The 18th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK ™: Jerome Bixby

by Jerome Bixby

  "A crazy galoot like that," I said slowly, "if he gets too damn nasty, is bound to get kilt." I hesitated. "Even in the back, if he's too good to take from the front."

  "Sure," Ben Randolph said. "Sooner or later. But what about meantime?... how many people will he have to kill before somebody gets angry or nervy enough to kill him? That's my job, Joe—to take care of this kind of thing. Those people he'd kill are depending on me to get between him and them. Don't you see?"

  * * * *

  I got up. "Sure, Ben, I see. I just wish you didn't."

  He let out another mouthful of smoke. "You got any idea what he meant about thinking his gun into his hand?"

  "Not the slightest. Some crazy explanation he made up to account for his sudden speed, I reckon."

  Another puff. "You figure I'm a dead man, Joe, huh?"

  "It looks kind of that way."

  "Yeah, it kind of does, don't it?"

  At four that afternoon Buck Tarrant came riding into town like he owned it. He sat his battered old saddle like a rajah on an elephant, and he held his right hand low beside his hip in an exaggerated gunman's stance. With his floppy hat over at a cocky angle, and his big eyes and scrawny frame, he'd have looked funny as hell trying to look like a tough hombre—except that he was tough now, and everybody in town knew it because I'd warned them. Otherwise somebody might have jibed him, and the way things were now, that could lead to a sudden grave.

  Nobody said a word all along the street as he rode to the hitchrail in front of the Once Again and dismounted. There wasn't many people around to say anything—most everybody was inside, and all you could see of them was a shadow of movement behind a window there, the flutter of a curtain there.

  Only a few men sat in chairs along the boardwalks under the porches, or leaned against the porchposts, and they just sort of stared around, looking at Buck for a second and then looking off again if he turned toward them.

  I was standing near to where Buck hitched up. He swaggered up the steps of the saloon, his right hand poised, his bulging eyes full of hell.

  "You tell him?" he asked.

  I nodded. "He'll look you up, like you said."

  Buck laughed shortly. "I'll be waiting. I don't like that lanky bastard. I reckon I got some scores to settle with him." He looked at me, and his face twisted into what he thought was a tough snarl. Funny—you could see he really wasn't tough down inside. There wasn't any hard core of confidence and strength. His toughness was in his holster, and all the rest of him was acting to match up to it.

  "You know," he said, "I don't like you either, Irish. Maybe I oughta kill you. Hell, why not?"

  Now, the only reason I'd stayed out of doors that afternoon was I figured Buck had already had one chance to kill me and hadn't done it, so I must be safe. That's what I figured—he had nothing against me, so I was safe. And I had an idea that maybe, when the showdown came, I might be able to help out Ben Randolph somehow—if anything on God's Earth could help him.

  Now, though, I wished to hell I hadn't stayed outside. I wished I was behind one of them windows, looking out at somebody else get told by Buck Tarrant that maybe he oughta kill him.

  "But I won't," Buck said, grinning nastily. "Because you done me a favor. You run off and told the sheriff just like I told you—just like the goddam white-livered Irish sheepherder you are. Ain't that so?"

  I nodded, my jaw set so hard with anger that the flesh felt stretched.

  He waited for me to move against him. When I didn't, he laughed and swaggered to the door of the saloon. "Come on, Irish," he said over his shoulder. "I'll buy you a drink of the best."

  I followed him in, and he went over to the bar, walking heavy, and looked old Menner right in the eye and said, "Give me a bottle of the best stuff you got in the house."

  * * * *

  Menner looked at the kid he'd kicked out of his place a dozen times, and his face was white. He reached behind him and got a bottle and put it on the bar.

  "Two glasses," said Buck Tarrant.

  Menner carefully put two glasses on the bar.

  "Clean glasses."

  Menner polished two other glasses on his apron and set them down.

  "You don't want no money for this likker, do you, Menner?" Buck asked.

  "No, sir."

  "You'd just take it home and spend it on that fat heifer of a wife you got, and on them two little halfwit brats, wouldn't you?"

