Lord of the Fantastic: Stories in Honor of Roger Zelazny

BACK IN “THE REAL WORLD” BRADLEY H. SINOR

Will Jared knelt on one knee next to the remains of the campfire. The cold ashes had been there three days, perhaps as many as five.

This late in October campers were not unknown in this part of northeast Oklahoma, just unusual. Most people preferred an electric blanket to a plastic ground sheet and a sleeping bag. Plus most campers who used Hyatt State Park registered with the park ranger’s office. There were always a few who didn’t bother.

A lean dark figure, dressed in leather flight jacket, black jeans and boots, the badge of an Oklahoma State Park ranger pinned on his shirt, Jared had spent a half hour studying the campsite. Ordinary park visitors probably, but there was always a chance of something else.

Jared was justly proud of his tracking skills. He’d learned from the best, his maternal grandfather, Marcus Conley, who was said to have been one of the best Cherokee hunting guides in decades. What Grandfather hadn’t taught Jared, six years in the United States Army Rangers had.

He took a handful of ashes, rolling them between his palms. Then he gently blew, his breath and the ash lingering as mist in the cold night air.

It began slowly as it had so many times since his return to “The Real World,” from Vietnam, three years before. The sounds of the forest became distant and faint, overlaid with other sounds, vague echoes that grew gradually into voices.

I know this isn’t the sort of honeymoon that you expected. It’s . . . just . . . that. . .

I don’t care. I’m here, with you, we’re together. That’s all that counts. Us.

Honeymooners?! Of course, it made sense. Just people who wanted to be left alone. A sentiment that Jared could appreciate. Being alone was one of the main reasons he had taken the job as a park ranger.

There were more words, words that gradually faded into other sounds. Jared struggled to pull himself away from them. It was difficult not to let himself go, to let the echoing sounds of voices, the wind, the trees and the very soil itself just pull him into them.

He could feel a lightness about it. So easy, so very easy. Only not this way. Gradually that certainty brought him to himself, the odors of pine, grass and water growing around him.

Jared’s hands were trembling as the gray ashes fell slowly between his fingers. A breeze brought the distant sound of an owl screeching.

When everything around him began to move, Jared grabbed the limb of a nearby sapling to balance himself. He pulled his flight jacket tighter. Afterward Jared always felt like he had been dumped in a freezer.

There were probably reasons to explain the reaction, there always were. Jared often suspected that they made as little sense to the people giving them as to the people hearing them.

But, Jared knew better than to mention this to the chief ranger, a bureaucrat from the word go. This was the sort of thing that would convince him that Will Jared had gone round the bend.

Once, Jared had tried to describe the experience to the doctors at the Veterans Administration hospital in Tulsa. They had listened, muttering phrases like “survivor’s guilt,” “delayed stress syndrome,” and “fear trauma.” Their answer had been yet another prescription, which, like the others, had disappeared into the waiting-room trash can.

When he told his grandfather about the voices, and the rest, Marcus Conley didn’t say much. The old man had just sat on the porch, listening and puffing away on his pipe, surrounding himself with clouds of Jameson blend tobacco smoke.

“You’re not crazy, boy. You just have to wait. You got the potential to be something very special, for yourself, and for our people. But you’ve got demons you’ve got to face, inside yourself, like every one of us. Only yours are tougher, harder, more devious. And you can’t pick the time to face them, they pick it, and you just have to do the best you can.”

“Yeah, right,” Jared said.

The wind came from the west, off the lake and into the narrow valley. The chill in it was a stark contrast to the last remnants of summer that had clung to the area until only a half a dozen days before.

Jared came down along the hillside, pausing here and there to look and listen. The nearest neighbors were a good three miles away, closer on the shoreline, near the park’s edge.

He fumbled through his jacket pockets and pulled out a pack of Camels, along with a lighter. Its brass surface was scarred and bent, but not enough to obscure the engraving: KHE SANH 1969.

Thumbing the lighter to life, he sucked on the cigarette, its smoke burning harshly as he drew deep on it.

