Andromeda Gun

by John Boyd

  Full extent of the Winchester-Bain rapprochement was not brought home to Ian until the day of the ribbon-cutting ceremonies marking the opening of the road. Had it not been for the ceremonials planned by the mayor, Ian could have finished two days ahead of schedule and given the prisoners five days off for good behavior.

  But the prisoners were not the only ones to suffer from the delay. Ian had to cancel his plans for a dramatic farewell to Gabriella since the ribbon cutting was posted for the afternoon he would have to leave to pick up the stagecoach at Wind River. Neither he nor she could avoid the ribbon cutting. The mayor had invited Ian to sit on the platform as a guest of honor, and Gabriella was to be the official ribbon cutter.

  As it happened, Ian reached the official end of the road before eleven on the morning of September 2. A sizable crowd had gathered to watch the unofficial finish as the men worked toward the officials’ platform and the wide swash of whitewash drawn across the road where the ribbon was to be strung. Ian’s crew insisted on an impromptu ceremony of its own, handing him the last full shovel of gravel to spread on the last inch of road. Enough members of the band were on hand to tootle “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” and give a festive note to the informal finish.

  There was a spate of applause and handshakes for Ian after he bowed to the crowd and handed the shovel to O’Shea, who marched the crew smartly off to the jailhouse to wash up for dinner and get ready for the official ceremony at two o’clock. Both Gabriella and Liza were present, and they rushed up to buss his cheeks. He blushed and walked down the street, Midnight following.

  Gabriella and Liza had to hurry back to the restaurant to prepare dinner for the prisoners and the expected large crowd. As Ian walked along, inwardly pleased but outwardly nonchalant, Billy Peyton fell into step beside him.

  “Deputy, Miss Stewart mentioned you were interested in the fifty acres of my property between the Jebediah Clayton Bridge and the Bryce Peyton Territorial School.”

  “Yep.”

  “You can have the whole shebang for fifty dollars, provided you give me your word of honor you won’t pay court to Miss Stewart.”

  The Methodists must have done a good job of converting on Peyton, Ian observed to himself, if the ex-Mormon was willing to trust a bank robber’s word of honor, but here was a chance to make a fast $400 profit on land Sheriff Faust was willing to pay $500 for.

  “Well, boy,” Ian said, “I know I ain’t up to courting Miss Stewart. She’s got too much book learning to look on me as a legible suitor, but since you think different, let’s step in the bank here and transfer the title. I got fifty dollars to spare.”

  Ian was pleased by the transaction and more pleased when Peyton immediately put the payment back into the bank. However, Ian’s pleasure was short-lived. When he reached the office, he found Faust there attending to his administrative work by staying sober until after the ribbon cutting.

  “Sheriff,” Ian said, “I think I can get Billy Peyton’s land for you for about five hundred, so’s you can make your own beer when you retire.”

  Sober, Faust was suspicious. “Trying to retire me off, son? Getting ready to step into my boots while I’m still in them?”

  “Naw, sheriff. Been thinking of quitting, myself. But you said you wanted the property.”

  “I did once, but that was before I brought law and order to Shoshone Flats. Doing administrative work sharpens a man, deputy. I decided to put my money in the bank and draw interest. By the time I retire, which ain’t going to be for a long time yet, the people over in Idaho will be shamed into building a road to the Wyoming border to match the one Mayor Winchester ordered you to build. When that happens, the freight rates between here and the brewery in Pocatello’s coming way down, and the price of beer’s going to drop. With my interest money and the low prices, I figure I can buy more beer than I can brew in what little time I’ll have left to me after I finally decide to retire.”

  Well, Ian thought, as he went to wash his hands, it served him right. He was a bank robber, not a hornswoggler, and it never paid to mix trades. But he’d lost nothing. He’d get his fifty dollars back, plus the sheriff’s savings, tomorrow.

  Ian’s place of honor on the speaker’s stand was to the left of the justice of the peace, who was left of the commissary stewardess who was left of the high sheriff, who was left of the ribbon cutter, who was left of the mayor. Strangely, Mr. Bain had been invited to the platform and sat to the right of the mayor. Prettily gowned and bonneted, Gabriella Stewart carried a large pair of shears at the ready. Before the platform, precisely ranked, shovels at “right shoulder,” an honor guard of Ian’s road crew under the command of Mickey O’Shea stood at attention.

