The bandit looked at him and chuckled lightly under his mask. “Fair enough, killer. You and your mama go stand over there by my associate. Make it quick now, and there won’t be any more trouble.”
Jesse put his arms around his mother’s waist. The bandit leaned close to her ear and said, “I am not the type to allow harm to come to a woman, or do anything else untoward to them either. You and the boy stay quiet and we’ll be on our way.”
“Thank you, Jim,” she whispered.
“What’s that again?”
“I’ve read about you,” Wilma said. “They call you ‘Gentleman Jim’ in the papers.”
The bandit looked over at where Ralph Brenner was kneeling in the dirt with his hands behind his head. “Not everybody calls me that,” he said. The second bandit was holding a rifle to Brenner’s forehead. His mask was nothing more than a dirty vegetable sack with lopsided eyeholes.
Gentleman Jim walked back to the carriage and frowned at the merchant, who still refused to come out. “You need to step outside, friend. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to adapt my methods.”
“That woman has an ounce of pure severian hidden on her person,” the merchant whispered. “I watched her hide it there when you stopped the carriage. I’ll come out, and I’ll even tell you where it is if you swear not to harm me or take this case.”
The bandit glanced at Wilma and back at the merchant. “I like your style. It’s a deal.”
The merchant stepped down, still clutching the case close to him. “It’s stuffed between her bosoms. I’m sure if you take her back inside the wagon and search her, you’ll find it. You’ll need to get her out of that corset though. I can keep the boy distracted while you do whatever… you need…to do.”
The bandit led the merchant over to the others. Wilma and Jesse were kneeling next to Ralph Brenner and had their hands behind their heads. The other bandit marched in front of them, moving the barrel of his rifle from one forehead to the next. Gentleman Jim smacked Bob across the back of the head and said, “What did I tell you about putting your finger on the trigger?”
Bob yanked on his sack, adjusting it so he could see properly. He removed his finger from the trigger and put it against the frame.
“You bastards didn’t have to cripple the nag,” Ralph Brenner said. He scowled at the whimpering destrier, lying on the ground with its injured leg tucked under its belly.
Gentleman Jim said, “That was just an impact round I hit it with. There might be a light fracture but it will survive. I recommend you bind the leg up real tight once we leave and take it nice and easy back to the settlement.”
“You and your recommendations can go to hell.”
Bob stuck the barrel of his rifle into Brenner’s cheek and pushed him backward into the dirt with it. He cocked the hammer and said, “Say one more thing an’ I’ll put your brains all over the ground, understand?”
Gentleman Jim cleared his throat. “You two men take everything out of your pockets and put it on the ground in front of you. Now take off your jewelry and your watches. That’s good.”
The merchant played along with the charade. He looked over at Wilma and assessed the swell of her bodice, hoping its contents would be enough to distract the robbers while he made a run for it.
Gentleman Jim looked over at Bob and said, “What did I tell you about those raggedy threads of yours?”
“What do you mean?”
“This distinguished lady recognized me from the papers. Now that we’re becoming famous I think it’s only right that we take the time to attire ourselves appropriately. You come out here and deal with respectable businessmen like these fine folks looking like whatever the cat dragged in. It’s no wonder they don’t listen.” Gentleman Jim squatted down to stare face to face with the merchant. “For instance, this man knows how to dress. I admire your choice in fashion, sir.”
The merchant smiled and said, “Thank you.”
The bandit smiled back. “In fact, why don’t you stand up here next to me and take them off.”
“What?”
“Put your little case down on the ground, stand up here, and take off all your clothes.”
After much hand-wringing and one serious threat to shoot off any dangling appendages, the merchant stripped naked. Gentleman Jim told him, “You can put your boots back on. Seneca 5 is twenty miles in that direction. Start walking.”
“I’m taking my case.”
The bandit fired three shots at the man’s feet and the merchant took off running. Gentleman Jim cocked his head at Bob and said, “Go look at that nag and see what needs to be done. Wrap her leg up tight for these fine folks. I believe they’ve had a rough day.”
The bandit helped Brenner to his feet and pointed in the merchant’s direction, “Listen, if you want, you can pick him up on your way back. We’ll leave his clothes with you. I’m warning you, though. He was ready to send up this woman for sacrifice like a prize goose just to save himself. I’d prefer if you kept him up front where you can keep an eye on him.”
Brenner yanked his arm away from the bandit and said something under his breath. He walked over to yell at Bob for splinting the destrier’s leg improperly. Gentleman Jim waited until he was alone with the woman and her son to open up the merchant’s wallet and remove all of the bills inside. He counted them out and handed half to Wilma. He licked his thumb and took out a few more that he folded up and put into Jesse’s shirt pocket. “This stays between me and you all, ok? If you tell the papers about this part, it might make my next customer think I’m soft, and I’d hate like hell to have to hurt somebody to prove otherwise.”
“What’s in the case?” Jesse asked. Wilma scolded him to be quiet, but the masked man looked down at the boy’s eager face and asked him if he really wanted to know.
Jesse nodded, and Gentleman Jim bent on one knee to look him in the eye. “There’s a four-ounce severian bounty on my head. Ain’t no way whatever’s in this case could be worth as much as the risk I took getting it. Most times, cases like these are worth a lot more to the person that owns them than the one who takes them. I’ve taken a hundred of these from men like him, and they cried and whined every time, but when I popped them cases open there was nothing but dirty pictures or secret plans, or something stupid like that. This case won’t be any different. Sometimes, you have to sell it back to them just to make a profit.”
“But if you do that enough, you can pay off that bounty and be free,” Jesse said.
“I could pay off that bounty right now if I wanted to and still be rich. I got plenty of money.”
“So why do you keep doing it?”
The bandit winked at the boy and said, “A man’s gotta have a hobby, son.”
Bob was Gentleman Jim’s eighth assistant, and his magic number was up. Each time the outlaw took on a new helper, he picked a number at random. The man would work exactly that number of jobs with him, and no more. It kept him from developing a personal affinity for anyone.
Two assistants had been sent on their way before their time came. They were simple, decent men who’d fallen on hard times and become desperate. They couldn’t be trusted, when push came to shove, to be cut-throat enough. Both of them woke up in the desert next to an empty bedroll with a thousand dollars stuffed in their pockets.
One assistant was killed and left underneath the scorched frame of a spaceship out in the wasteland. Gentleman Jim had caught the man forcing himself on a female passenger and slit his throat.
Bob made it to the allotted amount of robberies and it was time to drink. “I’m thirsty,” Gentleman Jim said. He sided up to the bar at the Dalewood Saloon in Seneca 5 and ordered two whiskeys. He held his glass up to Bob and said, “To our continued career, fame and good fortune.”