CHAPTER 17

OLD TROOPERS NEVER DIE; THEY JUST SMELL THAT WAY

Down through the years, in what some might call a checkered career, though he rarely played checkers, since being forcefully inducted into the Imperial Troopers, Bill had had many near-death experiences.

In any case, in all of the close calls, close encounters of the repulsive kind, in all the near-death experiences he'd ever had, this was definitely the most unedifying.

Bill dreamed, oh how he dreamed!, that he was frolicking frenetically in a gigantic beer mug with a dozen nubile women. One of the voluptuous women was Irma, who was sitting on top of a soggy potato chip, beckoning to him like a siren. Bill admired all the other gorgeous creatures who were frolicking about him, but rejected their sultry advances and breast-stroked instead toward Irma.

It was difficult indeed to ignore the others, but in his heart-of-hearts he knew that he was now a one-woman-Trooper, and so he swam the rest of the way, ignoring temptation. He clambered up the potato chip, which soggily bent and crumbled under his weight, closer ever closer to the smiling, beckoning Irma.

"Here, Bill," she said in a sweet, huskily sensuous voice. "Come here and kiss me, lover!"

In his death-dream, Bill knew that this contained all that was beautiful and mysterious in Love. All that he'd yearned for all this time was in this proffered smooch; life and death, fire and ice, yin and yang; even the code for his Captain Cosmos Secret Decoder Ring. Here was life's Promise; here was Destiny's Call; here was what all these frustrated pent-up feelings gnawing at his innards were for!

"Oh, Irma!" he said passionately, reaching for her.

Her lips blossomed into a pink blossom of ecstasy.

Closing his eyes, he puckered up and fell toward her, surrendering his heart, his body, his soul, his hopes for Heaven and his Phigerinadon salamander-tail collection.

But instead of moist, delicious, tender lips —

Reality did a belly-flop, death retreated, and Bill landed hard and headfirst on his mush on the ground, getting a mouthful of grit and sand for his trouble.

"Pfuiii!" he said, opening his eyes. They were gummed with grit. He wiped them and spat out a gobful of sand. Coughing, he managed to pull himself up into a half-crouch, peering uncertainly about him, trying to get a finer focus on this particular glandscape tune-in.

Bill sat plumb in the middle of a large stretch of desert. It looked a lot like the stuff that Great-Great-Grandfather Bill had bought on Phigerinadon last century, when he took his family to that colony planet: valuable beachfront property, without the beach. (Fortunately, they relocated to more fertile territory, but at a cost of what little money they had, resulting in generation after generation of the same penury that Bill had inherited.) As far as Bill could see (which wasn't too far — there was still a lot of grit in his eyes) cactus and sagebrush stretched out to the distant horizon. Occasionally, a tumbleweed rolled along, pushed by a melancholy, sighing desert wind. Up ahead were jagged, majestic mountains, capped by snow. In the near distance, a sign by a snaking road tilted precariously.

Bill groaned and rubbed his head. Then he got up and did a quick inventory of all the important body parts. The presence of his head and legs was already established; a quick examination proved that his hands were still intact, and that, yes, he still had a cloven hoof for a foot. However, instead of the rags he had worn before, he was now dressed in denim jeans, chaps and a red checked flannel shirt, loosely surrounded by a leather vest. Around his waist was a belt, leather as well, and upon this belt was a holster, containing an antique firearm which, possibly, might be a six-shooter revolver.

Upon his head was a ten-gallon, Texas Ranger hat.

Bill recognized all his gear from the days of his first stumbling literacy. While his speaking vocabulary had been severely limited, his reading skills then, like most of his peer group, and possibly now, were next to zilch. Which is why all comic books had verbal outputs that talked to the reader when he turned the page. Which meant that the idiot reader didn't have to read CRUNCH, CRASH or BANG since they sounded out tinnily from the page. In those days TALES FROM THE OLD GALACTIC WEST had been one of his favorite three-dee eye-screamers.

Which was fine for the past — but what the bowb was he doing now, in this strange yet familiar place? He took off his hat and examined it.

And what was a six-limbed, seven-inch tall lizard doing inside his new ten-gallon hat?

"Hi there, Bill! Gee, it's sure good to see you're still alive, old hoss." The Chinger waved his tiny hands in greeting, and then hopped down to the ground, where he made a pot-hole in the sand. (Bill wondered why he'd not been crushed to the ground with the incredibly dense animal on his head; then put the thought aside for the moment since there were a few more pertinent things to wonder about now than that.)

