Bent sighed heavily. “Yee-effing-hah,” he said, without very much conviction at all.
* * *
New York to the Texas garrison was only half the distance of London to Manhattan, and it was nightfall when the gray military ’stat touched down on the dusty airfield set out beside a stone-built fort lit by oil lamps. Even in the dark it was hot, the warm breeze carrying the unfamiliar sounds of insects and distant howls.
“Why is everywhere we go so effing hot?” complained Bent as they disembarked. The military ’stat had been cramped and uncomfortable with no real passenger cabin. They’d sat amid boxes of supplies and bags of mail for the frontier ranches, Bent feeling every swing and dip of the dirigible. “Can’t our next adventure be at the effing North Pole or something?”
Gideon could feel the sweat running down his back. Jeb had snoozed practically the whole journey, and alit from the ’stat looking as fresh as he had when he’d climbed aboard. Gideon felt crumpled and aching and grumpy.
“What’s with him?” asked Jeb. “All the effing this, effing that?”
“Mr. Bent met with an unfortunate accident,” said Gideon, stretching in the night as a team of blue-uniformed soldiers emerged from the fort to unload the ’stat. “He was hit on the head by a falling pyramid block. Now he can’t say … a certain word.”
“Effing effrontery, is what it is,” said Bent.
Jeb grinned. “Let’s see if eight hours on horseback can’t improve your vocabulary, Mr. Bent.”
* * *
The early dawn brought more heat, and after helping himself to coffee in the cool of the mess hall, ignoring the curious stares of the fifty or so cavalry officers enjoying breakfast, Gideon stepped outside to find Bent hugging the narrowing shadows in the lee of the fort. Gideon had dressed in a white shirt and tight fawn trousers shoved into black boots. Bent, it seemed, was wearing the same suit he had been in since they’d left London—the waistcoat displaying the vast bulge of his belly, the jacket and trousers stained and shapeless. It was a new suit, Gideon knew, purchased just a couple of weeks before. “It’s not the suit that’s creased, it’s my body.” Bent had laughed.
The bright daylight brought a surprise for Gideon: seemingly unending desert in every direction, bisected at either side of the garrison by the famous Mason-Dixon Wall. Strange rock formations sat darkly on the horizon, and loose balls of dried vegetation, propelled by the merest breath of hot wind, rolled between the almost comical cactus figures.
“Bit disappointing, innit?” said Bent, nodding at the wall.
Gideon had to admit it was. He’d understood the Mason-Dixon Wall was a vast engineering triumph, a signal of Queen Victoria’s intent to conquer the whole of the Americas. The wall here was barely six feet high, an occasionally tumbledown structure of loose stone and faded brickwork that snaked off into the vanishing point of the horizon. He doubted it could keep a group of particularly single-minded rabbits out, let alone the rampaging hordes of Steamtown or the gray-clad soldiers of the Confederacy.
Jeb Hart joined them, swilling coffee around a tin mug. Bent said, “Just talking about your wall, Hart. Not as grand as we’d been led to believe.”
Jeb shrugged and spat a stream of coffee into the dust. “It’s not so much a defense, it’s a … whatchamacallit.”
“It’s a symbol, sir, is what it is,” said a deep voice. It belonged to a veteran soldier, evidently some kind of officer at the garrison, who stepped out of the fort, towering over them all. His wide handlebar mustache twitched as his stone-gray eyes set deep in his lined, tanned face regarded each of them in turn. “Bricks and mortar don’t keep the peace in Texas. It’s guns and blood, sir. Guns and blood.”
Jeb drained his coffee then said, “This is Captain Humbert. He’s in charge of the garrison. Captain, Mr. Aloysius Bent and Gideon Smith, the Hero of the Empire.”
The tiniest of smiles played about Humbert’s thin line of a mouth. “Ah, yes. The Hero of the Empire.”
Gideon shifted uncomfortably, suddenly feeling a little silly. Bent seemed to sense his mood, and he puffed his chest out. “That he is, Captain. Things he’s seen’d make your mustache effing curl.”
“I doubt that,” said Humbert, keeping his gaze on Gideon.
