Old Men!

The fort was silent. There were no sentries and no one to greet or intercept the wagon’s arrival. Jed was up front having instructed the others to lie low in the back. Horse pulled them right into the centre of the courtyard unimpeded.

Jed tried to stop her but Belle leapt from the wagon and strode purposefully across the yard to her grandfather’s workroom. A moment later, she returned, shoving the old man before her. She pushed him to his knees in the dirt. The others climbed out of the wagon.

“Gramps!” Lilimae gasped. Willoughby prevented her from embracing the old man.

“You’ve got a hell of a lot of explaining to do,” Belle snarled.

Old Gramps trembled and whimpered. He cast a glance to the sentry towers. Belle caught the look.

“There ain’t nobody here to help you. How could you, Gramps? How could you do this to decent folk? How could you use us in this way?”

The old man looked from one granddaughter to the other before fixing his gaze on the gunslinger.

“You knew what you were doing,” he said coldly.

“There’ll be time for recriminations and for reckoning,” Jed spat in the dirt. “Right now we need your, ah, expertise, to sort out the mess you helped create.”

“The Sheep!” Willoughby stepped forward in what he hoped was a menacing attitude.

“Bah!” said Gramps. “There ain’t no Sheep.”

It was as Jed feared. The rustled critters had been harvested for their dust-consuming properties.

“The soldiers, then?” Willoughby leaned in, curling his upper lip in what he imagined was an intimidating fashion.

“All fled,” the old man shrugged. He struggled to his feet. Lilimae rushed to help him.

“It’s true,” he continued. “Something just kind of switched off inside them. I cain’t account for it.”

They filled him in on the circumstances of Plisp’s demise. Old Gramps nodded.

“That would do it,” he concluded. “And so, I find myself out of work.”

Willoughby gasped with contempt but Jed held up his hand.

“There’s plenty of work to keep you occupied, you old devil,” the gunslinger said flatly. “Over in Tarnation. All of you.” He included the girls in his censure. Lilimae looked affronted; Belle had the decency to hang her head.

“You will assist my, ah, friend in cleaning up the town,” Jed announced. “It might go some way to atone for the damage you have done.”

***

The party rode in miserable silence to Tarnation, taking the path cleared by the soldiers who had attacked the town. The dark dust was all around but where the soldiers had been was perfectly clear.

“Jed! Jed!” Billy, the undertaker’s apprentice burst from the office and pelted up the street to greet his idol. Jed considered, not for the first time, that the boy’s temperament was far too exuberant to suit the trade he was learning.

Another friend, Deputy Dawson, was waiting in the centre of the street. He nodded to the faces peering from the wagon’s faded awning but he addressed his words to Jed.

“Jail’s empty,” he said. The two men exchanged handshakes and shoulder-pats.

Jed glanced around.

“See the difference?” Dawson grinned, amused by the gunslinger’s frown.

Two soldiers emerged from the general store. Jed’s pistols were drawn in a flash but the deputy put a steadying hand on the gunslinger’s arm.

“Old Doc Brandy has worked miracles on those ole boys,” Dawson chuckled.

They watched in astonishment as the soldiers approached a patch of dark dust that was climbing up a wall. They put their hands on it. The dark dust surged onto their gloves. The soldiers balled up the dust.

And ate it.

“Boys! Hey, boys!” Old Gramps called out to the soldiers. They ignored him.

“No point you trying to order them about,” Dawson informed him. “They’re not the men they used to be.”

“Doc Brandy’s handiwork,” Jed smiled.

“You bet,” said Dawson.

“Keep an eye on these folks for me, will you?” Jed didn’t wait for the deputy’s reply. He strode over to Doc Brandy’s office and went inside.

***

The doc was on his own examining table. Tubes akin to those that delivered fodder to Horse protruded from his clothes.

“Howdy, Doc,” Jed failed to keep the concern out of his voice.

