Michael Swanwick - The Raggle Taggle Gypsy - O.pdf - Michael Swanwick - Amiga78

THE RAGGLE TAGGLE GYPSY-O

Michael Swanwick

Here's a story featuring characters who are literally larger than

life, in which we're given a vivid and passionate look at the

worlds behind the ordinary world we know.

Michael Swanwick made his debut in 1980, and in the twenty-one years that have

followed has established himself as one of SF's most prolific and consistently

excellent writers at short lengths, as well as one of the premier novelists of his

generation.

He has several times been a finalist for the Nebula Award, as well as for the World

Fantasy Award and the John W. Campbell Award, and has won the Theodore

Sturgeon Award and the Asimov's Readers Award poll. In 1991, his novel Stations

of the Tide won him a Nebula Award as well, and in 1995 he won the World Fantasy

Award for his story "Radio Waves". In the last two years, he's won back-to-back

Hugo Awards—he won the Hugo in 1999 for his story "The Very Pulse of the

Machine", and followed it up last year with another Hugo Award for his story

"Scherzo with Tyrannosaur". His other books include his first novel, In the Drift,

which was published in 1985, a novella-length book, Griffin's Egg, 1987's popular

novel Vacuum Flowers, and a critically acclaimed fantasy novel The Iron Dragon's

Daughter, which was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award and the Arthur C.

Clarke Award (a rare distinction!). His most recent novel was Jack Faust, a sly

reworking of the Faust legend that explores the unexpected impact of technology on

society. He's just finished a new novel, featuring time travellers and hungry

dinosaurs. His short fiction has been assembled in Gravity's Angels, A Geography

of Unknown Lands, and in a collection of his collaborative short work with other

writers, Slow Dancing Through Time. He's also published a collection of critical

articles, The Postmodern Archipelago. His most recent books are three new

collections, Moon Dogs, Puck Aleshire's Abecedary and Tales of Old Earth.

Swanwick lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Marianne Porter, and their son Sean.

* * * *

AMONG TWENTY SNOWY mountains, the only moving thing was the eye of

Crow. The sky was blue, and the air was cold. His beard was rimed with frost. The

tangled road behind was black and dry and empty.

At last, satisfied that there was nobody coming after them, he put down his

binoculars. The way down to the road was steep. He fell three times as he half

pushed and half swam his way through the drifts. His truck waited for him, idling. He

stamped his feet on the tarmac to clear the boot treads and climbed up on the cab.

Annie looked up as he opened the door. Her smile was warm and welcoming, but

with just that little glint of man-fear first, brief as the green flash at sunset, gone so

quickly you wouldn't see it if you didn't know to look. That wasn't me, babe, he

wanted to tell her. Nobody's ever going to hit you again. But he said nothing. You

could tell the goddamnedest lies, and who was there to stop you? Let her judge him

by his deeds. Crow didn't much believe in words.

He sat down heavily, slamming the door. "Cold as hell out there," he commented.

Then, "How are they doing?"

Annie shrugged. "They're hungry again."

"They're always hungry." But Crow pulled the wicker picnic hamper out from under

the seat anyway. He took out a dead puppy and pulled back the slide window at the

rear of the cab. Then, with a snap of his wrist, he tossed the morsel into the van.

The monsters in the back began fighting over the puppy, slamming each other

against the walls, roaring in mindless rage.

"Competitive buggers." He yanked the brake and put the truck into gear.

They had the heat cranked up high for the sake of their cargo, and after a few

minutes he began to sweat. He pulled off his gloves, biting the fingertips and jerking

back his head, and laid them on the dash, alongside his wool cap. Then he

unbuttoned his coat.

"Gimme a hand here, will ya?" Annie held the sleeve so he could draw out his arm.

He leaned forward and she pulled the coat free and tossed it aside. "Thanks," he

said.

Annie said nothing. Her hands went to his lap and unzipped his pants. Crow felt his

pecker harden. She undid his belt and yanked down his BVDs. Her mouth closed

upon him. The truck rattled underneath them.

"Hey, babe, that ain't really safe."

"Safe." Her hand squeezed him so hard he almost asked her to stop.

But thought better of it. "I didn't hook up with a thug like you so I could be safe."

She ran her tongue down his shaft and begun sucking on his nuts. Crow drew in his

breath. What the hell, he figured, might as well go along for the ride. Only he'd still

better keep an eye on the road. They were going down a series of switchbacks. Easy

way to die.

He downshifted, and downshifted again.

It didn't take long before he spurted.

He came and groaned and stretched and felt inordinately happy. Annie's head came

up from his lap. She was smiling impishly. He grinned back at her.

Then she mashed her face into his and was kissing him deeply, passionately, his jism

salty on her tongue and her tongue sticky in his mouth, and he couldn't see!

Terrified, he slammed his foot on the brake. He was blind and out of control on one

of the twistiest and most dangerous roads in the universe. The tyres screamed.

He pushed Annie away from him so hard the back of her head bounced off the

rider-side window. The truck's front wheels went off the road. Empty sky swung up

to fill the windshield. In a frenzy, he swung the wheel so sharply he thought for a

second they were going to overturn. There was a hideous crunch that sounded like

part of the frame hitting rock, and then they were jolting safely down the road again.

