The Man and The Outlaw

Chapter Sixteen

When Pa returned from outside, he'd hung up the phone, but a smile dripped from each ear across his face. Ray, seeing this, grinned broadly back. Suze watched him with interest.
"He'll be here first thing in the morning," Pa declared, and Ray gave a whoop of victory.
"What do you want to do with her 'til then?" Suze asked as Bruin began to bark at her brother. All four of them turned to look at Clara in unison. She hardly bothered to meet their gaze. She felt suddenly like a prisoner being led to the gallows, facing the hangman's noose in the hands of her captors.
"I want to talk to her," Pa said suddenly, and his children were immediately taken aback.
"Pa, she's a Silvertongue," Ray mumbled uncertainly.
"I know that Ray," Pa growled. His son moved discreetly out of his reach.
"How you plan on doing that?" Suze asked gently. She braced for another outburst, but her father just smiled again.
"I've got something I've been wantin' to try," he told her and then he had disappeared again down the hallway where Clara's gaze could not follow him.
Clara knew that she should probably be frightened by whatever it was he wanted to "try" on her, but she couldn't find the fear. She felt suddenly numb like her whole body and mind had been submerged in icy water. She had nothing left to feel but despair.
Pa came back with a box about the size of one that shoes might come in. All the labeling had been torn off and the box was already cut open at the top. His face was eager as he set it on the table and opened the flaps. Clara, Suze, and Ray watched from the other side of the room.
He withdrew a pair of black headphones made of thick plastic and foam. There was a dial on one side of the earmuffs with an on/off switch and a chord that wrapped around the band from one ear cup to the other. He held them gingerly, like he was afraid he'd break them if he was too rough. His eyes shined with a childlike excitement.
"You can't hear her with those things on, Pa. How you gonna talk to her?" Ray asked loudly.
"Shut up, Ray," Pa ordered without looking up. He held the headphones out for Suze to see them better.
"A man I used to know moved to one of them big cities in the east several years back. He calls me up sometimes and we shoot the breeze. He says they got Silvertongues over there too, but they've found ways of handling the problem. He sent me these to try out. They're 'sposed to block the frequency of their hypnotizin' voice cause it's diff'ernt than ours or some crap like that. They let you hear normal talk, but her Silvertongue spew won't register. It's like those shooting headphones you get that block out the sound of the gun but let you hear your shooting buddy talking right next to you. Way the guy who sent 'em to me talks, people back east wear these things like they do underwear."
Pa was proud of himself for getting through the explanation with relative ease. Suze stared at the headphones, her lips pursed, and Clara knew that she didn't believe it. Pa paid her no mind but lifted the headphones over his head and pulled them on. He felt on the side of the earmuff and flipped the button to "on" with his thumb. Then, he twisted the knob back and forth, which Clara assumed controlled the volume of the voices he could hear.
"Say somethin'," he told them in a slightly raised voice.
"Somethin'," Ray snickered, and Suze shoved him.
"I heard that," Pa grumbled, and Ray's eyebrows shot up.
"How?"
"He just told you how," Suze gasped with exasperation. To her father, she asked, "So, it works?"
"It's worth a try. Put somethin' in your ears and take off her gag. If I start actin' funny, shoot her. But don't kill her."
Suze found some earplugs in a kitchen drawer and handed a pair to her brother before stuffing her own in her ears. Then, she leaned over Clara and ripped the tape from her face. Clara cringed and spat the rag out. Suze held her revolver stiffly at her side, ready to carry out her father's command if the need arose.
"Go on then," Pa spoke up, his eyes locked on Clara, dripping with anticipation.
Clara spouted off the first thing that came to her mind.
"Take those headphones off," she said without much conviction.
"I can hear that," Pa grunted. "Do it for real, girl. No tricks."
Suze raised her gun level with Clara's kneecap. Clara cleared her throat and tried again.
"Take those headphones off," she repeated, summoning the perfect, lilting voice that dripped from her mouth like honey. She watched Pa's face, waiting for the slackening look that always accompanied someone slipping into her trance. He grinned and her heart skipped a beat. It had worked.
"Not a thing," he smirked, tapping the side of the headphones lovingly.
The implications of this were not lost on Clara. If technology like this was being developed in the east, the big cities attracted all kinds and Silvertongues were no exception, then it was only a matter of time before things like that spread widely around her world, the Montgomery Trail and its surrounding townships. It did not worry her to be without her voice, she did not care to be someone else's superior just as she had not asked for her power in the first place, but she knew that it wouldn't stop with a level playing field. People, the kinds of people who would be eager to get their hands on this kind of tech, would not stop with simply protecting themselves from the rare Silvertongue who abused their abilities. They would seek to destroy them, just as Pa and his children did, and they would have a much easier time of it with help from things like the headphones. Clara shivered at the thought of well-equipped hunting parties spreading across the county until no Silvertongue remained.
"How does it feel, Clara? To be like the rest of us?" Pa's smirk turned to a vengeful scowl.
"I'm nothing like you," Clara told him.
Pa leaned against the table and watched her as she sat on the couch, her hands still bound behind her back so that she had to sit awkwardly twisted to one side. She was still very aware of the cloth neck garments that sat near her and made sure not to touch them.
"Maybe not right now, you aren't," Pa said thoughtfully, "but you will be. I can see it on you. You've lost somethin', maybe more than one thing, and it's eating you. You want revenge, but you prob'ly tell yourself it's right, justice or somethin' like that. You're lyin' to yourself. I been there."
His eyes went far away.
"My wife was killed by two Silvertongue punks on her way home from work. She was a seamstress at Walden's Department store 'fore it closed down. They made her tear out her hair, cut her own face with a knife they handed to her. Then, they told her to stab herself in the gut and lie on the ground until she fell asleep. She laid there for hours until she bled out and they ran off with her purse. Her purse!" He snarled the last two words, and he clenched his fists at his side.
"I'm sorry," Clara muttered.
"I don't need your sorry," Pa told her. Beside her, Suze had stiffened further as Pa retold his tale. Ray sniffled.
"I found them, two kids prob'ly no older'n seventeen or so, and I made sure justice was served. I slit their Silvertongue throats. Didn't feel wrong about it neither. They deserved it. Problem is, now, I see their faces in every one of you with them marks and I got no sympathy to give. I reckon you've got someone on your own justice list, huh?"
Clara made no move to reply, which was answer enough in itself.
"Might just be that Pryor for all I know. He did sound like a man who's just about so full of hisself that he's pukin' so I guess I couldn't blame you too much. Anyway, you might not live long enough to see it in the mirror but you're like us, I'm sure of it."
"I'm not," Clara grunted. She wanted to argue this point vehemently, but Pa raised his hand.
"Put her in the back bedroom for the night," he ordered Suze and Ray. With a stern look at his son, he added, "Make sure you lock the door."
"Want us to gag her again?" Suze asked him.
Pa smirked and shook his head. "Keep away from the door without ear pro. I want to give her one last night with her tongue loose. If she cries, I want to be able to hear it."