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Rev. Rollins intends to call for a ban to the brrkup because it deprives the people who’ve been brainclipped of the chance to make their own decisions. While this troubles Buck, it’s nothing to the guilt he feels once he finds out that those who’ve been clipped can be compelled to tell the truth by depressing a spot on their head. Buck intends to try this out on the defeated bank robbers.
Episode 31
"What bought you to Contention City?" I asked after I pressed the spot on Haby's head that Graax told me about.
"I lost five hands in a row at a card parlor in Virginia City. I told the dealer I knew what he was doing.
"He said, 'You slander me! I've been honest!'
"I called him a snake. Then I knocked my drink over and scattered chips everywhere."
"Why did you do that?" I asked, pushing the spot again.
"I was angry," Haby replied.
I must have interrupted his flow of thoughts with my question. I urged more information out of him. "Were you drunk?"
"Yes."
"What did you do next?"
"I took out the gun I had strapped to my leg holster."
"Do you wear one there all the time?"
"Mostly. I have one on right now."
"Go on."
"With the gun right in his face, I said to him, 'I should kill you, damn bastard!'
"Then McCall came over and said 'Come on Stan! Don't shoot him—let's get out of here.'"
"I suppose you’re right," Haby said, glaring at the dealer coolly. "But I'd be doing the world a favor if I killed him."
"I didn't cheat you," the handlebar mustachioed dealer said calmly and unhesitatingly, not taking his eyes off the seedy outlaw. "I've no reason to cheat you. I'm not playing with my money. It's my boss's. See? That's how you know everything's fair."
"Then he's the cheat and you just do what he tells you," Haby said, bitterly, moving the aim of his two-shot derringer up to the dealer's head. "Way I see it, it still doesn't let you off the hook, fishy. How else you win five hands in a row?"
"It was luck, the way the cards fell," the dealer said not hesitating.
Haby snorted contemptuously. "Luck! You've got all the good luck? If I killed you, then you would have bad luck. Then maybe I'd get some good luck? How does that sound dealer?"
"I didn't cheat you," the dealer replied cooly.
Haby laughed bitterly.
The bartender offered the handguns they'd checked at the door to the younger gunslinger.
"I'd like you two gentlemen to leave," he said in a calm, diplomatic voice. "I can assure you this house, and especially Rodney here, runs an honest game. We take no privilege other than what the house rules allow us, the same privileges every other establishment takes. I'm sorry you lost your money, but, I'm sure you know, it's part of the gambler's risks."
McCall accepted both his weapon and Haby's. "Come with me. You've had too much to drink. Time to call it a day."
"Give me my gun, Don," Haby said.
"I'll give it to you when we're out of here," McCall answered.
"What you people do here in cards ain't right," Haby cried, raging at the barkeep, dealer and anyone else listening. Wresting his small pistol away from McCall, he emptied both chambers into the wooden bar. The piano player threw up his hands and cowered behind the piano.
The bartender ducked behind his counter and came up with a double-barrel shotgun. "Drop your damn weapon!" he said. "You with the six-guns, drop those too!"
The bartender cried out to the piano player hiding behind the piano: "Run. Get the sheriff, Joey!"
The staff at Ned's didn't realize Smith was with the other two. He hadn't talked to them the whole time. He calmly walked behind the counter and came up with another shotgun.
"Don't you do nothing stupid, barkeep," Smith said, checking to see if the gun was loaded. It was.
Both Smith and McCall had their weapons trained on the barkeep, staring him down.
The piano player started to leave.
"Joey, don't you go anywhere," Smith said, quickly moving the barrel over to cover him. "Our friend is drunk and mad and has been cheated at cards. We don't need to bother the sheriff none about his problems."
"He ain't been cheated," Rodney the dealer, insisted.
"I've heard enough," McCall said. "One more word and I might decide everyone has heard enough out of you."
The dealer dived behind the game table.
McCall didn't fire. He said, "Like I said, my friend is drunk and mad. There ain't no cause to go get riled up about it. We're going to get out of here, and we won't be back. We'll call it square. As I see it, this establishment deserves the damage Evans caused by virtue of all of the money he has lost here," giving Haby an alias.
"Yeah, you bastards!" Haby said, slurring the words. "Fair is just fair!"
They backed out of Ned's. "We've got to get out of here," Smith said. "Why do you go and play cards at these places when you know they're going to try to cheat you?"
"I like to play," Haby said, still slurring.
"Playing cards ain't no good if we've got to leave like this. I like to leave a place on my own time. And there I was, looking forward to a poke from one of the ladies," he said.
"So that's what you're mad about! Well, go back there!" Haby said bitingly.
"Not today! I like being out of jail more than most other things," Smith said.
