Clifford Simak - Grotto of the Dancing Deer - And Other Stories

From where he stood Packard could see the white imprint of Pinky’s hand across her face and he moved one foot forward, then brought it back. By sheer power of will, he held himself against the tree, willed his body rigid while the flame of hatred and rage ate through him like a fire.

It wouldn’t do him any good, he knew, to try another lunge. Marks was waiting, watching him, with a grin behind his beard. Marks would like to have him try to reach Pinky or the girl.

“Next time,” said Pinky, savagely, “I’ll break your neck.”

He swung on his heel and looked at Hurley, a scowl twisting at his face.

“Hurley,” Pinky said, “you better talk. And make it fast and straight.”

Hurley didn’t talk. He moved. One second he was facing Pinky, hands dangling at his side and the next he was plunging for the gun that Sylvester had twisted from his grasp. In a single leap he was beside it, stooping over, scooping it up in a lightning motion.

Pinky’s arms pistoned and his guns struck fire in the noonday sun as they came whispering from leather.

At point blank range the guns roared fire and smoke, the three reports blending into one. The handkerchief around Pinky’s throat whipped suddenly as if struck by a tiny gale and out in the sunlight Hurley was tipping over, twisting awkwardly to keep his feet.

His gun slipped from his fingers and feebly he clawed at it, trying to pick it off the ground while his hand was far above it. Then, gently, almost as if he meant to do it, he toppled over and lay huddled on the grass.

Pinky stood on spraddled legs, watching Hurley fall, then calmly tucked the smoking guns back into his belt and turned his back on Hurley’s body.

His face was almost pleasant as he spoke to Packard. “I guess,” he said, “you won’t have time for that smoke, after all.”

He nodded to Marks. “Haul away.”

“Cripes,” protested Marks, “you don’t expect me to do it all alone. Packard there weighs close to a couple of hundred!”

“Pop,” ordered Pinky, “go lend Marks a hand.”

Pop rose slowly to his feet, ambled forward.

Packard straightened, tense against the tree, thoughts racing in his brain. He was going to be hanged. Run up by a brawny bearded man and a shriveled oldster while a man called Pinky stood to one side and watched.

And there wasn’t a thing he could do about it … not a thing.

Pop was grumbling. “Hell, why don’t you shoot him, Pinky. This here is too much work.”

“Just a minute,” said a voice and Packard twisted his neck, saw Sylvester standing almost at his elbow. Sylvester had pushed his hat on the back of his head and both his guns were out.

Pinky stared. “Now what?” he demanded. “Can’t a fellow hang a man without all the hoorah that’s been going on here?”

“Possibly,” said Sylvester, conversationally. “But you aren’t going to do it, Pinky. Right now, you aren’t hanging anyone at all.”

Pinky’s face twisted with sudden, violent rage and his hand twitched up. The gun in Sylvester’s left hand leaped and spat and Pinky screeched as the bullet smashed his wrist.

Out of the corner of his eye, Packard saw Pop and Marks going for their guns, Sylvester twisting on his heel to meet them. Marks, he saw, had dropped the rope. This was his chance.

Packard lowered his head, hunched his one good shoulder, drove with all the power that was in his legs. Above him he heard the soft hiss of the rope running across the limb.

He felt his shoulder and lowered head crash into yielding flesh, felt the lance of pain that knifed through his shattered arm and other shoulder. Then Pinky was going over, backwards, and Packard was staggering, spread-legged above the outlaw leader floundering on the ground.

A spurred boot lashed up at him and Packard danced out of the way, drove in again, hurling himself upon the outstretched body of the man, his right hand spread wide, aimed at the naked throat.

He felt the softness of the throat beneath his fingers and his fingers closed with a vise-like viciousness while a dull and spreading anger glowed within his brain.

Beneath him, Packard sensed that Pinky was clawing for a gun, blindly groping with his uninjured left hand for a weapon in his belt. Savagely he hauled upward on the throat within his grasp as if he meant to tear it out and then crashed it back to earth again with all the power that was in his driving muscles. Pinky’s head sounded like a breaking egg and it bounced and rolled sidewise sickeningly as it hit the ground.

But still Packard’s fingers held their grip, dug deeper as he remembered the marks of a hand across Alice Page’s face.

Behind him he heard the roar and crash of six-guns, but there was a thunder in his brain that drowned out all other sound. He felt himself tipping forward, felt a cloud of red mist move in through his eyes and swirl within his head.

His fingers loosened and his hand fell off the throat and he was crawling blindly, like a dog on hands and knees.

“Get up, man!” a voice screamed at him and he staggered to his feet, stood swaying while his vision cleared. He shook his head and saw Sylvester standing before him, while behind Sylvester loomed a white and misty face that he knew was Alice Page’s.

Sylvester dabbed at his face with a hand and Packard saw that the hair and one side of his face was thick with blood where a bullet had barked him.

Marks lay upon the ground, arms outspread above his head, a red streak soaking through his coal-black beard. Pop Allen sat with his back against a tree and held both hands to his side. Like a kid, thought Packard. Like a kid that’s eaten green apples and has the belly ache.

Sylvester’s face came into sharper focus and Packard spoke to it.

“Mister,” he said, “I’m still wondering what it’s all about.”

“I thought you guessed,” Sylvester told him. “I thought that you knew when you found out about my eye.”

“I knew there was something wrong,” confessed Packard, “but I couldn’t figure it.”

“I’m an insurance dick.”

“Come again?” said Packard.

“An insurance detective. Randall, you see, was working it both ways. He was insuring gold that he shipped out on the stage. Then he’d hold up the stage and get the gold. Then he’d soak us for insurance money.”

Sylvester mopped at his face again, left finger-streaks of red across his cheek.

“We better be getting out of here,” he said. “Get that rope off your neck. Miss Page will fix your shoulder while I catch up some horses.”

“Would you mind,” asked a voice, “staying just a while?”

They whirled, the three of them, stared at the man who sat the big bay horse just at the tiny clearing’s edge. A man in black broadcloth and a fawn-colored vest above which was bunched a white silk cravat. A diamond flashed in the sunlight as the man held the six-gun on them.

“It would seem,” said Randall, “that I have the drop on you. Better shuck those guns, Sylvester, and walk away from them.”

Slowly, Sylvester unbuckled his belt, let it drop to the ground. With his gun, Randall motioned them away.

He chuckled, watching them. “Too bad,” he said. “You almost got away with it.”

“Maybe they didn’t get away with it this time,” said Alice Page. “Maybe these two men may never get away with it. But sometime someone will. You can’t go on forever.”

Randall tipped his hat, but his gun still was unwavering in his hand. “How right you are, Miss Page,” he said. “And now if you’ll just walk away and turn your back …”

“Always a gentleman,” said Packard, bitterly. “You wouldn’t for the world shoot a man in front of a woman’s eyes.”

“Of course not,” said Randall. “There are certain social graces that cannot be ignored.”