He looked back in the direction of his own home and thought, there is nothing in the world that can keep me from coming back here.
He was wrong.
Sam Clayton was murdered in the wasteland beyond the confines of Seneca 6 just two days later.
4. Outlaws
The distance between the Seneca 5 and Seneca 6 mining colonies was approximately 400 miles, separated by a wasteland filled with burned out shuttle hulls that leaked radiation and tall energy mills that stretched so high into the atmosphere their tips appeared to spear the low, hovering moons. The well-heeled traveled by shuttle, making short hops from colony to colony aboard small-passenger craft that were stocked with fine beverages and enough shielding to prevent the outer hull from melting in the atmosphere’s intense heat.
Regular folks travelled by land, which sometimes meant renting space on rickety locomotives still powered by compression engines. They made good time but ran the risk of sucking up too much dust and muck into their manifolds and dying in the middle of nowhere. There were numerous stories about passengers setting up flares and waiting for weeks to be found. Not all of them always were.
Most preferred the planet’s best source of transportation, the destrier.
Massive, fast moving, four-legged beasts covered in thick, coarse fur that kept them insulated from the heat. They retained water like camels and responded to direction and training easily.
Entrepreneurs invested in large wagons and two destriers and rented out seats to passengers. There were bandits and Beothuk in the wasteland, and bad things happened to the unprepared.
Mrs. Wilma Alcott and her son Jesse rode aboard a carriage bound for an observation outpost forty miles into the wasteland, where her husband worked collecting energy cells from abandoned vehicles. A handsomely-dressed merchant sat across from her clutching his suitcase on his lap. Ralph Brenner, the wagon’s owner and driver, sat inside a fortified chamber at the perch, overlooking two sturdy destriers fitted with bridles and thick metal shafts.
Wilma looked out at the wasteland through shatter-proof windows that were covered in red dust and grime. Two masked riders came leaping over the sand dunes, heading directly for the front of the wagon. Wilma opened her mouth to shout to Brenner, but one of the riders lifted a pistol and fired at the nearest destrier pulling the wagon.
The animal collapsed into the dirt and they spun sideways, nearly flipping over as the carriage skidded across the ground. Wilma slammed into her son and they both hit the carriage door. The merchant rolled onto the floor, clutching his case, screaming louder than Wilma did.
They slid to a stop and Wilma covered her son’s mouth, pleading with him to not make a sound. The carriage door opened and a man wearing a black cloth over his nose and mouth looked in. Only his eyes were visible under the brim of his dark hat and he looked over the passengers with his gun in his hand, his finger off the trigger. “Everyone all right in here?”
“No we are most certainly not!” The merchant struggled to get up from the floor without letting go of his case with either hand.
The bandit nodded and said, “Well, why don’t you all step outside and we’ll assess the damages.”
“I absolutely refuse,” the merchant said. He had the case held to his chest like it was a shield.
“That a fact? All right, then. Ma’am, you and the boy come on out then so he and I can discuss this in private.” The masked man held his hand out and helped her down from the wagon.
When he reached for Jesse, the boy slapped his hand away. “You touch my mother and I’ll kill you. I heard about men like you. I ain’t afraid.”
The bandit looked at him and chuckled lightly under his mask. “Fair enough, killer. You and your mama go stand over there by my associate. Make it quick now, and there won’t be any more trouble.”
Jesse put his arms around his mother’s waist. The bandit leaned close to her ear and said, “I am not the type to allow harm to come to a woman, or do anything else untoward to them either. You and the boy stay quiet and we’ll be on our way.”
“Thank you, Jim,” she whispered.
“What’s that again?”
“I’ve read about you,” Wilma said. “They call you ‘Gentleman Jim’ in the papers.”
The bandit looked over at where Ralph Brenner was kneeling in the dirt with his hands behind his head. “Not everybody calls me that,” he said. The second bandit was holding a rifle to Brenner’s forehead. His mask was nothing more than a dirty vegetable sack with lopsided eyeholes.
