Read Online Andromeda Gun by John Boyd - Free Book Online Page B

bring law and order to Shoshone Flats and get us enough prisoners to straighten out that curve and maybe fill in a few chuckholes in the road. Of course, we ain’t the richest town in the world. We couldn’t afford to pay you much, but there are other benefits. As the law, you’d have full protection of the law when the Avenging Angels ride against you, you’d get a brand-new suit of clothes at the town’s expense, a free burial preached by me if you should come to an untimely end, and you’d get the loan of a saddle and a fast horse.”
    Ian became alert at the mention of a fast horse, but immediately he spotted a loophole in the mayor’s argument. “The nag you issued to Sheriff Faust looks pretty spavined to me.”
    “We issue the horse to fit the man,” Winchester explained. “Brother Hendricks, the best Gentile horse breeder in the valley, supplies the town with its horses, and he has a genius for matching the horse to the man.”
    Ian’s thinking was assisted by a gust of rain on the roof. With a fast horse under him and the town emptied of people on Tuesday, he’d have the perfect arrangement for holding up the bank. Meanwhile, he’d have the use of the hotel room tonight and Monday night, so he wouldn’t have to get wet.
    “How much does the job pay?” He feigned an interest.
    “Eight dollars a week, but you can bed down in the jailhouse, and the town pays for your meals, either at the restaurant or the saloon, depending on whether you like chicken or steak. We’d like to pay more, but the town’s treasury is low.”
    Suddenly the solution of a problem he did not intend to solve lay clear in Ian’s mind. He said, “Mr. Mayor, I could build you a road, pay myself fifteen dollars a week, and add to the town’s treasury without costing the town a penny, if you’d let me appoint the justice of peace.”
    “Well, son”—the mayor rubbed his jaw—“that might cause legal problems. I’m supposed to appoint the justice of peace—we’ve had no use for one with Sheriff Faust—and the city charter won’t let me pay over eight dollars a week to a deputy because the high sheriff only makes eight dollars and two bits.”
    “I don’t know nothing about legal problems,” Ian said, “but I can solve them two. You appoint the justice of peace I ask you to appoint and, instead of raising my salary, give me a percentage of all the fines the justice of peace collects.”
    “Brother McCloud, you’ve just earned yourself a position of responsibility in the thriving community of Shoshone Flats…
    “Brother Hendricks,” he called over Ian’s shoulder, “I want you to come over and meet our new deputy sheriff, Brother Ian McCloud. What kind of horse can you offer him?”
    Brother Hendricks, the horse breeder, advanced with a limp. Ian saw that the man had once been tall and rawboned, but he was bent now from a curvature of the spine, and his right shoulder was a huge lump. Cocking his head, he looked up to Ian from beneath brows corrugated with scar tissue. He was studying the man.
    “I’d match him with Midnight,” he said finally. “Midnight’s as fast as greased lightning, mister. If he can’t throw you, he pinwheels and crushes you. If he can throw you, he’ll stomp you to death. He’s a killer horse, but, by the holy jumping Jehoshaphat, the horse has got spirit!”
    “Sounds like my kind of horse,” Ian said.
    On the ride home, under a misting sky, Gabriella was excited over Ian’s appointment. Strangely, Liza, who was experiencing her own elation over a successful move to furnish lunch boxes to the Territorial Stage Lines—one cent going to Birnie and five to Ian—did not share her daughter’s enthusiasm.
    “All Brother Winchester’s doing is getting rid of Ian so he won’t run for mayor. Once you’ve built the road, Ian, he’ll take credit and get himself reelected.”
    With strange detachment, Ian saw the truth in what she said, but he saw deeper to another truth: a mayor