Greater and happier—and, more than likely, dead.
Once long ago, in mighty cities now hidden in the dust of the planet’s surface, the Googles must have learned the terrible bitterness of a most artful and accomplished war and must have recoiled from the death and agony and the blind futility, and the knowledge of that day still dwelt within the minds of the Googles of today.
And that knowledge the galaxy could not afford to lose.
Sheldon picked up the chart and rolled it into a cylinder and slipped a couple of rubber bands around it. He put the reels away.
For five hundred years the Googles had held out against the lure of traders who would have given them anything they asked for the babu root. Traders who, even if they had known the truth, still would have willingly and thoughtlessly wrecked the protective Type 10 culture for the sake of profit.
They had held out for five hundred years. How much longer could they hold out? Not forever, certainly. Perhaps not for a great deal longer.
The chief and his tribe had weakened momentarily in acquiring information beyond the Type 10 culture limit. Might that not mean that already the moral fiber was weakening, that the years of trading had already sown their poison?
And if the Googles had not held out—if they did not hold out—the galaxy then would be the poorer and the bloodier.
For the day would come, many years from now perhaps, when it might be safe to make a survey, to conduct a study of this great thing the Googles had accomplished.
And out of that study certainly would come the first great step toward peace throughout the galaxy, a hint as to how the principle might apply without the stultifying need of a static culture.
But the study itself could not be made for many years. Not until the random factors of the last five hundred years of trade had been swept away.
He sat down at the desk, pulled out the voice-writer, and inserted a sheet of paper.
He spoke a heading which the machine printed quickly:
RECOMMENDATION FOR THE INDEFINITE CLOSING OF THE PLANET ZAN TO ALL VISITORS AND TRADERS.
Way for the Hangtown Rebel!
“Way for the Hangtown Rebel!” was originally published in the May 1945 issue of Ace-High Western Stories. Cliff Simak’s journals do not mention that he ever wrote a story with that title, and it seems likely that the title was a concoction of the editorial staff of the magazine—but one journal does show that Cliff was paid $150 in 1945 for a story called “Gunsmoke Letter,” and the action in this story is indeed precipitated by a letter (of course, that could be said about “Gunsmoke Interlude,” too …).
Another point of interest is the fact that the saloon owner in this story was named Joe Carson—Carson was the first name of Cliff’s younger brother, and his name turns up in a number of Cliff’s stories, particularly in the early years of Cliff’s career …
CHAPTER ONE
Hemp Greeting for a Stranger
The gallows were grim and shining new with the yellowness of lumber that had never braved the elements. Like a deliberate signboard of warning, they stood in the vacant lot, gleaming in the sun.
Steve Burns’ hands tightened on the reins and even though the day was bright and warm, he felt the coldness of the challenging gallows.
“Getting fancy,” he told himself, staring at the gallows. Most places were satisfied with a good stout cottonwood. But not Skull Crossing—they had this man-made apparatus that was evidently ready for business.
Slowly Burns swung the horse around and headed down the street.
Burns pulled up in front of the livery barn and spoke to an oldster tipped back on a chair.
“Got some extra hay and oats?” he asked.
“Yup,” the man told him and then added, “the saloon’s just down that dirt street.”
Burns grinned and slid from the gray, handing over the reins.
“Was looking at that contraption up the street,” he said. “Must be expecting some heavy business.”
The livery man spat through a broken front tooth. “Already got the business. Fixing to string up some ornery hombres the sheriff caught out in the hills. Mex gang that’s been raising hell for a year or two. Dang near cleaned out the valley.”
“Noticed some abandoned ranches coming in,” said Burns. “Wondered what it was all about.”
“Yup,” declared the man. “Getting so it wasn’t safe to go out nights. Hay stacks burned. People killed. Cattle all run off.”
“So the ranchers up and left,” said Burns.
“That’s it, stranger. Spent a lot of time trying to hunt down the lobos, but they never found their hideout. Bad country, them hills out back where they holed up.”
“But the sheriff found the gang.”
The livery man spat through the broken tooth again. “Tell you how it is, stranger. Sheriff sort of works up a little extra steam every time election date gets close.”
“Think I’ll head for a drink,” said Burns and walked down the empty street.
After the blaze of sun outside, the interior of the Longhorn bar was a place of shadows. Burns stopped just inside the swinging doors, stood blinking until forms began to take dim shape. The bartender leaned on the bar, staring out the window. In one corner some men were playing cards and others stood around and watched.
Burns strode toward the bar. “Set it out,” he told the barkeep. “I aim to cut some dust out of my throat.”
The bartender moved deliberately, reaching for a bottle.
“Burns!” The word snapped like a whip across the room.
Steve spun from the bar, hands streaking for his guns.
In the dim light he saw one of the men who had been watching the game coming toward him.
The man’s face was a blur and his body blended with the shadows that still hung in the corner. But there was no mistaking the poise of the body, no question about those moving hands, already hitting leather.
Burns’ mind clicked blank with sudden concentration, everything else wiped out except that figure in the center of the room. Time stretched taut in the brittle silence and Burns, watching the smudge of the other’s face, knew that his own hands were moving swiftly, that his guns were coming out…as if by rote.
Burns dodged swiftly and behind him he heard the crash of shattered glass as a bullet swept past his cheek and hit the backbar.
Then Steve’s own guns were now talking, bucking against his wrists, coughing with a twin precision that set the glasses to jiggling on the bar.
Before him the smudge of face bent forward, hung for a single instant as the shadowy body jerked to the impact of the bullets, then slid to the floor.
Steve let his hands fall to his side, smelled the acrid smoke that trickled from his gun barrels, stared at the black, hunched thing in the center of the room.
Men were stirring out of the corner, plainer now that his eyes had become accustomed to the gloom, moving slowly and cautiously, with their hands hanging at their sides.
Feet pounded on the porch outside and the batwing doors smashed open. A huge man entered and walked toward Steve Burns. Wary, with thumbs hooked in his gunbelt, and the sunlight from the open doors striking fire against the nickel-plated star pinned upon his vest.