JAMES EARL RAY was working his way through the hardware store when the man in the Confederate uniform showed up.
The soldier—grey jacket, forage cap and all—skidded to a stop at the head of the paint aisle, facing Ray. Then his face sort of clouded, like he was gathering his thoughts.
Ray sized the fellow up, a hammer in his hand. ‘Who are you?’
‘Oh!’ The soldier jolted. He looked less like a soldier than an office clerk who had heard the call to arms, rushed to volunteer, and was now realising the error of his decision. Clean-cut, eyes like a doe’s, his dark hair stuck out in all directions beneath his cap.
‘Private Jeremy Lamb,’ he boomed, thrusting out his chest. Compensating, maybe. ‘Army of Tennessee, under General Johnston. But...’ He waved at Ray. ‘You. Shot some’un important, didn’t ya?’
Ray noticed the revolver in the soldier’s belt holster. Whether this was someone who found a costume shop and decided to have some fun, the weapon looked real enough.
Gripping the hammer a little tighter, Ray spoke carefully. ‘Where is this place? Just a few minutes ago I was in—Los Angeles.’ (Best not mention it was actually Memphis.) ‘Then something happened, I don’t know what, and the next thing I knew I was here.’ He did not add, And as if that wasn’t weird enough, this guy in a Confederate uniform popped in too. ‘So, do you know what happened? Is this a dream? Am I crazy?’
Lamb nodded the whole time Ray talked and kept nodding after he finished. ‘Yeah, yeah, believe me, brother, I know. Well, first the bad news: Yes, this is for real, and no, you ain’t dreamin’. But the good news is, you ain’t crazy neither.’ And then he threw back his head and guffawed, ‘Hhhh-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!’
Ray winced. When Lamb ran out of laughter, Lamb said, ‘Word’s gotten around about you.’
‘What?’
‘Yup. It does with every new one.’ He tilted his head back and—
‘Don’t!’ Ray put out a hand. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Oh. Well. Every new arrival here doesn’t arrive alone. A few other folks from where he comes from, they get pulled in with him. Me, for example. I fell in here with Booth—’
‘Booth?’
‘Yup. Now—’
‘John Wilkes Booth, you’re talking about?’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ Lamb nodded, much too casually. ‘Shot Abe Lincoln, that’s what I heard at least. I wasn’t right next to him, you understand—I was in North Carolina—but Booth’s from my time, so I reckon I’ve got him to thank. So—’ he leaned forward—’ who’d you do away with?’
Ray backed up a step. ‘No one! What makes you think I did?—Maybe I just “fell in” too?’
Lamb tilted his head. ‘You sure?’
‘What makes you so sure?’
The private’s face muddled as he considered this. Then he shrugged. ‘Well, it jest seemed...no offense meant...’
‘But look, look, about Booth. Everyone knows full well he got shot himself—’
‘Yeah,’ Lamb scratched the back of his head, ‘I heard that too. But who knows how it all works? Unless, of course, this is Hell.’ He threw back his head—
‘Don’t!’ Ray balled his fists.
‘Awright, awright. Ah—but it don’t seem like Hell, does it? I been here for, oh, couple weeks maybe, and it’s never gotten any hotter than April. The sky’s usually cloudy. And I ain’t seen no devils with pitchforks yet. Old Brutus is the closest we got to that—’
Brutus? As in... ‘Who else is here?’
‘Hey, now, don’t go grabbin’ my collar, friend!’ Lamb swatted, beat at Ray. ‘This uniform stands for Southern independence, I’ll have you know—’
‘Who?’
Lamb broke loose, backpedalled into a shelf crammed with paint cans and brushes. The shelf shook, and two or three brushes fell around him. He flailed, regained his balance. ‘If you’ll jest gimme a chance, I’ll tell ya! Feller by the name of Ozz-weld, he shot a prez-dent too—’
‘Oswald?’
‘And some’un else named Prinz—prinz—’ Lamb straightened his cap, sniffed. ‘Well anyhow, he done gone and set off a war all across Europe, the way I heard it. Brutus got him.’ He patted himself down, dusted himself off. ‘At least Booth, he was tryin’ to end a war.’
‘You keep saying Brutus. Brutus, who?’
‘The one you’re thinking of, who the hell else? Yeah, that one, from old Roman times, who cut up See-zer. Yeah, I know, crazy, ain’t it? Seems to me,’ he rubbed his nose and sniffed, ‘the crazier a place is, the more important it is to hold onto your own head. You hear what I’m sayin’?’
