Magnificent Guns of Seneca 6 (18 page)

"Murder them, you mean," Wallows said.

The preacher turned on Wallows, his thin, slit-like eyes nearly black under the brim of his hat.
 
"How many times have you had a gun in your face, sir?
 
How many times have you had to decide whether or not to use yours?
 
Ever?"

"Well, I…once, there was a time when…" Wallows voice faded and the preacher smiled.

"You know what I heard before I came here?" Buchinsky said.
 
He looked around the crowd, turning them into his pulpit audience, "I heard that Seneca 6 was corrupt and the people who ran it were lazy.
 
I heard this place was easy pickings.
 
You might all think you're so safe and secluded here, but meanwhile, there's a big old nasty world out there that thinks you're all a soft target."
 
Buchinsky pointed at the dead bodies and said, "That's why they showed up today.
 
If you don't see that, you're all damned fools."

"We've done everything we could to change that, father," Bart Masters said.
 
"That doesn't mean we're just going to start summarily executing people in the street."

Jem Clayton reached up to unpin the sheriff's badge from his vest lapel.
 
He palmed it in his hand and walked over to where Bart Masters was standing.
 
"I'll make this real easy for you then," he said.
 
He dropped the gold star into Bart's hand and said, "I quit."

***

"You can't quit.
 
Put that thought far out of your mind because I don't accept your resignation," Bart said.
 
He looked around the inside of the office and half-smiled at the display case. "You finished it?
 
It looks nice."

Jem kicked his boot up on the desk and said, "Don't try to change the subject, Bart.
 
These people don't want me, and I'm not sure I want them anymore either."
 

"Nobody said this was going to be easy, Jem.
 
You and I talked long and hard about how you needed to be your own man instead of trying to live up to some kind of legend.
 
Sam was Sam, and you are you.
 
We both know it, and if there's anybody who don't, well, they are just going to have to figure it out."

"You know what the problem is, Bart?
 
When Tom Masters and Sam Clayton were here, people knew better than to bother them about nonsense.
 
There wasn't any, 'Miss Millie May put her fence too close to my pasture,' or 'Old Farmer Groves sold me a dozen cracked eggs.'
 
I'm dealing with a group of people who were conditioned by Walt Junger to think they could walk in here and drop a few extra coins in the suggestion box and have their way."

Bart put his hat on the desk and sighed.
 
He ran his fingers over the wooden surface and said, "You know, I used to come and sit in the office with my daddy on the weekends.
 
I'd sit right on this desk and I used to ask him, 'Daddy, when are you going to be Sheriff?'
 
In my heart, I felt secretly ashamed that he wasn't the boss.
 
Like maybe he wasn't good enough."

"Tom Masters was worth fifty regular men.
 
My Pa said it regularly."

"I know," Bart said.
 
"He used to laugh and say he wouldn't take the Sheriff's job if they offered him a truckload of severian.
 
He saw what Sam went through, putting up with all the nonsense from people on a daily basis.
 
He said that in his position, he got to crack heads and always have someone else to pass along the responsibility to.
 
You understand, Jem?
 
If Sam were here now, he'd tell you that it weren’t no different in his day.
 
We just didn't see none of it on account of we were too young."

Jem nodded at the blank space on the wall beside the display case and said, "I been meaning to tell you that I was working on something for Tom, too.
 
When you get a minute, I'd like to see if you can donate some photographs or mementos from his days.
 
He deserves it."

"I'd be honored to," Bart said.
 
He laid the Sheriff's badge on the desk in front of Jem and said, "So what do you say?"

"I say I'll have to think about it, Bart."
 
    

***

For all intents and purposes, it was still Royce and Katey Halladay's house.
 
The doctor abandoned it the day of the Beothuk raid and no one ever bothered to tear the place down.
 
Jem took over the property after he returned to the settlement and was surprised to find it had been cleaned and swept.
 

He suspected it was the doctor himself who'd done it during his last days.
 
There were scrap books belonging to Katey and empty bottles of whiskey lined up on the porch and in the sitting room.
 
Jem sat down on the porch sometimes in Doc's old rocking chair, looking through those scrap books.
 
Some of them had photographs of Sam and Betsy Clayton.
 

It had been almost a year, and the only thing Jem brought into the house was his father's old gun safe, taken from his sister's basement.
 
He left all the pictures up on the walls and was glad to find the Halladay's old plates and mugs in the cabinets.
 
It saved him from having to buy anything.
 

The only thing he threw out was the clothes.
 
