Armor (20 page)

I found the “square” with difficulty. It had become, with the rain, a broad reflecting pool. And without any lighting of its own, it was visible only by the gliding contrasts between long shadows cast, spreading and bobbing, across its surface by the ghostly forms tiptoeing around its outer perimeter. I stood at its edge for a few minutes, staring idly at the glimmering patterns on the water. I was hoping some general direction would emerge from the eerie traffic. But none did. People sloshed in and out from all directions with no hint of common purpose. Heads down and peering determinedly before them into the gloom, they showed not the slightest interest in anything beyond their individual missions. There was no curiosity about me, no recognition with one another. No one spoke.

The only thing these people did together was huddle wall-to-wall. At least at night.

But surely they gathered to drink. Every settlement builds a saloon of sorts. Usually it’s the first thing they build. I could have asked someone but I didn’t want to question those shadows. And they didn’t want me to, either.

Instead I picked a direction away from the pool and found it right away.

It was a long dull rectangular structure with a pair of cheap plastic facade windows hanging along one wall at a uniform slant from a single brad. The windows were significant in that they were the only attempt at decor that I could recall having seen in the city. Maybe because of that, or maybe because they were just so cheap, they made it worse instead of better. They had been designed to look like they belonged in any modern Terran city. But they didn’t. They belonged here.

There was one good sign. A half dozen horses stood outside, “tethered” to a small boy sleeping on the stoop. If the local ranchers came here, it probably meant that this was the best place. Or maybe the only place, which was the same thing.

I stepped up out of the mud onto the stoop, which squeaked and shook with my weight just enough to rouse the boy from one dream to another without disturbing his tight, twofisted grip on the reins. The door dragged open inwardly just as I reached for the catch and I had to step back into the mud to make way for a rancher who staggered out clutching a jug of syntho and giggling. He took a short sip from the jug. He took a deep breath and stretched, looking around. Then he hopped, flatfooted, into the mud, sprinkling a halo of flecks from each boot heel. This made him giggle harder.

He noticed me at last and nodded in my direction. He offered me a swig from the jug. His eyes were dancing as though I was in on the joke. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t. His bubbling giggle was plenty by itself, full of wicked mischief and infectious as hell. I was already grinning by the time I got the proffered jug to my lips, making for a sloppy swallow that increased his laughter all the more.

I had another drop and handed it back, grinning like a fool and thinking that this was exactly why I had come. The doorway filled suddenly with the other five horsemen who were laughing just as hard as the first, if not nearly so well. The first man could have been my age or half that or something in between. But the others were young men, younger even than Holly. And they treated the giggler as their leader, stamping loudly off of the stoop into the mud and arranging their young grins in a tight semicircle before him.

The middle kid started to speak but stuttered on his own laughter, causing a wave of conspiratorial guffaws from all present including me. The kid tried again:

“Who is that guy?” he asked the leader, gesturing back over his shoulder toward the bar.

“No idea,” replied the older man.

“What the hell did he want with you, anyway?” asked another of the five.

“He just wanted you to watch him propose?” asked another before there was a chance to answer.

“Looks like,” suggested the leader with another swig.

“What for?” asked the first kid.

The leader smiled. “Dunno. Maybe he was just tired of getting turned down alone.”

“Didn’t look tired to me,” offered still another kid. “Hell, he musta asked a dozen women in just the time we’ve been here.”

“Must be in some hurry to get married,” said the first one.

“Did you see that last one? Ugh!”

“Serve him right if she’d said yes,” said somebody. “Can you imagine being married to that?”

The older man smiled again and reached for the jug. “I dunno,” he said, holding the jug to his lips, “let me try.”

With that he took a long long swallow and then stood in a mock parody of fierce concentration. His face relaxed suddenly. He shook his head. “Nope. Can’t imagine it.”

The kids, and I laughed, a willing audience.

“Take more drinkin’ than that!” suggested the first kid. “I’ve got time,” replied the older man, swigging some more. He broke off his chugging with another laugh and seemed to remember me. He offered the jug again, saying:

“What about you. Stranger? How’s your imagination?”

I laughed, took the jug. “It needs a boost,” I said, and tilted the jug back.

“Sounds like a bachelor,” suggested the first kid as I drank.