"Bgr the Chinger! What are you doing here? And by the way, just where is here, anyway?"

"Can't you tell, Bill! It's the Mythical Great American West of Old Earth! The stuff that dreams are made of."

Bill shook his head. "Old Earth is just a legend ... er ... oh!" He snapped his fingers. "I get it! This is like, a part of the Over-gland!"

"Not only a part, it would seem Bill," said Eager Beager, hopping around excitedly. "It would seem to be the actual base! The phor below the meta — or should it be the opposite way around? No matter ... I'll ask Delazny before I blow him all the way to the unhappy hunting grounds."

Bill could see that Bgr was dressed in miniature Western garb as well, down to tiny spurs and two tiny Colt .45s, which he was spinning fancily with two hands, the thumbs of his other two hands hooked into his cartridge belt. "Hey, watch it with those guns, guy!" said Bill. "What happened, anyway? Last I remember, we were getting sucked into the hole that was left after the Fountain of Hormones blew!"

"Gee — you got a great memory, pardner. That explosion — well done, by the way, Bill — reached out and clobbered Delazny's machines on Colostomy IV — and sucked him and me and the whole crew of the complex into the Male-Female-Strom in the bargain! Apparently, once more our destinies are interwoven, Bill! I ended up here, with you!"

Bill blinked rapidly as his groggy brain cells labored for comprehension. Thinking can be a painful process. "Right," he finally said smiling with understanding. Then frowning with unhappiness, "But I've lost Irma again!"

"Oh no, you haven't, podner! Look over there!"

Bill looked in the direction that the Chinger was pointing. Behind a particularly large cactus, he noticed the flutter of cloth, a protruding shoe.

"Well I'll be hornswaggled!" Bill shouted, whooping and yipping and tossing his hat into the air. "It's Irma." A befuddled expression crept onto his features. "Now, why'd I say that? What's a hornswaggle?"

"Best not to ask, friend Bill. It's undoubtedly a bit of the Wild West idiom. The argot! The overlay of transpositional quasi-reality in the Gland-core affects us all that way. Hence the duds, you see!" He preened in his own outfit, which sparkled with spangles.

"Irma!" Bill hurried over past sagebrush and cacti, to retrieve his fallen paramour. Unconscious, she was lying demurely on a large rock. And surprise of surprises, for the first time since Bill had met her, she was modestly dressed! She wore a long, gaily colored frock, and a hat heavily plumed with feathers. On her feet were tasteful cowgirl boots.

Coiled comfortably on her always impressive bosom was a rattlesnake.

"Tarnation!" said Bill. "Bgr ... it's some kind of a serpent. What kind?"

Eager Beager whipped out a little book labeled LOST CHINGER'S GUIDE TO THE OLD WEST.

"Gee — Bill. There are a lot of them. Kingsnake. Hoopsnake. Snake-in-the-Grass. Reckon that might be a rattlesnake. Does it have any rattles?"

The snake lifted its head somnolently, slipped its tongue in and out — and rattled its rattles nastily.

"A rattlesnake indeed! Just like it says in the book. And, PS, it also says that it is extremely dangerous and poisonous."

"Do something!"

"Gee, Bill. Ever since that traumatic experience back on Veniola when I got swallowed by one, well, you see, I kind of shy away from snakes. I think I'll go over and rustle up some chow. You've got a gun. Tarnation, son. Just blast and shoot the gol' blasted thing!" The Chinger seemed pleased as punch with his new Wild Western persona. He waddled bowleggedly back to the campsite, leaving Bill alone with Irma and the sinister rattlesnake.

The snake wiggled its tail again. Bill had no doubt at all that it really was a rattlesnake. The noise woke Irma. She fluttered her pretty eyelashes. "Gosh alive!" she said, breathlessly. "Where am I?"

"Just set tight there, Irma. Don't move a muscle! I'll save you." Bill drew his gun and examined it. The thing wasn't at all like a blaster, where you just pointed it in a general direction and pressed a stud. No, it looked like you had to aim it. And the projectiles — Bill supposed that they emerged from the metal nozzle here.

Irma took one look at the snake and fainted dead away.

And this long curved thing, Bill supposed, was the trigger. Yes, his comic book reading was coming back to him. He pointed the gun and pulled the trigger. There was a tremendous explosion, expectoration of smoke and Bill was knocked flat on his back by the recoil.

