Earthbound (14 page)

“I owe it all to your kindly kind
hospitality,” he said. What a kiss ass.

Mr. and Mrs. Norris asked us questions about
life back in Great Falls. Pace responded with some vague answers
that didn’t give away too much information.

“Are either of you boys spoken for?” Mrs.
Norris asked.

“No ma’am,” Pace replied. “Truth be told, we
both met the right girl, but she turned us both down flat.” Vague
but kind of true.

“Sorry to hear,” Mrs. Norris said, but she
didn’t seem that sorry. I could tell she was calculating something
in her head. “I don’t suppose either of you boys would consider
making Augusta your new home…”

“That could be delightful,” Pace answered,
taking in an eyeful of Grace. Oh boy, I had a feeling I was sunk
with Grace. If so, I hoped she had some cute girlfriends.

“Tell me,” Grace inquired, “did either of you
know those bank robbers personally?”

Pace and I shot each other a quick glance. He
needed to answer. I didn’t want to bungle that one.

“In a fashion,” Pace replied, doing his usual
to mislead but not outright lie.

“Did you grow up with them?” Grace
persisted.

“Intimately, I guess you could say,” Pace
responded.

“Did you always know they were bad men?”

That question halted Pace for a moment. He
thought about his answer before he gave it. “I’m not sure either of
them is bad. Maybe just misunderstood. But definitely dangerous, no
doubt about that. I’ll put it this way, Grace, you wouldn’t feel
safe with either of them sleeping under your roof at night.” Let me
just clarify what he meant. Grace’s chastity wouldn’t feel safe
with Pace sleeping under her roof at night.

Come bedtime, Pace was to get the bed and
they laid out some blankets for me on the floor. It was good enough
for me. But then Pace surprised me. He got out of bed, opened up
the window and started to sneak outside.

“You can take the bed. Don’t wait up.”

I grumbled a little bit, knowing I’d lost a
shot at Grace before I ever had one. So I took Pace’s bed and got
under the covers. And well, you know. And if you don’t know then
you probably haven’t hit puberty yet. Check back with me in a few
years. Hah. Yeah, that’ll work.

Anyway, Grace couldn’t hold a candle to Becca
anyway.

I wondered how she was holding up without us.
And if she was okay.

“She’s got a lot of cute girlfriends,” Pace
whispered to me as we helped clean up the breakfast dishes.

I whispered back so that the Norris family
couldn’t hear. “Shouldn’t we be collecting some supplies and
getting on our way?”

“We have a few days. What’s the hurry?”

That day Grace gave us a tour of Augusta. The
town seemed a little more livable than Great Falls. Everything was
a little cleaner, a little less run down. If not for the whole bank
robbing thing, I could see myself living there. But the important
test was meeting Grace’s girlfriends. And they were delightful, as
advertised. My favorite was a girl named Cheyenne. Her skin was
darker, more exotic than the rest. She said she had a part native
Indian in her. She seemed strong. I liked that. She could handle
me.

That night the four of us – me, “Lewis,”
Grace and Cheyenne – went to their version of Town Hall to watch
one of their movies. The event was just as well-populated as the
ones in Great Falls. But the picture looked much brighter. Pace
told me they had a better projection system, whatever that meant.
They even used it twice a month instead of once. I guess it was
less broken down than ours back home. The movie was one I’d never
heard of before. Casablanca, which I guess is some faraway foreign
place. Wonder what it must be like now. In the movie it was black
and white. Guess they couldn’t afford color. This guy’s
ex-girlfriend shows up asking for help, but he won’t give it to her
because she’s now married. Good for him. Eff her. But then they
fall for each other again, and he decides to help her escape with
her husband. What a sap. That’s not what I’d do. But when the
lights came up both girls were crying. The power of the movies –
whatever. Pace comforted Grace and put his arm around her. I just
stared at Cheyenne. What was I supposed to do – hug her?

The girls led us to some park where we sat
under a tree and drank a bottle of whiskey that Pace had bought at
their general store. It didn’t take long for Pace and Grace to be
off by themselves, doing who knows what. Although I have some
idea.

“James?” Cheyenne was talking. But obviously
not to me. “James? James, are you listening?” She elbowed me kinda
hard in the ribs. Oh yeah, I forgot, I was James Monroe, U.S.
President.

“Yeah, sorry, I was just thinking.”

“What about?” She looked at me like she was
really interested in anything I’d have to say.

“I was thinking why you aren’t already
married.” I figured if I really wasn’t being me, I could pretend to
be somebody who was a little more forward. So I tried to speak as
if I was Pace, saying pretty much anything to reel her in. “A
beautiful girl like you, I’m surprised.”

“Not a lot of eligible guys here,” she
explained. “It’s a generational thing I suppose. We lost a lot of
good young men to the flu a few years ago. Girls too, but it really
hit men harder for some reason.”

