Robinson Crusoe 2245: (Book 2) (13 page)

As Mox fell, the Big Hat with the whip struck out at him, but Robinson let the leather coil around his arm before wrenching him forward and punching the man in his throat.

Robinson kicked him into the path of a fourth man, pummeling him with shots while swinging his human shield to fend off blows. The fight ended when Robinson raked his remaining boot down his attacker’s shin and kicked him in the head when he fell.

In the time it would take to climb a flight of stairs, Robinson had incapacitated four men. But as he bent down to pull his tomahawk from Mox’s belt, he heard a click behind him.

“That’ll be about enough of that,” the voice said.

Robinson turned to see the woman in white pointing one of her two shiny pistols right at him.

Robinson sighed and dropped his axe.

The woman in white had called for more men. Once Robinson was secure, she holstered her pistols.

Three of the injured were sent to see someone named Doc, but Mox refused to go. He was ordered to escort Robinson to a building across the street through a door marked ‘Theater.’

To his surprise, Robinson was ushered into a room with hundreds of chairs, most of them full of townspeople hooting and laughing. Robinson was forced into one in the back.

A cone of light projected photos on a large screen at the front of the room, only these photos were moving. The images were scratched and faded, but the voices nearly matched the performers that loomed larger than life.

Most of the performers were dressed like those of Cowboytown. They wore long leather pants that swung open by the ankles, wide-brimmed hats, and pistols. When a man with a star on his chest was assailed by three men with black hats. tThe hero fended them off and pulled his weapon. Three rapid blasts of smoke felled the assailants, and the crowd in the theater stood and cheered as the music swelled.

“They’re called picture shows,” the woman in white said. She’d slipped in so quietly, Robinson never even heard her sit down beside him. “Ever seen one before?” He shook his head. “Few have. Cowboytown might be the last place in the Americas where you can see one.”

“Cowboytown?” Robinson asked.

“Why don’t we go upstairs where we can talk?”

They exited the theater and walked up a flight of stairs, passing through a room that held the picture showing machine. Beyond it was a small office. Robinson was directed toward a seat. The woman sat opposite him. Mox, Mr. Dandy, and the other men filed in behind them.

“Way back when this land was first settled,” the woman said, “hard men were needed to wrestle it from the wild. Men like those you saw on screen. Many pushed cattle—hence the name,
cowboy
—but others worked and enforced the land in other ways. When I first stumbled upon this city, it was a lawless town. Fella that ran it before me did so with an iron hand, but any place given enough time and people will pull toward civilization. The trouble was it was always lacking that special something to pull people together. When Mr. Dandy discovered the movies, people were in awe. It gave them something. A spark of hope. Identity. Something. Since I was starting in the same place as those men from way back when, I decided it was a …”

The woman snapped her fingers, and Mr. Dandy finished her sentence.

“Methodology worth emulating.”

“So this town,” Robinson said, glancing around, “and your uniforms, are what? Affectations?”

The woman looked at Mr. Dandy with an eyebrow raised.

“Young man has a vocabulary,” he said.

“And a two-dollar accent,” Mox said, as he wiped the blood from his nose with a dirty piece of cloth.

“They call me Boss,” the woman in white said. “I run this town. And this is Mr. Dandy. Where you from exactly?”

“Up north,” Robinson said.

Boss eyed him as she pulled a slender bag out of her pocket and took out a paper stick. She put it to her lips, and a man with a match put fire to it. The woman inhaled and blew out smoke. Then she spit a few grains of residue out.

“Quirley?” she offered and Robinson shook his head.

“How does it work?” Robinson asked of the projector.

“A series of light-refracted images are captured on celluloid,” said Mr. Dandy. “Then, they are run through the machine at a brisk enough pace to mimic the illusion of real-time motion. Depending on the strength of the light source, this device can project those images onto any surface of our choosing.”

“And this celluloid is from before?”

“Celluloid has a remarkably short shelf life. Most picture movies turned to dust right after civilization. But back then, some smart fellows discovered you could preserve pictures by separating the reels into colors and storing them in salt mines, one of which we discovered. All I had to do was find a way to remix the colors to make a new master. To our good fortune, the original purveyor of these films was a collector of the western genre, such as you see here.”

“And what do you use for power?”

Chuckles filled the room. Then Boss nodded to one of her Big Hats.

The man plodded to a door at the rear of the room. When he opened it, Robinson felt his chest tighten as a familiar, earthy musk flooded out.

Renders held by chains trudged upon machines with moving canvases beneath their feet. Animal flesh hung from hooks in front of them kept them in perpetual motion. Their faces bore agony. The room filled with wails.

Robinson felt his stomach turn but didn’t look away until the door closed.

“Their movement powers a series of generators that, in turn, produce a modest electric current,” Mr. Dandy said.

“Kinetic energy,” Robinson said.

“Yes,” Mr. Dandy said, surprised. “Not many have a comprehension for it.”

“Or care to,” Boss added. “So, now that we’ve answered your questions, how about you answer a few of mine. Starting with your name and what you’re doing in my town.”

“My name is Crusoe. And I arrived here by accident. I was canoeing downriver when I was overturned. I made it to shore and stumbled upon your train yard.”

“Why were you on the river in the first place?”

“I’m looking for someone.”

“Who?”

“A woman. She was taken from me.”

“By who …?”

Robinson thought it best not to mention the Bone Flayers, so he said the first thing that came to mind.

