Clockwork Fairy Tales: A Collection of Steampunk Fables (39 page)

Startled, Stovepipe took a step back.

“
She’s
not Greta,” the girl announced flatly. She continued to stare at Stovepipe, taking the measure of him.

Stovepipe turned back toward the one he had believed was Greta.

Well,
he thought,
she certainly looks like Greta
.
Same blond hair braided in pigtails, same face, same unforgettable eyes, same dress, same large and equally unforgettable bosom.

Continuing to stare, he admired her as she bent over to place a beer mug on a customer’s table. He felt a surge in his loins.

“Her name’s
Gerdie
,” the girl on the steps declared.

Stovepipe looked back at the younger one. He smiled as he removed his hat and bowed at her. “And what is
your
name, my dear?” he asked warmly.

The girl tried to maintain her dry and stony composure, but a smile crept up at the edges of her mouth. “I am Berta,” she replied.

“Pleased to meet you,” he answered. “I’m Stovepipe.” There was a metallic whirring of clockwork as he returned the derby to his head. A set of sand goggles with dense black India rubber rims emerged from the brim, swinging downward. The goggles surrounded his eyes and gave them an immense, fishlike appearance.

Berta laughed sweetly.

Flushing with embarrassment, Stovepipe reached up and
squeezed the side of the derby. The goggles retracted, folding up invisibly into its brim. “Danged mechanicals,” he muttered.

Grinning, the girl turned and beckoned for him to follow her inside. “Come,” she insisted, “you must meet our father.”

“Did you say
our
father?” he asked, suddenly baffled.

An explanation was soon forthcoming. Fritz Freiburg, father of three lovely blond daughters—the twins Greta and Gerdie, and their little sister, Berta—was the proud proprietor of the Old Bamberg. He was also its brewmaster, and he took great delight in producing the only locally brewed intoxicants available in the entire region. He ran the brewing as a two-person operation, assisted by his wife, Helga, an immense, muscular, pipe-smoking woman whom Stovepipe observed carrying barrels of ale on her shoulder that would have crushed most men flat.

Most important for Stovepipe’s purposes, Freiburg was also a veteran who proudly displayed his wartime flag over his tavern’s beer taps, Old Glory’s thirty-three white stars arranged in concentric circles on the blue union in its upper left corner. It was the flag under which Stovepipe himself had marched during the final years of the conflict. Freiburg still wore his old unit’s blue forage cap at all times, even indoors.

“Herr Montpelier,” said the brewer cheerfully, “you must zample
mein
beer!”

Stovepipe unslung his Winchester and leaned it against the bar. He parked his butt on a padded bar stool and hitched a boot heel over each of its cross-rails. “So, tell me about your beer,” he said.

“I brew three styles. Two of them are
Altbiers
, vich I produce in the cellar beneath zee tavern. Zee other is
mein
Lagerbier
, vich must age and mature in zee cold, so I haff zee woodchoppers to guard zee barrels in a cave on the mountainside, at their camp.”

“I’d like to try all three,” said Stovepipe eagerly.

Freiburg frowned. “So sorry,
mein
friend, but vee haff only two available at ziss moment. I haff only one large brew kettle—zee metal I cannot get here—
und
New Hamelin is a very thirsty town. Perhaps on your next visit….”

Stovepipe shrugged. “Well, let me have your best.”

It was the most interesting—and most delicious—beer Stovepipe had ever tasted, a hearty ale with a strong smoky flavor. Freiburg explained that, for want of enough metal kettles, he had to brew in wooden barrels. Unable to boil the mix of ingredients over a fire because the wood would burn, he used an old Bavarian trick of heating large stones until they were glowing red and then dropping them into the barrel with iron tongs. The Pecos provided just the right stones, smooth and clean. This odd process produced excellent ale with pleasant flavors of caramel, minerals, and smoke.

Stovepipe was drinking his third mug of the fine brew when it occurred to him to ask how Freiburg kept his grains safe from the town’s ravenous rats.

