Skippy’s Worldby Frederick D. Rustam |
Table of Contents |
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| Part 6: Bartertown | |
Ye Olde Dope Shoppe
“This is good stuff, Mr. Melavitch. I’m guessin’ you got it somewheres east o’ here.”
Skippy grunted but declined to name the source of his Mary Jane. He counted his payment in Bartertown scrip, a locally printed currency that was accepted only in the town and its rural environs.
Bartertown’s official dope emporium was the only legal place to buy or trade for weed. Those caught illegally selling were arrested, and they were never heard from again. Dope was one of several municipal monopolies: alcohol, tobacco, firearms, firewood, coal, and fuel oil — as well as water, electric power, and telephone and satellite Internet service.
“You’d be the bodyguard for the Guv’ner’s new wife, I reckon.” The dope clerk thought Skippy a mite small for such a role, but taking notice of his shiny new Deputy badge and his holstered pistol, he wisely kept that thought to himself. Little guys with guns were more dangerous than big guys without them.
“I am.”
“Number Seven’s the only wife to have her own bodyguard. Don’t Boss Cad trust Bartertown to take good care of his daughter?”
“Boss Cad doesn’t trust anybody,” guessed Skippy.
He’d never actually been in the Kansas Cities, much less met Boss Cadwalader. He’d met the Boss’s daughter on a doodlebug train to Bartertown, and he’d been hired as her bodyguard, a replacement for the one who’d been shot off the train by some trigger-happy Jayhawker vigilantes.
Celia Cadwalader, now the Bartertown Governor’s seventh wife, kept Skippy’s vagrant past a secret because she wanted her own man to look after her. She thought Skippy trustworthy — and kind of cute.
In Bartertown, Skippy found himself a presumed expert on the life and times of postnuclear KC. Celia had briefed him about this subject, but he preferred to make up stories. He told real whoppers to the local yokels, mostly about cannibalism in the ruins.
Mean Streets
As Skippy headed back to the Governor’s Palace, he witnessed two fistfights and a shopkeeper firing a shotgun at a customer who’d bolted from his store without paying. Skippy declined to interfere.
The hell-raising center of Bartertown was an urban combat zone. The town constabulary interfered with its revelry only when important interests were threatened. They had their secret orders, and nobody could be sure when they would pounce. This uncertainty served to keep a rough order among town denizens and visitors seeking entertainment. Certainty was obtainable only with money.
All about him was shabbiness. The money generated by Bartertown’s commerce didn’t produce much civic improvement. The streets were potholed, the sidewalks crumbling. The dust of the summer-dry prairie gave everything a dun coat of normality. Passing horses, wagons, and a few cars and trucks kept it stirred up, and the motor vehicles added their blue smoke. Prairie Junction had devolved back to its frontier days.
It was nearly twilight. All-night establishments were beginning to open in anticipation of business. In flophouses and alleys all over town, the underclass was stirring and scheming.
I sure was wrong about finding my destiny here.
“Hey, Depity. Got some spare change for an old-timer down on his luck?” The licensed beggar sat against the wall of a saloon. “You ain’t wearin’ your tans, I see. You must be a Special Depity.”
Skippy didn’t wear the smart uniform he’d been given with his new deputy badge because Celia didn’t want him to. She preferred his jeans, leather jacket, and fedora because they made him look like a youthful Indiana Jones.
He peeled a scrip note from his roll and dropped it into the the grizzled beggar’s tin pan. “You ought to take that pan and head west where the gold is, old-timer. There’s nothing for you here.”
The beggar scrutinized the scrip note, then aimed a gap-toothed smile at the Special Deputy. “Yes, sir. Right after I have my tea.”
Skippy moved on to the Palace, where he had a tiny room near the lady he guarded. It was still a janitor’s closet, though, and he shared it with mops and buckets. At least I don’t have to clean the place.
Escape Talk
“You’re getting restless, Skippy. I can tell.”
“Yes, Ma’m. I am thinking about moving on.”
Celia frowned. “Will you stop calling me ‘Ma’m.’ I’m not old enough to be Madam Anybody.”
