Authors: Clifford D. Simak
Her chin lifted. “It doesn’t matter, Mr. Cornish, how we decided it.”
There was, he saw, no more to say, nothing more to do.
He lifted his hat again.
“Good evening,” he said and swung the horse away, riding toward the trail.
Chapter Three
You’ve Got to Shoot to Live!
The campfire beside the covered wagon of the traveling preacher was a beacon in the night and Cornish pushed his horse toward it, for the first time realizing that he was ravenously hungry, utterly fagged and filled with a thousand aches and pains.
Pulling up his horse, he wearily got down from the saddle. There were two men sitting in front of the blaze. One of them got up and walked toward him. It was Steve, the bartender.
“How did it go?” asked Steve.
Cornish shook his head. “The whole mess is in the fire. The Tumbling K has the nesters scared silly. They wouldn’t touch any wire with a ten foot pole.”
To his nostrils came the aroma of cooking coffee; he saw the battered, blackened pot keeping warm beside the coals. Joe Wicks was already slicing bacon into a pan.
“We sort of sat up for you,” Steve explained. “We figured you’d be coming back this way.”
“I wondered where you were,” said Cornish.
“Saw the fire when I went past the first time,” said Steve. “So when you took my horse I just hustled back here. Good a place to wait as any.”
Wearily, Cornish sat down before the fire.
“Find my bucket?” asked Joe Wicks.
Cornish shook his head. “Not a sign of it.”
He stared into the fire, felt the cold night wind blowing on his back.
Licked, he thought. Licked before I hardly got a start. Tumbling K just waited to see if I could get the nesters interested and then they gummed up the works. Didn’t want to mess around none unless it seemed I was getting somewhere. But I didn’t have a chance. Not even from the start.
“The only way,” he mumbled, “to sell barb wire in this man’s country is to lick the Tumbling K.”
“You made a good start this afternoon,” said Steve from across the fire.
“Sure, I know,” said Cornish, bitterly. “I licked three of them in a rough and tumble brawl and no one was more surprised than I was. But it’s more than that—a lot more than that.”
“I returned,”
declared Joe Wicks solemnly,
“and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise …”
“That’s the Bible,” explained Steve. “He spouts it all the time, chapter and verse. Never heard the beat of it.”
The bacon sputtered in the pan and in the darkness one of the horses pawed the ground. The wind fluttered the canvas top of the wagon, making a noise like beating wings.
Cornish nodded, feeling the warmth of the fire in front of him, smelling the bacon in the pan, hearing the rustle of the wind that walked among the grasses.
“Like her crisp or tender?” asked Joe Wicks.
Cornish did not answer. Both men stared at him. His head hung and his arms drooped across his knees.
“Sound asleep,” said Steve.
“Better get him laid out,” said Wicks, “before he pitches head first into the fire.”
Steve got up, stretched and yawned.
“Look, parson, wouldn’t have any drinking liquor around, would you? I left in such a hurry that I didn’t bring none.”
Wicks hesitated. “Carry a bottle of the stuff,” he finally admitted. “Awfully good for snake bites.”
“A snake just bit me,” Steve told him.
Wicks’ beard split with a grin. “Danged if I didn’t forget,” he said. “One bit me just a while back, too.”
Drumming hoofs pounding along the trail jerked Cornish from the blankets. Sitting upright beside the now-cold fire, he saw the rider tearing down toward him, bent low on the horse’s neck, urging the animal along with kicking heels and slapping reins.
He rubbed his eyes astonished at what he saw. For the rider was a woman. Her hair was flying in the wind and the gathered up dress fluttered behind her.
“Molly!” he shouted. “Molly, what’s wrong?”
He threw off the blankets and scrambled to his feet. The horse shied and the girl pulled up.
On the opposite side of the fire, Steve and Joe Wicks were sitting, rubbing their eyes.
“My father!” screamed Molly Hays. “They shot my father!”
She would have started up again, but Cornish strode out into the trail and seized the horse’s bridle.
“Take it easy, Molly,” he said. “Tell me what happened. Who was it that shot your father?”
She had been crying, for her face was tear-streaked, and she was ready to cry again.
