Clifford Simak - New Folks' Home - And Other Stories

Above the sound of hoofs came another sound, the thump and rumble of swiftly rolling wheels, the clank and jangle of a bouncing wagon bed. Out of the darkness loomed a whiteness like a dancing ghost, a blooming whiteness that jigged and tapped a rigadoon. Straight for the creek it came, then swerved and lumbered along the bank.

“It’s them damn crowbaits of mine,” yelled Wicks. “Running away, by jingo! I would of swore they didn’t have it in them.”

Six-guns crashed wickedly across the creek and bullets chugged angrily into the ground and whistled through the grass where the three men crouched. But above the crash of guns, above the stamp and scream of frightened horses, above the thump of the running wagon, came another sound—a threadlike sound that wove its way between the other noises—the high-pitched singing of unwinding stands of wire.

“We just put on some new spools when we had to quit,” said Steve. “That there team is unraveling them at a right smart clip.”

The wagon swept past on the opposite bank, the two crowbaits humping like animals gone crazy, the spools spinning on the upright stringer improvised on the wagon box.

Crouched low, gun held between his knees, Cornish worked with his one good hand, clicking cartridges into the cylinder. To his left Wicks’ rifle churned with a steady rhythm, while down the creek, Steve slung a stream of lead into the swirling shadows.

Tumbling K guns answered back, spitting muzzles flickering like dancing fireflies in the star-lit night. Bullets ripped past with an angry sound, questing death winging through the dark, hissing in the grass.

Suddenly Wicks screamed and staggered upward, a bear-like figure fumbling on wilting knees. The gun dropped from his hand and rattled down the creek bank and Wicks, doubling over, plunged after it, hit the stream with a splash and lay there, a sprawled and misty figure against the starry gleam of water.

Cornish staggered down the creek bank, bent above Wicks’ huddled figure. Even as his good hand reached out to clutch him, Cornish knew that Wicks was dead, that there was no life in that limp-sack body. Sobbing in his throat, he hauled Wicks from the water, laid him on his back, straightened a knee that was bent beneath him. The man looked up at him out of vacant eyes that held the gleam of stars.

Steve came striding down the bank.

“They hit the wire,” he said. “Ran into it full tilt. That will hold them for a while.”

Cornish nodded dumbly. “I heard them hit,” he said.

He straightened up and saw that Steve was staring at the limp body sprawled on the sand.

“It’s Wicks,” said Cornish. “They got him just before they went into the fence.”

He passed a hand before his eyes. “Remember, Steve, you said there’d be blood upon the wire?”

A running horse came toward the creek, galloping wildly, then sheered off and went down the valley. Listening, the two in the stream bed could hear the empty slap-slap of flapping stirrups and they knew that the saddle of the running horse was empty.

A single rifle bellowed through the dark. An angry yell went up and a six-gun barked. The rifle answered back and another one joined in. Six-guns rattled and a man screamed, a racking scream that shuddered through the sky and ended in a gurgle.

“The nesters!” yelled Steve.

“It’s about time,” Cornish said, bitterly, “that they were buying in.”

Steve looked at him searchingly. “It means we’ve won,” he reminded Cornish.

Cornish nodded. Yes, it meant he’d won. It meant that the order would go back to Illinois and the eyes would pop out of the dried-up skull that was Jacobs’ face. It meant that wire would ring the valley and cut up the fields and pastures. It meant that the Tumbling K would have to settle down and be content with what it had instead of running wild on the lands of other men.

For with nester rifles backing up the fence, the Tumbling K was through. It had made its play and lost. Its hole card had been too low.

But curiously it didn’t matter, now. For Wicks was dead and blood was on the wire. Wire cost too much, he thought. All over the west it’s costing more than it may be worth. For every rod of fence is paid for in blood and lives. For fence is revolution and revolutions don’t come without someone getting hurt.

He heard the splashing in the water and turned, saw Steve wading out and climbing the opposite bank. He opened his mouth to call to him but the man was gone.

To the west, along the fence, the rifles growled and snarled and six-guns hammered with sudden hateful chatter.

Cornish turned slowly, walking away from Wicks, following Steve across the stream. Halfway across the creek he heard the running feet on the bank above him. Then the man was hurtling over the edge and plunging down the bank to hit the water with a soggy splash.

Sputtering and spitting water he struggled to his feet, stood knee-deep in the stream, staring straight at Cornish. Tall, angular—a giant looming in the night.

Cornish stared back, frozen.

“So it’s you!” rasped Titus.

His hand was pistoning for his belt as Cornish drove forward, forcing his body through the resisting water with a strength he did not know he had. Diving for the legs of the man before him.

Starlight flashed on the weapon as it cleared the holster and at that moment, Cornish hit—his good right shoulder ramming into Titus’ knees, arm wrapping around the boots and clamping tight with a vicious wrench.

The gun flamed in a crash of thunder as Titus went over, slamming against the bank.

Cornish flung himself forward, a snarl rising in his throat. Titus’ foot came up and back, then shot forward in a vicious jab. Cornish tried to duck, but he was too late. The driving boot caught him in the chest and set him reeling back, feet sliding.

Titus was crouching, hand groping blindly for the gun that had fallen from his grasp, making whining noises of haste and exasperation in his throat.

Cornish swept his own hand back to the waiting holster … and the gun was gone! The holster flapped empty at his side.

Cornish walked slowly forward, cautiously, fist ready.

Suddenly Titus’ body straightened.

Cornish brought his fist up fast, felt the jolt of it hitting flesh and bone, sensed the shiver that went through Titus’ body as the big man staggered back.

Cornish swung again and yet again, blows that started from his boot-tops and landed with an impact that made his arm a dead thing from the elbow down—blows that staggered Titus and kept him off his balance and drove him, step by step, ruthlessly and relentlessly, back toward the water.

It was not anger that drove Cornish—nor fear—nor confidence—but a plain and simple logic that it was his only chance, that he had to finish Titus fast or himself be finished.

Feet in the water, Titus tottered, hands clawing at the air in front of him, groggy with the blows that had battered at his body. Deliberately, mercilessly, Cornish aimed at his chin.

The blow smacked hollowly and Titus sank into the water with a splash.

Cornish let his arm fall to his side, felt the stinging of the cuts along his knuckles, felt the dull, dead ache that ran through the punished muscles.

“More blood for the wire,” thought Cornish, dully.

Slowly, painfully, he turned his back upon the stream and clambered up the bank.

Far to the west came the dull beat of hoofs, but otherwise than that the valley was silent. The guns were quiet and the men had gone. Tumbling K was beaten.

Cornish stumbled forward.

“Cornish!”

“Here I am,” he answered weakly.

He saw Molly coming through the gloom and stopped and waited for her.

From the look on her face and her outstretched arms, Cornish knew his fight had not been in vain.