Guns of Seneca 6 Box Set Collected Saga (Chambers 1-4)

by Bernard Schaffer

  "That's what we thought was gonna happen," Otis said. "We were sure he was a goner, but he managed to survive the night. He's got all sorts of broken bones and is burned real bad all over his body, but he's still alive."

  Starr stood up and tucked Otis's gun in his waistband. He waved Mr. Pine over and said, "Get the Sheriff on his feet so he can take us over to see Frisby."

  Pine grunted as he tried to pull the desk off of Otis, and Otis yelped in pain as his legs came free. He rubbed his swollen ankles and said, "I'll take you anywhere you want to go, but there ain't no point. Frisby hasn't woken up yet."

  "He always was a stubborn one. Maybe I can coax it out of him," Starr said.

  The doctor's office was empty and dark, save for an upstairs bedroom with a small table lamp beside it. Frisby lay motionless in the bed, wrapped head to toe in soiled white bandages like a mummy, with only his swollen face showing through. The skin under his eyes was red and raw with some of it crispy as the skin on a fried goose. Starr leaned over Frisby to inspect the damage and whistled softly, "Looks bad."

  Otis nodded, "Doctor says it's a blessing he ain't awake. If he were, he'd start screaming 'till he went into shock and died."

  Starr reached for the bandages around Frisby's chin to pull them down, but Otis said, "Don't do that! Them bandages are stuck to him like glue. They're gonna have to soak him in some kind of special bath to get 'em to dissolve."

  "Is that right?" Starr said. He shook Frisby's shoulder and said, "Wake up, Frisby. I need to know what happened."

  Frisby didn't move.

  Starr shook him harder this time, and tapped him in the face with the back of his hand, "Hey. Hey, Frisby. Stop fooling around now. I need some answers."

  Otis stepped forward to pull Starr away, "Be careful with him. He ain't real stable."

  Starr glanced at Mr. Pine, who immediately seized Otis by the collar of his uniform shirt and yanked him back. Starr's stare was threat enough to keep Otis from moving again. "Being stable is overrated, Sheriff," he said. He pinched the bandages under Frisby's neck and ripped them away, tearing off a foot of tape with a long strip of skin attached to it. The subcutaneous fat layer of Frisby's ruined flesh quivered as fresh blood rose to the surface like an overflowing oil field.

  Frisby moaned lightly but his eyes didn't open, and Otis hollered, "Stop!"

  Starr lifted the tape to look closely at it and said, "Damn. It's got hair on it and everything." He tossed the tape away and poked Frisby in the chest, "You gonna wake up yet?"

  "Please, leave him alone. We'll go find someone else who can help us."

  Starr grabbed another piece of tape and yanked, this time exposing a foot's worth of flesh straight down the center of Frisby's chest. "Whoops!" Starr said with a laugh.

  Otis screamed and used all of his weight to shove Mr. Pine's hands off of him. He bolted for the door like a runaway hippo, crashing against one of the doctor's carts and screaming for help as he ran down the hall.

  Starr looked at Mr. Pine with disappointment and said, "All you had to do was hold onto him."

  Pine grunted at him and turned to chase after the Sheriff, following the trail of torn down bookshelves and broken plant pots. Frisby was moaning nice and loud by then and his eyes were rolling around behind his closed eyelids. Starr pulled up one of them and bent over to look into Frisby's eye and said, "You in there, Frisby? It's Johnny."

  "Oh, shit. Oh, shit!" Frisby squealed. "What the hell happened to me!"

  Just like Otis had said, Frisby started screaming and shaking. He was flopping up and down on the bed in agony and Starr said, "Hang on."

  Frisby wailed and shrieked like he was set on fire all over again and Starr covered his ears as he looked around the doctor's office. His eyes fixed on a brown jar marked morphine and he said, "Okay. This should do the trick." He pulled open one of the cabinets and found a syringe, then dunked it in and drew the stopper back until the chamber was full. "I'm not sure how much of this you're supposed to get, but I'm sure you don't really care right now, right?"

  He leaned down to try and get the needle into Frisby's arm, but Frisby was thrashing around and wailing too much to get it in. Finally, Starr said, "Screw it," and jabbed the needle straight into the side of Frisby's neck and pushed on the stopper until all the morphine was gone. Frisby's eyes fluttered a few times and his screams became low, garbled groans.

