“That’s right, son. Now let’s see if we can’t get you set up for some food here, and we’ll get you situated in the house after dinner.”
Ardiss guided Gary Wayne by the shoulder, and this time, Gary Wayne allowed himself to be touched, though he did bristle a bit at first. They moved through the crowd until they came to Caleb, who was still rubbing his abdomen and glaring at Gary Wayne.
“Caleb,” Ardiss said, patting his deputy on the back with his free hand, “I want you to help my nephew here find himself a place at the table, preferably up with the family, and show him where to fix his plate. Gary Wayne’s going to be staying with us for a little bit, and I want him to feel welcome.”
Caleb said nothing, just mumbled under his breath and continued to stare at Gary Wayne.
“Do we have a problem, Caleb?” Ardiss’s voice dropped just a little bit. Gary Wayne looked like he was preparing to have to punch another kidney.
“No, Ardiss,” Caleb claimed, “we ain’t got a problem.”
“That’s good. It don’t take a very big man to carry a grudge, and I’d like to think I’m a better judge of character than that.” Ardiss turned to go, walked a step or two away, and, as if in afterthought, turned back to face his nephew.
“Gary Wayne?” he asked.
“Yes, sir?”
“You serious about joining us?”
“Yes, sir. Dead serious.”
“Good. Then you listen close to everything Caleb tells you. In addition to being my lead deputy, Caleb is also my city manager. And you are his new stable boy.”
With that Ardiss turned and rejoined his wife, who was already eating and in deep discussion with a tall man all in white to her left.
III.
By Christmas, Gary Wayne had suitably impressed Caleb enough to be promoted from swabbing muck from the horse stables to cleaning the City Hall and serving the Sheriff and his guest during official dinners. This promotion was in no small way due to the calming influence of Boris McAllister, one of Caleb’s other apprentices and the son of one of Ardiss’ business partners. Boris was a large, quiet boy. He would rarely answer a question directly or immediately. Instead, Boris would stare blankly at his interrogator, often for as long as minute, before tendering his answer. It was for this reason that most of the townspeople considered him “a little slow” or “not right bright.”
Gary Wayne was no different when he met him. It was his first day in the stables, and he was pleasantly surprised to find that he was going to have company during his purgatory amongst the horse droppings.
“Well, hey there, partner,” Gary Wayne boomed as he took off his duster and hung it on a peg. “Name’s Gary Wayne. How you doing this fine morning?” Gary Wayne walked towards Boris with his hand outstretched, grinning from ear to ear.
Boris stared blankly at Gary Wayne, tongue running slowly between his teeth and lips. As Gary Wayne waited his hand slowly sank by degrees to his side. After almost a minute, Gary Wayne began to turn his attention to the shovel in the corner, which apparently wasn’t going to scoop the manure itself.
As Gary Wayne turned away from Boris and reached for the shovel, Boris sniffled and cleared his throat quietly. “I’m doing fairly well,” he said in a quiet baritone. “I don’t really have room to complain.”
Gary Wayne began cleaning the nearest stall without response. What’s the point, he wondered, the fella’s obviously touched.
They worked side-by-side in silence for a week. Every once in a while, Gary Wayne would catch Boris watching him out of the side of his eyes, but Boris never said anything to him, so Gary Wayne returned the favor.
By the beginning of the second week, though, things began to change. Caleb, a man quick to wrath and slow to forgive, did everything he could to discourage Gary Wayne from pursuing an appointment to the Riders. As Ardiss’ nephew, Caleb knew he couldn’t really harm the boy, but he could make his life miserable enough to send the dumbass bastard packing. So while other boys his age were cleaning the firearms and learning the finer points of gunmanship from other Riders, Gary Wayne spent his days shoveling manure in the stables. Hell, Caleb even let Boris take a day off to go hunting with his father and Ardiss once.
“Why not?” Caleb responded when Boris asked him the evening before. “I’m sure Mr. Orkney there’d be more’n happy to cover for you in the stables tomorrow. Wouldn’t you, boy?”
Gary stared blankly at Caleb as he pulled his jacket on to go home. “I reckon,” he replied.
“So long as you’d be agreeable to do the same for him one of these days when I can spare him for a day off gallivanting.”
