James Axler - Hanging Judge

“How would I know?” Ryan said from the lead. “Not like we got any reliable maps of this country.”

“Rumor in the last ville we stopped at before Jak’s adventure says the thicket’s expanding,” Krysty said. “Or trying to. The cook I talked to at the eatery said it keeps running up against the drought and acid-rain-prone belts of the Deathlands. So far, they’re winning. But it’s double big.”

“If we could take the roads we could be clear in a day,” Mildred grumbled. “Two, max.”

“We’d be hanging by the necks in front of Judge Santee’s courthouse before sunset the first day,” J.B. said.

“Aside from that.”

She glanced up again. The thorn vines showed no signs of thinning, either up the walls of the ravine or ahead, as far as the eye could see.

The route they were taking was fast only in comparison to creeping along snaky game trails through the Wild or trying to hack their way through by main force. It wasn’t a practical thing to do for very long, in any event. The ground underfoot was muddy and mucky, and it clutched at Mildred’s boots despite the grass roots holding it more or less together.

“Shit,” she murmured, mostly to herself.

“I know,” Krysty agreed sympathetically.

“I know it’s stupid,” Mildred said, still keeping her voice way down, “but still I can’t help wondering if we’d be having quite this much trouble if, well, you know....”

“How can you say that?” Krysty asked. “You know Ryan does all he can—all anyone can, and then some—to keep us alive!”

“Yeah, I know, Krysty. Sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

But I do, she thought, more miserable even than before. I was looking for someone or something to blame for us being in shit this deep. But it’s nobody’s fault. Except the asshole politicians and whitecoats who blew up the world and made this mess.

She heard Krysty sigh gustily.

“I’m sorry, Mildred. I shouldn’t have bitten your head off like that. The fact is, deep down—I wonder too, sometimes. And that’s why I reacted the way I did. Overreacted.”

“We all have our skills, but Ryan can do anything,” Mildred said. “At least, it feels like he can. Anything we’ve ever needed him to do to pull us through, he’s done.”

She shook her head, setting her beaded plaits to swinging.

“But, well—”

“He can’t do everything at once,” Krysty admitted. “And even he’d admit, Jak’s a better scout than he is. Just as J.B.’s handier with blaster-smithing. Though I wouldn’t try to pin down Ryan on the whole Jak thing just this particular instant—”

“Look out!” Ricky screeched from the rear of the procession. Belatedly he added the useful part. “Ryan, down!”

Chapter Eight

“And the only possible sentence is death!” Marley Toogood finished, making his voice ring.

Though the day was dreary, with more low, gray clouds spewing a miserable drizzle, his heart soared. Something about being able to proclaim those words, loud and proud, to the assembled citizens of Second Chance and Judge Santee’s nascent empire, and hear the moans of despair and the increasingly desperate pleas for mercy from the four condemned men and women standing with nooses around their necks, just made a man’s heart naturally soar.

He heard the creak and grind as the hangman threw the lever. Four traps snapped open under four sets of feet.

“Oh, please, no, not my baby, too—”

The sound of necks snapping was like the ripple of blasterfire from a firing squad, which was also a satisfactory way to send off evildoers, Toogood thought. But it cost more money, even for black-powder blasters. And also the Judge was a traditional sort of man, with a strong fondness for the gallows as a symbolic statement of community principles.

And, of course, a way of making sure that anybody who disagreed with him too strongly on pretty much any subject at all sooner or later found himself swinging from one.

The crowd issued a joint sigh of sorts. Toogood looked around sharply. The sec men on duty monitoring the area didn’t seem to notice any particular offenders.

The louts get slack when Cutter Dan is out of the ville, he thought. Ah, well. We can hardly recruit men of higher caliber to do what is, after all, a menial chore.

Santee pushed himself out of his chair, stood to his full skeletal height and shambled inside. He moved with a purpose. Knowing a little about the state of his internal affairs from the Judge’s house servants, whom Toogood was careful to bribe just the right amount, the mayor suspected Santee’s bowels had been struck with the sudden urge to make one of their infrequent and irregular movements. It wouldn’t do for a man of Santee’s dignity to soil his trousers in front of the whole ville, after all.

“So, how long will it be before the chief marshal catches those coldheart scumbags and gets back to his real job, Marley?” asked one of his fellow town fathers. They had risen from their seats on the dais and stood beneath umbrellas.

“You’re asking the wrong man, Gein,” he said. He pulled out his handkerchief to wipe sweat and rain from his broad expanse of forehead—broad, signifying a powerful, thinking brain behind it, of course.

“You know everything that goes on in the courthouse,” the fussy and diminutive man said.

Toogood laughed. “You give me far too much credit, my friend.”

“I’m worried,” said the sturdy Myers, frowning beneath bushy red eyebrows at the crowd, sullen as the ville folk ambled away to get back to their daily duties under the watchful eyes of a dozen sec men. “We’re spread too thin. If only we had let the coldhearts and the filthy mutie they stole from justice get away scot free, instead of weakening our sec force! Just look at these shiftless scoundrels. They’re just waiting for the opportunity to pull us down like wolves and tear us apart.”

“Why else do you think I just sent off a foursome at once, gentlemen?” cawed a familiar voice from behind them.

They snapped their heads around to see Judge Santee sheltering inside the open door of the courthouse and silently laughing at them.

“What better way to remind them who’s in charge, eh?” the Judge said. “Make an impression! Justice is not to be denied!”

He smiled unpleasantly. It occurred to Toogood to wonder if he’d ever seen the man smile any other way.

“Perhaps you gentlemen would be wise to take such lessons to heart, before you walk quite so perilously close to sedition. Wouldn’t you agree?”

And cackling openly he turned and vanished into the darks depths of his lair.

Myers’s bearded jowls shook as he vented a shuddering breath. “Brrr. The man’s unnerving sometimes.”

“We, of course, appreciate fully how fortunate we are to find ourselves in Judge Santee’s strong and capable hands,” Toogood said loudly. “Of course, none of us harbor any thoughts but those of complete loyalty to our Judge and his vision!”

He winked one eye furiously at his fellow grandees.

“Of course!” Gein piped up. He nudged Myers in the well-padded ribs with his elbow.

“Oh, very well,” the stockier man said. Then more loudly, he added, “Of course I know that the Judge’s decisions are wise!”

“Better, gentlemen,” Toogood said, nodding and beaming vigorously.

“The real shame is that this snipe hunt is slowing up our schedule for restoring the rule of law to nearby villes,” Gein said, in far more subdued tones. “Once we start consolidating our grip—that is, consolidating the rule of law and of the United States—we’ll have no trouble bringing in enough recruits to keep the rabble in their proper places.”

“For now, we must agree to disagree, Donnell,” Myers said.