My Hero Tom Holt.

by My Hero (lit)

I have to get out of here, he thought, and soon. Which means I've got to get the message through. Which means

  Bright and early next morning - the proprietors of Finnegan's Hotel provide a highly efficient early morning call service to their guests in the form of a large rat, which bites their toes at six thirty-one precisely - Skinner packed his bags and set out for his next destination. If he'd been in the mood for company, he'd have found it hard to come by. Volunteers for a trip into the heart of the Blackfoot nation were as rare as thousand-dollar bills, and rather more expendable.

  An arrow, passing through the crown of his hat and neatly parting what little remained of his hair, informed him that he'd arrived. He reined in his horse - bought that morning from Hank's Cheap 'n' Cheerful Livery & Hire, and worth every cent of a tenth of what he'd paid for it - sat perfectly still and waited.

  About thirty seconds later, a group of warriors mounted on small ponies burst over the skyline out of nowhere and rode round him in a circle, yelling and whooping. Trying his best to look bored, Skinner took out a nail file and attended to a troublesome hangnail, until the leader of the war party broke off from the main group and trotted over to him.

  'How,' he said.

  Skinner put the nail file away and smiled. 'Quite,' he replied. 'Look, I just want a quick word with your chief, okay? So if we can just skip a few of the formalities .

  'How.'

  Skinner frowned. 'Hey,' he said, 'save it for the customers. I know for a fact you can speak English, so why don't we just-?'

  'Paleface come from far away bearing stick-that-speak-like-thunder..

  'Look.' Skinner leaned forward in his saddle and scowled. 'I know you,' he said. 'I wrote you for Chapter Six of Last Stage to Tombstone, nearly forty years ago. Before that, you were a clerk in a shipping office. Take me to the big guy and your secret is safe with me.'

  As they rode in silence towards the village, Skinner had time to reflect bitterly on the way things worked around here. Forty years since he'd created the character of Dances With Pigeons; forty years during which time had stood still, or rather lounged about with its feet up. Just think, this was supposed to be 1878. He'd been here for thirty-six years. By rights, it should now be 1914, in which case all he'd have to do was take a train to Chicago, walk to 354 Paradise Street and warn his seven-year-old self that under no circumstances should he take up writing Westerns for a living; or, if he did, never on pain of death to start writing one called Painted Saddles, in which the hero- 'How.' A familiar voice woke him from his reverie, and he saw that he'd reached the village. In front of him stood an aged and unbelievably dignified Blackfoot chief, flanked by an escort of tall young warriors. He nodded politely and said, 'Hi.'

  'Me Chief Three Blind Mice,' said the Indian. 'You smoke pipe of-'

  'Later.' With an effort and a certain amount of pain, Skinner eased himself off Hank's Special Offer Eezi-Go deluxe saddle, straightened his left knee with his hand, and rubbed some circulation back into the leg. 'Good to see you again, Mice, you're looking well. Now, there's a little job I'd like you to do for me. Okay?'

  Three Blind Mice's expression was so impassive, his bearing so rigid, that Skinner instinctively glanced to the chief's left in the hope of catching sight of the cigar store. 'It's only a little thing, Mice, won't take you a minute. Or do you want me to tell the boys and girls about the scene in Ride Down the Whirlwind which we cut out of the final draft? The one with the buffalo skin and the pot of-?'

  'Paleface follow me.'

  'Delighted.'

  In Three Blind Mice's teepee, the two men sat on either side of a smouldering fire.

  'You crummy bastard,' snarled Mice. 'Where d'you think you get off, turning up like this and threatening me in front of the whole goddamn nation? I oughta have your ass stuffed down an anthill for that.'

  Skinner shrugged. 'Nice to see you too, Mice. Been keeping well?'

  'Well?' Mice sneered. 'Thanks to you and that lousy fight scene at the end of Five Rifles For Texas I can only eat liquids and I gotta go to the john three times every hour. And you ask me if I'm keeping-'

  'Hey, calm down,' Skinner replied amiably. 'Most guys'd be thrilled to bits at a chance to meet their Creator face to face. People have been burnt at the stake for less.'

  Mice grimaced. 'Most guys have a Creator they can respect, Skinner,' he replied unpleasantly. 'Not me, though. I gotta have you.'

  'At least you know I exist, Mice.'

  'Yeah. So does small-pox.'

