Worlds That Weren't

Freddie met Sheriff Behan’s girl at the victory party following the election. Brocius’s election strategy had borne fruit, of a sort-but Johnny Behan was rotten fruit, Freddie thought, and would fall to the ground ere long.

The Occidental Saloon was filled with celebration and a hundred drunken Cowboys. Even Wyatt Earp turned up, glooming in his black coat and drooping mustaches, still secure in the illusion that Behan would hire him as a deputy; but at the sight of the company his face wrinkled as if he’d just bit on a lemon, and he did not stay long.

Amid all this roistering inebriation, Freddie saw Behan’s girl perched on the long bar, surrounded by a crowd of men and kicking her heels in the air in a white froth of petticoats. Freddie was surprised-he had rarely in his life met a woman who would enter a saloon, let alone behave so freely in one, and among a crowd of rowdy drunks. Behan-a natty Irishman in a derby-stood nearby and accepted congratulations and bumper after bumper of the finest French champagne.

Freddie offered Behan his perfunctory congratulations, then shouldered his way to the bar where he saw John Ringo crouched protectively around a half-empty bottle of whiskey. “I have drunk deep of the Pierian,” Ringo said, “and drunk disgustingly. Will you join me?”

“No,” said Freddie, and ordered soda water. The noise of the room battered at his nerves. He would not stay long-he would go to another saloon, perhaps, and find a game of cards.

Ringo’s melancholy eyes roamed the room. “Freddie, you do not look overjoyed,” he said.

Freddie looked at his drink. “Men selling their freedom to become citizens, ” he snarled. “And they call it a victory.” He looked toward Behan, felt his lips curl. “Victory makes stupid,” he said. “I learned that in Germany, in 1870.”

“Why so gloomy, boys?” cried a woman’s voice in a surprising New York accent. “Don’t you know it’s a party?” Behan’s girl leaned toward them, half-lying across the polished mahogany bar. She was younger than Freddie had expected-not yet twenty, he thought.

Ringo brightened a little-he liked the ladies. “Have you met German Freddie, Josie?” he said. “Freddie here doesn’t like elections.”

Josie laughed and waved her glass of champagne. “I don’t know that we had a real election, Freddie,” she called. “Think of it as being more like a great big felony.”

Cowboy voices roared with laughter. Freddie found himself smiling behind his bushy mustache. Ringo, suddenly merry, grabbed Freddie’s arm and hauled him toward Josie.

“Freddie here used to be a Professor of Philosophy back in Germany,” Ringo said. “He was told to come West for his health.” Ringo looked at Freddie in a kind of amazement. “Can you picture that?”

Freddie-who had come West to die-said merely, “Philology. Switzerland,” and sipped his soda water.

“You should have him tell you about how we’re all Supermen,” Ringo said.

Freddie stiffened. “You are not Supermen,” he said.

“ You’re the Superman, then,” Ringo said, swaying. The drunken raillery smoothed the sad lines of his eyes.

“I am the Superman’s prophet,” Freddie said with careful dignity. “And the Superman will be among your children, I think-he will come from America.”

“I suppose I’d better get busy and have some children, then,” Ringo said.

Josie watched this byplay with interest. Her hair was raven black, Freddie saw, and worn long, streaming down her shoulders. Her nose was proudly arched. Her eyes were large and brown and heavy-lidded-the heavy lids gave her a sultry look. She leaned toward Freddie.

“Tell me some philology,” she said.

He looked up at her. “You are the first American I have met who knows the word.”

“I know a lot of words.” With a laugh she pressed his wrist-it was all Freddie could do not to jump a foot at the unexpected touch. Instead he looked at her sternly.

“Do you know the Latin word bonus?” he demanded.

She shook her head. “It doesn’t mean something extra?”

“In English, yes. In Latin, bonus means ‘good.’ Good as opposed to bad. But my question-the important question to a philologist-” He gave a nervous shrug of his shoulders. “The question is what the Romans meant by ‘good,’ you see? Because bonus is derived from duonus, or duen-lum, and from duen-lum is also derived duellum, thence bellum. Which means ‘war.’”

Josie followed this with interest. “So war was good, to a Roman?”

Freddie shook his head. “Not quite. It was the warlike man, the bringer of strife, that was good, as we also see from bellus, which is clearly derived from bellum and means ‘handsome’-another way of saying good. You understand?”

He could see thoughts working their way across her face. She was drunk, of course, and that slowed things down. “So the Romans-the Roman warriors-thought of themselves as good? By definition, good?”