Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  It was almost wholly a reflex gesture that moved his finger toward the doorbell. The last dregs of memory and initiative drained from him with the motion.

  Again the chimes played three soft notes. Again the circle closed.

  Again the blank man waited for John Fowler to open the door.

  THE END

  SEE YOU LATER

  Those Fabulous Hogbens Defy Space and Time Just to Get Old Yancey Tarbell’s Debts Paid!

  OLD YANCEY WAS just about the meanest man in the world. I never seen a feller so downright, sot-in-his ways, shortsighted, plain, ornery mean. What happened to him reminded me of what another feller told me oncet, quite a spell ago. Fergit exactly who it was—name of Louis, maybe, or could be Tamerlane—but one time he said he wished the whole world had only one haid, so’s he could chop it off.

  Trouble with Yancey, he got to the point where he figgered everybody in the world was again’ him, and blamed if he warn’t right. That was a real spell of trouble, even for us Hogbens.

  Oh, Yancey was a regular stinker, all right. The whole Tarbell family was bad-eyed, but Yancey made even them plumb disgusted. He lived up in a little one-room shanty back of the Tarbell place, and wouldn’t let nobody near, except to push vittles through the cut-out moon in the door.

  Seems like some ten years back there was a new survey or something and the way it worked out, through some funny legal business, Yancey had to prove he’d got squatter’s rights on his land. He had to prove it by living there for a year or something. ’Bout then he had an argument with his wife and moved out to the little shack, which was across the property line, and said he was a-gonna let the land go right back to the government, for all he cared, and that’d show the whole family. He knew his wife sot store by her turnip patch and was afraid the government would take it away.

  The way it turned out, nobody wanted the land anyhow. It was all up and down and had too many rocks in it, but Yancey’s wife kept on worriting and begging Yancey to come back, which he was just too mean to do.

  Yancey Tarbell couldn’t have been oncommon comfortable up in that little shack, but he was short-sighted as he was mean. After a spell Mrs. Tarbell died of being hit on the haid with a stone she was throwing up the slope at the shack, and it bounced back at her. So that left only the eight Tarbell boys and Yancey. He stayed right where he was, though.

  He might have stayed there till he shriveled up and went to glory, except the Tarbells started feuding with us. We stood it as long as we could, on account of they couldn’t hurt us. Uncle Les, who was visiting us, got skittery, though, and said he was tired of flying up like a quail, two or three miles in the air, every time a gun went off behind a bush. The holes in his hide closed up easy enough, but he said it made him dizzy, on account of the air being thinned out that high up.

  THIS went on for a while, leastwise, and nobody got hurt, which seemed to rile the eight Tarbell boys. So one night they all come over in a bunch with their shooting irons and busted their way in. We didn’t want no trouble.

  Uncle Lem—who’s Uncle Les’s twin except they was born quite a spell apart—he was asleep for the whiter, off in a holler tree somewheres, so he was out of it. But the baby, bless his heart, is gitting kind of awkward to shift around, being as how he’s four hunnerd years old and big for his age—’bout three hunnerd pounds, I guess.

  We could of all hid out or gone down to Piperville in the valley for a mite, but then there was Grandpaw in the attic, and I’d got sort of fond of the little Perfesser feller we keep in a bottle. Didn’t want to leave him on account of the bottle might of got smashed in the ruckus, if the eight Tarbell boys was likkered up enough.

  The Perfesser’s cute—even though he never did have much sense. Used to say we was mutants, whatever they are, and kept shooting off his mouth about some people he knowed called chromosomes. Seems like they got mixed up with what the Perfesser called hard radiations and had some young ’uns which was either dominant mutations or Hogbens, but I allus got it mixed up with the Roundhead plot, back when we was living in the old country. ’Course I don’t mean the real old country. That got sunk.

  So, seeing as how Grandpaw told us to lay low, we waited till the eight Tarbell boys busted down the door, and then we all went invisible, including the baby. Then we waited for the thing to blow over, only it didn’t.

  After stomping around and ripping up things a lot, the eight Tarbell boys come down in the cellar. Now, that was kind of bad, because we was caught by surprise. The baby had gone invisible, like I say, and so had the tank we keep him in, but the tank couldn’t move around fast like we could.

