Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, Vol. 09: And Now the News [S.S. Col.] by Sturgeon Theodore

Author:Sturgeon, Theodore [Sturgeon, Theodore]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Modern Classics, Sci-fi, Short Stories
ISBN: 9781583947531
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Published: 2003-01-16T02:00:00+00:00

The doctor galloped through the clinic until he found his head technician in the electrical lab.

“Tommie,” he said jovially, “did you ever go out and get drunk with a doctor?”

The tears were streaming down his face. Miss Thomas went out and got drunk with the doctor.

The Waiting Thing Inside

DELIA FOX STOOD IN THE CENTER of the saddle shed, her face pale, her thin lips sucked in and bitten on, invisible. The Circle F’s steady rider, Vic Ryan, squatted on his tall heels with his back to the wall and laughed at her. “All right, all right—I’ll raid, I’ll gun out your nester.” He laughed again. “But under orders.” He aimed the stem of his pipe at her. “The boss’s orders.”

“You know he’ll never!”

“If I raid, he will,” said Ryan easily. “And he’ll give me those orders right up to and includin’ the minute I kick in that nester’s shack door.”

“You mean you want him to go with you?”

“That’s about it.”

“That’s the same thing as saying you won’t go.”

Ryan shrugged and began to pack his pipe. “I reckon hell could freeze over.”

She stamped to the door. “Catch a lot of folks with some heavy hauling to do, the day it does,” she snapped, and went out.

Ryan took the pipe from his mouth and laughed again. He was not a jovial man and his laughter was ugly; but it suited his mood.

Through the open door he could see across the yard—see Delia Fox, stiff-backed, furious, as she stamped into the house. She was thirty-eight years old, with a face five years older and a body twenty years younger, and time was when Vic Ryan used to look at that figure with something besides the familiarity of contempt. He peered back over the years at himself, and her, and he wondered vaguely who those people were—the rawboned young cowboy who’d asked her to marry him, and the girl with ice in her eyes who had told him to own more than an old saddle and an iron skillet before he suggested such a thing to his betters. A long time ago … and never heard a word he had spoken to her since that wasn’t strictly business. Yet he’d stayed, year in and year out, holding the Circle F together against all comers—against the weather, against lazy cowhands they had to put up with at the rates the Circle F paid, against drought, landslide, botflies, and even Delia’s brother Roy.

At the thought of Roy he spat. Roy was younger than Delia, and that and his flabbiness were what had led Vic so far astray in the early days: Who could have guessed that it was Roy’s ranch—lock, stock, and chopping block? It had been Delia who handled the money, made the decisions, hired and fired. “Better see to the south waterhole today, Vic,” Delia would say, and Roy would chime in, “Yeah, Vic, go clean out the waterhole.” Always her order, her brother’s echo. So marry into it; you can’t do nothing to

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.