Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  Simms shakes my hand and grips me hard on the shoulder and says nothing in that manly Western style he’s picked up through the years of associating with me, being me. Consuela hugs me, there are tears in her eyes, she kisses me, she tells me to come back to her soon. Ah, those incredible first months with a new wife! The splendor of it, before the dreary old reality sets in! Consuela is number four. I’ve ridden down a lot of trails in my time, most of them the same, and now the director checks me again for lipstick smears, nods OK, and I turn away from Consuela and Simms, throw them the little two-finger salute I’m famous for, and stride across the creaking floor of the Wells Fargo Office and out the other side, into the blazing sunshine and the world of The Never-Ending Western Movie.

  From far away the camera picks up a lone rider, moving ant-like between brilliantly striped canyon walls. We see him in successive shots against an unfolding panorama of desert scenery. Here he is in the evening, silhouetted against a flaming sky, derby cocked jauntily on the back of his head, cooking over a little fire. Now he is asleep, rolled in his blanket, as the embers of his fire fade to ash. Before dawn the rider is up again, making coffee, preparing for the day’s ride. Sunrise finds him mounted and moving, shielding his eyes from the sun, leaning back long in the stirrups, letting his horse pick its own way over the rocky slopes.

  I am also the audience watching me the actor, as well as the actor watching me the audience. It is the dream of childhood come true: to play a part and also watch ourselves play it. I know now that we never stop acting, never stop watching ourselves act. It is merely an irony of fate that the heroic images I see coincide with what you, sitting in front of your little screen, also see.

  Now the rider has climbed to a high saddleback between two mountains. It is cold up here, a high wind is blowing, the rider s coat collar is turned up and his derby is tied in place with a bright wool scarf. Looking over the man’s shoulder, far below, we see a settlement, tiny and lost in the immensity of the landscape. We follow as the rider clucks to his tired horse and begins the journey down to the settlement.

  The derbied rider is walking his horse through the settlement of Comanche. There is one street—Main Street—with its saloon, boarding house, livery stable, blacksmith’s, general store, all as quaint and stark as a Civil War daguerreotype. The desert wind blows unceasingly through the town, and a fine dust is settled over everything.

  The rider is recognized. Loungers in front of the general store say: “Hey, it’s Washburn!”

  I dismount stiffly in front of the livery stable—a tall, travel-stained man, gun belt worn low and strapped down, the cracked, horn-faced gun butt standing out easy to reach, easy to see. I turn and rub my face—the famous, long, sorrowful face, the puckered scar along one cheekbone, the narrow unblinking gray eyes. It is the face of a tough, dangerous, unpredictable man; yet a sympathetic one. It is me watching you watching me.

  I come out of the livery stable, and there to greet me is Sheriff Ben Watson, an old friend, hard tanned face and black handlebar moustache, tin star gleaming on his worsted vest.

  “Heard you might be coming through,” Watson says. “Heard you been to Califomee for a spell.”

  “Califomee” is our own special codeword for retirement.

  “That’s so,” I say. “How’s everything around here?”

  “So so,” Watson tells me. “I don’t suppose you heard about Old Jeff Mangles?”

  I wait. The sheriff says, “Happened just yesterday. Old Jeff got thrown, out on the desert. We figure his horse shied at a rattler—Christ knows I told him to sell that big, skittery, walleyed brute. But you know Old Jeff—”

  “What happened to him?” I ask.

  “Well, like I say, he got thrown and dragged. He was dead before Jimmy Conners found him.”

  Long silence. I push the derby to the back of my head. Finally I say, “Okay, Ben, what else do you want to tell me?”

  The sheriff is ill at ease. He fidgets, shifting from one foot to the other. I wait. Jeff Mangles dead; that blows the scene I was hired to play. What other development is coming up?

  Watson says, “You must be thirsty. What say we put down a beer—”

  “Just tell me the news.”

  “Well . . . You ever hear of a cowpuncher from the Panhandle name of Little Joe Potter?”

