Peace in an Age of Metal and Men by Anthony Eichenlaub Read Free Book Online Page B

Still, he didn’t move to acknowledge me.
    What was I doing there? The question nagged me as I passed the man and strolled into town. What was going on had to stop, and a clever man could solve problems without violence. Words were his bullets and truth was his fist. There was a man killing children in Swallow Hill. All I needed to do was figure out who that murderer was and it would be easy enough to hand the evidence over to the town’s law.
    Zane had somehow known about the murder, but how much did he know about the town? Closer up, the buildings looked broken. Old. Some even seemed structurally unsafe. The tavern leaned right up against the polished stone bank. Dry earth had blown up against that side of the street, causing the place to have an abandoned look. Other buildings were in much worse shape: even the old church at the head of the square seemed ready to topple. Tables had been set up outside to form an open market, and the theme seemed to continue tentatively into the building. All of the town was worn down: drab and ragged cloth decorating time-scoured wood and stone.
    There were people, but they didn’t look much better than the town in which they lived. A sad couple passed me in threadbare clothes. The man’s skin had yellow, unhealthy patches and his fingernails were broken and cracked. The woman at his side was pretty in her way, but sallow cheeks and thinning hair told of a hard life. Her eyes flashed blue as I met them, revealing the tech hidden behind them. I tipped my hat and wondered what they thought of a stranger wandering into their secluded town. Their expressions were filled with worry as they pulled each other close and hurried away. How might they have acted if I’d moseyed into town fully armed? Would their worried caution be replaced with open hostility?
    There were others, all of them looking my way as I strolled casually through the center of town. An ancient woman scowled at me from under a flowered hat. Two teenage boys watched me from the shadows of an alley. Across the street, a man in a light-tan duster and a star saw me and approached.
    “Long way from home, mister,” he said.
    “Sure.”
    The man looked me up and down. His fingers touched the pistol at his side.
    I didn’t give any ground. “I’m not looking for trouble, Deputy…”
    “Sheriff Flores.”
    “J.D. Crow,” I said, sticking my hand out for a shake. He didn’t take it. “I’m not here for trouble, son. All I want is a few answers.”
    His eyes narrowed. “Folks here don’t see many outsiders, stranger.”
    “No, I don’t suppose they do.”
    “If you’re looking for trouble—”
    “I’m not.” Thought that had been established.
    “If you are, there’s plenty to find.” He glanced down at his sidearm. “More than you might like.”
    “How many people live here?”
    “Last fella come through here looked a whole lot like you. We ran him out of town real quick.”
    “What do you folks do out here? Ranching? Manufacturing? Not much trade or you’d have more visitors.”
    Flores grabbed my arm. “Listen here, fella.” His eyes flashed brightly enough that their internal glow was visible even in the sun. “This here’s a quiet town. We ain’t rich, but we got our place and all these nice buildings and fancy clothes don’t mean we got anything worth stealing. You so much as look funny at any my people, you’ll find yourself on the wrong side of dead.”
    I pulled my arm free. Sheriff Flores wasn’t going to give me anything, so there didn’t seem to be a point in pressing matters.
    Nothing was going to happen outside of talking, so I went where talking was best. The tavern was a crooked, smoke-filled mess of oak and steel. Blue lights hung from the ceiling, piercing the cigar haze with razor-sharp rays. A more diffuse glow came from somewhere above, reflecting from the smoke and doing more to obscure than illuminate. Paint on the inside walls was caked on in layers, chipped down to the