Skippy’s Worldby Frederick D. Rustam |
Table of Contents |
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| Part 5: The Opportunistic Bodyguard | |
The Mound
Tall grass waved in the breeze like the surface of a green ocean. A tired and sweaty Skippy stopped and stared into the long and level distance.
“What’s that lone hill doing out here on this pancake plain?” he asked himself.
The long horizon was broken by an artificial-looking mound covered with short, thick grass, a contrast to the prairie grass he was slogging through.
He put on his spectacles, the tortoise-shell ones he avoided wearing because they made him look like a tenderfoot. His view of the world sharpened. Now he could see a thin pole rising from the mound and guyed against the wind. A radio antenna, maybe. He returned his spectacles to their case and turned southwest. That hill means civilization. I hope it’s the right kind.
* * *
Skippy walked up the mound’s long backslope. At its crest, he cautiously dropped to the grass and crept forward for a look-see.
The southern side of the mound was vertical. Its east and west sides curled forward like a crescent sand dune. Within these horns was a lawn, where a saddled horse was cropping the grass. Beyond the lawn stretched a big vegetable and flower garden. At the garden’s south end were a lot of tall plants with thin, serrated leaves. Mary Jane. Skippy knew the herbs which dulled hunger pangs and relieved anxiety.
Also on the lawn, tied down and wheels chocked, was a Piper Super Cub. While he was admiring the plane, a door opened below him. Into his field of vision came a man whose arms were tied behind his back. He was being pushed forward by... a bandit! Skippy drew his pistol and clenched his jaws. The bandit had a holstered sidearm.
Here I am, rescuing somebody again. I ought to start a business: “J. P. Melan Protective Services, LLC.” Skippy leaped to his feet and aimed at the bandit with both hands. “Freeze!”
The bandit whirled and looked up at Skippy. His gun hand held a knife at the throat of his victim. He began an awkward, left-hand gun draw across his belly.
“You’ll be dead before you get it out! Get your hands up and keep ’em up!”
The guy hesitated.
BAM! Skippy sacrificed a precious cartridge. Its projectile slammed into the green turf next to the bandit’s boot. “Drop the knife!”
The bandit squinted at the stranger’s shiny badge and concluded that he was a lawman. He dropped his knife and slowly raised his hands.
Skippy yelled at the victim, “You! Get his gun!” The man moved quickly. With his arms still tied behind his back, he managed to pull the bandit’s revolver from its holster and hang on to it. “Now, move away from him!”
“Where did you come from, kid?!” asked the deprived bandit, sourly.
“From the hell you bastards made,” replied Skippy, calmly. “And the hell I’ll send you to if you try anything funny.”
Prairie Home Companion
The green mound covered all but the face of a curved concrete house with tall windows. “I’m Stephen, and this is my wife, Maud. Welcome to Crescent House.”
“Skippy Melanowicz. Who’s the bad guy?” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the glowering bandit he and Stephen had tied uncomfortably to one of the Super Cub’s wing struts.
“He’s just some lone wolf who spotted our house and figured on making it his. His former nag’s munching our carefully-tended fescue.”
“That’s my horse you’re talkin’ about!” shouted the bandit.
“Shut up!” replied Skippy. He had plans for the thug’s disposal — plans he decided not to mention. Soon, the guy wouldn’t need a horse.
Stephen and Maud were two elderly, retired Kansans who’d survived the nukes and their aftermath because they lived out here on the empty prairie, far from any town. Maud wore a tartan headscarf over her gray hair and a pioneer woman’s long skirt. Her tanned, white-haired husband wore a flannel shirt and overalls. They looked like classic farmers instead of the genteel organic gardeners they actually were.
Stephen and Skippy sat at a picnic table while Maud fetched sandwiches, salad, and beer. The bandit was hungry too, but he knew better than to demand food.
“I trade produce from our garden in Bartertown or Topeka for other stuff we need,” explained Stephen. “The plane’s nice to have, but it uses too much expensive fuel.”