Jared smothered a cough in his sleeve, fought to hold himself up as it racked his body. He told himself that it was just the tag end of a summer cold, but it had held on for nearly two months. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to visit the tribal medical complex near Tahlequah, or maybe the V.A. Hospital for a checkup.

No, if he went to Tahlequah, that would mean the obligatory visit to his parents. It was never a pleasant task, not since the morning he had walked into the house and announced that he had enlisted in the Army.

Going back to the V.A. didn’t appeal to him either. Not because of the doctors. No, that had been where he had his first flashback: one minute he’d been in Tulsa, the next in ‘Nam. No, he shook his head, no V.A. Besides there were probably too many new forms to fill out if he went in.

Jared glanced across the clearing. Even knowing where to look, it was still hard to see the cabin in the dark. All the better, he told himself. If I have trouble seeing it, others do too.

The cabin seemed to fit here, as if it had always been a part of the forest. It was set against the side of a hill, and a dozen small ash trees surrounded it. In the years since they had planted them, the trees had grown much larger than anyone would have expected.

Lingering on the porch, Jared partially unzipped his flight jacket. His hand rested on the butt of the silver-gray Deutonics .45, waiting. When at last he was certain there was no one else around, Jared stepped inside.

Dropping his jacket on the couch, Jared drew a deep breath, savoring the warmth of the house. The cabin had three rooms: kitchen and living area combined, bedroom with bath, and a storage area. Small it might be, but that summer after graduation when he, Larry Sheppard, and Larry’s father had sweated, struggled, and cursed to build it, the cabin had seemed as big as an Alpine A-frame. Originally they had intended it for an occasional getaway. Since Jared had come back from ‘Nam, to “The Real World,” it had been home and refuge for him.

That was when he remembered the ice cream. A half gallon of homemade chocolate chip, carefully packed and handed to him by his mother on his last visit to his parents’ home. Yeah, that was exactly the prescription, the sort the V.A. doctors should be writing. He filled a big bowl, helping himself to several large bites in the process, then carried it into the living room.

Spooning a mouthful of ice cream, Jared found himself staring at the scar across the palm of his right hand. With the edge of a fingernail he carefully traced the line. That had come from a screwdriver slipping out of his grip. It had hurt but the memory didn’t anymore.

That summer they had built the cabin had been special, very special for Larry and him. They had been best friends almost from the first day at the Cherokee boarding school near Lawton. That summer, nine years ago, they had become in formal ceremony what they were already in fact: brothers.

A blood brother was always there, always ready when you needed him.

Only when push came to shove, I wasn’t there when Larry really needed me.

Jared repeated it over and over again in his mind, like a Gregorian chant.

I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there.

On the table next to the divan was a framed photo of the two of them in Class A uniforms, taken the week they had arrived in Vietnam, perfectly ironed shirts, spit-shined boots, a dream image as far from the reality as Jared wished he were now.

He picked up the picture, his slim brown fingers tightening around the metal. . . .

. . . tell the truth, you broke your ankle when her husband was coming home and you had to dive out the window.

Right! You know without me at point you couldn‘t find your way out of a one-room schoolhouse.

Sure! Just stay here, recuperate on the beach, with all these nice army nurses to look after you, while the real men are out working.

My friend, it’s hard duty but that’s what they pay me the big bucks for.

I’m sorry, Lt. Jared, they found what was left of the patrol. Charlie hit Sheppard and the rest of them hard, about five klicks from the LZ. . . . No survivors . . .

Jared listened for a long time, the sounds holding him tight, yanking the very breath out of his body. As swiftly as it had begun, everything ended in a wave of pain, like someone slamming a fist into his stomach. He rammed the photo down on the table, jarring the bowl of half-eaten ice cream onto the floor.

As his fingers parted from the metal, Jared found himself watching the whole scene with a disinterested eye, coldly picking out details that echoed loudly in his vision.

For a long time he just sat there, staring at the fire, the puddle of melting ice cream and broken glass. Struggling to his feet, Jared finally began to pick up the pieces; it just didn’t seem right to leave them there.

The drumming awoke Jared. He had been aware of it for a long time, hoping the whole thing was part of a dream that would run its course and go on to something different.