No way. Can’t be. Ray felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. Holding onto his own head was beyond him right now. He pinched himself on the forearm.
‘Hey, friend, get hold of yourself!’ Lamb jumped forward, bawled in Ray’s face. ‘You ain’t dreaming! Get used to the idea. And you best keep your wits about you. See that feller thar?’ He pointed to the door that, Ray only now noticed, Lamb had left wide open.
A third man stood there. The man—dark-haired with a neat moustache, wearing a black suit with an open collar—held a revolver of his own, pointed down at the moment. His eyes were all business.
The man raised his weapon. He aimed it.
‘Hey!’ Ray put up his hands. ‘Hold on—’
Shots banged from behind him, once, twice. He flinched. The gunman staggered, dropping his weapon, and crumpled to the street. Blood pooled around the man’s torso. He twitched, then lay still.
Ray turned. Lamb was returning his Colt to its holster. A wisp of smoke curled up from it.
‘Well, hell’s bells,’ said the private as if nothing had happened. The air smelled of gunpowder and Ray’s ears would ring for a few minutes. ‘I’m lucky I got to you first.’
‘What was that all about?’
‘I was comin’ to that. Brutus—and yup, it’s the Brutus all right, I wouldn’t lie to ya—he decided he wants this whole place to himself.’ Lamb’s face twisted, like he had bitten down a lemon. ‘Jest like them federals invading us, when all we wanted was to be left alone.’
‘So he’s out to get everyone?’
‘The other assassins, at least. It’s your fault, you know.’
‘My fault?’
Lamb tilted his head again. He gave Ray a long, hard stare. ‘Are you really sure you didn’t...?’
Ray’s face flushed hot. ‘I already told you, and I’m not saying it again. Now what do you mean, my fault?’
The private eyed Ray a few more moments before stepping to the door and easing it closed.
‘People,’ Lamb said, ‘ain’t the only things falling in here with the assassins. Objects do, too. Weapons. But not like muskets, or Colts. These are serious weapons, that’ll do the trick for whoever’s got ’em. And at least one of those dropped in with—with the latest one.’
A sudden chill took hold of Ray. ‘What kind of weapons?’
Lamb looked over his shoulder. Ray himself stiffened, hearing the noise outside, voices and creaking wheels approaching. Then he heard a quick burst like a motorcycle revving, then another, followed by tinkles of glass.
Ray dived to the floor, Lamb beating him to it by a millisecond.
The shop’s front window shattered. The peace Ray had known for a day and a half was smashed to bits along with the glass and the bits of wood that flew about, one shelf tipping over and falling with a crash, scattering paint cans and metallic goods with an awful clatter.
Right after that came a fwoosh and a sting of heat. When Ray uncovered his head and looked up, the front of the shop was in flames, as if it had been burning all day.
‘Back here.’ Lamb scrambled on all fours down the aisle toward the back. Ray followed, his hands pressing on bits of broken glass. He winced, but did not stop until he reached the back screen door, where Lamb pulled him up by the arm.
The private opened the door enough to squint out. ‘Yup, sure ’nuff. Take a look-see.’ He stood aside.
Ray, shaking and pulling the glass bits from his hand—not too much blood, thank God—looked.
Some dozen men made their way down the street, wearing armour like every Roman soldier Ray had ever seen in picture shows. One carried a weapon far too modern for his uniform, looking so odd that Ray had to stifle a laugh. Olive green, worn on the soldier’s back, connected to a hose the soldier now trained on another building. Ray recognised the weapon before it fired off another yellow plume of flame at the building.
And the flame-thrower was not the only weapon. The one that had shredded the inside of the shop rode on a flat wagon pulled by a team of twelve men in brown tunics, hitched like horses and marching in step, one, two, one, two. An armoured soldier like the others, except a red cloak swished behind him and his helmet had a red plume, stood at the front shouting cadence to the men. The wagon looked too wooden and too rickety to drive into any war. A second soldier balanced in the centre, manning a gun not as modern as the flame-thrower but still terrible enough to save the Roman Empire, had it existed back then.
‘That’s how Brutus got that Prince feller,’ Lamb said over Ray’s shoulder. ‘Burned down half the town he was hidin’ in, and shot up the other half with that crazy mounted gun.’
But how do they know who’s who? Ray did not like the way Lamb had eyed him... Was he marked, somehow? Did it show on his face?
‘Well now.’ Lamb was scratching the back of his head. ‘They’re burnin’ what looks to be the food store. You know, friend, I’m sorta surprised I didn’t find you there.’
