by D L Frizzell
"That fire would’ve burned for weeks if we hadn't gotten lucky with that rainstorm," Redland said. “We’d be so busy with the fire that we’d never see them pass by.”
"It wasn't all luck," Niko corrected him. "We had a lot of good people working on it, not the least of whom was your deputy."
"Sure enough," Redland nodded.
"Why didn't you capture the T'Neth then, marshal?" Alex asked, unwilling to simply disregard his suspicions.
"You don't understand 'em, Alex," Redland answered. "Those were the two we were shooting at during the fire but we never hit them once as best I could tell. When they saw their escape was cut off, they ran into the fire to prevent capture."
"They killed themselves?" Alex asked skeptically.
"It's part of their creed," Seneca explained. "If they are at risk of capture, they must do whatever it takes to avoid it, even if it means committing suicide."
"I came here to help, Colonel," Redland said as he covered the skeletons with the blanket. "I'm sorry I couldn't do more. I'll be glad to fill out a report on what happened at the maglev station and give you a copy before I head back out to find Benac."
"I'd appreciate that," Seneca replied. He handed the pistol belt to Redland.
"I..." Alex looked down and saw he was still aiming his pistol at Redland. "I'm sorry," he said, turning red-faced. He put it back in its holster.
"Look, we've had a busy day," Seneca said to Alex. "Or more accurately, a busy week. It seems like a good time to take a break and get some rest. Marshal, I apologize for the misunderstanding. We can talk more later."
Redland smiled. "I think we all might be getting a little sun-baked with all this excitement." He gave Alex a sorrowful look, then cheered up. "What time is it in this district, anyway? I'd like to find a bite to eat before beddin’ down."
Niko shielded his eyes from the sun to check his pocket watch. "Three a.m., but folks don't pay much attention to clocks around here. I'm sure a number of places are serving."
"The Blue still open for business?" Redland asked.
"Sure is," Niko smiled. "Tell Owen that your lodging's on me while you're in town."
"Thanks," Redland shook hands with Niko, then looked back to his deputy. "Alex, care to join me?"
"I have a bunk already, marshal," Alex said in a subdued voice. "Thanks for offering," he added.
Redland nodded, then climbed aboard the wagon. He snapped the reins to get the horses moving, then pulled a cigar out of his pocket and chewed on it as he rode off.
"I'd better check on my men before I turn in," Seneca said. "We need to talk more, Alex. It’ll wait ‘til tomorrow, though. Go get some sleep." He shook hands with Niko, then walked toward the billet at the ranger station. Niko turned to leave also, then noticed that Alex stood unmoving, his face a mask of uncertainty. He came back to see what was wrong.
"Niko," Alex said under his breath, "do you have a place I could stay?"
Niko chuckled. "I have a cot in the room behind my office. You’re welcome to use that."
"Thanks."
"Just so you know," he said quietly to Alex. "That worker that was taking care of the wagon..."
"Yes?"
"His name is Dennis," Niko said. Alex's eyes went wide. "There’s no one in town named Matt. I thought it would help you to know that I notice little things like that."
"It does, thanks." Alex tried to smile. He thought to ask Niko if he noticed anything strange about the skeletons, too, but then decided it wasn't worth mentioning.
Alex walked into Niko's office and saw the door in the rear. He wanted more than anything to collapse on the cot and forget about the day’s troubles but made a quick detour to check on Kate one more time. When he opened the jail door, she was standing at the bars, her hands clutched around them.
"The T’Neth didn't start the fire," Kate said.
Alex looked at her and shook his head. "I can't hear you," he said, closing the door.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Alex woke to the sound of conversation in the next room. The smell of cooked eggs and sausage floated in the air, and his stomach growled in response. He wondered how long he'd been asleep. His boots and shirt lay on the floor by the bed. Though he didn’t remember taking them off. His pants were still on, though, dirty from fighting the fire. The shirt was dirty, too. He put it on anyway and padded barefoot into the ranger's office where Niko, Seneca, and Redland were helping themselves to large portions of food. Redland wore a new greyskin duster. A matching wide-brimmed hat hung from a nail on the wall behind him.
