West Wheel: The Twin Machines Chapter 7: Lynched By: Joel 'Cop' Furches   Angel of the trail, I saw the angel of the trail My horse went lame, my knees went weak, my sight began to fail Angel of the trail, the blinding Angel of the trail She told me of the men I’d hung, the ones I put in jail Angel in my path, there was an Angel in my path She told me that I’d wronged them men, the ones who’d felt my wrath Angel in my path, the stunning Angel in my path Though I was numb and passing blind, I thought that I might laugh

            Cliff woke to sunlight streaming through the bare threads of the faded, checkered pattern on the ragged curtains and the sounds of gunfire.  Dust swan through the sunbeam, thick as mud, and the light made an almost cheerfully golden glow along the pine slats that formed the walls of this one-room house.

            Cliff grabbed his head and cursed loudly, till a rising tide of phlegm and bile gargled out the words, and he spit up on the floor.  His head throbbed, the light made his temples feel like they were on fire, and now his throat was raw and bitter with the sting of vomit. 

            “Water,” he croaked.  The woman in bed beside him began to move, trying to climb out of the cot without crawling overtop of him.

            “WATER!” he roared, grabbing her slender arm and flinging her over him.  She thudded against something and gave a little whimper that settled into a steady sob.  Cliff moaned and rolled over to the warm spot she had left on the bed, burying his head under the pillow.  The sound of the gunshots was fading, and he began to drift again.

            The next thing he was aware of was the hand on the pillow that covered his head.  He sprang up and grabbed the hand.  Helen gave a little shriek and dropped the tin cup she was holding.  It clattered on the ground as the water splashed across his legs.

            “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he grinned beneath bloodshot eyes.  “Do me in just like I did your old man.”

            “Cliff!  No!  I was just bringing you the water…”

Cliff raised his hand to strike her when the sound of a fist pounding the door rattled the windows.  He grabbed his head and shouted a wordless curse.  This did nothing to soothe his aching brain.

            He forgot about the woman, and stumbled toward the door, shoving it outward with his shoulder.  Chuck stood there, wide-eyed and pale, his hand raised for another vicious volley of banging on the cabin’s door.

            “WHAT??” Cliff shouted in his face.  Chuck flinched back, as much from the stink of stale liquor on Cliff’s breath as from his wrath.

            “Cliff, you got to come with me!  Something has happened.”

Something in the shaky voice and pale features of this normally unflappable man sobered Cliff a bit.  The sun was so bright this morning, and his head and guts had not settled down.  He wasn’t thinking clearly, and these men needed him to if he was going to stay on top.  He leaned on the doorway for a minute, steadying his breathing.  Finally he called over his shoulder in a half-mutter, “Helen.  Make some breakfast.  I need to eat when I get back.  And clean up a little around here,” turning, he said to Chuck, “Come on.  Where we going?”

            “The gallows,” Chuck swallowed, casting a look over Cliff’s shoulder to where Helen was limping to the wadded-up bedsheets while tears dripped from her puffy eyes.  She wiped away the snot that was running from her nose with a bruised right arm she seemed to be favoring.

            “Uh, Cliff, maybe you better lay off of Helen.  She lost her husband and her kid ran off recently…” Cliff interrupted with a half-amused snort.  Chuck pressed on, “Look, what I am saying is that that woman ain’t got much left in her to give, and you are pushing her pretty hard.”

            Cliff knew Chuck was right, but he still wanted to give the man a savage kick in the gut.  He had always wanted Helen, but she had perpetually avoided him and balked at his advances when he was a teenager.  Then she got married to that miller who had to be twenty years older than her, and had that kid.  Cliff knew that nothing he could ever do would make her want him.  It felt good to take her with force, make her surrender what she would not freely give him.  But the good feeling he got from that left him empty and angrier each time.  He didn’t want to think about it right now.

            Chuck was staring at him again.

            “Geez, Cliff, you look about as healthy as a horse-turd right about now.”

            “What did you drag me out of my house for, Chuck?  Lets just get this…over…” he trailed off as his gaze followed the direction Chuck’s grubby finger was pointing.  A body was dangling from the gallows.  At first he thought he had slept through a hanging last night, but as his eyes focused against the light, he realized with a shock that he recognized this man, had been playing poker and boozing with him just last night.  It was old Roger.

            “Who did this??” Cliff growled. 

            “Nobody knows, Cliff.”

            “Well you MAKE them tell you!”

            “We done all that already!  I swear!  Nobody knows!”

Cliff spat more curses, and sank to his knees.  He couldn’t think.  What do you do when you don’t know what to do?  Go to the Judge?  He needed whiskey.

            “There… there was a note,” Chuck offered pensively holding out a yellowed piece of paper, “It was pinned to poor old Roger’s chest.”

            Cliff grabbed the piece of paper from Chuck’s hand and held it out, trying to focus on the words against the light.

It said:

The man named Cliff and the one that calls himself a Judge need to leave town and never come back.

Any other day, Cliff would have laughed at this, but the dead body swaying from the gallows, the haunted face of old Roger staring from the bulging eyes gave it a tone that was horrible, not humorous.  For a single instant, Cliff’s thought was “Where can I go to?”

Then he DID laugh.  Of course, the solution was ridiculously simple.  He would go to the Judge with this note.  The Judge could not be intimidated, and whoever this was had made a threat not just against Cliff and his men, but also against the very agent of the Baron.  The Judge had his methods.  This murderer would be brought to justice.  Cliff laughed again.  This would work out fine.  Better than fine!  This upstart would be made an example of, and no fool would ever dare challenge Cliff, much less a Judge, again.  Cliff’s power over Plinkton would be cemented, and the still angry citizens would be broken once and for all.  They would see that there really, truly is no hope. 

