Simak, Cliffard D - Thing in the Stone, The - Notisblokk

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Simak, Cliffard D - Thing in the Stone, The

Title : The Thing in the Stone

Author : Clifford D. Simak

Original copyright year: 1970

Genre : science fiction

Comments : to my knowledge, this is the only available e-text of this book

Source : scanned and OCR-read from a paperback edition with Xerox TextBridge Pro

9.0, proofread in MS Word 2000.

Date of e-text : February 21, 2000

Prepared by : Anada Sucka

======================================================================

The Thing in the Stone

Clifford D. Simak

He walked the hills and knew what the hills had seen through geologic time.

He listened to the stars and spelled out what the stars were saying. He had

found the creature that lay imprisoned in the stone. He had climbed the tree

that in other days had been climbed by homing wildcats to reach the den gouged

by time and weather out of the cliff's sheer face. He lived alone on a worn-out

farm perched on a high and narrow ridge that overlooked the confluence of two

rivers. And his next-door neighbor, a most ill-favored man, drove to the county

seat, thirty miles away, to tell the sheriff that this reader of the hills, this

listener to the stars was a chicken thief.

The sheriff dropped by within a week or so and walked across the yard to

where the man was sitting in a rocking chair on a porch that faced the river

hills. The sheriff came to a halt at the foot of the stairs that ran up to the

porch.

'I'm Sheriff Harley Shepherd,' he said. 'I was just driving by. Been some

years since I been out in this neck of the woods. You are new here, aren't you?'

The man rose to his feet and gestured at another chair. 'Been here three

years or so,' he said. 'The name is Wallace Daniels. Come up and sit with me.'

The sheriff climbed the stairs and the two shook hands, then sat down in the

chairs.

'You don't farm the place,' the sheriff said.

The weed-grown fields came up to the fence that hemmed in the yard.

Daniels shook his head. 'Subsistence farming, if you can call it that. A few

chickens for eggs. A couple of cows for milk and butter. Some hogs for meat --

the neighbors help me butcher. A garden of course, but that's about the story.'

'Just as well,' the sheriff said. 'The place is all played out. Old Amos

Williams, he let it go to ruin. He never was no farmer.'

'The land is resting now,' said Daniels. 'Give it ten years -- twenty might

be better -- and it will be ready once again. The only things it's good for now

are the rabbits and the woodchucks and the meadow mice. A lot of birds, of

course. I've got the finest covey of quail a man has ever seen.'

'Used to be good squirrel country,' said the sheriff. 'Coon, too. I suppose

you still have coon. You have a hunter, Mr. Daniels?'

Side 1

Simak, Cliffard D - Thing in the Stone, The

'I don't own a gun,' said Daniels.

The sheriff settled deeply into the chair, rocking gently.

'Pretty country out here,' he declared. 'Especially with the leaves turning

colors. A lot of hardwood and they are colorful. Rough as hell, of course, this

land of yours. Straight up and down, the most of it. But pretty.'

'It's old country,' Daniels said. 'The last sea retreated from this area

more than four hundred million years ago. It has stood as dry land since the end

of the Silurian. Unless you go up north, on to the Canadian Shield, there aren't

many places in this country you can find as old as this.'

'You a geologist, Mr. Daniels?'

'Not really. Interested, is all. The rankest amateur. I need something to

fill my time and I do a lot of hiking, scrambling up and down these hills. And

you can't do that without coming face to face with a lot of geology. I got

interested. Found some fossil brachiopods and got to wondering about them. Sent

off for some books and read up on them. One thing led to another and -- '

'Brachiopods? Would they be dinosaurs, or what? I never knew there were

dinosaurs out this way.'

'Not dinosaurs,' said Daniels. 'Earlier than dinosaurs, at least the ones I

found. They're small. Something like clams or oysters. But the shells are hinged

in a different sort of way. These were old ones, extinct millions of years ago.

But we still have a few brachiopods living now. Not too many of them.'

'It must be interesting.'

'I find it so,' said Daniels.

'You knew old Amos Williams?'

'No. He was dead before I came here. Bought the land from the bank that was

settling his estate.'

'Queer old coot,' the sheriff said. 'Fought with all his neighbors.

Especially with Ben Adams. Him and Ben had a line fence feud going on for years.