They all stopped talking and stared. Alex noticed a mirror next to him on the wall. His face was still covered in soot and his hair was about as mussed as he'd ever seen it. Embarrassed, he flattened his hair with his hands and stood there, unsure what to do next.
"Hungry?" Niko slid the last chair away from the table and gestured to it, so Alex joined them. Niko leaned back to the cupboard and pulled a plate out for him. He also provided a knife and fork from a drawer. "There's a shower and towels in the bunk area," Niko said to Alex. "Eat first, though."
"Thanks," Alex said, and began helping himself to the food stacked on a platter in the middle of the table while the others got back to their conversation. “Morning, colonel,” he mumbled, then added, “Marshal.”
“Mornin’, Alex,” Redland greeted in reply. He brought up his hand in a quick greeting as he shoved a forkful of eggs into his mouth.
"This is still a big setback," Seneca told Redland, getting back to the conversation. "We have a lot of people who suffered burns during the fire. Many of them were my soldiers. We'll have a hard time patrolling the area with so many out of commission."
"Unfortunately, we need to move the patrol line to the east to keep the grove safe from another attack," Niko told them. "It gives us more area to cover, but we can't afford another day like yesterday. I doubt we'd get another rainstorm to save our skins."
"Do you have any signal flares?" Seneca asked Niko. "Our people are going to be separated by a lot more distance now."
"We just use colored smoke out here," Niko replied. "We have plenty of cave flares. We can't shoot them into the air like you can with the militia ones."
"Set the smoke canisters on tripwires," Redland suggested. "You can set them up in gullies and other hard-to-see areas."
"They're not the tripwire type of flares, I'm afraid," Niko replied. "The triggers are hand-operated."
"Not a problem," Redland smiled. "I can show you how to modify 'em."
"Good," Seneca replied, "If you can help them set that up, I've got to find enough men to head to the Crumbles."
"I can teach Alex how to make the smoke traps," Redland said. "He can stay behind to help out with that. You'll have to manage without me, though. My first priority is to track down Benac."
Seneca put his fork down when he noticed Alex hadn’t touched his food. "You okay, Alex?" he asked.
Alex didn't reply. His hunger forgotten, he stared at the cooked sausages lined up on his plate
Niko put his hand on Alex's shoulder. "Hey, Alex."
"Sorry," Alex said. "I wasn't paying attention."
Redland saw what Alex was staring at. "I put you in a bad position, Alex," Redland said apologetically. "I shoulda been the one here all along, instead of throwin' you to the clefangs like that."
Alex shrugged.
"I'll understand if you want to head back to Celestial City," Redland added. “Maybe it wasn’t the best time to send you out into the world.”
"I'd just like to get cleaned up for now, if that's okay," Alex replied.
"Fair enough."
Seneca, Redland, and Niko waited until Alex left the office before continuing their discussion. Alex, still barefoot, shuffled out to the porch where he found his horse tied to a post under the awning. He opened the saddlebag to pull out his extra set of clothes, and then turned to go inside the crew quarters.
"Are those the only other clothes you have?" he heard a soft voice
ask behind him. He turned to see who it was.
"I'm Sarah Zand," she said. "Niko said you were down here resting. You were pretty tired," she smiled.
"I guess I was," Alex replied. Sarah was a pretty woman, in her mid-thirties, plainly dressed, with her sandy brown hair up in a twist. She held a covered basket in her arms, adjusting her grip as she spoke. "Uh, yes ma'am, these are my only clothes," he said, finally answering her question."
"Call me Sarah," she said. "Just leave your dirty clothes outside the shower, and I'll see they get cleaned for you."
"I'll be okay," he replied. "I don't want to burden you."
"You're sweet," she laughed, "but you're no burden to me. I own the laundry in Edgewood. The burden will be on one of my workers."
Alex smiled back, a little embarrassed. "Yes, ma'am."
"Go take care of yourself," she urged. "I'm just going to pay Kate a visit."
