Free Steel by Richard Matheson Page B

petrified—only their eyes alive, shifting back and forth from man to man. It might have been a room of statues, so silently did each man stand.
    Then I saw Selkirk’s broad chest slowly expanding as it filled with air. And as it slowly sank, his deep voice broke the silence with the impact of a hammer blow on glass.
    â€œ Well? ” he said and let his boot slide off the brass rail and thump down onto the floor.
    An instant pause. Then, suddenly, a gasping in that room as if one man had gasped instead of all.
    For Selkirk’s fingers, barely to the butt of his pistol, had turned to stone as he gaped dumbly at the brace of Colts in Riker’s hands.
    â€œWhy you dirty—” he began—and then his voice was lost in the deafening roar of pistol fire. His body was flung back against the bar edge as if a club had struck him in the chest. He held there for a moment, his face blank with astonishment. Then the second pistol kicked thundering in Riker’s hand and Selkirk went down in a twisted heap.
    I looked dazedly at Selkirk’s still body, staring at the great gush of blood from his torn chest. Then, my eyes were on Riker again as he stood veiled in acrid smoke before the staring men.
    I heard him swallow convulsively. “My name is Riker,” he said, his voice trembling in spite of efforts to control it. “Remember that. Riker. ”
    He backed off nervously, his left pistol holstered in a blur of movement, his right still pointed toward the crowd of men.
    Then he was out of the saloon again, his face contorted with a mixture of fear and exultation as he turned and saw me standing there.
    â€œDid you see it?” he asked me in a shaking voice. “Did you see it?”
    I looked at him without a word as his head jerked to the side and he looked into the saloon again, his hands plummeting down like shot birds to his pistol butts.
    Apparently he saw no menace, for instantly his eyes were back on me again—excited, swollen-pupiled eyes.
    â€œThey won’t forget me now, will they?” he said and swallowed. “They’ll remember my name. They’ll be afraid of it.”
    He started to walk past me, then twitched to the side and leaned, with a sudden weakness, against the saloon wall, his chest heaving with breath, his blue eyes jumping around feverishly. He kept gasping at the air as if he were choking.
    He swallowed with difficulty. “Did you see it?” he asked me again, as if he were desperate to share his murderous triumph. “He didn’t even get to pull his pistols—didn’t even get to pull them.” His lean chest shuddered with turbulent breath. “ That’s how,” he gasped, “ that’s how to do it.” Another gasp. “I showed them. I showed them all how to do it. I came from the city and I showed them how. I got the best one they had, the best one. ” His throat moved so quickly it made a dry, clicking sound. “I showed them,” he muttered.
    He looked around blinking. “Now I’ll—”
    He looked all around with frightened eyes, as if an army of silent killers were encircling him. His face went slack and he forced together his shaking lips.
    â€œGet out of my way,” he suddenly ordered and pushed me aside. I turned and watched him walking rapidly toward the hotel, looking to the sides and over his shoulder with quick jerks of his head, his hands half poised at his sides.
    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