  Menner nodded.

  "Hell, they really ain't worth the trouble, are they?"

  "No, sir."

  Buck snickered and poured two shots and handed me one. He looked around the saloon and saw that it was almost empty—just Menner behind the bar, and a drunk asleep with his head on his arms at a table near the back, and a little gent in fancy town clothes fingering his drink at a table near the front window and not even looking at us.

  "Where is everybody?" he asked Menner.

  "Why, sir, I reckon they're home, most of them," Menner said. "It being a hot day and all—"

  "Bet it'll get hotter," Buck said, hard.

  "Yes, sir."

  "I guess they didn't want to really feel the heat, huh?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Well, it's going to get so hot, you old bastard, that everybody'll feel it. You know that?"

  "If you say so, sir."

  "It might even get hot for you. Right now even. What do you think of that, huh?"

  "I—I—"

  "You thrun me outa here a couple times, remember?"

  "Y-yes ... but I—"

  "Look at this!" Buck said—and his gun was in his hand, and he didn't seem to have moved at all, not an inch. I was looking right at him when he did it—his hand was on the bar, resting beside his shotglass, and then suddenly his gun was in it and pointing right at old Menner's belly.

  "You know," Buck said, grinning at how Menner's fear was crawling all over his face, "I can put a bullet right where I want to. Wanta see me do it?"

  His gun crashed, and flame leaped across the bar, and the mirror behind the bar had a spiderweb of cracks radiating from a round black hole.

  Menner stood there, blood leaking down his neck from a split earlobe.

  Buck's gun went off again, and the other earlobe was a red tatter.

  And Buck's gun was back in its holster with the same speed it had come out—I just couldn't see his hand move.

  "That's enough for now," he told Menner. "This is right good likker, and I guess I got to have somebody around to push it across the bar for me, and you're as good as anybody to do jackass jobs like that."

  * * * *

  He didn't ever look at Menner again. The old man leaned back against the shelf behind the bar, trembling, two trickles of red running down his neck and staining his shirt collar—I could see he wanted to touch the places where he'd been shot, to see how bad they were or just to rub at the pain, but he was afraid to raise a hand. He just stood there, looking sick.

  Buck was staring at the little man in town clothes, over by the window. The little man had reared back at the shots, and now he was sitting up in his chair, his eyes straight on Buck. The table in front of him was wet where he'd spilled his drink when he'd jumped.

  Buck looked at the little guy's fancy clothes and small mustache and grinned. "Come on," he said to me, and picked up his drink and started across the floor. "Find out who the dude is."

  He pulled out a chair and sat down—and I saw he was careful to sit facing the front door, and also where he could see out the window.

  I pulled out another chair and sat.

  "Good shooting, huh?" Buck asked the little guy.

  "Yes," said the little guy. "Very fine shooting. I confess, it quite startled me."

  Buck laughed harshly. "Startled the old guy too...." He raised his voice. "Ain't that right, Menner? Wasn't you startled?"

  "Yes, sir," came Menner's pain-filled voice from the bar.

  Buck looked back at the little man—let his insolent gaze travel up and dow
n the fancy waistcoat, the string tie, the sharp face with its mustache and narrow mouth and black eyes. He looked longest at the eyes, because they didn't seem to be scared.

  He looked at the little guy, and the little guy looked at Buck, and finally Buck looked away. He tried to look wary as he did it, as if he was just fixing to make sure that nobody was around to sneak-shoot him—but you could see he'd been stared down.

  When he looked back at the little guy, he was scowling. "Who're you, mister?" he said. "I never seen you before."

  "My name is Jacob Pratt, sir. I'm just traveling through to San Francisco. I'm waiting for the evening stage."

  "Drummer?"

  "Excuse me?"

  For a second Buck's face got ugly. "You heard me, mister. You a drummer?"

  "I heard you, young man, but I don't quite understand. Do you mean, am I a musician? A performer upon the drums?"

  "No, you goddam fool—I mean, what're you selling? Snake-bite medicine? Likker? Soap?"

