Tales from the Underside

By Steve Smith

Darkly imagined adventures for readers with a quirky sense of humor and a jaded reading palate, including nature stories and a touch of fantasy and Sci/fi. Themes range from a guy forced into a western-style duel in a southwestern desert, a Pakistani slum kid being indoctrinated to blow himself up, a starving cat giving his rescuer a lesson in commitment, a farmer being questioned by one of his cows who was sent by the herd elders to ask some stiff questions, to mention a few. As a bonus enjoy snarky remarks from the author . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Smith
• Release date: Jun 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005797645

Steve Smith

Steve Smith (March 11, 1962–March 13, 2019) served overseas with the International Mission Board (SBC) for eighteen years, helping initiate a Church Planting Movement (CPM) among an unreached people group in East Asia, and then coached, trained, and led others to do the same throughout the world. Upon his retirement from IMB in 2016 until his death, Steve served simultaneously as the Vice President of Multiplication for East-West Ministries, as a Global Movement Catalyst for Beyond, and as a co-leader of the 24:14 Coalition.

Book preview

Tales from the Underside

For adventurous young readers taking that shaky first step into the

dark basement of the soul . . .

by

Stephen B. Smith

Copyright © 2017 by Stephen B. Smith

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Any similarity between the characters depicted within and actual living persons is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 9798577055127

Imprint: Varlet Pimperknuckle Packet

Printed in the U.S.

~ Contents ~

Stoney / Wild Horse Spring . . . 12

After being shot by a robber at his claim, a dying prospector seeks to return his closest friend and longtime companion to the natural life with a wild herd . . .

Dalton and the Smokeys . . . 30

A couple of spooky denizens from a remote sector of the galaxy appear to a kid at his school playground, directing him to hand their demands to the president in the form of a comically threatening note . . .

Dirtman . . . 57

A small-time rancher with the DTs communes with a pleasant Guernsey cow with attractive udders sent by the herd elders to ask some pointed questions . . .

Weeder / A Good Piece of Work . . . 80

Following a stop for a beer after a martial arts workout, a young man has to deal with a persistent character trying to bait him into a deadly fight . . .

The Reject . . . 105

A demonic aspirant seeking a permanent position in the hellish zone finds that his obnoxious decency prevents him from being taken seriously . . .

Slum rat . . . 113

A Pakistani street kid is corralled into becoming a martyr and questions whether he can enjoy his promised heavenly reward if he is splattered all over a busy marketplace . . .

A Child of the Veldt . . . 147

A newborn gazelle barely has time to adjust to his brand new body when he and his mother must run for their lives . . .

Wrong Turn off Time's Flowing Highway . . . 159

A young girl, accosted by a demanding and profane angel thinking that it is 14th century France and she must hurry if she is to lead her army to victory, adds some salty terms to her vocabulary . . .

Sophie . . . 167

An abandoned cat is rescued by a man attending a fair and, while being taken to a shelter, gives her new owner a painful lesson in bonding . . .

Night Work . . . 187

A druggie pulling a B&E on a home to feed his habit breaks into a room with a just-awakened baby who gives the kid a chewing out concerning his hygiene .. .

Janey and Spot, Renovators LTD . . . 195

Disturbed that her dog Spot is willfully disobeying her, ten-year-old Janie decides to teach him a lesson involving a .38 caliber pistol. Her aim is not what it should be, however, and the neighborhood undergoes chaos . . .

The Water Hole . . . 210

A young man returns from a trip back to the Mesozoic after a near-fatal encounter with an unpleasant creature . . .

Ottinger and the Mutts . . . 244

A high-school bully is faced with a self-possessed peer who questions his motives and character, and leaves him with a challenging choice . . .

Lexie Prentiss, Rogue Educator . . . 259

A new teacher stirs her class with her forceful and hilarious approach to her radical views about life and education.

Advisory:

If you are reading this during that interminable and torturous downtime called study hall or any other class you find spiritually tedious, I suggest that you hide it within your binder, as detection might earn you the wrath of the flinty-eyed figure seated at the front of the room scanning for a victim to flog in service to his/her inborn desire to inflict punishment on such subversive and free-thinking individuals as yourself.

You are subversive, right? Just as I thought. Best keep it to yourself, you know, as there are ASPs (Anti-Subersive Police) among us.

Strap yourself in, pilgrim,

we're liftin' off . . .

Stoney / Wild Horse Spring

From his saddle Dick Brassell gazed blearily down at the churned up dirt and scattered clods of manure at the edge of the shallow pool. While Stoney dipped his head and drank, Brassell studied the hoof depressions. Maybe a day old, they told of a sizable herd of unshod horses whose trail led upslope from the pool between sandstone outcroppings and on to higher ground to the north.

