Guns of Seneca 6 (Chamber 1 of the Guns of Seneca 6 Saga)

by Bernard Schaffer

  “Bartholomew Masters, but you can call me Bart.” When he stuck out his hand to shake McParlan’s, his fingers were tattooed black and tipped with cracked fingernails that would never heal. His skin was colored grey from so many years spent down in the mines.

  “I need explosives,” McParlan said.

  “Sorry, but we don’t use any. The entire settlement drills strictly by laser so we don’t risk damaging any of the product.”

  McParlan looked at the laser drilling machine and said, “Actually, these might work even better. Can I see one in action?”

  “You sure can. Come back tomorrow at seven AM. We’re all done for the day.”

  McParlan put his hands on his side and said, “Actually, I’d like to see it a little sooner than that, son. Like, now.”

  “No can do, Marshal. The machines take forty minutes to work up enough charge to fire. We can only use a single machine twice in the same day. I don’t have any left to give you a demonstration with, Marshal.”

  “Damn,” McParlan said. “Don’t you have anything else?”

  “Just a few handheld’s.”

  “Show me.”

  Masters took the Marshal to the equipment lot and showed him a bulky backpack contraption with a hose connected to a barrel. “These things are heavy as hell, but nothing works better for delicate detail work.”

  “What’s their range?”

  “About a foot and a half.”

  “Can it be expanded?”

  “To what?”

  “Fifty feet.”

  Masters laughed and said, “No. They’d blow up.”

  “Let’s just say I’m looking to increase security around here,” McParlan said. “The Sheriff around these parts couldn’t handle an invasion of old ladies with knitting needles, and I’m afraid something much worse than that is coming. You got any interest in helping me?”

  Masters looked over his shoulder at the men leaving the worksite to head home. The men waved to Masters and he waved back and said, “Goodnight.” He turned to look at the Marshal and said, “This sounds like an over-a-beer conversation to me. You thirsty?”

  ***

  An hour later, the sound of rattling keys woke Elijah Harpe. He rolled over on his side to face the cell door, and saw Harlan Wells selecting the right key to fit into the lock. The old man put a heavy iron one into the door and started to turn it. Elijah rubbed his eyes and waited for the dream to end.

  Harlan yanked the door open and said, “Come on out, you idiot.”

  Elijah laid back down on the bunk and folded his hands behind his head. “You are stupider than that potato-headed son of yours if you think I’m dumb enough to fall for that. You think I’d let you shoot me in the back as I walk down the steps just so’s you can claim a reward?”

  Harlan’s voice was deeper when he said, “Little Willy says you might even be stupider than you are ugly. And that’s quite an achievement.”

  Elijah’s eyes flew open and he bolted upright. “Well, I’ll be damned. How in the hell did he manage to get to one of you all the way out here?”

  Harlan’s eyes fluttered and his face twisted. He gasped and reached out to clutch the door to try and pull it shut and keep it open at the same time, with one arm struggling against the other. “No! Get out, you son of a bitch. Get out!”

  Elijah watched the old man with amusement and said, “I’m getting.” He pushed Harlan away from the door as he limped out on his bad leg. “Back up, you damn fool.”

  Fat droplets of sweat spilled off of Harlan’s face. He had to hold onto the cell doors just to stay on his feet. Through clenched teeth he said, “Meet by the crash site. We’ve got a weapon now that will change everything, forever.”

  Elijah walked over to the Sheriff’s desk to look at the framed photograph. He popped the frame open and took out the picture. He tore off the end that showed the little girl with pigtails, smiling up at her daddy. Elijah ran his finger over her face and whispered, “I bet you’re real pretty now, Claire.” He looked at Harlan, “Tell Willy I’ll meet him right here in the morning. I have some reckoning to attend to.”

  “Stop…stop…” Harlan muttered as he struggled to pull the pistol from his waistband. Elijah Harpe limped down the steps of the Sheriff’s office and just as he reached the street, Harlan got the gun free and raised it to his back. “DO NOT TRY TO DEFY ME.”

