by S. J. Lewis
She turned over the bundle to a man at the bar, with instructions to have it sent back to her room in the hotel in Gordburg. Then she went out into the street. Her clothing now was rather drab, compared to the bright green and yellow outfit she'd worn earlier. Her shirt was tan, her shorts a slightly darker tan. There wasn't a lot she could do about her distinctive short hair, but no one seemed to pay her any particular attention as she made her way to the eastern edge of the place. If she had it figured out right, by the time she reached the next little hamlet it would be around noon. She'd rest there for a while, maybe treat herself to lunch, and think about what she would do next. There would be two more hamlets to visit before she reached the end of the road, and while she could probably make it all the way there by the end of the day it wouldn't do her any good if she didn't gain some notoriety along the way. From what Will had told her, that Elf-Girl had caused a big stir everywhere she went, and then disappeared for a number of days, avoiding the towns and keeping to the woods. Well, she'd had enough of living in the wilderness during that competition to last her for a long time. But if she completed her circuit of the south side of this unique resort too quickly she'd be famous enough but nowhere near beating Elf-Girl's 'official' record. There were times that she wished Will hadn't told her about it, but since he had it had given her a perfect excuse to come back, and winning the bet she'd had with those other women had left her with more than enough money to indulge herself. There were things she'd seen last year that she thought she might like to experience for herself, things she'd done last year that she'd like to try again.
As she neared the stakes on either side of the road, she noticed that two men were watching her curiously. They were both tall and lean, and they looked enough alike to be brothers, though one seemed to be a couple of years older and an inch or two taller than the other. They weren't standing anywhere close enough to intercept her quickly, but she had to consider the possibility that they'd been in marathons themselves. They looked fit enough. She thought about doing a few limbering-up exercises before starting her next risky jog, but decided that doing that would just give the game away. It was possible that they'd seen the end of her race into town earlier, or at least heard of it, but she was dressed differently now, which might have confused them a little.
She took a deep breath and let it out. She could feel her heart beating faster again. And then she took off down the road, putting on an initial burst of speed to take whatever advantage she could of whatever surprise was available. She heard a yell behind her and kicked herself up to a sprint, not daring for the moment to look back. She covered a hundred yards before risking that. The two men were after her, all right, but rather than try to catch up to her right away they were moving at a steady but respectable pace, apparently planning to catch up to her once she'd worn herself out. She eased back to a speed that matched theirs. She'd run marathons before, and she'd had something of a rest, if you didn't count that ferocious fuck with Mike, but she knew that she wasn't completely fresh, and the fact that the two men pursuing her seemed to know exactly what they were doing gave her some concern. Narrow escapes would add to the legend she was hoping to build, but she couldn't count on escaping every time. If she kept this sort of thing up, sooner or later she'd be caught.
The chase wore on. Alexa kept to a regular pace, and so did the two men pursuing her, but every time she looked back they'd gained a little more ground on her. It looked as if they intended to keep closing the distance until she was close enough to make a grab for her. She knew that she had enough in reserve to sprint if she had to, but she was worried that those two men also did. This was something she hadn't considered, and she made a mental note to be more careful in the future...if she had a chance. How much longer until she got to that next hamlet? She wished she had a watch. As it was, all she could go by was the sun as it slowly climbed higher in the sky.
She suddenly recalled another one of the lessons Will had taught her. You could tell time by the sun. It wasn't something that came up when you lived in an urban area full of clocks, watches and cellphones, but she didn't have any of those things here so the sun would have to do. There was a problem, though: She was heading east, so any shadow she was casting would be behind her. She tried once or twice to look and see how short her shadow was, but looking back and down at the same time proved to be too awkward. And every time she tried it, those men were just a little bit closer. They didn't seem to be getting winded at all. Alexa gritted her teeth and kept going. She knew that it was going to be close. She just had to hang on.
The sun rose higher. Alexa noticed that trees and bushes alongside the dirt road cast shadows. That didn't really come as a surprise to her, after all, but maybe she could estimate the time by looking at those. She'd figured to reach the next little town around lunchtime, noon, and if the shadows were minimal it should be close to noon and she should therefore be close to that place. The problem was that each and every plant cast its own shadow, which made it difficult. Her pursuers were still gaining on her, little by little. If she didn't see her sanctuary soon she wouldn't have much left in her for a final, desperate dash, and she was, by now, certain that she'd have to make one. She concentrated on keeping her legs moving and breathing. For the moment, it was all she could do.
Then the road made a slight dogleg to the right, and when she rounded it she saw the town up ahead, still distressingly far. She had only a brief moment before her pursuers rounded that same turn and saw it as well. She heard one of them yell, and immediately put on a burst of speed. This time she didn't dare look back. Shortly afterwards, she could hear and almost feel the footsteps of one of her pursuers closing fast. She made a quick cut to the left, trying to dodge the grasping hand she was sure was coming and heard a cry of frustration. A brief glance to her right showed her that the taller man was practically alongside of her now, but she had no idea where his companion was. She gave a last, desperate kick, going flat-out for the safety of the hamlet, still too far away.
