“Reload, you damn scum!” Killick roared. “There will be time enough for cheering when the job is done.”
Kilcoyn yelled down the length of the ship to Jacob, “What do you think, Buck?”
Jacob let go of his white-knuckled grip on the gunwale and yelled back, “Surprised the hell out of me. I thought she’d go loco on us, roll over, and we’d all be dead by this time.”
Kilcoyn grinned wider and gave Jacob a wave. For a moment, Jacob thought he might even like the man, but that thought was quickly banished from his mind as the big foreman yelled, “Go about, Mr. Killick. Now let’s go kill a town.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Shawn O’Brien watched the airship vanish to the northwest, a mechanical thing of great beauty despite its sinister purpose.
Flora March and Archibald Lark joined him on the hotel porch. She had an ice cream stain on her front.
“Looks like it’s headed away from us,” Lark said, stating the obvious. “What are we doing here?”
“It will be back.”
Like the sound of a distant battle, cannons roared in the badlands.
More to himself, Shawn said, “They’re testing the guns.”
“When it comes back, what do we do?” Lark asked.
Shawn smiled. “I wish I knew. Jake told me to be here. That’s all.”
“Maybe he wants you to shoot it down,” Flora said.
“There’s always that,” Shawn agreed. “I tried it before, but it didn’t work.”
Flora nodded. “I remember. You saved my life that day, Professor.”
He remembered, too. “And my own.”
“A great day, Sheriff O’Brien.” Mayor John Deakins stepped onto the porch, his round face shiny from beer and pride. “That there flying contraption will put Big Buck on the map.”
“I believe the Abaddon Cannon Foundry has done that already,” Shawn said.
Deakins waved a pudgy hand. “My dear sir, cannons are the past. The flying machine is the future. Why, I heard one of Mr. Perry’s engineers say that the time will come when an airship will fly faster than a highballing locomotive and higher than a hawk.” The mayor beamed. “Glory days, sir! Glory days are right around the corner and our fair city will be part of them.” He raised his goggled top hat. “Well, good day to all of you. Don’t forget the cake and ice cream.”
After the man left, Flora said, “I didn’t forget. Abaddon should quit making cannons and sell ice cream.”
* * *
“The ice cream is very good, Mr. Perry.” Nurse Clementina Rooksbee sat back in a chair and showed a great deal of smooth long leg and swelling bosom.
Caleb Perry was considering the woman as an interim mistress and was prepared to be agreeable. “I’m so glad you like it, my dear. One of my chefs whipped it up for this momentous occasion.”
“I do so enjoy treats,” Clementina said. “Don’t you, Mr. Perry?”
The man’s knowing smile told the nurse that he did.
The observation post was a teetering timber rookery at the highest peak of the Abaddon building. Round in shape, it looked like an ancient castle tower open to the air and was outfitted with benches and tables and several large brass telescopes. A waiter in a white jacket served drinks and ice cream and a couple hard-faced foremen stood silent guard.
“Ah, hear that? The frigate has fired a broadside.” Perry rose quickly, swung a telescope to the north, and stared into the eyepiece. “It’s still flying!” he yelled. “It survived the recoil.”
The two foremen applauded politely and with just the right amount of enthusiasm, but Nurse Rooksbee said, “Oh please let me see, Mr. Perry.”
“Of course, my dear.” Perry stepped aside and Clementina bent to the eyepiece, revealing a wider expanse of hip than was strictly necessary.
“Do you see it?”
“Yes. And I think it’s turning,” she said.
“Good. In a few minutes, the real fun will start.”
Clementina giggled like a schoolgirl. “I declare, this is just too, too exquisite.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Valentine Kilcoyn ordered Egbert Killick to reduce speed so that the clanking of the steam engine was reduced and he could hear himself talk. “Take her down to just a few feet above the ground, That will bring people out to watch from the boardwalks. Give them a port and starboard broadside, reload, and give them another. You will then turn and do the same again. You got that, Killick?”
Killick nodded. “Civilian casualties and damage to structures will be extensive. What about the bomb?”