  After the crowd had assembled before the dignitaries and after a few patriotic airs from the band across the street, the mayor arose to “Present, tools!”—barked out by O’Shea. When O’Shea had ordered the honor guard to “Parade, rest!,” the mayor introduced the honored guests from left to right, ending with Ian, “whose spadework under the supervision of Sheriff Faust made our dreams a reality.”

  When Ian arose to acknowledge the introduction, prolonged applause and cries of “Speech, speech” arose from the crowd, so the mayor invited Ian to say a few short words.

  “When I first got here,” Ian said, “I had two complaints about this town—the Mormon gunfighter couldn’t shoot straight and Dead Man’s Curve was too crooked. Since then, your Mormon gunfighter’s become a Methodist straightshooter and O’Shea’s Gap has straightened out Dead Man’s Curve. Now, I ain’t got no complaints.

  “However, I’m giving all my convicts time off for good behavior, right after ribbon cutting, and inviting them over to Bain’s Saloon to have free drinks on me. If any of the rest of you have been saving up for a spree, tonight’s the night to throw it. I’m leaving here for Wind River to ride shotgun on the stage, right after the ribbon cutting, and I won’t be back till tomorrow morning. So, tonight, I won’t be arresting nobody. Thank you.”

  Amid prolonged cheers, Ian sat down, and the mayor arose to wait out the silence. When it finally came, Mayor Winchester went into a spiel describing the future of Shoshone Flats, which Ian had heard before in Brother Winchester’s description of heaven, then with the added attraction of a radiant throne.

  Ian’s thoughts wandered to his own immediate future.

  Blicket would hit the stagecoach at sunrise, the way he always did. Probably he’d detail The Sergeant to kill the rear guard and fluster the driver, then The Colonel would step around the corner of the cliff on the big gray and get the drop on the driver, lulling the man with honeyed words to make him feel safe and to watch the surprised look on his victim’s face when he pulled the trigger on his sawed-off shotgun. Colonel Jasper Blicket was right fond of surprises.

  But The Colonel and his orderly would make a mistake. They’d think it was Johnny Loco riding rear shotgun on the stagecoach, and there’d be no means of identification afterwards because The Sergeant used lead minié balls with a slit across the nose, dum-dum bullets named for the sounds they made going in and coming out. But the final remains of the shotgun guard would not be the scraps of Johnny Loco, for he would be crouched inside the stagecoach waiting.

  Somehow, Ian’s daydreams about the coming fracas weren’t as pleasing as they should have been. After going six weeks without killing a man, his bloodthirst should have been sharp; he should have been snorting for the smell of gunpowder. Maybe he was getting out of the habit of killing people.

  Maybe he could even break the habit if he wanted to, and that was the strangest thought of all.

  Ian became alert to the final sentences of the mayor.

  “Knowing our deputy will be fully taken up by his law-enforcement duties under the capable administration of our beloved old-timer, Sheriff Faust, I have contracted for the remainder of our town’s roads to be graveled by private means. To supervise this great work, I have called upon a merchant well known and well served by us all. We will now he
ar a few words from Mr. Timothy J. Bain, our new Commissioner of Public Roads.”

  Ian knew he was being scrouged out of a place at the road fund trough, that Bain was being paid off, politically, for his support of the mayor, but it mattered little. After he had killed The Colonel and The Sergeant, he would circle back, wait for the bank to open, and make off with the road fund, administration fund and all the other funds. He would ride north on a horse that couldn’t be caught through Gentile country, where every ablebodied man for miles around would be suffering from hangover and indifferent to any call to join a posse.

  For once, a straightshooter was going to win out over a politician.

  Bain arose to say that he appreciated the honor conferred upon him by the town s beloved mayor and that he would continue the policy so ably begun under the mayor’s administration by putting gravel on the remainder of the roads in the metropolitan area of Shoshone Flats. Since the contract to gravel the roads had already been let by the able and energetic mayor, his first official duty as road commissioner would be to dedicate the first finished portion of the road network.

