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[1]
Booster had no blamed idea what he was doing.
He’d gone to Denver, all right. Turned out it was true that the suckers came in by the trainload. No one’d warned him he’d be one of them, though. This time he’d stopped before his last penny ran out. Maybe he was learning something. He doubted it, though.
He still couldn’t say for sure whether it was an angel or a devil that’d led him back to Diablo Wells. Maybe it was just the knowledge that since his mama’s death back in Natchez the one time he’d actually enjoyed himself was on that damn fool’s errand to Helldorado with a ragtag bunch of crazies.
And Diablo Wells was the closest thing to an address he had for any of them. He told himself that was the only reason he’d gone looking for the Beetle and not the Kid or Diana. Damn near believed it, too.
But Beetle’s Machines and Weapons was dark – well, darker than usual – and locked, and according to the gossip at the Alabama Rose, the Beetle hadn’t been seen since just after their trip to Helldorado. He’d gone East, they said, and no one could say for sure whether he’d be back. They weren’t likely to investigate too hard, neither; Beetle hadn’t made many friends with his fancy talk and his strange inventions and that “intelligence inducement engine” of his.
And so he’d wired Gardner at the Pinkerton agency. Just about used his last red cent to do it, too. Unless the Beetle had seriously gone to ground – and Booster couldn’t imagine why he would’ve – it’d be easy for the legendary Kid Baltimore to snoop around and find his whereabouts. He, ah, gently reminded Gardner in his wire that it wouldn’t do much for Kid Baltimore’s legend if word got out about him backing out of a firefight in Helldorado with his quarry in arm’s reach.
Word came back: “BEETLE IN CHICAGO STOP GRAND HOTEL STOP KEEP YOUR FOOL MOUTH SHUT STOP.”
And, in a surprisingly considerate gesture, a second telegram, right behind the first: “LORD DEAD STOP SHOT IN PRISON BREAK STOP THOUGHT YOU’D LIKE TO KNOW STOP.” Booster threw it in the fire and thought the world a better place.
Booster didn’t like Chicago. In the territories he was a well-dressed and exceptionally good-looking fish in drab waters, and whatever extra attention he got paid was of the flattering variety. In cities, though, more and more he was finding that people treated him like just another cowboy. Booster wasn’t accustomed to being just another anything.
‘Sides, the hustle and bustle of Chicago reminded him of home. That was a reminder he could do without.
The Grand Hotel was a sight fancier than Booster’d expected for an inventor who’d barely had two nickels to rub together a few months back. He made himself comfortable in the lobby – as comfortable as a body could get on horsehair, at least – and waited for the Beetle.
Three hours later there he was, still looking mad as a March hare, making the ladies hold whispered conferences behind their fans – Booster guessed mainly to the effect of “What is that on his head?” Booster slung himself up out of his chair, draped himself in the doorway to best dramatic effect, and tipped his hat over his eyes.
“You’re a hard man to find, Beetle,” he drawled as the Beetle passed him.
“Gold?” Booster tugged his hat brim and let Beetle see his eyes. “What are you doing here?”
Booster shrugged. “Oh, you know. This and that.” He looked away. “Some feller said something about ‘truth, justice, and the American way’ a while back. I got to thinking…sounds kind of interestin’, don’t it?”
Beetle raised an eyebrow behind the goggles and gave him a hard look. Booster did his level best not to fidget.
“Well.” Beetle smiled, and it was like daybreak. “I guess it does at that.”
[2]
The Beetle was crazy. Booster’d suspected it before, but now he was just about positive.
They were back in Diablo Wells again. Beetle’d used the money Colonel Kent’d paid him for the book – and Booster was on tenterhooks waiting for that little ditty to come out, make no mistake – to get the store running proper again. ‘Cept now the store was doing booming business, since Beetle spent most of his time in the back room clanging around with his inventions, and leaving Booster to handle the customers. And if there was anything Booster was good at, it was handling customers.
“Don’t you dare swindle them,” Beetle had told him the first time he’d put Booster behind the counter. “Sweet talk them, charm them, be the ingratiating devil you are, but don’t you dare do anything dishonest.”
Booster sniffed. “Why, Beetle. I’d be right offended if I knew what all you were talkin’ about.”
“Don’t play the fool with me, Gold,” Beetle said, waggling a finger in Booster’s face. “There’s a reason the Kid called you ‘grifter,’ and I don’t intend to have you live up to that name in my store.”
Booster spread his hands. “Honest as a preacher, Beetle. Hand to God.”
“Good.” Then Beetle’s mouth quirked. “Of course, that shouldn’t prevent you from being the best salesman possible, should it? After all,” he looked thoughtful, “it’s not dishonest to convince a customer he needs the best we’ve got and should pay top dollar for it, is it?”
Booster grinned back. This was his language. “Not last I heard.”
Beetle smiled – not the brilliant smile, but the wicked one that came out far more often. Booster suddenly realized that he was standing a sight closer to Beetle than one feller normally stood with another feller. “A sight” in this case meaning close enough to feel Beetle’s exhalations against his chin. His mouth went dry.
