The Best of Richard Matheson

by Richard Matheson

  I tried to understand young Riker, but I couldn’t. He was from the city; that I knew. Some city in the mass of cities had borne him. He had come to Grantville with the deliberate intention of singling out the fastest pistolman and killing him face to face. That made no sense to me. That seemed a purposeless desire.

  Now what would he do? He had told me he was only going to be in Grantville for a while. Now that Selkirk was dead, that while was over.

  Where would young Riker go next? And would the same scenes repeat themselves in the next town, and the next, and the next after that? The young city man arriving, changing outfits, asking for the most dangerous pistolman, meeting him—was that how it was going to be in every town? How long could such insanity last? How long before he met a man who would not lose the draw?

  My mind was filled with these questions. But, over all, the single question—Why? Why was he doing this thing? What calculating madness had driven him from the city to seek out death in this strange land?

  While I stood there wondering, Barth Selkirk’s men carried out the blood-soaked body of their slain god and laid him carefully across his horse. I was so close to them I could see his blond hair ruffling slowly in the night wind and hear his life’s blood spattering on the darkness of the street.

  Then I saw the six men looking toward the Blue Buck Hotel, their eyes glinting vengefully in the light from the Nellie Gold, and I heard their voices talking low. No words came clear to me as they murmured among themselves, but from the way they kept looking toward the hotel I knew of what they spoke.

  I drew back into the shadows again, thinking they might see me and carry their conversation elsewhere. I stood in the blackness watching. Somehow I knew exactly what they intended even before one of their shadowy group slapped a palm against his pistol butt and said distinctly, “Come on.”

  I saw them move away slowly, the six of them, their voices suddenly stilled, their eyes directed at the hotel they were walking toward.

  Foolishness again; it is an old man’s trademark. For, suddenly, I found myself stepping from the shadows and turning the corner of the saloon, then running down the alley between the Nellie Gold and Pike’s Saddlery; rushing through the squares of light made by the saloon windows, then into darkness again. I had no idea why I was running. I seemed driven by an unseen force which clutched all reason from my mind but one thought—warn him.

  My breath was quickly lost. I felt my coattails flapping like furious bird wings against my legs. Each thudding bootfall drove a mail-gloved fist against my heart.

  I don’t know how I beat them there, except that they were walking cautiously while I ran headlong along St. Vera street and hurried in the backway of the hotel. I rushed down the silent hallway, my bootheels thumping along the frayed rug.

  Maxwell Tarrant was at the desk that night. He looked up with a start as I came running up to him.

  “Why, Mr. Callaway,” he said, “what are—?”

  “Which room is Riker in?” I gasped.

  “Riker?” young Tarrant asked me.

  “Quickly, boy!” I cried and cast a frightened glance toward the entranceway as the jar of bootheels sounded on the porch steps.

  “Room 27,” young Tarrant said. I begged him to stall the men who were coming in for Riker, and rushed for the stairs.

  I was barely to the second floor when I heard them in the lobby. I ran down the dimlit hall, and reaching Room 27, I rapped urgently on its thin door.

  Inside, I heard a rustling sound, the sound of stockinged feet padding on the floor, then Riker’s frail, trembling voice asking who it was.

  “It’s Callaway,” I said, “the grocery man. Let me in, quickly. You’re in danger.”

  “Get out of here,” he ordered me, his voice sounding thinner yet.

  “God help you, boy, prepare yourself,” I told him breathlessly. “Selkirk’s men are coming for you.”

  I heard his sharp, involuntary gasp. “No,” he said. “That isn’t—” He drew in a rasping breath. “How many?” he asked me hollowly.

  “Six,” I said, and on the other side of the door I thought I heard a sob.

  “That isn’t fair!” he burst out then in angry fright. “It’s not fair, six against one. It isn’t fair!”

  I stood there for another moment, staring at the door, imagining that twisted young man on the other side, sick with terror, his heart jolting like club beats in his chest, able to think of nothing but a moral quality those six men never knew.

  “What am I going to do?” he suddenly implored me.

  I had no answer. For, suddenly, I heard the thumping of their boots as they started up the stairs, and helpless in my age, I backed quickly from the door and scuttled, like the frightened thing I was, down the hall into the shadows there.

  Like a dream it was, seeing those six grim-faced men come moving down the hall with a heavy trudging of boots, a thin jingling of spur rowels, in each of their hands a long Colt pistol. No, like a nightmare, not a dream. Knowing that these living creatures were headed for the room in which young Riker waited, I felt something sinking in my stomach, something cold and wrenching at my insides. Helpless I was; I never knew such helplessness. For no seeming reason, I suddenly saw my Lew inside that room, waiting to be killed. It made me tremble without the strength to stop.

  Their boots halted. The six men ringed the door, three on one side, three on the other. Six young men, their faces tight with unyielding intention, their hands bloodless, so tightly did they hold their pistols.

  The silence broke. “Come out of that room, you Yankee bastard!” one of them said loudly. He was Thomas Ashwood, a boy I’d once seen playing children’s games in the streets of Grantville, a boy who had grown into the twisted man who now stood, gun in hand, all thoughts driven from his mind but thoughts of killing and revenge.