  At a nod from the mayor, Gabriella had descended from the platform to stand by the ribbon, and Bain continued, “So now, Miss Stewart, stand by as I take great pleasure in naming this road with a name that symbolizes our future and honors our past. You may cut the ribbon, Miss Stewart.”

  Gabriella cut. As the ribbon fluttered to the ground, Bain continued, “I hereby formally open the new Winchester Pike.”

  As Gabriella whirled, eyes flashing, hands on hips, a loud shriek arose from under a sunbonnet far back in the audience. “It’s McCloud’s road. Why don’t you call it that—McCloud’s Road?”

  Amid derisive hoots and catcalls, the honor guard turned with drawn shovels and would have climbed the platform to belabor the new commissioner if O’Shea had not barked, “Stand fast, you scalawags! There’s more to come.”

  Smiling benignly, raising his hand to silence the jeers of the crowd, Commissioner Bain bellowed above the tumult, “Ladies and gentlemen, Deputy McCloud has not been forgotten. Let our mayor speak.”

  “He’d better talk fast,” Jebediah Clayton yelled, shouldering his vast bulk toward the platform, and the mayor responded, talking fast.

  “Because of Deputy McCloud’s great contribution to the actual construction of the road and because of its part in bringing Gentile and Mormon closer together in this valley, we have reserved a special honor for Deputy Ian McCloud.”

  Watching Jebediah Clayton advance, Winchester sacrificed eloquence of speech for a rapid delivery.

  “Fifty yards south of here, on the spot, yonder, where you see the boulders piled, your road commissioner has contracted with our general contractor, Mr. Michael O’Shea, to erect a stone building along the lines of the Taj Mahal, with the addition of architectural features our deputy is particularly fond of, which should prove a welcome addition to the ladies of the community.”

  J. C. stopped and the mayor continued at a more eloquent pace.

  “We Gentiles in the valley cherish our ladies because of their rarity, but we must welcome the wives of our Mormon friends and look also to their comfort. Today, we have no facilities at all for the fair sex. The barbershop is a male tonsorium. The hotel is infested with drummers. Ladies do not enter the barroom. So, even before Mr. O’Shea commences construction of the Bryce Peyton Territorial School, he is going to hasten the immediate construction of the Ian McCloud Comfort Station which will be large enough to accommodate six ladies simultaneously.”

  Applause swelled from the throng as the mayor sat.

  Fearing now that no force this side of heaven could divert McCloud from his self-appointed ends, G-7 felt itself comforted by the mayor’s announcement. Through an instrumentality it had considered even less likely than McCloud, peace and religious unity might be coming to the valley, and G-7 was grateful. Although for the time being it was no longer fighting to save mankind—only the one man—it welcomed all the help it could get in the fulfillment of its larger aims, and the mayor’s gesture was providential.

  Not even the sight of its spaceship, lying slightly apart from the other building stones beside the road and apparently scheduled to be the cornerstone for the privy, disturbed G-7’s appreciation for the turn of events . It was not alone in its striving for the common good. While it watched its chosen host careen toward a confrontation with evil, its work toward religious brotherhood had found an ally in a low, grafting politician, the mayor.

  G-7 was still blessing Winchester when a strangely furious Liza leaned across the justice of the peace and whispered to McCloud, “There’s a lot of talk about giving the women the vote in Wyoming. That old four-flusher’s stacking his deck with your cards. In this valley, the Mormons’ vote is the women’s vote, what with all their wives. Winchester’s aiming to corral the Mormon vote. He don’t care nothing for the ladies’ comfort. He’s using your good name to get hisself reelected.”

  Bernbaum nodded and intoned a solemn, “Selah!”

  Though he knew the widow spoke the truth, Ian was not disturbed. In fact, he was well pleased. To his knowledge, there was not another outlaw in the whole West who had a six-holer named in his honor.

  10

  From Wind River to Shoshone Flats, the stage route wound over mountains. Night turned chilly in the high altitudes, which gave Ian an excuse for riding inside the stagecoach, but, in addition to his plan to ambush the robbers, he had another reason for wanting to ride inside—squeamishness. He did not wish to get too friendly with either the driver or the rear guard, knowing they would both be dead by sunrise.

