Part 15 (1/2)

”The Damaris- the self-playing piano- that is my work, sir. Did you think I would not find out- did you think you could boast and lie and claim it as your own and I would let the matter be- I am looking you in the face, sir, do you still claim it as your own?”

Amaryllis and a pair of stagehands watched us.

”Listen,” I said. ”We should be friends, Miss Kotan, you see I-”

I extended a hand toward her, in what I reckoned was a friendly way. She slapped it aside. I soon learned that this was a gesture recognized in the Code of Dueling of the n.o.bility of the Deltas, but at first I took it as mere rudeness, and was nonplussed.

CHAPTER 19.

THE DUEL.

”A duel,” Amaryllis said. She swayed like she was about to swoon, but since n.o.body moved to catch her, she decided not to.

”A duel,” Mr. Quantrill said. One of the stagehands had summoned him, or perhaps he had been alerted by Adela's shouting. In any case he stood stock-still with his arms folded, attempting to intimidate.

”Not in my theater,” Mr. Quantrill said. ”This isn't the Rim or the- what are you, Miss Kotan or Iermo what ever it is, you sound like you're from down in the Deltas, I know things are done differently there but this is Jasper City, you know? The duel has been banned for thirty years or more.”

”It's a question of honor,” Adela said.

”It's a question of aiding and abetting plain murder,” Mr. Quantrill said.

She seemed to give this serious consideration. They say in story-books that her brow furrowed. Well, that is what happened.

”My quarrel is with Mr. Rawlins here. I don't-”

”Listen,” I said. ”You and me should talk, Miss Kotan- Adela-I mean-”

”Enough lies,” she said.

Mr. Quantrill had been signaling with his eyebrows to the stagehands for some time, and they had been pretending not to understand for as long as they plausibly could, but now they sighed and stood and stepped toward Adela, meaning to subdue her. She drew a gun from beneath her coat and they sat down again at once.

Her coat was so battered and road-worn I could not to this day say what it was made of. It was a dusty rose-red. It had no b.u.t.tons and loose threads. She wore a white s.h.i.+rt and stiff trousers and no jewelry. Despite the poverty and disarray of her clothing- I shall not mention the condition of her hair- there was something unmistakably aristocratic about her. Above all her accent, which was that of the landowning cla.s.ses of the Delta territories, as Mr. Quantrill had observed- but also the way she stood, and the way she held her pistol, firmly but carelessly, like it was meant for art or sport and not for killing. I guessed that she was newly arrived in town.

Amaryllis said, ”Hal, what's going on- who is this?”

”A good question,” Mr. Quantrill said. ”Mr. Rawlins?”

Before I could say anything Adela interrupted. ”Mr. Rawlins is a thief- the worst kind of thief, the thief of another's hard work and genius and good name. The self-playing piano is mine. You cannot imagine the work that went into it. You cannot imagine what I sacrificed to be capable of it. I made it two years ago in Gibson City. I have no papers, only my word- which should be good enough for you people. I- I p.a.w.ned it.”

She said that like she was confessing something awful.

”I had no choice,” she said. ”And then after what happened in Gibson I thought I should never see it again- well, I came to this city thinking to begin again, and what do I find as soon as I arrive but that this man is boasting that he created the piano himself and- Her eyes suddenly widened still further.

”Oh-are you all in on it?”

”Well now,” Mr. Quantrill said, raising his hands. ”Well now. This is between you and Mr. Rawlins, I think.”

Adela turned to me. ”Where is it?”

”It sank,” I explained.

She laughed scornfully. Few people can accomplish this trick. I guess it is one of the things they teach young ladies of the Deltas, along with comportment and poise and table-manners.

”I don't believe you.”

”Do you see it here, ma'am? I tried to save it, but it went down with the boat. There was an incident involving an Engine.”

”How can I believe a word you say?”

”It isn't what you think it is,” I said. ”You're seeing wickedness where there's only the usual run of accidents and bad luck and confusion. Listen-”

”I've heard enough.”

Well, this all went on for some time. I tried to explain. Adela accused and demanded that honor be satisfied. I want to say that I made a decent effort to talk her out of that course of action. I said that we should resolve our dispute through words. She accused me of cowardice. I said that I did not know how things were done down in the Deltas but out on the Rim young women did not duel- well, of course that was not the right thing to say- my excuse is that her gun was still menacing me and I could not think straight. I was in fact starting to get angry myself. I offered to write a letter to Mr. Elmer Merrial Carson at the Evening Post correcting his misunderstandings and giving credit where credit was due. She said that made no difference- the insult was already given- she was not here to haggle or litigate, but to resolve things with honor. Besides, she would not believe that the piano was lost, but maintained that I had hidden it somewhere or dismantled it for parts.

I was not sure whether she was very brave or whether she was a young woman in a kind of panic- it seemed likely to me that she had not eaten right or slept in a safe place in many days, and I knew what it was like to have one's one and only sc.r.a.p of pride and hope in the whole big hostile world s.n.a.t.c.hed away. I did not want to be shot and I did not want to shoot her, because first I am not a violent man, and second she was a woman, and third I recognized her predicament and understood that my careless boasting was partly to blame, and above all fourth because the mind that built the self-playing piano was too precious and beautiful to waste.

On the other hand I am only human and you can call me a thief and a liar and a coward only so many times before I get mad.

I said ”All right, d.a.m.n it- you'll have your duel.”

She instantly calmed. It was as if I had promised her something of great importance. She lowered her gun and said, ”Thank you, Mr. Rawlins.”

”I don't know how they do it down in the Deltas, ma'am. I'm no aristocrat. I was raised without land or any particular kind of honor and while you were probably learning deportment or how to hunt with hounds or something I was selling Encyclopedias. But I've been out on the Rim for long enough to know a thing or two about honor and about guns. You should know that this won't be my first duel.”

In my time I had done a lot of stupid things for reasons of pride, but I had only fought one previous duel. That was also over a question of pride of authors.h.i.+p- that time it was over who had first invented the Ransom Free-Energy process. Right was on my side and fortune favored me. My opponent had stumbled drunk into a tree and pa.s.sed out. That was the way things were done on the Western Rim. I was kind of hoping that something similar might happen here.

”Not in my theater,” Mr. Quantrill said.

”Of course,” I said. ”We'll need to find some suitable location.”

”Of course,” she agreed.

”Good-well, what's more, ma'am, out on the Rim when we do this we do it at dawn. Only murderers shoot each other by night- it wouldn't be honorable.”

She pushed back her hair and scratched her head. It was obvious that she had not thought very hard or very carefully about her plan. That is often what happens when people get their heads all filled with honor, I have noticed.

”That's true,” she said. ”I believe you're right.”

It was a little after midnight, and mid-summer-dawn was several hours away. I thought this might give her time to change her mind.

”Besides,” I said, ”I don't have a gun. You're new in town, right, ma'am?- well not everyone here carries a gun all the time, you'll find. I a.s.sume you don't mean to shoot an unarmed man. I don't know much about how things are done in the Deltas but-”

One of the stagehands interrupted to observe that Mr. Barnabas Busby Bosko, Wizard of the Western Rim, used two guns in his act, one of which was fake but one of which was real, and that Mr. Bosko surely would not mind if I borrowed it.