Lawless Lands: Tales from the Weird Frontier

by Emily Lavin Leverett

  A hand touched her shoulder, her cheek, lifted her drooping head. “Damn fool.”

  She cracked open her lids to Jace’s face, edges sharp and distinct, more real than the sound of her own heartbeat. Another head poked over his shoulder, steel gray and too long to be human. It appraised her, then let out a disdainful snort.

  “Aw, hell,” said Rider. “I thought that damned thing was dead for good.” She lolled back against Jace’s arm as Dead Horse tossed its mane.

  “You gave me enough blood to revive him. Rider.” He shook her a little. “You were supposed to warn Camlock. Why’d you come back?”

  Rider considered, staring past his head with its ever-waving hair to the spread of stars littering the black sky. Pah. What did reason matter in the end? “I’ll be dead too someday,” she said.

  “Not today,” he muttered. He squeezed her arm, hard enough to numb her fingers as he pried the disk away from the wound. She tried to protest, but her lips refused to form words. “Dammit, Rider, you’re bleeding to death. Camlock’s too far—”

  A bony hand shoved him away. The Dancer chief bent over her. In one hand, he held a length of sinew, in the other a knife.

  “So, I went to Bondee, Mr. Bronson.” Rider settled deeper into her comfortable chair on her front porch, her right foot propped on a stool. Around back, The Bay whinnied, wanting his dinner. After his stunt in the desert, she figured the fool horse could cool his heels for another quarter hour.

  Bronson rubbed his tongue over his lips. “You searched Bondee good and thorough then, Miz Bell?”

  “Yes, Mr. Bronson, I found your tunnel. I killed the skreekers you woke.” She leaned forward, made her voice low and quiet. “I’ll keep quiet for Mrs. Bronson’s sake. You’ve shamed her enough. But I’m having it blasted shut tomorrow, you hear?”

  His weasel-face puckered. “Miz Bell—”

  “You got no right to dig round Bondee. I could have the law on you. Heed my warning,” she put force on the word, “and never go near it again.”

  His shoulders slumped. “Fair enough, Miz Bell. Thankee for all you’ve done.” His boots thudded off her porch. Thirty yards up Sutton Street, he paused, then sidled into Myer’s Livery Stable.

  Jace rose up out of Rider’s shadow. “Low-down snake. He meant for you to die at Bondee—after killing enough skreekers so he could continue mining, of course.”

  “Yep,” agreed Rider, folding her left arm behind her head. Bronson emerged from the stable, leading a rangy chestnut horse. He mounted up and rode off down the street.

  “Heading due south,” said Jace.

  “Yep.” Well, she’d warned him. Sure, he’d find his tunnel still open at Bondee. He’d also find the Dancers waiting, eager to replace the numbers they’d lost in last night’s battle. “Perhaps it’s only just.”

  “Sometimes you scare me, Rider Bell.” Jace propped his elbows against the back of her chair. “How’s your arm?”

  She turned it over on her lap. Sinews crossed the deep gash over her wrist, like many minute bridges. She’d heal, but it would leave a deep scar tracking a ravine across the underside of her forearm. Jace traced a finger along the crimson zigzags and small blue whorls the chief had decorated it with.

  She clasped his hand. “It’s just swell.”

  How she’d like to sit here, enjoying the shade of her porch on this hot blue day. Just listen to the jaunty music from the saloons and the clip-clop of horses trotting down the street, Jace’s comforting presence beside her. Perhaps drink a cool glass of whiskey and lemonade.

  Sighing, she let the dream dissipate. No time for loafing, Rider Bell, Shadowmarshal of Camlock. She heaved her foot off the stool. Jace put an arm around her shoulders. Leaning against him, she set off to speak to the mayor about closing the arcsilver mines.

  13

  Volunteered

  B.S. Donovan

  "That make you feel any better?" I asked.

  Karl spat out a shot glass worth of blood, phlegm, and half a tooth.

  "Can’t blame a man for trying," he mumbled through lips just starting to swell.

  "Sure I can. Can’t blame a man for shooting you in the head, you try it again," I answered. "Now turn facing forward."

