5.
Fall cradled Billy in her arms and rocked him gently. He was fast
asleep. She cooed a softly whispered lullaby into his ear.
"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,
"He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored,
"He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his --"
Billy�s eyes opened. They looked out on sparkling faraway stars. For
some reason, he felt happy -- happier than he had ever been. He thought
he was in Heaven again. He even seemed to be able to smell roast beef.
It was probably an angel of the Lord setting the table. He looked at
Fall. Of course � one was cradling him in his arms.
�You�re so beautiful,� said Fall.
�So are you,� said Billy. It was the simple truth.
�Want to fuck?� said Fall.
Billy slipped off Fall's lap and landed on the seat of his pants, raising
a cloud of dust.
He looked up at Fall and said, "...uh...m-maybe later...," and edged
further away.
A low cynical cackle came out of the throat of someone to Billy's left.
Billy looked around left and saw the girl with blue-black hair sitting
behind a flickering camp fire, her strong muscular arms wrapped around
her knees, watching him with a grin like a hungry falcon.
"Back from Slumberland, Little Nemo?"
"What -- what happened? Where are we?"
"You fell asleep. Or maybe blacked out. I'm not a doctor, how the hell
would I know? We�re where you started out from. More or less.�
�I can smell it," said Fall. She sniffed, crinkling her pert nose.
The fire made the black eyes of the other girl shine like that of a
particularly cruel animal. Both still wore shiny skin-tight black
plastic body stockings cut off below the collarbone into an X that wound
around their neck, leaving their white shoulders exposed. Both of them
looked so much like the women you see in a dream, that for the first time
Billy was convinced that it wasn't a dream. Dreams were never this real.
He looked from one to the other.
"Who in the world are the two of you?"
"I'm Fall! Hi!" Fall lifted a gentle pink hand at Billy and wiggled the
fingers.
He looked at the other one. She looked away, angrily. "OS Hypothetical
Personality 'Belt',� she said, through her teeth, reluctantly. �NSM dash
XM dash 2MC dash SS, version 3.3."
"Belt? What kind of name is 'Belt'?"
"It's my name! You don't like it, you can shove it!" she yelled. "What
the hell kind of name is 'Billy'? What�s your last name? �Goat�?"
She slunk her head back behind her forearms.
Billy was taken aback. "I -- uh -- didn't mean anything by it, ma'am.
Belt's a, why, it's a lovely name. Truly lovely."
"Don't patronize me, bastard!"
"Phew, is she always like this?" he asked Fall. Quietly.
Reaching out to stroke his hair, Fall smiled. Beautifully. "I don't
know. I never saw her before I met you, Billy. Don't worry. She won't
hurt you. She loves you! Just like I do."
"Shut the hell up!" said Belt, savagely.
"Ladies, please! Get a hold of yourselves!"
Fall immediately grabbed both of her ears and looked at Billy and smiled.
Belt, swearing under her breath, slowly crossed her arms and gripped her
biceps tightly.
"What are you two doing?"
"We're getting a hold of ourselves, Billy. Isn't that what you told us
to do?"
"Well, yeah, but it's just an expression. You don't have to do whatever
I tell you."
"Oh yes we do."
"Shut up!" cried Belt, passionately.
"Sure we have to. You're the one, Billy," said Fall.
Fall stood up to stretch. My Lord in Heaven, what a beautiful creature,
thought Billy. She really did look like an angel, one of those Victorian
ones Billy had seen in picture books, all proper with their hair up. She
stretched her arms out straight up and shook her white off-center
pony-tail and -- did a cartwheel. Her poise was absolutely flawless and
her balance and posture impossibly perfect and, despite some of the
things she said, oddly adult. She was tall and slim, perhaps seventeen,
and � just completely elegant!
"What are those?" she said, pointing upwards with her perfect white arm.
�What?"
"Those white things."" She pointed at the sky, now darkening.
"White things -- ? Heck, you mean stars? Don't you know what stars are?"
"Now I do. 'Stars'. They twinkle. Cool! How do they hang up there
like that without falling? And why is it so dark?"
�That's called 'night'."
"Really?� She put a finger to her chin, contemplating. � �Night� came
after day. What's comes after �night�?"
