Romeo Moon (The Poe Detective Agency Book 3) by Brian Yansky

Author:Brian Yansky [Yansky, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Keep It Weird Press
Published: 2021-08-31T22:00:00+00:00

17

The End Of Democracy

Romeo pushed out the swinging saloon doors and Hamlet jumped up to lick his hand. They walked down Main Street toward the hotel. He worried that Hunter had planted something in his mind. He could feel the presence of him lurking, like thieves outside the doors of his house.

Romeo walked past a woman in a new dress, and then a minister, and then a man who had the look of a starving coyote. In each of their eyes, he saw Winter. He realized then that Winter was, somehow, in all the townspeople.

Romeo saw Titus sitting on a bench over in front of the bank. He had a half bottle in his hand. Maybe the town drunk was required to always have a bottle in his hand.

“Why did the witch call him the dragon?” he asked Titus.

Without looking at Romeo he said, “He has eyes and ears everywhere.”

“He is the dragon, isn’t he?”

“That’s what they call people like him in the Madlands. He and his sister come from there. That’s all I’ll say. I told you that you should leave.”

“I see he’s in the minds of the townspeople.”

“You shouldn’t be talking like this. You’re in his town.”

“I need to know more,” Romeo said.

“Not here,” Titus said. “Meet me at three roads crossing when the moon comes up. See the blacksmith about a horse and ride out and meet me.”

Titus raised his bottle at a woman in a dress and bonnet who ignored him in the same way she ignored Romeo.

Romeo and Hamlet walked over to the livery and into the barn. There was a horse in a stall and bales of hay over in a corner and tools on a rack. The blacksmith was a big man in a brown leather apron banging a metal mallet on an anvil. He stopped, wiped his brow with a dirty kerchief he pulled out of a pocket, and said, “What can I do for you?”

Romeo told him he needed to rent a horse. The blacksmith showed him some horses in a set of three corrals in the back. They all had four legs, big eyes, and a tail. Romeo considered looking at their teeth in order to choose, but he didn’t know what to look for beyond the fact that they still had them. Romeo chose the one the man had called an Appaloosa because he liked the way the name sounded.

The blacksmith said, “How long you need the horse?”

“Probably a day,” Romeo said.

“All right.”

“I needed a saddle too, and a rifle.”

“Don’t got a rifle. Got a saddle.”

Romeo paid him and said he’d be back for it later. But before he left he asked him if everyone in town was willing to be owned by Hunter Winter. The blacksmith’s eyes narrowed and he bristled at the suggestion.

“Ain’t no one owned by him. We’re grateful, though. He’s made the town what it is. He takes care of us all.”

People wanted to be safe and people wanted to be free, but the two were often in conflict with one another.

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