Boris considered this for about two seconds. “I don’t see where that would be much of a problem.”
Gary Wayne turned his back to the two of them and moved toward the stable door. “Fat chance of that happening anyway,” he muttered as he reached what he assumed would be the range of Caleb’s hearing.
“What’s that, boy?” Caleb called, hooking one hand behind his ear, “I didn’t quite catch that. My kidney must be distracting me.”
“I didn’t say nothing, Caleb, not a word.”
Boris took in this exchange silently, watching both men closely. Old Braddock, the negro stable master drew in a quick breath, shook his head, and slipped out back for a smoke.
Caleb’s voice developed a slight growl, “That’s Mister Ectorson, to you, boy, and you did say something.”
Well, I gave him an out, Gary Wayne thought, not my fault if he didn’t take it. “I was just considering the likelihood of your ever giving me a chance to do anything in this town but swab shit, and I found them lacking, Sir Mister Caleb Ectorson, Sir.”
“I see your point,” Caleb allowed. “Allow me to rephrase then.” He turned his attention back to Boris. “I am sure, son, that in the highly unlikely event that I let Mr. Kidney, here, out of my sight, you’d be more than agreeable to cover for him in his absence.”
Boris looked uncomfortably at Gary Wayne. Unable to find any suitable answer to this that didn’t put Gary Wayne or Caleb in a bad spot, yet still allowed him to go hunting the next morning.
Gary Wayne, however, came to his rescue. “Ain’t no reason to answer that Boris. You’re a man of honor, I can tell, and of course you’d help a fellow out if he needed it. Fact is, I’d be happy to help you out tomorrow and wouldn’t even ask you to return the favor. No, I’m going to bid you gentlemen good night.”
Boris quietly let out the breath he had been holding. Thanking the good Lord and all that was holy that Gary Wayne had taken the high road and controlled his temper.
Unfortunately, though, Caleb could not let the younger man have the last word. “You sure are a card, Gary Wayne,” he laughed, “and you sure got the right job here in these stables. You’re so full of shit, I can smell you from here.”
Gary Wayne, who had just opened the stable door, stopped in his tracks, the cold autumn wind blowing in his face. When he slowly turned around again to Caleb, his face was as beet red. Boris suspected the wind had little to do with it.
He we go, he thought.
If he pushed it, Gary Wayne wouldn’t stand much of a chance against Caleb this time. Caleb, Boris now understood, had orchestrated this whole scene to push the younger man to a fight, and he had timed it perfectly. It was late afternoon, and Gary Wayne usually worked so hard that by midday, his strength was waning. By now, he had to be doing good just to stand.
Boris watched Gary Wayne’s fists clench and unclench, and turning, he could see Caleb set his feet firmly waiting for an attack.
An attack that never came.
Gary Wayne took a deep breath, pulled his jacket tighter around his chest and settled his shoulders more comfortably into it, chuckling coldly. “Smell me from there, huh,” he chuckled again. “Well, that shouldn’t be no problem for a genuine son of a bitch.”
With that Gary Wayne turned and walked through the door, being sure to close it behind him.
Caleb just star
ed blankly at the door for minute, then he, too, started chuckling. “Son of a bitch, huh? That boy may be all right after all.” He clapped Boris on the shoulder, nearly knocking the young man over. “Enjoy your day off, kid.” Then he, too, pulled on his coat and left Boris alone in the stables staring blankly out the door into town square.
“Quit bucking him,” Boris advised Gary Wayne two days later when he returned to the stables.
“Who?”
“Caleb. Quit bucking him if you want to move out of the stables.” Boris told him what Caleb had said after Gary Wayne left.
“What does that have to do with anything? He’s still a son of a bitch.”
“Sure he is,” Boris explained, “but he’s your son of a bitch. Ardiss don’t do nothing without he’s got a purpose. He gave him to you for a reason.”
“And what might that reason be, you think?”
Boris shrugged and refused to say anything else.
Great, Gary Wayne thought. I broke him. He ain’t used to saying so much in one sitting, and I used up all his allotment.
“Impress Caleb,” Boris responded two hours later, “and you impress Ardiss. Quit bucking.”
