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    Way Station
    Way Station
    Way Station
    Ebook271 pages4 hours

    Way Station

    By Clifford D. Simak

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Hugo Award Winner: In backwoods Wisconsin, an ageless hermit welcomes alien visitors—and foresees the end of humanity . . .

    Enoch Wallace is not like other humans. Living a secluded life in the backwoods of Wisconsin, he carries a nineteenth-century rifle and never seems to age—a fact that has recently caught the attention of prying government eyes. The truth is, Enoch is the last surviving veteran of the American Civil War and, for close to a century, he has operated a secret way station for aliens passing through on journeys to other stars. But the gifts of knowledge and immortality that his intergalactic guests have bestowed upon him are proving to be a nightmarish burden, for they have opened Enoch’s eyes to humanity’s impending destruction. Still, one final hope remains for the human race . . . though the cure could ultimately prove more terrible than the disease.
     
    Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel, Way Station is a magnificent example of the fine art of science fiction as practiced by a revered Grand Master. A cautionary tale that is at once ingenious, evocative, and compassionately human, it brilliantly supports the contention of the late, great Robert A. Heinlein that “to read science-fiction is to read Simak.”
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateJul 21, 2015
    ISBN9781504013185
    Way Station
    Author

    Clifford D. Simak

    During his fifty-five-year career, CLIFFORD D. SIMAK 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.

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    Reviews for Way Station

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      This story of a human dealing with all sorts of alien beings who spend time with him and give him gifts is so wild and wonderfully imaginative. Included is his dealings with fellow Earthlings who live in his neighborhood. I was pleasantly astounded by the quality of this book! No wonder it won a Hugo.
    • 4/5
      This book is Hugo Winner from 1964. I can see why it won - its beautifully written, with a great leading character, and a very interesting premise - Aliens need a way station that gets them to their next stop, and Earth is just one station in this large network. It read a bit like Sand Country Almanac at times, with the lead character pondering over nature and what has changed in the years since he became keeper of the station.however, its not perfect. At times, there is too much niceness. The Government men in this story, for example, actually being reasonable in a situation that I wouldn't consider reasonable. Or the ending of the story, the came out of left field, and solved all the problems, from the Galactic Government breaking up, to the Earth being admitted to the alliance... It came out of nowhere. One last thing, this book doesn't feel dated at all. Outside of a few things (lack of automation, for example), the book feels modern. It even has a modern feel about accepting diversity and not judging on looks.Overall, a very well written book and worthy of the awards won.
    • 4/5
      Enoch is a former farmer and Civil War soldier who now tends a house which has become an indestructible fortress and serves as a connecting point for interstellar travel, even though Earth itself knows nothing of these alien beings and their technolog. As long as he remains in the building, Enoch does not age. He has met and befriended beings from all over the galaxy. But now, 100 years plus after he began this unusual life, unrest in the galactic federation threatens the station. Enoch must decide where his loyalties lie: with his primitive home planet Earth or with the more advanced galactic organization which represents the future. This is a great story, gripping and thought-provoking.
    • 4/5
      Simak at his best.
    • 4/5
      This is a classic sci-fi novel by Simak. When it came out, it won the Hugo award for best novel in 1964. In 1987 it was nominated for all-time best science fiction novel. Simak returns to the Wisconsin farmland of his youth. His main character is Enoch who is picked by Ulysses (his alien benefactor) to staff a waystation in the Wisconsin hills for alien travelers from the stars. For an unexplained reason, a waystation on Earth is needed for aliens who want to travel between the stars. Enoch is a 30 year old Civil War veteran when he is picked. The aliens furnish Enoch a time traveler waystation that has a significant benefit for Enoch. He never ages while in the station. A crisis occurs when the Earth appears headed for nuclear war and when the galactic civilization loses its Talisman which artifact promotes peace and harmony throughout the Galaxy. The crisis also pulls in a deaf mute girl (Lucy) who has extra sensory skills. The novel allows Simak to describe his Wisconsin background and to advocate his gentle philosophy which advocates peace and harmony on Earth. Enoch is the only well-rounded character in the book.
    • 4/5
      Enoch Wallace is an ageless hermit striding across his untended farmland as he's done for over a century and carrying his Civil War rifle that he carried in that war. What his neighbors must never know is that inside his never-changing house, he hosts unimaginable friends from the farthest stars. More than 100 years early, an alien named Ulysses recruited Enoch as Earth's only intergalactic transfer station.
    • 4/5
      Great little read. More about ethical issues with scifi/aliens as background than true sci-fi read by my reckoning, but nevertheless a good read.
    • 4/5
      Enoch Wallace was sitting on his porch one day when a traveller approached and offered him a very singular opportunity: Become a caretaker for a new way station for travellers to take their ease as they take respite from their journey's. But these travellers are not your ordinary everyday type of people, indeed many of them are not everyone's idea of people at all. They come from all over the galaxy and Earth is a convenient place for a stop along the route for this part of it. Implicit in his acceptance is that he will not divulge his activities to his fellow man and will care faithfully for those who come and go. In return, he will not age while he is inside of the station only when he sets foot outside will his body clock resume. Almost a hundred years have past since he took up his duties, meeting all sorts of weird and wonderful beings who would often bring gifts for the station-keeper, which he has performed admirably but out on his own world someone has taken notice of a story that seems more like a folk-tale. There is a man living on an isolated farm that doesn't seem to age. Has he discovered the secret of immortality or is there something else afoot? CIA agent Claude Lewis has been tasked to investigate and he might just stir up a hornet's nest by doing so.A simple but intriguing and beguiling tale with few but interesting characters that really suck the reader in. The central character is a masterful creation, at once the loneliest man on Earth but also the only one to feel kinship with many visitors to whom his fellow man remain totally unaware. It's a very moving tale where you feel Enoch's loneliness as well as his anguish over a decision for his and Earth's future which is weighing on his mind. If this is a book about aliens then why does it contain so much humanity?
    • 4/5
      This book was amazing and made a good change of pace from epic, gritty, or intricate science fiction. This is the "bottle show" of the science fiction world. Set on 1960s Earth* (and written on 1960s Earth*) it is about a civil war veteran (not the grizzled type though, or, if he ever was, it has long smoothed over into a man full of wonder and love of life) who mans an interplanetary stopover station. This is the story of the upsetting of his routine.

