A spectre is haunting Texas by Fritz Leiber

Author:Fritz Leiber [Leiber, Fritz]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

"No, Esqueleto amado, in verity it was like this: the wealthy gringo junta that arranged the assassination of President Kennedy soon became the entire heart of the Texas Establishment. Thereafter things happened much as youVe been told. The blacks, reckless and inspired as their Zulu and Mahdi progenitors, carved out their countries to southeast and southwest during the disorders following the Atomic War. We forgotten Mexes, fiery but incurably fatalistic, indolent yet good workers and breeders, remained the undercats and grew into the new servile class."

I asked her what had happened to Elmo. She said that she had no idea, but that he was resourceful and shrewd under his blather and, whatever happened, would land on his feet. I agreed he had big ones. She admitted she had an affection for the man despite, or perhaps because of, his genially bullying ways. This led me to inquire indirectly whether she wasn't now lonely.

I was on the point of making time with her when, with consummate disregard of privacy, Rachel Vachel wandered in. I expected another brouhaha, but the Black Madonna appeared not to note that Kookie and I were moving toward intimacies. Shortly the two girls departed, leaving me aroused and frustrated. I damned them heartily, summoned El Toro to help me out of my exo, refused to see Fannino-wicz, downed a pill, and slept.

Our next revolutionary gathering was on Alamo twenty-ninth at Wichita, Kansas, Texas, a city much like Dallas or Tulsa, except I began to note scars of the Atomic War and also short Texans—poor whites and northerners not given the hormone.

El Toro kept me unpleasantly aware of the price being paid for my performances by telling me about the diversionary riots being staged in Little Rock and Colorado Springs to keep the Rangers' attention off Wichita. He also informed me that I am creating a panic across Texas. Not only is the Mex World in a fever of excitement at the coming of El Esqueleto, but the Tall World has got the jitters. There have been rumors and reports of the dread skeleton-man everywhere. I was simultaneously leading mobs in Denver and Corpus Christi. Twenty minutes later I was captured in Memphis. Meanwhile I was seen grinning hor-rendously down from a copter that buzzed the streets of El Paso. Et cetera.

I was flattered yet unimpressed. I asked El Toro how the revolution we've stirred up is going in the south. I got evasive answers. More dead bent-backs, I supposed.

I told myself not to think about that, but to remember I am Christopher Crockett La Cruz, touring Texas with the Revolutionary Ramblers on a physiologically limited engagement. No joke about that last—I was suffering from digestive disorders, while gravity became a deadly drag despite my exo and eiderdowns. I insisted on a warm bath at last, with a support net to keep me from sinking. Little relief. Could I be provided with a tub of heavy water? That might float me. I was laughed at, especially by Rachel, who said I had more expensive notions than Daddy.

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