Ray peered in that direction. Great. He had meant to stop there and stock up. But now...
‘Lamb?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I need to know. Were there any other weapons?’
Lamb screwed up his face, and his eyes went momentarily blank. Then he shook his head. ‘Nope, that’s all he got. No artillery, nothin’ like that.’
Ray allowed himself to relax. Brutus did not have The Bomb. Thank God for that, at least.
‘That gun now,’ he said. ‘Did you recognise it? That’s not from my time, it’s from yours, if you’re really from the Civil War.’
‘That’s the War for Southern Independence if you please, friend. And no, I ain’t seen that before, but... really?’
‘It’s a Gatling gun. I don’t know when it was invented, exactly, but it was in your century sometime.’
‘Do tell!’ Lamb doffed his cap and wiped his brow with his sleeve. The fire at the front of the shop was spreading, the smell of smoke getting too strong for comfort. Ray recalled hearing, probably in the Army, that most fire casualties died of smoke inhalation before the flames even reached them. ‘Son of a bitch. I wish we’d had some of those.’
The Roman marauders passed out of sight. Ray and Lamb forced the door open—it was stuck and its bottom scraped the back porch—and staggered outside, gulping cool air.
Memphis, last night.
When Ray aimed his Remington out the rooming house’s bathroom window and pulled the trigger, the whole world flashed white as if he had hit a hidden nuke and done the Russians’ job for them. The floor pulled itself out from beneath him. He shouted and let go of his rifle. He must have passed out, and when he came to, found himself lying on the grass outside the ghost town, shivering and wet with dew.
God only knew where this was, but it wasn’t Memphis. There were no signs, even on the stores. The houses, the buildings had been whitewashed down to the generic bare bones. But however he had gotten here, it seemed like an ideal refuge... until now.
Damn it! His fists clenched at his sides. He should have known it wouldn’t last.
‘Look. Can’t I just go see this Brutus guy and ask him to leave me in peace? The assassin’s got to be far away by now, if they didn’t get him already.’
But Lamb was shaking his head. ‘The things I’ve heard about that man...’ He spat again into the dusty street littered with bits of rubble, looked at the slowly settling cloud of dust, and burning buildings and shops.
In the distance, the ungodly rattle of that gun could still be heard. Lamb returned his attention to Ray. ‘Don’t know much about history, but I’m thinking old Julius See-zer probably tried to have that talk with him, too.’
He advanced on Ray. Ray moved back a step, then another. ‘You jest want to squat here, take life easy? Well, friend, you seem to be the only one. The others been fightin’ over this little corner of Earth. Up until now they been takin’ potshots at each other with small arms, like mine here.’ He patted the revolver in its holster. ‘Maybe it’s because the one thing they all got in common is, they’ve seen how easy it is to shoot a man dead, and they know the others know it too, and it would be jest as easy to shoot them next. Right? So it went until you and your grand old gear came along—’
‘Me?’
‘—the assassin, damn it! It’s an all-out war, like the one I jest left.’
‘So what am I supposed to do?’
Lamb tilted his head and squinted. ‘Ain’t it plain? Plug them first. Now don’t look so put out, I got two pieces of good news. The first... this is important...’ He glanced both ways, leaned in close. ‘I found somethin’ else. It looks like some kinda war wagon, a behemoth that could run those blackguards right over. It’s got a cannon up on top of it. I guess it appeared all at once, inside a wrecked church, so it’s hidden. I sure hope you know how to work it.’
For the first time, Ray sensed a glimmer of encouragement. ‘And what’s the second?’
‘The second is, you got yourself a head start. The Prince guy, he’s already took care of. You only gotta worry about Ozz-wald, then Brutus himself. Not Booth, ya hear what I’m saying? You can thank me for that. ‘Cause that scoundrel who tried to shoot you a minute ago? Yup. That was him.’
Ray returned to the dead man. Flames had devoured the corpse and only a charred skeleton remained, blackened flesh clinging to it in places. Ray gagged, covered his mouth with his shirt-sleeve. After a quick look up close, he shrank gratefully away.
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘Can’t be. Booth got killed in a burning barn. And how can Oswald be here? Jack Ruby shot him, everybody knows that.’
‘Well, smart man, maybe that’s a comfort. If we can beat ’em here, mebbe they’ll be sent back to where they came from as punishment, to get what was comin’ to them. And that’s the proof we won. Good an explanation as any, I reckon.’
‘So they get killed twice?’
