Jed reached into the wagon and withdrew a tin of biscuits. Belle took it to the others and offered it around. They stood around in an awkward silence while Jed built a fire and boiled some water. Every time Doc Swallow tried to launch into some kind of verbal assault, the gunslinger clicked his tongue and shook his head, and so the travelling quack had to hold his peace and bide his time.
A short while later, they were sitting around the fire, holding tin mugs of hot coffee. Still no one spoke; they were waiting for Jed to get them started. Eventually, he turned to the boy.
“Willoughby...” The boy started as if he’d been pinched. “Do you have something to say to our guest?”
Willoughby, reddening, with his throat reluctant to let his voice out, glanced at the irate face of his employer and then quickly turned his attention to the fire.
“I’m, uh, sorry, I guess...”
“You guess!” roared Doc Swallow.
“Let the boy have his say,” Jed said evenly. The quack sat back with a harrumph like a child refusing its green vegetables.
“I - I brought it back,” Willoughby gestured at the wagon. “We even made a profit. Didn’t we, Jed?”
The gunslinger sent him a look which meant ‘Keep me out of this, kid’.
“Why’d you do it, son? Why’d you steal my wagon?”
Willoughby’s shoulders slumped. He was painfully aware that Miss Belle and Miss Lilimae were looking at him.
“To save your life,” he said.
This statement stunned the company into silence.
“Go on,” Jed prompted. “It’s all right, kid.”
Willoughby sipped his coffee then wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Doc Swallow’s eyes widened to see his coat treated in this manner. The boy looked directly at him.
“They were going to kill you. Those folks up in Moonshine Canyon. They got wise to you, pretty quick. And then you sold that linctus to that farmer’s wife. The one who was in bits and pieces over her daughter with the cough?”
Doc Swallow nodded; he remembered.
“Well, the kiddy died, Doc. Folk were fixing to lynch you, or tar and feather you. Both maybe. So I took the wagon so it’d look like you’d left town. You were sleeping off a case of whiskey or some such.”
Doc Swallow nodded again; that sounded like him, true enough.
“Excuse me,” Belle raised her hand. “Even if the wagon was gone, wouldn’t those folk have recognised the, ah, good doctor anyway?”
“My dear lady,” Doc Swallow flashed her a gilded smile, “all of this,” he indicated his garments, “is part of my presentation. When off duty I’m as normally clad as anyone. I sensed the people of that backwater hellhole were mad about something. I deemed it prudent not to enquire. I slipped out of town under the cover of daylight, hopped onto a stage heading to my base in Tarnation, and was able to retrieve this attire here and that balloon there.”
“How’re things in Tarnation?” This was Jed.
Doc Swallow pursed his lips.
“Pretty bad.”
A look of alarm was passed around the group like a parcel at a children’s party.
“Go on.”
“Folks are hungry and getting sick. The stage I rode in on was the last to get in or out. Town is all but cut off. If it weren’t for my balloon, I’d be there yet.”
“Cut off?” Belle grasped her sister’s hand.
“The dark dust,” said Jed.
Doc Swallow was surprised the gunslinger was so well apprised of the situation. He nodded.
“That stuff’s straight out of Hell itself. Straight out of the devil’s sandbox. And it’s creeping in. Pretty soon, folk’ll be huddled in the centre of town, clinging to each other like the Raft of the Medusa. And then, well...”
The others may not have understood his artistic reference, but they understood the significance of his uncompleted sentence.
Lilimae shivered. Belle put her arm around her.
“So you got out of town in yonder contraption,” Jed nodded towards the balloon, which was bobbing on its tether like a giant’s puppy keen to go walkies.
“Uh-huh. I figured I better inform somebody of their terrible plight - as well as saving my own skin, of course.” He showed his teeth again. No one else smiled.
“So we cain’t go back to Tarnation?” Lilimae chewed her lip. “What about Daddy?”
Belle hugged her and kissed her temple. Jed refrained from mentioning the telegram and the chance that Sheriff Marshall was still in Wheelhub.
