1889: Journey To The Moon (The Far Journey Chronicles) Read Free Page A

his jaw joints creaked when he finally closed them.
    When the Doctor showed him the Dental Regravitator—his own personal invention—that would realign enamels to an Adonis-worthy symmetry, Billy almost pulled his Colt Peacemaker from the shoulder holster. The Regravitator was a plaiting of thin brass wires and numerous small gears no larger than the eyes of a small mouse. The Doctor said, “Once attached to your teeth, the kinetic action of talking and eating will transfer your mandibular movements through the gears and wires to adjust your teeth to their desired placement. It will take place slowly, over a period of three months. And it will be painless, I assure you.”
    The good Doctor had been so wrong on that point.
    Four months later, after the Dental Regravitator was removed and the sore mouth healed, Billy looked at himself in the mirror and didn’t recognize the man looking back. His teeth were even and white, and his lips no longer pushed out like a duck’s, but looked nice, full. The weight gain made his cheeks fill to give his facial shape a pleasing look. His eyes were the same, though. Blue and clear. And from all his time in the sun here in Colorado, his hair was now a dark blonde. He looked nothing like the scruffy, buck-toothed youth holding the barrel of the Winchester and posing in the tin-type photo taken in 1880.
    Cynna had been delighted. She cooed and patted and touched his face, saying “I may have to call you my Adonis.” She slipped her arm in his, “But I am glad your voice is the same. I could listen to you read the most atrocious passages ever written and still be enthralled.”
    Billy didn’t know about enthralled, but women did like to listen to him. He thought it was because he listened more than he talked. The change in his smile also started the change in their relationship. Cynna became more possessive. That progressed to jealousy, and from that to her thinking wealth and power allowed her to order him to do this, or not do that.
    Being on the streets for the last three months was still better than having someone boss him. Billy had a good work ethic and was dexterous with his hands, small as they were. He used the knowledge gained from Cynna’s library to tinker with mechanisms that others, with larger hands, less nimbleness in the fingers, could not. The wages were enough to feed him and buy drinks when he needed.
    Albert, the bartender was a friend and let him sleep in the storage room when weather was bad, so there was that, too. But he could not continue this way of life. So it was either befriend the woman he’d just seen through his telescope and use her to get on board as a hand, or find a way to become a stowaway. It didn’t matter which way, because he would be on the ship. And no one would stop him.
    Billy headed back to town. He checked the Colt in the shoulder holster to make sure it came out fast and easy, then he walked down the street to a place where he could watch the guarded gate until the woman with the light emerged.
    Once in town, he leaned against the wall of the mercantile and watched the zeppelin lift above the walls as the crew peered over the edges of the frigate dangling below the projectile-shaped, gas filled ascender. Painted in shamrock green letters on the side was Bonnie Brae. Billy knew this old ship and her owner, for it was the air-ship of Irishman Sean O’Bannon, a drinking friend. Billy said to himself, “If the woman won’t passport me, I may have another way.”
    The huge gate opened at that moment and Billy caught a glimpse inside the compound. It was a bustle of activity, and nobody was going to walk in uninvited. Two enormous, bearded men guarded the gates, armed with the newest Velociter-Magnus rifles. The brass and copper shone on the weapons as if newly forged, and the multiple barrels looked as deadly as a dozen spitting cobras. No sir, Billy thought, I won’t be charging in there all bravado and horns and pawing the earth.
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