Random Acts of Kindness Read online

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  Random Acts of Kindness

  by Daniel Marcus

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  Science Fiction

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  Fictionwise, Inc.

  www.Fictionwise.com

  Copyright ©1993 by Daniel Marcus

  First published in Asimov's, October 1993

  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

  * * *

  The fog brought me a gift this morning. When I woke in the pre-dawn stillness to relieve myself it lay over everything like cotton ticking. I stepped out onto the porch and held my hand in front of my face. I could barely see it, a splayed dark outline, the space between the fingers like webbing in the half-dark.

  I went back to sleep and when I awoke again the fog was thinner. Not completely gone, but the sky had that bright gray look like there was blue up there somewhere. On the porch railing, next to a small potted cactus, was the head of a mountain lion. There was a dark, irregular stain on the wood underneath it and the fur around what was left of its neck was torn and bloody. Its eyes were open and its mouth was fixed in a snarl. As I watched, an ant crawled up the matted fur of its cheek, explored for a moment, and disappeared into a nostril.

  Even in death, there was something magnificent about the creature and I thought of Egyptian gods in hieroglyphic profile. I looked beyond it to the sloping, rock-studded hill disappearing into the fog still hugging the ground.

  I had been looking for that cat. In the last month I'd lost two sheep, and the day before, I'd come home to find my goat, Mama Cass, lying in a pool of blood, eviscerated and partly eaten. There was no sign, nothing to track—the killer left about as much spoor as the fog.

  I walked to the head of the rickety wooden stairs and looked around, hoping to catch a glimpse of whoever or whatever had graced me with this offering, knowing I wouldn't. I had an urge to shout, just to hear my voice damped, absorbed into that mist like rain into dry dust. I didn't see anything I didn't expect—just the fog, the gentle contours of the hillside, and off to the left, just visible through the whiteness, my old, blue Chevy rustbucket sitting under a listing, tin-roofed lean-to.

  Beyond the truck were the woods. They went on for miles, almost all the way to the ocean, uninterrupted except for patches of clearcut. I remember, years ago, flying low over the coastal range in a small private plane, seeing miles of deep, mysterious green scarred and broken by wide swaths of nothing. Dead zones. It made me want to cry. Not too much of that this far out in the boonies, but the lumber companies and the Feds managed to make a sorry mess of things before they stopped. Before everything stopped.

  I was hungry, and debated with myself whether to make something before heading down the mountain, or wait until I got to Stores. I never liked to pass up an opportunity to sit down to some of Evy's hash, but I was going to be bartering for gasoline to keep my generator going and needed a clear head, so I went back to the kitchen and grabbed an oatcake to give my blood sugar a kick. On my way out, I stopped at the hall closet and got the box of .22 longs that I planned to use for trade. There was only about a case and a half left and I felt a sharp stab of worry as I wondered what I was going to use for currency when that was gone. I didn't want to think about it. Under a tarp in the back of the truck there was also a small buck I'd bagged the day before. That and the ammo should get me five gallons at least, maybe a box of nails.

  As I walked out through the porch again, breaking off crumbs of cake and putting them in my mouth, I took another look at the cathead. It had lost most of its magic for me and just looked dead, the eyes glazed over, the fur taking on the dull gloss of old carpet. I felt a chill run down my spine though as I wondered again how it got there. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end.

  The truck was hard starting. There was always fog up here and I think the dampness got into the electrical system somehow. It turned over and over but wouldn't quite catch. Just when the starter was about to call it quits, cranking slower and slower and groaning with the effort, the engine kicked in. I saw a cloud of blue smoke rise in the rear view mirror and mix with the fog. I opened the glove compartment and took out my Walther, took the safety off, and jacked a shell in the chamber. I laid it gently on the seat next to me. I thought of Annie and pushed the thought away. Two years since she died, and I was still hurting. Everything in the house and the rough land around it shouted her name at me.

