The Wanderer and the New West

by Adam Bender

  “Hey,” he heard the Wanderer say. “Let’s just get you home, all right? You can tell me all about it tomorrow.”

  The bartender came out next. “He just lives a mile down the road. He’ll show you. Thanks a lot, man.”

  “It ain’t nothing.”

  “You’re right, it ain’t nothing!” the bartender said. “So your next beer is on the house, all right?”

  “Make it two,” the Wanderer replied with a gravelly laugh.

  Charlie pulled away from his rifle and slapped himself on the cheek like a wrestler before the match. “Fuck! What’s wrong with me? Fuck!”

  He looked back in the scope and watched the Wanderer and the old man hobble off down the road. No, he couldn’t do it. Not tonight.

  Tomorrow.

  *

  Charlie was back in position on Thursday night.

  “Gonna get you, Wanderer,” he sang to himself. “Gonna get you good.”

  This time the gunman came stumbling out of the bar by himself.

  Charlie laughed. “A few too many drinks on the house, maybe?”

  The scope’s crosshairs dropped over the Wanderer’s heart. The bounty hunter wrapped his finger around the trigger and — a ferocious bark gave Charlie such a start that he knocked hard against the rifle, tipping it forward. He groped for the butt of the Montag, but gravity moved faster and took it straight over the edge of the roof. For a breathless eternity, the gun fell. Then the clatter of metal against concrete jolted time back to its normal tempo. The Wanderer looked hard at the long, scoped rifle and began to retrace its fall up the side of the bank.

  Charlie instinctively fell flat against the roof to hide. “Oh no, oh no, oh no,” he muttered incoherently. He was frantic. Had he been seen? The Wanderer had looked up, seen where the rifle had come from. Even if he hadn’t seen Charlie, he would definitely come up for a look. He could be up here any minute!

  Heart thumping, Charlie crawled away from the roof’s edge. When he was sure he was far enough away not to be seen, he jumped onto his feet and bolted for the fire stairs. “Oh no, oh no, oh no …”

  Was that a dog? It had sounded so close. Must have been in the window of one of the other buildings. Of all the damn luck!

  The black metal steps didn’t go down all the way to the street, so Charlie had to jump the last ten feet. He dropped into a narrow alley and felt his full weight shudder into his knees. As he bolted away from State Street, he heard the mutt again — only now it was far behind him, yipping with glee.

  *

  In the morning, the motel room stank of old scrambled eggs. There was a cart by the door holding a tray of crumb-covered plates and tin covers.

  The room’s scratchy tan curtains kept Charlie cloaked in shadow. He was crouched on the floor staring at a red dot on his wristband. The Wanderer had just walked into a gun shop. Oh no, the Wanderer had just walked into a gun shop!

  Charlie checked the coordinates and learned it was a place called Joe’s. He looked up the name and address on his favorite hacking website and quickly found keys to get into the shop’s CCTV network. Within minutes, he had a behind-the-counter view of the Wanderer perusing the store.

  It was odd the way the Wanderer browsed. Most people who went into a gun store either knew what they wanted already or asked the shopkeeper for help. The Wanderer browsed the place like Charlie might have browsed an electronics store. He took a slow circle of the place, occasionally putting his hand on display items or reading the backs of boxes, really taking the time to appreciate everything.

  It was almost lunchtime when the cowboy finished, but all he ended up buying was a few boxes of ammo. The video feed wasn’t good enough to see what kind, though Charlie assumed they were for the Lassiter and the Breck 17. The Wanderer left and began to walk down State Street … in the direction of the motel.

  Charlie considered getting out. He’d already packed his things. His cover was blown, wasn’t it? What if the Wanderer had followed him last night? What if he knew about the motel?

  He felt his arm buzz. There was a new message from Cochise.

  It’s been a week. Status?

  “Shit!”

  He quickly replied:

  It’s been four and a half days. I’ll get him — just taking more time than expected.

  He pulled up the map again. The Wanderer was no longer moving toward the motel. He had gone back into the Happy Gunfighter — maybe to prepare.

