LotS/The Story/Tales of The Void/The Gunmaster's Daughter

Marshal Roth," Susie said.

"So he's a lawman," Remmler said.

"No, that's just his first name."

"Oh."

They went into his cabin and poked around, their movements made instinctive by recent practice. Roth's room was far neater than Ayesha's -- though it was hard to imagine any chamber being less so, unless it had been hit by a tsunami.

"Sure he's not a lawman?" Remmler said. He picked up a six-pointed metal star and held it out to her. The words 'Red Roth' were written across its face in scarlet letters. "He has a badge."

"That's too tacky to be a real sheriff's badge. It's probably a souvenir from one of those Wild West style colonies."

Susie pulled open a drawer and sorted through piles of rough, hardwearing trousers. Between two of them she found a black leather object. She drew it out and showed it to Remmler.

"Funny," he said. "When Roth handed over that revolver of his, I thought he gave us the holster too..."

"Those were some mighty fine stories." The cowboy tilted his hat back, revealing a grizzled face that was more interesting than handsome, framed by a short black beard. "I reckon we've all got our money's worth tonight. If you don't mind, maybe I'll add one of my own. Seems the least I could do. Especially after this bourbon you gave me."

"It was my pleasure, Mr. Roth," Casper said. "But I willnae say no to another wee tale."

"I ain't met the devil like this gentleman, and the story of my first love isn't fit for any company that's got more class than a bordello. Can't even tell the story of how I plucked up the courage to leave home like the little lady did. For me that choice was taken right from me by triggers and bullets. But I've led a more interesting life than most. And I've met my share of folk others might want to hear about..."

05:59, 9 November 2013 (CST)

Marshal Roth looked up at the ceiling while the last chamber of his six-shooter special washed its burning contents down his throat. He set the glass beside its five siblings and blinked. It wasn't the first time, or anywhere close to it, that the world had changed itself between the first glass of bourbon and the last. It always became a little brighter, a little blurrier, and a little happier. But this was the first time they'd altered the universe enough to leave him staring at an attractive young woman with a cigar wedged in the corner of her mouth.

"Marshal Roth," she said.

"Ain't ladylike to talk with your mouth full. But yeah, I'm Roth."

She pulled the cigar out. Grey specks of ash and orange motes fell from its end, the remains of a miniature cataclysm. Some settled on her blue sweater. Others found purchase on the black webbing and pouches she wore, or on the revolver holstered at her hip.

"They say you're the fastest draw and straightest shot out of any unaugmented gunslingers in the system. That you even blew a cyborg's brains out in a high noon showdown."

"Stories have a way of making a man seem more than he is, but maybe that's true. You don't look like you're here to get your picture taken with the big bad cowboy though."

"I'm not. I want to duel you."

"Is that a fact? And what put an idea like that into your pretty little head?"

"Don't make fun of me, Mr. Roth. I'll put up a hundred thousand credits -- and they're yours, win or lose. Yours or your next of kin's. If you win, you can have my ship as well."

"Sit down."

"I-"

"If you want to discuss putting a bullet in my head or my heart, you'll do it civilized like. Sit down."

She pulled out a chair and sat at the table. Her right arm rested on the wood and held her burning cigar aloft. It hovered between them, an angry red eye.

"You may think we're backward folk around these parts, who'll step into the street and shoot a man or woman without so much as asking their name. And maybe some of us are. But I ain't one of them. So let's start there."

"Okay. My name's Jessica Atranx. You might have heard of my father, Gunmaster Duncan."

"So I have. A damn good fighter and an even better commander, so they say. Not the kind who'd go into bars looking for duels."

"No, he isn't. But I'm not my father. And I never will be, unless he agrees to train me. Do you know what the best gunman in the galaxy gave me for my tenth birthday? A doll. I wanted a gun, to be like him. He was supposed to teach me! But he gave me a doll! And he still thinks that way -- like I'm a child."

"Going back to him in a box is a mighty good way of hurting the man, if that's your aim."

"I'm my father's daughter, whatever he thinks. And I've trained almost every waking hour for years. No offence, Mr. Roth, but you aren't my equal. No one is unless they're so packed full of cybernetics that they're more robot than human. If we fight, I'll win. And he'll know what I can do."

"My mother taught me a lot of things, Miss Atranx. One of them was never to mess with a girl who has problems with her father. Mighty lot of good that bit of wisdom would have done me, if I'd heeded it before now. Doesn't mean it's too late though. I'm sorry, but I ain't interested."

"Then I'll make the same offer to every armed man on this planet, and I'll put them all down one by one. You aren't the only gunslinger with a reputation."

