Clifford Simak - The Big Front Yard and Other Stories

Carson felt his gun buck against his hand, saw the look of surprise that came upon the other’s face, heard the blast of the single shot ringing in his ears.

The man out in the street was sagging, sagging like a slowly collapsing sack, as if the strength were draining from him in the dying day. His knees buckled and the guns, still unfired, dropped from his loosened fingers. As if something had pushed him gently, he pitched forward on his face.

For an instant more, the stillness held, a stillness even deeper than before. The man on the horse had reined up and was motionless, the scratching hen was a feathery statue of bewilderment.

Then doors slammed and voices shouted; feet pounded on the sidewalks. The saloon porch boiled with men. Bill Robinson, white apron around his middle, ducked out of the store. The barber came out and yelled. His customer, white towel around his neck, lather on his face, was pawing for his gun, swearing at the towel.

Two men came from the sheriff’s office and walked down the street, walked toward Carson, standing there, still with gun in hand. They walked past the dead man in the street and came on, while the town stood still and watched.

Carson waited for them, fighting down the fear that welled within him, the fear and anger. Anger at the trap, at how neatly it had worked.

The door slammed behind him and Jake was beside him, a rifle in his hand.

“What’s the matter, kid?” he asked.

Carson motioned toward the man lying in the dust.

“Called me,” he said.

Jake shifted his cud of tobacco to the north cheek.

“Dang neat job,” he said.

Sheriff Bert Bean and Stu Leonard, the deputy, stopped short of the sidewalk.

“You do that?” asked Bean, jerking a thumb toward the dust.

“I did,” admitted Carson.

“That bein’ the case,” announced Bean, “I’m placin’ you under arrest.”

“I’m not submitting to arrest,” said Carson.

The sheriff’s jaw dropped. “You ain’t submittin’ – you what!”

“You heard him,” roared Jake. “He ain’t a-going with you. Want to do anything about it?”

Bean lifted his hands towards his guns, thought better of it, dropped them to his side again.

“You better come,” Bean said with something that was almost pleading in his voice. “If you don’t, I got ways to make you.”

“If you got ways,” yelped Jake, “get going on ’em. He’s calling your bluff.”

The four men stood motionless for a long, dragging moment.

Jake broke the tension by jerking his rifle down. “Get going,” he yelled. “Start high-tailing it back to your den, or I’ll bullet-dance you back there. Get out of here and tell Fennimore you dassn’t touch Carson ’cause you’re afraid he’ll gun-whip you out of town.”

The crowd, silent, motionless until now, stirred restlessly.

“Jake,” snapped Carson, “keep an eye on that crowd out there.”

Jake spat with gusto, snapped back the hammer of the gun. The click was loud and ominous in the quiet.

Carson walked slowly down the steps toward the sidewalk, and Bean and Leonard backed away. Carson’s gun was in his hand, hanging at his side, and he made no move to raise it, but as he advanced the two backed across the street.

Quinn pushed his way through the crowd in front of the bank and strode across the dust.

“Carson,” he yelled, “you’re crazy. You can’t do this. You can’t buck law and order.”

“The hell he can’t,” yelped Jake. “He’s doing it.”

“I’m not bucking law and order,” declared Carson. “Bean isn’t law and order. He’s Fennimore’s hired hand. He tried to do a job for Fennimore and he didn’t get away with it. That man I killed was planted on me. You had Bean sitting over there, all ready to gallop out and slap me into jail.”

Quinn snarled. “You got it all doped out, haven’t you?”

“I’m way ahead of you,” said Carson. “You used a man that was just second-rate with his guns. Probably had him all primed up with liquor so he thought he was greased hell itself. You knew that I’d outshoot him and then you could throw a murder charge at me. Smart idea, Quinn. Better than killing me outright. Never give the other side a martyr.”

“So what about it?” asked Quinn.

“So it didn’t work.”

“But it’ll work,” Quinn declared. “You will be arrested.”

“Come ahead, then,” snapped Carson. He half-lifted the sixgun. “I’ll get you first, Quinn. The sheriff next –”

“Hey,” yelled Jake, “what order do you want me to take ’em in? Plumb senseless for the two of us to be shooting the same people.”

Quinn moved closer to Carson, lowered his voice. “Listen, Carson,” he said, “you’ve got until tomorrow to disappear.”

“What?” asked Carson in mock surprise. “No ten thousand?”

Jake scrubbed the back of his neck with a grimy hand, his brow wrinkled like a worried hound’s.

“You sure didn’t make yourself popular with the sheriff,” he declared. “Now he ain’t going to rest content until you’re plumb perforated.”

“The sheriff,” announced Carson, “won’t make a move toward me until he’s heard from Fennimore.”

“I’m half-hoping,” said Jake, “that Fennimore decides on shootin’. This circlin’ around, sort of growlin’ at one another like two dogs on the prod has got me downright nervous. Ain’t nothin’ I’d welcome more than a lively bullet party.”

Carson tapped a pencil on the desk. “You know, Jake, I figure maybe we won that election right out there on the street. Before tomorrow morning there won’t be a man in Rosebud County that hasn’t heard how Bean backed down. A story like that is apt to lose him a pile of votes. Fennimore can scare a lot of people from voting for Purvis, but this sort of takes the edge off the scare. People are going to figure that since that happened to Bean, maybe Fennimore ain’t so tough himself.”

“They’ll sure be makin’ a mistake,” said Jake. “Fennimore is just about the orneriest hombre that ever forked a horse.”

Carson nodded gravely. “I can’t figure Fennimore will take it lying down. Maybe you better sneak out the back door, Jake, and tell Lee Weaver, over at the livery barn, to do a bit of riding. Tell the boys all hell is ready to pop.”

“Good idea,” agreed Jake. He shuffled toward the back, and a moment later Carson heard the back door slam behind hm.

There was no question, Carson told himself, tapping a pencil on the desk, that the showdown would be coming soon. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow morning … but it couldn’t be long in coming.

Fennimore wasn’t the sort of man who would wait when a challenge was thrown at him, and what had happened that afternoon was nothing short of a challenge. First the refusal of the offer to buy the paper off, then the refusal to submit to arrest, and finally the bluffing that had sent Bean skulking back to the sheriff’s office.

In his right mind, Carson told himself, he never would have done it, never would have had the nerve to do it. But he was sore clear through, and he’d done it without thinking.

The front door opened and Carson looked up. A girl stood there, looking at him: a girl with foamy lace at her throat, silk gloves, dainty parasol.

“I heard what happened,” she said. “I came right down.”

Carson stood up. “You shouldn’t have,” he said. “I’m a fugitive from justice.”

“You should skulk,” she said. “Don’t all fugitives skulk?”

“Only when they are in hiding,” he said. “I’m not exactly in hiding.”

“That’s fine,” said the girl. “Then you’ll be able to eat with us tonight.”