The Hand Read online

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  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy January 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  THE HAND

  by

  Jerry Sohl

  Alice knew that Dobie was a good dog, even if he did have an alarming habit of hunting down rabbits and gophers. But one day he brought her--

  * * * * *

  Alice McNearby was washing breakfast dishes and looking out thekitchen window at the November sky when she first spied Dobie. The wayhe was sneaking up to the house she knew he had killed something.

  She dried her hands on her apron and tried to put down the suspicionthat gnawed at the edge of her mind as she went to the door. Duringthe past month Dobie had killed a cat, a pheasant, two rabbits and afield mouse and it seemed it would be only a question of time until hegot one of the chickens or even one of the suckling pigs. That wouldbe all Mac would need to throw one of his wild spells and he'dprobably take a gun to Dobie as he had threatened to do. To make itworse, Dobie seemed to know how Mac felt and often growled at him. Macdidn't growl back but the look in her husband's eyes was enough toconvince her Dobie's continued existence was in doubt.

  It was a wonder to Alice that Mac hadn't done away with him already,judging from the comfort she derived from the dog. Dobie neverfretted, never whined and seemed so appreciative of everything she didfor him. She had scolded him for his killing but found herself unableto put her heart in it because he seemed to love it so. Instead, shealways managed to clear any bones away before Mac returned from townor came up from the barn and she was thankful he seemed as yet unawareof the brown dog's hunting nature.

  Now it appeared she'd have to cover up for the dog once again and sheopened the door. Dobie was under a bush half way across the barn yard,his kill still in his mouth. He was circling around, and she knewhe'd soon be on his stomach enjoying his feast.

  "Dobie!" she called in a low voice, hoping it would not carry to thebarn.

  Dobie's ears came up. He looked her way.

  "Dobie!... Come here, Dobie!"

  The dog was undecided, looking at her, unmoving for a moment. Then histail started flicking, he lowered his head and came up to her.

  Then she saw what he had in his mouth and her blood stopped and only agreat effort on the part of her heart started it going again.

  It was a human hand, blood still oozing from the severed wrist.

  "_Dobie!_"

  The way she said it, the way she looked--something made the dog dropthe hand. It fell to the ground, limp, palm down.

  Dobie, head hung, tail down, ventured forward, nuzzled her hand. ButAlice could not tear her eyes from the thing on the cold ground. Shehad cared for Dobie like a baby ever since someone dropped him offout in the country and she had adopted the name Dobie because apassing child had called him that and it seemed like a good name ...and she loved him.

  But this, this hand. That was too much.

  She looked around, saw a milk pail, put it open end down over the handand carried two large rocks from the garden border to put on top tosecure it. She didn't want it to be gone when she brought Mac back tosee it.

  She heard her ring on the telephone--rather early for Mrs. Swearingenor Mrs. Abbey wasn't it?--but ignored it. There was something else shehad to do and do quickly. For the first time in months she feltthankful for Mac's presence. Surely he would know what to do. Thoughit was cold, she was unmindful of the fact that she did not wear acoat as she hurried to the barn; she was thinking instead that perhapsshe should have answered the phone in case it might have been someoneother than her women friends, possibly something in connection withthe severed hand. She shuddered as she remembered how it had looked.

  Alice found Mac in the loft. He had a forkful of hay over the openingwhen he saw her below. He stopped, narrowed his eyes before he slowlybrought the hay back to the loft floor and leaned on the pitchfork.

  "Dobie's found something," she said and wished her voice hadn'tquavered so.

  Mac spat a blob of tobacco on the floor above her. "He's a no-gooddog," he said. "Scares the pigs. Always sneakin' around. Ought to berid of him. Should have got 'round to it before this. What did hefind?"

  "A hand." She swallowed ... and shivered.

  "A what?"

  "A hand. A human hand." She suddenly took pride in the fact that shewas telling him something he didn't know and that he was interested."I don't know where he got it."

  Mac put down the fork and lowered his burly frame over the edge of theopening and came down the ladder without a word. He followed her up tothe house and she was thankful Dobie was nowhere around. When hekicked over the pail she was gratified to hear his sharp intake ofbreath.

  "By God!" he said, staring down at it. Then he flicked it over withhis boot. "By God!" he said again. Alice had never seen him soagitated.

  He turned to her, his eyes narrower than she had ever seen them. "Youtake a good look at it?"

  She nodded, looked down at the way the fingers were bent upward as ifthe hand were holding an invisible ball. She heard Mac spit, looked athim running his fingers along his stubbled jaw.

  "It ain't human," he said. "Anybody with any sense could see that.It's got six fingers."

  * * * * *

  Just then the phone rang again. It seemed to come from a long way offand Alice hadn't consciously noticed it until her husband said. "Ain'tyou goin' to answer the phone?" And then she went to the door, dazedand wondering. She turned before she went in.

  "What are you going to do with it?" she asked.

  "You just go in and gab with those women folks," he said. "I'll takecare of it."