  I shake my head.

  “He came drifting up this way a while ago, bringing with him quite a reputation as a fast gun. Didn’t you hear about the shootout down at Twin Peaks?”

  Now that he mentions it, I do remember hearing something about it. But I’ve been out to Califomee doing other things, and shootouts just didn’t interest me much until right now.

  “This Little Joe Potter,” Watson goes on, “he went up against four X-Bar riders in a dispute over some woman. They say it was quite a fight. The result was that Little Joe blew them four riders all to hell, and he picked himself up quite a reputation thereby.”

  “So what?” I ask.

  “Well, some time after that, Little Joe was in a poker game with some of the boys down Gila Bend way . . .” Watson stops, uncomfortable. “Washburn, maybe you better get the story from Charlie Gibbs, since he spoke to a man who was actually present at that game. Yeah, you better hear it from Charlie. See you later, Washburn.”

  The sheriff moves away, following the Movie dictum of keeping the talk-scenes short and letting other people have a piece of the action.

  I walk to the saloon. There is someone following me, a kid, no more than eighteen or nineteen, a gangling snub-nosed freckled kid in too-short overalls and cracked boots. He wears a gun. What does he want of me? What everyone else wants, I suppose.

  I enter the saloon, my spurs clattering on the plank floor. Charlie Gibbs is drinking at the bar, a fat sloppy man all grin and crinkle, not wearing a gun because Charlie Gibbs is a comic character and therefore does not kill or get killed. Charlie is also our local Screen Actors Guild representative.

  I buy him a drink and ask him about Little Joe Potter’s famous poker game.

  “I heard about it from Texas Jim Claire. You remember Texas Jim, don’t you, Washburn? Good old boy who works for the Donaldson outfit as a wrangler? Well, sir, Texas Jim was in this poker game over by way of Gila Bend. The action commenced to get hot. There was this one big jackpot at the end, and Doc Dailey bet a thousand dollars Mex on his hand. Little Joe was right fond of the cards he was holding, but he didn’t have no more money to back hisself with. Doc said he’d take collateral, if Little Joe could think of any. Little Joe thought about it for a while, and then he said, ‘How much would you give me for Mr. Washburn’s derby?’ There was a silence then, because nobody just walks up and takes away Mr. Washburn’s derby, not without first killing the man underneath it. But on the other hand, Little Joe was not known as a braggart, and he’d handled hisself well during that shootout with the X-Bar riders. So Doc, he thought about it a while, then he said, ‘Sure, Joe, I’ll allow you a thousand for Washburn’s derby, and I’d gladly pay another thousand for a ringside seat when you go to take it off him. You can have that ringside seat for nothing,’ says Little Joe, ‘if I lose this hand, which I’m not fixing to do.’ So the bet is accepted and they show down. Little Joe’s four eights lose to Doc’s four Jacks. Little Joe rises and stretches, and says, Well, Doc, looks like you’re going to get your ringside seat after all.’ ”

  Charlie finishes off his drink and looks at me with bright, malicious eyes. I nod, finish my own drink and go out back to the outhouse.

  The outhouse is a designated off-camera area. We use it for talks which are necessary, but are out of our Western context. Charlie Gibbs comes out a few minutes later. He turns on the hidden air conditioning, takes a pack of cigarettes from behind a beam, lights up, sits down and makes himself comfortable. As SAG representative, Charlie spends a fair amount of time out here listening to gripes and grievances. This is his office, and he’s tried to make it pleasant for himself.

  Charlie says, “
I suppose you want to know what’s going on?”

  “Damned right I do,” I tell him. “What is this crap about Joe Potter coming to take away my derby?”

  “Don’t get excited,” Charlie says, “everything is in order. Potter is a new star on his way up. After Jeff Mangles got killed, it was natural to match up you and him. Potter went along with it. Your agent was approached yesterday and he renegotiated your contract. You’re getting a hell of a bonus for this shootout appearance.”

  “Simms renegotiated my contract? Without asking me first?”