“Okay,” Gary Wayne raised his hands in surrender, “I’ll quit bucking.”
Three weeks later, Gary and Boris were moved to the kitchen, and by the middle of December, they were waiting tables, and on New Year’s Day, Gary Wayne was deputized.
IV.
And now, just over ten years later, he and Boris found themselves riding almost a week into the desert, sleeping cold under the stars, drinking mud passing for coffee, and hunting a man they had ridden with, fought beside, and considered all but blood-kin.
“Bastard couldn’t keep his dick in his pants, plain and simple,” Gary Wayne spoke to the air as if answering a question anybody would know the answer to. Boris hadn’t spoken a word for at least half an hour, since busting camp and remounting the hunt. “All them doxies across the way and he’s got to prod the boss’s woman. It’s just damned inconsiderate if you ask me.”
“Indeed,” Boris said quietly, riding beside his friend with the morning sun at their backs, “and that’s why we’re chasing the bastard all of Hell’s Waste because he was inconsiderate.”
“I don’t know about you,” Gary Wayne gave his friend a hard stare, “but I’m chasing the bastard because he killed half a dozen sworn deputies, including my baby brother, in the process of performing their legal and ethical duty, while he tried to escape justice.”
Boris let this pass without comment, and the two rode on in silence. Boris had to admit that the man had a point. Lancaster O’Loch had betrayed his sheriff, but more importantly, he had betrayed his friend. He and Ardiss had ridden together longer than anyone. They had met shortly after Ardiss became sheriff. Boris remembered the story well, having heard some version of it from one or the other of them for what seemed the whole of his adult life. Let the whiskey flow long enough, and Ardiss or Lank would pull out that old chestnut and chew on it all night.
Ardiss was barely twenty then, full of sap and very green. Being the youngest sheriff in the history of Bretton, he never let a chance to prove his sand and reinforce his authority slip by. Any minor infraction of the law, custom, or common decency, from spitting to public drunkenness, would find the offender not only punished to fullest extent of the law but also the recipient of an outraged tongue-lashing by the “boy-king,” as the local wags took to calling him.
About a month or so after he took office, Ardiss was out riding the range when he came upon another rider approaching him on the narrow trail. The stranger couldn’t have been much older than Ardiss, but he rode his horse with an authority that implied a dignity beyond his years. He was clad head to toe in white: white, flat-brimmed Stetson, white linen suit (albeit with a gray string tie), and the palest tan riding boots Ardiss had ever seen. His ginger hair was long, almost to his shoulders, and he wore his mustaches below his chin and waxed to perfection.
Ardiss pulled his horse off to the side in order to let the stranger pass and nodded as he rode by. The stranger did nothing in return as he passed, didn’t even look in Ardiss’ direction.
“Howdy,” Ardiss said, nodding his head again.
The stranger said nothing.
By this time, Ardiss was mad enough to bite himself, but he tried his best to maintain his calm. “Perhaps you’re new to these parts,” he said slowly and crisply, “and don’t know we got manners out here.”
“Oh,” the stranger absently waved his hand, his back to Ardiss as he moved further down the trail, “Howdy.”
This nonchalance made Ardiss even angrier if such a thing were possible. He reined his horse around and moved after the insolent newcomer. “Hey,” he called, “That ain’t good enough, sir.”
The stranger pulled his horse to a stop and slowly turned his mount around to see the young sheriff approach him, but he said nothing.
“You hear me, boy?” Ardiss’ face was reddening steadily as the stranger’s silence persisted. “I ain’t a man to be disrespected.”
At this, the stranger chuckled. “Indeed, you’re barely a man at all,” his voice was as smooth as fine silk. “There can’t be more than two winter’s difference between us.”
This was too much for Ardiss, who stopped his horse and drew one of the .36 caliber Colt Navy revolvers he’d so recently inherited from his father. “Get off your horse, and say that to my face, you silver-tongued sonuvabitch.”
The stranger smiled again from his seat but made no effort to dismount. “You’re going to shoot me, sir? Bad manners is a capital offense here, is it?”
“A lot of things are killing offenses in the Waste Lands,” Ardiss replied, “Disrespecting the duly-appointed law, for one.”
