by D. J. Butler
Like his picture? What was Hickman talking about? And why did he think the traveling presenter of Egyptian antiquities would be interested in an audience with Brigham Young? Absalom trembled, feeling out of his depth. He turned to the ladies, meaning to offer them a reassuring glance, and was surprised to see, for just a split second before she reasserted control, an expression of shock and surprise on Roxie’s face.
“Yes, but did you find my dwarf?” the showman quipped.
Hickman didn’t take the joke well. “No, Mr. Poe, I didn’t,” he squeaked, and pulled a battered revolver from a holster low on his hip, cocking it ominously with one thumb. “Maybe I didn’t search you closely enough.”
Absalom didn’t want to intervene. In his heart, he knew that he was not a brave man, and he desperately wanted Doctor Archibald, or Poe, if that was his name, to fight his own battles. He apparently had a history with Lee and Hickman.
But watching these frontier bullies threaten and intimidate a harmless old man reminded him too much of Abigail, of her being abducted by the notorious Rockwell—Rockwell, whom Absalom had met the night before and to whom he had done nothing, though the man richly deserved any thrashing that any person at all might be able to give him—and something in him pushed him to act.
Also, he couldn’t let his Angel watch him stand by any longer.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” he intruded, forcing his legs by an effort of will to carry him forward. “We were never able to finish our conversation last night, and I was unable to ask you a question I had meant to pose.” He almost stumbled to a stop, conscious of eyes on him. “I’m coming to the Kingdom of Deseret on official business, on business, in fact, of Her Majesty Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,” he hoped that a little title-waving might help defuse the situation, “but I have personal affairs to see to as well.”
“Yes?” Lee prompted him slowly.
“My sister,” Absalom said, then cleared his throat. “I’ve come looking for my sister. Her name is Abigail Fearnley-Standish, though it’s possible…” he trailed off, mustering his strength so as to be able to speak the unspeakable, “it’s possible that she goes by the name of Rockwell now.”
Hickman paused and squinted in Absalom’s directed, pistol cocked and pointed at the sky, the lapels of Archibald’s coat clenched in his free hand. “Funny,” he grumbled, “I thought our conversation last night went on plenty long, and I didn’t hear nothing about no sister then.”
Lee looked surprised and amused. “I don’t think I know your sister,” he said. “Are you suggesting that she might be married to Orrin Porter Rockwell?” He and Hickman shared a look that was both knowing and surprised.
Absalom felt very conspicuous now, very vulnerable and very alone. He also felt the gaze of his Angel upon him like a mantle of lead. Unsure if he could speak without bursting into tears or fainting, he nodded and thrust forth his jaw in that same stoic, ape-like expression he’d seen on Dick Burton’s face every day now for months.
“Well, ain’t that peculiar?” Hickman drawled, tossing Archibald to the dirt and turning his attention to Absalom. “’Cause as I recollect it, last night we asked you if you’d seen our friend Orrin Porter Rockwell, and you allowed as you hadn’t.”
I hadn’t, Absalom wanted to say, even though it would have been a lie, but he couldn’t force the words out. He managed to shake his head, and thought he kept his hands from trembling too terribly much.
“Not only that,” Lee remembered, his baritone becoming a menacing growl, “you suggested that you didn’t even know who Porter Rockwell was.”
“I don’t know him,” Absalom gulped out, and he put up his hands, palms forward, in a non-threatening gesture. “Please be calm, I don’t know Mr. Rockwell.”
“I’m inclined to think that you’re lying to us,” Hickman said, and he leveled his pistol at Absalom’s forehead. “And if you don’t come clean now, I’m inclined to shoot you.”
Chapter Five
Jed Coltrane spent the night lying on the rooftop of the Liahona’s wheelhouse with the boy John Moses. After the Shoshone had disarmed and unloaded the steam-truck’s passengers and crew, they’d turned the boiler down and idled all the electricks, and in the blue-firefly-dotted darkness that followed Jed had slipped down briefly to collect a few items to make the night a little more bearable: a pea coat from the wheelhouse, a couple of wool blankets from one of the cabins, a large tin of chocolate cookies and a bottle of milk from the galley, and a flask of brandy from his own room. He’d stuffed the big-eyed boy into the pea coat and then wrapped each of them inside a wool blanket, and they’d munched cookies together in silence in Jed’s little stick joint on the wheelhouse roof.