“Uh,” he started without any real notion as to how he was going to finish that sentence, when the bell above the door jingled, and his first customer came in. Beetle gave him an oblique smile, said “All yours, friend,” and disappeared into the back room.
And that was life in Diablo Wells for a spell. Booster rose early – a habit from back home on the farm – and left Beetle snoring in the little room they’d somehow fit two beds in. By the time he’d gotten the eggs frying and the coffee brewed, Beetle’d stagger out, pour himself a cup of coffee, and Booster would watch him drink it and turn into a human before his very eyes. Then Beetle’d thank him for breakfast, pretty as you please, and promise to make lunch in exchange. Booster would nod and go about his day of working the front of the store, charming his way into the hearts of the Diablo Wells citizenry and clearing the cobwebs from the cash register, while Beetle clanged around in the back room with his toys.
Most evenings found Booster making friends in the Alabama Rose, which was sore in need of a good gunman now that the Kid’d made tracks for Mexico. It wasn’t that Booster was a proper bouncer or anything like that, but after a couple good brawls he’d made it clear to any troublemakers that there wasn’t going to be any rough stuff in the Rose while Booster Gold was trying to enjoy a quiet drink. As Diablo Wells was, for the most part, a town that liked its quiet, Booster’s fists were appreciated, and Booster liked it well enough, drinking whiskey, flirting with a pretty little redheaded waitress named Trixie or Roxie or some such, and steering well clear of the card games. He wasn’t worried that any kind of violence he couldn’t handle would come up – the only real threat in the area was Farley Fleeter’s gang of Madmen, and they mainly stayed on the fringes of town, rustling cattle and picking off stagecoaches.
Maybe it was the complacency that got him thinking, but Booster found himself wondering sometimes what exactly being a clerk in a shop had to do with truth and justice. (He was pretty clear on the ‘American way’ bit.) He’d wanted money and respect; now he had plenty of the first and a fair bit of the second, but there was still something…wanting. He missed the satisfaction he hadn’t felt since Helldorado.
He’d tried to talk the matter over with the Beetle once, but – more fool him – he’d picked a time when the Beetle was in the middle of working out a problem in one of his blueprints.
“Sure we’re gonna do good,” Beetle’d said vaguely, waving a hand at him. “Hand me that wrench, would you? No, this is no good…this is no good at all. I need stronger couplings…” The thing he was tweaking at – Booster didn’t have a better word for it, ‘cept part of the new schooner – broke off in his hand, slicing a jagged line through the fleshy part of his palm, and Beetle erupted in a stream of French curses. At least they sounded like French, and given the expression on the Beetle’s face, Booster didn’t reckon they were endearments.
Beetle squared his shoulders and started to reattach the broken piece, heedless of the blood dripping from his hand. Booster rolled his eyes and yanked Beetle back. He was surprised to feel Beetle’s muscles tense under his hands, stronger than he’d’ve expected and almost like a fighting crouch – but surely the Beetle, man of science and afraid of his own shadow, wasn’t much of a fighter?
“Beetle, you damn fool,” Booster said, focusing on the matter at hand. He was a practical feller, after all. “Wrap your stupid hand up or you’re gonna bleed out all over your new toy.”
“Toy?” Beetle puffed himself up like an insulted hen as Booster rummaged through the chaos of the workshop for a decently clean rag. “I will have you know, sir, that this project is at the very heart of our mission.”
“We have a mission?” Booster asked, coming back with rag in hand. “First I’ve heard of it.”
“For justice,” Beetle clarified, letting Booster wrap his hand up. “Isn’t that why you said you tracked me down so diligently?”
Booster scowled, and tried to ignore the warm heavy weight of Beetle’s hand in his. “First of all, don’t let yourself get all flattered, now. I looked you up ‘cause it was convenient for me. I didn’t exactly go to the ends of the earth lookin’ for your sorry hide.” A lie, mostly. “Second of all, I signed on to work with you, not for you. Now I don’t like to make a fuss. I don’t ask your name or the real reason you wear that fool thing on your head, because I know it isn’t what you told me. I don’t ask how you knew all about Max Lord and his clockwork men back with Diana and the Riders. And I don’t tell tales out of school to all the people in this town who are just dyin’ to know what your mystery is.” He tied off the bandage, but didn’t let go of the Beetle’s hand. “But don’t think I don’t take notice, ‘friend.’ I’m the one made this shop a success when that register was good for nothing but dust ‘fore I came along, but I don’t see my name on that window. And if there’s gonna be any ‘justice’ done by the likes of you and me, I’d like to know about it sometime before you finish your contraption and like as not land us in another mess like Helldorado!”
Beetle was quiet for a long moment after Booster finished speaking his piece. Booster was highly conscious of the pulse beating under his fingers, just out of step with his own.
“The new schooner has advanced weapons capabilities,” Beetle said finally. “I’ve incorporated some of the same technology Lord used on his clockwork men, the ‘thinking’ technology, so that the schooner will be, for lack of a better word, ‘intelligent.’ There are other components to the plan, mostly having to do with handheld weapons for you and me, and I’d like to discuss strategy with you on a case-by-case basis, but the schooner is the lynchpin.” He smiled a little. “I’m thinking of calling it ‘the Bug’.”