            But first, breakfast. 

            Cliff had hardly entered the house before he started coughing.  Something thick and acrid had ridden up his nose and given him a lung full of pain.  A veil of smoke hung about the house, and for a moment Cliff had a feeling of vertigo as if he was standing above the clouds.  Griddlecakes were burning on the skillet.

            “Helen!” Cliff bellowed.  There was no answer.  He blundered through the curtain into the other room, calling her name again.  She wasn’t there.

            “Where in blazes did that girl go?” he shouted in vile frustration, then grabbed at the smoking skillet.  The burning feeling bit into his hand.  He screamed a curse and flung the pan away. 

            Grasping his quickly reddening and blistering hand, Cliff stumbled toward the back door and the water pump out back.  The cool water rushing over his hand only brought momentary relief as it splashed across his palm.  The moment the water stopped his palm stung again.  And now his nose was also stinging once again from the acrid smell of smoke, stronger now than it had been in the house.  He turned to see it pouring out the door.  Distantly someone shouted “Fire!”

            Up on the mountain he could hear the sound of the lumberjacks felling trees.  He imagined the distant shout of “Timber!” as he heard the tree falling, crackling as it’s base splintered and it shattered the forest with its fall.  The crackling continued from inside the house.  Someone shoved him aside as a bucket-line began to form at the pump.

            Cliff laughed savagely.  Let it burn, he thought.  Let it catch the whole town on fire, what do I care? 

            The town was screams and confusion.  His town.  He began to walk grimly towards the saloon.  Someone jostled up against him.

            “Cliff!  Cliff!” they shouted.  He rounded on the person, savagely. 

“What!”  It was Jimmy Parsons.  A scrub who had been tagging at Cliff’s heels since Cliff got his first firing iron.

“We’ve got another man hanging!”

“What?”

“I’m scared, Cliff!  Someone’s lynching us in full daylight.  You gotta do something!”

            It was Chuck that was sporting the hemp necktie this time.  The note on his chest said much the same thing as the other note.  The implied “…or I keep hanging your men” lingered at the end of the note.

            “Cliff,” Jimmy stammered, looking tearfully away from Chuck’s swaying body, his horrified expression, “Cliff, do we deserve this?”

Cliff didn’t answer immediately.  They had killed Chuck.  His best friend since they were kids.  They had done so because of him.  And now Jimmy was saying it was his fault, too.  Cliff rounded on Jimmy, red-faced.

            “Course not!  If we needed hanging, the Judge would hang us!  Whoever is doing this is crazy, Jimmy.”

            “But Cliff!  Sometimes I think… well… the things we done…  And besides, the Judge ain’t exactly,” his voice got very quiet, “good.  Is he, Cliff?”

            “You ever notice, Jimmy, how them dogs of his never did come back?”

This seemed to sober Jimmy up.  They had lost Tom and Danny to the dogs.  Casualties of Cliff’s pride.

            “You know, Cliff, I never did.  You think it’s that man?  The one you dueled with, that’s hanging us?”

            “That’s fool’s talk, Jimmy!  I never heard of no man strong enough to kill a pack of Bloodhounds.”

            “But if he did, Cliff…”

            “If he did, the Judge will take care of him.”

            “Does the Judge have any power without his dogs?”

Cliff didn’t answer right away.  They both stood listening to the eerie creaking of the gallows and the distant sounds of the bucket line.  Absurdly, Cliff thought, “Where am I going to sleep tonight?”

            “Listen, Jimmy,” Cliff said suddenly, “I am going to go put a stop to this whole thing before it gets much worse.”

            “You gonna talk to the Judge, Cliff?”

This was the last thing Cliff wanted to do.  He would rather go straight to getting his neck stretched than bring this news to the Judge.  But as it looked like that was going to happen either way, he didn’t see much of a choice.  Soon his men were going to start turning on him in fear.  Better the devil you know…

            The hill was intimidating, but not as intimidating as what lay behind.  Cliff was sorry he had ever done this in the first place.  The first visit to the Judge had been a matter of revenge, of saving face.  He had been beat by some drifter who hadn’t even used his gun, at least not in the traditional way.  He had wanted to show the town he still had the stones to get this guy.

            Now they expected it of him.  They expected him to be the brave one, the one in charge.  For the umpteenth time today, he wished he had a drink.

            In the ancient and wild savages of the western lands, the Scraylings danced to music of drum and pipe that spoke of wind and time, of growth and death over a thousand, thousand ages.  It spoke of people long dead who had been young, and old, who had loved and been heartbroken and fell apart and died. 

            Sometimes, when the wind kicked up just right, those songs drifted on the wind, as if, after thousands of years hearing it, the wind had learned to hum the tune, passing it on to whoever was listening.

            Cliff was listening today.  He didn’t really want to listen.  He hated the Scraylings and the dust and the wind and the flute and drum for that matter.  He liked himself a good guitar and banjo and fiddle and a lively song about a saucy lady.  But traipsing as he was to the cavern of a seven foot robe that spoke judgments in hollow towns, stretched necks with a seemingly savage satisfaction, and flung enormous hounds out to carry out some brand of justice on those that would dare flee judgment had gotten Cliff thinking about how short life was.

            The lives of poor Roger and Chuck had ended today at the end of a rope.  Sure, they had both killed their fair share of unarmed men.  If Cliff was a bigger man, he would have felt responsible for their deaths, seeing as how they had followed his lead into the killing and subduing of this poor little lumber town.  But the only neck Cliff could think about now was his own. 

