"He would love tonight,” she told us. “All this effort on his behalf ... he would find it to be absolutely lovely...."
* * * *
The evening began with showers and then a hard cold rain mixed with biting sleet. Cheryl and I packed for any weather. We arrived early, pulling off the country road and waiting in the gathering darkness. Several dozen searchers were expected, half of whom never showed. In the end, it was a gathering of distant relations and friends from Don's work who stood on the mud, coming up with a battle plan. Because nobody else volunteered, Cheryl and I took the far end of the pasture. LD's parents had been over this ground a dozen times. But we were told to look for signs of fresh digging that they might have missed, and to be most alert sometime before dawn. If the most common scenario played out, the new recruit would emerge from his hiding place then, still wearing his warrior suit.
With my wife beside me, I walked across the wet, cold, and shaggy brome. At the fence line, she went to the right and I went left, her flashlight soon vanishing in a rain that refused to quit.
In the end, I had no idea where I was.
Three in the morning, full of coffee and desperate for sleep, I walked the same ground that Don had searched in broad daylight. The mission was impossible, if the mission was to discover LD. But in my mind, what I was doing was saving a friendship that I hadn't cherished enough.
By four, I was too tired to even pretend to search.
By five in the morning, clear skies arrived along with the sudden glow of a thousand stars.
Change one turn that night, or pause in a different spot, and I would have heard nothing.
And even what I heard was insignificant enough to ignore.
What I was reminded of was the sound of an old-fashioned thermostat. That's all. The soft click that meant the furnace was about to kick on, except that I heard the click repeating itself every few seconds.
I turned toward the sound.
My flashlight was off, my eyes adjusted to the starlight. Even though it probably wouldn't do any good, I tried for stealth—a quiet stride and a steadiness of motion.
At some point, the clicking stopped.
I halted.
Then a slab of late-season grass, blond and shaggy, lifted up on my right. It was maybe ten feet from me. There was no disturbed area there before, I'm sure. Afterward I couldn't find any trace of the hole where our newest recruit was undergoing his indoctrinations. But there he was, rising up from that random patch of ground. I saw the head. The broad shoulders. Arms and long legs. All those good human parts encased inside a suit that seemed neither large nor particularly massive, or for that matter, all that tough either.
From behind, he looked like LD dressed up for a Halloween party, pretending to be a cut-rate astronaut.
I said, “Donnie."
My voice was little more than a whisper.
The shape turned with a smooth suddenness, as if it knew that I was there and wasn't surprised, but maybe it wasn't sure of my motives. LD pivoted, and then a face that I couldn't quite make out stared at me through a shield of glass or diamond or who-knew-what.
"How's that big bike ride coming?” I asked.
LD stepped closer.
It did occur to me, just then, that maybe there was a good reason why no one had ever seen a recruit leaving for space. Witnesses weren't allowed. But even if the kid was twice my strength, he did nothing to me. He just stepped close enough so that I could make out his features and he could see mine, and with a satisfied sound, he said, “If it has to be someone, John, I'm glad it is you."
Maybe the feeling was mutual.
But I didn't say that. Instead, I decided to lay things out as clearly and brutally as I could. “Your folks are sick with worry. They've spent their savings and every emotional resource, and after tonight, they will be ruined. They'll be old and beaten down, and for the rest of their lives, they won't enjoy one good happy day."
"No,” said LD.
"What does that mean?"
"They will recover just fine,” he claimed. “People are strong, John. Amazingly strong. We can endure far more than you realize."
The wee hours of the most unlikely morning, and I was getting a pep talk from a college dropout.
"Donnie,” I said. “You are a spoiled little brat."
That chiseled, utterly handsome face just smiled at my inconsequential opinion.
"So much promise,” I said, “and what are you doing with it? Going off to fight some idiotic alien war?"
Inside his battle helmet, the boy shook his head. “Where I will be is on a large world that is more beautiful and more complex than you could ever envision."
Could I hit him with something? A rock or a log? Or maybe a devastating chunk of bloody guilt?
But I had the impression that his flimsy suit wasn't weak at all.
"I am needed up there,” LD said.
"Are you sure?"
"More than I am needed down here, yes.” He said it simply, calmly. And I suppose that's when I realized that not only did he mean what he was saying, but that in deep ways, he was probably right.
I didn't have anything left to offer.
"John?” the boy asked. “Would you do me a favor?"
"What?"
"Turn around for a moment."
If there was a noise when he left, I didn't hear it. And maybe there was motion, a sense of mass displaced into an endless sky. But at that moment, all I could feel was the beating of my heart and that slight but genuine anguish that comes when you wish it was you bound for places unseen.
* * * *
More than a hundred people had searched in the rain for LD, and all but one openly confessed to seeing nothing and no one. I was the lone dissenter. I said nothing, and not even Cheryl could make me confess what happened, though I know she sensed that I had seen more than nothing while we were apart.
To Don, I said simply, “Come to chess tomorrow. The usual place."
He was at the coffee shop before me, and I was early. He had his board set up, and he looked exactly as I expected him to look: Exhausted and pained, weak and frail.
