"What do you say in your prayers for them?" Ichante said.
The preacher ducked into the first tent with his gun ready. It was filled with food cans and jugs of water. "I pray that their spirits take flight and find peace and knowledge of the Lord. I pray that they be judged not just by their actions but by the content of their hearts as well."
Ichante nodded as she used her gun to open the next tent's flaps. "More supplies," she said. She looked back at him, "So what if those actions included molesting your daughter while she was their prisoner?"
Father Charles grunted and said, "Faith is a complicated thing, young lady. Doesn't seem right to pray they get tossed headfirst into the fiery waters of damnation, now does it?"
"And yet you do it anyway?"
"I figure I might as well have some friends to see when I get there." He threw back the covering over the last tent and winced at the foul odor inside. There were sick pots and jugs filled with waste. Rotting food lay scattered on the ground. In the farthest corner of the tent sat two women, so frail and tiny and not moving that at first he did not see them.
Ichante looked in beside him and instantly pressed her hand over her mouth and backed away. The preacher let go of the covering and walked around the outside of the tent. He drew his knife at its rear and grabbed a handful of the covering and started to slice away at it until he was able to tear long strips of it. "Help me," he said.
"What are you doing?" Ichante said.
He gave one great tear that ripped the whole back panel open. Both of the women looked up at him with faces as grey and wan as cadavers. "Letting in the light," he said.
Ichante was able to coax the women out of the tent and held their hands to guide them through the maze of bodies. The women did not notice. They walked like it was new to them, on stilted legs and trembling from the soft breeze that rolled in across the surface of the Wabash. Ichante led them down the embankment toward it, the three of them forming a line connected by hand.
Father Charles threw his shotgun down and said, "Is that son of a bitch still alive?"
"So far," Jem said. "Come on over here and say what you came here to say."
The preacher straightened out his shirt and coat before he reached into his pocket to remove the photograph of his daughter. He held up Wendy's picture and took a deep breath to steady himself, "I am going to ask you, for the sake of your soul and the lives of those you've sold into slavery, where did you take this girl?"
Gentleman Jim looked up at the image on the photograph and laughed. He spat a mouthful of blood and broken tooth bits onto the ground and said, "That girl? She's dead."
"Oh my God," Father Charles gasped.
"No she isn't," Jem said quickly. He twisted the arrow shaft until Jim started to scream. "Stop being an asshole or I'll do that again. We're either gonna take you back to town and let you stand trial or I'm going to shoot you…in the toe."
Jim looked at him. "The toe?"
"First. Then the preacher's gonna ask you again, and if you still don't tell him, I'm gonna shoot you in the ball of the foot. Then your ankle. Then gonna shoot you in the shin. After that, your kneecap. It's gonna feel like you're being fed foot first into a corn thresher if you don't wise up and tell us what we want to know."
Gentleman Jim's shoulders slumped down and he said, "I don't know where they take them. The man I work for pays me and loads them into a transport."
Jem cocked the hammer of his gun and said, "What's his name. Where do we find him?"
"He ain't hard to find," Gentleman Jim grunted. The bandit was the first to hear someone approaching. He turned to see a rider coming up the trail on a destrier, dragging a small wooden cart behind it with wooden wheels.
Jem squinted to make out the rider, a man dressed all in black with a long trench coat like something a funeral director would wear. He had a small brass star pinned to the lapel, and Jem raised his gun and aimed it at its center. "You better state your business, partner. Who the hell are you?"
"Agent Saringo. I'm a private detective employed for the purposes of capturing the man you're holding at gunpoint, sir. Who are you?"
"Sheriff Jem Clayton of Seneca 6."
Saringo tipped his hat at Jem and said, "Nice to meet you Sheriff. Unfortunately, as I'm sure you know, you do not have any legal authority out here. I have a warrant for this man signed by a judge authorizing me to take him into custody." Saringo reached into his pocket and produced the document, which he unfolded and showed to them.
"Ain't this a pickle," the bandit said. "Guess who they was just asking me about?"
"I have no idea," Saringo said. "Get up."
"They was asking me for the name of the man who arranges the purchase of the girls I sell."
"Is that right?" Saringo said. He reached down and grabbed the bandit by the shirt, "Get up."
"Now hold on one moment," Father Charles said. "You aren't taking him anywhere until I find out who the man is that sold my daughter."
"Unfortunately, there are several law enforcement agencies expecting to debrief him within the hour, sir. You are welcome to meet us at the Sheriff's Office in Tradesville and file a formal request."
Jem put his hand in front of the man, "That's not gonna be good enough, friend."
"And yet, it's just gonna have to do." Saringo's eyes narrowed on Jem, "I know a little something about you, friend. Last thing you want to do is wind up in front of a Grand Jury explaining why you interfered with the rightful arrest of a wanted fugitive. They love to catch up to criminals, especially ones get away with pretending to be something they ain't."