“Jed! My boy!” The doc’s eyes opened. Tears coursed down his face. “It’s wonderful to see you, son. And so timely!”

Jed approached the table. He took Doc Brandy’s hand.

“What do you need?”

“Specialist help,” the doc looked ashamed to admit it. “There’s an old feller works up at the fort.”

“He’s here! He’s outside! You know him?”

Doc nodded. “He’s been keeping me going all these years. And his father before him. And so on, through the generations. The man I am now is of their making. Of course, the downside to teaching them the skills necessary for keeping me alive is that they have all been prone to misusing those powers for whatever evil idea takes their fancy.”

“And you need him to, ah, keep you going?” Jed’s eyes were wet although he would never own up to it.

“No,” Doc Brandy shook his head, dislodging further tears. “I’m just about finished on this world, son. I’ve spent up all my reserves adapting the soldiers. He must continue that work. Sheep: soldiers - there ain’t no difference. How’s my clean-up operation going?”

“It’s going great guns,” Jed smiled.

“There’s more to be done. Old Man Marshall can continue my work. He knows what to do.”

“It’ll be part of his rehabilitation,” Jed patted Doc’s hand. “His son’s dead, you know. The sheriff. Well, most likely.”

“I think you better pull up a stool and tell me all about it.”

Doc Brandy lay back and listened with his eyes closed as Jed related the story of his adventures at the fort and in Wheelhub.

“I wouldn’t fret about Wheelhub,” the doc concluded. “That stuff in the water supply’ll wear off without nobody there to replenish it. Folk’ll soon be back to normal - or what passes for normal in the city. They ain’t got the knowledge to get that old ship out of the ground again, not now their mastermind is gone.”

Jed nodded but stated he would ride on up there just to check.

“He had a point, you know,” Doc’s voice cracked and a coughing fit wracked his body. “Farkin Plisp. It was a terrible thing that happened to his people and to his whole world. Of course, the Pioneers didn’t intend it, but what I know about life on Earth tells me they would have got around to genocide sooner or later.”

“Don’t make it right, what he did - what he was planning.”

“Ah, Jed. My beautiful boy. Right and wrong and black and white. They never get mixed up in your head, do they? I like to think Farkin wasn’t all death and destruction. I like to think that part of him, beyond all the anger and the lust for vengeance, was just lonely. If he’d followed the other Pioneers to the stars, I reckon he would have made his peace with them and found himself a new home.”

Jed grunted. He wasn’t so sure.

“I knew him better than anyone,” he said.

Doc Brandy squeezed Jed’s fingers.

“You better get that old coot in here fast, son.”

Jed was about to protest but another bout of horrific coughing persuaded him to do as he was told. He marched directly to old Gramps and seized him by the shoulder of his coat, lifting him from the ground. The girls gasped but Jed ignored them.

“Somebody wants to see you,” he snarled as the old man wriggled in his grasp. “And you’ll do everything he says or - or Willoughby here will shoot you.”

No one was more astonished than Willoughby by this threat. He fought to control his grin and followed the gunslinger and the old man indoors.

Jed shoved the old man towards the table. Gramps harrumphed at this harsh treatment but his expression changed when he saw the ailing figure on the bed.

“Prosper!” he gasped.

“I wish I could,” said Doc Brandy.

***

The old men spoke for hours, interrupted only by coughing fits, each one longer and more alarming than the last. Jed and Willoughby stood back, unable to follow most of the technical aspects of the discussion.

“You should pay attention,” Jed nodded towards the two old men. “Town’s going to need someone to take over this office some day.”

Willoughby gaped.

“Yes, you!” Jed pre-empted the question. “I reckon Doc Swallow’d be a good name for a young man just setting up his practice.”

Willoughby closed his mouth. Blushing, he looked around the room with fresh eyes. All those charts and bottles and books...

“Do you really think so, Jed?”

Jed clapped him on the shoulder.

“I reckon so,” he smiled.