by LeMay, Jim
“Chadwick’s paying for this.” And when Mike started to protest, “No, he just gave me this money, remember?” He drew his knife, cut two squares off a Nelson dollar and handed them to the vendor.
“So, you’re in tight with the bossman, huh?” said Susie sourly. So far Matt hadn’t seen any signs of support for Chadwick in this town except for his men.
“Not at all, my friend,” said Matt. “But his money is as good as any other. And we don’t always get to do business with folks we like.”
“I kin testify t’ that,” she said, somewhat mollified.
They went to the beer tent where Matt again insisted on paying. “I came here for the same reason you did, Mike. To pick up information. These ten or twelve nellies Chadwick threw me only took a few minutes to earn, and I’m learning more from you than I would’ve in a week on my own. That’s why the lunch and beer’s on me. It’s pure luck I ran into you.”
“Not really. If not me, somebody from the Nellie’s Fair gangs would a come. We had t’ know what was goin’ on.”
Matt knew that was right. Scrounging was a tight-knit business with relatively few participants. A renegade gang was an important development that had to be investigated for the welfare of the community.
They carried their beer and sandwiches some distance from the market to sit under the shade of a tree, away from curious ears, and spent a few minutes eating and drinking. Mike had been right: the sausages were delicious, the beer insipid. Too bad Bernie couldn’t tap this market with his brew.
“So you came to town to see which rumors were right,” said Matt. “Which are? Apart from the one about us being dead, I mean.”
“I got here yesterday, but I couldn’t git in t’ see Chadwick till t’day. Told him I heard tell he was recruitin’ an’ me an’ my gang might be inter’sted. He said that was right, he was really short without Matheson an’ his boys. He wasn’t too happy that our gang was half women. Said he didn’t have many women ’cause what he did was purty rough. I told him our gals was purty rough.”
“Just wait’ll you tell Heidi that.”
“She prob’ly won’t hear ’bout that part a the conversation. You don’t keep a woman happy as long as I have Heidi by tellin’ her ever’thing.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.”
“Anyways, I know he needs more men, ’specially with the market goin’ on. In addition t’ those keepin’ an eye on the market, he’s got t’ have others out on patrol an’ at the toll posts.”
“How many men do you think he has altogether? I’ve heard as many as a couple hundred.” (That had come from Billy Kane.)
“Hard t’ say, but it ain’t nowhere near that many. ’Specially with Matheson gone. He’s got twenty-some here in town, thirty max, an’ at least that many at the toll posts an’ on patrol. He’s so worried ’bout Matheson’s intentions and losin’ control a the farms ’round town he keeps at least one patrol goin’ all the time. This is the time a year, after harvest, his patrols takes part a the farmers’ crops as ‘taxes’ too. Rotates men between town an’ patrol an’ toll posts an’ back ’round again. It really hurt that Matheson took so many – Chadwick said almost fifty. He don’t like not knowin’ where Matheson is with that many men. Like he told you, he’d really like t’ talk t’ Matheson, git him t’ come back. It’d solve a lot a his problems.”
“Well, Matheson doesn’t have that many men with him now,” said Matt. “We killed eight in the ambush, and he had to send a few back with the mules and truck he stole from us. His camp looks to have around thirty men in it.”
Mike’s big head swung around to face Matt. “How d’ you know that?”
“I know where Matheson is. I’ve seen his camp. I talked to him.” And Matt told him about his encounter with Matheson and his gang at Stanley Market. “Right now Matheson’s dithering. He doesn’t know that Chadwick would like to have him back.”
McCutcheon whistled in admiration. “For a dead man, you sure git aroun’. But I’m dyin’ t’ hear how come you ain’t dead. An’ how Matheson come t’ steal your mules an’ scratch. An’ I tell y’, I’m impressed. It ain’t many men that can talk a guy that’s out t’ kill him in t’ payin’ him three, four days wages like you just did Chadwick.” He raised his leather tankard, and Matt touched it with his.
