Clifford Simak - Time is the Simplest Thing

“Ah, hell,” protested Blaine, “just a snort or two. Not enough. . . .”

“Aunt Edna has been wild,” said Harriet. “She imagined all sorts of things. You know what an imaginer she is. She was convinced you were gone for good and all this time.”

Godfrey! Godfrey! Oh, my God, three years. . . .

Take it easy, Shep. No time now. Get you out of here.

Dr. Wetmore said: “You people know this man? A relative of yours?”

“Not relatives,” said Stone. “Just friends. His Aunt Edna—”

“Well, let’s go,” said Blaine.

Stone glanced questioningly at the doctor, and Wetmore nodded.

“Stop at the desk,” he said, “and pick up his release. I’ll phone it down. They’ll want your names.”

“Gladly,” said Stone. “And thank you very much.”

It’squite all right.”

Blaine stopped at the door and turned back to the doctor.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t tell the truth. I am not proud of it.”

“All of us,” the doctor said, “have moments in which we can take no pride. You are not alone.”

“Good-by, Doctor.”

“So long,” said the doctor. “Take care of yourself.”

Then they were going down the corridor, the three of them abreast.

Who was in that other bed? asked Stone.

A man by the name of Riley.

Riley!

A truck driver.

Riley! He was the man we were looking for. We just ran into you.

Stone halted and half turned to go back.

No use, said Blaine. He’s dead.

And his truck?

Smashed. He ran off the road.

“Oh, Godfrey!” Harriet cried.

He shook his head at her. “No use,” he said. “No use.”

Hey, what is going on?

We’ll tell you all of it. First, let’s get out of here.

Stone seized him by the elbow and hustled him along.

Just one thing. How is Lambert Finn mixed up in all of this?

“Lambert Finn,” Stone said vocally, “is the most dangerous man in the world today.”

“Don’t you think we should drive a little farther?” Harriet asked. “If that doctor should get suspicious . . .”

Stone wheeled the car into the drive.

“Why should he get suspicious?”

“He’ll get to thinking. He’s puzzled by what happened to Shep and he’ll get to wondering. After all, our story had a lot of holes in it.”

“For one thought up on the moment, I thought we did real well.”

“But we’re only ten miles out of town.”

“I’ll want to go back tonight. I have to do some checking on what became of Riley’s truck.”

He braked the car to a halt in front of the unit marked “Office.”

“Run your head into a noose, you mean,” said Harriet. The man who had been sweeping off the steps walked over to the car.

“Welcome, folks,” he said, heartily. “What can the Plainsman do for you?”

“Have you two connecting?”

“It just so happens,” said the man, “we have. Nice weather we been having.”

“Yes, very splendid weather.”

“Might turn cold, though. Any day. It is getting late. I can remember when we had snow—”

“But not this year,” said Stone.

“No, not this year. You were saying you wanted two connecting.”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Drive right on, straight ahead. Numbers ten and eleven. I’ll get the keys and be right along.”

Stone lifted the car on gentle jets and slid down the roadway. Other cars were parked cozily against their units. People were unloading trunks. Others were sitting in chairs on the little patios. Down at the far end of the parkway a foursome of old codgers were loudly pitching horseshoes.

The car skidded into the space before No. 10 and settled easily to the ground.

Blaine got out and held the door for Harriet.

And it was good, he thought, it was almost like home to be with these two again — with two who had been lost and now were here again. No matter what might happen, he was with his own once more.

The motel sat atop the bluffs above the river, and from where he stood he could see the wide sweep of terrain north and east — the bald, brown bluffs and the erosion of the timbered gullies and ravines that ran down to the river valley, where a tangled expanse of ragged woods hemmed in the chocolate-flowing stream which meandered with an uneasiness of purpose, as if it could not quite make up its mind where it wished to go, leaving behind it, as landmarks of its indecision, isolated ponds and lakes and crazily winding sloughs as erratic in their course as the river ever could be.

There was a cleanness and a roominess that caught one’s imagination. There was a breath of freshness and the sense of space.

The manager came trotting down the walk, jangling a couple of keys. He unlocked the doors and flung them open.

“You’ll find everything O.K.,” he said. “We are very careful. There are shutters for all windows, and the locks throughout are the best available. You’ll find a supply of hex signs and good luck charms in the supply cabinet. We used to have them installed, but we found our guests have their own ideas on how they are best used.”

“That,” said Stone, “is very thoughtful of you.”

“It is good,” said the manager, “to be snug and under cover.”

“You said a mouthful, pal,” said Stone.

“And we have a restaurant up front. . . .”

“We’ll be using it,” said Harriet. “I am almost starved.”

“You can stop on your way,” said the manager, “and sign the register, if you would.”

“Of course,” said Harriet.

He handed her the keys and went jogging up the walk, bobbing and bowing in merry hostship to the occupants of the other units.

“Let’s get inside,” said Stone.

He held the door for Harriet and Blaine, then stepped in himself and closed the door behind him.

Harriet tossed the keys down on a dresser and turned around to look about the room.

“And you,” she said to Blaine. “Whatever happened to you? I went back to that place on the border and the town was in a stew. Something dreadful had happened. I never found out what. I never had a chance to learn. I had to get out fast.”

“I got away,” Blaine told her.

Stone held out his hand. “You did it better than I did. You got clean away.”

Blaine’s hand was engulfed in Stone’s great fist and held there — not shaken up and down, but held there.

“It’s good to have you here,” said Stone.

“You phoned that night,” said Blaine, “or I’d have been caught flat-footed. I remembered what you said. I didn’t wait around for them to put the finger on me.

Stone let go of his hand and they stood facing one another and it was a different Stone who stood there than the one that Blaine remembered. Stone had always been a big man and he was still a big man, but now the bigness was not only physical and external — there was a bigness of the spirit and of purpose that one must sense immediately at the sight of him. And a hardness that had not been there before.

“I am not sure,” Blaine told him, “that I’ve done you any favor, showing up like this. I traveled slow and awkward. By now Fishhook more than likely has a hounder on me.”

Stone made a motion to dismiss the thought, almost a motion of impatience, as if Fishhook could not matter here, as if Fishhook mattered nowhere any more.

He moved across the room and sat down in a chair.

“What happened to you, Shep?”

“I got contaminated.”

“So did I,” said Stone.

He was silent for a moment, as if he might be thinking back to that time when he had fled from Fishhook.