Gentleman Jim walked back to the carriage and frowned at the merchant, who still refused to come out. “You need to step outside, friend. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to adapt my methods.”
“That woman has an ounce of pure severian hidden on her person,” the merchant whispered. “I watched her hide it there when you stopped the carriage. I’ll come out, and I’ll even tell you where it is if you swear not to harm me or take this case.”
The bandit glanced at Wilma and back at the merchant. “I like your style. It’s a deal.”
The merchant stepped down, still clutching the case close to him. “It’s stuffed between her bosoms. I’m sure if you take her back inside the wagon and search her, you’ll find it. You’ll need to get her out of that corset though. I can keep the boy distracted while you do whatever… you need…to do.”
The bandit led the merchant over to the others. Wilma and Jesse were kneeling next to Ralph Brenner and had their hands behind their heads. The other bandit marched in front of them, moving the barrel of his rifle from one forehead to the next. Gentleman Jim smacked Bob across the back of the head and said, “What did I tell you about putting your finger on the trigger?”
Bob yanked on his sack, adjusting it so he could see properly. He removed his finger from the trigger and put it against the frame.
“You bastards didn’t have to cripple the nag,” Ralph Brenner said. He scowled at the whimpering destrier, lying on the ground with its injured leg tucked under its belly.
Gentleman Jim said, “That was just an impact round I hit it with. There might be a light fracture but it will survive. I recommend you bind the leg up real tight once we leave and take it nice and easy back to the settlement.”
“You and your recommendations can go to hell.”
Bob stuck the barrel of his rifle into Brenner’s cheek and pushed him backward into the dirt with it. He cocked the hammer and said, “Say one more thing an’ I’ll put your brains all over the ground, understand?”
Gentleman Jim cleared his throat. “You two men take everything out of your pockets and put it on the ground in front of you. Now take off your jewelry and your watches. That’s good.”
The merchant played along with the charade. He looked over at Wilma and assessed the swell of her bodice, hoping its contents would be enough to distract the robbers while he made a run for it.
Gentleman Jim looked over at Bob and said, “What did I tell you about those raggedy threads of yours?”
“What do you mean?”
“This distinguished lady recognized me from the papers. Now that we’re becoming famous I think it’s only right that we take the time to attire ourselves appropriately. You come out here and deal with respectable businessmen like these fine folks looking like whatever the cat dragged in. It’s no wonder they don’t listen.” Gentleman Jim squatted down to stare face to face with the merchant. “For instance, this man knows how to dress. I admire your choice in fashion, sir.”
The merchant smiled and said, “Thank you.”
The bandit smiled back. “In fact, why don’t you stand up here next to me and take them off.”
“What?”
“Put your little case down on the ground, stand up here, and take off all your clothes.”
* * *
After much hand-wringing and one serious threat to shoot off any dangling appendages, the merchant stripped naked. Gentleman Jim told him, “You can put your boots back on. Seneca 5 is twenty mile
s in that direction. Start walking.”
“I’m taking my case.”
The bandit fired three shots at the man’s feet and the merchant took off running. Gentleman Jim cocked his head at Bob and said, “Go look at that nag and see what needs to be done. Wrap her leg up tight for these fine folks. I believe they’ve had a rough day.”
The bandit helped Brenner to his feet and pointed in the merchant’s direction, “Listen, if you want, you can pick him up on your way back. We’ll leave his clothes with you. I’m warning you, though. He was ready to send up this woman for sacrifice like a prize goose just to save himself. I’d prefer if you kept him up front where you can keep an eye on him.”
Brenner yanked his arm away from the bandit and said something under his breath. He walked over to yell at Bob for splinting the destrier’s leg improperly. Gentleman Jim waited until he was alone with the woman and her son to open up the merchant’s wallet and remove all of the bills inside. He counted them out and handed half to Wilma. He licked his thumb and took out a few more that he folded up and put into Jesse’s shirt pocket. “This stays between me and you all, ok? If you tell the papers about this part, it might make my next customer think I’m soft, and I’d hate like hell to have to hurt somebody to prove otherwise.”
