Bad to Worse Read online

  Rigo looked pleased with himself. He put the loaf back on the saddle, stealing a glance at Keff, who was grinning victoriously.

  Worse’s left hand pulled his apron right down, exposing a right-sided gun holster, and a tin star on his lapel.

  ‘Sheriff’s going to say: Pay or die, mongrel.’

  Keff jumped with surprise, his horse responding with a complaining snort. Rigo’s self-satisfied smile vanished.

  ‘That’ll now be eight dollars, to cover the humiliation of public disrobing, and time taken when the baker could be stoking the Lord’s inferno. Plus another eight for the sheriff’s impartial mediation. Plus sixteen in fees for the deeply considered jurisprudence determination in tort and mercantile law, as well as ongoing pastoral care from the preacher. Total thirty-two. For that you get complimentary flour dusting if the pearl feels damp. Judge Thomas M Worse will oversee collection of the dues and issue a receipt of the court.’

  Worse held out his left hand for the money.

  ‘Fuck you, baker.’ This time it was Rigo; Keff had decided to stay out of the argument. ‘Now, we gonna turn our mounts and ride away from here. You’re not gonna shoot a man in the back, being a sheriff and a preacher and a judge, are you?’

  ‘Well now, you seem to have forgotten. First off, I’m a certificated mongrel killer. In that event, where the lead goes in depends on which way the mongrel happens to be running, and I say that’s all his choosing.’

  ‘Kill him, Rigo. You can take him. Just kill him.’

  Rigo wasn’t so sure. He dried his gun hand on the denim again. ‘You’re saying we can’t ride off, without getting shot front or back, unless we pay you thirty-two dollars?’

  ‘Correct, but you’re not keeping up with the invoicing. Sixty-four dollars, the advice of a mongrel butcher being highly priced around these parts.’

  ‘Kill him, Rigo. You gotta kill the fucker.’

  ‘Shut up, Keff. I’m thinking.’

  Again Rigo’s hand wiped along his thigh.

  ‘While you’re thinking, I’m asking once only that Keff here slowly take his weapon and drop it to the ground, then dismount on the side I can see him, hands in the air.’

  ‘Now why would I do that, baker?’

  ‘Because I’m arresting you for incitement of a felony, being soliciting a third party killing, as well as bad hygiene, general antisocial attitude and an unworldly ugliness sufficient to cause public alarm, all of which are in violation of town statutes. First the weapon, then get down.’

  Keff suddenly found himself a leading actor, and he wasn’t used to it. He looked at Rigo, who continued staring at Worse. Keff reasoned that he had nothing to lose and everything to gain by repeating the crime.

  ‘Kill him, Rigo.’

  But Rigo wasn’t offering any comfort. He kept looking at Worse, and his right hand was now constantly wiping back and forward. Keff was left to find his own way out.

  ‘Now what you gonna do if I just refuse, baker?’ The voice lacked depth.

  ‘Well, Keff, you’re asking for your fortune told from a mongrel killer right now, and you know his talk is very expensive. Can you figure out what that question might cost you, Keff?’

  ‘Christ. Fuck you, baker.’

  Keff’s right hand reached for his gun, but not slowly enough. Nor was it quickly enough. Before his weapon was completely drawn, he slumped forward in the saddle, his jaw anchored over the pommel and a point-45 bloodless roundel centred on his forehead.

  The event took Rigo completely off guard. He turned to look at Keff and started, audibly catching his breath. Worse reholstered his gun.

  ‘Resisting arrest. Cursing a lawman. Attempted murder. There’s a sweet, uncomplicated judicial killing, I’d say, with a Churchman’s blessing and the aroma of fresh-baked bread. What could be kinder?’

  Rigo was unable to see Keff’s head wound and couldn’t know where he was hit.

  ‘My friend needs a doctor, mister, plain as day. Call the town quack, for Christ’s sake. Get him some help.’

  ‘We’re humane and caring folk in Dante. Doc always attends a shooting.’

  Worse reached to a rear pocket with his left hand, producing a stethoscope that he slung lazily around his neck. He tilted his head sideways and studied Keff quizzically.

  ‘Nothing I can do, sadly. I pronounce his life extinct. Cause of death: execrable depravity. An evocative final pose, you’ll agree; doubled up like that in homage to the twicing, I expect. Reverend, should you say some words?’

  Worse muttered in Latin, hands clasped before him and eyes downcast. Then he looked up brightly.