  Shaking his head, the bounty hunter told himself, “You’re not going anywhere until the job is done.” Saying it out loud somehow gave the statement more finality. “You just need a new plan is all.”

  Charlie crawled into bed and gave the matter a good think.

  *

  It was the next day by the time he decided. He’d always wanted to do something with self-driving cars. The last time he’d tried, he couldn’t find one with old enough firmware to hack. But in Freetown he got lucky. He found an ancient SUV, one of the earliest models to feature an autonomous pilot mode, parked at his motel.

  The red dot representing the Wanderer slid onto the sidewalk. It was time for his morning stroll down State Street. Charlie switched apps and tapped a button. The engine of the SUV roared to life. He set the destination as the Wanderer’s eyeglass and overrode the vehicle’s safety sensors. Then he pulled up a first-person view of the action.

  The driverless SUV pulled hard out of the parking lot and accelerated down State Street. The Wanderer didn’t seem to notice until the truck was about a block away and traveling at more than a hundred miles per hour.

  Charlie got a good look at the whites of his target’s eyes and smirked. “Good-bye, Wanderer.”

  An alert popped up on the screen: Connection Lost. Freetown’s wireless signal had just cut out again.

  “No, no, no!” He grabbed a spare scope and burst out of the motel room to get a look. He got outside just in time to hear a loud crash.

  A lot of other people filtered out onto State Street to see what had happened, too. Charlie peered through his scope and saw the SUV had slammed into a light post. The Wanderer was standing nearby the smoking truck, stunned, but still very much alive.

  Charlie decided to try again the next day.

  *

  Okay, enough theatrics. Time to get the job done.

  On Sunday night around 7:00 p.m., Charlie walked into the Happy Gunfighter with nothing but his pistol. He took a seat at the bar and kept an eye on the Wanderer, who was sitting at his usual table drinking a Sierra Nevada Porter.

  After polishing off his dinner, the Wanderer got up and addressed the bartender. “There’s something I gotta do. I’ll be back, though.”

  Charlie waited a minute before following the Wanderer out the door. He kept about a block behind him, tailing his target to a 7-Eleven. Soon, the Wanderer came out holding a bag of groceries and resumed his walk up State Street. After a few more blocks, he turned down an alley.

  Charlie took his Separatist out of its holster and followed. As he held up the smart pistol, a light on Charlie’s wristband turned green to indicate that he could fire when ready.

  The lane was dark and long, perfect for making the kill. But as the alley turned, it brightened, and Charlie found his target joining three homeless men around a campfire. From the grocery bag the Wanderer brought out a loaf of bread and a few cans of beef chili.

  Charlie remembered nights back home in Vegas sitting around street fires just like that, eating cooked rat or whatever else his family had managed to catch that day … if they managed to catch anything at all.

  With a sigh, the bounty hunter sheathed his pistol and turned back. The green light on his wrist turned red and then went out completely.

  *

  The next morning, Charlie received another message from Cochise.

  We’re waiting.

  “Well, you’re going to have to wait a little longer,” Charlie said. But he didn’t actually reply to the message.

  He was at the gym and i
t felt good. He’d just gotten on the treadmill and was feeling the tension drip away with each bead of sweat.

  He wasn’t sure why he couldn’t kill the Wanderer. Yeah, he’d had some bad luck, but he’d had plenty of chances. Why couldn’t he pull the trigger?

  The job had to be finished, of course. He needed the money to send back to his family. And El Tiburón was not one to fuck over. If Charlie didn’t complete this job, at best he wouldn’t see any more jobs. At worst, well …

  A young woman in tight shorts began to do squats in front of his running machine. Marveling at the rise and fall of her fine ass, Charlie pledged to enjoy his day off. He’d get the Wanderer tomorrow.

  BRECK AMMO EXPECTED TO REVEAL NEW GUN

  By New West Reporter

  Tomorrow, America will celebrate its independence with hot dogs, fireworks, and a big announcement from Breck Ammunition.