  Karl was not one for hiding his feelings. He was gauging me, guessing if I was bluffing. He'd been expressive with the Collier family, too, lining them up against the plascrete wall of their prefab shack before putting slugs through their heads. Mother, father, daughters, all of 'em. I belted Karl across the other side of his face in an attempt at symmetry. The result was more spit and blood, but no tooth. So much for my artistic skills, or my fighting skills for that matter, considering the man was bound and tied. But to drive the message home, I put the pointy end of my AES-K rifle, safety off, to the middle of his forehead. Truth is, rifle is technically wrong, there is no bore, no bullet, only a phased plasma nozzle.

  It's not that pointy either.

  Karl backed off and turned facing the front of the vehicle. The better part of valor, I guess. The better part of valor, I thought to myself. A phrase that comes from Shakespeare, I figured I was assigning a lot more cultural credit to the murderer than I should. Karl's restraints made it hard for him to gain any leverage on me. It was only when I was reaching down to tighten the bolt holding his bindings to the floor that he figured he'd have a chance. Not a great chance. That's why he lost a tooth.

  I’d volunteered to take my prisoner, full name Karl James Hagen II, from Survey Junction to Accord City, the capital of Accord, the planet. From there, I escort him off world to Cannonade for trial.

  Accord is in the Halo of the Milky Way. In more technically correct yet less Shakespearean terms, Accord is above the axilla of the Scutum-Crux arm of our galaxy. Axilla, from the Latin, originally used to describe the place where a bird's wing attaches to the body. It currently means—more appropriately when describing Accord—"armpit" of the galaxy. Similarly, the "Halo" of the galaxy is about as misleading as axilla, and makes it sound like there's a warm glow surrounding Accord. Truth is, the Halo is the interstellar equivalent of the Mohave, only more barren. Imagine the disc of our galaxy like a spinning starfish. The Halo is the stuff above and below the flat sides, the place where you think there are no stars. Turns out there are, just so few you never notice. It is where only the desperate or the dogmatic come, and then mostly to escape reality, responsibility, or the law.

  Accord City, where Karl and I were just now riding in a self-driving car, was too small and remote to have our own courthouse, but it had the only spaceport on planet. If you could call it that. Like so many of the adjectives I have used to characterize my backyard, the terms are all too grand when compared to the reality. The spaceport was a walled flat span of bare rock where the Frontier Schooners touched down.

  Karl sat in front of me in the two-seater. That is, until he decided to test if I was still awake. I was. And he was spitting blood and teeth because of it.

  "Lockup’s on Main," I said.

  "Changing course for Accord Library at 1037 Main," the nav-system in the car responded.

  "You gonna book me at the library?" Karl asked incredulously. "That’s too ironic. Backwater burg."

  "Been booked already, Karl. Just some iron bars around you till the shuttle comes," I said.

  The jail shared a building with the library. Backwater burg, it was, which I have established. But it was my backwater burg, and only I can cast aspersions. Accord aspired to be a mining planet, mostly populated by surveyors and prospectors, with a handful of small businesses supporting them. No major veins had been discovered yet, just lots of hopes, dreams, and no small amount of desperation. Government was minimal, except for volunteer law enforcement comprised of, well, me.

  The vehicle negotiated the back streets and rolled to a silent stop behind a short Jenga-pile of prefab, modular blocks, long room-sized cinder blocks with windows. The library was in front, the offices up top, the lockup in the back. Gray-blue light shone through t
he windows.

  A woman—slender, late thirties—stood in the doorway behind a sliding screen door. I knew most of the people on the planet, but she was new. The streak of gray in her brown hair probably bothered her more than it did me. She wore a slug thrower on her hip. Truth is, someone else would notice the slug thrower. I noticed the hip. I was expecting a new librarian, so I wasn't worried when I saw a stranger standing there. Now that I'd seen her all of four seconds, I already imagined we'd be best of friends. I have an active imagination. She opened the screen door. I rolled down the window.

  "You Conrad?" she asked.

  "Yeah, you Maya?"

  "Got you the room there." She nodded and pointed inside.