  ‘Now, in the matter of payment. There’s sixty-four dollars arrears, plus another sixty-four in sheriff costs, attending physician’s comprehensive consultation, and the preacher’s solemn Bible talk customized to the unredeemed. Within that, there’s a one-off penalty for the final blaspheme which I determine offensive to the Divinity as well as all bakers. There are also burial expenses for one, plus retainer for a second anticipated. I should say those interment fees have been generously discounted by the town mortician, on account of the corpse not being too messy, supplying its own transportation, and the economy of a two-for-one excavation. So that’s one hundred twenty-eight dollars owing, cash only, or the horse in kind.’

  Worse clapped his hands sharply in the manner of using a gavel. ‘Res judicata, Judge Worse presiding. Be assured the offer of flour gratis still holds.’

  Rigo, though looking at Worse, seemed to be staring trance-like into the distance. He hadn’t even seen the gun draw, it was so fast. When he spoke, it was emptily, without emotional presence.

  ‘You’re telling me you’re the undertaker as well in this stinking town?’

  ‘As the sign says, all your needs met. Temporarily. Funny thing is I’m a stand-in, but it’s lie-down easy compared with baking.’

  Rigo continued looking absently at Worse, only half listening, his mouth fallen open. He was trying to understand how one small misjudgement about a dollar could come to this. But his thinking was blunted, circling ineffectually around intimation, incomprehension, and irrelevancy.

  ‘What happened to the undertaker?’ he asked flatly.

  ‘Appetite for bread beyond his means.’

  Keff’s horse suddenly sensed her deadweight. She snorted and bucked a little, shifting her rump away. The effect was to point Keff in Rigo’s direction. What Rigo saw froze his spine: only a supremely confident gunfighter would make a single head shot under pressure.

  ‘As I was saying, one hundred twenty-eight dollars. It’s an exceptional loaf, being the staff of the Lord’s own inferno. And, of course, you get to eat both ends of it now, blessed be Keff.’

  Rigo spent the following seconds in a chill turmoil of indecision and resolve. All his life, the weapon at his side had served to settle conflict. Now for the first time, when he had no choice, it looked too hard.

  His hand stopped rubbing, and Worse noticed.

  ‘You might want to close your mouth for the afterlife,’ Worse advised, ‘it being sulphurous where you’re headed.’

  ‘You’re one son-of-a-bitch, baker.’

  Rigo was fast. His hand, so near to his gun at the start, had a grip of the pearl inlay, the barrel fully drawn from the holster and almost aligned. But his cold-sweated trigger finger wasn’t yet closed on the steel when his head jerked back with the impact of Worse’s shot. At the same time, his horse reared up in fright, flinging rider and loose kit backwards from the saddle.

  Worse stepped forward to calm the mare, speaking in the same reassuring voice as before, holding the leather down firmly, stroking her face. He would care for her, reshoe her, and rename her. ‘Twicing’, perhaps, in recognition of the day’s exchange: this beautiful, spirited animal for the loaf now settled in the Main Street dust before its buyer’s sightless stare and gaping mouth.

  An account of the gunfight is given in the Dante Judgment Daily of June 11, 1877, under the heading ‘Incident at
Bakehouse’. It had been witnessed from an open second-floor window in a lodging house by one Miss Baker, seamstress, whose attention was drawn when she thought she heard her surname called. Two weeks later, an unnamed wit penned the epitaph:

  Here lies one called Rigo Mortiss.

  Drank like a hare but drew like a tortoise.

  Couldn’t shoot and couldn’t spell

  Funny how he’s shot to Hell

  Signing in with Rigor Mortis.

  (Such crude and heartless parodies were common in the era.) In fact, the Mortiss grave would have been unmarked. The historic Boot Hill cemetery has itself long been buried, currently under a shopping emporium.

  The hapless Keff is remembered only for a single utterance, because it proved prophetic, to the effect that the Mortiss brothers would never forgive and never forget. He was probably Kevin Dupain Fister, who was wanted in Hericho for horse stealing and multiple killings.

  [Editor’s note Readers are referred at this point to Appendix A. The author has advised that supplementary materials provided there ideally should be read concurrently with corresponding chapters in the text. Alison Pilcrow, UITA Press]

  2 STATION BWRD (TRANSCRIPT)

  [Music fade]

  [Studio] That number was for Shirley from Duran who says ‘Come back, baby; Haley’s moved out and I love you again’. You are tuned to BWRD, the voice of Dante, Arizona. We’ll be back with more requests after the traffic report, and remember, folks, our lines are always open. We want to hear from all the good citizens of Dante about your news, your troubles and your joys. Stay on BWRD, the station in Dante, for Dante.

