed to one of baffled despair.

  He smiled tenderly upon her when she came doggedly out to the truck in her blue jeans and with the monkey wrench in her pocket. They started off just like any other day and he said amiably, ‘Rosie, the sheriff says we get five thousand dollars reward from the bankers’ association, and there’s more from the insurance company, and there’s odd bits of change due for rewards specially offered for those fellas for past performances. We’re going to be right well off.’

  Rosie looked at him gloomily. There was still the matter of the other Sam in the middle of the week after next. And just then Sam - who had been watching the telephone-lines beside the road as he drove - pulled off the road and put on his climbing-irons.

  ‘What’s this?’ asked Rosie mournfully. ‘You know—’

  ‘You listen,’ said Sam happily.

  He climbed zestfully to the top of the pole. He hooked in the little gadget that didn’t make private conversations possible on a party line, but did make it possible for a man to talk to himself two weeks in the future.