Doctor Who_ Peacemaker - James Swallow [24]
‘I must speak with him.’
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‘AllI’msayin’is,’LoomisTeaguegrated,‘howdoweknowthatpair o’ hellhounds ain’t gonna come riding back here looking for some payback, once they figure they been gulled by Blaine?’
He looked across the room to the Doctor, and Martha hid a small smile. A day ago, Teague had been ready to turn a knife on the Doctor and fleece him; but now Teague and the rest of the townsfolk in Redwater were looking to him for guidance, even if they weren’t aware of it themselves. He had that way about him, she mused. He was take-charge, he always had an answer. In chaos, he became the eye of the storm.
‘They won’t be back,’ said the Doctor. ‘You deal with as many trou-blemakers and all-around nasty folks as I have, and after a while you learn to read them.’ He walked slowly around the table in the middle of the store, giving everyone in the room a steady look.
The owner, Mr Vogel, had offered to host this ‘meeting of great import’ in his shop, as that was the only building still intact with enough room for all the storeowners and town elders to gather in. Their usual haunt across the way, the Bluebird saloon, was a burnt-out shadow of its former self, razed to the dirt by a stray shot from Tangleleg’s gun.
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‘Those men aren’t out for revenge, Loomis. I know their kind.
They’re hunters. They’re looking for a very specific prey. They won’t come back because there’s nothing here for them. No targets.’
‘Bounty riders, you mean?’ asked Vogel. ‘Regulators sent by some dark agency to find Professor Godlove? But to what end?’
‘That’s what we’re going to find out,’ said Martha. The men seemed a bit uncomfortable with a woman taking part in town business, but she had no time for their delicate sensibilities. ‘We’re going to have a very serious chat with our friend Alvin.’
Zachariah Hawkes, who had been chewing his lower lip with greater and greater impatience, finally stepped forward and flapped his hands. ‘With all due respect to the little filly here, I have to say that my concerns He not with our neighbours in Ironhill or parts beyond, but with the good folks in our community!’ A ripple of agreement passed through the assembled men. Hawkes gestured at the air. ‘With the sudden and most untimely passing of our steadfast Sheriff Tobias Blaine, Redwater finds itself without the rule of law and at the mercy of future attacks!’ He produced a smudged copy of the Chronicle, with a smeared headline that read Town Attacked! Hooligans on the Prowyl!
‘I have already produced a new edition saying as much in my edito-rial!’
‘You spelt “prowl” wrong,’ offered Martha.
The Doctor took the paper off him, gave it a grim onceover, and then screwed it into a ball. ‘I’ve never liked sensationalist tabloids,’ he said firmly, thrusting the ball of paper back into Hawkes’s inky hands.
‘You people need to pull together, not panic and jump at shadows!’
‘Sir, you are correct,’ said Joe Pitt, kneading his hat brim. ‘And I think, we was all mightily awed of how you stood up to those snakes and then looked to Miss Forrest. Clearly you’re a man of courage and learning, and I’d hasten to say, we could do no better than ask you to fill Tobias’s boots for the duration.’ He held out a hand, and in it was a six-pointed tin star. ‘I’d like to propose the Doctor for the job of Town Sheriff.’
‘Seconded!’ said Vogel, pressing the badge into the Doctor’s grip.
The Doctor’s firm expression slipped in a moment of genuine sur-62
prise. ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa! Oh no.’ he shook his head. ‘I wore one of these once, ages ago, and all it got me was trouble. I’m not doing that again.’
Martha saw Jenny enter the store, the menfolk bowing and making space for her. ‘You all right?’
‘Thanks to you both,’ nodded the teacher. ‘I owe you my life.’
Martha felt slightly abashed. ‘Ah, it’s OK. That’s what we do, me and him. It’s our thing.’
‘Doctor, please,’ Joe was saying. ‘We’re all at sea here. What took place last night. . . Well, we ain’t never seen the like.’
‘All the more reason to pull together,’ repeated the Doctor. ‘I’ve got to find