“Well, you’ve got a horse, now. Trade for a wagon and you’ll have wheels. I’m heading to Bartertown. Dat’s where my foocha lies,” asserted Skippy, his mouth full of sandwich.
Stephen’s expression told Skippy what he thought of somebody who viewed Bartertown as a bastion of hope. “You might find opportunity there,” he opined diplomatically.
Skippy waved his sandwich westward. “Could you fly me there on your next trading trip? I’ve never flown before.”
“I don’t mind flying you, but I’m short of fuel. I don’t have enough to get to Bartertown.” He noted Skippy’s disappointment. “But I can fly you to the railroad, and you can hitch a ride there.”
“On a train?”
“There aren’t any real trains, anymore. But Bartertown runs doodlebugs to Topeka and the Kansas Cities.”
“Doodlebugs?”
“You know, those little track-inspection motorcars with gasoline engines. They tow freight and passenger trailers. They’re a lot easier on the poorly-maintained rails than locomotives would be.”
“I’ve never ridden on a train, either.”
Trash Disposal
The slipstream whistled across the Super Cub’s open door. Skippy closed it and sat back in his seat behind the pilot. Over the drone of the engine, Stephen said, “Don’t tell Maud we cut that bandit loose and dropped him. She talks tough, but she’s still a lady. She wouldn’t approve of what we did. I’ll tell her I left him at the railroad with you.”
“What will that guy’s corpse lying in the grass tell his ilk?”
“By the time he’s found, there’ll be nothing left but bones. He’s probably already been spotted by buzzards.”
Skippy recalled a joke he’d heard in a movie. “Somebody Back East will wonder, ‘Why don’t he write?’”
Stephen laughed. “Our bandit probably couldn’t write. Literacy isn’t what it used to be before the war... The railroad’s just ahead, now.” He began his descent.
The Little Train That Could
Skippy put an ear to a rusty rail. Even in the quiet of the empty prairie, he couldn’t hear an approaching train. The gentle drone of Stephen’s Super Cub had faded. He was again alone on the plain. He lay down in the grass near the westbound track, rested his head on his backpack, and pulled the bill of his cap down over his face.
The backpack was bulging with fresh spring produce, a gift from Maud. It also contained a more valuable gift: a bag of Mary Jane he could sell in Bartertown, where there was a big demand for it.
Maud told Skippy that the town authorities didn’t allow it to be grown inside the town limits because they didn’t want dope wars undermining public safety. Dope was a lucrative municipal monopoly in Bartertown. As with alcohol, gambling, and prostitution, the town’s profit from municipal commerce was in lieu of hard-to-collect taxes.
He’d almost fallen asleep when he heard the put-put sound of a doodlebug. He jumped up to hail it. Two white flags attached to its cab proclaimed a special run. Skippy waved his arms wildly as the doodlebug and its trailer drew near. But it was his shiny Chicken Inspector badge that impelled the engineer to stop his yellow vehicle, its brakepads shrieking against the wheel rims. As it passed him, he noted the words painted on it in Railroad Standard typeface: “Prairie Junction and Kansas Cities RR.”
Skippy was mesmerized by the sight of the little train, but a blast of its airhorn, and the engineer leaning out his side window and waving him on, sent the Chicken Inspector racing down the track. “Yeehaw!” he yelled, in triumph. He’d made a bet with himself that he probably couldn’t stop a Bartertown-bound train. He reached the doodlebug to find an engineer dressed in old-style railroad garb, complete with a red bandana and a blue, pin-striped cap.
“Shake a leg, officer. Time’s a-wastin’.”
Skippy hopped into the front seat beside the engineer. As he did so, his attention was immediately drawn to the attractive woman in the rear seat. She was dressed and groomed as a person of importance. Her cool green eyes stared down her raised nose at him. But Skippy knew body language, and he could tell that, despite her hauteur, she was apprehensive about the stranger who’d waved down her train.
“Thanks,” he said to the engineer. “When I saw you were highballing, I figured you wouldn’t stop for me.”