The next morning Booster woke early, as usual, to find the bed across from him empty. He sat up, confused. It wasn’t as if he cared to watch Beetle sleep in the morning – much – but the Beetle was hardly an early riser.
The workroom was empty, though there was a pot of coffee on the stove. Booster poured himself a cup and walked into the front room, and there was Beetle, painting something on the window where the “Beetle’s” in “Beetle’s Machines and Weapons” had been.
He squinted at the backwards letters, which were almost done. “’Blue and Gold’?”
“Blue,” Beetle indicated himself with the dripping paintbrush, “and Gold,” and Booster. “Customers should know this shop’s a partnership, after all.”
Booster fought to keep the grin off his face. Failed, mostly. “You want some breakfast?” he asked.
The Beetle tipped an imaginary hat. “Much obliged, partner.”
[3]
Somehow Booster’d dragged the Beetle out of the shop and into the Alabama Rose. Beetle complained good-naturedly the whole way, and the parts of him Booster could see under the intelligence inducement engine turned pink when the whole place went silent at the sight of him, but after a quiet round at the bar the noise level was back to normal and Booster only noticed a darting glance here and there. For his part, Beetle pretended not to notice.
“See?” Booster said, throwing his arms wide. “Ain’t this nice? Joining the livin’ like you was a real live human bein’?”
“I’ll have you know that I have a great love of humanity,” Beetle said with a little smile.
“Oh, sure.” Booster grinned. “You’re about as sociable as a cactus, partner. But it ain’t working so well as you think.”
Beetle sipped his whiskey like it was a fine wine. “Oh, no?”
“No. ‘Cause I’m getting downright fond of you, Beetle.”
“I’m like a fungus,” Beetle offered by way of explanation. “I grow on people.”
“Or some kind of awful sickness.”
“Are you complimenting me or insulting me?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
Beetle chuckled and flagged down the nearest waitress, Trixie’s cousin. Melody, if Booster wasn’t mistaken. “Excuse me, miss? Could we have another round, please?”
Melody gave him Trixie’s pretty smile. “Sure can, sir. Comin’ right up.”
That brilliant smile flared out, the rare one. “Thank you.” He watched her walk away. Booster scowled.
Suddenly the double-hinged doors burst open, clattering against the inner wall. Everyone jumped, and Booster caught a glimpse of pure terror in Beetle’s eyes before he turned towards the entrance of the Rose.
Farley Fleeter strolled in, five of his Madmen behind him. Everyone tensed, although Booster could’ve sworn he’d heard a sigh of relief from the Beetle. Like everything else Beetle did, it made no damned sense. In the weeks they’d been in Diablo Wells, the Madmen had made it clear that all they wanted was to cause as much trouble as possible, and their kind of trouble left a high body count in its wake.
“Fleeter.” It was Johnson, the owner of the Rose. “Thought I told you to keep your filthy hide out of my place.”
Fleeter smiled mockingly. “My boys and I just want a little drink, friend. Ain’t that right, boys?” His Madmen laughed and nodded.
“I don’t serve drinks to murderers,” Johnson said coolly. “And I ain’t your friend.”
Fleeter’s smile dimmed a notch, and he raised an eyebrow. “’Murderers,’ Johnson?” he asked. “You’d best watch what you’re callin’ a respectable group of fellers just wants a sociable drink. Them’s fighting words.”
“I’m only sayin’ what ever’one in here already knows,” Johnson replied. “T’ain’t no mystery to us who shot poor Frank Sullivan three nights back, like as if we seen it our own selves.” Fleeter’s face was sober now, or close enough to it as a lunatic could get. “Now you take yourself on out of here ‘fore I send for the sheriff.”
He’d misspoken, because Fleeter looked confident again. “I happen to know the sheriff is out chasin’ claim-jumpers at the moment,” Fleeter said smugly. “So I think I’ll have that drink after all.” And a body’d have to be crazy to keep walking into a saloon packed with men glaring daggers, but Fleeter and his boys weren’t called Madmen just for show.
Booster shifted and let his hand drop closer to the revolver strapped to his thigh, wondering if he could get in front of Beetle and Melody before any shooting started.
But Beetle, much to Booster’s surprise, stepped forward. “I believe you were asked to leave, sir.”
Fleeter blinked at the word “sir.” “Oh, well,” he drawled, the ever-present snigger beneath his words louder now. “If it isn’t the Prince of Wales, boys?” The Madmen laughed. Beetle didn’t flinch. “Now don’t you fret your little head, your highness…or that thing you’re wearin’ on top of it. And they call me mad.” Booster’s fingers jerked towards his revolver again, but Beetle was as unmoving as the land itself. “We just want a drink. We ain’t gonna make a fuss…less somebody makes it for us,” and the way his voice went down on the last sentence was markedly a threat. Booster wondered if he’d be able to shoot Fleeter without tagging Beetle by mistake.
“So you just move aside, your majesty, and we’ll go our merry way.” Fleeter made a sweeping gesture, indicating what Beetle could do with himself.
Beetle didn’t move.