  “You weren’t available then. Simms said it would be fine with you. He gave a statement to the newspapers about how you and he had talked about this many times, and that it had always been your desire to leave the Movie big, at the top of your form, in one last shootout. He said he didn’t have to discuss it with you because you and he had talked it over many times and you and he were closer than brothers. He said he was glad this chance had come up, and he knew you would be glad, too.”

  “Christ! That simple-minded-Simms!”

  “Was he setting you up?” Charlie asks.

  “No, it’s not like that at all. We did talk a lot about a final showdown. I did tell him that I’d like to end big—”

  “But it was just talk?” Charlie suggests.

  “Not exactly.” But it’s one thing to talk about a shootout when you’re retired and safe in your house in Bel-Air. It’s another to suddenly find yourself involved in a fight without preparation. “Simms didn’t set me up; but he did involve me in something that I’d want to make up my own mind about.”

  “So the situation is,” Charlie says, “that you were a fool for shooting off your mouth about wanting a final match, and your agent was a fool for taking you at your word.”

  “That’s the way it looks.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “I’ll tell you,” I say, “as long as I’m talking to my old buddy Charlie, and not to Gibbs the SAG representative.”

  “Sure,” Charlie says.

  “I’m going to waltz on out of here,” I say. “I’m thirty-seven years old and I haven’t practiced gunplay for a year. I’ve got a new wife—”

  “You don’t have to go into all that,” Gibbs says. “Life is sweet, that says it all. As your friend, I approve. As your SAG representative, I can tell you that the Guild won’t back you up if you break a valid contract made by your legally appointed representative. If The Company sues you, you’re all alone on your lonesome.”

  “Better all alone than underground with company,” I tell him. “How good is this Little Joe?”

  “He’s good. But not as good as you are, Washburn. You’re the best I ever seen. You thinking about meeting him?”

  “Nope. Just asking.”

  “Keep it that way,” Charlie says. “As your friend, I advise you to get out and stay out. You’ve already taken everything that can be gotten out of The Movie: You’re a hero, you’re rich, and you’ve got a pretty young wife. You’ve won everything in sight. Now don’t hang around and wait for someone to take it off you.”

  “I’m not fixing to,” I tell him. But I find that my hand has come to rest on my gun butt.

  I go back into the saloon. I sit alone at a table, a shotglass of whiskey in front of me, a thin black Mexican cigar between my teeth. I am thinking about the situation. Little Joe is riding up from the south. He’ll probably figure to find me here in Comanche. But I don’t figure to be here. Safest way would be for me to ride back the way I came, back to the Wells Fargo station and out into the world again. But I’m not going to do it that way. I’m going out of The Set by die way of Brimstone in the extreme northeastern comer, thus making a complete tour of The Territory. Let them figure that one out . . .

  Suddenly a long shadow falls across the table, a figure has moved between me and the light, and without a thought I roll out of my chair, gun already drawn, hammer back, forefinger tightening on the trigger. A boy’s frightened, high-pitched voice says, “Oh! Excuse me, Mr. Washburn!” It’s that snub-nosed freckle-faced kid I saw watching me earlier, now gaping at the end of my gun, scared, as he damned well should be having just startled me out of a years growth.

  I thumb down the hammer of my .44. I get up, holster the gun, dust myself off, pick up my chair and sit down on it. Curly the bartender brings me another drink. I say to the kid, “Kid, don’t you know better than to move up sudden on a man like that? I should have blown you to hell just on the off-chance.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Washburn,” he says. “I’m new out here, I didn’t realize . . . I just wanted to tell you how much I admire you.”

  He was new, all right; he looked fresh out of The Company’s School of Western Skills which we must all graduate from before we’re even allowed on The Set. I had been just as raw as him during my first weeks in The Movie.

  “Someday,” he tells me, “I’m going to be like you. I thought maybe you could give me a few pointers. I got this old gun here—”

  The kid draws, and once again I react without thinking, slap the gun out of his hand, chop him down with a fist to the ear.

