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room with him. Instinctively he reached for the light stud at bedside. The
deep growl of Leestrom's voice from the darkness stopped his hand.
"Cully," said Leestrom. "Let me fight him for you. He's just as much taller
than me as he is you but I've got weight you haven't got."
"Don't be a damn fool, Lee," said Cully. "It's me Machin wants to kill, not
you. Even if he'd let you take my place tomorrow I'd have to fight him later
anyway. Now, will you get out of here and let me get my sleep? I'm going to
need it."
He dropped his head back on the pillow. After a long moment there was the
quiet click of the door to his room closing. He slept.
11
« ^ »
Hill Number Five, on the road to Bonjoi Town that same hill Cully had stopped
to examine the day before was a ten-to-twenty-degree slope slanting up some
fifty yards from the road to the base of a vertical cliff of gray metamorphic
rock. Over the years, the freezing and thawing of Kalestin's sudden springs
and falls had flaked off much of the rock face, in shards and splinters of
gray stone; and these, tumbling down the slope below, had finally covered most
of that slope in loose rock fragments. Among these rock fragments a few small
bushes struggled to survive. There had been trees on the slope also, but a
forest fire within the last few years had reduced them to an occasional
charred stump sticking up out of the stony rubble.
"Well," said Onweetok, "there'll be a nice clear view for all of us watching,
though you might have picked a more level spot, Cully. Sure, there's a chance
Machin might turn an ankle on that loose rock up there. But so might you; and
if you were counting on him to stumble, I've got to tell you, Cully, that, big
as he is, he's as sure on his feet as the rest of us."
The dapper Frontiersman and Cully had just arrived by car at the foot of the
slope. They pulled off the road and got out of the vehicle. Cully was dressed
in bush shirt and brush pants with a borrowed brush knife in a scabbard at his
waist. He drew it now and hefted it. It had been three years since he had
handled one of these tools, which also served on occasion as a murderous
weapon. But the weight and balance of it in his grip woke old memories of
reflex and muscle. The four-pound weight of it swung easily in his hand. With
its slightly curved lower edge, it looked like something between an outsized
bowie knife and a fat scimitar.
"Here they come," said Onweetok behind him.
Cully turned about. Coming up the road from Kalestin City was another car just
like their own. In it, even at this distance, Brian Machin could be
distinguished because of his large bulk. Behind that car, at a polite
distance, came a small caravan of seven or eight other cars.
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"On," said Cully, "did you think to get us a few friendly witnesses? It
wouldn't be too good if you were the only one here who could give an unbiased
report of this."
"Don't worry, Cully lad," replied Onweetok. "We've gotten formal as all blazes
about duels here nowadays. The Speaker of the Assembly will be here, with at
least three semiofficial witnesses from Machin's party, and the same number
from mine. Then there'll be a few important people out here just to see for
themselves how you do. You don't seem to realize what you laid on the line by
calling Machin. There're a lot of people in Kalestin City who remember Cully
When real well. You're a hero, and Machin's a giant. And one of the two of you
has got to lose his badge by the time this day is out." Onweetok grinned not
entirely happily.
The lead car containing Machin was almost up to them now. It came on, passed
by them, and parked twenty yards up the road. The caravan of cars behind
followed and parked, filling in the space between Cully's car and Machin's.
"Any last-minute instructions you want to give me?" asked Onweetok. 'I've got
to go and talk to Machin's second now. If there's anything you want done about
the arrangements, speak up. Machin had the choice of weapons, so the rest of
the arrangements are all up to you."
"I know," said Cully absent-mindedly. He had been studying the slope. "Tell
Machin's second, I'd like to start with the two of us about thirty feet apart,
facing each other and halfway up the slope." He turned to look at Onweetok.
"And if you have anything to do with picking the actual starting positions,
try and find me a spot that will put two or three good stumps between me and
him."
Onweetok went down along the line of cars. A few moments later, Cully saw him
up on the slope with another man tying white cloths around two stumps that
were approximately the distance apart Cully had specified.
This done, the two seconds split up and Onweetok came back down the slope to
Cully.
Cully had already gotten rid of the scabbard to his brush knife, rolled up his [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]