  One of the eight Tarbell boys went and banged into it and hit hisself a smart crack on the shank bone. How he cussed! It was shameful for a growing boy to hear, except Grandpaw kin outcuss anybody I ever heard, so I didn’t larn nothing.

  Well—he cussed a lot, jumped around, and all of a sudden his squirrel rifle went off. Must have had a hair trigger. That woke up the baby, who got scared and let out a yell. It was the blamedest yell I’d ever heard out of the baby yet, and I’ve seen men go all white and shaky when he bellers. Our Perfesser feller told us oncet the baby emitted a subsonic. Imagine!

  Anyhow, seven of the eight Tarbell boys dropped daid, all in a heap, without even time to squeal. The eighth one was up at the haid of the cellar steps, and he got all quivery and turned around and ran. I guess he was so dizzy he didn’t know where he was heading. ’Fore he knowed it, he was up in the attic, where he stepped right square on Grandpaw.

  Now, the fool thing was this: Grandpaw was so busy telling us what to do he’d entirely fergot to go invisible hisself. And I guess one look at Grandpaw just plumb finished the eighth Tarbell boy. He fell right down, daid as a skun coon. Cain’t imagine why, though I got to admit Grandpaw wasn’t looking his best that week. He’d been sick.

  “You all right, Grandpaw?” I asked, sort of shaking him out. He cussed me.

  “ ’Twarn’t my fault,” I told him.

  “ ’Sblood!” he said, mad-like. “What rabble of canting jolt-heads have I sired? Put me down, you young scoundrel.” So I put him back on the gunny sack and he turned around a couple of times and shut his eyes. After that, he said he was going to take a nap and not to wake him up for nothing, bar Judgment Day. He meant it, too.

  So we had to figger out for ourselves what was best to do. Maw said it warn’t our fault, and all we could do was pile the eight Tarbell boys in a wheelbarrow and take ’em back home, which I done. Only I got to feeling kind of shy on the way, on account of I couldn’t figger out no real polite way to mention what had happened. Besides, Maw had told me to break the news gentle. “Even a polecat’s got feelings,” she said.

  SO I left the wheelbarrow with the eight Tarbell boys in it behind some scrub brush, and I went on up the slope to where I could see Yancey sitting, airing hisself out in the sun and reading a book. I still hadn’t studied out what to say. I just traipsed along slow-like, whistling Yankee Doodle. Yancey didn’t pay me no mind for a while.

  He’s a little, mean, dirty man with chin whiskers. Couldn’t be much more’n five feet high. There was tobacco juice on his whiskers, but I might have done old Yancey wrong in figgering he was only sloppy. I heard he used to spit in his beard to draw flies, so’s he could ketch ’em and pull off their wings.

  Without looking, he picked up a stone, and flang it past my head. “Shet up an’ go way,” he said.

  “Just as you say, Mr. Yancey,” I told him, mighty relieved, and started to. But then I remembered Maw would probably whup me if I didn’t mind her orders, so I sort of moved around quiet till I was in back of Yancey and looking over his shoulder at what he was reading. It looked like a book. Then I moved around a mite more till I was upwind of him.

  He started cackling in his whiskers.

  “That’s a real purty picture, Mr. Yancey,” I said.

  He was giggling so hard it must of cheered him up.

  “Ain’t it, though
!” he said, banging his fist on his skinny old rump. “My, my! Makes me feel full o’ ginger just to look at it.”

  It wasn’t a book, though. It was a magazine, the kind they sell down at the village, and it was opened at a picture. The feller that made it could draw real good. Not so good as an artist I knowed once, over in England. He went by the name of Crookshank or Crookback or something like that, unless I’m mistook.

  Anyway, this here that Yancey was looking at was quite a picture. It showed a lot of fellers, all exactly alike, coming out of a big machine which I could tell right off wouldn’t work. But all these fellers was as like as peas in a pod. Then there was a red critter with bugged-out eyes grabbing a girl, I dunno why. It was sure purty.

  “Wisht something like that could really happen,” Yancey said.

  “It ain’t so hard,” I told him. “Only that gadget’s all wrong. All you need is a washbasin and some old scrap iron.”

  “Hey?”

