A Thursday Next Digital Collection: Novels 1-5 (112 page)

Bradshaw looked across at me and raised an eyebrow quizzically. As the Bellman—the head of Jurisfiction—I shouldn't really be out on assignment at all, but I was never much of a desk jockey, and capturing the Minotaur was important. He had killed one of our own, and that made it unfinished business.

During the past week, we had searched unsuccessfully through six Civil War epics, three frontier stories, twenty-eight high-quality westerns and ninety-seven dubiously penned novellas before finding ourselves within
Death at Double-X Ranch,
right on the outer rim of what might be described as acceptably written prose. We had drawn a blank in every single book. No Minotaur, nor even the merest whiff of one, and believe me, they can whiff.

“A possibility?” asked Bradshaw, pointing at the PROVIDENCE sign.

“We'll give it a try,” I replied, slipping on a pair of dark glasses and consulting my list of potential Minotaur hiding places. “If we draw a blank, we'll stop for lunch before heading off into
The Oklahoma Kid
.”

Bradshaw nodded and opened the breech of the hunting rifle he was carrying and slipped in a cartridge. It was a conventional weapon, but loaded with unconventional ammunition. Our position as the policing agency within fiction gave us licensed access to abstract technology. One blast from the eraserhead in Bradshaw's rifle and the Minotaur would be reduced to the building blocks of his fictional existence: text and a bluish mist—all that is left when the bonds that link text to meaning are severed. Charges of cruelty failed to have any meaning when at the last Beast Census there were over a million almost identical Minotaurs, all safely within the hundreds of books, graphic novels and urns that featured him. Ours was different—an escapee. A PageRunner.

As we walked closer, the sounds of a busy Nebraskan frontier town reached our ears. A new building was being erected, and the hammering of nails into lumber punctuated the clop of horses' hooves, the clink of harnesses and the rumble of cartwheels on compacted earth. The metallic ring of the blacksmith's hammer mixed with the distant tones of a choir from the clapboard church, and all about was the general conversational hubbub of busy townsfolk. We reached the corner by Eckley's Livery Stables and peered cautiously down the main street.

Providence as we now saw it was happily enjoying the uninterrupted backstory, patiently awaiting the protagonist's arrival in two pages' time. Blundering into the main narrative thread and finding ourselves
included
within the story was not something we cared to do, and since the Minotaur avoided the primary story line for fear of discovery, we were likely to stumble across him only in places like this. But if for any reason the story
did
come anywhere near, I would be warned—I had a Narrative Proximity Device in my pocket that would sound an alarm if the thread came too close. We could hide ourselves until it passed by.

A horse trotted past as we stepped up onto the creaky decking that ran along in front of the saloon. I stopped Bradshaw when we got to the swinging doors as the town drunk was thrown out into the road. The bartender walked out after him, wiping his hands on a linen cloth.

“And don't come back till you can pay your way!” he yelled, glancing at us both suspiciously.

I showed the barkeeper my Jurisfiction badge as Bradshaw kept a vigilant lookout. The whole western genre had far too many gun-slingers for its own good; there had been some confusion over the numbers required on the order form when the genre was inaugurated. Working in westerns could sometimes entail up to twenty-nine gunfights an hour.

“Jurisfiction,” I told him. “This is Bradshaw, I'm Next. We're looking for the Minotaur.”

The barkeeper stared at me coldly. “Think you's in the wrong genre, pod'ner,” he said.

All characters or Generics within a book are graded A to D, one through ten. A-grades are the Gatsbys and Jane Eyres, D-grades the grunts who make up street scenes and crowded rooms. The barkeeper had lines, so he was probably a C-2. Smart enough to get answers from but not smart enough to have much character latitude.

“He might be using the alias Norman Johnson,” I went on, showing him a photo. “Tall, body of a man, head of a bull, likes to eat people?”

“Can't help you,” he said, shaking his head slowly as he peered at the photo.

“How about any outbreaks of slapstick?” asked Bradshaw. “Boxing glove popping out of a box, sixteen-ton weights dropping on people, that sort of thing?”

“Ain't seen no weights droppin' on nobody,” laughed the barkeeper, “but I hear tell the sheriff got hit in the face with a frying pan last Toosday.”

Bradshaw and I exchanged glances.

