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Authors: Mike Resnick
Tags: Science-Fiction
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was bringing back for his girls, he was so happy he forgot all about shooting me. He broke out his drinkin’ stuff again, and before dark I presided at the ceremony what joined the bird boys and the bird girls together for all eternity, and then I stood clear just in case Brother Corny had a tractor and was going to let the girls use it to plight their troughs, and after spending one more night in Sadie’s company while each girl honeymooned in a chartreuse mansion, I announced that it was my intention to be on my way, because when you’re a man of the cloth whose business is saving sinners, you just naturally got to go to where the sinners congregate, and that meant a city.
“I’ll come with you,” said MacNamarra.
“I’d of thunk you’d be the happiest man in the world,” I said.
“I am.”
“Then why are you leaving now that you got both of your girls married off?”
“Truth to tell, Reverend,” he answered, “that bird talk was driving me crazy, and now suddenly there’s going to be twice as much of it as there was. I got to go where they speak some human language.”
“Well, it’d be un-Christian to refuse you a favor,” I said, “so pack up your gear and let’s be going.”
“I promise I won’t be no bother to you,” he said. “I just got to hear a human voice. Yours ain’t much, and it don’t make sense very often, but it’s better than clucking and gobbling.”
He kissed the girls good-bye, slung his shotgun over his shoulder, packed a satchel of ammunition and another of drinkin’ stuff, and off we went. He wasn’t too bad a traveling companion, except that he’d kick me awake two or three times each night and ask me to talk at him.
I think we’d been on the trail a week when we came to a village smack-dab in the middle of the jungle. It wasn’t much of a village, just four or five huts, and sitting in front of one of ’em was an almost-naked lady who was about MacNamarra’s age and maybe three or four times his weight.
“Good morrow, Madam,” he said, bowing low to her. “Has this here village got a name?”
She answered him in the very same language them guys what wasn’t Indians had used on me a couple of weeks earlier, and she guv him a great big smile, and I could see that her teeth were busy rotting away, and even from where I stood I could tell that she hadn’t bathed in the last ten or twenty years, but none of that bothered MacNamarra.
“Ain’t she got the most beautiful voice you ever heard?” he asked me.
“Did you understand a word she said?” I shot back.
“What difference does that make?” he said. “She didn’t chirp, and that’s all that matters.” He reached out and shook my hand. “It’s been nice knowing you, Reverend Jones, and I can never thank you enough for what you done for my daughters, but I’m smitten with this here delicate little frail flower, and I’m going to spend the rest of my natural-born days just listening to her dulcet tones.”
“If that’s what you want, Brother Corny, I wish you all the luck in the world,” I said, though from the way his delicate little three-hundred-pounder was talking a blue streak at him I figured he’d already found all the luck he needed.
I bid him a fond farewell, and headed off toward where I thought civilization was hiding, primed and ready to finally build the Tabernacle of Saint Luke.
The Lost Continent Of Moo
You know, there’s one thing I ain’t never figgered out, and man and boy it’s been bothering me most of my blameless life, and even now as a old man I haven’t come up with an answer, and I’ve had a lot of time to think about it since it was always happening to me, even back in 1935 which is when the tale I’m telling you took place, and though I’ve wandered the face of five continents (or maybe seven, if you count them two little ones down south) I still don’t know why it takes me such a short time to get lost and such a long time to get found again.
In
“I’ll come with you,” said MacNamarra.
“I’d of thunk you’d be the happiest man in the world,” I said.
“I am.”
“Then why are you leaving now that you got both of your girls married off?”
“Truth to tell, Reverend,” he answered, “that bird talk was driving me crazy, and now suddenly there’s going to be twice as much of it as there was. I got to go where they speak some human language.”
“Well, it’d be un-Christian to refuse you a favor,” I said, “so pack up your gear and let’s be going.”
“I promise I won’t be no bother to you,” he said. “I just got to hear a human voice. Yours ain’t much, and it don’t make sense very often, but it’s better than clucking and gobbling.”
He kissed the girls good-bye, slung his shotgun over his shoulder, packed a satchel of ammunition and another of drinkin’ stuff, and off we went. He wasn’t too bad a traveling companion, except that he’d kick me awake two or three times each night and ask me to talk at him.
I think we’d been on the trail a week when we came to a village smack-dab in the middle of the jungle. It wasn’t much of a village, just four or five huts, and sitting in front of one of ’em was an almost-naked lady who was about MacNamarra’s age and maybe three or four times his weight.
“Good morrow, Madam,” he said, bowing low to her. “Has this here village got a name?”
She answered him in the very same language them guys what wasn’t Indians had used on me a couple of weeks earlier, and she guv him a great big smile, and I could see that her teeth were busy rotting away, and even from where I stood I could tell that she hadn’t bathed in the last ten or twenty years, but none of that bothered MacNamarra.
“Ain’t she got the most beautiful voice you ever heard?” he asked me.
“Did you understand a word she said?” I shot back.
“What difference does that make?” he said. “She didn’t chirp, and that’s all that matters.” He reached out and shook my hand. “It’s been nice knowing you, Reverend Jones, and I can never thank you enough for what you done for my daughters, but I’m smitten with this here delicate little frail flower, and I’m going to spend the rest of my natural-born days just listening to her dulcet tones.”
“If that’s what you want, Brother Corny, I wish you all the luck in the world,” I said, though from the way his delicate little three-hundred-pounder was talking a blue streak at him I figured he’d already found all the luck he needed.
I bid him a fond farewell, and headed off toward where I thought civilization was hiding, primed and ready to finally build the Tabernacle of Saint Luke.
The Lost Continent Of Moo
You know, there’s one thing I ain’t never figgered out, and man and boy it’s been bothering me most of my blameless life, and even now as a old man I haven’t come up with an answer, and I’ve had a lot of time to think about it since it was always happening to me, even back in 1935 which is when the tale I’m telling you took place, and though I’ve wandered the face of five continents (or maybe seven, if you count them two little ones down south) I still don’t know why it takes me such a short time to get lost and such a long time to get found again.
In
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