by Brom Kearne
13
As he passed from the docks district to the town proper, Thorn again had the feeling that he was stepping into another town altogether. As he walked the paved thoroughfares he came to realize what the worker had meant when he said that most everything here was named for Len Dietrich. His name was on everything. Thorn passed the Len Dietrich Public Gardens, the Len Dietrich Public Library, the Len Dietrich Gallery of Arts, the Len Dietrich Public Sanitation Services, the Len Dietrich Sporting Arena, and the Len Dietrich Amphitheater for the Performing Arts. And the street names were no different. Thorn passed Len Dietrich Place, Len Dietrich Park, Len Dietrich First Street, and so on. With so many similar names he began walking in circles questioning if he had passed the one he wanted.
Thorn also noted that the presence of pale greens was tempered by Len Dietrich’s own private police force. They wore red uniforms of the same style as the pale greens, so people would recognize them as authority, but instead of a badge they bore the L & D Shipping logo on their breast.
Thorn had to admit that he had underestimated the amount of money and influence that Len Dietrich held over this town, and by proxy all of the province, since it was his shipping company that moved goods between consumers and the powerful trade caravans. It had been a few years since Thorn had been in a big town, and even then he had never spent much time east of the Old Foss. He had spent a number of years in Level Shore, although that city’s unique political structure hardly put it in the same category as a town like Webster Grove or a city like Bradenfield.
Thorn began to think that with any luck he could appeal to Len Dietrich to hire him to track down the gang behind the attacks on his shipments. He probably didn’t have much hope, seeing as how Len Dietrich had a private police force and near limitless resources at his command, but it didn’t hurt to ask and make himself available. If Len Dietrich suspected someone in his company of collusion with the gang, then there was a good chance he would need outside help. And since Thorn was tracking down the gang anyway, he certainly wouldn’t turn down some extra pay.
He finally found Len Dietrich Way as it cut through the Len Dietrich Public Gardens in a sweeping curve that led to a single building. It was the tallest building in town, and outside of Collective City, the tallest single building Thorn had ever seen. A gated driveway peeled off from Len Dietrich Way and led to the front door. Two guards stood at the gate and watched Thorn with suspicious eyes. Even though he didn’t need the extra confirmation that he was in the right place, a copper plate by the gate read, “L & D Shipping Headquarters, Offices, &c.”
Before Thorn could get a word out of his mouth the guards reinforced what he had been told at the docks: that there was no way he was getting in to see Len Dietrich the Fourth under any circumstances.
“I have some information that might help him out” Thorn said.
“We don’t care; you’re not getting in here. If you’re looking for work the docks are that way.”
“Well, can I talk to somebody in charge?”
Thorn was feeling more than a little tipsy after drinking all morning, and he was not thinking as clearly as he should have been. He attempted to walk past the guards and press his face against the gate. He didn’t really know what he was doing here in the first place. He didn’t have much of a hope getting Len Dietrich to hire him. He’d be much better off trying to get in to see Brad Hadlik at the hospital, because he, at least, had been an eye-witness to the attack and the Amber Bones Gang. But now that he was here, and now that the guards were standing in his way, the task of getting in to see Len Dietrich became a personal challenge to him.
One of the guards put a hand on Thorn’s shoulder to pull him away from the gate and, in a move that he would regret in a matter of seconds, Thorn turned and punched him.
Things were escalating more quickly than Thorn wanted. He didn’t want to get into a fight. He was here looking for a job. He had thrown that punch as a reflex from being grabbed, but now it was too late to take it back.
The guard was staggered but he wasn’t laid out. The other one charged Thorn’s midsection with his shoulder. Thorn rolled with the momentum, hooking the guard’s arms and flipping him over as they fell, landing hard on top. Thorn was up at once with a punch to the first guard, this time with enough bite behind it to lay the man out. Then he finished up with a chokehold on the guard struggling to his feet.
The whole scuffle was over in less than twenty seconds, but Thorn knew that it didn’t take very long to screw up. And he had screwed up. But he was already committed to this course of action, so he ran with it. Thorn began hammering on the gate and demanding to speak with Len Dietrich. He was not surprised to see a stream of guards come out of the main building. They had probably been alerted the moment he threw that first punch.
