Clifford Simak - The Thing in the Stone - And Other Stories

The rifle barked again and rock splinters flew from the cliff wall just above Betz’ shoulder, while the bullet howled into the sky, tumbling end for end.

Betz ducked swiftly and was gone, back along the trail. Parker stood, gun in hand, staring foolishly.

Luke’s voice chattered at him suddenly: “Clint, you recognize that gun! That’s the old .45-70! The old man’s out there, backing us!”

Another rifle rattled, three quick shots, flat, cracking, spiteful sounds. The .45-70 talked back.

Luke was running for the ledge.

Parker turned swiftly to Ann.

“Quick,” he told her, “get into the cave—and stay there.”

His left hand dipped to his belt, hauled out the second gun, thrust it at her.

“Use it if you have to.”

Swinging around, he raced after Luke—but Luke already had disappeared.

From far below a rifle spanged and a sixgun answered. The .45-70 was silent.

Running swiftly, bent forward, Parker left the cliff wall behind him, reached the tangled land that plunged down toward the canyon. Ahead of him a tiny puff of smoke plumed from behind a tree and a rifle hammered.

Diving off the trail, Parker slung a quick shot at the tree, then was skidding through the underbrush, driving deep beneath it in a flying, feet-first plunge.

The rifle churned and bullets clawed savagely at the bushes beneath which the sheriff lay. Body pressed tight against the ground, with the smell of leaf mold in his nostrils, he lay unmoving and watched the tree through the net of branches.

The canyon was quiet—no sign of the men who skulked through rocks and bushes to kill or be killed. No sign of the hidden, waiting guns. Somewhere a bird sang to the morning and far overhead the sun’s first rays were painting the cliff tops.

Parker clutched the sixgun savagely. Everything had been going well—too well, he told himself. And now a thing like this would happen. Egan dead at the foot of the cliff—the one man who could have cleared Luke of the charge against him. Egan, with his hands tied behind him, falling from the ledge, falling to the rocks and trees below—killed by Betz as surely as if Betz had fired a bullet through his head.

And now—odds of five to one or more. Two sixguns and a rifle in an old man’s shaky hands against a band of well armed men. Men who had to kill or be exposed for what they were. Men who would let nothing stop them …

Down the trail a sixgun hammered rapidly, shots rolling together until they seemed to be one long rattle.

The shots cut off and silence came again.

Parker let his breath out slowly.

His lips moved soundlessly. “One,” he said.

Luke had gotten his man, for there had been no answering shot. But a man couldn’t keep on doing that, couldn’t keep on killing without being killed himself.

Something moved beside the tree beyond the bushes, a dark thing against the dark green of the shaded brush. Tensed, Parker watched. The dark thing projected farther and there was a sullen gleam, the gleam of light on steel.

Parker sucked in his breath, slowly raised the sixgun. The glinting thing was a rifle barrel and that dark projection would be the elbow of the man who held it.

His finger tightened on the sixgun trigger and the hammer eased back slowly. Then the gun leaped in his hand and a man sprang, howling, from behind the tree. The rifle struck the ground and slid slowly down the slope and the man was running, left hand holding the elbow of his right arm.

Parker’s wrist bucked to the impact of the coughing gun and out on the canyonside the man was folding up, folding and falling as he ran, knees bending beneath him, feet scuffing in the leaves. Slowly he pitched forward upon his face and rolled.

On the hillside above Parker a rifle clamored, hacking and spitting and the whistle of lead hissing through the bushes above him was like the sound of a sudden summer thunder storm.

Breath caught in his throat, Parker squirmed away, crawling on his belly.

Another rifle caught up the chuckle where the other one left off, chattered and yammered. The bushes swayed and rippled and leaves cut by the storming bullets fluttered down on Parker’s back.

Parker’s throat was dry, dry with sudden fear.

Two rifles bearing on him, others sneaking up, attracted by the sound of shooting and closing in on him.

A voice came to him through the underbrush.

“Better come out, sheriff.”

He hugged the ground, red fury in his brain.

“Come out,” said Betz’ voice, “or we’ll open up. We’ll chop you all to hell.”

He can’t see me, Parker told himself. He can’t see me or he’d have me shot. It’s just a trick. A trick to make me move and tip off where I am.

One bullet plowed ground not six inches in front of Parker, throwing a shower of dirt into his face. Another clipped his hat with a tearing sound as it ripped through the cloth. Something stung his left leg.

Up the hillside a man was screaming and a sixgun was talking in jerky, tortured bursts of sound.

A sixgun! That would be Luke!

Parker came to his feet, lowered his shoulders like a battering ram, charged through the brush, heading for the sixgun sound.

A rifle chugged, but the shot was wide and Parker kept on going, scrambling up the hill in leaping bounds that sent loose rocks clattering down the slope.

The sixgun was silent and the man who had screamed was moaning, moaning and sobbing somewhere among the trees.

A woman’s shrill cry rang out: “Clint … Clint!”

And then choked off, as if a hand had come across her mouth.

Breath sobbing in his throat, Parker leaped toward the sound. A rifle chortled and whining lead sang above his head.

He stumbled, bursting through a screen of brush, and there before him was Ann—Ann in the grip of one of the Turkey Track riders, an arm tight around her waist, holding her in front of him while he backed away.

At the sight of Parker the man’s arm came up and the gun exploded in a belch of fire and smoke. Parker jerked to the impact of the bullet as it scraped along his side.

Ann was struggling, fighting, eyes wide, lips tight and straight.

Parker jerked up his gun and as the girl bent forward, straining to break the grip of the arm around her, he pressed the trigger.

Ann stumbled forward, falling to her knees as the arm relaxed and towering over her, his throat ripped out by Parker’s bullet, the man stood for an instant like a graven statue and then fell backwards, crashing like a falling tree.

Parker spun around, sixgun ready. Figures were storming up the hill, swiftly plunging forms moving from one tree to the next. The sheriff’s sixgun hammered and down on the hillside a man spun in midstride, went rolling down the slope.

A rifle barked in steady tones and Parker felt the wind of winging death whisper past his cheek. Bullets chunked into the rising ground behind him.

He swung around and saw Ann running for a nest of boulders. He whipped two quick shots at the barking rifle and then the hammer clicked on an empty shell.

The girl was calling to him: “Quick, Clint—quick.”

Bullets plowed the ground around him as he ran, but he reached the boulders, flung himself behind them, lay listening to the howl of ricocheting lead screaming off the rock.

A hand reached out and touched him.

“Clint, you all right …”

He stormed at her. “You little fool! I told you to stay back in the cave!”

“But they were shooting at you and I had the gun.”

He sat up and fed cartridges into his Colt.

“Where’s the gun you had?” he asked.

Her voice shook a little. “I dropped it.”

On his knees, he stared across the little space that separated them, saw the tremble of her lip.