“You’re a sight for sore eyes, lad,” Nate said. He caught himself but not quickly enough because Cory smiled bitterly:
“I sure must be a sight. I’ll admit that.”
“I meant you’re welcome to spend the rest of your days here. How’s your uncle?”
When Cory ignored the question Nate didn’t press it. He swung in beside them and the small talk back to the house was almost painful.
“The boys’ll take care of the animals,” Nate said at the gate. “I’ll see about rousting you up a steak about four inches thick.”
Cory slid from his goff. “Thanks, but they fed me already. If it’s all the same to you I’ll hit the tank for maybe twelve or fourteen hours. I’m done in.”
“Sure—sure. Come on in the house. You can have a back room and shut the door and sleep for a year.”
Nate Goodrow took his guest into the house. Ten minutes later he was back at the corral. The two men had finished with the goffs and were blowing like porpoises in the watering trough.
“Where’d you find him?” Nate asked.
Jimmy Clare blew water out of his nose and said: “He come up to Number Three cabin this morning—early. Woke me up. I opened the door and thought I was seein’ a walkin’ ghost. He said he was hunting for you and could I tell him where your place was. I told him he was standing on it. Said he knew you up north and had an invite. We gave him some grub and when Torky showed, we brought the kid on in.”
“Did he talk? Did he say anything?”
Clare was back in the trough. Sackey said: “Not much. Nothing at all about how he got beat to all hell and gone. Looks to me he must have been jumped by a gang, but he didn’t say nothing about that. Said he’d been riding practically day and night though, and from the looks of his goff he ain’t lying much.”
Nate rubbed at his bristly chin and walked slowly away. Had the kid been attacked on the way down? If he wasn’t going to talk, Nate was sure going to spend some time wondering. But there was something else. Nate had asked about John Balleau and Cory hadn’t answered. Was the boy just too tired to hear? Nate frowned over that one. He’d just have to wait a few hours to find out, that was all.
Goodrow went vaguely about his business.
When Cory awoke the house was dead still. The darkness told him that it was night. He wondered what time it was. He could have gone right back to sleep, but he was possessed of a terrible thirst. He got up and pulled on his pants and boots. He went softly through the house so as not to waken Goodrow, and out the back door.
A voice asked: “Feeling better son?”
It was Nate’s voice and the smell was from Nate’s pipe. The pipe glowed in the darkness.
“Yes, a lot better. I thought you were asleep.”
“I waited around. Figured you might perk up and maybe be hungry.”
“No—just thirsty. What time is it?”
“Little after midnight. I’ll walk out to the windmill with you.”
THEY STRODE along in silence until Nate said: “I asked about your uncle this morning but you were pretty tired. Guess you didn’t hear me.”
“I heard you.”
“You must not have felt like answering then.”
“No. I guess I didn’t. Uncle John is dead.”
“I’m right sorry to hear that, son.”
“He was killed by a deputy marshal named Dorken—Met Dorken—when they came to take our land.”
“You mean you lost your farm?”
“We lost it. Some kind of a fast shuffle on a loan. I don’t know what it was all about, but when they came, Uncle John got out the rifle. They shot him and he bled to death.”
The windmill was turning slowly, bringing a small stream of clear cold water into the storage tank. Nate slipped a valve handle and the water shot out into the horse trough. Cory drank thirstily from a tin cup.
Nate dragged on his pipe. “Mel Dorken, eh?”
“You know him?”
“Know of him. Hardly on speaking terms though.”
“Sure—you’d know who he is. He blinded a man in a fight back on the Marsport. I saw it.”
Nate’s voice sharpened. “You remembered him from that fight.”
“As soon as I saw him in a Ngania drinking hall one day.”
“Hmmm.”
Cory put down the dipper.
Nate said, casually. “I’ve been thinking of taking me a little trip north. Been needing a change.”
“Nate.”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want it that way.”
“What way?”
“I’ve got to fight my own battles. I’ve got to kill that man Dorken.”