  "Why—I'm not selling anything. I'm a professor, sir."

  "Well, I'll be damned." Buck looked at him a little more carefully. "A perfessor, huh? Of what?"

  "Of psychology, sir."

  "What's that?"

  "It's the study of man's behavior—of the reasons why we act as we do."

  Buck laughed again, and it was more of a snarl. "Well, perfessor, you just stick around here then, and I'll show you some real reasons for people acting as they do! From now on, I'm the big reason in this town ... they'll jump when I yell frog, or else!"

  His hand was flat on the table in front of him—and suddenly his Peacemaker was in it, pointing at the professor's fourth vest button. "See what I mean huh?"

  The little man blinked. "Indeed I do," he said, and stared at the gun as if hypnotized. Funny, though—he still didn't seem scared—just a lot interested.

  * * * *

  Sitting there and just listening, I thought about something else funny—how they were both just about of a size, Buck and the professor, and so strong in different ways: with the professor, you felt he was strong inside—a man who knew a lot, about things and about himself—while with Buck it was all on the outside, on the surface: he was just a milksop kid with a deadly sting.

  Buck was still looking at the professor, as carefully as he had before. He seemed to hesitate for a second, his mouth twisting. Then he said, "You're an eddicated man, ain't you? I mean, you studied a lot. Ain't that right?"

  "Yes, I suppose it is."

  "Well...." Again Buck seemed to hesitate. The gun in his hand lowered until the end of the barrel rested on the table. "Look," he said slowly, "maybe you can tell me how in hell...."

  When he didn't go on, the professor said, "Yes?"

  "Nothing."

  "You were going to say—?"

  Buck looked at him, his bulging eyes narrowed, the gunman's smirk on his lips again. "Are you telling me what's true and what ain't," he said softly, "with my gun on you?"

  "Does the gun change anything?"

  Buck tapped the heavy barrel on the table. "I say it changes a hell of a lot of things." Tap went the barrel. "You wanta argue?"

  "Not with the gun," the professor said calmly. "It always wins. I'll talk with you, however, if you'll talk with your mouth instead of with the gun."

  * * * *

  By this time I was filled with admiration for the professor's guts, and fear that he'd get a bullet in them ... I was all set to duck, in case Buck should lose his temper and start throwing lead.

  But suddenly Buck's gun was back in his holster. I saw the professor blink again in astonishment.

  "You know," Buck said, grinning loosely, "you got a lotta nerve, professor. Maybe you can tell me what I wanta know."

  He didn't look at the little man while he talked—he was glancing around, being "wary" again. And grinning that grin at the same time. You could see he was off-balance—he was acting like everything was going on just like he wanted it; but actually the professor had beaten him again, words against the gun, eyes against eyes.

  The professor's dark eyes were level on Buck's right now. "What is it you want to know?"

  "This—" Buck said, and his gun was in his hand again, and it was the first time when he did it that his face stayed sober and kind of stupid-looking, his normal expression, instead of getting wild and dangerous. "How—do you know how do I do it?"

  "Well," the professor said, "suppose you give me your answer first, if you have one. It might be the right one."

  * * * *

  "I—" Buck shook his head—"Well, it's like I think the gun into my hand. It happened the first time this morning. I was standing out in the Pass where I always practise drawing, and I was wishing I could draw faster'n anybody who ever lived—I was wishing I could just get my gun outa leather in no time atall. And—" the gun was back in his holster in the blink of an eye—"that's how it happened. My gun was in my hand. Just like that. I didn't even reach for it—I was just getting set to draw, and had my hand out in front of me ... and my gun was in my hand before I knew what'd happened. God, I was so surprised I almost fell over!"

  "I see," said the professor slowly. "You think it into your hand?"

  "Yeah, kind of."

  "Would you do it now, please?" And the professor leaned forward so he could see Buck's holster, eyes intent.

  Buck's gun appeared in his hand.

  The professor let out a long breath. "Now think it back into its holster."

  It was there.

  "You did not move your arm either time," said the professor.

  "That's right," said Buck.