They drained their tankards, and Matt bought them a second round over McCutcheon’s protests that it was his turn to buy. Then Matt told him about the ambush at Summerfield Crossing, how they’d lost Johnson, Dodd, and Downing; how the men hid out in and scrounged Newcastle; how they followed the river down to Kane’s Cove without anyone detecting them, and of their subsequent trip up to Coleridge Gardens. He left out the robbery of Chadwick’s gold, of course, and Downing’s defection, and that he was gathering information for Matheson. Like others to whom Matt had recounted the story, McCutcheon assumed that Chadwick wanted revenge against the gang for the Kansas City debacle.
How interesting, Matt thought, that when you are forced to cover up a clandestine activity like the robbery, the lies you have to tell become ever more convoluted and difficult to cover up.
“So where is this Coleridge Gardens you went to?” asked McCutcheon. “I heard tell of it but ain’t never been there.”
“Wild Billy Kane and his folks told us about it. They do a lot of business there.” He explained how he had come here by way of Stanley Market. “That way took two days, but you could probably make it to Coleridge Gardens in a day and a half if you went northwest across the country. But say, it doesn’t seem like these folks care much for Chadwick’s rule.”
“Ever’body I talk to hates him. They don’t hide it all that well from his men neither.”
“Why don’t they get rid of him then? Replace him with an elected town council and mayor like they use to have?”
“These are peaceable folks, Matt. They don’t know how t’ fight an’ they don’t have many guns b’tween ’m. Chadwick’s so sure they ain’t no threat that he didn’t even make ’m turn in what guns they do have. I tell y’ what, though, if somebody come along that could stand up t’ Chadwick, lots a these townsfolks ‘d jump right in with ’m.”
“Tell me, what do you think would happen if Matheson rejoined Chadwick?”
“I b’lieve that Chadwick’d send him lookin’ for y’r gang one more time. Then, come spring, whether they’d found y’ or not, Chadwick ‘d take over more country, forcin’ our gangs outta some scroungin’ areas, tie up more a the river, hire more thugs. I think he’d double his territory by next fall, an’ I hate t’ think ’bout the years t’ come. He just the same as tol’ me that, Matt. He said folks that join him now are in on the beginnin’ a somethin’ really big. That the gang bosses ‘d have their own markets t’ run in adjoinin’ towns – with him gittin’ his cut a course – in just a few years. He’s talkin’ a fuckin’ empire, Matt.”
There was an edge of panic in McCutcheon’s voice. Matt felt a similar fear.
“I think you’re right, Mike. This empire he runs is expensive. The more thugs he hires, the more country he has to take over to pay for them.” He was quiet for a moment as he mulled over the idea germinating in his mind. He was especially interested in McCutcheon’s belief that the townspeople might take action if they saw an opportunity to throw Chadwick out.
“So what’s your next move, Mike?”
“Reckon I’ll go back an’ report t’ the other bosses an’ talk t’ Heidi an’ my gang ’bout it. Then we’ll have t’ figger out what t’ do. I hate t’ think it, but I’m ‘fraid we gotta do somethin’ ’bout Chadwick afore Matheson decides t’ rejoin ‘im. If that happens, he’ll be too big. If all us gangs in Nellie’s Fair got t’gether with all the ones from Morel Market, we’d be close on two hunnert, maybe more. We might git some a the traders inter’sted too and maybe even some a the folks from the two towns if they thought Columbia might be gobblin’ them up in a couple years. Which I don’t think is too farfetched a threat, Matt.
&nb
sp; “The only problem with that is that we ain’t trained at fightin’. Only half my gang has guns an’ none of us is good at usin’ ’m. Same with the other scroungers. O’Conner an’ Morel both have a few men that are pretty tough guys, but I don’t know if we could convince ’m that Chadwick’s such a big threat. We thought a checkin’ with Wild Billy Kane. He’s a spunky little bastard an’ I hear tell he’s been known t’ shoot his way out of a problem or two. He oughta have some clout with scroungers in his country. They must be plenty nervous ’bout Chadwick.”
“They are,” said Matt.
“What about your boys, Matt? Would they join us?”