  One door, plascrete walls, a sad lighting tube. I slid the door up and backed out of the car, rifle pointed at Karl.

  "Out," I said.

  The younger man pulled himself up and out of the cramped transport. He was fitter than you’d expect in the 0.7 g's of local gravity. Likely implants or growth injections. His hands were tethered through a hook at his waist to his ankles, which were bound barely wide enough to shuffle.

  "Anyone in the library?" I asked Maya.

  "A guy sleeping in a chair between the stacks. That count?"

  "It might. You know who it is?"

  "Don’t know everyone in town yet. Some bum in a poncho."

  "Anyone out on Main?" I asked.

  "You just drove in. Did you see anyone?" she said, sounding a bit testy. Just my type. I imagined veritable minutes of romantic courtship, wine, candles. Accord was a genetically limited pool, and Maya was the new girl in the classroom.

  "Drove the back way. Don’t want it advertised I got Karl Hagen locked up in the library."

  "He really kill that prospector family?" she asked.

  "Yeah. Got an eyewitness, some security footage. All in this evidence pack."

  I patted the messenger bag I had across my back. I needed to get it, Karl, and me on the schooner at 05:30 tomorrow. It was 17:00 now.

  Maya said, "I didn’t know those prospectors, the Collier family. But I know Nancy Collier’s brother Jim. He's here in Accord."

  "As long as he stays out of the way, I don’t really care where he is."

  Maya nodded and shrugged. Agreement or disinterest, it wasn’t clear.

  "I’m more worried about Karl’s friends. He’s the only one we caught," I added.

  Maya looked uncomfortable at that. She said, "I’m starting to regret having the lockup back here. I’m supposed to be a library administrator, not a jailer."

  "What did you expect in the frontier colonies?"

  "I don’t know what I expected, but I don’t like what I got," she answered.

  Maya's sentiment rang true. For all too many, Accord was a long shot. Moving here was a gamble. Just look at the Colliers.

  I shook my rifle at Karl and jerked my chin at the cell. He shuffled off through the door past Maya into the building. He stopped just outside the cell, looking toward the stacks in the library. Between the stacks was the guy in the poncho. He was reclining in a chair, hands in his lap, feet crossed, hat pulled halfway down his face.

  Turning toward Maya, Karl said, "You picked the wrong team, lady."

  "What’s he talking about?" she asked me.

  Karl went on. "You think my boys are going to let him take me? I make you a deal. You let me go, and I promise not to do to you what I’m thinking right now."

  Karl surveyed Maya’s body with lecherous intent. She paled, her face scrunched like she’d drunk ipecac. I was none too happy about how he was treating the new girl, and I wanted to make an impression, so I kicked Karl’s legs at the knees and slammed the butt of the AES-K across the base of his skull. See, I'm not above Neanderthal displays of physical dominance. I expected him to go down easy. Instead, he just went to his knees and looked daggers at me. Not for the first time, I was glad he was in restraints. In a fair fight… well, in a fair fight I wouldn't have fought fairly.

  Maya stepped to my side and held onto my bicep. Note to self, Neanderthal methods effective. My fantasy relationship progressed to long evenings in hot tubs followed by drinks on the deck. Karl stood awkwardly and stepped through the door to the cell. He curled his lips around his bloody broken teeth. Maya pulled a datapad from her pocket and tapped. The door slid shut. The top half of his face was visible through the slot window.

  "He really have friends still on the loose?" she asked.

  "Is there a garage for the car?" I asked. "I’d rather it was out of sight."

  "Yeah, I’ll send the instructions to the vehicle AI."

  She tapped at the datapad again. The car drove off toward the garage.

  "You avoided my question," she said.

  "Yeah."

  "Then call in more deputies."

  "No other deputies. Volunteers are all out looking for the rest of them."

  "Shit."

  A woman of eloquence. I think I was in love.

  Maya shooed out the bum in the poncho and locked up. I pulled up a plastic chair and set myself down outside Karl’s door.

  "What they pay you, lawman?" Karl asked, his voice muffled by the door.

  "What do you care?"

  "I figure you get a lot, like hazard pay. You risk your life."

