“Get to the stable,” Jed grumbled. “See to Willoughby.”
Belle nodded. With Lilimae clinging to her, she made her way down the steps and across the saloon. Jed looked around. He doubted Plisp would attack his friends again. He had Jed where he wanted him. Jed cussed himself for not being there sooner to save the poor quack - but then again, any later and the others might have met some grisly end too.
Um, Jed...
The voice in his head wasn’t Plisp’s. It was Horse. Jed’s heart dropped to his boots as he realised his error. He tore through the saloon and out into the stark sunlight. Silhouetted against the sky, on Jed’s Horse, was Farkin Plisp.
“The choice is simple,” Plisp said pleasantly as if he were offering the sugar bowl for Jed’s cup of tea. “You can come with me and keep your precious Horse. Or I will take you apart and that piece of you that is bonded with this critter will be mine. That’s all I need from you, Jed. That’s what all this has been about. With this Horse at my command, I will be unstoppable.”
Jed stood his ground and was silent.
“Oh dear,” Plisp heaved his shoulders in a sigh. “I was hoping you’d say something redundant and clichéd like ‘over my dead body’. Other people are such a disappointment, aren’t they, Jed? They never pick up their cues.”
Jed spat on the ground.
“Come and face me like a man,” he snarled. “Let’s settle this once and for all.”
Plisp grinned. His glassy teeth glittered in the sunlight. He hooked his long leg over Horse’s back and stepped from the saddle like a streak of ink poured from a bottle.
He squinted at the sky.
“Must be high noon,” he reckoned. “There’s the cliché I’ve been waiting for.”
“You and me. Fastest gun wins.”
“Your daddy really filled your head with nonsense, didn’t he? Very well; if it will make you happy and will bring about my inevitable victory.”
Horse, unbidden, was already stepping aside in moves that would have won any dressage competition.
The two men walked to the centre of the road. They were twenty paces apart. The sun was high above them. They cast no shadows.
From the doorway of the barn, the women watched. Plisp’s back was to them, masking the gunslinger from their view. Belle held her breath. Lilimae’s fingers dug into her sister’s arm.
Jed’s hands twitched near his holsters but he didn’t look away from Plisp’s eyes and the cool blue glow behind them. The staring was part of it. The slightest flicker would signal the shooting to start.
Jed’s eyes widened as searing heat travelled from his fingertips to his shoulders. His hands were locked and burning with invisible fire. A low chuckle rose from Plisp’s chest. Taking his time, Plisp drew a single pistol and fired it.
Belle and Lilimae gasped to hear the shot. The man in the black coat was still standing. They heard the thud as Jed hit the dirt. Lilimae screamed.
Plisp crouched by the gunslinger’s body. He tore off his glove and placed his clawed hand on Jed’s brow, laughing to himself with malevolent glee.
“What’s happening?” Willoughby was at Belle’s shoulder, peering out into the brightness of day. He saw. “Oh no, oh no!”
Plisp raised his bloodied claw to the light. He licked it then threw back his head and roared. It was too delicious!
Jed stirred. Plisp needed him alive for the removal. Jed summoned all his strength to send a single word to Horse. Horse nodded even though Jed couldn’t see it.
Horse turned to Willoughby and gave him a significant nod.
Willoughby nodded in return. He steered the ladies away from the door and took them deep into the stable. Then he opened the back of the wagon, after all this time of keeping it closed. He was puzzled to find it empty. What had Jed meant? Had Willoughby misunderstood? Had it all failed?
Then a growl and a rush of air leapt over the boy’s head. Paw prints appeared in the dirt. Willoughby laughed and followed.
Plisp, his back to the barn, told Jed to keep still if he wanted to leave a pretty corpse. And then, apart from a few screams, he said no more.
Invisible jaws clamped around Plisp’s neck and threw him to the ground. The chameleote tossed Plisp around like a rag doll, tearing off his limbs and spilling the aqueous fluid Plisp used for blood, all over the road. Plisp’s head rolled clear. His eyes glinted in the sunlight and the glow behind them dimmed and went out.
