AN: Happy Independents Day.
"The longer I look at it," said Jim Frye, "the worse it gets." He stood, hands on hips, in his big machine shed, shaking his head at Olaf's harvester. It was the one he and Kaylee's doctor beau had worked on together, returned to Frye's once again with a new ailment. Jim had traced the problem to yet another slipshod repair, and this had prompted him to give the big machine a closer look.
It seemed that Olaf, who had inherited his pa's farm a couple years back, had tried to pinch a few credits on equipment maintenance by taking his work to some shop-class graduate with no real feel for the work. Examining the harvester told a story of cascading failures that had likely cost Olaf more than he had saved: James imagined him scrambling to rent or borrow a machine to get his crop in before it rotted in the field while his own harvester sat idle. Penny wise and pound foolish, he thought, mentally quoting a saying whose origins he didn't know but whose meaning was clear as glass.
Olaf's shade-tree mechanic stood a pace away on shifting feet. As part of James's agreement with Olaf for making the harvester right, he had insisted that the young man be presented to him to account for everything he'd done to the poor machine. "Otherwise," he had told the red-faced farmer, "I'll have to tear this thing down to the wheels to make sure I haven't missed anything. That point, you might as well buy new."
The boy looked bright, James conceded, and had a line of feihua that might convince somebody unfamiliar with machines that he knew what he was talking about. But the lad's idea of diagnosis was just to keep changing parts until the problem went away. And the shortcuts he took on installation near guaranteed to cause another failure before long. He said to the boy, "You ever work on farm equipment before?"
"Well, sure," he said. "Ever since I came here. But really I'm a ship mechanic. This is just, you know, kind of a side job."
James Frye reflected on what it would be like to live and work aboard a spaceship maintained by this shagua. It would probably spend more time laid up than anything else, provided it didn't end up drifting in the Black. "How did you wind up here?"
'I was marooned," he said. At Jim's raised eyebrow he flushed. "Not because of my work. Captain left me here and took on another mechanic, a local girl. He made out like he liked her work better, but that wasn't all he was interested in. She was the friendly type, if you know what I mean, and just being around engines got her hot."
"Is that right," Jim said.
"Oh, yeah. Captain walked in on us in the engine room while we were goin at it. He took one look at her, she was in and I was out. I bet he…" The boy's voice trailed off as a group of coverall-clad people came through the big door. His eyes flicked to Jim.
"Ayuh," Jim said. "That's my little girl. And her fiancé's sister. And the irritated-looking young men behind them are her brothers."
Kaylee, deep in conversation with River, headed for the parts bins, apparently not noticing her father or his companion. Simon's sister glanced their way, her face unreadable, then followed Kaylee into the shelves. Matt and Rosh came straight toward their father, scowling.
The boy stiffened as the other two men approached. "Pa," Began Matt, "we're gonna have to pull out half the modules in the avionics bay. They were installed without being calibrated first, you believe that? Self, I don't know how Wash kept the ship in the air. He says he thought all Fireflys handled like that." He shook his head. "Told me it was work done by some puddinhead who was Mal's mechanic before Kaylee." His eyes flicked toward Jim's companion, seeming to notice him for the first time.
"Boys," said Jim Frye, "meet Bester Drake. I'm thinking of training him up to help out around the shop." He gave the boy a half-smile. "Seems we been getting a lot of work lately, though it's not the sort of work I like. I could use another pair of hands." It'll keep him from ruining any more of my neighbors' property, and maybe we can teach him a thing or two.
"He oughtta stay to dinner," said Simon's sister from the front of the racks in an eerie copy of Kaywinnit's voice. The original's owner was staring open-mouthed at young Bester. "Let everybody get to know him. Can he?"
-0-
Simon took a quick glance around the main clearing: he and Jayne were as private as they were likely to get. Dell was out of sight, watching their prisoner in the little annex, and Garrod was out for a walk in the twilight – probably looking for a nearby tree with a low sturdy limb. The father was watching Amadine at the other end of the big clearing, fruitlessly trying to get her to talk. Simon was supposed to be gathering enough wood to keep the fire going all night, but right now that was the furthest thing from his mind. He let the big merc take a few more strokes on the stone, then asked quietly, "Who was she?"
Jayne was still staring at the knife, but Simon didn't think he was really looking at it. "Just a pretty lil thing who took a shine to me. I'll never figure out why. I didn't lay a finger on her, and we never met anyplace but the town pump, where God and everybody could see. All we ever did was talk." He dug out a piece of leather and began stropping the blade. "I was in a gang then. We were playin highwayman up in the hills at a spot where we could watch two roads that saw some rich traffic. There was people who got a cut for tippin us off when something good was headed our way. We hijacked trucks mostly, but sometimes we'd stop a bus or private car and rob the marks inside. Easy money, and nobody got killed.
"Them hills was dry, though, and the nearest water was at this little town a coupla miles away. It was just a wide spot in the road, with a general store, a six-table saloon, and no whorehouse – though the schoolmarm wasn't bad, and fair accomodatin to a gentleman bearin gifts. We useta go down there for supplies and a little fun. The townies knew we wasn't really prospectin up in them hills, but as long as we behaved ourselves in town and dropped coin there, they was disinclined to talk to the law about it.
"The first time I met her, I was at the pump, grumblin to myself about losin the toss, which was why I was fillin jugs and loadin em onto the mule while my two mates was in the saloon. It was close enough I could hear voices and music, and I knew by the time I was done it'd be time to head back, and they'd be so bagged I'd be drivin home, too. I was feelin bout as sorry for myself as a man can be - who ain't a breath away from doin something stupid, anyway. That's when she come up and put her butt on the hitchin rail and started talkin, like we known each other for years. Jaimey, her name was."
Simon shifted, but held his tongue.
Jayne went on. "Mind, I been with whores younger than her. And there's plenty a worlds where she'd of been a grown woman in folks' eyes, and not cherry either. But this wasn't one of them worlds. I wasn't about to mess up our welcome in town by gettin carnal with some man's little girl. And that didn't seem like what she wanted anyway. Thinkin on it, maybe I was a kind of curiosity to her at first, like some animal in the zoo." He smiled. "All I know is, them jugs were full before I knew it, and I drove my zui wuzhi partners back without a grumble. Next time we ran low on water, I volunteered. And after a few more times, they quit askin whose turn it was ta go."
