Bridgetown, Issue #1: Arrival Read online

  "Wait up," Eli started.

  Jesse turned. "Hey, Eli."

  "I'm sorry for having doubted you earlier," the bandit said, his eyes to his boots. "When I saw your movin' picture, an'—and then when I saw you shoot that chinaman, well, I knew you were an invaluable brother in our mission."

  Jesse was at once heartened and revolted. "Thanks," he said. Eli's phrasing—our mission—struck him. "Eli, can I ask you a personal question?"

  "Well, shoot."

  "I have my own reasons for being here—but what about you? What keeps you a part of this gang? Besides the lotus?"

  Eli pursed his lips and took a breath. He began to pace away from the others, and Jesse followed. "Well, I suppose we all have our reasons. Mostly, for me anyways, Mr. Black has given my life purpose. I was nobody 'fore. Nuthin. But ever since I first tasted that flower, I knew I could see more—be more—than any of those folks in back in Bridgetown. More than your brother, certainly, if you don't mind my meaning."

  "I don't."

  "See, it's like this, Mr. Jesse. When I taste the lotus, I'm a little bit closer to heaven. Just a little, but enough. Which makes Mr. Black my priest, of sorts. And what we have here—the Lotus Boys, and this camp—it's like a church. And every day is Sunday. You get my meaning?"

  Jesse nodded. "I think I do." He shook Eli's hand.

  No longer would any Lotus Boy doubt Jesse's value to the cause. The Lotus Boys obliged his commands, his master vision. He was both auteur and agent of faith, and they were beholden to deliver his sermon.

  Over the next several hours, the congregants assembled a wooden mast and rigged it onto the back of their stripped-down stagecoach, hinged to spring up like a trebuchet. A rope pulley was assembled to shoot up the canvas screen in an instant.

  Once they'd successfully tested this system, the men set about painting the wagon a flat black, and adorned it with a hodgepodge of available gas lamps.

  The plan, as Jesse devised it, was simple:

  As the wagon rode into town, lit up like a flaming chariot, a crowd would form around it. Srawn like moths to the flame by the unusual display, they would call out others from their homes and businesses.

  Then the trebuchet would shoot up, the screen would rise, and moving images unlike anything the people might have seen in carnivals or kinetoscope houses would play over their heads. They would be swept up in its calling.

  And so it came to pass, the following day:

  It was July 30th, a Friday. A good night for a movie premiere.

  Jesse walked down Main Street. There were people about—men, women, children, going in and out of shops and offices. They'd reserved their tickets to the picture show just by being there.

  Like an expectant father in the waiting room, Jesse was anxious. He needed a smoke. So he walked into the general store—that first place he'd gone, the day he'd fallen from the sky. He rang the bell for service, and that old man in his green visor appeared once more from the back.

  "I'll take a pack of cigarettes, please," Jesse said.

  "Which brand, sir?"

  Jesse considered the options on the shelf by the shopkeep. A peach-colored pack read, "Admiral," and he remembered one of the film reels he'd watched in Scoble's lounge. It had been, plainly, what a modern man would call a commercial. In it, an American in a top hat, an Indian, and a European soldier were bickering with one another when a giant carton of Admiral cigarettes splintered apart. From it, a Napoleon lookalike emerged and began showering the men with hundreds of cigarettes. The strange bedfellows all stopped fighting, and, now happily puffing away, unfurled a banner that read, "WE ALL SMOKE."

  It was odd. But effective enough that Jesse remembered it.

  "I'll take the Admirals," he said.

  "That'll be five cents," the shopkeeper told him. Jesse fished for a nickel and handed it over.

  "Have a good one," he said, and walked back out into the street.

  The walk-up balcony above the saloon looked like a prime viewing spot. Jesse began up the stairs, savoring the creaking underfoot as he took one step after another. He was beginning to appreciate the way this town was built, how each building was crafted from what was available.

  Someone was cooking. It seemed they were doing so inside the saloon, which was unusual. The smell of pig roasting on a spit wafted up through the second floor of the building, through the whorehouse, and out to the balcony where Jesse now stood. The sun felt warm and pleasant on his skin, and he enjoyed the first long drag on his cigarette.

