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Buck was at Jed Buckmaster’s place talking about how one of the races of Squaattoos were invading the Earth; how his posse got ambushed and instantly killed and of the falling out between him and Graax. They got drunk and went and told the folks in the town to come to at meeting at the Metropolitan.
Episode 43
The very sight of my home brought the first smile to my face
since I started fighting the Pxelepiti. After glancing out of a window, Edith
saw me and ran out to greet me as we rode up. Her hair was mussed, her clothes
were covered in mud and there were little black circles under her bloodshot
eyes. I figured she must have been helping the neighbors with their problems.
"Darling! I was so worried!" she gushed. "I
didn't think I'd ever see you again."
She practically pulled me off the horse and gave me a deep
hug that I was unable to return; My hands stayed at my sides. She pushed me
away to stare a few moments at my face. I could see in her furrowed brow and
slightly pouting lips how I'd offended her, though it wasn't my intention.
Part of me died along with those men back in the Chiricahuas.
"What's the matter?" she demanded, for she could
tell I wasn't the same as I'd been when I left.
"Nothing."
She paused, "Yes there is."
"Okay, Edith, there is," I repeated. "You and
the children come to the Metropolitan at five. I rode through town telling
everybody else to do the same. I want you to hear what I've got to say rather
than hearing everything second-handed. They may lynch me, but I deserve
it."
"You rode through town?" she gasped, noticing the
triangle. "What's this?"
"A triangle."
"Where's '49er?"
"He's dead."
"Isn't that the horse of that guy who worked for Whitby?"
"Yes, it is."
"What happened?"
"I'm not answering anybody's questions. Not even yours.
It just hurts my head too much." I started to break down as I stood there
outside, acting like the lunatic I'd become.
"How terrible, Buck!"
I didn't say anything else. I took my saddlebag off the pinto
and put it down in the middle of the front room. I got a bucket, pumped some
water, brought it back to the bedroom and washed up. I was ashamed at how I
lost control. If I'd had a choice, I wouldn't have started crying in front of
my wife and friend.
Edith sought me out, knocking on the door of our bedroom
where I washed.
"Leave me alone," I yelled.
"I will. In a moment."
"Now," I shouted.
"Just let me say a few things first."
"What?" I asked impatiently.
"Let me in."
"Holy Moses!" I said, unlocking the door.
She stepped in. "I don't know what happened, but you're
not a louse. I love you," she said firmly, punching me lightly in my
stomach. "Don't say that."
"You don't know me very well, wife," I said, bitter—not at her in particular, but at my life in general.
"I know you well enough," she insisted.
Jed stepped into the room and said, "If you were a
louse, you wouldn't be my friend."
"See?" Edith said. "It takes a good man to
have a friend like Jed."
"There's some medicine back at my place we were using to
cure his mood," Jed said.
"I've had enough of that medicine. It doesn't fix
anything, anyway," I said. "You feel like garbage either way
afterward."
"What kind of medicine is it?" Edith asked, her
interest perked.
"The kind you distill," I said.
She put her hand over her mouth. "Oh, my." She
didn't approve of drunkenness.
They left me alone with my straight-razor, shaving mug,
bucket and basin. Jed was better able to carry on the happy talk Edith craved.
When he told her what happened to the men she served dinner to only two days
ago, I heard her gasp: "Oh my God!"
Oh my God is right! I stared at my reflection in the mirror
in our bedroom as I scraped the lather off my face. I thought of using the
straight razor to slice my jugular. What have I done?
I didn't want to see that sorry alien ever again.
At the start of the meeting, twenty-five people had shown
up, including my family; Councilmen Garza and Hayes; acting-Mayor Hardy;
Madame Zymbalist the fortuneteller; Deputies Russell and Anaya and Whitby
MacMillian. Loud talk filled the room. Chen, the Metropolitan's oriental
bouncer, surveyed the whole crowd warily, ready to keep the peace if
necessary.
A bigger crowd showed than I'd anticipated. I expected
everyone to be too tired from repairing the storm's damage, figuring they
wouldn't care for much besides food, sleep and soaking their feet.
I'd made no notes to speak from. Looking at the audience, I
wished I had. I felt tongue-tied, unable to form words. I gulped deeply.