There was nothing he could do about it now. They flowed through a security door in the wall by the gate and quickly had him surrounded.
“If you come quietly, nobody has to get hurt,” one of them said.
“You’re taking me to your boss?”
“We are going to escort you to the edge of town. Nobody has to get hurt here.”
“That’s not going to work for me,” Thorn said.
He didn’t wait for them to try and take him. Thorn made the first move, picking the guard that looked to be the easiest target. Thorn turned, suddenly, and charged, knocking the man down.
The others were quick to move. They were well-trained and within moments had Thorn pinned. But Thorn was not going to go quietly. He thrashed and kicked and bit and made such a fuss that he was able to throw off a couple of them, free an arm, and bloody a couple of noses before they had him pinned down again.
Thorn bellowed from deep within his chest as they picked him up. They had his arms so tight he couldn’t move, but his legs were still free and he fully intended to use them. But as he was hoisted to his feet, already leaning heavily on his captors so he could lift his legs up and start kicking, Thorn found himself staring down the coiled barrel of a sparker pistol.
He stopped struggling and shifted focus from the barrel to the person holding it. She was young and harsh, with short blonde hair and a pair of ice cold blue eyes over a pair of cheekbones that looked like they could cut glass. She was wearing a pair of beige slacks and a light blue wrap that hung loosely on her. Thorn could tell just by looking at her stance that she was highly trained in physical combat. Her weight was perfectly balanced and the looseness of the wrap helped to conceal a tightly-toned body.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “Competitor? Disgruntled worker?”
Thorn relaxed, which allowed the guards to get a better grip on him. There wasn’t much use struggling if he was just going to get his head blown off for the effort. And this woman looked like she was perfectly capable and willing to do it.
“I’m looking for a job,” Thorn said.
“You’re not making a very good first impression.”
“Look, I’m a bounty hunter and I can offer my services to your boss regarding a certain problem he’s been having.”
The woman snorted. “And you thought the best way to attract his attention was by assaulting his guards and attempting to storm his offices? We don’t need your help, and I’m not even sure what problem you’re referring to.”
“Thorn.”
“What?”
“My name. It’s Thorn. And for somebody in my line of work, I think I made a pretty good first impression. I nearly took out your whole squad of goons, here. They’re very well trained.”
“I don’t care what your name is, and you would have made a better first impression if you had been able to best them. You’re lucky your guts aren’t spilled on the lawn. And they should be well trained, because I trained them myself.”
Thorn caught a hint of a smile. Pride. Vanity. He had stroked her ego and it had produced a minute fracture in her icy demeanor.
The guards bound Thorn’s wrists behind his back and carried him along as he and the woman were talk
ing. They were very rough with him, but Thorn couldn’t blame them. He’d bruised and bloodied a good number of them. If he had been in their position he’d be rough with his prisoner too. The woman whispered to one of the guards to check the perimeter and he led a small group of them off.
“I’m alone,” Thorn said.
“I will verify that. Your presence could easily be a distraction while you have a compatriot slip in the back.”
“Are you so paranoid about the safety of your boss? What’s your name by the way?”
“My name is Melina Bann, and it’s my job to be concerned with my boss’ safety.”
They were dragging Thorn through the streets and were attracting a number of stares from the citizens.
“If you’re going to escort me out of town you may as well take me west. I’m staying out that way.”
“It doesn’t make any difference to me where you’re staying.”
“But if you take me that way I’ll just have to come right back in and that would kind of defeat the purpose of your throwing me out of town in the first place, wouldn’t it?”
Melina sighed. “Very well, we shall head west. At this point I’m ready to throw you in the river, anyway.”
They walked in silence for a few minutes before Thorn said, “So you don’t have your security increased because of the Amber Bones Gang?”
Thorn caught a flash of recognition in her icy blue eyes, but it was only a flash. “The Amber Bones Gang is a mild nuisance at best.”
“They’ve attacked a number of your shipments lately.”
“Our shipments are attacked all the time. If it’s not one gang with delusions of grandeur it’s another.”
“But still, it’s pretty odd that they’d attack your shipments without stealing anything, right?”
