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By October, the name of Contention City had
become a misnomer. You never had seen a more peaceful city. Many of the
people had been brainclipped.
In private, some people protested the brrkups
going in all the heads. Many wished Buck Turner, our narrator, would
implant himself.
Episode 26
Even with so many people in the population
implanted, work at the Sheriff's Office still wasn't easy. With my
deputies, I watched the newcomers to make sure they were the kind of
people we wanted. To do that effectively, we needed to keep records,
something law enforcement agencies do to an even greater extent nowadays.
In the 1890's, in the west, it was uncommon, unless the suspect was
arrested.
We separated everyone into four camps: the good;
the bad; the implanted; and people we didn't know well enough to classify.
The bad were all slated for implantation. The good were left alone. They'd
proved themselves to be decent human beings.
I watched the implanted. Brrkups were made for
an alien race, so I wanted to know as much about their effects on humans
as I could. The people we didn't know anything about were new to town, so
we made it a point to meet them and try to classify them. A business can
live or die by its records. Law enforcement is no exception.
Deputy Anaya enthusiastically started keeping
files as directed. But since there was no place in my office for someone
who couldn't read or write well, eventually there was no place for Childs.
I found another job for him at Walker Evans's
Contention Stables and Livery. With the brrkup, he was now a good, sober
worker, useful anywhere an employee didn't necessarily need to read, write
or think too much.
I hired Thomas Russell as my second deputy. He
was a smart, strapping man in his early twenties, who I figured would be a
good influence for Anaya and Caleb. It was too bad Russell hadn't been
born into a rich family with the means to send him to college. His eyes
sparkled with intelligence.
I needed both Anaya and Russell out in the field
to gather information, and so I hired Anaya's mother to continue the files
her son started. I turned the Contention City Sheriff's Office into as
efficient as any agency you'd expect to find in a town of similar size
west of the Mississippi River.
Graax was rarely in the office. He wandered
around freely talking to people, studying the environment and learning
everything he could about our planet. His behavior didn't upset or
surprise me, since I knew he was here on a mission from Squaattoos. That
mission didn't necessarily include his serving as co-sheriff of Contention
City.
In the "bad" file at the Sheriff's
Office were the names Peter S. Smith, Stanley Haby and Donald Joshua McCall.
The brrkup was the ideal solution for the general problem created by those
three. How I wished for a device to point these people out on sight, sparing
everyone the pain and the cost of their actions. If there was such a device
it would have to come from some race other than Graax's. He said they didn't
invent one yet.
After fleeing Virginia City, Nevada, the three
made a spontaneous decision to come to Contention City. Haby, believing he'd
been cheated in a Virginia City card game, started a gunfight with the
saloon employees. In the ruckus, one employee was killed and Smith, Haby and
McCall fled on stolen horses.
The meandering trail that led indirectly from
Nevada officially turned into Peace Street a few miles north of town. A
resolution passed by the City Council had called for the erection of a sign
there. Peace Street, then, turned into a busy, two-way road that ran
straight through the town's middle.
Smith, Haby and McCall passed the tents erected on
our town's edge. Cleaning up those areas and getting people moved into
permanent housing was one of local government's priorities. Of course, home
building wasn't keeping pace with the number of newcomers in town - even
with our overly industrious workers.
In the hills, Smith, Haby and McCall made
acquaintance with the people working the mines, prospectors or those
developing their claims.
"There's money in this place," Smith
said. "All it takes is one good job."
"That's right," Smith said, spurring his
mount: "Yah!" He then rode into town on Peace Street followed by
the others.
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