  "Shouldn't we call the sheriff?"

  His eyes came up level with hers. "We ain't goin' to call nobody. Idon't want no trouble. And don't you go talkin' about it with _them_either."

  The phone was Mrs. Swearingen who told her that she had been trying toget her for the last half hour ever since she heard about that shipthat crashed and wasn't it awful and that a person wasn't safe in hisbed asleep any more with these planes flying around and crashing--andso far from an airport, too. Mrs. Swearingen was surprised that Alicehad noticed no smoke and didn't she know the wreck was closer to theMcNearby place than it was to the Swearingens?

  "It's right south of your lower forty on the old Carnahan land, Alice.I'd figure it at about a mile from your place. Lots of people downthere."

  And then there was the call from Mrs. Abbey who told her she'd comefrom the crash site and wasn't it a peculiar plane with those funnywindows and that once-broken-one somebody had patched up from theinside.

  "The sheriff won't let anybody go near it," Mrs. Abbey said. "He saysit's a space ship and the army ought to have a look at it first. But Isaw him trying to find where to get in. Except for that broken windowand that crumpled nose it don't look too bad off. Big clouds of smokewere shooting out the tail when I first got there but it's not smokingany more. Really, you ought to go down and see it, Alice."

  Alice told her husband about it. He had gone back to the barn and shedidn't see the severed hand anywhere on the way there.

  "So that's where it come from," he said. "Good thing it didn't landon my place." He spat and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of hisoveralls. It always bothered Alice when he did this because the stainwas so difficult to get out but she had long ceased trying to changehim. "If it'd landed here I'd of blown it up like a stump.
"

  "Shouldn't we go down and see it?" Alice asked, knowing too late shehad phrased the question the wrong way.

  "Curiosity killed the cat," he said, and there was the faintestglimmer of a smile on his face but it was only fleeting. "Leteverybody else go down and I'll get my work done while they'restandin' around with their mouths hangin' open. I'm runnin' a farm andI aim to run it right."

  "I think I'll go down." She tried to make it have resolve but didn'tquite succeed.

  He glared at her and spat again. "Then git," he said. He threw down alarge forkful of hay and she had to jump out of the way. She wentright after dinner.

  She saw a silver cylinder that looked ever so much like pictures ofguided missiles she had seen in the newspapers except that this onewas bigger than any of them. Its nose was dug she could not tell howfar into the earth and some of the metal on the sides was battered andbent and the tail was she guessed about a hundred and fifty feet inthe air. It was about twenty-five feet across.

  There were clusters of people about and she recognized many of themshe hadn't seen for a long time and she was glad she had come becauseit gave her a rare chance to visit; Mac seldom cared for justvisiting. She talked to the Blaines, the Purveses, to the Gordonchildren whose parents had let them remain at the wreck site evenafter they had gone home for chores, to the Barfords and Hocholtersand many others. They asked about Mac and she offered her usualexcuses for him.

  While she was there she saw an army car driven up. She watched whilesome men got out and went through the roped-off area and pounded andscraped on the cylinder and then stood off looking at the tail of it,scratching their heads.

  * * * * *

  When she went home she was surprised to see how far the sun had movedacross the sky and hoped Mac wouldn't be upset by her prolongedabsence. She was gratified to see that he wasn't in the house. Shepetted Dobie for a while before she went in to stir up the stove andprepare supper.

  During the meal Alice tried to tell her husband something of what shehad seen at the wreck site but if he paid any attention to her hedidn't reveal it. He had propped up a farm equipment catalogue againstthe sugar bowl and studied the pages without saying a word. Sheresigned herself to eating in silence with this great hulk of a manbefore her and reflected that this night was no different from most ofthe others. She wondered what it was that made him the way he was, sointent on his farm to the exclusion of everything else, includinghumanity. It was a fetish, an obsession that didn't pay off becauseshe couldn't see that they were better off than the Swearingens or theAbbeys or any of the others in the neighborhood.

  When he was through he simply got up, put on his overcoat and wentoutside. In a few minutes she could hear the car start and knew itwould be another lonely evening. Mac would be home when he felt likeit, reeking of liquor but handling it well. She did not begrudge himthese absences because the man obviously needed something to take hismind off his work. But she wished she had some comparable escape.

  She had got out her writing board, had settled herself comfortablywith pen in hand in Mac's big chair and had even put the date on theletter to her mother who lived in Canada when she heard Dobie'sexcited bark.

  She picked up a shawl on the way to the kitchen, turned on the biglight on the windmill and looked out the window. Dobie was in themiddle of the yard barking at something she couldn't see. She wentout.

  "Dobie," she called. "What is it?"

  The dog whined and moved about nervously, looking first at her andthen at the darkness between the big barn and the machine shed. As shesought to pierce the blackness there, a shape moved out from betweenthe buildings and the sudden move caused her to step back. Dobie atonce set up loud and ferocious barking.

