Free Steel by Richard Matheson Page A

wooden sidewalk, endlessly drawing out my pocket watch, I heard the men shouting back and forth among themselves inside the saloon. But the deep, measured voice of Barth Selkirk I did not hear. He did not shout or laugh then or ever. It was why he hovered like a menacing wraith across our town. For he spoke his frightening logic with the thunder of his pistols and all men knew it.
    Time was passing. It was the first time in my life that impending death had taken on such immediacy to me. My boys had died a thousand miles from me, falling while, oblivious, I sold flour to the blacksmith’s wife. My wife had died slowly, passing in the peace of slumber, without a cry or a sob.
    Yet now I was deeply in this fearful moment. Because I had spoken to young Riker, because—yes, I knew it now—he had reminded me of Lew, I now stood shivering in the darkness, my hands clammy in my coat pockets, in my stomach a hardening knot of dread.
    And then my watch read eight. I looked up—and I heard his boots clumping on the wood in even, unhurried strides.
    I stepped out from the shadows and moved toward him. The people in the square had grown suddenly quiet. I sensed men’s eyes on me as I walked toward Riker’s approaching form. It was, I knew, the distortion of nerves and darkness, but he seemed taller than before as he walked along with measured steps, his small hands swinging tensely at his sides.
    I stopped before him. For a moment, he looked irritably confused. Then that smile that showed no humor flickered on his tightly drawn face.
    â€œIt’s the grocery man,” he said, his voice dry and brittle.
    I swallowed the cold tightness in my throat. “Son, you’re making a mistake,” I said, “a very bad mistake.”
    â€œGet out of my way,” he told me curtly, his eyes glancing over my shoulder at the saloon.
    â€œSon, believe me. Barth Selkirk is too much for you to—”
    In the dull glowing of saloon light, the eyes he turned on me were the blue of frozen, lifeless things. My voice broke off, and without another word, I stepped aside to let him pass. When a man sees in another man’s eyes the insensible determination that I saw in Riker’s, it is best to step aside. There are no words that will affect such men.
    A moment more he looked at me and then, squaring his shoulders, he started walking again. He did not stop until he stood before the batwings of the Nellie Gold.
    I moved closer, staring at the light and shadows of his face illuminated by the inside lamps. And it seemed as though, for a moment, the mask of relentless cruelty fell from his features to reveal stark terror.
    But it was only a moment, and I could not be certain I had really seen it. Abruptly, the eyes caught fire again, the thin mouth tightened, and Riker shoved through the doors with one long stride.
    There was silence, utter ringing silence in that room. Even the scuffing of my bootheels sounded very loud as I edged cautiously to the doors.
    Then, as I reached them, there was that sudden rustling, thumping, jingling combination of sounds that indicated general withdrawal from the two opposing men.
    I looked in carefully.
    Riker stood erect, his back to me, looking toward the bar. It now stood deserted save for one man.
    Barth Selkirk was a tall man who looked even taller because of the black he wore. His hair was long and blond; it hung in thick ringlets beneath his wide-brimmed hat. He wore his pistol low on his right hip, the butt reversed, the holster thonged tightly to his thigh. His face was long and tanned, his eyes as sky-blue as Riker’s, his mouth a motionless line beneath the well-trimmed length of his mustaches.
    I had never seen Abilene’s Hickok, but the word had always been that Selkirk might have been his twin.
    *   *   *
    As the two eyed each other, it was as though every watching man in that room had ceased to function, their breaths frozen, their bodies