It happened before Booster could blink, otherwise he would’ve filled the varmint with lead first without compunction. Fleeter hauled off and punched Beetle in the face.
The room went dead silent, save for the click as Booster’s revolver – when had it gotten into his hand? – was cocked. Beetle stayed doubled over for what felt like an unconscionably long time, hands to his face.
Then he straightened up, slowly, carefully adjusting the intelligence inducement engine back to its proper place. Booster caught a glimpse of Beetle’s bleeding lip, and – was that a smile?
It was. And Beetle’d never looked wickeder, not even the day they’d met.
“I was so hoping you’d do that,” Beetle said sweetly.
Then he kicked Fleeter in the teeth.
As Fleeter staggered back and fell, one of the Madmen hollered in surprise, and then next moment all five of them were on surging forward. The Beetle was everywhere at once, faster than thought, fists and feet and elbows colliding with the Madmen in staccato of oddly graceful movement. Booster spared a moment to stare in astonishment before cursing, holstering his revolver, and leaping into the fray.
He ducked under a Madman’s swing and socked him in the solar plexus as he straightened up. “Boy, Beetle, you’re just full of surprises, ain’t you?” he hollered over the din.
Beetle used a Madman’s forward charge to throw him over his shoulder and send him flying through the double doors. “Well, I do hate to be predictable.”
Booster turned so that a kick only caught a glancing blow to his side. “This gets through, we’re gonna have a little talk, you and I,” he wheezed.
The Beetle punched a Madman in the throat. “I look forward to it.”
Booster slugged the Madman coming at Beetle from behind, and just like that it was over. Fleeter and his boys lay half in, half out of the Rose, all either unconscious or groaning and in no fit state to keep fighting. Booster stared at Beetle, breathing heavily, confused beyond measure, and opened his mouth to say…he wasn’t sure what.
Then he realized that the roaring in his ears was cheering, and he and Beetle were hoisted up on the shoulders of the crowd, and someone was pressing a drink into his hands. Across the undulating sea of people he saw the surprised pleasure on the Beetle’s face, and as the player piano started up a rollicking tune and the people of Diablo Wells toasted their health Booster grinned fit to burst and wondered what he was worrying about anyway.
And it barely bothered him at all that for all he could recollect Fleeter’d never taken a swing after Beetle’s first kick, but lay there staring like a man who’d sold his soul to the devil years back and had just now remembered it was collection day.
The sun was half-risen by the time Beetle and Booster staggered their way back to the shop. Booster only managed to get his shirt half off before collapsing on his rickety bed and grinning foolishly up at the ceiling. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Beetle doggedly attacking his boots. Booster knew his own boots were a bit beyond his capabilities at this stage – and, judging by Beetle’s difficulties, Booster wasn’t alone.
“How’d you learn to fight like that?” Booster asked, dimly recalling that he’d been confused and upset by it, but now feeling mostly just curious.
“A friend taught me,” Beetle replied with a little hiccup. His voice was almost a drawl, the Eastern fanciness forgotten.
“How come you didn’t…” Booster made a vague gesture. Easier than words. “At Helldorado?”
“Didn’t need to,” Beetle said matter-of-factly. “M’better at other things. Helpin’ you with the…” he made a little finger gun, “…blowin’ up th’schooner, bang!”
Booster giggled. “You’re such a…”
“…charmin’ yet dangerous desperado?”
“…circus freak.”
“Oh.” One boot landed with a thump on the floorboards. “Really?”
“No, it’s just…” Words. Words were not Booster’s friends right now. “I can’t make you out, Beetle, not one bit. Most the time y’talk all uppity, big words and ‘cogito ergo sum’ and I don’t know what all. But sometimes you sound like a boy fresh off the territories. I don’t know nothin’ about your past, or how come all of a sudden you can fight like…like…I don’t even know what that was like. I don’t know…” He trailed off, suddenly exhausted. “Anythin’, really.”
“Well, I don’t know anythin’ about you either, Gold,” Beetle said, grunting as he tugged at the other boot. “’Cept that isn’t your real name.”
“How’d you…?”
“Come on, what kind of a name is ‘Booster’?” Beetle shrugged. “I’m not sayin’ you’ve got to tell me everythin’, or anythin’, point of fact. But if you don’t, why should I?”
The other boot hit the floor. Booster stared at it, and then he told him. He told the Beetle about his mother, and the fever that was going to take her slow and painful, and about the way he fleeced the town’s leading citizens to pay for her medical care and got run out of town on a rail for his pains. He told him about the telegram that reached him two weeks later – “MA DEAD STOP DON’T COME HOME STOP” – and the one three months after that – “SISTER MICHELLE DEAD STOP CAUGHT SAME FEVER STOP OUR CONDOLENCES STOP” – and how cold it was when the sun went out. He told the Beetle – because he couldn’t stop talking now – about just about everything that had happened to him since the day he was born, and then he stopped, and breathed, and said, “And my name’s Michael Carter, by the way.”
There was silence, so long Booster figured Beetle had fallen asleep.