  The road wound down the mountain, hugging the contours, switchbacking a couple of times. I could drive it in my sleep. By the time the hardpack dirt gave way to asphalt, I was out from under the fog and I could see plumes of woodsmoke rising from behind the curve of the next hill. As I rounded its side, the twin windmills that provided power for the little community came into view—tall, spidery things perched at the mouth of the valley like birds of prey. Only one of them was spinning—the other was down again, waiting for a trader to make the long trip up from Tehachapi with spare parts.

  I pulled up in front of the trading post, a low, ramshackle building with a sprawling collection of additions. There were a couple of trailers off to the side, and a long aluminum storage shed. A neatly lettered sign reading “Stores” hung over the main entrance. Behind the main building, scattered throughout the woods and down the road, were about thirty houses, most of them new—makeshift dwellings that sprouted up around Stores like mushrooms on nightsoil after they got the windmills going. It was still pretty early and the dirt lot in front of the shed was empty. I stuck the Walther in my belt and walked in.

  Evy was behind the counter. She was wearing a rough homespun shirt and her long gray-streaked hair was pulled back into a thick braid. Behind her, pots and saucepans perched on Coleman burners, filling the room with the smells of chili, chicory, and kerosene. Through a door next to the stove I saw a jumbled confusion of merchandise—bolts of cloth, tools, barrels of dry goods. There was a single customer, someone I'd never seen before. He wore a scarf over his head that didn't quite cover an ugly burn scar and he sat hunched over his joe like he thought someone was going to take it away from him. Evy smiled when she saw me.

  “Blair,” she said. “How goes it?” There was a gold star inlaid into one of her front teeth and it flashed at me as she spoke.

  “Some strange shit, Ev'.” I told her about the offering I'd received. When I was finished, she rolled her eyes and whistled softly through her teeth. “Thing is, though,” I went on, “I don't know whether to feel threatened or graced. I mean, I wanted that cat, but this is pretty damn strange."

  As I talked, the stranger became more and more agitated, mumbling to himself and slopping his chicory on the counter in front of him. Finally he turned to me. The burn scar sprawled across his face like an open hand. His eyes peering out from behind it held a sick, flickering light.

  “It's happening, man,” he said. “They're coming back. Cowboy Neal at the wheel, man. Four dimensional beings in three dimensional bodies looking out two dimensional windshields. Ashes to ashes, man. They're coming back."

  I looked at Evy with a questioning frown. She shrugged and pointed down, meaning, I guess, that she figured he had come up from the South, from the ruins around Sacto or San Francisco. People didn't travel much anymore, but we still got a steady trickle—techno-junk traders, musicians, storytellers, and the occasional crazy.

  “I seen it, man. It's happened
to me. I was up to Shasta, up near the summit, and I got caught in a storm.” Something happened to his eyes then—the fevered light dimmed and he seemed almost sane. “Man, I had half a biscuit in my pocket and the shirt on my back and the temperature dropped from sixty to zero in about twenty minutes. I thought, ‘This is it, man. Thank you, Great Spirit for giving me this life, see you in the next one,’ you know?” I nodded. I knew about those storms—he wasn't exaggerating. Evy had stopped wiping down the counter and was staring at him.

  “Before long it was total whiteout,” he continued. “Nowhere to go, so I just sat down right where I was, closed my eyes, and waited. Pretty soon my feet and hands got all numb and I just went to sleep.” He giggled. “I just went to sleep, man.” He shook his head and stared down into his mug. He was silent for so long I didn't know if he was going to continue speaking. “I just went to sleep,” he said again, so softly it was almost inaudible. He looked up at me and grinned. “You think I'm gonna tell you I dreamed this long tunnel with a bright light at the end, right?"

