"What Was Mine" 13

I slept for years that night.  I woke up refreshed, and with my clean clothes and duffel bag and every other part of my kit except my gun waiting for me next to the cot.  I stood, stretched, then immediately went to the door and tested it: it was unlocked, and when I swung it open, there was not even a guard there.

I quickly dressed, pulled my hat down tight and walked out of the room.  It was time to get some breakfast, collect two things and get the hell out of here.  I nodded at the young kid standing around behind a counter with a big vistors’ book open in front of him.  I idly scanned the names in the book as I talked to him.  “Who’s in charge here now, kid?”  The last time anybody wrote their name in this book was five months ago, then seven months before that.  I guess they didn’t get many visitors, which made sense: there was nothing for a visitor to visit with.

The kid was afraid of me.  He couldn’t meet my eyes.  “Assistant Warden Bledder, sir.”

“Is he available?”

“Uh…”  He started shuffling through papers.

“I doubt he’s got any appointments.  Your visitors’ log is a salt flat desert.  Tell me how to find him.”  I tried to lock his eyes down, but they were too flighty.  I drummed my fingers on the counter.  “I’m not leaving this place until I talk to Bledder.”

“Umm…”

I knocked on the counter.  “Do you want me to become your new goddamn best friend?”

The kid swallowed.  He gestured behind himself.  “Down that hall.  Three offices at the end.  Bledder’s is the second door.”

I walked in on him writing a letter.  I knocked on the inside of the doorway.  “Am I interrupting?”

He looked up.  Bledder was younger than Peyd, clean-shaven, with short hair, a tiny nose, and a bulbous, toad-like underchin.  He looked up and his expression soured.  “Yes, you are,” he said tersely.  “I’m just writing a letter to Frante’s family.”  He scratched out a couple angry words and set the pen down with a sharp click.  “Did you even know his first name?”

I sighed, bored with this conversation already.  “When would I have learned it?”

“You didn’t have to kill him.”

“Yeah, I did.”  I leaned against the door frame.  “If I hadn’t, he never would have let me go.  I think you know that.”

“He was a good man.”

“He was a weak man.”  I scratched my chin.  “I just came to collect my weapon, and the 18 gold champs I had on me last I remember.  Seems I’ve misplaced ‘em.”

Bledder folded the paper crisply three ways and slid it into an envelope.  “Your weapon is in the armory.  Your money probably didn’t last six hours.”

I made a fist of my shooting hand.  “Somebody stole my money?”

“That rasp in your voice isn’t getting any better, is it?” Bledder asked with some pleasure.  “For some people, it never does.  Cost of having an organic feed tube shoved down your throat for two years, I’m afraid.”

“Who stole my money?”

Bledder sealed the envelope and affixed a stamp.  “It could have been anybody…nobody expected you to ever see the light of day.”  He stood, envelope in hand.  “I wonder if you’d be willing to drop this in the post when you reach the next town.”

I shrugged.  “Suppose I could.  How far is it?”

“About a day-and-a-half’s ride.”  He came around his desk.  “Oh, you don’t have a ride, do you?”

I squinted my eyes suspiciously.  “How much would it cost to get one from you you aren’t using?”

Bledder smiled.  “18 gold champs.”  He held the envelope out to me.  I grabbed it, but he did not let go.  He bore his eyes into mine.  “We all have stories told about us, Mr. Gunniver.  Some of the boys around here even told me some stories about you.  Something brought Frante Peyd out west, but I wouldn’t go believing everything you hear.  Do you understand?”

I nodded.  Might as well spare the guy Peyd’s near-death confession to me.  Let him have his illusions about his former boss.  “Whatever you say.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a keychain.  “We’re going to the armory, collecting your weapon, and then Wrangler Byson’s fitting you with the seediest, swayback old nag we have, and you’re riding the hell away from this facility.”