“I was working for my uncle,” Beetle said finally, so suddenly that Booster jumped. “My mother died when I was a kid and my pa when I was seventeen, so Uncle Jarvis was about all I had. But I didn’t mind – I liked working on his clockwork engines, even if I didn’t know what they were for, and I was damn good at it, too. A sight better than Uncle Jarvis, leastaways. Wasn’t smart enough to see what Uncle was up to, but at least I could make machines.”
Beetle sighed, a gusty, hollow sound. “And then Maxwell Lord came along. And the two of them were as thick as thieves before you could say ‘How d’you do?’” Not…not just them.” His voice sounded thick. “Max and I were…friends, I guess you might call it. We…I’ve never known anyone like him. I never hope to again.”
Booster craned his head in the Beetle’s direction, but the windowless room was dark and Beetle’s features were indistinguishable.
“When…when I found out what they were up to, I…it was too late, it was horrible, but I…they…” Beetle took a shuddering breath. “I stopped them. My friend, the one who taught me how to…God, the one who taught me everything, Dan Gar – “
He stopped abruptly, but it was too late. Booster sat up straight, ignoring the way his head swam. “Dan Garrett? Colonel Garrett?” he asked. “The war hero?”
“Yeah.” Beetle’s voice was distant now. “He was father and friend and hero to me, and he…I…they killed him. Max and Jarvis, they killed him, they were going to do abominable things… So I stopped them. Max got away, but I stopped Uncle Jarvis. I…”
But Booster knew what he meant. “It ain’t such a bad thing, killing a man what deserves it,” he said as kindly as he could manage. “Preacher says you’ll burn, but I think you’ll burn hotter for standin’ aside and lettin’ a bad man live to do wrong. I’ve killed men myself, ones who had it comin’, and I sleep fine at night.”
“You ever kill your own flesh and blood?” Beetle asked.
Booster was quiet. “Like enough,” he said finally.
Suddenly there was a rustle across the room. “Excuse me a minute, I’ve got to go throw up,” Beetle said, and rushed out the door.
Booster lay there a long time, fighting off sleep in the interest of asking the Beetle a few more questions. There was a story connected to Colonel Garrett, a big one, but he couldn’t focus just now. If he could just ask Beetle…
But Beetle was gone a long time, and Booster still had too much whiskey in his blood for keeping watch, and sleep claimed him soon enough.
He wiped sweat from his face with an ineffectual forearm, bare and sticky since he’d stripped to the waist over an hour ago, and scowled. “Ain’t we done yet, Beetle?” he asked petulantly. “I need a bath something fierce.”
Beetle looked annoyed. “Are we currently flying around in a thinking clockwork vehicle shaped like an insect?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then we’re not done.” He slipped a hand inside the intelligence inducement engine and wiped sweat from his forehead, then bent back over the stained and crumpled blueprints. “It doesn’t fit. Why the hell doesn’t it fit?” A fierce stare at the mismatched jugsaw of iron and steel that was refusing to become a schooner didn’t seem to help. “All right – we’ll try bringing this piece over here. If that doesn’t work…” Beetle tapped his foot impatiently. “Well, come on!”
Booster raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you ‘come on’ me, Beetle. I ain’t moving this oversized wind-up toy by my lonesome.”
Beetle let out an irritated snort, then threw himself against the piece in question. Booster put his back to the other side and between them they maneuvered the heavy sheet of metal into its new position.
Even Booster’s layman’s eyes could tell this was even worse. “Doesn’t look like we fixed it, Beetle.”
“Thank you for that observation, Gold.” Beetle tried to wipe the sweat out of his eyes and wiped his goggles instead. “Dammit.” He stuck his hand inside the intelligence inducement engine again. “It’s warped. Must be this blamed heat.”
“The intell – ?”
“The schooner, Gold. Pay attention.” Beetle kicked a nearby wrench, then swore and hopped a little in pain. “I’ll have to start up the forge again, which is going to make this whole place another twenty degrees hotter.”
Booster stared at him. “It’s gotta be a hundred ten today. The devil himself wouldn’t survive a forge on a day like this.”
“Which means I have to wait until it cools off, which might not be for another month.”
Booster spread his hands fatalistically, fighting his own rising temper at Beetle’s attitude. “Well, y’can’t change the weather. But you can make it a bit more comfortable. Come on, let’s go down to the swimmin’ hole. It’ll be quiet – everyone’s at church.” He forced a grin and gave Beetle a playful shove. “I promise not to dunk you.”
Beetle shoved him back, and there was nothing playful about it. Booster tripped over a few scraps of metal and nearly landed on his rear.
“Dammit, Gold, can’t you concentrate for a minute?” Beetle thundered. “Our whole plan has been derailed until God knows when and you’re hopping all over the place like a child at a circus!”
Booster’s fists clenched. “I don’t much like your tone, Beetle,” he said tightly. “I don’t recollect signin’ up to take orders or insults from you. And I ain’t eager for a fight but if you touch me again I’ll give you one.”
Beetle’s jaw set to match Booster’s, and for a moment Booster thought Beetle might actually take a swing at him, until suddenly Beetle seemed to deflate like the hot air balloon Booster’d once seen at a fair.