“The fort?” Belle asked, but her question was directed to the gunslinger rather than the quack.
Jed tipped the dregs of his coffee into the fire and stood up.
“Doc,” he scratched his chin. “Is your balloon fit for another journey?”
“I reckon so,” Doc Swallow also stood. He and Jed moved towards the bobbing bag of air. “Fire needs building up, is all. I reckon there’s some suitable fuel in the wagon.”
He strode to the back of the wagon but Jed pulled him back.
“Wagon’s empty,” Jed insisted. “We had to lighten our load along the way.”
The quack’s eyebrows flew up then descended again as his reaction changed from surprise to anger.
“Then I reckon you might get a couple of miles, if’n the wind’s kind. Where are you headed, gunslinger?”
“Fort Knightly,” Jed announced. “Alone.”
This was greeted with gasps of protest from the others.
“You cain’t go alone,” Doc Swallow seemed amused by the notion. “You need somebody who knows how to fly this thing.”
“All righty,” Jed clapped a hand on the quack’s shoulder. “You’re coming with.”
He patted Doc Swallow’s shoulder and moved away before the quack could give voice to his objections. Jed took Willoughby aside.
“Take the ladies away from here. You recall that staging post where we met? Get them there. Even if you have to take the long way round. Lie low until I come to find you.”
Willoughby nodded grimly. He was pleased to be given responsibility for the ladies’ welfare and wanted to show Jed he was the man for the job.
“One more thing,” Jed lowered his voice. Willoughby leant his ear towards the gunslinger’s mouth. “Nobody is to go near the wagon. Do not open the wagon.” He saw the question forming on the boy’s features. “Trust me. Nobody opens the wagon.”
Willoughby nodded. Jed shook his hand and clapped him on the shoulder. He turned to the ladies.
“Miss Belle, Miss Lilimae,” he doffed his hat. “The boy will get you to safety. I will join you shortly.”
“Do you promise, Jed?” Belle searched the gunslinger’s inscrutable face. “Do you?”
Jed met her gaze and held it for a moment.
Then he looked away.
“Come on, Doc. Let’s get this thing up in the air.” He hitched his leg over the rim of the basket.
Doc Swallow went to Willoughby instead. The boy cringed but the quack clasped him in an embrace.
“I forgive you, my boy, and I thank you, for saving my worthless hide.”
“That’s okay, Doc,” Willoughby squeaked, the breath squeezed out of him.
“Ladies,” Doc Swallow saluted the sisters and joined Jed in the basket. He adjusted a lever and turned a button and the flames roared louder and taller. The bag swelled above them. The basket bounced, keen to get off the ground. Doc Swallow untied the tether. The balloon surged upwards.
“Goodbye!” Doc Swallow waved his hat.
Jed watched his companions shrink away, their upturned faces becoming indistinct. He didn’t wave; his hands had chosen an inopportune moment to remind him there was something going wrong with them. But there was no time to drop in on Doc Brandy for a check-up. He clutched
the rim of the basket and didn’t care if the quack took this for trepidation.
Jed didn’t wave.
But he did wonder if he would see any of them again.
Reunited!
As they passed over the landscape, Jed focussed his attention on trying to think away the twinges in his hands. Doc Swallow busied himself with the controls, tweaking and twisting in a manner that asserted his superiority over the gunslinger in this context. The hot air balloon was his domain and the gunslinger better not forget it. Too bad Swallow’s prissy theatrics went ignored; Jed had more important things on his mind.
The roar of the burner meant conversation was, mercifully, impossible. Jed had no interest in anything the quack might have to say. Except perhaps for a few details about Willoughby - perhaps there would be time later for that. Perhaps.
Jed could see huge swathes of land overrun by the dark dust. It was like a patchwork quilt stitched by a madman. Entire valleys were brimming with the stuff, rendering them impassable. Waterways were corrupt. Forests bedecked, the shapes of the trees disguised like furniture under sheets. This was Plisp’s doing; Jed was sure of it. The isolation of Tarnation was deliberate - the question was: Why?
