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

by Bernard Schaffer

  “Why was he being mean to her?” Claire said.

  “He wasn’t,” Jem said. “He sounded all sad and emotional when he said it, and Miss Katey gave him a hug and told him he was a good man.” Jem took Claire’s hand and led her down the steps, taking her around the side of the house. “This morning, I was tending to his destrier and looking around when I found something.”

  They went around the house to the rear and Jem bent down to sweep aside the long grass under the porch. He waved for Claire to come look, and she stared at Sam’s blood-splattered shirt and pants bundled and hidden in the grass. Claire backed away and put her hands around Jem’s arm, trying to pull him away. “Come on,” she said. “We weren’t supposed to see this. We’re gonna get in trouble.”

  Jem let her pull him up, but as they walked back toward the house, he said, “I’m glad he done it.”

  ***

  Elijah Harpe hobbled around the corner of the bed, using the frame to keep himself upright. He came within arm’s reach of Claire and said, “You don’t talk too much, do you.”

  Claire stood her ground, but could not keep her eyes from flickering at her husband as he squirmed on his gimpy legs to keep his balance. His toes gripped the edges of the topmost hard-bound book, but the stack was uneven. It teetered under his feet as he danced back and forth on the books, whimpering a series of unintelligible pleas through the stuffed sock in his mouth.

  “That ol’ boy can’t stand up there much longer, gorgeous,” Elijah said. Claire recoiled as Elijah sided up next to her and touched her cheek. He smirked at the way she stared back at him. “Behold, said the old man to the sons of Belial as they beset his house and beat upon his door. There is a good man within, and to him you shall do no vile thing. But instead, take my daughter, his concubine, and humble her.”

  Elijah looked back at Frank and winked. “You know what those sons of Belial did next, partner?” He ran his finger down the length of Claire’s neck toward the center of her chest. “They abused her all the night, until the morning. Later, the good man divided her into twelve pieces and sent her all across the land. That’s in the Good Book.”

  When Claire did not answer, Elijah grabbed her by the hair and pulled her close. He pressed his mouth against hers, and to his surprise, Claire’s mouth opened. He pushed his tongue against hers and swirled it around just as Claire chomped down with her teeth.

  Elijah squealed and tried to push her away, but it felt like her teeth were about to tear his tongue in half. He went to stab her with the knife, but Claire caught his wrist with both hands and held his arm tight. Elijah landed a hard punch to her stomach with his other hand that doubled her over. He dropped an elbow onto the back of her head that dropped her to the floor in a heap.

  He hopped back around the bed and shoved Frank off of the stack of books, making Frank’s face turn purple as he swung by the neck. His cheeks puffed out like they were going to burst and his legs dangled in the air.

  Claire was trapped on her back like a turtle and Elijah showed her the knife and started to tell her about blowtorches and hot irons. About cutting pieces off of her husband’s body and feeding them to her. About how long it would take before she finally was allowed to die.

  Claire slammed the heel of her foot into the thick bandages wrapped around Elijah’s knee and he looked down with his mouth open wide, but he was too stunned to scream. His eyes rolled into the back of his head like a slot machine coming up empty spaces and the knife slid out of his hand as he dropped to the floor.

  Claire laid there, waiting for the room to stop spinning. Fireworks had exploded behind her eyes when Elijah hit her and she was still seeing flashes of green and white while she lay there looking up at the ceiling. It was Frank’s gurgling that lured her back. She grabbed a handful of blankets on the side of the bed and started pulling herself up.

  Frank was swinging free on the rope and his face was turning black. Claire stumbled around the bed, and as she walked near Elijah, he snatched her by the ankle and wrapped himself around her leg.

  Claire stomped him like an angry chicken, but he held her fast and managed to drag her down on top of him. She balled up her fist and slammed it into Elijah’s face with all her might and strained back to grab the bed and shove it as hard as she could.

  The metal frame slid across the floor, just close enough that Frank was able to get the balls of his feet onto the mattress and stand up to take a quick breath.

  Claire lifted her head and shouted, “Don’t you give up on me!”