The engineer shoved the throttle lever forward, and the car’s wheels spun on their rails before gripping them. “Why not? You’re one of the Governor’s security guys, ain’t ye?” He squinted at Skippy’s badge. “Uh-oh... ‘Chicken Inspector?’”
“The badge is a joke, but I’m no bandito. I’m just an ambitious kid headed for Bartertown. That’s your destination, isn’t it?”
The engineer relaxed. “Sure is. You’re on the right run. Welcome aboard. We can use a gunslinger, now. We lost the one we had.”
Skippy sneaked another look at the pretty passenger behind him.
“That’s Celia Cadwalader, from the Kansas Cities.” The trainman paused for reaction from Skippy. A puzzled look prompted him to add, “Boss Cadwalader’s daughter.”
“One of them,” she corrected in a pleasant contralto.
“Right. One of ’em. I’m takin’ her to Bartertown. She’s a gift from the Governor of KC to the Governor of Prairie Junction. She’s marryin’ him next week. Let’s see... she’ll be his sixth wife, I reckon.”
“Seventh,” she purred. “Thanks for reminding me.”
“You’ve heard of Boss Cad, haven’t you?” the engineer inquired of his new passenger. “Why, his gunboats control the whole lower Missourah River.”
“I’ve been avoiding urban areas,” replied Skippy. He turned and introduced himself. “I’m J. P. Melanowicz, Jr., from Pennsylvania. Glad to meet you, ma’m.” He offered her his hand. She awarded his effrontery a slight smile but kept her arms in her lap. She was royalty, and she knew it. She had the whole three-man rear seat for herself and her cosmetics box.
Skippy returned his gaze to the windshield. “I’m a person of no great importance,” he mumbled.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Whatever. In Bartertown, you’ll get your fifteen minutes of fame — whether you want it or not.”
The engineer chuckled at her remark without taking his eyes off the track ahead. “That’s a fact.”
Skippy addressed the engineer’s previous remark. “You said you need another gun because you lost one?”
“Yup. Miss Celia’s bodyguard got potted back down the line a ways.”
“How?”
“He was ridin’ on the trailer when he saw some Jayhawker vigilantes near the track and made the mistake of pointin’ his AK-47 at ’em. That got ’em riled, and they opened up on him. He fell off, and we left him there... City fellers,” he spat. “They got no idee what it’s like out here. Almost got Miss Celia kilt.”
“Jayhawkers?”
“Bartertown don’t have enough lawmen to patrol the outlands, so they pay vigilante militiamen to look for bandits. They don’t want no big gang gatherin’ in somebody’s barn for a raid on the town. You know, like Bill Quantrill raided Lawrence in the Civil War.”
“Do the Jayhawkers wear red leggings?”
“Sure do. How’d you know that, stranger?”
“Just a guess.” Skippy had read a book about the Missouri and Kansas guerilla troubles during Civil War. He glanced at the passenger. “Sorry you lost your bodyguard, ma’m.”
She looked out the side window and replied, coolly, “No problem. I have a new one, now.”
“Who?... You mean me?”
She gave him her it’s-all-you-deserve smile, and replied, “You’re armed, aren’t you?”
Skippy glanced at the smirking engineer. “Well, I ...uh...”
“Or would you rather I told His Excellency that we were waved-down by a Chicken Inspector?”
“No, ma’m.” He put his badge into his shirt pocket next to another souvenir, a faded snapshot of his old home in suburban Colonial Park. The engineer cackled and tooted the doodlebug’s horn. “I could use a good job, but maybe we’d better say your father put me on the train with you at KC. It’d make things a lot easier for me.”
“Fine.”
The engineer snorted. “So you’re Boss Cad’s gun now, are ye?”
“If you please, Mister...?”
“Jones — call me ‘Casey.’ Hell, son, it’s no skin off my nose. If you want to guard the lady, that’s okay by me.”
“Thanks, Casey,” he smirked. “It’s sure okay by me.”
“Don’t get carried away, Melanowitz,” advised Celia in her aristocratic voice. “I’m the Big Man’s goods.”
