Title: Presumption of Guilt – Chapter 8 Author: hisgoodgirl Disclaimer: All belongs to Joss. I got nada but my imagination. Characters: Crew, omc, ofc. Warning: PG for graphic violence, profanity and other grownup things. Setting: In the town of Silverton, on Santo, immediately prior to “The Train Job”. Words: 2,075

A/N: As a kid, my two favorite TV genres were westerns and detective shows. I finally decided to tackle both in a mix I’ve thought of as “Firefly CSI”. Click my name to access the previous chapters. If you’re following this tale, I’d really appreciate hearing what you think. Remember, feedback is what writers (and muses) live for. And if you’re enjoying this, please pimp it to your friends. Thanks!

X - posted from my LiveJournal.

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Presumption of Guilt Chapter Eight

“Ma’am, I need you and your friend to come out right now.” The young deputy facing Zoe was tense and wide-eyed. Zoe could hear the fear in his voice. “Looks like we got a batch a folks intent on havin’ themselves a lynchin’!”

“Kay-lee?” Zoe’s rising call echoed through the lockup. “Up here – now!”

Jayne pressed against the cell bars, his blue eyes wide. “I wish the ruttin’ hell I had my gun,” he cursed to himself, then told the mechanic, “You stick with Zo, you hear? She’ll keep ya safe! And Kaylee… thanks.”

The urgency in Zoe’s voice left no room for delay. With one anxious backward glance at Jayne, the girl turned and ran the length of the cell aisle. “Oh God, Zoe, what’re we gonna do?” she blurted.

The deputy pushed the two women ahead of him through the pass-through door, locking it behind them. Once the three of them were in the office, he dropped the ward-bar across the wide door that opened in from the street. “Sheriff Garvey’ll be here shortly. One of the other men went to get him,” he informed them. “You,” he waved at Zoe, “help me git these shutters bolted, so we can at least slow ‘em down.” They swung the iron-bound wooden shutters together to cover the single window and slid the bolts that anchored them home. Outside, the crowd grew noisier.

Zoe took a step toward the deputy. “I want my side arm back,” she demanded. “Could be you’ll need me if your boss is slow arriving.” She glanced toward the jailhouse door. “That man back there doesn’t deserve a lynching.”

The deputy faced her for just a moment, then nodded. Nothing in his training prepared him for this. “You’re right.” He opened the weapon locker on the wall and took out the sawed-off lever-action Winchester Zoe carried in lieu of a pistol. “No gunfire without I say so,” he ordered, passing her gunbelt and the weapon across the desk to her. “Understood?”

Zoe grudgingly nodded and buckled her gunbelt around her hips.

Kaylee asked anxiously, “Zoe, what do I do?”

The first mate cocked her weapon to chamber a round. ”Things get bracing, you get yourself up under that desk and stay there.”

* * *

Mal tugged on his gloves and palmed the button to activate the ship’s comm system, then spoke to his pilot up on Serenity’s bridge. “Wash, I want you to hold down the fort for a little while. The Shepherd and I got some business we need to take care of. If I ain't back in an hour or two, I’ll call in.”

“Will do, Mal.” There was a sharp click as Wash switched off the intercom.

Noting the disapproving look that Shepherd Book cast his way, Mal shrugged. “What? Ain't likely to improve the situation, the man knows his wife’s out there. Besides, he’d slow us down.” He tossed the shotgun to Book. “Let’s go.”

Together they set out at a rapid pace, quickly crossing over from the docks to Silverton’s main street. The mid-morning light from Santo’s large yellow sun was refracted in the dust raised by the crowd. Mal could see the mob gathered up ahead around the jail, bigger and meaner than the day before.

“That doesn’t look good, son,” Book said, glancing pointedly at Mal.

“Gotta say I agree with you, Preacher.” Today there were more men in the crowd, many of them mine workers and cowboys from the local ranches, interspersed with a number of local business men and street boys, eager for a show. Many of the men were armed, and their voices reminded Mal of the evil hum of a batch of angry hornets.

“Reynolds!” The familiar voice rang out from the boardwalk across the street. Mal craned his neck and finally found Max Garvey. With Shepherd Book in tow, he plunged through the mob and worked his way across to where Garvey and two of his deputies stood, tensely watching the milling crowd.

“Thought you had this bunch put to bed yesterday, Sheriff.”

Garvey chuckled mirthlessly. “Me, too. I’d bet my next paycheck someone’s been stirrin’ up trouble, and I got a hunch I know who.” He glanced at Book, dark hands cradling the shotgun Mal had handed him earlier, and nodded politely. “Preacher.”

Book could see Garvey’s confusion over his dual role evident in the lawman’s worn face. “Sheriff,” he returned, by way of greeting.

As best Mal could see, the heavy wooden door to the sheriff’s office and jail appeared to be closed, with no-one standing guard outside, unlike the day before. Mal wouldn’t willingly see this mob string up his crewman, even if that crewman was Jayne Cobb, and it didn’t help that Zoe and Kaylee were in that building, too.

“I got womenfolk in there, Sheriff. Took Jayne some food and clothes this mornin’.” The captain’s grim expression mirrored Garvey’s.

“I understand, Captain. I am gonna do my damndest to diffuse this business, but just in case…” He broke the shotgun over his forearm and pushed two shells into the breach. “We’re gonna make our way to the porch of the jailhouse. Probably best if you and your man here stay off to the side some, but not too far, in case we need you.” Without waiting for Mal to respond, Garvey turned and began to shove his way through the milling throng, the deputies close behind him.

