Shadows of the New Sun: Stories in Honor of Gene Wolfe (22 page)

AARON ALLSTON

On Gene Wolfe:
I first met Gene at the New Orleans Science Fiction and Fantasy Festival (NOSF3) in the early 1990s. I was a program participant at the convention and had a total of two or three novels in print at the time.

I sat on a panel with several other writers with similarly short pedigrees, and just before the panel was to begin, a middle-aged man in the audience asked a question. “Do you mind if I come up there and join you? If I speak on a panel, I can write this trip off on my taxes.” Seeing the blank expressions on all the panelists’ faces, he added, “I’m Gene Wolfe.”

Well, yes. If we could have levitated him up to the panel table, we would have. I have no recollection of what the panel was about, but I do remember that Gene was gracious, humorous, very well spoken . . . and tremendously nice to a collection of newbie writers who hadn’t recognized him.

I didn’t see him again until a Texas Book Fair several years later. The year 2000 marked the first time the TBF made an effort to recognize the genre of science fiction, and Gene, Elizabeth Moon, and I were among the guests. Again, Gene was erudite and gracious, as welcoming to fans and aspiring writers as he was to colleagues.

And, sadly, those are my only two protracted direct encounters with Gene. They’ve been just enough to answer something I’m curious about with every writer. Some writers are good at their craft, others indifferent or bad. Some writers are rotten human beings, or average, or fine folk. And there’s often no correspondence between being good as a person and good as a writer or bad as both. I’m delighted to say that Gene deserves every accolade he’s received as a fine writer and a great guy.

A
pril 14, 1891

From Thaddeus Hobart, Salt Creek, Republic of Texas 

To Chester Lamb, Chicago, Illinois, United States

Dear Chet:

By the time you read these words I will be dead and in Hell.

I don’t begrudge my place in Hell. I earned it fair and square, and I’ll be in fine company. But as for being dead, I will confess to being resentful of my fate.

I came to Salt Creek to do some gambling. There are no warrants out for me in the Republic, and this is the kind of town where cattlemen find themselves anxious for a last night or two of diversion before driving their livestock across the Red River and into Indian Territory. It is also a place where the Frenchies, soldiers and inspectors who come across the river to enjoy the entertainments their fort does not provide, are as willing to part with their Louisiana francs as the locals are to lose their Texas dollars.

Three nights ago, in a saloon named Bust, I joined a poker game with four cattlemen and a Spaniard named Rey. From his French manners and dress, this Rey showed himself to be a sissy. He had two ladies who were his companions, Frenchwomen, and one was with him that night. Rey had a poker face and a poker mind, and unlike the cattlemen he did not drink a drop. He and I cleaned the cattlemen out, and then I cleaned Rey out.

He did not take kindly to losing. He stared at me with eyes like they belonged on an alligator, and then he and his lady left without saying another word.

I did not know then that he began asking questions about me that very night. I learned soon enough that he had found out about the bounties on my head, including the big dead-or- alive bounty from Kansas. I decided then to leave town, only to find that I was being watched and followed. It was not rummies working for drinks or farm boys anxious for a little fame keeping their eye on me. Money was not Rey’s concern, and he had hired French soldiers, riflemen made hard in their battles with the Indians, to keep me in town. I can’t ride to the edge of Salt Creek without having a rifle pointed at me by a damned Frenchman, and the town marshal has no interest in offering me aid on account of my reputation.

I don’t know what Rey has in store for me. I’m not the shot I was when I knew you, and I don’t think I’m in for a fair fight anyway.

So I’m asking you—no, let me be truthful. The promise you made to me back in ’76, I’m holding you to that. If you find that I have met my end through treachery, I call on you to avenge me, so that as I sit among my fellows in Hell’s halls I will be content in the knowledge that Rey will soon join me.