‘Hell, man, I don’t pretend to be an expert on this. All I know is, either you get them or they’ll get you. Yeah! I know!’ He held up his hands, fingers spread wide. ‘You didn’t shoot anyone. You’re as innocent as a babe. But Brutus, he don’t seem to think so.’
Brutus. With the flame-thrower. And the Gatling gun...
‘Where’s that behemoth?’ Ray asked.
Lamb led him out of town. Reaching the countryside took only a few minutes, and the air had the smell of smoke, black flakes of ash floating down here and there. Every building Ray could see was on fire, smoke climbing in brown, billowing columns. His refuge had become a war zone. Meanwhile, Lamb kept up a steady dialogue.
‘I seen three other towns, none any bigger than yours. They’re all laid out the same, one main street, three or four cross streets. Most of the area is this wide-open country, like farmland—no actual farms, though. Jest some shallow hills, and a stone wall here ‘n thar, never more’n waist-high. And woods off in the distance.’
‘And every town’s just like all the others?’
‘Not all of ‘em. One’s like ancient Rome, got a forum and columns and all that... makes me wonder, who in the devil built this place? It’s like they knew they were gonna bring Brutus here, so they got a neighbourhood all ready for him. So, why would any man want to shoot another man, anyway?’
Huh? ‘Oh... I don’t know... what brought that up?’
Lamb sauntered along, hands in pockets. ‘Well, men who do that—what do they expect to gain by it? ‘Cause it seems like every time someone does, they come to a bad end, no better off than the feller they shot.’
‘I guess.’ Ray walked on, looking straight ahead.
‘And men not only do it, they go through an awful lot of trouble for it. It’d be a hell of a lot easier jest to forget the idea, wouldn’t it, and instead do something that ain’t gonna wreck their whole lives? I mean, what in God’s green Earth do they expect to gain?’
‘How should I know?’
Lamb stopped, and eyed him.
‘What?’ Ray finally snapped.
‘So, you got no view on this? It’s the whole reason we’re here, friend.’
Ray rolled his eyes. ‘I don’t know why this is so important to you all of a sudden—’
A shot rang out from somewhere nearby. Ray and Lamb threw themselves down. Some fifteen yards ahead, the pasture sloped up into a shallow hill. They scrambled to the foot of it.
‘Guess I forgot to tell ya.’ Lamb huddled beside Ray, breathing hard again. ‘We were headin’ into Ozz-wald’s territory.’
Ray stared at him. ‘You forgot that?’
‘See that tower up yonder?’ Lamb pointed.
Visible above the hill, the top of a column stood, stone and worn-looking—it might have been a century old—with a balcony circling it, along with an array of tall, narrow windows. The interior would hold maybe a dozen people.
‘You see,’ Lamb went on, scratching the back of his head, ‘we got five towns set in a big circle. That is, four towns and Brutus’ little Rome. I went through them all explorin’. Like a big wagon wheel, towns all along the rim, and that tower yonder? That’s the hub. And that’s where you’ll always find Ozz-wald. Kooky skinny fellow. I don’t know where he gets his food and water, but he’s always up thar and shoots at anyone he sees. Won’t come down here where Brutus’s infernal machines can get him.’ Lamb snickered.
‘Hold on, hold on. So, the towns make a ring around this place? What’s outside the towns?’
‘Why do you care? Do you wanna go back to—I mean, ah—anyone here who really has shot somebody, not like you; why would they want to go back to where the law’s lookin’ for ‘em?’
‘I’m just asking.’
‘Awright, awright, nothing’ wrong with that. Well, it’s all woods out back of the towns, trees packed together for miles. I climbed up a tree, a tall one, and got a good look. It’s gotta be the world’s biggest woods. You go trampin’ in thar, you might not ever come out the other side. Couldn’t find your way back either, ‘less you got a compass. Hell, maybe those don’t even work here. You’d be good and lost.’
Or anyone from the other side would get good and lost... Out to Ray’s right, some thirty yards distant on level land, the battered remnants of a church stood. It may have been a cathedral at one time, but the years had reduced it to a bell tower topped with a broken, jagged steeple, and an arched window without any stained glass. Half of a nave clung to the tower, crawling back some thirty feet before its stones collapsed into a heap of rubble, loose stones scattered about in the grass.
Ray jerked his head toward it. ‘Is that where the behemoth is?’
‘Yep. Handy, huh? I heard tell Brutus found his fire-shooter under some shrubs. Weapons always seem to turn up in hidden places. Jest our luck, though, the church has to be right near Ozz-wald. Guess I should thank him for that, though—he saw me walkin’ out here and fired away. I ran for the nearest shelter, and that was the church. Might never have found it otherwise.’ He threw back his head—
‘Don’t laugh! You’ll get his attention!’
