Flaming Zeppelins (2 page)

“Certainly,” Hickok said. Those clear sharp brown eyes of hers were like the wet eyes of a doe. They had the power to knock holes in his heart. He stood, watched her go away, her long black dress sweeping the hardwood decks.

Strolling outside on the promenade deck, Hickok saw Sitting Bull standing by the railing, a colorful blanket around his shoulders, his braided hair shiny with oil, decorated with a single eagle feather that fluttered in the breeze.

Hickok practically floated up to Bull, using all his woodsman's skills, but when he was within six feet of the old Sioux, Bull said, “Howdy, Wild Bill.”

“Howdy, Bull,” Hickok said, stepping up beside him. Down below, the earth went by in black and green patches, the Pacific Ocean swelled into view, dark blue and forever.

“Been across big water many times,” Bull said. “Still, fucks me over.”

“Me, too,” Hickok said.

“Deep. Big fish with teeth. Makes Bull's tent peg small.”

“I hear that. But this beats the way we used to go. By ship. I don't know how we used to stand it. Slow. Storms. I mean, you get them up here, but you can rise above a lot of it. Course, get too high you can't breathe. Always a drawback.”

Bull grunted agreement, studied Hickok. “How life, Wild Bill?”

“Good…good.”

“Gettin' plenty drink?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Got tobaccy?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Hickok took out a long twist and gave it to Bull. Bull clamped down with his hard white teeth, gnawed a chunk off, began to chew. He gave Hickok back the twist.

“Gettin' pussy?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Good. Little Miss Sure Shot?”

“Gentlemen don't discuss such matters.”

“That why Bull ask you.”

Hickok laughed.

“And if you gettin', don't tell. Little Miss Sure Shot like daughter to me. Could take your hair.”

Captain Jack Crawford, the poet scout, appeared on deck. He was dressed in his beaded buckskins and wore a tan hat, the brim of which snapped in the wind. He was seldom seen without his hat. What most didn't know was that his hair, though long on the sides, was bald on top. Scalped by Cheyenne summer of ‘76 was the story he told, but in actuality he had been held down after a poetry reading by some miners, and with the help of Oscar Wilde, who was touring the West at the time, they had scalped him as punishment for his poetry. Literary criticism at its most brutal.

Captain Jack stood next to Hickok, looked down at the Pacific. “Ah, the waters,” he said. “Those big blue deep waters wherein, down below, the fishes hide. Where great monsters unknown lurk, and cavort…”

“Would you shut up?” Hickok said.

“Make stomach turn,” Bull said. “Make tobaccy taste bad.”

“Sorry,” Jack said.

“Save it for those want to hear it.” Hickok said. “If that's poetry, I don't want any more. All right?”

“Well, I doubt I'll be doing any recitations in Japan,” Jack said. “They don't speak English.”

“How bad of Japanese not speak English,” Bull said. “Like dirty Indians who speak Indian words, not English.”

“Custer killer,” Captain Jack said.

“White eye motherfucker in wrong place at wrong time,” Bull said. “Know Custer your friend, Hickok, but Custer still motherfucker.”

“Probably right about that. Audie would poke water in a bar ditch he thought there was a fish in it, and him with that fine lookin' Libby.”

“Our Savior would not want us expressing ourselves in such a manner,” Captain Jack said.

“Thought white father spoke Hebrew,” Bull said. “Bull speakin' English. Or almost English.”

“He speaks all languages,” Captain Jack said.

“Good for him,” Bull said. “Him one smart God fella.”

There was a moment of quiet, then Captain Jack worked the conversation back to what he wanted. “The samurai who fought with Custer. Did they make account of themselves, or did they run?”

“No arrows in yellow men's backs, not unless we sneak up from behind. They brave. Soldiers brave enough. Custer, he shit pants and shoot self.”

“That is not true!” Jack said.

“True,” Bull said. “Was there. You writing poetry, Bull watching white men and yellow men gettin' shot, cut, scalped. Have many swords from yellow men. Much hair from yellow and white.”

“Custer had his hair,” Jack said. “When they found his body he had it all. And he wasn't mutilated. So I know you're lyin'.”