      I enjoyed the sense of wonder and the warm, logical mind of the narrator.

      *Put in its perspective, the novel makes sense thematically as well as seeming less naive than if it was written today. For example, there is a deaf-mute girl who plays a central role in the story. The author (or at least the narrator) subscribes to the idea that because she can't communicate with the world, she must have this wondrous and extrasensory inner life. She is treated as more pure than the rest of us and eventually rises to be attain the holiness that is attributed to her from the get-go. It was my least favorite part of the story, but I just kept telling myself that there wasn't a reason why she couldn't be this way given the established rules of this universe.
    • 5/5
      O come on now. I've read this several times; I know I have. And part of the reason I keep rereading it is because my record of doing so gets lost. I'm not writing another review. Just know that this is probably the one that got me hooked on Simak, and it's probably the one that makes his reputation.
    • 4/5
      This book was amazing and made a good change of pace from epic, gritty, or intricate science fiction. This is the "bottle show" of the science fiction world. Set on 1960s Earth* (and written on 1960s Earth*) it is about a civil war veteran (not the grizzled type though, or, if he ever was, it has long smoothed over into a man full of wonder and love of life) who mans an interplanetary stopover station. This is the story of the upsetting of his routine.

      I enjoyed the sense of wonder and the warm, logical mind of the narrator.

      *Put in its perspective, the novel makes sense thematically as well as seeming less naive than if it was written today. For example, there is a deaf-mute girl who plays a central role in the story. The author (or at least the narrator) subscribes to the idea that because she can't communicate with the world, she must have this wondrous and extrasensory inner life. She is treated as more pure than the rest of us and eventually rises to be attain the holiness that is attributed to her from the get-go. It was my least favorite part of the story, but I just kept telling myself that there wasn't a reason why she couldn't be this way given the established rules of this universe.
    • 5/5
      My reactions to reading this book in 1991. Spoilers follow.This, like all the Simak I've read, was pleasant and engaging. It's a relatively simple story -- Enoch Wallace runs a teleportation transport station for travellers of a galactic federation and, through a modest set of events, this secret is revealed to Earth and humanity joins this co-fraternity of sentient beings. But the tone is charming. Simak does a wonderful job of conveying alienness yet still gives his aliens a commonality with man. Enoch Wallace is an interesting man dealing with loneliness and the conflict between his home Earth and the world of wonder and friendship he has found with alien beings. Simak, as usual, describes the area around his hometown of Millville, Wisconsin wonderfully. His rural folk, like his friend the mailman, are well portrayed but not whitewashed. Hank Fisher is shown as a brutal troublemaker. Simak's skill as a writer shows in what he gets away with in this book. The book starts out with alternating chapters of Wallace's life and Claude Lewis', CIA agent, investigations of him. This scheme is dropped to show Wallace's day to day life and surrounds, and there are lots of flashback's to Wallace's early life. The book really doesn't have a compelling conflict (unless you count the mystery of who Wallace is and what he's doing which is certainly valid) until more than halfway through the novel when the closing of the station is threatened. Then Simak gives us a whirlwind gloss on intergalactic intrigue and philosophical conflict. He wraps up the novel (as he usually does in the ones I've read) with a bit of deus ex machina in having Lucy Fisher the new custodian for the Talisman. As usual, though he gets away with it. After having found out in Ed Regis Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition Simak was a Catholic, certain story elements take on a new interest. Lucy Fisher with her healing powers and custodianship of the Talisman is a sort of Mary-like figure in her intercessor powers. The Talisman is much like a Catholic icon. The spiritual force mentioned as binding all sentients sounds like the Holy Spirit of the Trinity (or all living in as one in Christ to paraphrase another biblical notion).
    • 4/5
      In the early 1980's I read a lot of Clifford Simak's fiction. He rather quickly established himself as one of my favorite authors. I read most of his works that I could find but found I didn't care all that much for some of his last books, which seemed to veer more towards fantasy than science fiction. A lot of Simak's good science fiction, though, does contain what could be considered as fantasy elements. His writing at times has reminded me a bit like Ray Bradbury's in the storytelling and setting. Waystation was one of my favorites. It was originally written in the early 60's when the United States put focus on the centennial of the American Civil War. It is a story about a civil war veteran, Enoch Wallace, a union soldier, who returns home to the family from four years of fighting. His mother and father soon pass on and he is alone and pondering a new beginning. He lives in a quite rural location and has an unusual visitor who offers him an unlikely way to have that new beginning. The visitor asks Enoch to be the caretaker of a waystation on Earth, a stop off point for galactic travellers. We find Enoch 100 years after having taken on the task having hardly aged in the 100 years because the time he spends in the waystation is out of time for him - he doesn't age - he only ages during the 1 hour or so a day he spends outside on earth. His longevity has drawn some notice, and The story cannot but help having some of the cold war menace about it, but it also is more about Enoch's concern about humanity and how he looks forward to the time when mankind has grown up enough to join the vast galactic civilization that is out there, which he learns and meets little by little over the years as caretaker of the civilization. And yet, in the face of this are the conclusions he draws from his studies and statistical analysis of the world that shows mankind heading straight to another world war and possible destruction.Enoch is a lonely man, since he cannot interact with human society in many ways, and this sort of parallels his thinking of earth being alone with the galactic civilizations out there, yet not being able to interact. This is a thoughtful, rather philosophical novel. Unfortunately some of the philosophical ramblings and the recounting of the supposed fabulous knowledge of various races scattered all over the universe and how they could help mankind came across as a bit of mushy mess. There was also a bit too much of running around in circles within Enoch's mind as he tried to puzzle out one mystery or another.Still, I enjoyed re-reading this story and it held up well for me considering it was written 50 years ago. I think it was perhaps a better book in my memory than it was in re-reading however.
