“They’re holding me.”
“Who’s holding you?”
“The government. They won’t let me go home and they watch me all the time.”
“Why do you think they’re watching you? What have you done?”
“I ain’t done nothing. I got this thing, you see.”
“What thing? What have you got?”
“I cure people.”
“You can’t mean you’re a doctor.”
“No doctor. I just cure people. I walk around and cure them. I got an aura.”
“You have what?”
“An aura.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s something in me. Something I put out. You got a cold or something?”
“No, I haven’t a cold.”
“If you had, I’d cure you.”
“I tell you what, Mr. Foss. Why don’t you go out into the outer office and have a seat. I’ll be back with you right away.”
As he went out the door, Ernie saw the man reaching for the phone. He didn’t wait. He went out the door and into the hall as fast as he could manage. Jack and Al were waiting for him there.
“That was a stupid thing you did,” Joe said to Ernie.
“He didn’t believe me,” Ernie said. “He was reaching for the phone. He would have called the cops.”
“Maybe he did. We thought he might. That’s why we got out of there.”
“He acted as if he thought maybe I was crazy.”
“Why did you do it?”
“I got my rights,” said Ernie. “Civil rights. Ain’t you ever heard of them?”
“Of course we have. You have your legal rights. It was all explained to you. You’re employed. You’re a civil servant. You agreed to certain conditions of employment. You’re being paid. It’s all legal.”
“But I don’t like it.”
“What don’t you like about it? Your pay is good. Your work is light. You just do some walking. There aren’t many people who are paid for walking.”
“If I am paid so good, why do we always stay in crummy hotels like this one?”
“You aren’t paying for your room and food,” said Joe. “You’re on an expense account. We take care of it for you. And we don’t stay in good hotels because we aren’t dressed for it. We’d look funny in a good hotel. We’d attract attention.”
“You guys dress like me,” said Ernie. “Why do you dress like me? You even talk like me.”
“It’s the way we work.”
“Yeah, I know. The crummy part of town. And that’s all right with me. I never was nowhere but the crummy part of town. But you guys, I can tell. You’re used to dressing in white shirts and ties and suits. Suits all cleaned and pressed. And when you aren’t with me, you talk different, too, I bet.”
“Jack,” said Joe, “why don’t you and Al go out with Ernie and have a bite to eat. Charley and me will go later on.”
“That’s another thing,” said Ernie. “You never go into any place or out of any place together. You make it look as if you aren’t all together. Would that be so we aren’t noticed, too?”
“Oh,” said Joe, disgusted, “what difference does it make?”
The three of them left.
“He’s getting hard to handle,” Charley said.
“Wouldn’t you know,” said Joe. “There is only one of him and he has to be a moron. Or damn close to one.”
“There is no sign of any other?”
Joe shook his head. “Not the last time I talked with Washington. Yesterday, that was. They’re doing all they can, of course, but how do you go about it? A statistical approach is the only way. Try to spot an area where there is no disease and once you find it, if you ever find it, try to spot the one who’s responsible for it.”
“Another one like Ernie.”
“Yes, another one like Ernie. You know what? I don’t think there is another one like him. He’s a freak.”
“There might be another freak.”
“The odds, I’d think, would be very much against it. And even if there were, what are the chances they’ll find him? It was just dumb, blind luck that Ernie was located.”
“We’re going at this wrong.”
“Of course we’re going at it wrong. The right way, the scientific way is to find out what makes him the way he is. They tried that, remember? For damn near a year they tried. All sorts of tests and him bitching every minute. Wanting to go back to Susie and Joseph, the Baboon.”
“They might have quit just at the time when they might have found …”
Joe shook his head. “I don’t think so, Charley. I talked with Rosenmeir. He said it was hopeless. A thing has to get real bad for a man like Rosy to admit that it is hopeless. It took a lot of soul searching to decide to do what we are doing. He couldn’t be kept in Washington for further study when there was so little chance of learning anything. They had him. The next logical step was to make some use of him.”
“But the country is so big. There are so many cities. So many ghettos. So many pestholes. So much misery. We walk him down a few miles of street each day. We parade him past hospitals and old folks’ homes and …”
“And don’t forget. For every step he takes there may be a dozen people who are made well, another dozen people who won’t contract the ailments they would have gotten if it hadn’t been for him.”
“I don’t see how he can help but realize that. We’ve told him often enough. He should be glad of it, of a chance to help.”
Joe said, “I told you. The man’s a moron. A little selfish moron.”
“You have to see it his way, too, I suppose,” said Charley. “We jerked him away from home.”
“He never had a home. Sleeping in alleys and flophouses. Panhandling. Doing a little stealing when he had the chance. Shacking up with his Susie when he had a chance. Getting a free meal now and then from some soup kitchen. Raiding garbage cans.”
“Maybe he liked it that way.”
“Maybe he did. No responsibility. Living day to day, like an animal. But now he has a responsibility—perhaps as great a responsibility, as great an opportunity as any man ever did. There is such a thing as accepting a responsibility.”
