Author/Uploaded by Matt Ruff
Dedication for Nisi, who wanted more Epigraph Then Joseph took an oath from the children of Israel, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you will carry up my bones from here.” —Genesis 50:25 “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” —J. Robert Oppenheimer, quoting Vishnu Contents Cov...
Dedication for Nisi, who wanted more Epigraph Then Joseph took an oath from the children of Israel, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you will carry up my bones from here.” —Genesis 50:25 “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” —J. Robert Oppenheimer, quoting Vishnu Contents Cover Title Page Dedication Epigraph 1857: The Last Temptation of Simon Swincegood Part I: Carry Up the Bones The King in Yellow Welcome to Nevada Union of Past and Present Red Pawn The Train Lights Out Go Deeper In The Bomb Test Great Dismal Poker Room On the Beach The Children of Roanoke No Heaven at All Return to the Red Pawn Bone Ladder Return to Earth Hitching a Ride Get You Home Part II: The Body Snatchers Ruby’s Glass Slipper A Question for the Reverend Over the Rainbow The Winthrop House The Woman in the Basement Parley with a Dead Man Like Prince Charming An Appeal to the Lodge What You Don’t Forget The Fourth Man Return Flight Cash Up Front Confession Time Annuit Coeptis You’ve Got Nothing Part III: The Destroyer of Worlds Gita The Last Piece Scene of the Crime Something’s Happened What Are You Doing Here? The Cowboy Making Connections Let Them Go Plan of Attack The God of Death Oak Woods Coda: To the Dreamlands Acknowledgments About the Author Also by Matt Ruff Copyright About the Publisher 1857 The Last Temptation of Simon Swincegood He kills the dogs before he runs. Simon has heard the ignorant whispers of other slaves plotting escape. How they will wash away their trail by wading in rivers, or mask it with some stronger scent: Peppercorns. Vinegar. Turpentine. Horse piss. He knows it’s all foolishness. Even an ordinary coonhound can track a man through water, or tell a fugitive’s sweat from the staling of a horse. And Master Swincegood’s hounds aren’t ordinary. Bred from Egyptian stock, they are descendants of the hounds of Pharaoh, survivors of the debacle of the Red Sea. Nothing on foot can elude them for long. Hecuba, the midwife, claims that she can fly. Each night she casts her soul aloft, above the reach of dogs or men. She’s been to the North many times, she says; and to the future, and the lands of the dead, and to other, stranger places. But it profits her nothing. However far she travels, she remains tethered to her body by an unbreakable cord that each morning reels her in, to wake once more a slave. Other slaves, lacking even a temporary power of flight, have sought more earthly means of emancipation. Ezekiel, who was keeper of the hounds before Simon, tried to mail himself to freedom. He packed himself in a trunk with one of Missus Swincegood’s ball gowns that was bound for a party in Delaware. But the wagon that was to take the luggage to the train depot was late; Ezekiel began to suffocate, and prematurely pulled the stopper on the air hole he’d drilled for himself. The hounds, already suspicious about his absence, were on him in seconds. Master Swincegood gave Ezekiel fifty lashes and sold him away south. When Master made Simon the hounds’ new keeper, he warned him not to repeat Ezekiel’s mistake. Simon took the words to heart. He cannot say how his own bid for freedom will end, but he knows how it must begin. He enters the barn just before curfew. He finds a lantern and lights it, and goes to the pen where the dogs sleep. Four pairs of amber-colored eyes look up at his approach, watchful and curious. They’re smart animals: they know it’s not time to be fed, and if they were needed for a hunt, a white man would be coming for them. Simon doesn’t give them time to think about it. He opens the gate and points at Little Boy—at fifty pounds, the runt of the litter. “Follow,” Simon says. He crosses the barn to the stall of Adolphus, the mule, and takes the shoeing hammer from its peg on the wall. He side-eyes a warning at Adolphus as he does this; the mule, adept as any slave at playing dumb, stares back vacantly. I don’t see nothing, boss. Leaving the lantern in the barn, Simon leads Little Boy to the old well out back, the path lit by a nearly full moon. In the shadow of a tree near the path’s end, Simon pauses. “Set,” he says. Little Boy sits obediently. Simon squats beside him. He cocks his right arm and points with his left and says, “Look there.” Little Boy looks. Simon swings the hammer. The back of Little Boy’s skull gives way with a wet crack and he drops, lifeless. Simon stands up and begins removing the boards from the mouth of the well. The well was covered after Simon’s younger brother, Luke, had his accident. Simon’s other brother, Peter, had been teasing Luke, telling him there was a tunnel at the bottom of the well that led all the way to Canada. Luke knew that was nonsense, and said so, but Peter kept insisting it was true, adding that it didn’t really matter, anyway, as Luke was too much of a coward to see for himself. It was that last part that proved fatal, for while Luke didn’t mind being thought a fool, he couldn’t bear to have his bravery questioned. So he tried to climb down, and fell, and hit his head, and drowned. Now the well is tainted. Go on, drink, Simon thinks, tipping Little Boy headfirst into the well shaft. When Simon goes back to the barn, Whitefoot has pushed open the gate to the dog pen and is looking out. Volunteering to be next. Simon crooks a finger at him. After Luke died, Peter ran away. The hounds tracked him to a neighboring plantation and treed him in a hundred-year-old oak. When Peter