Bernard Schaffer - Guns of Seneca 6

Bob swallowed his whiskey in one drink. He wiped his mouth and grinned stupidly, “Today sure was fun.”

Gentleman Jim nodded and ordered another round. “I’ve got an important assignment for you. I need you to go to this address in Seneca 4. It’s a little hideout I’ve got. Stash our weapons and masks and wait. A buyer wants to come look at that merchant’s case. He’s willing to pay a fortune for it.”

Bob put his hand on the outlaw’s elbow and said, “I swear to God you can trust me.”

“I know I can. Let’s drink to trust.”

Gentleman Jim finished the next drink and let his head hang. He grabbed Bob around the shoulder and pulled him close, slurring when he said, “I never told nobody this, but my real name is Dirk Tirrell. I grew up off-planet and came here to join the mining union. The sons of bitches wouldn’t take me, so I got into this business. Now you know more about me than any other person, alive or dead, so make sure you keep it quiet, ok? I trust you, Bob. Let’s drink.”

Bob left with that information tucked away as carefully as the merchant’s worthless documents and photographs inside the case. The authorities caught up with him before he made it halfway to Seneca 4. They seized the briefcase and Bob immediately offered up a story that he thought was worth a reward, if not leniency. The lawmen listened intently to Bob tell of Dirk Tirrell, the infamous masked bandit known as “Gentleman Jim.” They started laughing before he even finished telling them the part about the mining union.

“Boy, we’ve got four different associates of that bastard doing hard time at the penal colony, and each of them has given us a different name for him. You’ll see the judge in the morning and then the group of you can compare notes.”

The Dalewood Saloon of Seneca 5 was slow. The rotation of fresh poker players was neither to Dr. Royce Halladay’s liking nor profit. He watched the same stack of money circle around the table several times, and out of sheer boredom, kept playing even when it passed to him.

He ordered three whiskeys and drank them all in quick succession. The alcohol left him grabbing his throat and grimacing. He coughed into his sleeve until blood dripped down his mustache. Halladay excused himself and stood from the table. He moved into a corner where he could indulge the cough and spit without fear of splattering blood on anyone. Even when bent over, he kept an eye aimed at the table, letting them know that he was watching both his cards and his stack of money.

Halladay righted himself and returned. “Pardon me, gentlemen, I seem to be a bit under the weather this evening.” He sat and took up his cards, looking from them to the faces of the other players. He took their measure as they squirmed under his scrutiny, all of them trying to conceal their opinions of the cards in their own hands. “The hour is growing late, and the time has come to put the children to bed. I’m all in,” Halladay said, then pushed his stack of chips into the center of the table.

Each of the other players considered their cards more carefully. One by one, they folded. The turn passed to a young Henry McCarty, seated across the table from Halladay. McCarty tucked his thin lower lip beneath a massive row of buckteeth and smiled, looking like a gopher. He spit a mouthful of black sweetweed juice on the floor and shoved in the rest of his chips. “I’ll call you, blood spitter.”

Doctor Halladay laid his cards down with the flourish of a magician revealing his greatest trick. McCarty let out a whoop of delight when he turned over a better hand that erased Halladay’s magic. “Damn,” Halladay said, then coughed.

“Not so much to say now, do you?” McCarty embraced the pile of coins, bills, and chips and dragged them into his lap.

Halladay congratulated McCarty and excused himself from the table. He decided he disliked McCarty, but the level of dislike had not reached the point of wanting to lay in wait for the man in an alley and murder him. However, the night was young. Halladay decided to leave that option open depending on McCarty’s behavior.

There was a man at the bar with his head down under the brim of his hat, reading a folded newspaper. Halladay leaned next to him and tapped the bar, trying to raise the barmaid’s attention. He looked over and tried to see what the man was reading and said, “My, my, a literate fellow in this den of iniquity.” There was no response, not even a nod of the head. Halladay decided he needed to meet this man. “That must be a story of deep personal interest to keep your attention from the delights of these buxom barmaids. Unless, of course, you prefer the more masculine type.”

“What the hell did you say, friend?” The man looked up from his paper at Halladay and his eyes widened. “Doc?”

Halladay grinned, his eyes turning into serpentine slits. “Jem Clayton. How is your father these days?”

Jem’s hand dropped to cover the article he’d been reading and he pulled the paper closer. “Hello, Doc. He’s dead.”

“Of course, of course. Forgive me for being so rude,” Halladay said. “Let us have a drink in his honor. Barmaid? Your finest whiskey.”

“That’s really not necessary. I wasn’t staying.”

The barmaid set down two glasses in front of them and Halladay grabbed one. Jem’s hand remained covering the article.

“To Sam Clayton. My dearest friend,” Halladay said, lifting his glass.

Jem sighed and took the shot glass. He lifted it to his lips and drank, not noticing that Halladay glanced down to read the newspaper article that quoted the passenger of a wagon named Mrs. Wilma Alcott. “Gentleman Jim was handsome, I can tell you that much. His eyes were blue as the oceans of the Luatica system, and even though he was obviously a dangerous man on serious business, he was kind and charming. He really is a gentleman, you know.”

Halladay studied Jem carefully before saying, “You know, I haven’t set eyes on you since you were a little boy, but it is simply remarkable how much you look like him. You have the same blue eyes. Nearly as blue as the oceans of the Luatica system.”

Jem folded up the newspaper and stuffed it into his pocket. “Shouldn’t you be dead by now? You were too sick to practice medicine over twenty years ago yet here you are.”

Halladay drew his fingers along his mustache and down the length of his goatee. “It must be my dogged commitment to living a healthy lifestyle. So tell me, young Clayton, what brings you all the way out to the Filthy 5?”

Jem swirled his glass and watched his beer move in circles. “It isn’t Seneca 6. My father died, Doc. I left. That’s the end.”

“And what of little Claire?” Halladay said. Jem did not answer. Instead, he downed his beer and looked into the empty glass. Halladay shook his head and laughed, “I see. Thus, it all begins to clarify.”

“What does?”

Doctor Halladay ordered two drinks, smiling lasciviously at the barmaid that brought them. He set one of the whiskeys in front of Jem and lifted his own glass. “To chivalry.”

Henry McCarty stood up from the poker table as Halladay set down his drink. McCarty leered at Halladay with bucktoothed contempt and pocketed his winnings.

“All finished for the evening, Henry?” Halladay said. “I was just about to sit back down and destroy your dignity.”

McCarty went to push his chair back in but missed and nearly fell into the lap for another player. “Get your hands off me,” McCarty said as he staggered to his feet. Halladay did not move as he watched the young man approach. “You got somethin’ to say? I’m taking your money, and his money, and this piece of trash’s money if I want to, too.”