  “Get out of my head,” Harlan gasped. He tried squeezing the trigger, but watched in horror as his arm began moving toward a woman walking down Pioneer Way. The woman was completely unaware as she strolled along the shop windows, admiring the items within, when Harlan’s gun erupted, blowing a hole through the back of her hat and splattering its light blue fabric with dark blood.

  People looked up from all around the town square to see the woman crumple to the ground. They waited, like it was a street performance and did not want to be thought a fool for acting surprised. Men in front of the Proud Lady lowered their mugs of beer and stopped talking. Children in front of the candy shop stood still as the old man holding the pistol groaned in misery, and blood spread out on the dirt under the woman’s hat.

  Women screamed and snatched their children up, dragging them back into the stores or into the alleyways. Three miners waiting to cash their checks at the Savings and Loan ran at Harlan, yelling for him to stop, but he turned on them and fired. Harlan moved like a machine across the street, turning his gun on anyone who looked at him.

  Anna Willow threw her office door open and stood open mouthed at the sight of Harlan Wells coming toward her, gun at the ready. “Mr. Wells!” Anna shouted. She saw the bodies lying on the street behind him, but the cold, expressionless mask of his face terrified her more than anything. Harlan raised his gun to her face.

  “No!” she cried and everything slowed down and magnified. The mouth of the barrel widened to reveal the spiraled rifling within. The flat steel surface of the bullet inside the chamber seemed larger than her fist. The only sound in the world was the mechanical click of the revolver’s cylinder turning as Harlan squeezed the trigger. The gun fired and chunks of the doorframe exploded above Anna’s head, showering her with wooden splinters as she dropped to her knees and covered her head. “Why are you doing this?” she screamed.

  “I can’t stop!” Harlan’s gun hand shook and his pale cheeks exploded with burst blood vessels. “He’s making me do this! Somebody help me!”

  The office door opened behind her and Adam Wells came out of the office, looking in wonder at the way Anna cowered in front of his father. He turned to look at Harlan and smiled.

  Harlan turned the gun on his son and said, “Please, please, no. I beg you. I will shoot myself if you want, right now. Adam, run away! Run away!”

  Anna stood up in front of Adam, backing him toward her office while shielding him with her body. “Harlan! Listen to me. You don’t have to do this. Your son didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Harlan’s jaw sawed back and forth and when he spoke, his voice was not the same. “You never wanted him anyway. When you saw how he was you thought about drowning him in the bath, old man. You hated what he took from you.”

  “What is wrong with you?” Anna shrieked. She yanked Adam down onto the ground next to her and covered him with her arms. “Leave us alone.”

  Tears streamed down Harlan’s face and blood collected in his nostrils and spilled down his chin, dribbling between his lips. “I will not do this! You cannot make me, you son of a bitch!”

  Marshal James McParlan ran down the street yelling, “Put that goddamn weapon down, Harlan! What the hell has gotten into you?” He raised his Balrog and fired at the ground by the old man’s feet, but Harlan did not even notice.

  “McParlan?” Harlan said. He let out a laugh and said, “Marshal James McParlan?”

  “Stop talking and put the gun down, Harlan. You don’t want to hurt anybody else.”

  Harlan turned on him and said, “Oh, but I do, old man. You took my brother, and now I’m going to kill
every person in that little shit town. You know what happens to people who mess with my family, Marshal?” Harlan Wells lurched forward, dragging the soles of his boots in the dirt. “I mess with theirs.” Harlan aimed the gun back at Adam and started to squeeze the trigger, but managed to get the gun into the air and fire it at the sky. “Stop resisting me, old man.”

  “What the hell’s gotten into you?”

  “All of Hell.” Harlan’s mouth twisted and his eyes bulged and it was his own voice that cried out, “Don’t let me do this. I can’t stop him! He’s inside my mind. He’s going to make me shoot them! Please, for the love of God, don’t let me do this.”

  “Who’s inside of you, Harlan?” McParlan shouted.

  “The brother of that man you arrested. It’s too late,” Harlan gasped. He lowered the gun again at Adam and said, “I can’t—Adam—Please, Marshal, save him.”