Willoughby and Belle hurried to Jed and pulled him out of the way of the ravening beast. Glimpses of the critter flashed in the sunlight. Pieces of Farkin Plisp became opaque and shrivelled. Pretty soon there was nothing left but a battered black hat and a black coat in shreds.
The chameleote bounded away in search of some new females to do his hunting for him.
Willoughby and Belle lifted Jed’s arms around their shoulders and half-carried, half-dragged him to the shade of the barn. Lilimae raided the general store for bandages and other provisions. Horse paced nervously to and fro while together, the three survivors patched up the gunslinger and waited until he was sufficiently recovered to explain to them what in Hell had happened.
Aftermath!
They gave Doc Swallow a decent burial and set fire to what was left of Farkin Plisp, scattering the ashes to the winds. During these rituals, no one spoke until Willoughby croaked out a few halting phrases that were less of a eulogy and more of an apology to his late employer.
With these observances complete, the general mood became less oppressive. Everyone had questions but no one wanted to be the one to open the flood gates.
“The Sheriff.” Jed searched the girls’ faces. Lilimae’s lips trembled. Belle shook her head.
“It wasn’t him. It was Plisp.” She nodded to the patch of scorched dirt where the pyre had been. “Some kind of mind trick. A glamour or some such. Caught us all off guard. Our daddy was never here.”
“Do you think he could still be alive?” Lilimae’s wet eyes brimmed with hope.
Jed’s silence was her answer.
“He could be, couldn’t he, Belle?” Lilimae insisted.
Belle patted her sister’s arm and sent the gunslinger a helpless look.
“If he’s anywhere to be found, Miss Lili, I’ll find him.” Jed turned his hat in his hands. He put it on and went over to Horse to make a show of cinching the saddle that never needed cinching.
“What’s next, Jed?” Willoughby was at his shoulder. “We cain’t go to Tarnation - the dark dust...”
“Fort Knightly,” Jed grunted. “These ladies need to be reunited with their granddaddy. I need to have a word in that old man’s ear too.”
The boy seemed anxious, expecting something more.
“You can come with,” Jed shrugged. “If’n you’ve a mind to.”
Willoughby’s face was awash with relief.
“Now, let’s get that wagon hitched up and on the road.”
***
The long ride to Fort Knightly afforded them the time and opportunity to discuss what had happened. They all rode in the back; Horse, of course, didn’t need to be steered. It fell to Jed to do most of the talking, an arduous task for a man of few words.
“That...thing in the wagon,” Belle prompted to get the ball rolling. She cast a wary eye over her shoulder as though fearing it might still be in there.
Jed explained how the male chameleote had followed their wagon after his bitches had been killed. Jed had connected with it - at first to keep it appeased but then the idea had occurred to him that the beast might prove useful. So he lured it into the back of the wagon and kept it there, feeding it hateful thoughts and images of violence.
So that’s what you were keeping from me! Horse interrupted Jed’s discourse. That’s why I couldn’t reach all of you.
“That w
as why I insisted the wagon be kept shut. To protect you all and to keep that critter where I wanted it. It’s why I rode alone with it when we came out of Wheelhub. I bonded with it, let it get to know me and then I made that critter so full of hate and anger I knew the first thing it would do would be to attack its tormentor. Farkin Plisp took that connection from me so when the critter was released, it went directly to him. Those things were made for clearing out the natives. You saw the result.”
A momentary silence shuddered through the group as they recalled that horrific scene.
Horse drew the wagon through a landscape ravaged by the dark dust, picking up speed.
“Will it ever be like it was afore, Jed?” Belle looked in sadness at the transformed prairie.
Jed thought of his former friend, whose home world had been devastated by the arrival of the Pioneers.
“There ain’t nothing can be like it was afore,” he concluded, grimly.