He’d taken one other thing from the wheelhouse, which was a long telescoping spyglass, of steel-bound brass construction and providing an impressive degree of magnification when fully telescoped. Jed had let John Moses look through the spyglass briefly, but then the boy had fallen asleep in his puddle of wool and Jed had spent a couple of hours alone, examining the Shoshone camp carefully and trying to figure out his next move.
Not far behind the Liahona, a couple of clocksprung horses had galloped up to the gate of the encampment and been admitted. Jed had seen plenty of clocksprung animals in Eli Whitney’s South; clocksprung men planted and harvested cotton, clocksprung mules pulled every domestic load imaginable, and soldiers and cavaliers rode around the roads of the country, roads so bad for the most part that only the ruggedest trucks could have survived them, on the backs of clocksprung horses. These two mechanical animals clop-clop-hissed through the welcoming Shoshone braves and he thought about stealing them, but they too quickly disappeared with their riders, two white men in long coats, in the direction of the central bluff. Jed snapped his spyglass shut in frustration.
So much for that idea, Coltrane, he thought. Only a real mark would work at how to sneak deeper into the camp in order to steal his means out. What are you, Coltrane, new? The dwarf sat back and returned to considering his other options.
If the steam-truck were smaller—much smaller—he might be able to operate it himself, and try to break out of the compound that way. He might be able to steal a horse, he thought, but he didn’t know how to get the gate open. He considered flight, tunneling, disguise, and everything else he could think of, watching the Shoshone sentinels drift occasionally through the witch-lit camp, and had finally reached the point of surrendering to the inevitable and settling in to wait, when the Shoshone opened their gate and a second truck rolled in.
“Good hell,” he muttered to himself. It was the Jim Smiley.
He trained the pilfered spyglass on the smaller truck and wished he had a better way to listen. Even without being able to hear the words that passed between them, though, there was no mistaking the friendliness of the greeting that Sam Clemens and his skinny, porkpie hat-wearing Irishman got from the old Shoshone and his braves who ambled up to receive them. With the telescope, too, Jed could clearly see the nut change hands—Clemens carefully counted out a series of gold coins and passed them over to the Shoshone, who whooped in gleeful appreciation.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “What’s going on here?”
Clemens and the Indians walked together, chatting and grinning and slapping each other on the back, on towards the bluff in the center of the encampment. As Jed watched through his spyglass, they disappeared into the tunnel mouth into which all the Liahona’s crew and passengers had been taken.
Leaving the Jim Smiley unattended, thin twists of steam and coal smoke jetting from its pipes.
Jed looked again at the compound’s gate. It was an electricks work, so Jed would be afraid to touch it with his hands, but he knew enough about the subject to believe that rubber protected you from electricks, and the Jim Smiley was a steel capsule surrounded by walls of rubber—big India-rubber tires and an inflated black rubber belt most of the way around. That ought to be enough, he thought. He could sneak a
board the Jim Smiley, bring her out of her idle and simply charge out the gate. How hard could it be? And by the time anyone wised up to him, he’d be halfway back to Fort Bridger. There he’d...
He faltered. He’d what, exactly?
Would he tell the locals that he was a secret agent for a covert leadership faction of the southern States, men who were illegally organizing a shadow government in preparation for an expected civil war, and ask for volunteers to come help rescue his fellow secret agent from wild Indians? Jeez, if he had cash, he might be able to hire some muscle, but he didn’t even have that, and even if he went door to door in the Liahona and burgled all its rooms, he doubted, from the look of the passengers, that they’d have enough wealth all together to hire a single one-eyed gunman and a spavined nag.
He could jump into the Jim Smiley and ride jock down the mysterious tunnel, but that seemed like suicide for a lot of reasons.
