Magnificent Guns of Seneca 6 (13 page)

Jem laughed sharply and Sam chuckled with him but told him to keep his voice down.
 
“Old Lyle sure was a character.
 
But I always remembered what he said and that, plus a little of your 'what if' is the reason I’m sitting here talking to you right now.”

Jem sat up in his bed.
 
“What happened?”

“I was riding in one morning, getting the lay of the land like I do.
 
Making sure nobody stole the town overnight, you know?
 
The sun was just coming up and it made the whole valley sparkle like…like…I don’t know.
 
Rubies, or something.
 
Real peaceful.
 
Then some woman comes running up on me, shouting, ‘Mister Clayton!
 
Mister Clayton!
 
Hal Bellows is killing his wife!
 
She’s screaming for help!’
 
So I ride over there and go in real slow, right?
 
Only an idiot rushes headfirst into uncertainty.
 
I stop and listen, and I don’t hear a damn thing.
 
It’s totally quiet.”

“Were they dead?” Jem whispered.

“Hush,” Sam said.
 
“First off, if they was dead, you just ruined the story.
 
Second, why you gotta always be so morbid?”

Jem shrugged and asked him to go on.
 

“So I go up to the front door, creeping up real quiet.
 
It’s silent as a graveyard in the house.
 
I look through the windows and don’t see nothing.
 
Finally, I knock on the door and Hal Bellows opens it up.
 

"‘Morning, Sheriff.
 
Everything all right?’
 

"I says, ‘I was about to ask you the same thing, Hal.’

"He gets all puzzled and taken aback then.
 
‘What do you mean?’

"I say, ‘I mean one of your neighbors told me you were having a knockdown fight with the missus.’”

“No she didn’t,” Jem said.
 
“She said he was killing her.”

“Boy, you are the worst story-listener I ever met.
 
Worse than your mother, even.
 
How about I leave and you can tell it to yourself without me here to bother you?”

“I’m sorry!
 
I’ll be quiet,” Jem said.
 
He covered his mouth with both his hands and said, “Go on.”

Sam waited a moment to see if the boy was going to stay quiet.
 
“So he tells me his wife has been sick in bed all morning with the flu.
 
‘I’ll bring her down here if you need me to, Sheriff, but she might throw up on your shoes,’ he says.
 
Real slick.
 
Not a hint of the shakes.
 
  

"‘No, that’s certainly not necessary,” I say.
 
And for a moment, it’s just me standing there looking at him and him doing the same to me.
 
Imagine what each one of us was thinking, but all the time we’re just smiling and nodding and meanwhile the gears of both are brains are grinding themselves to pieces.
 

So I was about to go.
 
I figured the old lady who ran up on me was crazy, or maybe she heard Mrs. Bellows getting sick and thought it was something else.
 
I took a step back to leave when this tiny little voice in the back of my head said, what if?
 
Now, this whole time I’m talking to Hal, I can’t see his hands.
 
They’re inside the doorway, up against the frame.
 
I laid my hand on the grip of my pistol like I was resting it there and I said, ‘You know, Hal.
 
I sure could use a drink.’

And that’s the first time I saw it in Hal’s face.
 
He didn’t flinch, but he didn’t move either.
 
It was like the smile he was wearing got stuck in place.
 
‘We’re all out of coffee, Sheriff,’ he says.

‘Water will do just fine.
 
How about you let me in?’

He looked over his shoulder at the kitchen, then back at me, and everything about him changed.
 
His shoulders slumped.
 
His face sagged down and he looked like he was about to fall down.
 
But he didn’t.
 
He come back up and there was red in his eyes.
 
He spat out something that didn’t make no sense, except the parts about his wife and a few curse words.
 
That was when he pulled the double-barrel Winchester from around the side of the door to blow a hole in my chest.”

“But he didn’t, because you were too fast for him,” Jem said quickly.

“He almost did,” Sam said.
 
“Almost.
 
Except I was ready, you see?
 
I had my plan and I had my 'what if,' and when old Hal whipped that shotgun around I already had my gun out.”

“So what happened next?
 
Did you arrest him?”

 
“No,” Sam said.

“Did you buffalo his head with the butt of your pistol?”

“No,” Sam said.
 
“I shot him.”

Jem laid back down and let out a deep breath.
 
“I thought maybe you found some other way.”

Sam grunted and nodded.
 
“Anyway, Mrs. Bellows body was in the kitchen.
 
Turns out that crazy old lady was right.
 
