Samson & Delilah

Part 3

Day 2 after casing Heavy’s Bank & Feed Store:

The day found Jayne outside waiting for his new love interest to arrive. Mal had told Jayne that Delilah was not allowed inside the ship. He always got crazy when planning a heist and this particular job was making him more paranoid than ever.

Delilah had been the main topic of discussion at the morning meal and everyone seemed to have an opinion of her. Mal was automatically distrusting of the girl, Zoe followed the captain opinion of course, Wash followed Zoe’s opinion, would it be any different?…….and Simon kept spouting off about Samson and Delilah and the stories of Earth passed. His bubble brained sister also enter the conversation with a bunch of gibberish no one could understand.

“ Where there’s smoke there’s embers. Beware of the eye, it seeks revenge and is dastardly in it’s deeds.”

This kind of talk made Mal even more paranoid. Why he let a box brain, nut shell like River ever influence his thinking was beyond the big mercenary’s thought process, but the captain of Serenity always listened to what the psycho-ward reject had to say.

The captain had gone immediately to the cortex and looked up detailed info on Barron Von Royston. Sure enough there was a picture of the land Barron, all dressed in black with a dark, leather patch over one eye. Seems he’d been injured during the war. Fought for the Alliance. Received the Parliament Badge of Honor and a whole slue of other metals.

This was his territory Serenity was invading and the “Apocalypse” part had been added to the Barron’s name for the way he’d ended so many freedom fighter attacks during the many battles of the war. Many of his indentured workers were ex-browncoats and he made a mockery of the way he’d manhandled the independent fighting squads during the war.

This may have been another reason for Malcolm Reynolds’ interest in robbing the bank at Lehi Township. A chance to take money that was gained from the slave labor backs of old, veteran browncoats. Revenge is sweet sometimes.

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About mid morning Jayne heard the clamor of someone coming through the brush near Serenity’s port side. Sure enough it was Delilah. For a brief moment Jayne considered how she was able to find the little transport in all that brush, it was hidden pretty well, yet she could not find her own home the day before. He did think on it for a minute or two, but with one smile from the pretty girl those thoughts faded from his mind quickly. As they say, love is blind.

Jayne and Delilah went down to the water stream and enjoyed their time spent together that day. They talked about lots of things, although Jayne was still hesitant to discuss the reasons for Serenity being there or too much about his family. He had been cautioned by Mal not to divulge too much.

Delilah was the same way. She talked a lot without saying a lot Jayne thought. She didn’t want to talk much about her father, but Barron Von Royston she was ready to spill the beans about. She despised the man and the way he used her father as a slave. There was a deep passion of hatred underlying every spoken word about him.

Delilah was a bit interested in Serenity, and she could not understand why Jayne wouldn’t take her inside. Jayne was more interested in visiting her ranch house, but just the same she did not express a desire to return home. They spent most of the day outside with visits from the rest of the crew, well except for Mal, Simon and River.

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Simon Tam moved around Serenity’s infirmary. He had received a strange request from his sister.

Now, the good doctor Tam wasn’t of the notion of granting every request adopted by his younger sibling but there were times when he did try to accommodate her. This had been an especially odd request though. One that Simone had his doubts about, still River’s insistence had him fulfill her desire and be the good brother. There were things his sister knew that the older Tam may not need to know about. It fell in line with the way Malcolm Reynolds was, an intuitiveness. Those two had a connection that sometimes frightened the brother Tam.

Anyway, he did as his sister had bid and didn’t question further.

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Later that evening, after Jayne had again escorted Delilah home, the crew of Serenity met in the ships galley to plot the activities of the next day.

“ Wash, you will take the shuttle and cause a disturbance out at Von Royston’s plantation tomorrow, 9am sharp.” Mal said.

“ Jayne, you’ll take the mule and park in the alley next to Murphy’s Café. When you notice the commotion and see the deputy response to the disturbance Wash has caused you wait five minutes, cross the street and cut the video feed to the bank behind the store. Wait for us outside.”

“ Zoe, you and me are the inside crew. We rent a couple of horses and go to the bank. We’ll gather any patrons inside, which shouldn’t be many at the early hour, and lock them in the feed stall in the store side of the structure. We’ll then gather the manager and have him open the vault for us. Simple as mudders pie. Should go smooth.” Malcolm smiled.

