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

Culver grimaced. The odds were heavier than Hamilton could guess. With only one cartridge left in the six-shooter, he had virtually no chance at all. Up on the slope the rifle churned three quick shots and the bullets chunked wickedly into the cedar brake.

He’s trying to smoke me out, Culver told himself. Only thing to do would be to work up the hill to the left of Hamilton’s position, taking advantage of screening boulders and scrawny thickets of evergreen. Get above Hamilton so that he would have to come out. Culver surged to his feet and ran, bent low, zig-zagging, fighting his way up the debris-strewn slope.

Something slapped Culver in the shoulder and he was going over, plunging in a dizzy spin toward the jumbled rocks that lay under-foot. As if they did not belong to him, as if they were separate entities, he knew that his feet were fighting to hold him upright. But there was nothing they could do.

He reached out a hand and the hand fell limp. The fingers curled around a head-sized rock, curled and gripped and then slid off and sprawled upon the ground.

Hamilton got me, he thought. Got me just like he got Farson and Crip. Only this time he did it with his own hands instead of someone else’s. He’ll be coming out, figuring I am dead. Only he’ll probably come over to make sure and when he finds I’m not he’ll put another bullet into me.

Culver lay face down upon the rocks and felt their coolness through his clothing. Pretty soon, he thought, that shoulder will begin to hurt like hell. Only probably, by that time I will be dead. If I move now, I’m dead, for Hamilton must be walking up and he’ll have the rifle ready. To the right he heard the scrape of leather on rock and knew the man was coming. Why not use that cartridge? Why not take a chance? It wouldn’t be the first time. Back on the river they said that Grant Culver would take a chance on anything. On the flip of a card, on the trickle of two raindrops running down a window, on impossible chances with a gun … on almost anything.

“A mean man to tangle with,” they said, ”because he doesn’t give a damn.”

And why should he now? He was as good as dead. When Hamilton saw he still had life in him, he would blast it out with a bullet from the rifle.

Culver lay and listened to the crunch of feet, to the rattle of the stones that loosened and rattled down the hillside. Thirty feet away, thought Culver. Ten paces. I’ll let him come a little closer. He counted the steps. One, two, three, four … five paces now!

He tensed himself, wedged one toe against a rock, and then heaved upward, like a wounded bear rising on hind legs. His hand was moving for the gun sticking in his waistband, moving with the old precision, with the same detached efficiency which it always used.

Before him Hamilton had stopped, mouth open in astonishment, feet spread apart as if he’d frozen in mid-stride when Culver moved. But the rifle was coming up, the barrel a shining sweep of metal that pointed from the hip. Culver felt the six-gun come free and tilt upward in his fist. The rifle muzzle spit flame and smoke and a savage hand clutched at Culver’s shirt and twitched it viciously.

Triumph surged in Culver’s brain and his hand was sure. The six-gun bucked against his palm and the sound of its ugly bark echoed in his ears.

Out on the rocks, Hamilton stumbled forward, as if he had started to run and tripped. His hand came open and the rifle dropped and the man was pitching forward.

Culver let his gun-hand sag, stood and watched Hamilton hit the ground. A dawn wind came rustling up the hillside and stirred the cedar brakes. Hamilton was a huddled darkness on the rocks.

“Mark,” said Culver, “I guess I’ll go back to the river. This isn’t the kind of country for the likes of us.”

He stuffed the six-gun back into his waistband, staggered down the hill on unsteady feet. The shoulder was hurting now, aching with a pounding pain that hammered through his body.

From the trail below came the sound of hoofs. The boys from Gun Gulch, he thought, coming out to see what it’s all about. He reached the trail as they hammered up the slope.

Mike, the burly man Nancy had shot, was in the lead. A lump beneath his shirt sleeve betrayed a bandaged arm. Behind him was Jake, the printer, with about a dozen others. They pulled up, sat their horses in the trail, staring at him.

He shook his head at them. “Too late, gents,” he said. “You missed all the fun. Hamilton is up there.”

Mike chuckled in his beard. “Been having considerable fun yourself,” he said. “Looks like Hamilton might have pegged you.”

“He did,” Culver told him. “But I pegged him back.”

“Hang it, Mike,” snapped Jake, “don’t sit there gabbing. The man is all shot up. Let’s get him back to town.”

“Sure, sure,” agreed Mike. ”The lady will give us hell if we don’t get him back.” He ruffled his beard with a ham-like hand and chuckled. “First time I ever got shot by a woman, so help me.”

“We found Perkins out in the vacant lot,” said Jake, “and he spilled his guts. We’re going to string him up just as soon as we get back.”

“You mean there won’t be any trial for me?”

“No trial,” said Jake.

“Then,” said Culver, “I’ll be going down to the river. Not so exciting, maybe, but a whole lot healthier.”

“Look, stranger,” protested Mike, “we was just figuring how maybe you would stay here.”

Culver shook his head. “I’m a gambling man,” he told them. “My place is back on the boats again.”

“Always deal them straight?” asked Jake.

“Sure,” said Culver. “A man that can’t deal them straight and win had better quit the game.”

“Just the man we want,” said Jake.

“But—”

Mike interrupted. “Seems as how Brown figures on getting out of Gun Gulch. He’s offering the Golden Slipper for sale … real cheap.”

“The boys,” said Jake, “would like to have you run it. Long as they’re going to lose their money anyhow, they’d rather lose it honest.”

“If you’re a little short on cash,” Mike told him, “the boys will pass the hat.”

Culver laughed quietly. “Don’t see how I can disappoint you gents.”

Mike climbed off his horse. “Take it easy with that shoulder,” he said. “Up you go.”

“But you—”

“Hell,” growled Mike, “I take a long walk every morning, anyhow.”

He held up a massive paw and Culver took it, felt the smooth, hard grip.

“You better get going,” said Mike. “The little lady’s waiting for you.”

On September 9, 1957, Cliff Simak wrote in his journal that he was “Beginning to get interested in Baby Sitter plot,” but thereafter, he apparently had trouble with it. On September 27, he wrote, “Unable for some reason to finish Sitters. Came out wrong. May have to recast ending.” But then, on October 6, he wrote “Gold called, needed story”—so Cliff finished typing it and sent it off the next day; and it appeared in the April 1958 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction .

In later years, Cliff would describe the story as one that pleased him; but I keep wondering if it isn’t a sort of horror story.

The first week of school was finished. Johnson Dean, superintendent of Millville High, sat at his desk, enjoying the quiet and the satisfaction of late Friday afternoon.

The quiet was massacred by Coach Jerry Higgins. He clomped into the office and threw his muscular blond frame heavily in a chair.

“Well, you can call off football for the year,” he said angrily. “We can drop out of the conference.”

Dean pushed away the papers on which he had been working and leaned back in his chair. The sunlight from the western windows turned his silver thatch into a seeming halo. His pale, blue-veined, wrinkled hands smoothed out, painstakingly, the fading crease in his fading trousers.