A short story from the Rifters Universe…
The morning sun cascaded through the revealing windows encasing the showroom and the sparkling Model Ts. Harvey Pike took a deep breath, inhaling the intoxicating aromas of tires, leather, metal, and fuel. The fuel was especially heady.
“Can’t get enough,” he said to only himself, clutching the lapels of his tweed blazer and bouncing on the balls of his feet. The showroom and the cars gleamed, flaunting themselves like unending hope.
With his sleeve, he buffed imaginary imperfections from the fenders of the three cars, which had the purpose of attracting the most unconvinced cowboy. The tires gleamed, and the curves of the bodies glinted, waiting to be chosen.
When satisfied with their condition of absolute perfection, he stepped through a door in the back to enter the new addition—an alluring bay serving as a place to detail sold cars, repair them, and refuel them.
The test model gleamed like the future in the dim dawn light, calling to Harvey like metal shavings to a magnet. His hand caressed the hood as he ambled past to pull the garage door open. With practiced pulls, he worked the chain to roll it upward. Morning light flooded in, assaulting his sight, fluttering his eyelids.
A puff of morning fog rushed in, surprising him, and he stumbled back a step. When he blinked, only the sun and the dry desert air of midsummer greeted him from outside his shop.
“More of Settler’s charms.” He wasn’t convinced the town was promising or charming. The area hadn’t proven itself to him yet. He had moved here a few months ago at the behest of the county commissioner, Cordelia Swit. She was a formidable woman to whom it was impossible to say no, and she had dangled prospects and profits like an endless horizon of new cars.
He returned to the Model T and flipped up the front seat to unscrew the lid on the fuel tank. He pulled a thin wooden stick from a repurposed umbrella stand and inserted it into the fuel tank. When he pulled it out, he used a rag to catch any wayward drops and took it to the garage entrance for more light, observing that the tank was mostly full.
No one had stopped in for a test drive yesterday. He frowned, hoping today would unfold with a stronger whiff of bounty. Hand on his hip, surveying the landscape, he considered looking into adding a Packard and placing it prominently in the showroom window. Certainly, such a car would attract more interest and a few weak knees.
“It’s better than a horse,” he said to the empty streets. “You don’t have to shovel poop or worry about stepping in it.” A cow in a nearby pasture mooed. Harvey sighed and approached the barrel of fuel sitting on a reinforced crate next to the car. Wood shavings covered the floor under the crate to catch any drips and leaks.
He inserted the line into the gas tank and pushed the pump twice. Fog thickened, obscuring the car, and the cool morning air exploded with heat, raking across his skin like flames. He dropped the fuel line and stumbled, crashing on the floor beside the barrel of fuel. He was thankful he hadn’t knocked it over and stained his immaculate floor.
The heat on his left arm flickered his attention to it. Still engulfed in the thickening fog, the sleeve of his blazer heated to scorching. Smoke traveled up his sleeve, inciting his shoulders to emit more smoke, enshrouding him in vapors.
Jumping to his feet, Harvey shimmied out of his blazer and leaped away from the thickening mist, scraping it from his arms. The mist clung to him, to the car, feeling solid, becoming a presence as concrete as the Model T.
“What in all tarnation?” He stared, then peered closer. The foggy entity shoved at him, spinning his senses. He fought to stay with the car, to get inside, to move it out of danger.
The solidified fog took up more and more space and had a sheen like the moon. It reflected his panicked expression, distorting his precisely groomed hair into something unruly and squirming. Harvey gasped.
Racing down the road were the town’s newspaper editor and the rodeo star. Harvey had never seen people run so fast. He waved at them, yelling for help. The two of them rushed inside, and, with heavily modified revolvers drawn, they charged the solidified fog. The fog didn’t budge from engulfing the Model T and churned like gathering storm clouds. Susan yelled orders at Thomas and fired one of the revolvers, discharging a ray of blue energy.
Harvey had never seen revolvers with so many gears and so much brass. Before another heartbeat passed, Cordelia Swit arrived. She grasped him by the arm, her fingers biting into his flesh, leading him away. “Come along, Mr. Pike. You’ve been overcome by gas fumes.”
“What?” He blinked at her and found himself on the walkway leading to the front door of his house. His quaint two-story Victorian was conveniently located right behind his business. “How?”
“Good thing Susan and Thomas happened by.” Cordelia’s hard gaze bore into his thoughts. “On their way to work,” she added. She wore a smart dress that mimicked a man’s suit and revealed the curve of her ankles. “Susan summoned me.” Her lips pursed. “Also on my way to work.”
“Doesn’t Thomas work out at the Burke’s ranch?” He stared at the ground, trying to stop his dizzy thoughts. His eyes followed the laces up Cordelia’s shoe.
Harvey’s mother had nothing but disdain for the new fashions. “Exposing their ankles,” she’d pshawed. “Next this generation of trollops will want everyone to see their calves, and there will be no feminine mystique left.” His mother had come to America from England with her mistress and had very decided opinions for a woman who spent her youth in service. Cordelia reminded him a lot of his mother.
His gaze diverted from Cordelia’s scandalous ankles to the scene inside his garage—Susan firing some strange revolver with a blue light at the solidified fog, yelling commands at the champion bronc rider. Thomas dodged and wove, whacking the fog with a rod made from obsidian.
Cordelia tugged at Harvey. “It’s a hallucination.”
Thwack. Huff. Szzzsss. Thwack.
Susan and Thomas didn’t let up until the smoke lifted, and the mist faded. The Model T broke Harvey’s heart. It was bereft of paint and shine and hope, and the barrel of fuel had vanished. He opened his mouth, then shut it before one sound could tumble out.
“Fumes,” Cordelia repeated. The rim of her hat and its feathers flapped in the cool wind traveling down from the mountains.
“Th-the automobile. M-my beautiful automobile. Th-the paint.”
“Science has been proven fumes can be very corrosive.”
His senses quit swirling, and he scrutinized her. “The barrel of fuel? What’s going on, Mrs. Swit?”
“You can’t repeat a word of this. Ever. I brought you to this town and helped you establish your dealership. There are plenty of young men who want to get into the business of cars, Mr. Pike.”
“Threats?”
“Not intended as harsh as it sounds. Forget this, or come work with us, Mr. Pike.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Work with you? How?”
“Keeping secrets and defending the world. Do you really think the world could handle this truth?”
The truth pulsed in his mind as something more elusive than it had been thirty minutes ago. He pressed his lips together, frowning at his maimed Model T. The attack had been so brutal and violent. The poor automobile would never be the same, and he wouldn’t be able to sell it. “I invested everything I have into this dealership and moving to Settler.”
“If you keep quiet or choose option three, you lose nothing.”
“Only self-respect.” He inhaled deeply. “I suppose it’s to you I swear this oath?”
“It is. Come to my office this evening, and I’ll get you started.”
“Susan knows? And never wrote a word in the papers? The biggest story of the ages?” Hands on his hips, he shook his head. “This is a lot to swallow, Mrs. Swit.”
“This barely touches the surface, Mr. Pike.” She nodded and left.
He watched her stride across the road toward the county building with its stirring spire, which assured the townsfolk Settler was a place of promise. Harvey was no longer sure what types of promises those were.