    • 5/5
      Another great one from Simak. Way Station is the first real science fiction book I ever read - and it hooked me for life. Enough said.
    • 3/5
      Audiobook - I enjoyed this SF book - I usually do not enjoy SF but this one was very easy to read and the story was very interesting
    • 5/5
      This book won the Hugo Award in 1964. Written in Simak's unique and recognizable style, it tells of a happening in Rural America...the existence of a Way Station for non-humans passing through Earth on the way to elsewhere, with a human caretaker who took the job on right after the Civil War. Now, 100 years later, he is beginning to get some official attention. Watchers, of a sort. The watchers do something in ignorance (and greed for knowledge) that throws a spanner in the whole works. Their action threatens the caretaker's plans to help Earth become a participant in the galactic federation. How the problem is solved is a bit mystical for a science fiction story, but very typical of Simak's writing. I think it a wonderful book.
    • 5/5
      The UK 1976 Methuen paperback reprint has a cover by Chris Moore which is almost completely wrong in every respect, except that it captures extremely well what the book is about!
    • 5/5
      This is the story of Enoch Wallace, a lonely Civil War veteran who becomes the caretaker of a galactic way station. No one on Earth knows about the way station or the aliens that pass through it. Everyone thinks it is an old farm house and that Enoch is an eccentric loner. Enoch Wallace is a fascinating character. He lives a very unique life. To keep in touch with the outside world he orders books and subscribes to magazines, which are delivered by his only friend; the local postman. He does not age while in the station which makes him practically immortal. The only time he grows older is when he takes his daily hour long walk to the mailbox. Enoch meets many different aliens who give him gifts and talk with him. He learns about other worlds and philosophies and makes friends with these creatures. A practical man, he takes people as they come. This makes him the perfect custodian for the way station. Clifford Simak, along with Ray Bradbury and Jack Finney, are known as pastoral science fiction writers. Their works take place in rural America. This type of setting makes even fantastic stories seem more believable. Who knows what could be going on in that old farm house on the outskirts of town?This novel was a quick and enjoyable read. It's not just a science fiction novel, Simak uses the story to express his belief in the human intellect and spirit. Enoch is a developed individual who is an equal to any alien who comes through the way station. He is proof that Earth belongs with the other civilizations in the galactic federation. That is, once the race matures and outgrows the stupidity of greed and war.
    • 4/5
      I like the development of the contemplative Enoch Wallace character, as well as Enoch himself. The plot itself was a bit pulpy for my tastes. But, that is a sign of the times, much like the obligatory threat of nuclear war looming over Enoch's Earth.The pacifist sentiments expressed in the book are very nice. Most disappointing I found the old memes that "there are things in the universe that human minds cannot comprehend" and that there exists a tangible spirit connecting all living beings in the universe. Otherwise, a good book.
    • 5/5
      Oh my. I'm a Simak fan of long standing, and I'd somehow missed this.Way Station is the tale of a galactic empire's outpost on Earth. An American Civil War-era house has been modified to suit the needs of travelers from all parts of the galaxies, complete with tanks of life-supporting solutions in which they refresh themselves on their way elsewhere.The house is manned by Enoch, a forever-young Civil War vet who has been studying the materials and conversations he's had with all his "guests" and recording them for use by a smarter Earth.Earth itself is heading for nuclear disaster on a runaway train unless Enoch and a galactic friend can find the Talisman, an object which summarizes all the knowledge of the worlds and can bring peace to the restive ones.It's not so much a Quest as a riveting philosophical story, with a few twists thrown in.
    • 5/5
      One of the best stories I have ever read. I have had this copy since I was twelve and re-read it at least twice every year.
    • 5/5
      A moving and compelling story, I wish we had a Talisman for earth now.
    • 5/5
      What can I say? The language in this book is simply beautiful. At its core it's a fairy story wrapped in the trappings of science fiction. The plot is simple, the way the pieces have been set up makes the trajectory inevitable, and yet, despite its predictability -- or rather because of it -- there is a sense of fulfillment and completion as it races to its conclusion.
    • 5/5
      This author never cease to amaze me. Read and anjoy.
    • 4/5
      Pastoral science fiction, a rural setting, a hermit who is still young after 124 years, and a CIA agent sniffing around. Simak was a journalist, so every paragraph does something, even with the leisurely pace.