  Rather than take the path of other blogs and speculate on what will be announced, we at The New West think it’s important to reflect on how America’s gun company shaped the country we know today.

  It began with the rise of a startup company nearly fifty years ago. At the time, America got its guns from a variety of brands, and the most popular originated overseas — the superstars Glock, Zeller, and Kalashnikov. That all changed when a young entrepreneur from rural Nevada developed a plastic semiautomatic handgun in his garage.

  The gun that Albert Breck created wasn’t anything special. It was really just a clone of the current top-selling handgun out of Europe. But Breck was a true-blue American, and he timed the release of his gun with the rise of the Born-Again Patriot movement. Among other things, these politicians advocated for a boycott on all foreign-made products.

  The Born-Again Patriots, who counted the National Rifle Association among their base, quickly rallied behind Breck Ammo, asserting that the only true gun was an American gun. Soon, Americans across the country were trading in their foreign-made guns for Brecks.

  Breck leveraged this success to buy out all of the other American gun manufacturers. He cherry-picked their best guns, renamed them, and made them his own. The gun startup had become a monopoly.

  While growing in influence, the Born-Again Patriots were still not the dominant force they are today. To win more elections, they needed more money. It was money that Breck was only too happy to provide.

  Over the next twenty-five years, the Born-Again Patriot movement swelled into a tidal wave that wiped out opponents at the local, state, and federal levels. Breck never let them forget who had fueled their success.

  Breck Ammo lobbied to flesh out Americans’ rights under the Second Amendment. Politicians echoed the Breck line that the movement was about “self-defense” and providing “more freedom” to Americans.

  Later, Breck’s lobbying transformed into a push to make bigger guns “more accessible to consumers.” In the crosshairs was the National Firearms Act, a law dating back to 1934 banning the sale of fully automatic “machine” guns. The Born-Again Patriots introduced a controversial amendment to the NFA to lift the ban.

  Ten years ago, the legislation passed into law. Eight years ago, Breck Ammunition introduced a new gun to the market: an “easy-to-handle” assault rifle called the Yossarian. It is today the company’s second-best-selling gun after the Breck 17 pistol.

  Gun advocates like to point out that the number of shootings has not gone up since the release of the Yossarian. This is true, but what is rising is the death toll. This is because one sustained spray of the Yossarian can murder a whole crowd in less than a minute.

  Today, the buzz on social media is that Breck Ammunition will announce a new gun on the Fourth of July. If The New West must join the crowd of speculators, it will only be to predict that the true impact of the announcement will be seen not in tomorrow’s headlines, but in the gun death statistics that will follow the weapon’s release.

  CHAPTER SIX

  This Gun Is a Revolution!

  Gerard Breck woke at precisely six in the morning. He silenced a vintage golden alarm clock and reached for his tablet. With a quick swipe, he opened his agenda. He had the schedule memorized but felt great comfort in seeing his day laid out in digital ink. In thirty minutes, he was to be in his office for a final meeting with Mr. Tom O’Brien, the gun designer, to secure an exclusive contract for the rifle, a fully automatic beauty pitched as “the hunter’s machine gun.” They would fly together to Liberty to announce the super-gun at the Breck Gun Show at precisely 10:00 a.m., with a demonstration for the media to follow. After this wrapped up at about noon, the company would open a booth to take pre-orders. By this point, he planned to be boarding his private airplane back home to Vegas for the Independence Day celebrations.

  Gerard closed the tablet’s black leather cover and placed it gently on his bed stand. Carefully, he ran his hand against the edge of the table to ensure no part of the device would hang off of the side. Then, he folded his blanket forward and stepped out of the bed, fully naked.

  He turned to check the alarm clock. Three minutes after six. That meant he had seven minutes to shower. He strode quickly into the master bathroom and declared, “Shower on!”

  Hot water rained from the ceiling into a large and perfectly white bathtub, releasing a cloud of steam into the marble room. Gerard shivered slightly and stepped inside the shower. He strangled a near-empty bottle to pump crimson soap into a puffy white loofah, then methodically washed each part of his body, starting with his face and working his way down his spindly frame. He massaged medicated shampoo first into his thinning black hair, next into his neat-trimmed mustache, and finally into the closely cropped thatch below his waist. He repeated the process with an upside-down bottle of conditioner.