            Who could hang two armed men in full daylight without being seen?  His mind drifted back to the Tenten Twister Man.  And then forward to the drifter.  How long ago had he met the drifter now?  A few days?  A few weeks?  Who could remember?  Life had gotten so busy once all the fight had left the townspeople and he had become so chummy with the Judge.

            He snorted.  Yeah.  Sure.  They were two peas in a pod alright.  He wondered miserably who would hang him first.

            Cliff pounded unenthusiastically on the gate to the Courthouse. 

            “Judge!”

He knew not to expect an immediate response, but he was antsy as all get out, anyway, and the town behind him was in a downright commotion about the fires.  He noticed that nobody seemed nearly as excited about the hangings.  Of course they weren’t.  A fire threatened all of them, but whoever was hanging folk only seemed concerned with Cliff and his buddies.  Nobody would lift a finger to protect him from this unknown menace.  Where WAS that Judge?

Hesitantly, Cliff pounded again, but by now the message from the stone Courthouse was clear.  They were alone.

Thomas Yancy was busy sloshing a bucket of water out of the pump when a heavy hand landed on his shoulder.  He didn’t look back.  Not immediately.  Pass the bucket first.  When it had passed beyond his hand, he turned and looked behind him.  Cliff’s mean face hung, skin to skull like God had just slapped it there and moved on.

            “What do you want, Cliff.  Can’t you see I’m busy putting out your fires?”

Cliff didn’t seem to take the hint Thom was trying to lay thickly into his voice.

            “Thom, gather the boys, we’re going to the Saloon.”

Thom stared at Cliff incredulously.  There were thick lines under Cliff’s eyes, but all the hangover in the world couldn’t excuse this kind of reckless self-concern.

            “You’re a piece of work, Cliff, you know that?  You set half the town on fire, a fire I’M helping put out, your welcome very much indeed, besides of which you get some maniac coming after us all with a noose, and now you want us all to go drinking?”

            Cliff glared back at Thom, his eyes burning coldly. 

            “You want to stay out here and die with the rest, Thom?  Fine, I won’t stop you.  But if any of us stand a chance of keeping our necks safe, we need to stick together.  So if you want to LIVE you’ll come to the Saloon with me and the boys.”  He spun on his heel and started to stalk away.  Then shouted over his shoulder, “Don’t take long to decide, Thom.  When we close those doors, we’re nailing them shut.”

            Zachariah was the bartender.  He was a tall, heavily bearded man with a constant scowl that looked at home on his face.  The impression he gave patrons, that he was the off-cast member of some rigid, isolationist religion, was entirely accurate.  He was the grandson of one of Plinkton’s founding fathers, a devout Umid, whose faith encouraged isolation from the secular world and prohibited most forms of avarice, including the consumption of fermented beverages.

            Zachariah was not entirely in violation of the precepts of his father’s faith.  It was often said and seldom believed that he did not, in fact, partake of his own wares.  He simply served it.  If this was indeed true (which everyone in the town dearly doubted) then it made him a very good businessman, save for the fact that he would never be able to personally guarantee the quality of his product.

            Zachariah was tough and unforgiving towards brawling or any sort of commotion that might find its way into his establishment.  On a daily basis he could be witnessed exiting the saloon with a man head locked beneath each arm and a vein bulging high on his head.

            When Cliff and six men burst into the saloon waving guns, Zachariah eyed them contemptuously.  Cliff couldn’t care less what the bartender would think of his taking over the saloon.  Even as large a man as Zachariah would tumble before lead.

            “We’re taking over this saloon.  Everybody get out.  And don’t give me no looks.  I’m having me a devilish day and I’m liable to plug one of you just to make me feel better.”

            Zachariah put down the bottle he had been handling and began to edge away from the bar.  Cliff stopped him with a humorless grin and a pointed six-shooter.

            “Not you, Zach.  My boys will want to steady their nerves before they board up the doors.”

            “Then they will serve themselves.  I will not be the one who serves you your funeral drinks and be hung for my efforts.”

Cliff pulled the trigger and dropped Zachariah with a bullet that caught him just above the right ear, splattering blood and bone.

            “Well that’s a plumb shame.  Grab your drinks boys, but don’t get drunk on me.  We still have to nail them doors and windows shut, and you don’t want to be passed out if the hangman comes for us.”  He went to get a drink for himself, then stopped as if struck by a thought.  “Oh, and somebody chuck this body out the door.  Somebody’s liable to trip on it going for a bottle.”

            Jimmy’s hand trembled slightly as he struck a sulfur match and lit the oil lantern.  He, Buck, and Jayson had done most of the work of turning the bar tables on their sides and nailing them over the doors and windows.  Now that the deed was done, it was dark in the Saloon, and ever moment he expected a rope to fall around his neck.  Right where it belonged.

            Cliff and two of his drinking buddies, Dicky and Sam had started right in on boozing, while Cliff had continued to bark orders at the others.  Morus had almost immediately disappeared up the back stairs to Zachariah’s room.  Jimmy felt a little better having him up there.  While Cliff talked up his gunfighting skill a great deal, Morus didn’t bother to talk about his own.  He just showed it.  While none of them said so out loud, they all were in silent agreement that Morus was the superior gunfighter of the group.  If he was keeping watch from the top room, they all stood a much better chance of surviving.

            “We are trying,” Cliff said, his voice stronger from liquid courage, “to bring our enemy to us.  If we are all in one spot, he HAS to come here to finish what he started.  So either we wait him out, or we ambush him when he comes.”

