The Doctor And The Rough Rider Part 27

Edison took them from him, held them up to the light, and tried to peer through them. "Good job," he said approvingly, then turned to Roosevelt. "Theodore, the fact that you wear gla.s.ses may actually prove to be a benefit in your coming confrontation."

"That'll be a first," said Roosevelt.

"Trust me, it'll buy you a couple of seconds, and you just may need those seconds in a life-and-death battle with War Bonnet."

"I need every advantage I can get when I go up against him," said Roosevelt with conviction. "As awesome as I made him sound, he's even more so in person."

Edison walked over, lenses in hand, and reached out for Roosevelt's gla.s.ses. Roosevelt instinctively pulled his head back.

"It's all right, Theodore," said Edison. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"I know that, Tom," replied Roosevelt. "I just have this tendency to protect my eyes." He reached up to remove his gla.s.ses. "Here, you can have them."

"No," said Edison. "Leave them on-and believe me, I'm not about to poke your eye out."

Roosevelt held still while Edison reached out with the lenses, and clipped them onto the top of the gla.s.ses' frame.

"It works," he said happily.

"I told you it would," said Buntline. "Now flip them down."

Edison lowered the darkened lenses on tiny hinges until they totally covered Roosevelt's own lenses.

"Works perfectly," announced Buntline.

"I don't want to disillusion you," said Roosevelt. "But I can't see a d.a.m.ned thing,"

"Better now than later," said Buntline.

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?" demanded Roosevelt.

"I'll explain it in a moment," said Edison. "Now, gently, so you don't break them or detach them, flick the dark lenses up so that you're looking at me through your regular gla.s.ses again."

Roosevelt did as he was told.

"What do you think?" asked Edison.

"Perfect," said Buntline. "If they didn't work, we'd have had to put them in real frames, he couldn't have worn his own gla.s.ses, and who knows how blind he is without them?"

"Follow me, Theodore," said Edison, walking through his living room and out into his front yard with Roosevelt and Buntline falling into step behind him.

"Just about high noon, wouldn't you say?" asked Edison.

"Give or take ten minutes," agreed Roosevelt.

"Good. Look up into the sun."

"Really?" said Roosevelt, frowning. "Why?"

"Just do it, please."

Roosevelt looked up. Within ten seconds his eyes were watering, and in another five he had to shut them and turn away.

"Thank you, Theodore."

"What was that all about?" demanded Roosevelt.

"You'll see in a moment. Now fold those black lenses down over your gla.s.ses."

"All right," said Roosevelt.

"Can you see me?"

Roosevelt shook his head.

"And of course you couldn't see me in the house."

"That's right."

"Good. Now look up at the sun."

Roosevelt looked straight overhead.

"Can you see it?" asked Edison.

"Just barely," said Roosevelt. "As if it's three times as far away as usual on a very foggy day."

"Keep looking," said Edison, staring at his watch.

"What's this all about, Tom?"

"Soon. Just keep looking."

Roosevelt stood motionless, his head tilted back.

"Okay," said Edison. "You're done. Take 'em off and let's go back into the house."

Roosevelt followed Edison and Buntline back inside. This time they didn't go into the office but seated themselves in the living room, and he followed suit.

"What do you think?" asked Edison.

"I think he'll be all right."

"Well, that's the first half of it."

"Would one of you mind telling me what you're talking about, and what the purpose of my staring into the sun through those things was?"

"You want to get it, Ned?"

Buntline got up. "I'll be right back," he said, heading off to the enclosed pa.s.sageway between the two houses.

"As I said, Theodore, there was no sense trying to find something that could pierce War Bonnet's skin, or even give him some ma.s.sive electric shock. You say he's invulnerable, Geronimo says so, and based on my observations of Indian magic, I have no trouble believing it. But based on everything you and Doc have told me from your separate encounters with him, he can see."

Roosevelt frowned. "Of course he can."

"The eye is a very complex organ, but it functions pretty much the same in all living things-men, horses, fish, dogs, birds, you name it."

"All right," said Roosevelt. "Eyes operate the same."

"Then believe me when I tell you that no living thing can stare into the sun for much longer than you did a few moments ago, at least not without the kind of protection we created for your gla.s.ses."

"You're not suggesting that you've found a way to make him stare into the sun," said Roosevelt.

"Almost," said Edison with a smile as Buntline returned to the room, carrying a device that was cylindrical, perhaps two feet long and six inches in diameter. There was a trigger mechanism beneath it, and a cord emanating from the back.

"Looks heavy," remarked Roosevelt.

"It has to be, for what it's got to do," said Buntline. "And it's got an even heavier battery. I hope you're in good shape, Theodore."

Roosevelt took the weapon from Buntline, hefted it, spun around once with it. "I can handle it," he announced.

"Can you handle it with thirty or forty pounds strapped to your back?" asked Buntline.

"I suppose I'll have to."

"Try holding it up, aimed right at me, with one hand."

Roosevelt did so. "Now perhaps you'll tell me why I'll have to, which is to say, what does this weapon do?"