"God damn," Crow said flatly. "Don't you ever do that again." He was shaking.

"You're fucking crazy!" he added, more emphatically.

"Your fly is unzipped," Annie said, amused.

He hastily tucked himself in. "Crazy."

"You want crazy? You so much as look at another woman and I'll show you crazy."

She opened the glove compartment and dug out her packet of Kents. "I'm just the

girl for you, boyo, and don't you forget it." She lit up and then opened the window a

crack for ventilation. Mentholated smoke filled the cabin.

In a companionable wordlessness they drove on through the snow and the blinding

sunlight, the cab warm, the motor humming, and the monsters screaming at their

back.

* * * *

For maybe fifty miles he drove, while Annie drowsed in the seat beside him. Then

the steering got stiff and the wheel began to moan under his hands whenever he

turned it. It was a long, low, mournful sound like whale-song.

Without opening her eyes, Annie said, "What kind of weird-shit station are you

listening to? Can't you get us something better?"

"Ain't no radio out here, babe. Remember where we are."

She opened her eyes. "So what is it, then?"

"Steering fluid's low. I think maybe we sprung a leak back down the road, when we

almost went off."

"What are we going to do about it?"

"I'm not sure there's much we can do."

At which exact moment they turned a bend in the road and saw a gas station ahead.

Two sets of pumps, diesel, air, a Mini-Mart and a garage. Various machines of

dubious functionality rusting out back.

Crow slammed on the brakes. "That shouldn't be there." He knew that for a fact.

Last time he'd been through, the road had been empty all the way through to Troy.

Annie finally opened her eyes. They were the greenest things Crow had ever seen.

They reminded him of sunlight through jungle leaves, of moss-covered cathedrals, of

a stone city he'd once been to, sunk in the shallow waters of the Caribbean. That had

been a dangerous place, but no more dangerous than this slim and lovely lady beside

him. After a minute, she simply said, "Ask if they do repairs."

* * * *

Crow pulled up in front of the garage and honked the horn a few times. A

hound-lean mechanic came out, wiping his hands on a rag. "Yah?"

"Lissen, Ace, we got us a situation here with our steering column. Think you can fix

us up?"

The mechanic stared at him, unblinking, and said, "We're all out of fluid. I'll take a

look at your underside, though."

While the man was on a creeper under the truck, Crow went to the crapper. Then he

ambled around the back of the garage. There was a window there. He snapped the

latch, climbed in and poked around.

When he strolled up front again, the mechanic was out from under the truck and

Annie was leaning against one of the pumps, flirting with him. He liked it, Crow

could tell. Hell, even faggots liked it when Annie flirted at them.

Annie went off to the ladies' when he walked up, and by the time she came back the

mechanic was inside again. She raised her eyebrows and Crow said, "Bastard says

he can't fix the leak and ain't got no fluid. Only I boosted two cases out a window

and stashed 'em in a junker out back. Go in and distract him, while I get them into

the truck."

Annie thrust her hands deep into the pockets of her leather jacket and twisted slightly

from foot to foot. "I've got a better thought," she said quietly. "Kill him."

"Say what?"

'"He's one of Eric's people."

"You sure of that?"

"Ninety per cent sure. He's here. What else could he be?"

"Yeah, well, there's still that other ten per cent."

Her face was a mask. "Why take chances?"

"Jesus." Crow shook his head. "Babe, sometimes you give me the creeps. I don't

mind admitting that you do."

"Do you love me? Then kill him."

"Hey. Forget that bullshit. We been together long enough, you must know what I'm

like, OK? I ain't killing nobody today. Now go into the convenience there and buy us

ten minutes, eh? Distract the man."

He turned her around and gave her a shove towards the Mini-Mart. Her shoulders

were stiff with anger, her bottom big and round in those tight leather pants. God, but

he loved the way she looked in those things! His hand ached to give her a swat on

the rump, just to see her scamper. Couldn't do that with Annie, though. Not now,

not never. Just one more thing that bastard Eric had spoiled for others.

He had the truck loaded and the steering column topped up by the time Annie strode

out of the Mini-Mart with a boom box and a stack of CDs. The mechanic trotted

after her, totting up prices on a little pad. When he presented her with the total, she

simply said, "Send the bill to my husband," and climbed into the cab.

With a curt, wordless nod, the man turned back towards the store.

"Got any more doubts?" Annie asked coldly.

Crow cursed. He'd killed men in his time, but it wasn't anything he was proud of.

And never what you'd call murder. He slammed down the back of the seat, to access

the storage compartment. All his few posses-sions were in here, and little enough

they were for such a hard life as he'd led. Some spare clothes. A basket of trinkets

he'd picked up along the way. His guns.

* * * *

Forty miles down the road, Annie was still fuming. Abruptly, she turned and

slammed Crow in the side with her fist. Hard. She had a good punch for a woman.

Keeping one hand on the wheel, he half-turned and tried to seize her hands in one

enormous fist. She continued hitting him in the chest and face until he managed to

nab them both.

Michael Swanwick - The Raggle Taggle Gypsy - O.pdf

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