  “Goddamn you!” I shout, “haven’t you got no sense at all? You just don’t up and draw like that unless you’re meaning to use it.”

  “I just wanted to show you my gun,” he says, not getting up yet.

  “If you want someone to look at your gun,” I tell him, “take it out of your holster slow and easy, keeping your fingers outside the trigger guard. And first announce what you’re going to do.”

  “Mr. Washburn,” he says, “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Don’t say anything,” I tell him. “Just get out of here. You look like bad luck to me. Go show someone else your goddamned gun.”

  “Shall I show it to Joe Potter?” he asks, getting up and dusting himself off.

  He looks at me. I haven’t said a word. He gulps, he knows he’s put his foot in it again.

  I stand up slow. “Would you care to explain that remark?”

  “I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

  “You sure of that?”

  “Real sure, Mr. Washburn. I’m sorry!”

  “Get out of here,” I say, and the kid scrams fast.

  I go over to the bar. Curly has the whiskey bottle out, but I wave it away and he draws me a beer. “Curly,” I say, “I know they can’t help being young, but isn’t there something they can do about being so stupid?”

  “I reckon not, Mr. Washburn,” Curly says.

  We are silent for a few moments. Then Curly says, “Natchez Parker sent word he’d like to see you.”

  “All right,” I tell him.

  Dissolve to: a ranch on the edge of the desert. In the chuckhouse, the Chinese cook is sharpening his knives. Bud Farrell, one of the hands, is sitting on a crate peeling potatoes. He is singing as he works, his long horse face bent over the spuds. The cook, oblivious to him, looks out the window, says, “Rider comes.”

  Bud Farrell gets up, looks, scratches his hayseed head, looks again: “That’s something more than just a rider, you heathen Chinee. That’s Mister Washburn, sure as God made little green apples!”

  Bud Farrell gets up, walks to the front of the main house, calls, “Hey, Mr. Parker! Mr. Washburn is riding up here!”

  Washburn and Parker are sitting together at a small wooden table over steaming mugs of coffee in Natchez Parker’s sitting room. Parker is a huge moustachioed man sitting in a straight-back wooden chair, an Indian blanket over his withered legs. He is paralyzed from the waist down because of an old bullet crease in the spine.

  “Well, Washburn,” says Parker, “I heard about you and Little Joe Potter, just like everyone else in The Territory. Ought to be one hell of a meeting. Wish I could see it.”

  I say, “I wouldn’t mind seeing it myself.”

  “Where is it going to take place?”

  “In hell, I guess.”

  Parker leans forward. “What does that mean?”
>
  “It means that I’m not meeting Little Joe. I’m riding for Brimstone, and then straight on, away from Little Joe and the whole damned West.”

  Parker leans forward and vigorously rubs his shock of gray hair. His big face puckers together like he had bitten into a rotten apple.

  “You’re running?” he asks.

  “That’s it,” Washburn says.

  The old man grimaces, hawks, spits on the floor. He says, “I never thought to hear you of all people say a thing like that. I never thought to see you go against the values you’ve always lived by.”

  “Natchez, those were never my values. They came ready-made with the role. Now I’m through with the role, and I’m turning in the values, too.”

  The old man chewed that over for a while. Then he said, “What in hell is the matter with you? Got too much to live for all of a sudden? Or just gone yellow?”

  “Call it what you like,” I tell him. “I came by to tell you. I owe you that.”

  “Well, wasn’t that nice of you?” says Parker. “You owed me something and it was on your way anyhow, so you figured the least you could do was come by and tell me you was running away from a jumped-up baby gunslinger with one fight under his belt.”

  “Get off my back.”

  “Tom,” he says, “listen to me.”

  I look up. Parker is the only man in The Territory who ever calls me by my first name. He doesn’t do it often.

  “Now look,” he says, “I am not one for fancy speeches. But you simply can’t run away like this, Tom. Not on account of anything but yourself. You’ve got to live with yourself, no matter where you go.”