Clifford Simak - New Folks' Home - And Other Stories

“You better go,” Molly said to Cornish. “All the others feel the same way my father does. The only way to keep the peace along the Cottonwood is to get along without your wire.”

“Jim Titus decided that for you,” Cornish told her, bitterly.

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.

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?”