Melina said nothing. She kept the sparker pistol jammed into Thorn’s ribs as they walked, and he could feel that he was already developing a bruise there.
“Or, were they stealing things?” Thorn continued. “Things that weren’t in the cargo manifest?”
“Even if they were it’s an internal matter, and will be dealt with internally. As you can see, we are not wanting for help.”
They had reached the wharfs. Melina nodded at the Foamingwake Bridge and the land on the far shore. “Take him over the bridge and leave him. Don’t bother untying his wrists. Have someone keep an eye on him so he doesn’t come back.”
“So are you going to pass along my proposal to your boss?” Thorn called over his shoulder as the guards manhandled him to the bridge. Melina didn’t give any indication that she had heard him.
The guards carried out her orders exactly, although they threw him to the ground on the other side of the bridge with extreme force. Thorn pulled himself to his feet slowly. Two guards had taken up position on this side of the bridge, and another was ostensibly following him. Thorn didn’t feel like there was much he could do now. His anonymity had been blown to bits. He returned to the Pith farm to find a cutting implement he could use to get rid of his bonds, and with nowhere else to go at the moment, he retreated to the loft so he could sleep it off.
Thorn slept for several hours, judging by the position of the sun, and awoke to the sound of metal on metal hammering. He pulled himself to a sitting position on the edge of the cot and held his head in his hands. His morning activities had left his head throbbing. Not for the first time in his life he found himself wishing that he could exercise a little more control over his drinking and his eagerness to throw a punch. That incessant hammering wasn’t helping his head any, either.
Thorn saw Len Dietrich’s guard leaning against a tree some ways down the path, keeping a close eye on the barn. He was just the one guard, so Thorn figured he could overpower him if the need arose. Thorn didn’t know what to think of L & D Shipping, or of Melina Bann, but for the moment his mouth was so dry that he found it difficult to think of anything but finding some water.
The hammering was coming from around the back of the house in intermittent bursts. Thorn followed the sound out of curiosity, but also because he had seen some rain barrels back there which would help moisten his dry tongue.
When he rounded the corner the mystery of the hammering was solved as Thorn saw that Mr. Pith was working to dismantle the pump. He was not wearing a shirt and had a long piece of cloth tied around his forehead to keep the sweat out of his eyes. From the deep tan of his back Thorn surmised that he often didn’t wear a shirt when he was working on his farm. Although Mr. Pith was aged, and his skin hung loosely from his arms and stomach, he yet possessed a broad muscular frame beneath which was visible muscles rippling as he swung the hammer against the piece of metal with which he was capping the well.
Mrs. Pith was standing under the stoop of the back porch watching him. Her face was stoic. She did not acknowledge Thorn’s presence until after he had scooped a few handfuls of water out of the barrel and came to stand beside her.
“We’re going to lose the farm because of this,” she said.
Thorn stayed silent because he didn’t really know what to say. This was clearly an emotional moment for her, but he didn’t feel it. He had never attached roots too firmly in one place, and so he couldn’t fathom the pain that she and her husband were feeling for being forced from a home and a livelihood that had been in his family for generations.
“I suppose we’ll move into the city, but I don’t know what we’ll do there. We’re not going to get anything for the land and we spent all of our savings trying to keep ourselves out of debt so we could continue running our farm. And now it’s all gone.”
Thorn caught sight of the security guard watching him from around the other side of the barn. That guard was beginning to get on Thorn’s nerves. Every time Mr. Pith swung that hammer it felt like he was swinging against Thorn’s head. After standing for a few minutes with Mrs. Pith and feeling awkward because he didn’t know what to say or how to comfort her, Thorn wanted to move on. It was getting late and there wasn’t much he could do here for the Piths anyway. Thorn wanted to do what he should have done that morning, and that was to get in to see Brad Hadlik at the hospital, but he didn’t know how difficult it was going to be to sneak back into town.
Mrs. Pith was too wrapped up in her sorrows to notice the man watching them from the other side of the barn. Thorn weighed a few ideas of how to handle this guy, but ultimately he settled on the most direct. He walked right up to him.
“What do you know about the Amber Bones Gang?” Thorn asked as soon as he was in shouting distance.
“I know you’re not getting over that bridge,” the security guard answered.