  Skinner spread his arms in a gesture of magnanimity. 'Be that as it may, Mice. I need a favour. Now, it's like this...'

  * * *

  Jane sat bolt upright, groped for the light switch, and then realised she was still asleep. In the circumstances, this was a pity.

  Hi.

  'You again.'

  Me again. Look, thinking back over our previous conversation, it occurs to me that maybe you haven't got my letter yet.

  'What letter?' Jane's eyes moved under their closed lids. 'And who are those people behind you?'

  The dream grimaced shamefacedly. They're medicine dancers of the Blackfoot nation, if you really want to know. They're helping me. Some goddamn snake-oil king of a medicine man has sent my spirit out of my body so's I can talk to you. He paused, glanced over his shoulder and went on. Actually, I'm not at all convinced they know what the hell they're doing, so if we could make this snap...

  Jane tried to open her eyes, but for all the good that it did she might just as well have tried to open a soft drink can off which the little aluminium loop has just snapped. 'Who are you?' she said.

  My name's Skinner, said the dream, I'm a writer and I'm in terrible trouble. And only you can help me. Okay so far?

  Jane nodded. Virtually all the writers she knew, herself included, were in terrible trouble of some sort, usually with their spouses or the credit card companies. The beak of sympathy started to tap against the inside of the shell of bewilderment.

  Right, where do I start? Basically it's quite simple. I used to write Westerns, under the name of Carson Montague. Maybe you've heard...?

  Jane shuddered slightly. 'Sorry,' she said. 'Doesn't ring a bell.'

  Oh. The dream looked slightly wistful. Oh well. Never mind. People were just starting to say I was going to be the next Zane Grey...

  'Who's Zane Grey?'

  The dream gave her a cold look. Anyway, it went on, as a result of an unfortunate accident, the details of which I won't bore you with right now, I got stuck in one of my own books.

  'Stuck?' Jane tried to blink, closed eyes notwithstanding. 'In one of your own...'

  Yeah. Painted Saddles. Not one of my best, at that. And I've been here ever since. Thirty-six years come June sixteenth. The dream swallowed hard and passed a finger round the inside of its collar. It hasn't been fun, I'm telling you.

  'I can imagine.'

  Which is why, the dream continued urgently, I need your help. You gotta get me out of here, before I'm killed or I go crazy.

  'How can I help?'

  For an instant, the dream almost smiled. That's my girl, it said. It's very simple. All you have to do is rewrite the book.

  'Hang on.' Jane licked her lips, which were as dry as very stale bread. 'You want me to write a Western?'

  The dream nodded. Nothing to it, I promise. Any fool can do it. I used to do it, for Christ's sake, and Dostoevsky I am 't. If it'll make it any easier for you, I can tell you where my manuscript is. Or where it was. 1 guess in the last thirty-five years, someone might have moved it.

  Sadly, Jane shook her head. 'Sorry,' she said, 'I can't do that. I'm hopeless at pastiche.'

  Hey! The dream pressed its nose against the reality interface and scowled at her. Don't give me that. Look, it doesn't have to be any good. Jesus, Westerns are supposed to be crummy. All you have to do is write something in which I get out of this dump, and...

  Jane shook her head again. 'You don't understand,' she said. 'I really am terrible at everything except
mainstream fantasy. I'd probably only make things worse for you. I don't know the first thing about horses, and I'm not even sure where Arizona is, let alone what it's like, and I haven't a clue whether a Winchester .45 is a rifle or a pistol, so ...'

  The dream looked thoughtful. Maybe you have a point, it mused, at that. I hadn't actually thought it through, I guess. Okay, just a second, let me just...

  The dream stepped back out of the interface, and for two minutes or so Jane dreamed unpleasantly of Blackfoot warriors dancing doggedly round a smouldering fire making peculiar noises with no apparent enthusiasm whatsoever. Then the dream reappeared.

  Got it. All you have to do is send your hero. He'll find a way to get me out.

  'I beg your pardon?'

  Your hero, the dream said impatiently. You have got a hero, haven't you?

  For a few moments, Jane's mind was blank. 'Oh,' she said, 'the hero of my books. But he's a fantasy hero, I'm not quite sure he'd-'

  So? The dream shrugged. I'm no bigot. So what if he dresses in dumb clothes and talks like a cross between Grimm's Fairy Tales and the Bible? All he needs to do is get me out of this book and across the county line into one of your books, and then you can write me home from there. What could be simpler than that?

  'But...'

  Look, he's a hero, right? Which means he's brave, resourceful, cunning, altruistic, noble, good with horses and weapons, all that shit. Well, isn't he?

  Jane paused, thinking of her central character. 'Well,' she said, 'sort of. I mean, he tries his best.'

  Jeez! You mean to say you've got a wimp for a hero?

  'No,' said Jane, thoughtfully, 'not a wimp. Not,' she added, 'as such. I mean, he's a deep and really quite complex character.'

  Fuck.

  'I'm sorry?'

  Look, that's all right. Anything's better than nothing. If he can ride a horse and read a map, he'll do just fine. So long as you get him here quickly, I'm prepared to take my chances. You are going to help, aren't you?

  'I...'

  Beside Jane's bed, the alarm clock went off.

  Livid sheets of blue fire rolled through the shed, flickering hideously. Oblivious, Albert knelt beside the workbench and howled at his creation.

  'Stanley! Stanley lad! Live! Wake up, tha bloody great pillock!'

  The body on the workbench twitched; then, as another bolt of lightning seared through the already crackling air, it jerked convulsively, snapping the D-clamps as if they were made of porcelain, and sat upright.

  It was alive. Heart beating. Lungs drawing. Tendons flexing.

  All it needed now was a soul.

  Mr Hamlet?

  'Yeah. Whoosat? Look, have you any idea what time it-?'

  This is Central Casting. We've got a job for you, if you'd be interested.

  'Be with you in a jiffy.'

  CHAPTER THREE

  S lowly, it turned its head and stared at its Creator; who, for the very first time, began to wish he'd paid just a little bit more attention to the aesthetic side of things. True, when you're putting together a fast bowler out of whatever you can lay your hands on, you take what you can get and are thankful. Nevertheless ...

  'Now then, Stanley lad,' muttered Norman, backing way and finding that the shed was rather smaller than he remembered. 'Stay ont' workbench until I tell thee otherwise. Stanley! Be told!'

  With an eerie grinding noise (Oh bugger, thought Norman, forgot to oil t'eyelid bearings) its eyes opened. And - graunch graunch, grind grind - blinked twice. Its lips mouthed noiselessly, as if it had suddenly discovered in mid sentence that it had forgotten how to speak.

  'What about,' squeaked Norman, 'a nice cup of tea?'

  A shudder ran through the Thing, and it made a little gurgling noise at the back of its throat. Norman tried walking backwards through the shed wall, ineffectually.

  '... And, by a sleep, to say we end, The heartache and the thousand natural shocks. That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Jesus bloody Christ where the flicking hell am I?' it said.

  'Dewsbury,' Norman replied.

  'Dewsbury?'

  'In Yorkshire.'

  'Yorkshire.' Slowly, the Thing raised a hand, rubbed its eyes and yelped. Specially roughened palms, for obtaining better purchase on a wet cricket ball, had been one of Norman's more satisfying design modifications. 'That's in England, isn't it?'

  Ordinarily, Norman would have had something to say about a remark like that. In this context, however, he simply nodded.

  'Ye gods,' snarled the Thing, swinging its legs off the workbench and getting unsteadily to its feet, 'they did it! The slimy little sods actually did it! Just wait till I get my hands-'

  'Tha what?' Norman queried.

  'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,' the Thing replied. 'This time they actually did get me to England, all that crap with the pirates notwithstanding. I'll...' Something seemed to dawn on it, and it looked down. 'Hoy!' it said. 'That's not my body. What bloody practical joker's been mucking about with my body?'

  That, as far as Norman was concerned, was it. With a terrified squeal he jumped back and hid himself behind the draught-excluder curtain that hung over the shed door. The Thing sighed.

  'Oh for crying out loud,' it said wearily. 'Not another one. Not another ruddy ponce who thinks that sneaking round the back of the soft furnishings makes him invisible. Come out of there, you clown, I can see your blasted shoes poking out under the hem.'

  The curtain twitched slightly, but that was all. The Thing shook its head sadly (And the neck swivels, muttered Norman's subconscious. Ah well, too late now), selected a rubber hammer from the tool rack and applied it with modest but palpable force to where it calculated the kneecaps ought to be. Norman fell forwards through the curtain, barked his shin on the corner of the workbench and sat down clumsily in a big cardboard box full of offcuts.