“Where do we find the sheriff ?” I asked.

We followed the barkeeper's directions and walked along the wooden decking past a barbershop and two grizzled prospectors who were talking animatedly in authentic frontier gibberish. I stopped Bradshaw when we got to an alleyway. There was a gunfight in progress. Or at least, there
would
have been a gunfight had not some dispute arisen over the times allocated for their respective showdowns. Both sets of gunmen—two dressed in light-colored clothes, two in dark—with low-slung gun belts decorated with rows of shiny cartridges—were arguing over their gunfight time slots as two identical ladyfolk looked on anxiously. The town's mayor intervened and told them that if there were any more arguments, they would
both
lose their slot times and would have to come back tomorrow, so they reluctantly agreed to toss a coin. The winners of the toss scampered into the main street as everyone dutifully ran for cover. They squared up to one another, hands hovering over their Colt .45s at twenty paces. There was a flurry of action, two loud detonations, and then the gunman in black hit the dirt while the victor looked on grimly, his opponent's shot having dramatically only removed his hat. His lady rushed up to hug him as he reholstered his revolver with a flourish.

“What a load of tripe,” muttered Bradshaw. “The real West wasn't like this!”

Death at Double-X Ranch
was set in 1875 and written in 1908. Close enough to be historically accurate, you would have thought, but no. Most westerns tended to show a glamorized version of the Old West that hadn't really existed. In the
real
West, a gunfight was a rarity, hitting someone with a short-barreled Colt .45 at anything other than point-blank range a virtual impossibility. The 1870s gunpowder generated a huge amount of smoke; two shots in a crowded bar and you would be coughing—and almost blind.

“That's not the point,” I replied as the dead gunslinger was dragged away. “Legend is always far more readable, and don't forget we're in pulp at present—poor prose always outnumbers good prose, and it would be too much to hope that our bullish friend would be hiding out in Zane Grey or Owen Wister.”

We continued on past the Majestic Hotel as a stagecoach rumbled by in a cloud of dust, the driver cracking his long whip above the horses' heads.

“Over there,” said Bradshaw, pointing at a building opposite that differentiated itself from the rest of the clapboard town by being made of brick. It had SHERIFF painted above the door, and we walked quickly across the road, our nonwestern garb somewhat out of place amongst the long dresses, bonnets and breeches, jackets, dusters, vests, gun belts and bootlace ties. Only permanently billeted Jurisfiction officers troubled to dress up, and many of the agents actively policing the westerns are characters from the books they patrol—so they don't need to dress up anyway.

We knocked and entered. It was dark inside after the bright exterior, and we blinked for few moments as we accustomed ourselves to the gloom. On the wall to our right was a notice board liberally covered with wanted posters—pertaining not only to Nebraska but also to the BookWorld in general; a yellowed example offered three hundred dollars for information leading to the whereabouts of Big Martin. Below this was a chipped enameled coffeepot sitting atop a cast-iron stove, and next to the wall to the left were a gun cabinet and a tabby cat sprawled upon a large bureau. The far wall was the barred frontage to the cells, one of which held a drunk fast asleep and snoring loudly on a bunk bed. In the middle of the room was a large desk that was stacked high with paperwork—circulars from the Nebraska State Legislature, a few Council of Genres Narrative Law amendments, a Campanology Society newsletter and a Sears, Roebuck catalog open to the “fancy goods” section. Also on the desk were a pair of worn leather boots, and inside these were a pair of feet, attached in turn to the sheriff. His clothes were predominantly black and could have done with a good wash. A tin star was pinned to his vest, and all we could see of his face were the ends of a large gray mustache that poked out from beneath his downturned Stetson. He, too, was fast asleep, and balanced precariously on the rear two legs of a chair that creaked as he snored.

“Sheriff ?”

No answer.

“SHERIFF!”

