Talbert cleared his throat and spat, biting back the instinct to ask Siringo to go sit some place else and let the adults talk. But a voice reminded him that he was being irrational. Something about that kid just rubbed him wrong. He reminded him of Drago. Maybe that’s what it was all about.
“Who do we believe?” Roslyn asked.
“We’re here for the warrant,” Siringo said. “Does it matter who the bad guy is? Sounds like they’re both a couple of greedy, backstabbing pricks.”
“But do we side ourselves with this kind of criminal?” Roslyn asked. “We have our reputation to uphold.”
“People say we do the Bird’s work,” Talbert added. “That said, Kidd Wylie took it too far by killing those men.”
“Unless they were coming to kill him,” Frank said.
“I don’t know,” Talbert said. “I’d like to hear Lu Yanker’s take. Maybe hear it from some other people too, then.”
“I agree with Bill,” Roslyn said. “We need to know what we’re dealing with here, exactly. Before we further someone’s cause.”
“You said you knew Lu Yanker a little bit?” Talbert turned to Frank.
“A few years back,” Frank said. “Back when this was a booming silver town. There were buildings and streets back then.”
“How long has this camp been in operation?” Siringo asked.
“I don’t know,” Talbert said. “I gather there have been some down time between booms.”
“Why are there so few permanent structures here?” Roslyn asked.
“Well like Charlie said, the silver mine had tapped out,” Frank said. “So the camp had died or was dying. When I came through here back about four or five years ago, the camp looked totally different. There were Da’akwood structures and a hotel, a proper restaurant. But I think the silver mine tapped out, like Charlie put it. They probably tore it down and sold the lumber. But then someone found gold and this is the new second boom.”
“Plus look around,” Hattie said. “There’s not a lot of wood. This is mostly desert out here.”
“They could have it shipped in, though,” Roslyn said. “How long ago was the gold find?”
“That’s a question for a local,” Frank said. “But, I gathered they’d found a little bit of gold but something told them there was a lot more. But it was all still speculation. Until more recently.”
“Well, before I was interrupted I was asking about Lu Yanker,” Talbert said to Frank. “Would he remember you?”
“He might,” Frank said. “I tried to keep a low profile. But I played cards with him several times.”
“Were you undercover?” Talbert asked.
“I was a gambler named Freddie Tong, from Mars,” Frank said with a grin.
“Keeping it close to the truth,” Roslyn said. “I like that.”
Frank, Grace, and Talbert headed back toward the casino, while Roslyn, Siringo, and Hattie searched for a place to camp outside of town.
*
The casino turned up no sign of Lu Yanker so they headed to his general store up the hill. Robots and human foremen were constructing a Da’akwood building beyond the large tent that was the store. Talbert noticed the same symbol from Grover’s store tagged on the side of a storage shed; the floppy ears and Xs for dead eyes, streaks of blood coming down in red lines. He wondered what it meant; who it stood for?
“How you going to get the story from Lu Yanker without blowing the cover?” Grace asked as they climbed the path up the hill. Frank paused and this caused the other two to do the same.
“She’s right,” Frank said, fixing his hat with his white gloves. “What’s your play, Bill?”
“You two go in there first,” Talbert said to Frank. “If he’s in there give me a sign. We don’t know each other.”
“Okay,” Frank said.
“You tug something,” Grace suggested.
“Tug something?” Frank asked, smirking.
“You know what I mean,” Grace said, pushing his shoulder. He laughed. Were they flirting? They had to move aside for a hover truck to pass. In the bed rode mud-covered prospectors heading back to town from the dig sites.
“We go in and buy something and then come out,” Frank suggested. “I’ll buy a water and if I drink it when I first come out then he’s in there. If I put it in my pocket and keep walking, meet up with us around the corner.”
Upon exiting the store, Frank twisted open the bottle of water and took a long swig. Grace slid her arm into his and they continued up the street.