      Well worth a read and available at the Mountain View Library.
    • 5/5
      I like this quiet story a lot. It's in the "pastoral science fiction" corner, with philosophical musings and a lonely hermit who maintains a way station in the woods for extraterrestrials.
    • 2/5
      That could’ve been an interesting novella. But there’s nothing there for a book. One of the most boring book I’ve ever finished.
    • 4/5
      Delighted with ideas and surprises of alien gifts and tools that create a sense of childlike wonder. Sometimes the writing is a bit more “tell” than “show”, seems like it reflects the era when it was written. An enjoyable and fascinating short read.
    • 5/5
      Timeless story, noble characters, a battle between good and evil. Simak tells a beautiful tale using language like an artist uses paint. Worth reading and rereading.
    • 5/5
      Very good book, I loved it. I just loved all the imagination that went into this. I couldn't put it down

    Book preview

    Way Station - Clifford D. Simak

    1

    The noise was ended now. The smoke drifted like thin, gray wisps of fog above the tortured earth and the shattered fences and the peach trees that had been whittled into toothpicks by the cannon fire. For a moment silence, if not peace, fell upon those few square miles of ground where just a while before men had screamed and torn at one another in the frenzy of old hate and had contended in an ancient striving and then had fallen apart, exhausted.

    For endless time, it seemed, there had been belching thunder rolling from horizon to horizon and the gouted earth that had spouted in the sky and the screams of horses and the hoarse bellowing of men; the whistling of metal and the thud when the whistle ended; the flash of searing fire and the brightness of the steel; the bravery of the colors snapping in the battle wind.

    Then it all had ended and there was a silence.

    But silence was an alien note that held no right upon this field or day, and it was broken by the whimper and the pain, the cry for water, and the prayer for death—the crying and the calling and the whimpering that would go on for hours beneath the summer sun. Later the huddled shapes would grow quiet and still and there would be an odor that would sicken all who passed, and the graves would be shallow graves.

    There was wheat that never would be harvested, trees that would not bloom when spring came round again, and on the slope of land that ran up to the ridge the words unspoken and the deeds undone and the sodden bundles that cried aloud the emptiness and the waste of death.

    There were proud names that were the prouder now, but now no more than names to echo down the ages—the Iron Brigade, the 5th New Hampshire, the 1st Minnesota, the 2nd Massachusetts, the 16th Maine.

    And there was Enoch Wallace.

    He still held the shattered musket and there were blisters on his hands. His face was smudged with powder. His shoes were caked with dust and blood.

    He was still alive.

    2

    Dr. Erwin Hardwicke rolled the pencil back and forth between his palms, an irritating business. He eyed the man across the desk from him with some calculation.

    What I can’t figure out, said Hardwicke, is why you should come to us.

    Well, you’re the National Academy and I thought …

    And you’re Intelligence.

    Look, Doctor, if it suits you better, let’s call this visit unofficial. Pretend I’m a puzzled citizen who dropped in to see if you could help.

    It’s not that I wouldn’t like to help, but I don’t see how I can. The whole thing is so hazy and so hypothetical.

    Damn it, man, Claude Lewis said, you can’t deny the proof—the little that I have.

    All right, then, said Hardwicke, let’s start over once again and take it piece by piece. You say you have this man …

    His name, said Lewis, is Enoch Wallace: Chronologically, he is one hundred and twenty-four years old. He was born on a farm a few miles from the town of Millville in Wisconsin, April 22, 1840, and he is the only child of Jedediah and Amanda Wallace. He enlisted among the first of them when Abe Lincoln called for volunteers. He was with the Iron Brigade, which was virtually wiped out at Gettysburg in 1863. But Wallace somehow managed to get transferred to another fighting outfit and fought down across Virginia under Grant. He was in on the end of it at Appomattox …

    You’ve run a check on him.

    I’ve looked up his records. The record of enlistment at the State Capitol in Madison. The rest of it, including discharge here in Washington.

    You say he looks like thirty.

    Not a day beyond it. Maybe even less than that.

    But you haven’t talked with him.

    Lewis shook his head.

    He may not be the man. If you had fingerprints …

    At the time of the Civil War, said Lewis, they’d not thought of fingerprints.

    The last of the veterans of the Civil War, said Hardwicke, died several years ago. A Confederate drummer boy, I think. There must be some mistake.

    Lewis shook his head. I thought so myself, when I was assigned to it.