He had taken up a fighting stance and was watching Thorn cautiously, but expectantly. Thorn thought it odd that he didn’t have any kind of weapons on him. Usually police forces carried some kind of simple but effective weapon, like a cudgel. With the amount of money that the L & D Shipping Company was worth, Thorn thought they should all be armed with at least sparker pistols. Melina Bann had been.
Thorn leaned against the barn with his arms crossed over his chest, watching the security guard and attempting to put him at ease so he’d lower his guard.
“How come you don’t have a weapon?”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Old Lenny doesn’t think you’re worth buying a weapon for? That hot woman you were taking orders from had a weapon. It wouldn’t make your life easier if you had a pistol? Or at least a crossbow or a boltslinger?”
“We don’t need a weapon,” he answered, although Thorn could tell that he was getting to him. He could see it in his eyes that he was striking a nerve and playing on the man’s own feelings of inferiority.
“What’s your name?” Thorn asked.
“John Bracy,” he answered.
“So who trained you, then, John? You could hold your own pretty well back there.”
“Ms. Bann trained us and keeps us in tip-top condition.”
“At the end of a gun?”
“It’s not like that.”
“It looked like that to me. It looked like if she snapped her fingers every one of you would be on your knees slobbering for her.”
John Bracy’s eyes narrowed and his face flushed.
Thorn continued, “And if you didn’t she’d shoot your kneecaps out. She seems like the kind of person to shoot your kneecaps out, doesn’t she? I hope at least the pay is good. I don’t think there’s enough money in the Free Lands to get me to fall on my knees every time some woman with a gun snapped her fingers.”
John Bracy smiled. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”
Thorn had wanted to bait him into taking a punch, but since it looked like that wasn’t going to happen he moved on to his next plan. And that was, once again, the direct approach. Thorn had no doubt that John Bracy and Melina Bann and the rest of them were very good and well-trained fighters, but so was he. He had been trained by a little man in Level Shore that had taken Thorn under his wing when he was doing the fighting circuits down there. Thorn had a lot of heart, and could suffer a lot of pain, but he hadn’t been very good with his technique. That little man had changed all that. And though he was over twice Thorn’s age, and half his height, Thorn had never been able to get one over on him. It was from that little man that he had learned his multitude of chokes and holds, as well as the simple beauty of leveraging a man’s own body and force against him. All you needed to do was bait someone into attacking first. And there was more than one way of doing that.
Thorn took an obvious swing, allowing John Bracy to parry it. It was the counterattack he was waiting for, and he had shifted into position alongside the security guard for it. The moment he came in with a punch Thorn had him, redirecting his energy and wrapping his arms around the man’s neck. Within a couple of seconds he was unconscious and sleeping like a baby.
Thorn laid him against the barn and made his way to the Foamingwake Bridge. There was still a lot of activity, as well as a lot of Bradenfield police in their pale green uniforms among the L & D private police in their red uniforms. Although he hadn’t intended it Thorn had attacked the shipping company’s headquarters, and they had responded as if it were a real attack. Thorn cursed himself, and not for the last time, for his lack of control and foresight. He had made his job infinitely more difficult.
Thorn found a high spot to sit so he could watch the movement across the river. It looked almost like a police state over there. The wharfs were crawling with pale greens and reds. Thorn began to think that there was little distinction between the public and private police forces in this town, as they all served the same master. And he had to assume that they all had been given his description with instructions to watch for him.
He watched them for well over an hour as he munched on his dwindling ration supply. It was just one last strip of jerky and a few nuts.
He thought back to the farmer’s frustration with the police, that they were never around when they needed them like, for example, when they were attacked by a gang that came riding in the night. And yet here they were swarming the town after one little incident at the L & D headquarters. The wharf workers didn’t look very pleased with the situation at all. The normal fights they got into, which were usually ignored by the police, were being broken up quickly and with great force. It was something Thorn had seen all too much of in Collective City: those who were given a little bit of power over others very quickly turned to abuse of that power. And the cruelest mini-despots of all were those that rose through the ranks from the oppressed to the oppressors.
But still, Thorn couldn’t help but smile to himself and feel flattered that he was still able to cause so much commotion.