This was a new idea for Matt. He hadn’t considered a joint attack against Chadwick. Neither he nor the gang realized anyone else considered Chadwick enough of a threat to challenge. They had assumed they were on their own. (Of course Johnson would have jumped at the chance. He would have led the attack.)
“I hadn’t really thought of a united effort against Chadwick,” he said. “But I think it just might work. I can’t speak for the gang, but I’ll talk to them.”
He dreaded the thought of such a venture. A lot of blood would be spilled, that of poorly armed and untrained scroungers as well as innocent locals. It could probably work, though, and it would be worth it in the long run.
Or would it be successful only for the short run? Matheson would still be around. He could wait until the united gangs rescued Columbia and dispersed, then move in to conquer it all over again. Should the gangs dispose of him as a threat while they were still together? And would that be the end of it? Now that he thought of it, he doubted if most of the Mitchell gang members would go for this. They would probably think leaving for Colorado was a much simpler and safer plan.
“How soon will y’ talk t’ your boys ’bout it?” asked McCutcheon.
“I got some business in Nellie’s Fair. It’ll be early next week when I get back to Coleridge Gardens. I’ll talk to them then. If Billy Kane is still there, I’ll talk to him too.”
“Great! I’m gonna stay here through Saturday. Chadwick has a big party for his men planned. He wants me t’ stay for it, prob’ly so I’ll see how good he’ll treat us if we join. So I won’t be back in Nellie’s Fair till next Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. Could you let me know what your boys an’ Billy decides sometime after that? Good.” He drained his beer and stood up. “This time I’m buyin’ the beer, no matter what y’ say.”
When McCutcheon returned, Matt asked, “How are the folks down at the university dealing with Chadwick?” He had avoided contacting the scholastic survivors who lived there for complex reasons.
“Chadwick purty much lets ’m be,” said McCutcheon. “’Cept for goin’ down t’ consult with ’m oncet in awhile. He’s a dumb, uneducated jerk like me, but he seems t’ respect educated people. I forgot, you use t’ be some kinda perfessor too, didn’cha?”
“Yep. Use t’ be.”
They talked of other things. Matt had always liked McCutcheon but hadn’t gotten to know him as well as he would have liked because Johnson had always monopolized his conversations, on the basis that bosses always had more important things to discuss than their followers.
McCutcheon had been one of the throw-away people of the late twenty-first century, one of the masses of nearly uneducated and chronically underemployed for whom the technics and bureaucrats had little use and so relegated to society’s trash bin. Most people in those days lived in the cities, certainly those that ran the world. The city populations died or dispersed first during the Last Days, including such a large number of the technics and bureaucrats that the surviving few didn’t matter. One ironic result of man’s defeat by his microbe enemies, Matt recognized, was that the surviving throw-away people like Big Mike McCutcheon, had inherited the technics’ world.
After they finished their beer, Matt said, “I gotta go, Mike, while I can still sit a horse.”
They both stood up, shook hands.
“This ’s been a good talk, Matt. I always wanted t’ git t’ know y’ better.”
Matt was glad Mike felt as he did. “So I ain’t so bad for a professor, huh?”
“I never had nothin’ ’gainst educated people, Matt. Just didn’ think they’d be like you. Shows that a man don’t always know as much as he thinks.”
They parted. As Matt returned to the market, he turned his mind back to the plan he had been considering before he talked to Mike. His report to Matheson could be structured any way he wanted. Tim had said Matheson considered wresting Columbia away from Chadwick. Matt might convince him that such a takeover was possible, after which he could be on his way and let the two bosses duke it out. If their conflict didn’t destroy them outright, it might weaken them to the point that McCutcheon’s coalition of scroungers, possibly with the help of the locals, could finish them off.
Pursuit of the Mitchell gang on its way to Chicago would seem less practical to Matheson every day. The trail would now be, to Matheson, nearly three weeks old. If they could somehow even find it, the possibility of overtaking them must seem increasingly remote. Even if they didn’t believe the Chicago story, they may still discontinue the search for the gang. They had not found them where they had expected to nor in even less likely places, and they had heard nothing of their whereabouts except from Matt. If Matheson did not believe Matt and decided to search for them in Coleridge Gardens after all, Matt could easily beat them there to warn the gang. Their pack animals would slow them down.