“Sorry,” Beetle muttered. “I…sorry. It’s…” He moved as if to wipe his forehead, encountered the intelligence inducement engine, and let out an exasperated breath. “Oh, this is idiotic,” he muttered, and gave Booster a discerning kind of look, the kind a man gives his poker companions before calling his bet. “I trust you.”
And he yanked the mask off.
Booster’d thought after the clockwork men he’d about used up all his surprise, but he found enough left in him to gape at the face on every Wanted poster from New York to California Territory. Posters’d made the infamous Ted Kord look a fair bit meaner, though. And you couldn’t tell from an artist’s sketch that the man’s eyes were blue, or that his hair was a shade of dark red Booster’d never clapped eyes on before.
All the stray wisps of memory Booster’d been trying to gather about Colonel Garrett came together in a flash. Ted Kord, the Colonel’s close friend, had gone crazy and blown him up – along with half a town. He was at large, was not to be approached, was considered armed and extremely dangerous.
He was – dammit! – Booster’s best friend. Only friend.
Those blue eyes, so angry a moment before, were as big and shy as a jackrabbit’s now, and Booster knew his face’d betrayed his recognition. Kord – Beetle – took a step towards Booster, spreading his hands, and Booster had a sudden recollection of Beetle throwing a Madman over his shoulder.
“It’s not true,” Beetle said. “What the papers said, what the law thinks – it’s all Max’s doing. I would never – I loved Dan Garrett, Booster. And my uncle, and Max – God help me, I loved them too. I…it’s not…” He moved his hands, a helpless gesture. “Dammit, I…”
Booster felt dizzy, probably from the infernal heat. Ted Kord was a notorious criminal. The Beetle was his partner – and, Booster couldn’t help noticing, had called him “Booster” for the first time in their acquaintance.
“Michael,” he said.
Beetle blinked. “What?”
“I – you were dead drunk when I told you my name. It’s Michael.” Booster pressed his fingers to his temples. “Michael Carter. I guessed you didn’t remember.”
“I remember everything,” Beetle said softly. Then, carefully, “Do – do you want me to call you Michael?”
Booster shook his head. “No, no, I just…I never told you my name ‘cept then, so…that’s it. But I’m Booster now.”
“Booster, then.” He was closer now, somehow had come closer without Booster realizing it. It should have scared Booster, because he’d seen Beetle fight, had seen Beetle throw a Madman over his shoulder, but though he could feel his breath coming short and fast, it wasn’t from fear.
“If.” Beetle stopped. “If you’re going to leave, don’t…I won’t try to stop you, or find you, or…but don’t give me away.” Booster could’ve touched him just by shifting his weight. “Please.”
If he was going to leave? But – I trust you – and after all Booster was a gambling man and a gambling man was at all times crazy enough to risk his whole caboodle and right stupid besides, and so he grabbed Beetle by the shirtfront and shoved him against the schooner next to them and kissed him, fierce and anguished.
Beetle’s mouth fell open in surprise and Booster took advantage, making the best he could out of the moment before Beetle came to his senses and killed him. He pressed against Beetle’s taut, quaking frame, noted the taste of stale coffee and the way Beetle’s lips and tongue and cheek burned against his in the scorching summer heat. If this was going to be his last moment with Beetle, or his last moment on earth – and right now they were inseparable things – he was sure as hell going to remember every detail as long as memory lasted.
When Booster pulled back Beetle kept his eyes closed and his head resting against the sun-warmed metal of the schooner. Booster watched him struggle to regain his breath, trying and failing to convince his fingers to release Beetle’s shirt.
“Well,” Beetle said finally, and he sounded as Western and unraveled as he did when he was drunk. It made Booster’s throat catch. “It’s about damn time.”
He opened his eyes and smiled – the brilliant smile, bright as the sun. Booster tried to shoot him one back, but clearly Beetle had other plans for Booster’s mouth, because he tugged Booster’s head down and wrapped his arms around Booster’s neck and if kissing a surprised Beetle had been nice, kissing a happy Beetle was about a dozen kinds of wonderful.
Booster fisted his hands in Beetle’s shirt and pressed in further though there was no room to do so; Beetle’s buttons would leave a line of red circles on his chest but that didn’t matter a lick. He felt blunt fingernails scraping his back, the brush of stubble against his chin and realized Jesus, he was kissing a man, and it wasn’t like he’d never thought about it, but thinking wasn’t doing. The fellows had joked about it and Booster had laughed, but he’d never given the matter serious consideration – and with Beetle arching up against him and licking along the line of his jaw Booster knew that this wasn’t the time to consider anything seriously, and as Beetle moved to his throat Booster figured there’d never be a time to consider it seriously, not when there were so many better things to do.
“Beetle,” he said, and let his hips roll forward, just a little.
“Ted, it’s Ted,” Beetle said, made a funny little growl, and kissed Booster’s chin.
“Ted,” and Booster wanted to say it again immediately, and did. “Ted. Christ.”
Beetle - Ted laughed breathlessly. “Not quite.” He cut off Booster’s reply with a kiss, so Booster decided to occupy himself with unbuttoning Ted’s shirt instead. He got almost halfway down before growing impatient and yanking the shirt open. A couple of buttons made dull metallic thunks as they bounced off various machinery, but Ted just laughed against Booster’s mouth and shrugged the shirt off the rest of the way.
