be gathered, or as if the Spirit in the Hospital was hungry. . . . But nothing useful. No signs of the enemy.
The Forward Camp waited, unsure how to act. Lowry heard rumors that Conductor Banks had written to the Hospital, making a formal demand that the forces of the Line be permitted full access, and had been told in no uncertain terms to drop dead. Lowry presented Banks with a formal memorandum, urging a full siege of the Hospital’s perimeter. Sub-Invigilator (First) Morningside opposed the plan, for no good reason Lowry could see other than spite. Banks was uncertain, indecisive. He told Lowry, “Precipitous action is worse than no action at all. Time is on our side. We can’t afford errors.”
“Sir, the Agents won’t wait. They’ll—”
“Don’t make me report you, Lowry.”
Lowry wired off his recommendation to Kingstown. He received no response.
On the off chance, he then wired off to Kingstown and to Angelus, asking for a list of all persons traveling west to Kingstown by Engine who had indicated on their travel applications an intention to proceed on to the environs of the Hospital. He was delighted to receive back, only a few hours later, a message consisting of a long list of names and destinations: a Mr. Joseph D’Avignon III, financier, in transit from Harrow Cross, en route to Greenbank on business; a Reverend Ed Kearney, traveling on Smiler missionary business; a Dr. Lysvet Alverhuysen, in transit from Gloriana . . .
He wired back precise instructions for how each of them should be handled.
He waited, imagining he might receive a response commending him for his quick thinking.
After a while, one of the Signalmen—it was Portis, Private (First Class)—pointed out that the telegraph in Kloan had been silent for a suspiciously long time.
“Fuck,” Lowry said.
Within hours, Kloan swarmed with the men of the Line. Two of the Heavier-Than-Air Vessels circled overheard like vultures, whipping up Kloan’s ashes. Morningside’s men secured the area. Lowry barged unannounced into the Mayor’s office, sat down, and said, “Our condolences on your recent tragedy. We expect your full cooperation, sir.”
The Mayor of Kloan was a man of powerful body but only mediocre intellect. He was also Kloan’s main landowner and hotelier, its lawyer and for most purposes its judge, and its poor excuse for a preacher.
Kloan’s folk were Smilers, one of the most persistent and ubiquitous of various small-town faiths based on self-improvement and self-confidence and self-help. Lowry regarded it as nonsense at best, prideful and blasphemous at worst. He could just imagine the big oaf of a Mayor, every few months, pushed by some shrew wife’s nagging, trying to lead the Self-Improvement Circles, and making a fool of himself. A strong handshake, a winning smile, could carry a man far out here; in Line country, the Mayor would be considered a simpleton, barely fit to shovel coal.
Lowry didn’t have a high opinion of anyone from outside the Line, but his opinion of the Mayor was particularly low.
Lowry said nothing. He just stared at the blustering hick across the desk from him; he let the Mayor say it again: “I said you don’t have no jurisdiction here, Mr. Lowry. We’ve suffered enough.”
Lowry let the idiot start to say it one more fucking time then cut him off—leaned forward in his chair, snapped his fingers, and said: “My bosses think maybe your nice little town was harboring this villain. This man of the Gun. It’s how they think, Mr. Mayor; they are undiscriminating when it comes to our kind. I told them, surely this man was just passing through; surely not Kloan. They’re skeptical, Mr. Mayor. But perhaps if you’ll let us have a little poke around, we’ll find something to settle the issue. Don’t you think that would be best?”
The Mayor’s blue eyes twitched. He was twice Lowry’s size, and thick necked and sunburned where Lowry was round-shouldered, pale, and bespectacled; but he wilted under Lowry’s mild gray inexorable gaze.
It wasn’t anything special about Lowry that made the Mayor wilt—feeling stirrings of improper pride, Lowry was quick to remind himself of that. It was the weight that was behind Lowry; it was the weight of destiny that was behind him.
By small-town western-rim standards, the Mayor was an important man, with powerful friends and solemn treaties and high-stakes business dealings, and all of that would one day soon be swept aside by the annihilating weight that came rushing at Lowry’s heels. Everyone in the little room knew it.
The Mayor busied himself shuffling the letter opener