            Jimmy looked around.  Sam was already drunk.  Of course, Sam was ALWAYS drunk.  That’s why he couldn’t stay on the lumberjack crews.  Most of the men in town had stopped lumberjacking and taken to milling, anyway.  The Mountain Men had been showing up more and more frequently since the fall of Stella Terra, and been bringing in enough lumber to keep the mill running.  The crews that still cut lumber high on the mountain had no room for a drunk.

            Dicky was hitting the bottle pretty hard, too.  But to his credit, Dicky could hold his liquor better than most.  And, of course, Cliff couldn’t be bothered to do any actual work.  Thomas had never shown.  Jimmy wondered if he had made the right decision staying out there and helping the townspeople quench the fire.  Thomas had stayed clear of most of the rabblerousing Cliff and the boys tended to do, but he was still part of the gang.  Would their executioner let him go because of good behavior?

            “What now, boss?” Buck asked, wiping perspiration from his forehead with a handkerchief.  Cliff frowned.

            “I reckon we wait.”

            “How long?” Jayson asked.  Jayson was just a kid.  Usually an angry kid, but today the glint in his eye was fear, uncertainty.  To Jayson, Cliff had been on top of the world, but what happens when he falls from that spot?  Who do they look to then?

Cliff shrugged, “I guess we can last out a couple of days if we have to.”

            “We should stay awake in shifts,” Dicky grunted.  “If we all go to sleep or pass out at night, that’s just inviting th’ snake in WITH us.”

            “That’s a good thought, Dicky,” Cliff nodded.  “Okay, ya’ll listen up.  Somebody has got to stay awake tonight.  Jimmy, I think it should be you.  You’re pretty sharp.  Why don’t you go upstairs and grab some sleep until I come get you?”

            Jimmy grimaced.  “I ain’t sleepy, Cliff.”

            “I didn’t ask if you was sleepy, Jimmy.  You’re going to take watch tonight, like it or don’t.  So you do what you have to to stay awake tonight, understand?”

            Jimmy nodded unwillingly.  “Yeah, right.  I guess I’ll get up stairs.”

            Jimmy had never been up to Zachariah’s room before.  He had been picturing a dim, dreary room with a small wooden cot and scattered, empty bottles.  This was, of course, a ridiculous expectation.  Everyone knew Zachariah didn’t drink.

            Even so, he was surprised.  The room was large, and had windows facing every direction providing an excellent view of the town decending down the mountain in the front, and the fir trees ascending behind.  The whole room had a deceptively spacious feel to it.  It was cleansly and fairly sparce.  There was a small table with a tidy set of books and stationary aranged on top.  The bed was impressive, a monsterous iron frame held a king-sized down matress.  At the foot of the bed was a modest pine chest with a massive Bible sitting on the center of the lid.  The only other piece of furniture was the large, oak wardrobe in the far corner of the room.  Jimmy almost felt at ease in this friendly, uncluttered room until he saw the chilling view of the gallows off to one side, and the stone courtyard of the Judge’s courthouse on the other.  Suddenly he was acutely aware of how Zachariah’s dead body lay moldering at the back door of the Saloon, and for a moment, tears came to his eyes.  It felt as if he had woken up to discover himself in an inescapable nightmare, and was only just realizing the seriousness of the situation.

            “If you start blubbering, I’m like to string you up on the gallows myself,” an annoyed voice came from somewhere in the room.  Jimmy let out a little yelp of surprise, realizing that he was not alone.  He swung his head around frantically, but could see no one.

            “Where ya at?” he yelled.  He was answered by cold metal touching his throat as a gloved hand clamped over his mouth.  A harsh whisper tickled his right ear.

            “I don’t know why Cliff sent you up here, Jimmy, but I’m trying to catch me a mighty slippery hangman.  And I just decided here and now that you are going to be my bait.”

            Jimmy recognized the voice as Morus.  He’d entirely forgotten Morus had come up here to watch for their enemy.

            “Now you…” Morus continued, pausing only to release Jimmy and stalk around front of Jimmy, “Are going to lie right in that big fancy bed and take a nap, or pretend to.  And when that fellow comes to hang you, I’ll bag him.  I may even do it before he kills you.  Got it?”

            Jimmy nodded, trying to look brave.

            “Good.  Go.”  And without waiting, Morus strutted over to the wardrobe and disappeared behind it.

            Jimmy lay, half-sunken in the big, down matress watching the outside heat make watery light dance across the cracked, white-washed ceiling and trying hard not to think of the dead man whose bed he lay in.

            Of course, it was creepy enough to be lying in a dead-man’s bed WITHOUT a gunman hiding out behind the wardrobe.  Cliff’s gang, if so it could be called, were none of them angels, and that was for certain.  However, Jimmy supposed that Morus might just be the worst among them.  Jimmy supposed Morus might be able to take even Cliff down, but Jimmy couldn’t imagine Morus running the gang.  He tended to drink alone, rarely ever spoke, and killed with a grin so manic, Jimmy guessed that must be the only thing Morus could still enjoy in this life.  Taking another. 

            Thinking of this, Jimmy almost felt at ease.  No way a man as mean as Morus was going to let this unseen hangman take him to the gallows.

            “Who do you suppose is doing the hanging?” Jimmy called out without really thinking.  He immediately regretted it.  There wasn’t any sense in the notion of annoying Morus.  Surprisingly, Morus answered him in a low, even voice.  Almost as if he was simply talking to himself.