  "There you go," Starr said. "That's better, right?" He moved Frisby's arm out of the way and sat down on the edge of the bed.

  The doctor's office's front door slammed open and Sheriff Otis cried out, "Get away from me! Somebody −" The next sounds the Sheriff made sounded like a man trying to move his bowels or a cow that had impaled itself on a barbed wire fence and every time it moved, a little more of its innards spilled out. Then there was nothing but the sound of the front door opening again and something big and heavy being dragged back inside.

  Starr smiled softly at Frisby and said, "Can you hear me, old buddy?"

  "Johnny?" Frisby said sleepily. "Is that you?"

  "It sure is. I just came to make sure you was feeling all right and they were taking good care of you."

  "I don't…I don't know where I am."

  "You're in the hospital. The doctors say you're going to be just fine. Good as new. But first, you need to tell me what happened."

  Frisby smiled stupidly and said, "I don't remember what happened, Johnny."

  "Sure you do," Starr said. "There was a young girl with an older man. Remember?"

  "Oh yeah," Frisby whispered. "It was that same one that tried to get you before. She had a real long scar across her throat and said you done it."

  "The whore from Seneca 5?" Starr said. "What the hell did she want with you?"

  Frisby's eyes fluttered closed and his head rolled over to the side. Starr propped him back up and shouted his name until Frisby came to again and said, "She was looking for you. She's real angry at you."

  "Well I'm real angry at her now, too. What about the man? Who was he?"

  "I dunno, Johnny. She called him Doc. He kept coughing and hackin' up though."

  "He was sick?"

  "Yeah. But I think it was more than that. I think he was a blood-spitter."

  "What the hell kind of freak show are we dealing with here, Frisby?" he sighed. He pulled out the Sheriff's pistol from his waistband and sat it on the opposite side from Frisby, keeping it out of view. "Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything at all."

  "No," Frisby said dreamily. Then he stirred slightly and said, "Wait, wait. She said her brother's a preacher. It was that whore from Seneca 5, Johnny. The one that tried to kill you. She's real angry at you."

  "You said that," Starr said. "Well, I appreciate the talk, Frisby. I suppose I could just take my leave of you now, but I'm not sure how long that morphine's gonna last. It doesn’t seem right leave you to suffer like that."

  Frisby's head flopped over to one side, "I ain't sufferin', Johnny. I feel just fine."

  "I know you do, partner." Starr stood up and took a deep breath. Frisby was snoring lightly now, lost in some chemical haze of medicinal tranquility. Starr slid one the pillows propping Frisby up out from under his head and draped it over the gun in his hand, squeezing down to keep it bunched up over the barrel. He pressed the pillow against the side of his old friend's head and cocked the hammer back quietly. "Goodbye, Frisby."

  Moments later he was downstairs, walking his way through the doctor's office lobby when he saw Mr. Pine standing by the door. The mute's entire shirt was soaked through and dripping with dark blood. His arms and face were smeared with it as well. "Jesus hell, Mr. Pine!" Starr said. "You look like a goddamn cannibal. Why didn't you clean yourself up while I was upstairs?"

  Mr. Pine looked down at the ground like a child that just brought home a bad grade. Otis's gutted corpse was behind him on the floor of the office, staring up at them both with a frozen expression of horror.

  Starr sighed and said, "Go ahead a
nd wash up, but make it quick. I think our visit to Seneca Prime is about finished. But the good news is, we get to go see an old friend in the Filthy Five."

  Halladay looked up at the small white building with the pointed steeple that reached high into the sky and said, "Absolutely not."

  "Come on, Doc," Winnie said. "We came all this way together. I want him to meet you."

  The church's white doors were shut, but they could hear the sound of a preacher and his congregation inside. It sounded like a fire-and-brimstone service, and the people bearing witness to it cried out in response. "And risk being struck by lightning? I will wait here with Buttercup."

  "Fine," she said. "I might be a while."

  He watched her go up the steps toward the doors and pull them open to let herself in. The noise within boomed out, with the preacher's voice decrying the sins of gambling, boozing, whoring and killing. Halladay shrugged and said, "Three out of four does not seem that bad."