Lamb gave a start, but kept silent, sulking. Ray thought about the matter. ‘Maybe we could wait till tonight, when he’s gotta be asleep?’
Lamb cocked his head. ‘You mean give Brutus all the time in the world to come get us? Time is an advantage we don’t have, friend.’
‘So—what?’ Ray eyed the tower and liked less and less the look of it. Oswald hiding up there, maybe even clutching that same Carcano rifle for all Ray knew, and himself exposed down on the ground. He bristled. Son of a bitch! Why doesn’t he come down and face me like a man?
Lamb had his revolver out. ‘Only one thing for it. I keep him occupied, you break for it. Run zig-zag, and between that and my cover fire, hopefully...’
Ray sized up the area. Nothing but grass, level ground at least, but it was going to be one long hundred-yard dash.—Less than that, actually, but it looked like a whole mile. His pulse raced, his palms sweaty. He swallowed. ‘I’m not sure I can...’
‘Go!’ Lamb gave him a shove and snapped erect, firing a shot at the tower. Ray took off, legs windmilling beneath him, puffing for breath, breaking to the right, to the left, eyes on the church—
Wait a minute. Lamb’s gun, it’s only a six-shooter. And he already used two—!
Ray panicked, yelled, dashed the last ten yards straight for the church’s arched, yawning entrance. One, two shots cracked off to his left and then a volley erupted, crack-crack-crack. A bullet whizzed behind his head. Almost there, crack, he threw himself through the door, hit the ground shoulder-first and rolled, ending up on his back, staring up into darkness, sweating and gasping for breath.
One more crack sounded outside, then silence.
Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the dark. Grey light showed through holes in the ceiling, and through a great high circle where the clock had once been.
Ray had come to rest at the foot of something big. It was like the silhouette of a museum dinosaur, the centrepiece that would arrest the attention of anyone who saw it, not letting them pass until they stopped and paid it proper attention. Not a skeleton, but filled out and magnified into a towering hulk that would make any soldier drop his weapon and raise his hands. The long black shaft of its main gun was trained off to Ray’s right.
He struggled into a sitting position, resting on his hands. Just as he had thought: a tank.
His eyes adjusting to the dimness, he even recognised the type. M-24 Chaffee, crew of... five. Commander, driver, gunner, loader, bow gunner. He had trained for tanks—or begun to, more or less—but by then, he knew he was going to wash out of the Army. Military life was something he could never hold himself to. Holding up stores and taxi drivers would come to suit him better, along with a string of odd jobs. He ended up discharged for ‘ineptitude’ and lack of adaptability.
Now, he tried not to think of how long ago that was. He climbed up on the port side, felt for the driver’s hatch, found it already open. He climbed down inside, plopped into the seat, took a few minutes to reacquaint himself with tank controls: the two steering levers, the transmission lever on his right, the forward-reverse gearshift.
He tried the ignition and start buttons for each engine. Both rumbled to life. The war machine vibrated around him and beneath him.
This, he thought, could run right over Brutus’s slave-drawn wagon. The Gatling gun, the flame-thrower, they’ve got no chance if I catch them out in the open. Maybe he could have his refuge after all.
He stepped on the gas pedal. The pulsing hum of the engines erupted into a roar. The tank responded with gratifying speed, leaping forward over the dirt floor. Peering through the periscope, Ray watched the entrance rush up but did not meet it evenly, the M-24 ploughing through a corner. Like tenpins, and it even sounded like it, bricks collapsing in a shower as the tank dashed on. Grey daylight greeted him, the green pasture, and—where was it? There—the hill with Oswald’s tower.
Ray glanced over the gauges, found the one for fuel. The needle hovered in the middle. Good.
He brought the tank about and accelerated for the hill.
Oswald, he thought, you better say your prayers.
Maybe Lamb was still shouting; Ray could only hear the engines. Sighting the tower, which looked a lot less fearsome now, he floored the gas. The tank reached the hill and raced up it with no loss of speed, the tower dead centre in the periscope now. A ping sounded on the outside, then another, that he guessed were bullets.
The tower rushed up. Ray squeezed his eyes shut.
The impact jarred the tank to a halt. Ray’s face slammed into the scope. He winced, holding his head, eyes swimming—damn, that hurt!—and the engines sputtered out. But from outside came a creaking, then a shriek like metal twisting out of shape. Someone ranted and raved—Lamb? And then came a crash like the church wall but a hundred times louder, deafening like the end of the world, a whole block of houses collapsing, pouring stones, shaking the tank like a great fist. Ray held his head and cried out.