            “It’ll be that Gunslinger fellow from the valley.  Ain’t difficult to see that.  He rides into town and picks a fight with Cliff…”  Jimmy was kind enough not to remind Morus that it was Cliff that started that fight, “Then Cliff sends the hounds out after him.  Hounds don’t come back and the Judge doesn’t show hide nor hair for a week.  Cliff takes over the town and makes a widow out of Helan so that he can have his kicks.  Helan’s kid and that stable girl run off with the Gunslinger’s horse, and where do you suppose that horse heads?  And what do you suppose that kid asks the Gunslinger once they find him?

            “Now by my way of figuring, any man who can take on Cliff without throwing leather ain’t bad.  Any man who can walk through the Bloodhounds and leave them cold must be the damn devil hisself.  So that’s what has the Judge hiding in the darkest hole in his courthouse and us hiding in this Saloon.  Cliff ain’t always too bright, but he’s got it figured that we’re in trouble and he ain’t wrong.”

            The confidence Jimmy had been feeling in being near Morus drained away with Morus’ calm, cold voice.

            “Morus, you saw that man fight Cliff.  Could you beat him?”

Jimmy did not hear an answer.  He strained to hear SOMEthing, then relaxed when he heard Morus’ breath.  A breathing Morus was a Morus not burdened by a newly-tied noose.

            “What don’t figure proper with me,” Morus spoke almost inaudibly, “Is that this kid comes riding up from the Valley, what?  Ten years after the Dust Devil hit the place?”

Jimmy waited for Morus to go on, but he didn’t.

            “So what are you saying?” Jimmy prompted.

            “I think the Gunslingers of Stella-Terra are restless.  I think this man couldn’t rest easy in the dirt, and he’s come on behalf of those Pistoleers to have his revenge on all us turned on them when the Baron took up against Jack Rider.”

            “That’s crazy talk, Morus!” Jimmy swallowed.

            “Maybe…” Morus muttered, then said louder, “Well you explain it, then, Jimmy.  Tell me how this kid survived the Dust Devil and all them Riflemen then just sat down in that dead valley for ten years?”

            “Maybe… maybe he wasn’t from the valley.  Maybe he was a drifter that passed through the valley and picked up some old clothes from the Pistoleers.”

            “Could be…” Morus muttered.  He seemed to be thinking.  Then he said, “But he didn’t hold himself like just any drifter.  He moved like a Gunslinger of old time.”

            “You ever seen one of them old-time Gunslingers, Morus?”

            “I reckon I have.  You remember that Dust Devil feller came to town?”

            “’Course I do.  Ain’t nobody in town don’t remember that day.  You’re not tryin’ to say that HE was a Gunslinger, though, are you?  I hear he come up out of Tenten.”

            “Lot of folk, myself included, think he used to be a Gunslinger.  They say he had a disagreement with Jack Rider, said he should step down and let the Baron take over.  Jack had him run out of Stella Terra for even suggesting such a thing, so he trained them Riflemen and burnt out the whole valley for revenge.”

            “I don’t know if I believe that, Morus.”

            “Makes damn good sense to me, kid.  How else would he know just how to hit them Gunslingers so it hurt ‘em?”

Jimmy didn’t answer.  Instead he said, “So you think this Rider from up out of the Valley is as good as the Dust Devil?”

            “Dunno, kid, but that’s a shootout I would give m’nethers ta see.”

            “Yeah, but if you had to put money on ONE of em, who would you bet on?”

Morus seemed to consider this.

            “Reckon I would stick my marker on the Dust Devil.”

            “Why?”

            “Well, the way I see it, the Dust Devil has made a name for himself, and we ain’t never even heard of this kid from the valley.  How’s a man that good keep from getting himself a reputation?  You think about that.  Hell!” Morus started laughing, “Maybe I been overselling this rider after all!”

Morus quieted down and thumped from behind the wardrobe.  Jimmy could imagine him settling into a sharpshooter position awaiting their phantom rider.  Jimmy took this as a cue to rest his eyes.  To tell the truth, the conversation with Morus had stilled Jimmy’s nerves a great deal.  Morus was a disquieting individual, cruel to the bone, but there was that element of humanity to him that Jimmy occasionally caught sight of that made him realize that even Morus wanted to be in the company of others.  He just wasn’t very good at it.

            Jimmy tossed and turned and drifted in the warm sunlight of afternoon.  He realized he had a powerful desire for a smoke, and called out the Morus.  In a harsh whisper choked with cottonmouth.

            “Morus!  Hey!  You got a smoke?”

            No answer came.  Jimmy expected Morus was getting a mite upset with all the conversation when he had asked for silence.  Still, he’d have an easier time sleeping after a smoke.

            “Morus?”  No answer.  Dang, but he could just TASTE the smoke.  Morus would have one, too.  Morus never went nowhere without a few cigarettes he had rolled stuck under the brim of his hat.  Jimmy decided it was worth the risk to venture behind the wardrobe. 

            The bed rustled under him as he tussled to get out of it.  He generally slept on a thin, straw mattress, and wasn’t used to sinking deep into a feather bed like this.  Something worried the back of his mind about all the tumbling and thrashing he had to do to pull himself from the depths of the cushioning.  Finally, he made it to his feet then stumbled over to the wardrobe, shouldering behind it and pulling back the window curtains.  A breeze touched his face and he realized something wasn’t right.  Shattered glass crunched under his feet and outside a rope creaked.  It was Morus dangling from the gallows out there.  In the saloon, the anxious men heard a shriek from somewhere upstairs.

            “Well I reckon he ain’t going to be fit for a night watch,” Cliff said sourly surveying the wreck of a man Jimmy seemed to be.  The boy’s trembling hand clutched a shot glass of whiskey as he sobbed into it.

            “I was right there in—in the room when he was… was…  I didn’t even fall ASLEEP!  He was just dragged out of the room without me even knowing!”