  "Quiet, Dobie," she managed to say, laying a hand aside the dog's headand viewing the figure before her. It was a man--at least a man_shape_--with hands (she thanked God the creature had both its hands),a head, neck, shoulders and legs. But the head was a lot larger than aman's, there was no hair on it and the eyes were smaller, the noselonger and the mouth a narrow slash across the face. The neck wasshort, the shoulders thin and the legs and arms were spindling. Shesaw that each hand had six fingers. Across the narrow shoulders hadbeen flung what looked like a carpet and from beneath this fell askirt that went to the knees, held to the body with a metal rope beltjust under his ribs. The shoes were enormous things for such pipestemlegs--until she saw they were soft and furry and that this gave themtheir size. For a moment she almost laughed because he presented sucha grotesque figure, but she did not dare. The creature spoke.

  "Good evening, Mrs. McNearby," it said in a not unpleasant, whistlingvoice and Alice wondered how it could talk so well to her.

  "I come from the crashed ship. You know of it, of course. You werethere this afternoon."

  Alice was on the point of asking how he knew she had been at the wrecksite when he started in again.

  "We have traced the severed hand of one of our crew to your placehere. We came down at considerable velocity when our ship went out ofcontrol. We were lucky to escape with our lives. But one of us wasthrown from the ship with such force that his hand was cut off by anobstruction on the ship. Your dog happened on the scene before wecould find the hand."

  The chill of the November night air was beginning to penetrate hershawl and Alice could feel a stirring of air on her legs. Dobie movedrestlessly at her side but she did not let go of his neck hair forfear of what he might do.

  "We need that hand, Mrs. McNearby. Without it the man who lost it willbe at a tragic disadvantage among us. That is why we were looking sohard for it this morning after the crash. If we can return the hand tohim in time it can, through proper treatment, be made as good as new.Would you be so good as to return it to me, now, please?"

  The eyes, though tiny, seemed not unkind, and the alien stood silent.She was moved by his pleas.

  "Mac--that's my husband--has it," Alice said. "I saw Dobie here withit and put it under a milk pail and when Mac saw it he said he'd takecare of it." She hoped she was making sense.

  "Do you know where it is?"

  "I don't know where Mac put it."

  "Would you find it for me, please? I'll wait."

  * * * * *

  Alice agreed and, wondering what Mac would say if he came home andfound the hand gone, started looking for it. But surely Mac wouldunderstand about the hand, she thought. I'll explain to him theurgency of it, that one of the aliens needs it to live and be useful.

  She looked in the obvious places, in the storeroom just off thekitchen, in the cellar, then in the house itself, in Mac's room andthrough his things, and even in the attic, though she knew it couldn'tbe there. She became frantic then, paced by the alien's necessity forhis hand, and did not bother to straighten things up after she looked.It simply couldn't be in the house. But where else? She went out andtold the alien she could not find it but that she would look in thebarn.

  In the end she could find it nowhere and when she told the alien heseemed as disappointed as she.

  "I have seen you searching," he said. "I want to thank you for yourtrouble."

  "I'm awfully sorry," she said. "I don't know where Mac could have hidit. When he comes home I'll ask him."

  "I'll wait for him," the alien said. "It's imperative we have thehand. It is the only thing standing in the way of our leaving yourplanet. Your husband will know where it is and return it to us."

  "I'm sure he will," she said, hoping she was right but knowing howstubborn Mac could be. Then she got to worrying about what wouldhappen if he would refuse and as she went back to the house with Dobieat her side she was overcome with the shakes.

  She did not get her composure back until she had drunk a cup ofsteaming hot coffee. Then she looked at the clock, saw it was elevenand that she had spent nearly two hours looking for the hand. She saw,too, that the figure was still in the yard, standing there motionless,like something carved out of stone.

&nb
sp; Her husband drove in at mid-night and it seemed an eternity betweenthe time the engine stopped and he entered the house.

  From the way he looked at her he was surprised to find her still inthe kitchen.

  "You still up?" His face was flushed, his tongue thick.

  "Mac," she said, not knowing how to begin. "Where is that hand?"

  "You still worried about that?" He took off his coat and threw it onthe table.

  "But Mac! They've come after it."

  He looked at her dully. "Who's come after it?"

  "The aliens--from the ship. There's one of them in the yard. Look outthe window."

  He turned around and saw the stationary figure in the yard. He took adeep breath. "So that's one of 'em, eh?" He laughed in a way thatchilled her, then went to the cupboard and reached for his shotgun onthe wall next to it.

  Alice put her hand on his shoulders and he stopped before he touchedthe gun.

  "Listen, Mac. They need that hand. It belongs to one of their men andthey need it because they're going to put it back on and it will be asgood as new. Then they're going to leave."

  He looked down at her with bloodshot, narrow eyes and she could seewhere tobacco had run out of the corner of his mouth and the onlything she could think of was what it would look like on the overallswhen she'd wash them.

  "That thing out