Simon smiled for a moment, before he remembered Jayne was talking about a girl who had been brutalized and murdered. The big man went on, "Shoulda known how ruttin deep I was in when I quit seein the schoolmarm. Jaimey allus came by the pump on her way home from school, so I knew near to the minute when she'd show. The saloon had a second floor with a couple rooms to rent and a little bath house, and the owner was a fair barber, so I'd hit town early for a wash and a trim." He turned his gaze upward, to the hazy line of Jove's ring. "We got plenty a looks from passersby, but we kept it friendly and public, so they didn't squint too hard. Her big brother Justus come around a couple times early on - not talkin much, just kind of chaperonin, and makin up his mind about me. I musta passed muster somehow, cause folks let us be after that.
"I smiled a lot when I was with that girl. The stuff she told me about her family and such kinda reminded me of home – the good memories, anyway. She'd rib me about havin a girl's name, and I'd tease her about havin a boy's, and she made me remember that clean jokes could be funny. Sometimes my cheeks hurt from smilin so much.
"I lied to her a lot too, about where we come from and stuff I did before, and what we were doin in them hills. Doubt she believed much of it. But lookin back on it, I guess I told her plenty a truth bout myself I never meant to." He scowled at the dirt between them. "I even told her about the guitar my brother gave me, how I was gonna have my folks send it to me if I ever settled in one place safe enough. When I said that, she undid the first two buttons of her shirt, just enough to see the top of her shift, and reached down between those little bao-sized breasts and pulled out a necklace on a silver chain. I was flummoxed. Any fool could see the stone in it was worth more than the whole town, and here she was, showin it off to anybody lookin our way. Worse, showin it to me."
He shook his head. "She put the gorram thing right in my hand, with the chain still around her neck. Said her brother found the stone and made her the necklace, and made her promise never to take it off. Our foreheads was almost touching, and her eyes sorta smiling into mine. It was still warm from her skin, and I could feel the same heat risin out of her open shirt against the back of my hand…" He shook his head again. "Girl just didn't know the meaning a temptation. I'm almost sure she didn't know what she was doin, just tryin to give me a show of trust, lettin me hold her prize pretty. But if we hadn't been in the town square, I don't know if I woulda stopped myself from reachin for everything she was offerin."
"And that's the necklace you gave River," Simon said. "Did you take it? Is that why you were running?"
The big merc scoffed. "Reckon I had that comin, anyway. No. How I got it comes at the end of a long story."
"It's going to be a long night."
"Ayuh." He reached up. "Knife. You been cuttin limbs with the gorram thing, it's prolly dull as a lawyer's conscience by now." He spit on the blade and began honing it. "Didn't take long for word to get around my crew why I had a sudden interest in fillin jugs. I didn't go alone often, my pards bein fond of the saloon, and though they stayed clear of the pump while there was work to be done, they come out now and again for a peek through the door at me and my company.
"Now just cause we was all robbers don't mean we was all bad men. Most of em smiled to see me all moony as a schoolboy with some little chick hardly more than half my age, though you'd never convince em I wasn't takin her out back of the store for a quick'n. But the townies seemed okay with whatever was goin on, and the jugs got filled regular, so they minded their own business." He paused. "All but one.
"There's a few ways to get into a gang. Most of em involve somebody on the inside vouching for you. I got no idea how Kripitch got in. He was there before I joined up. But I know the hundan didn't have any friends. He was a man who plain liked bein bad, the kind of man who'd kick down a door that wasn't locked. When we took down a passenger coach, he allus looked for feioo that was worth more than money to the folks he took it from – a capture of somebody's dead ma, or a lock of hair in a jewel box. Truck that was no use to him 'cept for the fun of listenin to em beg for it. He'd pretend to think it over, just ta give em a little hope, and then ride off with it anyway. As soon as we were out of sight, he'd toss it, cause he was done with it. He was an embarrassment to the rest of us, but he was crew. So long as he did his work and stuck by the gang, we was bound to let him be."
He tested the blade by drawing it lightly along his thumbnail, frowned at the result, then went back to work. "See, when you're in a gang like that, a gang where you work with a gun in your hand, you gotta stand together if you don't want to end up shootin one another. Bandits ain't allus the most stable a characters, and it wouldn't take much, some nights around the campfire, for everybody to jump to their feet with their guns under each others' chins. And when you're in a crew like that, you're not just watchin each other's backs – you're all witnesses to each other's crimes. It ain't smart ta make enemies – or to make your crew think they're safer without you than with you. So you stick together, and learn ta get along, and tolerate a man you wouldn't talk to if you met him in a bar, or else. Cuz if somebody turns on another in the gang, the others gotta put him down, and quick. Or else we'll start killin each other till there's nobody left."
Simon had always known that Jayne had lived a rough life full of peril, but he had always thought that that peril had come chiefly from outraged citizens and lawmen. The big man had mentioned the unreliability of the men he had made his career with, and having the trust leached out of him by years of criminal activity, but now Simon imagined him spending half a lifetime watching with hunter's eyes the men he lived and slept with, weighing every word of conversation for hidden meanings and hidden intent.
Simon remembered his time in the blackout zone, and the 'Resistance' group he had worked with, and imagined making a career in such a world. How could anyone maintain a sense of decency? And yet Jayne had stepped back from that brink – albeit with a few stumbles – and become a man Serenity's crew could count on.
Jayne went on, "One day, Kripitch hitched a ride with me into town. We rode in, just him an me, and he jumped out and headed toward the saloon. That unsettled me a bit, cause Kripitch was a mean drunk, and there was nobody with him to keep him in line. So I started fillin jugs with one eye on the saloon door, and I didn't hear her come up on me. 'Hey,' she said. 'Are you wishing you were somewhere else?'
"'Not now you're here.' Folks hearing me would prolly take that for sparky talk, but it was just the truth."
Simon noted that, while the big merc fell short of being able to raise and smooth his voice in approximation of a teenage girl's, his grammar and diction were for that moment far better than the doctor had ever heard from him. He knows how. It just doesn't suit his self-image.