“Brigands. They had a boat.”

The woman scowled again. “Brigands on a boat,” she repeated. “On the Great Missup. Well, don’t that take the rag off? How long ago was this ‘woman’ of yours taken?”

“Five months, four days, and seven hours.”

“He’s a damned liar,” Mox said. “This boy’s lying! No man can survive that long in the wild by himself.”

Boss looked Robinson over, noting the scars on his body and the hardness of his eyes. “I suppose it depends on the man.”

Boss took another inhalation of her paper stick. This time, she let the smoke waft out of her mouth and up her face.

“The problem I’m faced with is that we have no proof to confirm your story. Far as I know, you could be a gentleman of the first water. Or you could be a charlatan looking to slip in and poison my city from the inside. Cowboytown has a lot of enemies. The type that’d have no hesitation in sending spies or even …”

She snapped her fingers again toward Mr. Dandy.

“Saboteurs,” Mr. Dandy added.

“Now, if you’d come in the regular way, via the port, you’d have seen a big old sign on the way into town,
barter, buy, or sell - all commerce accepted.
But you didn’t come here with business on your mind. And that leaves me in a uh …”

Fingers snapped.

“Precarious position,” Mr. Dandy offered.

“Now, I run a straightforward operation, Mr. Crusoe. Everything on the up-and-up. I even keep a ledger of all transactions in Cowboytown. And nothing goes down without my say-so.”

She pulled a worn book from her jacket and set it on the table.

“The man taking the whip out back? His name’s in this ledger. An honest day’s pay for an honest day’s wage. But when one of my men caught him sleeping on his watch, he knew the ledger must be settled. You suppose that’s fair enough?”

“I guess,” Robinson said.

“Glad you see it that way. Because it brings us to our dilemma. You got no business being here. So what do I do with you?”

“You could let me go,” Robinson said.

“True,” Boss agreed.”But, as I see it, that would be doing you a favor. Now, I’ve already shown you some hospitality. Showed you a picture movie. Let you talk with one of my whores. Then there’s a matter of you beatin’ up my men.”

“He got lucky,” Mox said. “Gimme another chance, Boss, and I’ll—”

“What do you want?” Robinson asked.

“In lieu of goods, I’m apt to take services. You might be between hay and grass, but you fight like hell, Kid. Can you shoot a gun?”

“No.”

“Doesn’t matter. These things can be taught. It’s gravel in the belly that can’t. And I reckon you, Mr. Crusoe, got that in spades.”

“How long?” Robinson asked.

“Few months should right the ledger.”

“Impossible,” Robinson said. “Every day I’m delayed is another day my friend’s life is at risk.”

“There is the transport,” Mr. Dandy interjected.

Boss glanced at him, and some secret communication seemed to be going on beneath the surface. Boss seemed hesitant to reveal it.

“My associate Mr. Dandy is speaking of a business arrangement we have taking place a couple weeks down the road. We’ll be transporting a special commodity we produce to some real dangerous folk. The kind of people more likely to give it to you in the neck than uphold their end of a bargain. You savvy?”

“Then why do business with them?” Robinson asked.

“It’s a large order. And these aren’t exactly the kind of folks you say no to. I need men that can hold their water. I figure if we have enough of them we might uh …”

Snap, snap.

“Dissuade any feasible chicanery,” Mr. Dandy said.

“Do this,” Boss said, “and I’ll call it square. Hell, I might even make it worth your while. Room and board at the hotel. Hooch and whores to a limit. What do you say?”

What could he say?

Robinson wasn’t being given any real option. His choices were slavery or death. Death he could deal with—at least it came on his terms. But a life under the thumb of others? He knew the bitter taste of that meal from his days on the Isle. He’d seen what having a master had done to Friday. Boss had said a couple weeks, but there was no guarantee he’d be released, even if he survived this dangerous transport duty.

Life, he knew, was a slippery slope. Once you took on the yoke, it was a hard thing to shake.

In the end, Robinson made the only choice he could.

“No,” he said.

Boss’s eyes widened with surprise.

“Excuse me?” she said.

“I’m no slave. My life can’t be bought, sold, or bartered. You want to kill me for stumbling upon your little fiefdom, so be it. But I won’t be blackmailed into being your fool. If I’m going to die for a cause, it’ll be a cause I believe in. So do what you have to do. Or stop wasting my time.”

“This s.o.b. wants to die,” Mox said, as he pulled his gun from his holster. “I be happy to send him on his way!”

But Boss threw a hand up to stop him.

“You’re not going to let him come in here and talk to you like that, are you?! He’s nothing, Boss! We don’t need him. Let me fill this boy with lead!”

“I make the decisions here,” she hissed. “Grab leather!”

Mox cursed but did as told.

Boss looked back at Robinson, consternation written on her face.

“You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you? But Mox is right. I can’t have strangers coming into my town and thumbing their noses at my proposals. I have a reputation to protect. A woman’s only as good as her reputation. Still, killing you does seem a mite rash. No, I got something different in mind for you. Mox, take Mr. Crusoe to the caves.”

A wicked grin spread over Mox’s face.

“The caves? Woo-wee! You gonna see Trog, boy! Couple weeks in the caves with Trog, you gonna wish you were dead.”

Mox grabbed Robinson and shoved him toward the door.

“You’re making a mistake,” Robinson said.

“I’ll note it in the ledger,” Boss said.