"Theodore," explained Edison, "this mechanism produces a light that will affect the eyes the way staring into the sun effected yours, and it'll do it within two seconds. If War Bonnet saw you, and of course he did, if he avoided things that were in his way, if he saw the rock that Doc says he lifted, then we have to a.s.sume his eyes will react to light like anyone else's-and that means the three or four seconds after you start firing this, he'll be blind, and stay blind for quite some time. You don't fire time and again like a six-gun; you depress the trigger and hold it down. But not," concluded Edison, "before you flip those black lenses down over your gla.s.ses. Even from a position behind the gun, the world around you will get so bright so fast that you will literally go blind in seconds, and since you're not a supernatural creature whose eyes can be remade by your creators, you'll stay blind. So you must remember to flip those lenses down before you fire. The world will become so bright in your immediate vicinity that you'll have no difficulty seeing through them. It really won't look like a foggy night to you."

Roosevelt handed the weapon back to Buntline.

"You look less than enthused," noted Edison.

"Maybe you know something I don't know," said Roosevelt, "but I agree with your statement that he'll only be temporarily blind, and that Dull Knife and the others can fit him out with a new pair of eyes easier and faster than you and Ned could fit a wound victim out with a new arm or leg."

Edison smiled.

"What's so funny?" demanded Roosevelt.

"You're right. We do know something you don't know."

"Perhaps you'll enlighten me and then we'll all know it," said Roosevelt irritably.

"That weapon," began Edison, "that focused sunshine, was never intended to be a long-term solution. Its entire purpose is to temporarily blind War Bonnet so he cannot attack or destroy the weapon that will kill him."

"Just what the h.e.l.l are you talking about?" demanded Roosevelt.

Edison turned, walked into his office, opened a cabinet, withdrew another cylindrical device, and returned to the living room with it.

"It looks like the other one's little brother," remarked Roosevelt, staring at it.

"It's the ultimate weapon, Theodore," said Edison. "Our biggest problem was how to protect you from it."

Roosevelt took the weapon from Edison, hefted it, noticed that it, too, had a cord in the back.

"Okay," said Roosevelt. "I've blinded War Bonnet before he can get his hands on me. Now what?"

"Now you fire this baby," said Buntline, "and unless I miss my guess, you're going to be looking at one dead giant Indian."

"It clearly doesn't shoot bullets," said Roosevelt, studying it. "What does it shoot?"

"Same thing we were talking about two nights ago, and just a few minutes ago," answered Edison. "He has superhuman, supernatural strength. He's invulnerable. But he has human senses. Vision is one of them. Hearing is the other."

"This weapon will make such a sound as has never been heard before, Theodore," said Buntline. "In fact, I'd hesitate to call it a sound at all. Just as there are sounds so high we can't hear them but dogs can, and sounds they can't hear but that certain insects will react to...well, this will produce the Ultimate Sound. You won't hear a thing, and neither will War Bonnet...but if we're right, it'll burn out every circuit in what pa.s.ses for his brain."

"Just like that?" said Roosevelt.

"Just like that," replied Buntline.

"Well, not quite like that," interjected Edison. "First, those black lenses have to work. You have to not only be able to see him, but to protect yourself if he's thrashing around blindly and he stumbles in your direction."

"And second?"

"Second, I can protect you by chemically sealing your ears before you set out to meet him, but once they are sealed, you won't understand a word he or anyone else is saying unless you're a lip reader. And of course that condition will remain until you make it back here and I unseal them. It's a delicate process; if anyone else attempts to work on your ears, you could go permanently deaf, so even if you're wounded and can't return here for weeks or even months, don't let anyone else work on your ears."

"Is there any third thing I should know?"

"I'll show you how to connect both weapons to the battery. Then, whenever you're ready, I'll go to work on your ears. It'll probably take an hour."

"Might as well start as soon as you show me the batteries," said Roosevelt. "I don't plan to have a conversation with that supernatural b.a.s.t.a.r.d anyway."

"Have you thought about how you'll find him?" asked Edison. "You won't want to go around deaf, carrying two weapons, with a ma.s.sive battery strapped to your back, for days or even weeks."

"It won't take that long," said Roosevelt. "As soon as you're done with me, I'll start riding toward Geronimo's lodge. He'll probably be watching me as a bird or a snake or a rat even as I'm leaving town, and as soon as no one's around he'll manifest himself to find out where I'm going. And if I'm wrong and I have to ride all the way to his lodge, it's only a few hours."

"Why go at all?" asked Buntline. "He has no means of combating War Bonnet."

Roosevelt grinned. "Can you think of a better way to draw War Bonnet here than to present him with a chance to kill both of us at once?"

ROOSEVELT DECIDED THAT IF EDISON WAS RIGHT about his weaponry, the sound would instantly kill Manitou, so he left him stabled in Tombstone and rented a swaybacked old gelding, then stopped by the inventor's house briefly to have his ears plugged.

Half an hour later he was riding south out of town, heading in the general direction of Geronimo's lodge. He wasn't sure he could pinpoint the location, but he was sure the Apache would know he was coming and was probably watching him already.

An hour out of town he stopped at the one water hole he remembered, and after he filled his canteen and stood aside to let his horse drink, a brown hawk that had been circling high above him gently soared down, landed lightly on the ground, and immediately became Geronimo.

"I see you have been with the man Edison," noted the Apache.