Andromeda Gun (13 page)

“There’s just one more thing I’d like to say. Mr. Bain has kindly agreed to get the piano fixed. To celebrate, I’m inviting you to come forward and have a drink on me… Put the charges on my tab, Mr. Bain… Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.”

A few cheers of appreciation sounded as the men gathered at the bar, but the hurrahs had a brassy ring. In the habitual ritual, some of the drinkers lifted their glasses toward the man who was trying to buy their favors, but they no longer eyed him with hostility. They sneered at him in contempt.

As Ian turned toward the door, smiling deferentially, tipping his hat to the girls, they, too, ceased to ogle him. Instead, they gazed at him with sad-eyed professional sympathy, as if he were one of their number who would soon be called upon to render services without remuneration.

After he returned to the jailhouse, Ian set up a cot for the sheriff in the corridor at the rear of the cell block and hung a lighted lantern on the wall to guide Faust to bed. From the armory he optimistically took all sixteen leg irons and threaded them onto the coffle chain. He spread his pallet and went to the desk where he penciled a letter to Colonel Jasper Blicket.

Dear Col.

Reckon you didn’t expect to here from me, Johnny Loco. After I led them bluebellies up the canyon, like you told me to, and Hey You skeedaddled South with the money, I circled back. But my horse throwed a shoe and I had to walk to the rondevoo. Hey You was there but shot dead and the money gone. Waited for you and Sarge but when you didn’t come I vamoosed. I didn’t kill Hey You because I didn’t have no bullets left. I shot them all at the horse soldiers. I didn’t steel the swag because I didn’t have no horse. They was only two nails in that shoe it throwed. You ought to kill that smithy of yourn. I wondered around in the desert till I got picked up by a Navvyhoe sheep herder. His old woman took to me so I had to kill him. I took his horse and rode north to Pokotella and hired out as shotgun for the Terrytorial stage. Next month I guard the rear, end out of Wind River. It leaves there at sunset, Sept. 3, for Jackson City. About dawn the stage comes off the ramparts. If the Sarge puts a bolder on the road where it narrows along the cliff I can get the driver from behind. Bring me a running horse. It’s the payroll for Old Hickory Mine, all green backs and easy to carry.

Yr. Obdt. Svt.
J. Loco

He addressed an envelope to Colonel J. Brazewell, General Delivery, Green River, Wyoming, sealed the letter in it, and left the jailhouse, carrying a lariat in his hand, to walk diagonally north across the street to the post office. After dropping the envelope into the wall box, he tied the rope around the cornerpost of the post office porch and uncoiled the line behind him as he went across the street to the hardware store where he tied the free end of the lariat around a porch pillar and drew the line taut with a running sheepshank.

Twenty yards north of the sheriff’s office and nine feet off the ground, the rope stretched across the road. Invisible in the darkness, the barrier would remain invisible until moonrise, a full hour after the saloon closed.

The implications of Ian’s letter and his rope trick concerned G-7. While it complacently assumed it was leading its host step by step to righteousness, Ian was developing long-range plans for a giant leap back into lawlessness. Earlier, G-7 had formulated an optimistic progress report it intended to send to Galactic Central, but Ian’s letter indicated its planned realignments were askew. Its plans were becoming Ian’s plots; its wisdom his cunning. Even Ian’s cooperation with other members of his species was proving unilateral; they cooperated with him but not he with them.

That it had chosen a forcible host G-7 still must concede, one who applied his minimal knowledge for maximal effects, but it was not enough for one to possess the qualities of a saint, one must also be saintly. Ian’s drive to avenge the murder of Jesus Garcia was illogical and sinful. Being dead, Garcia could not appreciate the effort, and Ian, now, was certainly aware from the Scriptures that vengeance did not fall under his jurisdiction. Of course, Ian was moved in part by the insult from Colonel Blicket still locked in his memory nodes, but even that motivation was suspect; words were immaterial and its host was otherwise concerned only with material considerations.

September 3, G-7 realized, was the deadline for its efforts. If Ian reached the crossroad and chose the path of darkness, it would know that it had failed on earth. But it was a Legionnaire and must not fail. It had converted the raspers of Markab 5 to Galactic Brotherhood, and it would not be defeated by the humans of Sun 3. It had a tradition to uphold, and, more, it had what its host would call “an ace in the hole.”

