Year's Best Scifi 3 Part 31

Susan had been expecting something like this.

"There are no mad cows on Gosmore Farm."

"Susan, don't be difficult."

"It's Mrs. Ames, Mr. Reeve Draper."

The Reeve held up a fawn envelope.

"You'm know this has to be done."

"Will you be slaughtering Maskell's stock?"

"He took proper precautions, Susan. Can't be blamed. He'm been organic since 'fore the War."

Susan snorted a laugh. Everyone knew there'd been mad cow disease in the Squire's herd. He'd paid off the inspectors and rendered the affected animals into fertilizer. It was Susan who'd never used infected feed, never had a sick cow. This wasn't about British beef; this was about squeezing Gosmore Farm.

"Clear off," Allie shouted.

"Poacher girl," Erskine sneered. "Lookin' for a matchin' stripe on your left hand?"

Susan turned on the Constable.

"Don't you threaten Allison. She's not a serf."

"Once a serf, always a serf."

"What are they here for?" Susan nodded to the Gilpin brothers. "D'you need two extra guns to deliver a letter?"

Draper looked nervously at the brothers. Terry, heavier and nastier, curled his fingers about the trigger guard of his Browning.

"Why didn't Maskell come himself?"Draper carefully put the letter on the ground, laying a stone on top of it.

"I'll leave this here, Goodwife. You'm been served with this notice."

Susan strode towards the letter.

Terry hawked a stream of spit, which hit the stone and splattered the envelope. He showed off his missing front teeth in an idiot leer.

Draper was embarra.s.sed and angered, Erskine delighted and itchy.

"My sentiments exactly, Goodman Gilpin," said Susan. She kicked the stone and let the letter skip away in the breeze.

"Mustn't show disrespect for the law," Erskine snarled. He was holding his gun rightway round, thumb on the c.o.c.k-lever, finger on the trigger.

From the kitchen doorway, close behind Allie, Lytton said, "Whose law?"

Allie stepped aside and Lytton strode into the yard. The four unwelcome visitors looked at him.

"Widow Ames got a stay-over guest," Erskine said, nastily.

"B'ain't no business of yourn, Goodman," said the Reeve to Lytton.

"And what if I make it my business?"

"You'm rue it."

Lytton kept his gaze steady on the Reeve, who flinched and blinked.

"He hasn't got a gun," Susan said, voice betraying annoyance with Lytton as much as with Maskell's men. "So you can't have a fair fight."

Mr. Ames had been carrying a Webley when he was shot. The magistrate, Sue-Clare Maskell's father, ruled it a fair fight, exonerating on the grounds of self-defense the Maskell retainer who'd killed Susan's husband.

"He'm interfering with due process, Mr. Reeve," Erskine told Draper. "We could detain him for questioning."

"I don't think that'll be necessary," Lytton said. "I just stopped at Gosmore Farm for bacon and eggs. I take it there's no local ordinance against that."

"Goodwife Ames don't have no bed and breakfast license," Draper said.

"Specially bed," Erskine added, leering.

Lytton strolled casually toward his Norton. And his guns.

"Maybe I should press on. I'd like to be in Dorset by lunchtime."

Terry's rifle was fixed on Lytton's belly, and swung in an arc as Lytton walked.

Erskine thumb-c.o.c.ked his revolver, ineptly covering the sound with a cough.

"Tell Maurice Maskell you've delivered your d.a.m.ned message," Susan said, trying to get between Lytton and the visitors' guns. "And tell him he'll have to come personally next time.""You'm stay away from thic rifle, Goodman," the Reeve said to Lytton.

"Just getting my gloves," Lytton replied, moving his hands away from the holstered rifle toward the pannier where his pistols were.

Allie backed away toward the house, stomach knotted.

"What's she afraid of?" Erskine asked, nodding at her.

"Don't touch thic f.u.c.kin' bike," Terry shouted.

Allie heard the guns going off, louder than rook-scarers. An applesized chunk of stone exploded on the wall nearby, spitting chips in her face. The fireflashes were faint in the morning sun, but the reports were thunderclaps.

Erskine had shot, and Terry. Lytton had slipped down behind his motorcycle, which had fallen on him. There was a bright red splash of blood on the ground.

Teddy was bringing up his rifle.

She scooped a stone and drew back the rubber of her catapult.

Susan screamed for everyone to stop.

Allie loosed the stone and raised a b.l.o.o.d.y welt on Erskine's cheek.

Susan slapped Allie hard and hugged her. Erskine, arm trembling with rage, blood dribbling on his face, took aim at them. Draper put a hand on the Constable's arm, and forced him to holster his gun. At a nod from the Reeve, Teddy Gilpin took a look at Lytton's wound and reported that it wasn't serious.

"This be bad, Goodwife Ames. It'd not tell well for you ifn it came up at magistrate's court. We'm be back on Sat.u.r.day, with the vet. Have your animals together so they can be destroyed."