You know I am not a man of letters. I have been helped with the writing of this note by Cletus Simmons, a farmer hereabouts. If I do not write again, you will know that I am dead. When you come to Salt Creek, enquire of Cletus Simmons concerning my fate and he will set you on the right trail.

I think I will not see you again.

Your friend,

Thaddeus

June 1, 1891

From Chester Lamb, Salt Creek, Republic of Texas 

To Morris Levitt, Chicago, Illinois, United States

Dear Morris:

In the event that my previous letters have not all reached you yet, I will summarize my travels reported in that correspondence. After receiving your telegram and its terse explanation of Thaddeus’s letter, I did depart New Orleans in haste. I traveled by boat to Houston. From there I secured passage by coach to San Antonio, then northward as far as Dallas, a journey of some days. It was from Dallas that I dispatched my last letter to you. I also confirmed, by telegram, that there was still no sign of Thaddeus in Salt Creek.

No stagecoach service exists from Dallas to Salt Creek, so I secured a horse and a mule. The horse, a palomino, which is, I confess, a bit of a nag, is named Becky and is of good disposition. The mule is neither a Becky nor a gentle soul.

I traveled the route of the Chisholm cattle trail northeast toward my destination. I had no company at first. This proved a blessing as it allowed me to issue complaints, sometimes in the most profane terms, as my backside, out of practice with the saddle, ached abominably.

My appreciation for solitude ebbed as I neared the Red River, however, since that waterway marks the boundary between the Republic of Texas and Indian Territory. The Indians settled on this side of the river, chiefly Cherokee, are considered allies of Texas, and those on the other side enemies of the French. So there is fair safety for English speakers in these parts, but young bucks on a cattle raid can make any encounter a dangerous one.

To my relief, though, two days out from Salt Creek, I overtook a longhorn cattle herd, that belonging to a Mr. Danton of San Antonio. His son, Young Mr. Danton, was trail boss. His cowboys were moving about two thousand head, and he was congenial. I contrived to ride with his crew for the sake of safety. The territory, lightly settled, alternated between grasslands good for grazing and piney woods around which we navigated, and we did not once encounter a band of rustlers or marauders of any stripe. Only the summer heat, growing daily, contributed to misery.

We were one day out from Salt Creek when two more riders bound for the same destination overtook us and elected to ride with us.

One was a younger man, perhaps one or two years past twenty, lean and hardy-looking as rope. He had an affable smile, yet he dressed in black from his crisp cowboy hat to his boots, and he wore a two-pistol rig about his waist. I took all these affectations as signs pointing toward a career, or at least ambitions, as a gunman. He rode a chestnut stallion with lovely lines and a large white spot shaped like a diamond on his chest, but the man had no relief horse.

The other man was forty or older, my age at least, a leathery mestizo with drooping mustachios. His features and eyes gave away no indication of what he might be thinking. He was dressed in less ostentatious garments than his companion; his duster coat, shirt, trousers, chaps all in varying shades of tan or brown, and his accoutrements, including cowboy hat, gun belt, and boots were all worn but well maintained. His gun belt carried only a single holster, on his left hip, and he had a fringed buckskin sheath for his carbine tied off to his saddle. He rode a compact gray mare, heavily spotted along its haunches, and its near twin trotted along in docile fashion a short distance behind, requiring no lead rope.

Over time, this villainous-looking pair chose to gravitate toward me. They drew abreast of me, the younger man to my left and the older to my right.

The younger man was the first to speak. “Headed up to Salt Creek, are you?”

I nodded. “I am.”

“What’s your name?”

“Lamb. Chester Lamb of Chicago.”

Our conversation was delayed for several moments as he laughed. His merriment engaged his whole body and he was forced to wipe tears from his eyes. “Lamb?”

“That is my name.” I was well used to his sort of humor.

“Well, I suspect you’re a right tough hombre, then, because you must have been set on all your life by folks amused by your name.”

I gave him a companionable nod but did not elaborate. “What’s your name?”

“I am the Baghdad Kid.”