  McParlan’s gunshot cracked the air and Harlan Wells collapsed. The Marshal holstered his Balrog and kicked the gun away from Wells’ hand, standing silently over the body as people closed in on him.

  ***

  Claire Miller carried a large basket of vegetables up to her front porch door and kicked it with her boot. “Frank? Frank! Come open this door up. This stuff is heavy.”

  She put the basket up against the wall and braced it there as she pulled the screen door open and turned the interior door’s handle. She heaved the basket through the entrance, calling for Frank again. Claire set the basket down and wiped her wet forehead with the sleeve of her shirt. The light was on in the back bedroom. “Stop pretending like you can’t hear me,” she said. “I know you got one good ear. Don’t try to get out of helping me.”

  Frank’s chair was turned over in the entrance of her childhood bedroom. She hurried into the back room but stopped at the sight of a dirty-looking man sitting on her bed. He was resting a bandaged leg and picking his fingernails with a knife.

  In the corner of the room farthest from her, Frank was standing on a wobbling stack of books. He was naked and shivering and had a noose tied around his neck. There was a sock stuffed in his mouth and the noose was taut from his neck up to the ceiling beams above. Frank’s hands were bound behind his back with what appeared to be a pair of her pants and he was moaning when she walked in, tears spilling from his eyes.

  The man on the bed held up a torn piece of a photograph and looked at Claire. He nodded with satisfaction and said, “I knew it. You did grow up to be a pretty one, Claire.”

  “Who the hell are you and what do you want?” Claire hissed.

  “I’m a friend of your brother’s,” he said. Then he grinned and said, “Well. That might not be the entire truth. The Lord hates it when I lie. Jem and I ain’t friends at all. Now me and you? We’re gonna be real, real close friends before the night is over.”

  “Get out of my house, and leave us alone.”

  Elijah Harpe smiled to reveal a dripping cesspool of yellow and brown. “I’m trying to be nice to you. Trust me. This is the easy part. It’s what comes next that you got to worry about.”

  14. Judges 19:25

  Claire Clayton was six years old when her daddy died. Most of her memories of that time were covered by the kind of fog that renders faces blurry and voices faint. She remembered how Sam Clayton smelled, though. Something like good pipe tobacco and worn but well-oiled leather. She remembered sitting in Sam’s lap and him always pressing his chin into the cup of her palm, he’d rub his scruff against her skin until she giggled and tried to get away. Sam let up just enough to let her catch her breath, and did it all over again.

  She remembered the night Deputy Frank Banner was murdered in front of their house, and telling Sam, “I’m proud of Jem for protecting us and killing that bad man.”

  Sam looked at his little girl and bent down to her level, like he always did when he wanted to talk to her. He wasn’t the kind to stand over her and issue edicts. He was the sort that got face to face with a little girl to tell her why it was necessary for her to go to bed on time. Sam said, “I know that’s the truth, but I want us to agree to pretend that it was Frank who killed that Beothuk.”

  “But why?”

  “Because it would be bad for Jem if people thought he’d already shot a man before he’s even old enough to shave. They’ll be proud of him for a little while, but if anything bad ever happens, they’re gonna say he got a taste for killing and it never went away.”

  “Did he get a taste for it?”

  “Of course not. I’m just as proud as can be for him, and of you too, darling. But for now, let’s just keep it between us as a family, okay?”

  She did not remember anything about Jem and Anna coming home to tell her that Sam was dead. Anna told her that she sat on her bed and stared at the wall saying nothing until Jem went into his room and slammed the door. Claire remembered the inhuman howling coming from his room. She remembered things crashing and breaking in his room and the gut-wrenching sobs.

  Anna put her arm around Claire and rocked her back and forth. “Jem is gonna be all right, Claire. He just needs to let it out. Do you?”

  Claire looked up at her and said, “No, ma’am.”

  After a time, Claire decided that she and Jem just saw things in different ways. Jem had real memories of their Mama and had lived through her death. For as long as Claire could remember, they’d been alone. The people she loved were already in grief. She never had a chance to think any other way than that you don’t own anything in this world, you can’t control it, and what you love can go away in the blink of an eye.