  Squinting across the bathroom, Gerard saw that it was almost ten after six. He stood in the shower until the second hand struck twelve, and barked, “Shower off!”

  In five minutes, he was dressed in a black suit with a gray shirt and red-striped tie. Stepping to the bedside table, he opened a drawer glowing from golden-wrapped breakfast bars. He chewed a bar by the window while contemplating the tall, black building across the street from his penthouse. Jutting up into the sky at a slight angle, the headquarters of Breck Ammunition was designed in the shape of a gun clip. Completed ten years ago, it was still the tallest building in downtown Vegas. It had taken Gerard nine long years to work his way to top. Today, he would show them all why he deserved to stay there.

  *

  He reached his office at half past six. His assistant, Elza Meller, was waiting for him by the door. She wore a short black skirt that he didn’t much like. It showed off too much of her legs.

  “Good morning, Gerard.”

  He leaned into her, bringing his coffee-stained teeth about level with Elza’s eyes. “Is O’Brien here?”

  The assistant gave an exaggerated sigh. “He has just rung to say he is running a bit behind schedule.”

  He winced. “That is not allowed.”

  She nodded. “I told him we had a very tight schedule today.”

  “Tardiness is not allowed on any day.”

  “I think he is only a few minutes —”

  “Send him in the second he arrives.”

  Gerard pushed into his office and slammed the door in Elza’s face. He stomped toward his black leather chair, careful to avert his eyes from the portrait of Albert Breck hanging behind the large oak desk. He stared at a clock over the entrance and tapped his fingers. Glancing at his gold Rolex, he confirmed that O’Brien was now two minutes late and counting. He pulled up his agenda to see if there was any room to give for this delay. It would have to come out of this meeting. He would have to secure the deal quickly.

  There were murmurs outside: Elza’s voice, and then a man’s. At long last, the door opened.

  “Mr. Breck,” said the inventor, a small pudgy man with thick-rimmed glasses. “So sorry I’m late. The traffic —”

  “Sit.” Gerard directed O’Brien to a steel
metal chair on the other side of the desk. “Have you looked over the contract? We haven’t much time.”

  The man sat in the chair and began sifting through a brown accordion portfolio. “Yes, but there are just a few things I wished to clarify.”

  Gerard’s face darkened as looked at his watch. What could not be clear? “You have ten minutes.”

  The inventor pulled a tattered piece of paper out of the portfolio and dropped it onto the table. Gerard winced at the crinkles along the edges.

  “It’s about the royalties,” said the inventor. “It seems to indicate here that the percentage of sales you’re offering is, well, zero.”

  Gerard tugged at his mustache. As evenly as he could manage, he replied, “What I am offering you is an immediate payment of fifty million dollars, and you get that before a single gun is sold.”

  The inventor looked stymied. “But, Mr. Breck, this gun is a revolution! You said so yourself! You’ll get that money back on the first batch of orders alone!”

  Gerard picked up a pen and began clicking it. O’Brien was a greedy bastard. How dare he make eleventh-hour demands like this? How dare he take advantage of Gerard Breck?

  “Mr. Breck?” O’Brien prompted.

  Gerard mumbled, “You know I wanted a deal done before the gun show.”

  O’Brien shrank in his seat. “It’s not that, Mr. Breck. I want to sell it to you, believe me, I do, but I have a family to think of.”

  “Do you have a family or a village?”

  O’Brien leaned forward. “Sorry? I didn’t hear —”

  Gerard shut his eyes and clenched his teeth.

  The gun inventor grimaced. “Mr. Breck?”

  Keeping his eyes shut, Gerard asked flatly, “Do you have a counter-proposal, O’Brien?”

  The inventor’s face lit up. He reached into the portfolio, took out another piece of paper and pushed it forward. Gerard sat down to read it. O’Brien wanted a whopping twenty-five percent of sales.