Jed shoved a table against the door and barked at the others to get behind the counter and to keep low. Willoughby and Belle struggled to get Lilimae safely stashed. A cashier offered water. Another asked if what Lilimae had was catching.
“Kind of talkative all of a sudden, ain’t they?” Willoughby whispered to Belle.
“It’s like the spell has been broken,” Belle agreed. She looked sadly at her unresponsive sister and wished the same would happen to her.
Gunshot pierced the thick door, bringing a thin shaft of daylight in its wake. Jed flattened himself against the wall, peering sideways through a barred window. He broke a pane of glass with his gun barrel and fired off a couple of blasts. Return fire came from two directions.
The bank manager emerged from his office, a fussy, portly man with white whiskers and a red face.
“My stars!” he gasped, among other expletives. He patted at his brow with a handkerchief. “You can’t do that in here!”
A bullet tore the handkerchief from his grasp. He dropped to his knees and crawled quickly to the comparative safety of under the counter.
“Take the money!” he whimpered to the young woman, the boy in woman’s clothing, and the prostrate figure of a girl dressed as a man.
Belle, who was trying to coax water between her sister’s lips, gave the manager a withering look. “We ain’t after money.”
But the man wasn’t listening. He snatched the bag from the teller and thrust it at Willoughby. “Take it!” he insisted. “And you can leave by the back door.”
Belle snatched the bag from Willoughby and threw it at the manager’s head.
“We don’t want your money!”
The shooting stopped but it was only a temporary ceasefire. Jed joined the others behind the counter.
“What was that about a back door?”
The manager whimpered to see Jed’s drawn pistols. He opened his mouth to answer but before he could manage to utter a syllable, the front wall of the building disappeared as a tremendous blast of heat and light vaporised it.
“This way!” One of the tellers was already heading to the office. The others crawled on all fours, coughing on smoke and pulverised debris. Jed carried Lilimae on his back, like a turtle shell.
The manager’s office was a clutter of ledgers and paperwork - it looked like dynamite had been detonated in it already.
“This way!” The teller had no qualms about repeating himself. He pushed aside a cabinet to reveal a strong iron door. He held out his hand. The manager fumbled in his waistcoat for the key.
“Wait!” Jed barked. Everyone froze. The gunslinger passed Lilimae over to Belle and Willoughby. He moved to the door and seized the key. “This place’ll be surrounded. We walk out there and they’ll pick us off like ducks on a shooting gallery.”
“What are we going to do?” Willoughby’s lip trembled.
“Is there another way out?” Belle turned to the manager, who held up his hands, helplessly.
“Wait!” Jed lifted a finger. “Listen!”
Everyone froze again.
“They’re coming in the front!” one of the tellers cried. He clung to his workmate for protection.
“Not that! Hush!”
They listened again. There was, barely discernible, a soft rumbling sound coming from somewhere in the room. Jed shot the manager’s clock. The rumble was easier to hear now. Jed stalked around the office. He closed in on Willoughby.
“Take it off,” he ordered. “Take your dress off.”
“At last!” Willoughby laughed.
“Take it off now!” Jed was deadly serious. He began to pull at Willoughby’s bodice. Alarmed, the boy struggled out of his borrowed frock and stood in his underwear.
“Jed...?”
Jed nodded to Belle but didn’t explain. He spoke instead to the manager.
“The basement. The vault or what-have-you.”
The man blustered and pulled up the rug from in front of his desk. He revealed a trapdoor. The gunslinger’s raised eyebrow was all the prompting he needed to open the hatch.
“Everybody get below,” Jed waved his pistols for added encouragement. The tellers looked to their employer. The manager nodded and followed them down into the cellar. Belle went next. Jed and Willoughby carried Lilimae. Jed pulled the trapdoor shut behind him.
The cellar housed two large safes. The manager bustled to open them but Jed pulled him back.
“We ain’t after the money,” he hissed. The manager frowned: what kind of robbery was this?
“We wait,” said Jed.
“It’s cold,” said Willoughby, hugging his bare arms. That was when Belle noticed Jed had left her sister’s dress upstairs.
“There was a contraption,” she said. “Some kind of doodad that meant Plisp knew where we were.”
Jed nodded. He gave Belle a smile to say he approved of her thinking.
“More than that,” he replied. He pointed at the ceiling.
They heard the footfall of their assailants and their muffled swearwords to find the bank empty and the back door locked.
“Here’s a trapdoor!” said a gruff voice, louder than the rest. He was directly above them.
Belle gasped.
They heard the thud of an explosion and the sounds of dull things landing. Then there was silence.
“The frock was rigged!” Belle cried. “My sister was booby-trapped!”
“What?” Willoughby was aghast. He turned his fury on Jed. “And you made me wear it!”
Jed ignored this outburst. He told the general assembly to wait. He climbed the stairs and opened the hatch. A thin pall of smoke curled its way in but soon dissolved. Jed went out. The others watched his boot heels disappear. There was an agonising wait while the gunslinger checked out the lie of the land and then he called down to them asking what in Hell they were waiting for.