  He realized, with some satisfaction, that he did not feel lost or out of place. He felt like he hand a handle on things at last.

  "Hello, Mister," came a girl's voice.

  Jesse turned. She was a comely brunette, long tressed ringlets cascading over her bare shoulders and down to her Spanish-style dress.

  Jesse nodded to her.

  "You like watching the people?" she asked.

  Again, he nodded.

  "I do, too," she said. "Sometimes, I make up little stories about each of them in my head. Other times, I don't have to. The husbands like to tell me all about their troubles at home. I feel bad for the wives, when I see them out here together. I wonder if they know."

  Jesse considered this young girl's life while he looked out to the flat desert horizon. He noticed that the sun was finally setting.

  "Well, if you like stories," Jesse told her, "Wait here for just a few more minutes."

  He put out the cigarette butt under his foot and kicked it away to the earth below.

  The girl stood there for a few heartbeats longer, but then retreated beyond the doorway to the whorehouse. Maybe she realized she wasn't going to get any business out of this pensive stranger.

  As the dusk sky dimmed to a dusky grey, Jesse spotted a stagecoach on the long road into town.

  His stagecoach.

  One by one, the hundred-plus lanterns dangling from all sides of it were lit up.

  "Hey," the girl's voice said from beyond the doorway, "What'd'ya see out there that's so much more interesting than me?"

  Jesse turned in her direction, wearing a smile. "Take a look for yourself."

  She emerged once more with a raised eyebrow, and approached the balcony ledge. She pointed to the stagecoach, now shimmering in the distance like a torch. "That wagon's on fire."

  "Fire?" came another voice from beyond an open door. A middle-aged woman emerged, unapologetic in nothing but her bloomers. She had copper-tinged, thin hair pulled tight against her scalp and pushed up like a geyser of curls atop her head.

  "—Esther, look," the younger girl said. "It's coming this way."

  Both prostitutes took off running down the steps to Main Street.

  Jesse found himself smiling. He watched the pair as they merged into a gathering crowd of people.

  More and more onlookers—shopkeepers, vagrants, the young and the old—came out of the woodwork and into the streets. Whether they were interested in the chariot of fire or the nearly-naked woman now in their midst was an academic distinction.

  Four of Black's midnight-colored mares pulled the wagon. In and of themselves, they were a sight to behold.

  A gust of wind blew through Main Street's wood-and-brick canyon. For a moment, Jesse could swear he heard the low choral intonations of Dies Irae in the air. If Devil's Peak had a voice, that would be it.

  Something wicked this way comes, he thought.

  The stagecoach was near enough now for the gathered crowd to realize that it was not actually on fire. Still, the sight of its peculiar oil-lamp bedazzling was enough to maintain a captivating curiosity. The horses came to a stop, commandeered by a figure in the Lotus Boys' identifying monochromatic garb.

  Once more, Jesse looked up to the sky. The sun had set fully now, and the stars were beginning to pierce through the veil. It was dark enough at last.

  Showtime.

  With a whip-crack sound, the trebuchet was activated. The massive screen shot up and unfurled, the expensi
ve, billowing fabric majestic in how it pulled taut against its frame.

  Jesse's mechanism had been a clever one.

  From his vantage point at the balcony, Jesse heard a wave of gasps ripple through the crowd. Questions rippled throughout.

  Who's inside that thing?

  What's going on?

  The screen began to flicker with a crackling electric energy, only adding to the crowd's excitement. The projector was loaded up on a second wagon, clear on the other side of Main Street, shooting its beam of concentrated light down the alley between the saloon and the shop next door.

  As the projectionist focused the light and the leader film ran though, Black emerged from behind the left edge of the screen, violin in hand. He wore a mask that concealed his features even more than the deep brim of his hat managed to do.

  He began to play a haunting, mournful piece as the first scratchy frames of the film ran through the projector. Black's music was eloquent, poetic. Angelic, even.