Wild ones, Stoney, he whispered hoarsely. A lot of 'em, boy. We come to the right place.

Stoney's hooves stirred the tamped earth releasing the tang of stale urine. His head came up, his muzzle dripping. Snorting to clear his nostrils of trail dust, he flung his head with each fresh scent conveying the familiar stirring dream of his kind in full gallop and dug at the soil with his right forefoot. Brassell felt tremors of excitement ripple along Stoney's sides.

"Smell 'em, do you, boy? They's here not so long ago."

Bracing himself, he gave the reins a flick and gripped the saddle horn with both hands as Stoney thrust upward toward the cottonwood stand along the rim of the pool.

Through watery eyes he evaluated the site. Scattered clumps of grass for Stoney and enough dry wood for a fire if he wanted to prolong things. It had good shade and a level spot with high sandstone formation rising behind. No one could sneak up on him here. Not that he expected it—Harrelson was as dead as you could get, back in the canyon where he'd found his first color.

He guided Stoney toward the cottonwoods. The horse plodded through the mushy sand and into the shade where he stopped without signal. Brassell rose in the stirrups, took his weight on his left leg and slowly lifted his right leg over Stoney's rump. His vision blurred. When the streaks of red faded he eased himself to the ground. At his protracted groan Stoney looked along his flank, his tail twitching. Brassell tilted over propping himself with his forehead against Stoney's flank and his hands on his knees and waited for it to pass. When he recovered he slowly set about untying the saddle.

Won't be long, Stoney, you'll be with your own kind runnin' free.

Only one of Harrelson's shots had hit home, fired as he was falling, and more by reflex than anything. But it was enough. Harrelson must have seen him leave the assayer's office in Carlin and smelled pickings. Tracked Brassell to his find in the foothills of the Tuscaroras and crept up on him as he was digging out a promising crevice.

While Brassell was shoveling paydirt on an elk skin travois for Stoney to drag to a nearby creek for panning, Harrelson came half-walking, half-sliding down the shaley slope up on his right. Brassell had glanced up sharply, then relaxed somewhat, his instinctive suspicions eased somewhat by Harrelson's grin and noisy entrance. Then he saw the pistol swing up.

He flinched in surprise as the first shot went wide and high. Dropping his shovel he groped for his holstered Colt .44, thumbed back the hammer as another shot missed on his left side. The misses made Harrelson jittery. Swearing, he steadied his pistol in a two hand grip. Brassell clamped down on his own tension, shoved the pistol on point and felt the gun buck. His shot struck Harrelson high in the chest and flung him backwards an instant before he loosed his third and last shot.

Brassell felt the punch in his left side and knew instantly he was in a fix. The bullet struck the descending edge of the lower rib and plowed downward through his guts. The chemical heat from a massive infusion of adrenaline roiled wildly inside as if the life force at his core angrily sought the source of this intrusion. He bent over his left side and pointed his Colt shakily at the sprawled body thirty feet away. Harrelson lay still. He was likely dead and Brassell knew he might soon follow. A bullet glancing off bone would do more damage than one boring through tissue unchanged.

He limped to within ten feet of Harrelson's body and snarled, You worthless, thievin' sonofabitch.

Hissing, he cocked his revolver, then steadied his shaking right hand with his left. His first shot hit high on Harrelson's right arm, making the arm flop palm up. The next shot hit the shale under Harrelson's hip, nudging him. Tiny rivulets of fire streaked down Brassell’s sides. He sighed heavily, jammed his pistol at his holster twice before getting it seated.

A sense of vanquishment pressed down upon him. His body suddenly seemed heavy, a labor to keep erect. Damn, he muttered, shaking his head wearily. He turned and shuffled down the hillside to his camp, his left hand pressed against his leaking wound.

Stoney threw his head uneasily as Brassell limped toward him, the scent of blood sharp in his flared nostrils.

Easy boy, Brassell said. He approached Stoney trying to appear steady. It wouldn't do to have his conveyance run off in fright. But Stoney was disciplined and held his place. Brassell gave the horse a reassuring pat. Good boy, Stoney. Good boy.

He paused, his left hand grasping Stoney's mane, then tilted his head against the horse's shoulder and sighed, Damn it all. Damn, damn, damn.

Stoney looked along his left shoulder, his eyes widening. He snorted and flung his head sideways, something he did when he was confused or upset, and lifted each front hoof in turn.

Brassell crooned and said, I know, boy. He ran his left palm down Stoney's neck until he quieted. I know, he said soothingly. It just can't be helped, Stoney. Now we got to see that you'll be okay.

