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"Like hell," someone said from the ranks of townspeople. "The IRS can stay lost for all I care."
That brought a gust of laughter; Cofflin joined in for an instant. "Generally speaking, I mean. In the end, though, this-this Town Meeting here-is the source of law on this island. You are. You're the Congress, you're the Senate. You can make peace and declare war; you decide what the penalties for crimes are. You bind and loose."
That brought silence for a long moment, except for the angry hiccupping of a fretful baby. "All right, then. Here we've got eighteen men and women who tried to burn down the town, which would probably have killed us all, one way or another." There had been twenty to start with, but two had managed to follow their ex-pastor into suicide.
"We've given them a fair trial, and they've mostly confessed anyway. The question is, what do we do with them?"
"Hang 'em!" someone shouted, and there was a menacing snarl from the crowd. Together on a bench before the dais the prisoners shrank together.
Cofflin hammered his gavel. "That's one solution," he said calmly. "And you're the ultimate authority here. If you vote for it, it'll be carried out. Now, I just want you to think about that. Eighteen nooses. Eighteen people with broken necks hanging there-if we don't botch it and just strangle them slowly. I'll insist that it be done publicly; people should see the results of what they order. And then I'll resign."
There was an uproar at that. Cofflin gaveled it into silence. He recognized the woman with the crying baby. She stood, anger crackling off her:
"I'm not going to let those… those lunatics loose to threaten my baby again." A growl rose from the crowd.
Cofflin nodded. "Ms. Saunders, I agree completely. I'm not against the death penalty as such in the ordinary course of events. This is a little different. We need to come up with a way to keep ourselves safe from these people here, without killing them. You're also right; they were acting like lunatics. Haven't most of us felt like ru
With a Glock, in one case.
Saunders blinked. "What do you think we should do?"
"Well, we can't just keep them in jail. For one thing, it'd cost too much-we'd have to feed them. What I had in mind was a productive form of exile."
Martha leaned forward and spoke into the microphone. "You'd better listen carefully," she said. "Jared Cofflin's the best man to head our Council, and you'd be well advised to keep him."
"You're partial, Martha," someone said from the crowd. "You're engaged to him, after all."
Cofflin felt a small glow at the thought, even then. He'd enjoyed the engagement, too; all three days of it, so far.
"John Detterson, if you think I'd flatter a man just because I'm going to be married to him, you're more of a fool than I thought you," Martha said tartly.
The tension he could feel in the air crackled a little lower; there was not quite a laugh, but a relaxation.
"Everyone hates the salt-gathering detail," Cofflin went on. "We've been drawing lots for it. What I'm saying is that we should send these people down there, for a year at least and then further until they're safe to have back among us. We can send a boat down to pick up the salt and drop off supplies every month or so. It's a hard sentence, yes, but we don't have to kill any of our own, and we don't have to waste time and resources we can't spare on them."
More murmurs. Cofflin pointed the gavel. "Wi
"That's an indefinite sentence, Chief," she said. "How are we going to tell if they're really safe? What's to prevent them lying about it and getting up to the same tricks when they get back?"
"I'll let Father Gomez answer that," Cofflin said.
"These poor people were deluded by a man who was deluded himself," the priest said, rising from his seat in the middle of the meeting. "I have volunteered to go with them to Inagua and help them. Father Co
"And I have full confidence in Father Gomez's judgment," Cofflin said. Since he suggested this whole scheme in the first place, he added to himself. "What's more, I think a year spent shoveling salt and eating flamingo down on Inagua is at least equivalent to ten in a mainland jail. No way to escape, either." No way to escape and live, he amended. If they chose to drown themselves, that was their problem and a solution to his.
"Anyone second the motion?" he asked. A double dozen of hands went up. "Let's put it to the vote. All in favor, raise their hands. Now, all opposed." He swung his head from one end of the crowd to the other. "Joseph?"
"Carried," the town clerk said. Nobody objected; the ayes had outnumbered the nays by at least five to one.
Cofflin looked down at the prisoners; one or two defiant, a woman weeping softly, most of them simply stu
The police officers shepherded the prisoners out. Well, that's a hell of a lot simpler than it used to be, Cofflin thought. Aloud: "All right, let's get on with it." He pointed the gavel. "Sam Macy."
Sam Macy was a house carpenter, and a very good one, island-born. "Chief, it's the way we're ru
"Sam, you're one hundred percent right about that," Cofflin said. "The problem is, it had to be done-still will, for a while. Joseph"-he pointed at the town clerk-"and a couple of our potato-planting bankers-"
That did get a laugh, a rueful one.
"-are working on getting a money system going. After we've got the crops planted and the fishing steady, we can start swapping things around more as we please. People will still have to work or contribute stuff to the Town, though- otherwise we just can't pull through. Next year we can loosen up some more, and more still the year after that. Believe me, the last thing I want is to be a tin-pot Mao. If anyone can come up with a better way of doing it, they're welcome to ask the Meeting to give them this job… more than welcome," he added sincerely, ru
Angelica Brand spoke: "We've been ru
There was a general murmur of agreement on that. Cofflin went on: "We can reopen some of the stores pretty soon now, too, as soon as Joseph gets this chit system going. Satisfied, Sam?"
"Not altogether," Macy said. "There's that order collecting up all the guns."
The townsfolk groaned; Macy was a bit of a monomaniac on the subject of the Second Amendment.
"Sam, you know what happened at the Cappuccino Cafe. Everyone thought Don Mansfield was as sane as any of us and he goes and kills three people-one of 'em a kid. Then there was Johnstone-"
"Guns don't-"
"-kill people, people do. Ayup, I agree-but guns make it so much easier. By the way, Sam, if you want a crossbow, you're welcome to one. Once things settle down, all the firearms will be handed back to their owners, unless the Town needs them-we're going to have to handle our own defense, and from what Captain Alston says there are some mighty rough people out there over the water."