Read Online Andromeda Gun by John Boyd - Free Book Online
Authors: John Boyd
Tags: Science-Fiction
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Stewart. One of the worse things is the aim of your Mormon gunfighters. Howsomever, I think Dead Man’s Curve could use a little straightening.”
“You tell ’em, Ian McCloud!” A female voice screamed from the rear, and Ian knew it came from beneath a sunbonnet.
“Amen, or second the motion,” a masculine voice responded.
“I been traveling that road for twenty years,” the banshee wail continued, “and the only thing that’s gonna straighten it out is a new mayor for Shoshone Flats.”
“Sister Betsy, control yourself,” the preacher said. “There’s an administrative problem here, which the average citizen can’t be expected to understand; namely, who’s going to pay the labor?”
“Preacher,” Ian said helpfully, “why not use the jail prisoners in a road gang.”
“There ain’t no prisoners, Brother McCloud. Our good sheriff, Brother Faust, is as strong a believer in brotherly love, even when it’s against the town’s policy. But I thank you and welcome you to Shoshone Flats. My sermon for today is ‘Heaven as It Really Is.’ ”
Ian sat down as the preacher jumped quickly into his sermon. After fifteen minutes, Ian figured it might be time to excuse himself and go steal the horse, but a flurry of rain on the roof made him reconsider. Hiding out in weather like this, all night, waiting for the bank to open, could give a man lung congestion, and the lone saddle horse at the hitching rack didn’t look like much of a mudder. If he waited for the evening services, the weather might clear, and clearing weather would also give him a better selection of horses.
Also, Ian was beginning to pay attention to the sermon, and, for reasons he could not understand, was even growing interested.
Brother Winchester was describing the sights and sounds of heaven, beginning with the first sweet notes of Gabriel’s trumpet.
“Ah, sweet music to the ears of the saved, brothers and sisters, but a dirge unto the damned.”
He got past the golden gate in fine style, describing it with a jeweler’s attention to the details, but when he came to describing the throne of God, either his vision failed him or his voice faltered. “Pure radiance, brothers and sisters, shimmering, ineffable, surrounded by luminous flights of angels enwrapped in righteous robes of peace.”
Inside Ian, G-7 listened tensely. This earthman was giving a literal description of a launching pad with waiting pilots on a stand-by detail.
And Winchester’s human audience was straining to catch every dip and quaver of his voice when the preacher made a political error. “I tell you, brothers and sisters, I half-envy the soul of our late Brother Trotter, which, at this very minute, is walking up to that throne of radiance and all enveloping peace. Brother Trotter is done forever with life’s toil. For him, no more the ordeal of facing winter’s rages atop a coach seat, no more the fear of stage robbers, no more the toiling on the long upgrades, the breaking on the downgrades…”
“And no more Dead Man’s Curve,” Betsy Troop shrilled from the rear. “Ian McCloud for mayor.”
“No more the taunts of men, the bile of females, nor the scorn that civic merit from the nonvoter takes,” Winchester continued. His righteous wrath closed the breech, and a few of the women began to sob audibly as he swung back to the safer fields of heaven.
Whatever his faults as a mayor, Ian decided, Winchester was a spellbinding preacher, and he proved it at the close of the sermon. Repentance of sin was the key to paradise, he said, and he invited his audience forward to the alter to kneel and pray for forgiveness of their sins. He built his plea up to a final adjuration, “Now the time has come, brothers and sisters, to come forward and confess to Jesus and be saved. Come to Jesus, now, you sinners.”
On the word “now” the organist began the old hymn, “Come to Jesus Now,” but a quick-step march would have been more appropriate for
“You tell ’em, Ian McCloud!” A female voice screamed from the rear, and Ian knew it came from beneath a sunbonnet.
“Amen, or second the motion,” a masculine voice responded.
“I been traveling that road for twenty years,” the banshee wail continued, “and the only thing that’s gonna straighten it out is a new mayor for Shoshone Flats.”
“Sister Betsy, control yourself,” the preacher said. “There’s an administrative problem here, which the average citizen can’t be expected to understand; namely, who’s going to pay the labor?”
“Preacher,” Ian said helpfully, “why not use the jail prisoners in a road gang.”
“There ain’t no prisoners, Brother McCloud. Our good sheriff, Brother Faust, is as strong a believer in brotherly love, even when it’s against the town’s policy. But I thank you and welcome you to Shoshone Flats. My sermon for today is ‘Heaven as It Really Is.’ ”
Ian sat down as the preacher jumped quickly into his sermon. After fifteen minutes, Ian figured it might be time to excuse himself and go steal the horse, but a flurry of rain on the roof made him reconsider. Hiding out in weather like this, all night, waiting for the bank to open, could give a man lung congestion, and the lone saddle horse at the hitching rack didn’t look like much of a mudder. If he waited for the evening services, the weather might clear, and clearing weather would also give him a better selection of horses.
Also, Ian was beginning to pay attention to the sermon, and, for reasons he could not understand, was even growing interested.
Brother Winchester was describing the sights and sounds of heaven, beginning with the first sweet notes of Gabriel’s trumpet.
“Ah, sweet music to the ears of the saved, brothers and sisters, but a dirge unto the damned.”
He got past the golden gate in fine style, describing it with a jeweler’s attention to the details, but when he came to describing the throne of God, either his vision failed him or his voice faltered. “Pure radiance, brothers and sisters, shimmering, ineffable, surrounded by luminous flights of angels enwrapped in righteous robes of peace.”
Inside Ian, G-7 listened tensely. This earthman was giving a literal description of a launching pad with waiting pilots on a stand-by detail.
And Winchester’s human audience was straining to catch every dip and quaver of his voice when the preacher made a political error. “I tell you, brothers and sisters, I half-envy the soul of our late Brother Trotter, which, at this very minute, is walking up to that throne of radiance and all enveloping peace. Brother Trotter is done forever with life’s toil. For him, no more the ordeal of facing winter’s rages atop a coach seat, no more the fear of stage robbers, no more the toiling on the long upgrades, the breaking on the downgrades…”
“And no more Dead Man’s Curve,” Betsy Troop shrilled from the rear. “Ian McCloud for mayor.”
“No more the taunts of men, the bile of females, nor the scorn that civic merit from the nonvoter takes,” Winchester continued. His righteous wrath closed the breech, and a few of the women began to sob audibly as he swung back to the safer fields of heaven.
Whatever his faults as a mayor, Ian decided, Winchester was a spellbinding preacher, and he proved it at the close of the sermon. Repentance of sin was the key to paradise, he said, and he invited his audience forward to the alter to kneel and pray for forgiveness of their sins. He built his plea up to a final adjuration, “Now the time has come, brothers and sisters, to come forward and confess to Jesus and be saved. Come to Jesus, now, you sinners.”
On the word “now” the organist began the old hymn, “Come to Jesus Now,” but a quick-step march would have been more appropriate for
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