The sheriff would be along, and none of the men had a horse. Haby's horse was sold for gambling money; Smith sold his worn-out horse to the livery and McCall had to put down his horse after it broke a leg twenty-five miles out of town.
It certainly wasn't a good time to be without mounts. They figured on stealing or buying three, but now there was no time to be fussy. "You picked out a good time to set John Law on after us," McCall said sarcastically.
They were lucky to find two buckskins and a pinto hitched up in front of Ned's, luckier still the horses weren't long in the tooth.
"These three just might do," Smith said. He unsheathed his Bowie knife and cut the leather leads, not wanting to take the time to unhitch them.
Smith chose the pinto. "Come on!"
They galloped out of yet another town they wouldn't be welcome in again. At the time, they were subject to being arrested or shot on sight by official and unofficial powers in no less than a dozen communities in five states.
They hadn't killed anybody that time and realized they weren't being pursued. They soon slowed down and talked about where to go next.
Remembering a conversation from long ago, Smith urged they turn toward Contention City, a place of wealth. One good heist and, "We'd set ourselves up for life," Smith said.
"There ain't no town like that! That was a bunch of liquor talk from just another dude," McCall said.
"Maybe so, but what's the harm in riding out there? If we feed and water these horses, they'll get us there," Smith asked.
"We'll waste a lot of time riding out there. We need to hole up somewhere."
"Who's going to expect us to be heading for Arizona? We need to see how much of what the dude said was level and how much wasn't. I'd bet most of it was on the level. I've heard a few things from a few other people," Smith insisted.
"Remember the old Mexican in Reno? The one who said he heisted $9,000 from a bank during the gold rush? Them boomtowns is where all the money is. It'd take you a dozen hold-ups in other towns to get what you'd make in one holdup in Contention. That's why the old man was so old. You do hold-ups, sooner or later you'll find yourself in front of bullets aimed at you. He and his partner did good for themselves, laid low, played smart. Then it never mattered whether his crop was a success or failure. He could play at farming...."
"Play at farming?" McCall guffawed. "What kind of play is that?" Eighteen of his twenty years McCall lived on a farm in Indiana. Farming was the one thing he most hated.
"Some people might find it play. Not everybody is like you! And you best get those ideas out of your mind," Smith said, glaring at him before he decided to ignore him.
"What I'm saying is he'll eat either way for the rest of his life. You get a lot of money and you get a nice place to hang your hat. That's the good life."
Haby sighed. "It's rough on the trail, but anything's better than living behind a plow."
"Yeah, but you're not so stupid you'd refuse $10,000 if it was waiting for you to help yourself to it, would you?" Smith asked.
"No, but," Haby began.
"Of course not! Who couldn't use a thousand dollars or two? Once you have all the money, you can live however you want. There ain't nothing anyone else can do but pull a gun and try to take it away. They'd have to pay a big price if they were going do it. Until the money leaves your person, or you die, it's all yours to do what you will."
"There ain't no harm in riding out there to see what's true and what's not," Haby said again, sobered by the continual sway of the ride on the stolen horse.
"There probably ain't nothing behind those stories but a lot of whiskey," McCall said.
"We all hear you Don. But Smith's right—you never can tell," Haby said.
"Last I heard, a friend of mine is a card down in Contention," Smith said. "We'll look him up, but we don't let him in. He's only worth drinks and stories."
"What's his name?" McCall asked.
"Used to call him Skinner," Smith said.
Their source of information about Skinner Alexander was a gregarious loser, Patrick Daniels, a grizzled ne'er-do-well who continually smelled of whiskey and cologne. He cooked up the fragrance himself out of alcohol, creosote bush, lime rind and other ingredients. The cologne was part of one of his many failed business ventures.
Daniels usually mourned his dashed hopes to anyone who would listen in Carson City, Nevada. Avarice glistened in Smith's eyes as he listened sitting one stool over.
Daniels said all of the good claims were staked and being worked. "There ain't any new silver to be found there," he might have said. "Even some of them that turned out to be rich have proven to be pretty tough to get to. It takes a man with a lot of money to go and develop them. There's nothing there for a common man anymore—and it's a damn shame. No way to get ahead," Daniels said, knocking back another shot of whiskey.
"Other towns, I don't know. I can only speak for Contention.
"Plenty of people think there's money there. That's the thing. You should see how packed that town is. There ain't a room to be found. You go to live there, you best count on living in a tent a good while, and it ain't cheap living in a tent. Not there.
"Didn't like it too much. Reminded me of being in the Army. It is. More people coming from all over everyday. Fools! They don't even have a sheriff to keep the peace. It's a terrible, terrible situation. Their old sheriff, a fellow by the name of Brucker, got himself killed in a run in with the Thomas Gang—heard of them?"
Smith nodded. "Yup."