“Drinks like a goddamned couple,” growled the leader in mock irritation at my determined swallows.

That remark, for some reason, did me in. I exploded with laughter, spraying myself and everyone else with syntho. He made it even worse by adding, completely deadpan, that he “usually just swallowed it right on down” himself. But, he added while I convulsed with laughter, “I don’t get out much and different people enjoy booze different ways.”

I could not stop laughing. Maybe it was the liquor or maybe it was just my needing to laugh so bad. Or maybe it was just the man’s infectious grin. Whatever it was, it was fun.

“Here, friends,” he said, holding the jug high. “Here’s to the Syntho Spraying Stranger!”

With that everybody drank to my toast and then applauded sloppily. I managed a small bow and was reaching for the jug to try again when the door to the saloon slammed open with a ragged crash. Everyone, even the suddenly awakened stableboy, turned toward the sound. In the doorway stood a huge beast of a man, drunk and swaying in the halflight. He peered down at us dazedly for a moment before focusing on the older horseman.

“Hey, you!” yelled the beast, pointing a finger. “Goddammit! Goddamn killed the whole damn deal for me!” “Uhoh, Lewis,” said one of the kids, naming their leader.

The name seemed to ring a bell, but before I had a chance

to react, the beast was performing again. He launched himself down the steps toward us. Only he missed the first step and catapulted out into the darkness, landing face down and full-length in the mud.

Lewis took a step forward and, raising the jug again, offered another toast. “Gentlemen,” he said formally, “I give you the groom.”

The kids giggled, but their amusement had a somewhat dutiful tone to it. For whether Lewis seemed to have noticed it or not, the beast was clearly enraged. He picked himself up quickly out of the mud. Resting on his heels, he pointed a finger again. “Goddamn ranchin’ crud,” he said.

Lewis laughed delightedly, completely unoffended. The kids laughed too. They seemed more relaxed, as if it couldn’t be serious as long as Lewis was not. I figured they were wrong, all of them. The beast was mad. Wildly drunk, perhaps. Barely focused, maybe. But still very. . . .

Without warning, the man lunged to his feet toward Lewis and swung a truly gigantic fist in his direction. Lewis stepped back smoothly out of range, still laughing and relaxed. Not anxious, not even taunting. Just. . . goodhumored.

The light from the open doorway dimmed as a young and, well, not pretty so much as. . . solid woman appeared. She took in the situation in a glance and shouted at the beast in a hard strident voice.

“Foss! My God! Are you psycho?”

Foss, the beast, froze halfway through another backswing and turned toward her voice. “Leave me alone, Del,” he muttered sourly. “Goddammit, you told me no once already.” And he made ready another punch in Lewis’s direction.

Del refused to be ignored. “Foss!!” she barked again, stomping her hefty foot on the stoop. “What are you doing?”

“. . . kill me this rancher pig here …” mumbled Foss uncertainly.

“Who? Me?” asked Lewis with friendly innocence.

“Goddamn right, you,” snarled Foss.

“Why?” asked Lewis, sounding genuinely hurt. “Hell, didn’t turn you down!”

Foss lunged at him again. Lewis stepped easily aside, still calm and happy, holding the jug by the neck high over his head to keep it out of range of the fat droplets of mud the Foss’s scrambling threw into the air. Foss lunged twice more, once trying to punch him again, once trying to grab the smaller man in a bear hug. He failed miserably both times.

It was a charade. Foss stomped and missed and Lewis dodged and smiled and Del looked worried and the kids giggled. But it was a lot worse than it appeared. It was still serious as hell. Foss was not harmless. In fact, he wasn’t even that bad. Lewis just moved so smoothly that it looked that way. That and the way Lewis kept smiling made the whole thing appear to be a joke. It was great.

I was grinning myself, unabashedly delighted with Lewis.

He just would not get angry, no matter how close Foss came. He simply refused. It was a talent I could use a little of myself. More than a little.

“Stop this, Foss!” shouted Del after it seemed to be going on forever. She came running down the steps toward us, scattering the kids who were still watching eagerly, their mouths now sagging open at half mast between laughter and concern and ready to go either way. “Stop this!” Del repeated.

“I’m for that,” offered Lewis, taking a swig.

