Pinky’s arms pistoned and his guns struck fire in the noonday sun as they came whispering from leather.
At point blank range the guns roared fire and smoke, the three reports blending into one. The handkerchief around Pinky’s throat whipped suddenly as if struck by a tiny gale and out in the sunlight Hurley was tipping over, twisting awkwardly to keep his feet.
His gun slipped from his fingers and feebly he clawed at it, trying to pick it off the ground while his hand was far above it. Then, gently, almost as if he meant to do it, he toppled over and lay huddled on the grass.
Pinky stood on spraddled legs, watching Hurley fall, then calmly tucked the smoking guns back into his belt and turned his back on Hurley’s body.
His face was almost pleasant as he spoke to Packard. “I guess,” he said, “you won’t have time for that smoke, after all.”
He nodded to Marks. “Haul away.”
“Cripes,” protested Marks, “you don’t expect me to do it all alone. Packard there weighs close to a couple of hundred!”
“Pop,” ordered Pinky, “go lend Marks a hand.”
Pop rose slowly to his feet, ambled forward.
Packard straightened, tense against the tree, thoughts racing in his brain. He was going to be hanged. Run up by a brawny bearded man and a shriveled oldster while a man called Pinky stood to one side and watched.
And there wasn’t a thing he could do about it … not a thing.
Pop was grumbling. “Hell, why don’t you shoot him, Pinky. This here is too much work.”
“Just a minute,” said a voice and Packard twisted his neck, saw Sylvester standing almost at his elbow. Sylvester had pushed his hat on the back of his head and both his guns were out.
Pinky stared. “Now what?” he demanded. “Can’t a fellow hang a man without all the hoorah that’s been going on here?”
“Possibly,” said Sylvester, conversationally. “But you aren’t going to do it, Pinky. Right now, you aren’t hanging anyone at all.”
Pinky’s face twisted with sudden, violent rage and his hand twitched up. The gun in Sylvester’s left hand leaped and spat and Pinky screeched as the bullet smashed his wrist.
Out of the corner of his eye, Packard saw Pop and Marks going for their guns, Sylvester twisting on his heel to meet them. Marks, he saw, had dropped the rope. This was his chance.
Packard lowered his head, hunched his one good shoulder, drove with all the power that was in his legs. Above him he heard the soft hiss of the rope running across the limb.
He felt his shoulder and lowered head crash into yielding flesh, felt the lance of pain that knifed through his shattered arm and other shoulder. Then Pinky was going over, backwards, and Packard was staggering, spread-legged above the outlaw leader floundering on the ground.
A spurred boot lashed up at him and Packard danced out of the way, drove in again, hurling himself upon the outstretched body of the man, his right hand spread wide, aimed at the naked throat.
He felt the softness of the throat beneath his fingers and his fingers closed with a vise-like viciousness while a dull and spreading anger glowed within his brain.
Beneath him, Packard sensed that Pinky was clawing for a gun, blindly groping with his uninjured left hand for a weapon in his belt. Savagely he hauled upward on the throat within his grasp as if he meant to tear it out and then crashed it back to earth again with all the power that was in his driving muscles. Pinky’s head sounded like a breaking egg and it bounced and rolled sidewise sickeningly as it hit the ground.
But still Packard’s fingers held their grip, dug deeper as he remembered the marks of a hand across Alice Page’s face.
Behind him he heard the roar and crash of six-guns, but there was a thunder in his brain that drowned out all other sound. He felt himself tipping forward, felt a cloud of red mist move in through his eyes and swirl within his head.
His fingers loosened and his hand fell off the throat and he was crawling blindly, like a dog on hands and knees.
“Get up, man!” a voice screamed at him and he staggered to his feet, stood swaying while his vision cleared. He shook his head and saw Sylvester standing before him, while behind Sylvester loomed a white and misty face that he knew was Alice Page’s.
Sylvester dabbed at his face with a hand and Packard saw that the hair and one side of his face was thick with blood where a bullet had barked him.
Marks lay upon the ground, arms outspread above his head, a red streak soaking through his coal-black beard. Pop Allen sat with his back against a tree and held both hands to his side. Like a kid, thought Packard. Like a kid that’s eaten green apples and has the belly ache.
Sylvester’s face came into sharper focus and Packard spoke to it.
“Mister,” he said, “I’m still wondering what it’s all about.”
“I thought you guessed,” Sylvester told him. “I thought that you knew when you found out about my eye.”
“I knew there was something wrong,” confessed Packard, “but I couldn’t figure it.”
“I’m an insurance dick.”
“Come again?” said Packard.
“An insurance detective. Randall, you see, was working it both ways. He was insuring gold that he shipped out on the stage. Then he’d hold up the stage and get the gold. Then he’d soak us for insurance money.”
Sylvester mopped at his face again, left finger-streaks of red across his cheek.
“We better be getting out of here,” he said. “Get that rope off your neck. Miss Page will fix your shoulder while I catch up some horses.”
“Would you mind,” asked a voice, “staying just a while?”