“Sorry to hear. But even still, I’ve been
here long enough to see you’re one of the prettiest.”

She hesitated a little bit and looked down at
the ground. Had I said something wrong? Then eventually she
explained. “Lots of families take issue to my being part Indian. So
they discourage their sons to… well, you know. There’s a lot of
talk about keeping bloodlines pure around here.”

“That’s stupid.” She looked at me eagerly,
happy to hear I agreed with her. “You’re sturdy and capable. I’m
sure you can handle a lot of work. And carry a lot of babies
too.”

“Gee thanks,” she moaned. That was not the
kind of wooing she had in mind.

“Sorry. I mean you seem like you’d be a great
wife. Who cares about your heritage?”

“Your family doesn’t care about
bloodlines?”

“My family? All dead. So no, they don’t give
a shit.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, nudging a little
closer to me. I knew I shouldn’t give her more information about
how my parents died – that would be too specific and could easily
trace back to the real me. So instead I just went ahead and kissed
her. Yes I did. Anyway, her kiss was real forceful and purposeful.
I liked that. So we fooled around for a bit. I did touch her
breasts and all. But I left it there. Sure, I could talk myself
into really liking Cheyenne, but let’s face it, there was someone
else I was still thinking about. Someone I was attached to even
though we really weren’t attached.

I eventually went back to the Norris home to
go to sleep. Pace didn’t show up before I fell asleep – no surprise
– but he did wake me when he stumbled through the window, drunk. It
wasn’t so much the rush of cold air as the window opened. And it
wasn’t the thud as he missed the bed as he fell to the floor. No,
what woke me up the most was him leaning over me as I tried to
sleep. Shocker – he wanted to talk.

“Are you awake?”

“James Monroe is awake. I’m asleep.”

“Ash, I just want you to know something. I
think about her too.”

“Who?”

“Rebecca. Even when I’m fooling around with
Grace. I can’t stop thinking about Rebecca.”

I was surprised. I didn’t think he’d have the
same attachment that I did to the past.

Then Pace stumbled to the bed and passed
out.

The next day we spent an hour in the general
store buying supplies. We had only fifteen gold coins between us,
and it would’ve been easy to spend about fifty given what we
needed. Pace needed a new coat, gloves and a bison-hair blanket. We
both needed some proper leather holsters. And we needed supplies
for the horses. Those were our priorities. After a little haggling,
and throwing in some matchbooks and some boxes of rat poison, that
left us with two gold coins left. And Pace knew how he wanted to
spend it.

“Hey, check this out!” Pace had a handsome
white cowboy hat atop his head. It fit him perfectly. And of
course, I had pretty much destroyed his old one. “Costs four coins
but she’ll sell it to me for two, out of respect for the hardship
we endured.”

I weighed in my hand the container of salt I
had picked up. Also two gold coins. That salt would help us out
tremendously. I could cure any meats we caught so they’d last
longer. I could make jerky. But any self-respecting outlaw needs a
good hat to run around in. I put the salt container back on the
shelf.

We left the general store with our
purchases.

“I suppose that means we’re leaving,” I said.
I was a little disappointed to go but it was inevitable.

“Not quite yet,” Pace replied.

I realized we weren’t walking toward the
Norris home. Instead we were headed down their Main Street. We
stopped and sat on a wood bench. I looked around, trying to figure
out what the point was.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” he
asked.

“Clearly I’m not seein’ what you’re
seein’.”

Pace pointed to a nearby building. I stared
over and read the sign. B-A-N-K.

I looked at Pace with confusion. “I kinda
thought the whole bank robbing thing was one time only.”

“We’re on the run anyway, so why not keep
going? Besides, have you ever had such a thrill in your life?” I
couldn’t respond. Cause he was right. “This is a perfect set-up.
The lawman’s gone. So are most of the able-bodied men and their
shotguns. They left Augusta defenseless.”

“You planned all this?” Pace stared back at
me with a smile, seeking approval. He didn’t get any. “These are
nice people! They’ve been kind to us!”

“Just like in Great Falls – we’re not
stealing their money. It belongs to the bank.”

“You don’t know the combination to the
safe.”

“I know. But I know how to get it.”

“What about the robots?”

Pace thought about that for a second. I could
hear the wind whistling.

“If the robots are here, we’ll deal with
them. At least we won’t be taken by surprise.”

I slowly nodded in agreement. I didn’t know
why, but it just seemed inevitable anyway.

That night we sat on the floor in our
temporary bedroom to plot out our crime. But before we could get
started, there was a rap on the window. It was Grace and Cheyenne.
Pace had told them it was our last night in town. “But not our last
night forever, if you know what I mean.”

“But we’re supposed to plan!” I
protested.

“Oh,” Pace replied dismissively, “let’s just
do what we did the last time. Seemed to work out okay.” And with
that, he climbed out the window. I didn’t have much choice but to
follow.