    How come you were assigned? How does Intelligence get involved in a deal like this?

    I’ll admit, said Lewis, that it’s a bit unusual. But there were so many implications …

    Immortality, you mean.

    It crossed our mind, perhaps. The chance of it. But only incidentally. There were other considerations. It was a strange setup that bore some looking into.

    But Intelligence …

    Lewis grinned. You are thinking, why not a scientific outfit? Logically, I suppose it should have been. But one of our men ran afoul of it. He was on vacation. Had relatives back in Wisconsin. Not in that particular area, but some thirty miles away. He heard a rumor—just the vaguest rumor, almost a casual mention. So he nosed around a bit. He didn’t find out too much but enough to make him think there might be something to it.

    That’s the thing that puzzles me, said Hardwicke. How could a man live for one hundred and twenty-four years in one locality without becoming a celebrity that the world would hear about? Can you imagine what the newspapers could do with a thing like this?

    I shudder, Lewis said, when I think about it.

    You haven’t told me how.

    This, said Lewis, "is a bit hard to explain. You’d have to know the country and the people in it. The southwestern corner of Wisconsin is bounded by two rivers, the Mississippi on the west, the Wisconsin on the north. Away from the rivers there is flat, broad prairie land, rich land, with prosperous farms and towns. But the land that runs down to the river is rough and rugged; high hills and bluffs and deep ravines and cliffs, and there are certain areas forming bays or pockets that are isolated. They are served by inadequate roads and the small, rough farms are inhabited by a people who are closer, perhaps, to the pioneer days of a hundred years ago than they are to the twentieth century. They have cars, of course, and radios, and someday soon, perhaps, even television. But in spirit they are conservative and clannish—not all the people, of course, not even many of them, but these little isolated neighborhoods.

    At one time there were a lot of farms in these isolated pockets, but today a man can hardly make a living on a farm of that sort. Slowly the people are being squeezed out of the areas by economic circumstances. They sell their farms for whatever they can get for them and move somewhere else, to the cities mostly, where they can make a living.

    Hardwicke nodded. And the ones that are left, of course, are the most conservative and clannish.

    Right. Most of the land now is held by absentee owners who make no pretense of farming it. They may run a few head of cattle on it, but that is all. It’s not too bad as a tax write-off for someone who needs that sort of thing. And in the land-bank days a lot of the land was put into the bank.

    You’re trying to tell me these backwoods people—is that what you’d call them?—engaged in a conspiracy of silence.

    Perhaps not anything, said Lewis, "as formal or elaborate as that. It is just their way of doing things, a holdover from the old, stout pioneer philosophy. They minded their own business. They didn’t want folks interfering with them and they interfered with no one else. If a man wanted to live to be a thousand, it might be a thing of wonder, but it was his own damned business. And if he wanted to live alone and be let alone while he was doing it, that was his business, too. They might talk about it among themselves, but to no one else. They’d resent it if some outsider tried to talk about it.

    "After a time, I suppose, they came to accept the fact that Wallace kept on being young while they were growing old. The wonder wore off it and they probably didn’t talk about it a great deal, even among themselves. New generations accepted it because their elders saw in it nothing too unusual—and anyhow no one saw much of Wallace because he kept strictly to himself.

    And in the nearby areas the thing, when it was thought of at all, grew to be just a sort of legend—another crazy tale that wasn’t worth looking into. Maybe just a joke among those folks down Dark Hollow way. A Rip Van Winkle sort of business that probably didn’t have a word of truth in it. A man might look ridiculous if he went prying into it.

    But your man looked into it.

    Yes. Don’t ask me why.

    Yet he wasn’t assigned to follow up the job.

    He was needed somewhere else. And besides he was known back there.

    And you?

    It took two years of work.

    But now you know the story.

    Not all of it. There are more questions now than there were to start with.

    You’ve seen this man.

    Many times, said Lewis. But I’ve never talked with him. I don’t think he’s ever seen me. He takes a walk each day before he goes to get the mail. He never moves off the place, you see. The mailman brings out the little stuff he needs. A bag of flour, a pound of bacon, a dozen eggs, cigars, and sometimes liquor.

    But that must be against the postal regulations.

