The Best of Gene Wolfe: A Definitive Retrospective of His Finest Short Fiction

by Gene Wolfe

  Only I knew that while I was working at the gym Junie was going out in her car looking for the White Cow Moon, and at night I would write down the mileage when she was in the living room reading. I figured she would find the White Cow Moon and go there at least a couple of times and maybe three or four and then the mileage would always be the same. And that was how it worked out. I thought that was pretty smart of me, but I was not going to tell Junie how smart I had been until I found it myself and she could not say it was too dangerous.

  I looked in her desk for moon rocks too, but I never found any, so that is why I do not think Junie had been up there on the White Cow Moon yet.

  Well, for three days in a row it was just about 125 on the mileage. It was 123 one time, and 124 and then 126. So that was how I knew 63 miles from Tulsa. That day after work I went out and bought the biggest bike at the big Ridin’ th’ Wild Wind store. It is a Harley and better for me than a car because my head does not scrape. It is nearly big enough.

  Only that night Junie did not come home. I thought she had gone up on the White Cow Moon, so I quit my job at the gym and went looking for her for about a month.

  A lot of things happened while I was looking for her on my bike. Like I went into this one beer joint and started asking people if they had seen Junie or her car either. This one man that had a bike too started yelling at me and would not let me talk to anybody else. I had been very polite and he never would say why he was mad. He kept saying, “I guess you think you are tough.” So finally I picked him up. I think he must have weighed about three hundred pounds because he felt about like my bell when I threw him up and banged him on the ceiling. When I let him down he hit me a couple of times with a chain he had and I decided probably he was a fed and that made me mad. I put my foot on him while I broke his chain into five or six pieces, and every time I broke off a new piece I would drop it on his face. Then I picked him up again and threw him through the window.

  Then I went outside and let him pick himself up and threw him up onto the roof. That was fifteen feet easy and I felt pretty proud for it even if it did take three tries. I still do.

  After that, two men that had come out to watch told me how they had seen a brown Ford like Junie’s out on this one ranch and how to get there. I went and it was more than sixty-three miles to go and Junie’s brown Ford was not there. But when I went back to our house in Tulsa it was sixty-eight. A lot else happened for about two weeks, and then I went back to that ranch and lifted my bike over their fence real careful and rode out to where those men had said and sat there thinking about Junie and things that she had said to me, and how she had felt that time I threw her higher than the wires back in England. And it got late and you could see the moon, and I remembered how she had said the feds were building a place for missiles on the other side where nobody could reach it or even see it and that was why they were mad at us. It is supposed to be to shoot at other countries like England, but it is really to shoot at us in case we do anything the feds do not like.

  About then a man on a horse came by and said did I want anything. I told him about the car, and he said there used to be a brown car like that parked out there, only a tow truck cut the fence and took it away. I wanted to know whose truck it had been, but he did not know.

  So that is about all I have got to say. Sometimes I dream about how while I was talking to the man on the horse a little white moon sort of like a cloud came by, only when I turned my head to look it was already gone. I do not think that really happened or the little woman with the baby and the old man with the stick in the cave either. I think it is all just dreams, but maybe it did.

  What I really think is that the feds have got Junie. If they do, all they have got to do is let her go and I will not be mad anymore after that. I promise. But if they will not do it and I find out for sure they have got her, there is going to be a fight. So if you see her or even talk to anybody that has, it would be good if you told me. Please.

  I am not the only one that does not like the feds. A lot of other people do not like them either. I know that they are a whole lot smarter than I am, and how good at telling lies and fooling people they are. I am not like that. I am more like Roy T. Laffer, because sometimes I cannot even get people to believe the truth.

  But you can believe this, because it is true. I have never in my whole life had a fight with a smart person or even seen anybody else have one either. That is because when the fight starts the smart people are not there anymore. They have gone off someplace else, and when it is over they come back and tell you how much they did in the fight, only it is all lies. Now they have big important gangs with suits and guns. They are a lot bigger than just me, but they are not bigger than everybody and if all of us get mad at once maybe we will bring the whole thing crashing down.

  After that I would look through the pieces and find Junie, or if I did not find her I would go up on the White Cow Moon myself like Roy T. Laffer did and find her up there.

  AFTERWORD

  One of life’s principal lessons is that intelligence is a minor virtue. The cardinal virtues are prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude. Sam is not bright; no doubt you are, and if you are you could probably swindle him without much difficulty. But would it be prudent?

  You will probably not need to be told that Roy T. Laffer is a thinly fictionalized Raphael Aloysius Lafferty. His byline was R. A. Lafferty, and we called him Ray in consequence. I didn’t know him well, and I know of no one who did. He was enormously learned and terribly shy, and drank too much when he had to appear in public. Other than that, I suggest you consult Faces of Science Fiction, if you can find a copy. There is a fine photograph of him there, with a few paragraphs of autobiography. He is a great writer who remains undiscovered.

