Virgil Church, Downtime #1

Virgil sat in the lockup, twiddling his thumbs. Anders had thrown him in here as soon as he’d had a spare moment, to “think for a spell” on what he’d done. He’d dealt with a threat to the town, right? The men were patsies; there was no way that had useful information. It wouldn’t do to leave them behind where they might make trouble. Besides, the only good bandit was a dead bandit. As long as things didn’t get too peaceful, anyway.

At any rate, Virgil had other things to ruminate on. He had realized, sitting in the Fort with the doctor and Anders and Eva, that only he and Ophelia Wolfe knew where the stranger had gotten his explosives, and it naturally would not be good for Sam Newton if word got out what he’d done to his nephew. Virgil tossed around the idea of blackmail, but decided in the end that Sam was too goo d a friend for that, and too useful as an ally in any case. Still, he could make some money off of this – doubtless Sam’d pay good money to protect what was left of his reputation. Otherwise, well, it didn’t bear thinking on.