“Yer the Guv’ner’s wife, ain’t ye?” he replied in dialect, as if he were a typical, degraded inhabitant of this benighted town. Skippy had to have his little jokes, and he knew the Governor’s seventh wife appreciated them.
Celia was knitting a fancy sweater for her husband, a man much older than she. Governor Walter Pendragon was a tyrant, but his wives knew how much of a softie he could be in the right circumstances.
“You’ve gotten so ‘official’ since I got Walter to make you a Deputy. You wear that new badge like the old Chicken Inspector badge you wore when you roamed the boondocks as a chicken-stealing vagabond.”
“I never stole any chickens, Ceelee.”
“The times may be good for you, Skippy, but they aren’t for me. I hate this place. Walter is a decent guy, but his other wives treat me like an intruder; they’re so catty and spiteful.” Celia’s green eyes flashed, and she fluffed her long, red hair. She was the most attractive of the Governor’s wives but too educated for his taste. Nonetheless, he tolerated the advice she gave him, even when he knew better.
“Just keep the old Dragon contented, while I find a way for us to escape. I’m not promising anything definite, but I’m working on it.”
The Governor was a bit jealous of his wife’s bodyguard. When the two arrived at the Bartertown freight depot, Pendragon had tried to separate them, but Celia insisted that Boss Cad wanted Skippy to guard her. The Governor, anxious to avoid discord, had made Skippy a Special Deputy, but he’d warned the Sheriff not to expect any law enforcement from his new man.
“I hate being cooped up in here, Skippy. Can’t we just go for a walk?”
Skippy recalled that Bartertown had an airport. I sure would like to have a look at the planes out there. He revisited his daydream of becoming a pilot like Stephen, of recent acquaintance, and flying to some fabulous faraway city that hadn’t been nuked. Las Vegas, maybe.
“Well...?”
“We’ll visit the airport.”
* * *
Next morning, they left the Palace. None of the Governor’s other wives were yet at the windows where they often sat, snooping on the municipal citizenry. They slept late; they had servants for housekeeping and babysitting. Pendragon had so many children now he couldn’t accurately recall all their names.
Celia was dressed in a safari outfit and riding boots. Her titian hair plunged from beneath a wide-brimmed hat. All sober heads turned to stare at her.
“We could call for horses, but I’d rather walk. I need some exercise.” She added: “Do you think we can get a pilot to take us up.”
“You want to fly away from here?”
The Airport
The rusty hangar door creaked opened, and sunlight slowly revealed the two aircraft within.
“How interesting,” coquettishly remarked the Governor’s seventh wife to the pilot, who willingly served as her tour guide. He was hung over from a night on the town, but he snapped out of it enough to accommodate the attractive visitor.
“The blue one is an old Piper Apache. We’ve reconditioned it so it looks and runs almost like new. It’s the Governor’s official plane. He doesn’t use it much, though. He’s not much of a flyer. He feels safer in his armored car.”
The pilot, Ralph, was a ruggedly handsome man who was quite confident of his abilities in the air and on the ground. He silently calculated his chances with the lovely Celia — and the consequences of getting caught in a dalliance.
“What’s that white plane?” inquired Celia, who probably knew what it was. As she pointed with one hand, she grasped the pilot’s arm with the other, a gesture he could interpret to suit his desires. “It looks like a big white bird with its wings spread, ready to fly away.”
“Yes, Ma’m. That’s my glider,” boasted Ralph. “She’s a beauty, alright. Soaring through the clouds with only the sound of the passing air is an experience you never forget.”
Especially if you’re escaping from Bartertown. Skippy guessed that Celia had found the means to do that.
“But it has a propeller,” said Celia, provocatively. She wanted to know more about the slim, graceful aircraft that she viewed as a magic carpet.
“She’s a motorglider. Her small engine gets me airborne, then I turn it off and soar like an eagle,” explained the pilot.
“How fascinating. I’d like to see what it’s like to soar silently through the clouds, Ralph.”
“Well...” The pilot was uncertain about flying the Governor’s newest and prettiest wife without official approval.
“Oh, don’t worry. I have Walter’s permission. He knows I’m here.” She glanced back at Skippy, who was keeping himself out of the conversation. “Isn’t that right, Deputy?”