Jayne handed back the knife. He reached into his pack and brought out his canteen – the one he had filled with moonshine from the loggers' camp. He took a deep pull from it, but didn't offer it to the doctor. Simon was grateful not to have to refuse; this seemed a night for clear heads.
Thus fortified, the man went on. "We talked awhile, same as always, her tellin me how school went, and me tellin her about bein in school back on Halley. Then she stops talkin right in the middle of a story and looks over my shoulder. I already knew what she was lookin at – Kripitch put that look on a lotta people's faces. A breath later, I hear his feet crunchin in the gravel, and he says, 'Cobb, ain't you gonna introduce me to your little friend?'
"I couldn't help myself. I put down my jug and dropped a hand on the butt of my gun and looked him straight in the eye. 'Jaimey, Kripitch,' I said. No more than that. I couldn't make it any plainer he needed to move on, but he tipped his hat and started talkin to her like I wasn't there. She wouldn't give him more than a few words at a time, and kept lookin at me, as if to say why doesn't he leave us alone?
"Finally, he touched his hat again, grinning at me in a way that made me touch my gun again. 'Well. Off to see a friend of my own. Back in a bit,' he said, and sauntered off.
"Jaimey watched him head down the road – makin for the schoolmarm's place, by the look of it, though I hoped she didn't know that. 'Jayne, this man is your friend?'
"'I don't even like im,' I said. 'But he's on my crew.'
"'Do you trust him?'
"'Up to a point,' I allowed. I had cause ta regret them words later.
"Kripitch was in a good mood on the way back, so I figured he'd stayed after school and got a passing grade from the teacher. We didn't talk much; we never did. Truth is, I never even knew the hundan's first name. When we was almost in sight of the main camp, he says, 'Brenda was askin about you. Told her you had your hand up a different skirt these days.'
"I didn't lose my temper, cuz I'd been expectin something like this the whole trip back. 'Run your mouth all you want in camp, Kripitch, but you don't wanna go spreadin fei liao like that in town.'
"'You been sparkin with her in the town square all summer, Cobb. I kinda think they know.'
"'The town square is all that's goin on between us. I said it a hundred times.'
"'Oh, you did. But I'm thinkin people who know you have a hard time believin it.'
"'You don't know me.'
"He give me a slippery kind of grin. 'She remind you of a kid sister or summat? That the real reason you don't risk it?' The grin widened up. 'And mebbe why you can't stop thinkin about it? Go easy on yerself, brother. How come she keeps hangin around, if she's not lookin for a little somethin? She is a pretty little piece. If you don't want her, I wouldn't mind-'
"We were in sight of the camp by then, but that moment, I didn't care who was watchin. I stopped the mule and grabbed his shirt. He lifted his hands for everyone to see, but that grin was still on his face. I said, 'You don't lay a finger on her. You don't talk to her. You see her, you look away and walk on by like she ain't there. You ever scare her or put a tear in her eye, Kripitch, you'll never make it back to camp.'"
Jayne took another long pull from the canteen, keeping it tilted until his eyes watered, then capped it and set it aside. He stared off at nothing. "I wonder now if that wasn't the exact wrong thing ta do. Would it of made a difference if I hadn't shown him she meant somethin to me?"
"Hello the camp," Garrod said softly from the trees.
"Come," Jayne replied. Simon wondered why the two men had suddenly turned so cautious; were things so tense between them that the man worried about being shot by accident?
A moment later, the oldest Henson son appeared from among the trees. He glanced at Jayne, sitting crosslegged in front of the fire with the whetstone on his thigh, and at Simon standing over him. he gave a nod to his father on the other side of the clearing, and studied the child at Royce's feet, who sat with her back against a tree and her knees drawn up to her chin, staring at nothing. "Where's his knife?"
Jayne touched the scabbard of the big blade, which was clipped to his belt. "Your pa has his gun. The rest of his gear is still in his bag."
Still watching the girl, Garrod said, "I'll take his bedroll. She can have mine. She's not gonna spend another night in his wool."
Burdon, presumably, would spend the night tied to his tree, in nothing but his clothes. Simon doubted the man would be passing the night in comfort even if he had had a blanket.
After another moment of silence, Garrod went off to join his father. Simon turned back to the big merc. Jayne drew a heavy breath and let it out, and began talking again, staring into the fire.
"A month later, we was on the lookout for a truck that was supposed to be carryin a safe fulla cash, startup money for a new bank. Our source couldn't tell us as much as we wanted to know about the shipment, but we had a description of the truck, and a pair a dates it was supposed ta happen in between, and we knew it would ship at night. So we set up a sort of lookout station for one man with 'oculars and a comlink on a rocky hill a little ways up the road, quite a bit closer to town. At first we was gonna put two men on it, but I volunteered to do it alone, cause I needed some time away ta sorta gather my calm. Kripitch was rubbin me raw, goin into town with me every water trip and makin little comments about my taste in women. He didn't stay with me or pester Jaimey again, but just lookin over my shoulder for him took some of the fun outta bein with her. It was summat of a hike to the lookout from the main camp - we kept the mule at the main camp for emergencies - so I had pretty much moved up there and made my own camp, just over the ridge and out a sight of the road below. Not havin ta spend my evenings with the hundan helped keep me from grabbin his shirt again.
"So me and Jaimey are talkin at the pump one afternoon, and I'm stowin my last jug on the mule with an eye on the saloon door, and she says, all self-conscious, 'I'm coming back into town after supper.'
"'Oh?' Not the smartest thing I might have said, I suppose. 'How come?'
"'School play,' she said. 'At the church. I'm in it. Everybody'll be there. Do you want to come?' And then her eyes drop to my belt buckle. 'It'll be going dark, after. Maybe, you could walk me home?'
"I thought about sittin in a church fulla citizens, as outta place as a Bowie in a silverware drawer, maybe sharing a bench with her ma and pa and brother, watchin her act like a grown woman in some play. Standin up to clap with everybody else while they watched me instead a the kids on stage. Then I thought about walkin alone with her under the stars. My throat and chest got so tight I could hardly talk. 'Can't,' I said. 'I'm workin tonight.' She looked so disappointed I had ta try to be funny. 'Sides,' I said, 'If I was ta step through a church door, I might burst inta flames.'
