The Collected Stories of Frank Herbert (96 page)

“You don't?”

“He made Jim stop smoking and drinking.”

Smeg shook his head sharply, wondering if he'd heard correctly. The conversation kept darting around into seeming irrelevancies. He adjusted his hat brim, looked at his hand. It was a good hand, couldn't be told from the human original. “Smoking and drinking?” he asked.

“Yep.”

“But why?”

“Said if Jim was taking on new ree-sponsibilities like the widow he couldn't commit suicide—not even slow like.”

Smeg stared at Painter who appeared engrossed with a nonexistent point in the sky. Presently, Smeg managed: “That's the weirdest interpretation of the law I ever heard.”

“Don't let the sheriff hear you say that.”

“Quick to anger, eh?”

“Wouldn't say that.”

“What
would
you say?”

“Like I told Jim: Sheriff get his eye on you, that is it. You going to toe the line. Ain't so bad till the sheriff get his eye on you. When he see you—that is the end.”

“Does the sheriff have his eye on you, Mr. Painter?”

Painter made a fist, shook it at the air. His mouth drew back in a fierce, scowling grimace. The expression faded. Presently, he relaxed, sighed.

“Pretty bad, eh?” Smeg asked.

“Dang conspiracy,” Painter muttered. “Gov'ment got its nose in things don't concern it.”

“Oh?” Smeg watched Painter closely, sensing they were on productive ground. “What does—”

“Dang near a thousand gallons a year!” Painter exploded.

“Uhhh—” Smeg said. He wet his lips with his tongue, a gesture he'd found to denote human uncertainty.

“Don't care if you are part of the conspiracy,” Painter said. “Can't do nothing to me now.”

“Believe me, Mr. Painter, I have no designs on…”

“I made some 'shine when folks wanted,” Painter said. “Less'n a thousand gallons a year … almost. Ain't much considering the size of some of them stills t'other side of Anderson. But them's across the line! 'Nother county! All I made was enough fer the folks 'round here.”

“Sheriff put a stop to it?”

“Made me bust up my still.”

“Made
you
bust up your still?”

“Yep. That's when he got my Barton.”

“Your … ahhh … barton?” Smeg ventured.

“Right from under Lilly's nose,” Painter muttered. His nostrils dilated, eyes glared. Rage lay close to the surface.

Smeg looked around him, searching the blank windows, the empty doorways. What in the name of all the Slorin furies was a barton?

“Your sheriff seems to hold pretty close to the law,” Smeg ventured.

“Hah!”

“No liquor,” Smeg said. “No smoking. He rough on speeders?”

“Speeders?” Painter turned his glare on Smeg. “Now, you tell me what we'd speed in, Mr. Smeg.”

“Don't you have any cars here?”

“If my cousin Reb didn't have his station over to the forks where he get the city traffic, he'd be bust long ago. State got a law—car got to stop in jes' so many lights. Got to have windshield wiper things. Got to have tires which you can measure the tread on. Got to steer ab-solutely jes' right. Car don't do them things, it is
junk.
Junk! Sheriff, he make you sell that car for junk! Ain't but two, three folks in Wadeville can afford a car with all them things.”

“He sounds pretty strict,” Smeg said.

“Bible-totin' parson with hell fire in his eyes couldn't be worse. I tell you, if that sheriff didn't have my Barton, I'd a run out long ago. I'd a ree-beled like we done in Sixty-one. Same with the rest of the folks here … most of 'em.”

“He has their … ahhh, bartons?” Smeg asked, cocking his head to one side, waiting.

Painter considered this for a moment, then: “Well, now … in a manner of speaking, you could call it that way.”

Smeg frowned. Did he dare ask what a barton was? No! It might betray too much ignorance. He longed for a proper Slorin net, all the interlocked detail memories, the Slorin spaced out within the limits of the narrow band, ready to relay questions, test hypotheses, offer suggestions. But he was alone except for one inexperienced offspring hiding out there across the fields … waiting for disaster. Perhaps Rick had encountered the word, though. Smeg ventured a weak interrogative.

Back came Rick's response, much too loud: “Negative.”

So Rick didn't know the word either.