  To Jesse's ears, it was clear that the violin possessed a power no ordinary man's could. Even from high above the scene, he felt lured into a kind of romantic trance. Women in the crowd began to sob. Men hardened by lives on the edge of civilization, too, became misty-eyed.

  It was a beautiful, terribly powerful synergy. Black's music opened them up to suggestion. But they were spurred on by Jesse's images, and by Jesse's story of the robbery of Bridgetown.

  Onscreen, the prodigious Madame Ferris, portrayed with wild-eyed glee by Floyda Marsh, threw her china plates across the dining room. She'd witnessed an old man have his oil-rich land taken from him by the corrupt sheriff, in league with the industrialist Mr. King who had designs to own the entire city. This was the moment where, sickened by what she saw and her culpability in a life of excess, she shed her identity and joined forces with the townspeople.

  The riled-up crowd began to cheer, and to Jesse it was a symphony of triumph. A validation.

  As the reel ran thin, the final call to action appeared onscreen, a last-minute addition Jesse had included as a kind of epigraph in reverse.

  "This has been a work of fiction. But it is rooted in a timeless truth, that of the plight of the haves and the have-nots. There are a thousand Bridgetowns across this great land, and one cannot stand to see them stolen away for good."

  Then, with a final dissolve in, came an attribution that was also a revelation:

  " — JESSE M. COLE, BROTHER OF WAYNE COLE."

  The assembled went wild.

  A man fired his revolver into the sky.

  A preacher praised God.

  Black took one bow for the crowd and disappeared down a trapdoor into the inner workings of the stagecoach. The screen retracted back into its housing.

  On cue, both wagons slipped into the night as easily as they had appeared, before they could be mobbed by the ginned-up crowd.

  Jesse breathed a sigh of relief.

  He could feel it—things were happening just as he had seen while under the influence of the lotus.

  Maybe it the lotus, or maybe it was something more. But he could sense that he'd tapped into the cosmic lines of destiny. He was looking at the backstage of reality now, and could see how all causality was connected. He was the puppeteer. He could manipulate the strings.

  He walked through the brush beyond Bridgetown's borders back to the bandit camp, no longer afraid of what could be out there.

  Tomorrow, the people of Bridgetown would talk about what they saw on Main Street. Jesse and the Lotus Boys had said what they needed to say, and now the people would continue the conversation. Wayne would have to answer their questions.

  * * * *

  COLE SCANDALIZED AFTER MYSTERY BROTHER'S SHOCKING BROADSIDE.

  WAYNE COLE: VISIONARY OR ROBBER-BARON?

  COLE WIFE HARBORS SAPPHIC CONFIDANT IN PARIS!

  (That last headline featured a photograph of a defiant Susanna, arms crossed, scandalously clad in her denim jumpsuit and work boots.)

  Standing on the back porch of his ranch house, Wayne leaned against the awning support and mulled over the headlines dancing in his mind. In the four days since his brother had debuted his little film, he had learned to stop walking in front of newsstands. The whole of Bridgetown—and increasingly, it seemed, the nation—was talking about the Cole family saga. The switchboard girl had told him Hearst's men over at the New York Journal would not stop calling, even after Wayne had commanded she screen their calls. They were now inundating the company line with requests for comments.

  Why would the East Coast care about the family drama and political machinations of a dusty town out West? With the rise of gossip rags and yellow tabloids, what would have once been local fodder had become a supremely ripe affair for the national stage.

  Wayne knew that his rapid rise to prominence made for a good story. Besides, it wasn't like the brewing schism in Bridgetown was an isolated phenomenon; it was just a microcosm of a larger national debate. The role of industry and technology in the American character was on trial.

  Wayne wasn't about to shirk away from this. But what bothered him were reports that played directly into Jesse's hand. Journalists were showing up in the inns and taverns about town, and when they did, they cozied up to the locals. They asked them leading questions like, "How do you feel about having your land swindled for cheap by Wayne Cole?"

  As if I've committed a kind of sin by not pointing out that oil seeps in plain sight underneath their feet. As if that was how business worked!