Ben said Amos refused to keep up the fence. Amos claimed Ben knocked it down and

then sort of, careless-like, hazed his cattle over into Amos's hayfield. How you

get along with Ben?'

'All right,' Daniels said. 'No trouble. I scarcely know the man.'

'Ben don't do much farming, either,' said the sheriff. Hunts and fishes,

hunts ginseng, does some trapping in the winter. Prospects for minerals now and

then.'

'There are minerals in these hills,' said Daniels. 'Lead and zinc. But it

would cost more to get it out than it would be worth. At present prices, that

is.'

'Ben always has some scheme cooking.' said the sheriff. 'Always off on some

wild goose chase. And he's a pure pugnacious man. Always has his nose out of

joint about something. Always on the prod for trouble. Bad man to have for an

enemy. Was in the other day to say someone's been lifting a hen or two of his.

You haven't been missing any, have you?'

Daniels grinned. 'There's a fox that levies a sort of tribute on the coop

every now and then. I don't begrudge them to him.'

'Funny thing,' the sheriff said. 'There ain't nothing can rile up a farmer

like a little chicken stealing. It don't amount to shucks, of course, but they

get real hostile at it.'

Side 2

Simak, Cliffard D - Thing in the Stone, The

'If Ben has been losing chickens,' Daniels said, 'more than likely the

culprit is my fox.'

'Your fox? You talk as if you own him.'

'Of course I don't. No one owns a fox. But he lives in these hills with me.

I figure we are neighbours. I see him every now and then and watch him. Maybe

that means I own a piece of him. Although I wouldn't be surprised if he watches

me more than I watch him. He moves quicker than I do.'

The sheriff heaved himself out of the chair.

'I hate to go,' he said. 'I declare it has been restful sitting here and

talking with you and looking at the hills. You look at them a lot, I take it.'

'Quite a lot,' said Daniels.

He sat on the porch and watched the sheriff's car top the rise far down the

ridge and disappear from sight.

What had it all been about? he wondered. The sheriff hadn't just happened to

be passing by. He'd been on an errand. All this aimless, friendly talk had not

been for nothing and in the course of it he'd managed to ask lots of questions.

Something about Ben Adams, maybe? Except there wasn't too much against Adams

except he was bone-lazy. Lazy in a weasely sort of way. Maybe the sheriff had

got wind of Adams' off-and-on moonshining operation and was out to do some

checking, hoping that some neighbor might misspeak himself. None of them would,

of course, for it was none of their business, really, and the moonshining had

built up no nuisance value. What little liquor Ben might make didn't amount to

much. He was too lazy for anything he did to amount to much.

From far down the hill he heard the tinkle of a bell. The two cows were

finally heading home. It must be much later, Daniels told himself, than he had

thought. Not that he paid much attention to what time it was. He hadn't for long

months on end, ever since he'd smashed his watch when he'd fallen off the ledge.

He had never bothered to have the watch fixed. He didn't need a watch. There was

a battered old alarm clock in the kitchen but it was an erratic piece of

mechanism and not to be relied upon. He paid slight attention to it.

In a little while, he thought, he'd have to rouse himself and go and do the

chores -- milk the cows, feed the hogs and chickens, gather up the eggs. Since

the garden had been laid by there hadn't been much to do. One of these days he'd

have to bring in the squashes and store them in the cellar and there were those

three or four big pumpkins he'd have to lug down the hollow to the Perkins kids,

so they'd have them in time to make jack-o-lanterns for Halloween. He wondered

if he should carve out the faces himself or if the kids would rather do it on

their own.

But the cows were still quite a distance away and he still had time. He sat

easy in his chair and stared across the hills.

And they began to shift and change as he stared.

When he had first seen it, the phenomenon had scared him silly. But now he

was used to it.

As he watched, the hills changed into different ones. Different vegetation

and strange life stirred on them.

He saw dinosaurs this time. A herd of them, not very big ones. Middle

Triassic, more than likely. And this time it was only a distant view -- he

himself was not to become involved. He would only see, from a distance, what

ancient time was like and would not be thrust into the middle of it as most

often was the case.

Side 3

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Simak, Cliffard D - Thing in the Stone, The - Notisblokk

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