“In your world, perhaps. In mine. Maybe not in his.”
“Damned if I know,” said Joe. “He has me beat. He’s a complete phony. This talk of his about a home is all phony, too. He was only there for four or five years.”
“Maybe if we let him stay in one place and brought people to him, on one pretext or another. Let him sit in a chair, without being noticeable, and parade them past him. Or take him to big meetings and conventions. Let him live it up a little. He might like it better.”
“This was all hashed out,” said Joe. “We can’t be noticed; we can’t stand publicity. Christ, can you imagine what might happen if this became public knowledge? He brags about it, of course. He probably was telling them all about it in that dive he stopped off at this afternoon. They paid no attention to him. The lawyer thought that he was crazy. He could stand on a rooftop and yell it to all the world and no one would pay attention. But let one hint come out of Washington …”
“I know,” said Charley. “I know.”
“It’s being done,” said Joe, “the only way it can be done. We’re exposing people to good health, just the way they are exposed to disease. And we’re doing it where the need of it is greatest.”
“I have a funny feeling, Joe.”
“What’s that?”
“We may be doing wrong. It sometimes doesn’t seem quite right to me.”
“You mean going blind. Doing something and not knowing what we are doing. Without understanding it.”
“I guess that’s it. I don’t know. I am all confused. I guess we’re helping people.”
“Ourselves included. The expos
ure we are getting to this guy, we should live forever.”
“Yes, there’s that,” said Charley.
They sat silent for a moment. Finally Charley asked, “You got any idea, Joe, when they’ll end this tour? It’s been going for a month. That’s the longest so far. The kids won’t know me when I get home if it isn’t soon.”
“I know,” said Joe. “It’s tough on a family man like you. Me, it doesn’t matter. And I guess it’s the same with Al. How’s it with Jack? I don’t know him well. He’s a man who never talks. Not about himself.”
“I guess he’s got a family somewhere. I don’t know anything about it, just that he has. Look, Joe, would you go for a drink? I have a bottle in my bag. I could go and get it.”
“A drink,” said Joe, “is not a bad idea.”
The telephone rang and Charley, who had started for the door, stopped and turned around.
“It might be for me,” he said. “I called home a while ago. Myrt wasn’t there. I asked little Charley to have her call. I gave both room numbers, just in case I was here.”
Joe picked up the phone and spoke into it. He shook his head at Charley. “It’s not Myrt. It’s Rosy.”
Charley started for the door.
Joe said, “Just a minute, Charley.”
He went on listening.
“Rosy,” he finally said, “you are sure of this?”
He listened some more. Then he said, “Thanks, Rosy. Thanks an awful lot. You stuck out your neck calling us.”
He hung up the phone and sat, staring at the wall.
“What’s the matter, Joe? What did Rosy want?”
“He called to warn us. There is a mistake. I don’t know how or why. A mistake is all.”
“What did we do wrong?”
“Not us. It’s Washington.”
“You mean about Ernie. His civil rights or something.”
“Not his civil rights. Charley, he isn’t curing people. He is killing them. He’s a carrier.”
“We know he is a carrier. Other people carry a disease, but he carries—”
“He carries a disease, too. They don’t know what it is.”
“But back there in his old neighborhood, he made all the people well. Everywhere he went. That is how they found him. They knew there must be someone or something. They hunted till they—”
“Charley, shut up. Let me tell you. Back in his old neighborhood they’re dying like flies. They started a couple of days ago and they still are dying. Healthy people dying. Nothing wrong with them, but they’re dying just the same. A whole neighborhood is dying.”
“Christ, it can’t be, Joe. There must be some mistake …”
“No mistake. It’s the very people he made well who are dying now.”
“But it doesn’t make sense.”
“Rosy thinks maybe it’s a new kind of virus. It kills all the rest of them, all the viruses and bacteria that make people sick. No competition, see? It kills off the competition, so it has each body to itself. Then it settles down to grow and the body is all right, because it doesn’t intentionally harm the body, but there comes a time …”
“Rosy is just guessing.”
“Sure Rosy is just guessing. But it makes sense to hear him tell it.”
“If it’s true,” said Charley, “think of all the people, the millions of people …”
“That’s what I’m thinking of,” said Joe. “Rosy took a chance in calling us. They’ll crucify him if they find out about the call.”
“They’ll find out. There’ll be a record of it.”
“Maybe none that can be traced to him. He called from a phone booth out in Maryland somewhere. Rosy’s scared. He is in it up to his neck, the same as us. He spent as much time with Ernie as we did. He knows as much as we do, maybe more than we do.”
“He thinks, spending all that time with Ernie, we might be carriers, too?”
“No, I guess not that. But we know. We might talk. And no one can talk about this. No one will be allowed to talk about this. Can you imagine what would happen, the public reaction …”
“Joe, how long did you say Ernie spent in that neighborhood of his?”
“Four or five years.”
“That’s it, then. That’s the time we have. You and I and all the rest of us, maybe have four years, probably less.”