He gnawed his knuckles and schemed. He knew that Poe was carrying something that Brigham Young wanted, though Jed wasn’t sure what it was. Not that it mattered; he couldn’t pack all of Poe’s Egyptian knicks-knacks off the Liahona and onto the Jim Smiley—it was too bulky for him to do it alone, and even if he had help, he couldn’t manage it without being seen.
If he could get a message to Young, though, then the man might send Deseret troops, or some of his feared Danite assassins, out to rescue Poe and retrieve whatever it was he and Poe were negotiating about. But Jed had never before been west of the Mississippi, and he wasn’t sure of the way to the Great Salt Lake City.
But Clemens knew the route. That was where he was headed.
And Jed could stow away.
He checked his shoulder holster and big jacket pocket; the gun and the scarab cylinder were secure. He could hide in the Jim Smiley’s lockers and kill the two Federal men before they got to Deseret, just to be sure. The boy, of course, he’d leave here.
He looked down at John Moses, asleep with a cherubic smile on his face.
He shivered. The night was getting cold. The boy was wrapped in a pea coat and a blanket, but he still might feel the chill. Plus, when he woke up alone, he might be afraid. And if the Indians found him, who knew what they’d do?
Jed shook himself. “What the hell are you thinking, Coltrane?” he demanded out loud. The boy was warm and sleeping like a log, and if he woke up, there were cookies and milk to finish. Sooner or later, someone would find him, and he’d be taken care of. If he got too nervous, he could always let himself down.
He scooted to the lip of the rooftop, then paused. Aw, hell, he thought. The boy might talk. He might talk to the Shoshone, tell them he’d been up here, and they might figure out he’d killed their braves. They might even figure out he’d stowed away on the Jim Smiley, and come after him. Worse, they could figure it out while the Jim Smiley was still sitting in the compound, and then it would be game over, Jed Coltrane, you miserable little dwarf.
He’d have to kill the boy.
No time to have qualms about it; Jed forced himself to grab the Pinkerton’s gun and jerk it from its holster. He pointed it at John Moses’s head. He felt freezing cold sweat running his own face, and he blinked stinging salt out of his eyes.
John Moses snored, softly.
What if he needed someone to show him the way to the Great Salt Lake City?
What if things went wrong on the Jim Smiley and he had to kill the two Federals early? He’d need someone like the little midshipman, to show him which turns to take.
Damn you, Coltrane, you’re fooling yourself.
But in his heart, he knew he wanted to be fooled.
Jed re-holstered the gun and shook John Moses gently. “Come on, you little shit, nap’s over. We got to get moving before the sun comes up.”
* * *
The antiquities exhibitor began to cough. Hard, loud, wet coughs racked his chest, and his entire body jerked in obvious spastic pain. He doubled over, elbows digging into his knees, hacking and coughing and making retching sounds as he spat into the dirt.
“Damn, old man,” Hickman drawled through his nose, “you don’t sound good.” He turned his head to look at the showman whose false beard he’d shaved off—
a Shoshone warrior shouted an objection, jumping forward—
but there was Absalom’s Angel, spinning improbably in the air like a beskirted top, the heel of her boot slamming into the brave’s breastbone, impelling him backwards and to the earth—
and Burton was standing at Absalom’s side, revolver cocked and pointed at Hickman’s jaw. Lee and Hickman both started, taken by surprise, and then froze.
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence during which Absalom focused on willing his bladder not to betray him.
“He stole my gun,” one of the Shoshone grumbled sullenly.
“Well then, I reckon this is a standoff,” Hickman suggested.
“I disagree,” Burton answered in a deep deadpan. Absently, Absalom noticed that the gypsy had stopped coughing. He now stood upright and was holding a cloth to his mouth.
“I might could shoot your boy here,” the Deseret man pointed out.
“You do me a favor if you shoot him,” Burton snarled. “And then I shoot you, so I’ve done my duty to the Queen and am doubly happy. Not only that, but I go to the Geographical Society and regale my colleagues with tales of my adventure killing genuine Western outlaws. I take your bullet-punched skull along as an exhibit, and then I put you on my mantel. I win three times over. From my point of view, the best thing you could possibly do right now would be to shoot Abby here.”
