Clifford D. Simak seems to have had some following in Western literature of the era – in this case, his story was the topmost of the two listed on the front cover of the magazine, and it appeared as the first story in the magazine. Cliff’s journal shows that he was paid $120 for it during a period when the cover price of the magazine was fifteen cents. Several characters in the story bear the names of towns in the area of Wisconsin where Cliff grew up, and the protagonist bears as a last name the name of Cliff’s younger brother, Carson.
CHAPTER ONE
Hit the Trail, Or Die!
Morgan Carson, editor of the Trail City Tribune, knew trouble when he saw it – and it was walking across the street straight toward his door.
Dropping in alone, either Jackson Quinn, the town’s lone lawyer, or Roger Delavan, the banker, would have been just visitors stopping by to pass the time of day. But when they came together, there was something in the wind.
Jake the printer clumped in from the back room, stick of type clutched in his fist, bottle joggling in hip pocket with every step he took, wrath upon his ink-smeared face.
“Ain’t you got that damned editorial writ yet?” he demanded. “Holy hoppin’ horntoads, does a feller have to wait all day?”
Carson tucked the pencil behind his ear. “We’re getting visitors,” he said.
Jake shifted the cud of tobacco to the left side of his face and squinted beneath bushy eyebrows at the street outside.
“Slickest pair of customers I ever clapped an eye on,” he declared. “I’d sure keep my peepers peeled, with them jaspers coming at me.”
“Delavan’s not so bad,” said Carson.
“Just pick pennies off a dead man’s eyes, that’s all,” said Jake.
He spat with uncanny accuracy at the mouse-hole in the corner.
“Trouble with you,” he declared, “is you’re sweet on that dotter of hisn. Because she’s all right, you think her old man is too. Nobody that goes around with Quinn is all right. They’re just a couple of cutthroats, in with that snake Fennimore clear up to their hips.”
Quinn and Delavan were stepping to the boardwalk outside the Tribune office. Jake turned and shuffled toward the back.
The door swung open and the two came in, Quinn huge, square-shouldered, flashy even in a plain black suit; Delavan quiet and dignified with his silvery hair and bowler hat.
“This is a pleasure,” Carson said. “Two of the town’s most distinguished citizens, both at once. Could I offer you a drink?”
He bent and rummaged in a deep desk drawer, came up empty-handed.
“Nope,” he said, “I can’t. Jake found it again.”
“Forget the drink,” said Quinn. He seated himself on Carson’s desk and swung one leg back and forth. Delavan sat down in a chair, prim and straight, like a man who dreads the job he has to do.
“We came in with a little business proposition,” said Quinn. “We have a man who’s interested in the paper.”
Carson shook his head. “The Tribune’s not for sale.”
Quinn grinned, pleasantly enough. “Don’t say that too quickly, Carson. You haven’t heard the price.”
“Tempt me,” invited Carson.
“Ten thousand,” said Quinn, bending over just a little as if to keep it confidential.
“Not enough,” said Carson.
“Not enough!” gasped Quinn. “Not enough for this?” He swept his hand at the dusty, littered room. “You didn’t pay a thousand for everything you have in the whole damned place.”
“Byron Fennimore,” Carson told him levelly, “hasn’t got enough to buy me out.”
“Who said anything about Fennimore?”
“I did,” snapped Carson. “Who else would be interested? Who else would be willing to pay ten thousand to get me out of town?”
Delavan cleared his throat. “I would say, Morgan, that should have nothing to do with it. After all, a business deal is a business deal. What does it matter who makes the offer?”
He cleared his throat again. “I offer the observation,” he pointed out, “merely as a friend. I have no interests in this deal myself. I just came along to take care of the financial end should you care to sell.”
Carson eyed Delavan. “Ten thousand,” he asked, “spot cash? Ten thousand on the barrel-head?”
“Say the word,” said Quinn, “and we’ll hand it to you.”
Carson laughed harshly. “I’d never get out of town with it.”
Quinn spoke softly. “That could be part of the deal,” he said.
“Nope,” Carson told him, “ten thousand is too much for the paper. I’d sell the paper – just the paper, mark you – for ten thousand. But I won’t sell my friends. I won’t sell myself.”
“You’d be making a stake out of it, wouldn’t you?” asked Quinn. “Isn’t that what you came here for?”
Carson leaned back in his chair, hooked his thumbs in his vest and stared at Quinn. “I don’t suppose,” he said, “that you or Fennimore could understand why I came here. You aren’t built that way. You wouldn’t know what I was talking about if I told you I saw Trail City as a little cowtown that might grow up into a city.
“Gentlemen, that’s exactly what I saw. And I’m here, in on the ground floor. I’ll grow up with the town.”
“Have you stopped to think,” Quinn pointed out, “that you might not grow up at all? Might just drop over dead, suddenlike, some day?”
“All your gunslicks are poor shots,” said Carson. “They’ve missed me every time so far.”
“Maybe up to now the boys haven’t been trying too hard?”
“I take it,” said Carson, “they’ll try real hard from now on.”
He flicked a look at Delavan. The man was uneasy, embarrassed, twirling the bowler hat in his hands.
“Let’s stop beating around the bush,” suggested Carson. “I don’t know why you tried it in the first place. As I understand it, Fennimore will give me ten thousand if I quit bucking him, forget about electing Purvis for sheriff and get out of town. If not, the Bar Y boys turn me into buzzard bait.”
“That’s about it,” said Quinn.
“You don’t happen to be hankering after my blood, personally?” asked Carson.
Quinn shook his head. “Not me. I’m no gunslinger.”
“Neither am I,” Carson told him. “Leastwise not professionally. But from now on I’m not wearing this gun of mine for an ornament. I’m going to start shooting back. You can noise that around, sort of gentle-like.”
“The boys,” said Quinn, sarcastically, “will appreciate the warning.”
“And you can tell Fennimore,” said Carson, “that his days are over. The days of free range and squeezing out the little fellow are at an end. Maybe Fennimore can stop me with some slugs. Maybe he can stop a lot of men. But he can’t stop them forever.
“The day is almost here when Fennimore can’t fix elections and hand-pick his sheriffs, when he can’t levy tribute on all the businessmen in town, when he can’t hog all the water on the range.”