Especially since Mullins had had to patch up that old mule of a steamer the
Mr. Seldom stepped to the corner of the room, and faded into the woodwork like a stick in a stack.
The canvas tarp whipped aside and in strode Les Mullins. Big man, high forehead under stringy black hair and a face permanently burned red from flying too long in the cold upper. He looked mad enough to chew coils.
“Just because I don’t have a door,” Captain Hink said, “doesn’t mean a man shouldn’t knock.”
Les Mullins smiled—well, more like sneered—showing tobacco stumps where his teeth ought to have been.
“Here’s the deal, Hink,” he said. “You give me that tin devil of yours, and I won’t tie you up like a hog, throw you off this cliff, and drag your broken bits in to the people who will shower me with gold for my trouble.”
“Deal?” Captain Hink said. “Why, we haven’t even cut the deck yet. How about you get the hell out of my house, Mullins?”
“How about you explain this?” Mullins tossed something onto Hink’s desk that landed and rattled like a tin can.
Hink made a big production of leaning forward and picking up the item, even though he knew exactly what it was. “It’s a tin star,” he said.
“It’s a badge,” Mullins said.
“So it is.”
“Says ‘U.S. Marshal.’”
“I see that, Mullins,” Captain Hink said. “You thinking of wearing this around so folk respect you? ’Cause it’s going to take a damn bit more than a tin star to make people stand up and take notice of the bluster that comes out of your yap.”
“What I think,” Mullins said, advancing toward the desk, “is that you’ve been spying on us since you set up nest last spring. Weaseling out our stakes, claims, and buyers. What I think,
“Shut it down?” Hink brought his hand, star and all, back casual-like toward his holster. “Why would I want to shut down an enterprise in which I make so much money?”
“Don’t know the mind of a turncoat dog like you.”
Captain Hink weighed that remark for one second. He had a reputation for a bad temper and a quick trigger. Something his mother had told him would get him killed, God rest her soul. So he always gave every statement a full-up two seconds of consideration before he acted upon it.
Then he pulled the knife from his belt and threw it straight and true into Mullins’s chest.
Mullins stumbled back. He clutched at the knife with one hand and clawed for his gun with the other. Wasn’t much successful with either attempt.
“I sure hope I haven’t damaged your talker,” Captain Hink said as he stood and sauntered over to the big man, who had stumbled to brace his back against the wall. Not that it’d do him any good. Walls couldn’t save men who rode the skies. “Because your story was just getting interesting.
“There’s a thing I have a powerful need to know, Mr. Mullins. Where in the world did you get this from?” He held up the badge. “You been sniffing down around the townies? Catch up some poor land lizard with a knack for a tall tale?”
Mullins leveled him a glare and finally got hold of the knife hilt. He pulled it free with a yell and nearly fell to one knee. Didn’t much matter, Captain Hink thought. There was no chance this traitor to the states was walking out of his house alive.
“Found me a yellowbelly who knew you, Captain Hink Cage,” Mullins rasped. “Said his name was Rucker.”
“Rucker?” Captain Hink said. “Name doesn’t jostle the memory.”
“He knew you,” Mullins said. “Knew what you did in the battle of Flatstand. Knew you took more than half your regiment and turned on General Alabaster Saint. Accused him of disobeying orders, profiteering, and holding correspondence with the enemy. You refused to move your men into position, on orders from the president. You cost the Saint the battle, his career, and his eye, you traitor snake coward.”
“He tell you any other stories, this Rucker you jawed with?” Hink asked.
“Not after I shot him dead, he didn’t.”
Hink didn’t even wait a second. He clocked Mullins straight across the chin and dropped down over him so he could continue with the beating, as he was the sort of fellow who didn’t mind getting his hands dirty to see that a job was well done. Got in one more hit before Mullins pulled his gun.
The cold click of the hammer cocking back soaked through the anger Captain Hink was enjoying and put him right away into a most reasonable and sober mind.
“Don’t matter if you’re alive or dead,” Mullins said. “Just so long as I bring you in.”
Mr. Seldom seemed to appear out of the walls themselves. And, just like that, was standing above Mr. Mullins. Then, just like that, Seldom swung the oversized iron marlin spike, slamming the gun out of Mullins’s hand. Likely broke up a few of the man’s fingers in the process, seeing as how loud he screamed.
“Thought you’d know better than to upset my second, Mullins. You know how he doesn’t take well to people trying to plug me.” Hink rolled back on his heels and stood, staring down at the bleeding man.
Seldom retrieved the gun from where it had landed, wiped the blood off with one of the scarves hanging to his waist, and tossed the gun to Hink.
Captain Hink caught the weapon, gave it a glance, then tossed it back to Seldom, who pocketed it.
“Won’t matter if you kill me,” Mullins gasped. “Word’s already out. This whole town’s coming for your neck, Hink Cage.”
Seldom lifted the marlin spike again.
“Name’s Hink,” Captain Hink said. “Captain, if you can’t remember that much. Don’t go on and kill him yet, Mr. Seldom. I’ve still a question or two I want answered.”
Hink rolled the tin star between his fingers like a poker chip, then held it with the tips of his index and middle fingers.
“What’s this matter to you, Mullins?” he asked as the star caught a shine of light. “Some lander giving you guff about me being a marshal don’t exactly stand that it’s true. And if so, what do you have to hide you wouldn’t want a marshal to know?”
Mullins closed his mouth and didn’t do much more than glare and bleed.
“I think this isn’t just your business you’ve got yourself hitched up to, Mr. Mullins,” Captain Hink said. “I think you’re working for someone. Someone who doesn’t cozen to the law. Makes a certain sense, seeing as how we straddle the border of legality, shooting the sky for glim. But more than all that, I think there’s a spy in this house who ain’t me.”
Hink glanced over at Mr. Seldom. “You don’t suppose Mr. Mullins knows old Alabaster Saint himself, do you?”
Mullins caught his breath. Not a dead giveaway, but a giveaway nonetheless.
Hink rubbed at his chin. “Let me take a shot and tell you a story, Mr. Mullins. I say there was once a man named Les Mullins. Came from out Kentucky way. Signed up to serve beneath the hardest, bloodthirstiest monster that ever put on a uniform. Followed that monster, oh, let’s give him a name—say, General Alabaster Saint— through hell and worse. Les Mullins saw nine out of ten of his fellow soldiers die obeying the general’s bloody orders, until the general was tried and removed from command.
“I’d say Les Mullins thought himself damn lucky to have survived. Maybe even thought himself blessed and appointed to continue following General Alabaster Saint’s orders long after the battles this United States were engaged in were done and gone. Long after the Saint had moved on to raising his own militia of mercenaries.
“So Les Mullins wants to make himself useful to the general he worships. And he knows what the general wants: glim. Knows the general has plans to bribe, bully, and kill his way into every peak and mountain of this country until he controls every ship and glim field. The man who rules glim and gold rules the world.”
Hink paused and nodded toward Seldom. “It’s a good story so far, don’t you think?”
Mr. Seldom shrugged, focused on flipping the marlin spike:
