Clifford Simak - No Life of Their Own And Other Stories

“Yes, there’s that,” said Charley.

They sat silent for a moment. Finally Charley asked, “You got any idea, Joe, when they’ll end this tour? It’s been going for a month. That’s the longest so far. The kids won’t know me when I get home if it isn’t soon.”

“I know,” said Joe. “It’s tough on a family man like you. Me, it doesn’t matter. And I guess it’s the same with Al. How’s it with Jack? I don’t know him well. He’s a man who never talks. Not about himself.”

“I guess he’s got a family somewhere. I don’t know anything about it, just that he has. Look, Joe, would you go for a drink? I have a bottle in my bag. I could go and get it.”

“A drink,” said Joe, “is not a bad idea.”

The telephone rang and Charley, who had started for the door, stopped and turned around.

“It might be for me,” he said. “I called home a while ago. Myrt wasn’t there. I asked little Charley to have her call. I gave both room numbers, just in case I was here.”

Joe picked up the phone and spoke into it. He shook his head at Charley. “It’s not Myrt. It’s Rosy.”

Charley started for the door.

Joe said, “Just a minute, Charley.”

He went on listening.

“Rosy,” he finally said, “you are sure of this?”

He listened some more. Then he said, “Thanks, Rosy. Thanks an awful lot. You stuck out your neck calling us.”

He hung up the phone and sat, staring at the wall.

“What’s the matter, Joe? What did Rosy want?”

“He called to warn us. There is a mistake. I don’t know how or why. A mistake is all.”

“What did we do wrong?”

“Not us. It’s Washington.”

“You mean about Ernie. His civil rights or something.”

“Not his civil rights. Charley, he isn’t curing people. He is killing them. He’s a carrier.”

“We know he is a carrier. Other people carry a disease, but he carries—”

“He carries a disease, too. They don’t know what it is.”

“But back there in his old neighborhood, he made all the people well. Everywhere he went. That is how they found him. They knew there must be someone or something. They hunted till they—”

“Charley, shut up. Let me tell you. Back in his old neighborhood they’re dying like flies. They started a couple of days ago and they still are dying. Healthy people dying. Nothing wrong with them, but they’re dying just the same. A whole neighborhood is dying.”

“Christ, it can’t be, Joe. There must be some mistake …”

“No mistake. It’s the very people he made well who are dying now.”

“But it doesn’t make sense.”

“Rosy thinks maybe it’s a new kind of virus. It kills all the rest of them, all the viruses and bacteria that make people sick. No competition, see? It kills off the competition, so it has each body to itself. Then it settles down to grow and the body is all right, because it doesn’t intentionally harm the body, but there comes a time …”

“Rosy is just guessing.”

“Sure Rosy is just guessing. But it makes sense to hear him tell it.”

“If it’s true,” said Charley, “think of all the people, the millions of people …”

“That’s what I’m thinking of,” said Joe. “Rosy took a chance in calling us. They’ll crucify him if they find out about the call.”

“They’ll find out. There’ll be a record of it.”

“Maybe none that can be traced to him. He called from a phone booth out in Maryland somewhere. Rosy’s scared. He is in it up to his neck, the same as us. He spent as much time with Ernie as we did. He knows as much as we do, maybe more than we do.”

“He thinks, spending all that time with Ernie, we might be carriers, too?”

“No, I guess not that. But we know. We might talk. And no one can talk about this. No one will be allowed to talk about this. Can you imagine what would happen, the public reaction …”

“Joe, how long did you say Ernie spent in that neighborhood of his?”

“Four or five years.”

“That’s it, then. That’s the time we have. You and I and all the rest of us, maybe have four years, probably less.”

“That’s right. And if they pick us up, we’ll spend those years where there won’t be any chance of us talking to anyone at all. Someone probably is headed here right now. They have our itinerary.”

“Then let’s get going, Joe. I know a place. Up north. I can take the family. No one will ever think of looking.”

“What if you’re a carrier?”

“If I’m a carrier, my family has it now. If I’m not, I want to spend those years—”

“And other people …”

“Where I’m headed there aren’t many people. We’ll be by ourselves.”

“Here,” said Joe. He took the car keys out of his jacket pocket and tossed them across the room. Charley caught them.

“What about you, Joe?”

“I have to warn the others. And, Charley …”

“Yeah?”

“Ditch that car before morning. They’ll be looking for you. And when they miss you here, they’ll watch your family and your home. Be careful.”

“I know. And you, Joe?”

“I’ll take care of myself. As soon as I let the others know.”

“And Ernie? We can’t let him—”

“I’ll take care of Ernie, too,” said Joe.

Cliff Simak’s journals do not mention a story named “Cactus Colts.” I suspect that it is the one named “Boothill Brothers Talk with Bullets”—an ugly title, but that kind of thing was common in the pulp westerns of those days. But I am not too confident of that conclusion due to a discrepancy in dates. At any rate, “Cactus Colts,” which first appeared in Lariat Story Magazine ’s July 1944 issue, is shorter than most of Cliff’s westerns, meaning that it’s a terse, taut creation.

Jeff Jones stumbled when a loose board on the steps in front of the Silver Dollar buckled beneath him. Snarling huskily, he reached out and grabbed a porch post to save himself from falling. Savagely, he wrenched his foot free of the broken board and glanced around, waiting for the yell of laughter that would greet his stumble.

There was no laughter. There was no one to laugh. This Cactus City street drowsed dustily in the silent afternoon. The air was heavy with the heat, and the sunlight was something that came pouring from the molten bowl of sky, so brilliant it hurt one’s eyes. Jeff’s pony stood with drooping head beside the hitching post, the only living thing in sight.

Beyond the town marched the glassy plains, tan with sun-scorched grass.

Jeff strode across the narrow porch and through the batwing doors. For a moment he stopped, blinking in the shade that seemed almost like darkness after the sun-washed street.

A bartender, flour sack for an apron, mopped moodily. Three men were lined against the bar. At one of the tables a bearded drunk was sleeping. His battered hat had fallen from his head and lay canted on its brim.

Jeff moved to the bar and flipped a dollar down. The barkeeper set a bottle out and Jeff poured a drink. The liquor slashed down his throat, cutting the dust. His left cheek, the one with the scar, twitched nervously. He poured another drink.

A savage voice snarled behind him.

“Jones!”

Jeff spun around, hand to gun.

One of the men at the other end of the bar had stepped out into the room, stood spraddle-legged, hands above his butts.

Eyes still unadjusted from the blaze of sun outside, Jeff could not see the other’s face. It was no more than a smudgy blue of white. But there was no mistaking the meaning of the hands above those guns.

There was no time for thought, no space for wondering. Jeff’s mind clicked blank with sudden concentration, everything else wiped out but that spraddle-legged figure set for a double draw.