I picked up my queen's pawn and then put it down again.
Then quietly, I told him what I had seen and everything that I had done in the backstretches of that pasture, trying to win over the heart of a boy that really, when you got down to it, I barely knew.
Don nodded.
With a voice less than quiet, he halfway accused me of not doing enough to save LD from his own childish nonsense.
But what more could I have done?
That's what I thought, and maybe he did too. Then he sat back—a defeated father who would surely never see his son again—and with a mournful voice, he asked, “Is there anything else?"
Then I lied.
I said, “Yeah, there's more."
I smiled enough to bring him forward again, elbows to his knees as he waited for whatever I said next.
"Donnie wanted me to tell you something."
"What?"
"That he's going up there for one reason only: He wants to put an end to that awful ancient war. He's not going to fight anyone, but instead he'll reason with the Kuipers and show them that it's better to live in peace."
A staggering lie, that was. Unbelievable to its core.
But Don accepted my words without complaint. He sat back in his chair, his shoulders relaxing and then his face too. And being his friend for years told me that here, with just a few words, I had made it easier for him to sleep easy, and if not tonight, sometime soon.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Classic Reprint: The Alarming Letters from Scottsdale by Warner Law
When Gordon first told me of his plan to reprint some stories from F&SF's past as a way to celebrate our sixtieth anniversary year, I immediately suggested that we choose stories that were on the obscure side, rather than reprinting any of the numerous classics we've published. In fact, what I said was that we should reprint stories like
this one by Warner Law because, to me, it's a quintessential F&SF story—it's both literary and quirky, with just the right amount of demented charm.
Warner Law is a writer who is probably not familiar to many fantasy readers. He was primarily a writer for television and radio who later turned his hand to prose, but died of cancer at the age of sixty before his short fiction career could take off. However, he did publish two stories in F&SF and has appeared in The Saturday Evening Post and Playboy, and his first published story won the Edgar Award.
"The Alarming Letters from Scottsdale” was originally published in our April 1973 issue.
—John Joseph Adams
C. BENNINTON & SON
PUBLISHERS
551 FIFTH AVE.
NEW YORK 10071
May 27, 1972
Henry Hesketh, Esq.
"Hesketh Hill"
Rural Route #1
Scottsdale
Arizona 85256
—
Dear Godfather Henry:
Hello, there! How are you? Long time no hear. How comes the newest Homer McGrew mystery novel? It's been over three months since Dad and I responded enthusiastically to your outline, and not even a note from you.
As you well know, if we don't get the manuscript soon, it will be too late for our Fall list, which would mean that for the first time in nineteen years there won't be a new Homer McGrew for Christmas.
Since you live all alone up in that hilltop showplace without a phone, we worry when you don't keep in touch.
Dad is away on his annual European business trek, so I'll be minding the store until he gets back.
Do drop me a line, soon.
Your loving Godson,
Bill Benninton
* * * *
HESKETH HILL
SCOTTSDALE
ARIZONA
June 1, 1972
Dear Godson Bill:
I am just fine, but thanks for wondering. I hadn't realized so much time had gone by.
I was halfway through the new Homer McGrew when I was captured by a dog.
That is, I was cooking beef stew à la Erle Stanley Gardner—I wheedled his recipe from him, years back—when a large dog walked in my kitchen. He looked to be a cross between a German shepherd and something, and he was painfully thin and obviously starving. So of course I gave him some stew, and he hasn't left my side to this day. I've never had a dog before, ever.
He wore no collar. I tried to find his owner, but failed. He's far from a cute or even handsome dog; he looks to be a dignified ten or so years old.
But he has remarkable eyes. They are clear and direct and intelligent, and they remind me strongly of the eyes of Dashiell Hammett, whom I first met in the ‘30's, when he was pioneering the tough detective novel, and had just become famous for The Maltese Falcon. Hammett was not only my close friend but my teacher; much of what I know about the mystery novel came from him. He also spent a long weekend here with me a few years before his death in 1961. Anyways, in his honor I've named the dog Dashiell—Dash, for short. He seldom leaves my side, and even insists on sleeping on the foot of my bed, which is sometimes not too comfortable for me because he's gained considerable weight.
Dash sits now at my feet as I type, and whenever I pause he slaps a foot with a paw as if to say, “Get back to work, you lazy lout!” I imagine he merely likes the clatter of the electric typewriter.
But I swear to you that Dash is close to being human; he seems to understand every word I say. And—don't laugh, now—he even helps me with my story problems. That is, whenever my plot could go one way or another, I explain the alternatives to him—trying to use the same tone of voice—and Dash listens attentively. When he doesn't fancy my suggestions, he lays his head on the floor and sighs wearily; when he does like an idea, his eyes light up—just as Dashiell Hammett's used to when he encouraged me—and he slaps his tail vigorously on the carpet. Dash has saved me from going up many blind alleys.
Anyway, I've decided to put Homer McGrew aside and write instead a book titled: Dash—My Exciting True Life Experiences as a Dog Detective. It will be written by Dash himself in the first person, “As Told To Henry Hesketh.” Naturally, I will have to do considerable inventing.