Half-heartedly, Jared buried his face in the pillow, but he knew as he rolled to one side that it would do no good. He forced his eyes open, looking toward the digital display on the bedside clock.

3:45

“Damn!”

As he stepped onto the cabin’s porch, a few moments later, the night chill cut through him. For a long time he just walked, boots lost in the knee-high ground fog.

The wind did sometimes play funny tricks in the hills. He could remember nights during the summer when you could hear sounds coming from the far side of the lake as easily as if they had been next door. Only tonight there wasn’t any wind.

“Too much chocolate-chip ice cream will do it to you every time, kiddo.” The voice came from just ahead of him, as did the drumming.

Sitting cross-legged on a lightning-blackened stump was an old man, dressed in jeans and a Grateful Dead T-shirt. He had a small drum on his lap. The man’s shoulder-length gray hair was held in place by an ornately beaded hair tie, the kind that Jared had seen some of the tribal elders wear.

“Do you take requests?” Jared said.

The old man looked up and smiled, produced a Scottish pennywhistle, and began to play.

The tune was familiar.

“As Time Goes By.”

After he finished, the old man looked at Jared, raising the whistle in a salute.

“I really don’t think that anybody is going to mistake you for Dooley Wilson,” Jared said.

The old man shrugged.

“Does this mean I should call you Sam?”

“Up to you. I answer to a lot of things.”

And Jared knew him. He couldn’t really say just what wild leap of logic suddenly told him just who “Sam” was, it just happened. “In this day and age it sounds a little more suitable than calling you Coyote.”

Sam nodded, a look of satisfaction on his face. “Not bad, you’re quicker on things than I’d been told.” The fog began to move in slow circular motion around the two men.

That was when Sam changed. He was younger, closer to Jared’s own age. A few white hairs streaked the man’s otherwise ink-black hair. He now wore a gray sport jacket, sunglasses, purple shirt, and an outlandish paisley neckerchief. The drum was replaced by a saxophone.

Sam produced a white handkerchief from his jacket sleeve and began to polish the instrument. When he had finished Sam pulled the reed loose and held it up for a closer look. The edges were visibly cracked and worn. With a flourish he flung the reed off into the darkness, produced another one, and fit it into place.

“You know, boy, I’m sure beginning to wonder if you’re really worth the amount of my time that you’ve taken up,” he said.

“Well, excuse me! I don’t seem to recall asking for your time or your attention. I think I was doing just fine without you sticking your nose into my affairs. And even if I did need help, I’m not sure I would want yours,” Jared said.

Anger flared on Sam’s face. “Look, boy, in spite of what you may have heard, I’m not nearly the interfering bastard that I’ve been played up as being over the years. Let’s just say that I’ve gotten a lot of bad press and leave it at that.” He began to play, this time a tune that Jared did not recognize.

“Would you mind doing your rehearsing somewhere else? There are a few people around here who want to sleep.”

“Well, pardon me,” Sam answered with mock indignation. At that moment he was once more the old man, though the saxophone was still gripped tightly in his hands. “Besides, that’s not the way you were taught to address someone. Now was it?”

Jared suppressed a feeling of irritation. Sam was correct and that bothered him.

By tribal custom one should address an older man as either uncle or grandfather, whether you were related or not. It was just good manners, as well as a sign of respect; if he truly were Coyote, this Sam’s age alone gave him claim to the title.

Jared turned to walk away, shivering, as Sam began playing again. The sound echoed around him, even louder than it had been. The sudden desire for a cigarette filled him. The problem was he realized almost at once that the cigarettes and his lighter were back in the cabin.

The fog had grown so heavy that Jared could barely see more than a half dozen steps in front of him. It was difficult to even make out the numbers on his watch.

3:48

Three minutes? That hardly seemed possible. It was getting more and more difficult to know what to believe standing there at the center of a moving whirlwind of fog, color, motion, and sound.

The smell of burning diesel and gas filled his lungs. People sped by on foot, in rickshas, on motorcycles and in cars; voices chattered in French, Vietnamese, Thai, American, a dozen dialects and a hundred combinations, all melding into one voice.

Saigon.

He knew where he was, although at that particular moment he would not have been willing to bet that the sun would rise in the east tomorrow morning.