Smeg studied Painter for a sign the man had detected the narrow band exchange. Nothing. Smeg swallowed, a natural fear response he'd noticed in this body, decided to move ahead more strongly.

“Anybody ever tell you you have a most unusual sheriff?” he asked.

“Them gov'ment survey fellows, that's what they say. Come here with all them papers and all them questions, say they interested in our crime rate. Got no crime in Wade County, they say. Think they telling us something!”

“That's what I heard about you,” Smeg offered. “No crime.”

“Hah!”

“But there must be some crime,” Smeg said.

“Got no 'shine,” Painter muttered. “Got no robbing and stealing, no gambling. Got no drunk drivers 'cepting they come from somewheres else and then they is mighty displeasured they drunk drove in Wade County. Got no
ju
venile dee-linquents like they talk about in the city. Got no patent medicine fellows. Got nothing.”

“You must have a mighty full jail, though.”

“Jail?”

“All the criminals your sheriff apprehends.”

“Hah! Sheriff don't throw folks in jail, Mr. Smeg. Not 'less they is from over the line and needs to sleep off a little ol' spree while they sobers up enough to pay the fine.”

“Oh?” Smeg stared out at the empty main street, remembering the fat man—Jim. “He gives the local residents a bit more latitude, eh? Like your friend, Jim.”

“Jes' leading Jim along, I say.”

“What do you mean?”

“Pretty soon the widow's going to be in the family way. Going to be a quick wedding and a baby and Jim'll be jes' like all the rest of us.”

Smeg nodded as though he understood. It was like the reports which had lured him here … but unlike them, too. Painter's “survey fellows” had been amused by Wadeville and Wade County, so amused even their driest governmentese couldn't conceal it. Their amusement had written the area off—“purely a local phenomenon.” Tough southern sheriff. Smeg was not amused. He walked slowly out to the main street, looked back along the road he'd traveled.

Rick was out there listening … waiting.

What would the waiting produce?

An abandoned building up the street caught Smeg's attention. Somewhere within it a door creaked with a rhythm that matched the breeze stirring the dust in the street. A “SALOON” sign dangled from the building on a broken guy wire. The sign swayed in the wind—now partly obscured by a porch roof, now revealed: “LOON” … “SALOON” … “LOON” … “SALOON” …

The mystery of Wadeville was like that sign, Smeg thought. The mystery moved and changed, now one thing, now another. He wondered how he could hold the mystery still long enough to examine it and understand it.

A distant wailing interrupted his reverie.

It grew louder—a siren.

“Here he come,” Painter said.

Smeg glanced at Painter. The man was standing beside him glaring in the direction of the siren.

“Here he sure do come,” Painter muttered.

Another sound accompanied the siren now—the hungry throbbing of a powerful motor.

Smeg looked toward the sound, saw a dust cloud on the horizon, something vaguely red within it.

“Dad! Dad!” That was Rick on the narrow band.

Before he could send out the questioning thought, Smeg felt it—the growing force of a mindcloud so strong it made him stagger.

Painter caught his arm, steadied him.

“Gets some folks that way the first time,” Painter said.

Smeg composed himself, disengaged his arm, stood trembling. Another Slorin! It had to be another Slorin. But the fool was broadcasting a signal that could bring down chaos on them all. Smeg looked at Painter. The natives had the potential—his own Slorin group had determined this. Were they in luck here? Was the local strain insensitive? But Painter had spoken of it getting some folks the first time. He'd spoken of telepaths.

Something was very wrong in Wadeville … and the mindcloud was enveloping him like a gray fog. Smeg summoned all his mental energy, fought free of the controlling force. He felt himself standing there then like an island of clarity and calm in the midst of that mental hurricane.

There were sharp sounds all around him now—window blinds snapping up, doors slamming. People began to emerge. They lined the street, a dull-eyed look of expectancy about them, an angry wariness. They appeared to be respectable humans all, Smeg thought, but there was a sameness about them he couldn't quite define. It had something to do with a dowdy, slump-shouldered look.

“You going to see the sheriff,” Painter said. “That's for sure.”

Smeg faced the oncoming thunder of motor and siren. A long red fire truck with a blonde young woman in green leotards astride its hood emerged from the dust cloud, hurtled down the street toward the narrow passage where Smeg had parked his car.