“It was the Tumbling K,” she said. “They drove in a herd this morning—a big herd. Right across our wheat field. My father went out to stop them and they … and they …”
She swayed in the saddle and Cornish put out an arm to catch her, but she did not fall.
“Where is your father now?”
“I got him to the house, then I rode to get the doctor. That’s where I’m going now.”
A voice spoke behind Cornish, the cracked voice of Joe Wicks. “Look, miss, you’re in no shape to go riding into town. Why don’t you let one of us do it?”
“We could take you back to the place,” said Steve. “Maybe your father will need you.”
She looked at them for a long minute, then slowly nodded.
“Perhaps that’s best,” she said.
“Cornish will ride into town,” said Steve. “Joe and me will take you back.”
Cornish held out his arms and she slid into them. He let her gently to the ground and for a moment, swaying, she clung to him. Then she straightened.
Cornish seized the reins, vaulted to the saddle, hesitated for a moment.
“That bunch of cattle?” he asked. “Where are they headed?”
She stared at him for a moment, almost uncomprehending, then she spoke.
“Straight up the valley, heading for the other places.”
Cornish’s face stiffened into grim lines.
“It’s the showdown, then,” he said, tersely. “It’s the Tumbling K’s ace card. They’re moving in. That herd will wipe out everything in the entire valley and if the nesters try to stop it, they’ll be wiped out, too!”
He swung on the bartender. “Take Miss Hays back, Steve, quick as you can. Then hustle back to town with the wagon. I got an idea …”
Cornish kicked the horse into motion, went storming down the trail for Silver Bow.
With Doc Moore started on his way toward the Hays place, Cornish rode to the town’s lone hotel.
The street was quiet, almost deserted. A dog sitting in front of the Longhorn bar snapped lazily at flies. The black plume of smoke from a train that had left the station a few minutes before still trailed across the sky.
At the hotel desk a man with a gray hat and expensively cut suit was pounding on the floor with a gold-headed cane.
His voice, high and querulous, rang through the lobby.
“It’s an outrage. No bath. Why don’t you people get up to date out here? I’ve been on a long and dusty train ride and I want a bath. Not an hour from now. Right now!”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Armstrong,” whined the clerk. “I’ll have some water heated right away, but it will take a while. Half an hour at least.”
“Don’t people ever bathe out here?” snapped the man.
The clerk didn’t answer and the man went on: “There was no one to meet me at the station. Fine state of affairs. And they knew I was coming, too. Did you see any of them around?”
“Titus and some of the other boys were in yesterday,” the clerk told him, “but I haven’t seen a sign of them today.”
The man turned away from the desk. Cornish stepped forward.
“I’ll carry Mr. Armstrong’s bags,” he offered. “I was going up, anyhow.”
Armstrong turned to face him and Cornish noted the pinched, squeezed face of a New England businessman. Lips thin and colorless, eyes the drab color of gray slate.
“Er—thank you, sir,” Armstrong said.
“Not at all,” said Cornish. “Glad to help you. What room, Jake?”
“Seventeen,” said the desk man, tossing him the key.
Cornish led the way up the flight of stairs, set down the bags and opened the door, then carried the bags inside.
Armstrong fumbled in his pocket. “Perhaps you’d have a drink on me?”
Cornish shook his head.
“Not a drink, Armstrong. Just a talk.”
Armstrong’s eyebrows went up and the colorless lips pulled straighter.
“I can’t imagine …”
“You own the Tumbling K,” said Cornish.
“Yes, I do.”
“Know what’s going on?”
Armstrong’s face tightened, went a shade more chalky.
“Look here, young man. I don’t know what you’re driving at …”
“Murder,” said Cornish, tightly. “Or it will be before the thing is finished. Titus is driving a herd up the Cottonwood. Not across it, or into it, but straight up it.”
“The Cottonwood,” said Armstrong. “Let’s see—that’s where the nesters are.”
“So you knew about the nesters.”
“Naturally. Titus keeps me well informed.”
“And you knew what Titus planned to do?”
“Scarcely what he planned to do. I intimated to him that he could feel free to take whatever action he thought prudent.”
“I suppose it’s prudent to destroy the crops of all those people who are trying to make homes in the valley. Destroy their crops and kill any of them that try to make a fight.”
Armstrong flicked a dust spot from his sleeve.