"What's he going to talk about?" one older,
hard-of-hearing lady in a plain white blouse and brown dress wondered very
loudly.
"More bad news, I guess, Mrs. Gibson," a man
sitting in front of her answered.
Most of the people reveled in stories about the storm.
There's nothing like a big natural disaster to bring a town together.
"Where are those men you went out of town with?"
several people asked.
"Just wait until I start the meeting. I can't bear to
answer that again and again," I replied, voice cracking.
"I bet they've been killed!" Mrs. Gibson said.
"What's he going to say Madame Zymbalist?"
"I don't know. The future is not clear right now. There
are too many conflicting currents," the gypsy replied.
I didn't answer and avoided looking her in the eye.
I started talking while the buzz continued, hoping everything
I needed to say would get said. I controlled my hysteria lightly. Tears ran
down my face as I started speaking.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I have a confession to make. I'm
the worse sort of fool you can imagine," I said.
The audience gradually grew silent as I derided myself in a
small voice, realizing I was speaking and probably straining to hear me.
"I thought I knew best, but, well, then something happens, and you realize
what you are. I'm nothing more than a sanctimonious idiot," I said.
Nobody spoke. I had their attention. "A few months ago I
was a rancher who, like his neighbor, struggled to feed his family in the face
of a great drought. Little rain fell, and our cattle had difficulty foraging.
It's strange saying this after getting a couple year's worth of rain in just a
few days time."
A few people laughed. I warmed up.
For the next twenty minutes I told them the story of the
trouble between Renner and me.
"What's all this leading to?" called out an
impatient man in a red plaid shirt I didn't recognize, urging me to get to the
point.
"I'm getting to that, sir," I promised. I would see
the impatience in their narrowed eyes and tapping feet. Chen, alone, seemed
unaffected. I briefly wondered why before continuing with my retelling.
The saloon's door banged open. "Where's my
husband?" Judy Alexander cried, her children in tow, struggling to keep
up with her.
"I'm getting to that, Mrs. Alexander," I said.
"I promise." I had a lot left to say. I didn't want her interrupting
me. I wanted everyone, including her, to understand what I'd done and why I'd
done it.
"I don't want to hear all this," she said. "I
just want to know where my Skinner is."
"It will really be only a minute, please. I'll be
getting to that," I said, trying to continue with my apologia.
"I'm getting to that," someone mimicked at the back
of the room.
"Come on! We know all this! We don't want to hear your
life story, Sheriff!" Councilman Hayes snapped. "We just want to
hear what happened!"
"Just tell it like it is," a man chimed in.
"Yeah!" some others in the crowd agreed.
"You told the Council you were going to fight some
aliens from Graax's planet. What happened with that?" Hayes said.
"I want to know now. I have a right to know," Judy
Alexander said. "Where is my husband? Why are you riding his horse?"
"Sit down and let Sheriff Turner tell the story," a
bookish-looking man with a monocle said. "Show a little respect and
patience."
"You just shut up! We're asking a simple question, and we
just want a simple answer," a rough-looking prospector type said.
"If he doesn't answer them soon, he's going to have a real donnybrook on
his hands."
"I think y'all are getting out of hand," the
monocled man said. "I'm sure if anything bad happened to the men he took,
he would have told Mrs. Alexander face to face and not in a big meeting like
this. Right? That's how they do it in the military."
I shrugged.
"See. The sheriff's been in the Army," the man
said.
That seemed to settle the crowd down a little.
"Sit by me, Mrs. Alexander," Mrs. Gibson said,
motioning a chair near her.
"Thank you," I said. "I'd like to
continue."
"Brevity would be a virtue tonight, Sheriff," the
monocled man said. "We've all got a lot to do tonight with the storm.
It's going to be an early morning."
"I won't be long.
I continued, telling them the story of how I met Graax.
"What the hell does this have to do with
anything?!" the prospector type said, getting out of his seat.
"If you'd just let me finish . . ." I started.
Chen went and stood in front of him. "Sit," he
said.
The man reluctantly sat.
"Get to point, honorable sir," Chen said, bowing
slightly.