“Yes, Ma’m. That’s a fact.” He tried to keep from smirking.
“Well then, we’ll soar like an eagle.”
“My pleasure, Ma’m. Clyde! Let’s roll her out!” The airport mechanic left his workbench at the rear of the hangar. He was a wrinkled older man in greasy coveralls. He kept an unlighted cigar stub in his mouth. He’d been listening to Celia and Ralph and shaking his head in sour skepticism.
As they rolled out his motorglider, Ralph was already considering renaming it Lady Celia in honor of the Governor’s seventh wife. However, he’d have to paint over its current name, Foxy Roxy, that of his favorite whore in The Roundhouse brothel. Celia noticed the name. “Oh, how charming,” she burbled. “You named it after your sister.”
“Heh, heh,” replied Ralph.
Skippy’s rolled his eyes and pondered: Oh, brother. When they land, she’ll know almost as much about flying as this guy does... I’m not sure I want to escape this way, especially if she heads back to KC... What if we run into a thunderstorm?... How’ll I explain myself to Boss Cad?
* * *
Later, in her palatial seventh-floor sitting room, Celia fluttered in an easy-chair. With her hands and feet she showed Skippy how to fly a glider.
“You see? It’s easy. We’re halfway gone, already.”
“Nothin’ to it,” agreed Skippy, amiably. “Explaining things to the Dragon and Boss Cad — that’s the hard part.”
“To heck with daddy and Walter. I’m heading west to Colorado Springs. Are you with me, or not?”
“Well, I sure can’t stay here after you’ve flown the coop. So when do we go?”
“Tomorrow morning, before Ralph leaves The Roundhouse. He’ll go there after my visit today. I’ll arrange for Roxy to keep him there all night and all morning.”
“Will you make some arrangements at The Roundheel for me, too?”
“Only if I can watch.”
The Roundhouse
Celia had to part with some expensive jewelry to recruit Ralph’s favorite whore to keep him away from the airport tomorrow morning. Roxy was a typically gaudy resident of The Roundhouse: heavily made-up and currently spoiling her meretricious appearance with the home-rolled cigarette which dangled from her scarlet mouth.
“You’re sure you can keep Ralph here?”
“No problem, Ma’m. Ralph’s tight with his scrip. I’ll offer him a cheap all-nighter and slip him a mickey in his booze to send him to dreamland before he can do much of anything. When he wakes up tomorrow, I’ll give him a jolter in his hangover cocktail. After that, he’ll be here all morning to get his money’s worth.”
“You’re a real pro, Roxy... no offense meant.”
“None taken, Ma’m.” Roxy held up her new diamond ring to watch it sparkle in the sallow light of an overhead lamp. Its provenance was the safe of a burned-out jewelry store in KC, and it had been a gift to Boss Cadwalader from a favored contractor. Boss Cad’s wives already had plenty of baubles, so he’d presented it to his eldest daughter on her eighteenth birthday.
Flight
Clyde was at work early. But Ralph was absent. He would arrive late this morning.
Celia and Skippy arrived dressed for hard travel and with supplies in their backpacks for a long hike. Despite her new knowledge about flying, Celia sensibly allowed for a possible emergency landing on the plains. They entered the open hangar.
“Good Morning, Clyde,” she chirped. “Would you get Foxy Roxy ready for flight? I’m taking her up.”
“Whuuut?!” The mechanic almost swallowed his cigar stub. “I cain’t do that, Ma’m. Only licensed personnel can fly our planes. Besides, Foxy Roxy is Ralph’s. He don’t allow nobody else to fly her.”
Skippy pulled his pistol. “This is a special occasion, pal. Do as the lady says.”
“I’ll level with you, Clyde. I’m hijacking Ralph’s glider to escape from Bartertown.” Celia handed him a sheet of paper. “I’ve written it all down, explaining what I’ve done. Just give this to the Governor’s men. They won’t blame you.”
Clyde wiped his hands on an oily rag and read the letter. “This is gonna stir up a whole lot of trouble, Ma’m.” Skippy prodded him with the barrel of his pistol. “But if that’s what you want...”