And oh, Ted was hard and hairy and rough and it was nothing remotely like being with a woman and Booster, always a fan of variety, cursed his previous narrow-minded thinking and made a solemn vow to never not have sex again.
Booster’s pants were getting uncomfortably tight, and he blessed Ted’s intuitive genius as hasty fingers unfastened the fly and shoved Booster’s trousers down around his thighs. His unmentionables followed suit and there was Ted’s hand, wrapped around his dick, firm and insistent. Booster groaned and fumbled with Ted’s belt buckle even more desperately.
Ted smiled against Booster’s neck. “Not much for doin’ two things at once, are we?” He brushed Booster’s fingers aside with the hand that wasn’t stroking Booster’s cock and started to unbuckle the belt himself.
Booster snorted. “Not my fault you – mrph – invented yourself a clockwork belt in case some rovin’ bandit tries to steal your pants.”
“Well, I like my pants.” The belt fell open.
Booster yanked the fly open. “I’m hatin’ ‘em real bad right now myself,” he admitted. “I think the sooner we get rid of ‘em the better, point of fact.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” Ted let go – to Booster’s great disappointment – to wriggle out of his pants and drawers. Booster took the opportunity to shuck his trousers off the rest of the way and attempt to catch his breath. He failed, mostly.
Naked, Ted turned to face Booster. Booster only had a minute to admire the view before Ted tackled him to the floor. Booster let out a yelp like a wounded coyote as he landed on a couple of scattered parts; then Ted’s hips moved and he forgot everything else. Ted’s cock dragged across Booster’s, slick and hot, legs tangled and hipbones hitting hard enough to bruise, and Ted, predictably enough, spouting a million words a minute. “Booster, oh God, nng – yesyesyes, that’s – Booster!”
Booster shivered, groaned, and rolled them over, pinning Ted beneath him. Ted’s eyes were huge, a sliver around the blown pupils as blue as the sky at twilight, and his hair was damp and matted to his forehead. Spots of color burned feverish in his cheeks and throat and, Booster was sure he’d see if he could spare a glance downwards, his belly and thighs, but Booster couldn’t pull back far enough to see, couldn’t do anything but rock his hips forward into Ted’s.
“Ted, Ted,” Booster groaned over the tumble of words from Ted’s mouth, and bit Ted’s collarbone.
“…wanted you, always wanted you,” Ted was saying, “wanted to touch you, fuck you, minute you walked into my store, God, Booster.” He licked at Booster’s mouth, dug his fingers into the shifting muscles on Booster’s back. “Mmprh – please, yes, Booster, so gorgeous, beautiful, yes – nng – yes, please.” The words blended into nonsense in Booster’s ears, babble he couldn’t begin to sort out but in the warm familiar cadence of Ted’s voice, a little rougher and faster than usual but Ted. Syllables, sometimes even words, shot into focus as he rushed by them the way a fencepost suddenly sharpened from a vague blur to something you could see as your train churned by; Booster caught “more” and “sweet” and something he would’ve sworn was “love” if it wasn’t Ted and it wasn’t him and it couldn’t possibly be.
Leastaways he was pretty sure it couldn’t.
The few words Booster could make out were dissolving into keening and as he rocked down and haphazardly kissed any skin he could reach Ted arched like a bowstring and came, a warm wet rush against Booster’s stomach. It made everything slicker, hotter, better, and Booster slid faster across the hard muscles of Ted’s stomach as Ted fought for breath and mumbled nonsense to him.
He felt Ted’s hand slip between their bodies. “Booster,” Ted murmured for the uncountable time, his voice drawn ragged over hitching breath, and kissed Booster’s throat. His thumb brushed the head of Booster’s cock and that was it, Booster was gone, a flare of starbursts going off in his brain like gunshots or fireworks, and through it all all he knew was that he could still hear Ted’s voice saying his name over and over again, as desperate and erratic as the beating of his own heart.
“Yeeeeeeeehaw!” he yelled against the onrushing wind. “Run, you yellow-bellied rattlesnakes! You won’t run far!” As if to prove his point, he fired a line of bullets into the dust just ahead of Farley’s feet. Farley, in a panic already, let himself be herded along with the rest of his Madmen back to their campfire, where they stared so hard Booster reckoned he could see the whites of their eyes from where he stood.
He didn’t blame them for staring, not one bit. The Bug looked damned foolish on the ground, but she was beautiful in the air, all blue and silver and pointy bits. Her body was round, a hollowed-out egg with two seats and all sorts of engines Booster didn’t understand churning beneath. Two machine guns thrust out from the bow, above pinchers that could be operated from within; wings shot out from her sides to slow their descent, her six sturdy little legs folded into her underbelly when she flew, and every bit of available space that wasn’t devoted to the job of flight was tricked out with all sorts of fun surprises.
Ted used one of those surprises now, a voice magnifier. “Throw down your guns,” he said into a tube, and it boomed out like thunder above the Madmen’s heads. There was a clatter as six-shooters hit the dirt like a prairie hailstorm. “Now walk towards that boulder to the east.”