“Abigail!” Absalom cried out indignantly, and then realized what he’d said. “I mean Absalom! My name is Absalom Fearnley-Standish, blast you all!” He was torn between feeling gratitude for Burton’s intervention and fear that Burton might mean exactly what he said.
“My friend might could shoot you, though,” Hickman continued, nodding in Lee’s direction. Lee kept his hands clearly off his pistol grips, but they were close enough, Absalom thought nervously, that he could grab them and shoot quickly. He wondered if he were about to see a real display of Western quick-draw gunfighting. He might enjoy that, he thought idiotically, if it didn’t result in his own death.
Lee, though, wasn’t focusing on the confrontation in front of him. Instead, he seemed frozen in place, his hands hovering in place, his gaze fixed on Doctor Archibald, who still held his handkerchief before his mouth with one hand, and with the other seemed to be making circular gestures in front of the cloth. Burton, in any case, paid not the slightest attention to Lee.
The explorer shrugged. “I’ll take the risk.”
Hickman squinted, his face twitching slightly. “You got my back, ain’t you, John?” he called out.
To Absalom’s surprise, Lee didn’t answer. He swayed slightly on his feet, and Absalom wondered if he’d been drinking. He still stood staring at the man called Poe and his white handkerchief.
“Lee?” Hickman risked a split-second glance in his friend’s direction.
Lee fell forward headlong, crashing full-length into the dirt.
“Lee!” Hickman shouted, and the slight trembling of his pistol hand made Absalom feel very nervous.
“Your friend’s unwell,” Burton observed with a sneer.
Absalom was beginning to take heart, and felt enough bravado to pile on. “Perhaps he’s been drinking,” he suggested.
“No,” Poe corrected them, carefully folding the white cloth—which, Absalom now thought, looked rather large for a handkerchief, and wasn’t there writing on it?—and putting it away in his coat pocket. “He’s fallen asleep. The excitement was too much for him.”
“Helldammit!” shouted Hickman. His nostrils flared, he bared yellow-brown teeth and his eyes jumped back and forth between Burton and Absalom.
“It isn’t my first choice, but I’m willing to lower my gun if you lower yours,” Burton suggested in a cold, gravelly tone. “And I suspect that Her Majesty would prefer that ou
tcome, all in all.”
“You first,” said Hickman.
“Like hell.”
“I ain’t gonna lower my gun,” Hickman insisted.
“Sure you will,” interjected a new voice. “You both will, or my Irishman here will plug you full of holes.”
Absalom turned, and nearly jumped out of his skin. It was the brush-mustachioed Brute who spoke, chewing his words out around the stub of an unlit, partly-smoked cigar. To his side was a bony, red-haired, beak-nosed man in a long coat and porkpie hat, who held a long brass repeater rifle to his shoulder in shooting position, aimed straight at Hickman. Behind them, with long Brunel rifles pointed forward, came four Shoshone braves. To the side stood Chief Pocatello, looking relaxed with his arms folded over his chest.
“We’ll all shoot you, Bill,” Pocatello said, his eyes twinkling merrily. “Put it back in the holster.”
Burton immediately complied, his movement crisp and salute-like. The man was an ape, but, to his credit and Absalom’s relief, he was an East India Company ape. Hickman dawdled and looked sulky as he put his gun away. “It ain’t like you to abandon a friend, Chief,” he whined. “You shouldn’t ought to turn your back on a man.”
“Or a snake,” Burton added.
“I just don’t want any shooting, Bill,” Chief Pocatello said. “We’ll put Lee over his saddle for you. Why don’t you take him back to the Fort?”
Bill Hickman whimpered like a kicked dog and he shot Absalom a venomous glare, but he took the offered help and trudged for the gate with a couple of Shoshone braves, dragging John Lee between them.
“That was some luck, wasn’t it?” Absalom commented to the mysterious Poe, who only arched his eyebrows and pursed his lips in return.
“You’re Sam Clemens,” Burton said to the brush-faced Brute, and Absalom could have kicked himself for not recognizing the man in the Saloon.
“And you’re the skunk that punched holes in my boiler pipes,” Clemens batted back. “Name’s Burton, I understand.”
“True,” Burton acknowledged, “and yes.”