"She didn't smile, just nodded and went off. It set me to broodin. Kripitch hadn't shown up, but I didn't think much about that – he knew when it was time ta go, but sometimes he'd take a room above the saloon when he'd had a skinful, and find a way back to camp the next day. So I didn't go lookin for him, just hopped on the mule and headed back to camp.
"Offloading them jugs and talkin to some of the crew took me halfway till dark. I finally set out on foot, thinkin of Jaimey up on stage, my feet takin me closer to town with every step. I talked to myself about steppin into that church for most of that walk. But I finally reached the spot in the trail where I had ta turn one way or the other, and I turned toward my camp. The shadows were pretty long by then anyways, and I told myself she must be on her way home arready." His eyes lifted from the fire to meet Simon's. "I was thinkin so hard about that girl and what she must be doin, I didn't notice right away. That there was tracks in the dust of that trail that didn't belong to me. One belonged to Kripitch – I could tell from a cut on the right heel that he got from stompin a mark's tin music box. The other set was smaller, bout the right size for…"
He stood, pocketed the whetstone, and started walking up the trail, away from the other campers and toward the ridgeline. Simon followed.
Jayne said, "I started runnin up the trail, readin the signs as I went. The story was clear enough. The path was narrow, and they were goin single file, her leadin and in a hurry – not runnin, just eager. Don't know what he told her, but I'd bet anything it was about me. After a while, she slowed to a stop and faced him. She musta caught on somehow, got suspicious. That's when he started draggin her. Did that for about fifty yards, then she broke free and left the trail. She musta thought she had a better chance outrunning him cross-country, or losin him in all the outcrops. Didn't work."
The big merc fell silent, but kept walking. He and Simon were out of sight of the camp now, the campfire's illumination lost; everything was taking on the grayish tint that signified that the lightsats were altering their focus, taking day to another part of the world.
The trees tapered away, and they stood on the ridgetop. It was an impressive view, Simon thought, even in twilight. The wooded folds stretched away in all directions above the gray-blue sky. On the western horizon, a faint glow marked the retreating line of the sats' attention. Simon wondered if the sunshine was still warming the Frye homestead, whether River and Kaylee and the others were all right.
Simon didn't wonder whether Jayne would finish his story. He remembered the night he and Kaylee had made a fire on the beach, and she had told him about her kidnapping. She had been terrified to start, but once begun, something had dragged the story out, even though he could see how much parts of it pained her. In return, he had told her of his time as a lackey of the criminal gang that called itself the Freedom Movement, and its consequences; he had thought he could never tell anyone the story, but once the cork had been pulled on those memories, there was no keeping them bottled. Once started, some stories demanded to be told to the end.
Jayne pointed at the next ridge, seeming about five kilometers away. Among the trees near its base was a wavering glow. "Minin camp," Jayne said. "Thought there was somethin there in daylight, but I wasn't sure."
"We could have been there by sundown," Simon said.
"Mebbe. Woods get heavy again on the other side of the ridge, and the trail's fainter. Plus we'd a been dragging along our prisoner and that little girl. And then there's the li'l matter of the rest of the posse." He turned to Simon. "Think we shoulda put it to a vote? We'd a been goin into that camp without him."
"Jayne … I don't think they're going to change their minds about this." What are you going to do?
The big merc turned away, looking at the distant treeline silhouetted by the glow on the horizon. "I found her in the dust in a kind a shallow bowl among the rocks. So close to my camp I coulda stood on one of em and seen my tent and campfire. Reckon that was his plan - do his business with her in my camp, maybe right in my roll, and leave her for me to find while he hightailed it back safe ta the gang.
"I thought about all that later, while I was trackin him. Just then, all I could think was how much she looked like a castoff doll. She was still mostly dressed, and the clothes she was wearin weren't nothin like I ever seen her in – guess it was her stage costume. And her face was all made up ... or had been, before it got all smeared up and tear streaked. Her eyes was open, and she looked dead as anybody I ever seen, but I checked her pulse and breathin anyway. I didn't see how he'd done it. Truth, I didn't look close once I was sure she was gone. All I could think about was figurin how much lead he had on me, and rememberin I'd promised the hundan he'd never make it back ta camp.
"If I'd a known then what I know now, I coulda took back more than one bad decision, made things come out different. Startin with goin with her to that gorram play." He scanned the distant ridgeline, watching the last of the daylight fade away to be replaced by the faint haze of the atmospheric shield. "I lit out after him with just the pistol in my belt, and no other thought but catchin him and dealin with him. Before long, I realized he wasn't headed back to the main camp – he was leadin me off farther inta the hills. I thought maybe he figured after what he done, he'd better make a clean break. Or maybe he knew I was after him and he wouldn't make it. But now, I'm pretty sure he had a whole other plan. Another case a me not thinkin things through."
"He laid an ambush for me – not a very good one, he musta thought I'd be too hot on the trail to lift my head. Didn't bother with my pistol, just killed him with my hands. I left his body for the animals. Knew then I'd have ta run from my gang, and right quick. I searched him for whatever I could use. I took his knife and a little cash." His features became stone. "And then I found her necklace."
Simon frowned. "You said you were caught. They let you keep it?"
"Told ya it was a long story." Jayne looked across the valley to the faint and flickering lights of the mining camp. "He took her from me, then he left her for me. Figured that was all there was to it, till they caught me. Wasn't till I was in a cell that I finally saw what Kripitch had been up to." He shook his head. "What did he think I was gonna do when I found her, bury her so's I wouldn't take the blame, and he could go on robbin folks with the gang? I really think he did. Kripitch was all about provin he could do what he pleased without any con-sequences. But he saw I was comin after him somehow, and changed plans, ta make it look like I killed her and then lit out for the back country, never to be seen again, which 'ud still let him go back to the gang – not that they was likely to stick around them parts afterwards." He took a rock off the trail and tossed it downslope; Simon heard it smack against a trunk. "Yeah, he was a cocky umhuo."
"But you were acquitted," Simon said.