"Day."
Her head twisted. "The same day?"
"No. A -- a new day. A completely different day."
"Every time?"
"Of course!"
"Cool!" She looked at Billy and rubbed her lower abdomen. "Want to --
?"
"No!"
" -- eat?"
"Eat?"
"Eat!"
She casually and soundlessly cartwheeled and backflipped back to where
she's been rocking Billy, and sat on the rock next to him and reached
behind the rock and pulled out a wood ladle and --
"Beef stew!" yelled Billy. He wasn't dreaming! "Gol durn! Where'd you
get beef stew, girl?"
"337.18 meters south-northeast. While you were in Sleepyland, Billy."
"Mggrhk?" said Billy, already ladling scoops of stew like a waterwheel
into his empty belly. Fall stood there grinning and laughing. She
clapped her hands. "He likes it, Belt! Look, look!" Her laugh was like
wind chimes.
Billy turned to look at Belt, who glared at him from behind her strong
forearms. A lizard crawled onto her calf. She brushed it off.
Billy stopped. "I'm sorry, ladies; Miss Fall, Miss Belt; I don't know
how I forgot my table manners. I -- I guess it's because we ain't got no
table here, ha ha."
Fall duplicated Billy's laugh exactly. Twice. Then seemed to laugh
genuinely, at the laughs themselves. Belt glowered at him.
"What I mean to say is, well, I didn't mean to make a hog of myself.
Ladies first. Miss Belt? Would you -- ?"
The lizard leapt onto Belt's leg again. She grabbed it and popped it
into her mouth, biting it off at the tail and spitting the tail past her
lips out onto the sand. Then she swallowed, without chewing. She wiped
off a spray of purplish lizard blood off her lips with the back of her
hand.
"I -- uh -- guess not," said Billy. He looked at the wood ladle in his
hand. His own appetite seemed a trifle diminished as well. "Miss Fall?"
he said, taking nervous glances back at Belt.
"You're so sweet," said Fall. She looked at Billy with melting softness.
She looked at Belt. "Isn't he? Isn't he sweet?"
Belt stood up suddenly and turned her head east. She was as tall as Fall
was, but -- different. Her body was taut, muscular, precisely defined
and cut, like an athlete, and she seemed to be in her early twenties.
She stood expressionless and motionless, and Billy noticed almost with a
shock that she was almost beautiful too. In fact there was no almost
about it. There was a symmetry and purity to her stance and torso and
face, strikingly framed by that long wild shock of unruly blue-black
hair. Even her eyebrows seemed disordered and wild somehow, but her body
itself was as disciplined and beautiful as a sculpture.
Fall grabbed Billy's arm. "Hey! Why are you looking at her like that,
Billy?"
"Huh?" said Billy. "Who, me?"
"Shuddup!" whispered Belt.
"You hear something, Miss Belt?"
"I said shut up!"
"You've got to answer him, Belt. He's the boss," said Fall, twining her
arm into Billy's.
Belt's body refracted an instant savagery at both of them. "Yes.
'Boss'. I �heard something'. It's not a problem."
"Who is it?"
"I wasn't able to determine who. Or what. It stopped."
"Can you hear it if it comes closer?"
"Yes," she answered, then crouched. "But I'd rather go out there and
kill it now." Her body seemed to lean forward, cougar-like, preparing to
spring.
"No! You stop where you are!"
A completely disgusted look crawled over her features. She stared at
Billy with pure hatred -- which immediately buckled into confusion, and
then sudden sharp pain. Belt swore and covered her face with her fists.
"I hate you," she said. "I hate you, I hate you all, I hate every last
damned one of you.� Incredibly, she fell to her knees and burst into
tears. �Why can't you just kill me and finish it?" The tears slid
through her fingers and onto the prairie earth, and began to -- burn, and
smoke.
"I'm sorry, Ma'am -- ladies -- I, I don't mean to be rude to y'all, but
-- but before you go around killing things, I want to know what's going
on!"
Belt slunk back into her previous position behind the fire, and wrapped
her arms around her knees, like an infuriated foetus.
�That's a statement, not a question," said Belt.
