by Allen Steele
He took a moment to count the money, his lips moving silently, then shoved the cash in his pocket. “Couple’a years ago…naw, more than that, more like three or so…I was working here late, hosing down the shearing pen.” He nodded toward a fenced-in oval near the center of the shed. “We’d spent the day collecting fleece, and the boss don’t like it when we leave a mess. Some of the ladies get nervous, y’know, so there’s always a lot of shit on the floor after…”
“Desilitz.” I didn’t want to sound impatient, but I hadn’t come there to hear the details of the wool business.
“Yeah, okay. I was coming to that.” Jake shifted from one foot to another; when he glanced out the window, I could tell he was nervous about being there. “Anyway, I’m working late, hosing down the place, when I hear some people talking out back. They’re laughing a bit, and one of them says something about opening another jug, so I figure it’s some’a the guys having a little get-together. We do that here sometimes, after we get off work. Break out the booze, light up a smoke, just, y’know…”
“Unwind. I understand.”
“Right. So anyway, I put down the hose and walk over to the back door”—he cocked his head toward the other end of the barn—“but I stop before I go out ’cause…well, when I get there, I see through the window that one of ’em’s Kyle Olson. That’s the boss’s son, and me and him never really got along all that good, if y’know what I mean.”
I nodded, and he went on. “They’re sitting around a trash-can fire, two or three guys with a couple’a jugs of bearshine between them, and even though I know all of ’em, I know they won’t let me drink with them. I was still a kid then, y’know, and Kyle…”
“You and he don’t get along. You told me.”
“Yeah, right. But they’re all pretty loaded, so I figure that, if I stick around long enough, maybe I can grab one of those jugs once they move on, help myself to whatever’s left in it.”
I smiled at that. Jake hadn’t yet reached the age when he could walk into the Alabama Tavern, but he’d learned little tricks of stealing liquor from adults without getting caught. Something a bored stable boy would do. “So you decided to wait and see if they’d forget to take a jug with them.”
“Yeah, that’s it.” Encouraged, he went on. “So I park myself on a hay bale where they can’t see me through the window and listen in for a while. Now, one of ’em’s Pete, and he’s already pretty ripped and gettin’ drunker by the minute. And, y’know, I liked him well enough, but…well, he’d never talked much about himself, except to say that he’d come from Earth ’bout the same time my folks did, and he’d been trying to get by ever since. This time, though, he gets to talking, telling the other guys a little more about who he is and why he’s here and all that.”
“And what did he say?”
Jake hesitated. “That he once killed a man.”
That was all? I almost asked. David Laird had told the truth, yes…just not all of it. Indeed, he must have been stewed to admit that much. “I see. And who did he say he killed?”
“I dunno.” The kid shrugged. “He didn’t say his name…just that it was someone who’d done something wrong to him, and so he had it coming.” Jake seemed to think it over, then added, “I kinda got the idea that the other guy mighta been someone big, ’cause he said that the proctors really wanted him bad. ‘They’re not gonna give up till they get me,’ was what he said.”
“Did he say that Peter Desilitz wasn’t his real name?”
Jake’s eyes widened. “You mean it isn’t? Who is he?”
I let that pass, at least for the time being. “Never mind. So what happened then? How did the other guys take it?”
“You mean, did they get pissed off or something?” Again, a noncommittal shrug. “Nah. Kyle’s never been totally on the up-and-up, and neither has his ol’ man. Ever since his uncle died…his dad’s brother was the one who started the business…the two of ’em have been getting into some pretty sleazy stuff. Things that don’t have too much to do with the family business.” Jake shook his head. “Look, what the Olsons do ain’t none of my business. I’m just sayin’, if Pete…or whatever his name is…wanted to tell someone else that he was wanted for murder, then he couldn’t have picked anyone better than Kyle and his buddies.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, Kyle tells him that he understands where he’s comin’ from, and that if he ever needs any help, he’d be willing to give him a hand.” A knowing smile. “Maybe that sounds weird, but you gotta understand, Pete and Kyle had been pretty tight ever since Pete showed up. This ain’t the first time I seen ’em been drinking together, so maybe it was just a matter of time before Pete fessed up. And like I said, the Olsons don’t have any particular fondness for proctors.”