Willoughby piped up, full of sudden inspiration.
“The Sheep, Jed! What about the Sheep? If we can find out what Plisp did with all the Sheep he rustled, they’d eat their way through this stuff in no time.”
Belle squeezed Willoughby’s hand.
“Maybe,” said Jed. “If those critters still exist.”
Willoughby was stunned. Belle frowned.
“What do you mean, Jed?”
“I ain’t no expert, Miss Belle. But all those soldiers up at the fort. I’m guessing not all of their, ah, improvements, come from human parts.”
“What?” Willoughby gasped.
“When I was in Tarnation, I saw how they repelled the dark dust, how they manipulated it and used it against folk. I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t have something of those critters inside them.”
“Thanks to Gramps,” Lilimae said crossly. “I’m going to give that old buzzard a piece of my mind.”
The others fell silent for a second and then laughter burst from them like a river flooding its banks.
“What?” Lilimae’s cheeks reddened. “What did I say?”
Old Men!
The fort was silent. There were no sentries and no one to greet or intercept the wagon’s arrival. Jed was up front having instructed the others to lie low in the back. Horse pulled them right into the centre of the courtyard unimpeded.
Jed tried to stop her but Belle leapt from the wagon and strode purposefully across the yard to her grandfather’s workroom. A moment later, she returned, shoving the old man before her. She pushed him to his knees in the dirt. The others climbed out of the wagon.
“Gramps!” Lilimae gasped. Willoughby prevented her from embracing the old man.
“You’ve got a hell of a lot of explaining to do,” Belle snarled.
Old Gramps trembled and whimpered. He cast a glance to the sentry towers. Belle caught the look.
“There ain’t nobody here to help you. How could you, Gramps? How could you do this to decent folk? How could you use us in this way?”
The old man looked from one granddaughter to the other before fixing his gaze on the gunslinger.
“You knew what you were doing,” he said coldly.
“There’ll be time for recriminations and for reckoning,” Jed spat in the dirt. “Right now we need your, ah, expertise, to sort out the mess you helped create.”
“The Sheep!” Willoughby stepped forward in what he hoped was a menacing attitude.
“Bah!” said Gramps. “There ain’t no Sheep.”
It was as Jed feared. The rustled critters had been harvested for their dust-consuming properties.
“The soldiers, then?” Willoughby leaned in, curling his upper lip in what he imagined was an intimidating fashion.
“All fled,” the old man shrugged. He struggled to his feet. Lilimae rushed to help him.
“It’s true,” he continued. “Something just kind of switched off inside them. I cain’t account for it.”
They filled him in on the circumstances of Plisp’s demise. Old Gramps nodded.
“That would do it,” he concluded. “And so, I find myself out of work.”
Willoughby gasped with contempt but Jed held up his hand.
“There’s plenty of work to keep you occupied, you old devil,” the gunslinger said flatly. “Over in Tarnation. All of you.” He included the girls in his censure. Lilimae looked affronted; Belle had the decency to hang her head.
“You will assist my, ah, friend in cleaning up the town,” Jed announced. “It might go some way to atone for the damage you have done.”
***
The party rode in miserable silence to Tarnation, taking the path cleared by the soldiers who had attacked the town. The dark dust was all around but where the soldiers had been was perfectly clear.
“Jed! Jed!” Billy, the undertaker’s apprentice burst from the office and pelted up the street to greet his idol. Jed considered, not for the first time, that the boy’s temperament was far too exuberant to suit the trade he was learning.
Another friend, Deputy Dawson, was waiting in the centre of the street. He nodded to the faces peering from the wagon’s faded awning but he addressed his words to Jed.
“Jail’s empty,” he said. The two men exchanged handshakes and shoulder-pats.
Jed glanced around.
“See the difference?” Dawson grinned, amused by the gunslinger’s frown.
Two soldiers emerged from the general store. Jed’s pistols were drawn in a flash but the deputy put a steadying hand on the gunslinger’s arm.
