Free Banshee by Terry Maggert

order. People had died in the expedition to St. Louis that procured the .50s, and there were still raw nerves over the entire operation. French had gone too far, and Colvin leapt into the fray
    “You what ? On whose authority? Your own?” Colvin boomed, and even Harriet Fleming stayed silent. She couldn’t defend any loss of the irreplaceable big guns. The .50s were the only long rifles capable of stopping the second and third wave beasts that had always been the most lethal. They’d just robbed Peter to pay Paul, and the uproar was deafening. “Do you know how many lives will be lost from your act of stupidity? Madam Chairman, I move to replace this . . . man—”
    “I still wasn’t finished,” French said, and then repeated it twice, louder each time. A ripple of calm eventually overtook the noise, and silence fell when French lifted a single hand high. Something silver flashed, dangling from his index finger. “I also gave away unlimited rations, safe harbor for up to twenty salvagers, and all of the supplies they could carry for five years each time they arrive to trade, up to four times a year.”
    The silence that fell was heavy and ripe with disbelief. There simply had to be another side to this idiocy, said the faces of many of the more seasoned residents. They stayed quiet, and waited for the other shoe to drop. Here and there, they shushed less disciplined members of the community, until the pressure in the room built and Colvin Watley was compelled to shrug helplessly at French, who held the floor without saying a word.
    “I negotiated, as I am charged to do, to the best of my ability. If you want me to step down, I’ll do so immediately, and I’ll even nominate Colvin to take my place. I’m sure you would all be quite comfortable knowing he was in charge of your defenses.”
    Nervous laughter pattered through the crowd. Watley pasted an amiable grin on his face. Wesley Yarnell was febrile with hatred, but French ignored him and went on.
    “I gave up such things for something we need even more than food.” With that cryptic statement, a noise roared from just outside the hall and every head turned in awe. It was a sound not heard for more than six years, when the last of the working farm vehicles had surrendered to the inevitable ravages of time. Both doors flew open at the hands of Ralston and his youngest son. Between them purred a gray and red century-old Ford tractor. The rumble of the small engine caromed off the walls of the Grange, and the first wisps of exhaust drifted across the noses of every agricultural worker packed into the hall. It was ambrosia to their aching backs, and the cheer that exploded from hundreds of throats was deafening. It took nearly two full minutes for the whooping to die down to a level where conversation was possible.
    Colvin Watley wasn’t done. He raised his hands with a sad smile and finally succeeded in asking French a question that couldn’t be avoided.
    “How many acres are we farming right now?” Watley asked.
    After several catcalls about the softness of Watley’s hands, French shrugged. “Maybe a thousand? I don’t know, Colvin. I get fed because I kill, not because I grow things.”
    Watley nodded sagely. “And how many acres can that single, small tractor hope to work? Don’t get me wrong, son,” he said in a perfect tone of dismissal, “I know you think you’ve just changed our lives, but it would take more than one vehicle to impact a community as large as ours.”
    Yarnell sneered at French. Even Amy Delacroix seemed to be listening.
    There was another growing murmur, and French once again held his hand aloft. “Do you see these?”
    Watley nodded patiently. “Yes, we see the keys, Mr. Heavener. What’s your point?”
    “Can you count them?” Before anyone could speak, French announced, “I didn’t trade away an elite weapon and masses of food for a single tractor. We don’t have any need for a tractor.”
    “We don’t?” Harriet