Magnificent Guns of Seneca 6 (14 page)

"No, sir."

"Why you got this big ol' wagon then?"

The driver lifted his hat and swept his sweaty hair back, then smeared down his thick mustache with his wet fingers.
 
"I won it in a bet and was going to see if I could sell it.
 
Ain't got no use for a wagon, but it's mine all the same."

Fred Walters frowned at the closed passenger door and then looked back at where Jem stood on the Sheriff's Office porch.
 
Jem propped his foot up on the railing and nodded silently at the old man.
 
Walters nodded back and said, "Open her up."

"If you say so."
 
The driver jumped down and went around the side of the wagon.
 
He opened up the side door and the rear hatch, showing that they were empty.
 
"You satisfied?"

"So I am," Fred Walters said.
 
He jotted a note down on his clipboard and said, "Carry on, Mr. Doolin."

The driver got back up into the wagon's forward carry and snapped the reins, going slow as he passed where Jem stood.
 
"How you doing this morning, Sheriff?" he called out.

"I'm doing all right.
 
Yourself?"

"Pretty good so far," Doolin said.
 
"You look a little younger and more fit than that last time I was here."

"That's probably not the only thing different about me," Jem said.
 

"Is that right?" Doolin said.
 
He smiled quickly and turned back to check the road, "You all certainly seem a bit less friendly than the last time, I'll give you that."

"We're plenty friendly," Jem said.
 
"Normally."

"I'm gonna go down here to the bank if that's all right with you.
 
You wanna come watch me to make sure I behave?"

Jem stepped forward to respond when he saw something from the corner of his eye that stopped him.
 
A dirty-looking little boy looked up at him from the street, staring up at the porch while he smeared his mouth all over a honey-stick.
 
"Hi, lawman," the boy said.
 

Across the street, Doolin let out a high-pitched laugh and snapped the reins to get his destrier's moving.
 
Jem looked back to see the wagon drive away.
 
"How you doing, son?
 
Being good?"

"There you are!" a woman said as she came out of the store.
 
She snatched the child's hand and shook him by the arm, "You run off like that again and I'm gonna have the mean mister Sheriff put you in jail forever!"
 
She looked up at Jem and said, "Ain't that right, Sheriff?"

Jem watched the woman silently for a moment, then glanced down at the boy.
 
Whatever had been there before was replaced by fear now.
 
He smiled gently and said, "You listen to your mama, partner.
 
You hear?"

"Yes, sir," the boy said.
 

Jem excused himself and went down the street to see where the wagon headed off to when he saw a darkly-dressed woman come around the corner of the Halladay Family Practice building.
 
Anna Willow locked eyes with him momentarily before she turned away and fit her key into the office's door.
 

Jem sighed and crossed the street after her.
 
"Anna?
 
Wait up."

The screen door slammed shut behind her.
 
Jem cursed under his breath as he turned to see Old Fred Walters hold his hand against the side of his mouth and shout, "Women!
 
They're all screwy!"

Jem ignored him and rapped his knuckles on the bulletholes scarring the door's wooden frame.
 
"Anna?"

No answer.
 

He opened the screen door without walking inside.
 
"Hey?
 
I don't want to come in uninvited.
 
Can we talk?"

The large framed image of Sheriff Sam Clayton looked back at him.
 
The damn ghost was everywhere.
 
Anna came down the stairs into her office and said, "What part of never speak to me again wasn't clear, Jem?"

"All of it," he said.
 

"Well I think it was plain enough."
 

She turned away from him but he reached for her arm and caught her by the elbow.
 
"Anna, I'm sorry.
 
I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

"Is that what you think?
 
I'm some silly woman whose feelings are hurt?"

"Okay," he said.
 
"So then why won't you talk to me?"

"Because you lied to me, Jem.
 
You lied to all of us!
 
You came here pretending to be something and the whole time you had no intention of actually following through with it."

"That's not true."

"Do you have
any
idea what kind of a damn fool I feel like?
 
I waited all those years for you to come back, just to have you tell me you aren't ready."

Jem looked at the picture on the wall from the corner of his eye.
 