The manager sobbed to see what little there was left of his bank. Jed pointed out that the safes were still, ah, safe, and that was, he supposed, the important thing. Willoughby and the tellers carried Lilimae up from the cellar. They almost dropped her when she wriggled in their grasp and demanded they unhand her at once.
Belle gave a yelp of delight and, gasping between sobs, threw her arms around her sister. The two girls embraced.
“What happened?” they both asked at the same time.
Jed was impatient to get away. He declared there would be time for chin-wagging later, when they were back on the road.
They picked their way through the rubble and the dead men, leaving the manager and his employees to stand around at a loss.
They didn’t get far before Jed asked them to wait up. He went back to the manager and handed him the bar of platinum Belle’s grandfather had given him. It would pay for a rebuild; the shareholders needn’t be troubled.
“What kind of bank robber leaves the bank richer than afore he came in?” said one of the tellers. His co-worker shrugged. The manager pocketed the bar.
“Get a broom,” he said. “This place needs sweeping.”
Balloon!
As they walked down Main Street, they had to negotiate the surge of people heading towards the scene of devastation where the bank used to be. The citizens of Wheelhub stood around the perimeter, gaping at the damage. The bank manager and his workers stood, blinking in return.
“The explosion seems to have woken them up a bit,” Willoughby observed. His embarrassment at being out in public in his underwear was redoubled by this realisation. He reclaimed his hat from Lilimae’s head and used it to cover his modesty.
“Just keep walking,” Jed muttered from the side of his mouth.
He redeemed the wagon from the lock-up while Willoughby went to see about trading his old horse for a new one. Belle and her sister
sat by the roadside, clinging to each other, unwilling to be separated again.
Willoughby didn’t have much success. The stableman must have thought he was some kind of idiot, walking about with few clothes on, and so refused to do a deal. It was the old horse back or nothing. So Willoughby brought the beast back to the lock-up. The critter looked pleased to see the gunslinger and stood obedient and still while Jed hitched it to the wagon.
“No; you three ride up front,” Jed stopped Belle leading Lilimae to the back. “Plisp has eyes everywhere and he’ll be looking out for me.” He tossed an old coat and a pair of breeches he’d found in the wagon at Willoughby’s chest.
“Not skeerd, are you, Jed?” the boy laughed.
Jed answered that with a steady glare. Willoughby’s amusement shrivelled like a horsefly on a griddle.
“You drive,” he told the boy. “Leave Miss Belle free to tend to her sister.” He tipped his hat at the two ladies and climbed into the back of the wagon. He pulled the awning shut behind him. The others looked at each other, more than a little bit flummoxed.
Willoughby pulled on Doc Swallow’s old clothes and helped the women up onto the driving seat.
“Nice day for a ride, ladies,” he grinned.
Belle and Lilimae rolled their eyes and giggled. Willoughby blushed and, clearing his throat, drove them out of Wheelhub.
***
Jed was pleased that nobody spoke until they were clear of the city. He didn’t want to poke his head through the covers and tell them to be quiet. And it gave him time to reflect on what had happened.
Plisp was at least one step ahead of Jed all along the line. The hoozit in the dress; the explosives... Plisp had set the girl as bait to lure Jed all the way to the capital but had not been there to head a welcoming party. Why? Why go to all the trouble? Plisp would have known Jed would figure something out and get away. If not, Jed regarded it as an insult.
How did you know where the girl was, Jed?
Jed shivered. He wasn’t sure if the question had come from inside his head or outside.
The hub had seemed familiar; that was true. The column - that had powered the ship, Jed recalled that fact from somewhere. How did he know that? And that room with all the caskets? He had called it the dormitory. How did he know that?
When had he been there before?
I was born and bred on Vultures’ Moon, Jed reminded himself, although memories of his childhood and upbringing were vague at best. Dim pictures: a farmstead. A mother encouraging him to walk towards her. A father chopping wood in the yard. It could have been anyone’s past. He often wondered if any of the parts he had picked up along the way brought with them other men’s memories, other men’s dreams.
Dang! Jed’s history was as mysterious to him as the future.
He felt the surface of the road change beneath the wheels as the wagon reached the edge of the city. He settled with his back against the wall, with an ear cocked to listen to what the others were saying out front.
Not eavesdropping, he told himself. They know I’m here and can hear everything they might say. And when the time comes, I’ll tell them what I know - or rather, what they need to know if they are to survive Plisp’s machinations.
The others remained silent for a good couple of miles out of Wheelhub. Lilimae had a coughing fit that reminded Jed of her sister’s brush with the dark dust. Belle patted Lilimae’s back and gave her water.
“You better now?”
“A-yuh,” said Lilimae. “I don’t know what kind of stuff was in those tubes I was fixed to.”
“Jed says food,” Belle responded. “Like he gives his Horse.”
“Well, it weren’t no hay-ride!” Lilimae laughed. She coughed again but this time she mastered it.
“How did you come to be there, Lilimae?” Good ole Belle, thought Jed, a real straight shooter. Getting directly to what I want to know myself.
“Gramps sent me here for supplies - you know that. And you know how Daddy ain’t keen on us travelling alone. So Gramps sent a couple of soldiers with me. A couple of good ole boys who had been - you know. Well, they must have swapped their conversational skills for their - you know, because I couldn’t hardly get a word out of them all the way to the city.
