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In the last episode . . . personnel changes at
the Contention City Sheriff’s Office; three bad men ride into town; the
town gets increasingly peaceful due to the effects of the brainclip.
Episode 27
Hefting a loaded double-barrel shotgun in
trembling hands, Judy Alexander searched the streets of Contention for her
husband Skinner. She didn't have to search long. Four minutes after she
started, someone told her exactly were to find him: The Metropolitan.
Anger clouded the petite curly-headed brunette's
mind. She knew Skinner made friends quickly with his wit and chummy
manner, but more enemies by cheating at cards. The fiancée of another of
Skinner's victims informed Judy of her husband's revelry with the
Metropolitan's stable of harlots. The woman intimated that Judy, pretty as
she was, was the laughingstock of Contention City.
Not yet out of her teens, the buxom brunette
with the tear-streaked face burst through the swinging doors of the gilded
saloon. "Where's Skinner, my husband?" she demanded.
"Mrs. Alexander! Why don't you put the gun
down and go home?" said Chen, the slight pony-tailed Chinese bouncer
who worked for Hardy.
"I'm not going anywhere!" she said
angrily, cocking the shotgun. "I bet he's upstairs with one of your
strumpets!"
He was, though Chen just shrugged. Bowing
slightly, he let her pass. Skinner was only getting what was coming to
him. Chen's job was secure. The Chinaman could fight with both hands tied
behind his back and whip his weight in wildcats, and Hardy knew it.
Judy heard her husband's voice behind a locked
door. Enraged, she kicked it down despite her petticoats. "You in
there Skinner?"
She found him and the harlot in differing stages
of undress. She confirmed with her eyes what she'd long suspected. This
was the cause of the long absences and the shortage of money.
"Junior and Chastity need clothes! I have
nothing to feed them at home! How can you do this?" she sobbed as she
tracked him with the shotgun's barrel. "You said you loved me just
yesterday!"
Skinner didn't have much to say: "Mmm . . .
ahh . . . Damn!" he stammered.
Deputy Anaya bounded into the Metropolitan,
bursting through the swinging doors. "Did you see a woman come in
here toting a shotgun?"
"She looks for husband," Chen said.
"She find him?"
"If he lucky—not yet," Chen said,
laughing at his little joke. "Maybe you could use that thingy,"
he said, referring to the pleebk. "Mr. Hardy not like if our lady
hurt."
Anaya shrugged. "I'll try."
The deputy squeezed the end of the pleebk while
he walked up the stairs. The device had the husband, wife and prostitute
hypnotized before he even set eyes on them. With the trio sitting on the
corner of the beds, slack jawed and open eyed like a bunch of hooked fish,
Anaya slipped a brrkup up every other nostril, duly recording the event in
a notebook when he was done.
Word of the peacefulness to be found in
Contention City spread, causing Whitby MacMillian to turn his wagon and
return to town to reopen his mercantile. Skinner Alexander was one of the
first people he hired.
Once his headaches cleared, Skinner stocked the
shelves and waited on customers there four days a week. On the other days,
Skinner worked to build his family a mail-ordered house. The town lost a
skilled card sharp and gained another hard-working, honest citizen.
Smith, Haby and McCall found out where Skinner
lived. They rode to his parcel west of town at dusk and found him
hammering shingles onto the roof of the house.
"Pete Smith?" Skinner cried out
doubtfully at the figure riding toward him in the setting sun, as he came
down the ladder.
"Hey! Hey! Hey!" Smith giddyuped his
horse and came to a halt at the base of the ladder. "Who'd of thought
we'd find you here? At work!" Still astride the horse, he offered a
hand.
Skinner set down his hammer and gingerly shook
Smith's offered hand. "You do what you have to."
"Yes you do, and you look tired. Work like
that doesn't suit you well. Those hands of yours are more suited to
dealing," Smith said. "Need a break?"
"Soon ain't going to have a choice!"
Skinner said, chuckling slightly, referring to the setting sun. He ignored
Smith's piercing blue-eyed stare, and looked over at Smith's companions.
"It's been a long day, but I'll be up again at the break of dawn. I
want to get the place done soon as I can. It just came in a few weeks ago
on the train," Skinner said, wiping sweat from his brow.
"Just a few weeks ago? It's coming along.
Doing it all by yourself?"
"Yup. It ain't hard. Just follow the
directions, step by step. Course if I do another one of these, it'll be
even easier."
They sized each other up as they talked about
Skinner's family, his job at the store and how Smith never chose to settle.
"Your friends?" Skinner said,
inquiring.
Smith made introductions. "They rode with
me from Nevada. This man," Smith said, indicating Skinner, "is
one person you don't want to play cards with."
"Oh," Haby, who hated card sharps,
said. The pasty-faced, redheaded Irishman managed to hold his tongue.
"Don't play too much anymore,"
Alexander said.
"You?" Smith said in disbelief.
"Ha! That's a good one. Still trying to lure us in?"
"That's all behind me. I've got a good
thing going," Alexander replied. "Don't play anymore."
"That's the safe thing to do, son,"
Haby said, slowly.
Smith regarded Skinner critically and shook an
accusing finger: "Nonsense! If a man has talents, whatever they are,
he should use them. You, Skinner, have talent!"
Seeing the sternness in Smith's eyes, Alexander
shrugged. "And I've got other talents too. You should see the way I
can stack a case of beans! I'm a happily married man now, Pete. A man's
got to do what's right by his wife and kids. A kid can't hold their head
up proud hearing their dad cheated others at cards for a living."
"Must be something in the water in this
place," Smith said before asking the Big Question. "We ain't got
a place to bunk. Can you help us out, pardoner?"
"I don't want to hurt your feelings,"
Skinner said.
Smith started, incredulous. Smith knew what
words were going to come out next. This Skinner Alexander was a new man.
This was eerie.
"I've left all that behind. I don't want
Junior exposed to the kinds of things y'all occupy your time with,"
Alexander said.
Smith looked at him uncomfortably for a few
moments. "I don't know. Thought I could count on you."
"You men probably are planning some kind of
a job. I don't want to know about it. I don't want any part of,"
Alexander said.
"Nobody said anything about a job. We're
just down here on vacation," Smith said, smiling at some secret joke.
"I know you, Pete," Skinner said.
"That's probably not true. If it is, you're okay. If it's not,
remember the law don't fool around here. They'll get you. Make you
pay."
Smith shuddered. "I can see you're busy.
I'll be seeing you around." He acts like some kind of a preacher man,
like he's better than us! Perhaps he needs to be taught a lesson? But
they'd ridden too far for a rich target. Smith wasn't going to ruin the
gang's chances with a quick murder, even if they could get away with it.
"Take care of yourself, Pete Smith.
Hear?" Skinner called out, sending them off. "Your friends too.
Y'all listen to what I say."
A little ways up the trail, Haby said, "I
thought you two were supposed to be thick as blood."
"He's like the rest of them in this
town," Smith said, struggling to understand what he was seeing.
"Yeah!" McCall said. "Pshaw! Ice
water and vegetable juice in the bars!"
Haby took his six-gun out of the holster.
"There's a good point in all that."
"What's that?" McCall asked.
"Can't be a good fighter if you can't
stomach whiskey. This place is waiting for men like us to come along and
pick it over," Haby said. "Easy money."
"You got it right! Easier than robbing
trains, I'll bet," Smith said, excited. "Let's get ours before
we get soft in the head too!"
"They've all been out in the sun too long—mining," McCall said.
"All the better for us!" Smith said,
chuckling.
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