He walked up to her, Fall's arm immediately in his, her head on his
shoulder. He looked at Belt and at Fall.
"What in the name of the Lord are you two?"
"I should think that would be obvious," said Belt.
"We're marionettes!" said Fall.
"Marionet -- you mean you're Dolls? You ain't Dolls."
"What are 'Dolls'?"
"Dolls are -- well, machines. Big talking girl puppets."
"That's us! Big talking girl puppets! Right, Belt?"
She laughed her robin-like twinkly laugh. Belt said nothing.
"Dolls don't laugh,� said Billy. �And they don't cry. And they don't
cuss out folks. Or run like Satan himself. Or have wings!"
"We're 'special'," snarled Belt.
"Yup, we sure are," said Fall.
"You two are angels, trying to trick me!"
"What are 'angels'? said Fall.
"Hell, everyone knows what angels are. Even devils!"
Fall shrugged. "They never told us. We're marionettes, that's all I
know. Right, Belt?"
Belt grunted.
Fall let go of Billy�s arm and swept back her snowy ponytail and put her
hands on the sides of her head and gave it a ninety degree turn left. A
line appeared around her neck, and there was a sharp clicking sound.
Then she pulled her head clean off. Except for several silver cables
that came up out of her neck and connected to her head, which she held in
her arms next to her left breast. "See?" said the lips on the head, and
smiled her happy smile.
Billy fainted.
7.
The phone rang. Pierce hesitated for a moment between pursuing the
equation he�d been working on and answering it, but he answered it.
�Pierce speaking.�
�Dr. Pierce?� It was Tracy.
�What is it, Tracy?�
�The recovery team�s back, Dr. Pierce.�
�And?�
�They � uh � didn�t recover anything. Sir.�
�What do you mean?�
�There�s nothing there, sir. I mean, the test subjects. The
experimentals. They�re gone. There�s no trace of them.�
�All three?�
�Yes, sir.�
�That�s impossible.�
�Well, maybe so, sir, if you say so, but -- .�
Pierce hung up. He dialed Skinner of Security�s MC division.
�Skinner here.�
�It�s Pierce.�
�What do you need?�
�We may have three runaways.�
�Experimentals?�
�Yes.�
�Shit.�
�They�re somewhere outside the perimeter of today�s test site.�
� �Somewhere.� That narrows it down.�
�I want an MC search-and-destroy team out there in ten minutes. Level
One security. Report to me, and only to me.�
�What about civilians?�
Pierce paused. �Terminate anyone is direct contact with them. Plus any
civilian that gets in your way.�
�I�ll need your signed authorization for that. Doctor.�
�Don�t irritate me, Skinner.�
�Rules are rules, doctor. Even here.�
�You�ll get it.�
�We don�t leave till I do.�
Pierce said nothing. Then: �You�ll get it. But once you do, this
operation becomes totally black: no one talks about it, no one hears
about it. Understood?�
Skinner laughed. Civilians! They all read too damn many spy novels.
�Understood.�
8.
Billy woke up. It was night again, the prairie stars sparkling again,
and nearby the camp fire was burning warmly. He felt the flickering red
warmth on his cheek. He liked that. He liked all of it. Being cradled
in someone�s warm soft arms, and Fall�s beautiful smiling face looking
down at him. All this had to be a crazy dream, of course, but still -- .
Suddenly he stiffened, and pushed her away.
�Billy, what�s wrong?� said Fall.
�You � you and that, that Miss Belt � you�re both of you machines!�
�It finally penetrates,� muttered Belt, sitting as before all curled up
by the fire.
�You�re not real -- you�re just a pile of metal.�
�I�m real,� said Fall. �Poke me.�
�We�re machines,� said Belt. �So fucking what?�
�Then how come you two�re laughing and smiling and crying and all that?
How can a pile of metal and wires like you have feelings?�
�How can a pile of hair and hamburger like you have feelings?� said Belt.
�I feel lots of things,� said Fall. �Especially when I hug you, Billy!�
Which she did, sighing with ecstacy.
�Feelings suck,� said Belt.
�My head hurts,� said Billy.
The hard click of a gun hammer being cocked sounded in the dark.