  Elijah grabbed a handful of her hair and twisted, winding it around his fist and cranking her head down until her ear was next to his mouth. “I was going to be nice to you before, you bitch, but now I’m going to show you what evil really is.”

  ***

  Elijah Harpe slithered on his belly like a worm, coming out of the bedroom to get to the kitchen. He could only see out of one eye and it stung worse than a thousand needles stuffed inside his eyelids. He tried pushing up from the floor and collapsed. He tried again, but had to lay flat and catch his breath.

  Claire was crawling out of the bedroom behind him. “Where…where… you going?” she said between two broken lips. Her whole face was swollen until both her eyes were just slits and the skin around them was green and bulging like the face of a fly. “Had enough… sissy?”

  Elijah shook his head, “You are one twisted woman.” He braced himself against the wall and was able to get up on his good leg to limp into the kitchen. At the edge of the counter, he lost his grip and toppled onto the tile floor. He groaned and wheezed with laughter at his own misfortune. Elijah reached up for the ledge of the countertop and fished around the pile of utensils and pricked his finger on the blade of a sharp knife.

  Claire was still coming, calling to him from the hallway, “We’re gonna finish this.”

  Elijah rested on his elbow on the floor for a moment before taking the knife down. He wrapped his fingers around the handle and said, “I could not agree more.”

  Claire did not respond as Elijah crawled back out of the kitchen. “You fought like a tiger, gorgeous. I hope you still have some fight left in you.” He came into the hallway and came face to face with Claire, who did not look at him. Her eyes were turned toward the other end of the hall, by the front door and she mouthed the name, “Jem.”

  Elijah laughed at her and said, “It’s just us, honeypot. And I’m gonna enjoy this more than you can—”

  A hand grabbed Elijah Harpe by the ankle of his bad leg and yanked him down to the floor. Elijah looked back in disbelief and saw Jem Clayton standing over him, his eyes blazing with hellfire.

  ***

  Jem dug into his pocket for the balled-up mask of black fabric. He shook it into the dusty winds that swept through the canyon.

  The wrecked ship’s parts were no longer smoking, and were now covered over with dirt and sand. The charred body of the pilot was gone. Jem reasoned that it had been picked over by birds and other scavengers, and the bones were carried off by creatures that were gnawing on them in caves at that very moment.

  He unfolded the mask and tied it around the back of his neck, then pulled it up over his mouth and nose. He tapped Elijah Harpe on the cheek and peeled one of his eyes open. “Anybody home, Elijah?”

  Elijah tried to speak but couldn’t. He toppled over on his side and shot up on one shoulder to keep the torn flesh of his back off of the scalding sand. There was a rope tied around his waist, and its harsh fibers were thorns digging into his raw wounds. Jem had dragged him from the back of his destrier from Claire’s homestead. His bandages had long-since ripped off and the stitches on his leg had torn open. His old wounds were leaking, and so were all the new ones.

  “You recognize where we are, Elijah? Back where we first met. I should have killed you right there. Time to correct that.”

  Elijah squinted and looked around at the canyon where the ship had crashed. His shoulder gave out and he rolled over on his back, no longer able to feel
the burning sand and rock on his open skin. He smiled at Jem. “None of us can hide from God.”

  Jem fished in his shirt pocket for the torn photograph he found on the Sheriff’s desk. “Good thing you left this behind,” he said. “Otherwise, I’d probably still be looking for you.” He dug into Elijah’s pockets for the torn piece, and found it. Jem reached behind his back for the long kitchen knife and drew it out to show Elijah.

  The blade reflected light into Elijah’s eyes, but he ignored it and stared straight at the sun’s fiery surface. He forced his eyes to stay open until tears ran down his cheeks and everything around him became opaque. “I can see it,” Elijah gasped. “I see the glory.”

  “Well, just keep looking at it. Let me know if you get there.”

