by J. S. Bailey
“Good morning, Dalton,” Carolyn said coolly, then nodded at Chumley when he followed him into the meeting room.
Dalton plunked himself into a swivel chair and folded his arms. Chumley gave him a nervous glance and took the seat beside him, probably worried that Carolyn might recognize him and throw him to the dogs. “What do you want?” Dalton asked, ignoring any niceties. “I’ve got a new deputy to train today.”
“So I’ve heard.” Carolyn nodded at Chumley for a second time. “Welcome to the force. May you use your brain better than our sheriff uses his.”
“Thanks,” Chumley mumbled, keeping his gaze fixed on the table. His black eyes didn’t look any better than they had the previous evening. Probably hurt like hell, too.
Carolyn cleared her throat and continued. “Dalton, I’ve received no less than three complaints about your conduct last night. I’ve been told that you anticipated a Green attack because, and I do quote, Gwendolyn Goldfarb was raving gibberish in the middle of the street? And then you sent most of the watch home, which defeats the entire purpose of having a city watch to begin with!”
The room grew hotter by a few degrees. “It seemed logical at the time.”
“You do realize Gwendolyn is insane.”
“I . . . might acknowledge that fact.”
Carolyn’s dark eyes seemed to crackle as she glared at him. “How could any reasonable human being hear a madwoman shouting nonsense and think, ‘Ooh, maybe she’s predicting the future!’”
Dalton dug in his pocket and located one final, tiny shard of toothpick.
It wasn’t big enough to chew on.
He put it back into his pocket and silently counted to ten.
“Gwendolyn predicted the hotel fire,” he said, calmly.
Carolyn blinked. “Did I really just hear you say that?”
“She kept spouting something about a fire in the sky. Then the hotel burned.”
“Funny, then, that our hotel was on the ground, not in the sky. Now do I have to place you on administrative leave while you go sort yourself out, or are you going to wake up and do your job right?”
Across from her, Errin mouthed, “I’m sorry she’s like this today,” but Dalton knew Carolyn was right. He’d been a fool, plain and simple. Logical people didn’t think Gwendolyn Goldfarb could predict the future, because there was no such thing as predicting the future.
Dalton made another silent count to ten. “It won’t happen again, Carolyn.”
“Good. If you hadn’t gotten that particular bee in your bonnet, then Maxine wouldn’t have nearly killed your little band of volunteers with her flamethrower. Errin told me everything.”
Errin’s pale cheeks flushed, and they made a point of appearing highly interested in a hangnail on their left thumb.
“Is there anything else you’d like to yell at me about this morning?” Dalton asked. “I’ve got things to do.”
One side of Carolyn’s mouth quirked into a smile. “No, but I did bring coffee—the real stuff, not that swill you and Cadu brew here. And have a donut!”
“Your boss didn’t seem very happy with you,” Chumley commented as he and Dalton clambered off the quad just outside the firing range gates which, along with the chain-link fence, stood three meters tall. A drab, canvas canopy shaded the entire area, making it perhaps a degree cooler than if they were standing in the sun.
At first, Dalton couldn’t think of what he meant, but then he laughed. “Carolyn? She’s the mayor. Has to keep me in line, because who else will? You’ve still got your water pistol, right?”
Chumley stuck a hand in his pocket and withdrew the plastic yellow weapon, which they’d filled with water at the station to conserve their weed killer supply. “I’ve been wondering about the Greens. After what you said about them last night.”
“What about them?” Dalton strode toward the gate, undid the padlock, and let himself inside. Black and white targets with bullseyes had been set up at varying distances inside the fenced-in area, and it was Dalton’s hope that Chumley would be able to hit every target by the end of the day.
“I mean, what if they aren’t all bad?”
“Of course they’re all bad. That’s why we live in the desert. We’re like walking filet mignons to them.”
Chumley frowned, and Dalton wondered what sort of bee had gotten into his bonnet.
“Sorry,” Chumley said. “Maybe I think too much.”
“Right. Now I want you to stand here—” Dalton gestured at an X painted on the concrete floor— “and try to hit that target there.” He pointed at the closest target, only four meters away.
Chumley moved into position, lifted the water pistol, aimed, and fired.
The stream of liquid sailed past the target, half a meter off the mark.
Chumley’s shoulders slumped.
“Again,” Dalton ordered him. He sat down on a wooden bench near the gate and folded his arms while he watched, remembering how Warren Prentiss, the last deputy he’d trained, had been just as terrible on his first day.
Warren, bless him, had lasted a year before tiring of the oven-like climate and catching a shuttle back to northern Alaska where, apparently, the sun didn’t come up at all for two whole months during the winter.
Chumley let out curses when his second and third attempts at hitting the target failed just as miserably as the first. “Sheriff, I’m out of ammo.”
“Good thing there’s a hand pump down the street.”
“You mean I have to go fill it up myself?”
Dalton smiled. Chumley glowered at him. “Which way is it?”
Dalton pointed, and Chumley muttered something profane as he marched off toward the pump, which sat outside Heavenly Fire Church, a hundred meters away.
