A Reckoning at the Far Edge of Nowhere
By Thomas Koperwas
Bill Oldfield brought his small craft down through the dense atmosphere of Prescott, piercing a bank of tall, angry clouds hovering over the ragged edge of the jungle before moving out across the desert wastelands. Racing over the sea of red and pink sand, he soon came to an isolated collection of gaudy buildings fronting a small dead-end street. He landed on the baked ground in the rear, next to a large white water tank and a small pumping station.
After clapping on a sidearm, Bill exited the craft. Walking past the grubby hotel and the rundown bordello, he came to the street’s lone pop-up casino, with a bright sign on the roof sporting the name The Far Edge Of Nowhere. A stocky sexagenarian with a rugged, time-worn face, Bill pushed open the western-style batwing doors and stepped into the casino—in amongst the slot machines, gaming tables, and fans that stirred hot air reeking of human and indigenous lifeforms.
As he strolled across the temporary building’s steel-plate floor, past the various players and employees, toward the end of the 600-foot-long bar, he was scrutinized by the metallic eyes of Deno Tee, the eight-foot-tall, tux-clad android proprietor. Deno Tee was the spitting image of his erstwhile owner, the infamous gambler Phil Billings.
Finally choosing a bar stool to settle on, Bill ordered a cold drink and cast his eyes over the casino’s garish interior.
As expected, the casino had a long, oval track running parallel to the bar, where the owner raced the local animals he’d captured. They were stored temporarily in the back bar, in transparent containers for the viewing pleasure of the patrons. A small pit for high-stakes blood-sport events sat in the centre of the oval, enclosed by a gold rail and rows of spectator seats. The bar itself was inhabited by the usual assortment of gamblers: the decadent young offspring of wealthy space miners, investors, off-world industrialists, and the like. Bored and restless, they’d flown in for some unwholesome fun and games during the pop-up’s brief life, accompanied by their tagalongs and the odd drifter.
Bill eyed a shapely woman in her thirties, who sauntered over to the chair next to him.
“Must be at least 108 in here!” she complained loudly. “And the animals stink to high heaven!”
Bill chuckled and ordered the lady a cold drink. “But this isn’t heaven,” he whispered.
“It sure isn’t,” insisted the woman, her big black eyes shining brightly. “My name is Sylvia Delevante, and I want to thank you for the drink. I’ve been stuck in The Far Edge for two months now, ever since my champ flew off without me. They say that makes me a drifter. But tell me, why are you here? I mean, you don’t look like a gambler.”
“I’m not,” replied Bill. “In my business, you can’t afford to gamble. You have to be right every time if you’re going to survive the long haul. Prescott was different forty years ago, completely wild and uninhabited.”
“Of course,” exclaimed Sylvia, her eyes wide with surprise. “You’re Bill Oldfield, the man who first surveyed this planetary system! The famous explorer who was big in the news when I was a kid.”
Bill smiled and looked at the oval track, where a large fly-shaped lure mounted on a steel rail rolled past. A bell above the bar rang, and four giant beetles shot out of the starting area in hot pursuit. Cheers went up as the oversized insects scrabbled wildly past the bar. When the race came to a close, the results were flashed on a big bright screen floating high above the floor.
“Those critters can sure travel,” observed Sylvia.
“You bet,” Bill agreed. “But they’re not as fast as the spiders over there,” he continued, pointing at the large, hairy arachnids behind the bar, moving restlessly in their boxes. “They can sprint up to 20 miles per hour. Faster than any earth spider. A fact I didn’t include in any of the original survey reports, though it was my job to study and catalogue the lifeforms on this planet.”
“Valuable knowledge in The Edge,” she commented. “The kind of knowledge that can give you an edge when betting.”
“No doubt,” he replied quietly. “But that’s not why I’m here, Sylvia. I want to find out if the rumours I’ve heard about the casino’s operations are true.”
Bill turned in his seat and looked out over the race lane to the edge of the pit. Several men and women were leaning on its gold rail, impatiently waiting for some action. Behind them, the seats were filled with eager spectators. Two containers in the pit opened with a sharp snap, and a pair of immense serpents slithered out, their long fangs extended. Dodging and weaving, they closed in for the kill. Then, leaping at each other, they struck out with their fangs: biting, slashing, drawing blood. The thrilled spectators cheered.
Bill snapped his eyes shut.
“They never fight each other in the wild,” he groaned, shaking his head. “All of Prescott’s snakes are gentle creatures that assiduously avoid contact with each other except when mating. The fangs are for prey only. So it must be true, then. The casino brings the animals to a fighting frenzy using electric shocks, drugs, or other methods.”
Bill opened his eyes and rubbed them in disbelief. Deno Tee stood behind the bar, proudly displaying the next two animals destined for the ring. The frightened creatures trapped in the see-through containers were of a humanoid extraction melded with deer-like features: large expressive eyes, alert furry ears, small horn stubs, the odd patches of fur, and abnormally long, muscular legs.
