Combine columns from several files into one

awk 'FNR==1 {print $2}' file*

This prints the second column ($2) of the first line (FNR==1) for every file whose filename starts with file.

An alternative is to print the first line and then immediately skip to the next file (nextfile is a mawk and GNU awk-specific keyword):

awk '{print $2; nextfile}' file*