�A bullet from this six-shooter can rid you of your headache real quick,
son,� said a deep gruff voice. �And of your head, too.�
9.
The plasma mushroom cloud had sunk back to the earth, but refused to
dissipate. It hung low over the point of impact like an immense writhing
purple pancake spitting out an erratic delicate lace of electrical bolts.
The first winds of impact had gone, and now the air blown up into the
stratosphere was descending again, and a second high wind was blowing,
coursing pitilessly and majestically in whorls across the landscape. It
whipped leaves and brush and small bugs over a silent charred female-like
torso half-fused to a broken post one mile away. Two moons, like pale
white-haired old grandmothers hugging, were large and visible in the sky.
A high whinny mixed with the low roaring sound of the distant wind. It
came from one of four saddled chevies, standing around the charred
remains on the post. On the four chevies sat four riders, men clad in
white and silver radiation-protective body suits, like slim cowboy-hatted
astronauts. One got off, pulling a weapon resembling a ancient modified
Uzi around from his back, and walked up to the silent black mannequin
nearly fused to the post, his weapon pointed squarely at what had been
the head.
He looked down into its missing eyes through black impenetrable goggles,
and looked at the others� and waved. They got off and pulled out two
silver poles out of one of the saddle bags and began tugging it. It
opened into a high-tech stretcher with numerous sorts of electronic
monitoring gear attached. The man by the charred mannequin sank down
beside her on one knee and pulled down the brim of his cowboy hat. On
its band, the X-shape of the Confederate flag shone quietly in the light
of the twin moons.
10.
The leaves rustled. From a bush just on the edge of the darkness outside
the campfire stepped a tall dark man, holding a Colt Revolver on Billy
Truman�s head.
�No funny moves, son,� he said.
The man looked to be in his forties. His clothes were dusky
weather-beaten denim, his boots were dirty, and his chin was covered with
something grey and scraggly that was more than stubble but less than a
beard. In the light now, he seemed like he might have been fairly
handsome once, washed up � he was six foot two, with intelligent blue
eyes and even a sort of amused smile, but a scar across his left cheek
gave him a hard look as well, underneath a wide-brimmed beat-up Cavalry
hat slanted to the right side. He carried a saddle across his left
shoulder, which he held by a strap with his left hand. His right hand
held a revolver at Billy�s nose.
Billy coughed on the stew in his mouth, brushed his lips, and cleared his
throat.
�Good evening, there, sir. Care to join us for a neighborly bite of
beef?�
The man stepped into the light and tossed his saddle to the ground.
�Since it happens to be my beef, which you stole, you little bushwhacker,
I would be very happy indeed to take a few bites out of it. I may even
take a few bites out of your thieving hide for desert.�
�Fall! You stole it?�
�What�s �stole�?�
The man looked around and assessed Fall and Belt closely. Impressed, he
smiled at Billy. �I got to give you credit, son. I came out here
looking for a lost lamb, and what do I find? A full-scale moon light
sheep orgy.�
�Sir, it ain�t nothing like that, not at all!�
�Boy, where�d a tyke like you get hold of such a fine hi-grade set of
fillies? You couldn�t make enough to buy a set of models like these if�n
you shovelled shit for thirty years. Stole them, didn�t you? Thinking
of maybe sneaking �em up to Dixieville and selling them under the table,
ain�t you?� He shook his head. �Doll-jacking�s no pastime for a young
cowpoke your age.�
�I�m a good Christian, sir, I swear! I never stole anything in my life!�
�That�d ring truer if�n you�d have spit my beef stew out of your mouth
afore you said it.�
�Belt, I don�t want to let go of Billy,� said Fall, rocking Billy and
rubbing her cheek against his. �Would you mind?�
Belt grunted. She stood up. �My pleasure.�
Belt looked at the man and the man looked at Belt. With some awe. �I�ll
be damned. If you ain�t the handsomest Doll I ever seen in my life, I�ll
eat the hide off a cactus!�
�You�ll be damned,� said Belt, �and you�ll eat that hide. After I shove
it down your throat.�
She began to walk towards him, the firelight playing across the wild
waves of her hair.
�Belt, don�t you kill him!� said Billy.