Freiburg smiled. “Berta,” he called, “please to show Herr Montpelier our champion rat catcher.”

“Yes, Papa.” The young girl vanished down the cellar stairs. She returned a few moments later, carrying a large black cat that had white fur on its underside and paws. “This is Sofia,” she said, holding the well-fed animal up for Stovepipe’s inspection.

He stroked the cat, delighted by the unexpected softness of its coat.

Freiburg leaned down beside him to pet the animal. As the older man inclined his head forward, the Union army cap started to slip from his head. He reached up and adjusted it, pulling it down tightly against the backs of his ears, but not before Stovepipe had glimpsed evidence of a hideous wound. The brewer glanced back at him, realizing Stovepipe had noticed.

There was an awkward silence.

Stovepipe politely turned his attention back to his beer, but Freiburg felt a need to explain.

“I vuss scalped,” he said bluntly.

“Scalped—but you survived. When did…I mean, who
was—”

“It vuss zee Comanche raider, zee one called Crooked Scar.”

“I know him,” Stovepipe said grimly. “A week ago I was
tracking Crooked Scar when three of his raiders doubled back and surprised me. I took down two of them with my rifle before it jammed. Barely escaped the third.”

Freiburg’s eyes widened. “You hunt zee Crooked Scar?”

“That’s what brought me to this territory.”

Freiburg’s eyes widened and he licked his lips. He raised one hand absentmindedly to the edge of the scar. “Your rifle,” he declared, “it must be repaired!”

I
t was near dawn the next day when Stovepipe set out on his horse for the woodcutters’ camp with a sealed letter from Freiburg tucked safely into the interior pocket of his ankle-length slicker. Kauffman had roused him at the appointed hour, knocking at his hotel room door to deliver a small ceramic pot of steaming-hot coffee, accompanied by a serving of beef and bread rolls.

Dressed and properly fed, Stovepipe had passed quietly through the kitchen and dining areas, puzzled that there was no sign of Greta or the other women. He slipped out into the cold, dark street, where the Steampiper’s massive black bulk was framed against the setting moon.

Stovepipe found Thursday saddled and ready when he reached the livery stable. Schell had even rigged up the custom saddle extension and carefully lashed Stovepipe’s precious diving gear to it, although he couldn’t imagine why he’d need it. He slung the Winchester over his shoulder and carefully tucked a pair of clockwork grenades, the last of the dozen he had brought west on his travels, into the side pockets of his coat. Freiburg had insisted that Stovepipe travel armed. The brewer had even offered his own double-barreled shotgun, until a whispered aside from Berta convinced him otherwise, at which point Stovepipe assured Freiburg the extra firearm was unnecessary.

The horse was well rested, sprinting toward the distant mountain range as soon as Stovepipe applied his sparking spurs to her flanks. It was going to be a long ride, though, so he reined the animal in, slowing her to a pleasant trot. It felt good to be
settled back into his smooth, well-worn black saddle, and to feel the mare’s rocking motion beneath.

Stovepipe had not slept well. The town fathers’ beer-fueled negotiations with Crossley, whom they were now calling “the Piper” or “the Pied Piper” because of Crossley’s wildly colorful clothing, had extended from the previous afternoon into late evening. Their talks had moved from the hotel dining room over to Freiburg’s beer garden and then back again, growing louder at each phase. The evening had ended with Crossley performing a brief concert in the center of town, playing J. S. Bach on the gigantic pipe organ atop the rear of his ironclad. Stovepipe recognized the Piper’s tune as “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor” and found it no more conducive to proper sleep than the drunken haggling that preceded it. He presumed that New Hamelin’s Council of Elders had eventually reached an agreeable price for the Pied Piper’s service.

Either that or they had all passed out.

The sound of the pipe organ wrenched him from his morning reverie. He turned and looked back toward town, visible only as an irregular black silhouette on the starlit plain, its few early-morning lanterns hidden by swirling, drifting fog. The Piper was clearly preparing the instrument for its assigned duty, verifying that each reed was in proper tune.