“Well— I’ll admit he certainly needs killing.”
“When I left Ngania I broke a store window and stole two pyro-guns, Nate. I came down here to ask you to teach me how to use them.”
“You didn’t have to steal guns, boy. We’ve got plenty.”
“I know it, but somehow I had to steal those guns. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know. And they’re the guns I’ve got to use. Will you teach me?”
“A man should know how to defend himself. No reason why you shouldn’t pick up a little gun knowledge. But I’m getting old and kind of stiff. Not what I used to be.”
“If I get to be half as good as you are— I’ll be satisfied.”
“I could hold my own in a gun fight,” Nate conceded, “but I never ranked with the best because I had one thing missing.”
“What was that?”
“The love of a gun, boy. To rank with the top men you’ve got to have more than just skill and speed and even luck. You’ve got to love a gun and what it stands for. You’ve got to love to kill.”
“The way Dorken loves it?” Cory asked with bitterness.
NATE KNOCKED the dead ashes from his pipe: “That’s right, boy. You put two good men against each other and that’s when a split second counts. A shade of an advantage, and the man who doesn’t love to kill—who has an unconscious dread of seeing another man lose his life—won’t get that advantage. The split second goes to the born killer and all the top gun slicks—owl-hooters and lawmen alike—have got that love.”
“I’m living for just one thing, Nate—to kill Mel Dorken. If I couldn’t look forward to that, there’d be just nothing. I’d have no future.”
Nate sighed. “I hate to hear you say it, Cory. God knows you’ve got just cause, but I’d still rather hear you tell me you’ve walked away from it all and want to stay here and raise cattle with me and maybe someday own this place.”
“And I wish I could say it too—but I can’t.”
Nate dropped his arm around the boy’s shoulder. When he spoke his tone was brisk. “Come on back to the house. I’ll bet you can use some more sleep. Let’s get you back on your feet. Then we’ll talk about guns.”
Cory offered no explanation for his battered face and the sprawling purple bruise on his throat. Nor did Nate Goodrow make inquiries. He noticed that Cory winced under certain bodily movements. He thought: The lad was beaten up—beaten bad. I wonder if that was Mel Dorken’s work too? But it never occurred to him to make blunt inquiries.
Cory—for well over a month—conducted himself as though he had not a care in the world. He lounged in the sun, rode the range, and finally began swimming in the Canal. He took long trips, got acquainted with Nate’s men. His bruises faded swiftly. Within a month there was only a faintly dark area on his throat and his wiry body was free of aches and tender spots.
It was then that he brought out the two pyro-guns. Nate found him, one day, seated on the back porch, cleaning and oiling the weapons.
“No change in your ideas, eh son?”
Cory shook his head briefly. He said: “Nate—I’ve got a little money—not much—and these damn things need ammunition.”
Nate scratched his chin. “You know where the gun room is. There’s enough gun-food in there to stand off the Venusian army for six months. And don’t be talk
ing about money. The stuff ain’t much good down on these parts.”
“Thanks.”
“Hook ’em on, son.”
Cory got up and slid the guns into their leather. He hefted the pellet belt, put it around his middle and fastened the catch. Nate eyed him. moodily:
“You know what you’re doing, don’t you, boy?”
Cory looked up sharply and Nate went on: “With what you got in your mind, you just put on something that’s got to be closer than your underwear. From now on those guns will be pounding your legs at every step. Wherever you leave those guns you leave your life. Think the whole thing’s worth it?”
CORY SLID his hands over the steel and purple leather. He looked down at the ungainly bulges on his thighs.
“There’s no other way,” he said.
Nate retained his somber expression. He took twenty pellets from his own belt and poured them into Cory’s hand:
“Load ’em up.”
Cory broke one of the guns and fumbled pellets into holder. One dropped to the ground.
“There’s so much to learn,” Nate said, “and while your at it there’s no use skipping any. Now you take loading a gun. Nobody pays much attention to that but a fast load might save your life sometime. Get so you can do this.”
