Magnificent Guns of Seneca 6

by Bernard Schaffer

  "You know what I heard before I came here?" Buchinsky said. He looked around the crowd, turning them into his pulpit audience, "I heard that Seneca 6 was corrupt and the people who ran it were lazy. I heard this place was easy pickings. You might all think you're so safe and secluded here, but meanwhile, there's a big old nasty world out there that thinks you're all a soft target." Buchinsky pointed at the dead bodies and said, "That's why they showed up today. If you don't see that, you're all damned fools."

  "We've done everything we could to change that, father," Bart Masters said. "That doesn't mean we're just going to start summarily executing people in the street."

  Jem Clayton reached up to unpin the sheriff's badge from his vest lapel. He palmed it in his hand and walked over to where Bart Masters was standing. "I'll make this real easy for you then," he said. He dropped the gold star into Bart's hand and said, "I quit."

  ***

  "You can't quit. Put that thought far out of your mind because I don't accept your resignation," Bart said. He looked around the inside of the office and half-smiled at the display case. "You finished it? It looks nice."

  Jem kicked his boot up on the desk and said, "Don't try to change the subject, Bart. These people don't want me, and I'm not sure I want them anymore either."

  "Nobody said this was going to be easy, Jem. You and I talked long and hard about how you needed to be your own man instead of trying to live up to some kind of legend. Sam was Sam, and you are you. We both know it, and if there's anybody who don't, well, they are just going to have to figure it out."

  "You know what the problem is, Bart? When Tom Masters and Sam Clayton were here, people knew better than to bother them about nonsense. There wasn't any, 'Miss Millie May put her fence too close to my pasture,' or 'Old Farmer Groves sold me a dozen cracked eggs.' I'm dealing with a group of people who were conditioned by Walt Junger to think they could walk in here and drop a few extra coins in the suggestion box and have their way."

  Bart put his hat on the desk and sighed. He ran his fingers over the wooden surface and said, "You know, I used to come and sit in the office with my daddy on the weekends. I'd sit right on this desk and I used to ask him, 'Daddy, when are you going to be Sheriff?' In my heart, I felt secretly ashamed that he wasn't the boss. Like maybe he wasn't good enough."

  "Tom Masters was worth fifty regular men. My Pa said it regularly."

  "I know," Bart said. "He used to laugh and say he wouldn't take the Sheriff's job if they offered him a truckload of severian. He saw what Sam went through, putting up with all the nonsense from people on a daily basis. He said that in his position, he got to crack heads and always have someone else to pass along the responsibility to. You understand, Jem? If Sam were here now, he'd tell you that it weren’t no different in his day. We just didn't see none of it on account of we were too young."

  Jem nodded at the blank space on the wall beside the display case and said, "I been meaning to tell you that I was working on something for Tom, too. When you get a minute, I'd like to see if you can donate some photographs or mementos from his days. He deserves it."

  "I'd be honored to," Bart said. He laid the Sheriff's badge on the desk in front of Jem and said, "So what do you say?"

  "I say I'll have to think about it, Bart."

  ***

  For all intents and purposes, it was still Royce and Katey Halladay's house. The doctor abandoned it the day of the Beothuk raid and no one ever bothered to tear the place down. Jem took over the property after he returned to the settlement and was surprised to find it had been cleaned and swept.

  He suspected it was the doctor himself who'd done it during his last days. There were scrap books belonging to Katey and empty bottles of whiskey lined up on the porch and in the sitting room. Jem sat down on the porch sometimes in Doc's old rocking chair, looking through those scrap books. Some of them had photographs of Sam and Betsy Clayton.

  It had been almost a year, and the only thing Jem brought into the house was his father's old gun safe, taken from his sister's basement. He left all the pictures up on the walls and was glad to find the Halladay's old plates and mugs in the cabinets. It saved him from having to buy anything.

  The only thing he threw out was the clothes. Doc was much smaller and thinner than Jem and dressed like a foreign dignitary before he became a man of the road. Jem carted off wagons full of silk shirts and handmade boots to the poor houses. He laughed every time he saw some indigent unfortunate dressed in a pair of spats or sporting a top hat. He knew that somewhere, Doc was smiling too.

  Jem unstrapped his gun and set it inside the safe, about to take off his vest when he heard someone riding up to his home. He picked up a rifle and carried it to the front door, setting it against the wall as he looked out.

  Father Charles held up a four-fingered hand and said, "I apologize for any intrusion, Mr. Clayton. I wanted to speak to you in private, though."

  Jem reached down and put his fingers around the barrel of the rifle and tilted it toward him, ready to lift it at the first sign of trouble. "What about?"

  The preacher dismounted and took off his hat to run his fingers through his long, silvery hair and get it unstuck from his face. He reached into this jacket pocket and pulled out a small, yellowed photograph of a pretty young woman. "This is my daughter, Wendy. Her mother's a native, from one of the eastern tribes."

