Isaac Asimov - Catastrophes!

"It doesn't worry you, Lem?" Whaley asked. "You're going to hang in the morning. You wouldn't want to die with that on your conscience, would you?"

"It don't worry me none," Lem said. "They don't hang innocent men, do they?"

"Why, no-"

"Then I got nothin' to worry about. I won't hang." He nodded his gray head and smiled peacefully.

Whaley stared at him for a moment. Then he turned abruptly and said over his shoulder, "Good luck, Lem,"

"Why, thank you, Mr. Whaley."

The sheriff followed Whaley out and locked the cell door. "Just holler when you're ready, Reverend," he said.

As their footsteps faded away down the corridor, a wistful grin touched Reverend Meyers's gaunt face. He lowered his long form awkwardly onto Lem's cot. "They're worried some, Lem," he said. "They'd feel a lot better if you up and told them you did it. They're'beginning to think maybe they're hanging an innocent man tomorrow."

"I can't tell them I did it if I didn't, Revern."

"Of course not, Lem. I know you didn't do it. So do quite a few other people. We've been working on it, Lem-working hard. Ted Emmons, and I, and some others. We didn't want to say anything to you because that might have made you start hoping, and we really didn't know if we could help you. We've finally had some luck, and we'think we know who killed the child. Ted Emmons is trying right now to get hold of the governor, to get you a reprieve. All we need is a little more time."

Lem nodded. That explained the telephone call from the governor that would have come too late if he hadn't looked at the pictures and made a choice. But now everything would be all right. He'd get the reprieve, and then they would find the real murderer let Lem out of jail, he wouldn't have to look at pictures again. He felt happy about that, because looking at pictures tired him so.

"Ted was having some trouble getting through to the governor," the Reverend said, "but he'll keep trying all night, if he has to. Just put your trust in God, Lem, and everything will be all right."

"I haven't been worryin', Revern."

"Keep faith with God, Lem. Do you mind if I pray for you?"

"You go right ahead, Revern."

Reverend Meyers bowed his head and spoke softly. Lem didn't listen, but he watched him uneasily. He hadn't put any faith at all in God. He'd put all his faith in his pictures, and the looking and choosing, and it disturbed him to think that maybe God was showing him the pictures and letting him look and choose. He'd never thought of that before. The pictures were just something he'd always had, like ears to hear with, and a mouth to eat with, and eyes, and hands, and legs. But then-God gave out those things, too, or so he'd heard Reverend Meyers say, so maybe God was showing him the pictures.

The Reverend Meyers intoned a soft, "Amen," and Lem said, "I'll have to do some thinkin', Revern,"

"How's that, Lem?"

"What you said-faith in God, and that. I'll have to do some thinkin'."

"I wish you woukL And Lem-it might be that Ted won't reach the governor, or that the governor won't grant the reprieve. If feat should happen, remember that the sheriff, and the district attorney, and the jury, have only done their duty as they saw it. Have charity in your heart for all men, Lem. Think of the Lord Jesus on the cross saying, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'"

"Sure, Revern. I'll remember."

"I'll be with you in the morning, Lem. And the sheriff will let you know right away if there's any good news."

The sheriff came for Reverend Meyers, and a moment later the lights were turned out. Lem sat in the darkness, smoking his pipe and thinking.

He couldn't remember when he'd first started seeing pictures and making choices. He'd never done it very often, even when he was young, because it left him dizzy and kind of sick to his stomach, and sometimes he felt so weak afterward that it scared him. But whenever he wanted something real bad he would sit down somewhere and close his eyes and think about what it was he wanted. The pictures would come, one after the other. It was like slowly flipping through a deck of cards and taking time to look carefully at each one. When he found the picture he wanted he would choose that one, and that's the way things would happen.

The other kids envied him. They said Lem Dyer was the luckiest kid in three counties. He was always getting chances to run errands and do little things for people to earn spending money, but it wasn't luck. It was because of the pictures. If he wanted a stick of candy, all he had to do was find a picture where some lady was leaving Crib's Store with an armful of groceries and looking for someone to help her. He would choose that one and run down to Crib's Store, and whoever it was would come out and give him-a penny to carry her groceries. He was always there when Mr. Jones wanted the sidewalk swept in front of his barber shop, or when Banker Goldman wanted something run over to the post office in a hurry and everyone in the bank was busy. He didn't realize yet that it was his choosing that made people want things done.

He couldn't understand why the other kids didn't look at pictures when they wanted things. He was maybe nine or ten when he and some of his friends were stretched out on the river bank talking, and Stubby Smith went on and on about how much he wanted a bicycle. Lem said, "If you really want one, why don't you get it?"

The kids hooted at him and asked him why he didn't get one. Lem had never thought about getting something big, like a bicycle. He closed his eyes and looked at pictures until he found one where little Lydia Morrow toddled into the street in front of a runaway team, and Lem jumped after her and pulled her back, and Mr. Morrow took Lem right into his hardware store and gave him the bicycle he had in the window.

Lem chose that one. He ran up town and got to Morrow's Hardware Store just as Lydia started into the street, and he was back at the river an hour later with his new bicycle.

For a long time Lem thought the pictures he saw were just pictures of things that were going to happen. He'd been almost grown up before he understood that his choosing a thing made it happen. Before a horse race at the county fair, he could see pictures of every horse in the race winning. If he made a choice, so he could bet on a horse, that horse would always win. He learned in a hurry that it wasn't smart to win all the time, and usually he would bet without even looking at pictures, but he always won enough money at the fair to last him through the winter.

Lem was twelve when his father fell off the barn, and he had to leave school and work the farm. He was only twenty when his mother died, and he rented out the farm and built himself a shack back in the woods, near the river, and that was his home. He loved to hunt and fish, and he loved being outdoors. As he got older a lot of people said it was a shame, a healthy man like him not working, and getting married, and raising a family. But he liked living alone, and he had all the company he ever wanted because all the kids liked to play down by the river, winter and summer. It never cost him much to live, and if he needed anything he could look at pictures and get what he wanted. If he felt like working for a week or two, he could look at pictures and then walk in to town and find a job waiting for him.

He'd had a happy life. He could choose a nice day, if he wanted to go fishing, or snow, if he wanted to do tracking, or rain, if the farmers were having trouble about their crops. When hunting season opened, Lem Dyer always got the first and biggest buck. He never went fishing without coming back with a nice string, And if a man needed help, chances were that Lem could help him.

He'd never told anyone about the pictures, and it bothered him, now that he was sixty-one, to think that maybe it was God who was showing them to him. He wondered if God had wanted him to do something important with them-something big, like stopping wars, or getting the right man elected president, or catching criminals. He knew he could have done all those things, if he'd thought of them. There wasn't anything he couldn't do just by seeing it in a picture and choosing it.