They whirled, the three of them, stared at the man who sat the big bay horse just at the tiny clearing’s edge. A man in black broadcloth and a fawn-colored vest above which was bunched a white silk cravat. A diamond flashed in the sunlight as the man held the six-gun on them.
“It would seem,” said Randall, “that I have the drop on you. Better shuck those guns, Sylvester, and walk away from them.”
Slowly, Sylvester unbuckled his belt, let it drop to the ground. With his gun, Randall motioned them away.
He chuckled, watching them. “Too bad,” he said. “You almost got away with it.”
“Maybe they didn’t get away with it this time,” said Alice Page. “Maybe these two men may never get away with it. But sometime someone will. You can’t go on forever.”
Randall tipped his hat, but his gun still was unwavering in his hand. “How right you are, Miss Page,” he said. “And now if you’ll just walk away and turn your back …”
“Always a gentleman,” said Packard, bitterly. “You wouldn’t for the world shoot a man in front of a woman’s eyes.”
“Of course not,” said Randall. “There are certain social graces that cannot be ignored.”
He nudged his horse around, lifted the six-gun. “Miss Page, if you please will—”
“No!” screamed Alice Page. “You can’t—you can’t—”
She was running toward him, arms flung up as if to ward off the bullet that the gun was set to throw.
“Alice!”
The bellow was bull-throated and it stopped the girl in mid-stride, swung her around.
“Father!” she cried.
Preacher Page stood beneath the tree where Pinky lay sprawled with a lolling neck and he held a heavy rifle at the ready.
“Get away, child,” he bellowed.
Randall jerked the six-gun up and then stiffened. The rifle muzzle in the old man’s hand was pointing at his midriff. If that gun went off …
“Throw away the gun, Randall,” said Preacher. “Throw it away and get down off that horse.”
Randall hesitated.
Preacher squinted his eyes. “I am not a man,” he said, “who wishes to shed blood, but if you don’t
heave that gun away, I’ll let you have it right through your dirty guts.”
Randall heaved the gun away, scrambled off the horse. Sylvester stepped out and picked up the gun.
Slowly Preacher moved toward Randall. “See if he had any other guns,” Page told Sylvester.
Swiftly, Sylvester ran his hands up and down Randall’s coat.
“Not a one,” he said.
Preacher heaved his rifle to one side.
“Get up your dukes,” he told Randall. “I’m going to give you the worst beating that a man has ever taken.”
Randall sprang forward, one fist lashing out, the other cocked for a killing blow. Preacher ducked, slid under the swishing fist, uncorked a punch that skidded Randall on his heels.
Then the two were together, slugging toe to toe, boring in, absorbing punishment, deadly silent. Their feet beat a stolid measure on the grass and there came the sound of flesh on bone, the rasp of heavy breathing, the muffled grunt and panting breath of earnest men fighting with a deadly hatred.
Randall was weakening. Under the sledge-hammer blows of the minister, he was falling back. Once he tried to break away and run, but Preacher chased him, closed in and forced the fight.
The end came swiftly. A blow staggered Randall and Preacher moved in slugging, right to the jaw, left to the heart, another right to the jaw that lifted Randall off his feet and slammed him to the ground.
For a long moment the old man stood in the sunlight above the fallen man, his white hair shining and stirring in the breeze, his chest rising and falling as he gasped for breath.
Then he turned away, walked to the three, brushing off his coat, straightening his shirt cuffs.
“Either of you want that man?” he asked.
“I do,” Sylvester told him.
Preacher looked at Packard sternly. “I was hoping it might be you.”
Packard shook his head. “Not me. I guess I’ll be riding again. No use of going back to Hangman’s Gulch.”
Preacher reached out his arm and drew Alice to his side. “Got to worrying about you, child,” he said. “Thought what a foolish thing it was for me to send you off on that stage. So I got a horse and rode. Thought that I might catch up and sort of ride as guard. See you safely through. But I was too late. I heard shooting …”
He brushed at his eyes with a gnarled hand.
Packard reached up to his throat, was surprised to find the rope still dangling there. Savagely he ripped the noose open, tossed it over his head, turned and walked away.
There was a horse tied up in the timber. It would be an easy matter to get there by just ambling along. Then he’d jump into the saddle and no one, he was sure, would try very hard to catch him.
For after all he was almost as bad as Pinky or any of the others. Not in as deep, perhaps, but not because he hadn’t tried. There was no use trying to fool anyone. He’d tried to get that gold, tried just as hard as any of the others.
“Packard!”
He heard the thump of feet behind him, stopped and waited. Slowly he turned to face the old man.
“Yes, what is it?”
“You’re going back with us,” said Page.
Packard shook his head. “No, Preacher. Hangman’s Gulch is going to be a respectable town now, with Randall and his gang mopped up. And I don’t belong …”
“Look, Packard,” said Preacher. “I want you to listen to me. Next Sunday I’m going to get up in the pulpit and I’m going to tell the people who I am. And I want to make a deal with you—”
Packard gasped. “But you can’t do that. You’re sitting pretty. There’s no reason for doing it.”
“But there is a reason. I’ve got to be square with myself. I can’t go on living a lie.”