  I shrugged and he shook his head. “Nothin,’ man. No dreams at all, but I woke up in the old abandoned base camp cabin at the foot of the northwest approach. A good ten miles away. There was a fire in the stove and a big fat squirrel on the table next to it, gutted and cleaned and ready to cook. And standing there looking down at me was God's own angel. She was an angel, man...” Evy looked at me and rolled her eyes. He didn't seem to notice. “She gave me this slow, sad smile, like she knew me, and then she turned and walked out the door. I remember the smells in the room, man—blood and woodsmoke."

  He looked at Evy, then back at me, with a defiant expression, like he was daring us to call him crazy.

  He beckoned me closer. “You know who I think it was?” he asked. I shook my head. He continued without pausing for an answer. “There were spirits who lived here before we came and fucked it all up. The Indians knew them and they had sort of a peaceful thing going. Then we came and started tearing down the forests and pissing in the streams and they went into hiding. I think they were always there, but they kept a low profile. Then the shit hit the fan and we almost blew ourselves off the planet. They're coming back, man..."

  “Wait a minute,” Evy said. “If that's true, don't you think they'd be a little, well, pissed off? Why would they help us?” I'd been thinking the same thing.

  He shook his head. “You don't get it, man. They're not like us. They don't hold grudges. It's a clean slate—we can all start over. A clean slate..."

  Then something in his face sagged and he looked back down into his mug. Evy and I looked at each other and shrugged.

  “We've got some business to transact, Evy,” I said after a long moment.

  “What you got?” she asked.

  We went through the motions of dickering and barter but neither of our hearts were in it. I got my five gallons, she got the .22 longs, and she agreed to salt all the meat and give me half. Somewhere during the course of the negotiations, our friend had disappeared.

  “Hey,” I said. “Where's Cowboy Neal?"

  “Beats me,” she said with a shrug. “Probably stepped out to score some ‘shrooms."

  “No shit,” I said. “The band's playing but the amps aren't plugged in."

  She chuckled softly. “Rock and roll will never die. You think there's anything to his story?"

  “Fuck if I know,” I said. “I did wake up with a cathead on my porch, but I think our friend's been smoking a little too much Humboldt Polio Weed.” I was trying to make light of it, but there was something nagging at a corner of my mind and it wouldn't let go. I had heard similar stories, especially since the war. Impossible rescues, strange gifts left in the dead of night.

  * * * *

  I spent the afternoon in the “machine shop” at Stores—little more than a garage with an old lathe, a hoist, and a meager collection of hand tools—helping Jacob Ross tear down and rebuild a generator. Jacob was Stores’ resident doctor, Evy's Significant Something-or-Other, and he was pretty good with his hands. He had patched me up more than once, and had done all he could to save my wife Annie when she took two rounds in the chest from a .357 Magnum. A biker gang, up from what was left of Oakland. He wasn't a miracle worker, though—the life leaked out of her slowly but steadily, and she was gone before the night was through.

  It was good working with him. We knew each other well and there was an economy of words and motion that made the work seem almost like a dance. I told him about the macabre gift I'd received and about Cowboy Neal and he just grunted and nodded. It was pretty much what I needed to hear from him. By the time I got back up the mountain to my place, the shadows were starting to lengthen and the high clouds in the western sky were streaked with gold fire.

  The cathead was still on my porch and the ants had been having a field day. A line of them stretched up the side of the porch to the railing and the head itself was teeming with them. There was a cloud of flies circling and buzzing and a whiff of decay hung in the air. I wrapped a kerchief around my hand, grabbed the head by an ear, and tossed it as hard and far as I could. It bounced a couple of times and rolled into the woods. Like ringing the dinner bell for the ‘coons and skunks, but I just wanted it out of my sight. I got some water from the reclamation tank and washed down the railing.

  I'd been thinking about Annie again on the drive back and missing her more than a little. I decided to pay her a visit. First, though, I wanted to leave something in case my visitor showed up again. I looked around the living room and settled on the God's-eye hanging over the mantle—black and yellow yarn wound around the arms of a rude, wooden cross to form a textured pattern of concentric diamonds. The arms of the cross were tipped with hawk feathers. Annie made it the summer before she died. I didn't know why, but it seemed right. I brought it out to the porch and laid it on the railing where the cathead had been.

