beginning to feel his age. He’d been out of shape for the climb up the rocks, but he had to see Merkam’s secret. It had taken him days to figure out how he was going to see inside the thirty-foot walls around the two-block compound, and had struck upon a view from the heights west of town as the only possible solution.
While the town itself was lit with dim gaslights, the Merkam compound shone brightly—the new-fangled electric lights cast a pillar of illumination into the otherwise darkening Colorado night sky.
“Got you!” he whispered to himself.“Jumping Gilas. That thing is huge.”
A broad, silvery cone poked a needle-like spire above the surrounding rooftops. That’s all anyone else could see from anywhere in the town or within a mile or more outside it: the needle. The whole town wondered what it might mean.
The rumor running around the saloons and markets and even the churches was that Merkam was going to blow them all to Kingdom Come with his invention. He’d destroy the whole town and everyone in it. But the other rumor, the one that few but himself had heard, was that Merkam had constructed a vessel that would not only fly, but that would fly to the moon and back again. It was such an incredible whopper that Billy believed it. It was always the biggest lies that seemed to have the most truth in them.
“I’m hitchin’ a ride with you, Dr. Judah Merkam. The Kid is going to fly.”
He could see far more of the immense ship at this height, although it was indistinct. Beside it, a zeppelin unloaded its wares. The black figures of the stevedores moved crates by chain and rope from the blimp to the ground, where they were lifted by winch into the yawning side door of Merkam’s ship.
He caught a new sliver of light in the darkness of the door. Billy moved the glass to it and saw a figure inside, holding what appeared at this distance to be a blade of focused light. Nothing like the gas street lights or miners lamps with their diffuse rays, but one so bright and clean-lined it almost seemed solid. It wasn’t, because the light didn’t have a finite end. As long as something didn’t block it, the beam continued, never widening, just continuing. Billy’s heart thumped once when the light wobbled above the walls and, even at so great a distance, lit his position brightly enough that he cast a shadow on the rocks behind him. It stayed only a second, then continued its drunken, weaving path down the mountain and once more became secure inside the enclosure.
Billy watched it until the light blinked off. At the last instant of visibility, the beam lit the figure holding it. Billy’s eyes widened, “Huh.” It was a woman. A beautiful woman. He smiled and collapsed the tube of the small brass monoscope and put it in his coat pocket.
Billy had always had a way with the ladies. When he slipped into Colorado as an undersized youth on the run, it had been the good will and affection of women that bolstered him, kept him alive. Over the years his luck improved in the class of women who wanted to take care of him, and in 1885, when John Jacob Astor’s favorite illegitimate daughter, Cynna, put her head on his shoulder, everything changed for the better. She pampered him, clothed him, and taught him proper etiquette. Her mansion had a library of five thousand books and Billy practically lived in the room. With Cynna’s personal chef preparing meals and treats six times a day, Billy’s stature also increased. He grew three inches in height, bringing him from short to average, and his musculature improved so that the emaciated look was no more.
But the biggest change was when Cynna sent him to Denver to her personal Doctor of Dentistry. A genius in his field, the Doctor spent two days measuring and calibrating every facet of Billy’s lips, teeth, epiglottal depth, and tongue length. He spent hours on the front teeth, the ones he tsk-tsked as “those bucks”. Billy held his mouth open for so long that
While the town itself was lit with dim gaslights, the Merkam compound shone brightly—the new-fangled electric lights cast a pillar of illumination into the otherwise darkening Colorado night sky.
“Got you!” he whispered to himself.“Jumping Gilas. That thing is huge.”
A broad, silvery cone poked a needle-like spire above the surrounding rooftops. That’s all anyone else could see from anywhere in the town or within a mile or more outside it: the needle. The whole town wondered what it might mean.
The rumor running around the saloons and markets and even the churches was that Merkam was going to blow them all to Kingdom Come with his invention. He’d destroy the whole town and everyone in it. But the other rumor, the one that few but himself had heard, was that Merkam had constructed a vessel that would not only fly, but that would fly to the moon and back again. It was such an incredible whopper that Billy believed it. It was always the biggest lies that seemed to have the most truth in them.
“I’m hitchin’ a ride with you, Dr. Judah Merkam. The Kid is going to fly.”
He could see far more of the immense ship at this height, although it was indistinct. Beside it, a zeppelin unloaded its wares. The black figures of the stevedores moved crates by chain and rope from the blimp to the ground, where they were lifted by winch into the yawning side door of Merkam’s ship.
He caught a new sliver of light in the darkness of the door. Billy moved the glass to it and saw a figure inside, holding what appeared at this distance to be a blade of focused light. Nothing like the gas street lights or miners lamps with their diffuse rays, but one so bright and clean-lined it almost seemed solid. It wasn’t, because the light didn’t have a finite end. As long as something didn’t block it, the beam continued, never widening, just continuing. Billy’s heart thumped once when the light wobbled above the walls and, even at so great a distance, lit his position brightly enough that he cast a shadow on the rocks behind him. It stayed only a second, then continued its drunken, weaving path down the mountain and once more became secure inside the enclosure.
Billy watched it until the light blinked off. At the last instant of visibility, the beam lit the figure holding it. Billy’s eyes widened, “Huh.” It was a woman. A beautiful woman. He smiled and collapsed the tube of the small brass monoscope and put it in his coat pocket.
Billy had always had a way with the ladies. When he slipped into Colorado as an undersized youth on the run, it had been the good will and affection of women that bolstered him, kept him alive. Over the years his luck improved in the class of women who wanted to take care of him, and in 1885, when John Jacob Astor’s favorite illegitimate daughter, Cynna, put her head on his shoulder, everything changed for the better. She pampered him, clothed him, and taught him proper etiquette. Her mansion had a library of five thousand books and Billy practically lived in the room. With Cynna’s personal chef preparing meals and treats six times a day, Billy’s stature also increased. He grew three inches in height, bringing him from short to average, and his musculature improved so that the emaciated look was no more.
But the biggest change was when Cynna sent him to Denver to her personal Doctor of Dentistry. A genius in his field, the Doctor spent two days measuring and calibrating every facet of Billy’s lips, teeth, epiglottal depth, and tongue length. He spent hours on the front teeth, the ones he tsk-tsked as “those bucks”. Billy held his mouth open for so long that
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