But now O’Brien’s having the letter was moot.
236
Ed German
By now, back in their hut, Arda would have told Poe everything.
“He’ll sneak off again on her, won’t he, Mr. Hammett?”
“Poe, you mean?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m afraid he will, Robert.”
“I don’t like him much.”
“Neither do I.”
“I just wish I didn’t love her so much.”
“Someday you won’t love her at all.”
“You mean I’ll be able to look at her and my stomach won’t get all knotted up?”
“You’ll be able to look at her and wonder why the hell you wasted all that time loving her in the first place.”
“Has that ever happened to you?”
“Many times.”
“She’s awfully pretty.”
“Awfully pretty,” I said.
“And she’s nice to be in love with, because she doesn’t care when you hang around all the time.”
“Well, there’s something to be said for that, I guess.”
He sighed. “Maybe I’m not ready to stop loving her yet, Mr. Hammett.”
“It doesn’t sound like you are, Robert.”
“Maybe someday she’ll see Poe for what he really is.”
“Maybe she will, Robert.”
“And then maybe she’ll want to marry me.”
“That’s always a possibility, Robert.”
He kept quiet for a long time, then looked up at me and said, “You don’t understand this any better than I do, do you, Mr. Hammett?”
I sure as hell had to laugh at that one. I tousled his hair and said, “I sure as hell don’t, Robert. I sure as hell don’t.”
The Merry Men of Riverworld
John Gregory Betancourt
The man in green paused dramatically at the top of the rocky cliff, one hand shading his eyes against the sun. His shoulder-length hair, the color of wheat, ruffled faintly in the breeze. He carried a yew longbow and had a quiver of bamboo-fletched arrows slung across his shoulder. With the sun on his face and a thick, dark forest at his back, he cut quite a striking figure.
Below, the River wound like an endless silver ribbon as far as he could see. On its far bank, half a mile up, stood a town—a ramshackle accumulation of forty or fifty log houses. Smoke rose from clay-brick chimneys, and men and women dressed in brightly colored robes moved among the buildings.
He heard a woman’s low voice singing a tune he didn’t recognize in a language he didn’t know. His men would have warned him if there was any danger, but he still didn’t like surprises. He’d speak to Will or Tuck about it later.
Slowly, he dropped his right hand from his eyes. In a single movement he whirled, drew his bow, and nocked an arrow.
237
23S
John Gregory Betancourt
THE MERRY MEN OF RTVERWORLD
239
It was a half-naked woman with skin the color of chocolate, and she was carrying a bundle of bamboo. She dropped the bamboo in a clattering heap, her mouth gaping in surprise and fear. Her hair was long and black, Robin saw, and she wore a grass skirt. Her naked breasts were small and deeply tanned.
“Ya linya!” she breathed. “Me tonfevin!”
Putting down his bow, Robin leaped onto a low boulder and looked her up and down. His voice was low, powerful, when he asked, “Do you speak the king’s English?”
The woman started to back away.
Robin gave a whistle. The woods around them suddenly erupted with motion—two dozen men from the trees, from the bushes, seemingly from the very air itself. All wore green and carried longbows.
“I am Robin Hood,” he said. “Welcome to Sherwood, m’lady!”
Screeching in terror, the woman turned and fled into the trees. Robin threw back his head and laughed.
“Sir Robin!” said the tall man he called Little John. “On the River—”
Robin turned to follow his friend’s gaze.
Coming around a bend in the river was one of the strangest-looking riverboats he’d ever seen. They had encountered three others on the River, but this one—
It was huge, easily two hundred feet from pointed prow to broad, flat stern, with a large wheel on either side and a third wheel churning water at the rear. Its three tall decks had intricate woodwork, and twin smokestacks rose from a central pilot’s cabin. Sunlight glinted off glass windows and what looked like brass railings. Several dozen men moved about various tasks on the upper two decks,