Chapter 2

Trademeet, the following morning


Keldorn woke to the pain he was beginning to see as customary. He’d drank himself into a stupor again, finishing the first bottle of whiskey and a generous portion of a second, if his aching head recalled things properly. Keldorn decided it hurt too much to recall things, properly or otherwise, and pulled the covers over his head.


Covers?


“Where am I?” he said aloud, sitting up much too quickly. The room spun and his stomach churned violently. Fortunately there was a spittoon handy, and served to hold the contents of Keldorn’s stomach.

I must be in the inn still . Checking his pocket watch, he saw it was nearly noon. Oh, Torm, I was supposed to be in hours ago!

There was a soft tapping at the door, which sounded like a sledgehammer to Keldorn’s throbbing head. “Who is it?” he said weakly.


The door opened and a young bearded man strode in. “Well, *good morning*, sheriff.”

“Spare me the bedside manner, Doc” Keldorn growled. “I don’t need the lecture today.”

The doctor raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Well, sheriff, you’re in luck today. I have many cases to handle today, so I don’t have time to lecture you. Ma Jansen is feeling poorly today. I think its just indigestion from all the turnips, but you never know.”

The doctor poured a glass of water from a tableside pitcher and shook some yellowish powder from one of his bottles. The water foamed up and fizzed violently, like one of those vile sodas Imoen was always drinking.

“Here you go, a Doctor Delryn special” he said cheerfully. “this should help with the pain a bit, though it won’t do much to stop you from continuing to slowly kill yourself.”

“You’re enjoying this, Anomen” Keldorn muttered, as he downed the fizzy concoction.

“Hardly” Anomen said sternly. “I can fix headaches, but what you’re doing is going to be beyond my skills someday. You keep crawling into that bottle, and it’ll be the undertaker who visits you, not me.”


The doc packed up his bag and headed out. Keldorn lay back down, letting the medicine do its work. His headache receded a little, enough for him to fall into the thoughts that had obsessed him of late.

It’s all going to be over. After 30 years as a lawman, they’re making me give it up, like some used up old mare that’s being put out to pasture. After all I’ve given up for the law.

Keldorn fished out a cameo locket from his vest. Opening it, he looked upon the faded picture of Maria.

Was it worth it? he asked himself. Another tapping came at the door.


“Yes?” he said wearily.

The door opened and the face of one of his younger deputies peered in.

“Ah, sheriff Keldorn? We got a problem, sir.”

Keldorn sat up. “What sort of problem?” he asked.


*

The deputy led Keldorn out into the street and over to the town’s general store, where a mob had gathered. Anarg stood on the stoop of the town general store, (which he owned, incidentally), bellowing out his pitch to the assembled crowd.

“And I’m paying 50 gold a head for any man with the salt to join the posse to find these bandits!”

Keldorn groaned. Anarg had never quite adjusted to life outside of the military. In spite of the responsibilities of his many business interests, or maybe because of them, he always felt justified in taking matters into his own hands.

“It’s bad, sheriff” said the young deputy walking by his side. “he’s been at it since before breakfast, whipping up the crowd, feeding ‘em a bunch of big talk, offerin’ ‘em a pocketful of money. Darn fools don’t know what they’re getting into.”

“Any word on what they *would* be getting into, deputy?” Keldorn asked.

The deputy swallowed hard. “Word is, it was the Rasheman Kid.”

Keldorn stopped and stared hard. His bloodshot eyes didn’t mask the intensity of the fire behind them.

“Bad as all that, deputy?”

“Yessir, that’s who the surviving guard described.”

*

Anarg was reaching a fever pitch in his sermon. “You all know me, I’ve helped build this town. I’ve always tried to help you folks out when you needed it. Noober, remember when your youngest had the colic and you couldn’t afford the castor oil? Didn’t I give you 10 percent off? And you, Biff. Remember when your house burned down? Didn’t I put you up in my hay barn until you could build a new one? And for not a penny more than regular hotel rates!”


He’s almost sold them , Keldorn thought. I’d better step in before this goes any further.


“Hold on, everyone, hold on!” Keldorn said, stepping up to the stoop. “Nobody’s joining any posse this day. You men go on home, and let the law take care of this!”

“Hey, it’s the rummy Sheriff” heckled a man in the back. The rest of the crowd roared in laughter. Keldorn inwardly was mortified, but kept his face mostly pokered.

“Listen to me, please!” Keldorn yelled. “Do you men even know who it is your facing? DO YOU?!?”