  Jem stuck the tip of the blade into the soft flesh at the center of Elijah’s throat and pushed until blood bubbled through. He sawed at the skin and tissue until his knife caught on bone. Elijah did not scream or even struggle. He laid there, grunting as Jem worked the blade back and forth, cutting until he was able to grab a handful of Elijah’s hair and tear the head the rest of the way off.

  He lifted Elijah’s head and stared into the wide, vacant eyes, watching as the muscles in the face continued to twitch and the mouth worked up and down with no sound coming out of it.

  Jem carried the head through the crash site, looking for a place to mount it. There was a length of metal sticking out of the hull, and Jem jammed Elijah’s head onto its tip, twisting until it was firmly seated.

  He wiped his hands in the dirt and scrubbed them with sand, wiping away the clumps of blood from his fingers and flicking them into the dirt. He pulled off his mask and wiped off his hands, then balled up the black mask and threw it to the ground. A destrier snorted from the cliff above. Someone was watching him.

  The destrier’s rider coughed into his fist and lifted up his hand to wave to Jem. Royce Halladay walked his mount down the cliff and into the canyon, eyeing the burnt equipment littered across the valley, then coming to the place where Jem had spiked Elijah’s head. Halladay smoothed his mustache with the tip of his finger as he admired the sight and said, “Well, now I suppose that I should be angry with you, Jem Clayton. Had I known that you were interesting in barbering, I would never have paid those thieves in Seneca 5 so much money. I fear the finer points of the art may have escaped you, however.” Jem turned away from Halladay and headed back toward his destrier.

  “Forgive me if the situation did not call for levity, Jem. Let us not lose our heads over it, what do you say?”

  Jem pulled himself into the saddle and looked back, “Twenty years is a long time to be away, Doc. Why the sudden interest in returning to Seneca 6?”

  “I heard there might be trouble.”

  Jem spurred his ride to close the distance between them. He leaned close to Halladay and said, “Let’s just cut the shit, old man. I know what you are and you know what I am. If you followed me here to try and lure me into a trap, you’re going to suffer for it. I swear on my father’s soul that no reward money in the world is worth the misery I will impart on you for trying.”

  Royce Halladay’s eyes narrowed and he said, “Do you recall an incident when you were ten years old? Sam brought you to see me because you had spots all over your face and he was worried you were coming down with the clumps. Do you remember?”

  “I remember I bit you.”

  “Correct!” Halladay said. “I tried placing a thermometer into your mouth and you bit me because you were an ungrateful, mean little bastard that didn’t know when someone was trying to offer you assistance.”

  “That was then. You ain’t a doctor anymore and I ain’t ten. You expect me to believe a vicious killer like you gives a damn about me or anyone else on this rock?”

  “I expect you to show me the proper respect due a man who is faster than you, a better shot than you, and only tolerating your continued existence out of respect to a dear, departed friend.”

  Jem opened his mouth to speak but found nothing came out. Halladay smirked at him and pulled on his reins, turning away from Jem to head back up the trail.

  “You ain’t that fast, old man,” Jem said.

  “Fast enough for you, boy. Fast enough for you.”

  15. The Air Smelled Like Snakes

  Harlan Wells was still twitching when the crowd piled on top of him. His frail limbs retracted and quivered even as the townsfolk stomped him, turning his face to jelly and his body into a bag of crunching bones. “String him up!” a miner announced.

  Jimmy McParlan cracked him across the back of the skull with his pistol and fired into the air. “Back up you sons-of-bitches! Anybody so much as takes another step and I’ll start putting holes in all of you.”

  Several men rushed him and tackled him around the waist, driving him to the ground. They peeled the gun out of his hand and one of the miners leveled it at McParlan’s head and squeezed the trigger. The gun clicked uselessly and a computerized voice emitted from the barrel: Fingerprint identification failure. Initiating security precautions.

  The gun vibrated in the miner’s hand and glowed red, turning hot enough to sizzle the flesh inside his palm. The miner dropped the gun and ran screaming through the crowd. Boot heels cracked McParlan across the ribs and a finger gouged his good eye. McParlan batted them away from his face and tried fighting back even as more of them jumped onto him and started swinging freely. He gave up fighting and instead used his remaining strength to cover his head and hope to hold on long enough for them to get tired. They didn’t get tired. It only got worse.