The scrubland around Fort Knightly was clear of the voracious stuff. The structure hove into sight, looking for all the world like a kid’s play set. But what was Plisp up to with his toy soldiers?
“Take us down!” Jed yelled at the quack. Doc Swallow looked up from his fiddling with the controls and frowned. Jed repeated his request with appropriate gestures.
The quack nodded and made some extravagant adjustments. Jed grunted, sure that this showmanship was unnecessary. He wanted to land some distance from the fort before they were seen - but of course, Gramps had his sentries on the towers at each corner and all around the perimeter.
To confirm this deployment of lookouts, a bullet whizzed towards them. It pierced a hole in the fabric. The balloon began to whistle like a kettle and lurched unevenly on its downwards trajectory.
Doc Swallow worked frantically to compensate for this damage - a lot less flamboyantly, Jed noticed.
The ground was rushing up to smack the bottom of their basket.
“Doc...” Jed urged the quack to take action.
“I know, I know!” Doc Swallow snapped. He speeded up his twisting and tweaking. The burner’s roar softened to a hiss. The flames became erratic as the burner belched fuel.
But the descent slowed somewhat and so when the basket struck the ground, it bounced and skipped along. Jed and Doc Swallow held on. The burner went out. The bag deflated and flopped. The basket tipped out its occupants, who rolled across the dirt away from the collapsing contraption.
Jed sat up first. The quack was lying some way off, face down.
“Doc?”
Doc Swallow stirred.
“Do you think they saw us, my boy?” he laughed. He got to his feet, dusting himself off.
“Unfortunately,” said Jed. “Lookit.”
A welcoming party was riding out to greet them.
“Stay back,” Jed urged. Doc Swallow didn’t need telling twice. He stepped swiftly behind the gunslinger.
Jed planted his feet firmly, shoulder width apart. He opened fire on the approaching riders. Soldiers folded up and fell from their saddles, or were knocked backwards as the force of the blast hit them in the chest or forehead.
Doc Swallow, whose hand had been to his mouth in astonishment, stared as the now riderless horses slowed and idled off to find something to graze on.
“They didn’t get chance to pull their triggers!” The quack looked at the gunslinger in a new light, a more respectful, astounded light.
“Nope.” Jed holstered his pistols. He didn’t let the quack see the relief he was feeling. His hands had behaved themselves - they had been at peak efficiency, but how long might it be before their next episode?
“Grab a hoss and grab a uniform,” Jed instructed, already reaching for the reins of one of them. “We’re going to ride in in style.”
***
“What in Hell’s name are you doing in here?” Old Gramps waved his cane at the two soldiers he found footling around in his workroom.
Jed lifted his hat and turned to meet the old man’s gaze.
“I could ask you the same question,” he said. The old man paled visibly then he mastered his emotions and turned on a smile.
“Jed! My boy!” he laughed. “It’s good to see you alive and well!” He made a show of glancing around. “My granddaughters - are they not with you?” He looked Doc Swallow up and down and clearly found him wanting.
“Stay where you are,” Jed warned, giving Old Gramps a clear view of his pistol. “Now you’re going to tell me and the good doctor here what that wild goose chase to Wheelhub was all about?”
Doc Swallow doffed his hat and bowed with a flourish that was a little too theatrical for Jed’s liking. The old man backed against his workbench. “Wild goose?” he frowned. “Did you not find my Lilimae?”
“We found her all right,” Jed stepped a little closer. “She’s safe. They both are. Now, you better get jawing or you might never see them again.”
The jaw in question dropped. Gramps found it hard to believe a gunslinger of Jed’s calibre would stoop to such emotional blackmail.
“Doc?” Jed cast over his shoulder.
Doc Swallow picked up his cue. He reached inside his stolen uniform and withdrew a small phial from his own pocket. The old man eyed it warily.