He nodded and held the door open for her. She thanked him and walked in. She kissed Niko on top of the head as she walked by, then nudged the jail room door open with her foot and closed it behind her.
Alex made his way to the shower room, left his dirty clothes on a bench, then stepped into the shower. Once he found a bar of soap in a covered box, he opened the valve on the basin and stepped under the nozzle into the tepid water.
Ten minutes later, Alex stepped out of the stall, clean but not feeling refreshed. His dirty clothes were gone, replaced with a ticket stub for Edgewood Laundry. The letters SZ were handwritten on one side. He dressed in his spare clothes and placed the stub in his pocket.
Alex returned to Niko's office to find the plates had been cleared off the table and replaced with a bowl of fruit. The other three men were still there, with Redland smoking a cigar and Niko trying to light a pipe. Seneca drank coffee. The conversation had evolved from patrolling around Edgewood to pursuing the Jugs. Alex sat down to listen. The fruit looked good, and he remembered he was hungry. He took one and ate it while the others talked.
“The Jugs are likely patrolling the Crumbles,” Niko said. "I wouldn't put it past the Jovians to set booby traps, either."
“I can’t disagree,” Seneca replied, "especially considering the place's history."
"I'd just as soon get kicked in the head by my horse than get caught in a boulderlanche," Redland mumbled. "We need to resolve this without ever goin’ up the Crumbles."
"The odds of that improve a great deal if we can catch the Jugs before they reach Edgewood," Seneca replied.
"What are the chances that they find a way around us?" Niko asked. He finished packing his pipe and lit it. As he puffed on it, plumes of smoke dispersed through the air. Alex watched them drift and mingle with the cigar smoke.
"I don’t know," Seneca said. "As it stands right now, I’d give even odds on them getting past us without being seen.”
"What happens if they do, and then get to the Crumbles first?" Alex asked.
"They’d head up the boulders towards the Narrow," Seneca replied. "And back to their homeland to report what they've seen."
"Is the Narrow still the only way through the Plutonic Ridge?" Niko asked.
"Yes," Redland said, "unless they want to risk radiation burns in the upper desert or frostbite at the equator."
"Shouldn't you go there to get ahead of them?" Niko asked. "If you have so few men left, it's the one bottleneck they can't sneak through."
Seneca nodded. "I've been thinking about it," he said.
"It may be the only solution you have left," Niko said.
“Why wouldn’t you just go there to begin with?” Alex asked.
“Ever see what happens when someone shakes an apple cart?” Redland asked.
“Sure,” Alex replied. “The apples roll off.”
“Imagine something like that, except the apples are giant balls of granite,” Redland said, “every one of them four, five, or even six meters across with a mass up to a hundred tons.”
“Um…okay.”
“The Crumbles are the apple cart.” Redland grabbed an apple from the bowl on the table and rolled it around in his hand. “There’s thousands, millions, of boulders stacked against the Plutonic Ridge. It doesn’t take a whole lot of shakin’ to get them rolling, believe me.”
"The Crumbles are just a pile of rocks,” Alex argued. “They can’t roll that easily.”
“You’ve never been there, right?” Niko said, “They are spherical, and they do roll. Standing at the bottom, you can’t see the top.” He shook his head in dismay.
“That’s impossible,” Alex insisted.
“It sounds impossible,” Redland put the apple back in the bowl. “Hell, it looks impossible. It’s real enough, though.”
“Crossing the Crumbles has always been treacherous,” Seneca told Alex. “It’s been the one of the few deterrents we could rely on that kept us safe from another Jovian invasion.”
“Not any more, apparently,” Niko replied.
“Blow up the Narrow,” Alex said. “Close off their only approach, and we’ll be safe.”
“Not a good idea,” Niko countered. “The Narrow's the only connection between the eastern and western hemispheres."
"So?"
"One of the first things the Founders did was pave that damned crack to keep communications open between us and them,” Redland said. "Blowing it up would make my job a helluva lot easier, but it’s been forbidden by the Council."
“There’d be no way to open it back up,” Niko said. “Collapse those cliffs into the Narrow, and we might have to wait a thousand years before we have the ability to cross the Ridge again.”