�Yeah, yeah, yeah,� she said. �(I'll just tear off his arms and legs a
little),� she mumbled.
�Gosh Allmighty, and she can talk too! Shucks, you sound almost like a
real live person.�
�You won�t. Not in another six seconds.�
�Now, you back off, Pinocchio-girl. I don�t wish to waste my valuable
bullets shootin� at a tin can. Son? You call her off.�
�Well � I would, sir. But � uh � actually I think if you put that pistol
down first, it�d do the trick just as well and be better for all
concerned.�
�I don�t want to scratch her up, boy.�
�Really, sir, you ought to put that pistol down. Please. We mean you no
harm.�
�You stop right there, filly.�
Belt was eight feet away now and closing.
The man considered. Oh well. He pulled the trigger.
It hit Belt in the right temple. There was a slightly high thin ringing
clang, like a very distant bell. Belt�s head jerked back a quarter-inch
or so. Then came right back. Unmarked. She was four feet away now.
�Hey! I told you to stop!� He fired again. Again, the distant ring,
the slight head movement, the deliberate walk forward.
�I said, stop -- !�
Belt�s hand whipped out like lightning and grabbed the revolver as well
as the hand holding it, and pulled both up to her.
The man yelled. �You�re breaking my fingers!�
�Belt, take it easy,� said Billy.
Belt stared at her victim, and grinned, widely. �What�s wrong, cowboy?
Can�t shoot straight? Here -- .�
She stuck the barrel against her temple. �Shoot. Go on, shoot!
Shoot!�
He did. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. -- Click.
Belt�s head nodded quietly back into place after the last, and she
laughed. �Awww. Not very tough, are we, cowboy?� She pulled the gun
toward her and put the barrel in her mouth and bit it off and spit it
out.
�Jesus!� he said.
Belt�s smile vanished. �Time to die,� said Belt.
She grabbed his collar and picked him up by it till his feet were
dangling two feet up in the air. Then she twisted to throw him a
thousand feet the way she had Lulu.
�That�s enough!� said Billy. �Let him go!�
Belt shuddered, straining to disobey, to hurl the man to his death.
�I � don�t want to let him go.�
�He�s a human being!�
�I�m *supposed* to kill human beings. I was *designed* to killing human
beings.�
�You�re supposed to listen to me. Like Fall said. Aren�t you? Belt,
I�m giving you an order. Drop him.�
�Sh - shit,� said Belt. She flicked her wrist. The cowboy spun into a
nearby set of bushes some ten feet off, grunting with the impact. Belt
turned to go back to her spot by the fire. Billy, up now, grabbed her
arm and stopped her.
�I told you not to hurt him!�
Belt shrugged. �You told me to drop him. I dropped him.�
�You�re supposed to do what I say!�
Belt swerved around, her face livid with anger and fury. �Or what? Or
you�ll hurt me? Or you�ll smash me up? Take me apart? Go ahead, go on
-- do it! What makes you any different?�
�Belt, I�m not going to -- .�
She threw his arm off. �Just shut the hell up, all right? Just leave me
alone, OK? OK?� She turned her back on Billy and went back to her spot
by the fire. He watched her as she curled up exactly as before.
Billy heard a groan. He turned, and noticed that someone had bandaged
his leg while he�d been unconscious. He looked at Fall, who was standing
by the bush waving a hand merrily at the man buried halfway inside it.
Billy hurried over as quick as he could.
�Sir! Are you all right? Are you OK, sir?�
�Damn!� wheezed the cowboy. He was embedded upside down deep in a big
eucanthus bush and his eyes seemed to be revolving. ��All I wanted was
my stinking beef stew back�,� he mumbled.
�Fall, help me get him out of that,� said Billy.
�OK,� she said. Fall reached in, grabbed the man by his belt buckle,
pulled him clean out, and dropped him on the ground.
�Arrgg�!�
Billy propped him up. �Fall, go get some beef stew for the man. We got
any water?�
�There�s a stream a mile or so right over there, Billy. I hopped over it
bringing you here.�
�Scrape out a cantaloupe and bring this fella some water in it. And then
some beef.�
�Okey dokey, boss.� She back-flipped out of sight instantaneously.