Where had they heard that last statement before? All the participants looked at one another but did not question any of the captains plans. He did seem to lead a charmed life, or was it that he was just lucky?

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The following morning the crew of Serenity got ready for a full day of activities. Wash and Jayne rented a couple of horses from Cipher’s Stalls and were back by 7:30.

At 7:45, Wash was in the shuttle and on his way out to Royston’s farm and Jayne was warming up the mule. By 8:52, Mal and Zoe where at the edge of town while Jayne had positioned himself across from Heavy’s Bank.

At 9:10 the streets seemed to come alive with confused electricity. There were shouts and in two minutes a group of men in heavy dusters on mounted steeds headed west as fast as their animals could travel. The few townsfolk that were wandering the streets were a bit dazed but were sure they could read about the excitement in the towns afternoon paper, they went on with their business.

Jayne took the opportunity to venture out into the street. He looked both ways and saw that the roads were basically empty. Just as Von Royston owned the plantation, he must own the town as well, or most of it. Seems most the people of Lehi Township worked for him, and if they weren’t in their beds trying to rest then they were out at the farm making him loads of money all day. Where did all that cash end up? Jayne had a hunch that Mal knew, and a lot of it would be in the bandits pockets that very night.

He finished crossing the street and found his way behind the bank. Now Jayne wasn’t the cleverest of all bank robbers and he knew very little about electrical stuff, but he did have faith in Mal, although he felt Mal was jealous of his relationship with Delilah, he knew that in some way Mal would show him what wire needed to be cut in order to disrupt the video feed to the bank.

Rounding the corner Jayne noticed an electrical box, he opened it. There was a yellow wire running through the box, the wire had a label tag on it which simply read “This one”. Jayne cut the wire. Badgers informant had pretty good Intel of the operation Jayne assumed. His mission completed Jayne made his way to the front of the bank. There were two horses strapped to the hitching rail there. Jayne knew the captain and Zoe were inside.

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Mal and Zoe had waited down the street. Seeing Jayne cross the road was their cue to head toward the bank. They rode their horses at a brisk trot and were at the store doors of the business in less than a minute. There were only seven people inside the structure. Three ladies, one with a small child, a store clerk, a bank clerk and the manager.

Mal explained that no one was to be hurt, and in five minutes the entire band was locked behind the wire fence of the feed store. All that is, but for the bank manager. The two robbers escorted Mr. Heavy, a round kinda fella, in excess of three hundred pounds, inside the bank portion of the structure. Seeing through the big front windows that Jayne stood outside, Mal and Zoe knew the video feed had been cut.

They entered the bank and motioned for the manager to open the safe, which he did. A totally sum of five square was lifted from the lock-box in the wall.

“ Great!” Zoe remarked, “ All this for sher mo?”

Mal looked at her.

“Yee have little faith.” He said.

Mal, with Zoe took the manager into a side room that looked to be the manager’s office. There was a medium sized wooden box mounted inside the wall there, a box attached to a trolley. Mal took his saddlebag from his shoulder and retrieved a time clock from it. Taped to the clock was what looked to be explosives, and taped to that was a note.

“ This one is fake!” the note read, “ The next one won’t be! Open the door! NOW!!”

Mal lit the fuse, put the fake bomb on the trolley then lowered it to the vault below. In a minute they heard a buzzing sound, and a big cabinet on the opposite side wall cracked open. Mal look at Zoey, impressed with himself.

The two robbers along with the bank manager entered a staircase going down to the vault below.

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In a time beat of six minutes Mal and Zoe returned to the front door of the bank. The manager and security guard locked inside the vault below. Mal gave Jayne half the bank cache and then he and Zoe mounted their horses and headed west out of town. Jayne crossed the street and headed towards the mule.

As Jayne entered the alley he heard a familiar voice.

“ Two coppers for your thoughts.”

“ RIVER!!? What the yien are you doing here?” Jane was flabbergasted at the sight of the girl.

No time to think about it now he had to get out of town. He swung himself onto the mule and picking up the slim girl in one arm hoisted her into the seat behind him. He gunned the engine and in a brief moment the two were at top speed headed east out of the township of Lehi.

End Part 3