She had to know where the other man was. She risked a look back over her shoulder for a look and disaster hit. Her foot hit a rock or a branch or a rut, and she stumbled and went down. Out of instinct, she tucked and rolled, grateful that she'd kept up at least a little gymnastics training to keep herself limber. As she was halfway through her first tumble, she saw the taller man fly over her at waist height, and realized that he must have tried to tackle her at the same instant she went down, and he had missed. She was quickly back up on her feet and running, but now she saw the shorter man closing in from her left. She slanted off to her right, but he was already too close for her to gain more than a temporary step on him. If she didn't think of something, he was going to catch up to her thirty feet or so short of safety. Abruptly, she switched back sharply to her left, put her shoulder down, and rammed into him. He hadn't been anticipating anything of that sort, and as he stumbled away she felt his hand grabbing at her hair. It was far too short for him to get a grip on it at all, and she veered back to her right to get further away from him and caught sight of the taller man, up on his feet and coming straight at her. She made him miss with one last desperate change of direction and ran for the hamlet with everything she had left. It was barely enough. As she crossed the invisible line between the stakes she heard cheers and whoops going up from some people who had been watching her daring escape. She threw her hands up in victory again, but she knew she'd been very, very lucky. She slowed to a wobbly walk, winded and worn out from the chase, and headed towards the lone saloon. She wanted water, preferably with some ice in it, and a chance to sit for a while and get her wind back. She realized that her right ankle hurt, probably from whatever she'd tripped over. Funny that she hadn't noticed that before, but she must have had a torrent of adrenalin coursing through her previously. Now that the imminent danger was over, her body was going to have the time to let her know what other parts of her body might need attention. Her ankle felt okay to walk on, but she really wanted to get off o
f it for a while.
As she climbed up the plank steps to the saloon entrance, men crowded around, still whooping and cheering her. Too short of breath to say anything, she waved them back as she went into the saloon. She went over to the bar and leaned against it as she asked the bartender, a tall, thin man probably younger than she was for a tall glass of ice water, please. He got it for her promptly, and she thanked him before she turned to look for a table to sit at. There was one nearby, so she went over to it, sat down, and took a slow sip from the glass. She had an urge to gulp it all down, but knew better than to do that. And now that she was actually safe and sitting down she felt tiny little tremors running through her, starting in her legs and working their way upwards until her hands were shaking and she had to put the glass down. The trembling wasn't enough to make her drop it, but it would be visible to all of the men now gathered in the saloon looking at her, and she didn't want them to think she'd been scared. She leaned back in her chair and looked up at her throng of curious onlookers, placing her hands on the tabletop so they wouldn't visibly shake.
“Hi,” she said to them. “I'm Alexa Marx, and yes, I've been here before. Any other questions?”
“What were you doing out there?” someone asked. She couldn't tell who it was.
“Trying to get here,” she replied simply. She trusted her right hand enough to pick up her glass of water and take a bigger sip from it.
“Where did you come from?” This time she spotted the questioner, a grizzled older man in jeans, boots and a worn and faded red and white checked shirt.
“Well,” Alexa took another long sip, drawing the moment out. “I started out this morning on the stage out of Gordburg. I got out at the first dinky little town on the route and I've been traveling on foot ever since.”
“On FOOT?” one of the other men exclaimed. “You sure you've been here before?”
“Yeah, she's been here before.” The new speaker was tall, heavyset and wore a battered black slouch hat. “I saw her. All of her. You were in that special competition last year, weren't you?” he challenged.
“Yes, I was,” Alexa nodded.
“Knew it,” the man said. “Couldn't forget that hair. You won it too, didn'tcha?” He grinned broadly, showing unexpectedly white teeth.
“Yes, I did,” Alexa nodded again. “And then I found out that I'd beaten the unofficial record of some little blonde who called herself Elf-Girl. Any of you gentlemen know anything about her?”
A couple of the men laughed. “I saw her,” one spoke up. “The guy who caught her put her on display one afternoon so that anybody who wanted could have a look at her. Pretty little thing she was. Hasn't been back since.”
“I understand she raised quite a ruckus when she was here,” Alexa said. She was enjoying being the center of so much male attention. Even the heavyset man staring at her and obviously remembering her naked in her cage didn't bother her. Well, this was Gordburg.
“That she did,” one man admitted. “Even managed to turn a couple of other females loose before she got caught.”
“Well,” Alexa said after a deep draught of her ice water, “I came back hoping to break her official record.”
“That'll be kind of hard to do, what with you making such a splash about it.” Alexa looked up at the sound of a new voice, deep and gravelly. She saw her two unsuccessful pursuers saunter into the saloon. They looked dusty, probably from falling.
“Thanks for the advice,” Alexa smiled. “Can I buy you two gentlemen a beer? You gave me a real scare there.”