  Silence for a moment.

  “I said, come out!” Ashwood cried again, then jerked his body to the side as the hotel seemed to tremble with a deafening blast and one of the door panels exploded into jagged splinters.

  —

  As the slug gouged into papered plaster across the hall, Ashwood fired his pistol twice into the door lock, the double flash of light splashing up his cheeks like lightning. My ears rang with the explosions as they echoed up and down the hall.

  Another pistol shot roared inside the room. Ashwood kicked in the lock-splintered door and leaped out of my sight. The ear-shattering exchange of shots seemed to pin me to the wall.

  Then, in a sudden silence, I heard young Riker cry out in a pitiful voice, “Don’t shoot me any more!”

  The next explosion hit me like a man’s boot kicking at my stomach. I twitched back against the wall, my breath silenced, as I watched the other men run into the room and heard the crashing of their pistol fire.

  It was over—all of it—in less than a minute. While I leaned weakly against the wall, hardly able to stand, my throat dry and tight, I saw two of Selkirk’s men help the wounded Ashwood down the hall, the other three walking behind, murmuring excitedly among themselves. One of them said, “We got him good.”

  In a moment, the sound of their boots was gone and I stood alone in the empty hallway, staring blankly at the mist of powder smoke that drifted slowly from the open room.

  I do not remember how long I stood there, my stomach a grinding twist of sickness, my hands trembling and cold at my sides.

  Only when young Tarrant appeared, white-faced and frightened at the head of the steps, did I find the strength to shuffle down the hall to Riker’s room.

  We found him lying in his blood, his pain-shocked eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling, the two pistols still smoking in his rigid hands.

  He was dressed in checkered flannel again, in white shirt and dark stockings. It was grotesque to see him lying there that way, his city clothes covered with blood, those long pistols in h
is still, white hands.

  “Oh, God,” young Tarrant said in a shocked whisper. “Why did they kill him?”

  I shook my head and said nothing. I told young Tarrant to get the undertaker and said I would pay the costs. He was glad to leave.

  I sat down on the bed, feeling very tired. I looked into young Riker’s open bag and saw, inside, the shirts and underclothes, the ties and stockings.

  It was in the bag I found the clippings and the diary.

  The clippings were from Northern magazines and newspapers. They were about Hickok and Longley and Hardin and other famous pistol fighters of our territory. There were pencil marks drawn beneath certain sentences—such as Wild Bill usually carries two derringers beneath his coat and Many a man has lost his life because of Hardin’s so-called “border roll” trick.

  The diary completed the picture. It told of a twisted mind holding up as idols those men whose only talent was to kill. It told of a young city boy who bought himself pistols and practiced drawing them from their holsters until he was incredibly quick, until his drawing speed became coupled with an ability to strike any target instantly.

  It told of a projected odyssey in which a city boy would make himself the most famous pistol fighter in the Southwest. It listed towns that this young man had meant to conquer.

  Grantville was the first town on the list.

  THE HOLIDAY MAN

  “You’ll be late,” she said.

  He leaned back tiredly in his chair.

  “I know,” he answered.

  They were in the kitchen having breakfast. David hadn’t eaten much. Mostly, he’d drunk black coffee and stared at the tablecloth. There were thin lines running through it that looked like intersecting highways.

  “Well?” she said.

  He shivered and took his eyes from the tablecloth.

  “Yes,” he said. “All right.”

  He kept sitting there.

  “David,” she said.

  “I know, I know,” he said, “I’ll be late.” He wasn’t angry. There was no anger left in him.

  “You certainly will,” she said, buttering her toast. She spread on thick raspberry jam, then bit off a piece and chewed it cracklingly.

  David got up and walked across the kitchen. At the door he stopped and turned. He stared at the back of her head.

  “Why couldn’t I?” he asked again.

  “Because you can’t,” she said. “That’s all.”

  “But why?”

  “Because they need you,” she said. “Because they pay you well and you couldn’t do anything else. Isn’t it obvious?”

  “They could find someone else.”

  “Oh, stop it,” she said. “You know they couldn’t.”

  He closed his hands into fists. “Why should I be the one?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer. She sat eating her toast.

  “Jean?”

  “There’s nothing more to say,” she said, chewing. She turned around. “Now, will you go?” she said. “You shouldn’t be late today.”

  David felt a chill in his flesh.

  “No,” he said, “not today.”

  He walked out of the kitchen and went upstairs. There, he brushed his teeth, polished his shoes and put on a tie. Before eight he was down again. He went into the kitchen.

  “Goodbye,” he said.

  She tilted up her cheek for him and he kissed it. “Bye, dear,” she said. “Have a—” She stopped abruptly.

  “—nice day?” he finished for her. “Thank you.” He turned away. “I’ll have a lovely day.”

  —

  Long ago he had stopped driving a car. Mornings he walked to the railroad station. He didn’t even like to ride with someone else or take a bus.

  At the station he stood outside on the platform waiting for the train. He had no newspaper. He never bought them any more. He didn’t like to read the papers.