"Damn near didn't even get a trial," Jayne said. "I wasn't the only man in that little one-horse town who loved that girl. When they brung me in, there was a group a 'concerned citizens' waitin at the jailhouse door. But the sheriff got me past em and into the jail's one cell. They didn't go anywhere, though. I could hear em talkin to each other, keepin theirselves all worked up. And I could see the lawman at his desk, checkin the load on his pistol while he listened, tryin to decide whether I was worth it.
"Then it got quiet, scary quiet. A couple minutes later, Jaimey's brother was standin at the bars – not talkin, just starin at me. 'I didn't do it, Justus,' I said to him. 'I killed the man done it.'
"He looked at me through the bars and said, "Not soon enough.'
"'I didn't know what he was up to till he'd arready done it,' I said. 'Killin him after was all I could do for her.'
"I told him the story. He didn't say a word, just stood there while I talked. When I was done, he said, 'I knew you were trouble the second I laid eyes on you. Even if it wasn't you, letting you near her was the stupidest thing I ever done.'"
Jayne fell silent a moment. "He was right," the big man said. "I shoulda sent her off the first time she came by. I knew it as soon as she asked my name. But I couldn't." After another pause he said, "It wasn't cause I wanted to tup her. I mean, it come to mind sometimes, but not like I was really thinkin about it. She just…"
"You were lonely," Simon said. "Not for what any woman could give you. For someone who thought you were special." He added, "Like you are to River."
Jayne scoffed. "I had plenty a thoughts about that girl I wouldn't share with her brother. Specially if he had a needle in his hand." His face blanked again. "They tried me first thing in the mornin. They didn't have a courthouse, so they did it in the church, right where Jaimey had done her little play just the night before. There's worlds where you can't try a man for his life without a lawyer … Well, you know the line. I got up in the witness box and told my story, doin my best ta make it sound like self-defense – which it kinda was, seein how he was tryin ta kill me before I could kill him. I told where I left the body, and why I ran.
"The judge was the sort who traveled from one little burg to another, goin wherever folks felt a need for some justice. I'm fair sure it was his first murder case. The only lawyer in town was handlin the prosecution, a course. You wouldna thought he'd be any good in a courtroom - he just drew up wills and contracts and such, hardly more than a notary - but I guess he was inspired. Or maybe I was just that easy. He asked me about my business in those parts, and there wasn't any answer I could give that didn't put me in the shade. He pecked at me about my 'ree-lationship' with Jaimey, makin it sound like I was pawin a little girl who was still playin with dolls. He made me tell the jury that I'd started campin solo just the week before, nice and solitary, in a spot a lot closer to that gorram pump but still away from witnesses. That was when the hundan asked me flat out how long I'd been plannin it. I reached over the rail and almost got get my hands on his neck before he stumbled back. I reckon the defense rested at that point.
"Turned out, somebody had already been to where I dropped Kripitch. The sheriff had heard my story when I told Justus the night before, and sent a couple men there at first light. They took the stand and declared they hadn't found so much as a drop a blood." He scoffed. "Strangest sitcheeashun I ever been in, sittin in a courtroom wishin I could prove I'd killed somebody. I took Kripitch's ID when I emptied his pockets, mostly outa habit – if they have trouble identifyin the body, it can give ya more time ta get away. But I threw it away quick, cause I didn't wanna get caught with it."
The light from the sats was long gone now, their parting glow on the horizon just a memory, but the sky over their heads was clear of foliage, and the hazy image of Jove and its rings cast a faint illumination. Jayne's face looked like something carved from pale stone. "They had one old fella who was the town doc, the vet, and the mortician. He did the autopsy on her. When he took the stand, I found out how Kripitch killed her – with that ruttin knife I took off him. It was just long enough to pierce her clean through, and she bled out into the sand underneath her. That's why I didn't see it. There was a little bit a dried blood on the blade, up by the hilt. Old man didn't have a real lab – no way to gene ID it – but he could tell the blood type, and it matched hers, and that was good enough. When I told my story, I said that I took her necklace off Kripitch, but I didn't give em the whole list. I tried ta tell em then, but the judge wouldn't let me. Guess it woulda sounded like the oldest excuse in the book anyway.
"Then the old coot started describin the condition of the body, and everybody in the room leaned in towards him, not wantin ta miss any gruesome details. She'd been raped, but she'd put up a fight. Her wrists and legs and the side of her face was bruised, and she'd broken three nails on her right hand. The prosecutor turned and looked real deliberate at me, and everybody else tracked what he was starin at – some cuts on the left side a my face that I got in the fight with that umhuo."
Simon shook his head. "The doctor testified that she was raped. Did he get a semen sample?" Semen, like blood and a few other bodily fluids, could be type-matched with a simple test.
The big merc's gait seemed to falter. "That wasn't how he knew. He figured the blood was enough. Hell, he prolly been treatin her since she was born. Think he wanted to go diggin around inside her, lookin for what some ga ni niang left behind?" Jayne let out a long soft sigh. "They wasn't bad folks. Better than some, I'd say. They liked their justice swift and clear, but who don't? When the prosecution rested, I thought the jury would give the judge their verdict without even leavin their seats, but the foreman asked for a recess till morning to take a good look at the evidence." He cast his eyes down the dark trail. "That was one long night, starin at the window in my cell, waitin for sunrise. I left my breakfast at the bars. Finally, the sheriff said, 'They're callin for you,' and opened the door. I thought about jumpin im, but Justus was standin ten feet away with a gun on his hip, and I just couldn't."
Jayne started walking back down the trail, which Simon took as a signal that the story was nearing its end. The big man went on, "Everybody was already there and waitin, even the judge. The sheriff set me down at the defendant's table. But instead a the judge askin the jury if they reached a verdict, the prosecutor stood up and called Justus to the stand.
"After the trial ended the day before, Justus went back to the spot where I killed Kripitch. But he called on a local rancher first ta walk around with him, somebody who knew the area. He was the one told Justus about the wolf sightins they'd had around there that season, and the one who spotted the big pawprints where I'd left the gan ni niang, along with the drag marks.
"They followed those tracks a couple hundred yards to its den, a hole in the rocks. Flushed it out and shot it, and Justus crawled inside the hole. And found what was left a Kripitch.