Keldorn rarely shouted, even when he’d been drinking, so the outburst shocked the mob to silence for the moment.

“No, Sheriff, we don’t” said the man who’d heckled Keldorn a moment ago. “Suppos’n you tell us.”

“All right, I will. The description of the bandit-”

“There was just one of ‘em?” interrupted one man.

“The description from an eyewitness” Keldorn continued, “was the Rasheman Kid.”

The mob went deathly silent. Soon, murmurs began to ripple through the crowd.

“Wait-a-minnit!” said one. “I ain’t looking to get my head blowed off!”

“Me neither!” said another. “They say he’s got a trained rat that can shoot as good as he can!”


Anarg was scarlet with anger. “Men, MEN!” he shouted. “He’s just one man! Why, there must be twenty of you here. Tell you what, I’ll pay each of you 75 gold, half of it up front!”

“Gold ain’t no good if yer dead” shouted the heckler, as the crowd hurriedly dispersed.


Keldorn sighed in relief. It was going to be tough enough catching the Kid. He didn’t want a bunch of innocent townspeople getting themselves killed in the process.

As the last of the crowd dispersed, Anarg gave Keldorn a look that would stop a clock and stormed into his store.


“That was close, Sheriff” said the deputy, coming up alongside him.

“Yes, it was, deputy. He'll probably try something else before long.”

“Do you want me to get the men together? I mean, for our own posse?”

“No, deputy. Not this time.”

“But – you ain’t thinking of taking him on by yerself?”

“No, deputy, I’m not. But I need you men to keep an eye on this town and Anarg while I…take care of a few things.”

“All right, Sheriff, if you say so. Can I get you anything? A…drink?”

Keldorn shook his bleary head. “I think I’ve done enough drinking, deputy.” He smiled. “But a pot of black coffee sounds very good right about now.”

*

Anarg was in the back of his store, cursing sulphurously, when he heard the bells for the front door chime. He stomped out, still livid at Keldorn showing him up in front of the town.

“What d’ya want, damnit?”

A short, stocky man, a Kara-Turan by the look of him, stood in front of the counter. The man had a crooked grin, and an air of supreme confidence about him. On the front of his gunbelt were a pair of crossed Turmish .32 revolvers.

“Who are you?” Anarg growled.

“With respect, I am Yoshimo. You are looking for someone to recover the miner’s payroll and bring in the culprit, yes?”

Anarg frowned. “Stranger, I don’t know who you are, but I ain’t in the mood for jokes.”

“It is no joke, I assure you” Yoshimo said smoothly. “I am a bounty hunter by trade, and would offer my services. Though I will require substantially more than 75 gold for my services.”

“And just why would I want to hire you?”

Yoshimo smiled warmly, stroking his mustache with his off hand. In one fluid motion, he drew his pistol and aimed it right between Anarg’s eyes before the other man could even reach for his own. Grinning, he twirled the pistol and replaced it in its holster with the same fluid grace.

Anarg stared hard at Yoshimo for a long moment, then burst out laughing.

“All right, all right, you’ve convinced me. What say you come in the back and we talk a little business?”

*

Somewhere in the Umar Hills

The coach driver looked sourly at the paltry bag of coin he’d been handed.

“We had a deal. I was supposed to get 100 gold for givin’ up the time of the payroll delivery.”

Minsc sat in front of the campfire, slowly turning the a spit. On it was a rather sizeable rattler he’d killed for breakfast.

“Boo says you drove the coach too fast for Minsc to shoot out the wheels. Minsc had to catch up and risk his and Boo’s scalps. So, you get 20 gold, not 100.”

“But, you got over 5,000 gold from that shipment! It ain’t fair, I tell ya!”

“Boo says take it or leave it.”

The driver threw down the bag of coin, and spit on it. “Well maybe I just need to tell the sheriff about what happened to the payroll.”

Minsc stopped turning the spit and stood up, dusting his pants off. He walked over to the driver, who was now again wetting his pants.

“If you double-cross Minsc and Boo, you had better do it very well. Because anyone who double crosses us, and leaves us alive, he knows nothing about Minsc and Boo.”

The coach driver swallowed hard, and soiled himself further.

Minsc walked over to his bedroll, and grabbed a large money bag. He handed it to the coach driver. “The driver man understands us now?”

“Y-yessir!” the coach driver said, taking the bag and heading off into the night.


Minsc sat back down in front of the fire, and fed a piece of snake meat to Boo, who squeaked.

“Yes, Boo, it does taste a little like chicken.”