Deep within the man who now dozed fitfully on his pallet, a man who had failed often, planned a wakeful planner which had never failed.

At midnight Sheriff Faust came in, too drunk to get his key in the lock. Awakened by the fumblings, Ian let the old man through the door and told him, “Sheriff, I fixed you a cot at the end of the cellblock because I figure we’ll be using all the jail’s bunks tonight.”

“Deputy, I ain’t going back there.”

“Why not?” Ian bridled, fearing Faust might be asserting his administrative authority.

“Because I’ve gone as far as I can go, ” the sheriff answered, falling forward.

Ian caught him and tossed him over a shoulder, carrying him to the rear. Before they reached the cot, the sheriff was snoring, and with each exhalation he emitted the skunky odor of green beer.

Brought fully awake by his exertions, Ian returned to the pallet, bringing the lantern with him. For a while he lay in the pale light thinking of Gabriella with weird twists and turns of thought. She was lovely and he wanted her, but she was too frail to be the wife of a bank robber. She would do better with some God-fearing farmer who owned a big spread. Billy Peyton would qualify if he converted to the Methodists. Anyone who owned a south forty must have a north forty, about one hundred and sixty acres all told, and, besides, Billy read books.

Still, despite his poor schooling, Gabriella seemed to like him. If he didn’t have other plans, he might consider reading through the fourth—, fifth—, and sixth-grade primers. A man couldn’t woo a schoolteacher on a third-grade education. But he had other plans.

A man could be limited by his plans, Ian realized suddenly, while there were no limits to his plans. Drowsing here, he could plan to become President of the United States—Now there was a till to be tapped—and plan to court Gabriella strictly for her favors. A schoolteacher would be smart enough to know that that fate, far from being worse than death, could be downright fun.

He would court her up to the evening of September 2, then tell her, just before the evening was out, he was leaving because he did not wish to interfere with her future happiness. Seeing how unselfish he was and knowing he was leaving the country, she might have a stroke of generosity. Girls were a lot more willing to be loved when they knew a man was leaving.

In the drowsy images of beginning sleep, he could see Gabriella standing on the porch and waving good-bye tearfully to the lonesome cowboy who galloped off into the sunset toward Wind River. The pathos of the scene might have aroused him to further wakefulness had he not recalled that he would be riding east and astride Midnight. The horse would not like it when Ian took over the colonel’s giant gray, but Midnight had to go. Not only was the stallion black, which handicapped it for night work, but its affections were getting to be embarrassing.

So his thoughts, skittering at times to the edge of unselfishness before drawing back, grew jumbled and confused and merged into sleep.

Awakened by the thunder of hooves from the south, the direction of Bain’s saloon, Ian sat upright and rubbed his eyes, reaching for the coffle chain. Once, he remembered, a schoolteacher had told him it always paid to be polite, and he was reasonably sure that she was right, that his courtesy earlier in the barroom would be rewarded. In a few seconds now, a bunch of rowdies was going to discover that a new brand of lawman had arrived in Shoshone Flats.

Punctuated by “yippees” and “yi-ays,” the hoofbeats drew nearer. When the riders were abreast of the sheriff’s office, a rolling barrage of pistol blasts shook the jailhouse. The sound of the hooves dwindled northward, but only after a rapid series of thuds sounded twenty yards north.

Rising, Ian carried his manacles and lantern into the night.

At the rope barrier, Ian counted seventeen lawbreakers, sitting or lying, prone or supine, across the width of the road. One man, wearing the boots and chaps of a ranch hand, was on his feet and walking in a circle. Gleaming in the lantern light, pistols were scattered on both sides of the barrier. Some of the fallen were moaning from rope burns and bruises. A few lay motionless and soundless, either dead, dead drunk, or unconscious.

Seventeen jailbirds exceeded the town’s accommodations in leg irons and bunk space. One prisoner might have to sleep standing up, and the likeliest candidate seemed the circling sleepwalker.

Ian walked over to the cowboy, raised the lantern, and asked, “What’s your name, prisoner?”

Never breaking his stride but scratching his head in perplexity, the cowboy made a full circle before he answered, “I give up. What is it?”