    Of course it is. But mailmen have been doing it for years. It doesn’t hurt a thing until someone screams about it. And no one’s going to. The mailmen probably are the only friends he has ever had.

    I take it this Wallace doesn’t do much farming.

    None at all. He has a little vegetable garden, but that is all he does. The place has gone back pretty much to wilderness.

    But he has to live. He must get money somewhere.

    He does, said Lewis. Every five or ten years or so he ships off a fistful of gems to an outfit in New York.

    Legal?

    If you mean, is it hot, I don’t think so. If someone wanted to make a case of it, I suppose there are illegalities. Not to start with, when he first started sending them, back in the old days. But laws change and I suspect both he and the buyer are in defiance of any number of them.

    And you don’t mind?

    I checked on this firm, said Lewis, and they were rather nervous. For one thing, they’d been stealing Wallace blind. I told them to keep on buying. I told them that if anyone came around to check, to refer them straight to me. I told them to keep their mouths shut and not change anything.

    You don’t want anyone to scare him off, said Hardwicke.

    You’re damned right, I don’t. I want the mailman to keep on acting as a delivery boy and the New York firm to keep on buying gems. I want everything to stay just the way it is. And before you ask me where the stones come from, I’ll tell you I don’t know.

    He maybe has a mine.

    That would be quite a mine. Diamonds and rubies and emeralds, all out of the same mine.

    I would suspect, even at the prices that he gets from them, he picks up a fair income.

    Lewis nodded. Apparently he only sends a shipment in when he runs out of cash. He wouldn’t need too much. He lives rather simply, to judge from the grub he buys. But he subscribes to a lot of daily papers and news magazines and to dozens of scientific journals. He buys a lot of books.

    Technical books?

    Some of them, of course, but mostly keeping up with new developments. Physics and chemistry and biology—all that sort of stuff.

    But I don’t …

    Of course you don’t. Neither do I. He’s no scientist. Or at least he has no formal education in the sciences. Back in the days when he went to school there wasn’t much of it—not in the sense of today’s scientific education. And whatever he learned then would be fairly worthless now in any event. He went through grade school—one of those one-room country schools—and spent one winter at what was called an academy that operated for a year or two down in Millville village. In case you don’t know, that was considerably better than par back in the 1850s. He was, apparently, a fairly bright young man.

    Hardwicke shook his head. It sounds incredible. You’ve checked on all of this?

    As well as I could. I had to go at it gingerly. I wanted no one to catch on. And one thing I forgot—he does a lot of writing. He buys these big, bound record books, in lots of a dozen at the time. He buys ink by the pint.

    Hardwicke got up from his desk and paced up and down the room.

    Lewis, he said, if you hadn’t shown me your credentials and if I hadn’t checked on them, I’d figure all of this to be a very tasteless joke.

    He went back and sat down again. He picked up the pencil and started rolling it between his palms once more.

    You’ve been on the case two years, he said. You have no ideas?

    Not a one, said Lewis. I’m entirely baffled. That is why I’m here.

    Tell me more of his history. After the war, that is.

    His mother died, said Lewis, "while he was away. His father and the neighbors buried her right there on the farm. That was the way a lot of people did it then. Young Wallace got a furlough, but not in time to get home for the funeral. There wasn’t much embalming done in those days and the traveling was slow. Then he went back to the war. So far as I can find, it was his only furlough. The old man lived alone and worked the farm, batching it and getting along all right. From what I can pick up, he was a good farmer, an exceptionally good farmer for his day. He subscribed to some farm journals and was progressive in his ideas. He paid attention to such things as crop rotation and the prevention of erosion. The farm wasn’t much of a farm by modern standards, but it made him a living and a little extra he managed to lay by.

    "Then Enoch came home from the war and they farmed the place together for a year or so. The old man bought a mower—one of those horse-drawn contraptions with a sickle bar to cut hay or grain. It was the progressive thing to do. It beat a scythe all hollow.

    Then one afternoon the old man went out to mow a hayfield. The horses ran away. Something must have scared them. Enoch’s father was thrown off the seat and forward, in front of the sickle bar. It was not a pretty way to die.

    Hardwicke made a grimace of distaste. Horrible, he said.