  Annie wasn't far, just about a half-mile further up the mountain, but it was deep woods and I maintained the trail as lightly as possible—just enough to let me find my way. She would have wanted it like that.

  It was one of those clearings that just opens up out of the woods like God lifting the lid from a teakettle. About half an acre of green so deep it hurt the eyes, peppered with wildflowers in the spring, studded with an array of smooth boulders perfect for sitting. It had been a favorite place of ours, even before the war. Her grave was near the uphill end of the clearing, marked by a sort of mandala of small stones, a simple spiral set into the rich earth.

  Some people talk to their departed loved ones. I couldn't do it. It was too much like wishing for something that could never happen. I liked to be near her sometimes, though, when I needed to be alone with my thoughts. I sat on a boulder near her grave, stretched my legs out, and remembered...

  ...being out on San Francisco Bay in a sailboat under a perfect blue sky, the wind ripping through my hair, fingers completely numb. I remembered ice cream, the cold sweetness, the way the really good stuff sort of coated your tongue and the back of your mouth. I remembered what it felt like to play an old Martin, the rosewood fretboard silky beneath my callused fingers, the rich harmonics ringing out underneath the chords, vibrating the body of the guitar.

  In all of those images, Annie was there, somewhere just outside my field of vision. I began to get that tight feeling across my forehead like I was about to cry, and before long my shoulders were shaking with dry sobs. After a while, the tightness went away and my breathing returned to normal. I took a last look at Annie's grave and walked back down the meadow to where the trail disappeared into the woods.

  As I made my way along the overgrown path, I had a distinct feeling that I was being watched. I stopped and looked around. It was almost dark and the woods were deep in purple shadow. The mosquitoes were out and they hovered around me in a cloud. Off to the left I heard the deep drone of a wild beehive. The air smelled of pine and leaf mold. Nothing. I thought wistfully for a moment of my Walther, lying in the glove compartment
in my truck.

  By the time I got home it was pitch dark and my neck was sore from looking over my shoulder. The God's eye lay on the railing where I left it. I made myself some dinner and, afterwards, brewed myself a pot of coffee from my dwindling hoard. I brought it out onto the porch and settled into the big wicker chair to wait. I had a long night ahead of me. As an afterthought, I went down to the truck and got the Walther out of the glove compartment. I didn't think I'd need it, but I was still spooked from my walk, and I had learned to trust my intuition.

  I leaned back and looked up at the sky. There was a pretty good aurora. We'd been getting a lot of those since the war—gauzy, iridescent curtains hanging cold fire from the heavens. There were a lot of shooting stars, too, and at one point I saw a dim light make a slow, steady crawl across the sky. Probably Space Station Kyoto. I didn't think there was anybody up there any more, but I wasn't sure. I felt a sharp sadness at the thought.

  I must have dozed off, because when I woke the sky was beginning to take on that colorless pre-dawn shade, just before the light starts pushing itself up from the East. There was someone on the porch with me. I couldn't make out her features very well (I knew somehow it was a “her"), but I had a sense of fine cheekbones, of grace and slenderness. And I knew that she was not human. I reached behind me and rested my hand on the cold hardness of the gun.

  She stepped forward, out of the shadows. Huge, liquid eyes, catching the dim light like a cat. Body covered in a fine layer of glistening fur. I wanted to reach out and touch it. She wore no clothing, but a belt slung low on her hips held a long knife, an axe, and a small pouch. She smelled faintly of ginger.

  She picked up the God's-eye and held it up in front of her face. She rotated it around a quarter-turn, then back, then she laid it gently back on the railing. She looked at me then. Cowboy Neal's words echoed in my mind. It's a clean slate, man. With a falling sensation, I lifted my hand from the gun and met her gaze. Behind her, on the mountain, the fog was coming in.