“That’s right. And if they pick us up, we’ll spend those years where there won’t be any chance of us talking to anyone at all. Someone probably is headed here right now. They have our itinerary.”
“Then let’s get going, Joe. I know a place. Up north. I can take the family. No one will ever think of looking.”
“What if you’re a carrier?”
“If I’m a carrier, my family has it now. If I’m not, I want to spend those years—”
“And other people …”
“Where I’m headed there aren’t many people. We’ll be by ourselves.”
“Here,” said Joe. He took the car keys out of his jacket pocket and tossed them across the room. Charley caught them.
“What about you, Joe?”
“I have to warn the others. And, Charley …”
“Yeah?”
“Ditch that car before morning. They’ll be looking for you. And when they miss you here, they’ll watch your family and your home. Be careful.”
“I know. And you, Joe?”
“I’ll take care of myself. As soon as I let the others know.”
“And Ernie? We can’t let him—”
“I’ll take care of Ernie, too,” said Joe.
Cactus Colts
Cliff Simak’s journals do not mention a story named “Cactus Colts.” I suspect that it is the one named “Boothill Brothers Talk with Bullets”—an ugly title, but that kind of thing was common in the pulp westerns of those days. But I am not too confident of that conclusion due to a discrepancy in dates. At any rate, “Cactus Colts,” which first appeared in Lariat Story Magazine’s July 1944 issue, is shorter than most of Cliff’s westerns, meaning that it’s a terse, taut creation.
—dww
Jeff Jones stumbled when a loose board on the steps in front of the Silver Dollar buckled beneath him. Snarling huskily, he reached out and grabbed a porch post to save himself from falling. Savagely, he wrenched his foot free of the broken board and glanced around, waiting for the yell of laughter that would greet his stumble.
There was no laughter. There was no one to laugh. This Cactus City street drowsed dustily in the silent afternoon. The air was heavy with the heat, and the sunlight was something that came pouring from the molten bowl of sky, so brilliant it hurt one’s eyes. Jeff’s pony stood with drooping head beside the hitching post, the only living thing in sight.
Beyond the town marched the glassy plains, tan with sun-scorched grass.
Jeff strode across the narrow porch and through the batwing doors. For a moment he stopped, blinking in the shade that seemed almost like darkness after the sun-washed street.
A bartender, flour sack for an apron, mopped moodily. Three men were lined against the bar. At one of the tables a bearded drunk was sleeping. His battered hat had fallen from his head and lay canted on its brim.
Jeff moved to the bar and flipped a dollar down. The barkeeper set a bottle out and Jeff poured a drink. The liquor slashed down his throat, cutting the dust. His left cheek, the one with the scar, twitched nervously. He poured another drink.
A savage voice snarled behind him.
“Jones!”
Jeff spun around, hand to gun.
One of the men at the other end of the bar had stepped out into the room, stood spraddle-legged, hands above his butts.
Eyes still unadjusted from the blaze of sun outside, Jeff could not see the other’s face. It was no more than a smudgy blue of white. But there was no mista
king the meaning of the hands above those guns.
There was no time for thought, no space for wondering. Jeff’s mind clicked blank with sudden concentration, everything else wiped out but that spraddle-legged figure set for a double draw.
Chill silence had seeped into the room. The two men at the bar were rigid. The drunk was awake, clutching for his hat.
Jeff felt the breath rasping in his throat, wished for one wild moment that the light was better. Then the other man’s hands were moving and his guns were coming out.
With a swift flip of his wrist, Jeff brought his own gun free.
Twin eyes of red twinkled for a moment almost straight into Jeff’s face and he felt his own gun kicking against his arm, its muzzle drooling fire. Behind him glass crashed and tinkled like little silver bells.
The white smudge face twisted in sudden pain and the two guns clattered on the floor.
Jeff flipped his gun toward the silent figures at the bar.
“Anyone else?” he asked and his voice was so brittle he hardly knew it for his own.
One of the men stirred. “It ain’t our fight, stranger.”
The man out in the center of the room had made no move to pick up the fallen guns. He was bent over, like someone with the stomach ache, moaning softly, left hand clutching right wrist.
The man who had spoken stepped away from the bar and paced slowly forward.
“I’m Owen,” he said.
Jeff stabbed the gun at him. “Your name,” he said, “don’t mean a thing to me.”
Owen stopped short. He was a big man, a bear of a man, a sleek bear with shiny black coat and a black cravat in which a stickpin gleamed.
“I own the place,” he said. “Can’t imagine what got into Jim. One minute he was there talking with us. Next minute he was out there calling you.”
The wounded man straightened up. “He’s Peaceful Jones,” he screamed. “I’d know him anywhere by that scar across his face.”
Jeff slid the gun back into its holster. “Meaning which?” he asked.
“You know damn well what I mean,” yelled Jim. “Back in Texas …”
“Shut up,” snapped Owen. “By rights, you should be buzzard bait.”
“I don’t kill no man without he has his guns,” said Jeff.