“Vampires!” said Bent. “Mummies, mark you! And not just any mummies. Mummies with teeth like nails. Effing dinosaurs!”
“Mr. Bent,” murmured Gideon. “I’m sure Captain Humbert—”
“Oh, don’t worry,” said Humbert. “I’m impressed, Smith. Fighting monsters is all well and good. But down in San Antonio you’re dealing with men. The sorts of men who make your monsters look like toothless jackalopes.”
There was silence for a moment, punctuated by the sounds of the cavalrymen inside finishing up their breakfast. Captain Humbert pulled from within his tunic a folded sheet of paper. “Requisition order from your Governor Lyle back in New York,” he said. “We can’t directly aid you in your mission, gentlemen, but we can provide horses and weapons, so long as they can’t be traced to this garrison.” He handed the paper to Jeb. “Mr. Hart, go to the stables and get yourself three ponies.” Humbert paused, appraising Bent. “Actually, better make that two ponies and a heavy. I think Tucker, our old draft horse, might be up for one last journey.”
Bent scowled. “Is he having a go at me?”
Jeb laughed. “Come on, we need to make tracks if we’re going to hit Steamtown before dark.”
Captain Humbert saluted them as Jeb led them to the stables. Bent cast a glance over his shoulder and nudged Gideon hard in the ribs. “And what the eff is a jackalope, anyway?”
9
EL CHUPACABRAS
The boundary between New Spain and Texas ebbed and flowed, depending on who could be bothered to draw the borders. The loose conglomeration of warlords who controlled the land south of the Mason-Dixon Wall never bothered too much about where their control began and ended. The biggest Texan settlement was San Antonio, and their quest for coal had driven expansion north and east, with sporadic raids on points due south every couple of months. They didn’t range too far west for fear of attracting too much interest from the hitherto insular Californian Meiji.
New Spain, however, had maintained a town on what it liked to think of as its northern border for almost three centuries. Uvalde was more than eight hundred miles from the New Spanish capital, Ciudad Cortes; that might as well have been the five thousand miles that separated the dusty border town from Madrid itself, for all the notice the New Spanish viceroy took of Uvalde.
Inez Batiste Palomo tethered her chestnut mare to the brittle branch of a twisted acacia. The tree clung to the shadowed side of the dilapidated stone building that squatted, roofless, a hundred yards from the abandoned mine. This part of the countryside was littered with such mines: half-dug exploration shafts that the Texans had sunk while looking for coal. This looked like it had once been a working mine; perhaps the Texans had discovered a seam that looked promising, but petered out after they had sunk the shaft. Perhaps the New Spanish had driven them away from the edge of this canyon, two hours’ ride from Uvalde. If so, that would have been back before Don Sergio de la Garcia had been summoned back to Madrid. Back when Uvalde was a safe place to live.
Inez retied the bun at the back of her jet-black hair and brushed the trail dust from her long skirts. The roof of the stone building had long since collapsed, and she pushed gingerly past the broken timbers of the door, treading carefully and watching for coyotes or worse that might be sheltering within the cool walls. The building had perhaps been a home for the miners or a way station to process the coal; whatever the reason for abandoning the mine, this building had been forgotten along with it.
Inez had made good progress and arrived early, with just enough time to reapply her blood-red lipstick using the small compact mirror she carried in her cloth bag. She glanced at her pocket watch; she hoped Chantico would arrive soon. It was another two hours’ ride back to Uvalde, and she wanted to b
e cleaned up and waiting in Casa Batiste when her father returned at nightfall from his visit to Nuevo Laredo, none the wiser about her sojourn so far from Uvalde.
The old mine was in quite a pleasant location, thought Inez as she carefully picked her way through the empty rooms. It was on high ground, where the air was fresh, and a creek ran by a hundred yards away. There was doubtless fishing to be had, and the ground looked arable enough. In the distance the flat, sculpted mesas heralded the drier, more arid territories to the east. The men of San Antonio would not have appreciated the land in the same way that Inez did. The creek would merely have been a useful source of water had the mine proven viable, not the thing of beauty that she saw. The verdant plains grasses that hinted at a workable soil would have been an annoyance to clear, perhaps to make way for rail tracks to transport the coal back to Steamtown. Inez listened to the warm breeze sighing through the grasses, and it made her happy. Thankfully, the Texans had seen fit to abandon the mine, and now its lost buildings were hers. And Chantico’s. She tapped a painted fingernail against her chin. Where was he?