When he’d judged the Madmen were far enough from their weapons, Ted gave the command to stop, then had the Madmen kneel on the ground with their hands clasped behind their heads. Booster kept the guns trained on them as Ted landed the Bug with a soft thwump on the ground and got out. Once Ted had drawn his pistol, Booster relaxed his vigilance and joined Ted outside, after first grabbing a bundle of Ted’s homemade springloaded handcuffs.
“I’ll cuff ‘em,” he said, nodding towards their prisoners. “You stand guard.”
“All right.”
Booster waded into the Madmen and began cuffing their wrists together, perhaps with a little more roughness than absolutely necessary.
“Gentlemen,” Ted said, keeping his pistols trained on the crowd. “Here in the territories, the law is perhaps not as efficacious as it is in our fair cities to the East. However, I can assure you that where the official forces end, my companion and I begin.”
“Oh, shut up,” one Madman groaned. Booster kicked him, and he took his own advice.
Ted eyed his audience, and Booster cuffed a sixth Madman. Five to go, and the next one to cuff was Fleeter himself. “As I was saying, I wish you to ruminate upon this as you await trial – “
“If I’m goin’ on trial, I’m doin’ it for killin’ you!” Fleeter drew something that flashed in the sunlight from his boot and thrust it at Booster. Booster twisted away from it, and felt a hot line of pain shoot across his ribs. As he clapped a hand to his side, Fleeter snatched a pistol from Booster’s holster and fired at Ted.
“No!” Booster yelled, and kicked at Fleeter’s wrist. Fleeter released his hold on the gun and Booster grabbed it and shoved the barrel under Fleeter’s chin.
Bang!
Booster and Fleeter froze. The Madman who’d been about to plunge Fleeter’s abandoned knife between Booster’s ribs swayed on his feet, then fell backwards to land with a thud on the ground, stone dead.
Ted leveled the still-smoking gun at Fleeter, and you’d have to know him very well to see that he was about three shades paler than normal under the intelligence inducement engine. “I believe I said we are not the official forces. Our death sentences are carried out much more quickly.”
“Go ahead,” Fleeter spat. “Shoot me. I’d rather go down fighting than swing for you, Lord.”
Ted started violently, and Booster’s pistol jerked under Fleeter’s chin.
“Thought I didn’t know you under that mask?” Fleeter laughed bitterly. “I know that kick of yours that knocked out my tooth a year back. And I knew you couldn’t be dead. Fool papers out here ain’t more’n gossip and rumors. When you lit out of here even a madman could see you was leaving poor ol’ Farley Fleeter to take the fall for you.” Ted’s face was bloodless. “Well, I ain’t hanging for your crimes, Max Lord. You’d like to pin everything from Paradise to Colonel Garrett on someone, but I ain’t your man.”
Ted sat down hard in the dirt.
Booster swore, and knocked Fleeter out with the butt of the gun.
Somehow they got the Madmen back into town and locked up in the jail. Somehow they escaped the crowd eager to congratulate them and drink their health. Somehow Booster refrained from touching Ted until they were back on the flatlands, far from town and, it seemed, within walking distance of the setting sun.
Then his fingers brushed Ted’s hand, his shoulder, his cheek, uncertain and afraid. Ted stared into the distance.
“Ted?”
“He thought I was Max, Booster. He thought I was…”
“Ted.”
“How could he…I’m not…I wouldn’t…”
“Ted.”
“What?”
Booster grabbed Ted by the shoulders and managed – just – not to shake him like a kitten. “He knows about Garrett, Ted.”
Ted was still drowning in his own horror. “I know, Booster, it’s…”
“Ted, you can clear your name.”
For a moment Ted waved under Booster’s hands; then Ted was in Booster’s arms, shaking, his forehead burning feverishly against Booster’s throat.
“Oh God,” he whispered brokenly. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”
Then he looked up, and his eyes were bright and fearless.
“I’m free.”
The intelligence inducement engine hit the dust. “I’m free!” Ted crowed again, kissed Booster, and turned a cartwheel. “No more mask, no more hiding, just you and me and…and…”
“Truth, justice, and the American way?” Booster suggested.
“Yes! That!” He stood for a moment, ruddy and flushed in the fading light, and suddenly Booster wanted to weep, though he wasn’t one bit sad.
He’d never known why he wanted to follow Diana Prince. The idea’d struck him, the way ideas did, and suddenly he was leaping through hoops to go risk his life for strangers. And there’d been flying men and metal men and men from outer space and more times than he could count Booster’d wondered just what the hell was wrong with him that made him sign up for this plumb crazy outfit.
He still didn’t know why he’d done it, but he was damn glad he had.
“Come on,” he said to Ted, picking up the intelligent inducement engine. “Let’s go clear your name.”
“Though,” he said as he climbed into the Bug, Ted close at his heels, “I don’t rightly know what we’ll do to top it. What’ll we do after you’re clear?”
“Don’t you know?” asked Ted, sitting down beside him, and his smile was like daybreak. “We’re going to save the world.”