Farmer, Philip Jose – Riverworld 06 – ( Shorts) Tales of Riverworld

“Unless you’re wrong,” Will Scarlet told Robin.

Robin flashed a dazzling grin. “Of course,” he said. “If it hasn’t returned in a week, we’ll push on.”

In the old days, before the Resurrection, Robin had been a classically trained actor named Edmond Hope Bryor. He’d played minor parts on stage for twenty-two years, since the age of six, before his big move to Hollywood and the silver screen. After three tragic love stories, eight forgettable westerns (critics admired the horses more than his acting talent), and one gangster movie where a young Spencer Tracy shot him in the end, he made the great leap to the enfant terrible of acting: television.

Cast as Robin Hood for the fledgling Dupont Network’s twice-a-week Robin Hood and His Merry Men would have made Edmond Bryor a hero to tens of thousands of

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John Gregory Betancourt

THE MERRY MEN OF R1VERWORLD

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children. He’d known that when he signed onto the project. He’d also known he was going nowhere fast in movies, just as he’d gone nowhere fast on stage.

Only Diablo, the ill-tempered white stallion the producer insisted he ride, threw him on the first day of shooting Robin Hood and His Merry Men. Edmond had no real memories after that, just a vision of the soundstage floor rushing up to meet him. A broken neck, he assumed; instant death or close to it.

In three years of wandering the River’s banks, he hadn’t met anyone he’d known in the old life to verify his suspicions. It was just as well, he often thought; he’d given up his old life and assumed a new one: that of Robin Hood. It was the role he was born to play, a dream from the childhood he’d never truly outgrown.

As the only son of two thespians, he’d been molded to their ideals, with elocution lessons, dance lessons, and music lessons instead of play time. He knew it had warped him in subtle ways. Awakening on the River, he’d decided to start over again, to live the sort of life he’d always wanted for himself, full of adventure and romance. And so his wanderings began.

He assumed the name Robin Hood and began journeying up the River, righting any wrongs he found, on the pretense of searching for King Richard the Lionhearted. Playacting, yes, but it was curiously satisfying. Along the way he’d found others willing to share that quest, and he’d filled his band of merry men from their numbers. It seemed his dream was contagious. He’d even talked a politics-weary Abraham Lincoln into abandoning a new political career and assuming the role of Little John.

They’d been fast friends ever since. * * *

Two nights later, a light hand touched Robin’s shoulder. He was awake instantly, gazing up into Mutch’s stoic face.

“You were right,” Mutch said. “It’s come back.”

Robin leaped to his feet and ran to the cliff, as close to the edge as he dared stand. The riverboat was easy to spot; its windows shone with a clear yellow light, like beacons in the darkness. What kind of lamps, he wondered, did they have on board? What kind of people could civilize a world so quickly?

“Build up the fire,” he said.

The others obeyed, throwing wood onto the embers, fanning them until a huge bonfire blazed.

By the time the riverboat drew even with the cliffs, Robin had his bow strung and his special arrow nocked. He’d had two weeks of intense archery training for his television show; the producers had planned to bill him as the greatest archer of the twentieth century. To his surprise, he’d found he had a talent for it, and he’d honed that talent to perfection in three more years of practice along the River.

He aimed, then let his arrow fly. For an instant his eyes lost it in the darkness, then it hit the pilothouse’s door with a thunk audible all the way across the water.

The door opened. A short, broad man was silhouetted for an instant. He saw the arrow and its note, grabbed them, and slammed the door closed. The riverboat’s paddle wheels continued their steady chugging.

“They didn’t stop,” Tuck said.