            “Yeah, you say so, but I don’t see how he could have broken that window pane without you hearin’ it,” Cliff said skeptically.  Jimmy wasn’t listening.  He wasn’t listening to anyone right now.

            Dicky slammed a mug on the table and cursed loudly.  “I got to go to the outhouse, Cliff!”

            “The Outhouse?  You’re crazy, man!  You’re fixin to get yourself lynched!” Buck hollered.

            “T’ain’t a bad idea,” Cliff rubbed the straw-colored stubble on his chin.

            “Cliff?” Jayson looked at the leader in something like horror.

            “Well,” Cliff mused, “I would like to see if this fellow hanging us has writ anything different on his latest love letter.  And we need a group of men to safeguard our man here.  Get him to the pot and back all safe and sound-like.”

            A couple of the boys laughed at Cliff’s flip attitude, but it seemed to Jayson that THEY were the ones huddled inside the bar, fearing for their lives while the town burned around them.  He began secretly praying for rain.

            “Listen, Sam,” Dicky grunted, “You stop shakin’ like a damn yellow dog, or I swear to God I’ll string you up my own self!”

            “It… it ain’t fear, Dicky, I… I just got a little too much whiskey in me s’all.  Havin’ a hard time keepin’ steady.”

            “I’ll bet you do at that.  Either way y’ain’t provin much use to me, now are ya?”

Sam didn’t respond.  He had never held his head too high since he was kicked off the lumber crew for drinking.  To be counted a drunk by other lumberjacks was an accomplishment, though not exactly one to make a man proud.  Since he couldn’t hold a job, Sam had fallen in with Cliff’s bunch and was most often the brunt of their cruel humor.

            “I got an idea, Sam.  There ain’t but one door to the outhouse, and I figure Buck here can guard it fine as fiddles.  Why don’t you take the mean time to go unpin that note off poor, dead Morus.”

            “Dicky, I don’t want to!”

            “So you ARE scared.”

            “I ain’t!  It’s just that…”

            “I’m more than a little sick of your excuses, Sam.  Go get the note or just go on back to the Saloon without us.  See what the others have to say when you get there.”

            “No!” a look of horror started to spread over Sam’s red face as he realized the choice he was left with.  He hated most of all on this earth the bitter disrespect that was his daily meal.  Enough by Dicky’s reckoning, that he might actually chance possible death at the hands of some unknown killer to the certainty of the abuse that waited for him in the Saloon.

            “Go,” Dicky grunted.  He knew it would only take this prodding to get the man on his way.  Sam was a man to whom orders bore no possibilities.  Such men, Dicky had long ago learned, needed others to make decisions for them.  Sam would have made some girl a good husband.

            Sam turned with slumped shoulders in the direction of the gallows.

            The three bodies seemed to be swinging like opposed pendulums, creaking in the hot wind that blew northward from the fires.  They seemed to be blowing uphill, in the direction of the General Store, and to Sam’s mind, this was bad, although he could not remember why.  He seemed to be quivering.  He gingerly stepped up the first creaking step to the top of the gallows.  This monstrosity had not been here when he was growing up.  These days, the kids used it like a playground when it wasn’t hosting hanging corpses.  Sam and his drinking buddies had often commented how that just weren’t right and how they never did such things when THEY were kids.

            He was at the top now.  Morus’s body hung just inches from his trembling fingers.  He was nearly ready to snatch the note, and then the rope itself caught his eye.  Something wasn’t right about it.  Fear made his mind muddled as he imagined the noose tightening around his own neck.  He pulled the note free of the dead man’s chest and shuffled quickly away from the gallows, his heart pounding fast.

            Everybody was downstairs in the saloon.  Those too nervous to drink were watching the windows and fingering their firearms like favored pets.  The fire was the subject of most of the attention.  It was mostly burnt out at the house it had started upon, and the bucket line had moved on to the next building, another house, possibly with the hope they could control this one better than the last.

            The knock came at the door followed by a “Let us in!” shouted in a husky voice.  Jayson moved to the door and opened it.  The three men stumbled in, Buck leaning against the door and bolting it after they were through.  A burst of hot wind blew through the place.

            Cliff grunted.  “’Bout time.  Bring that note up here, boys, so we can take a look.”

            Sam walked up and shoved the crumpled note into Cliff’s fist.  “Read it good and loud, Cliff.  I’m going to help out with the fire.”  Without another word, Sam stomped out.

            A look of disbelief flitted across Cliff’s face for a brief moment before he resumed his look of confidence. 

            “He ain’t long for the gallows, is he?” Cliff smirked, then cleared his throat and began reading the note in his hand.

            “Anyone who wants to live needs to…” Cliff stopped his reading and looked with alarm toward the door that Sam had just stomped through.  Jimmy looked over his shoulder and read it in a voice just a feather above a whisper.  The room was so stark silent that everyone heard.

            “Anyone who wants to live needs to leave Cliff and go help with the fire.”

Now Cliffs head came up, his eyes glazed as he looked to each man in the room.  There was Buck, who should have been named “Bison.”  Big as a cow and just as stupid.  He seemed to be mulling over this all over with an exaggerated expression of thoughtfulness.  Buck would only leave him if everyone else did.  He didn’t have the smarts or the guts to make his own decision.  

            Then there was Jimmy.    Jimmy was still just a kid, really.  He had started hanging out with the gang about a year ago, and Cliff humored him.  It made sense the kids would want to go where the power was, but Cliff never really thought Jimmy had the stones to cut it.  Right now Jimmy looked scared.  But then, Jimmy had looked scared since they took over the saloon.