  'Strewth,' continued the Thing, looking round the shed. 'This is a bloody odd book we're in, if you ask me.'

  'Book?'

  The Thing nodded. 'Yeah,' it said. 'You know, the book we're characters in. What's it about, by the way? Nobody saw fit to tell me before I left. Sorry if I startled you earlier, by the way, but it all took me a bit by surprise. Didn't know where I was for a moment back there. Still don't,' it added.

  'What's tha mean, book?' Norman mumbled. 'This in't a book, tha daft ha'porth. This is like I said. Dewsbury.'

  The Thing frowned, making a sort of crinkling noise in the process and causing Norman to make a mental note never again to use cheap glue on a job like this. 'Is that some sort of play or something?' it said. 'Because if it's not a book, then.

  'Tin't a book,' yelled Norman frantically. 'Don't tha understand? This is real bloody life!'

  The Thing's jaw dropped (although, thanks to Norman's years of practice with the soldering iron, not off completely). 'Real life?'

  'Of course it's flamin' real life.'

  'Oh.' The Thing's brows contracted again. 'That can't be right, surely. Are you pulling my leg?'

  Norman, who had a pretty good idea of what would happen if anyone tried pulling the Thing's leg (at least before the epoxy resin had a chance to dry), repressed an involuntary shudder. 'Straight oop,' he replied.

  'But that's crazy. I'm a character. I can't come into real life.'

  In the middle of all this, something occurred to Norman that made him turn white as a sheet and loosened the joints on his knees. Something he should have noticed before - immediately, in fact - if only he hadn't been sidetracked

  'Here,' he said. 'Tha doesn't sound Yorkshire.'

  The Thing frowned. 'What the hell are you blathering on about now?' it demanded.

  'Tha doesn't sound like tha comes from Yorkshire,' Norman screeched. 'Tha sounds,' he ground on, articulating a fear that was beginning to gnaw his brain like worms in a rotten carcass, 'like one of t'buggers on t'telly.'

  The Thing shook its head. 'Of course I don't sound Yorkshire, I'm a Dane,' it said. 'Of all the dam fool .

  Nor
man's grip on sanity, which had been at the fingernails-slipping-off-tiny-ledge stage for months now, finally gave way; as was only reasonable, in the circumstances. To have devoted his life to the project, sacrificed everything, finally pulled it off - only to discover he had in fact created an overseas player ... With a yowl like a banshee suddenly realising that its parking meter has just run out, he wrenched open the shed door and fled screaming into the night.

  Hamlet scratched his bead, trying to ignore the fact that doing so made large bits of it come away in his hand. 'Be like that, then,' he said. 'See if I care.'

  He stood down and looked about him. In the corner of the shed, he noticed a biscuit tin lid, the shiny inside of which, he realised, would probably do service as a mirror

  'Oh my God!' he said.

  Nor (let's be honest about this) was he over-reacting. When a blunt, straightforward Dewsbury man builds a human being, he doesn't muck about with frills and decorations. Function, rather than form, is his primary consideration. Where Leonardo or Benvenuto Cellini would have put in a few hours with the polyfilla, the palette knife and the 000-grade wire wool, Norman had made do with a lick of paint and a dab with the coarse sandpaper. The result was something that would have had the model-making team from Alien hiding under the bed calling for their mummies.

  Hamlet sat down heavily and buried his face in his hands. Then, feeling slightly sick, he unstuck his hands and wiped them carefully on a bit of rag. He wasn't vain, not exactly; but when you're used to looking like Olivier, Gielgud, Richardson and Mel Gibson you do acquire a certain self-image. Looking in a mirror and seeing something that bears a close resemblance to the contents of a vulture's Christmas hamper will therefore come as something of a blow.

  'Great,' he muttered. 'Marvellous. Now what the hell do I do?'

  Hi, this is Cheryl from Central Casting. Do I get the impression you're not thrilled with the part?

  Hamlet looked up angrily. 'You bloody well bet you do. What the hell am I doing here anyway? It may have escaped your notice, but this is real life.'

  Well, yes...

  'In addition to which,' Hamlet raged on, 'I seem to have ended up in something that could pass for Burke and Hare's bargain discount warehouse. Please get me back to where I belong immediately.'