A picture was beginning to form in my mind. Perhaps Laird hadn’t been careless after all but rather quite cunning. After making his way to Defiance and establishing himself as an itinerant worker, he’d deliberately sought out others on the wrong side of the law. He must have figured that, sooner or later, the full truth about his involvement in the Lee’s destruction would come to light, and when that happened, the proctors would begin searching for him again. If he was going to remain one step ahead of the authorities, he’d need help…and that meant confiding in someone who’d be in a position to do so.
As luck would have it, one of those people happened to be the very person who was paying his salary. Kyle Olson might be a sleaze, and so was his father, but the fact of the matter was that they owned a stockyard in a large farm town. Not only did they have money, but also connections on both sides of the law. Just what Laird needed if he was going to make a clean getaway.
Chris was wrong. There might not be such a thing as a criminal genius, but you didn’t need to be a genius to use someone to your own advantage. Just able to lie with a straight face.
“So what then?” I asked. “Did Pete ask him for a favor?”
“Yup.” Jake nodded. “He asked him to…”
From somewhere beyond the open door, a new sound: the quiet crunch of footsteps against the snow. Jake froze, stopping himself in midsentence. We listened for a moment, and although we didn’t hear anything, I suddenly realized that we’d made a mistake. The lantern was too close to the window. Anyone walking by outside would be able to tell someone was in here.
“Put out the light,” I murmured.
The kid was just beginning to reach for the lantern, though, when we heard the footsteps again, much closer this time. An instant later, a figure appeared in the doorway, his features visible in the lamplight.
“Hello, Jake,” he said. “What brings you out here so late?”
I recognized him immediately: one of the two men who’d been near the fireplace when I’d met Jake in the tavern. As he stepped into the shed, I saw his companion just behind him.
“Uh, ah…hi, Kyle.” If I had any doubts about who the first person was, they were eliminated by Jake’s stammering voice. “Not…I mean, not much. Just thought I’d…y’know, check on the animals, make sure they weren’t…y’know, that they had enough water and…”
“They’ve got enough water. I had you fill the troughs this afternoon, remember?” Olson peered at him, his hands shoved in his jacket pockets. “Or is there some other reason I should know about?”
By Gregorian reckoning, Kyle Olson was in his midforties, a thickset man whose goatee framed a humorless mouth. His friend was tall and wiry, with the sort of face that reminds me of a horse. Both wore wide-brimmed hats pulled low over their foreheads, as if to hide their faces as much as possible.
“Well…uh, yeah.” Seeing a possible excuse, Jake grabbed for it. “Actually, my friend here…” He glanced at me and stopped, suddenly realizing that I’d never told him my name. “He said that…um…”
“George Johnson,” I said, picking up the thread. “I’m with the Thompson Wood Company. Jake said that you might be interested in purchasing a supply of faux-birch for re
furbishing your stalls, and I figured I might come out here to take some…”
“No.” Olson shook his head. “No, that’s not true. Not from what Gary and I heard you talking about in the Alabama…and it sure as hell wasn’t what we heard Jake tell you just a second ago.”
We’d been followed from the tavern; that much was obvious. Perhaps I hadn’t seen them, but these two men didn’t need to shadow us to figure out where Jake was going to take me. All they’d needed to do was see a dim light within the window of one of the livestock sheds and approach quietly enough to be able to eavesdrop on our conversation.
As casually as possible, I slid my hands into my jacket pockets. Yet my fingertips had barely touched the pistol grip when Olson’s right hand jerked from his own pocket. The lean barrel of a fléchette pistol was pointed straight at my chest.
“Whatever you got there,” he said, “just take it out nice and slow and drop it on the ground. And then we’re going to”—a pause, as his mouth stretched into an ugly grin—“talk some more.”