            At the table in the back sat Dicky Sorso, a man who Cliff thought to be overly cruel at times.  He was a mean drunk, and he was usually drunk.  Cliff noticed that he hadn’t seemed to even hear what the note contained.  He simply sat there, swigging his beer and pawing his hand through his thinning, greasy, thick, black hair. 

            Finally, there was Jayson.  Jayson was little more than a kid, but there was already a cruel glint in his eye, and Cliff had seen the boy kill a man or two.  Jayson had a kind of cold-heartedness that was natural, inborn.  He had something it had taken Cliff his life to perfect.  He was a natural.

            The others had joined Cliff ‘cause he had the power in town, and when Cliff also had the Judge in his pocket, there was nothing he couldn’t do.  Now some… dude with a rope was threatening to take it all away from him.

            But Jayson wouldn’t leave him.  He had to say something to the group, though.  He cleared his throat.

            “Boys…” that’s as far as he got before the explosion washed over him sweeping him and the men across the room in a wash of heat and noise.

            Thomas Yancy passed another bucket and strained his eyes against the sting of smoke washing over him with a breeze.  At least the wind had shifted, but it looked like it was already too late.  The fire was out on this building, but the two buildings further up the street were now aflame.  Something important was up that way, what was it?  It tickled at the back of his mind, but he could not remember what it was. 

            The thought jerked out of his mind as he found himself slipping in the greasy mud that had formed from so much slopping water as the buckets had been shoved hastily from person to person.  A strong hand caught him and set him back on his feet.  Thomas looked up.  It was Sam’s smiling face that he saw holding him.  Sam gently pulled the bucket from his hand and heaved it on the fire.

            “Sam!” Thomas gasped in surprise, “What are you doing here?”

            “Ah, Tom, I just couldn’t take no more of Cliff.  He’s dead fixed on getting hisself and the boys killed, along with this whole dang town.  Besides, that feller what’s doin’ all the hangin’ left a note saying that if we helped out with the fire, he’ll leave us alone.”

            “Really?  And Cliff just let you leave like that?”

Sam puffed up his large chest with a smile and said, “I didn’t give him no choice!  I told him how it was going to be?”

            Thomas had his doubts, but smiled just the same.  “Good for you, Sam.  I…”

A shouting broke out up the street, interrupting Thomas’ next thought.  Looking up through the sweat and grit that clouded his vision, Thomas could not see what the yelling was about.

            “The Trading Post just took fire!” Sam shouted in Thomas’ ear.  Trading post.  All the goods for the town.  It would certainly be inconvenient if that place burned, but…

The powder!  The trading post had a full stock of black powder in hogshead barrels!

            Thomas looked at the people running about trying to form a line up to the Trading Post with a growing horror.

            “Get those people back!” Thomas shouted, “Leave the Trading Post alone!”  No one was listening, and Thomas started panicking, desperate.

            He ran up and grabbed a teenage boy hurrying a bucket of water in that direction.  He grabbed him roughly by the shoulder and shoved him to the ground.

            “Don’t you go up to that Trading Post!  You all need to get away!”

The boy looked up at Thomas with a twisted look.  It was hatred.

            “You Cliff boys can’t tell us what to do no more!”

Thomas was stunned.  He was trying to save these people’s lives, and they only recognized him as a member of Cliff’s gang. 

            “You don’t understand,” Thomas pleaded to the kid, stupidly, “I’m trying to…”

That’s when the air became a wall and noise ripped the world apart.

            Cliff struggled to find his feet in the swimming pain that pounded through his head.  He still had no idea what in hot blazes was going on.  The crazed thought that bubbled up to the surface of his mind was that their stalker was now trying to dynamite them out of the joint. 

            Whatever it was, it had worked.  His men were gone, scattered.  Except for Jayson over there, who looked like he had caught a sliver of glass to the chest.  He was still twitching, but Cliff guessed that he wouldn’t be for much longer.

            All the windows were blown out and there was a gap in the wall where the side-door used to be.  The explosion had been a big one.

            Cliff didn’t bother checking for any other bodies.  His was the only one he was concerned with now.  He stumbled through the gap in the wall.  There was heat and fire and groaning everywhere, and for a sickening moment he thought he might actually be in Hell. 

            He rounded the corner of the Saloon and movement caught his eye.  His vision wove up the broken street, strewn with debris and pock-marked.  He paused briefly to contemplate the crater where the trading post used to be.  Of course!  The gunpowder!  The wind must have been blowing up the mountain today.  It was his fault!  It was ALL his fault.

            And, of course, standing at the top of the town, the thing he had been working his way toward this whole time, stood the black, black form of the Judge.  The broad iron gate of the Courthouse was wide open and the enormous robe fluttered in the wind, almost hovering, but not bobbing up and down as spirits might.  Standing stock still.  And pointing directly at him.

            “CLIFFORD BARNIGAN!” the Judge’s voice did not so much talk as it resonated, vibrated, through the earth, through Cliff’s bones.  “YOU ARE CHARGED WITH ARSON, SEDITION, AND MURDER.  HOW DO YOU PLEAD?”

            This was like some kind of crazy dream, Cliff thought.  The Judge was on HIS side!  Everyone knew it.  But when the Judge called you out, you could not run.  When the Judge called your name, you could only answer.

            “Judge!  It wasn’t me!  It was that hangman’s been sneaking around town.  You see what he did to the gallows?  YOUR gallows!”  Cliff started walking toward the Judge as he babbled, like a man inexorably drawn toward the edge of a precipice.  “But we won’t let him get away with it, you and I!  We’ll get him.  Together!”  Cliff was now only steps away from the Judge.  A chill floated off the Judge as if he were made of ice.