  A CABIN ON THE COAST

  I

  t might have been a child’s drawing of a ship. He blinked, and blinked again. There were masts and sails, surely. One stack, perhaps another. If the ship were really there at all. He went back to his father’s beach cottage, climbed the five wooden steps, wiped his feet on the coco mat.

  Lissy was still in bed, but awake, sitting up now. It must have been the squeaking of the steps, he thought. Aloud he said, “Sleep good?”

  He crossed the room and kissed her. She caressed him and said, “You shouldn’t go swimming without a suit, dear wonderful swimmer. How was the Pacific?”

  “Peaceful. Cold. It’s too early for people to be up, and there’s nobody within a mile of here anyway.”

  “Get into bed then. How about the fish?”

  “Salt water makes the sheets sticky. The fish have seen them before.” He went to the corner, where a showerhead poked from the wall. The beach cottage—Lissy called it a cabin—had running water of the sometimes and rusty variety.

  “They might bite ’em off. Sharks, you know. Little ones.”

  “Castrating woman.” The shower coughed, doused him with icy spray, coughed again.

  “You look worried.”

  “No.”

  “Is it your dad?”

  He shook his head, then thrust it under the spray, fingers combing his dark, curly hair.

  “You think he’ll come out here? Today?”

  He withdrew, considering. “If he’s back from Washington, and he knows we’re here.”

  “But he couldn’t know, could he?”

  He turned off the shower and grabbed a towel, already damp and a trifle sandy. “I don’t see how.”

  “Only he might guess.” Lissy was no longer smiling. “Where else could we go? Hey, what did we do with my underwear?”

  “Your place. Your folks’. Any motel.”

  She swung long, golden legs out of bed, still holding the sheet across her lap. Her breasts were nearly perfect hemispheres, except for the tender protrusions of their pink nipples. He decided he had never seen breasts like that. He sat down on the bed beside her. “I love you very much,” he said. “You know that?”

  It made her smile again. �
�Does that mean you’re coming back to bed?”

  “If you want me to.”

  “I want a swimming lesson. What will people say if I tell them I came here and didn’t go swimming?”

  He grinned at her. “That it’s that time of the month.”

  “You know what you are? You’re filthy!” She pushed him. “Absolutely filthy! I’m going to bite your ears off.” Tangled in the sheet, they fell off the bed together. “There they are!”

  “There what are?”

  “My bra and stuff. We must have kicked them under the bed. Where are our bags?”

  “Still in the trunk. I never carried them in.”

  “Would you get mine? My swimsuit’s in it.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “And put on some pants!”

  “My suit’s in my bag too.” He found his trousers and got the keys to the Triumph. Outside the sun was higher, the chill of the fall morning nearly gone. He looked for the ship and saw it. Then it winked out like a star.

  T

  hat evening they made a fire of driftwood and roasted the big, greasy Italian sausages he had brought from town, making giant hot dogs by clamping them in French bread. He had brought red supermarket wine too; they chilled it in the Pacific. “I never ate this much in my life,” Lissy said.

  “You haven’t eaten anything yet.”

  “I know, but just looking at this sandwich would make me full if I wasn’t so hungry.” She bit off the end. “Cuff tough woof.”

  “What?”

  “Castrating woman. That’s what you called me this morning, Tim. Now this is a castrating woman.”

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

  “You sound like my mother. Give me some wine. You’re hogging it.”

  He handed the bottle over. “It isn’t bad, if you don’t object to a complete lack of character.”

  “I sleep with you, don’t I?”

  “I have character; it’s just all rotten.”

  “You said you wanted to get married.”

  “Let’s go. You can finish that thing in the car.”

  “You drank half the bottle. You’re too high to drive.”

  “Bullshoot.”

  Lissy giggled. “You just said ‘bullshoot.’ Now that’s character!”

  He stood up. “Come on; let’s go. It’s only five hundred miles to Reno. We can get married there in the morning.”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “If you are.”

  “Sit down.”

  “You were testing me,” he said. “That’s not fair, now is it?”

  “You’ve been so worried all day. I wanted to see if it was about me—if you thought you’d made a terrible mistake.”

  “We’ve made a mistake,” he said. “I was trying to fix it just now.”

  “You think your dad is going to make it rough for you—”

  “Us.”

  “—for us because it might hurt him in the next election.”

  He shook his head. “Not that. All right, maybe partly that. But he means it too. You don’t understand him.”

  “I’ve got a father myself.”

  “Not like mine. Ryan was almost grown-up before he left Ireland. Taught by nuns and all that. Besides, I’ve got six older brothers and two sisters. You’re the oldest kid. Ryan’s probably at least fifteen years older than your folks.”

  “Is that really his name? Ryan Neal?”

  “His full name is Timothy Ryan Neal, the same as mine. I’m Timothy Junior. He used Ryan when he went into politics because there was another Tim Neal around then, and we’ve always called me Tim to get away from the ‘Junior.’ ”

  “I’m going to call him Tim again, like the nuns must have when he was young. Big Tim. You’re Little Tim.”