“All right,” agreed Packard. “Have it your own way. But I can’t see where it has anything to do with me.”
“I told you I had a deal,” said Preacher. “If the people throw me out, all three of us will leave, you and I and Alice. But if they let me stay, all three of us will stay.”
Packard looked beyond Preacher at Alice and her eyes, he saw, were smiling.
“Is it a deal?” asked Preacher.
“It’s a deal,” answered Packard, not even looking at him.
The Civilization Game
One of Clifford Simak’s journals notes that he sold a story entitled “Apron Strings” to Horace Gold on May 1, 1958. Given its publication date, the November 1958 issue of Galaxy Magazine, and its subject, playtime for humanity, I think that the timing is about right for “Apron Strings” to reappear.
This story is also another example of Cliff Simak’s proclivity for featuring cavemen in his science fiction.
—dww
I
For some time, Stanley Paxton had been hearing the sound of muffled explosions from the west. But he had kept on, for there might be a man behind him, trailing him, and he could not change his course. For if he was not befuddled, the homestead of Nelson Moore lay somewhere in the hills ahead. There he would find shelter for the night and perhaps even transportation. Communication, he knew, must be ruled out for the moment; the Hunter people would be monitoring, alert for any news of him.
One Easter vacation, many years ago, he had spent a few days at the Moore homestead, and all through this afternoon he had been haunted by a sense of recognition for certain landmarks he had sighted. But his visit to these hills had been so long ago that his memory hazed and there was no certainty.
As the afternoon had lengthened toward an early evening, his fear of the trailing man began to taper off. Perhaps, he told himself, there was no one, after all. Once, atop a hill, he had crouched in a thicket for almost half an hour and had seen no sign of any follower.
Long since, of course, they would have found the wreckage of his flier, but they might have arrived too late and so, consequently, have no idea in which direction he had gone.
Through the day, he’d kept close watch of the cloudy sky and was satisfied that no scouting flier had passed overhead to spot him.
Now, with the setting of the sun behind an angry cloud bank, he felt momentarily safe.
He came out of a meadow valley and began to climb a wooded hill. The strange boomings and concussions seemed fairly close at hand and he could see the flashes of explosions lighting up the sky.
He reached the hilltop and stopped short, crouching down against the ground. Below him, over a square mile or more of ground, spread the rippling flashes, and in the pauses between the louder noises, he heard faint chatterings that sent shivers up his spine.
He crouched, watching the flashes ripple back and forth in zigzag patterning and occasionally a small holocaust of explosions would suddenly break out and then subside as quickly.
Slowly he stood up and wrapped his cloak about him and raised the hood to protect his neck and ears.
On the near side of the flashing area, at the bottom of the hill, was some sort of foursquare structure looming darkly in the dusk. And it seemed as well that a massive hazy bowl lay inverted above the entire area, although it was too dark to make out what it was.
Paxton grunted softly to himself and went quickly down the hill until he reached the building. It was, he saw, a sort of observation platform, solidly constructed and raised well above the ground, with the top half of it made of heavy glass that ran all the way around. A ladder went up one side to the glassed-in platform.
“What’s going on up there?” he shouted, but his voice could be scarcely heard above the crashing and thundering that came from out in front.
So he climbed the ladder.
When his head reached the level of the glassed-in platform area, he halted. A boy, not more than fourteen years of age, stood at the front of the platform, staring out into a noisy sea of fire. A pair of binoculars was slung about his neck and to one side of him stood a m
assive bank of instruments.
Paxton clambered up the rest of the way and stepped inside the platform.
“Hello, young man!” he shouted.
The youngster turned around. He seemed an engaging fellow, with a cowlick down his forehead.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I’m afraid I didn’t hear you.”
“What is going on here?”
“A war,” said the boy. “Pertwee just launched his big attack. I’m hard-pressed to hold him off.”
Paxton gasped a little. “But this is most unusual!” he protested.
The boy wrinkled up his forehead. “I don’t understand.”
“You are Nelson Moore’s son?”
“Yes, sir, I am Graham Moore.”
“I knew your father many years ago. We went to school together.”
“He will be glad to see you, sir,” the boy said brightly, sensing an opportunity to rid himself of this uninvited kibitzer. “You take the path just north of west. It will lead you to the house.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Paxton, “you could come along and show me.”
“I can’t leave just yet,” said Graham. “I must blunt Pertwee’s attack. He caught me off my balance and has been saving up his firepower and there were some maneuvres that escaped me until it was too late. Believe me, sir, I’m in an unenviable position.”
“This Pertwee?”
“He’s the enemy. We’ve fought for two years now.”
“I see,” said Paxton solemnly and retreated down the ladder.
He found the path and followed it and found the house, set in a swale between two hillocks. It was an old and rambling affair among great clumps of trees.
The path ended on a patio and a woman’s voice asked: “Is that you, Nels?”
She sat in a rocking chair on the smooth stone flags and was little more than a blur of whiteness—a white face haloed by white hair.
“Not Nels,” he said. “An old friend of your son’s.”