The cowboy opened his eyes. He blinked them. He looked up at Billy. �I
think maybe we ought to do the introductions over,� he said to Billy.
�How you doing, sir, pleased to make your acquaintance, mighty pleased,�
said Billy. He reached out and shook the man�s hand. Unfortunately it
was the hand Belt had grabbed him by, and when Billy grabbed it, the man
howled in horror. �OoOOooo�!�
�Ooh, uh, sorry about that, sir -- .�
�You ain�t much of one for making a good first impression, are you, boy?�
�Well � well, maybe not -- but then strolling up pointing a gun at folks�
heads don�t make a good first impression neither, does it?�
The man frowned, and shrugged. �Maybe not.� He looked at Billy, sizing
him up, and held out his hand. His other hand. �Gabriel V. McCabe, of
Hooterville County.�
Billy shook it. �William Tecumsuh Truman, of Jacksonville.� He smiled.
�Billy Truman?�
�That�s me.�
�Israel Gilhooley says hello.�
�You seen Israel?�
�Seen him? I hefted that old buzzard onto the back of Edwina � that�s my
chevy, Edwina � just so�s he could get down to Red Hat and form a search
party to find you. He figured you�d done broke your leg in the hills or
something.�
�You were looking for me?�
�I been looking for you for all damn day, boy. Though if I�d had any
brains, I�d have just cooked up a bowl of beef somewheres and let you
follow your nose down to me.�
�Sorry about that, Mr. McCabe. That was all just an � er � accident.�
�Even badlands folk don�t let a fellow New Texan just die out here.
Specially not a young fella like yourself. Though to hear Gilhooley tell
it, I figured you was a nine-year-old on two crutches. I didn�t figure
it was you playing rock-a-bye with them two andys. Thought you was some
black market doll-thief.�
�Well, it�s me, all right. And I appreciate you coming to look for me,
Mr. McCabe. Really, I do.�
�Hell, you want to thank someone, you should thank my poor Edwina, having
to carry that old coot down to Red Hat � I can�t see how a prairie rat
like Gilhooley managed to wedge 300 pounds of fat into that evil old
carcass of his. His own chevy kicked his generous behind off and ran for
the hills first chance. -- Where you been these last two days, son?�
Billy didn�t know what to say. �I did get lost � and there was this,
this big explosion somewhere north-northwest -- .�
McCabe nodded. �Seen it. I figured it was one of them Plasma Cloud
storms a-breaking.�
�It wasn�t that, Mr McCabe. It was some government thing.�
McCabe�s face darkened. He sat up and rubbed the back of his neck.
�Frank Joy and them scum in New Washington up to something dirty again,
are they? My, my, my.�
�And then I met -- .� He gestured toward Belt with his thumb. She sat
staring into the fire.
�Where in hell did you get those andys, boy?� whispered McCabe. �I ain�t
seen Dolls like them anyplace ever! They�re like real people. Worse!�
�They were tied up out there. I � I think someone stuck them out there
to kill them.�
He rubbed his throbbing hand. �I wonder why!�
�Well, that one�s a trifle cranky -- .�
�A trifle?�
�But the other one�s sweeter than honey mince pie! They won�t hurt you.
Honest. They saved my life -- both of them.�
�Tell me, son,� began McCabe -- then he yelped. Fall bounded down out of
the sky right in front of them, holding a pink cantaloupe in her hands.
�Hi! Hi!� She smiled. She waved.
�How�d you do that?� said McCabe.
�Don�t be scared, Mr. McCabe,� said Billy. �Fall just jumps high. And I
mean real high.�
�G. V. McCabe ain�t afraid of nothing and nobody, boy! Nothing and
nobody!� said McCabe, sneaking a worried backward glance at Belt.
Fall opened the cantaloupe. The bottom half was hollowed out, and filled
with clear brook water. She held it out to McCabe.
He took it. �Uh -- Thanks,� he said, and took a sip. He smacked his
lips and took another. He smiled. �Thanks a whole lot.� He looked at
Fall closely for the first time, and smiled. �Say, you are a pretty
filly, ain�t you?�
�Yes I am. What�s a �filly�?�
�A filly�s what us Texan folk call a cute little marionette, like you.