“Did not want hair. Ashamed of him. Custer cut it short. No hair to take. Bull hear that story how Custer not cut up. Story lie for lady Custer. He Dog cut Custer's willie off and stick in Custer's mouth. It look like it belong there. Real asshole, Custer.”

“I won't hear of this,” Captain Jack said, and went away.

“Good work,” Hickok said.

“Bull think so.”

“Custer
was
a friend of mine.”

“Sorry.”

“That's okay.”

“No. Sorry Custer friend. Show Wild Bill got bad taste.”

“If Yamashita had arrived on time with his planes, Terry with his zeppelins, the outcome would have been different.”

“Ugh. If Bull's ass wider, deeper, could store nuts and berries for winter.”

Hickok laughed. “I see your point.”

“Got bottle?”

“No, but there's one in my room.”

“Sound good. But must tell you. On shield, back home. Got skin off Custer's ass stretched on it. Asshole right in middle. Cleaned after bad moment on the Greasy Grass. You know. Custer shit self. Wild Bill friend of Custer, so thought you should know.”

“You cut his ass off?”

“No. He Dog. He give to me. Said, ‘Here asshole.' Have thought on that long and hard. He Dog like Bull only little better than Custer.”

Hickok nodded. “Well, Custer was a friend, but you're a friend now. And frankly, I always thought that Libby Custer might have somethin' for me, and that Audie could have treated her better.”

“Like Bull said, Custer friend, now Bull friend. Wild Bill's taste no better.”

Hickok grinned. “Let's me and you have that drink, Bull.”

Japanese biplanes buzzed them in.

The little aircraft were like hornets, flicking this way and that. They weaved in and out between zeppelins, the long white scarves of the pilots trailing like the tails of kites.

They flew near the huge cargo zeppelins where the faces and bodies of buffaloes and horses could be seen through portholes. They glided through the zeppelins' bursts of steam, were pushed back by it. They flew close enough to hear the machinery in the gear house of the zeppelins clicking and clashing like a frightened man's teeth.

On the promenade deck of
Old Paint,
Sousa and his band struck up a lively tune, tuba blasting, Sousa horn wailing, bass drum pounding.

Cody's head, in its jar, sat on the shoulders of a steam man, its silver body glistening in the sun. From behind, his hair, floating in the preserving and charging liquid, looked like seaweed clinging to a rock.

Hickok, Annie Oakley, Captain Jack, Bull, and Buntline, a few assorted cowboys and Indians, Cossacks, and Africans, all dressed in their finest, surrounded Cody.

The Japanese pilots flew so close to the front of
Old Paint,
Cody and his companions could see the slant of their eyes through their big round wind glasses. Everyone waved except the steam man. That was more trouble than it was worth.

Inside the steam man's chest, a midget named Goober worked the levers that worked the steam man. The interior of the steam man was hot and the fan that blew down from the steam man's neck only gave so much air. The grating Goober looked out of had limited vision; therefore, as the mind and reactions of the steam man, Goober had limited response.

Buntline was drunk again, but at least he was standing, his black suit looked only slightly wrinkled, his bowler hat was cocked to one side. His boots were on the wrong feet. He was trying to remember his real name before he took the name of Ned Buntline as his pen name. He smiled as he finally remembered. Ed Judson. Yeah. That was it.

He had one hand on the crank that attached to the battery in Cody's jar, and from time to time, with much effort he would crank it, giving Cody the juice. When he did, the liquid glowed, Cody's head vibrated and his hair poked at the amber fluid like jellyfish spines.

Frank Reade, the inventor of the steam man and the airships (he had improved on the German design), had donated the steam-driven man to Cody to promote his line of products. Reade had come to prominence pursuing Jesse James and his gang across the U.S. with his steam-driven team of metal horses, and now his products ruled the United States and were spreading rapidly across the world. Even if he had failed to capture James.

The steam man Cody used had been modified. The head with its conical hat through which steam had been channeled, had been removed, and the steam now puffed out a tube in the back, a tube that carried the steam above the jar and spat it high at the sky like periodic orgasmic eruptions.

Where the steam man's hat had been, Cody's jar now fastened, and on top of the jar was a great big white hat with a beaded hatband.

On the steam man's feet were specially made boots of buffalo leather, dyed red and blue, decorated with white and yellow beads. On the toes of the boots there were designs of buffaloes cavorting.