Del pushed between the two, her hands resting firmly against Foss’s muddy chest. Foss ignored her, shouting past her to Lewis.

“Shaddup, you sumbitch! If it wadn’t for you. I’d. ...”

He hesitated, glanced at Del, seemed to lose his resolve.

“Well…” he trailed off.

“Well, what?” demanded Del. “What’s this man done to you? I thought you just met him, for God’s sake!”

“I knew him before this,” he mumbled. Then louder, pointing his finger again: “I know about you, rancher shit! I know you!”

“What do you know, Foss?” asked Lewis pleasantly, “I know …” Foss hesitated again, looked embarrassed. But that only made him, on reflection, more angry. “I know that you’re queering it for me and for. . . hell, for everybody. Riding around on some big horse all the time like some big deal and looking down and makin’ us look like nothin’ to . . . to her!”

Then he stood there, red-faced, looking stupid and huge.

And sad.

Del took a deep breath. She let it out. Her voice was gentle. “That’s insane,” she said.

“Maybe,” agreed Lewis as Foss lunged at him yet again, “but it’s sincere as hell!” Lewis sidestepped Foss’s charge neatly and smoothly, as he had all the others. Foss tried to correct his momentum in midslide, lost his footing, and collapsed once more into the mud.

He lay there, snarling and cussing under his breath. He was panting with the effort. Idly, pitifully, he tried to snag Lewis with the toe of his boot without standing up.

“You ever gonna stand still?” moaned the beast.

“Of course,” replied Lewis easily. “But not here. G’night!” Gathering up his crew of kids with a wave, tossing a coin to the boy holding the reins, Lewis vaulted onto one of the horses and tried to make a clean exit.

But Foss was up as Lewis came past him. “I ain’t finished with you yet!” he called, stumbling awkwardly onto the horses’ path.

Lewis dodged a wild swing that had been aimed too low to do much damage anyway and pulled his reins out of range of Foss’s groping. “I can always come back tomorrow, if you like,” he offered over his shoulder as he slipped past toward the edges of the saloon door light. He reined up briefly and said cheerily, tilling the jug.

Foss looked suspicious. “You with him?” he toasted me briefly: “Here’s to you Stranger. Take care,” he said cheerily, tilting the jug.

Foss looked suspicious. “You with him?” he demanded sourly to me and, before I could think of a good answer, swung a fist at my chin.

I dodged that swing and another and then another while Del screamed, “Foss, you idiot!” But she did no good with my troubles either. Foss kept at me, lumbering with his arms open wide and better speed than I would have guessed he still had in him. I turned his arms away, slipped another punch, and. . . allowed him to trip over my ankle. But as he went down, his huge right arm lashed out, nearly snagging me. I felt fingers like plassteel tongs slip along my shinbone. Damn, but he was a strong one!

Instinctively, I positioned myself to finish it as he struggled to regain his footing. Instinct? Or was it just habit? Maybe it was preference. . . .

“You know what you need. Stranger?” I heard Lewis ask from just over my shoulder.

“What’s that?” I asked without taking my eyes off of my muddy target.

“You need a nice little horseyback ride in the fresh air.” “Think so?” I replied in a dull voice just as the beast and I matched stares. I tensed slightly, shifting my weight. . .

“Come on,” urged Lewis gently, sounding more than a little. . . What? Disappointed?

And that shook me out of it. He had messed with the man for half an hour without a blow being struck and here I was . . . Here I was going to hurt somebody again. Wanting to? So I turned away and took a couple of steps and vaulted onto the back of his horse behind him and the six of us rode away out of range of Foss and Del and the ugly inevitable.

Not because Lewis had cared. Because Lewis hadn’t given a damn about Foss. And not because it was the “right things’ Not because it was right. Because it was. . . new?

I thought about that as we rode easily out of the City. I thought about it as I drank, bouncing and jiggling and unsanitarily from the jug. But not much. I had never liked thinking about that part of me much. Never.

We passed through the lake of the square, scattering a couple of kids playing with something at the edge of the water. The horses made a lot of noise on the wooden slats that crossed the sewerIstream. Lewis spurred us into a canter across the next hundred meters and then pulled up sharply as we approached the main bridge across the river. He slid off in front of me. He tossed me the reins.