While he waited for the man to return, Dalton leaned back and closed his eyes, then flailed to attention when his sister-in-law’s voice crackled through the comm unit in his pocket.
“Dalton? Are you there?”
He didn’t say anything. Maybe if he stayed quiet, she would go away.
“I know you’re listening,” she said, and sniffled. “You never want to talk. Can’t figure out what I ever did to make you ignore me so much. Did Rob say things about me when I wasn’t there? Because he was a good husband, and I can’t imagine what he would have told you.”
Dalton stared at the target straight ahead of him and imagined the bullseye turning into Summer’s face.
“I just want to talk, Dalton,” Summer continued. “You know I’ve got no one else. I can’t stand it anymore. Dr. Kiyosaki says I should go back to Earth, but it’s not home, not like it was to you and Rob. Do you ever think about going back there? Dalton?”
He sighed and pushed a button on the comm. “I’m busy, Summer.”
“You are there!” Her relieved laugh made Dalton uncomfortable. “Maybe you could come by tonight? I can make dinner.”
“I’ll be busy tonight, too. Nice day, Summer.”
He switched the comm off, praying that nobody important would need to get hold of him within the next couple hours.
“Who were you talking to?” Chumley asked when he returned to the firing range with his refilled pistol.
“Nobody important,” Dalton grunted. “Now let’s see if you can do better this time around.”
“I don’t think I’m going to get better at this.” Chumley pulled off another shot and watched as the spray of water dampened the concrete a meter short of the target. “I couldn’t even hit the pub dartboard back home.” He squeezed the trigger again and swore. “It’s already half empty. Couldn’t we have brought a tank to fill, or something?”
“Wouldn’t fit on the quad.” Dalton was still imagining Summer’s face decorating the center of the nearest target. “Hold on a minute.” He thought, and thought again, and smiled. “Is there anyone you can’t
stand?”
Chumley regarded him with a frown. “I’m sure I can think of someone.”
“Pretend they’re the target. See if you can’t hit that.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Just try it. See what happens.”
Chumley bared his teeth and turned back to the target with the pistol raised.
He aimed.
Pulled the trigger.
The stream of water thudded against the plastic front of the target, not on the bullseye, but close enough to make Dalton grin.
He applauded, and Chumley faced him, his expression unreadable. Chumley lifted the pistol again and shook it. “It’s empty.”
“You know what to do.”
“But it’s so far . . . ”
Dalton was about to tell him to suck it up, then decided he could at least reward the man for dampening the target for the first time. “Here,” he said. “Use mine until it’s empty. Ought to save you a trip.” He slid his own water pistol out of its holster and passed it to Chumley, who’d pursed his lips at him.
“Thanks,” Chumley muttered, and shot at the target again. He missed the first shot but hit closer to home with the second and third. When he held up Dalton’s empty pistol, he said, “Now this one’s empty, too.”
“Now you can go fill them both.”
As his new deputy stomped off toward the hand pump once again, Dalton slid his latest crossword puzzle book and a pen out of his trench coat pocket, then got to work.
Approaching footsteps made him lift his head. At first he thought Chumley was returning with the refilled water pistols, but no, two people strode in from the open desert in the opposite direction.
Dalton rose to get a better look.
The duo was both clad in flowing, white robes and had veils draped over their faces, though he could tell by their statures that one was likely male, the other female.
Nobody in all of Richport dressed like these two, and they reminded him of the figure he’d spotted out in the darkness after the plastic bag incident. Were they newcomers like Chumley?
He strode out of the fenced-in area to greet the faceless couple as they passed the range. “Good morning,” he said, not too cheerfully. “Is there anything I can help you with?”
The couple halted in their tracks, unmoving. They might as well have been statues hidden under sheets. Their white-gloved hands hung loosely at their sides—Dalton counted five fingers on each one. Definitely human, then, or close to it. But why did they conceal themselves? Ordinary citizens had nothing to hide.
“I don’t recognize you,” Dalton said. “I assume you’re new to town.”
The pair said nothing.
“Hablo . . . un poquito de español,” Dalton continued, not entirely sure if what he’d said was grammatically correct. “¿Me entienden?”
The only sign that the strangers were alive and not androids was the soft fluttering of their veils as they breathed in and out.
He switched to Hindi, another language he’d struggled through in school before deciding it would be best for everyone if he just stuck with English. “Kya aap hindee bolate hain?”
He might as well have been speaking Greek to them. Unless they spoke Greek, which he couldn’t know, since he neither spoke it nor knew what it sounded like.
Dalton resisted the mad urge to tear the veils from their faces so he could see if they were someone he knew playing a prank on him. He didn’t want to be placed on administrative leave for harassment.
More footsteps crunched behind him as Chumley returned with refilled water pistols.
“Sheriff?” Chumley came up to his side. “What’s going on?”
“Damned if I know. They don’t understand me.”
“Who doesn’t understand you?”
“Who do you think?” Dalton made a gesture at the couple, only to discover they were no longer there.
His skin crawled as he made a 360-degree turn, searching for glimpses of white and seeing none. Where on Molorthia Six had they gone?