  "The gun was just suddenly in your hand instead of in your holster. And then it was back in the holster."

  "Right."

  "Telekinesis," said the professor, almost reverently.

  "Telewhat?"

  "Telekinesis—the moving of material objects by mental force." The professor leaned back and studied the holstered gun. "It must be that. I hardly dared think if at first—the first time you did it. But the thought did occur to me. And now I'm virtually certain!"

  "How do you say it?"

  "T-e-l-e-k-i-n-e-s-i-s."

  "Well, how do I do it?"

  "I can't answer that. Nobody knows. It's been the subject of many experiments, and there are many reported happenings—but I've never heard of any instance even remotely as impressive as this." The professor leaned across the table again. "Can you do it with other things, young man?"

  "What other things?"

  "That bottle on the bar, for example."

  "Never tried."

  "Try."

  Buck stared at the bottle.

  It wavered. Just a little. Rocked, and settled back.

  Buck stared harder, eyes bulging.

  The bottle shivered. That was all.

  "Hell," Buck said. "I can't seem to—to get ahold of it with my mind, like I can with my gun."

  "Try moving this glass on the table," the professor said, "It's smaller, and closer."

  * * * *

  Buck stared at the glass. It moved a fraction of an inch across the tabletop. No more.

  Buck snarled like a dog and swatted the glass with his hand, knocking it halfway across the room.

  "Possibly," the professor said, after a moment, "you can do it with your gun because you want to so very badly. The strength of your desire releases—or creates—whatever psychic forces are necessary to perform the act." He paused, looking thoughtful. "Young man, suppose you try to transport your gun to—say, to the top of the bar."

  "Why?" Buck asked suspiciously.

  "I want to see whether distance is a factor where the gun is concerned. Whether you can place the gun that far away from you, or whether the power operates only when you want your gun in your hand."

  "No," Buck said in an ugly voice. "Damn if I will. I'd maybe get my gun over, there and not be able to get it back, and then you'd jump me—the two of you. I ain't minded to experiment around too much, thank you."


  "All right," the professor said, as if he didn't care. "The suggestion was purely in the scientific spirit—"

  "Sure," said Buck. "Sure. Just don't get any more scientific, or I'll experiment on how many holes you can get in you before you die."

  The professor sat back in his chair and looked Buck right in the eye. After a second, Buck looked away, scowling.

  Me, I hadn't said a word the whole while, and I wasn't talking now.

  "Wonder where that goddam yellow-bellied sheriff is?" Buck said. He looked out the window, then glanced sharply at me. "He said he'd come, huh?"

  "Yeah." When I was asked, I'd talk.

  We sat in silence for a few moments.

  The professor said, "Young man, you wouldn't care to come with me to San Francisco, would you? I and my colleagues would be very grateful for the opportunity to investigate this strange gift of yours—we would even be willing to pay you for your time and—"

  Buck laughed. "Why, hell, I reckon I got bigger ideas'n that, mister! Real big ideas. There's no man alive I can't beat with a gun! I'm going to take Billy the Kid ... Hickock ... all of them! I'm going to get myself a rep bigger'n all theirs put together. Why, when I walk into a saloon, they'll hand me likker. I walk into a bank, they'll give me the place. No lawman from Canada to Mexico will even stay in the same town with me! Hell, what could you give me, you goddam little dude?"

  The professor shrugged. "Nothing that would satisfy you."

  "That's right." Suddenly Buck stiffened, looking out the window. He got up, his bulging blue eyes staring down at us. "Randolph's coming down the street! You two just stay put, and maybe—just maybe—I'll let you live. Professor, I wanta talk to you some more about this telekinesis stuff. Maybe I can get even faster than I am, or control my bullets better at long range. So you be here, get that?"

  * * * *

  He turned and walked out the door.

  The professor said, "He's not sane."

  "Nutty as a locoed steer," I said. "Been that way for a long time. An ugly shrimp who hates everything—and now he's in the saddle holding the reins, and some people are due to get rode down." I looked curiously at him. "Look, professor—this telekinesis stuff—is all that on the level?"