Magnificent Guns of Seneca 6 (17 page)
Sam set Claire on the ground near a stack of wooden blocks and looked up at his friend with concern, "Your profession or mine?"
Halladay looked at Betsy and said, "Would you mind sitting down, dear?"
Betsy walked stiffly over to the couch and sat down next to her husband.
She folded her hands on her lap and whispered, "It's one of the kids, ain't it.
What is it, Royce?
Spit it out."
"No, no, no," Halladay said.
He looked at Sam and then back at her, "It's you, Betsy."
Sam's whole body contorted but Betsy's face stayed harder than granite.
"I drew some blood from you after that little incident and sent it off to the laboratory for basic tests.
They found something."
Sam's hand wrapped around his wife's.
It took him a minute to find his voice.
"What did you find?"
"You're in the early stages of blood fever," Halladay said.
"Oh my God," Sam whispered.
"Because we caught it so early, there's no telling how long it will take to develop.
It might be years from now."
"How many?" Sam said.
"I do not know," Halladay said.
Betsy took a deep breath and nodded slowly.
She gave Halladay a light smile and said, "Well, thank you for letting me know, Royce."
"What can we do?" Sam said.
"Some kind of treatment, some kind of clinic out there.
What are our options?"
Halladay shook his head sadly, "There is pain medicine for when it begins to feel…uncomfortable."
"Pain medicine?
What about a cure?"
"There is none."
"Bullshit!" Sam shouted.
"Who are you to say that?
Some country bumpkin who can hardly manage giving a child a needle?
How dare you walk in here, drop that on us, and tell us there's no goddamn cure?"
"Because it is the truth, Sam," Betsy said.
"Get the hell out of my house, you son of a bitch," Sam said.
Halladay lowered his head and said, "All right, Sam.
Of course."
He let himself out the front door and closed it softly behind him.
Jem was looking up at him as he stood there.
"He yells when he gets upset, Doc," the boy said.
"That's all."
"It is quiet all right, Jem.
I understand perfectly."
Sam threw the door open and said, "Jem, get your ass inside right now."
"Okay, pa."
Jem shot to his feet and waved to the doctor as he ran in the door.
Sam slammed the door shut so hard the windows rattled.
He looked at his wife and said, "Don't you listen to him.
He don't know what they're working on out there in the galaxy.
Hell, they got spaceships bigger than this whole planet that can break light speed and you mean to tell me there ain't nobody who can cure a little bit of blood fever?
Wrong!
Wrong, I say.
I don't care if we got to spend every minute of the next ten years looking all over hell and creation, we are gonna find someone who can tell us more than that imbecile."
Betsy straightened out her skirt and stood up.
She looked at Sam and simply said, "No, we aren't."
"What do you mean?"
She walked into the kitchen and grabbed a dirty plate off of the counter and started to scrub it.
Sam came up behind her and said, "What are you, just going to give up?"
"No," she said.
"I'm going to live my life like I intend to."
"But that doesn't make any sense!
If you're sick, we need to fix it."
"Says who?
If Whiskey Pete had never shown up here, we'd have never known any of this.
I'd have kept on being the kids' mother and your wife and enjoying my life however long it might last.
The same as you, Sam.
Every time you walk out that door it might be your last.
Do you ever think about that?"
"No.
Because I know what I've got to come home to," he said.
"I would fight anyone and anything to get back here.
Why won't you fight?"
"To me, racing around the galaxy dragging the kids to every godforsaken colony looking for something that don't exist isn't fighting, Sam.
It's running.
And if this illness is going to come for me, I'd rather be here at home, on my own terms."
"I don't understand," Sam said.
His voice cracked and the next thing he said was like a low, guttural moan.
Betsy turned and put her hand against his face, "If you think I'm gonna let a little bit of blood fever keep me from raising those two babies, you don't know me very well."
It took two years.
Sam would lay in bed next to her feeling her body get hotter and hotter.
He'd run cool, damp washcloths over her bare skin and fan her.
He'd draw her cold baths three times a day.
Toward the end, Katey Halladay showed up every day first thing in the morning to help with the children.
It was a practice Katey continued after Betsy passed on, right up until she was murdered by Tilt Junger on the night of the Beothuk raid.
On the day Betsy Clayton died, the whole settlement of Seneca 6 showed up at their front door.
There were enough flowers to stock a hothouse.
Old Man Willow filled up the inside of his funeral cart with the flowers so that they surrounded her body when they laid her inside of it.
That evening, as the sun set over Coramide Canyon and the valley was lit like it was burning, they lowered her into the ground at the rear of the property.
Jem Clayton squeezed his father's hand and looked up at him.
It was the only time he ever saw the man cry.
Bart Masters still had to work his day job at the mining company.
He didn't take a salary for being mayor except to cover the expenses of keeping his office open and staffed with a secretary during the day.
He found that if people didn't have a place to leave him messages, they'd come find him at the mine and nearly get blown up in the process.
When Billy Jack Elliot was mayor, he ate imported seafood every night and slept on the finest silk sheets.
He taxed the people who lived on the settlement on one end, and gave out high-interest loans on the other.
It was quite a scandal,
Bart thought.
The way Elliot and Walt Junger raped this town, it's no wonder people hailed him and Jem as conquering heroes when they took over.
Bart rode into the town square and looked at the bodies of the Dunn brothers and the dead destrier on the street, then at the crowd of people forming a ring around his sheriff.
What changed?
As soon as people saw the mayor, they turned their attention from Jem and started shouting at him.
Bart dismounted from his destrier and walked over to the department store's front steps.
He stepped up on the top two to look out over the whole crowd and held up his hands to quiet them, "I can't hear everybody at once.
I just got here, and it's gonna take me a minute to sort out what happened."
"What happened is our so-called Sheriff shot an unarmed man and nearly got Emmy Sue's baby daughter killed!" Phil Wallows shouted.
Bart Masters shot a glance at Jem, who grimaced and shook his head no.
More people began to shout and Bart yelled out, "All right!
All right.
That's enough!"
Nell Baker aimed a stubby finger at Jem and said, "We don't want his kind here!
He's a killer, he ain't no lawman.
We're good, decent, respectable people and we deserve better than this!"
A woman's voice rose over the others like a roar, "You shut your fat mouth, Nell Baker, or I'll shut it for you!"
Claire Miller shoved her way through the crowd with eyes that blazed hellfire.
"The next one of you who says another damn word is going to get my boot directly up their ass."
Claire scanned the crowd menacingly, daring someone to speak.
She looked back at the Mayor and said, "What the hell, Bart?
You going to leave those men laying in the street for the animals and birds?"
Bart sighed and said, "I just got here, Claire.
Give me a minute."
He pointed at two of the men standing closest to him and said, "Load them up into a wagon and get them over to the funeral home.
Now, did anyone see what happened?"
Phil Wallows raised his hand, "I saw the whole dang thing.
Them two boys were trying to surrender and Jem shot them down like dogs."
Bart frowned and said, "How do you know they were trying to surrender?
Did they say that?"
"No."
"Did they hold up their hands and get down on their knees?
Did they throw down their guns?"
"Well, no, but, they sure looked like they would have."
Claire went around to stand at her brother's side and said, "We gonna pass judgment based on what it looked like to this clown?"
"Who you calling a clown, girl?" Wallows growled.
"It wasn't clear I was talking about you the first time?" Claire said.
"That's enough," Bart shouted.
"Anyone else?"
Father Charles Buchinsky wound his way toward the front and said, "I did.
I watched the Sheriff disable a charging wagon without flinching.
Then I saw him confront two men, one of whom was armed, as they tried to escape."