  Ian could not understand his concern for his horse. Tied to the rear of the stagecoach, plodding along at a fraction of his normal pace, Midnight might grow chill from the lack of exercise. His sensitivity toward the men bothered Ian.

  After pulling this job, he decided, he might invest some of his loot in railroad stocks, learn something about railroading, and take to robbing trains. A man had to progress with his times, and the future was in railroads. He was getting too picayunish and too smart for outdoor work.

  Although he tried to doze, he was constantly being awakened as the stage lurched and pitched on the upgrade. Past midnight, after he heard the clunk of brake shoes on the iron rims of the wheels, all desire for sleep left him. The stagecoach had topped the crest and was heading down. By dawn, it should reach the stretch of road where the mountains dropped sharply to a canyon’s floor. At that point, with the cliff almost sheer to the left and a five-hundred-foot drop to the right, the road took a sharp bend around the cliff and became too narrow for the driver to take evasive action. Here, Ian figured, The Colonel would place a barricade and wait around the bend. Probably The Sergeant would hide among the boulders above the road and gun down the guard from the rear, figuring he was killing Johnny Loco.

  Tension was growing in Ian’s mind, and, unknown to McCloud, it was a dual tension. The being inside was growing more alert.

  Outside the window, the first faint glow of sunrise was touching the canyon’s rim to eastward. Ian removed from his lap the shotgun furnished by the stage line and unholstered his revolver, sliding to the floor of the coach to conceal his silhouette from a watcher outside. He was crouched low, his legs spread, his left hand on the door handle and his right on his pistol.

  A shotgun was impractical for Ian’s purposes. At the close range he figured The Colonel would be, a blast from a shot gun would tear his victim in two, and he wanted The Colonel to die slowly. It didn’t matter about The Sergeant. He would die like the animal he was, specifically an ape, but The Colonel was a man of sensibilities, a Southern gentleman.

  A Southern gentleman!

  G-7 sensed a residual respect in the term its host verbalized, a remnant aura of an old regard, and it seized on the connotations.

  It responded to the tensions in the mind of McCloud with its own tensions, resolving that this man must be saved. It would never again desert its h
ost. It settled its tendrils firmly along the neuron channels of the man’s brain and tapped the brain’s obsession, using the feedback to power a counterobsession, stroking McCloud’s beta waves.

  Hatred had carried McCloud down this tortuous trail to his showdown with Blicket, and McCloud had never faltered from his purpose. Would the love which had arced the galaxies endure less? The heavens forbid! G-7 nursed the one area of near-warmth in the ice-mind of McCloud, charged it, enhanced it with coiling tendrils of light.

  A Southern gentleman.

  Unaccountably, Ian relaxed slightly on the floor of the coach, thinking; he’d learned a few things from Blicket, he had to admit. When he first met The Colonel and was admitted to his outlaw band on the strength of a service record as a Confederate sharpshooter—seventeen Yankees killed, seven wounded—The Colonel had been solicitous of Ian’s well-being. The older man had gone out of his way to impress on Ian the value of planning in a successful holdup, and The Colonel was one of the softest-talking men Ian had ever met.

  It had been a pleasure just to listen to The Colonel use the language; that and his military flair had a way of making every job sound interesting. Their last holdup of a U.S. Cavalry squadron had been like old times during the war, with Ian decoying the bluecoats up a draw into ambush while Blicket directed operations from behind the lines.

  He had never tried to understand the man, Ian admitted, but only obeyed orders. Squatting now on the floor of the lurching stagecoach, Ian ransacked his memories of Colonel Blicket, trying to understand the man’s behavior and groping, subconsciously, toward the principle that to understand all was to forgive all.

  Blicket’s life had forced the man to become a harsh disciplinarian. As a brevet colonel commanding a squadron of irregulars in Quantrill’s guerrillas, Blicket’s troops had been mostly barn burners, night riders, bushwhackers, and border ruffians—the scummiest bunch of murderers on horseback ever assembled—and the mildest form of discipline such men understood was a pistol-whipping.