Talbert crossed the busy thoroughfare and entered the tent. Rows of supplies and canned goods filled the space. The store was organized by sections; groceries to the left, mining and camping supplies to the right. A solar powered generator provided electricity for the refrigerators where cold bottles of water and beer were kept. Talbert had to remind himself he was inside of a tent.
Talbert bought a bag of spicy beef jerky and a Jarritos from the android clerk and nodded to the portly man in a fancy suit seated behind the counter playing a game on his holoscreen. A white sucker stick protruded from below his mustache.
“You own this joint?” Talbert asked. The man grunted but didn’t look away from his game.
“Lookin’ for an old friend of mine from Shiva,” Talbert said, trying to squash the urge to slap the back of the man’s thick head. “Maybe you know him. He goes by the name Kidd Wylie.”
This caused the man to pause his game and turn to look up at Talbert.
“Who’s asking about him?” the man said, giving Talbert a thorough once over.
“My name’s Bill Brown,” Talbert said. “I owe him some money. Bill Brown always repays his debts. I have it for him.”
“How much do you owe him?” the man asked, a scheming leer on his face.
“Depends on who’s asking, and why it would be your business,” Talbert said, returning the leer with a squint.
“Well, you’re offering that much information, might test you to see how much more you’ll divulge. Call me curious,” the man said and stood to shake Talbert’s hand. “Lu Yanker. And yes, before you ask, this is my town.”
Yanker tried to turn Talbert’s hand sideways but found the grip like marble and gave up the effort. Talbert glared his steely blues into the hefty man’s green eyes.
“Your town, huh?” Talbert asked as their hands parted.
“Well, it’s named after me, I discovered it and I own most of it, so, yeah, you could say that,” Yanker said, playing with the sucker stick in his mouth. The sucker had long been swallowed but the man still gnawed on the white stick.
“Well, like I said, I owe the kid money,” Talbert tried to grin to defuse the tension but it didn’t reach very far. “And if you know my old friend Wylie, then you don’t want to be in his debt for too long. Last I heard he came through here. Left another trail behind him is what I heard.”
“What’d you hear exactly?” Yanker asked, his eyes darting to the door of the tent and nodding. Two Red Scarves made their way in. They talked amongst themselves and tipped their hats to Yanker. Ever so subtly, Yanker placed a finger on his nose, still toying with the white sucker stick.
Talbert felt the Red Scarves move around into positions behind him, on either side.
“I hear he’s gone from picking pockets to shooting people down for silver,” Talbert said and pretended to cough. Seamlessly he lowered his head as he did it, spun and had his two pistols trained on each of the men before anyone could flinch.
“Holy shit, mister,” Yanker said from behind him.
“Drop your guns and go stand behind the counter with your boss,” Talbert barked. The two men obliged. Metal and leather hitting Da’akwood. Their eyes suggesting they were both impressed and scared shitless.
“Easy, Mr. Brown,” Yanker said. “They’re just security patrolmen. My question is, what are you?”
“I’m friends with Kidd Wylie,” Talbert said. “We’ve done jobs together. What kind of guy do you think that makes
me?”
“A bad hombre?” Yanker said with something of a chuckle.
“One that doesn’t like to be snuck up on, is your answer,” Talbert said, ushering the two Red Scarves behind the counter. He kicked their guns further away and then holstered his. “There, now we can talk.”
“I got a dozen more men in this town wearing red scarves, pal,” Yanker said, donning a snarl that reminded Talbert of Mookab. “Not a good idea to get on their bad side. Not if you intend to spend much time here.”
“Not my intention, but again, you come at me, you see what I am,” Talbert said. “I’m just passing through hoping to pay the kid what’s owed and move along.”
“I don’t know where he is,” Yanker said, crossing his arms. “So, sorry to disappoint and force you to put yourself in a bad spot with the Red Scarves.”
The one on the right nodded and puffed his chest. Talbert couldn’t remember if his guns were on stun or kill mode. It took everything not to shoot the smug ass in the face.
“But you know how to contact him,” Talbert said finally.
“Now why would you assume that?” Yanker asked, taking the sucker stick out of his mouth and holding it in front of him.