  The door opened again to reveal a beautiful, dark-skinned woman with shining black hair wrapped in two long braids. A feather dangled from each of her ears and Halladay realized she was Beothuk. His eyes widened as she stopped to turn back toward the door and a man followed her out, carrying a small child. The man was white and rugged looking, with slicked-back hair and a handlebar mustache. The child was clearly a half-breed. The child's father stopped mid-stride and looked down menacingly at Halladay, who instinctively moved his hands closer to his weapons, but he stopped when he saw the other man was not armed.

  Halladay relaxed and leaned back against Buttercup, trying to appear uninterested in the family and non-threatening. Still, he could not help himself but at least stare a little. A Beothuk woman inside a settlement, in the company of a whiteman. Halladay tipped his hat at them and said, "How progressive. This must be that brave new world I keep hearing about."

  "Come along, Charles," the woman said, ignoring him. "Wendy is too tired to sit in a church all day."

  "A child after my own heart," Halladay grinned.

  The woman scowled at him arrogantly, but Charles nodded as he walked past and said, "Take care, friend."

  "Thank you, I shall endeavor to do so," Halladay said.

  The voices inside the church grew louder than before, and Buttercup pawed the ground impatiently. Halladay thought he heard Winnie's above the others and stopped to listen. He heard someone shout the words, "Godless whore!" and went running up the steps.

  Inside the church, Winnie was surrounded by the entire congregation, with an older man and a fat grey-haired woman standing directly in front of her. On the pulpit, a handsome young man in a preacher's collar looked down from the altar at her with sheer disdain . His likeness to Winnie was unmistakable. Halladay came to Winnie's side and locked eyes with the old battleship of a woman when she sneered, "Who is this, Winnie? Your pimp? Does your defilement of sacred ground know no boundaries?"

  "I only came here to speak to my brother, Mrs. Millner," Winnie said. "I was just going to sit in the back and wait for him to finish so I didn't interrupt you."

  "Your very presence is an interruption," Mr. Millner said. Millner took stock of Halladay's sickly physique and alabaster pallor and said, "In the name of God, we cast you out!"

  Halladay's eyebrow raised and he chuckled, despite his best effort to remain serious. "I believe he is trying to exorcise us, darling."

  Winnie stood up the tips of her toes to see past them and shouted, "Abe! Please, just give me a minute!"

  "Get out!" Mrs. Millner screeched. "He wants nothing to do with you and your kind! Get back into whatever stinking hole you crawled out of."

  When neither of them moved, Mr. Millner stepped forward with his hands balled into fists like he intended to strike them, only to freeze in mid-step at the mechanical click of both of the hammers dropping back on Halladay's guns. "Does prayer stop bullets, sir?"

  Millner looked down at their gleaming silver barrels and muttered, "You … dare …"

  "Put them away, Doc," Winnie hissed.

  "Do you see?" Mrs. Millner said, jabbing her finger at them, "Do you see what kind of trash they are, Abe? I warned you, didn't I? All those years ago. I told you the best thing that ever happened to you was that she left, and here it is, God has proven me right!"

  "Please," Winnie whispered. "You aren't helping."

  Halladay decocked the hammers on his guns and twirled them in his palms for effect before dropping them in their holsters. He looked at Mr. Millner and said, "It's more of a punishment to you to let her live, anyway. Best regards." He held out his arm for Winnie and said, "Let's take our leave of these villagers before they acquire pitchforks, madam."

  She put her arm through his and lowered her head as he led her through the doors and down the steps. He could tell from the way her shoulders bounced that she was sobbing. Buttercup lowered her head toward Winnie, her wide nostrils flaring as she stuck her wet nose toward Winnie's face to get her to lift it. "Get off, Buttercup," Winnie said and pushed her away.

  Halladay held out his hand to help Winnie climb up. The only thing that came to his mind was to say, "Perhaps a drink or two will raise your spirits. After that, we can set out to finish our bloody business."

  "I can't leave, Doc," she said. "I have to find a way to talk to him."

  "I suspected you might say that," he muttered. "Might we at least still have that drink first?"