“You should have seed the notes he’s been writing.  Terrible things!  He called you out, you know?  He called us out together.  He called us out to…” 

            Cliff’s voice cut out as the cold vice of the Judge’s grip wrapped around his throat.  It yanked him from his feet where he dangled like a wet sack of potatoes unable to breath, his feet kicking spastically. 

            “YOU ARE GUILTY,” the Judge proclaimed, sweeping down toward the gallows as he spoke, “THE SENTENCE IS HANGING, AND WILL BE CARRIED OUT IMMEDIATELY.”

            Cliff’s vision was turning grey at the edges.  He knew what would happen next, had seen it a dozen times himself.  The Judge would swoop up the steps of those hideous gallows, set him down, wrap a hemp necktie ‘round his tender throat, and yank the lever.  Cliff could see himself dropping, his neck snapping like a twig.  It was over.

            Cliff saw a noose.  It fell from the sky and slipped perfectly around the hood of the Judge’s cloak, like a gold ring on a wedding bride. 

            “Yah!” cried a voice from somewhere behind.  Cliff fell from the grip of the Judge as the black creature shot up from the ground.  From his new spot on the sod, Cliff could see the upside-down form of a dark rider urging his enormous horse to pull with all its regal strength.  Above him the form lashed out and squirmed inside the flapping black cloak as it swayed crazily from the lip of the gallows.  The sight seemed unnatural, and Cliff could not look away.  At last the great robe stopped flapping and convulsing, and the creature swayed and twisted in the light mountain breeze.

            The eased off his horse, turning it where it strove and trotting back toward the gallows.  Cliff had to roll to get out of the way of the descending body of the Judge.

            The rider dismounted and strolled over toward Cliff in the stiff manner of a saddle-tramp too many nights on the trail.  Cliff felt the gloved hand close on a bunch of his shirt and haul him unsteadily to his feet.

            For a moment the two looked into one another’s face.  Cliff could not imagine the stupefied look that languished on his own face, but what he saw in the other man’s face was a tired frustration.  For the briefest of instants, Cliff almost felt sorry for this man, although he could not say why.  It was the face of the stranger Cliff had run out of the town, Bloodhounds on his heels. 

            “Gallows are too good for you,” the man said, without the sound of malice or conviction in his voice.  It was simply a stated fact.  The man released Cliff’s shirt, turned back to his horse, and mounting, he rode away toward the trail.

            Dazed, Cliff briefly considered his good luck.  He turned to walk away from it all, the gallows, his dead, gaping friends, the enormous mass of the hung Judge.  He turned, and then came up short.  Facing him was what looked like half the town.  Thomas Yancy stepped forward, looking bruised and sooty. 

            “You ain’t got a place around folks, Cliff,” then to the crowd, “Get him.”

And the crowd closed ‘round.

            The supplies were tightly packed on the wagon, but Charles Tavery checked the ropes again, as he strolled around the wagon.  Lilly and Peter were on the seat of the buckboard and Helen sat in the back, sipping from a canteen.  The muscular, black horse of Eric Rider pranced and pawed the ground next to the buckboard.  Finally, Tavery climbed up behind Peter and turned to Rider.

            “That was a nasty thing you did back in town, boy.  Even by Gunslinger standards.”

            “What was I supposed to do?” Eric answered angrily, “Talk him into a kinder disposition?”

            “No,” Charles sighed, “I guess there weren’t no other way to stop Cliff and th’ rest.”

            “Leave him alone,” Peter said bitterly.

            “Peter!” Helen seemed to shake out of her stupor, surprised at her boy’s venom.

            “Charles,” Lilly spoke regretfully, “We asked Eric to take care of Cliff and his men.  And you know what?  I am glad he did what he did!  For the first time since I was twelve, Plinkton is free!  Those men did whatever they wanted, took whatever they wanted, and more’n one of them has killed!  Any straight judge’d hang them right up for what they done.  Eric gave them no more than what they deserved.”

Charles still stared at Rider.  Eric could not meet the old man’s gaze.

            “The Gunslingers are dead, Eric.  I had hoped they would stay that way.”

            “How could you say that,” Eric whispered, hurtfully.

            “Because, Rider, as long as this country is ruled by a bunch of warriors, we’re gonna see nothing but death.  While your Daddy held the country we had a war with the Scraylings, then we had a war over whether colored men should have rights.  Then we had a war with the Baron.  You think the Baron is bad, but your Father didn’t know how NOT to fight.  And now you’re the same way.”

            “Someone has to fight for those who won’t!” Lilly shot in.  Tavery sighed.  “I’m finished my piece.  Maybe I shouldn’t have said some of them things, Eric.  I’m sorry.  I’m just so damn sick of fighting and death.”

            Eric nodded, then gestured toward the women and the boy.  “Take care of them.”

            “Ayup,” Tavery nodded, “We’ll meet you in Cottonseed, right?”

Eric seemed to stare into the distance. 

            “Right?” Tavery prompted again.

            “We’ll see,” Eric said quietly.  “I have something I need to do.  Don’t know how long it will take me.”

            “Eric,” the old timer looked sadly at the younger man, “Your father would be proud of you.  You don’t got to prove nothing anymore.  Just give up whatever it is you’re doing and come with us.”

            Eric did not reply.  With a sigh, Charles Tavery snapped the reigns and the horses pulled the buckboard over the ridge and down the road. 

            Long after they left, Eric still sat, staring into the distance, toward the Hub of the West Wheel.  Towards Poi Drodidi.