The Complete Ank and Williams

Tales from the Flashback: | “The Ank Williams Story”-3

WILLIAMS WANTED THREE things more than anything in the world when he entered the Long Branch Saloon after being treated by Doc Allen and watering Ank—a tall glass of water for himself (or twenty), a cold beer, and the answer to a single question:

“Why do y’all talk and dress like it’s 1865?”

The saloon girl—her name was Katrina—didn’t respond right away, only sat his water and beer in front of him and busied herself by wringing out a bar towel in the basin. At last she said, “You have to remember, Mr. Williams, this place was a tourist attraction before it was a functioning city. Before the Flashback. Those of us who worked here were encouraged to talk that way—it was part of our job.” She laughed. “It’s funny, because we found ourselves talking that way even when we weren’t at work. My mother said it was because dialects are contagious.” She propped her elbows against the bar and leaned toward him, and he had to struggle not to glance at her cleavage. “Listen to you. You’ve only been here a couple of hours and you’re already saying, ‘y’all.’”

Williams smiled and tipped his beer to his lips; it was warm, stale. She was precisely right, of course. Language was contagious. The entire old-time vibe of this place was contagious. He watched as she bent over a bin of beers and began collecting bottles for the shelf. She was contagious.

“But the clothes ... that Marshal ...”

“The clothes,” She laughed again. “Well, there’s a couple of reasons for that. I guess you would have had to have been here right after the Flashback. We lost power sooner than most, is what I understand. So when the clean clothes started running out we turned toward Fly’s Photo Studio; it was easier than washing everything by hand. You have to understand, things were no different here than they were everywhere else during the Flashback: we were fighting for our very survival. Tyrannosaurs, saber-toothed cats, quill raptors— if it had teeth and claws, it wanted a piece of us. That’s how it all began, anyway. As for why it’s continued, well, look no further than Marshal Rimshaw and his deputies—not Decker, mind you, but his real deputies. The ones who got the illness. Ha! The flu. You should see ‘em: pale and black-eyed as serpents, just lying there in the Rio Grande like zombies.” She leaned toward him over the bar again and he caught a whiff of her fragrance, and there was a stirring in his groin he hadn’t felt since, well, since he couldn’t remember.

“What do you mean, like zombies?”

“I mean like zombies, like men who are dead but still walking, or lying there staring at the ceiling. See, something attacked us only a few weeks after the Flashback ... something ... new. At first everyone just assumed it was a rogue raptor, because it didn’t have a pack—that was the first thing. But then it started talking, like a parrot, I suppose, saying things like ‘Pig’ and ‘Eggsucker,’” She laughed her contagious laugh. “Can you imagine? A raptor calling you names as it attacked you? Deputies Creebald and Teller put up one hell of a fight, you can be sure, and they did eventually kill it, with Rimshaw’s help, but all of them were wounded in the fight, and the deputies worst of all. After that, things started changing around here. At first it was just Creebald and Teller acting strangely, abusing their power, you might say, telling me not to forget to paint on my mole, or insisting Doc Allen wear that ridiculous little vest. But then Marshal Rimshaw started getting into the act, as well, and before any of us knew it we were living in a kind of police state. Decker was the only one who didn’t pile on, which is funny, because he was the only one not wounded in the fight with the raptor. It all came to a head when Deputy Teller had his way with one of the saloon girls—Molly, was her name—after which there was a full-blown shootout between the Marshal and his deputies—not Decker, he tried to maintain the peace—and the rest of the town.” She unscrewed the cap from a bottle of beer and took a swig, then concealed it behind the bar. “You didn’t see that. Anyway, the town didn’t fare so well, and now there’s a row of graves out by Serpent’s Butte.” She paused, locking her beautiful brown eyes up in his own. “They were good men, Williams. The best I’ve ever known. And now they’re just as dead as that raptor.” She snapped the bar towel in her hands and then wiped the counter. “And that’s why we all talk and dress this way.” She indicated his empty glass. “You want another?”

“Sure,” he said.

She pulled one from the wall and unscrewed its cap, sat it down in front of him.

At last she said, “So what about you? What’s your story? And how did you come to be travelling with an armored dinosaur?”

Williams took a swig of his beer and then glanced out the saloon window, where Ank was standing with several horses. “Well, Ank and I don’t talk much about it. We just ... sort of crashed into each other at the intersection of his life and mine. As for myself, I guess you might say ... that I’m seeking Tanelorn.” He laughed a little to himself. “Do you know what that means? To be seeking Tanelorn?”

She shook her head slowly, her eyes never leaving his own.

“Yeah, well, who would? It’s something from an old novel—one I only partially remember. But what it means to me is to feel homesick ... not just homesick, but homesick for a place you’ve never been, or don’t entirely remember.” He toyed with his beer distantly, began peeling the wrapper from its smooth, brown glass. “And to want to find that place. See, I wasn’t exactly myself when Ank first found me—rescued me, for all intents. I had, how do you say it? Amnesia. I knew things had been different ... I just wasn’t sure how. I guess I just knew that something terrible had happened, not only to me but to the entire world ... and that there hadn’t been flesh-eating dinosaurs waiting to eat you around every corner before.” Now they both laughed. “And I knew that I’d been separated from something,” He glanced up from the bottle. “Someone, who had been vitally important to me. Someone who was ... is ... waiting for me even now.”

He stared into her eyes which betrayed a hint of disappointment.

“And that they are north of here, somewhere.” He quaffed the rest of his beer and sat the empty bottle on the counter, a little too hard. “And that’s it ... that’s all I know.” He winked at her. “All I want to know, if you want the truth. So long as I’m in your company.”

She quickly recomposed herself, staring back at him with something like bedroom eyes, and said, “I’ve always been a sucker for a man with a guitar. I know you’re still healing ... but you’re sure you won’t play something?”

He didn’t respond right away, only continued looking at her. At last he managed, “Look, Katrina, there’s something—”

And then there was a scream, a ragged, wet, blood-curdling scream, which came from the general area of the downed gates, and when Williams looked instinctively out the saloon’s window he saw that while the horses had remained completely un-phased, Ank had vanished without a trace.

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