“No,” McParlan said. “But fire does.” The Marshal struck a match and dropped it onto Charlie Boles’ stomach. The match lit the pool of clear liquid and the packets started to crinkle and turn black.
Someone called out McParlan’s name through the thick fog. Sheriff Walt Junger emerged from the smoke, wearing a smile wider than a canal. “There’s some men here who say they received your distress call.”
McParlan’s look of relief turned to disgust when he watched a uniformed Customs Officer come up through the smoke to stand beside Junger. “These boys want you to go with them to discuss the situation,” Junger said.
A second Officer drove Charlie Boles’ wagon up to them. There was a high-capacity rifle in his hand. Junger said, “Get in, Marshal. There’s a man who wants to speak with you. He says that after you come, his business here is through.”
“I won’t give up my guns,” McParlan said. “We can shoot it out right here if you want.”
“They don’t want your guns,” Junger said. “I already ensured you would be allowed to keep them.”
“Wait a second, Marshal,” Bart Masters said. “I’m coming too.”
“Like hell. Stay here and make sure this mess gets cleaned up.” McParlan looked at the Sheriff and said, “God knows there’s nobody else here worth a squirt of piss to get the job done. Hey, Bart?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Make sure that sister-in-law of yours is all right.”
Anna Willow watched him going and shouted, “Marshal! Where are you going?”
McParlan got into the carriage’s rear and stood in the doorway with his hand on the handle. He turned to look back at her and said, “Time to put a stop to this before anyone else gets hurt, Anna.” He said goodbye and swung the carriage door shut.
Lightning struck the side of the house so close that it woke Jem from a sound sleep. He opened his eyes to see the flash of white and blue in his room, followed by a deafening clap of thunder.
Jem got out of bed and went into Claire’s room. She was snoring gently and holding an old teddy bear that he had never seen before. The bear was missing an eye. Jem walked to his father’s room to tell him that there was a storm, but the bedroom door was locked. Jem raised his fist to knock, but lighting struck again, and Jem ducked and covered his ears.
A gust of wind knocked the front door open, and rain pelted through the screen. A dark-skinned young man stood on the porch staring at Jem. His long dark hair clung to his face in the rain and war paint dripped down toward the bleeding bullet hole in the center of his chest. “Goyathlay?” Jem whispered. “It’s you.”
The Beothuk turned his back to Jem and walked down the steps into the meadow. Jem followed him through the door, calling his name, telling him to wait while lightning arced across the mountains and illuminated the valley. A camp fire flickered in the meadow, surrounded by people who gathered close to the flames and tried to warm themselves.
Goyathlay turned around in the darkness and held his hand out to Jem. Jem started to follow him but had to lift his arms to shield his face from the rain.
Charlie Boles Junior stood by the fire, huddled next to his father. The boy’s teeth chattered from the cold and he pressed himself tightly to Charlie. The people surrounding the fire looked at Jem and moved aside, making room for him. Junior held out his hand for Jem to come sit.
“Jem!” a man’s voice boomed from the porch that stopped Jem in his tracks. The voice made him turn around ever so slowly to see Sam Clayton waving at him, holding a torch. “Come back here, boy. Don’t you go with them.”
Goyathlay waved for Jem to hurry, and Jem looked back at his father, “They want me to go with them. I belong with them.”
“No you don’t,” Sam said. “You belong with me.”
“If that were true, you would have never left. Not this place and not me.”
Sam came down from the steps, holding his torch high in the air like a beacon. “I left here, Jem. But I never left you.”
Jem awoke with a start, sitting up in his old bed at Claire and Frank’s house. Claire and Anna Willow were seated on stacks of boxes and bundles of clothing that had replaced all of the things he’d left behind in that room. “Easy, Jem,” Anna said. “Try not to move around too much.”
He gasped and grabbed his side, feeling like someone had smacked him with a hammer. There was a sharp pain when he tried to breathe and he felt the bandages wrapped tightly around his ribs. “How many are broken?”
“Just a few,” Anna said. “But you’re going to be mighty sore for awhile.”
“I remember smoke was coming out of that boy’s shirt, and I smelled something burning. Nothing after that. What happened? Was it a bomb?”
Anna looked at Claire, and neither of them responded. “Why don’t you lie back down and get some rest, Jem?” Claire said.
“There was a woman and her children standing next to him too. What happened to them?”
Anna shook her head and said, “We’ll talk about it later.”
Jem cursed and swung his legs from the bed onto the floor. He gritted his teeth and tried to breathe. “Where are my guns? I’m putting an end to this right now.”
“It already ended, Jem.”
“What are you talking about?”
Claire put her hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down on the bed. “Help finally showed up from that crazy Marshal’s useless agency. He went with them to sort it out. There hasn’t been any trouble since. Now lay your ass back down before you tear something.”
“Really?” Jem let it sink in and sighed with relief. He held his side as he laid back down and said, “The signal must’ve worked. God damn, I can’t believe it. Did they get Little Willy?”
“I have no idea, but you are just gonna lay here and get some rest,” Anna said. “Claire will cook you something to eat. You’ve been asleep for over twenty-four hours.”
“I wish I’d seen it when they showed up to get Little Willy. I bet he wasn’t so tough then. Those Agency boys have some serious firepower. They probably just launched a few rockets at him from space and came in to clean up whatever was left.”
“It wasn’t anything to be impressed by, Jem,” Anna said, patting his hand. “Just two men in uniforms driving that rickety old wagon you came here in.”
“Uniforms? What kind of uniforms?”
“Their patches said Customs, I think. They wanted McParlan to go with them, and he went.”
Jem struggled to get out of the bed, saying, “Where the hell did you put my guns, Claire?”
The wagon ride had been uneventful. The Customs Officers ignored McParlan’s questions as they rode through the wasteland. The incline grew steep, and the wagon stopped at the edge of a cliff overlooking the canyon below. “We have to go the rest of the way on foot,” they said.
McParlan saw that the other paths leading down to the canyon had been blockaded, leaving only a narrow trail that wound down the edge of the cliff. He followed the officers down to where Little Willy Harpe was sitting on a square piece of scrap metal, watching them. “Hello, Marshal.”
“Little Willy Harpe. Put your hands up, you are under arrest.”
Harpe smiled at that and stood to his feet. He was shirtless and appeared to be rubbing some kind of long black tattoo that spread out from his armpit to cover his neck and chest. McParlan eyes narrowed when he saw the bulbous creature seated under Little Willy’s armpit and that the tattoo was actually the thing’s tentacles buried in his skin. “My God…is that what I think it is, you maniac?”