Read Online Steel by Richard Matheson - Free Book Online Page B

mister?”
    The young man repeated the question, his face emotionless.
    â€œNow, what does a fine young fellow like you want to know that for?” George asked him in a fatherly way.
    It was like the tightening of hide across a drum top the way the skin grew taut across the young man’s cheeks.
    â€œI asked you a question,” he said with unpleasant flatness. “Answer it.”
    The two closest customers cut off their talking to observe. I felt my hands grow cold upon the table top. There was ruthlessness in the young man’s voice.
    But George’s face still retained the bantering cast it almost always had.
    â€œAre you going to answer my question?” the young man said, drawing back his hands and tensing them with light suggestiveness along the bar edge.
    â€œWhat’s your name, son?” George asked.
    The young man’s mouth grew hard and his eyes went cold beneath the shadowing brim of his hat. Then a calculating smile played thinly on his lips. “My name is Riker,” he said as if somehow he expected this unknown name to strike terror into all our hearts.
    â€œWell, young Mr. Riker, may I ask you why you want to know about the quickest pistolman in town?”
    â€œWho is it?” There was no smile on Riker’s lips now; it had faded quickly into that grim, unyielding line again. In back I noticed one of the three poker players peering across the top of half-doors into the main saloon.
    â€œWell, now,” George said, smiling, “there’s Sheriff Cleat. I’d say that he’s about—”
    His face went slack. A pistol was pointing at his chest.
    â€œDon’t tell me lies,” young Riker said in tightly restrained anger. “I know your sheriff is a yellow dog; a man at the hotel told me so. I want the truth. ”
    He emphasized the word again with a sudden thumbing back of hammer. George’s face went white.
    â€œMr. Riker, you’re making a very bad mistake,” he said, then twitched back as the long pistol barrel jabbed into his chest.
    Riker’s mouth was twisted with fury. “Are you going to tell me?” he raged. His young voice cracked in the middle of the sentence like an adolescent’s.
    â€œSelkirk,” George said quickly.
    *   *   *
    The young man drew back his pistol, another smile trembling for a moment on his lips. He threw across a nervous glance at where I sat but did not recognize me. Then his cold blue eyes were on George again.
    â€œSelkirk,” he repeated. “What’s the first name?”
    â€œBarth,” George told him, his voice having neither anger nor fear.
    â€œBarth Selkirk.” The young man spoke the name as though to fix it in his mind. Then he leaned forward quickly, his nostrils flaring, the thin line of his mouth once more grown rigid.
    â€œYou tell him I want to kill him,” he said. “Tell him I—” He swallowed hastily and jammed his lips together. “Tonight,” he said then. “Right here. At eight o’clock.” He shoved out the pistol barrel again. “You tell him,” he commanded.
    George said nothing and Riker backed away from the bar, glancing over his shoulder once to see where the doors were. As he retreated, the high heel of his right boot gave a little inward and he almost fell. As he staggered for balance, his pistol barrel pointed restlessly around the room, and in the rising color of his face, his eyes looked with nervous apprehension into every dark corner.
    Then he was at the doors again, his chest rising and falling rapidly. Before our blinking eyes, the pistol seemed to leap back into its holster. Young Riker smiled uncertainly, obviously desperate to convey the impression that he was in full command of the moment.
    â€œTell him I don’t like him,” he said as if he were tossing out a casual reason for his intention to kill Selkirk. He swallowed again, lowering his chin