Damn if you don�t get prettier the longer I look at you! You�re as cute
as your insane sister! -- And a hell of a lot more personable, I might
add� he said, in a loud voice directed at Belt. Belt growled.
�Am I pretty?� said Fall, looking into Billy�s eyes.
Billy felt his heart rate about double and his fingertips tingle. His
cheeks felt like desert sand.
�Miss Fall, I do believe you�re the prettiest thing in the world.
Prettier than Lulu even, God rest her.�
Fall touched her face. �Wheeeeeeee!� she said, turning and turning in
circles.
�Lulu?� said McCabe.
�My dead chevy,� said Billy.
McCabe nodded. �They do breed silver-tongued devils in Jacksonville,� he
said.
Belt�s head jerked up. She bounded from the spot she was sitting and
landed on Billy and McCabe in one soundless swoop. Her hand clamped
itself over McCabe�s mouth and Billy�s, and she looked at Fall and Fall
looked at her and stopped and froze.
� -- Bld -- ?� Billy half-mumbled through her fingers.
She gave him a look of pure desperate hate, and made a shushing motion
with her lips.
Billy sat there silently and in a minute or two there was a distant
silver whine in the air. Not an animal sound. Something radio-like.
The metallic signal waxed and grew, and Fall sank to the ground in a
crouch, and Belt, trembling, looked around with wild, almost mad, eyes.
Then it began to fade. And after it faded completely, they lay there
exactly as before for a good ten minutes.
Belt stood straight up. �They�re coming.� She looked at Billy. �We�ve
been here too long. You,� she said to McCabe. �Where�s this place you
call Red Hat?�
McCabe looked at the stars and the lay of the land. He pointed 16
degrees south by southeast. �Hundred forty, hundred fifty miles maybe.�
�Is there plasma there?�
�Plasma? Well, come to think of it, I suppose there is, yes.�
She turned to Billy. �Let�s go,� said Belt.
�Why? What for?� said Billy. �What�s going on? We ain�t going nowhere
till you tell me what all this is about!�
�There�s no time!�
�Well, we�ll going to make time.�
Belt swore under her breath. �Look: you want to see this �Gilhooley�?
You want shelter? You want a hot meal? It�s in Red Hat. You want
death? Stay right here.�
Billy considered. �Are you being straight and honest with me, ma�am?�
�Yes!�
�When we get to Red Hat, first thing we do is sit down and talk -- .�
�Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let�s *go!*�
Billy nodded.
Fall jumped on Billy at once, taking him up in her arms like a rag doll.
�Billy�s mine!�
Belt looked at McCabe, snorted, then turned to go.
�G.V. too, Belt. We can�t leave a man out here alone.�
�Why not?�
�We just can�t. It�s not right. Besides � we owe him for the beef.�
Belt ground her teeth with disgust. She frowned. She looked over at
McCabe. He hollered, scrambling away. She picked him up like Fall
picked Billy up. McCabe yelled and kicked and squirmed and swore.
�Don�t worry, Mr. McCabe, you can trust them,� said Billy. �Your chevy�s
at Red Hat, isn�t it? You want to get there, don�t you?�
�I want to get there in one piece!� said McCabe.
�They�ll get us there. Believe me. They can do it, they�re faster than
a greased hog ice-skating on a larded skillet, honest injun.�
McCabe looked up into Belt�s scowling face. �What about my damn saddle?�
Belt walked over to it and flicked it twenty feet up in the air with her
foot. It came down on Gabriel V. McCabe�s belly, knocking the air out
of him.
�Thanks. A. Lot,� he wheezed.
�Bye,� said Fall. She leaned backwards and seemed to fall but turned her
shoulders south-southeast and veered into the wind with Billy at eighty
miles an hour.
McCabe�s eyes goggled out of his head. He clutched his saddle tight. He
looked up into Belt�s utterly pitiless eyes.
He tried to smile. ��uh�heh�say, you�re prettier than a dead chevy too,
Miss Belt!� he said.
�Eat shit and die,� she replied.
She leaned backwards and suddenly veered and Belt and McCabe�s screaming
voice shot towards Red Hat, New Texas, like twin rockets.