  [Traffic report. Commercials]

  [Studio] This is Mike Pincher back with you on BWRD, bringing you your favourite music and talk-show program. Right now, we have some breaking news for you folks. Seems like an executive jet has disappeared from radar while transiting the Dante tracking sector, about eighty miles north of town. That would be deep inside the Bleacher Desert, so let’s hope those airborne folk are okay up there. Our next number is from Duran, who dedicates the track to Marilyn with the message ‘Come back, baby; Shirley’s moved out and I love you again’.

  [Music]

  [Studio] Nice choice, Duran. Let’s hope Marilyn is tuned to the best airplay in the west, BWRD, the station making wireless waves in Dante. Now we have an update on that missing airplane for you, folks. Our Flyover traffic reporter Dan Jammer is heading north with pilot Buzz Wingles to take a look in the Bleacher. We now cross live to your station BWRD’s own search and rescue ’copter mission. Dan, what can you tell us about events. Is disappearing from radar necessarily a bad thing?

  [Jammer] It is, Mike. Nearly always. According to Dante control tower, what we have here is radar dropout, loss of voice contact as well as transponder silence. The combination can’t be good. It usually means a midair catastrophe, Mike.

  [Studio] Dan, do you have information about the plane? Do you have ID on the crew and passengers?

  [Jammer] We have preliminary information, Mike. The plane’s an FC100 Condor, a new executive model. Apparently it was being ferried from White Sands to San Diego for its owner.

  [Studio] And on board? Any ID on the folk on board?

  [Jammer] Just the pilot, Mike. We have confirmation there was just the pilot and no passengers, Mike. At this stage we have no ID on the pilot but the indications are that he is an employee of the plane’s designer. That’s the Flight Control Corporation in New Mexico, Mike.

  [Studio] Where are you now, Dan, relative to the possible down zone?

  [Jammer] We’re well inside the Bleacher, Mike, closing in on the coordinates. I can tell you it is barren and lifeless down there—Buzz! Over there! Something shining!

  [Studio] Dan? What are you seeing?

  [Wingles] Dante Control Tower. This is BWRD Gridlock Flyover in the Bleacher last contact zone. We have a visual north-west five miles. We’re going in for a look. Permission requested one hundred feet over point.

  [Dante Control] Dante Control to Gridlock Flyover. Roger that. Affirmative one hundred feet. Bearing north-west. Gridlock Flyover, you will be sub radar. Repeat, you will be sub radar. Maintain voice contact. Advise status two-minute parcels. Gridlock Flyover, you have Sheriff Bird tracking. State visual on Sheriff Bird.

  [Studio] Dan. What’s happening?

  [Static. Speech inaudible]

  [Wingles] Gridlock Flyover to Dante Control. Confirm radar advisory. Confirm two-minute parcels. Negative visual for Sheriff Bird. Approaching possible airplane wreckage. Four miles.

  [Studio] Dan?

  [Jammer] Mike, we can see something shiny on the ground, about four miles away. We’re heading towards it. It’s hard to make out. Doesn’t look like an intact plane, unfortunately. You would have heard there’s a sheriff’s helicopter on the way as well. Buzz? Can you communicate with the sheriff?

  [Wingles] BWRD Gridlock Flyover to Sheriff Bird. Do you read me?

  [Static] This is Sheriff Bird. Loud and clear, Gridlock Flyover. What do you see?

  [Wingles] We have visual, two, three miles. Confirm aircraft wreckage. One large component.

  [Studio] Dan? You are streaming through to our listeners. What do you have for us?

  [Jammer] Mike, we are closing in on the wreckage. Buzz is just pulling around and taking us down to one hundred feet for a better look. It’s a big bit of the plane. Hard to see yet but I think it’s the wings, still joined. There seem to be no other parts of the plane in view, no fuselage or undercarriage. Yes, it’s the two main wings still joined but no fuselage between them. The rest could be miles away. There’s a scar in the desert floor for about two hundred yards as if it came in on a shallow angle. [Shouting] Buzz! Buzz! Look! Jesus Christ! Oh shit, excuse me.

