The Rise of Ransom City (7 page)

Clementine was a little town on a flat and vast plain of fields through which a dirt road cut straight west toward the horizon and east toward what ever the next town over was. I forget what it was called and it doesn’t matter. The fields looked haphazard, and put me in mind of a man who has been on the road for days and not shaved. We put on a show of the Process in a high-raftered barn belonging to a farmer by the name of Mr. Corbey, the proceeds of which paid for our dinner and a night in the barn for our horses and ourselves.

“One day,” I said, as I inspected our accommodations. “One day, Mr. Carver.”

Mr. Carver said nothing, as I recall, just thoughtfully scratched his beard. Then he lay down in the straw and slept like the dead. I on the other hand could not sleep— I have never slept easily. By the soft light of the Process itself I tinkered with the underside of the Apparatus until something I did created sparks, so that I was forced to halt the Process and turn my attention to a small but growing fire in the straw. I stamped and cursed and beat with my fine white jacket until it was gone.

“Mr. Carver,” I said. “I hope that amused you.” He said nothing, and I admit I was exasperated.

It was dark in the barn and I have never liked the dark, and outside there was a bright yellow moon, and so I went walking, out across Mr. Corbey’s flat fields and into town.

Clementine had maybe three dozen buildings, counting barns and out houses. They were arranged like wooden crates laid out carelessly along the side of the road, or like junk scattered from the back of a passing Engine. Every window but one was unlit.

Over someone’s store some black birds perched along the top of a black sign. The night was warm and windless. There was a drowsy wilderness silence, except for the sound of my own footsteps, and the occasional insect going about its business, and the clack-clack-clacking of a typewriter, which somebody behind that one lit window was operating despite the unsociable hour.

As was my habit I thought how Clementine might look if it got Illuminated. How the softly glowing lamps of the Ransom Process might be strung along the rooftops where the birds roosted and how travelers coming along the road from the huge darkness to the west or the east might see the constellation of Clementine shining before them and what they might think it might mean.

The typewriter and the electric-lit room over the general store in which it sat belonged to three officers of the Line. There was some of that old menace in its sound— I hope that if you are reading this in days to come you will not remember what the machines of the Line sounded like and you will not know what I mean. Those three uniformed men of the Line had been at the show that evening, scowling and taking notes, and now they were no doubt making a report. If I know how Linesmen operate, they had not paid for the room but requisitioned it according to the universal Authority their masters claimed. The officers of the Line were always everywhere that year, out on the Rim that is, watching and making reports and looking for what ever they were looking for. I myself had nothing to hide so far as I knew, but nor did I care for the sound of their report-making, so I took myself off to the edge of town.

Out in front of Clementine’s westernmost shack there was a sign promising food and water and music, and beside it a bench. A dog slept on it. It did not object when I sat down beside it.

The bench was as good a place as any to sit and watch the road and think. The Ransom Process was far from perfected in those days and there was always a lot of thinking to be done.

I don’t know how long I sat there before I first caught sight of someone coming along the road.

The road was a wide flat band of dirt. It was a clear night with a bright moon and you could see a long way into the west. When I first saw them coming they were very small and distant. The two of them were just one speck. More accurately they were at first like a tremor of motion in the darkness, nothing that had a discernible shape or form. A tremor like a tiny wave or ripple in the Ether— except that the Professors in the big cities will tell you that the dark is a stillness in the Ether, whereas Light is the Ether in motion. Well, I thought about that for a while, and about what it would be like if the natural laws of the world were inverted so that the Dark was motion and the Light its absence. I thought that maybe if you got far enough out West things might get turned on their head like that. But then would we still call the dark the dark, or the light the light, or would the words change with the things themselves? I thought that
Ether
is just a word for what we cannot name, and maybe
motion
is just a word too.

By the time I had put these speculations to rest and returned my attention to the world and the road the figures were a good deal closer. Now I could see that there were two of them, and they were on foot.

The dog rolled its head lazily to regard them.

Not for the first time that year I regretted somewhat that I was not carrying a gun, because who knew what kind of person might be on foot on the roads out there at night. I might have quietly crept away but as they got closer I saw that one of them was a woman, and I took that as a sign they were not likely dangerous. A few minutes later I saw that the man with her was old, and walked with a stick. The woman was fair-haired and even in the dark you could see she was tired and thin as they stopped before me and I smiled and told them, “Welcome to Clementine.”

The old man said, “We’re just passing through.”

“Harry Ransom,” I said. I extended my hand, and the old man took it, somewhat reluctantly but I took no offense. People were wary those days.

“This your store?”

“No. Nor the dog.”

“Who are you, then?”

“Professor Harry Ransom,” I said, “When doing business. Inventor, businessman, Light-bringer. And I am just about always doing business these days. So tell me, how are things out West the way you came— I heard Clementine was pretty much the edge of things.”

“Not quite,” said the woman. “But close enough.”

“What’s business like out there?”

“We’re not in business.”

She had an accent I couldn’t place, and I was widely traveled for my years. She was weathered by long and hard travel but underneath her features were refined.

“Refugees?”

“Yes.” She thought before saying, “I suppose in a manner of speaking we are.”

From the way the old man was leaning on his stick it seemed to me he should not be walking all night.

I stood. The dog looked up, took a brief interest in me, and then dropped its head back down between its paws.

I pointed back toward the town.

“A Mr. Corbey gave me and my assistant the use of his barn for the night. Ordinarily we sleep in the wagon so a barn is as good as a hotel for us. You’re welcome to join us and I doubt Mr. Corbey will mind.”