Skippy was used to hearing his surname garbled, but he enjoyed hearing the lovely Celia reach that stage in their relationship.
Bartertown!
Prairie Junction, Kansas got its name because it was founded at a junction of two main rail lines. A large rail yard was built there to sort freight cars. In its heyday, many of the townspeople worked for the railroad. The war’s aftermath made it an even more important town but no longer the comfortable abode of hard-working railroad men.
“Wow. Bartertown. I’m here at last,” burbled Skippy. “It looks great.”
He said this despite the ramshackle buildings, potholed streets, and disreputable-looking people who came increasingly into view. The “Yards” was a ghost of its former techno-splendor. Its neglected tracks still sprawled there. Old passenger and freight cars were parked on them, and they were crammed with n’er-do-wells.
The town’s passenger station was now a honkytonk and brothel, a mecca for desperate women and their rowdy customers. The nearby freight depot looked like a warehouse of last resort with its sagging roof and surrounding piles of junk.
The engineer slowed his train to avoid the embarrassing derailment which might occur if he kept up speed on the deteriorated rails. He smiled at Skippy’s enthusiasm. Celia frowned. As ruined as suburban KC was these days, she felt that it looked better than this place. She yearned for the big old house in Blue Springs, where she’d spent her childhood years.
“People say, “Prairie Junction went to Hell and came back as Bartertown,” joked the engineer. This nicely expressed a fact of life. But despite its appearance, the town was a vibrant, non-radioactive centropolis which attracted more than its share of ambitious, resourceful men and women. Many of these degenerated to the lowest common denominator, but some made their fortunes or just found a good enough livelihood.
Skippy hadn’t planned to make a living as a bodyguard. At the beginning of his journey, becoming a trusted gunman was beyond his conception. “Where’s the Governor’s Palace?” he asked.
From the rear seat, came a strangled, “‘Palace’? That dump?”
“You had to ask,” seconded the engineer. His train clattered across the track switches toward the freight depot, where the high-and-mighty Governor of Bartertown awaited his new bride. The Roundhouse, as the former passenger depot was now known, was considered an inappropriate place for welcoming Boss Cadwalader’s daughter. The freight depot was in worse shape, but at least it didn’t feature whores and their drunken johns.
“That there’s the Palace.” The trainman nodded toward the town’s tallest building, a sooty, red-brick structure. Over its Main Street entrance, a faded sign still proclaimed it to be “The Plains Hotel. Fine Accommodations For Ladies and Gentlemen.” The Palace loomed six stories above the surrounding stores and boardinghouses.
“One story for each of his wives,” remarked Skippy, dryly. “One of ’em will have to live in the basement now.” Celia reached forward and smacked his head. “It better not be me!” She glared out the windshield at her new home and pursed her lips in annoyance. “I hope they install me on the top floor, well above the horse manure.”
Skippy rubbed his head and took a quiet, realistic view. She’ll probably be put where Wife No. 1 wants her put. He was incorrect.
The train moved onto the main freight track. On the depot’s loading platform was a collection of well-dressed citizens, the Civic Reception Committee. One of them, a tall man, stood before the crowd in his frock coat and topper, looking like Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg.
Behind the Governor were his Cabinet members, their women, and enough armed guards to repel an invasion of the old James-Younger Gang. None of the Governor’s other wives was present, though. They hung out the windows of the Palace to get a distant view of their husband’s latest gift and devised ways to lord it over the newby.
“Better get yerself together, Miss,” the engineer advised as he delicately applied his brakes to minimize the usual shrieking. “It’s party time.”
“You’re a scream, Casey Jones,” commented Number Seven.
“I never figured I’d arrive in Bartertown this way,” said Skippy. He prepared himself to step from the car as an almost-important bodyguard and slighty-honored guest.
“Neither did I,” agreed Celia, ruefully. “Can we turn around and head back to KC? I’ve changed my mind.”
The two men whipped their heads around in shock.
“Just kidding.”
Copyright © 2010 by Frederick D. Rustam
