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

Someone yelled, “Where are those damn horses.”

“Let’s grab hold of that wagon and take it out ourselves,” shouted someone else. “We got enough men here. We can do it easy.”

Culver felt revulsion twisting at his vitals. A pack of cowards, he told himself. A pack of wolves. Big and smart and loud-mouthed because there were a lot of them because they could do whatever they wanted to do with Barney Brown and no one would hurt them.

He raised his voice. “You gents got the wrong man,” he shouted at them.

Silence fell, a shocked and restless silence. Heads turned to stare at him.

A growl came from the crowd, a fierce angry sound. The voice of the pack that is being robbed of the deer it has pulled down.

Beyond the wagon a huge man was moving forward, lumbering through the sea of faces, and the crowd parted quickly to let him pass.

Motionless on the sidewalk, Culver stood and watched him come. Huge and hairy, massive of shoulder, with a bushy beard and hair that hung down his neck and curled upward in a drake’s tail above the collar of his heavy woolen shirt.

It was the man with the bull voice, he knew. The man who had shouted the loudest and angriest, who had jeered at Brown … the man the men called Mike.

Six feet away Mike stopped, stood with arms akimbo, staring up at Culver.

“You said something, stranger?” he asked and his voice was like a drum beating in the street.

“I said you had the wrong man,” said Culver. “I’m the one who set that fire.”

A murmur ran through the crowd and it stirred suddenly, then settled back again, like a pack of wolves.

“All right,” said Mike, “we’ll hang you instead of Brown.”

He took a slow step forward and the crowd surged into life. Angry voices spat screaming words at Culver and through the words he heard the splashing, sucking sound of feet moving through the mud.

From behind him, a cyclonic figure flung itself at Culver, coat flying in the wind. A hand reached out and snatched the six-gun from his waistband, brought it up. Culver’s hand flashed out to grasp the gun and the flare of the muzzle blast was a hot breath against his palm.

Out in the muddy street, Mike reeled back, bull voice bellowing, hand clapped to his right forearm.

The crowd stopped, stood stock-still, the angry words frozen in their mouths, boots rooted in the mud.

Culver’s fingers closed upon the gun, wrenched it away from Nancy Atwood.

“I thought I told you—” he began, but she interrupted him in a rush of tumbling words.

“You big lummox, you’d stand there and never stir, even when you had a gun. Can’t you see what would happen to you if you didn’t stop them?”

Her voice caught and broke and she stood on the sidewalk, huddled against the terror of the moment, hands pulling the coat tight around her body.

Culver hefted the six-gun in his hand, looked out over the crowd.

“You boys still want to hang me?” he asked, softly.

They did not stir or move.

Culver looked at Mike. The man looked back, hand still clutching his forearm, blood oozing out between his fingers.

“How about it, Mike?” asked Grant Culver.

The big man shifted his footing. “Maybe we were a bit worked up,” he said. “Maybe we should of asked if you had a reason for starting that fire.”

Culver grinned. “That’s more like it. You can’t hang a man legal without having a trial. I’m plumb ready to stand trial any time.”

A buzzing thing snarled past his ear and from the vacant lot came the coughing spang of a high-powered rifle.

Gun still in hand, Culver whirled around. The rifle coughed again and he felt the searing burn of the bullet as it spun across his ribs.

Out in the vacant lot Calvin Hamilton was running in great leaps toward a saddled horse by the hotel corner. Culver sprang forward, six-gun talking as he ran. Hamilton stumbled once, but regained his feet, ran on. With a yell, he vaulted into the saddle and the horse hammered out of sight behind the building.

Breath gasping in his throat, Culver rounded the hotel corner. From somewhere ahead a rifle hammered and he heard the whine of a heavy bullet passing overhead.

In the space between the hotel and barber shop swift hoofs pounded and a startled horse leaped out into the open.

“Whoa, boy!” Culver yelled.

Moving swiftly forward as the animal wheeled to run, Culver leaped desperately, caught the flying mane in a steel-trap grasp. His toes dragged for a moment as the horse sidled, then he sprang and the horse rose on its hind legs, fighting. Culver clung desperately, digging in his heels.

Then the horse was down again and running … running in the right direction. In the direction that Hamilton had taken.

No saddle, no bridle, just a horse. One of the horses that had been turned out of the livery barn when it had been feared that it might catch fire.

No bridle, but the horse was going in the right direction, angling from behind the buildings to come into the street, striking the trail that led out of town, running with driving legs spurred by surprise and fear.

Far up the trail, Culver could see Hamilton and his mount, hazy figures in the gray dawn light. Culver bent low along the horse’s neck, spoke soothing words aimed at the laid-back ears. If the horse only would keep going, perhaps he could handle him even without a bridle. Cuff his head to turn him in the right direction, kick him in the ribs in lieu of spurs.

He rode bent forward, the whistle of the wind a roaring in his ears punctuated by the pounding hoofbeats of the working legs beneath him.

Hamilton had disappeared in a dip in the trail, but he reappeared again. Culver strained his eyes. The man seemed closer than he had before. Hope rose in him.

“Maybe we can overhaul him, hoss,” he said. “Maybe you and I can do it.”

He reached for the waistband of his trousers, hauled out the six-gun. And even as he did it, a sudden thought struck him with paralyzing force. Perkins had fired the gun twice. Nancy had used it once. That had left three cartridges. Culver’s heart sank at the thought that came. How many times had he, himself, pulled the trigger when he ran across the vacant lot in pursuit of Hamilton?

With fumbling fingers, he spun the cylinder, gulped in relief. There was one live shell. He’d only used two shots back there in the vacant lot. But one shell! One bullet! One bullet against the bullets that Hamilton must carry in the heavy rifle!

The trial was rising into higher land, was becoming ever more twisted and tortuous than it had been before. To the left the land sloped up in jagged cliffs and rocky talus slides, with scrawny pines struggling for footholds, while to the right the ground plunged down in frozen anguish.

He was gaining on Hamilton. Culver knew. Each time the man reappeared after being hidden by an angle in the trail, he had lost ground. Once he swiveled in his saddle and raised the gun to his shoulder, but brought it down again without pulling the trigger.

Culver leaned downward, patted the horse’s neck. “Keep going,” he told him. “Keep on going.”

Up ahead a rifle roared and even as it did, Culver heard the spat of the heavy bullet hitting flesh. Beneath him the horse broke its gait and stumbled, front knees folding in mid-stride. The outstretched head pitched forward and Culver felt himself spin into the air.

On hands and knees, Culver dived for the side of the trail, forced his way into a sprawling clump of cedars that clambered over two tilted boulders. The rifle spanged again and the bullet pinged against one of the boulders, went howling into space.

Hugging the ground, Culver glanced toward the trail. The horse lay crumpled in the road, with a pool of blood darkening the wheel ruts. Hamilton, he knew, had deliberately shot the animal. Had gambled rifle against sixgun in a shoot-out on this rocky mountainside.