Saigon.

Not the pale gray echo called Ho Chi Minh City. It could be no other place but Saigon, in all its decadence and glory.

Jared drew a breath, held it and then slowly exhaled. He wasn’t sure if he wanted this to be a bizarre nightmare or an even more bizarre reality.

A small gray cat, missing a single fang, emerged from an alley and hopped up on a packing crate in front of Jared. The animal eyed him for nearly a minute, seeming to dare Jared to walk past, then began ever so calmly to bathe itself.

“You here to tell me something? I’m open for suggestions.” He felt kind of silly talking to the cat, but at the moment it seemed the thing to do.

“Would you listen if I did?” the cat said.

“That tears it,” Jared mumbled. “I’m outta here.”

Half walking, half jogging, Jared moved in and out among the constant flow of people and vehicles, moving from shadow to light and back again. After a half hour he found himself in more residential streets, where most of the houses reflected the architecture of thirty and forty years before.

That was when a trio of U.S. Army half-ton trucks came round the corner. The glare from their headlights made it impossible to see the drivers’ faces as they passed.

The final one had no tailgate. On impulse Jared ran after it, boosting himself onto the back with no problem. Scooting inside he wrapped himself in the steamy darkness. The engine roared and the truck pulled ahead.

Just a place to rest, a chance to think, that was all he wanted. For a moment the image of himself wrapped in a straightjacket, screaming his throat raw in some V.A. padded cell, lingered in his mind, mixed with the quiet face of his grandfather.

A few moments later he was lost in sleep.

Jared was jolted awake when the truck hit a rut in the road. The stiffness in his shoulders and back were painful testimony to how much time had passed. The truck continued to barrel along at a good clip, as Jared crouched on the back edge before stepping off into the darkness. He barely managed to stay on his feet when he landed.

The sky was awash in stars. Around him the night sounds of the jungle abounded the darkness. Beads of sweat rolled down his neck to stain his shirt and the fur collar of his flight jacket.

Carefully he picked a path among the bushes and vines. As he walked, the jungle noises around him began to fade. Not quickly, but over a period of time, until there was nothing, no wind, no animal noises, no annoying buzz of insects. Nothing, except the sounds of his own steps.

Jared’s foot was almost on top of the booby trap when he spotted the first Viet Cong.

A tripwire wrapped in vines had been strung about five inches above the ground, hooked to a claymore mine that would have peppered him with shrapnel if he had set it off.

“Just be a bit more careful. Somebody who’s been in country all of thirty minutes would have spotted this,” he told himself, stepping over the wire.

The guerrilla fighter, on the other hand, was a good twenty yards in front of Jared, with his back to him. Bent low, the man wore black homespun and clutched a Russian AK-47 in his hands. Jared’s hand began to slowly loosen the heavy, hand-tooled belt he wore. Garroting someone with your cowboy belt might not have much style, but it would do in a pinch.

Only this guy didn’t seem to notice Jared. As the young man got closer, the V.C. didn’t look round, didn’t move, and gave every appearance of being frozen solid. Jared moved up besides him and just stood there, staring. After several minutes, he thought he might have seen the other man’s chest move, but couldn’t be sure.

Just ahead and to his right Jared spotted more figures. Some were V.C., the rest were North Vietnamese regulars. All standing as stone still as the first.

That was when he spotted Larry.

His blood brother had an M-16 balanced in the crook of his arm, freeing his hands up to examine a map. Next to him were two faces that Jared knew well, Cpls. Kelley Wilde and Hal Williams.

Like the VC and the North Vietnamese regulars they were frozen in mid-movement.

For several long minutes Jared just stared. This time he was sure he saw one of Wilde’s arms move, ever so slightly. If they could see him he suspected all they would notice would be a shadow, a vague movement out of the corner of one eye.

Just to one side were the rest of the squad: Matt Charles, Jim Allen, Bill Gordon, Jonas Mason, Karl Tattershawl, and K.T. Dixon.

Gordon and Dixon were carrying a makeshift litter, with Charles stretched across it, a heavy bandage across the man’s chest. All of the men bore wounds of some kind.