  “Okay with me. I don’t know if Big Tim is going to like it.”

  Something was moving, it seemed, out where the sun had set. Something darker against the dark horizon.

  “What made you Junior anyway? Usually it’s the oldest boy.”

  “He didn’t want it, and would never let Mother do it. But she wanted to, and I was born during the Democratic convention that year.”

  “He had to go, of course.”

  “Yeah, he had to go, Lissy. If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand politics at all. They hoped I’d hold off for a few days, and what the hell, Mother’d had eight with no problems. Anyway, he was used to it—he was the youngest of seven boys himself. So she got to call me what she wanted.”

  “But then she died.” The words sounded thin and lonely against the pounding of the surf.

  “Not because of that.”

  Lissy upended the wine bottle; he saw her throat pulse three times. “Will I die because of that, Little Tim?”

  “I don’t think so.” He tried to think of something gracious and comforting. “If we decide we want children, that’s the risk I have to take.”

  “You have to take? Bullshoot.”

  “That both of us have to take. Do you think it was easy for Ryan, raising nine kids by himself?”

  “You love him, don’t you?”

  “Sure I love him. He’s my father.”

  “And now you think you might be ruining things for him. For my sake.”

  “That’s not why I want us to be married, Lissy.”

  She was staring into the flames; he was not certain she had even heard him. “Well, now I know why his pictures look so grim. So gaunt.”

  He stood up again. “If you’re through eating . . .”

  “You want to go back to the cabin? You can screw me right here on the beach—there’s nobody here but us.”

  “I didn’t mean that.”

  “Then why go in there and look at the walls? Out here we’ve got the fire and the ocean. The moon ought to be up pretty soon.”

  “It would be warmer.”

  “With just that dinky little kerosene stove? I’d rather sit here by the fire. In a minute I’m going to send you off to get me some more wood. You can run up to the cabin and get a shirt too if you want to.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Traditional roles. Big Tim must have told you all about them. The woman has the babies and keeps the home fires burning. You’re not going to end up looking like him though, are you, Little Tim?”

  “I suppose so. He used to look just like me.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “He had his picture taken just after he got into politics. He was running for ward committeeman, and he had a poster made. We’ve still got the picture, and it looks like me with a high collar and a funny hat.”

  “She knew, didn’t she?” Lissy said. For a moment he did not understand what she meant. “Now go and get some more wood. Only don’t wear yourself out, because when you come back we’re going to take care of that little thing that’s bothering you, and we’re going to spend the night on the beach.”

  When he came back she was asleep, but he woke her carrying her up to the beach cottage.

  N

  ext morning he woke up alone. He got up and showered and shaved, supposing that she had taken the car into town to get something for breakfast. He had filled the coffeepot and put it on before he looked out the shore-side window and saw the Triumph still waiting near the road.

  There was nothing to be alarmed about, of course. She had awakened before he had and gone out for an early dip. He had done the same thing himself the morning before. The little patches of green cloth that were her bathing suit were hanging over the back of a rickety chair, but then they were still damp from last night. Who would want to put on a damp, clammy suit? She had gone in naked, just as he had.

  He looked out the other window, wanting to see her splashing in the surf, waiting for him. The ship was there, closer now, rolling like a derelict. No smoke came from its clumsy funnel and no sails were set, but dark banners hung from its rigging. Then there was no ship, only wheeling gulls and the empty ocean. He called her nam
e, but no one answered.

  He put on his trunks and a jacket and went outside. A wind had smoothed the sand. The tide had come, obliterating their fire, reclaiming the driftwood he had gathered.

  For two hours he walked up and down the beach, calling, telling himself there was nothing wrong. When he forced himself not to think of Lissy dead, he could only think of the headlines, the ninety seconds of ten o’clock news, how Ryan would look, how Pat—all his brothers—would look at him. And when he turned his mind from that, Lissy was dead again, her pale hair snarled with kelp as she rolled in the surf, green crabs feeding from her arms.

  He got into the Triumph and drove to town. In the little brick station he sat beside the desk of a fat cop and told his story.

  The fat cop said, “Kid, I can see why you want us to keep it quiet.”

  Tim said nothing. There was a paperweight on the desk—a baseball of white glass.

  “You probably think we’re out to get you, but we’re not. Tomorrow we’ll put out a missing persons report, but we don’t have to say anything about you or the senator in it, and we won’t.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “We got to wait twenty-four hours, in case she should show up. That’s the law. But kid—” The fat cop glanced at his notes.

  “Tim.”

  “Right. Tim. She ain’t going to show up. You got to get yourself used to that.”

  “She could be . . .” Without wanting to, he let it trail away.

  “Where? You think she snuck off and went home? She could walk out to the road and hitch, but you say her stuff’s still there. Kidnapped? Nobody could have pulled her out of bed without waking you up. Did you kill her?”

  “No!” Tears he could not hold back were streaming down his cheeks.