Bernard Schaffer - Guns of Seneca 6

On the night Jem Clayton came into the world, his mother grabbed Royce Halladay by the collar and said, “You better get this thing out of me.”

Doctor Halladay lowered his hands and made ready to catch. “All that is required is for you to push, my dear.”

One great heave and a few choice words brought Jem sliding into existence. The way his father told it, Jem didn’t even cry when Doc Halladay slapped him on the backside. He just looked at the doctor real mean and asked Sam if he could borrow a pistol.

Sheriff Sam Clayton told that story with a steady smile and voice, but always went quiet when it was finished. Claire, Jem’s little sister, always wanted him to go on, but no matter how much she begged, Sam wouldn’t budge. It was like he needed to go into himself a little and look at the moons above, or stare deep into the mountains of Coramide Canyon. It was like he could see things from the past that could not bear to be looked away from or they might go away and never come back.

Sam always said Jem had been born exactly one minute after midnight. On his twelfth birthday, Jem rolled over and picked up a brass watch from his nightstand. He held it up to the pale light and said, “There it is.”

Rumbling in the meadow made Jem forget the watch and sit up. Hooves trampled through their front yard and someone barked, “Go get him.”

A fist hammered their front door. The hallway light came on and Jem watched Sam storm past his bedroom door, saying, “There had better be one hell of a good goddamn reason for all this racket.”

“It’s a raid, sir. Savages.”

Jem leapt to his feet and ran to the living room, nearly colliding with Sam in the hallway. Sam pushed Jem out of the way and continued back to his room. “I’m coming with you,” Jem said.

“Like hell you are. Get back in bed. I don’t have time to tell you twice.” Sam spun the dials on his safe’s thick metal door and yanked it open. He grabbed his gun belt and strapped it around his waist then removed both six-shot Colt Defenders from the shelf and fixed them into the holsters on either hip. Sam scanned the rifles in his cabinet and selected a military-grade anti-personnel rifle. “I said to get back in bed.”

“I’ve got a rifle too! I want to help.”

Sam hurried into his boots. “Get back in your room, now!”

There was a distant burst of gunfire and Sam held up his hand for silence. Something screeched like a wounded animal. “Son of a bitch, Frank,” Sam shouted. “How’d they make it through the perimeter?”

“No idea, Sheriff. But it sounds like we need to move fast.”

Something tugged on the corner of Jem’s shirt that sent him leaping a foot into the air. Claire looked up at her brother and said, “What’s happening?”

“Nothing. Get back to bed.”

Senior Deputy Tom Masters had Sam’s destrier ready in the meadow. “It’s bad, Sam. They’re crawling all over.”

“How close?”

“All over.”

Sam turned to Frank Banner, the deputy standing at his door, and said, “Stay here and guard the house. Don’t let anything happen to these children, you hear me?”

Frank opened his mouth to speak, but stopped when he caught the look on Sam’s face. He watched the two older men gallop through the tall grass and disappear from view, then took his hat off and wiped his brow. Frank Banner was the youngest part-time deputy on Sam’s force, and he was normally assigned to patrol the perimeter and covering the desk overnight. The pay wasn’t enough to buy two beers with, but Frank wore his brass star on his lapel all over town like it was woman-bait. He looked at Jem and said, “Guess that makes two of us left out of the fight, Jem. Where’s that gun of yours?”

“In my room.”

“Ever shot anything with it before?”

“A few leapers. One at fifty yards.”

“Is it charged and loaded?”

“What the hell do you think?”

Frank cocked an eyebrow at the boy and smirked. “Well? Go get it. I reckon two guns are better than one.”

Jem darted into his room and fumbled with the lock on the chest at the foot of his bed. He was so excited he could barely open the lid to remove the weapon. He racked the rifle and tried to breathe.

Claire was clutching a stuffed animal to her chest, sitting in bed, when Jem stopped in her doorway, holding his rifle. “Listen, I’m going to be out here with Mr. Frank, and you need to stay quiet.” Claire ducked her head under the blankets and whimpered when he reached over to turn off the hallway light.

“Shut the rest out too,” Frank whispered. “Make it nice and dark in here.”

Jem went to the kitchen and snuffed out the small lantern. He ducked low and hurried back into the living room to squat beside Frank near the front door. Nothing moved in the darkness outside.

“Hand over that big, bad leaper-slayer,” Frank said. He took the rifle from Jem and held it up in the dim light, grunting in disbelief at the site assembly. “Christ almighty, boy. Who put a tagger on this thing?”

“I did.”

“Where’d you get one of these?”

“I used all the money I ever saved, plus a year doing chores for Old Man Willow and Doctor Halladay. My dad loaned me the rest and I’ve been working it off.”

Frank reached into his pocket for a small tool and began fiddling with the rifle’s settings. “I’m taking the safety binders off the sites, but just for tonight, all right? Listen to me, now. This weapon is hot. Don’t you touch the trigger unless you plan to shoot at something and don’t shoot at nothing unless you’re fixing to kill it. Understand?”

“I understand,” Jem said. He took the rifle back and glued his trigger finger against the side of the barrel. “Like that?”

“Exactly.” Frank clenched his mouth and shook his head. “Goddamn savages. It’s one thing to go after our storehouses, but this is over the line. Blood’s gonna spill before this is finished.”

“All the kids at school were talking about how the mining company took over more of their territory and they swore a blood oath against us. You got any cut, Frank?”

“Boy, your daddy would skin me alive if I gave you any. You don’t chew sweetweed, do you?”

Jem squinted just like Sam would and said, “All the damn time.”

Frank chuckled and looked back into the yard. “First off, nothing on this planet is their territory. It’s ours, and we allow them to squat on it. They should be grateful for the space we do give them so they can run around killing each other and worshipping the moons, or whatever the hell it is they do.”

Torchlight flickered in the distance, leaving long trails of smoke. One of the torches flew through the air, spinning end over end toward the roof of a home. Flames spread across the roof and screams filled the valley. The blaze revealed Sam charging toward the front of the house with his rifle raised. He fired several times into the darkness, and was gone.