The Kingdom - Peter Collinson

Kells relaxed, standing full in front of the window, the gun hanging loose.

A riderless horse pranced into view. He was black and kicking in the delirious snow, snorting lungfuls of steam, an orange and brown blanket leaping off his back. He spun around and around before the window, triggering the outside motion light which illuminated his dark coat and ebony eyes, spooking him into wheeling and galloping away.

Rebecca moved to the cold window as the snow-kicks faded from view.

“Look out there,” said Kells, next to her.

She shook her head. The horse was magnificent and strange. “He’s gone.”

“Way out there. Keep looking.”

They had a good view of the southern section of town. The snow was whipping but thin, and through it, well in the distance, she picked out a slight glow.

“Sunrise?” she said.

“Keep looking.”

Like an optical illusion coming into focus, a distant pattern emerged. Rebecca’s eyes adjusted to the sight of small fires burning along the outer hills.

Tom Duggan moved behind them. “Cabins and hunting shacks in the woods. They’re burning them down.”

“To cut us off,” said Kells, “draw us closer. This is good.”

Rebecca turned. “How is that good?”

“Because it shows respect. Trait was cool on the phone, but we’re getting to him. We need to keep applying pressure. We need to keep moving.”

He backed away as the others emerged into the room. He was looking at Tom Duggan.

“We need to be close to the town common,” Kells said. “Someplace well-hidden, but within striking distance.”

Tom Duggan nodded somberly. “I know of a place.”

Spotty entered the inn dining room that morning looking like the rising of the sun had caught him off guard. He left his long coat in a heap on the floor before the corner hutch and lowered himself carefully into a chair. They had a strange way of collapsing beneath his bulk.

He still wore his prison scrub shirt, untucked over the drab fanner’s pants and huge, unlaced work boots. There were many more aspirin-sized holes of dried blood on his hands and forearms, as though carpenter nails had been plucked out of them.

Trait sat across from him. “Can you tell me what is it you see in those dogs?”

Spotty looked surly and distant, the way he always looked. “They’ll come around,” he said. “I need more time.”

Trait saw that Spotty would never admit defeat. He was a loyal man who wanted someone to be loyal to him. He trusted that loyalty would be returned in kind.

Inkman fidgeted to Trait’s right. The inn dining room was their center of strategic operations, buffet tables pushed side-to-side, covered with town maps and notes composed in Inkman’s inscrutable scrawl. Only one serving table remained against the wall, the padded cloth empty except for crumbs and coffee stains and prints from dirty cat paws.

Map ink blued Inkman’s fingertips. His hands were always moving now, and sweat dampened anything he touched. He wore a hooded coat back and forth from the inn to the center of town, to confound imagined snipers. More and more he looked like a frightened little man.

He had asked Trait that Spotty be assigned to him full time, and Trait had refused.

Trait looked at Spotty. “The fireball at the gas station got Menckley all horny. That gave me the idea to dispatch the hairless firebug with Burly to every house, shack, and cabin, working from the border in. We’re going to suffocate the rebels by torching their hiding places, drawing them here.”

“Let him come,” said Spotty.

Trait enjoyed Spotty’s confidence. “That’s what this is about. Fortifying the town.”

They schemed. Sentries were reassigned to guard against surprise attacks. Inkman said that the inn was vulnerable, and Trait agreed. They decided to abandon it and circle their wagons around the town common. Trait was determined not to suffer any further embarrassment at Clock’s hands.

Trait paid careful attention to Inkman’s counsel. Inkman exhibited a desperate enthusiasm for the security arrangements, while Spotty needed only to be told what to do. They were like two planets in divergent orbits around Trait’s sun.

Heavy footsteps interrupted. The four Marielitos rode a wave of cold air inside, moving into the dining room with their sled helmets in hand. They had searched for the rebels all night after the gas station blast. Trait had known it would be pure futility, but he left them to it. The solidarity of the convict township was waning under Clock’s pressure. They required the purifying ritual of the hunt. Victory over the insurgents would unite them again.

The Marielitos stood jackal-eyed and edgy. Trait saw Spotty stiffen and knew there might be trouble. Spotty had been Trait’s golem ever since Marion, and his fealty was perhaps the only fixed value in the ever-changing Gilchrist equation. Spotty’s back remained toward the men.

“Good news,” announced Trait. “Your search is over. We are luring Clock to us.”

The leader translated for the others. “We want the warden,” he said.

Trait’s eyes grew cool. “You’re just frustrated. You can’t get Clock and you’re angry.”

The Marielito spokesman frowned sulkily. “We know you have him in the jail. We want the hijo de puta .”

Inkman shifted in his chair. The Marielitos wore guns on their belts and their coats were swept open to display them.

Trait remained impeccably still. “You can’t have him,” he said.

“Why don’t you let them take the warden?” Inkman offered. “For their troubles.”

“We no ask,” the Marielito said. “We tell.”

Trait’s eyes never left his. “You don’t get the warden,” Trait said. “Now go back to the funeral home and wait for further instructions.”

The Marielitos remained. Fear was a challenge to these men, a taunt, something to be answered with action.

Spotty planted his feet firmly on the floor and rose out of his chair. He did not turn to face them. He did not even look their way. He just stood ready.

First one Marielito backed away. Then another. Finally the spokesman yielded and, dismissed like children, they went sullenly to the door.

Inkman sprang from his chair as soon as they were gone. Trait anticipated some comment but Inkman just donned his hood and went out into the snow alone.

Spotty followed Trait out to the front steps of the inn. As they watched Inkman trudging back into town, angry barking came out of the snow in the distance.

Trait turned to Spotty with a sudden rush of affinity. “Leave the dogs alone,” he said. “We need to concentrate on security now.”

Spotty’s shoulders tested the seams of his coat sleeves as he acquiesced with a shrug. They split up inside the police station, Trait continuing to the cells in back.

Warden James sat on his plastic slab, his shoulders sagging against the wall as he listened to what Trait had to say. “Now you come to me for advice?”

Trait stood outside the jail cell, his feet firmly planted. “I’m just telling you what has happened.”

“You are the warden now, Luther. They are the prisoners. They have the motivation. You refused to be broken, and now so do they. How quickly the satisfied forget their hunger.”

In a flash Trait was back inside his E-Unit pod in ADX Gilchrist, sitting alone in his old cell. He was happy there. “I relied too much on Inkman, who is not one of us.”

“All kingdoms are illusory, Luther. Even yours. There is no satisfaction in holding power, only taking it. I am your example. You exist now only to incite rebellion, to be overthrown or killed.”

His insubordination surprised Trait. “Today you are much more opinionated.”