  That’s why Jem was a fool, she thought. He still believed you could hold onto what you love.

  The only other thing that stood out in her child hood was an incident that she’d never spoken to anyone else about. It was two years before the night of the Beothuk raid, which made her about four years old. One evening, Katey Halladay knocked on the door and said their daddy was going to be working late. Jem was outside running loose with some local boys, and Claire helped Mrs. Halladay cook dinner and clean up. Sam had never imposed much in the way of chores on the children, and Claire was baffled as to why Katey wanted her to wash her hands and put on a clean shirt. “It’s not like we’re going to church, Miss Katey,” she said.

  Katey Halladay put three plates on the table and told Claire to arrange the silverware. “How come you aren’t staying to eat with us?” Claire said.

  “I am, sweetie. Your daddy won’t be home for dinner.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He just had to work is all, Miss Nosey Thing,” Katey said. “Now go call Jem in.”

  Over dinner, Jem was shifting in his seat with excitement. “Did you hear what happened?”

  “Did I hear what, dear?” Katey said.

  “There was some sort of trouble at the Willow Funeral Home with Old Man Willow’s assistant, Zeke. Daddy and Tom Masters had to arrest him and cart him off to the penitentiary all the way out at Seneca 5.”

  “Is that right?” Katey said. She tapped Claire’s plate with the tip of her fingernail. “You need some more greens, young lady.”

  “Yes, ma’am. So what did the man do?” Claire asked.

  Jem shrugged, “Nobody would say. Just that it was pure awful and Old Man Willow was chasing him around with a bat when Daddy got there.” Jem looked over at Claire and said, “I wonder if he hurt Anna?”

  “All right now, let’s eat,” Katey said.

  “I reckon that’s the only thing that would make Old Man Willow mad enough to chase Zeke around like that. I’m just guessing.”

  “That’s enough guessing,” Katey said abruptly. “I said to eat.”

  That night, Katey brushed Claire’s hair and complained the entire time that it was like trying to run a brush through a net made of sailboat rigging. Claire grimaced every time the brush tore through another knot, but after it was done, she looked at herself in the mirror and smiled at the sight. Katey tucked her into bed and read her a story, then gave Claire a li
ttle kiss on the forehead and said, “Goodnight.”

  Claire closed her eyes and turned over, but could hear the discussion in the living room between Katey and Jem as to exactly how late Jem would be allowed to stay up and wait for his father. The conversation ended with Katey saying, “Until I say so.”

  Hours later, Claire felt a hand touching her face. She smelled that familiar tobacco and leather scent and felt Sam moving the hair out of her eyes. “I’m sorry, Princess,” Sam said. “I didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep.”

  Claire rubbed her eyes and told him it was okay. She laid back down and pulled his big hand back to her face. “I’m glad you’re home.”

  “Me too. I just wanted to make sure my little angel was okay.”

  “I’m ok,” she yawned. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Sometimes, a daddy just needs to check. You know that if anybody ever tries to do anything bad to you, you need to tell me right away. Don’t hide it, don’t be ashamed of it, and don’t keep it inside. You just come let me know and I’ll take care of it.”

  “How would you take care of it?” she said. Her eyes started to close on their own. Sam kissed her on the face a few times and stood up without answering.

  The next morning, Jem ran into Claire’s room and told her “Hurry up and get dressed! I’ve got to show you something.”

  He waited anxiously for her in the hallway, and when she came out he held his finger to his lips and whispered, “Keep quiet.”

  They could hear Sam snoring in his bedroom, and both kids crept through the front door and onto the porch. Jem said, “I stayed up till Pa got home and overheard him talking to Miss Katey. She asked him if he was okay, and he told her he was fine, but then she said that Doc Halladay told her the penitentiary was filled up at Seneca 5 and they weren’t taking any new prisoners. She asked him where he’d been all that time and what happened to Zeke.”

  Jem looked back through the door and made sure they were still alone. “Pa wasn’t even mad that she caught him in a lie. He just said that he’d been out in the desert. She asked him again where Zeke was, and he told her never to mind.”