Nate pulled his gun and dumped the pellets into his palm. He shook them around for a moment and they lay in a line, lead forward, along a groove formed by his palm and fingers. He then tilted his hand over the holder of his gun and moved the hand in a circular motion:
“See? Just like little trained pigs.”
The pellets dropped swiftly into the cylinder and Nate snapped the gun shut. “You can load that way in fifteen seconds. Let’s see how you can shoot?”
Cory raised the two weapons—held them tilted skyward; he squinted toward the fence, selecting a post.
“Just use one. This two-gun stuff is way over-rated. No man alive can hit two different targets at the same time and no man can draw two guns as fast as he can draw one. Except as a spare that iron on your left leg is so much added weight.”
Obediently, Cory put the left gun away and fired three times at a fence post with the right one.
One side of the post was faintly seared.
“Missed by two feet. A natural squeeze pulls your shot to the left.” Nate faced the post and his right hand moved downward toward his leg—a smooth easy sweep of his arm. His fingers carressed leather and the gun was in his hand. The movement continued on in a backward arc, Nate’s wrist bent at an angle which leveled his weapon. The whine came just as the tip of the barrel cleared the leather—while his arm was still moving backward. The top half of the thronga post disappeared, and without breaking the sweep of his arm-movement, Nate reversed the arc and the gun went back into the clip. The whole operation completed as a single unit; draw—fire—return—a beautifully integrated muscular coordination that took approximately one second to complete.
“That’s not a fast draw,” Nate said. “I’m way out of practice and when I was in practice I wasn’t too fast. Facing a top gun-slick, I’d have been dead before my hand hit the butt. That’s a draw that will do for rattlesnakes and killing broken-legged animals but that’s about all. And if you’re too close to the rattler he’ll even beat you.”
Cory stared morosely at the post.
“A draw isn’t your problem though, son. You’ve got to learn to hit what you’re shooting at first. You start out with fence posts and you end up by tossing pebbles in the air. When you can hit the pebble, you can feel that your aim won’t let you down. Then start worrying about a fast pull.”
“There’s a lot to learn all right,” Cory said.
“AND REMEMBER this, son. There’s no such thing as the fastest gunman. That critter just doesn’t exist. But the woods are full of gun-slicks that are faster than each other, if you get what I mean.”
“I think I do.”
“Guns are strange things and it all adds up to this: No matter how swift you are—there’s a man somewhere that’s able to shoot quicker and, just as sure as fate, you’re going to meet him. Always remember that.”
“I’ll remember.”
Time went on, and Nate found himself to be strangely disturbed at the tenacity with which Cory worked—the deadly intent mirrored there in his eyes. If Nate had had any hope of the youth cooling down and abandoning his mania, that hope died as Cory pursued his dogged way.
The whine of the pyro-guns had grown so commonplace that even the animals in the corral no longer raised their heads or pricked up their ears.
Cory set up a target range behind the bunk house and slammed away at it with dogged persistence. When any of the hands used the day for sleep, he rode off toward the river.
Nate left the boy pretty much to himself-. Though viewing Cory’s ambition with sadness and misgiving, Nate would nonetheless have been willing to help and was willing at any time. But he sensed that Cory preferred to work out certain things for himself. Not that he didn’t accept the advice Nate gave—accept it most gratefully—but Nate sensed a drawing back, a desire for privacy, and the ex-scout did not intrude.
Cory could hit a pebble tossed into the air, now. He wore the two guns, but he used only one.
ANOTHER change was perceptible to Nate Goodrow. The youth was becoming surer of himself. The change was apparant in his walk, in all his movements, and in his conversation.
And Nate had to admit that, from all outward appearances, here was a killer. Cory’s stride was a lithe motion of his entire body. He carried himself seemingly on tiptoe at all times, his shoulders sloping downward at a more pronounced angle. There was a certain follow-through in every motion he made that was the result of natural coordination not found in one man in a thousand.