When he struggled up, there was the plume of purplish smoke dissipating in the air, and bits of flesh and snake-hide splattered over sagebrush and sand.

"Hey!" said Bill. "I guess I'm a pretty good shot with this thing." He spun the gun expertly by the trigger guard as he slipped it back into its holster.

The explosion had woken Irma up. Shock slowly dissolved from her features. "Bill. You saved me! Again!"

Bill grinned. "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do!"

"Bill, where are we? Why am I dressed this way?"

Bill was unbuckling his belt.

"Bill, why are you undressing that way?"

"A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do!"

"Oh Bill! My hero! Do it, man!"

Finally! thought Bill. Finally his heart's desire ... to say nothing of the desire of other portions of his anatomy.

"Gee, Bill. Sorry to disturb what appears to be an imminent and highly interesting human fertility ritual!" squeaked the too-familiar voice of Bgr. "But there's a stagecoach a-coming this way. Maybe we can hitch a ride! So could we have a rain check on the ritual? But do let me know when you plan to indulge in it again. I want to take notes."

"Eeeek!" squeaked Irma, springing gracefully up off the ground and hiding behind her hero. "Bill! It's another reptile! Shoot it, Bill. Shoot it!"

Bill scowled at Bgr the Chinger. "Sure would like to oblige, ma'am. But that there's Bgr! He might just be able to help get us out of this here fix." Bill spat on the ground. "He sure as hell got me into it! And, no, you can't watch next time."

"C'mon, people. Hurry! We gotta catch that coach!"

Bgr scampered off, and they followed.

"Gee — isn't this just great, Bill?" said the Chinger, hanging onto the bouncing seat so hard that his fingers dug deep into the wood.

The stagecoach rocked and swayed as its four-strong team of horses pulled it along the rutted desert trail. He and Bill rode shotgun on top of the coach, seated beside the grizzled, sunburnt old coot named Alf Bob Barker, who smelled like a wet goat. Irma was in the passenger section of the coach below, along with the other passengers. The sun was creeping downwards through the azure sunset toward the horizon — like a brass coin falling towards a dusty desert destiny.

No, thought Bill. It wasn't great, not at all. His innards felt like they were being stirred by an ax handle, then wrapped around a spiny cactus. Or something like that.

"The fresh desert air! The smell of the wilderness! The scent of leather! The feel of honest clothes on one's hide!" enthused the Chinger.

"Shut up, Chinger, or I will shoot you!" said Bill.

The coach that had picked them up was headed for Mulch Gulch Falls, or that was what the driver claimed anyway. Bill had absolutely no idea what the significance of that town might be in terms of any cosmic happenings that might be controlling their destiny. All he wanted to do was get off this primitive travel apparatus which was just a new kind of torture machine. And get a cold and hopefully alcoholic drink down his dust-filled throat. And after that — Irma!

Ah, yes! Finally, he had found her. His heart fluttered dyspeptically even as his stomach churned.

The old codger to his side chomped messily on his wad of tobacco, and then shot a squirt of brown saliva from the side of his mouth. "Yep!" he said. "Sure a good thing I ran across you people out there in the desert! Mulch Gulch Falls is a fur piece from there, and that's a mighty thirsty trek, yes sirree, bob!"

"We certainly appreciate the ride, Mister. Being as we don't have any money and all."

"You got a gun, that's ticket enough." Another tobacco splat, this jet blinding a gopher peering out of its hole. "Lost my shotgun man, Jeb Hawkins, just last week to Injuns. Apaches. Done filled him so full of arrows, coulda doubled for a porcupine! Yep, and I need a gun by my side, being as Ah'm headed for the roughest town in the territory."

"Mulch Gulch? A tough town?" Bill parroted nervously.

"You betcha! That's where the baddest bunch of outlaws west of the Messasucki hang out."

"Gee — and who would that be, Mister?" asked Bgr.

"Cute little toy ya got there, partner. Like your vent-tree-lo-quism act, too." Alf Bob scratched his buttocks and then tossed out a whip tip at the back of a lagging horse, neatly picking off a large horsefly at the same time. "Anyway, that would be Frank and Jesse Jism, folks. None other than the notorious Jism Gang. They just keep on riding into town, shooting up the town — and then forcibly dee-posit their ill-gotten gains into the First Fiduciary Fertility and Ovum Bank of the Wyoming territory. They just get the biggest kick out of injecting their loot into that bank, rather than robbing it! It's all for fun, anyway — 'cause it's all illegal anyways. And you try and stop 'em.... They'd shoot you down, sure as look at ya!"

