Clifford Simak - A Death in the House - And Other Stories

“Let me,” he said.

He reached out his hand and she gave him the knife. Seated, he hacked at the cords savagely.

“But what’s it all about?” she asked. “The fire and you out here like this.”

“Plenty,” he told her. “You see, I set the fire.”

He snapped the blade of the knife, returned it to his pocket.

“That man you were asking about all the way out,” said Nancy. “You found him?”

Culver shook his head. “No, I didn’t find him, but I found what happened to him. And this is just a start.”

He reeled to his feet, stamped to bring back the circulation.

“You better get back inside,” he said. “It’s no place for you out here. Thanks for coming down.”

Above the crackle of the fire and the shouting in the street, he heard the rush of feet behind him, swung around. With a yell of warning, he thrust out a hand at Nancy, sent her reeling back.

Perkins was running forward through the flame-streaked darkness. The gun in his hand glittered.

Culver ducked swiftly, heard the angry hum of the bullet above his shoulder. His fingers scooped along the ground and clutched the edge of the wooden box that had tripped him. Straightening quickly, he hurled it in an overhanded throw at the charging man.

The six-gun barked again. Then the box crunched into Perkins, sent him reeling sidewise, staggering.

Culver leaped forward savagely and felt the heat of the muzzle flare as the gun coughed. Then his hand chopped down with a savage blow that caught the wrist behind the gun. And even as he struck, he swung again, a looping right that started at his belt and came up in a jarring smash against Perkins’ jaw. Perkins dropped the gun.

Culver stepped in close with punching fists that worked like driving pistons. Perkins gave ground slowly, stubbornly, covering up.

Culver’s foot caught in a tangled clump of grass, threw him off balance, gave Perkins the chance that he had been awaiting. Culver sensed the smashing fist rather than saw it, got his elbow up, but only partially blocked it. It skidded along his forearm and exploded on his jaw.

Perkins’ right was coming in again and he ducked against it, slammed up blindly with his left. He felt his fist strike yielding flesh and sink into it with a hollow thud. Then Perkins’ blow connected and jarred him to his toes. Culver’s right worked automatically, lashing out with a desperate strength.

Perkins’ head was a punching bag swaying in the mist … a head that bobbed and tossed. Culver stepped close and swung his left and the head snapped over, rocking on the neck. Culver’s right came up, a blow that started from boot-top level, that gained speed as it came, that had the hunched, pivoting power of 180 pounds of bone and muscle behind it.

The head was gone and Culver did not know where he was, for the head had been all that he had to go by. He raised one of his hands and ran it across his eyes, stared at the flaming wreckage of the Crystal Bar. Perkins was a dark shape on the ground, a twisted, battered shape.

Culver felt a hand upon his arm and turned around. It was Nancy Atwood. He lifted a hand and ran it across his mouth, wiping off the blood that trickled from a battered lip.

“Here,” she said and he saw that she was holding a six-gun.

Numbly he reached out and took it, thrust it in the waistband of his trousers.

“Where did you get it?” he demanded.

“I picked it up,” said Nancy. “It was the one he dropped when you hit him. I was trying to—”

He gasped. “You mean you were trying to shoot Perkins.”

She nodded, half sobbing. “But you were always in the way. I was afraid of hitting you.”

He lifted an awkward arm around her shoulder, drew her close. “You’re all right,” he said, thickly.

She looked up into his face. “What’s it all about, Grant?”

He told her briefly, quickly. “They killed Mark for his money. My money. The money he had in his belt. Killed him and buried him at night, somewhere in the hills. And it’s not the only case. There have been others like it. Men killed, men robbed and cheated.

“The river was dying,” he said. “Fewer boats were traveling and the passenger lists were thinner. Mark and I figured we ought to move to fresher fields and so he came out ahead to look them over. Headed for here first because we’d heard Gun Gulch was a good town.”

He shivered in the rising wind of dawn.

“Let’s go back to the hotel,” said the girl. “Bob will be wondering what it’s all about and a little soap and water wouldn’t hurt your face.”

Side by side they walked across the vacant lot toward the sidewalk.

The fire in the Crystal Bar had almost burned itself out, but the street still rang with turmoil. Horses, freed from the livery stable, moved like ghosts in the first gray light of dawn. Culver stared over his shoulder at the smouldering ruins of the Crystal Bar and a faint, grim smile tugged at his lips. I didn’t do it deliberately, he told himself, but I sure paid Hamilton off for a part of what he did.

Nancy stopped short, clutching Culver’s arm. “Look, Grant. That man out there. What are they doing to him?”

Culver stared at the circle of men standing in the muddy street, shouting at the man they had thrust onto a wagon box. Even from where he stood, he could see the rope around the man’s neck and the deathly, twisted pallor that sat upon his face.

“You get back to the hotel, quick,” he snapped at the girl.

With swift strides he crossed the vacant lot, stepped onto the sidewalk. From the opposite side of the street a bull voice bellowed. “Somebody start getting them horses. We ain’t got all night to waste.”

Another voice laughed. “Hold onto your shirt, Mike. It’s almost morning now.”

Culver reached out and tapped the shoulder of the man who stood in front of him. “What’s going on?” he asked.

The man turned around and Culver saw that it was Jake, the printer.

Jake spat deliberately into the mud before he answered. “We’re going to hang the lousy son,” he said. “Just as soon as we round up some horses to take him out where we can find a tree, we’re going to string him up. Got to do something to convince folks around here it ain’t healthy to go out and burn down other people’s property.”

He spat in the mud again. “Course, no one gives a damn about the Crystal Bar, but it’s a menace, that’s what it is. That fire might of spread to the livery barn. Might have burned down half the town. The boys worked hard to save it and they ain’t in no mood for shilly-shallying.”

Culver sucked his breath in sharply. “You mean you figure that fellow set the fire?”

“Set it or had someone set it,” said Jake. “Logical man to do it. Hated Hamilton’s guts, he did. Feller I was telling you about. Barney Brown, over at the Golden Slipper.”

“But you aren’t giving him a chance,” protested Culver. “You should have a trial. Let him have a say about this hanging business.”

“Hell,” Jake said, disgustedly, “he’d deny he done it. Stands to reason he would. Him and Hamilton was fixing for a showdown and Barney got the jump on Hamilton, that’s all. Other way around, if the Golden Slipper had burned down, we’d hang Hamilton.”

Culver lifted his head, stared at Barney Brown. The man was scared clean through. Standing there in the wagonbox with the rope around his neck he suddenly was pitiful. His waistcoat was unbuttoned and his cravat fluttered in the wind. His hand came up nervously and clutched the rope that hung around his shoulders, then jerked away as if his fingers had touched a red-hot iron.

The crowd roared with laughter and the bull-like voice jeered:

“Don’t like the feel of it, Barney? Just wait until we tighten it a little.”