"You're fixing to get yourself killed, with a crazy notion like that in your head."

"You haven't seen me shoot."

"Tell you what... I ain't going to so much as contemplate stepping into the street with an angry little girl, no matter who her daddy is. Not unless I know it's a fair fight. But if you prove it to me..."

"I will!"

"Then let's go somewhere nice and peaceful, and see what you can do. But first... You recall what I said about a fair fight? Well, I've got six shots of bourbon inside me."

Jessica Atranx waved her cigar at the nearest barmaid.

"Bring me what he had," she said.

"That's a mighty tall order for a girl your age," Roth said, when the circular tray was put in front of her.

"Like I keep telling my father, I'm not a little girl."

She tossed her cigar into the air. It flew end over end, ascending towards the ceiling. Jessica downed the first shot and slammed the glass onto the table. The cigar fell, still spinning. The burning end landed in the glass with a soft hiss. She smirked and drained the other five glasses.

"You drink like a gunslinger, at least," Roth said. "Come with me."

"Cans? You shoot at cans?"

The two of them stood beneath a purple-black sky and its smattering of stars. Lazy little clouds of dust blew around their boots. In the distance was a fence, on which rested six metal cans -- their outlines faint and labels indiscernible in the gloom.

"We ain't fancy here," Roth said. "But we know what good shooting is. Reckon you could stand here and drop all six with that iron of yours?"

"Of course."

"Then let's see it."

Jessica took a deep breath. Her eyes flicked towards each can in turn. Then her hand twitched. The revolver almost flew into her grasp, and roared. Six reports echoed across the dusty field. Six cans flew away, cast out into the night.

There was a seventh bang. This time a scream followed it.

"I'll be taking that, if you don't mind," Roth said.

He blew the smoke from the end of his barrel, crouched, and snatched Jessica's gun. She clutched her right knee and moaned.

"You bastard! You goddamn cheating bastard!"

"I bet your daddy never would have fallen for that. And it ain't cheating when there are no rules. I never said we'd duel." He tossed her gun aside and reached into his duster's deep pocket. "Put this on the wound."

Roth tossed her a wound-seal pack. She stared it at and then at him.

"That's right. I didn't bring you out here to bury you in the dirt. Mighty hard work, digging a good grave. And you're in no condition to do it for me. Put that on."

Jessica glared at him, her eyes dark diamonds that never left his face. But she applied the pack.

"We're going to take another walk," he said. "Don't worry. I'll help you along..."

"That smell..." she said.

A foul odor assaulted them both. It was a vile, chemical stench that all but smothered the stink of rotting corpse flesh. Something bubbled in the darkness. Roth tapped the side of a tall metal pole set in the ground, and the lamp at its apex flashed into brilliance. It bathed the horrific tableau in light.

Jessica held her breath.

A dozen yards in front of them was a large square pit. Viscous green liquid seethed and popped inside it, along with a legion of dead bathers. Skeletal limbs and visages -- many still crowned by cowboy hats -- protruded here and there, some half-draped over the edges as though they'd tried to pull themselves free from the corrosive hell. Scarred and twisted birds hopped around them, ripping at tiny scraps of flesh with ruined beaks.

"Come here," Roth said.

He grabbed Jessica's arm and dragged her along, ignoring her struggles.

"No! No! Get off me! I-"

"I ain't brought you here to toss you in, if that's what you're thinking. Grant's mighty particular about who we throw in his corpse pit."

She stopped fighting, either because she believed him or because she'd accepted the inevitable. If Marshal Roth wanted her dead he could just pull the trigger and kick her body the rest of the way.

"You ever shoot anyone before?" he asked.

"I-"

"Don't lie to a man with a gun in his hand and a heap of dead at his feet."

"No. Never."

"Thought not. Shooting targets ain't the same. I don't care how fancy they are. Killing's no game. Look at them. Look!" He tugged her arm until she stared down at the grinning faces and clawing hands. "See the hole in that one's head? That's what a bullet does. Shot him down in the street, like he wanted to do to me. Like you wanted to do to me. Made a corpse, a widow, and three fatherless kids with the same bullet."

Jessica opened her mouth, words on her tongue. But she closed it again and gazed in silence.

"Next time you think about shooting a man, you remember this place. Because sometimes it's worth it, sometimes it ain't. But it's never a game. If you want to get back at your daddy, you marry a Blob Beast. Don't you dare go around putting good men and women in the ground because of it."

She didn't protest when Roth heaved her onto his shoulder and carried her to the town doctor.

05:59, 9 November 2013 (CST)

"That girl's come mighty far since then. But I reckon she still remembers that night, and the faces bobbing in the corpse pit."