    "Enoch went out and gathered up his father and got the body to the house. Then he took a gun and went hunting for the horses. He found them down in the corner of the pasture and he shot the two of them and he left them. I mean exactly that. For years their skeletons lay there in the pasture, where he’d killed them, still hitched to the mower until the harness rotted.

    Then he went back to the house and laid his father out. He washed him and he dressed him in the good black suit and laid him on a board, then went out to the barn and carpentered a coffin. And after that, he dug a grave beside his mother’s grave. He finished it by lantern light, then went back to the house and sat up with his father. When morning came, he went to tell the nearest neighbor and that neighbor notified the others and someone went to get a preacher. Late in the afternoon they had the funeral, and Enoch went back to the house. He has lived there ever since, but he never farmed the land. Except the garden, that is.

    You told me these people wouldn’t talk to strangers. You seem to have learned a lot.

    It took two years to do it. I infiltrated them. I bought a beat-up car and drifted into Millville and I let it out that I was a ginseng hunter.

    A what?

    A ginseng hunter. Ginseng is a plant.

    Yes, I know. But there’s been no market for it for years.

    A small market and an occasional one. Exporters will take on some of it. But I hunted other medicinal plants as well and pretended an extensive knowledge of them and their use. ‘Pretended’ isn’t actually the word; I boned up plenty on them.

    The kind of simple soul, said Hardwicke, those folks could understand. A sort of cultural throwback. And inoffensive, too. Perhaps not quite right in the head.

    Lewis nodded. It worked even better than I thought. I just wandered around and people talked to me. I even found some ginseng. There was one family in particular—the Fisher family. They live down in the river bottoms below the Wallace farm, which sits on the ridge above the bluffs. They’ve lived there almost as long as the Wallace family, but a different stripe entirely. The Fishers are a coon-hunting, catfishing, moonshine-cooking tribe. They found a kindred spirit in me. I was just as shiftless and no-account as they were. I helped them with their moonshine, both in the making and the drinking and once in a while the peddling. I went fishing with them and hunting with them and I sat around and talked and they showed me a place or two where I might find some ginseng—‘sang’ is what they call it. I imagine a social scientist might find a gold mine in the Fishers. There is one girl—a deaf-mute, but a pretty thing, and she can charm off warts …

    I recognize the type, said Hardwicke. I was born and raised in the southern mountains.

    They were the ones who told me about the team and mower. So one day I went up in that corner of the Wallace pasture and did some digging. I found a horse’s skull and some other bones.

    But no way of knowing if it was one of the Wallace horses.

    Perhaps not, said Lewis. But I found part of the mower as well. Not much left of it, but enough to identify.

    Let’s get back to the history, suggested Hardwicke. After the father’s death, Enoch stayed on at the farm. He never left it?

    Lewis shook his head. He lives in the same house. Not a thing’s been changed. And the house apparently has aged no more than the man.

    You’ve been in the house?

    Not in it. At it. I will tell you how it was.

    3

    He had an hour. He knew he had an hour, for he had timed Enoch Wallace during the last ten days. And from the time he left the house until he got back with his mail, it had never been less than an hour. Sometimes a little longer, when the mailman might be late, or they got to talking. But an hour, Lewis told himself, was all that he could count on.

    Wallace had disappeared down the slope of ridge, heading for the point of rocks that towered above the bluff face, with the Wisconsin River running there below. He would climb the rocks and stand there, with the rifle tucked beneath his arm, to gaze across the wilderness of the river valley. Then he would go back down the rocks again and trudge along the wooded path to where, in proper season, the pink lady’s-slippers grew, and from there up the hill again to the spring that gushed out of the hillside just below the ancient field that had lain fallow for a century or more, and then along the slope until he hit the almost overgrown road and so down to the mailbox.

    In the ten days that Lewis had watched him, his route had never varied. It was likely, Lewis told himself, that it had not varied through the years. Wallace did not hurry. He walked as if he had all the time there was. And he stopped along the way to renew acquaintances with old friends of his—a tree, a squirrel, a flower. He was a rugged man and there still was much of the soldier in him—old tricks and habits left from the bitter years of campaigning under many leaders. He walked with his head held high and his shoulders back and

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