“We’ll judge the damage done and may have to repeat the process a few times before we drop the bomb,” Kilcoyn said. “Buck, on my word, you’ll wind the clockwork mechanism and drop the bomb where you figure it will do the most damage. Do you understand?”
“I understand, Val, but it’s not going to happen that way.” Jacob took a wide stance on the deck, his gun hand hanging loose but ready.
“You have a better plan, Buck?”
“Yeah, I plan to take over this . . . whatever the hell you call it. Drop your gun belt, Val. I don’t want to kill you. And the name isn’t Buck. It’s Jacob, Jacob O’Brien.”
“That figures. I always thought there was something strange about you. It goes against my grain to kill a man who plays the piano as well as you do . . . Jacob.”
“Then just unbuckle your gun belt and let it drop, Val,” Jacob said. “Caleb Perry isn’t a man worth dying for.”
Kilcoyn smiled. “He pays my wages, Jacob. I ride for the brand.”
The man’s face changed to stone and he drew and fired. Jacob matched his speed, shooting as his gun came to bear. Kilcoyn took the hit dead center and it killed him instantly. He fell back and was stone dead when his back hit the deck.
Jacob knew he should have been shot. A gun like Kilcoyn didn’t miss at a distance of a few feet, even in a pitching gondola. Then why was he still alive?
An engineer supplied the reason. He ran past Jacob to the stern and turned the man at the tiller. “He’s dead.”
Egbert Killick slumped in the seat, a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. He still had a .32 Smith & Wesson army revolver clutched in his lifeless hand and a snarl was frozen on his wizened face.
As the airship drifted across the sky now that Killick was no longer steering her, the engineer yanked the little man from the seat, grabbed the tiller, steadying the frigate. He looked up at Jacob. “I saw how it all came down. Killick was going to gun you in the back and Val shot him. I guess he couldn’t let it happen.”
Jacob nodded. “No, he couldn’t let that happen. He had the makings of a noble soul but was corrupted by an evil man. May God rest him.”
Every face was turned to Jacob and the engineer voiced the question that the others were silently asking. “What do we do now?”
“You tend to your engine.” Jacob turned to Manuel Cantrell. “Are all the cannons loaded?”
“Ready to go,” the young man said. “Jacob, can you steer this thing?”
“I watched Killick. I reckon I can make a pretty fair go of it.”
The engineer, an earnest young man wearing a bowler hat and goggles, said, “I think we should land and let Mr. Perry decide what to do next. Killick’s death changes everything.”
“I know what he wants to do. He wants to destroy the town of Big Buck and all the people in it,” Jacob said. A crow flapped in front of his face and then cawed loudly as it soared up and then over the balloon. He didn’t know if it was a good omen or bad.
“I didn’t hear about that,” the engineer said. “I swear I didn’t.”
“Kilcoyn didn’t tell you?”
“No. And at Abaddon, it’s dangerous to ask too many questions.”
“Don’t you want to see the steam frigate in action?”
“I already did,” the engineer said. “It remained stable all right, but we still don’t know how a full-size ship will perform with heavier cannons and more
recoil.”
“What’s your name, engineer?” Jacob asked.
“Mathias Lane. I was hired three weeks ago to work on frigate engines and furnaces.”
“Well, Mr. Lane do you want to see Big Buck destroyed by cannon fire?”
“No sir, I do not.”
“I plan to attack the Abaddon foundry and raze it to the ground. How do you feel about that?” And then, because Jacob was the kind of man he was, he added, “Give me the wrong answer, Mr. Lane, and I’ll scatter your damn brains all over the gun crews.”
Lane was silent for a few moments, then said, “If that’s your plan, I suggest you attack right away. Our wood supply for the furnace was limited, and it’s already running low.”
Jacob smiled. “I think I’m going to like you, Mr. Lane.”
“I don’t think I could ever grow to like you, Mr. O’Brien.”
Jacob thought that last so funny that he was still laughing as he turned the airship and readied her for war.
