Free Steampunked by Joe R. Lansdale Page A

survived, wondered if he could join her there, if she would want him now that he was what he was.
    And he fell and he fell … and he is falling still… .
    *****

But, back to John Feather and Beadle.
    John Feather found a knife, dropped the ladder out from under Steam’s ear, hobbled down it and out to Beadle. John Feather, while Beadle protested, cut the arrowhead out of Beadle’s thigh, hacked the arrow off at the shaft, and using one injured, bleeding foot against the outside of Beadle’s leg, jerked it free.
    “We’re going to have to help one another,” John Feather said. “I’m not feeling too strong. My hands are seizing up.”
    “Did you have to shoot me with an arrow?”
    “It was that, or follow him. And if he had gone into that rip, I would not have followed. I’m not that much of a friend.”
    The two of them, supporting one another, hobbled back to Steam.
    Inside, Beadle found spare pants and shirt and boots and put them on. John Feather doctored his wounds again. Then, in their control chairs, they worked Steam and brought him out of the remains of the museum. They saw a few Moorlocks through Steam’s eyes, but they were scattering. The sun was coming up.
    “We should try and kill them all,” Beadle said.
    “I’m not up to killing much of anything,” John Feather said.
    “Yeah,” Beadle said. “Me either.”
    “Without their leader, they aren’t much.”
    “I think we’re making a mistake.”
    John Feather sighed. “You may be right. But …”
    “Yeah. Let’s take Steam home.”
    John Feather, in considerable pain, looked through one of Steam’s eyes at the landscape bathed in the orange-red light of the rising sun. There were more rips out there than before, and he saw things spilling out of some of them.
    “If we still have a home,” said John Feather.

Epilogue
    The astronauts, who had shed their heavy pressure suits and were wearing orange jumps, stopped walking as a green Dodge Caravan driven by a blonde woman with two kids in it, a boy and a girl, stopped beside them.
    She lowered an electric window.
    “You look lost,” she said.
    “Very,” said McCormic.
    “I suggest you get in.” She nodded to the rear.
    The astronauts glanced in that direction. A herd of small but very aggressive looking dinosaurs were thundering in their direction.
    “We’ll take you up on that suggestion,” McCormic said.
    They hustled inside. The boy and girl looked terrified. The astronauts smiled at them.
    The blonde woman put her foot to the gas and they tore off.
    Behind them the dinosaurs continued to pursue. The woman soon had the Caravan up to eighty and the dinosaurs were no longer visible.
    “How much gas do you have?” asked McCormic.
    “Over half a tank,” she said. “Where are we?”
    McCormic looked at the others. They shrugged. He said, “We haven’t a clue. But I think we’re home, and yet, we aren’t.”
    “I guess,” said the blonde woman, “that’s as good an answer as I’m going to find.”
    The Caravan drove on.
    All about, earth and sky resounded with the sounds of time and space coming apart.