Guns of Seneca 6 (Chamber 1 of the Guns of Seneca 6 Saga) Read online

  From Fans of Classic Westerns to Firefly, They All Agree

  "If you like the Old West…The parallel is amazing and hard to believe it's not the 1800's."

  "Great combination of the old west (think Doc Holiday etc.) and outer space."

  "Guns of Seneca 6 takes some of the history of the American Old West, brushes it off and moves it into the future. If you liked Firefly then this series is a must read."

  "As in all compelling books, the characters are what makes a book fly off the shelf. Stern justice is served up in this sweat, leather, courage and tech novel."

  Get Your Guns Ready in For Chamber 1 of Bernard Schaffer's Sci-Fi Western Epic

  Guns of Seneca 6

  (Chamber 1 of the Guns of Seneca 6 Saga)

  Bernard Schaffer

  Published by Apiary Society Publications

  Edited by

  Laurie Laliberte

  Copyright 2011 Bernard Schaffer

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. No reference to any real person, living or dead, should be inferred.

  Table of Contents

  Jem Clayton's Colt Defeater

  1. Cowboys

  2. Gunfighters

  3. Legends

  4. Outlaws

  5. The Veteran

  6. Hellbillies

  7. The Widow

  8. Fathers

  9. Ghosts

  10. Highway 61

  11. Wilderness

  12. The Medicine

  13. And Then I See A Darkness

  14. Judges 19:25

  15. The Air Smelled Like Snakes

  16. The Mercy Seat

  17. Pale Horse

  18. Golgotha

  19. Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned

  20. No Snakes Alive

  21. Heroes

  From the Author

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  1 . Cowboys

  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?”

&nb
sp; “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.

  Claire hollered out, “Jem! What’s happening?”

  Frank ducked and lifted his rifle. “Go tell that girl to shut up or she’ll get us all killed. Stay low.”

  Jem crawled down the hallway and stuck his head in Claire’s room, cringing at the sight of her empty bed. “Claire? Where are you?”

  “I’m down here.”

  He pulled up the blanket covering the side of the bed, “Girl, you scared the hell out of me.”

  “Shhh!” Claire hissed at him. “You’ll get us killed, dummy.”

  “No, you’re gonna get us killed with all your squawking. You have to shut up.”

  “I am shutted up! It’s you making all the noise.”

  Jem looked back and saw Frank moving toward the front door. He covered his mouth with the side of his hand and said, “Frank! Don’t go out there. It ain’t safe.”

  “I think we got ‘em on the run,” Frank said. “The gunshots are getting farther away.”

  “Frank? Frank? Damn.” The Deputy vanished onto the porch, and Jem lifted his rifle.

  “Are we alone now, Jem?”

  “No, course not. He just went outside to wait for Daddy. Everything’s going to be ok.”

  “That’s what you said when Mama got sick. That didn’t turn out ok, now did it?”

  Something crashed against the porch and Claire squeaked in fright. She covered her face with the blanket. Jem told her to hush and said, “Maybe it’s just a bassaricus. Frank probably caught it going through the trash.”

  “We’re gonna die,” Claire moaned.

  “No we aren’t. Stay still and I’ll go look.” Jem’s hands shook so bad that the rifle bounced from the door to the ceiling and he walked right into a table in the hallway. He flipped a switch on the site assembly and it hummed, glowing bright green. A mechanical voice said, “Auto-Targeting Activated.”

  “Frank?” Jem called. There was no response.

  Boards creaked under his bare feet as he leaned to open the door and crept onto the porch. He searched the meadow but saw nothing, and as he moved to first steps, he tweaked a loose piece of wood.

  A bare-chested savage stood up at the bottom of the steps. He was dark skinned and slick with sweat and blood, standing over Frank’s crumpled body. Frank was writhing at his feet, fingering the top of his head that was now just a ghoulish crown of pale bone. The Beothuk had a dripping knife in one hand and a chunk of Frank’s scalp in the other. He screamed at Jem, and the front of the boy’s pants turned wet.

  “Go on,” Jem whispered, backing away as the savage came up the steps. “Get out of here. I mean it. I’ll shoot.”

  The Beothuk sneered at the rifle in the boy’s hands and flipped the knife in his hands, catching it by the tip, readying to throw.

  “Target acquired.”

  A soft puff of air escaped from the gun’s barrel that sent a blue dart into the center of the Beothuk’s chest. He looked down at the dart curiously and a gunshot cracked the air that blew a hole in the savage’s chest. Jem watched in horror as he staggered backwards and toppled down the porch’s steps.

  A destrier came crashing through the meadow so fast that Jem only had time to raise his rifle and fire blindly in its direction. Sam Clayton swung his hands in the air and said, “Cease fire! Cease fire! Son of a bitch, Frank, you almost shot me.” The Sheriff’s voice pinched as he came in front of the two bodies scattered on the ground.

  Jem stood motionless on the porch, staring at his father, his mouth working back and forth with nothing coming out of it.