There was a scuffling sound from the outside of the collapsed building. At last. Inez stood and smoothed her skirts again, stealing one last glance in her compact. She was ready for him. She was ready for her forbidden love.
Inez frowned. Was that the sound of voices? Had Chantico not come alone? That was most unlike him. Suddenly, she felt afraid. What if it was not Chantico at all?
Three figures stepped into the doorway, and Inez’s heart skipped a beat. Texans. Men, rough, leering.
“I told you it was a woman.” The first, a small, rangy man with straw-blond hair, grinned.
“Damned pretty one, too,” said the second, taller one.
The third, older than the other two, his belly hanging over his gun belt, spat into the dust. “We gonna get us a bonus from Mr. Pinch for bringing this chickadee back.”
Inez finally found her voice, though she could not keep it from trembling. “You are making a mistake. I am the daughter of Don Juan Batiste, the Governor of Uvalde, under the protection of the Viceroy of New Spain in Ciudad Cortes,” she said in flawless English.
“She’s even prettier when she’s frightened,” said the second man.
“What say we break her in before we take her back to Steamtown?” said the first excitedly. “Hank? Huh, Hank? What say?”
The third simply spat again then began to unfasten his gun belt.
Inez stepped backward until she came up against the solid stone wall. She thought she was going to vomit. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She wanted her father, wanted to be in the relative safety of Casa Batiste. She suddenly missed her mother, dead for seven years, so very, very much. Where in God’s name was Chantico?
“Stop right there!”
The three Texans turned around to look at the figure framed in the broken doorway. He wore tight black breeches tucked into leather riding boots and a loose black shirt open at the chest. His face was cowled by a large black bandana with holes for the eyes, and he held out a rapier at arm’s length, his body poised.
Inez felt her head swim. It wasn’t possible. No one had reported a sighting for months. Two years, even. And most people said he was merely a myth anyway.
Yet here he was.
“My name is El Chupacabras,” said the masked man in heavily accented English. “This girl is under my protection. Leave this place now, or prepare to die.”
* * *
Oh, Chantico, what in the name of God are you doing? Inez had passed through fear to wonder to hope to the unwavering certainty that she was now about to be brutally molested and shipped off to San Antonio’s brothels, never to be seen again. She had thought, for a moment, that the figure in the shadows was truly El Chupacabras, reputed to be the greatest swordsman in all of New Spain, the champion of the underdog and the put-upon, the protector of the border people from both the marauding Texan hordes and the greed of the Spanish nobility. But no. As soon as he had opened his mouth, she had seen the ragged eyeholes on his badly stitched cowl, the faded black cotton of his ill-fitting shirt, the rapier that was no more than three lengths of sharpened fence wire, bound together and stuck into an unconvincing hilt. As soon as he had opened his mouth and his struggling English emerged, she had known. Besides … El Chupacabras was named for the mythical goat-sucker of the night. The creature didn’t exist. And the man hadn’t been heard from in more than two years, not even a whisper, as if he had never existed, either.
Oh, Chantico. You are going to get us both killed … if we are lucky.
The three Texans had turned to face him, their guns drawn. The fat one slowly raised his hands in surrender, and Inez saw Chantico’s eyes widen behind his crude mask before he gripped his makeshift sword with greater resolve.
“El Chupacabras?” said the fat one. “Oh, well, that changes things. Boys, put your guns down.”
The blond one, whom Inez thought of as no es ninguna lumbrera—certainly not the brightest star in the sky—looked dumbfounded, his hands still gripping his gaping trouser fly. “You serious?”
“Nah,” said the fat one, swiftly training his revolver on Chantico. “Take your hood off, boy.”
Chantico did as he was told, pulling the mask—little more than a cotton bag—from his head, his black hair springing up, his eyes narrowed. His sword wavered until he put it down.