At the wheel of the truck sat what appeared to be a dark-skinned man in a white suit, dark blue shirt, a white ten-gallon hat. A gold star glittered at his breast. He clutched the steering wheel like a racing driver, head low, eyes forward.

Smeg, free of the mindcloud, saw the driver for what he was—a Slorin, still in polymorph, his shape approximating the human … but not well enough … not well enough at all.

Clustered around the driver, on the truck's seat, clinging to the sides and the ladders on top, were some thirty children. As they entered the village, they began yelling and laughing, screaming greetings.

“There's the sheriff,” Painter said. “That unusual enough fer you?”

The truck swerved to avoid Smeg's car, skidded to a stop opposite the lane where he stood with Painter. The sheriff stood up, looked back toward the parked car, shouted: “Who parked that auto
mo
bile there? You see how I had to swing way out to git past it? Somebody tear down my ‘No Parking' sign again? Look out if you did! You know I'll find out who you are! Who did that?”

While the sheriff was shouting, the children were tumbling off the truck in a cacophony of greetings—“Hi, Mama!” “Daddy, you see me?” “We been all the way to Commanche Lake swimming.” “You see the way we come, Pa?” “You make a pie for me, Mama? Sheriff says I kin have a pie.”

Smeg shook his head at the confusion. All were off the truck now except the sheriff and the blonde on the hood. The mindcloud pervaded the mental atmosphere like a strong odor, but it stopped none of the outcry.

Abruptly, there came the loud, spitting crack of a rifle shot. A plume of dust burst from the sheriff's white suit just below the golden star.

Silence settled over the street.

Slowly, the sheriff turned, the only moving figure in the frozen tableaux. He looked straight up the street toward an open window in the second story of a house beyond the abandoned service station. His hand came up; a finger extruded. He shook his finger, a man admonishing a naughty child.

“I warned you,” he said.

Smeg uttered a Slorin curse under his breath. The fool! No wonder he was staying in polymorph and relying on the mindcloud—the whole village was in arms against him. Smeg searched through his accumulated Slorin experience for a clue on how to resolve this situation. A whole village aware of Slorin powers! Oh, that sinful fool!

The sheriff looked down at the crowd of silent children, staring first at one and then another. Presently, he pointed to a barefoot girl of about eleven, her yellow hair tied in pigtails, a soiled blue and white dress on her gangling frame.

“You there, Molly Mae,” the sheriff said. “You see what your daddy done?”

The girl lowered her head and began to cry.

The blonde on the truck's hood leaped down with a lithe grace, tugged at the sheriffs sleeve.

“Don't interrupt the law in the carrying out of its duties,” the sheriff said.

The blonde put her hands on her hips, stamped a foot. “Tad, you hurt that child and I won't never speak to you, never again,” she said.

Painter began muttering half under his breath: “No … no … no … no—”

“Hurt Molly Mae?” the sheriff asked. “Now, you know I won't hurt her. But she's got to go away, never see her kin again as long as she lives. You know that.”

“But Molly Mae didn't do you no hurt,” the young woman said. “It were her daddy. Why can't you send him away?”

“There's some things you just can't understand,” the sheriff said. “Grown up adult can only be taken from sinful, criminal ways a slow bit at a time 'less'n you make a little child of him. Now, I'd be doing the crime if I made a little child out of a grown-up adult. Little girl like Molly Mae, she's a child right now. Don't make much difference.”

So that was it, Smeg thought. That was the sheriff's real hold on this community. Smeg suddenly felt that a barton had to mean—a hostage.

“It's cruel,” the blonde young woman said.

“Law's got to be cruel sometimes,” the sheriff said. “Law got to eliminate crime. Almost got it done. Only crimes we had hereabouts for months are crimes 'gainst me. Now, you all know you can't get away with crimes like that. But when you show that
dis
regard for the majesty of the law, you got to be punished. You got to remember, all of you, that every part of a family is ree-sponsible for the whole entire family.”

Pure Slorin thinking,
Smeg thought. He wondered if he could make his move without exposing his own alien origins. Something had to be done here and soon. Did he dare venture a probe of greeting into the fool's mind? No. The sheriff probably wouldn't even receive the greeting through that mindcloud noise.