“Hang the bastard!” someone shouted as the crowd jostled and shoved. Bright sunlight glittered off gun barrels and mining tools, and booted feet stirred the fine yellow dust of Santo into a roiling haze. A nasal voice bellowed, “He don’t deserve a trial, murderin’ scum that he is.” The angry crowd shuffled and muttered. “Let’s us string ‘im up!” came the call, followed by a chorus of “Yeahs!” and a tall, weather-beaten man dressed in a cattleman’s canvas duster hollered out, “I got a rope, Tommy.”

As Mal and Book took up a position to the left of the jail, Sheriff Garvey and the deputies stormed through the leading edge of the crowd and onto the porch. Garvey pointed the shotgun at the pale ocher sky and pulled the trigger, the resulting roar echoing off adjacent buildings. The crowd fell silent.

“What in the hell do you people think you’re doin’?” The sheriff glared angrily out at the crowd. “Last I heard, this was a law-abidin’ town. The man has charges pending, Justice Howery is on his way down from Andros and the trial date’s been set.” His deputies shifted nervously behind him, their rifles ready.

“Them spacers’re just stallin’ that bastard’s trial,” one man shouted. “I betcha they’re gonna try to bust him out.” At this, the crowd grew noisier.

“Mrs. Murchison was raped and murdered an’ we want justice, Sheriff!”

“I understand your anger and your outrage, Charlie Murphy. But until that man’s guilt has been proven beyond any questionable doubt in a legitimate court of law, no one here has the right to condemn him.” Garvey settled his hat more firmly on his head and stared coldly out into the mob. “What you folks are plannin’ on doin’ ain't got nothin’ to do with justice. Takin’ matters into your own hands makes you criminals as surely as whomever was responsible for the lady’s death. There’s laws and precedents in place for dealing with this situation and you’d be well advised to all go home and let the Law do its job.”

One heavyset man, a farmer whose home and land had been recently repossessed, stepped forward and offered in a voice dripping with sarcasm, “We all know what a great job you been doin’ of enforcin’ the law, Sheriff.”

Garvey’s cheek twitched, but he maintained his composure. “What you’re sayin’ may have been true, Pat, but a man comes to a place in his life where he has to take a stand, an’ I’m takin’ one now. This used to be a good town populated by good folk, not a gorramned lynch mob.”

Max Garvey scanned the crowd, noting friends and neighbors he’d known for over twenty years, people who’d come to Silverton with hopes and dreams and a few credits in their pockets. As his gray eyes passed over each one, lingering briefly, the crowd grew quieter.

“I don’t think you want to have to explain to your families what you had in mind to do this mornin’. Go home to your wives and children, men. Just go home and let the Law do what it’s there for.”

The mob began to melt away.

* * *

The sheriff and his deputies waited patiently until the crowd had finally dispersed. Satisfied that the immediate danger of a confrontation had been diffused, Garvey rapped sharply on the jailhouse door and ordered the deputy within to un-bar the door. Mal and Shepherd Book followed the men into Garvey’s office.

“Nice to see you, sir.” Zoe nodded at the captain and then to Book.

Mal smiled at Kaylee, who seemed more than a little shaken. “You all right, Mèi-mei?”

“Well enough, I guess.” Kaylee’s voice quivered. “Just ain't never seen a lynch mob before and don’t look forward to another one. Good thing you showed up when you did…” The mechanic slipped close to Mal, reassured by his presence.

“Ain't me you wanna be thankin’.” Mal waved her off and thumbed at Garvey who was busy talking to his deputies about the incident. “He’s the one stood ‘em down, talked the fury out of ‘em.” He studied the sheriff then glanced at Zoe. “Folks’ll surprise you.”

“Yes, they will, sir,” his second agreed.

“Would they really have hung Jayne with no trial, Cap’n?” Kaylee asked.

Mal put an arm around her shoulder to reassure her. “Well, they’d a had to come through the seven of us first.”

From way back in the lock-up, Jayne’s voice echoed faintly. “Hey out there! Am I gettin’ lynched or not?”

* * *

Back on board Serenity, the first person Mal encountered was a very angry Wash. The pilot embraced his wife, reassuring himself that Zoe was unharmed, then turned on the captain.

“Not once did you tell me you were going out because my wife was at risk from a lynch mob. Mal, what were you thinking?” He shook his fists in frustration and his voice soared toward squeaky.

Then he took note of Shepherd Book, still holding the shotgun Mal had provided him. “You’ve got no problem with taking along a minister to rescue Zo and Kaylee, but you didn’t even consider taking me?”

Mal stood his ground, hands grasping his suspenders, as Wash paced back and forth in front of him.

“Weren’t a case of not considering it, Wash. Was a case of choosing not to include you. I didn’t feel comfortable leaving my boat in the hands of Inara or the Doc and his crazy sister, for one thing, and I felt sure that the Shepherd and I could get armed up and over there a lot quieter and quicker without you along. Besides,” he thumbed at Book, neatly dressed in the black and gray of his clerical garb and then gestured at Wash, garish in an orange flight suit and gaudy shirt, ”the Preacher’s more likely to have a calming influence on a bunch of excitable folk. You, on the other hand, might well scare ‘em to death.”

“But Mal, Zoe’s my wife and I’ve got a right to know when she’s in a dangerous situation.” Caught up in his rant, the raging pilot failed to notice a cable lying loose across the deck and snagged his boot-toe. Before anyone could break his fall, he stumbled and landed on his hands and knees.

Zoe started to help him up but he waved her off. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of my wife!” he asserted irately as he clambered to his feet, looking to Zoe for confirmation.

She stepped close and slid her arm around his waist, fitting her long warm flank against him and resting her forehead against his. “You do just fine, Lambie-Toes,” she reassured him.

“It’s the ‘taking care of yourself’ part we’re all a little concerned about,” Mal said.

He looked around at the crew members present and crossed his arms over his chest. “You folk all got chores need doin’, as I recall. Best get to ‘em, mǎshàng!”

To be continued… 8 of 13