  Jem raised an eyebrow at that and came out onto the porch. He brought the rifle with him, but let it rest against the door as he sat down. He waved for the preacher to come up and sit beside him, then held out his hand for the photograph. The girl was mixed, showing the best features of both races. She had her father's thin, cat-like eyes and long black hair tied in tight braids like one of the natives. "Pretty girl," Jem said.

  "She certainly was," the preacher said.

  "Was?"

  "Her mother and I had an arrangement. Wendy would come stay with me for half the year, and then go back to her mother's tribe the rest. She loved being with them in the summer, living out there in the dust and heat. It was something in her blood, I guess. I never had the heart to deny her. Turns out, I was a fool not to, because she'd still be here."

  Jem handed him back the picture and said, "Why don't you go ahead and tell me what happened?"

  "Her tribe was attacked by a Pwatsak named Toquame Keewassee."

  "Pwatsak?"

  Father Charles shook his head and smiled, "Let me guess. You thought they were all just called Beothuk?"

  "That's all I've ever known them to be called," Jem said. "I've never heard of them attacking each other, either,"

  "They all got their own names, own identities. There were enough of them to fill up the whole planet before the White Man showed up looking for severian. You got some that are good and some that aren't. There's a whole lot of history out there in those hills, partner. A whole lot." The preacher looked out into the distance as he said, "Toquame Keewassee is trying to start a full-scale war against the White Man. He's doing it by selling Beothuk girls from rival tribes in exchange for weapons."

  "Who's he selling them to?"

  "Some masked bastard out there in the mountains that ships them off-planet for God knows what purposes. Calls himself Gentleman Jim."

  Jem flinched at the name and let out a sound like he'd been punched in the gut. Father Charles looked him over and said, "You had dealings with him before?"

  "In a sense," Jem said.

  "Well that's who I'm looking for. First I'm gonna ask him who he shipped my little girl, and second I'm gonna send him and everyone with him on a one-way ticket to Hell."

  "What kind of preacher are you, anyway?" Jem said. "You cut off both your trigger fingers, got that baby back from Bill Doolin who now is suspiciously missing an eye, and now you want to go take on a gang of outlaws?"

  "I wasn't always a man of the Lord, Mr. Clayton. I sure did try, though. I sure did try."

  Jem nodded and said, "You told me your story. Now tell me why you came all
the way out here this time of night to tell it to me."

  "I could use a hand, Mr. Clayton."

  "What you could use is two trigger fingers," Jem said sharply. "You think I'm just gonna ride out with you and go hunt a tribe of renegade Beothuk who are backed by a weapons dealer?"

  Father Charles nodded and said, "Yep."

  "By ourselves?"

  "I reckon so."

  "And just how exactly do you plan on finding Mr. Keewassee or this man running around claiming to be Gentleman Jim?"

  "I've been paying people for information. Word is that Keewassee's men attacked the Hopituh Shi-nu-mu just the other day. They're not too far off from here I want to go and investigate. See if I can catch up to him."

  "Somebody you paid told you that?" When the old man nodded, Jem smirked and said, "That's an unreliable way to collect information, padre."

  "I'm not some damn greenhorn who just fell off the apple cart, sir. I know what I'm doing and I'm asking if you might be interested in assisting me. If you aren't, I'll be on my way."

  Jem stuck a piece of sweetweed into his mouth and chewed up enough juice to fill his cheek. He spit it over the side and said, "You must be either courageous, insane, or stupid, old timer."

  The preacher put his hat back on his head and stood up. He headed down the steps and took up his destrier's ropes in his hands, then looked back up at Jem. "I cut off my trigger fingers on the day my daughter was born, Mr. Clayton. I did it to prove to God that I was a changed man and wasn't ever gonna take another human being's life. I promised to spread his word far and wide and all I asked in return was that he forgive me enough to keep her in his good graces." Father Charles looked down at the stumps on his hands and said, "I guess God still had a little anger left over at me for the things I did in the past. You can't imagine what it's like to love something so much and have it taken away from you, Mr. Clayton. If you could, you wouldn't call me anything but a father."

  Jem leaned back in the rocking chair as far as he could before letting it rock forward, but did not speak.

  ***

  Whiskey Pete and the bandit called Gentleman Jim took the road together, riding side by side. "You said you had family in Seneca 6?" the bandit said.

  "Yeah. I reckon they won't recognize me though. Been a long time, and I weren't much to them before I let out anyway. Still, I figure I should look in on 'em."

  "What are they?"

  "What?"

  "Are they your children, your cousins, what?"

  "Oh, just my brother and his wife. He's a respectable sort. Had the same job for half his life. Never got fired or arrested or nothing." Whiskey Pete turned toward the bandit and winked, "We never could get along."

  The bandit nodded. He'd pulled his mask down an hour ago, but kept his chin low to his chest as he rode, using the brim of his hat to block the sun and cover most of his face. The road wound into the mountains and curved around tall piles of rocks stacked by ancient rivers. Whiskey Pete looked back over his shoulder at the long fields of emptiness behind them and said, "We almost there, sonny?"

  Gentleman Jim pointed up the hill and said, "It's just over yonder."