“Frankly, I would say we’d be doing them a favor. This isn’t farming land, it’s range land. Farmers would starve to death. A good year now and then, maybe, but not often enough to make both ends meet. They’ve been brought here by the false idea that they can make a living. It’s the government that’s to blame, really, for opening up the land.”
His eyes narrowed until they were gray slits. “I can’t imagine, young man, why you should be so interested. Are you one of these—er—nesters?”
Cornish laughed shortly. “No. I sell barb wire.”
Armstrong stiffened. “Barb wire!”
“I see you’ve heard about me, too,” said Cornish. “Did you advise Titus to proceed prudently with me?”
Armstrong pounded the floor angrily with his cane.
“I’ve never seen much impudence!” he shouted.
“Mister,” said Cornish, “you ain’t seen nothing yet. If you figure you’re coming out here to ramrod this war …”
“I don’t know anything about a war,” Armstrong shouted at him. “I always come out here every summer, for at least a week or two.”
“O.K,” snapped Cornish. “O.K., if that’s the way you want it, but let me tell you something. Your men are messing up a deal of mine. I’ve spent a lot of time selling wire to those nesters out there and I’m not letting you and your Tumbling K ruin all the work I’ve done …”
A step sounded in the corridor outside and Cornish spun around to face the door.
Squint Douglas stood just inside the room, feet spread, hand poised above his gun.
“So,” he said, and the drawn out word was a challenge and a shout of triumph.
Cornish jerked back his hand until his fingers touched the grip of the Colt that Steve had loaned him.
For a long moment the two men stood facing one another, each unmoving, eyes narrowed against the light, waiting for the slightest move to send them into action.
“All right, Squint,” said Cornish. “Go ahead and make your play.”
Squint stood as if rooted to the floor, like a man suddenly stricken into stone.
“You’re just a yellow rat,” Cornish snarled. “Yellow to the core. You’d hang me when I didn’t have a chance. You’d tackle me when you had a couple of men to help you. But you won’t shoot it out when the breaks are even.”
The twisted grin that twitched at Squint’s ugly face warned Cornish even before he heard the step behind him and he instinctively jerked his body to one side. The whizzing cane missed his head by a fraction of an inch, slammed into his shoulder so hard that he buckled at the knees.
Through pain-dazed eyes, Cornish saw Squint’s gun coming out of leather, saw the leer of triumph that spread across his face. Knocked off balance by the blow from Armstrong’s cane, Cornish clawed desperately for the Colt hanging at his hip, found it even as the blast from Squint’s gun filled the room to bursting with a monstrous clap of thunder.
The bullet brushed Cornish’s cheek, slammed into a bedpost behind him, breaking out a shower of splinters.
Squint’s gun crashed again and Cornish felt the sting of lead slash across his ribs, heard the bullet smash into the mirror that hung upon the wall.
Then his own gun was tilting in his hand and his finger was closing on the trigger. The run roared and slammed against his wrist and Cornish knew he would not have to shoot again.
In the doorway, Squint stood with a blue hole in his forehead, stood for an instant before he toppled forward, dead.
Cornish straightened from his crouch, stood looking at Armstrong through the stinging powder smoke that befogged the room.
Armstrong’s pale lips moved thinly. “You killed him!”
Cornish snarled back, motioned with his gun toward Squint’s lifeless body on the floor.
“That’s what I was trying to tell you, Armstrong. That is what I meant. The Tumbling K had better not try to stop me selling wire.”
Cornish moved toward the door, gun dangling in his hand. He stepped across Squint, but turned before he left.
“Next time,” he told Armstrong, “when two men shoot it out don’t go mixing in with that cane of yours.”
A crowd had gathered in the lobby downstairs and Cornish halted on the stairs, looking at the faces that stared up at him. Blank faces—some of them the faces of the men who had refused to drink at the Longhorn bar when Steve had set them up.
“I just killed Squint,” said Cornish, almost conversationally. “Anyone know of anything they’d like to do about it?”
None of them did, apparently. They parted and made a lane for him and he walked out onto the porch, crossed the sidewalk, vaulted to the saddle, went pounding down the street.
The wagon stood in front of the Hays’ place at the south end of Cottonwood valley and Steve was lounging against one wheel when Cornish rode up.
“You look all out of breath,” said Steve.