  Wayne knew he's have to match Jesse's propaganda efforts if he was to prevent the city from turning against Cole Co. The problem was, he didn't have an ad boy. No one else had become an expert on the subliminals of effective advertisement. No one else had been raised by the television.

  In short, Wayne didn't have another Jesse at his disposal.

  "Breakfast's ready!" Martha called, from inside the house.

  Wayne exasperated one last, deep breath, and left the porch for the kitchen.

  He took his seat opposite Susanna and ate in near-total silence, as had been the case for the last several days. The uproar outside might have allowed the pair to grow closer, if it hadn't been for the strain already present in their coupling. As it stood, the stress had put Wayne in a funk, which in turn irritated Susanna all over again. Now the sounds of forks scraping against fine china substituted for healthy conversation.

  Wayne watched W.J. eat in blissful obliviousness. When he and Susanna were not speaking, they could at least find, in their son, common ground with which to broker a peace.

  Susanna at last broke the silence. "Maybe we should call off the gala altogether," she said.

  "No, that's precisely what he's trying to accomplish," Wayne shot back.

  Susanna only raised an eyebrow.

  From down the hall, the telephone ringer cut through the air. Wayne heard Martha pick it up and mutter something. After a few moments, she bellowed a relay into the kitchen. "Mr. Cole, Sheriff White's on the telephone."

  Saved by the bell, Wayne thought. "Thanks, Martha."

  He wiped his mouth with his napkin, and excused himself with a gesture, glancing only briefly at Susanna. He left the dining room for the hallway. Martha handed him the brass-and-metal receiver with a nod.

  Wayne cleared his throat. "Hello, Sheriff?"

  "How do you do?" came the tinny voice on the other end.

  "Oh, you know," Wayne replied. There was a note of hesitation on the other end of the line. "So what's the news, Sheriff?"

  "I, uh, wanted to talk about the gala."

  "What's on your mind?"

  "I have some concerns, you see, that with everything going on around town, the Lotus Boys might try to disrupt the proceedings."

  This struck Wayne as an assumed truth. "It wouldn't be a party without them," he replied.

  "Well, now, I'm serious, Wayne. How's it going to look to the world if Bridgetown turns into a battlefield when you've got Spanish royalty in there? How's it gonna m
ake your company look to the world?"

  Wayne mulled over the sheriff's words. The thought had occurred to him—constantly—over the last four days. But what could he do?

  "If you're suggesting we cancel the gala," Wayne said, "You can forget about it. This thing needs to be big."

  "Wha—well, why, anyway? Now, all due respect, living up there on the hill, I don't think you're seeing everything that's going on down here. I've got men spread thin from Main Street all the way to the sticks out by the old Coso Mine. Trying just to keep things peaceable. And the people are blaming me, Wayne. I'm taking the heat on this thing! I've been spit on twice from the balconies and nearly run off the road just this morning."

  Wayne imagined White sitting in his office right now, staring out the window at a town full of citizens suddenly eyeing him with hungry stares. There was something else, too, that struck Wayne—the sheriff of Bridgetown was an elected official. Dealing with White, he was dealing with a politician. One who feared an unhappy electorate as much, or more, than any physical threat to his well-being.

  The industrialist took a breath to formulate his response. "I know there is a vocal minority that is all ginned up right now. But we have a chance to really put Bridgetown on the map. Passing that opportunity by will do this city more harm in the long run than the Lotus Boys by themselves could ever hope to."

  "Wayne, I don't understand. You're gonna sell the cars as fast as you can make them whether there's a big to-do about it or not. Why do we need to treat this thing like the King of Spain is gonna be there? You're making a big, fat old target out of yourself."

  "Brand recognition," Wayne stated, firm. It felt good to hit that "B" with a plosive pride. "We will have the eyes of the world on us. Bridgetown will become synonymous with the future of things."

  White made a sound like he was sucking a piece of asparagus from his teeth. "Well, Wayne, I can see I'm not gonna change your mind. And hell, you're the brains, I suppose. You've done right so far, anyway." He seemed sorry to have to concede. "My boys and I will do what we can. But," he added, "If things blow up, well—you can't say I didn't warn you."