“I can’t allow you to gun down our Sheriff, Doc. Especially when he doesn’t even have the decency to arm himself.”
“I will kill you and a dozen more who remotely look like you just to eliminate this son of a bitch, Bartholomew. Stand aside!”
“I have no doubt you will,” Bart said. “But it don’t change the fact that I can’t just stand here and watch you do it.”
Junger backed away from Halladay and said, “That’s a good lad. You’ll be well compensated for this.”
Bart scowled at him and said, “Just run off and don’t show your face again until things’ve calmed down.” He waited for Junger to disappear between the two nearest buildings to lower his rifle and said, “I’m awful sorry, Doc, but we still need to have some law in this town, even if the people we trust to enforce it aren’t worth the slime on a ring worm.”
Halladay groaned and secured both his pistols back in their holsters. He turned on Bart to say, “Twenty years ago I put five stitches in your father’s head after he was attacked on the same spot you are now standing. I do not believe he ever paid me for them. I will take my payment from you, immediately, in the form of liquid nourishment. I’ll also agree not to put a canoe through your forehead for interfering with my plans.”
“It would be my honor, sir.”
William James Elliot, the Honorable Mayor and Judge of Seneca 6, stood on the porch of the Sheriff’s Office with his thumbs hooked through his pearl white suspenders. He was a thin man in a tailored suit made of fabric that shimmered in the morning light. He propped one foot up against the railing and swept dirt from the heel. The shoe was made of an exotic animal’s skin that had been imported off-world.
Elliot took a puff of his cigar and blew the acrid smoke into the air as he watched Marshal James McParlan come out of Anna Willow’s office down the street. He smiled at McParlan but kept the cigar clenched in his teeth.
The Marshal waited impatiently for the wagons to let him cross. The bruises on his face were dark now, and he appeared to be favoring his left side. McParlan looked up at Elliot and said, “Can I help you?”
“No, you cannot. But I assure you that I can be of great help to you.” Elliot tapped ashes on the railing and said, “Why don’t we go inside and discuss it?”
McParlan opened the door and saw Walt Junger sitting at his desk behind a stack of carefully arranged documents. McParlan removed his hat and sat on the visitor’s bench while Elliot leaned against the jail cell and re-lit his cigar. “My associate and I were wondering when you might be leaving?” Elliot said.
McParlan looked him up and down, “Just who in the hell are you supposed to be?”
“This here is the town Mayor and Judge. You will address him with the proper respect while in my presence.”
“Why, you got Bart Masters hiding in the back to protect you in case I pull a gun?” McParlan said. He turned to Elliot, “The answer to your question is simple. I’m not leaving until the threat is eliminated.”
Junger opened his mouth to speak, but Elliot silenced him with a sideways glance. “Your prisoner is dead, Marshal,” Elliot said. “Your authority here ended the moment Jem Clayton dragged that poor bastard out into the desert. Now, as the highest elected legal authority in this territory, I’m advising you that your services are no longer needed. Your continued presence here is also no longer needed, nor welcome.”
McParlan saw the satisfied look on both men’s faces and said, “Both you hotshot hillbilly cousin-kissers might be able to push people around in this town, but I’m not from this town, so excuse me if I don’t piss my pants in awe of your ‘legal authority.’ Right now there’s a mass murderer on his way here with a highly-classified military weapon that he will use on every last man, woman and child in this settlement.”
“What proof do you have of that, Marshal?” Elliot said. “A deranged old man, who I might add, you brought here. The same man you shot to death right outside this very door?”
Junger waved his hand around the office at his multiple plaques and awards and said, “I’ve kept this town safe for twenty years without your assistance. Why should I need it now?”
“You’ll have the corpse with the most medals after Little Willy gets through with you, Sheriff. That’s the parts of you he doesn’t eat, of course. Now, speaking of eating, if you’re done wasting my time here, I’m going to go get some breakfast.”
Junger watched McParlan limp out of the office and slammed the door shut behind him. “Son of a bitch, Billy. It’s only a matter of time before that Marshal starts sticking his nose into things that don’t concern him. I’m telling you, it’s a bad omen that Halladay and Jem Clayton are back and that they brought this one-eyed bastard with them.”
Elliot stuck his fingers between the blinds and watched people passing the office along Pioneer Way. “Here’s what we’re gonna do, Walter. We’re gonna lower the prices at the Proud Lady and the interest rates at the Savings and Loan. That should keep the locals stupid and happy for the time being.”
“And what about the trouble makers?”
Elliot re-lit his cigar and took it out of his mouth to blow on the tip, making it glow bright red. “Deactivate every security gate on Seneca 6. Let’s leave the doors open for a little while and see what wanders in.”
Little Willy Harpe squatted in front of Charlie Boles Junior and waved his hand in front of the boy’s face. The boy’s stare was vacant. Harpe snapped his fingers in front of Junior’s nose and there was no response. “Did I break him?”
“I don’t think so,” Hank Raddiger said. He was careful not to get too close to the man. The voice coming from Harpe’s mouth was markedly different than before, but Hank was suspicious that Little Willy was playing games with him.
Harpe shook Junior by the shoulders. “Come back to us, boy.”
Junior’s eyes opened. His pupils were dilated and would not focus. Finally, Junior smiled stupidly and said, “Hey, Elijah.”
He looked around for his father and saw that the two Customs Officers were taping plastic explosive packets around his midsection. They squeezed each packet flat and sculpted them to Boles’ body. Charlie Boles grinned at Junior when the officers handed him his gunbelt. He buckled the belt and said, “Now I’m ready!”
Junior lifted his shirt to show his father the plastic explosives wrapped around his own waist and said, “I am too.”
Harpe looked at him and said, “Do you know what you are prepared for?”
“For glory,” the boy said.
Harpe’s voice was patient and instructional, like a teacher reviewing a lesson with his pupil. “And what are you to do?”
“Find Jem Clayton and tell him my Pa has a score to settle with him.”
“How will you recognize this servant of evil?”
“He’s the man that stole our wagon and beat my Pa.”
“What will you do after you find him?”
“Let everybody know there’s gonna be a big fight, and get them all to come out into the street.”
“Blessed truly are the children,” Harpe said. “What then?”
“I press this button.” Junior showed Harpe the toggle switch in his hand, connected by wires that disappeared beneath the cuff at the wrist of his shirt. The wires snaked along inside the sleeve, winding down his chest to where they connected to the set of plastic explosives wrapped around his thin, hairless stomach. “Then, I walk to wherever the biggest group of women and children are standing, and all I need to do it let go of it. That’s when I go to glory and all of them get to come with me.”
Harpe pulled Junior by the shoulders and kissed him on top of his head. “You long for the spiritual milk, my son, and it shall it be yours. Before nightfall you will look upon the face of the Lord All Mighty and drink all that you desire.”