They looked at each other then spoke at once.

He said, “Mind your business, Professor.”

She said, “We couldn’t pay you—”

“Don’t think of it,” I said. “I need the company. Mr. Carver doesn’t talk much. That’s my assistant. A fine mechanic and a trusty hand in our various misadventures but not a conversationalist.”

From the look on the old man’s face it seemed he did not like me much.

I said, “You are—?”

“Harper,” the woman said. “Miss Harper.”

“And is this your father?”

He thought for a moment too long before nodding.

“There are Linesmen in town,” I said. I pointed toward the lit window, which was a faint star in the distance.

They both had a kind of hunted look to them. That’s why I said that.

“Don’t mean to imply anything,” I added. “Just thought as fellow travelers on these roads you might want to hear the news.”

Old Man Harper nodded again. “We’ll be moving on, Mr. Ransom.”

“Thank you,” said Miss Harper.

I figured that they were most likely just con-artists fleeing the law or escaped indentureds or something of the kind— maybe just possibly they were spies, which was interesting to a degree but in those days of War there was no shortage of spies on the roads. Nevertheless my curiosity was roused. Curiosity has always been my weakness. One of my weaknesses. And besides like Mr. Baxter wrote it is true that opportunity can be found in the most unexpected of places.

“There are Linesmen all along the road east too,” I said. “And they are checking papers and asking questions about I don’t even know what they want to know— who knows how their masters think? Not that I think you have anything to hide from anyone but nobody likes an interrogation.”

I nodded to them and made as if to walk away, then turned again and said, “Listen. If you don’t mind cramped conditions Mr. Carver and I are setting out before dawn. You may not credit it looking at me but our papers are all in order so far as I know, and we could use a couple of extra hands, the roads being what they are these days.”

He said, “No thank you, Mr. Ransom.” And at the same time she said, “Where are you headed?”

I waved a hand toward the big black night and I said, “no place in particular. Wherever business takes me.”

“Well, Mr. Ransom, we’re heading east.”

“Any place in particular?”

Old Man Harper said, “It’s a family affair.”

“Well,” I said, “It so happens that right now business takes me back east toward Jasper City.”

“You’re a long way from Jasper City,” said Old Man Harper. “About as far as you can get. You’ve got a sideways kind of way of going about things if you’re heading for Jasper City.”

I waved away his objections. “I have business there,” I said, and smiled at Miss Harper. “With Mr. Alfred Baxter himself.”

That was half-true. As I saw it back then I had business with Mr. Baxter whether he knew it or not. Besides I had thought the name might impress her. It did not.

Something about her said, as clear as if she were branded with it, that she had some secret she wished to tell, that she needed to tell, and that sooner or later she would have to tell someone.

She shrugged, exhausted, and succumbed to temptation.

“Maybe for a little way,” she said.

I smiled.

The dog had one eye open and was regarding the two of them calmly and without great interest. It is not true what they say about dogs and their sixth sense.

Meanwhile the man who claimed to be Miss Harper’s father looked at me for a moment like he was reckoning the most efficient way of killing me, then having quickly reached a conclusion looked east past me and seemed to be scheming something unguessable.

“But nobody travels for free,” I said. “Nothing in this world is free. Ma’am, can you cook? Sir, can you shoot?”

Well as it turned out later she was not much of a cook, but he most certainly could shoot.

Mr. Carver wasn’t so happy to be woken in the dark hours of morning so that we could pack up and leave town like thieves, especially since for once we owed nobody money. Nor did he seem to care for our new traveling companions, but he kept his own counsel.

The sun rose as we got a couple of miles out of Clementine. There was a roaring noise and a bad smell and a black Line motor-car came up from behind us. As it passed us by it slowed a little, and though the car’s window was black too I thought I could make out the gray face of an Officer of the Line examining us. The Harpers were safely in the back of the wagon with the Apparatus and all he saw was me and Mr. Carver and the horses. I nodded but did not wave and the face receded into the black glassy depths as the car accelerated past us into the distance. It frightened the horses, and then it scared up a big family of black birds out of the fields. The flock rose up across the huge pink sky like a lady raising the lace hem of her skirt. Mr. Carver cursed and shook his head. Otherwise he said nothing.

It has been a few days since I last returned to these pages. Red ants have made a home in the remarkable triplicate typewriter. I do not have the heart to oust them. Fortunately they do not seem to mind the clatter of the typewriter. I guess these are frontier ants and they know how to make do in tough conditions.

We have been camped for a few days while the Beck Brothers haggle for provisions with farmers. Farmers here and everywhere in these parts mistake us for a lost regiment or unemployed mercenaries and they have a tendency to bring us tribute in hopes that we will move on. It is a constant temptation but I insist that we pay our way. In Ransom City every man and woman will get a fair deal.*

Red ants have also made a home in the Apparatus, where they are less welcome. The Apparatus is delicate and dangerous. I have driven them from their hiding places like an angel of wrath.

It is not easy traveling with the Apparatus. Rivers are a particular problem, so is rain, so are ants. But what good will Ransom City be if it doesn’t have the Process lighting its streets? The Beck Brothers keep asking to see the Apparatus in action. Not yet, I say. Not until we get there. No matter how cold or dark it gets at night. It is not to be trifled with.

I guess I should try to say what the Ransom Process is. I hope that in the future when you read this everyone will learn in school about the Process but maybe your education has been deficient.