“I was glad of the company -such as it was - They gave me backup when I was negotiating prices and also they did all the heavy lifting.”
Belle interrupted her. “Heavy lifting, sugar? What were you buying?”
“Gramps gave me a list. Chemicals, tools, I don’t know what. We were working our way through the city and folk started acting strange. Well, you’ve seen what they’re like. Docile critters. Like sheep. Just milling around. Well, we couldn’t get anyone to trade with us after that. We came to the centre and a strange light came to their eyes - the soldiers, I mean. They grabbed me and marched me right up to that column in the middle - you saw that, right? Well, I was overcome and must have fainted clean away. Next thing I know is I’m waking up in a casket and my sister and her friends have come to rescue me.”
Belle took the story on board - as did Jed. Lilimae had made no mention of Sheriff Marshall in her story. She had not mentioned sending the telegram to him in Tarnation.
Sheriff Marshall was probably still in Wheelhub - if he was still alive.
It seemed to Jed that Lilimae had been used as bait to catch more than one jackrabbit. Plisp - for it was undoubtedly him - had manipulated the situation so Jed would go to rescue Lilimae. And he had lured Sheriff Marshall out of Tarnation for the same reason...
Why would Plisp want the sheriff out of town and the gunslinger up in the capital?
It wasn’t about where I am, Jed realised. It’s about where I’m not. With me and Marshall out of the county, the way would be clear for Plisp to - to what?
That was the hole in the theory.
There was Gramps - although Jed doubted he was a blood relative of the girls - filling a garrison with enhanced men. There was the dark dust spreading across the territory, aided and abetted by Plisp’s removal of the dust-eating critters.
But what in Hell was going on, Jed couldn’t determine.
He caught himself before he could say another ‘if only Horse was here!’. He knew it was bootless to indulge in wishful thinking.
And now they were heading homewards, with the sheriff to all intents and purposes lost, and what would they get back to?
Jed chose not to speculate further on that point. He would deal with whatever it was when he got there. And, all being well, he would be reunited with Horse. Together there was nothing they couldn’t tackle.
A scream from the front seat yanked Jed from his contemplations.
“Oh, Hell,” Willoughby cussed. He urged the horse to go faster. Jed poked his head through the covers to see what the problem was. Perhaps it was part of Plisp’s convoluted plot to prevent them from getting anywhere at all.
In the sky a bright red and yellow ball sailed ahead of them. Suspended beneath the sphere was a large basket from which a figure was waving something white.
“Damn it,” Willoughby muttered. “He’s seen us.”
“Oh, Jed!” Belle realised the gunslinger’s face was at her shoulder. “Is it him? Is it Plisp?”
Before Jed could respond, Willoughby interjected with a sigh.
“No, Miss Belle,” he said, sadly. “It ain’t Plisp. It’s my boss.”
***
Not only was Doc Swallow waving his white handkerchief to catch their eye, he was also casting things onto the road. These small objects exploded on impact, releasing plumes of coloured smoke. The horse bucked, straining to turn around. The girls screamed and clung together.
“Parlour tricks,” Willoughby told them. “Ain’t nothing to be scared of.”
“Ain’t that,” said Belle, a little
annoyed. “It’s what they might make the horse do. I don’t fancy being upside down in a ditch with the wagon on top of me.”
Soon the way ahead was obscured by smoke. They had no choice but to stop, at least until the air cleared. While they waited, the balloon glided down to a graceful landing - until the basket hit the ground and Doc Swallow was bounced unceremoniously out of it.
He was a man both fat and skinny, Jed saw. Like someone had stuck toothpicks in a potato to make a rudimentary doll. His head was a smaller potato, balancing directly on the shoulders without the aid of a neck. His hair was thin but long, slicked back from his forehead with some noxious oil, and his clothing - as shown by the old coat Willoughby was now sporting - was somewhat flamboyant and old-fashioned.
Swallow retrieved his tall hat from the basket, rammed it on his head and marched with a determined stride towards the halted wagon.
His cheeks were red and his thick eyebrows were bent in a frown.
“There you are, boy!” he barked. Jed saw that several of his teeth were capped with gold.
Willoughby cowered in the seat, flinching from a blow that never came. Doc Swallow made a beeline for the horse. He threw himself around its neck, hugging and kissing it with huge sighs of relief.
“I done thought you was gone forever,” he wept into the animal’s neck. After a while, he composed himself and became aware that he was being observed by people with amused and quizzical expressions. At the end of the line was that good-for-nothing Willoughby!
“You!” Doc Swallow’s face changed colour, like a developing bruise. He launched himself at the boy but the sudden appearance of Jed’s pistol stopped him mid-flight.
“What say we all talk about this?” the gunslinger suggested. “It’s about time for coffee, I reckon.”
“I’ll make a fire,” Belle offered. She moved around the wagon but Jed stopped her.
“I’ll see to all that, Miss Belle,” he said. “You look to your sister.” He even smiled. My, my, thought Belle, things are looking up!
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