  [Broadcast delay triggered: 4 sec. Six word deletion: -1 to -6]

  [Studio] You’re okay with that, Dan. What is it?

  [Sheriff Bird] Sheriff Bird to Gridlock Flyover. Sheriff Thomas M Worse speaking. Station BWRD: maintain radio silence UFN. Gridlock Flyover: report what you see.

  [Wingles] Tom, you’re not going to believe this. A guy just stepped out from the shade under the wing and climbed onto it and he’s waving at us.

  [Sheriff ] Buzz, are you saying there’s a man down there waving at you? Where did he come from? Do you see a vehicle? Tyre tracks? Is he some crazy desert hiker?

  [Wingles] None of that. You know hikers don’t last six hours out here. He looks great. Tom, we’re not graded to put down on sand. We’ll drop some bottled water and stand off till you arrive.

  [Sheriff ] Roger that, Buzz. Good work, Gridlock Flyover. We have you on screen. Our ETA is three minutes. BWRD, you may resume communications.

  [Studio] Dan! You can see a man on the wreckage? You think the pilot survived?

  [Jammer] Mike. No way that’s possible. We see the two main wings still held together by the spar. That’s all. Nothing else.

  [Studio] Except a man down there. Could he have parachuted down, then found the wing to shelter from the sun?

  [Jammer] Well, I guess. He’s got something in his hand, waving at us. Can you make out what it is, Buzz?

  [Wingles] No way that’s a parachute, Dan. Looks just like a ribbon or a necktie to me. Gridlock Flyover to Sheriff Bird, I see you closing.

  [Sheriff ] Roger that, Gridlock Flyover.

  [Studio] This is Radio BWRD, Mike Pincher in the studio, bringing you news of an executive jet crash up in the Bleacher. If you’ve just joined us, I can tell you we have our very own Dan Jammer and pilot Buzz Wingles over the wreckage now. They have clear visual of a man on the ground. At this stage we don’t know if he’s a survivor or unrelated to the crash. The sheriff’s ’copter is close to the scene. Unlike Buzz’s, it has the sand shielding to put down in the desert and rescue the man. Dan, what’s the latest?

  [Jammer] Thanks, Mike. The sheriff’s machine is just landing. The scene’s a bit obscured by the dust blow at the moment. We’re pulling away some as we don’
t have sand-proofed mechanicals, Mike.

  [Studio] I understand that, Dan. Can you see anything yet?

  [Jammer] Mike, Sheriff Thomas M Worse is walking over to the wreckage and the man on the wing has jumped onto the sand to meet him. He looks completely uninjured, Mike. It’s amazing, if he came down on that piece of debris.

  [Studio] Dan, we have reports from Dante Control Tower that the plane was at thirty thousand feet when it was lost to radar. There’s no way that could be the pilot you’re looking at down there.

  [Jammer] You’re right, Mike. That’s a crazy thought. I wonder who he is though. Mike, Sheriff Worse and the man are just getting into the other helicopter. Buzz, can we see if we can get the story down there?

  [Wingles] Sheriff Bird. This is BWRD Gridlock Flyover standing off. I advise you are open mike to BWRD listeners. Sheriff Worse, do you have an ID on the man? How was it that he was on the ground right there?

  [Sheriff ] This is Sheriff Thomas M Worse Sixth. The sole occupant of the FC100 Condor jet that disintegrated in flight north of Dante this morning was the pilot, Walter Reckles. I am happy to report that Walter Reckles survived and has been rescued from the desert crash site. He will be flown to Dante for a medical check. He states that his only injury is a bruised shoulder where he was hit by a water bottle. I will issue a comprehensive statement later today. Dr Reckles advises that when the plane broke up after colliding with a rogue drone he piloted the wing section down to a smooth landing in the desert. He says this was possible due to the good math and a spare necktie. I have nothing further to add at this stage. Over and out.

  [Jammer] There you have it, Mike. The pilot, a Walter Reckles, is alive and well. The sheriff’s helicopter is just leaving the scene to return to Dante. We can expect the Transportation Safety Board will have their investigators on the ground later today. They’ll need to locate the rest of this Condor jet and recover the flight recorder. As well as search for the wreckage of the drone, I guess. But what we can say at this stage, Mike, is that we have witnessed a miracle up here this morning. This is Dan Jammer reporting from BWRD Gridlock Flyover up in the Bleacher. Over to you, Mike.