Gunlaw

Gunlaw 29

Chapter 17 – Present Day - Ansos Pillar

There might be as many Station Hotels as there are pillar-towns, but this was the First Station Hotel and the proprietors took pains to let you know it. Mrs Havasu even managed to look down her nose at the town gunslinger and a hex-witch, a feat that took some doing given they both overtopped her by a foot or more.

Jenna followed Mrs Havasu up the polished oak staircase. The woman had at least afforded them the honour of a personal escort. Mikeos trailed in Jenna's wake, resting his eye a moment on the sway of hips beneath those flowing robes. Been too long since you kept a woman company, Mikeos. He quelled the thought by switching his attention to Mrs Havasu, a bony woman comprising too many sharp angles for intimacy. She put him in mind of a cacti that grew out along the tracks.

Mrs Havasu led them to the far end of the balcony where two doors stood isolated from the others. "Should I be sending for your baggage?" Her gaze fell to the rusty stains around the bullet hole in Mikeos' shirt. With her index finger she pushed her iron-rimmed spectacles further up her nose.

Mikeos filled the pause when it became clear Jenna was not going to speak. "We come as we are, Mrs H. Gone by morning."

"The Parade Room." Mrs Havasu opened the door to the left. Bright walls papered with flower patterns, rose and lilies, thick rug running beneath a writing table, two sweep-backed chairs, a brass bedstead with a plump mattress. "And the Mayor's Room." The door on the right gave onto a larger chamber with a painting of some mayor of yesteryear, a silver-haired fellow with far more gravitas than the currently weasel-faced incumbent. "A connecting door between them." She glanced at Jenna's stony face. "Locked."

"Thanks." Mikeos stepped toward his room. "If we're not downstairs by half-four tomorrow send a boy to knock us up, if you would." He left the two women on the balcony to savour their mutual distaste, and closed his door on the pair. The room smelled of camphor and the wallpaper had a tinge of black mold where it curled up by the skirting board. He shrugged and fell into the bed accompanied by a protest of springs and the feather duvet hissing its disapproval. He lay dead, letting images run through him, young Nathan, too slow, taking his bullet through the head, John Barker fast as fast but not quite quick enough, the sniper's bullet punching a burning hole through his side, the flies rising in a black devouring cloud. The woodkin doctor came again, dry fingers probing a wet wound. The swirling darkness of infection. And older memories, sights that were never his. A child's face in a shard of age-spotted mirror, the hex mark thorn-scratched across her forehead. Jenna!

"Jenna?" The word took his head from the pillow. The room lay dark, and sweat coated him.

"What?" Her voice through the connecting door, as if she were standing with her nose an inch from the wood, waiting on a question.

What? He had nothing. "Just checking."

"Your Mrs Havasu doesn't seem much impressed by the Ansos gunslinger."

Mikeos heard the unspoken 'or hex-witches'. He smiled. "You're mistaking me for the marshal or a holder. You've spent too long in that tower of yours if you think gunslingers rule the roost. I don't get to run people's lives, put dollars in their hands, or say who's in the wrong. Gunlaw puts the slinger in charge of the big rules. Who comes, who goes. I speak to the rail-master and the kin will impose whatever travel policies I come up with. But it turns out not to be such a big deal day-to-day."

"It should be the biggest deal of them all." A touch of irritation in Jenna's voice. "You forbid the sect."

"That's not how people work though, is it? It's now that matters. Now and tomorrow. Not next week and next year." He lay still, picturing Jenna's face as it was reflected in his dream. "The gunslinger's a particular breed. Fast hands and reckless. But the gunlaw gives us the long game, not the short. Fast hands don't mean you're clever. Standing a challenge don't make you fit to tell folks how to live. The opposite probably. But that's the gunlaw for you. If your lot ever stepped out of that pillar you'd know the holders have the real power. Harry Lan owns most of Ansos. It's his word that counts across eight pillars. A smart man, rich, got hisself an army of guns to protect what he holds. Moss Peters has the Oh-Oh-Nine wrapped up, influence in the Oh-Teens. Peters is tight with three taur clans, takes their cattle in. Abattoirs, meat, leather. There's more power in that than in the guns of six slingers."