In his room, Cody had a pair that were similar, only on the toes of the boots the buffaloes were mating. He wore those when he went out with the boys.

As the zeppelins dropped, escorted by the Japanese biplanes, Japan swelled up to meet them, showed them fishing villages of stick and thatch and little running figures. Farther inland the sticks gave way to thousands of colorful soldier tents tipped with wind-snapped flags as far as the eye could see. Samurai, in bright leather, carrying long spears with banners attached and swords at their sides, lifted their helmet-covered heads to watch the zeppelins drop. From above, the Japanese in their armor appeared to be hard-shell beetles waiting for a meal to land politely into their mandibles.

As the zeppelins glided toward the long runway, bordered by soldiers, the band went silent, and Cody yelled to Goober through the talk tube.

“Turn me and raise a hand.”

Goober worked the controls. The steam man hissed and turned, raised a hand. Buntline, from experience, adjusted the talk tube so that it faced the crowd on the deck.

Cody boomed and gurgled. “My friends. This is an important mission. Relations with Japan over the Custer fight are strained. We are here to entertain, but we are also here as ambassadors. As role models for the others, I must ask special things of you. I need advise Mrs. Oakley not at all, but men. Stay off the liquor. They have a particularly nasty drink here called sake. Don't touch it. Keep your Johnsons in your shorts. Pass this word along… No offense, Annie.”

Annie blushed.

“And men, try not to get into fights. I have dealt with the Japanese. For a time I was an ambassador to Japan. They are extremely good hand-to-hand fighters. They have a thing they call Daito Ryu Jujitsu. Boxing and brawling stand up to it poorly. They can tie you in more knots than a drunk mule skinner. Trust me on this. And in case you have not noticed, you are outnumbered. They have few guns, on the planes mostly, but they are absolutely magical with the weapons they carry. Stay in camp. You will be treated well. Abide by all the rules I have laid out, or I'm gonna be madder than the proverbial wet hen.

“So now. What do we say?”

Up went the cry: “WILD WEST SHOW FOREVER.”

“Hickok,” Cody said sharply.

“Oh, all right,” Hickok said, his face red. “Wild West Show Forever. Okay, now I've said it… I didn't hear Bull say it.”

“Bull?” Cody said.

“Hey, me say thing,” Bull lied.

Once moored and disembarked, The Wild West Show — seven hundred strong, escorted by a clutch of Samurai and a robed translator who was also the Shogun's Master Physician — was amazed and delighted and a little frightened by the variety of armor and weapons, the ferocious appearance of the Japanese warriors.

Fragrances of food and body oils unfamiliar to them wafted through the air and stuffed their heads like mummy skulls packed with incense and myrrh, a musty beetle or two, a slice of raw fish.

They gravitated toward a great black tent, the peak of which was tipped with a pole and black pennant wriggling in the wind like a small ray with its tail pinned by a rock.

There was much formality. The Americans tried to bow at the right time and look pleasant. Cody, in his jar, could only grin. In his steam man arms, Cody carried a red and blue Indian blanket wrapped around gifts from President Grant. So heavy were they, he could not have carried it with his own natural arms. The gifts were for the Shogun, Sokaku Takeda.

When the rituals were complete, Cody spoke through his tube. “From President Ulysses S. Grant to you.”

Since the steam man could not bend completely over, Hickok and Bull came forward, took hold of the blanket on either side and lifted it from the steam man's arms. Sweat popped on their heads as they lowered the blanket and its burden onto a bright runner at the front of Takeda's tent.

Takeda, a small man dressed in colorful robes, his hair bound up and pinned at the back, sat, and magically, a retainer produced a camp chair. It was beneath Takeda's rear even as it appeared he would fall backwards.

Takeda spoke a few sharp words and two more retainers appeared, unrolled the blanket. Inside were eight bars of gold and eight of silver, a bright Henry rifle, two black oak-handled revolvers, their silver barrels shiny as cheap fillings in a miner's mouth. With them were two black buffalo-leather holsters pinned with silver conchos. There was also a bandoleer of ammunition.

Takeda grunted. In response to this noise, a retainer brought forth a wrapped parcel, unrolled it at the steam man's feet. Cody could not bend his neck, so the contents of the blanket were lifted and unwrapped by Hickok and Bull for his inspection.