By then, I was having serious regrets about not having told Chris where I’d gone. Yet there was no question that I was on my own; Jake was cowering beside the workbench, his hands half-raised from his sides even though the other two men weren’t paying much attention to him. So I did as Olson said and carefully withdrew the airpulse gun from my pocket and tossed it on the floor between us.
Gary bent down to hastily snatch it away from me. “Hey, what is this?” he muttered, turning it over in his gloved hands. “Ain’t seen nothin’ like it before, have you?”
Carefully keeping his pistol trained on me, Olson glanced sideways at him. “I know what it is,” he said after a moment. “That’s”—his eyes narrowed as he sought for the right word—“an airpulse gun. Beakheads make ’em.” He looked at me again. “The only people who carry ’em are blueshirts and proctors. Is that what you are?”
Beakheads was a racial slur for aliens; some of the backwoods gentry thought all extraterrestrials looked like the hjadd, so the word was applied to ETs regardless of their origin. “No, I’m not,” I replied. There was no purpose served by hiding my identity any longer; I was in a tight spot, and these yokels ought to know the truth. “I’m General Sawyer Lee, commandant of the Corps of Exploration.”
Olson’s mouth fell open, and for a moment his pistol seemed to waver. Nor was he the only one surprised by what I’d said. “I…I didn’t know!” Jake blurted out, taking a step forward. “I swear, he didn’t tell me who he…!”
“Shut up.” Olson glared at the kid, and he shrank back against the bench, raising his hands even higher. Jake had seen too many vids; he wasn’t armed, so there was no point in keeping his hands up. Gary was staring at me, my gun still in his hands. “Lemme see that thing,” Olson said. “Here…switch with you. But don’t let him outta your sights.”
Gary nodded, then the two men exchanged weapons, neither of them looking away from me for even a second. I remained passive as they made the trade; once my gun was in Olson’s hands, he seemed to relax a little, studying the nord weapon with admiration. “Nice…very nice,” he said after a moment. “I hear these things shoot nuthin’ but air. Is that so?”
I didn’t like the way he was handling it, so I kept quiet. Perhaps I should have said something, because Olson’s curiosity was matched only by his cruelty. “Let’s see if that’s true,” he said, then he leveled the pistol at Jake and squeezed the trigger.
A soft whomp! of discharged air, then an invisible fist slammed into the kid’s chest. At such close range, the shot was particularly violent; Jake was lifted off his feet, thrown against the bench behind him. The back of his head connected with the table edge; the lantern rocked upon its base, and the shearing scissors fell off the bench, but not before Jake slumped to the floor and lay still.
“Wow! That’s really something!” Olson laughed like a brat who’d just found a new toy and hadn’t wasted any time using it for malicious purposes. “This is a keeper!”
“You didn’t have to do that.” I glanced at Jake; the kid was unconscious, and I could only hope that he hadn’t been more severely hurt.
“No? Well, I’m not done yet.” Olson pointed the gun at me. “Wonder what it would do if I got even closer…”
“Kyle…” Gary was clearly unnerved by what he’d seen and heard. “Man, didn’t you hear what he just said? He’s a general. Not just that, but he’s also in charge of the Corps. You don’t screw around with…”
“Put a clamp on it, willya?” Olson was unimpressed. He had my gun; in his mind, that was his trump card. “No one knows we’re here, and no one has to find out either.” His grin became repulsive. “We got some big ol’ sows in the next barn, and they’re not too picky about what they eat. Not when it’s all nice and chopped up for ’em.”
He might have only been bluffing, but I couldn’t take that chance. “Kyle, if anything happens to me, someone will find out. Count on it.” I kept my voice even, trying not to show that I was beginning to fear for my life. “So far, all you’ve done is knock out the kid and hold me at gunpoint. Let it go at that, and no one has to…”
Olson’s forefinger curled around the trigger again. “What you can count on, General whatever your name is, is becoming pigshit unless you tell me why you’re lookin’ for Pete.”