“What’s in the case?” Jesse asked. Wilma scolded him to be quiet, but the masked man looked down at the boy’s eager face and asked him if he really wanted to know.
Jesse nodded, and Gentleman Jim bent on one knee to look him in the eye. “There’s a four-ounce severian bounty on my head. Ain’t no way whatever’s in this case could be worth as much as the risk I took getting it. Most times, cases like these are worth a lot more to the person that owns them than the one who takes them. I’ve taken a hundred of these from men like him, and they cried and whined every time, but when I popped them cases open there was nothing but dirty pictures or secret plans, or something stupid like that. This case won’t be any different. Sometimes, you have to sell it back to them just to make a profit.”
“But if you do that enough, you can pay off that bounty and be free,” Jesse said.
“I could pay off that bounty right now if I wanted to and still be rich. I got plenty of money.”
“So why do you keep doing it?”
The bandit winked at the boy and said, “A man’s gotta have a hobby, son.”
* * *
Bob was Gentleman Jim’s eighth assistant, and his magic number was up. Each time the outlaw took on a new helper, he picked a number at random. The man would work exactly that number of jobs with him, and no more. It kept him from developing a personal affinity for anyone.
Two assistants had been sent on their way before their time came. They were simple, decent men who’d fallen on hard times and become desperate. They couldn’t be trusted, when push came to shove, to be cut-throat enough. Both of them woke up in the desert next to an empty bedroll with a thousand dollars stuffed in their pockets.
One assistant was killed and left underneath the scorched frame of a spaceship out in the wasteland. Gentleman Jim had caught the man forcing himself on a female passenger and slit his throat.
Bob made it to the allotted amount of robberies and it was time to drink. “I’m thirsty,” Gentleman Jim said. He sided up to the bar at the Dalewood Saloon in Seneca 5 and ordered two whiskeys. He held his glass up to Bob and said, “To our continued career, fame and good fortune.”
Bob swallowed his whiskey in one drink. He wiped his mouth and grinned stupidly, “Today sure was fun.”
Gentleman Jim nodded and ordered another round. “I’ve got an important assignment for you. I need you to go to this address in Seneca 4. It’s a little hideout I’ve got. Stash our weapons and masks and wait. A buyer wants to come look at that merchant’s case. He’s willing to pay a fortune for it.”
Bob put his hand on the outlaw’s elbow and said, “I swear to God you can trust me.”
“I know I can. Let’s drink to trust.”
Gentleman Jim finished the next drink and let his head hang. He grabbed Bob around the shoulder and pulled him close, slurring when he said, “I never told nobody this, but my real name is Dirk Tirrell. I grew up off-planet and came here to join the mining union. The sons of bitches wouldn’t take me, so I got into this business. Now you know more about me than any other person, alive or dead, so make sure you keep it quiet, ok? I trust you, Bob. Let’s drink.”
Bob left with that information tucked away as carefully as the merchant’s worthless documents and photographs inside the case. The authorities caught up with him before he made it halfway to Seneca 4. They seized the briefcase and Bob immediately offered up a story that he thought was worth a reward, if not leniency. The lawmen listened intently to Bob tell of Dirk Tirrell, the infamous masked bandit known as “Gentleman Jim.” They started laughing before he even finished telling them the part about the mining union.
“Boy, we’ve got four different associates of that bastard doing hard time at the penal colony, and each of them has given us a different name for him. You’ll see the judge in the morning and then the group of you can compare notes.”
* * *
The Dalewood Saloon of Seneca 5 was slow. The rotation of fresh poker players was neither to Dr. Royce Halladay’s liking nor profit. He watched the same stack of money circle around the table several times, and out of sheer boredom, kept playing even when it passed to him.