“Coffee suits us better,” the taller man said as he moved through the small crowd, which parted for him. He pulled up a chair and sat down at Alexa's table. His companion did the same. They looked at Alexa across the space of the table, and their gazes made her feel just a bit uncomfortable. To hide that, she signaled for the saloon's lone waitress, a cute brown-haired young woman in an old dance hall costume to come over. When she did, Alexa asked for three coffees, cream and sugar on the side, and then turned her attention back to those two men. The other men began drifting away to other tables, but stayed close enough to listen in on the conversation.
“Who might you fellows be?” Alexa asked them.
“We're the Anderson brothers,” the tall, gravelly-voiced one replied. “We come here every year. Got kind of a little business capturing females, giving them a little bit of training, and putting them up for auction. We always split the take with them. I think you'd fetch a really nice price.”
Alexa couldn't help giggling at such a peculiar offer. “Thanks,” she said, shaking her head. “But I'm not in this for the money. I'm just trying to beat an old record.”
“Why?” the shorter Anderson asked.
“Why not?” Alexa countered. “Why do you two do what you do?”
“Actually, there's three of us,” the gravel-voiced one said. “We were going to meet our brother back there when we spotted you. We didn't think you'd be so hard to run down. What are you, some kind of athlete?”
“Personal trainer,” Alexa shrugged. The Anderson brothers didn't seem impressed. The coffee came, and for a moment there was no conversation.
“What's your name again?” the gravel-voiced one asked.
“Alexa Marx. That's Marx with an 'X'.”
“Uh-huh. Well, you set us back half a day with your little act. We've got to go back and meet our brother, but we would surely like to run into you again.”
“Like I ran into your brother there?” Alexa couldn't help taunting them a little as she nodded towards the man she'd knocked down.
“Thank you for the coffee, ma'am,” the gravel-voiced Anderson said. With that, he and his brother got up and moseyed out of the saloon. At least, they walked the way that Alexa always thought 'moseyed' meant: Just a mite slower than walking speed, with an air of confidence that was almost tangible. Neither of them looked back, and Alexa wondered if she hadn't pushed things too far with her last comment. Well, it was too late to take it back now, and she was hungry. She looked around for the waitress.
Sometime later, feeling pleasantly full, she exited the saloon, looking for the trading post, or general store, or emporium, or whatever they called it here. She'd originally thought to grab a quick bite here and leg it for the next hamlet down the line, but her encounter with the Anderson boys had taken too much out of her for her to do that now. She hadn't sent anything along on the stage for her to pick up here, and what she was wearing was too dirty and dusty for her. As long as she had that chip in her earlobe, though, she could buy anything she needed. Right now, she needed a change of clothes, followed by some quiet time to think about what she should do next. She saw a rambling wooden building with a sign over it that read 'General Store', and went on in.
It took only a minute for her to discover that her shopping choices were pretty limited. She could get any kind of pants she wanted as long as they were jeans, and any kind of shirt she wanted so long as it came in one of three or four styles. Socks came in white cotton only, so did underwear. It was only a step and a half up from roughing it the way she'd had to when she visited Will. The only advantage to shopping under these conditions was how much time it saved. She was done and on her way back to the saloon in fifteen minutes with her purchases neatly wrapped in a brown paper package tied up with twine. Once she got back to the saloon she could see about renting a room for the night. Then she could shower, change her clothes, and spend a little time looking around town. With any luck, that might take another fifteen minutes.
“Well, hello there!”
Alexa was so startled to hear Mike's voice close behind her that she almost dropped her package as she whirled to face him. He didn't look angry, but he didn't seem all that happy to see her either.
“Hi, Mike!” she said with as bright a fake smile as she could manage. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you, as it happens,” he replied. “You left without saying goodbye.”
“Well, you were as
leep, and you looked so peaceful that I didn't want to wake you.”
“That was very thoughtful of you,” Mike commented, “but I'm here now. Tell me, what are your plans for the rest of the day?”
“Oh,” Alexa shrugged. “You know. See the sights, chill out, that kind of stuff.”
“And maybe rest up a bit from your narrow escape earlier?” Mike raised an eyebrow.
“Um... what are you talking about?”
“Oh, please.” Mike snorted. “You're the talk of the town here, Alexa, just like you're the talk of the town back thataways.” He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder in the very general direction of the hamlet she'd left him in. “What are you trying to do?”
“Trying to beat the record,” she replied as she clutched her package to her chest defensively.
“What record?” Mike asked.
“Elf-Girl's,” Alexa replied.
“Why?”
“Why not?”
“You know, you could probably do that a lot easier if you didn't make such a play for attention everywhere you went,” Mike suggested.
“And what's the point of breaking a record if nobody knows that you've done it?” Alexa asked.
“Well, for one thing, in this case you'd have a better chance of succeeding. Then you could crow about it all you wanted. This way, you're just getting a lot of men interested in running you down.”
“Really?” Alexa asked coyly. “And are you one of those men?”
“I am now,” Mike replied, a bit grimly. “I feel like I owe you for what you did back there.”
“Oh, no need to thank me. I was happy to do it. Really.”
“I didn't say I wanted to thank you,” Mike corrected her. “I said I feel like I owe you.”
“Owe me what?” Alexa took a half-step back from him.
