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In the previous episodes, Buck Turner, a
rancher, tells us of the conflict between him and Ike Renner as he begins a
ride with his son into Contention City, Arizona on a bitterly cold January
morning in the 1890s. Renner, a homesteader, has repeatedly clipped the
barbed wire fence separating the K-10 and the Lazy-R, letting his cattle
across. Renner’s Lazy-R side is overgrazed because he didn’t know
anything about ranching when he got the place. He plain ran too many cattle
on his 160 acres.
Furthermore, there’s a drought. All of the
ranches in the area are struggling. The K-10 is no exception. Renner can’t
afford to keep his emaciated cattle nor does he feel that he can afford to
sell them. Buck Turner is riding to town to try to get Sheriff Brucker to
come and do something about the trouble between them.
An interplanetary craft that Buck calls a
skyship crashes off the trail into Contention City. Buck and his son, Caleb,
come close to being killed. Buck rescues one of the big-eyed, light-green
skinned creatures. The other creature is killed by the impact. Because of
ethics and interest, Buck and Caleb decide they need to bring the creature
back home to Edith, Buck’s wife and self-made doctor. The father and son
drape the creature over Buck’s horse, ‘49er. Over Bear, Caleb’s horse,
they tie on several of the creature’s possessions that they find in the
skyship.
The creature slowly recovers under Edith’s
care. Buck and Jed, an old friend from Buck’s teenage days when he worked
on cattle drives, discuss the virtues of carrying on a range war with
Renner. They realize Sheriff Brucker isn’t going to come out to the K-10 -
he has plenty to do keeping peace with the silver rush going on in
Contention City. Graax, the creature, learns to speak English.
Edith says the creature is healing faster than
any human she’s ever seen. Still, it’s not fast enough for Buck. He’s
inconvenienced by the creature’s convalescence and worries that he’s
never going to get any better. There’s a ranch to run and the creature
causes everybody too much extra work.
The alien finally gets well enough to help
around the ranch. He masters enough English to tell the family about the
planet he comes from, Squaattoos, and about some of the wonders of the
universe. He’s willing to learn the ways of cowboying so that he can pay
his way on the ranch. The creature has a lot to learn, Buck notes. He’s
even afraid to get up on a horse.
Though he’s not much of a cowboy, Graax
quickly solves Buck’s problem with Renner when he implants the man with a
brrkup, a device that makes the homesteader live by the Golden Rule. Buck is
astonished at the extent of the change in Renner. He didn’t want to have
to shoot him. Now he doesn’t have to.
Episode 14
Jack Brucker, the sheriff of Contention City,
writhed, sleeping fitfully. The bed sheets came untucked. His wife, wide
awake, knew something was troubling him. Someone and some situation troubled
him. She'd heard him murmur several words that sounded like names in his
sleep, though the only one she could make out was "Sol.” If he wasn't
going to tell her who Sol was, she'd have to ask one of the deputies
tomorrow.
She hesitated, but then decided to wake him
anyway. Something important was likely to happen tomorrow. He'd need his
sleep. Waking him would make the bad dreams stop, and then they'd both get
some sleep.
"Honey. Honey," she whispered gently,
shaking his shoulder. "You're having a bad dream."
"Huh?" the sheriff said, sitting up with
a start as if he'd been stung by a scorpion. Slowly, he shook off the
tentacles of his dream.
"Who's Sol?"
"When did I say that?"
"You were talking about him in your
sleep."
"I was?"
"Yes. Who is he?"
"Nobody you need to worry about," he
said with finality, laying back down, rolling away from her.
"You're sure worried about him."
"Well, I think he's Sol Thomas. He says his
name is Wainwright."
"Why would you be worried if he was someone
called Sol Thomas?"
He turned back around and kissed her on the
forehead. He didn't believe in troubling his Mary. That wasn't what a strong
man did. He must be strong. "I wouldn't be," he said. Brucker was
the protector for both his family and Contention City. There wasn't any
burden too heavy for his wide shoulders. Since pinning the tin star on his
leather vest ten months ago, he'd captured several infamous outlaws and
coolly handled several face-offs that had erupted between greedy men over
the rich silver strike.
He believed people should be able to live and go
about their business in safety. He loved the town, and they loved him back.
When he was eight, his father had been shot and
left quadriplegic when his store was held up in St. Louis. Though he'd never
thought about it before, it was the results of that holdup that made him
want to be a lawman.
Brucker was proud at how he might have saved a few
good lives and made the world a better place by ridding it of a few bad
people. Maybe other families wouldn't have to undergo the medical, emotional
and financial misfortunes that befell his family when he was growing up.
"You can tell me if something's wrong,"
she offered, as she had many times before in their thirteen-year marriage.
Only rarely did he take up her invitation.
"I know. It's nothing to worry about,"
he said into the fluffy goose-feather pillow, their bodies spooning.
"I'll try to move around less."
Ten minutes later he was back asleep breaking his
word. How could he tell her what this Sol Thomas did in Dodge City? Some
things a woman shouldn't have to hear.
They bore too many of the sacrifices it took to
have a peaceful community, she thought. She wished he was a storekeeper or
barber, though he wasn't cut out for any of those jobs. He'd have found
those trades intolerably dull. Just like you can't make a bull into a fish,
Jack loved being sheriff.