* * *
Caleb Perry stepped back from the telescope and said to his foremen, “I saw gun smoke. I’m sure I saw gun smoke.” He pointed to one of them, a tall man with a huge dragoon mustache. “Mr. Budd, take a look.”
The big foremen bent to the eyepiece for a few moments and then he straightened up and said, “There’s black smoke from the chimney aft, Mr. Perry, but I don’t see gun smoke.”
“Let me take another look.” Perry tried the telescope again. “You’re right. I don’t see gun smoke. But why is the ship drifting? Oh, wait . . . wait . . . it’s turning. She’s coming back on course for Big Buck.” He stepped back from the telescope, clapped his hands, and grinned. “Good. For a moment there I thought we might be in trouble.”
Perry sat beside Nurse Rooksbee again and pulled a bottle of champagne from the ice bucket next to him. “I believe the bubbly is chilled enough. May I pour you a glass, Clementina? The curtain will soon be raised.”
The woman cooed like a dove and nodded yes as the man called Budd said with worry in his voice, “Boss . . . where the hell is that thing headed?”
Perry stood and followed the foreman’s stare. “It’s headed straight toward us.” He waved his arms and yelled, “Back! Back!”
Slowly, ominous as a stalking hawk, the airship drew closer. Sunlight gleamed on her cannon barrels and smoke from the chimney trailed behind her like a black plume. The dreadful, jagged-winged bats on the canopy looked like hellish heraldry as the sound of the brass band could be heard playing “The Bonnie Blue Flag.”
Panic-stricken, Caleb Perry screamed, “What the hell is happening?”
He was soon to find out.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
“Lane, drop her ten feet!” Jacob O’Brien ordered. “Gun crews ready?”
“Ready,” Manuel Cantrell answered.
“Fire only on my command,” Jacob warned.
The steam frigate dropped lower. Looming ahead, Jacob saw the immense corrugated iron bulk of Abaddon grow closer. The smoke from its main chimney, black as mortal sin, rose straight into the air. People teemed on the street of Big Buck, eating cake and ice cream, thinking it was all part of the show.
A bullet slammed into the seat beside him, splintering wood. A couple foremen stood in a tower-shaped dias above the roof. They had a two-handed hold on their revolvers and were taking pots at the ship. Jacob thought he caught sight of Caleb Perry with them, but he couldn’t be sure.
Fifty yards and closing . . .
The gun crews stood by their cannons, their swarthy Mexican faces intent. Mathias Lane and another man fed wood into the furnace. The ship’s propeller spun faster, cutting through the air like a buzz saw.
Thirty yards . . .
The tiller bounced in Jacob’s clenched fists as the frigate bucked. Sensing a rising breeze, she demanded her own head.
“Steady, boys,” he yelled. “Steady as she goes.” He grinned, showing his teeth, realizing that he sounded like a third-rate John Paul Jones.
Twenty yards . . .
The foundry looked like a red mountain, a demon’s lair.
Ten . . .
“Fire!” Jacob roared.
Four cannons crashed in unison and punched great holes into the side of the building just under the projecting eaves.
* * *
With open mouths, Shawn O’Brien and the entire town of Big Buck watched the destruction of the Abaddon Cannon Foundry. The town’s festive mood turned to one of horror as the gigantic factory was shot full of holes.
* * *
Certain it was Caleb Perry he’d seen on the dias, Jacob watched him push a woman in a nurse’s uniform away from him and then trample her underfoot as he made a dash for the stairwell. Jacob saw no more. The airship was a hundred feet beyond the building and he fought the tiller to skid her into a tight right turn so the starboard battery could be brought to bear.
He heard people screaming in fear and the brass band squawked into silence as the musicians dropped their instruments and ran for the hills. A few drunken roosters stood in the middle of the street, raised their revolvers, and took pots at the ship. Bullets pinged in the rigging.
The steamship yawed badly as Jacob fought to straighten her up for another attack. Lane left his overheated engine and helped him battle the kicking tiller.