Bill rolled his eyes and wished he was dead.

An escape from the Fountain of Hormones only to splash into a really truly sticky situation.

"Gee — you don't mean Chism, do you?" asked Bgr.

"Nope! That's Jism like I done said. What, can't hear me, boy? Ain't Ah projectin' right?" Alf Bob slapped his knee and wheezed with laugher. "Lord have mercy! And what I hear lately is that the dangblasted orneriest outlaw east of the Messasucki just signed up with the gang for a spell. You probably heard tell of him, Bill. He's yore namesake! That'd be William Boner. Alias Billy the Kidney!"

The Chinger bounced on the seat with excitement, splintering and crunching it. "Gee — this is it! This is the place."

"What the bowb are you talking about?" Bill blubbered through the bitter bite of bile on his lips.

"Once in a while, Delazny would babble about what seemed to be at the very core of the Fountain of Hormones. The paradigm of human heterosexuality. I heard him mention this Jism Gang and Billy the Kidney! Why, it all makes sense, doesn't it Bill?"

"Could you kindly shut up for awhile and let me die." Bill suggested.

"Think about it, Bill. Forget your digestive condition and think of the stars! Think of the symbolic representation of the actual energies in Flux, Trooper! The rampant assault on the female countryside by the male principle! This is where it's all happening, Bill! If I can short-circuit Frank and Jesse and Billy, the Chinger war will be over, and you humans will be warm, friendly and docile which, P.S., will be a very rare change!"

"Aren't you forgetting about Delazny? He's still sniffing about somewhere!"

"I got my trusty six-shooter, kemo sabe!" shouted the Chinger, waving his little gun excitedly. "I'll waste that bowbhead in the bargain! He tricked me and the whole Chinger Army! I'm gonna fill the varmint full of lead!"

Bill wasn't so sure about any of this. If he didn't die at once all he wanted was to get off the stagecoach. And stay as far away as he could from more violence. He had had enough.

"That's fine for you, Chinger. But if the Troopers can't find me I think maybe Irma and I will just settle down somewhere and raise porkuswine or something nice like that."

"Strange fella, talking to yourself like that," said Alf Bob. "But let me warn you. People who take on the Jism gang jest about always end up planted in Shoe Hill!"

"You mean, 'Boot Hill,' don't you old timer?" said Bill, remembering his ACTION WESTERN SHOOTOUT COMIX.

"Hell, no. That's in Dodge City. What do you think I am, stupid?"

Bill apologized and strongly suggested to Bgr to keep his mouth shut as well for the duration of the journey. Maybe he could get some shut-eye and forget what was happening to his guts. But just as he was dropping off, a plaintive voice interrupted his repose.

"Bill!"

Bill opened his eyes and leaned over the side of the coach. Irma was leaning out of the window, turning a petulant frown his way.

"Yes, ma little desert flower, sweetest blossom of the prairie," Bill found himself saying. Pretty disgusting stuff. Must be Western-speak.

"I don't like it down here. It's stuffy. Can I ride up there with you?"

"Golly — I don't know, honey-bunch!"

"Your lady friend wants to ride up here? Why sure! But she'll have to sit in my lap!"

The scraggly old man wheezed with laughter.

Bill relayed the message to Irma, who decided, after all, to stay in the coach.

The sun was a fiery red ball on the purple horizon when the buildings of Mulch Gulch rode into view, snaggly poking into the air like rotting teeth in a twisted jaw. The dust in the air made sundown a bloody thing that washed the outskirts of "the Gulch" (as Alf Bob called it) with bleak and ruddy light and sepia shadows. It was a town that could have been ripped straight from Bill's Three-Dee Comix — cardboard and cheap paint and all. It smelled of horses and dust, and horseapples and open drains, and much less pleasant things, and the people that walked its dusty, muddy streets and snarled at the stagecoach as it pulled in looked haggard and mean.

Bill felt like he was back home on Phigerinadon II.

"Whooooooaaaaa!" said Alf Bob Barker, pulling on the reins just as the horses reached the Uterine Hotel. "Well, podner. This is it. We'll be a-holding up here for the night. You have ma thanks for a job well done. Them rabbits you scared away were mean varmints!" He winked cagily then turned and threw all the luggage down into the mud before jumping down to help the passengers out of the coach.

Bill jumped off as well, opened the coach door and held his arms wide and Irma dropped into them. Within moments, her own arms were tightly wrapped around Bill's back, and their lips were locked in frantic osculation.