Seneca sipped his coffee quietly and stayed out of the conversation.
“You’ve already decided to blow it up, haven’t you, colonel?” Redland asked.
Seneca put his coffee down. "War is upon us," he said. "If The Guile sent an advanced team for scouting, it stands to reason that he's ready to act on any intelligence he gets from them. If his team doesn't return, that speaks volumes, too. The question may not be if he chooses to attack, but when."
“Breaking Council policy is grounds for imprisonment,” Redland said, “I should remind you that I am commissioned to enforce their policies on the matter.”
"It's not a matter of keeping the spies from leaving," Seneca said, "but turning back an invading army that could be coming this way right now."
"Dammit, colonel!” Redland hit the table with his fist. “You don’t have the authority!”
"A lot can happen in a thousand years," Seneca said, unfazed by the rebuke. "Maybe they'll learn to be peaceful."
Redland wagged his finger at Seneca. "I was wondering why you brought all those trucks along. They’re full of dynamite, aren't they?"
"Yes," Seneca replied.
Redland fumed, locking eyes with Seneca for a long moment. He then stood up, grabbed his hat off the wall, and stormed out. His swearing faded into the distance and finally ceased when they heard a gate slam shut.
Niko stood and walked to the window. "I thought marshals were supposed to be even-tempered."
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Think he’ll try to stop you?” Niko asked.
“Not sure,” Seneca replied. "No, I don't think so. Even Redland knows that war is practically inevitable. He won't help us, for sure. What he does afterwards might be a concern."
"I don't understand,” Alex asked. “Wouldn't he come after you before you blew up the Narrow?"
If I were to guess," Seneca responded, "I'd say he'd let me do it, and then take me into custody."
"What kind of sense does that make?"
"The Council's been trying to get me out of Celestial City for years now," Seneca said. "They've tried doing it with promotions. I'm sure they'd let me break the law to get rid of me, too. I'm sure they'd prefer it that way, actually." He took a sip of coffee.
"That policy on keeping the Narrow open has always made me wonder how bright the Council is," Niko said. He noticed his pipe had gon
e out, so he got to work re-packing it.
"Don't underestimate them," Seneca replied.
Alex thought Seneca wanted to say more but instead he got up and refilled his coffee. He turned his back as he poured it. Instead of returning to his seat, he looked out the window at the magnetic compass Niko had installed on the porch railing.
Niko and Alex exchanged worried glances. The pause in conversation stretched into an awkward silence. Niko didn't like the quiet, so he went to the cupboard and put his unlit pipe back in its box. He pulled out his shoe shine kit and began cleaning the dirty pair of boots he'd been wearing during the fire. Alex half-watched him, still waiting for Seneca to say what he was thinking.
"I wouldn't be the first Plainsman to wind up in the stockade for defying them," Seneca finally said. He sipped his coffee again, deep in thought.
"For what it's worth, I can vouch for you at your trial," Niko offered.
Seneca let out a snort. "That's a fine consolation," he said. "It wouldn't make a difference, though, except to get you on their bad side, too. Just keep it to yourself, Niko. Life in prison's a better alternative than a Jovian army getting through the Narrow."
Everyone turned to look out the window as a single gunshot echoed in the distance. Niko dropped the boot he was holding and reached for his pistol belt on the wall. Alex ran into the back office and grabbed his gear as well. Seneca was already outside, racing down the street on his horse by the time Alex came out of the office. He climbed onto his horse and spurred it after Niko, who was only seconds ahead of him.
Alex and Niko caught up with Seneca near the cornfield outside town. A series of gullies crisscrossed the area to the east, forcing them to dismount and proceed on foot. They met up with a soldier kneeling on the ground, his Longarm rifle directed towards one of the gullies.
"I saw three Jugs," the soldier was telling Seneca by the time Alex and Niko joined them. "They were running through the gullies to the south. I fired a shot to force them to cover and warn everybody."
"Well done," Seneca replied, and pulled out some binoculars to scan the area.
A minute later, a squad of horsemen raced up to their location and took positions in the grass.