"He hauled the body back ta town after dark and beat on doors till he got the judge and the lawyer and the doc together ta see. That dog had pretty much chewed off Kripitch's legs and arms, and tore up his belly ta get at the sweetmeats, but it left him alone from the shoulders up. And on the left side of his face and neck there was four long scratches.
"The doc took the stand then. He said he looked at Jaimey's hand again, and under the nail that didn't break he found skin, plenty of it. With more'n one suspect ta check out, he took a semen sample and tested it. Type matched Kripitch's.
"Nobody had ever took a sample off me for matchin. They did it right there in the courtroom. The doc had brought his test kit with him, and you coulda heard a pin drop while he fussed over it. He looked at it, and without botherin ta take the witness stand he calls out. "No match."
Light flickered faintly ahead: the campfire. "And just that quick, I was some big damn hero. People who wanted to put a rope around my neck two nights before was slappin me on the back. The lawyer shook my hand. When they took me back to the jailhouse for my stuff, the sheriff give me a piece a paper ta sign, appointin me a deputy, backdated to before I kilt Kripitch." He scoffed. "I first walked inta that jailhouse almost sure to hang, and in the end I walked out a lawman."
The big merc fell silent. Simon thought he was done until he said, "Justus was there when they give me my kit back. They give me Kripitch's knife, but the sheriff handed Jaimey's necklace to her brother. He held that necklace up between us with tears in his eyes and said, 'You take this. But don't you sell it, not for anything. Someday, you're gonna find somebody you'd give your life to keep safe. You put it on her, for a reminder. And you make gorram sure you do it right this time.'"
The camp lay just ahead. As they stepped to the edge of the clearing Jayne said, "I'm alive cuz a man who had no reason to believe me thought I should get a fair trial. It may be, all this fella did was go soft in the head and take in a little crazy girl who needed help." He turned to meet Simon's eye. "You really wanna see him hang for that?"
Simon glanced toward the center of the clearing. Amadine lay in Garrod's bedroll by the fire, apparently sleeping, with Royce sitting beside her, silently watching them. "It's past time I took my turn at guard duty." He stepped away without another word. He visited his sleeping spot briefly and went through his pack, removing several items – including one from his medical kit. Then he headed for the smaller clearing and their captive.
In a spot far from the fire, Jayne put his back against a tree, pulled out Burdon's knife and examined it. He tested the edge, remembering that the mountain man had been working on it when they had surprised him. Like Jayne, Burdon preferred good steel, and liked his cutting tools sharp. Jayne wondered if this knife was something Burdon had picked up a week ago at the charcoalers' company store a week ago, or if it was the blade that had put the faded network of thread-thin scars at the join of Kay-Kay's throat and jaw. He squatted, took out the whetstone again, and went to work.
-0-
"You think you could loosen up the rope on my ankles? I can't feel my feet half the time. And when I do, they feel like they're on fire. Come on, what am I gonna do, uproot the gorram tree?"
Simon rounded the little outcrop that separated the two clearings. Burdon sat still bound to the tree, legs straight out in front of him; Dell sat against another, rifle in hand, ignoring him. They both looked up as Simon came into view. "My watch," he said to Dell, drawing the pistol from his belt and checking it. "Get some rest."
When the young prospector left, Simon produced a short knife and cut away the prisoner's ankle restraints. Burdon gasped and grunted as the circulation returned to his feet. "Thankee," he said. "How's the girl?"
"Resting," the doctor said. "One of the others is with her."
"She say anything?"
"Not yet," Simon said, staring into the man's eyes, "but I think she will before too long."
"Not soon enough to save my bacon though, eh?"
Simon made no answer. Instead he drew from his pocket one of the books Dell had found in Burdon's pack. He sat down with it, carefully turning the shabby tome's brittle yellowed pages. The doctor thought that you could sometimes learn things about people by the books they read; if Burdon carried this one with him through the wild, he thought, the man must attach some importance to the thoughts and words inside. What he found was a collection of very short stories, simply written, all with surprise endings. Apparently Burdon enjoyed fiction about characters who weren't who they seemed and plots that turned the reader's assumptions on their heads.
"We read from that one every night after supper," said Burdon. "Seemed to calm her down."
"I can't imagine why," Simon said. "It seems to me she wouldn't enjoy any more surprises." He turned back to the lengthy table of contents. "What story did you read last?"
"'Gift of the Magi,'" the big man replied promptly. "This young couple at Christmas. They ain't got a pot to piss in, but neither of them can bear the thought of the other on Christmas without a gift to open up. She cuts off all her hair to sell to a wigmaker, and buys him a fancy chain for the pocket watch he got from his da. Only, on Christmas morning, she finds out he pawned the watch to buy her a set of combs."
The story lay halfway through the book, the twentieth listed; if he had read them in order, then either Burdon had read Amadine more than one story a night, or…
"You're a doctor, right?"
"A surgeon," he said, eyes still scanning the pages.
"How's that oath go, you guys all take? 'First, do no harm'?"
"'Harm' can be a vague and slippery concept. Or a relative one. A doctor whose patient has a terminal illness has to decide whether to submit him to weeks or months of misery, or simply to let him die quietly. At a disaster site, a doctor may have to triage patients, withholding care to those with little chance in order to save someone with a better."
"Ain't nothing vague or relative about putting a rope around a healthy man's neck and choking him to death."
Simon shut the book and set it aside. "I have something. It's meant to be used as a painkiller and sedative. But in a high enough dose, you'd just go to sleep and never wake up. I'll do that, if you want."
"And cheat your friends of their fun?" Burdon huffed. "If you don't believe me-"
"I don't," Simon said. "I'm as convinced as they are that you're guilty. Ridding the 'Verse of you is a service to mankind. But that doesn't mean you have to suffer." And if the Hensons found Burdon dead in the morning, there would be no need for a showdown with Jayne. Simon knew where he'd have to stand in that fight, his own opinions notwithstanding, though he had no illusions about how much help he would be.
"All neat and clean, like switching off a light, eh?" Burdon was quiet for a moment, and Simon thought he was thinking it over, until he said, "What was all that about eyes?"