Now it was my turn to laugh, but I did a much more manful job of suppressing the urge. “You’re not claiming to be from Mesopotamia, I trust.”

His expression became one of scorn. “Naw, not that Baghdad. Baghdad, Republic of Texas. Down Austin way. I’m the most famous man ever to come out of Baghdad.”

“I am happy to acknowledge the truth of that.” I turned to the other rider and found him staring intently at me.

He spoke before I could. “You are the Chester Lamb who wrote accounts of the Kaiser’s War against France?” He spoke with only the slightest trace of a Spanish accent.

“Yes. I returned home less than a year ago.”

“I enjoyed your dispatches.” He urged his horse nearer, leaned my way, and extended a hand for me to shake. “Luis Vasquez of Laredo.”

Morris, there might be an infinite number of Luis Vasquezes from Laredo, but there is only one with any reputation of consequence, which prompted my return question as I shook his hand: “Captain Vasquez of the Texas Rangers?”

He shrugged. “I am no longer with the Rangers.”

As dangerous as the Baghdad Kid might believe himself to be, Vasquez was more so in actuality. It was a testament to his skill that after so many years of his violent way of life, he still possessed the majority of his own teeth.

He pressed on, “Why do you come to Salt Creek? It is not a town for news.”

I took a moment to compose my reply. “I’m not here on assignment. I took leave from covering the centennial celebration of the end of the French Civil War to come here. I’ve come to enquire after an old friend. He sent me a letter suggesting his life might be in danger.”

Vasquez looked past me at the Kid. I found him staring back at Vasquez, his expression startled.

Then the Kid fastened his attention back on me. “You don’t mean Thad Hobart.”

“I do.”

“I’ll be damned. How do you know him?”

“I owe him a debt. I met him on the occasion of my first visit to the Republic, fifteen years ago. I had written an account of murders a gunman named Dexter Trout had committed. Trout sought me out and found me on the streets of Fort Worth. I am not a proficient pistol duelist, but fortunately for me, Thad shot Trout. Thad’s intent was not entirely altruistic, for there had been bad blood between them, but I swore to repay him if need ever arose.”

The Kid nodded. “He’s my uncle.”

“So you’re a Hobart?”

“Naw, I’m a Pfluger. Henry Pfluger. But my ma was a Hobart before she married my pa.”

I turned to Vasquez to see if he would grace me with an explanation of his relationship to Thaddeus, but he merely stared at me with his emotionless, earth-colored eyes and said nothing.

So Thad had written each of us, and perhaps more individuals besides, to call in markers. I wondered how many of us it would take to avenge him.

[Omitted.]

Morris, Salt Creek is a cow town whose sole geo graphical feature of merit is a broad fordable spot in the Red River. Picture a thick cluster of wooden buildings, the oldest of them built forty years ago, spreading southward from the river, with beaten-earth streets for livestock and wagons, wooden sidewalks for men and women. Those buildings that are not homes for the town’s citizens are chiefly businesses catering to the tastes of cowmen and soldiers: bars and gambling halls, hotels and barber shops, houses of ill repute, shops and dining establishments, bathhouses and stables. There is a telegraph office but no newspaper, a school but no library. Surrounding the town are broad pastures where the cattle may be rested and grazed before crossing into Indian Territory, and beyond them are outlying farms.

At first, it seems to be an unremarkable town, but it is actually a place of some tension.

The river is the border between the Republic of Texas and the French-controlled Indian Territory. Though technically a part of the vast Province of Louisiana, the Territory is a lightly settled and lawless place, most of its occupants being red men driven out of the United States after enactment of the Indian Expulsion Act of the 1830s. Possessing no affection for the Americans or the French, the Indians get along tolerably well with the Texans and do not visit much violence on this side of the border or against cowmen driving their herds up to the Kansas railheads. But the presence of that uncontrolled population does mean occasional danger for the townsfolk.