“Injun,” said the fat one, a little surprised. He cocked the chamber of his gun and glanced at the others. “What d’you reckon? Take him back for the mines?”
“I don’t care,” said the blond. “I had my fill of Injuns today. I’m riding this señorita before we go back to Steamtown. Blow his fucking head off for all it matters to me.”
He turned back to Inez with a lascivious grin and began to pull down his dusty denims.
The fat one shrugged and leveled his gun at Chantico. “Can’t say I can be bothered dragging him all the way back. Get ready to meet your ancestors in the happy hunting ground, boy.”
As the blond advanced on Inez, there was the loud report of a single gunshot that echoed around the tumbledown stone building and resounded into the sky, sending a flock of mockingbirds rising up from the grasses by the creek. She closed her eyes and began to pray.
A second later she opened them again. The blond had his back to her, fumbling for his guns. The fat one was lying dead on the stone floor, blood pooling around his head. Standing on the sill of the shutterless window was another figure, in a worn, haphazardly stitched leather jacket lined with matted furs, his boots thick with dust. His rifle spat again and the taller of the Texans jerked backward, blood spraying from his face. Inez and Chantico’s eyes locked. Was this a savior, or an even greater danger?
“You would do well to dress appropriately, to face death,” said the newcomer to the blond. “In other words, pull up your trousers.” The sun briefly illuminated a face equally handsome and grizzled, thought Inez. The blond, clutching his button-fly with one hand, trained his shaking revolver on the man with the other.
The man put one boot on a chunk of fallen masonry and regarded the blond coolly. “You really think so? It is in you to go up against me?”
The blond—little more than a boy, Inez saw now—blanched and lowered his gun. “It’s really you? Are you going to kill me?”
“Yes, it’s really me,” said the man, chewing his cigar. “And I shall kill you, yes, unless you do precisely as I say. You are going to mount your steed and make haste to Steamtown. You are going to tell Thaddeus Pinch that this territory is under my protection now, and his presence here will be looked upon badly. You understand that?”
The boy nodded vigorously. The man raised one eyebrow. “Well?”
“Yes, sir!” said the boy, pushing roughly past Chantico and out of the stone building, where he paused only momentarily to puzzle over the strange cargo on the back of the newcomer’s horse before untethering his dead compadres’ mounts and hightailing it east toward San Antonio with the
two riderless horses galloping behind his own.
* * *
“Thank you,” said Inez. Chantico had moved to her side, stepping gingerly over the dead bodies of the two Texans. Inez didn’t know if she was furious with him or if she wanted to take him in her arms and never let him go. Both, she thought. But she still wasn’t entirely sure the danger had passed. “Who are you?”
He looked at each of them in turn. “Who are you?”
“Inez Batiste Palomo, of Uvalde,” she said.
“The governor’s daughter?”
Inez blinked. “Why, yes. Yes I am.”
“Chantico,” said Chantico, his eyes on the floor.
“You’re Yaqui?” asked the man. “From the settlement on the north side of the canyon?”
Chantico nodded. The man said, “You’ve been there awhile now, more than a year. Your people don’t usually stay in one place so long.”
“The Spanish kept moving us on,” said Chantico, glancing at Inez. “The hunting’s good where we are now, and the fishing.”
“And I’ll warrant that the place of power in the big cavern has proved both useful and fruitful,” said the man, his eyes twinkling.
Now it was Chantico’s turn to be surprised. “How did you…?”
He glanced again at Inez, who scowled back. Place of power? Chantico had never mentioned that to her. She said to the man, “Now it is your turn. Who are you?”
The man nodded to Chantico. “The Yaqui know me.”
Chantico looked at Inez and licked his dry lips. “My people call him Chichijal, which is like … the spirit. The ghost.”
Inez looked at the dead bodies of the Texans. “His bullets looked pretty solid to me.” She turned back to him. “What is your name in English? Or Spanish?”
“I have no name.” He gazed thoughtfully at the pair of them. “But suppose you tell me what you are doing here? The daughter of a Spanish governor and a Yaqui boy.” He raised an eyebrow. “And why is the Yaqui boy dressed like that?”
Inez folded her arms. “Yes, Chantico, can you explain this?”
Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon Page 9