Clifford Simak - Dusty Zebra - And Other Stories

Even with the mask covering his face, you couldn’t mistake a jasper like Bob Custer, Steve told himself. Not with the jaunty angle to his hat, the tawny hair that refused to stay in place, the words he used …

“Take it easy, bub,” he’d said and those had been words that he had used before. Words that he had used when the two of them had ridden together before Burns took the job in Devil’s Gulch.

He had recognized Steve and had deliberately used that expression to keep his old partner from using his guns.

Sitting on the edge of the bed in his hotel room, Steve smoothed the faded letter on his knee, read the words again as the lamp on the little table guttered in the wind:

Dear Steve: If you ever figure on leaving Devil’s Gulch why not ramble this way. I got a spread in a nice, quiet valley and sure could use a partner again …

A nice, quiet valley! Well, maybe it had been, when Bob had written that letter, almost two years before.

Carefully Steve folded the letter, replaced it in his wallet and walked to the window. Dusk was falling over Skull Crossing and the orange and yellow glow of lighted windows ran along the street. The thump of boots upon the sidewalk came to Burns’ ears as he stood staring out of the window. A horseman galloped past and it seemed to Burns that he could smell the acrid dust the pony’s hoofs had raised in its haste.

If you ever figure on leaving Devil’s Gulch … Somehow, Bob Custer, even then, two years ago, must have known that the day would come when a man couldn’t go on living in a town where the ghosts of dead men walked in broad daylight. He knew even then that Steve would want to hang up his guns and get away from the constant whispering of, “That’s Steve Burns, he shot about fifty men—cleaned up Devils’ Gulch—he’s poison with a gun.”

“Good evening,” said a voice from the doorway and Burns swung from the window, saw the man leaning against the jamb.

“You the gent,” asked the man, “who perforated Kagel?”

Burns nodded, watching the man warily. A youngish fellow with slicked back hair and a bulldog pipe hanging from his mouth.

“I’m Humphrey,” said the man. “Jay Humphrey. Editor of the Tribune. Got the room just across the hall from you. Saw your door was open.”

“Glad to know you, Humphrey,” said Burns, but he didn’t try to make his voice sound as if he were.

“Understand your name is Burns,” said Humphrey. “Wouldn’t be Steve Burns, would you, from Devil’s Gulch?”

“That’s right,” Burns told him, tight-lipped. “You aren’t gunning for me, too?”

“Hell, no,” protested Humphrey. “I just record the news. I never try to make it.”

Burns hauled out his tobacco sack, started to build a smoke.

“Catch the bank robbers?” he asked.

Humphrey shook his head. “Egan came back with the posse just a while ago. The bandits got away into the hills. Osborne’s sorer than a boil.”

“Osborne the banker?” asked Burns.

“That’s correct,” said Humphrey. “Egan’s sending out to the Lazy K for help. Figures on taking everyone he can lay his hands on out into the hills tomorrow.”

Burns snapped a matchhead on his thumb nail, lit the smoke. “I can imagine that Osborne is sore,” he said. “The sheriff will never catch that gang, waiting until morning.”

He grinned at Humphrey. “You don’t sound too sore yourself. Must not have lost much money in the holdup.”

“Not a dime,” said Humphrey. “The only ones that had money in the bank were the Lazy K, Carson and old man Osborne himself. Rest of us just use the bank for borrowing.”

“High interest, I suppose,” said Burns.

“It isn’t interest,” Humphrey told him. “It’s highway robbery.”

He straightened from the door jamb. “Got to be going,” he said. “Got some work to do. Don’t suppose you’ll be riding with the posse in the morning?”

Burns hoisted his eyebrows. “Why should I? It’s no skin off my nose what happens to the town. I ride in peaceable and what happens to me? Someone tries to plug me.”

“Don’t blame you,” said Humphrey. “Drop into the office sometime. I got a bottle hid away for my friend.”

Burns stood in the center of the room, listening to the sound of the man’s feet going down the hall.

Humphrey had come for something. That, he knew, was certain. Some information. Something that he wanted to know. He hadn’t asked any questions, except about that Devil’s Gulch business and about riding with the posse. But that last had been a funny one. Men just passing through seldom rode with posses.

Humphrey couldn’t suspect that he knew Bob Custer…probably no one in town even suspected Custer had been involved in the holdup. And that only made the visit more senseless than ever.

Burns let smoke trickle from his nostrils, knitted his brow.

Funny, that Custer could be tangled with a bank gang. Never had a wild streak in him. Always wanting to stop somewhere and settle down.

Bob Custer and some other ranchers were driven out of the valley by a bunch of cow thieves that didn’t act the way cow thieves should act. Cow thieves as a rule don’t burn and kill. They gather them some critters and get the hell out as fast as they can go.

Custer took part in the holdup of a bank, but it was a funny sort of holdup. Not the way bank men ordinarily work. The bunch was too big for one thing and …

Burns jumped as the door creaked, hand reaching for his gun. But even as his fingers touched the grip, he stopped, frozen in astonishment.

A girl stood in the room, back against the door, hands behind her, looking at him with blue eyes that seemed to sparkle in the smoky lamplight.

“You Steve Burns?” she asked.

Burns nodded, staring at her. The faded levis she wore were splotched with dust and the sleeves of the blue work shirt were so long she’d turned up the cuffs. Brown hair spilled around her shoulders and her hat hung at her back by a thong around her throat.

“Bob Custer sent me,” she said quietly.

Burns rose slowly, fumbled his hat off his head and stood with it in his hand.

“I was figuring maybe that he would get in touch with me,” he said, “but I never thought he would send a girl.”

“I was the only one that could come. It would be too dangerous for any of the others. But no one would pay any attention to me. Probably wouldn’t even know me.”

Her eyes laughed at him. “Besides, I sneaked around in back after it was getting dark.”

“Look, miss,” pleaded Burns. “Maybe you would just slow up a bit and let me get it straight. About it being dangerous. About the bank robbery this…”

“That’s what Bob wants to talk to you about,” declared the girl. “He’s afraid you’ll think that he really is a bandit—that all of us are out robbing banks and shooting folks and…”

“You were doing a right good job of it today,” said Burns.

Her hand reached out and gripped his arm. “But don’t you see that’s what Bob wants to talk to you about. Wants to explain how we are hiding in the hills, fighting back against the men who drove us off our land.”

“Wait a second,” gasped Burns. “You mean that Carson, Osborne and the Lazy K were the ones who drove the ranchers out?”

“Only Carson, really,” the girl told him. “He’s the town boss here. Osborne plays in with him and Newman out at the Lazy K is just the foreman. Carson owns the ranch and uses it as a hideout for his gunslicks.”

“I should have guessed it,” Burns said, almost as if talking to himself. “I should have spotted it right off. The phoney story about the rustlers and the burning…”

Steps came rapidly along the hall and Burns, reaching out, pulled the girl away from the door, stepped toward it, hand reaching for a gun.