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longbows and two dozen arrows. Robin felt certain and Little John tended to
agree that they would need everyone aboard to retake New Chicago.
When they were a week's walk from New Chicago, the Belle Dame slowed and
once again put in to shore. This time Robin was the only one to leave. The
riverboat would return in three weeks' time to pick him up; in the meantime it
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would wait far down-River, where Little John and Will Scarlet and the others
would continue to drill Verne's men in archery.
Robin's mission was simple: he would scout the land, see New Chicago, get an
estimate of Capone's strength, and return.
The trip to New Chicago proved disappointingly uneventful. The native
populations along the River were sparse most, Robin learned, had migrated to
New Chicago during its early days. Since Al Capone's rise to power, the remaining
people had migrated down-River ... rumors of slave camps, spread by a few
escapees, did the trick.
As he walked, every possible plan for taking Chicago ran through Robin's head.
Storming the walls... poisoning
THE MERRY MEN OF RIVERWORLD
259
Capone's food... leading a slave revolt... all seemed equally mad, and equally
improbable.
One day out from the New Chicago, he blundered into a patrol of Capone's thugs:
six men, all armed with swords and shields. They ringed Robin at once, weapons
drawn.
"Throw down your weapons," their leader said with a cruel sneer, "and we may let
you live."
Robin stood with his back to a tree, his bow drawn, an arrow nocked and ready to
fire.
"Not a chance," Robin said. "Another step and you're a dead man." His arrow
targeted the man's chest. "An arrow will go through that shield you're holding like
a hot knife through butter."
The man shifted a bit uneasily. "Here now," he began. "You can't "
"I heard there's a city ahead where men with certain skills can find a good life,"
Robin went on. "Is that true, or not?"
"What skills do you have?"
"I make weapons."
"What sort?"
"Everything from bows to guns."
"Guns, you say?"
"That's right."
Grinning, the man stepped back and sheathed his sword. "Why didn't you say so,
friend? We've had problems with the natives around here, so we can't be too
careful. You'll be welcome in New Chicago, all right the boss always has a place
for another man with useful skills."
Robin lowered his bow. "I should think so," he said.
* * *
260
John Gregory Betancourt
That New Chicago was a pearl buried in a pigsty was Robin's first impression. The
original town, surrounded by a stockade, was exactly as Verne had described it.
The streets were wide, the houses laid out along tree-lined avenues radiating
from a large central plaza. The huge council building now Capone's palace
stood at the exact center of town.
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Around the stockade, though, lay a huge slum. Gaunt-faced men and women
stared as Robin and Capone's men strode past. Thousands of hovels, flimsy
constructions of logs, clay from the River, and bamboo, had been built between
New Chicago and the River with no concern for order or sanitation. The reek of
human waste was nauseating.
Robin covered his mouth and nose with a bit of cloth. Is there no degradation to
which man will not fall? he wondered.
"Don't worry," the man to his right whispered, as though in answer to his
unspoken thought. "You can't smell Pisstown from the city most days."
"Good," Robin said.
At the stockade's gate, guards took Robin's longbow and quiver of arrows. Robin
didn't protest; he knew it was a small price to pay for the information he would
gain.
To his surprise, he was taken almost at once to a small whitewashed building
fronting the central plaza. Two guards escorted him to an office. An engraved
brass plaque beside the door said A. EICHMANN.
"Come in," a young man with sandy hair said in a heavy German accent. "Please,
sit."
Robin lowered himself into a straight-backed wooden
THE MERRY MEN OF RIVERWORLD
261
chair. It creaked faintly under his weight. He allowed his gaze to travel leisurely
around the room it was bare except for the desk then back to Eichmann's thin,
unsmiling face.
Eichmann had a paper in front of him. He dipped a pen into a clay inkwell, then
asked, "Name?"
"Robin Huntington," Robin said, and spelled it. Eichmann's pen made scritch-
scratch sounds.
"Date of death?"
"The year of our Lord eighteen hundred and forty-six."
Eichmann noted it down, then paused to study him. "Skills?"
"I was a master gunsmith."
"Excellent, excellent." Eichmann wrote that down, too, then deposited the form
in a small tray on the corner of his desk. Opening a drawer, he removed a card.
The paper looked thick and coarse, but words had been printed on it with a
printing press of some sort. Eichmann wrote Robin's name on the card, along
with a series of numbers.
"This is your identification card," he explained. "Carry it with you at all times.
You will need it to enter and leave buildings, use the Provider for your meals, and
requisition tools and equipment for your work." He smiled. "You're lucky you're a
gunsmith the boss is big on weapons. He wants pistols as quickly as possible,
and if you work hard to keep him happy, you'll find the benefits and privileges are
enormous. As it is, you'll be among the elite of the scientific teams."
"That sounds good to me," Robin said.
Eichmann gestured to the guards. "Find him a room in the dormitories," he said.
262
John Gregory Betancourt
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The next morning, in the gunshop, Robin met the three other gunsmiths working
for Capone. The head of the gun project, a Dutchman named Emile van Deskol
who had died in 1865, gave Robin a tour of their shop. A dozen apprentices,
varying in age from about seventeen to twenty or twenty-one, were hand-carving
rifle stocks and pistol grips, and chipping flint for flintlocks. A few pistol barrels
had been cast in iron, and their bores were being smoothed and polished.
"As you can see," Emile said, "our progress is slow. The iron is poor, our casting
methods worse, and the work is tedious and time-consuming. It will be months if
not years before we have a single working pistol."
Robin frowned. He was no expert, but progress on the weapons seemed far more
rapid than that. He made no mention of his suspicions, though.
"This will be your area," Emile said, indicating an empty table and bench at the
back of the shop. "Each of us works on weapons of our own design. Any tools you
need will be requisitioned, as well as assistants. Life is cheap; the more people we
put to gainful employment, the better, if you understand me."
"I believe I do." Robin began to smile. Emile had a pretty good racket of his own
going on... as long as he looked busy and useful, he would be immune to Capone's
bullying. In the meantime he'd pull as many people up from the slum of Pisstown
as he could.
Robin knew, then, that he'd found an ally. He just had to convince Emile of that
fact.
After the ten-hour workday, as the others hurried out to place their grails in the
grailstone, the Dutchman took Robin's arm and held him back. Robin paused,
curious.
THE MERRY MEN OF RTVERWORLD
263
Emile said, "You're no gunsmith."
"I don't know what you mean," Robin said.
"I've been watching you, and you don't have the faintest idea of what you're
doing. If you are here to spy on us " Emile began.
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