  Sam’s face twisted in horror and Jem shouted out, “He killed Frank. He was gonna kill Claire! I had to do it, Pa, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to kill him. I swear it. It just happened.”

  Sam jumped down from the destrier and grabbed Jem into his arms, kissing the boy over and over on top of the head and saying, “Good boy. Good boy.”

  2 . Gunfighters

  He hadn’t practiced medicine since acquiring a nasty ailment that ended his career in Seneca 6 forever. His wracking cough had a way of erupting out whenever he leaned over a patient’s mouth. Blood mixed with saliva, horked into the unsuspecting face of a man saying “Ah” or a woman asking him to inspect a suspicious lump, had a way of determining the finality of their patronage. Even Doctor Royce Halladay’s most loyal patients found other doctors. Ones who didn’t fold up like a chair and clutch their stomachs like their guts were about to uncoil.

  One morning Halladay got up to go into the office and stopped walking at the kitchen door. He took off his hat and sat on the porch rocking chair, watching the grass sway in the wind for hours until his wife, Katey, came out. “Why aren’t you at work?” she said.

  “My office has turned into a graveyard, and I am doing my utmost to avoid them at present.”

  In time, sitting on the porch no longer contented him, but the addition of small tin cups of whiskey helped. “It helps soothe my throat,” he told Katey. It was not long before he’d assembled a pyramid of empty bottles on the porch.

  In the beginning of the summer, Sam Clayton came to visit. The sheriff tied his destrier to the post below the Halladay’s porch and drew a rifle from his saddle bag. “It was my understanding that you were working late, Sheriff, and that is why my wife needed to watch your children.”

  “I was,” Sam said. He came up the porch and sat down. “When I got home, I saw something that needed to be addressed, so I came to do that.”

  Halladay eyed the rifle. “A euthanasia. Come to put me out of my misery, then?”

  Sam turned and fixed Halladay with a hard stare. “Your wife is looking skinny, Doc. Too skinny. You ain’t got money for food, have you?”

  “I am trying to not take offense at that, Sam. It is not working.”

  “I’ll offend all day if that’s what it takes.” Sam held out the rifle and said, “Hell, it’s nothing fancy. My boy’s got better sites on his gun, but it will put meat on your table if you use it correctly. You ever shoot anything before?”

  “No.”

  “Get up, put that cup down, and let me show you how this is done.” Sam demonstrated how to hold the weapon and aim down the sites at his target. He was in the middle of explaining the mechanics of the weapon when a flock of birds kicked up from the grass and Halladay blasted one of them from the sky.

  The Sheriff watched the dead bird drop and said, “Okay, that was beginner’s luck, but don’t think the rest will be so easy.”

  Halladay fired five more times in quick succession, littering the ground with feathers and carcasses. The two men stood in silence for a moment and Halladay said, “Please, go through the part about the front sites again, Sam.”

  The sheriff ti
pped back his hat and smiled. “Weren’t no need to play me for a fool, Doc. Nice to see you still have your sense of humor.”

  Halladay handed the weapon to him. “You have my assurance that I have never even touched a gun before.”

  “Well it’s the damndest thing I’ve ever seen.” Sam removed his Colt Defender and aimed the weapon at one of the metal fence-posts lining the property. “Pistols are trickier than long guns.” Sam squeezed the trigger and the fence post vibrated and clanged dully. He gave Halladay a satisfied smile and handed him the gun. “Give it a try. Just look at the front site and do your best.”

  The doctor raised the handgun, took a second to adjust his grip and closed one eye. “Aim down the barrel? Like so?” He squeezed the trigger and a fence post two lengths further down from the one Sam shot rang like a bell. “What a shame. I missed the one I was aiming for and accidentally hit one twice as far as yours.” Halladay twirled the gun in the palm of his hand to present it to the Sheriff.

  Sam looked down at the gun, then back at the doctor. “You’re a damn liar, Royce Halladay.”

  “I owe it all to the quality of your instruction, sir. When can you come by for another lesson?”

  “Very funny. Now go to hell.”

  “No doubt, I will do that quite soon.” Halladay stopped smiling and said, “Thank you for the rifle. You are a good friend.”

  “Don’t mention it. Katey’s like a second mom to the kids. We’d be lost without her.”

  Halladay watched the Sheriff get back on his destrier and ride off to check the security perimeter. “Me too,” he said.

  By mid-summer, Katey became well-practiced at cooking conejos. She held the creatures by their ears and slit their furry length with one hand then scooped out the innards and tossed them into the waste processor. Necessity had brought out ingenuity in her. Sometimes she stewed the conejo with vegetables from the garden, or fried them until the skin crackled in her husband’s mouth when he bit it.

  Halladay admired his wife as she bent to check the stove, thinking that she would have little difficulty finding a suitor after he died. He expected she would spend a year or two mourning out of respect, but he harbored no expectation of her running out the rest of her life pining for him. At some point he meant to tell her that; to let her know he wanted her to find someone after he coughed up his last bit of lung. To have a long, happy life. It just never seemed an appropriate time to talk about it, and Katey got upset when he tried.