Though taking a long stroll to nowhere, the cowhand was mobile and apparently ablebodied. He would lead the coffle back to the jailhouse, Ian decided, and turned to the fallen.

Moving among them, snapping on leg irons, he threaded the chain to put the unconscious men at the end, moving forward through the moaning men and the sitters. He left the smallest, totally unconscious man unchained. When all were chained but the circling cowboy, Ian went down the line to revive the prisoners and get the chain gang moving.

His methods were direct and effective.

Standing before the first man in line, a conscious sitter, he said, “On your feet, prisoner.”

Ear pulling was too tiring, Ian decided. He stood over the next prisoner and said, “Stand up, you.”

When the sitter responded with a slack-mouthed grin, Ian whipped a kick to the side of his head. The man toppled, his shoulder thudding against the ground. He bobbled back to a sitting position and bounded to his feet.

Down the line, the splat and thump of the kick and the fall caught the attention of the remaining sitters who scrambled to their feet. Moving on to a facedown moaner, Ian brought the man to his feet with a kick in the ribs. All were standing now, except for three who were out cold.

The curses, cuffs, and kicks made it plain to all who heard them that the mild-mannered deputy who had earned their contempt in the saloon was fast developing into an efficient lawman. When Ian dressed ranks, they responded with alacrity. He set the lantern on the boardwalk, grabbed the wandering cowboy’s leg, slapped on the last leg iron, threaded the chain through it, and snapped the padlock.

After retrieving the lantern, Ian turned back to find the most ablebodied man was not necessarily the most able. The leg iron had reversed the walker’s circle and extended his radius. He was rolling up the line by pivoting the chain gang on the unconscious anchormen.

Sprinting over, Ian reversed the man’s direction, let him straighten out the line, then slapped him hard across the cheek.

The man stopped, shook his head, and said, “Huh,” in the manner of a man suddenly awakened.

“What’s your name?” Ian barked.

“Mickey… Mickey O’Shea.”

Ian backhanded him on the opposite cheek and asked, “Do you know me?”

“Sho,” the man said. “You’re Chief I.N. Black Cloud.”

Ian slapped him again. “Think harder.”

“Deputy Ian McCloud.”

“You’ll do. Were you in the army?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Which one?”

“The CSA.”

“You’re my point. Hold this lantern as a guidon and move out to the jail after I’ve made a legal announcement.”

Ian walked before the middle of the line, hands on hips, his tin star glinting in the lantern light.

“Y’all are under arrest on four charges: disturbing the peace, shooting off firearms inside the town limits, racing horses on the town’s street during trading hours, and being too drunk to set on a horse. Your next of kin will be notified when your horses come home without you.

“Now, listen, you mules. You front ones have got to drag the back ones to jail when I give the command, but don’t jerk too hard. Them convicts is public property.”

He walked over and picked up the legs of the surplus drunk. Dragging the man travois fashion to the head of the line, he shouted, “Forward, march!”

Enough ex-soldiers were among them to comply with the order and get the line moving, but it was a slow route step with the tail end dragging. Ian didn’t force the pace out of concern for the drunk he was dragging. The man’s head was bouncing against the boardwalk with enough force to disjoint his neck, and a dead man couldn’t pay a fine or help build a road.

Ian dropped his burden off in the first cell and led the point to the rear. Peeling off prisoners as he rolled back the chain, Ian stacked the unconscious men in a pile in one cell, reasoning that they wouldn’t be uncomfortable. He might have a dead one or two, but he didn’t have time to take an inventory because he had to go back and collect evidence of the crimes. Anyway, the corpses would keep till morning.

He walked back to the rope with a gunnysack for collecting firearms, smelling the weapons before he dropped them into the bag. Three had not been fired, possibly because the owners were too drunk to pull the triggers, and the unfired weapons presented him with a legal problem. Was an intent to disturb the peace as grave a crime as disturbing the peace?

He solved the problem on the spot by firing the weapons before he tossed them into the gunnysack.

He was rolling up the rope when he heard a low moaning farther down the street. Swinging his lantern, he walked over to find his eighteenth prisoner, an older man whose boot heel must have caught in a stirrup, dragging him a ways. The man’s weapon was still in its holster, which indicated the prisoner had not intended to break the law.