  “That thing there,” I said. “The jigger that looks like it’s making one feller into a whole lot of fellers. It ain’t built right.”

  “I s’pose you could do it better?” he snapped, sort of mad.

  “We did, once,” I said. “I forget what Paw had on his mind, but he owed a man name of Cadmus a little favor. Cadmus wanted a lot of fighting men in a real hurry, so Paw fixed it so’s Cadmus could split hisself up into a passel of soldiers. Shucks. I could do it myself.”

  “What are you blabbering about?” Yancey asked. “You ain’t looking at the right thing. This here red critter’s what I mean. See what he’s a-gonna do? Gonna chaw that there purty gal’s haid off, looks like. See the tusks on him? Heh, heh, heh. I wisht I was a critter like that. I’d chaw up plenty of people.”

  “You wouldn’t chaw up your own kin, though, I bet,” I said, seeing a way to break the news gentle.

  “ ’Tain’t right to bet,” he told me. “Allus pay your debts, fear no man, and don’t lay no wagers. Gambling’s a sin. I never made no bets and I allus paid my debts.” He stopped, scratched his whiskers, and sort of sighed. “All except one,” he added, frowning.

  “What was that?”

  “Oh, I owed a feller something. Only I never could locate him afterward. Must be nigh on thutty years ago. Seems like I got likkered up and got on a train. Guess I robbed somebody, too, ’cause I had a roll big enough to choke a hoss. Never tried that, come to think of it. You keep hosses?”

  “No, sir,” I said. “We was talking about your kin.”

  “Shet up,” old Yancey said. “Well, now, I had myself quite a time.” He licked his whiskers. “Ever heard tell of a place called New York? In some furrin country, I guess. Can’t understand a word nobody says. Anyway, that’s where I met up with this feller. I often wisht I could find him again. An honest man like me hates to think of dying without paying his lawful debts.”

  “Did your eight boys owe any debts?” I asked.

  He squinted at me, slapped his skinny leg, and nodded.

  “Now I know,” he said. “Ain’t you the Hogben boy?”

  “That’s me. Saunk Hogben.”

  “I heard tell ’bout you Hogbens. All witches, ain’t you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I heard what I heard. Whole neighborhood’s buzzing. Hexers, that’s what. You get outa here, go on, git!”

  “I’m a-going,” I said. “I just come by to say it’s real unfortunate you couldn’t chaw up your own kin if’n you was a critter like in that there picture.”

  “Ain’t nobody big enough to stop me!”

  “Maybe not,” I said, “but they’ve all gone to glory.”

  WHEN he heard this, old Yancey started to cackle. Finally, when he got his breath back, he said, “Not them! Them varmints have gone plumb smack to perdition, right where they belong. How’d it happen?”

  “It was sort of an accident,” I said. “The baby done kilt seven of them and Grandpaw kilt the other, in a way of speaking. No harm intended.”

  “No harm done,” Yancey said, cackling again.

  “Maw sent her apologies, and what do you want done with the remains? I got to take the wheelbarrow back home.”

  “Take ’em away. I don’t want ’em. Good riddance to bad rubbish,” old Yancey said, so I said all right and started off. But then he yelled out and told me he’d changed his mind. Told me to dump ’em where they was. From what I could make out, which wasn’t much because he was laughing so hard, he wanted to come down and kick ’em.

  So I done like he said and then went back home and told Maw, over a mess of catfish and beans and pot-likker. She made some hush puppies, too. They was good. I sat back, figgering I’d earned a rest, and thunk a mite, feeling warm and nice around the middle. I was trying to figger what a bean would feel like, down in my tummy. But it didn’t seem to have no feelings.

  It couldn’t of been more than a half hour later when the pig yelled outside like he was getting kicked, and then somebody knocked on the door. It was Yancey. Minute he come in, he pulled a bandanna out of his britches and started sniffling. I looked at Maw, wide-eyed. I couldn’t tell her nothing.

  Paw and Uncle Les was drinking corn in a corner, and giggling a mite. I could tell they was feeling good because of the way the table kept rocking, the one between them. It wasn’t touching neither one, but it kept jiggling, trying to step fust on Paw’s toes and then on Uncle Les’s. They was doing it inside their haids, trying to ketch the other one off guard.

