Clifford Simak - The Big Front Yard and Other Stories

And that, said Hart, is a joke on you.

If I ever find you, I’ll cram it down your throat.

Angela came up the stairs bearing an offering of peace. She set the kettle on the table. “Some soup,” she said. “I’m good at making soup.”

“Thanks, Angela,” he said. “I forgot to eat today.”

“Why the knapsack, Kemp? Going on a hike?”

“No, going on vacation.”

“But you didn’t tell me.”

“I just now made up my mind to go. A little while ago.”

“I’m sorry I was so angry at you. It turned out all right. Green Shirt and his gang made their getaway.”

“So Jasper can come out.”

“He’s already out. He’s plenty sore at you.”

“That’s all right with me. I’m no pal of his.”

She sat down in a chair and watched him pack.

“Where are you going, Kemp?”

“I’m hunting for an alien.”

“Here in the city? Kemp, you’ll never find him.”

“Not in the city. I’ll have to ask around.”

“But there aren’t any aliens –”

“That’s right.”

“You’re a crazy fool,” she cried. “You can’t do it, Kemp. I won’t let you. How will you live? What will you do?”

“I’ll write.”

“Write? You can’t write! Not without a yarner.”

“I’ll write by hand. Indecent as it may be, I’ll write by hand because I’ll know the things I write about. It’ll be in my blood and at my fingertips. I’ll have the smell of it and the color of it and the taste of it!”

She leaped from the chair and beat at his chest with tiny fists.

“It’s filthy! It’s uncivilized! It’s –”

“That’s the way they wrote before. All the millions of stories, all the great ideas, all the phrases that you love to quote. And that is the way it should have stayed. This is a dead-end street we’re on.”

“You’ll come back,” she said. “You’ll find that you are wrong and you’ll come back.”

He shook his head at her. “Not until I find my alien.”

“It isn’t any alien you are after. It is something else. I can see it in you.”

She whirled around and raced out the door and down the stairs.

He went back to his packing and when he had finished, he sat down and ate the soup. Angela, he thought, was right. She was good at making soup.

And she was right in another thing as well. It was no alien he was seeking.

For he didn’t need an alien. And he didn’t need a blanket and he didn’t need a yarner.

He took the kettle to the sink and washed it beneath the tap and dried it carefully. Then he set it in the center of the table where Angela, when she came, would be sure to see it.

Then he took up the knapsack and started slowly down the stairs.

He had reached the street when he heard the cry behind him. It was Angela and she was running after him. He stopped and waited for her.

“I’m going with you, Kemp.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying. It’ll be rough and hard. Strange lands and alien people. And we haven’t any money.”

“Yes, we have. We have that fifty. The one I tried to loan you. It’s all I have and it won’t go far, I know. But we have it.”

“You’re looking for no alien.”

“Yes, I am. I’m looking for an alien, too. All of us, I think, are looking for your alien.”

He reached out an arm and swept her roughly to him, held her close against him.

“Thank you, Angela,” he said.

Hand in hand they headed for the spaceport, looking for a ship that would take them to the stars.

CLIFFORD D. SIMAK, during his fifty-five year career, produced some of the most iconic science fiction stories ever written. Born in 1904 on a farm in southwestern Wisconsin, Simak got a job at a small-town newspaper in 1929 and eventually became news editor of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, writing fiction in his spare time.

Simak was best known for the book City , a reaction to the horrors of World War II, and for his novel Way Station. In 1953 City was awarded the International Fantasy Award, and in following years, Simak won three Hugo Awards and a Nebula Award. In 1977 he became the third Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and before his death in 1988, he was named one of three inaugural winners of the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement.

DAVID W. WIXON was a close friend of Clifford D. Simak’s. As Simak’s health declined, Wixon, already familiar with science fiction publishing, began more and more to handle such things as his friend’s business correspondence and contract matters. Named literary executor of the estate after Simak’s death, Wixon began a long-term project to secure the rights to all of Simak’s stories and find a way to make them available to readers who, given the fifty-five-year span of Simak’s writing career, might never have gotten the chance to enjoy all of his short fiction. Along the way, Wixon also read the author’s surviving journals and rejected manuscripts, which made him uniquely able to provide Simak’s readers with interesting and thought-provoking commentary that sheds new light on the work and thought of a great writer.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

“The Big Front Yard” © 1958 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. © 1986 by Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, v. 62, no. 2, Oct., 1958. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Clifford D. Simak.

“The Observer” © 1972 by The Conde Nast Publications, Inc. © 2000 by the Estate of Clifford D. Simak. Original appearance in Analog, v. 89, no. 4, May, 1972. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Clifford D. Simak.

“Trail City’s Hot-Lead Crusaders” © 1944 by Fictioneers, Inc. © 1972 by Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in New Western Magazine, v. 8, no. 2, Sept., 1944. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Clifford D. Simak.

“Junkyard” © 1953 by Galaxy Publishing Corp. © 1981 by Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, v. 6, no. 2, May, 1953. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Clifford D. Simak.

“Mr. Meek – Musketeer” © 1944 by Love Romances Publishing Co., Inc. © 1972 by Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in Planet Stories, v. 2, no. 7, Summer, 1944. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Clifford D. Simak.

“Neighbor” © 1954 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. © 1982 by Clifford D. Simak. Original appearance in Astounding Science Fiction, v. 53, no. 4, June, 1954. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Clifford D. Simak.

“Shadow World” © 1957 by Galaxy Publishing Corp. © 1985 by Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, v. 14, no. 5, Sept., 1957. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Clifford D. Simak.

“So Bright the Vision” © 1956 by King-Size Publications, Inc. © 1984 by Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in Fantastic Universe, v. 6, no. 1, Aug., 1956. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Clifford D. Simak.