“Don’t make me administer no truth drug,” Jed said as if it would be a tiresome chore.
The old man scoffed but he kept his eyes on the bright blue liquid the man called Doc was brandishing.
“Speak!” Jed commanded. “Why did you send me to Wheelhub?”
“Why, to rescue my granddaughter. She was in distress -“
“Distress that the men you sent with her put her in!”
The old man squirmed.
“It seems that no one may be trusted these days.”
“Don’t give me that.” Jed looked to Doc Swallow. Doc Swallow pulled the cork from the phial with a satisfying pop.
“I understand,” Jed leaned in to the old man’s face. His breath ruffled Gramps’s whiskers. “Your misplaced loyalty to your boss - or maybe your fear of him - is giving you a speech impediment. You fear recriminations. As I say, I understand. But how can you be blamed for anything you let slip under the influence of a truth drug? Ain’t your fault...”
He left the proposition hanging in the air and straightened up. The old man looked at the phial. Doc Swallow wiggled it invitingly. The old man looked at Jed’s steely eyes. He nodded and hung his head.
Doc Swallow lifted the old man’s chin and put the phial to his lips. The old man swigged the blue liquid in a single gulp.
“What now?” he searched their faces.
“We wait,” said Jed. “In your own sweet time. As long as you don’t take too long.”
Gramps cleared his throat. This gave rise to a cough.
“What’s in that stuff?” he turned watery eyes to Doc Swallow.
“Professional secret,” Doc Swallow whisked the empty phial away, like a conjuror.
“You’re here to answer questions not ask them,” Jed sneered.
Gramps’s eyes darted around, checking they were alone. He looked at the floor as he spoke, his voice like rustling paper or the wind through pondside reeds.
He told them they were correct in their assumption that the trip to Wheelhub had been a ruse to get the gunslinger out of the county. Gramps regretted using his own granddaughter as the bait but - his voice cracked - his employer had threatened worse things to both girls. As to why Gramps’s employer wanted Jed out of the picture, he could only suppose it was because the experiment
was nearing completion. As to the nature of that experiment, he could only reveal what he knew about his part in it: the building of an army of enhanced men. A security force, he’d been told to call it.
Doc Swallow blinked and frowned through this exposition - he hadn’t a clue what was going on but it seemed to make some kind of sense to the gunslinger.
“And what about Tarnation?” Jed prompted. “What do you know about that?”
The old man looked up, open-mouthed.
“I have to tell you I don’t hold with what’s going on there,” he said firmly. “Those poor folk. They don’t deserve that.”
“What?” Doc Swallow jumped in. “They don’t deserve what?” It was his experience that townsfolk deserved just about everything life could chuck at them.
“I cain’t say...” the old man shook his head. “Honestly, I cain’t. Truth drug or no.”
“Tell us more about your, ah, work here.” Jed insisted. “What are you doing to these soldiers?”
Gramps’s mood seemed to lift. He felt he was on safer ground talking about his field of expertise.
“You’ve been to Wheelhub, Jed. You’ve seen the ship. Our forebears were clever folk - there’s no denying that. To construct such a vessel and travel unimaginable distance. They had to come up with a means to survive being - I won’t say afloat, but you perhaps know what I mean - They had to come up with a means to survive such a long journey. A journey that would take many lifetimes.”
“The caskets...” Jed muttered.
“Capsules, I believe is what they called them. Yes, you’re quite right; those contraptions helped to preserve them, slowing down the aging process somewhat, but they found it wasn’t enough. Their minds were intact, their intellect, their personalities but the body tended to wear out anyway. So they devised a way to fit themselves with replacements. Need a new eye? Grow one in a laboratory. Need a new arm, leg, liver... They could do all of that. They were to all extents and purposes immortal, Jed.”
“Except that they died,” Jed added wryly.
“Immortal but not invulnerable. Unfortunately for us, their technology and know-how did not survive their arrival on Vultures’ Moon. We can only piece together a fraction of what they knew.”
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