He awoke with a start, began to get up, overbalanced and tipped over backwards. He crashed heavily on the floor and knocked against the bureau, which just happened to have a jug of water resting upon it. The jug overbalanced as well, and its contents drenched the sheriff, who roared with shock. The noise upset the cat, who awoke with a cry and leapt up the curtains, which collapsed with a crash on the cast-iron stove, spilling the coffee and setting fire to the tinder-dry linen drapes. I ran to put it out and knocked against the desk, dislodging the lawman's loaded revolver, which fell to the floor, discharging a single shot, which cut the cord of a stuffed moose's head, which fell upon Bradshaw. So there were the three of us: me trying to put out the fire, the sheriff covered in water and Bradshaw walking into furniture as he tried to get the moose's head off him. It was
precisely
what we were looking for: an outbreak of unconstrained and wholly inappropriate slapstick.

 

“Sheriff, I'm so sorry about this,” I muttered apologetically, having doused the fire, demoosed Bradshaw and helped a very damp lawman to his feet. He was over six foot tall, and had a weather-beaten face and deep blue eyes. I produced my badge. “Thursday Next, head of Jurisfiction. This is my partner, Commander Bradshaw.” The sheriff relaxed and even managed a thin smile.

“Thought you was more of them Baxters,” he said, brushing himself down and drying his hair with a “Cathouses of Dawson City” tea cloth. “I'll be mighty glad you're not. Jurisfiction, hey? Ain't seen none of youse around these parts for longer then I care to remember—quit it, Howell.”

The drunk, Howell, had awoken and was demanding a tipple “to set him straight.”

“We're looking for the Minotaur,” I explained, showing the sheriff the photograph.

He rubbed his stubble thoughtfully and shook his head. “Don't recall ever seeing this critter, missy Next.”

“We have reason to believe he passed through your office not long ago—he's been marked with slapstick.”

“Ah!” said the sheriff. “I was a-wonderin' 'bout all that. Me and Howell here have been trippin' and a-stumblin' for a while now—ain't we, Howell?”

“You're darn tootin',” said the drunk.

“He could be in disguise and operating under an alias,” I ventured. “Does the name Norman Johnson mean anything to you?”

“Can't say it does, missy. We have twenty-six Johnsons here, but all are C-7s—not 'portant 'nuff to have fust names.”

I sketched a Stetson onto the photograph of the Minotaur, then a duster, vest and gun belt.

“Oh!” said the sheriff with a sudden look of recognition. “
That
Mr. Johnson.”

“You know where he is?”

“Sure do. Had him in jail only last week on charges of eatin' a cattle rustler.”

“What happened?”

“Paid his bail and wuz released. Ain't nothing in the Nebraska statutes that says you can't eat rustlers. One moment.”

There had been a shot outside, followed by several yells from startled townsfolk. The sheriff checked his Colt, opened the door and walked out. Alone on the street and facing him was a young man with an earnest expression, hand quivering around his gun, the elegantly tooled holster of which I noticed had been tied down—a sure sign of yet another potential gunfight.

“Go home, Abe!” called out the sheriff. “Today's not a good day for dyin'.”

“You killed my pappy,” said the youth, “and my pappy's pappy. And
his
pappy's pappy. And my brothers Jethro, Hank, Hoss, Red, Peregrine, Marsh, Junior, Dizzy, Luke, Peregrine, George an' all the others. I'm callin' you out, lawman.”

“You said Peregrine twice.”

“He wuz special.”

“Abel Baxter,” whispered the sheriff out of the corner of his mouth, “one of them Baxter boys. They turn up regular as clockwork, and I kill 'em same ways as regular.”

“How many have you killed?” I whispered back.

“Last count, 'bout sixty. Go home, Abe, I won't tell yer again!”

The youth caught sight of Bradshaw and me and said, “New deputies, Sheriff? Yer gonna need 'em!”

And it was then we saw that Abel Baxter wasn't alone. Stepping out from the stables opposite were four disreputable-looking characters. I frowned. They seemed somehow out of place in
Death at Double-X Ranch
. For a start, none of them wore black, nor did they have tooled leather double gun belts with nickel-plated revolvers. Their spurs didn't clink as they walked, and their holsters were plain and worn high on the hip—the weapon these men had chosen was a Winchester rifle. I noticed with a shudder that one of the men had a button missing on his frayed vest and the sole on the toe of his boot had come adrift. Flies buzzed around the men's unwashed and grimy faces, and sweat had stained their hats halfway to the crown. These weren't C-2 generic gunfighters from pulp, but well described A-9s from a novel of high descriptive quality—and if they could shoot as well as they had been realized by the author, we were in trouble.