“Deelahs,” muttered Bill. “My survey crew had a nickname for them: Space Bambis.”
“They’re cute,” said Sylvia.
“And compassionate,” declared the explorer. “At least, that’s how I felt when one of them saved my life forty years ago. I’d had the misfortune to fall into a pit of desert quicksand and had gotten myself in deep while struggling to escape. It was only a matter of time before I sank completely out of sight. That was when a deelah came running by. Seeing me, he slowed and warily approached the pit. Maybe it was a kind of interspecies empathy that impelled the deelah to bend down and pull me out. It left me to dry out in the sun, then ran off, as deelahs are inclined to do.”
“I see,” whispered Sylvia. “Then you owe them one.”
The explorer stood up and slapped the money for the drinks on the bar.
“I don’t know what you’re planning to do,” said Sylvia, her eyes filled with curiosity. “But whatever it is, I’d like to help. I hate this place as much as you do.”
“Then wait here ‘til I get back,” replied Bill. “If I live long enough, I’ll return for your help.”
Outside, Bill mingled briefly with the crowd, taking in the cool night air before walking to the end of the buildings, where he turned off the street and crossed the baked ground of the landing field to his ship. Inside, he procured an explosive charge and an incendiary device. Stepping out of the vehicle, he attached the charge to the wall of the pumphouse and set the timer. Then he headed to the rear of The Far Edge.
The music was blaring in the casino, and the action at the gaming tables was hot. Out back, the grounds were quiet and empty. Bill walked unnoticed to the wall and attached the incendiary device. As he triggered it, he heard the muffled blast at the distant pumphouse. No one inside the casino could have heard the small precision explosion over all the noise and activity, but the sensors in the building’s walls would detect the sudden heat anomaly generated by the incendiary device, and would send an alarm to Deno Tee. Knowing the android would be faster than him on the draw, Bill pulled out his laser gun and waited.
When the tall android came running out the rear doors a minute later, he saw the intrepid explorer in the light of the flames and drew his gun. But Bill was ready, blasting a hole through Deno Tee’s chest where his brain was situated, dropping him in his tracks. He hurried over to the body, where he took Tee’s gun and pocketed it, then watched as fire spread quickly over the building’s dry surface.
Upon returning to the one-way street, he encountered the planet’s sole self-propelled fire engine sitting idle in front of the burning casino, sidelined by the lack of water pressure. Without water, there was no effective means to fight the fire, which had already spread as far as the adjacent buildings. There were plenty of willing hands, though, to carry the gaming tables, barrels of whisky, even a small piece of the bar out of the growing conflagration. Setting up the roulette wheels and gaming tables in the square on the far side of the street, the people continued carousing and gambling in the light of the burning buildings.
Running into the raging inferno, Bill found Sylvia pushing some of the animal cages toward the door. “Take this!” he shouted, handing her Tee’s gun. “You may need it!”
Sylvia slid the weapon into her waistband, then helped Bill pry open the doors of the containers, releasing the frantic deelahs trapped inside. The two humans rushed outside right behind the Space Bambis, and watched as the deelahs ran down the street and into the desert, toward their home in the distant jungle.
By now, the free whisky was having a heady effect on the gamblers gathered in the square, where they sang like the people did centuries ago in Prescott, Arizona, the dusty frontier town from which this planet got its name: “There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight!”** Bill and Sylvia joined in the macabre celebration, firing their lasers into the star-filled sky with the others, then headed off toward Bill’s ship, talking like old friends.
“You know, Sylvia,” said Bill, “I couldn’t have freed the deelahs in time without your help. The fire was wild and strong.”
“I'm a helpful drifter then, eh?” joked Sylvia.
“A first-class one,” said Bill, opening the door to his ship. “But you're no longer a drifter. You’re my guest now. Welcome aboard.”
** On July 14, 1900, a fierce fire broke out among the pioneer frame buildings of Prescott, Arizona, destroying the famed Whisky Row. The patrons of the Palace Saloon transported the bar and its barrels of whisky across the street to safety, where the celebrations continued as the town burned.
Thomas Koperwas is a retired teacher living in Windsor, Ontario, Canada who writes short stories of horror, crime, fantasy, and science fiction. His story Vacation won a Freedom Fiction Journal Top Crime Editor's Choice Award 2024. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming in: Anotherealm; Jakob’s Horror Box; Literally Stories; The Literary Hatchet; Literary Veganism; Bombfire; Pulp Modern Flash; Savage Planets; Dark Fire Fiction; The Sirens Call; Yellow Mama Webzine; 96th of October; Underside Stories; Danse Macabre; A Thin Slice Of Anxiety; Androids and Dragons; Chewers & Masticadores Canada; The Piker Press; Stupefying Stories Showcase; Metastellar; The Yard: Crime Blog; Blood Moon Rising Magazine; Corner Bar Magazine; Free Bundle Magazine; The Chamber Magazine; Suburban Witchcraft Magazine; Black Petals Magazine; InterNova Magazine; Pulp Lit Mag; Freedom Fiction Journal.