  “Mornin’, Garret.”

  He turned and saw Henry Coulter who also worked in the city. Coulter patted him on the back.

  “Good morning,” David said.

  “How’s it goin’?” Coulter asked.

  “Fine. Thank you.”

  “Good. Lookin’ forward to the Fourth?”

  David swallowed. “Well . . .” he began.

  “Myself, I’m takin’ the family to the woods,” said Coulter. “No lousy fireworks for us. Pilin’ into the old bus and headin’ out till the fireworks are over.”

  “Driving,” said David.

  “Yes, sir,” said Coulter. “Far as we can.”

  It began by itself. No, he thought; not now. He forced it back into its darkness.

  “—tising business,” Coulter finished.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Said I trust things are goin’ well in the advertising business.”

  David cleared his throat.

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “Fine.” He always forgot about the lie he’d told Coulter.

  When the train arrived he sat in the No Smoking car, knowing that Coulter always smoked a cigar en route. He didn’t want to sit with Coulter. Not now.

  All the way to the city he sat looking out the window. Mostly he watched road and highway traffic; but, once, while the train rattled over a bridge, he stared down at the mirrorlike surface of a lake. Once he put his head back and looked up at the sun.

  —

  He was actually to the elevator when he stopped.

  “Up?” said the man in the maroon uniform. He looked at David steadily. “Up?” he said. Then he closed the rolling doors.

  David stood motionless. People began to cluster around him. In a moment, he turned and shouldered by them, pushing through the revolving door. As he came out, the oven heat of July surrounded him. He moved along the sidewalk like a man asleep. On the next block he entered a bar.

  Inside, it was cold and dim. There were no customers. Not even the bartender was visible. David sank down in the shadow of a booth and took his hat off. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

  He couldn’t do it. He simply could not go up to his office. No matter what Jean said, no matter what anyone said. He clasped his hands on the table edge and squeezed them until the fingers were pressed dry of blood. He just wouldn’t.

  “Help you?” asked a voice.

  David opened his eyes. The bartender was standing by the booth, looking down at him.

  “Yes, uh . . . beer,” he said. He hated beer but he knew he had to buy something for the privilege of sitting in the chilly silence undisturbed. He wouldn’t drink it.

  The bartender brought the beer and David paid for it. Then, when the bartender had gone, he began to turn the glass slowly on the table top. While he was doing this it began again. With a gasp, he pushed it away. No!—he told it, savagely.

  In a while he got up and left the bar. It was past ten. That didn’t matter of course. They knew he was always late. They knew he always tried to break away from it and never could.

  —

  His office was at the back of the suite, a small cubicle furnished only with a rug, sofa and a small desk on which lay pencils and white paper. It was all he needed. Once, he’d had a secretary but he hadn’t liked the idea of her sitting outside the door and listening to him scream.

  No one saw him enter. He let himself in from the hall through a private door. Inside, he relocked the door, then took off his suitcoat and laid it across the desk. It was stuffy in the office so he walked across the floor and pulled up the window.

  Far below, the city moved. He stood watching it. How many of them? he thought.

  Sighing heavily, he turned. Well, he was here. There was no point in hesitating any longer. He was committed now. The best thing was to get it over and clear out.

  He drew the blinds, walked over to the co
uch and lay down. He fussed a little with the pillow, then stretched once and was still. Almost immediately, he felt his limbs going numb.

  It began.

  He did not stop it now. It trickled on his brain like melted ice. It rushed like winter wind. It spun like blizzard vapor. It leaped and ran and billowed and exploded and his mind was filled with it. He grew rigid and began to gasp, his chest twitching with breath, the beating of his heart a violent stagger. His hands drew in like white talons, clutching and scratching at the couch. He shivered and groaned and writhed. Finally he screamed. He screamed for a very long while.

  When it was done, he lay limp and motionless on the couch, his eyes like balls of frozen glass. When he could, he raised his arm and looked at his wristwatch. It was almost two.

  He struggled to his feet. His bones felt sheathed with lead but he managed to stumble to his desk and sit before it.

  There he wrote on a sheet of paper and, when he was finished, slumped across the desk and fell into exhausted sleep.

  Later, he woke up and took the sheet of paper to his superior, who, looking it over, nodded.

  “Four hundred eighty-six, huh?” the superior said. “You’re sure of that?”

  “I’m sure,” said David, quietly. “I watched every one.” He didn’t mention that Coulter and his family were among them.

  “All right,” said his superior. “Let’s see now. Four hundred fifty-two from traffic accidents, eighteen from drowning, seven from sun-stroke, three from fireworks, six from miscellaneous causes.”

  Such as a little girl being burned to death, David thought. Such as a baby boy eating ant poison. Such as a woman being electrocuted; a man dying of snake bite.

  “Well,” his superior said, “let’s make it—oh, four hundred and fifty. It’s always impressive when more people die than we predict.”

  “Of course,” David said.

  The item was on the front page of all the newspapers that afternoon. While David was riding home the man in front of him turned to his neighbor and said, “What I’d like to know is—how can they tell?”