The noise faded into silence.
Ray, head throbbing and ears ringing, reached up and fumbled with the hatch, sliding it aside with trembling hands. Peering out, he saw a wasteland of rubble, stones scattered about, and the scratched-up chassis of the tank.
But where was—?
A shot rang out. Ray ducked back inside his steel refuge until he heard Lamb’s voice. ‘I got ’im!’
Ray raised his head and shoulders, placed his hands on the chassis. He looked about.
‘Over here!’
Some fifty feet to his left, Lamb danced in the rubble, revolver in hand. At his hyperactive feet lay a bloodied figure Ray placed immediately as Oswald. President Kennedy’s assassin lay face up with the stillness of death, eyes blank, arms spread, with a neat hole in his temple.
‘Ha ha! You shoulda seen yourself chargin’ up the hill like all the hounds of hell! Ozz-wald couldn’t so much as dent it.’ He kicked at the corpse. ‘I put him outta his misery.’
Ray climbed down off the M-24, picked his way over the rubble, and stood over the fallen assassin. Well, so long, Oswald, Ray thought. Maybe in his last few moments, he wished he’d got Jack Ruby’s bullet instead. Although he still ended up the same way.
Lamb came bounding up. The fellow seemed to have endless energy, but then again, his life wasn’t at stake here. ‘So, you do know how to work it. Good.’ Holstering his revolver, he walked around the tank, examining it, nodding, muttering. The main gun, Ray now noticed, pointed aft and to the right, and likely would remain that way. And the bow’s 30-calibre machine gun seemed to be missing. If he could catch Brutus and his toys outside, though, it would not matter.
‘Hold on...’ Ray shook his head, needed to clear it. ‘How much ammo do you have?’
‘What? Oh. Yeah. That’s one more crazy thing about this place.’ Lamb chuckled. ‘Seems like no matter how many rounds anyone fires, they never gotta reload. So far at least.’ He climbed up on one of the caterpillar treads, onto the turret and lifted the hatch with a grunt, peering down inside.
‘So. How does one go about makin’ this thing go?’
‘We’ve got no time. You yourself said that.’
‘I understand, I understand. But I only need a minute, jest the bare basics. I know somethin’ ’bout drivin’ a locomotive—is this like that?’
Ray sighed. ‘Well,’ he climbed to the driver’s hatch, ‘that up there is the turret, but we won’t be using it. It needs its own crew. We’ll only be driving it...’
Ray started up the engines again and started off. Lamb stood on the bow gunner’s seat on Ray’s right with his head and shoulders above his own hatch, shouting out where to turn. After about fifteen minutes, far sooner than he expected, Ray sighted the neighbourhood Lamb called Little Rome.
It was a disappointment. It did not live up to Rome pictures Ray had seen, the stately monuments, the buildings both ruined and immortal. This looked more like a Hollywood back lot. There was a main avenue lined with apartment houses, ending in a modest amphitheatre that would hold perhaps five hundred people. An arch like the Arch of Titus stood on one corner, but it showed no artwork. Brutus must have been missing the real Rome.
Ray stopped and idled the engines. About a dozen people milled about, some wearing tunics of red or white, others in modern shirts and pants. One red-haired woman wore a flowery dress and tennis shoes. All retreated, vanishing into doorways and slamming the doors at the sight of the behemoth.
‘I’d like to know,’ Lamb called down, ‘who built this place, and what the hell for. For all we know, the gods could be watchin’ us from up in the sky, placin’ their bets.’
Ray raised his head above the hatch, looked from building to building, at the arch, at the amphitheatre six blocks ahead. Where was Brutus? Still out rampaging?
And then he heard the rumble of the slave-drawn wagon, sighted the flatbed with Gatling’s infernal machine rounding a corner with its human team running full-tilt before it, their sandaled feet striking the ground in perfect step.
Before Ray could duck back down, someone grabbed his hair. Tug of pain, his hands flew to his head and someone else grabbed his right arm. No! He struggled, snarled, tried to bat them away, but the two men dragged him out.
Lamb was already on the ground, pinned and kicking. Ray realised his mistake. Men had heard the tank’s ungodly rumble and came to investigate. They shadowed the tank, keeping out of sight until Ray and Lamb stopped to gawk at everything, then ran up behind them! Brutus must have trained them well.