"Waiting for me, right?"

"Oh, for heaven's sake.
 
When are you going to stop?
 
People loved your father.
 
It doesn’t mean they love you any less."
 

"They stare at me like I'm some kind of ghost, Anna.
 
You do it too."

"What the hell do you expect?
 
You show up here after twenty years and take over right where Sam left off.
 
You're almost his age when he died.
 
It's kind of inevitable."

"I don't know what I expected," he whispered.
 
"Not this."

Anna shrugged and said, "Well I guess that's it then.
 
Did you tell Bart you were quitting?"

"I told you I hadn't made up my mind.
 
Why do you have to act like I already vanished in the night?"

She glared at him, "Ever since that conversation, I've been waking up thinking you already did, Jem Clayton.
 
Because that's what you do.
 
You leave."

***

The Sheriff was gone.
 

Doolin looked over his shoulder and wiped his face again, clearing sweat from his eyes in order to steer the wagon alongside the bank.
 
He turned the destriers to face the road.
 
Doolin dropped down from the seat and went around the side quickly, then opened the door and reached in to knock twice.
 

A hatch popped open on the floor and lifted into the air as two men crawled out of the wagon's false bottom.
 
Doolin shut the door again and pretended to be checking the windows and wheels as he listened to the men moving around inside.
 
He waited until there were settled and opened the door again just a crack, just enough to peek inside while he blocked anyone else from seeing.
  
"There's a new gold star," Doolin whispered.
 

The larger of the two men inside the carriage leaned forward and snarled, "The hell do you mean, new?
 
I paid you good money to get the information about this place."

George Dunn looked at his older brother and then back at Doolin with a confused expression made all the more disturbing by his sloped brow.
 
He stuttered when he said, "You said it was prime…pickins."

"It still is," Doolin hissed.
 
"I put him in his place and he didn't sum up the courage to say boo back to me.
 
Now get ready."

Calvin Dunn held up his hand, "Is he fat and old like the last one?"

"What's the difference?
 
There's three of us and one of him.
 
We're surrounded by a bunch of old people and children."

"Prime p-p-p-pickins, Cal," George Dunn said again, swallowing when he spoke the words like he was trying to gulp down whatever delicacy they signified to him.
 

"Say it one more time, pudding head," Doolin said.
 

Calvin Dunn jammed a large finger at Doolin's face and said, "Go easy on him, Bill.
 
You was up front all nice and comfy while we was cooking in this sweatbox back here."

"Fine," Doolin said.
 
"Listen, that gold star ain't nothin'.
 
Let's get what we come for."

Calvin Dunn reached into the compartment at his feet and brought up a shotgun.
 
"We gonna show these clowns how we do business."

***

Anna threw up her hands and said, "Then there's nothing else for us to talk about, is there!"
 
She grabbed a watering can in one hand and slammed the door open with the other, swinging it so hard Jem had to lift his hand up to keep from getting hit in the face.
 

"The last time I was a patient in this office, I bit the physician," Jem said.
 
He watched Anna tip the watering can into a flower box on the windowsill.
 
"Talking to you, I remember why I did it."

"You saying you want to bite me now, Jem Clayton?"

He looked at the way she bent over to spill more of the can's contents into a dry-looking bush on the ground.
 
"I'm thinking about doing it right now."

Anna fired a look back at him, too frustrated to be amused.
 
Jem gave her his little-boy smile and she rolled her eyes.
 
"Don't play cute with me, young man," she said.

"That's right, I forgot.
 
Always be respectful of my elders."

"Watch it," Anna said, aiming the spout of the watering can at him like the barrel of a gun.
 
"I will send you back to your office squishing in your boots if you test me."

Jem looked past her at the wagon parked alongside the bank.
 
Bill Doolin was sitting in the driver's seat with his foot on the wagon's brake.
 
Each rein was tight in his hand and at the ready.
 
Doolin kept looking up and down the street, twitching like he had bugs in his pants.
 
He kept looking over his shoulder at the bank's front door.
 

"Hello?
 
Anybody home?" Anna said.
 
She wiggled the water can in front of Jem and sloshed water on the ground.