The Dancer could ride, the Dancer could fight,
The Dancer could draw with the speed of light.
With his pale blue eyes and his killer's heart, The Dancer at work was a true work of art.
Billybuck Dancer, Billybuck Dancer, Firing those forty-fours.
Didn't rob, didn't loot, But by God could he shoot!
The Dancer was bigger than all outdoors!
--from "The Ballad of Billybuck Dancer"
The place looks pretty full," remarked Thaddeus Flint to the brightly-clad, undersized hunchback standing next to him. "I guess it's time for Tom Mix."
"There are just a few more people to sit down at the back of the tent," replied his companion, speaking with a pronounced stammer.
"I don't know that I'd exactly call them people," said Flint. "But what the hell--their money spends as good as anyone else's. Give 'em a couple of minutes to get comfortable and then go to work. And Tojo?"
"Yes?" said the hunchback.
"Remember to plug the cotton candy. My idiot partner just bought five tons of sugar."
"Five tons?" repeated Tojo. "Why would Mr. Ahasuerus buy so much?"
"Why does he do anything he does?" snorted Flint. "His computer told him we were getting a good price on it." He lit a cigarette. "Five'll get you twenty he never thought to ask the goddamned machine where the hell we were going to unload it." Flint checked the house again. "Okay. Go to work," he said, heading off to his accustomed viewing position in the lighting control booth, high above the crowded grandstand.
Tojo walked out across the sawdust floor of the tent and clambered awkwardly onto a small platform as the huge crowd of purple birdlike beings suddenly fell silent. He activated his translating mechanism, turned on the public address system, waited for the recorded drumroll to be piped in, and began speaking.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" he cried, as Flint glanced at the audience and wondered idly if it even fell into those two categories. "Now for the moment you've all been waiting for. The Ahasuerus and Flint Traveling Carnival and Sideshow is pleased and proud to present, for the first time ever on Beta Epsilon IV, the one, the only, the fabulous Billybuck Dancer!"
"Actually," commented Flint dryly as a tall, bald, incredibly gaunt blue being climbed up to the booth and sat down next to him, "it's the third time ever, if you count the two shows yesterday."
"Poetic license, Mr. Flint," said the blue man easily.
"And he forgot to mention the cotton candy."
"This is neither the time nor the place for it," replied the blue man.
"Unless you've got one hell of a sweet tooth, Mr. Ahasuerus, this is precisely the time and place for it," said Flint.
"Do you know how rare sugar is in this sector of the galaxy?" inquired Mr. Ahasuerus gently.
"Not rare enough. We've got two hundred sacks of it piled up in the galley."
Further discussion was made impossible by the roar from the crowd, as the house lights darkened for a few seconds and then came on again to reveal a slender, blond young man standing in the center of the tent, his arms folded casually across his chest. His fringed cowboy shirt and pants glistened a brilliant silver, his Stetson was covered with the same material, and his boots and holster were a shining silver patent leather. He wore a red garter on his right sleeve, and a sheer black bandanna around his neck.
"A new outfit?" asked Mr. Ahasuerus.
Flint nodded. "Now that the strip show's closed, he's got a lot of bright material to choose from."
Billybuck Dancer touched the brim of his hat to acknowledge the ovation.
Then, as Tojo explained the principles of a projectile weapon to the audience, the Dancer walked over to a prop table, picked up three small plaster figurines, and threw them high into the air. He waited until they had reached the apex of their trajectory and were falling back to the ground before he even reached for his pistol. Then his hand became little more than a blur of motion, and three shots were fired so quickly that even Flint, who had seen the act hundreds of times, was sure that he heard only one explosion. The three figurines shattered into thousands of tiny pieces.
The Dancer spent another five minutes with his solitary display of marksmanship, then was joined by a scantily-clad assistant.
"Isn't that Jenny?" asked the blue man.
"Yeah," replied Flint. '"You sound surprised."
"I thought Priscilla was working with him yesterday," continued Mr. Ahasuerus, mildly perplexed.
"The girls have decided to start taking turns working with him every day instead of every planet. I guess they feel a little safer that way."
"But that's silly! He never misses."
"He hasn't missed yet," said Flint. "There's a difference." He snuffed out his cigarette and immediately lit another. "And for the five years we've been playing these jerkwater little worlds of yours, I've never once been able to make him practice. One of these days he's going to misjudge the gravity, or just get out-and-out careless, and we're going to have one less pretty girl on our hands."
"Do you really think so?" asked the blue man.
Flint shrugged. "No. But the girls do."
He turned his eyes back to the Dancer, who was preparing to shoot a cigarette out of Jenny's lips. There was no careful alignment of sights, no closing of one eye while he took aim, not even a request for her to turn slightly to her left so he could get a full profile view of her. There was just another blur of motion, and suddenly Jenny had only half a cigarette in her mouth.
Jenny then produced a deck of cards and had a member of the audience select four court cards. She showed them to the Dancer, then stood about forty feet away and hurled the entire deck into the air. Three shots rang out instantly; then the Dancer dropped to one knee as he peered at the falling pasteboards, and got off a fourth shot just as one of the cards was about to land on the sawdust. Jenny spent a moment gathering up the cards and produced four headless jacks, as the audience roared its appreciation.
A few more minor tricks followed, and then the Dancer prepared for the stunt that always made the carny crew--including Flint--wince with apprehension.
)
