The Guns
He spent the next hours listening intently. For a while he could only faintly hear voices and decided they must have taken Dawson to the bedroom on the other side of the living area. What was wrong with him? He hadn't even had to fight to get away.
After about an hour the kitchen sink began to run and went on long enough that it had to be someone washing dishes. Then he heard Cortez.
"You're back!"
"Hey," Shephard's voice answered.
"So, the Others: they didn't show up?"
"No. Michael's back, though. What happened here?"
Now Locke's voice chimed in. "My fault! I left the tap on in the bathroom sink, and Ana went down and hit her head on the counter. And I'm sorry, again."
Henry sat up from the wall slowly, staring. He wasn't going to tell Shephard the truth. Was he trying to protect Henry from the hero-doctor's wrath? Did he believe the song and dance? But Cortez—
"Yeah, don't worry about it," Cortez answered. So she was on Locke's side? Was she, too, reluctant to yield to Shephard's authority?
"Jack!" Austen's voice called.
The conversation stopped with hurrying feet and crutches. They were all gone long enough that he theorized Dawson was telling them his story. It would be a careful mix of lies fed him by "the Others," which he wouldn't know were lies, and the lies he had been told to tell. He would still believe that they were primitive scavengers with control over one single hatch and a boat, led by a big, grizzled, rough man named Tom, a smallish group of mainly old people and women (and even a modern American man like him wouldn't know to imagine that the old and the women were among the toughest and most ruthless of them). His disdain for them would be real and believable. His lies would all be about what they could do about it. A small, rapid, dart-like operation, get in, get Walt, and get out. Unlooked-for and easy. Hopefully he was an adequate liar and could keep his head. He'd better, or he'd never get his kid back.
His hypothesis about Dawson's story was proved true when Cortez and Austen began a conversation over water running again, rehashing the story. He smiled at the details. Dawson hadn't much imagination, it seemed. Two guards, two guns, a hatch where the children were kept (a hatch that went nowhere, in reality, begun by the Dharma Initiative and aborted when their funding stopped), a ragged village of tents. It was almost enough to make one feel sorry for Dawson. They'd lived far better than that back when they'd really lived in the tents.
Presently Shephard's footsteps and Locke's crutches entered.
"Where are you going?" Austen asked.
"Get our guns back from Sawyer," Locke answered.
Shephard added, "We're going to need you to help convince him."
Henry sat up again from the wall. People really should learn not to discuss things outside their prisoner's cell. He had wondered why there were no guns in this armory. But why should Ford have them? No one would willingly give him all their guns, certainly not Shephard, who had been at odds with him from the beginning, according to Ethan. It made perfect sense, of course, being completely opposite types, but there was also the added tension of the lovely Austen (Ethan had a good eye for these sorts of things), which would only make Henry's job all the easier. Austen was the one who could convince Ford of things, was she? But it didn't solve the question of why Ford had all the guns. Unless he stole them. Which was what he did. Stole things, hoarded them, used them as leverage. Henry could appreciate that—or at least he could if Ford weren't so stupid. He would be easy to make dance. Shephard was the difficult one. And he was the important one.
Shephard, Locke, and Austen went out together, leaving Cortez to mind Dawson. She'd volunteered. He hoped that didn't mean what he thought it meant. He hoped Shephard hadn't given the gun back.