Market Theocracy

7. Firefight

Hopes burn.

On the morning of the day The Boss and his boys were due to collect, a message arrived. The rider who brought it slid it beneath the door of the Sheriff’s office and slipped out before the sun showed his face.

The message was simple and direct: in addition to 2000 coins, 500 pounds of flour, 20 bushels of potatoes, a ridiculous amount of ammo, drugs and even small luxuries like candy and shampoo, The Boss demanded three girls. All under the age of 20. A redhead and two blondes. "Purty & Clean" the note insisted.

Jim let Hope read it and scowled along with her. "Figured they’d wait till the last minute. Let folk get used to the idea of giving in and have the loot all gathered before they hit ‘em where it really hurt."

Hope crumpled the note and flicked it toward the trash can. She brooded for a moment. "Before you came along, Jim, did folk really send what amounted to their children out to serve these scum?"

Jim whistled, a low note. She understood this to be a habit when he was collecting his thoughts. "They did, I’m sad to say."

Hope’s voice rose despite her best effort. "How in the hell could they…"

"Settle down, Mizz." Jim insisted, holding his hands out in a peace making gesture. "It wasn’t exactly as simple as all that. Hell, sometimes they had volunteers. Girls itching to get out of town and into what they figured was a more exciting life." He paused. "And not every Sheriff looked at his duty the way I do, hurts to say. More than a few were tinpot dictators just as bad as The Boss."

Hope gave him the look that meant she wasn’t in the mood for excuses.

"True as Tuesday, Mizz. And Summertime City was small and truly weak for a long time."

"Did they ever resist?"

Jim nodded, thoughtful. "Yes ma’am. This town has burned twice in the past two decades. The first time damn near wiped her off the map and she had to be resettled. The second time was near as bad but most folks lived. Just had to rebuild." He sighed. "But they haven’t resisted since then."

A sick look passed her face.

Jim smiled, a ghastly thing she had grown used to and now admired for its sincerity. "But the Riders took their losses as well. It’s also true they haven’t asked for girlfolk near as often since that last Burn. Summertime City killed half those that came for ‘em, and put ‘em to route eventually."

Hope smiled. "We gonna have any trouble with those that might prefer to appease?"

Jim shook his head, dismissive. "Naw. They know my mind is set. Those sort cleared out the minute you agreed to fight."

"Good enough. And the rest can be counted on?"

Jim stared at her for a moment. "My folk are decent and somewhat simple, Mizz. They don’t itch for trouble. But they ain’t cowards and they know the way the world works. Never doubt that."

Hope just nodded. Instead of an apology, she said "Then I think you need to drop that Mizz shit."

Jim was truly puzzled. "Ma’am?"

She laughed. "And that ma’am shit while you’re at it." She stood up and put a hand on his shoulder. "If we’re going to fight this scum back to back I think you should call me Hope."

Once again, Ugly Jim Harris proved he could blush.

"Now." she said, turning to the door. "Let’s go get us some volunteers."

Hope and the cat and Ugly Jim sat staring at the citizens of Summertime City arrayed before them. Hope was near tears, causing the smile she couldn’t repress to wobble slightly.

Three hundred and six men, women and children had shown up, from the ages of 6 years to 86. They were armed with everything from pitchforks and hay scythes to the one old codger who’d lugged a dusty but functioning hand cranked Gatling from some ancient shed. They stood there, scared but with spines straight, and gave their word to fight to defend their homes and families and neighbors.

It may have been the finest moment of her life so far, and she caught the Sheriff wiping a tear himself here and there.

It took most of the afternoon to sort the best prospects into some sort of fighting force. They had nothing spectacular planned — just a direct ambush when the Riders got close enough to take fire. The real trick was letting them get close enough with trust intact. Hope and Jim agreed that half The Boss’s boys wasn’t good enough this time. They had in mind a complete victory — and maybe an end to the whole damn cycle.

The girls were the key to that little trick. Hope ended up with 16 volunteers under the age of 20, willing to play reverse Trojan Horse. They ended up being more trouble than the young men and boys when it came to their desire to serve - to the point of several brawls breaking out.

But eventually she had her three. Two pretty, clean blondes and a pretty clean redhead. The two blondes were twins — Gina and Georgia Montrose. They won their place because they’d inherited beautifully made and highly concealable little derringers. Hope would no more have these girls play bait unarmed than she’d send them swimming with anchors attached.

The third had to borrow a gun but won her place because she was the only redhead in town. She looked familiar to Hope. The resemblance lingered until she caught a glimpse of her from the corner of her eye and realization crashed down.

"Are you…?"

The redhead grinned pure sunshine and her blush was hard to catch under all those freckles. "I’m Betty Castleberry, Mizz Hope. Carina’s grandgirl." She stuck out her hand all formal like. Hope hugged her instead.

"I been meaning to come by Gran’s and meet you. She talks a mile a minute on you. All good o’ course. But Mam’s been sick for a while and I got six brothers and two sisters to look after, and…"

She was interrupted by the Gran herself, shotgun at the ready. Pride and fear warred in her expressive face with no clear victor.

"You be careful." was all she finally said. "Gran’ll be up on the bank roof."

"Now you follow directions, Gran." Betty warned her. "Don’t you be lookin’ after me. We all got our parts to play."

Hope was torn from the tragic little scene by Jim’s voice.

"Places folks! We got dust sighted and on the way! Half an’ hour tops."

Faith felt the cat at her feet, responding to her own fear and pride. She took deep breaths and counted heartbeats. She forced her mind to relax. She willed the cold heart of the gun to invade hers.

It was time.

The fight was on them.

It would be years later and small details of that fight would still come to her, often in dreams, surprising her with their ability to move and effect her. Little glimpses, small sounds, stabs of remembered fear and vicious joy.

The Last Firefight Of Summertime City, as it would come to be called, was not the worst piece of action she’d see in her life. In many ways, it was the most successful and clean. But it happened at the very beginning of her transformation from one thing to another. It was the fire that burned the last of her old self away so that the newer, stronger, harder self could grow in its place.

And, like all fires — no matter the need for their renewal — it hurt as it burned.

It was not a battle of individual heroes. It was not a set piece of heroic stands. It was, like most serious warfare, a brutal and pragmatic thing.

They set their blonde and amber bait amongst the loot of food and coin and luxury. There on the main street, alone and lonely. One force of gunmen(led by Jim) occupied the roof of the bank. Hope’s gang laid low on the roof of the saloon.

Like a ritual, the riders came. They gathered indolently in a wide arc flanking the face of the town. There were close to a hundred all told, all armed with rifle and pistol and plenty of ammo. All on horseback save The Boss, who travelled in a caravan wagon pulled by a mule team. The Boss hung back several hundred yards, waiting for his treasure.

A dozen men entered the town to escort that treasure out. They were less than a hundred feet from their goal when Hope gave the order.

Rifle fire rained down on the would be kidnappers from the saloon. Of the twenty under her command, she had set ten to concentrate on death from above. She led the other ten down the back of the saloon and around for another angle of fire.

At the edge of town, from the stonewalled safety of the bank roof, Jim’s fifty volunteers opened up on the rest of the riders, gathered so thoughtfully in such a nice group.

Hope screamed at the three girls to take cover. They ignored her, preferring to instead add to the lead headed towards their kidnappers.

That was the moment when the world, and time, and sense broke apart. What followed was a shattered twenty minutes that would only come to her over the course of the rest of her life. A bit here, a piece there.

Of the gory sprawl of a dozen dead men and horses. Of the escort not a single creature made it out alive.

Of a pretty blonde girl weeping, with a once blonde head in her lap now stained red with blood.

Of the roar of men and women fighting for their lives, and the roar of men dying for their mistakes.

Of those who fell before her own gun, so like trick pins as the sharks teeth caught them again and again.

Of the deep red calm of reloading, as if she’d performed these motions a million times.

And of the cat, moving through out it all, between bullets and blood and bodies, seemingly indifferent. Graceful. Leading her.

And that moment when the broken army outside their town turned to flee, and the folk who only had pitchfork and scythe set on their trail like hounds, the bedeviled turned to devils. She was in front, urging them on. To the caravan of The Boss, frightened mules swinging it dangerously around in flight.

And the image that stopped her in shock, that caused her to drop to her knees in horror. The angry, scared and hateful face in the window of that caravan.

The face of The Boss.

The face of her husband.

A face filled with recognition.

Moments, broken and shattered. Some moments never last long enough.

Some moments take the rest of a life to deal with.

"…and to thy care and mercy we commend them O Lord, these our beloved."

"Amen."

Hope stared at the face of Ugly Jim Harris in his casket, a ruined face that had gained something approaching beauty in a proud death. A slug had caught him in the leg just before the Riders broke, and he’d tumbled off the bank and broke his neck. Went painlessly the doctor said.

Went proud, Hope knew. With principles and duty intact.

She lingered a moment by the casket of Gina Montrose, and spoke silly comforting words to poor Georgia. The abandoned twin cycled from fierce pride in her sister to crushing despair, but seemed basically all right to Hope.

The rest of the dead, 11 in all, she knew only fleetingly or not at all. Still, she paid her respects and spoke to the families. They had all died for the same cause, had all died facing one of life’s bad days. They deserved what she could give them.

And, outside town, 64 unmarked graves marked their triumph.

She made her way back to the rooming house with a heavy heart, the cat trailing beside her as usual. He had escaped the battle without a scratch despite being in the thick of it. Much like herself.

The respectful nods and greetings added to the heaviness she felt. She was treated as a hero in town. Perhaps she was being given the reverence that Ugly Jim could not accept. No matter — it just made her decision harder.

She cried as she packed, knowing that she was going to miss this place. It was an awful moment. She had come this long way, walked this hard path, and found the closest thing to a home since the death of her father. And now she had to leave.

How awful that love for a place can push you away as surely as hate.

Carina and Betty and Albert were waiting for her when she came downstairs, back from the services. Carina in the wheelchair, healing from the slug that had grazed her spine. She began to weep when she saw the packed bag and the travelling clothes Hope wore.

"Please, Mizz Hope…" Betty spoke for her. "We need you. This town. Gran. Me."

Oh, she was tempted. But it wouldn’t be right. Instead she just hugged them and said goodbye.

The tears dried as she moved away from Summertime City, onwards into the West once again. The direction the caravan wagon had fled.

The old feeling returned, the bone deep song of the road. And in place of sadness came anger and the steady pulse of desire.

A desire for answers.

A desire for revenge.

And the immense desire to see them come to the same point on the horizon, even if she had to travel to The Ends to do so.

The cat resumed his travel pattern as if they’d never paused. He scouted and wandered and circled her.

Behind her, unknown as yet, other cats followed, shyly for now. Some from Carina’s house, some from the streets of the town. Cats suddenly possessed of a desire to follow this strange woman and the brutal grey tom who shared her aura and her fate.

From the center of this tangle of woman and cats and their mingled desire, Hope extended her arm, and waved a thumb at the random.

They walked until a ride came.