Doc was much smaller and thinner than Jem and dressed like a foreign dignitary before he became a man of the road.
 
Jem carted off wagons full of silk shirts and handmade boots to the poor houses.
 
He laughed every time he saw some indigent unfortunate dressed in a pair of spats or sporting a top hat.
 
He knew that somewhere, Doc was smiling too.
 

Jem unstrapped his gun and set it inside the safe, about to take off his vest when he heard someone riding up to his home.
 
He picked up a rifle and carried it to the front door, setting it against the wall as he looked out.
 

Father Charles held up a four-fingered hand and said, "I apologize for any intrusion, Mr. Clayton.
 
I wanted to speak to you in private, though."

Jem reached down and put his fingers around the barrel of the rifle and tilted it toward him, ready to lift it at the first sign of trouble.
 
"What about?"

The preacher dismounted and took off his hat to run his fingers through his long, silvery hair and get it unstuck from his face.
 
He reached into this jacket pocket and pulled out a small, yellowed photograph of a pretty young woman.
 
"This is my daughter, Wendy.
 
Her mother's a native, from one of the eastern tribes."
 

Jem raised an eyebrow at that and came out onto the porch.
 
He brought the rifle with him, but let it rest against the door as he sat down.
 
He waved for the preacher to come up and sit beside him, then held out his hand for the photograph.
 
The girl was mixed, showing the best features of both races.
 
She had her father's thin, cat-like eyes and long black hair tied in tight braids like one of the natives.
 
"Pretty girl," Jem said.

"She certainly was," the preacher said.

"Was?"

"Her mother and I had an arrangement.
 
Wendy would come stay with me for half the year, and then go back to her mother's tribe the rest.
 
She loved being with them in the summer, living out there in the dust and heat.
 
It was something in her blood, I guess.
 
I never had the heart to deny her.
 
Turns out, I was a fool not to, because she'd still be here."

Jem handed him back the picture and said, "Why don't you go ahead and tell me what happened?"

"Her tribe was attacked by a Pwatsak named Toquame Keewassee."

"Pwatsak?"

Father Charles shook his head and smiled, "Let me guess.
 
You thought they were all just called Beothuk?"

"That's all I've ever known them to be called," Jem said.
 
"I've never heard of them attacking each other, either,"

"They all got their own names, own identities.
 
There were enough of them to fill up the whole planet before the White Man showed up looking for severian.
 
You got some that are good and some that aren't.
 
There's a whole lot of history out there in those hills, partner.
 
A whole lot."
 
The preacher looked out into the distance as he said, "Toquame Keewassee is trying to start a full-scale war against the White Man.
 
He's doing it by selling Beothuk girls from rival tribes in exchange for weapons."

"Who's he selling them to?"

"Some masked bastard out there in the mountains that ships them off-planet for God knows what purposes.
 
Calls himself Gentleman Jim."

Jem flinched at the name and let out a sound like he'd been punched in the gut.
 
Father Charles looked him over and said, "You had dealings with him before?"

"In a sense," Jem said.

"Well that's who I'm looking for.
 
First I'm gonna ask him who he shipped my little girl, and second I'm gonna send him and everyone with him on a one-way ticket to Hell."

"What kind of preacher are you, anyway?" Jem said.
 
"You cut off both your trigger fingers, got that baby back from Bill Doolin who now is suspiciously missing an eye, and now you want to go take on a gang of outlaws?"

"I wasn't always a man of the Lord, Mr. Clayton.
 
I sure did try, though.
 
I sure did try."

Jem nodded and said, "You told me your story.
 
Now tell me why you came all the way out here this time of night to tell it to me."

"I could use a hand, Mr. Clayton."

"What you could use is two trigger fingers," Jem said sharply.
 
"You think I'm just gonna ride out with you and go hunt a tribe of renegade Beothuk who are backed by a weapons dealer?"

Father Charles nodded and said, "Yep."

"By ourselves?"

"I reckon so."

"And just how exactly do you plan on finding Mr. Keewassee or this man running around
claiming
to be Gentleman Jim?"

"I've been paying people for information.
 
Word is that Keewassee's men attacked the Hopituh Shi-nu-mu just the other day.
 
They're not too far off from here I want to go and investigate.
 
See if I can catch up to him."

"Somebody you paid told you that?"
 
When the old man nodded, Jem smirked and said, "That's an unreliable way to collect information, padre."

"I'm not some damn greenhorn who just fell off the apple cart, sir.
 
I know what I'm doing and I'm asking if you might be interested in assisting me.
 
If you aren't, I'll be on my way."