  After a pause, I said, "I volunteer."

  "What?" he laughed genuinely. "You do all this for free?"

  "It’s the benefits," I said.

  "What, they got good dental?"

  "Yeah, I get to break teeth, yours in fact. Today was a good day. Windfall profits. More to come."

  Karl laughed again, surprisingly amiably.

  "You like to crack heads. I can respect that," he said.

  "Some heads," I conceded.

  I watched Karl nod knowingly through the slot window.

  "Seriously, though. How much you make?"

  "Enough," I answered.

  Truth is, volunteer means volunteer. Some say volunteering speaks to my generosity as a person. I know differently. I have a business repairing prospector sensors. It's enough. Never wanted to prospect myself though. Too much risk. So I volunteered as a deputy.

  I never claimed to be a genius.

  Karl added, "Until, one day you get a plasma blast to the back. Your momma would be disappointed. You’re not using your head."

  "I never claimed to be a genius," I said.

  Deja vu.

  "What’s your price?" he asked.

  He didn’t beat around the bush. I had to grant him that.

  "You can’t afford me," I answered.

  "You know why we took that prospector family out?"

  Maya's ears perked up at this. I shook my head slowly.

  "They found it," he said.

  Unconsciously, the fingers of my hand gripped the AES-K tightly, my knuckles white. I'd been waiting for this.

  He continued, "You not going to ask me what they found?"

  I counted to five as I inhaled, five exhale. It keeps me calm.

  "A major vein. No claim yet, though. And that means me and the boys are rich. We could use someone in the law that likes to bash heads."

  I stood up and walked toward the door and put my face up to his. If there wasn’t a door between us, it’d have been mighty uncomfortable. Maya was watching the exchange like a tennis match.

  "I’m going to tell you this just one time," I said and paused for effect. "I want to bring you in alive. I really do."

  My eye picked up a memory of the twitch I spent so long in anger management therapy to lose.

  I continued, "I do like bashing heads. Don’t really mind killing either. Gives me a sense of justice, killing the likes of you. Calms my hands. But I don’t have to bring you in alive."

  I patted the evidence bag.

  "The evidence in here is enough to put away the rest of your boys. And I can easily claim you tried to attack me. In fact, you did."

  Karl suddenly didn't look so cocky.

  "But I can think of a
price."

  Karl grinned ear to ear, the kind that said he knew it, he just knew it.

  "Every man does," he said. "Every man does."

  "I want the Colliers back."

  Karl’s smile faded.

  "I see a big payoff in keeping you alive for a while longer. But I'm not married to it. There are other benefits that I could live with. This plasma rifle can slice through this door like it was paper. Cut you clean in half. So let me give you some advice. Don’t open your mouth, and I won’t show you how that works. "

  Karl sat down. Part of me was disappointed. Maya backed away. Maybe too much Neanderthal. Aw, our first fight. I imagined the steamy make up.

  Accord's red sun set, dropping the twenty or so piles of prefab blocks we called a city into darkness. With it, the temperature fell and a cool mist rose. Maya took turns watching Karl. I went to the front and looked out at the muddy divot we called Main Street. I could see the homeless bum rummaging through trash, and I mentally named him Poncho.

  Hours passed. Maya went out to get some food. She’d be back in ten. Around then, I saw another man talking to Poncho. The new guy took off down the street at a run. Karl was sitting comfortably on his cot, smiling down into his folded hands.

  "What are you smiling at?" I asked.

  He pointed to his mouth, his eyebrows raised.

  "Yes, you can speak."

  "I like having friends."

  "You knew Poncho," I concluded.

  Karl just nodded.

  There was a knock at the back.

  Through the door I heard, "Open up, Conrad. It’s me, Maya."

  I opened the door to an AES-K, pointy end aimed toward my head. A brawny prospector in flannel and denim was at the other end of it. I know I already explained that it wasn't really pointy, but when it's pointed at you, it looks pointy.

  "Don’t even think it," he said.

  Dammit, I didn't see Maya turning against me. I didn't think our first fight was so serious.

  From behind him, Maya said, "This is Jim, Nancy Collier’s brother."