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Catcher shook his head, and it rattled. He had no idea what the man was talking about. And he still hated flowers.

She sat at a small table in the corner of the saloon, head resting in a puddle of spittle and alcohol. The pianola was thumping out a tune with a dumbity-dumb, dumbity-dumb rhythm, but the high heels of the dancing-girls were clacking against the floorboards to a completely different tempo.

When the doors of the saloon swung open, Doc Amaranth was standing on the far side. His head was a spinning golden sphere the size of a soccer ball, and his stetson hovered several inches above the shiny surface. They said Doc Amaranth was the heart of this town, wherever this town was, and that everything that happened here revolved around him.

‘The shootin’ tootin’ Falardi brothers are back in town!’ he squealed. ‘Lock up yer wimmen!’

Falardi. Roz Forrester looked up, wiping the phlegm-flavoured beer (or was it beer-flavoured phlegm?) from the side of her face. Falardi, Falardi, Falardi. She knew that name.

She’d heard it before, centuries ago, in the days before history had carried her away from New York and dumped her in this louse-ridden two-horse town. Falardi. There was something about the name she didn’t like. Doc Amaranth was supposed to know all about history, but she couldn’t help feeling that he’d messed up this time.

The doors swung open again, knocking the Doc across the room and causing him to land on top of a card table that shattered with the appropriate sound-effect. One of the Falardi brothers stood in the doorway. The pianola, knowing a dangerous customer when it saw one, stopped playing.

‘Ah’m here to see th’ sheriff,’ Big Jim Falardi said, drooling from two sets of grey-lipped prehensile jaws. ‘Whar is she?’

Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. Roz hiccuped.

‘Youse all deaf?’ demanded the Falardi, waving a six-shooter in one of his six shooting hands. ‘Ah said, whar’s Sheriff Forrester?’

Roz jumped. Sheriff? How long had it been since she was a sheriff? She was an outlaw, now. Why, back in New York, they’d even had posters printed up. WANTED: FOR THE

ATTEMPTED MURDER OF SAMUEL LINCOLN AND

VARIOUS OFFENCES AGAINST HISTORY.

‘You looking for me?’ said the other Roz Forrester.

She was standing on the far side of the creature, out in the street, and black light was glinting off her silver badge, illuminating the sigil of the Adjudicators. The Falardi turned, its claw tightening on the trigger-stud of its gun.

‘Go ahead,’ said Forrester-2. ‘Make my standard Imperial rotational period.’

But the next thing Roz Forrester knew – the real Roz Forrester, the one who sat in the saloon and dribbled sarsaparilla onto her shawl – the streets of the town were full of dust-clouds, a phantom posse rolling into Repentance on a wave of tumbleweed and horse-flesh, all guns blazing. At the head of the posse was an old man with white hair, a black hat on his head, a machine-gun in his arms. The real man with no name.

Both Sheriff Forrester and the Falardi turned their guns on him, but nobody was fast enough on the draw when the enemy had industrial-age weaponry. Old Father Time and his gang had ridden into Repentance, and they had history on their side.

The machine gun rattled, and the town was promptly cleaned up.

11

Great Executions

The ground stopped moving. America got fed up with growing and decided to just sit there instead.

Daniel Tremayne looked around. He was in a desert, like the ones he’d heard you could find deep in the heart of the country, and the sky was still dark, darker than he’d ever seen it. A few yards away, there were men in uniform; Daniel knew the militia when he saw them, even if they did have shiny faces that looked like they’d started melting. There were other men amongst the soldiers, people with white coats and high foreheads. They were nodding, holding slabs of paper covered in ticks and crosses.

Cautiously, Daniel walked towards them. He became aware of people at his back, watching but not moving. A million