Does the little man never sleep?
Stovepipe wondered.

He was certain the beer had been flowing well past midnight, yet there Crossley was, up before the sun and at work on his strange machine.

Stovepipe turned toward the trail ahead and kept riding. He had been disappointed to learn that New Hamelin lacked a proper bathhouse. After another sweaty night wrapped tightly in a woolen shoddy, he felt grimy and wanted to scrub with hot water and strong soap. However, he was told that Herr Kauffmann’s elaborate plans for an in-town bathing facility had been stalled for lack of enough metal pipe, as well as for any efficient means of heating the necessary quantities of water.

Local custom was to bathe away from town, at a distant bend of the Pecos.

Half an hour passed as Thursday bore him along the wide, desolate trail which led out of the town and toward the mountains. The sand was deeply rutted from the tracks of many heavy wagons, but he met no other travelers. For several miles this route roughly paralleled the river, from which great curls of morning mist drifted.

Eventually he reached a crossroads, marked by a simple sign pointing one way back toward New Hamelin and the other way toward Lost Draw, the only alternative being a side trail to the woodcutters’ camp. This was indicated by an arrow-shaped board into which had been burned the image of an axe. Stovepipe reined Thursday to a stop and considered the options.

What I need most right now is a bath,
he decided.

He touched one spur gently to the mare’s flank and rode her up the trail a ways, reining her to a stop at a point where a small horseshoe-shaped bend created a shallow private cove. Here he dismounted and then disrobed, folding his garments in a neat pile and laying the Winchester atop them. He fetched a brush from his saddlebags and ventured tentatively into the water, wincing at its unexpectedly strong chill.

When his body finally acclimated to the cold, he submerged himself up to his chin and used the brush to scrub his body thoroughly. When this was complete, he tossed the brush ashore and let himself drift out toward center stream, enjoying the sense of near-weightlessness.

He was swimming slowly back when he thought he saw a flash of white from somewhere upriver, at the bend, and heard what was unmistakably laughter—
women’s
laughter. Curious, Stovepipe swam back and turned upstream, dog-paddling slowly and quietly with his limbs concealed below the surface, so that only his head was exposed. Reaching the bend, he was amused to observe a most pleasant sight.

The ladies of New Hamelin had come here to bathe.

Under the watchful chaperoning of Helga Freiburg, approximately a dozen younger women—including Greta, Gerdie, and Berta—were splashing in the shallows. Many of them wore loose-fitting white bathing gowns, but Stovepipe noticed with pleasure that the three Freiburg girls apparently had no need for such modesty and had taken to the water, like himself, devoid of clothing. Their discarded dresses and petticoats littered the shoreline, some draped from the sides and the wheels of the ox-drawn wagon upon which the massive Frau Freiburg was perched. Squinting, the big woman scanned the horizon. A small corncob pipe protruded from her clenched lips, trailing fragrant smoke.

Stovepipe took careful note of the double-barreled shotgun lying across the big woman’s lap, recognizing it as the weapon Herr Freiburg had intended to lend him yesterday. He had no doubt the pipe-smoking mother of three knew how to use it and that she would not hesitate to open fire on any predators, two-legged or four. He considered swimming back and putting on his submarine suit but knew that, were he to be discovered peeping from the deep water, its waxed canvas certainly would not withstand a volley of Frau Freiburg’s buckshot.

A challenge Stovepipe set for himself was to devise some method of distinguishing the identical twins, Greta and Gerdie, apart from each other. After careful observation he discovered a charming secret. Although the twins’ voluptuous bodies had identical shapes, Greta’s skin was unblemished in any way. Gerdie, however, sported a small red-brown birthmark on her right breast.

Stovepipe doubted he would find much practical use for this knowledge, but knew his thoughts would turn back to its pleasant image many times in the future, as he hovered at the edge of sleep during lonely nights on the trail.