“You want the truth?” I stared back at him, ignoring the gun as much as possible. “All right, then…your friend Pete isn’t who he said he is. His real name is David Laird, and he’s responsible for the bomb that destroyed the Robert E. Lee nineteen years ago. It’s taken a long time for us to find out who built it, but now we know, and that’s why I’m searching for him.” I paused, then added, “And if you’ve got any sense, you’ll put that gun down and tell me what Laird asked you to do for him.”
Olson said nothing for a second or two. The gun didn’t move an inch, but it was clear that he was thinking it over. Gary was convinced, though, because he started to lower the fléchette pistol. “He’s not foolin’, Kyle. This is way over our heads. Maybe we should…”
“Point that goddamn gun at him!” Olson snapped, and Gary jerked to obey his order. “He’s lyin’! I knew Pete, and so did you, and if all he did was kill a proctor…”
“He was lying,” I said. “He killed a lot more people than that…everyone aboard the Lee, including the chaaz’maha…”
“Well, hell…” His expression became a smirk. “No loss there, so far as I’m concerned. I can’t stand those damn Sa’Tongians.” He shook his head. “And even if what you say is true, no Olson ever rats out a pal. Me and Pete hoisted a few jugs together. As far as I’m concerned, that makes you nothin’ but a—”
“Drop the guns!”
I couldn’t see Chris, but his voice from somewhere in the darkness beyond the shed’s open door was the best thing I’d ever heard. Olson’s back was turned to the door, so someone yelling from behind him caused him to jump…and then Gary whipped around, raised his pistol, and fired blindly in Chris’s general direction.
Bad mistake. His fléchettes did little more than splinter some wood from the doorframe. An instant later, there were two soft whufts! from outside. Gary grabbed at his chest; a red blotch had already begun to spread beneath his fingers as he sagged and fell forward. He’d barely hit the floor when Chris called out again.
“Drop it! Or you get the next one!”
For a second, I thought Olson was going to take his chances. But apparently he thought better of it, because he slowly extended his right arm away from me and opened his hand, letting my gun fall from his grasp.
“Kick it away,” Chris demanded, and Olson obeyed by nudging the airpulse pistol with the toe of his right boot. That was enough for me; I reached down to retrieve my weapon, careful not to take my eyes off him. Olson had just enough common sense, though, to know better than to try to jump me. He’d seen how quickly his friend had been dropped, and whoever was outside the barn doubtless had a dead bead on the back of his neck.
Once I had Olson covered, Chris stepped into view. He cautiously entered the shed, his fléchette pistol gripped in both hands, carefully looking around to make sure no one else was waiting to ambush him. “Are they the only two?” he asked.
“Uh-huh. Just them and the kid over there.” I nodded toward Jake, who still lay on the floor near Gary. “Where the hell did you come from?”
“I spotted you leaving the bar, and I was about to catch up with you when I saw these two guys tailing you. Had a hunch they were up to no good, so I followed them here.” He frowned at me. “Next time, don’t take off on your own like that.”
“Sorry, but…” I let it go. We could argue about it later. Instead, I waited until I was sure that Chris had Olson under control, then I hurried over to Jake. Kneeling beside him, I took off my left glove, rested my fingertips against the side of his neck. His skin was warm, and I felt a pulse. Good. I was afraid that he might have broken his neck.
Gary, on the other hand, was all but dead. The razor-sharp barbs had ripped through the front of his field jacket and penetrated his chest. He was bleeding out from his lungs; his face had gone white, and bright pink bubbles foamed around his mouth with every ragged breath he took. Whatever life was left in him was fading fast. As I stood over him, I saw his eyelids flutter, then he coughed up some blood and was still.
“This one’s gone,” I murmured.
“Son of a bitch.” Kyle’s hands were raised above his head, and he trembled with fury as he watched his friend die. “He didn’t mean no…”
He didn’t get to finish whatever he was about to say, because Chris came forward to bring the butt of his pistol down against his forehead. Kyle cried out and staggered backward; reaching for the ugly welt that had opened above his right eye, he lost his balance and toppled to the floor, landing on his ass between Jake and Gary.