Gentleman Jim's shrill laughter rang out loud enough to drown out Jem's response. "Look at y'all! Standing around flustered, thinkin' I'm finished. How you think I been getting all them girls off planet anyway? Huh? I ain't got no transports. Do I look like I can get the clearances for that? You all done stepped in it now. You messed with the wrong man."
Saringo shoved him forward and Jim screamed as he put weight on the leg stuck with the arrow and cursed the man. "Shut your hole," Saringo barked.
Jim nodded at Father Charles, "I remember your little girl. That was the kind of quim you don't forget." Before he got to the cart he winked at Ichante, "I bet you got something nice down there too for me. I'll be seeing you real soon, sugar. I'll be seeing all of you real, real soon."
Saringo shoved him down onto the edge of the cart and said, "That's enough. Sit still while I tie you up."
Gentleman Jim kept laughing while Saringo fetched the rope, "Don't you sleep at night, Jem Clayton of Seneca 6. Lawmen ain't hard to find at all."
"Come see me whenever you want," Jem said. "I love company."
"I bet you do."
Saringo came around the side of the cart and said, "All right, put your hands together."
"I like being tied up," Jim said. He looked at Ichante, "How about you? You like being tied up?" Saringo yanked the ropes tight around Jim's wrists and the bandit hissed, "God damn it, Johnny, not so tight! What the hell you trying to do?"
Saringo grabbed Jim by the back of the hair and slammed him down onto the cart. "You say another word and I'll kill you right here, you understand me?" he screamed. He went around the side of his destrier and kicked himself up onto it. "On second thought, I'd give it awhile before any of you come to Tradesville," Saringo said. "I'm sure some people there are going to want to spend some quality time with this piece of garbage."
Jem and Father Charles watched Saringo snap his reins and lead his prisoner away. "Is it just me, or did he never mention his first name to us?" Jem said.
"I do not believe he did," the preacher said.
***
They retrieved their destriers and set out to make camp for the evening, taking whatever supplies they wanted from the outlaws stores but keeping far enough away to remove themselves from the stench of death. The men gave their blankets to the two women, but insisted Ichante keep hers. She scolded them for being "stupid men" but kept it tigh
t around her shoulders as night fell and the temperature began to drop.
Jem stirred the fire with a long branch, watching it spark and ignite and go back out again. There had been no ceremony when they ate. No celebration. They were too hungry. The two women did not eat, regardless of how much the preacher tried to coax them. "You're safe now," he said, waving a spoon of hot pudding in front of them. "It's all right."
"They will never be same," Ichante said. "They are living ghosts. Dead on the inside from what was done to them."
"I do not believe that," Father Charles said. "In the morning, I'm taking them to the hospital in Seneca Four. Maybe they can help find these women's families."
"What about Mr. Saringo?" Jem said. "I figured you were headed for Tradesville."
"I'll get there," the preacher said. "But I can't just abandon these two in the process. For all of my little girl's life I was a preacher. Sometimes I think about all the things I done since Wendy was taken and I wonder if she'll recognize the man who comes to take her home."
Ichante leaned against Jem and put some of her blanket over him. "And what about you, wasichu? What will you do now?"
He looked over at Haienwa'tha's sleeping form. The boy was curled next to the fire like a cat. "I'm gonna help him to catch up to his group. They can use all these supplies we found."
"And after that? Will you go home? Back to your family and your woman?"
"I might just pay a visit to Tradesville. Anyway, I'm not sure my family would be all too happy to see me since I run off again. And as far as my woman goes, well, let's just say there isn't one."
Ichante looked up at him. The blonde hair dye was faded and in the firelight reflecting from her dark eyes he saw a thousand years' worth of mysteries to explore and untangle. She was as soft as she was hard and he wondered what kind of man would be the one to unlock her riddles. "I am going to the salt dunes in the South. They say that the moons hang so low over the planet that people have thrown rocks onto their surface."
"Is that right?" Jem said.
"I always travel alone, so do not ask me to come."
"Okay," Jem said.
"Because even though you are handsome, you are a wasichu. And you are stupid."
Jem laughed, "That about sums it up."
She looked up at him, eyes as large as the moons she'd just described, "Unless you happened to be going to the salt dunes already. Then I suppose it would be acceptable."
He ran his fingers through her hair and said, "I just remembered that I been wanting to go there my entire life."
Epilogue: Bart Masters' Decision
It was dark along Pioneer Way and late enough that Bart Masters couldn't make out the faces of the people sitting on their porches. He could only hear the ice cubes swishing around in their glasses and their swings creaking back and forth on chains that had been strung three generations prior. Old and rusty, Bart thought, but strong in ways that they don't make anymore.
Bart knew the way well enough. He'd grown up in the house he was headed for.
