Title: Sticking Point (2/9)
Rating: PG13
~Day 2~
Second day down, Bester claimed he was still trying to track down exactly what had failed and why, and then, depending on what it was, that he might need a couple days to set it right. While irksome, Mal took the news philosophically. This had certainly been the most exciting of Serenity's glitches to date, but her past abuse and neglect had left her countless pestiferous bugs, most just annoyingly flea-like in size. Some though, like this one, were large and potentially deadly. So, knowing occasional delays were inevitable, Mal tended to pad their schedule a bit, and his contact on Paquin wouldn't expect them for a few days yet.
Wash informed him he'd found and fixed whatever he'd overstressed on the helm while landing, then asked permission, as they had at least one day of down-time, to recalibrate the sliding lube injector on the dinglebobbler of the major coupling hoo-ha so as to refine the forward thrust controls on the primary yoke shaft. Hoping he was talking about technical stuff and not his sex life, Mal gave Wash the go ahead. Then, Monty's brown paper wrapped parcel tucked in Mal's coat pocket, he and Zoe walked the couple kilometers into town.
First half klick they trudged through loose, pale soil. Mal noted it was nothing like the damp, near-black earth of the huge kitchen garden his ma had put in every year. He kicked at a clod and it burst in a dry puff of dust. Only thing growing was a scatter of dandelions, plantain, and soybean volunteers.
"Don't look like this piece is bein' worked," he commented to Zoe. "Likely our landin' did no harm." She merely grunted in reply, her ship-side upbringing leaving her ignorant of and indifferent to the ways of dirt. 'Cept for maybe being a solid place to light down on every now and then.
They came to the road, not much more than two ruts pressed firm by the passage of truck tires, criss-crossed by the prints of heavy horses. Walking was easier here and they picked up their pace. It had been cool when they'd started out, but the exercise had warmed them up, and they both undid their coat buttons. Coming up on the town proper, the first structure they spotted Mal took to be a garage, set as it was in the center of a fenced junkyard. It was closed up and quiet, but sorta cheerful looking despite that, as someone had spruced it up with odds and ends of leftover paint; splashes of bright green and yellow and sky blue.
The road went from dirt to asphalt here, and set back from it a ways, across it from the junkyard, was Wyoming's minuscule but actual spaceport, with two Serenity-sized berths. No utility hookups, but Mal noted the water tanker and the honey wagon parked next to the landing slabs. Continuing on down what proved the town's main street – its only street, with a few alleys radiating from it – they found shops and two official type buildings, one a combination sheriff's and post office, the other a tiny schoolhouse, straggling between a clinic, a couple churches, and a bar. Some of the shops were dark and closed, maybe permanently, and everything but the churches and the bar could've done with fresh coats of paint. The bar, where they were to make the package swap, looked to be doing good business, maybe on account of it being near lunchtime. And Mal noted the open sundries store, thought he'd check the prices later, do a little restocking if they were any good.
He and Zoe ambled past the bar to the other end of the street, where the asphalt ended and dirt began again, opening up into fields of soybeans. While down, Mal decided the local folks were by no means out. The few they'd passed the street seemed friendly enough, offering amiable greetings, clearly curious about two strangers and their purpose, but too polite to poke into it. Or maybe just a little wary of the guns strapped to their hips.
He and Zoe turned back into town, now intent on their task, heading for the bar. That fine establishment possessed a broad, whitewashed front, double doors set between two wide windows, both open to the fresh air, green and white checked curtains stirring slightly in the faint breeze. They stepped up from the street onto the porch, the wood creaking a bit beneath their boots.
As they went through the door, Mal first and Zoe just behind his right shoulder, their eyes automatically swept the room beyond. Bar stretched out across the back; tables scattered throughout; a dartboard set up on the back wall to the left, toe line clearly painted on the wooden floor. A door behind the bar likely led back to a kitchen, 'cuz Mal caught a whiff of hungry-makin' garlic.