  It was up to Maw, and she invited old Yancey to set down a spell and have some beans. He just sobbed.

  “Something wrong, neighbor?” Maw asked, polite.

  “It sure is,” Yancey said, sniffling. “I’m a real old man.”

  “You surely are,” Maw told him. “Mebbe not as old as Saunk here, but you look awful old.”

  “Hey?” Yancey said, staring at her. “Saunk? Saunk ain’t more’n seventeen, big as he is.”

  Maw near looked embarrassed. “Did I say Saunk?” she covered up, quick-like. “I meant this Saunk’s grand-paw. His name’s Saunk too.” It wasn’t; even Grandpaw don’t remember what his name was first, it’s been so long. But in his time he’s used a lot of names like Elijah and so forth. I ain’t even sure they had names in Atlantis, where Grandpaw come from in the first place. Numbers or something. It don’t signify, anyhow.

  Well, seems like old Yancey kept snuffling and groaning and moaning, and made out like we’d kilt his eight boys and he was all alone in the world. He hadn’t cared a mite half an hour ago, though, and I said so. But he pointed out he hadn’t rightly understood what I was talking about then, and for me to shet up.

  “Ought to had a bigger family,” he said. “They used to be two more boys, Zeb and Robbie, but I shot ’em one time. Didn’t like the way they was looking ory-eyed at me. The point is, you Hogbens ain’t got no right to kill my boys.”

  “We didn’t go for to do it,” Maw said. “It was more or less an accident. We’d be right happy to make it up to you, one way or another.”

  “That’s what I was counting on,” old Yancey said. “It seems like the least you could do, after acting up like you done. It don’t matter whether the baby kilt my boys, like Saunk says and he’s a liar. The idea is that I figger all you Hogbens are responsible. But I guess we could call it square if’n you did me a little favor. It ain’t really right for neighbors to hold bad feelings.”

  “Any favor you name,” Maw said, “if it ain’t out of line.”

  “ ’Tain’t much,” old Yancey said. “I just want you to split me up into a rabble, sort of temporary.”

  “Hey, you been listening to Medea?” Paw said, being drunk enough not to know no better. “Don’t you believe her. That was purely a prank she played on Pelias. After he got chopped up he stayed daid; he didn’t git young like she said he would.”

  “Hey?” Yancey said. He pulled that old magazine out of his pocket and it fell open right to that purty picture. “This here,” he said. “Saunk tells m
e you kin do it. And everybody round here knows you Hogbens are witches. Saunk said you done it once with a feller named of Messy.”

  “Guess he means Cadmus,” I said.

  YANCEY waved the magazine. I saw he had a queer kind of gleam in his eye.

  “It shows right here,” he said, wild-like. “A feller steps inside this here gimmick and then he keeps coming out of it, dozens of him, over and over. Witchcraft. Well, I know about you Hogbens. You may fool the city folk, but you don’t fool me none. You’re all witches.”

  “We ain’t,” Paw said from the corner. “Not no more.”

  “You are so,” Yancey said. “I heard stories. I even seen him”—he pointed right at Uncle Les—“I seen him flying around in the air. And if that ain’t witchcraft I don’t know what is.”

  “Don’t you, honest?” I asked. “That’s easy. It’s when you get some—”

  But Maw told me to shet up.

  “Saunk told me you kin do it,” he said. “An’ I been sitting and studying and looking over this here magazine. I got me a fine idea. Now, it stands to reason, everybody knows a witch kin be in two places at the same time. Couldn’t a witch mebbe git to be in three places at the same time?”

  “Three’s as good as two,” Maw said. “Only there ain’t no witches. It’s like this here science you hear tell about. People make it up out of their haids. It ain’t natcheral.”

  “Well, then,” Yancey said, putting the magazine down. “Two or three or a whole passel. How many people are there in the world, anyway?”

  “Two billion, two hunnerd fifty million, nine hunnerd and fifty-nine thousand, nine hunnerd and nineteen,” I said.

  “Then—”

  “Hold on a minute,” I said. “Now it’s two billion, two hunnerd fifty million, nine hunnerd and fifty-nine thousand, nine hunnerd and twenty. Cute little tyke, too.”

  “Boy or girl?” Maw asked.

  “Boy,” I told her.