He walked to his police car, his men loping after him like dogs. Terry laughed a comment to Erskine about Lytton.

Allie impotently tw.a.n.ged her catapult at them.

"Help me get this off him," Susan said.

The Norton was a heavy machine, but between them they hefted it up. The pannier was still latched down. Lytton had not got to his guns. He lay face-up, a bright splash of red on his left upper arm. He was gritting his teeth against the hurt, shaking as if soaked to the skin in ice-water.

Allie didn't think he was badly shot. Compared to some.

"You stupid man," Susan said, kicking Lytton in the ribs. "You stupid, stupid man!"

Lytton gulped in pain and cried out.

It wasn't as if they had much livestock. Allie looked round at the eight cows, all with names and personalities, all free of the madness. Gosmore Farm had a chicken coop, a vegetable garden, a copse of apple trees and a wedge of hillside given over to grazing. It was a struggle to eke a living; without the milk quota, it would behopeless.

It was wrong to kill the cows.

Despair lodged like a stone in Allie's heart. This was not what the West should be. When younger, she'd read Thomas Hardy's Wess.e.x novels, The Sheriff of Casterbridge and Under the Hanging Tree, and she still followed The Archers. In storybook Wess.e.x, men like Squire Maskell always lost. Alder needed Dan Archer, the wireless hero, to stride into The Valiant Soldier, six-guns blazing, and lay the vermin in the dirt.

There was no Dan Archer.

Susan held all her rage in, refusing to talk about the cows and Maskell. She always concentrated on what she called "the job at hand." Just now, she was nursing Lytton. Erskine's shot had gone right through his arm. Allie had looked for but not found the bullet, to give him as a souvenir. He'd lost blood, but he would live.

Allie hugged Pansy, her favorite, and brushed flies away from the cow's gummy eyes.

"I won't let them hurt you," she vowed.

But what could she do?

Depressed, she trudged down to the house.

Lytton was sitting up on the cot in the living room, with his s.h.i.+rt off and a clean white bandage tight around his arm. Allie saw he had older scars. This was not the first time he'd been shot. He was sipping a mug of hot tea. Susan, bustling furiously, tidied up around him. When he saw Allie, Lytton smiled.

"Susan's been telling me about this Maskell character. He seems to like to have things his way."

The door opened and Squire Maskell stepped in.

"That I do, sir."

He was dressed for church, in a dark suit and kipper tie. He knew enough not to wear a gunbelt on Gosmore Farm, though Allie guessed he was carrying a small pistol in his armpit. He had shot Allie's Dad with such a gun, in a dispute over wages. Allie barely remembered her father, who had been indentured on Maskell's farm before the War and an NFU rep afterwards.

"I don't remember extending an invitation, Squire," Susan said evenly.

"Susan, Susan, things could be so much more pleasant between us. We are neighbors."

"In the same way a pack of dogs are neighbors to a fox gone to earth."

Maskell laughed without humor.

"I've come to extend an offer of help."Susan snorted. Lytton said nothing but looked Maskell over with eyes that saw the gun under the hankie-pocket and the knife in the boot.

"I understand you have BSE problems? My condolences."

"There's no mad cow disease in my herd."

"It's hardly a herd, Susan. It's a gaggle. But without them, where would you be?"

Maskell spread empty hands.

"This place is hardly worth the upkeep, Susan. You're only sticking at it because you have a nasty case of Stubborn Fever. The land is worthless to anyone but me.

Gosmore Farm is a wedge in my own holdings. It would be so convenient if I could take down your fences, if I could incorporate your few acres into the Maskell farm."

"Now tell me something I don't know."

"I can either buy from you now above the market value, or wait a while and buy from the bank at a knock-down price. I'm making an offer now purely out of neighborly charity. The old ways may have changed, but as Squire I still feel an obligation to all who live within my bailiwick."

"The only obligation your forefathers felt was to sweat the serfs into early graves and beget illegitimate cretins on terrorized girls. Have you noticed how the Maskell chin shows up on those Gilpin creatures?"

Maskell was angry now, but trying to keep calm. A vein throbbed by his eye.

"Susan, you're upset, I see that. But you must be real-istic. Despite what you think, I don't want to see you on the mercy of the parish. Robert Ames was a good friend to me, and..."

"You can f.u.c.k off, Maskell," Susan spat. "f.u.c.k right off."

The Squire's smile drained away. He was close to sputtering. His Maskell chin wobbled.

"Don't ever mention my husband again. And now leave."

"Susan," he pleaded.

"I think Goodwife Ames made herself understood," Lytton said.

Maskell looked at the wounded man. Lytton eased himself gingerly off the cot, expanding his chest, and stood. He was tall enough to have to bow his head under the beamed ceiling.

"I don't believe I've had..."

"Lytton," he introduced himself.

"And you would be... ?"

"I would be grateful if you left the house as Goodwife Ames wishes. And fasten the gate on your way out. There's a Country Code, you know."