I related how Edith doctored Graax back to health along with
my daughter Becky. Edith stood in the audience between Caleb and Becky with a
shy smile playing on her lips and tears streaming down her face.
"Where's my husband? What have you done with him?"
Judy Alexander called out, leading the general clamor.
"Where's the newspaper guy?" someone else called
out. "He should be here."
"He went with the Sheriff into the hills," someone
answered.
"Sheriff, where are they?" Hardy said. "Just
tell us please."
"Somebody just wake me up when he's done talking!"
someone yelled from the back to laughter.
People kept packing into the room. The yelling and the
argument undoubtedly could be heard out in the street.
One rough type picked up a chair, ready to throw it at me.
Chen knocked the chair out of his hands with one arm and whacked him on the
temple with the other. The man slouched down, cold.
"This turn to fight if you don't get to point,"
Chen said.
I still kept on talking. I was determined they were going to
listen to everything I had to say. Their interruptions were only going to make
me take longer to tell my story. They didn't scare me. After the Pxelepiti,
nothing scared me.
I told them how Graax gave me the idea to go and implant that
device in Ike Renner's head. "What a splendid gift and revelation that
clip was to me! Here was a situation where there was no law to be had.
"And this device enforced the only law I thought we
really needed, whether it be city or country: the Golden Rule."
A man in back pretended to be snoring loudly.
I then told them how I'd come to Contention City and gotten
the sheriff's job. "But the brrkup can no longer be used. The Pxelepiti
can use it against us. Without the brrkup, I'm not a lawman. Now there's no
way I can use the brrkup. I can't keep this job. Gotta resign," I said.
"What's this all about?" people demanded.
"What do you mean?" others said. They hadn't been listening. And:
"I'm a better man than I've ever been before. We need the brrkup. You
can't take it away."
"I agree," another echoed. He was followed by a
loud murmur of agreement by the rest of the audience who was listening.
"I thought the same thing myself," I said,
shrugging. "I thought I was doing good."
I was shaking too much; I found it hard to say what came
next. In a way, I never left the trail of the Pxelepiti. What a blessed relief
the noose around my neck would provide!
In my mind, I saw again the expression of surprise on
Atwell's face just before the force of the explosion cracked his head open. I
couldn't decide if I was imagining it or really seeing it. Atwell seemed to
sense something was going terribly awry. Didn't know what it was, but surely
felt the earthquake within his brain. I was responsible for putting that
there, for better or worse.
I told them about the bloody ambush.
"Those men, they're all dead," I said in the room
now hushed silent. "We rode up to some children who weren't children and all
their heads exploded."
"Oh my God! Skinner!" Judy cried and started
sobbing. The woman next to her put her arm around her.
The majority of the audience backed me up.
"We've got to get them alien bastards! This is
war!" someone said.
"We better find a way to tell who they are!" the
bookish-man said. "I believe you said only Graax could see them."
"I never liked the looks of that green-skinned bastard!
I'll bet he was setting Turner up all along!" the prospector-type said.
"You didn't kill them men. You drafted them. Too bad they
got killed, but you were just trying to look out for all of us," the man in
a red plaid shirt said above the stir of the crowd. "Right?"
"Uh, right," I said.
"Come on, Sheriff! You did all right," the man said.
"Some things go wrong even when you have the best intentions."
"He did his best!" Lucy Alexander said angrily,
hearing the news of her husband's passing for the first time. "I won't hear
anybody say otherwise."
"Your husband died a hero, like my daddy in the War of
Northern Aggression," Mrs. Gibson said, sitting next to her.
"I just wish he didn't have to die," Lucy sobbed.
The brainclip was the reason why they'd shown up to a public
meeting after working all day. I think it was the main reason they forgave me
instead of lynching me.
"You need to have your wife and son take you home and get
you some rest," another man said. "Then you get another posse
together. This time with people without brainclips. We'll kick their alien hind
ends right off this planet."
"We can't tell who they are without Graax," I said.
"That don't matter none," still another man said.
Jed shouted out, "Hell! We should give you a medal! You
tried to take on those aliens by yourself with a little help! It wasn't no one
else was jumping forward to fight."
They cheered me, but I didn't deserve it. I really didn't
deserve it.
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