He led Stoney to his bunk site, turning him broadside to his saddle. Okay, Stoney, still, boy.

As he bent over the earth wheeled. He clamped his hands to his knees and breathed as deeply as the pain permitted. When his vision began to clear he grasped the saddle horn in his left hand and the rear of the saddle in his right. He rose, ignoring the fiery sensation clutching his guts and used the momentum to heave the saddle up onto Stoney's back. He blacked out momentarily, then came to feeling the saddle sliding back towards him. He got his shoulder under it and without waiting for his head to clear pushed it into position with his right hand.

After much exertion, all the while feeling blood stream down his side and pool at his belt and grow sticky, he got the saddle cinched. He flung his saddlebag up behind the cantle and looped the drawstring of his canvas grub bag around the saddle horn. His bunk roll and rifle no longer concerned him.

He led Stoney over to a boulder and situated him left side to. Sorry, boy, but we’re gonna have to do without your blanket. He knelt atop the boulder, forced himself erect, and placing his left foot in the stirrup, slowly swung his right leg over the saddle, igniting a fresh attack. He groaned softly, as much from self pity as from pain. It felt as if something had burrowed into his insides and was trying to gnaw its way out. He eased into the saddle by inches.

Okay, boy, he rubbed Stoney’s neck. Nice and easy.

He swung Stoney's head back down the trail from his digs. At the base of the foothills where the trail forked north, he stopped. Carlin was thirty miles away. At Stoney's slow plod, the only rate he could endure, it might take six hours. He doubted he could survive the ordeal. Two hours away was the spring. The decision made itself. He turned Stoney south.

That trip to this place had been the longest two hours of his life. Stoney had turned his head at each fresh groan but was somewhat eased by Brassell patting his neck. Brassell had tried standing in the stirrups but the jarring of Stoney's gait on his wound was not eased by it. Knowing that it was a watering site for a herd of wild horses had helped him endure. He didn't want Stoney ridden by someone he couldn't choose for him.

He now dropped the saddlebag along with his grub bag at the base of a cottonwood, then uncinched the saddle and shoved it over Stoney's far side. He gently tugged the bridle rig free and let it fall. After massaging Stoney where the cinch strap had chafed, he rubbed his face against Stoney's flat cheek and the mottled pink of his velvet muzzle. Stoney nickered softly.

From his saddlebag Brassell scooped out a handful of sweetened oats. He held it to Stoney's muzzle, feeling the familiar touch of the rubbery lips and coarse teeth and muscular tongue. His eyes blurred. He blinked several times to clear them. He had to do it now or he wouldn’t be able to do it at all.

After clearing his throat, he said, Stoney, we got to part company now. You're startin’ a new life. There's no one to tie a saddle to your back. You're free now, old friend. Go find your own kind.

He stepped back and gave Stoney's rump a sharp slap. Stoney gave a start, the skin over his back quivering briefly. He swung his big head to look back at Brassell in question.

Go on, now. Get goin'. He raised his arm high. Stoney lurched forward a step, still uncertain. He lifted a forefoot in question. Brassell realized that it was unnatural for Stoney to stray. They had been together for almost three years and the good-natured horse followed him even without him holding the reins. He bent for a small, sharp-edged rock, ignoring the stab in his gut.

Stoney, he snapped, stepping back a step. Git!

The rock hit Stoney's left rump, its impact stirring a sympathetic pang in Brassell. Never before had he hit Stoney with anything. The horse shied, then trotted a short distance away looking back at him. Brassell saw confusion in the look and groaned. Growling to keep from weakening, he picked up another rock and held it poised. Stoney trotted around a cottonwood and along the edge of the pool, keeping an eye on Brassell. He moved steadily away now but still eyed him as if waiting for him to relent from this odd behavior.

Brassell brandished the rock. You git now, dammit. You get up in those hills and find them wild ones and don't you come back here, you understand? You and me’s done! So git!

He threw the rock, wincing immediately, and watched it sail over Stoney's twitching rump. The horse galloped through the shallow water at the pool's edge and ascended the churned up slope onto a low bluff bordered by a ridge of sandstone. There he stamped his right hoof several times, flung his mane and gave a soft whinny. At a vagrant scent he cleared his nostrils vigorously. He paused for a moment as if weighing his choices, then shoved his forequarters away from the pool and the life he was accustomed to, and galloped off.

Brassell thought Stoney's eyes had rolled one last time in his direction. But he was gone and Brassell was both relieved and bereft. Stoney had been his closest friend the past three years, welcoming Brassell’s affectionate nuzzlings, and nickering softly through their nightly conversations as if responding to his words. So long, boy, he whispered.

His eyes stung. Wiping them with his shirtsleeves, Brassell