Hal had killed her.”
 
He got up and stretched out his back, “I reckon it’s time for bed.
 
If your mother asks, I told you a story about Wallop the Pony, all right?”

“All right,” Jem said.
 
“Goodnight, pop.”

Sam said goodnight and went to leave, when he looked back at Jem’s open window.
 
“I’ll sleep better if you close it and lock it, but it’s up to you.”
 

Jem threw the covers off and got up to go for the window.
 
“Never hurts to wonder 'what if,' right?”
  

Chapter 10: And Have a Plan to Kill 'Em

Nell Baker was waiting by the Sheriff's door before it even opened.
 
She was tapping her thick foot impatiently and looking like she'd accidently sipped sour milk when she saw the man riding up.
 
"I was here at quarter of seven.
 
You weren't here," she said.
 
When there was no answer but a 'Good morning, Miss Baker,' she followed him through the door, talking non-stop.
 
"My sister and I inherited our mother's house when she passed on, and we agreed to not sell anything unless the other person was present.
 
Well, she went and gave a pair of antique severian earrings to her oldest daughter, and I want you to arrest her."

Phil Wallows heard Nell yelling from inside the sheriff's office as he walked up.
 
He reached for the door and yanked his hand back as she ripped it open and came storming past.
 
"Of all the lazy, no-good law this town has had, now we get stuck with the worst one.
 
You ain't nothin' like your daddy was, I'll tell you that!" she hollered over her shoulder.

Wallows took off his floppy hat and stepped inside, smiling crookedly at the man sitting behind the desk.
 
"Morning, Sheriff.
 
I know you're kind of new to things around here…well, okay, fair enough.
 
But you were away a long, long time.
 
Anyway, the reason I come by today is to ask for your assistance with a theft of which I was the victimized party.
 
Mr. Meadows who runs the roof repair business over yonder took a deposit from me to do work for which he has not yet completed."
 

He nodded several times as the other man spoke, "Yeah, I know he's sick.
 
I heard all about it, but that ain't no excuse to not honor a contract, now I want the man charged with thievery."
 
Wallows' face contorted in confusion, "When Walt Junger was in this office, it wouldn't have even been a discussion.
 
He understood the value of a contract, sir."
 
Wallows threw the sheriff's door open and glared out at the half-dozen people gathered on the porch and steps, waiting for their turn to go inside.
 
"I hope none of you are looking for any kind of satisfaction in here.
 
This is what happens when you hire an outsider!"

Wallows shouldered his way past the rest of them to get down the steps, and they all stood there looking at one another when the Sheriff's voice called out, "Send in the next unhappy customer!"

***

Two rusted Colt Defenders inside a long, rectangular glass shadow box, hung on the sheriff's wall.
 
There were twelve corroded bullets set up around the guns like small soldiers standing guard.
 
The guns were crossed at the barrels just beneath an ancient-looking gunbelt.
 
The rot had been scraped off and the leather rubbed down and cleaned, but it was never oiled.
 
It looks better like this,
he thought.
  

On either side of the guns were two small portraits.
 
A handsome, serious-looking man with a mustache at one end and a young, pretty woman in a Sunday dress on the other.
 
Jem Clayton put his hand against the wall and leaned forward to study the woman's face.
 
He wondered if the only reason he remembered what she looked like was because of that portrait.
 
He couldn't picture her laughing or crying or looking any other way except she did in this one instant that some photographer had captured for all time.

The other one was easy.
 
Jem saw that man at every turn.
 
Every time he sat down at the desk in the Sheriff's Office, it was like he had to excuse the ghost of Sam Clayton out of the chair first.
 
Sam's boots creaking on the floorboards.
 
Sam in the smell of the cell door's iron bars and the cedar-lined walls.
 
Sam sitting on the desk looking down at him saying, "Don't you look fancy?
 
I guess today was dress-up day?"
      

He jumped out of the chair and went for the door, shaking his arms and legs like he was trying to shrug off imaginary cobwebs and dust.
 
The settlement's security gate beeped and the electricity field shimmered in the harsh noon sun before deactivating.
 
Fred Walters came out of the gatehouse holding his clipboard and waved a two-destrier wagon inside.
 
"Come right to me," he said, waving them in.
 
"All right, stop."

When Walters walked he hunched over at the waist, but he glared up at the driver and said, "What brings you back to Seneca 6?"

The driver laid his steering straps across his waist and said, "I come to see about work and to attend to some affairs."

"It says you ain't got no passengers?"