Two of the options Tim said Matheson had considered remained. He was in a good position to again form a scrounger gang. He and his men had horses, weapons and enough scratch to last until the next trucking season. Matheson and presumably most of the men were experienced scroungers (and/or looters). Or he could use the same assets to attempt to wrest Columbia away from Chadwick.
Matt bought a half dozen sausages and some bread from Susie at the grill. A few off-color jokes between them that set her giggling inspired her to throw an extra sausage into the pile, for which Matt added a two-bit tip. Then he went to the beer stand and bought a capped leather container they called a “sock” of their thin bitter beer. They charged him a deposit on the sock and said it would be returned if he brought it back. He wouldn’t do that, of course, since he didn’t intend to return the following day; he had all the information he needed.
Needing to piss before leaving, Matt left the market, went past the tree under which Mike and he had had lunch and on into the nascent timberland east of the market. He put the food and beer aside, relieved himself, retrieved his burden, and started back through the trees and brush, thinking of the irony of his relationship with Chadwick and Matheson. Though they both wanted Matt and his gang dead and wanted to join forces as before, yet they had paid him a considerable sum and Matheson might give him more in the form the bag of ens under his chair. And he might be able to persuade them to kill each other.
Someone grabbed his upper arms – two people from behind – and jerked him backward, forcing him to drop the food and beer. Reflexively, he pulled forward, but his assailants held him too firmly. He couldn’t break loose. He pulled to the left, freed himself from one of them.
A sudden powerful blow to his right cheekbone stunned him, brought tears to his eyes. His captors drew him upright. A third face appeared before him, wavery through his tears but recognizable: the guard at the gate that he had embarrassed before the crowd. Grinning. Another figure stood behind the guard, looked somehow familiar, a small man partially obscured by a sapling.
A sudden rage consumed Matt. He pushed back against the men holding his arms. Though they fell back a little, they still held him. He didn’t care; he wanted the guard. He thrust his legs up, out, struck the guard in the chest with his feet.
They all collapsed to the ground. He was free. Then they were on top of him. Pounding. He hit back, felt a few satisfying impacts of his fists.
All was red fury. And pain, though the pain seemed a distant thing.
Then nothing.
Chapter Twenty
The next day was Wednesday, John’s day off. The early morning was cool and partially overcast though it didn’t feel like rain was imminent. It was very dry; it had not rained for a long time. He hadn’t been to the market for nearly a week and realized that even though he had tired of it then, he now missed all its disordered activity, noise, and diverse smells. He headed there immediately after breakfast, went first to the gang’s stall and visited with Doc and Stony for awhile, then to the Kanes’ adjoining stall which Buck and Willard currently tended. He asked where Billy was. Somewhere in the farmers’ camp, they said, talking to two farmers who wanted him to survey their common boundaries to settle a dispute.
John thought about that for a moment and then said, “Why do they have a dispute? There’s so much land where nobody lives, one of them could just move somewhere else.”
“It’s the water,” said Buck. “They both claim a spring, an’ Pap has t’ show ’m which one owns it.”
Of course, thought John. Water. He remembered the summers when the Newcastle well and the little spring in the draw Mitch’s gang used ran dry and the trouble it had been to carry water all the way from the creek where he and Clarence fished. Water was a major concern of this dry age.
Then he wandered among the other stalls. He was surprised when several people greeted him, asked where he had been. He hadn’t known he had become so well known here. He thought of the girl, Alicia, looked around a little for her, but as always she was nowhere to be seen.
After he had made a circuit of all the market except the animal pens, he wandered over to look at them from the edge of the hill. And to his surprise saw something new. A huge tent was being erected in the stubbled fields beside the river, some distance north of the stock pens. It seemed to be made of several types and colors of canvas, stitched together perhaps from smaller tents and tarpaulins. Most of it lay spread out over the ground, but at one end people were pushing it erect with poles from under the canvas.