“They must have been in one hell of a firefight.”

Something hit Jared hard, driving him to the ground. He managed to roll to one side, grabbing handfuls of grass as he did. Pulling to his feet, Jared found himself facing not a VC or NVA regular, but someone wearing American-issue combat fatigues. Dogtags glittered in the moonlight, hanging loose on the man’s chest, and a bandanna covered most of his face.

“Hey, bro. I’m one of the good guys,” Jared stammered.

The newcomer didn’t hear or seem to care. Pulling a knife from his boot he advanced toward Jared.

Using his left hand Jared began to slowly whirl his belt around. Moving in concert with the other man, he never let his eyes lose contact with the stranger’s.

They both struck at once, Jared driving the heavy metal buckle hard against the head of the other man, who skillfully jabbed the knife as he tried to duck away. The blade’s razor-sharp edge slid across Jared’s side, cutting leather, cloth and flesh.

He’d been cut before, but this was different. The pain stung like nothing he had ever experienced, tearing through every fiber of his body. The other man managed to land several good kicks that sent Jared collapsing into a crouch on the ground.

Reality began to fragment. Jared felt his body being pulled apart. Muscle and sinew rolled in waves, ripping and splitting and melding into a dozen, a hundred new forms. Every time he tried to scream his voice was lost in waves of pain that seemed like they would never end.

And it was over.

Jared pulled his hands up to his face; only what he saw weren’t hands, but fur-covered paws. The claws of a great brown bear faced him. A bear’s growl tore out of his throat.

Jared turned to face his opponent. From somewhere the man had produced an M-16 and had it at his shoulder ready to fire. With a single swipe of a huge paw the bear/Jared knocked it from the man’s hand, sending his opponent flying onto the ground.

Then the bear was gone.

Jared felt his muscles and bones ripping and tearing, again, shifting in an intricate jigsaw puzzle. With the brushing of a wind across them, they began to re-form. Jared felt himself step away from his body. There was pain, but he accepted it, allowing the sensation to become something distant and not part of him.

A screaming falcon flapped its wings in anger above the prone form of Jared’s enemy. It would have been so easy to let go, let the bird or the bear rip this man apart. So easy.

No!

The voice was enough to bring Jared back. The falcon faded, but did not disappear entirely. It merged into the background, standing with the bear. The part of him that was Will Jared had found a balance, an uneasy one, between the man, the animals, and the earth itself. He held on to it for all that he was worth.

Kneeling next to the other man Jared grabbed up the discarded knife, pushing it up against his throat.

“If you move, if you even blink wrong, I’ll gut you like a fish. You understand?”

The man nodded.

Jared pulled the bandanna away. The face that stared back at him was covered in camouflage makeup and dirt. He knew the face, it was his own.

“Hi, guy!”

“I should kill you.”

“Go ahead, but somehow I don’t think you’ve got the guts.”

“What are you?”

“Oh, give me a break. You know as well as I do. I’m you. Without all that crap and sentimental junk you’ve carried around for years. From your folks. From your grandfather. I wasn’t born in Oklahoma. I was born right here in ‘Nam, for one reason ... to survive. And I’ll kill anybody it takes to do it.”

“Even me or Larry?”

“Of course you! I’d do it in a minute and laugh the whole time. Larry . . . that little piss-ant, I’d crush him under my boot. Why do you think I’m here? A little post-mission revenge. An idea that has crossed your mind more than once, though you haven’t got the balls to do anything about it.”

Revenge? For his own pain and guilt. Sure the thought had crossed Jared’s mind, more often than he cared to admit. “Maybe. But I’m not the one flat on his back with a knife at his throat.”

“Then just push it in and get this over with. You are beginning to bore me.”

Jared pushed the blade a fraction of an inch. The single drop of blood that appeared around the metal tip revolted him.

“Oh no you don’t. I’ve got the guts, more than you have, ‘friend.’ I could kill you, but I don’t need to. You’re a part of me, that I admit, one I don’t like, but one that I can live with.”

Without even knowing that he wanted to, Jared could feel himself reaching out, not to one object, as he had before, but to everything. Instead of fading, the jungle began to glow with a dim phosphorescence that filled the area.