“Maybe you ought to sit down,” Chumley said, his expression uncertain. “It’s awfully hot out here. Do you need me to get you something to drink?”
Dalton hardly listened to him. “They must have dematerialized. But where did they come from?” He hadn’t even heard of technology like that, and it spooked him to think of how out of touch he must be, living on a backwater world like this one.
To Dalton’s surprise, Chumley grabbed his arm and dragged him back through the gate, then pointed at the bench Dalton had so recently vacated. “You’re acting delirious. You should sit.”
Dalton did not sit. “How am I acting delirious? That couple was walking by, all in white, and I stopped them because I didn’t know who they were. You have to do that sort of thing when you’re sheriff.”
Chumley’s face became grim. “You were talking to thin air. At first I thought you were on your comm, but you weren’t holding it.” He bit his lip. “This is like last night, when you saw someone none of us could. Have you been under any extra stress lately?”
“I’m not ‘seeing things,’ if that’s what you’re implying.”
Chumley gave Dalton a look of pity. “Look, you need fluids, and rest, or something. I can work on target practice on my own.”
“Don’t tell me how I should be treating myself.”
“You were talking to people who weren’t there! And what about yesterday, when you thought the old lady was predicting the future? Is that normal, too?”
Dalton wished he had a fresh toothpick to gnash between his incisors. “Someone else must have seen them. They could be a threat.” He turned toward the nearest dwelling; a bungalow with heavy drapes drawn tight behind its square, recessed windows. The closest churches on Holy Street lay a fair distance away from them, but maybe someone there had excellent vision.
Dalton set off toward Holy Street at a jog, remembering halfway there that he could have just hopped on the quad to speed things up.
Gurmeet Singh and Lennox McTavish were heading away from him toward the center of town, carrying oddly-shaped cases likely containing their musical instruments.
“Wait!” he called at their backs.
The pair stopped; turned.
“Sheriff!” Gurmeet said brightly. He wore a flowing white shirt over white slacks, but Dalton knew he hadn’t been one of the vanishing intruders. “What can we do for you today?”
Dalton drew to a stop, panting. It was never a good idea to run in this kind of heat. “Have either of you seen anyone in a white robe and veil wandering around here this morning?”
Gurmeet and Lennox exchanged glances. “Like a dressing gown?” Lennox asked.
“Not quite like that.” He strained to think of a better way to put it, but the sweltering air was getting to him, and he’d left his Stetson down at the firing range. “They wore flowing robes. Gloves, too. I couldn’t see their skin.”
“Robes, plural?” Lennox frowned. “How many people are you looking for?”
“Two. Possibly one man and one woman.”
“What did they do?” Gurmeet asked, lowering his instrument case to the ground.
Chumley caught up to them then, hardly looking winded after his sprint. “Sheriff, what are you telling them?”
Dalton scowled at his trainee deputy. “I’m telling them what I saw.”
“But—”
He silenced him with a shake of his head. “If you two see anyone fitting that description, you alert the station at once. Understand?”
The musicians nodded, uneasy.
“Good. You may go about your business.”
Lennox leaned in and whispered something in Gurmeet’s ear. They both frowned, and Gurmeet said, “Of course, Sheriff.”
The pair walked away from them, speaking in low tones and throwing t
he occasional glance back over their shoulders.
“I need to report this to Carolyn,” Dalton said, more to himself than to Chumley. “See if she can’t get the city watch on the lookout for those people.”
He made an about-face to head back to where he’d parked the quad, but Chumley remained rooted to the spot, arms folded.
“What?” Dalton asked, his tone sour. “This is a matter of security.”
Chumley’s expression had become drawn. “At my last eye exam,” he said, “the doctor told me I have 20/10 vision. Granted that was five years ago, but he said I’m one of the lucky few to have vision that crisp without enhancements.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I saw you talking to thin air. Open a book across the room from me, and I can tell you every word on the page. There weren’t any people in white. There weren’t any people.”
It was difficult not to feel unnerved, when Dalton felt equally certain that the robed figures had indeed existed. “Footprints!” he exclaimed, snapping his fingers. “They’ll have left footprints.”
He sprinted back the way he’d come and began to examine the dusty ground outside the firing range fence. There were indeed footprints—many, many of them—and he immediately matched one set to his own boots, and another to Chumley’s, which were also Dalton’s boots that he’d lent to him.
The other sets—two, to be precise—led out into the desert, just the way he’d seen the couple arrive.
“Look,” he said, pointing at the dirt. “Explain that.”
Chumley bent down, looking as though he were only doing it to humor him. “So, someone came this way earlier. It doesn’t mean it was your ghosts.”
“Is that what you’re calling them?”
Chumley shrugged. “Seems fitting.”
“Here’s the thing,” Dalton said. “You feel that?”
“Feel what?”
“It’s called wind. Footprints don’t stay intact too long out here unless we’ve had a freak rainstorm that turns them into concrete. Wind wipes them away like they were never there. Watch.”
An aptly-timed gust sifted sand particles into the depression left by one of the intruders’ feet.