  The Marshal woke up in the dark, groaning for the bastards to get off of him. Someone was grabbing him, holding him down and McParlan shouted, “You don’t understand! Elijah Harpe has escaped!”

  “It’s all right now, Marshal,” Bart Masters said.

  “Where the hell am I?”

  “Dr. Willow’s office. I dragged you in here to get you away from those maniacs out there.”

  “I’m much obliged, now where the hell are my guns? I’ve got a fugitive to look for.”

  “I honestly hope you weren’t too attached to that prisoner, Marshal. Jem Clayton caught him at Claire and Frank’s house and dragged him all the way out to Coramide Canyon.”

  McParlan closed his eye and was struck by the image of Harlan Wells aiming a pistol at Adam, begging him to shoot. He thought about the strange voice coming out of Wells.

  “I am ashamed of what happened to you out there, sir,” Masters said. “People disrespecting the law like that, it makes me sick.”

  “I ain’t been much impressed by the law I’ve seen in this town so far,” McParlan said. “I’m not sure I can blame `em.”

  “It wasn’t always like that, Marshal. “My daddy was a deputy under Sheriff Clayton. Helped him fight off the Beothuk on the night of the invasion and escorted the wounded across the wasteland out to the hospital in Seneca 5. He never told anybody about his own injuries and they say he collapsed in his saddle the second the last person was picked up on a stretcher. With him and Sam both gone, it was easy pickings for Walt Junger and Billy Jack to swoop in and take over.”

  “So what are we gonna do about it?” McParlan said.

  “Right now, you aren’t in shape to do much of anything,” Masters said. “And I’m just a miner.”

  Anna Willow knocked on the door, and let herself into the room. “Thanks for minding the Marshal for me,” she said.

  Bart Masters tilted his hat at her and left as Anna moved into his chair. She handed a cold compress to McParlan and told him to press it against his face. “You looked better after they dragged you out of the wreckage of that spaceship,” she said.

  McParlan waved his hand at her, “That wasn’t my first angry mob. They all hit like women.”

  Anna sat on the edge of the bed and folded her hands in her lap. “Thank you for saving my life today, Marshal.”

  He ignored her and said, “How’s Adam?”

  “He’s f
ine,” Anna said. “I sent him to stay with an older couple I know. He was just sitting by the window, rocking back and forth, like he was waiting for Harlan to come home. I thought a change of scenery would be good.”

  McParlan nodded and said, “Good thinking. Plus, you got your hands full.”

  “That woman that Harlan shot was a widow. She had two little girls. I guess someone will have to look after them now. That other man was shot in the hip. He’ll live, but probably won’t walk right ever again. But at least he’ll live. Why in God’s name did he do that? Why? It was like he was possessed by the devil.”

  “In a way, I believe he was.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m still not completely sure. But trust me, that wasn’t Harlan who shot them folks.”

  Anna went to the next room and knocked gently before poking her head in. Frank Miller was sitting in his wheelchair next to the bed where his wife was laying. Frank’s face was swollen and crusted with blood, and there was a massive burn mark collared around his throat that he refused to let Anna even look at until she finished tending to Claire.

  Frank pressed his fingers to his lips and said, “She finally fell asleep.”

  Claire’s head was bandaged like a turban. Her eyes were swollen shut and her lips looked like she was wearing a pair of wax ones from the candy store down the street.

  “She isn’t dead,” Frank said. “She isn’t going to be dead.”

  “I know, honey,” Anna said.

  “You fixed her, right? You fixed her and she isn’t going to die.”

  “I fixed her,” Anna said. “How about you let me look at your neck now that she’s situated? If you get an infection, you won’t be able to take care of her.”

  Frank nodded silently. Anna had to peel the shirt collar away from the injured skin, making Frank wince as it came unstuck. She rubbed ointment gently into the wound and Frank settled. “Does that feel better?”

  “It stings pretty bad, to be honest.”