“You hired him to kill some grocer’s men, is the tale going around camp,” Talbert said. “He works for you, then.”
“Is that what people are saying?” Yanker asked, looking first at the Red Scarf on his right and then on his left.
“It is,” Talbert said.
“Why would I do that?” Yanker asked, putting the stick back in his mouth, slipping it below his thick mustache. “I have over a dozen Red Scarves on my payroll. What would I need with some crazy outlaw?”
“Easy,” Talbert said, brushing back his jacket for effect. “That’s my friend you’re talking about.”
Yanker seemed to buy it and nodded quickly several times, as if making up his mind.
“So you’re telling me you didn’t hire Kidd Wylie to take out another faction’s men?” Talbert asked.
“I don’t know why Kidd Wylie killed those men,” Yanker said. “But he did me a solid favor in the doing of it. As he kindly pointed out to me after the fact. So I guess I should return the favor and let you repay him.”
“You telling me he acted on his own volition?” Talbert asked, starting to wonder.
Yanker simply shrugged and moved the stick to the other side of his mouth.
“Okay, then, tell him I’d like to meet up and repay him,” Talbert said, his mind trying desperately to recall the days back on Shiva. He remembered the kid running with a small gang of rough street punks. “I go by the name Bill Brown now, but he’ll remember me as--”
“You’re assuming I have contact with him?” Yanker cut him off.
“You just said you were going to let--” Talbert said exasperated but was interrupted again.
“I said what exactly?” Yanker spoke over him.
“You were going to let me repay him, were your god damned words,” Talbert said through gritted teeth. His back was raised.
“What’s that even mean?” Yanker said, once again looking at his Red Scarves. “My intention being to get the hells out of your way and let you do your repaying without my interfering. You must have misunderstood me.”
“You tell the kid, End of the Pier Dan is looking to see him after all these years,” Talbert said, remembering the name finally. “Tell him I made good on what we planned all those years ago before he went off to Earth. Tell him out of respect, I come to repay him. It was his plan after all.”
“If that’s a true story,” Yanker said. “You’re a god damned schmuck.”
“Tell him I’ll be back in town tomorrow. I’ll meet him at the shuttle port by the far north benches. Make it nine standard.” Talbert tipped his hat to the two Red Scarves and headed out the door. He circled around to make sure he wasn’t followed and then headed to the rendezvous point outside of the camp.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Roslyn found an abandoned prospector’s cabin from the early days of the silver find. The tapped out mine sat hollow just over the ridge from the cabin. There was one large room with a privy behind it. The only items still in there were a broken coffee pot and one muddy and torn boot. A large furry insect or small rodent, it was hard to tell, scurried into a hole as they opened the door and light spilled in.
After setting digital breadcrumbs to find the place, Roslyn, Hattie, and Siringo headed back to town to meet up with the others. They then brought them back to their hideout. They made camp in and around the cabin that night, taking shifts to keep watch.
The next morning the six agents hid behind a row of hover trucks waiting to load goods onto a shuttle. From their perspective they could see the benches in question. A man and woman sat on them. They seemed to be having one hell of an argument, culminating with the woman slapping the man and then the man shoving her to the ground. When the man kicked the woman in the ribs, Roslyn darted out from behind the truck and crossed the dirt lot. Her pistol dug into the back of the man’s skull.
“Kick her again and see what happens, asshole,” Roslyn said.
“Lady, this is none of your gods damned business,” the man said, holding his hands up.
“Are you okay?” Roslyn asked as the lady tried to catch her breath. The lady slowly crawled to her feet, gasping. She then nodded.
Talbert and the others watched from cover. Talbert released a sigh and checked his gun. Stun mode. When he looked up, he nearly switched it back to kill.
“Well, shit,” Talbert said upon seeing four Red Scarves come up behind Roslyn. He recognized the stocky one. He’d shoot that pathetic bastard first.
“Roslyn?” asked a familiar voice behind her. “What are you doing?”