Once the frigate was flying level, Lane yelled into Jacob’s ear, “She’s overheating. Carrying too much of a load.”
“What’s the worst that can happen?”
“She’ll explode and blow us all into smithereens.”
Jacob nodded. “I’ll make a note of that. Keep her nice and level, Mr. Lane. We’re going in for another attack. Manuel, stand by your guns.”
Smoke poured out of the holes in the side of the building as the frigate began her second attack run. As the bottom of the facing wall hove into view, Jacob was relieved to see men scrambling out of the loading bay. He heard some shooting, but the trolls were escaping in droves.
* * *
After the first explosions, Mayor John Deakins sought out Shawn and demanded, “Sheriff, do your duty and put a stop to that vandalism.”
“Sure.” Shawn looked at the men clustered in the street. “I need a posse to help me save the foundry. Volunteers step forward.”
Not a man moved, including a few of the town’s harder element.
Shawn turned to the mayor. “Seems like there’s only you, Deakins. Grab yourself a broom.”
He was incensed. His eyes blazing, he yelled, “You men, get your rifles. We’ll put an end to this.”
Men stared up at the flying machine with its roaring cannons.
One big fellow, Ezra Mander the blacksmith, voiced the opinion of the others when he said, “I want no truck with flying machines, Deakins. If you want to bring that thing down, you do it yourself.”
The mayor puffed up and blustered, but he knew he was up against a stacked deck. He retreated into self-pity and a speech. “Citizens, this is a terrible day in the history of our fair town of Big Buck. Let us hope that Mr. Perry, our beloved benefactor, has survived this dastardly attack.”
There were a few muted “Hear-hears” but everyone’s attention was riveted on a new and greater horror. A host of living skeletons, at least two hundred strong, streamed from the direction of the foundry and descended on the town.
Again Deakins turned to Shawn. “Sheriff, what is this? Who are those people?”
“Mayor, you called the tune and now you pay the piper. Those are the slaves who worked for your beloved benefactor.”
* * *
Surprised, Jacob felt a twinge of disappointment. He’d expected greater destruction from the cannon fire, but he fervently hoped the second attack would do the trick. Once again, the wall was in range and Jacob gave the order to fire. Four more jagged holes were added to the first, like poking an open wound with a stick. It seemed that time stood still and there was no apparent result from the cannon fire.
Situated in a corner of the
Abaddon building close to the railroad loading area, the gas-making plant was well away from the factory floor and usually posed no danger. A cannonball ricocheted off the beveled side of an iron furnace, caromed across the entire floor, and slammed into a tangled complex of brass and copper pipes that carried gas to an underground main. Sparks were always flying through the air at Abaddon, the reason everyone wore goggles, but the cannonades had burst pipes, shattered boilers, and caused white-hot cascades of molten iron to leak from the furnaces. When sparks from this conflagration met the escaping, hissing gas the result was inevitable . . .
Boom!
The gas exploded in a circular direction and as a result, the wall between the blast and the railroad loading bay was blown outward and the foundry roof went straight up into the air to a height of a hundred feet. A locomotive sitting at the loading bay was hit by the blast of the detonation and reared up like a bucking horse, its yellow cowcatcher the apex of a forty-five degree angle formed by the engine and the track. It remained in that position for a long moment and then crashed onto its side, hissing like a wounded dragon. As the engineer and fireman fled for their lives, the locomotive exploded, flying chunks of jagged metal adding further damage to the Abaddon building.
In a matter of moments, it looked like the entire state of Texas had gone up in smoke and flame.
Hit by the force of the explosion, the frigate bounced fifty feet higher into the air in an instant and became uncontrollable, refusing to answer the helm. A moment later, the Abaddon foundry collapsed in on itself with a terrible grinding crash, crushed like a tin can that had been stepped on by a giant. A series of further explosions shook the ruin to its foundations and a massive, churning dirt and soot cloud rose into the air.
Surprised by the ferocity of the gas blast, Jacob let the steamship have its head and it staggered on an erratic course north and then began to make a slow turn to the east.
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