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He forms up a posse to go looking for Gordo.
And surprise, Yarvok and I are on it.
Thirty-Six
Yarvok
I’m surprised at the huge turnout for the sheriff’s posse. There are no shortage of volunteers. Nearly everyone who lives in Touchdown has turned out to at least try and help.
The Sheriff turns some of them away, not because they aren’t useful but because he has plenty of help already.
We all gather around in a big circle on our property, because it’s a good place to mount the operation from. Elena and Bron join us, standing nearby and both holding hunting rifles. Yarvok has eschewed a firearm of any kind, saying that he doesn’t like guns ever since the war.
I have a small energy pistol strapped to my thigh under my skirt, but I doubt I’ll have to use it. Pretty much everyone knows that Chadd is probably going to surrender without a fight. That is, if he hasn't found a way off the planet as of yet.
“I don’t understand why he did it in the first place,” Yarvok grumbles. “It’s not like we were beating him unfairly. Didn’t he hire his own experts? Spend a bunch of money on marketing, just like we did?”
“Guys like Chadd don’t care about things being fair. To them, it’s not fair unless they win, all the time, every time.” I sigh and shake my head. “I wish it wasn’t like that, but it is.”
The sheriff summons everyone closer, and uses his com pad to project a holographic map of the area.
“All right, the last we knew, Chadd Gordo’s hover car was heading in this direction.”
“How come we can’t just track him directly to where he is now?” someone in the crowd asks.
“Oh gee, what a clever idea, why didn’t I think of that?” the sheriff sneers. “That won’t work because Chadd Gordo disposed of his vehicle’s global positioning system around here, near the border of Touchdown’s city limits.”
“So we don’t even know if he’s off planet or not,” someone else asks.
“No, but it’s a safe bet he’s still on New Verdan somewhere. An orbital lift off causes a lot of ruckus, as well as multiple electromagnetic signals both deliberate and not. It’s not very plausible that nobody detected a lift off. Most likely he’s still out there somewhere.”
“Why are we looking for him in the first place?” Elena asks. “I mean, sooner or later he’ll probably realize he’s only making things worse and harder on himself, and then he’ll come back to town with his tail between his legs.”
“Fratyvoyans don’t have tails,” says someone in the crowd.
“It’s just a figure of speech,” Olivia sighs. “And we can’t take that chance. He might even try something else now that his main plan has failed.”
“We can’t take the chance, she’s right.” The sheriff gathers everyone in with his hard gaze. “I’m telling you right now, that this Gordo fellow has already shown a propensity to put people at risk out of his petty need for vengeance. Guys like that, they don’t need the threat of losing to get violent. They’ll do it if they feel like they can get away with it because they feel naturally superior.”
“He’s a blot on our otherwise highly respectable race,” Cam Neely calls out.
I manage not to laugh, but it’s hard.
We split up, dividing the territory into sectors. Olivia and I get the sector closest to our property. I find it hard to believe that he’d be hiding out here.
And yet, we find evidence that a hover car was experiencing engine trouble in the area. There are gouges in the dirt where something was dragged, and then something that disturbs me.
The footprint of a Rork.
“Olivia?”
“I see it, Yarvok. What should we do?”
“I should keep on going. You should take cover in that cave. It’s too small for the creature to fit inside.”
“No way,” she says stubbornly.
“Olivia, I can’t bear the thought of you being hurt…” I take her in my arms and kiss her deep. Her lips are sublime upon my own. I want to spend the rest of my life kissing her.