“Old Doc Brandy has worked miracles on those ole boys,” Dawson chuckled.
They watched in astonishment as the soldiers approached a patch of dark dust that was climbing up a wall. They put their hands on it. The dark dust surged onto their gloves. The soldiers balled up the dust.
And ate it.
“Boys! Hey, boys!” Old Gramps called out to the soldiers. They ignored him.
“No point you trying to order them about,” Dawson informed him. “They’re not the men they used to be.”
“Doc Brandy’s handiwork,” Jed smiled.
“You bet,” said Dawson.
“Keep an eye on these folks for me, will you?” Jed didn’t wait for the deputy’s reply. He strode over to Doc Brandy’s office and went inside.
***
The doc was on his own examining table. Tubes akin to those that delivered fodder to Horse protruded from his clothes.
“Howdy, Doc,” Jed failed to keep the concern out of his voice.
“Jed! My boy!” The doc’s eyes opened. Tears coursed down his face. “It’s wonderful to see you, son. And so timely!”
Jed approached the table. He took Doc Brandy’s hand.
“What do you need?”
“Specialist help,” the doc looked ashamed to admit it. “There’s an old feller works up at the fort.”
“He’s here! He’s outside! You know him?”
Doc nodded. “He’s been keeping me going all these years. And his father before him. And so on, through the generations. The man I am now is of their making. Of course, the downside to teaching them the skills necessary for keeping me alive is that they have all been prone to misusing those powers for whatever evil idea takes their fancy.”
“And you need him to, ah, keep you going?” Jed’s eyes were wet although he would never own up to it.
“No,” Doc Brandy shook his head, dislodging further tears. “I’m just about finished on this world, son. I’ve spent up all my reserves adapting the soldiers. He must continue that work. Sheep: soldiers - there ain’t no difference. How’s my clean-up operation going?”
“It’s going great guns,” Jed smiled.
“There’s more to be done. Old Man Marshall can continue my work. He knows what to
do.”
“It’ll be part of his rehabilitation,” Jed patted Doc’s hand. “His son’s dead, you know. The sheriff. Well, most likely.”
“I think you better pull up a stool and tell me all about it.”
Doc Brandy lay back and listened with his eyes closed as Jed related the story of his adventures at the fort and in Wheelhub.
“I wouldn’t fret about Wheelhub,” the doc concluded. “That stuff in the water supply’ll wear off without nobody there to replenish it. Folk’ll soon be back to normal - or what passes for normal in the city. They ain’t got the knowledge to get that old ship out of the ground again, not now their mastermind is gone.”
Jed nodded but stated he would ride on up there just to check.
“He had a point, you know,” Doc’s voice cracked and a coughing fit wracked his body. “Farkin Plisp. It was a terrible thing that happened to his people and to his whole world. Of course, the Pioneers didn’t intend it, but what I know about life on Earth tells me they would have got around to genocide sooner or later.”
“Don’t make it right, what he did - what he was planning.”
“Ah, Jed. My beautiful boy. Right and wrong and black and white. They never get mixed up in your head, do they? I like to think Farkin wasn’t all death and destruction. I like to think that part of him, beyond all the anger and the lust for vengeance, was just lonely. If he’d followed the other Pioneers to the stars, I reckon he would have made his peace with them and found himself a new home.”
Jed grunted. He wasn’t so sure.
“I knew him better than anyone,” he said.
Doc Brandy squeezed Jed’s fingers.
“You better get that old coot in here fast, son.”
Jed was about to protest but another bout of horrific coughing persuaded him to do as he was told. He marched directly to old Gramps and seized him by the shoulder of his coat, lifting him from the ground. The girls gasped but Jed ignored them.
“Somebody wants to see you,” he snarled as the old man wriggled in his grasp. “And you’ll do everything he says or - or Willoughby here will shoot you.”
No one was more astonished than Willoughby by this threat. He fought to control his grin and followed the gunslinger and the old man indoors.
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