Some drinking of the heavy variety was going on, by three ragged looking fellas who seemed to have a permanent berth in the right back corner. They had a shared half-empty bottle of amber liquid set before them, fingers curled around topped off glasses. But while most the other five or six customers had a pint in front of them, they also were chowing down on a tofu-veggie stirfry, probably the bar's kitchen's lunch special. Two women, maybe in their mid-thirties, one dark, the other a vivid redhead, dickered quietly but intently over a pot of tea and scones, the redhead tapping their table with the hook of her prosthetic hand.
And of course, both Mal and Zoe instantly noted the lawman in his tan uniform settled at the corner of the bar itself, tucking into a sandwich, a ten ounce glass of beer at his elbow. His eyes had slid to the door as Mal had pushed it open, and Mal met them, smiling genially. He led Zoe straight to a couple stools at the bar, just a few seats away from the sheriff.
"Y' got a pale on tap?" he asked the barkeep.
"'Course," she replied. A tall, raw-boned woman, black hair pulled back severely from her face, her guarded, almond shaped eyes met Mal's directly before she turned them on Zoe. They shared a quick look and nod.
"Two of those then," Mal went on. "And a couple plates of the lunch special, if you're still servin'."
"Yep."
The pints came right up, and as Mal and Zoe took their first sips, the sheriff, a very short, barrel chested fellow, dark hair gray-streaked at the temples, addressed them.
"You're off that Firefly."
"True enough," Mal answered, pivoting on his stool to face the man. "Captain Malcolm Reynolds, at your service. This here's my first mate, Zoe Alleyne."
Zoe dipped her head with a polite, "Sir."
"Name's Huan. We don't have many traders comin' in and out of Wyoming on spec much. Not anymore."
"Actually, we're kinda off our intended course. Little engine trouble obliged us to make a detour."
"We got a spaceport, y' know."
Having a working spaceport often meant a lot to a small world's civic pride, so Mal was quick to acknowledge that. "Yes, sir. We did see that. But our trouble was of the type where the velocity of our landing seemed more important than its actual location. Other than it be clear of buildings and people and such like." Mal grinned, letting the sheriff know he didn't consider his ship's problems particularly dire.
The sheriff nodded, saying, "That happens." He took a sip from his glass. "And Mr. Song was gonna let that field you're perched in lie fallow this year. So no harm done."
"Glad t' hear it," Mal said sincerely. "And if Mr, Song is lookin' for recompense for our squattin', we're open t' discussin' that. Though we mean to be gone as soon as can be."
Sheriff Huan heaved a heavy sigh. "Yep. Not much to keep newcomers on Wyoming these days. And our young folk tend to drift off with the least possible provocation."
There was a devil rose up in Mal at times. Had been as long as he could remember. And this time that devil wanted to say, "At least this world's got young folk t' provoke."
But he choked that devil back, as he most times did, and in the moment it took him to do that, Zoe was saying, "Watch your pint, sir. Here's lunch." And he lifted his ale out of the way as a steaming dish of tofu-veggie stirfry slid in front of him. Ginger and garlic teased his nose as saliva filled his mouth. He took up the chopsticks the barkeep set beside his plate and dug in.
Huan left them to the silent, serious business of filling their bellies with a decent meal, finishing off his own sandwich in a couple bites. After swallowing the last of his beer, he slid down off his stool. Picking his wide brimmed hat off the bar, he said, "Diego sure makes a fine corned beef, Alice. You tell him I said so. And could you have your boy run a couple orders of the special over to my office? We got young Frye cooling off in the lock-up, and him and Heber are probably feeling a little peckish by now."
"Sure thing, Andrew."
Fifteen minutes after the sheriff left, after he'd polished his plate clean, Mal drew Monty's parcel out of his pocket and set it casually in front of him. Blocked from the view of the rest of the room by Mal and Zoe's bodies, the bartender took a swipe at the bar. The package vanished with the passage of her towel. A couple swipes later and a different package appeared, this one a little flatter and wider, and wrapped in white paper. As they rose, Zoe settling their tab with the barkeep, Mal scooped up the parcel and put it in his pocket.
And with that, their mission on this moon was complete. Easy-peasy. Mal hoped the next step, gettin' back into the Black, would be as simply accomplished.
~*~