She spun and aimed her gun at Drago. Around his thick neck hung a red scarf.
“Same damn question,” Roslyn asked, aiming her pearl handled pistol in the big man’s face.
“I need the work,” Drago said in a defiant tone. “Was it you guys who claimed to owe Kidd Wylie money?”
The other three Red Scarves exchanged confused glances, hands on their pistols, but not yet drawn.
The quarreling couple hurried away. Talbert motioned for Siringo and Hattie to spread out to cover various angles. Grace and Frank maintained their cover behind the trucks, guns aimed at the Red Scarves.
“Is it you guys who are here to collect?” Roslyn asked, looking at all four men and then back to Drago. “You look like an idiot in that scarf, Drago.”
“I find myself with your pistol in my face again,” Drago said. “Feels like old times.”
“Drop your guns, now,” Talbert’s voice rang out from behind them. Drago’s shoulders dropped. He was the first to comply.
“You boys might want to take off your guns,” Drago said to the others. “That’s Devil Bill Talbert behind you.”
With that, the other three Red Scarves unstrapped their holsters and let them fall to the dirt.
“You the same bastards who shot our brothers in New Vegas?” asked one of the Red Scarves.
“That was mostly Dogg Holly’s handiwork, but we helped,” Talbert said. “Price you pay to be a hired gun. Sometimes you get shot.”
“What’s your new name, Drago?” Roslyn asked. “Ted or the like?”
“I’m called Dred,” Drago said with a cocky grin. “Came up with it myself.”
“That ain’t half bad,” Siringo said stepping forward with his gun raised.
“Charlie Siringo,” Drago said, grinning warmly to his old best friend. “What up, playa?”
“Oh, you know, this, that, and the other thing,” Siringo said, putting his gun away.
“Okay, well, did your boss even contact Kidd Wylie?” Talbert asked, interrupting the bromance reunion.
“We were supposed to come shake you down,” Drago said.
“And he only sent four men?” Roslyn asked, looking around for more.
“He didn’t know it was Devil Bill he was
dealing with,” Drago said with a small chuckle.
“But he knew how fast I was,” Talbert said, scanning the lot for more Red Scarves. A woman’s red coat caught his eye but he moved on from it to a red hat and then a red jacket. He didn’t like that his cover had been blown. Devil Bill Talbert was a war criminal on Danaus. Luckily there was no real law, but still, frontier justice had its way of playing itself out in these backwater places.
“Sounds like your new boss is about as stupid as you are, Drago,” Roslyn said. “I mean, Dred.”
“Come on, Ros,” Drago said with a sigh. “There’s no need to be an ass to me.”
“Do you know if Kidd Wylie works for Yanker?” asked Talbert.
“I don’t know,” Drago said with what appeared to be a sincere shrug. “He didn’t say. He only said to come here and shake down some street thug from Shiva. He said you had money in your pocket.”
Talbert grunted and looked up the hill toward Yanker’s store. There were several tents and smaller structures around it. It was hard to tell if Yanker could see them. They were roughly half a mile away. With smart goggles he could be spying on them. This gave Talbert the idea and he pulled his goggles over his eyes and scanned the hill. A group of miners exited the tent store. No sign of Yanker.
“So what’s your play, here?” Drago asked, tired of holding up his hands. His shoulders drooped. “You going to kill us or let us go?”
“Depends,” Roslyn said. “Do the Red Scarves want revenge for New Vegas?”
“Right now, the Red Scarves in this camp,” Drago said with enlarged eyes. “Work for Lu Yanker. Part of our code is we do the job first.”
“The job comes first,” repeated the Red Scarf to Drago’s immediate left.
“Nobody’s talking to you right now, asshole,” Roslyn said.
“Easy, Ros,” Drago said. “Don’t be a dick to Fred.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Fred,” Roslyn said. “Was I being rude?”
This caused Siringo to chuckle. Talbert shot him a glare, which ended the chuckle.
“What’s the job exactly?” Roslyn asked. “Run Mr. Grover out of town?”
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