Clifford Simak - The Big Front Yard and Other Stories

“I was thinking,” Henry interrupted, “as I was sitting here, that your attitude is most commendable and deserving of support. It has occurred to me that it would be most unneighborly of me to go on sitting here and leave you in the fight alone. We could hire ourselves a fine array of legal talent and we could fight the case and in the meantime we could form a land and development company and that way we could make sure that this new world of yours is used the way it should be used.

“It stands to reason, Hiram, that I am the one to stand beside you, shoulder to shoulder, in this business since we’re already partners in this TV deal.”

“What’s this about TV?” shrilled Abbie, slapping a plate of cakes down in front of Taine.

“Now, Abbie,” Henry said patiently, “I have explained to you already that your TV set is back of that partition down in the basement and there isn’t any telling when we can get it out.”

“Yes, I know,” said Abbie, bringing a platter of sausages and pouring a cup of coffee.

Beasly came in from the living room and went bumbling out the back.

“After all,” said Henry, pressing his advantage, “I would suppose I had some hand in it. I doubt you could have done much without the computer I sent over.”

And there it was again, thought Taine. Even Henry thought he’d been the one who did it.

“But didn’t Beasly tell you?”

“Beasly said a lot, but you know how Beasly is.”

And that was it, of course. To the villagers it would be no more than another Beasly story – another whopper that Beasly had dreamed up. There was no one who believed a word that Beasly said.

Taine picked up the cup and drank his coffee, gaining time to shape an answer and there wasn’t any answer. If he told the truth, it would sound far less believable than any lie he’d tell.

“You can tell me, Hiram. After all, we’re partners.”

He’s playing me for a fool, thought Taine. Henry thinks he can play anyone he wants for a fool and sucker.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Henry.”

“Well,” Henry said, resignedly, getting to his feet, “I guess that part of it can wait.”

Beasly came tramping and banging through the kitchen with another load of cans.

“I’ll have to have some gasoline,” said Taine, “if I’m going out for Towser.”

“I’ll take care of that right away,” Henry promised smoothly. “I’ll send Ernie over with his tank wagon and we can run a hose through here and fill up those cans. And I’ll see if I can find someone who’ll go along with you.”

“That’s not necessary. I can go alone.”

“If we had a radio transmitter. Then you could keep in touch.”

“But we haven’t any. And, Henry, I can’t wait. Towser’s out there somewhere –”

“Sure, I know how much you thought of him. You go out and look for him if you think you have to and I’ll get started on this other business. I’ll get some lawyers lined up and we’ll draw up some sort of corporate papers for our land development –”

“And, Hiram,” Abbie said, “will you do something for me, please?”

“Why, certainly,” said Taine.

“Would you speak to Beasly. It’s senseless the way he’s acting. There wasn’t any call for him to up and leave us. I might have been a little sharp with him, but he’s so simple-minded he’s infuriating. He ran off and spent half a day helping Towser at digging out that woodchuck and –”

“I’ll speak to him,” said Taine.

“Thanks, Hiram. He’ll listen to you. You’re the only one he’ll listen to. And I wish you could have fixed my TV set before all this came about. I’m just lost without it. It leaves a hole in the living room. It matched my other furniture, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” said Taine.

“Coming, Abbie?” Henry asked, standing at the door.

He lifted a hand in a confidential farewell to Taine. “I’ll see you later, Hiram. I’ll get it all fixed up.”

I just bet you will, thought Taine.

He went back to the table, after they were gone, and sat down heavily in a chair.

The front door slammed and Beasly came panting in, excited.

“Towser’s back!” he yelled. “He’s coming back and he’s driving in the biggest woodchuck you ever clapped your eyes on.”

Taine leaped to his feet.

“Woodchuck! That’s an alien planet. It hasn’t any woodchucks.”

“You come and see,” yelled Beasly.

He turned and raced back out again, with Taine following close behind.

It certainly looked considerably like a woodchuck – a sort of man-size woodchuck. More like a woodchuck out of a children’s book, perhaps, for it was walking on its hind legs and trying to look dignified even while it kept a weather eye on Towser.

Towser was back a hundred feet or so, keeping a wary distance from the massive chuck. He had the pose of a good sheep-herding dog, walking in a crouch, alert to head off any break that the chuck might make.

The chuck came up close to the house and stopped. Then it did an about-face so that it looked back across the desert and it hunkered down.

It swung its massive head to gaze at Beasly and Taine and in the limpid brown eyes Taine saw more than the eyes of an animal.

Taine walked swiftly out and picked up the dog in his arms and hugged him tight against him. Towser twisted his head around and slapped a sloppy tongue across his master’s face.

Taine stood with the dog in his arms and looked at the man-size chuck and felt a great relief and an utter thankfulness.

Everything was all right now, he thought. Towser had come back.

He headed for the house and out into the kitchen.

He put Towser down and got a dish and filled it at the tap. He placed it on the floor and Towser lapped at it thirstily, slopping water all over the linoleum.

“Take it easy, there,” warned Taine. “You don’t want to overdo it.”

He hunted in the refrigerator and found some scraps and put them in Towser’s dish. Towser wagged his tail with doggish happiness.

“By rights,” said Taine, “I ought to take a rope to you, running off like that.”

Beasly came ambling in.

“That chuck is a friendly cuss,” he announced. “He is waiting for someone.”

“That’s nice,” said Taine, paying no attention.

He glanced at the clock.

“It’s seven thirty,” he said. “We can catch the news. You want to get it, Beasly?”

“Sure. I know right where to get it. That fellow from New York.”

“That’s the one,” said Taine.

He walked into the living room and looked out the window. The man-size chuck had not moved. He was sitting with his back to the house, looking back the way he’d come.

Waiting for someone, Beasly had said, and it looked as if he might be, but probably it was all just in Beasly’s head.

And if he were waiting for someone, Taine wondered, who might that someone be? What might that someone be? Certainly by now the word had spread out there that there was a door into another world. And how many doors, he wondered, had been opened through the ages?

Henry had said that there was a big new world out there waiting for Earthmen to move in. And that wasn’t it at all. It was the other way around.

The voice of the news commentator came blasting from the radio in the middle of a sentence:

“… Finally got into the act. Radio Moscow said this evening that the Soviet delegate will make representations in the U.N. tomorrow for the internationalization of this other world and the gateway to it.

“From that gateway itself, the home of a man named Hiram Taine, there is no news. Complete security had been clamped down and a cordon of troops form a solid wall around the house, holding back the crowds. Attempts to telephone the residence are blocked by a curt voice which says that no calls are being accepted for that number. And Taine himself has not stepped from the house.”