He tied off his destrier at the porch and knocked lightly on the door, not wanting to startle anyone within. A large woman answered and said, "Bart? What brings you out this late?"
"Good evening, Janet," Bart said. He took off his hat as she let him in. The place looked nicer than he'd ever seen it since he'd sold it to Janet's father, Fred the old gatekeeper. There were pictures hung on the walls and flowers in the vases atop the side tables.
"Is my sister giving you trouble?" Janet said.
"No ma'am. We're happy as can be. I actually came here on business. I was wondering, is your husband still awake?"
A gruff voice called down from upstairs, "You think I go to bed at sundown? I'm not that old, you disrespectful son of a bitch,"
Bart smiled and leaned over the stair rail, "And here I always thought the hearing was the first thing to go, old-timer."
James McParlan came to the top of the steps and planted his cane on the floor, using it to lower his stiff legs one at a time. "Don't I wish. Maybe then I'd have an excuse to ignore your sister-in-law when she bosses me around."
Janet laughed, "Bart, can I fix you something?"
"No thank you."
"I'll take a whiskey and soda," McParlan said.
"You can have warm tea and like it."
McParlan grunted with effort as he braced himself against the stair rail. "See what I have to put up with? Anyway, what brings you out here?"
"I've got a vacancy in the Sheriff's office. Jem resigned his position temporarily and I need someone to fill it."
"Do you think maybe that when the villagers came after him with the fiery pitchforks you could have done a little more to defend him?"
"I probably could have," Bart said. "Truth be told, Marshal, I don't think Jem's been real happy in the job."
"Retired," McParlan said.
"Sorry?"
"You said Marshal. I said retired. And the answer is no."
"I didn't ask you anything yet."
"You were about to ask me if I'd fill in while Jem is away, and the answer is no."
Janet Walters came out of the kitchen with a cup of hot tea. She waited for McParlan to sit down and she handed it to him along with a napkin and a saucer. "I thought I asked for whiskey," McParlan said.
"Just drink it, you old complainer."
McParlan lifted the cup to his lips and sipped it, then smiled. "I'll take rum over sugar any day, darling." He set the cup and the saucer on the table and said, "My days of carrying on are behind me, Mayor Masters. If those boys had hit that bank and I was there, I'd be a bloody mess of holes on the street. I ain't got the stuff no more. All this damn domestic bliss has made me soft."
"He's done enough law enforcing for six lifetimes, Bart," Janet said. "He's still suffering from what those bastards did to him out in the canyon and now you want him to risk his neck again? Did you really think either one of us was going to say yes?"
"I understand what you're saying," Bart said, "but I really didn't have any other choice. There's nobody else who can do the job."
"All you need is someone fair-minded, strong-willed, and who ain't got an ounce of quit in 'em," McParlan said.
"Every man I can think of who would be halfway decent at the job is making too much money in the unions to even think about quitting."
McParlan scratched his beard thoughtfully and said, "Who said anything about a man?"
***
Claire Miller saw the rider coming toward their house and she grabbed Frank's wheelchair and pushed him back into the house. "What's going on, Claire? Is it time for bed?" Frank said.
"Somebody's coming," Claire said. "Just wait here till I see who it is."
Frank watched his wife hurry into the back bedroom and come back with her father's old pump-action shotgun. She didn't have to check the chamber. It was always loaded and ready. "Why you getting that?" Frank said. "You expecting trouble?"
Claire looked at her husband sharply. There were scars on her face that still hadn't healed from their last unexpected visitor. She was always expecting trouble.
Bart Masters held up his hand as he rode in and said, "Evening, Claire. Sorry to call on you so late."
Claire opened the door and stuck her head out to make sure that the Mayor was alone. "What brings you out to these parts, Bart? Was Jem not at home?"
Bart folded his hands on his saddle and said, "Him not being at home is the reason I came to see you. He's run off again on another one of his damn adventures."
"Well he sure as hell didn’t say anything about it to me," Claire said. She let herself back onto the porch and held the door open for her husband. "That don't surprise me. He knows I'd have given him what for."
"I don't doubt that," Bart said. "I can't say I was surprised either. I don't think being Sheriff is everything he expected it to be. There's a whole lot of hand-holding these people need, and Jem isn't quite the type to do that."
"There's a certain amount,"
Claire said, "but there's also a time to tell people to stop being babies and figure it out for themselves. Jem didn't say too much about it to me, though. Let's face it, he ain't got a great track record for staying in one place for too long."
"That's true. The shame of it is that most people really responded to a Clayton being back in the office. It gave them hope, and that's something we sorely need right now, after all that's happened."
"Well, sometimes nostalgia's a dangerous thing," Claire said. "Hoping and wishing something were so don't make it that way, Bart. I'm sure there's plenty of people out there who can do the job and they don't have to be named Clayton to do it."
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