The M-24 still idled, and probably would keep idling until its fuel ran out, if it ever did.
A ruddy man with a toga draped around one shoulder stepped off the wagon and approached. His dark hair was neatly clipped; sandals graced his feet. Plain, no different from any other man, shorter than Ray. But his face? All confidence.
Ray, guards holding his arms, sized the man up. So this was the assassin, one of them at least, who stuck a knife into the world’s greatest emperor? Et tu?
Marcus Junius Brutus.
A young woman taller than Brutus, taller than anyone in fact at over six feet, stood at his side. Her white toga was bound with a scarlet sash. She may have weighed two hundred pounds. Her black hair hung over one green eye, and the remaining one took in the two prisoners.
Finally, she spoke. ‘My name is Iris. We already know who you are, and you already know who my master is.’
‘You’re from America?’ Ray asked. She had the accent.
‘Yes, 1968. I got caught up in this, like your friend. I’m with Brutus because I taught Latin classes at night.’
To hear someone talking this way while dressed like a Roman reinforced the feeling that it had to be a movie, or a dream. Ray didn’t care which, as long as it hurried up and ended.
‘My master believes—’ she pointed at him— ‘you are the latest assassinater to arrive.’
Ray was not sure he’d ever heard the word assassinater before, but his denial reflex sprang into action—No! I didn’t do it! I had nothing to do with it! But this time the words stalled, caught in his throat. His mouth opened, but the protests would not come. He closed it again. His heart sank and pulled the rest of him down with it, slumping, collapsing like Oswald’s tower. What was the use? He had driven this metal monster into town, obviously meaning business. But really, he was tired of it all—tired of running, tired of going under endless assumed names, of lying and lying until it was all he ever did.
So instead, he nodded. ‘Yes.’ His voice was low and thick. ‘I am.’
Lamb gave a start, shot him a look. ‘You told me—’
‘Look, it was an abolitionist, all right? A black abolitionist! You know? Black? Free and running around, causing trouble? At least I didn’t start a war over it!’
Lamb looked away and grumbled. ‘Where I come from, we don’t lie to people...’
Ray turned back to Iris as Lamb went on muttering to himself. ‘Tell your master I’ve got no interest in this place, okay? I just want to be left alone. Or back home—does he know the way?’
She shook her head. ‘If a way through that forest exists, no one knows what it is. Even if you could get through, there’s no telling what you would find. Could be China, for all we know.’
That still sounded a lot better than here. Ray squirmed and wished his guards wouldn’t clamp his arms so tightly.
Lamb was hissing at Iris (‘Psssst!’), waving his head, trying to gain her attention. After a few seconds she noticed, stepped over to him. He whispered in her ear. She turned back to Brutus and spoke something; he hunched over slightly to listen.
Brutus straightened up and studied Lamb. The private’s face said, Well?
Brutus motioned to Iris, then to the guards holding Lamb, and began walking. Iris followed. The guards released Lamb’s arms—that alone twinged Ray with envy—and the private inched cautiously after the master, checking over his shoulder every few moments. Ray tried to make eye contact, but could not.
Brutus stopped about fifteen yards distant. When the other two caught up, they all spoke. Ray, leaning as far as he could, strained to hear, but caught nothing.
Lamb perked up with unmistakable relief. He nodded and kept nodding until Iris told him something. The nodding stopped, but now he bounced on his feet as if the motion had transferred there. The bouncing, skipping and jumping brought him all the way back to Ray, as Brutus and Iris walked behind.
‘He’s agreed to let me go.’
‘What?’
‘Oh, don’t look at me like that! You’re in the game, I ain’t. And maybe,’ he scowled, ‘this is what you get for lyin’.’
‘What’s he planning for me? Did he say?’
‘Oh. Well, he... means to make a gladiator outta ya.’
‘What?’
Lamb nodded rapidly, head flapping up and down, as if to make up for the lack of a better response. ‘Yeah, yeah, I know, but...’ He shrugged, bowed to Brutus who waved him off, and fled into the crowd.
Thanks a lot, soldier, Ray thought, smouldering.
Brutus gave a sharp command. Ray’s guards released him, but only for a moment. Two of soldiers in helmets and breastplates marched up and clapped iron fetters far heavier than any handcuffs onto his wrists.
Iris walked beside Ray as the guards led him up the street, block by block, to the amphitheatre. It looked even shabbier the closer one got, more like concrete than marble.