At one moment Jared was one with Larry, the squad members, the Vietnamese hidden in the bushes, the trees, the vines, and the very soil. It was all one, separate and unique but still one, and he was a part of it. He could feel the grass growing under his boots, a monkey poised to leap from branch to branch, the fear that hung heavy on the heart of his blood brother, the men in his squad and even the Vietnamese they faced.

Everything fitted into a proper place here, it all made sense. Everything human, animal, plant, had its place. Had its place to live and to die.

Tears rolled down his face as Jared turned toward the glowing form of his blood brother. This was Larry’s place to die. Just as Jared would have his own place someday, when it was time to move on.

The light faded and he looked around. His other self was gone, back into the shadows.

Jared knew the answer, as he looked around. But he had to try anyway, one last time. He owed himself as well as Larry that much.

For more than an hour he examined every angle, played out every possibility, every scenario that he had conceived of over the years. Anything that could have brought the men home. But in the end he knew the answer was the same.

Part of him wanted to pry the weapon out of someone’s hand and just start firing. Only that would do no good. Jared knew that as certainly as he knew his own name.

He walked up beside Larry, laying his hand on the shoulder of his oldest friend. “I’ll see ya when I see ya, buddy.”

As the fog began to swirl around him Will Jared was certain that he could smell the distinctive odor of Jameson’s blend tobacco.

Jared ran his finger along the edge of the dish. There was just enough chocolate sauce and melted vanilla ice cream left for one final taste.

“One must have the proper respect and consideration for chocolate,” he said grinning.

Jared couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so relaxed, so free. He had even locked away the Deutonics; anything he was afraid of now, Jared knew he could handle.

Drawing a deep breath, he reached out with his mind, feeling things around him, the wind, the water, the earth itself, animals moving among the trees and through the water, easily becoming a part of them, letting them become a part of him.

Jared didn’t understand everything, even though it all seemed to make a weird sort of sense. He had some vacation time accumulated and with the holidays coming up it might not be a bad idea to visit his family in Tahlequah. He could say it was also a trip to visit the tribal medical facility as well: he still had the cough; it wasn’t near as bad now, but it wouldn’t hurt to get it looked at.

And as long as he was there a trip to his grandfather’s ranch just outside of town, down along the river, and a long talk with the old man would definitely be in order.

For a long time he stood watching the glow on the eastern horizon. The wind had shifted out of the south, bringing with it the heady smell of the lake and something else, the faint sound of a lone musician playing.

Saxophone music?

Logic said that it was more than likely someone’s radio.

Jared knew differently.

He smiled and spoke to the wind.

“Thank you, grandfather.”

And now about Roger.

I first met him when he came to the University of Oklahoma as a guest speaker. After the gig was done I drove him to a con in Wichita Falls, Texas.

During that four-hour drive Roger and I discovered we shared enthusiasms for obscure scientific theories, jazz, and the works of George MacDonald Fraser.

The thing I remember most vividly about that convention is sitting on the floor with Roger, just outside of the room where they were doing a radio play. Someone came up and asked if there was some sort of problem, since we weren’t in watching the presentation. Roger explained, very simply, that radio plays such as this were intended to be listened to, not watched.

Over the years we encountered each other a number of times, not to mention trading letters and occasional phone calls.

The last time we had the chance to get together was ironically back at OU. Roger was there as a guest instructor at the Annual Short Course in Professional Writing. My wife and I happened to be in the area to attend a media-con.

It had been four or five years since we had seen each other but Roger made it seem like only a few weeks at the most. The conversation ranged over any number of subjects, jazz, movies, our respective families—and of course we talked shop. (Hey, get two writers in our genre together for more than ten minutes at a time and you know they will be talking shop.)

All too soon we had to leave. Roger still needed to get packed for his flight back to New Mexico that evening. Sue and I needed to get on the road back to Tulsa.

As we drove away she said “That was fun. He’s really a nice man.”

That he was.

Here’s to you Roger. Salud!

Wistful and bittersweet, ultimately triumphant, Jennifer Roberson’s story takes power, as so many of Roger’s did, from allusions to the myths and legends we all share.