The doctor shifted mental gears. "One of the girls they rescued ten years ago. She was pregnant. The child is ten now, and he has eyes like no one else in his family." He stared into Burdon's eyes. "Your eyes."
"Huh," the man said. "There's tests for that, right? For-sure ones?"
Taken back another step, Simon said, "There are. But I can't perform one here. I need equipment, and samples from both individuals."
"What sort of samples?"
"Blood would be good. Or just a little skin scraped from the inside of the mouth."
Burdon nodded. "Well, listen up, Mister Neat and Clean. If I have a choice, I'm not gonna be put down like a sick animal. When they put that noose around my neck tomorrow, I'm gonna be looking them in the eye and cursing them. You wanna do me a final request, you take that sample. When you get back, all happy and flushed with having rid the world of me, you run that test. Show all your pals the results. I want all of you to know you murdered an innocent man, and the monster you hate so much is still out here, free and laughing at you."
A few hours later, Jayne appeared to relieve the doctor. The bound man looked to be sleeping, but Jayne doubted; he was sure he wouldn't be. "Any trouble?" He asked Simon.
The young man closed the book he had been reading. "None. When I got here, I untied his ankles. He asked me to do a gene-check postmortem, between him and Will, so we would know we'd hung the wrong man."
"Well, what's he got ta lose?"
The doctor stood and glanced at the prisoner. "It's not a difficult test, or a lengthy one, if you're not out in the middle of the woods. If I was at the mining camp, I could call the ship and be ready to perform it in half an hour."
"If you was there now, you wouldn't get back in time with the results."
"I know." His gaze shifted from the prisoner to Jayne. "How far away is the camp, do you think?"
Jayne drew closer. "Far enough there's a good chance the others would run us down if we tried to get there with him. You ready to trade shots with the Hensons over this shagua? They got as much at stake in this as we do. More - they known Kaylee longer. Knew Mina too. And they lost that boy."
Simon studied the big merc. "I don't know whether to be relieved or disappointed."
Jayne shrugged. "Just been revisitin our options. There ain't many."
After Simon left, Jayne paced. Though there was no sign of it in the sky, first light was just four hours off. When he thought he had paced long enough, he stepped away just far enough to see the rest of the clearing, and the five mounded bedrolls around the fire. It seemed Garrod had finally come back. The Eldest Henson boy's whereabouts had been a matter of some concern to Jayne, mostly because the miner's sudden appearance would ruin his plan.
It was time.
He put a toe in the prisoner's hip. In a low voice he said "Wake up."
Burdon opened his eyes as if he'd been lying there waiting for the order.
Jayne stepped behind the tree. "Bring back your wrists some. I don't want to cut you." Jayne carefully inserted the mountain man's oversize Bowie between his bound wrists and pulled. The rope parted like cobwebs. "Stand up." He returned the knife to its sheath before going back around the tree.
The man rose stiffly and stood facing his captor. "Feeling impatient?"
Jayne put a hand on the top of the knife's handle, drawing Burdon's eye to it. "Good blade. I'm gonna miss it."
"What-"
"I'll give you fifteen minutes before I raise the alarm."
Burdon regarded him as he chafed his wrists. "Fifteen minutes isn't much."
"Holdin out for a better offer?"
"If this is just you making sport of killing me, I'd as soon wait for the rope."
"Killin men ain't a sport. But fifteen minutes is all I can give ya. That, and your knife back. I'm sposed to be guardin ya, after all. I can say I walked off ta take a dump and you were gone when I got back. Any longer, and they'll know you didn't just slip away, and I'm not gonna swing in your place." He went on, "I'm the tracker. The rest of em is town boys, they'll never pick up your trail less you blaze it. I'll miss your tracks just once and double back. They'll buy that, should be good for another ten minutes or so. Ought ta be enough to get you to that miner's camp before we catch you. You'll still stand trial, but your judge and jury won't be men with the rope arready in their hands. Well?"
"I'm not fengla. I'm in."
"Remember, if ya get caught again, you got away on your own. Your twenty-five minutes starts now." Jayne unclipped the sheathed knife from his belt and passed it over.
Burdon clipped the sheath to the front of his right hip, a poor carry position for a knife-fighter – a right-handed one, anyway, and Burdon had held his spoon in his right at dinner. The mountain man nodded and offered his right hand. "However it turns out, thank you."
Jayne reached for Burdon's hand and the two gripped tight. Burdon's left hand whipped out the knife and drove it under Jayne's outstretched right arm into his side.
Both men grunted from the impact. Burdon's snarl changed to a look of surprise as the weapon skidded off the merc's ribs. Jayne separated them with a hard shove. Burdon stepped back and saw the tear in Jayne's shirt, and the protective vest beneath. A glance at the big blade in his hand told the other half of the story: the knife's edge had been ground flat, and its tip was as blunt and inoffensive as a butter knife's, with only an inch just below the handle showing the gleam of honing.
Jayne reached behind him. "I didn't wanna see ya hung without a fair trial." He produced another knife, smaller in size but with its point and cutting edge mirror-bright. "You just got it. Turn and get tied back up, or try your luck?"
Burdon spun and bolted for the trees.
Jayne stropped his blade twice on his pants leg before giving pursuit. This is going to be better than Christmas in a whorehouse.
Burdon laid a better ambush than Kripitch had. A hundred yards down the wooded path, just past a slight rise, the mountain man's footprints braked and turned suddenly off the trail into a narrow opening in the brush. Jayne turned that way just a moment before suspicion flared. A heavy impact between his shoulder blades drove him to the ground.
Burdon's knees were firmly planted in Jayne's back. He had one arm around his neck, doing his best to pull the merc's head off his shoulders; the other hand twisted at Jayne's wrist, trying to break the grip on his knife. Jayne tried to roll and buck, but he was pinned solid. His neck creaked as Burdon pulled harder, cutting off his air. The man's grip on Jayne's knife wrist was iron. The merc gave up trying to break Burdon's grip on his neck with his other hand and reached awkwardly behind him, searching for something to hit or grab, but there was nothing, and his vision began to darken…
Another impact, and Burdon's weight was off him. He rose to hands and knees, coughing while needles filled his skull. Burdon gave Simon a punch to the side of the head that sent him sprawling, and lurched off into the brush, holding his arm against his side with his other hand. Jayne croaked, "Stay here," picked up his knife, and followed.