‘The master,’ she said, ‘wants to amuse himself with you. All the others have been eliminated—’
‘Who?’ Ray demanded, shuffling along with his hands manacled before him, just to shut her up for a moment. Her voice was high, reedy and almost as annoying as Lamb’s.
‘Oswald. Booth. Princip. And now, you. He thought it would please him to make you a gladiator—’
‘He’s really going to do that?’ Ray’s vision blurred for a moment, his knees weak. ‘I’m gonna have to fight someone?’ And who would that be?
‘He’s thinking about it. He might set any number of men against you, or lions—’
LIONS? They had those here? Ray was numb. This could not be happening. He broke into a sweat.
They marched Ray into the arena, removed the heavy manacles, and left. Only a few people sat around the stands. Would Brutus wait until the place was full? Brutus himself relaxed down in the front, directly above the dark maw leading under the stands where they must have been keeping the lions (please tell me that was just a sick joke), Iris beside him. He slouched back, she sat rigid with eyes down and head averted.
And then, from somewhere back in the dark, came a roar. There was no mistaking it for a mechanical rumble like the tank. This was—his knees buckled—a living beast.
But then, something caught his eye.
It was Lamb. At some point he had entered the amphitheatre, scuttling across the empty top row until he was directly above Brutus. Then he started down, stepping over the tiers.
So—what? Is he feeling guilty now? Gonna beg Brutus to let me go?
But something about Lamb’s movements were different. Not awkward or uncertain, he slunk straight down, stepping expertly as a cat, eyes fixed on the master.
Ray watched, forgetting even the lions. Time seemed to stop, frozen except for the soldier who now removed, from underneath his grey coat, a palm-sized handgun Ray recognised instantly.
Lamb aimed it at Brutus’ left temple. He pulled the trigger. A sharp bang sounded, louder than Ray would have expected for such a small firearm, and a puff of smoke. Brutus jolted, his red face contorting, and slumped forward. Cries sounded out from the spectators.
Ray ran forward, stabbed a finger at the soldier who was not a soldier, and whose name was not Lamb. The man had fooled him and everyone. Of course he had. He was a professional actor.
‘Booth!’ Ray shouted. ‘It was you all along!’
President Lincoln’s assassin towered some seven feet above the arena floor, beside Brutus’ inert form, out of reach. Iris stood off to the side, mouth open, face white.
‘Yes,’ Booth called back. Cap cast aside, dark hair tousled, he was the picture of triumph now. ‘And safe in a better refuge than I ever could have hoped for. When I say “Sic semper tyrannis” here, everyone understands it. All that remains,’ he pocketed the Derringer, ‘is for the lions to finish my task for me—’
The lions! Ray’s knees buckled all over again, and he almost fell.
‘—and this refuge is mine. You see?’ He made a sweeping gesture, and Ray, shaking as he was, could not help but notice the shock fading from some faces, others even melting into relief, regarding Booth with visible gratitude. Brutus must not have been a very benevolent ruler.
‘Let the U.S. Army search all they want,’ Booth said. ‘They’ll never find me. And I’ve got that “tank” of yours at my disposal, if anyone causes trouble. Fascinating machine, almost as fascinating as the CSS Virginia. Thank you for showing me how to work it. Ha ha!’ Not like Lamb’s silly giggle, this was a venting of relief.
Turning to Iris, Booth bowed. ‘My lady. You are free to be on your way and do whatsoever thou wilt. You’re as free as the South.’
Bowing deep as he was, he did not see her face turning from white, to pink, to red. Her mouth grew tight.
Letting out a wail, she grabbed Booth’s shoulders, shook him, shoved him. She was all hands and gnashing teeth and burning eyes, and it seemed incredible to Ray that even a person her size could summon such strength. Booth yelled, flailed, lost his balance and fell over the side, smacking flat on his back in the dust (‘Oof!’). It puffed up in a yellow cloud around him.
‘I’m from Springfield!’ Iris leaned over the bulwark and screamed. ‘Lincoln was my hero, you bastard!’
Booth struggled to sit up, gasping, coughing. His uniform, his face were smeared with dust. Ray looked at him, then beyond him into the maw, where he smelled sweat and rotten meat. Something moved there in the dark.
‘Ray, Ray!’ Booth scrambled up, dust in his hair, terror in his eyes, and ran to him. He clawed at Ray, who beat off his grasp. Why was Booth so hands-on now? His hands were useless, useless.
The beasts emerged out of the dark. They padded out, three males with manes, golden and magnificent, weighing more than four hundred pounds each.
Oh. No.
Ray had just enough time to say ‘Serves you right’ before the lions all sprang at once.