Sol Thomas and his brothers had killed ten and
injured eight people in a fierce gun battle in Dodge City, Kansas. They'd
shown no compunction about murdering anyone. The brothers shot women and
children right along with the lawmen, who had them pinned down on the roof
of a store. How could Brucker tell her about train robberies where the gang
freely shot at the passengers as well as guards and other railroad
employees? He could tell her what he'd done only after all the danger was
long past.
That hadn't happened yet by a fortnight. The man
he supposed was Sol Thomas sat in the hastily constructed, three-cell jail
guarded by Buddy Childs, his deputy whom he hired partly out of pity and
partly because he couldn't get anybody better.
The portly, rapidly aging Childs needed a job. He
hadn't arrived in town with but a nickel in his pocket, likely having drunk
up the rest of his money on the journey over. Whitby MacMillian was
unwilling to extend him a dime in credit.
Because the storeowner didn't like his looks,
Childs worked as a deputy trying to save up enough money to strike out on
his own. As he drank and ate every dime he made, that would never happen.
Still, Brucker had been grateful to have him.
Strong men who'd work for a regular wage were rare. Though Childs had a yen
for the bottle, he was as strong as an ox. As Contention City would need a
bigger jail in the coming months, and as the deputy had worked in
construction in the South after the War Between the States, he and his
muscles would be handy.
The wanted poster that came by mail two weeks ago
warned Brucker and his deputies about Tom, Eli and Sol Thomas, all with
distinctive tattoos and a $250 bounty on their heads. The tattoos were
concealed under the outlaws' clothes, else they'd have been nabbed long
before they got to southeastern Arizona.
Deputy Anaya arrested Sol for disturbing the peace
at the End of the Trail Saloon. When the dark, skinny teenage law enforcer
bought him to jail, he had him change into the black and white striped
garment. This was a procedure Brucker began to check for distinctive
tattoos, anatomical features and markings and concealed weapons. The sheriff
spied the snake wrapped around a sword in the middle of the hairless chest,
just like the wanted poster described.
Brucker had the poster nailed up outside his
office. He went outside and consulted the paragraph on the outlaw's
description. How many people could have such a tattoo in the middle of their
chest? Odds were not more than one.
"Well, how do you do Sol?" the sheriff
said once he decided he had the murderer they were looking for.
The man blanched as if he'd seen a ghost.
"Who? My name is Jacob Wainwright. I do believe you suspect me of being
somebody else."
The sheriff smiled, figuring the outlaw must have
rehearsed the response. The words came too automatically, Brucker supposed.
"The way you say that, I almost believe you," he said, jesting.
"It's true. I swear on a stack of
Bibles."
"Whoever you are, I've got to hold you. I
received word last week warning me about a murderer with a tattoo looking
like the one on your chest."
"You've got the wrong man!" Sol Thomas
insisted.
"If so, we'll get this cleared up and send
you on your way. It could all be a coincidence. Still, I wouldn't be doing
my job unless I hold you until we know something more." Such words
usually soothed prisoners.
But not this time. "You're doing me wrong
Sheriff! You've got to let me out of here. There's someplace I have to
be!"
Brucker shrugged. "Then you're just
unlucky."
The sheriff had an ominous problem to chew over.
Lew Smith, the bartender at the End of the Trail, said
"Wainwright" had come in alone. But if this was indeed Sol Thomas,
his older brothers couldn't be far away. The advisement from Dodge said they
were tight-knit. If that were true, even if they'd had a falling out, they
still might come to rescue their brother.
Had the sheriff in Dodge exaggerated their abilities to kill to hide his and his men's
incompetence? It was hard to know either way. It could be downright fatal to underestimate someone.
Brucker sent Anaya into Tucson to fetch the
marshal to confirm the capture and pay the $250 government bounty. Guerrilla
Apache fighters had vandalized the wire between the two towns, tearing them
down as they had done several times before in the past few months. The
telegraph company was slow about fixing anything because their crews were
busy setting up telephone exchanges.
That left Childs behind to guard the jail. Someone
had to be there if the other Thomases came to rescue their brother, Brucker
figured. Brucker himself planned on relieving him early in the morning.
"This isn't a night when you'll be wanting to
sample," Brucker warned. "You might find yourself in a gun battle
and find it handy to keep all your wits about you."
"I don't do it every night," Childs
replied defensively.
"Just don't do it tonight," Brucker said.
"Probably nothing will happen. People like the Thomas brothers don't last
too long together. Anybody who'd wantonly kill women and children can't get
along with others very well - even their own kin.
"But the Thomas brothers aren't just anybody.
You heard what happened in Dodge. Don't take them lightly. You do, Childs,
you're a fool."
"All right Boss! I won't," Childs said.
"You sleep well tonight. Bernard Sanderson Childs is on the job."
"So your real name is Bernard?"
"That's right. Never liked it."
"Don't blame you. I'd call myself Buddy
too."
Still, a couple of hours after Brucker left, Childs
locked the outer door of the jail and ambled over to the End of the Trail. He
joked and smoked for a half hour and then returned with a flask to the jail's
anteroom. So far, everything was all right. Sol Thomas was still in his cell
where he'd left him.
When he returned, Childs must have locked the door
behind him. In the morning, they found scratches and a bullet hole next to the
lock as if it had been picked - and then shot at close range. The Thomas Clan
must have given him a few hours alone with the flask in order to drink himself
into a stupor.
Someone found Childs in the morning roped to a chair
turned on its side, with his torn shirt tightly holding his sock in his mouth.
He was locked in the very same cell Brucker put the captive he was guarding
in. Hung over, Childs bellowed, "Let me out of here!" as loud as he
could when they cut the gag.
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