Five minutes later, the scuffed and panting merc wiped his blade on the shoulder of Burdon's cooling corpse. A memory came back to him: River lying in his arms in his bunk that one night she'd been completely sane, and telling secrets. One time, I stepped into the galley and saw you stab a stranger with a knife as big as a gladius. I still don't know if it really happened, or if it was a memory, or you just imagined doing it. I don't even know if it was your thought or someone else's. For all I know, I simply dreamed it. Jayne's opinion had favored the last, since he'd never owned a knife that large and thought such a tool impractical for fighting. He saw now that he'd misunderstood her. He had just stabbed a man with a big knife, right enough, but in the other man's hand, not Jayne's. She told me she can't read the future. Reckon she doesn't know her mind any better than we do.
The brush along his backtrail rustled, and Royce stepped through, pistol in hand, closely followed by Garrod, who was half-carrying Simon with the doc's arm draped around the young miner's neck. When Garrod saw Burdon on the ground, he eased Simon down against a tree and approached Jayne. "What kinda feihua was this?"
Jayne slid his knife back into its sheath behind his back. "I wanted better proof."
"Well," said Royce, "I reckon you got it. Was it worth risking your life?"
"You should have just let us hang him," Garrod said.
Jayne looked around for Burdon's knife, but it was nowhere in sight, the man having flung his arms wide when Jayne drove his blade into his heart. "Maybe." And maybe not. If they had put a noose around his neck and asked him for his last words, Burdon would have gone to his end still declaring his innocence in a last play for sympathy. With his wildly beating heart tearing itself to pieces around Jayne's knife, he had given his executioner a dying declaration. Not a confession; confessions were born of remorse, and men like Burdon never felt remorse. The gan ni niang's last statement, just five words uttered in a grunt, had been born of a baser impulse: wanting to make sure nobody else got away clean from the crime that had cost him his life.
Ames was behind it all.
They left Burdon in the woods for whatever might have an appetite for him and trudged back to camp. They went slow, taking turns with Simon, who was still plenty unsteady on his feet. Burdon had given him a wallop that, from Jayne's experience, might trouble the young doc for a long time. Stiffness, blurry vision and headaches were just a few of the long-term results of having your head nearly knocked off your shoulders, and your brains shaken inside your skull like dice in a cup just before the big throw.
Jayne spelled Garrod and took up the burden of the crippled man. "Saved my pigu back there," he said.
Simon stumbled against him and recovered. "I think by this point in our joint career," he said, "we've done that for one another often enough that keeping score doesn't make sense – to paraphrase something Zoë once said to me."
"Burdon was runnin like a rabbit with buckshot in his haunches. How'd you end up right behind us?"
"I was coming back for that tissue sample," he said.
Jayne nodded. Before he would head back to camp, the doctor had insisted on taking a swab to the inside of the corpse's mouth, and stuck it in a little jar. "So you're gonna run the test anyway."
"Just to be sure," he replied. "To put it all to rest."
Jayne nodded again. He wasn't bothered by the killing; even if Burdon hadn't been Kaylee's abductor – even if he hadn't been Amadine's - he had it coming. A man who could shake your hand, smile in your face, and stab you to death with your hand still clasped in his surely had plenty of blood on his hands. But if Burdon hadn't taken the Frye girls, then the bastard who had was unaccounted for, and that, as Simon might say, was unacceptable.
At their camp, Dell and Amadine were awake and waiting. The girl watched them all with huge eyes as Jayne eased Simon down next to his pack, and the Hensons took the youngest of their clan aside to speak with him in low voices.
Jayne sat down cross-legged at the low fire, suddenly tired. Killing Burdon had given him some satisfaction when he'd done it, but not near as much as he thought he should have felt. He looked at the girl an arm's length away, who froze like a deer that hears a twig snap.
Ames was behind it all.
Why would Ames arrange the kidnapping of his own kid? And then pay someone to go rescue her? It didn't make any sense. Were they actually meant to find her, or just make a good show of it? Was that why Ames had given them maps twenty years out of date? If that was so, then what sort of game was he...
It took him a moment for the tiny voice to register, to realize the girl had spoken, almost in a whisper: "Please don't kill me."
He looked her way, dumfounded. Her eyes were fixed on her hands in her lap. She shivered.
Jayne looked at the others: Simon dozing with his head pillowed on his pack, the Hensons talking quietly a short distance away. No one else had heard her. He said quietly, "I ain't gonna hurt you. Nobody here's gonna hurt you. I'm sorry I pushed you earlier. I was scared."
She didn't answer, didn't look his way; he had almost convinced himself he had been hearing things when she said, "Where is he?"
For a second, Jayne considered telling her Burdon had got away. But he decided that it would be a poor way to secure the girl's trust, to lie to her about something she already suspected the truth of. "I killed him," he said. "But he tried to kill me first. I don't know what you think he was, but he was a bad man who did bad things. We come here to get you away from him." And take you back to your family, he almost said, but something stopped him. "I ain't a real good man, but I don't hurt little girls."
He was starting to itch under that gorram body armor. He shifted it with a hand, and felt the tiny chain in his pocket, the one that Inara had given him through the Shepherd, pressing against his palm through the flannel. He reached in and drew it out. "Long time ago, a man made me promise that I'd give a necklace to a girl I felt a need to protect. It's my pledge, that I'll do anything it takes ta keep her safe. I done it just one time in all the years between." He set the necklace on the ground between them. "This is the second. You don't have ta take it. I'll help ya whether you do or not." He looked away, ignoring the girl and the little neck chain.
"Is she safe?"
He answered, "Safe as I can make her, me and my friends." He chin-pointed toward Simon. "Her and him both. She's his sister." He went on, even quieter. "She's seventeen now, and she's lookin at me like I'm somethin special. I don't know what ta do about that. She's way too fine for somebody like me."
He didn't hear anything, but caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He ignored it for a slow ten-count, then looked. The girl's position was unchanged, but the necklace was gone. And in its place lay a comlink, its tiny 'ready' light glowing.