"Oh Bill!" said Irma, panting passionately.

"Oh Irma," said Bill, opening his belt frantically.

"Not here, you foolish, passionate devil!" she laughed and pushed him away.

"Where?" Bill husked passionately.

"I know," said Irma coquettishly. "I'll just go and register at the hotel, my darling. Then I'll go and powder my nose. The hotel desk clerk will give you my room number. We'll order room service so we don't have to ever go out, ever again. We'll spend eternity there. Now, doesn't that sound like real fun?"

It sounded like the stuff that dreams are made of to Bill. But there were other temptations. A glimpse of something very interesting caught the corner of his eye. Across the way, right next to the promised Ovum Bank, was a quite interesting structure, bearing a sign that read, NEW GOON SALOON.

"Good as done, dearest one! Go — and I will see you soonest!" he gurgled, finding it difficult to speak with all the saliva gushing into his mouth.

Irma gave him a sweet peck on his cheek and then bustled into the hotel with the rest of the passengers of the stagecoach to check in.

"Come on Bgr," gargled Bill. "Let us mosey on over to that thar saloon and I'll buy you a shot of Old Overcoat!"

"Good thinking old hoss. I can't imagine a better place to reconnoiter the situation!"

They moseyed moistly through the mud and pushed through the swinging doors of the New Goon Saloon.

It was like unto a paradise to Bill! Without a doubt, it was his kind of place. The problem with Trooper canteens, as well as most of the bars in the known universe, was that they were far too high-tech. You didn't really know where the plastic ended and the good honest booze began. No, Bill liked his bars not only soaked in atmosphere, but just plain soaked, and the New Goon Saloon certainly fit the bill. And the Bill.

The place was dark and roomy, awash with the smell of ancient beer, spilled whiskey and dead cigars, the sound of clinking glass, drunken conversation and melting livers. The bar — a dark mahogany affair — stretched the length of the large room, brightly shining with brass fixtures. Behind it was a huge mural of a reclining woman with bits of gauze drapery falling from her plump body. She smiled down warmly on the alcoholic scene below. The bartender — a bald-headed large-moustachioed individual with an impressive gut — was lazily polishing a glass. He looked up as they entered. He did not seem at all surprised to see a four-armed lizard wearing a western outfit hop up onto his bar.

"Name your poison, gents?" he said.

"Hydrofluoric acid on the rocks," Bill said.

"Ho-ho, sonny, yore quite a card. Quintuple bourbon in a beer mug coming up. What about your little green chum here?"

"Just a sarsaparilla for me, please," said the Chinger. "And I'll need a straw with that."

Eyes growing accustomed to the cool dimness, Bill looked around at the crowd. Men in western garb sat around tables here and there. In the corner, there was a small poker game going on.

"What a great place!" said Bill happily.

"Here you go, gents!" said the bartender, sliding their drinks down the smooth surface of the bar. "That'll be six bits."

"Gee — my friend's paying," said Bgr. He washed his hands in the sarsparilla then ate his straw.

"Uh — how much is six bits, mister?"

"No jokes, sonny. Seventy-five cents."

"Yeah, sure." Bill turned out his pockets. All he had was lint. He took a healthy gulp of his whiskey, just in case. "Do you take Trooper Cred Fingernails here?" He held up his pinky, upon which was implanted his meager Trooper credit account.

The bartender scowled. "No funny games, cowboy. This is a cash and carry bar. Pay up. And no greenbacks. If it don't clank I don't want it."

Bill hadn't the slightest idea what the barman was talking about. He had none of those things. But maybe he could barter. Trade his gun for booze. He pulled it

The bartender, eyes starting with fear, shoved his hands high in the air and wiggled his fingers like crazy. "Bubbling Beezelbub buster! Don't shoot! Them drinks is on the house."

What a kind man this bartender indeed was. Bill dropped the pistol on the bar and grabbed for the glass. As the revolver struck the hard wood the cylinder popped free and bullets spilled across the bartop. The bartender poked hesitantly at the bullets and his jaw dropped. Bill glugged and the Chinger munched his straw.

"Well, hogtie my little doggies," the barman said. "This here's a silver bullet! I'll be happy to take it in trade. For a silver bullet you gentlemen can drink till you drop. But that's beside the point. If you've got silver bullets that must mean —"

The bartender looked at Bill with awe and wonder.

"Why, that must mean that you're the Stoned Ranger!"