Part 8 (1/2)
”If you like. A questioning. Well, so-”
”Well, what if I was a Linesman, Professor? A long time ago.”
”Mind you, you're tall for a Linesman.”
”The Folk are driven from Line lands. Did you know that? The Line will not f.u.c.king tolerate them. A foreign and unpredictable element. A relic of the old world. They fight back sometimes but it's better if they hide. First the Line sends poison-gas rockets then Heavier-Than-Airs then soldiers, then it's fighting in the tunnels, knife-to-knife.”
Snow stung my face. The ice creaked underfoot and I shuddered. Carver stepped lightly at my side.
”You could see things down there,” he said. ”A soldier could.”
”I bet you could.”
”Things that would make you want to walk away. Change your name. Travel. Things that would make you know the world was bigger and older and different than you thought it was.”
I said nothing, just drank. Carver took a drink too.
”Or let's say I was a missionary,” he said. ”The Silver City church sends missionaries among the Folk. The Liberationists visit 'em. Maybe I was one of them. You could see something that would change your way of thinking.”
”That's possible,” I said. ”There's no shortage of missionaries in the world.”
He walked behind me, saying nothing.
”You'll laugh, Mr. Carver,” I said, ”but from time to time I've thought that you, well, that is, that if you were to grow out your beard a little more, you might look kind of- I mean, maybe on your mother's side some way back, if you know what I mean- kind of like one of them yourself- that is-”
I recall that I slipped on the ice, and he reached out to steady my shoulder, and that I turned so that we were looking into each other's faces.
He said, ”I know what you saw, Ransom. I saw it too, once- long time ago. Out of the corner of my eye- you know what I mean, right?”
We were quite far out on the ice by then, and all alone.
”I suspected when I first saw your job-advertis.e.m.e.nt. Something about it. I knew when I first saw the Apparatus. I knew how it worked. I knew what you'd stolen.”
”Not stolen.”
”I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe anyone would dare.”
”Well,” I said.
”I thought, someone has to keep an eye, someone has to see- well, what does it matter? It's over now.”
He let go of my shoulder and turned back toward land and was soon lost in the haze of snow.
I did know what he meant, though I guess you do not, because I have not yet found a way to write about it.
I would like to say that I kept on alone across the ice until I found that light on the other sh.o.r.e but as a matter of fact, drunk though I undoubtedly was, my nerve failed me. I was not worried that the ice would break but I couldn't bear the darkness or the solitude. After a little while I turned back too.
It was near midnight when I returned to the Hotel. Creedmoor still sat by the fire. He was still drinking. He had his pistol out by his side as if he no longer cared about keeping secrets. Maybe that was why he was alone in the room. With the hand that wasn't drinking he held one of his charms, the head of a big black beetle suspended from a piece of string. I think he'd purchased it in Hamlin. He sipped his whiskey and held the string and watched the head dangle. He sensed my presence but he didn't look away from the beetle.
”There's a trick to it,” he said. ”It's got warning magic. Folk stuff, you know? It knows enemies. It's alert to vibrations in the Ether.”
The beetle's head rotated slightly, but not in any way that struck me as magical.
”I can feel your skepticism, Professor. It won't work if you don't believe.”
”I beg your pardon,” I said. ”I'll try.”
I wanted to ask him why he had turned away from the service of the Gun. I wanted to ask him how he had accomplished that feat, since according to the stories the Gun did not let its servants go lightly. I wanted to ask him what the weapon he sought was and where it was. I wanted to ask him what his plans were, and I wanted to know what it was like to have been something more than human and then to be human again, and old.
”You've been drinking, Professor.”
”I have.”
”Professor Ransom,” he said. ”There are a number of people I might choose to spend my last night on earth drinking with. All of them are my enemies now and most likely it is one of them who is coming to kill me. You are not among their number. Leave me alone.”
CHAPTER 9.
THE SHOWDOWN.
I woke at first light, vomited in the pot, and attempted to perform the Ransom Exercises despite my head-ache and the narrowness and odd angles of the room. Then I went out into the hall and banged on Carver's door.
”Nothing has changed,” I said through the keyhole. ”The show goes on. Meet me by the water.”
I checked on the horses and the wagon and tipped the hotel's boy so generously that he showed no trace of reluctance when I asked him to help move the Apparatus down through the snow to the lake, even when he saw the size of it.
”That's nothing,” I said. ”Just wait till you see it come alive.”
A pair of the hotel's other patrons followed us down. They were business-travelers stranded by the early snow and they had nothing better to do. One of them helped and one of them just criticized the way we were doing things.
Soon enough Mr. Carver came down the road. Despite the cold he was not wearing a coat, only his s.h.i.+rtsleeves. I did not remark on this, or on last night, or on anything else, and nor did he. I was right- nothing had changed. There was still work to be done and it did not matter who had said what or who kept what secrets. There would be time enough to talk again in the next town over, or the next, or on the road. That was my opinion. I told him so, and he thought for a moment, then nodded.
Piece by piece we moved the Apparatus out onto a wide flat rock in a clearing by the edge of the lake.
By daylight I could see that the light on the other side of the lake was only somebody's house. I stood and waved for a while but I don't know if they saw. But somebody from the town noticed us, because not long after that a flock of small children came and sat on the rocks and observed us. One of them got up and ran back into town and they came back with more children, and some grown-ups too. Miss Elizabeth Harper came down to the lake and I greeted her by that name, though I knew it was not truly hers, to show that I did not care. She smiled and asked what I was doing and I said I was doing what I always do, and that I had thought long and hard last night and I saw no reason to do anything different. I said I did not plan to just sit and wait for what ever might come. She looked at the Apparatus for a long time and then she said she agreed entirely, and she started to help too. She and some of the children under her direction strung up the lamps through the trees at the edge of the clearing. She painted the harry ransom white rock illuminations in red on a white sheet and hung it as a banner between two sticks at the edge of the water. Mr. Carver a.s.sembled the Apparatus and tested it, reporting with a thumbs-up and some cursing that nothing critical had been damaged in the incident of the wolves.
I strutted on the rocks and then stepped out onto the ice, as if it was a stage. I was in full flow of salesmans.h.i.+p, in such fine form that I can remember almost nothing of what I said all afternoon, except that I promised them all a show to remember. I promised them an end to the cold dark nights of winter. I promised that n.o.body would forget the time when Harry Ransom came to town.
John Creedmoor did not come down to the lake. I later learned that he spent the morning stealing blasting-powder from the unattended offices of the White Rock Lumber Company, and readying caches of it about town. I did not know he was doing that and I might have tried to stop him if I had. But then if I had been gifted with foresight I would never have come to White Rock at all.
Afterwards I imagine Creedmoor spending the afternoon pacing up and down Main Street in his long coat, hands darting to his guns at every sound and at every pa.s.serby, constantly consulting charms and magics that even he knew were worthless.
And I imagine the giant Knoll running all night and all day across the mountains, head down and pus.h.i.+ng through waist-high snow as if it was nothing at all, following scents, the whispers of the wolves, the voices of his masters that only he could hear. I do not care to speculate on what those voices sound like.
The Mayor of White Rock came down with a group of local worthies, including the lawyer who sold me his flask the night before, a butcher, the representative of the White Rock Lumber Company, and a Nun. They asked what I was doing and I waxed poetic. They asked if it was dangerous and I a.s.sured them it was not. They said that it was a bad year for business with the early snow, and with rumors of War scaring off travelers anyhow, and I said that I would not take anyone's money even if they offered it to me- I said they should see this as a free manifestation of grace, like an apparition of the Silver City. The Mayor liked this figure of speech very much though the Nun disapproved.