  "That's what's really important, right?" Winnie said as she climbed up onto Buttercup and took the reins in her hands. "Go drink yourself to death for all I care, old man." With that, she kicked Buttercup in the sides and rode off without him.

  It took him two hours, but eventually he caught sight of Buttercup's light-colored coat and she turned her head back at him and snorted. Winnie stood near the entrance of a building called The Dalewood, looking in from the outside. Halladay walked up behind quietly, not wanting to interrupt. "They changed it," she said. "No more working girls. Just gambling and liquor. I used to dream about owning this place, you know. Back when I was a kid. I fantasized about what it would look like when I ran it."

  Halladay looked around skeptically. All of the town's main buildings were behind them, as if the Dalewood itself was an outcast. Nothing else existed except tumbleweeds and abandoned pieces of farming equipment on the miles of craggy desert rock in every other direction.

  "I think you'd make an excellent proprietor," he said. "You certainly could not do worse business. How long would it take you to save up enough money to make them an offer?"

  "Yeah, right," Winnie said. "Not in this life."

  "If you earn as much severian as you say, I shouldn't think it beyond the realm of possibility."

  "Earned," Winnie said. "And all that money I earned is going to you. I ain't never goin' back to that kind of work. After we're done, I'm gonna get a job in some factory somewhere. Maybe I'll get lucky enough to marry some desperate bastard who don't care about my history. Maybe not. Don't make no difference anyhow." She looked back at him and said, "I reckon we can go inside and have that drink now. Maybe you'll stop being so melancholy if you get some whiskey in you."

  He watched her turn away and said, "My wife was in love with Tom Masters."

  Winnie stopped with her back turned and did not move.

  "Not while we were married. When she was younger. She grew up in Seneca 6 and they were sweethearts in school. They were going to get married, except her father would not allow it on account that she was too young and he was too poor." He took a deep breath, which filled his throat with bile and forced him to gag and spit. Small flecks of scarlet spattered the dirt next to his boots. "She always swore to me that it was in the past, but I secretly feared she was being untrue to herself as well as me. Particularly when I became ill and lost my practice, while Tom remained handsome and strong. You see, when I looked at her I saw the most beautiful, worthy, bright shining light of a woman that was ever created. I was haunted by my own inadequacies."

  Winnie turned to fa
ce him, her face soft as she looked him in the eyes. "From what I recall, he was as devoted to his wife as you were to yours."

  "Undoubtedly," Halladay whispered. He kicked the dirt with the toe of his boot to cover up the blood and said, "I spent most of our last few years together drinking to numb myself to the fact that I could no longer provide for her in a multitude of ways. There were times I was cruel to her on purpose to try and force her to reveal her intention to leave me, but still she remained. Ironically, she did leave me, although it was not by her choice."

  "You know what I think, Doc? I think she saw right through all your charades to push her away. And I also think she was lucky. Most people live their whole lives without being adored or cherished for more than a few moments. Miss Katey had a lot longer than that with you."

  He squinted to look inside the Dalewood. Only a few men occupied the table games and bored-looking waitresses leaned up against the walls and twirled their feather boas. The bar was also relatively empty except for a few men gathered together at one end, staring down into their drinks. "You know, I believe this establishment would benefit from a change in management," he said. Buttercup stamped the ground impatiently, her massive hoof kicking up a small cloud of dust. Halladay patted her on the neck and said, "All right, we'll keep moving. I am, as you said, outnumbered by women on this journey, and impatient ones at that."

  The destrier yanked her head away from him so hard she nearly snapped the tether holding her to the hitching post. "The hell's gotten into her?" Winnie said.

  Buttercup spun sideways, grunting and snorting and suddenly reared up on her hind legs, front hooves paddling in the air. Halladay shouted at her to stop, when he saw the small glint of glass flashing in the distance. He stopped and looked at it, mesmerized for a moment, trying to figure out what it could possibly be, when something went thwip! into Buttercup's hind quarters that made her squeal.

  The rifle's shot cracked the air a split-second later and Buttercup's rear leg gave out on the side she'd been shot on, forcing her backwards and nearly strangling her on the tight tether. Halladay ripped his knife from his belt and slashed the tether to try and cut her loose when he saw the light flashing again.