"Helluva' shoot out. Brucker killed all of them. I was there when it happened. With all that money floating around and no sheriff, it's dangerous. All the money in the world is no good if a man is dead, way I see it. I'm going to be heading back to California, maybe get myself a little land in the valley, somewhere like that. Do some farming. Having been in Contention City, I've seen enough of boomtowns."
"What do you know? I'd say that drunk was right." McCall said, looking at the clean people and streets he saw when the gang rode into Contention.
"The only way to know is to go and see for yourself," Smith said, without hard feelings. "We need to hole up and relax. We need to check out the workplace...."
"What?" Haby asked.
"The banks. We need to look them over," Smith clarified.
"Then we go make our withdrawal," McCall said, chuckling greedily.
"Sounds good. We should find Skinner. He could be helpful," Smith said.
"Do you know where he is?" Haby asked.
"Easy," Smith replied. "Just ask in the bars and whorehouses."
The drifters first went to the End of the Trail Saloon, finding only one man drinking at the bar.
"What the hell kind of town is this?" Haby grumbled. "There's nobody here."
"At least there's nobody for you to pick a fight with," Smith interjected.
"I don't just pick fights," Haby said, defending himself.
"Did you get that? He never gets drunk and picks fights?" Smith said to McCall.
McCall ignored him. "Something must be up," McCall suggested, believing everyone must have been out prospecting.
"There another saloon in town?" McCall asked the man sitting at the table.
"I don't know. Just got to town myself. Must be one heck of a mother lode!" the man said.
"Doesn't look like there are too many other saloons," Smith agreed.
"As for me, I think that's the way it should be," the man said, raising a mug of beer and draining it.
"That's right, amigo!" Haby said.
They left. Another man on the street gave them directions to the Metropolitan on the other end of Peace Street.
"For the size of this town, you'd think there'd be more going on here," McCall
said, "Something's not right here."
"Something's funny about this place," Smith agreed.
"It's probably because it's a boomtown," McCall said.
"This ain't anything like any boomtown I've ever seen, especially one with lots of money and no sheriff," Smith said.
"I don't know. Two, three years ago you never heard of this place. Now everybody's coming here," McCall said.
"Well, seeing how things were in the End of the Trail, it's no wonder there ain't more places in the town. Ain't nobody here drinking," Haby said.
"That's downright strange! I don't like it here. I'd say we should get out of town, but there's all that money we've got yet to make," Smith said.
"I hear you!" Haby said, greedily.
"Maybe they're all tired," McCall said.
"They ain't so tired in other towns," Smith said.
The three continued down Peace Street, finally finding the Metropolitan. Smith and the others stepped inside, astonished at the opulence.
"You know of a man named John Alexander? Skinner?" Smith asked.
"Skinner Alexander? Sure do," the bartender said. "He doesn't stop in as much as he used to. He works over at the dry goods store. I still see him from time to time. He comes in and orders iced soda water and our vegetable juice. We're sold out of lemonade. Just out of season here. It'll sell no matter what price Mr. Hardy puts on it."
"Ice water and vegetable juice?" Haby echoed incredulously.
"Lemonade?" Smith repeated. "This has got to be somebody's idea of a joke."
"What the hell's the matter with this place? Can't a man get a man's drink anyplace?" McCall said.
"If a man drinks it, it's a man's drink," the bartender said. "Since we got the alien sheriff and that other guy, our alcohol business dropped off. Nobody wants it much anymore."
The felons shook their head in disbelief.
"You men sure look like you could use a freshener. Just come off of the trail? Want me to pour one?"
All of a sudden, McCall smirked. "No, friend, that's okay. We'll just be going."
"What happened?" Haby asked as McCall pulled him outside.
"This new sheriff shut down the liquor trade. You order one, and he targets you. I've seen it before, heard about it some places. Temperance Union, you know. We've got to get in somewhere," McCall said.
"How do you do that?" Haby said.
"We've got to meet up with the right people," McCall said.
"Can't be bothered with drinking right now. Let's go look up this guy Skinner. He'll know what's going on!" McCall said.
"Sounds like a plan," Smith agreed. "Trouble is, I don't know where to find him if he doesn't go to saloons anymore."
"You'll just have to keep your eyes open," McCall said.
The truth telling ability of the brrkup worked better than I feared.
Part of me was excited because I knew no secret known by a man with a brrkup would ever be kept from me again.
I kept the secret of how to unlock the buried secrets. I gave Graax strict instructions not to show anybody else how to do what I did with Haby.
I implanted no more people on request. When someone came to me and asked to be implanted, I told them I was saving the brrkup for real criminals because I didn't want to wear out the factory box.
"You don't need it anyway," I'd say. "People have been doing without them for thousands of years anyway."
Inside, I worried it would only be a matter of time before the key to all the secrets was discovered. Someone would likely discover it accidentally. The other boot would drop.
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