Please give my love to father Cyrus when next you write him.
Love,
Henry
* * * *
June 8, 1972
Dear Henry:
I was relieved to hear that you're well, and pleased that you've found such a good friend in Dash. A book about a dog detective might well be a fine idea. After all, Lassie herself often plays a detective role.
However, might it not be better to finish the Homer McGrew first? You will disappoint many, many of your eager fans if there's not a new mystery novel from you this year.
By the way, I've just learned that Homer is nudging Perry Mason in total paperback sales. This is no small achievement, and I don't think you'll ever have to worry about money, for as long as you live.
I feel I should warn you that Dad has always had an aversion to what he calls “literary anthropomorphism,” by which he means the ascription of human qualities to things not human. He will not read—let alone publish—books written in the first person by dogs, cats, parrots, automobiles, or frying pans. He was once sent into such a rage by a four-pound manuscript titled: I Was an Unslothful Three-toed Sloth that he broke his office window with it and it fell six stories down to the street and narrowly missed Bennett Cerf, who happened to be walking by.
Dad is fully aware that many good writers have written successfully in this manner, but it's simply not his cup of tea.
Had you considered writing about Dash in the third person?
Dad writes from London that his trip is going well. Next stop, Edinburgh.
Love,
Bill
* * * *
June 12, 1972
Dear Bill:
I'm sorry, but I have grown goddamn weary of Homer McGrew over the years, and I'd like to write something else for a change.
But apart from this, your letter upset me and made me unhappy, and when I read the letter aloud to Dash, he listened with hurt eyes and then went into a corner and whimpered.
But I will let Dash speak for himself: Dear Mr. Benninton:
I was considerably disappointed to hear that your father would not be interested in the book I am writing about my life as a Dog Detective, in the first person.
The reason that Henry wants me to write the book is because he wants the reader to know how I really think about things, rather than what Henry thinks I think.
Would you believe that I'm learning to TYPE!? Yes, I AM! One night when Henry went to bed, he left his electric typewriter running by mistake, and I wandered into his office and got into his chair and began to strike the letters with my paws. I like the sound it makes. I like best the automatic repeating keys that go XXXXXXX AND.......
Henry heard me typing and came in and was amazed, but was a little disappointed because what I typed made no sense at all. But then my paws are so big I can't strike one key at a time.
Then Henry got a wonderful idea, and he took two unsharpened pencils and fastened them to my front paws with adhesive tape, so that the eraser ends stuck out three or so inches past my paws, and with these pencils I can touch one key at a time.
Henry sits me in his typing chair with a strap around me so I won't fall forwards or sideways.
Then he holds my paws and touches the keys with the pencils, and black marks appear on the paper, like magic!
Here is an example of my typing:
HII XXXXXXXXXXTH ERE!! THID ID DADH TYXXXXXXXXXXPINGGGG!!!....
Of course I make mistakes. But I am learning about the space bar and the automatic carriage return, which I like to hit because they make nice noises.
Now, Henry is trying to teach me to type without holding my paws. He thinks I might learn to type my own name—by rote, as it were. He is using what he calls the “conditioned reflex and re
ward system.” He points to the letter “D,” and if I strike it I get one of the tidbits I like, such as foie gras on a cracker, or a chocolate-covered cherry. Then if I next hit an “A” I get another tidbit.
The story of my life is coming along fine! Yesterday I wrote a chapter about my very first case as a Detective. In it, I tracked some hijackers to their hideout and was held prisoner by them. But I found an electric light wall switch and I turned it off and on and off and on and the police finally saw it and came and captured the crooks.
Now I am going to try to type all by myself!
Your pal,
DASXX DAS ... H
P.S. I think that is pretty good for a dog!!
* * * *
June 15, 1972
Cyrus Benninton, Esq.
The George Hotel
Edinburgh
Scotland
—
Dear Dad:
I'm enclosing some recent letters between Henry Hesketh and myself. I'm more than a little worried; I feel he's on the verge of flipping.
Were he another kind of writer, I wouldn't be too concerned. But Henry has always been as tough-minded and as cynical and as hard-headed as his own Homer McGrew.
It's not that I'm greatly concerned about getting a new mystery out of him; it's his state of mind that worries me.
Do you have any suggestions as to what I might do to help ease him through and then out of his present mental condition?
Your loving son,
Bill
* * * *
June 18, 1972
Dear Son:
I'm gravely concerned by what Henry's letters reveal. The fact that he is still a good writer makes me have continually to remind myself that poor Dash can't be held responsible for what Henry keeps putting into his mind. The poor dog is just sitting in his dignity in his corner minding his own business—or sitting under duress at Henry's typewriter and being bribed by tidbits—while Henry imagines what is going on in the dog's nonexistent conscious mind.
This damn dog fixation and this rather sickening cuteness run directly counter to Henry's nature—as I've come to know it over twenty-seven years.
It must be remembered that Henry is pushing seventy-five, and that he boozes it up quite a bit, and has been through five marriages, but has lived all alone on his hill for the last eleven years.
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