The stranger nodded thoughtfully, “I see,” he responded. He had an accent that Ardiss couldn’t quite place, “and neglecting to make my manners to young men on the trail constitutes disrespecting the law, does it?”
“It does if the young man is the local sheriff.”
“Ah, and you are, I take it, the local sheriff?” The stranger swung his leg up over his horse and climbed out of the saddle. “My mistake. Please accept my sincerest apologies, Mr…?”
“Drake, Sheriff Ardiss Drake,” Ardiss did not lower his gun or make a move to dismount, “and you ain’t getting out of it that easy.”
“No sir, Sheriff Drake,” The stranger smiled, and Ardiss couldn’t quite tell if it was at his expense, “the merest thought hadn’t begun to speculate about forming in my mind, I assure you. However, being as we’re apparently about to kill each other, it seems only fitting for me to introduce myself.”
Ardiss did nothing, just stared impassively at him with gun raised.
“My name is Lancaster O’Loch late of Ireland and, more recently, New York. It would have been a pleasure to meet you.” Lancaster approached Ardiss’ horse with his hand outstretched and a grin on his face. Ardiss waved him away with the barrel of his gun.
“Back away and let me get down,” Ardiss said. Lancaster stepped back.
“Oh, by all means, good sir,” he said, stepping back, “but I must tell you, you’re in danger of making a big mistake.”
“Am I?” Ardiss holstered his gun and shifted his weight to dismount. “How’s that then?”
Lancaster opened his coat and gestured at his waist. “You have me at a disadvantage, you see.”
“You don’t have any guns?” Ardiss asked in disbelief as he climbed off his horse and redrew his own iron.
Lancaster removed his jacket, folding it carefully over his saddle. “Well, sir, to tell you God’s truth, I didn’t really plan on needing them when I woke this morning, not knowing about your fanatical insistence on frontier courtesy.” As he talked, Lancaster removed the cufflinks from his shirt sleeves and placed them in his trouser pockets. “I do have one or two counter-proposals for you if you’re amenable.” He began rolling up his sleeves. “We could indeed have a due
l to the very death if that is the only way to satisfy your honor, but it seems to me to be a waste of good lead, and a bit discourteous in its own right, unarmed and defenseless as I am.” Ardiss said nothing. “Or you could simply accept my most sincere apology for any hurt I’ve done you and we both be on our way.”
Ardiss merely glared back, agitatedly fingering the trigger of his gun.
“Not interested, huh? Well, truth be known, I didn’t really expect you to be, but it couldn’t hurt to offer. There is one other option I suppose we could try unless you just have your heart set on murdering an unarmed man.” Lancaster untucked his shirt and began unbuttoning it. “We could just have ourselves a good, old-fashioned country brawl and be done with it. What do you say?”
Ardiss considered this a second, looking thoughtfully at Lancaster and chewing the inside of his cheek. “Fair enough,” he said, reholstering his gun and unstrapping his holsters from his hip.
“You see,” Lancaster moved closer to Ardiss as the sheriff turned to hang his holsters over his horse’s back, “I could tell right away that you were basically a man of honor,” As Ardiss turned back to his opponent, Lancaster let fly with a ferocious left hook that sent the sheriff sprawling face-first on the wet and muddy ground, “if a bit overly trusting.”
Lancaster moved to where Ardiss sprawled with a mouthful of dirt and the wind knocked out of him. As Ardiss tried to push himself up onto all fours, Lancaster lifted his leg to deliver a solid kick into the sheriff’s side. Ardiss caught this movement from the corner of his eye, however, and managed to side-sweep his own leg in a somewhat less than graceful arc but connecting with his attacker’s one grounded leg and knocking him off-balance. As Lancaster went tumbling, Ardiss struggled to his feet, spitting gritty mud and sour grass as he rose, still trying to catch his breath. As the Irishman lay on his back sucking in his own deep breaths, Ardiss took a moment, hands on thighs to catch his wind, too, only to lose his balance and tumble onto his opponent where the two of them grappled each trying to gain the advantage over the other or, at least, land a solid punch.
Guns of the Waste Land: Departure: Volumes 1-2 Page 3