The whine of the guns increased in tempo, as time went by. Then one day Cory came to Nate Goodrow and said, “Show me how to use a knife the way you do.”
Here Goodrow noted another definite change. Six months back Cory would have put it differently. Something like: “You can sure throw that knife. I wonder if maybe you’d show me how?”
Now it was more like an order, spoken with cold assurance:
“Show me how to use a knife the way you do.”
Nate said; “All right son. You take it this way . . . .”
Nate was glad he’d had so little to do with it. Glad now, as he contemplated this newly created lethal masterpiece. Cory had turned into the sort of lethal machine Nate didn’t care to contemplate.
“He’s yet to kill a man, though,” Nate said. “That’s the test. He’s yet to kill a man.”
CORY BALLEAU killed a man the following week. He’d ridden, with a couple of Nate’s men into the settlement to pick up some supplies for his trip north. They arrived there at around ten in the morning and the two men were ready to leave by four in the afternoon.
But Cory had gotten a few credits ahead in a card game at the local drinking hall. He showed no inclination to leave, so his companions went on their way—back to the spread.
Early in the evening, the game got a new customer. A wiry, dark-faced man who made frequent trips to the bar during the play. Liquor loosened his tongue. He lost money with jovial abandon. His laugh was grating and it annoyed Cory. Cory ignored the man, however, until the latter said:
“Haven’t seen you around here before, son. Where you from?”
Every eye at the table centered on the man. This was unthinkable. Even liquor scarcely excused a man from committing a breach of etiquette so monstrous. However, Cory saw nothing out of the ordinary in the inquiry.
“Ngania,” he said. “Up North.”
The other slapped a palm on the table. “Well cut me off short! I got a friend up that way. A man named Dorken. Mel Dorken. Know him?”
The soles of Cory’s boots pressed hard against the floor. He studied his cards with elaborate attention. Finally he said:
“I know him.”
“Me—I’m Deac Thomas, pardner.” The man wait
ed.
“Cory Balleau.”
“Well it’s a damn small globe. I’ll take two. Make ’em queens. Heard from a man that rode down not long ago. Mel’s doin’ pretty good. Damn town’s boomin’ now, with a freight head in there, and Mel’s a deputy marshal.”
Thomas threw back his head and roared with laughter; “A deputy marshal. If that ain’t one to hoot over!”
“So the freight head finally got there?”
Thomas got up and went to the bar. He downed two straight shots of whisky, wiped a hand across his mouth and came back to the table; he threw in his ante and roared again.
“Yeah, old Mel and me sure had some high times together. Knew ’im back when he was a mechanic working the truck trains. Great pal to have sidin’ you—Mel. He liked his women plumb raw!”
Cory threw in his hand and got up from the table. There was an odd, cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. He went to the bar and ordered a schooner of beer. Maybe that would warm up the cold place. He sipped at the stuff. It was bitter and strong and it didn’t help. He stood there until Thomas lumbered across the floor and stood beside him.
THOMAS’ hilarity was fading. The look of amiability had departed from his face. He poured himself three fingers.
“You ain’t said much, Balleau. You act almost as if you don’t like my friends.”
The man had reached the belligerent stage. He was spoiling for trouble and a certain tension filled the place. The game went on, the players appearing to give their cards more study—deeper attention.
Cory was silent.
Thomas scowled. “You know Mel Dorken or don’t you?”
“I know him.”
Thomas considered that, tossed off his drink. “Maybe you had a brush with him or somethin’ like that?”
“Maybe I did.”
“Talk up! For Chris’ sake! Look at a man when you’re speakin’ to him!”
Cory turned his head and spoke straight into Thomas’ teeth. “Dorken’s a yellow-bellied rat! You can smell him a mile away.”
Thomas swung an arm, backhand. He hit Cory’s shoulder, spinning the youth away from the bar. Cory staggered a few steps, got his balance and straightened. Thomas was facing him, ugliness paramount in his face.
The 47th Golden Age of Science Fiction Page 33