“Hold it,” said Skippy. “We don’t want the Governor following us.” He aimed his pistol at one of the Apache’s wheels.
“Don’t do that!”
BAM! Hisssssss... The wheel’s doubly-punctured tire shriveled, and the plane leaned to one side. “We ain’t got no spares,” moaned the mechanic.
“Patch it,” advised Skippy.
“Sorry we had to do that, Clyde. Now, please top off Foxy Roxy’s tank. We’re heading for KC, and we’ll need every drop.”
“She’s already full. Help me push her out the door, Depity.”
Alarm
In his Bartertown office, Governor Pendragon’s answered his ringing telephone. “Yes?... What?!... Warm up the other plane!... Disabled?!... Fix it! He slammed down the handset and headed for the door, cursing. He was determined to see someone punished for this outrage.
Sheriff’s Deputies began looking for his pilot. Ralph wasn’t at home, but his saintly wife gave them an idea where he might be.
* * *
When Pendragon arrived at the airport, Clyde was frantically patching the Apache’s tire and hoping the Governor wouldn’t have him hanged for helping Lady Celia to escape. “They’re headed for KC, Guv’ner. There wasn’t nothin’ I could do about it. Her bodyguard stuck his gun in my face. I had to help ’em or get shot. And that’s the truth.”
“The hell it is. She’s heading for Colorado Springs.” Pendragon turned and stuck a manicured finger in his pilot’s face. “And you taught her how to do it!”
Ralph had been brought from The Roundhouse by Sheriff’s deputies, where he was getting special treatment from Roxy. The Governor wanted him shot on the spot, but the Sheriff reminded him that he was the only pilot in Bartertown. “Get down there and help him fix that tire,” he ordered Ralph.
“She must be halfway there by now, Governor,” opined the Sheriff. “If she’s hurt while we’re searching for her, it’ll be on our heads. Better to radio Boss Cad first and ask him for advice.”
“You’re right, as usual, Tom.” He headed for his armored car, then stopped. “Give that pilot twenty lashes after he fixes the tire on my plane.” With that abrupt judgment, he sped back into town.
Rising and Falling
“Isn’t this great, Skippy? I knew I could fly this thing. I’m a natural.”
The motorglider’s engine purred as they climbed into the clouds. Below them was the abandoned railroad to Denver. “We’ll just follow those tracks for a while, then cut away when they turn northwest.”
Celia had revved up Foxy Roxy’s engine and had taken the glider down the runway, scraping the wing tips a couple of times. She’d taken off, stayed low, and headed east beyond the horizon. Then, she’d turned west and climbed for altitude. Colorado Springs was a good three hundred miles from Bartertown, so they had to soar a lot to get there.
“When we land, I’m going to change the name of this bird to Lady Celia. Ralph asked me for my permission to do that.”
“Ralph is probably beyond caring about anything but his pain, now,” grumbled Skippy.
* * *
Foxy Roxy’s engine pulled her higher. Celia sought the highest possible altitude so they could reach Colorado Springs after their fuel was exhausted.
“It’s getting cold,” Skippy proclaimed, drowsily, from the rear seat.
“It’ll warm up after we glide to a lower altitude.” Celia adjusted her headphones. “I’m surprised Bartertown hasn’t given us a shout. I feel sorry for Ralph. Walter’ll punish him for our escapade.”
“Better him than me.”
* * *
“Skippy! Wake up!” He awoke to see Celia reaching behind her seat and shaking him. He had a splitting headache.
“What happened? My head hurts.”
“We climbed too far and blacked out, but we’re okay, now... for oxygen.”
Skippy saw that the aircraft was gliding at a low altitude. “Where are we?”
“Somewhere in eastern Colorado, I guess. We aren’t going to make it to Colorado Springs. I panicked when you blacked out and I took Foxy Roxy down too fast.”
“There’s nothing around here but dry plains and starving cattle. We’ve got ourselves a long hike, Ceelee — assuming we survive the landing.”
“Adolf Hitler once owned 1300 acres of land around here somewhere An immigrant relative willed it to him, but he never saw it. The government took it after he declared war on us.”
“Amazing, if true... Have you got an aspirin?”
Copyright © 2010 by Frederick D. Rustam
