Darrel Sparkman - After the Fall

“Ben Hobbs.” He hesitated a moment as the name echoed in the room, then said conversationally. “Call him off.”

He was looking directly at the mercs. All the men were waiting for something to happen, holding weapons in their laps instead of holsters. It looked like a setup, and he suddenly realized the target was Charley, but he wasn’t sure why. It really didn’t matter. Charley was game enough, but he was not a fighter. And Charley Walsh was his friend.

Finally, Hobbs said. “Forget it.”

The man slowly straightened, the barrel of the MAC-10 jerking toward the ceiling. His tawny eyes found Trent in the gloomy room. “Some other time?”

“No.” He didn’t intend to be suckered into a needless fight.

“How about now, outside?”

He flashed the newcomer an icy look. “Mister, I don’t even know you. Why be in such a hurry to die?”

The man’s eyes were wild, and he had a sudden thought about drugs, which was one of two things you didn’t see much of anymore. The second thing you didn’t see was fat people.

“Well, I cain’t dance.” The man grinned at him—taunting him. “The stock market’s all busted. Mr. Green Jeans done stole all the gas for my four-wheeler, and I ain’t killed a man in a week. I guess I just need the entertainment.”

“Forget it.” He turned and resumed his position at the bar, never losing sight of the group in the mirror.

The man stood uncertainly for a moment before sitting down, banging his MAC-10 on the table. As the gun bounced and clattered, the men around the table flinched. Hobbs quickly reached out and flipped the safety on.

Hobbs and his men conversed in a low murmur, and then they all got up together and strode from the room. Collective sighs of relief went around from the rest of the patrons.

He walked over to the table of recruits. All of them were now stone cold sober.

“You wannabe soldiers listen to me.” His voice was level and cold. “Don’t you ever—” he paused to let his words sink in, “— ever go anywhere without your weapon. Your weapon is the first thing you pick up in the morning, and the last thing you lay down at night. You sleep with it like it’s the best lover you ever had.” He suddenly yelled at them. “Do you understand?”

The recruits flinched back in their chairs, and he turned back toward the bar amid a chorus of yessirs from the table.

“I thought we was going to have to shoot that boy.” Walsh’s voice was matter of fact.

“So did I. Charley, have you made anyone mad lately? This was a setup if ever I saw one. They wanted you.”

“Don’t know.” Charley scratched his head quizzically. “Been helping the colonel some. Lettin’ him know who was on the up and up around here, that sort of thing. Nothin’ serious.”

“Someone must have taken it seriously.”

Again, the door banged open, but this time it was the young private from the colonel’s office. Trent noticed he was armed, but with a flap buttoned down over his pistol. He strode purposefully into the room. Definitely a man on a mission.

“Colonel’s compliments, Mr. Trent. He’d like to see you in his office. Posthaste.”

Charley snorted into the beer he’d just poured for himself. “Ain’t he purty, John? Don’t you just feel safe all over with him running about?”

He tossed his drink off, gave Charley a grin and strode out the door with the private right on his heels—and walked right into trouble.

The merc from the bar was standing in the middle of the street, legs spread, hands brushing the butt of his pistol. Maybe he saw one of those old western vids, and loved the look of it. Maybe he was just crazy.

He sighed softly. This was nuts.

The hard voice of the man rang between the buildings. “I heard you was something with a gun, woods runner. I’d like to see just how good.”

Trent looked at him calmly. After the first rush of adrenaline, his nerves always steadied out. He’d been down this road before.

“You don’t want to do this, son.”

“Really?” He was shouting, grandstanding to his audience. “I can take you any day.”

“Then, do it.” He never saw any sense in talking when it was time to fight.

This boy had probably found a mirror somewhere. He cut quite a picture, all right, with his low-slung gun in a tactical web-holster. No doubt he dreamed of being famous, of being feared and respected by people on the frontier. Like a modern-day Billy the Kid or Jesse James.

But he’d never dreamed of the years of hard work—to say nothing of the fire —it takes to mold and temper a truly dangerous man.

And he’d never dreamed of dying. A man just can’t picture himself dead in a mirror.

As the merc’s hand stabbed for the auto-loader, Trent moved with laconic ease. At least he knew it would appear that way. Time walked with a measured cadence for the people who watched along the street. Even as his gun swept up, he checked to make sure bystanders were out of the line of fire. He then stepped to the right to clear himself from the young soldier who had unwittingly bumped into him from behind. Most of the people watching thought he had waited too long.

A single shot echoed up and down the street, and that .44 was loud. He heard one of the bar girls gasp, hand to her mouth as she looked at him, probably sure he was dead.

But there wasn’t any blood on him, and he was holding his pistol steady.

The merc slowly bent at the middle, a macabre bow to end a poor performance. He hadn’t got a shot off. The man raised his eyes to look at him, and then crumpled face down in the street.

Tail up and nose in the dirt, he was dead.

Trent shifted his gun to cover the group across the street. He and Hobbs locked eyes across the narrow street. Hobbs’s right hand was on his half-drawn gun, and his men were waiting, their eagerness to kill apparent in their faces. “Any reason I shouldn’t kill you too, Hobbs? You put that boy up to this.”

When Hobbs spoke, his voice was a painful rasp. “I’d just as soon not die today, Trent.”

“Then take your hand away from the gun.”

Hobbs hand moved as if jerked with a rope. His gun fell back into its holster. Trent’s single-action was still lined on his belly.

Trent chuckled. “Reckon you owe me one now, Hobbs.”

The merc stared angrily at him a moment, then turned and walked away. His men followed more slowly, casting murderous looks between their fallen comrade and Trent. He was surprised. They’d lost face twice in the last hour. Any self-respecting group of bad-boys couldn’t afford that. People might get the wrong idea and think they were soft.

Holstering his gun, he walked toward the colonel’s office. The private didn’t follow him so closely this time. As they passed the livery doorway, he called inside. “Pops, put that rifle away. I like to shot you when that barrel poked out the window.”

Pops’s shrill cackle echoed from deep within the barn. He wondered if the cap was back, or forward. Probably forward.

Maybe.

The old building shuddered from the storm within its walls. The office seemed to expand, forcing dust from the nooks and crannies of ill-fitting lumber by the sheer force of the noise. Army personnel standing guard at different points in the building avoided looking at each other and turtled their heads down a little tighter to their shoulders. Lieutenant Saints, who just sat down outside the door, got up and walked up the hall away from the noise.

Along the hall were wooden chairs, available for people waiting to see the colonel. The girl sitting in one of the chairs shook her head at the adjutant’s invitation to go with him. She sat smiling, hands folded across her stomach, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, listening to the tirade going on inside.