He ordered three whiskeys and drank them all in quick succession. The alcohol left him grabbing his throat and grimacing. He coughed into his sleeve until blood dripped down his mustache. Halladay excused himself and stood from the table. He moved into a corner where he could indulge the cough and spit without fear of splattering blood on anyone. Even when bent over, he kept an eye aimed at the table, letting them know that he was watching both his cards and his stack of money.
Halladay righted himself and returned. “Pardon me, gentlemen, I seem to be a bit under the weather this evening.” He sat and took up his cards, looking from them to the faces of the other players. He took their measure as they squirmed under his scrutiny, all of them trying to conceal their opinions of the cards in their own hands. “The hour is growing late, and the time has come to put the children to bed. I’m all in,” Halladay said, then pushed his stack of chips into the center of the table.
Each of the other players considered their cards more carefully. One by one, they folded. The turn passed to a young Henry McCarty, seated across the table from Halladay. McCarty tucked his thin lower lip beneath a massive row of buckteeth and smiled, looking like a gopher. He spit a mouthful of black sweetweed juice on the floor and shoved in the rest of his chips. “I’ll call you, blood spitter.”
Doctor Halladay laid his cards down with the flourish of a magician revealing his greatest trick. McCarty let out a whoop of delight when he turned over a better hand that erased Halladay’s magic. “Damn,” Halladay said, then coughed.
“Not so much to say now, do you?” McCarty embraced the pile of coins, bills, and chips and dragged them into his lap.
Halladay congratulated McCarty and excused himself from the table. He decided he disliked McCarty, but the level of dislike had not reached the point of wanting to lay in wait for the man in an alley and murder him. However, the night was young. Halladay decided to leave that option open depending on McCarty’s behavior.
There was a man at the bar with his head down under the brim of his hat, reading a folded newspaper. Halladay leaned next to him and tapped the bar, trying to raise the barmaid’s attention. He looked over and tried to see what the man was reading and said, “My, my, a literate fellow in this den of iniquity.” There was no response, not even a nod of the head. Halladay decided he needed to meet this man. “That must be a story of deep personal interest to keep your attention from the delights of these buxom barmaids. Unless, of course, you prefer the more masculine type.”
“What the hell did you say, friend?” The man looked up from his paper a
t Halladay and his eyes widened. “Doc?”
Halladay grinned, his eyes turning into serpentine slits. “Jem Clayton. How is your father these days?”
Jem’s hand dropped to cover the article he’d been reading and he pulled the paper closer. “Hello, Doc. He’s dead.”
“Of course, of course. Forgive me for being so rude,” Halladay said. “Let us have a drink in his honor. Barmaid? Your finest whiskey.”
“That’s really not necessary. I wasn’t staying.”
The barmaid set down two glasses in front of them and Halladay grabbed one. Jem’s hand remained covering the article.
“To Sam Clayton. My dearest friend,” Halladay said, lifting his glass.
Jem sighed and took the shot glass. He lifted it to his lips and drank, not noticing that Halladay glanced down to read the newspaper article that quoted the passenger of a wagon named Mrs. Wilma Alcott. “Gentleman Jim was handsome, I can tell you that much. His eyes were blue as the oceans of the Luatica system, and even though he was obviously a dangerous man on serious business, he was kind and charming. He really is a gentleman, you know.”
Halladay studied Jem carefully before saying, “You know, I haven’t set eyes on you since you were a little boy, but it is simply remarkable how much you look like him. You have the same blue eyes. Nearly as blue as the oceans of the Luatica system.”
Jem folded up the newspaper and stuffed it into his pocket. “Shouldn’t you be dead by now? You were too sick to practice medicine over twenty years ago yet here you are.”
Halladay drew his fingers along his mustache and down the length of his goatee. “It must be my dogged commitment to living a healthy lifestyle. So tell me, young Clayton, what brings you all the way out to the Filthy 5?”
Jem swirled his glass and watched his beer move in circles. “It isn’t Seneca 6. My father died, Doc. I left. That’s the end.”
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