Packard shook his head. “Not me. I guess I’ll be riding again. No use of going back to Hangman’s Gulch.”
Preacher reached out his arm and drew Alice to his side. “Got to worrying about you, child,” he said. “Thought what a foolish thing it was for me to send you off on that stage. So I got a horse and rode. Thought that I might catch up and sort of ride as guard. See you safely through. But I was too late. I heard shooting …”
He brushed at his eyes with a gnarled hand.
Packard reached up to his throat, was surprised to find the rope still dangling there. Savagely he ripped the noose open, tossed it over his head, turned and walked away.
There was a horse tied up in the timber. It would be an easy matter to get there by just ambling along. Then he’d jump into the saddle and no one, he was sure, would try very hard to catch him.
For after all he was almost as bad as Pinky or any of the others. Not in as deep, perhaps, but not because he hadn’t tried. There was no use trying to fool anyone. He’d tried to get that gold, tried just as hard as any of the others.
“Packard!”
He heard the thump of feet behind him, stopped and waited. Slowly he turned to face the old man.
“Yes, what is it?”
“You’re going back with us,” said Page.
Packard shook his head. “No, Preacher. Hangman’s Gulch is going to be a respectable town now, with Randall and his gang mopped up. And I don’t belong …”
“Look, Packard,” said Preacher. “I want you to listen to me. Next Sunday I’m going to get up in the pulpit and I’m going to tell the people who I am. And I want to make a deal with you—”
Packard gasped. “But you can’t do that. You’re sitting pretty. There’s no reason for doing it.”
“But there is a reason. I’ve got to be square with myself. I can’t go on living a lie.”
“All right,” agreed Packard. “Have it your own way. But I can’t see where it has anything to do with me.”
“I told you I had a deal,” said Preacher. “If the people throw me out, all three of us will leave, you and I and Alice. But if they let me stay, all three of us will stay.”
Packard looked beyond Preacher at Alice and her eyes, he saw, were smiling.
“Is it a deal?” asked Preacher.
“It’s a deal,” answered Packard, not even looking at him.
The Civilization Game
One of Clifford Simak’s journals notes that he sold a story entitled “Apron Strings” to Horace Gold on May 1, 1958. Given its publication date, the November 1958 issue of Galaxy Magazine, and its subject, playtime for humanity, I think that the timing is about right for “Apron Strings” to reappear.
This story is also another example of Cliff Simak’s proclivity for featuring cavemen in his science fiction.
For some time, Stanley Paxton had been hearing the sound of muffled explosions from the west. But he had kept on, for there might be a man behind him, trailing him, and he could not change his course. For if he was not befuddled, the homestead of Nelson Moore lay somewhere in the hills ahead. There he would find shelter for the night and perhaps even transportation. Communication, he knew, must be ruled out for the moment; the Hunter people would be monitoring, alert for any news of him.
One Easter vacation, many years ago, he had spent a few days at the Moore homestead, and all through this afternoon he had been haunted by a sense of recognition for certain landmarks he had sighted. But his visit to these hills had been so long ago that his memory hazed and there was no certainty.
As the afternoon had lengthened toward an early evening, his fear of the trailing man began to taper off. Perhaps, he told himself, there was no one, after all. Once, atop a hill, he had crouched in a thicket for almost half an hour and had seen no sign of any follower.
Long since, of course, they would have found the wreckage of his flier, but they might have arrived too late and so, consequently, have no idea in which direction he had gone.
Through the day, he’d kept close watch of the cloudy sky and was satisfied that no scouting flier had passed overhead to spot him.
Now, with the setting of the sun behind an angry cloud bank, he felt momentarily safe.
He came out of a meadow valley and began to climb a wooded hill. The strange boomings and concussions seemed fairly close at hand and he could see the flashes of explosions lighting up the sky.
He reached the hilltop and stopped short, crouching down against the ground. Below him, over a square mile or more of ground, spread the rippling flashes, and in the pauses between the louder noises, he heard faint chatterings that sent shivers up his spine.
He crouched, watching the flashes ripple back and forth in zigzag patterning and occasionally a small holocaust of explosions would suddenly break out and then subside as quickly.
Slowly he stood up and wrapped his cloak about him and raised the hood to protect his neck and ears.
On the near side of the flashing area, at the bottom of the hill, was some sort of foursquare structure looming darkly in the dusk. And it seemed as well that a massive hazy bowl lay inverted above the entire area, although it was too dark to make out what it was.
Paxton grunted softly to himself and went quickly down the hill until he reached the building. It was, he saw, a sort of observation platform, solidly constructed and raised well above the ground, with the top half of it made of heavy glass that ran all the way around. A ladder went up one side to the glassed-in platform.
“What’s going on up there?” he shouted, but his voice could be scarcely heard above the crashing and thundering that came from out in front.
So he climbed the ladder.
When his head reached the level of the glassed-in platform area, he halted. A boy, not more than fourteen years of age, stood at the front of the platform, staring out into a noisy sea of fire. A pair of binoculars was slung about his neck and to one side of him stood a massive bank of instruments.
Paxton clambered up the rest of the way and stepped inside the platform.
“Hello, young man!” he shouted.
The youngster turned around. He seemed an engaging fellow, with a cowlick down his forehead.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I’m afraid I didn’t hear you.”
“What is going on here?”
“A war,” said the boy. “Pertwee just launched his big attack. I’m hard-pressed to hold him off.”
Paxton gasped a little. “But this is most unusual!” he protested.
The boy wrinkled up his forehead. “I don’t understand.”
“You are Nelson Moore’s son?”
“Yes, sir, I am Graham Moore.”
“I knew your father many years ago. We went to school together.”
“He will be glad to see you, sir,” the boy said brightly, sensing an opportunity to rid himself of this uninvited kibitzer. “You take the path just north of west. It will lead you to the house.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Paxton, “you could come along and show me.”
“I can’t leave just yet,” said Graham. “I must blunt Pertwee’s attack. He caught me off my balance and has been saving up his firepower and there were some maneuvres that escaped me until it was too late. Believe me, sir, I’m in an unenviable position.”
“This Pertwee?”
“He’s the enemy. We’ve fought for two years now.”