  The older man pulled up on his destrier's reins and said, "Whoa." The animal came to a stop and he sat there, looking up at the road ahead. His voice was low and firm when he said, "I don't think I'm going any further with you, mister."

  The bandit laughed gently and waved his hand, "Come on, old timer. We made it this far. Don't get spooked on me now."

  "I never did like charades, boy." Whiskey Pete bent low in his saddle and peeked up at the bandit's face. "Yeah, I thought I recognized you. You look just like him."

  Gentleman Jim turned his destrier around so that they were sitting face to face, close enough to reach across and touch the other man's saddle. He took his hat off and let the withered, weary looking man have a good look. "You remember my name, Pete?"

  "No," he said. He ran a finger along the jagged scar on his face, "But you gave me this."

  "My mother gave you that. But it was my knife."

  Whiskey Pete's eyebrows scrunched together until he finally nodded and said, "If you say so. Been so long since I thought about it, I forgot. How are your folks doing, anyway?"

  "Dead."

  "I'm sorry to hear that. You might not believe it, but I am. Those old days were bad, boy. Too much drink. Too much marauding. When you're out here in the wild for too long it turns you into an animal. Makes you not know the difference between right and wrong. After I run off from Seneca 6, I stopped all that. I changed."

  Jem rolled his eyes and broke the snap on his holster. He wrapped his fingers around the Colt Defeater's handle and set the gun across his lap. "You wrote my family a check that day. It took a little while, but I'm here to cash it. Anything else you'd like to say?"

  "I ain't got nothing to defend myself with."

  "You noticed that all by yourself?" Jem said. "Not that it would matter. You could have a fleet of warships and I'm still killing you."

  "Listen, I made amends for what I done. I gave up my ways and changed, Jem. I really and truly changed. I ain't hurt nobody for so long it seems like somebody else done all those things. I'm just a weak old man now."

  Jem stared at the man for a moment, then looked up at the crest of the hill above them. He waved his finger at it and said, "Tell you what, you ride on ahead while I think it over. If you make it over the top and I'm still thinking, I just might let you go."

  "Yeah, right," Whiskey Pete said.

  Jem knocked his pistol against his knee and said, "You don't seem to have any other options, old boy."

  "You let me go and you're a saint, Jem Clayton." Tears started to form in the old man's eyes, choking up his words in his throat like a stone, "I'm sick. That's the real reason I come back to Seneca 6. I was hoping my brother and his wife would look after me. I got visions of being too sick to get out of bed to call for help and I just lay there withering away for days on end."

  "Look on the bright side. That's probably not going to happen now. Start riding."

  "I ain't a bad person!" Pete shouted. "I did good things too. There's all sorts of people I did good by and if they were here right now they'd tell you."

  Jem cocked the Defeater's hammer back and said, "I don't see no one but us, Pete."

  "Sam Clayton wasn't perfect neither. He hounded me and wouldn't let me catch my breath. That was why I went after him. Always claiming I was a drunk, or beating me when some old broad accused me of stealing her purse, even when I only needed enough money to eat! Always putting me in that damn jail cell until I finally snapped. You can only kick a sleeping dog so long, god damn it! I bit back! I defended myself!"

  Jem Clayton smiled thinly at Pete and said, "If you think I don't have it in me to shoot you while I'm looking at you, you're wrong."

  "You know what Sam Clayton was?" Pete said. He leaned forward in his saddle, so close that Jem could see the thick beads of sweat dripping from the tip of his pockmarked nose. "You really want to know what your father was, to his core?"

  "Tell me, what was he?"

  "He was fair. If he was here right now, he'd listen to my words and look into my soul and see that I ain't no more of a threat to anybody. I been trying to do right to make up for what I was, but I can still do more. He'd have given me that chance. I believe that. He was fair, and Sam would have done that."

  Jem did not move for a long time. He looked Whiskey Pete directly in the eye, studying the man's face like he was searching an ancient map full of symbols and secret codes. Finally, he shrugged and nodded, as if he had finished weighing something in his own mind and said, "Yeah, I reckon you're right. Sam was fair." He raised his Defeater and fired a bullet straight into Whiskey Pete's chest.

  The gunshot knocked the man out of his saddle so that was left hanging upside down with his boots upturned toward the sky. Whiskey Pete moaned and squealed about being shot, squirming upside down like a worm on a hook, all of his limbs stre
tching out and retracting involuntarily. Jem rode around the side of Whiskey Pete's destrier to watch and said, "But one thing's for certain, partner. I ain't him."

  Chapter 13: Orayvi

  "Enough of your blubbering," Haienwa'tha said sharply. He looked into the distant mesa and searched for signs of movement. "If our enemies were looking for us, your mewling would give us away."

  Thathanka-Ska lowered his face into his destrier's mane to hide it while he wiped his face on his sleeve. Lakhpia-sha put his hand on the boy's shoulder and said, "Are you all right?"

  "He's fine," Haienwa'tha said. "Don't baby him."

  Lakhpia-sha sighed and took his hand away, but stayed close to his young friend. "Would you like me to find some calming herbs?" he said.