Finally getting the frigate to answer the helm, he yelled to Lane, “Take us down to ground level and let the gunners leave then fly me over the foundry. I’ll drop the bomb on Mr. Perry.”
“You’re crazy!” the engineer yelled, his eyes frantic. “You’ll kill us all.”
Jacob held onto the tiller with his left hand and drew his Colt with his right. “I’ll kill you right now if you don’t do what you’re told, Mr. Lane.”
Grumbling, Lane went back to his post as Jacob steered the frigate back toward what was left of Abaddon.
When the keel touched ground, he yelled, “Manuel, abandon ship.” He pointed the Colt at the engineer. “Mr. Lane, you stay put.”
Manuel Cantrell and his gun crew needed no further urging. For abused, half-starved men they showed surprising agility as they leaped over the side and put distance between themselves and the frigate.
“You may take us up again, Mr. Lane,” Jacob ordered. “And then over the Abaddon building with our colors flying, if you please.”
Lane’s assistant, a thin, bookish-looking youngster, became scared as the engineer said, “The upward force of a large explosion could deflate the balloon. If that happens, we’re dead men.”
“At most, a broken bone or two when we hit the ground, Mr. Lane. You’re quite safe.” Jacob turned to the trembling assistant who was about eighteen years old. “What’s your name, lad?”
“Barnabas Pym, sir. Texas born and raised.”
“All right, Barney, grab a-holt of the bomb and bring it here. And don’t drop it.”
That was exactly what the nervous youth did. Round and greasy, it slipped from Pym’s hand, trundled across the deck, and bounced against the side of the ship. Lane shrieked. As though it was going to help, he shut his eyes and stuck his fingers in his ears. Pym was frozen in place, motionless and pale.
Jacob, keeping his voice level, said, “Pick it up, Barney.”
“It’s ticking!” Lane yelled. “Oh my God, it’s ticking.”
“It can’t tick unless I wind up the clockwork firing thing,” Jacob explained.
“By God, man, it’s ticking!” Lane yelled. He was bug-eyed and looked as though he was ready to jump over the side.”
“By God, man, you’re right! Quick, Mr. Lane, take the tiller. Now, steady as she goes over the foundry.”
“It’s going to blow!” Lane cried.
Jacob stood on the deck, his leg wide apart, the bomb in his hand.
Tick . . . tick . . . tick . . .
“Keep her on course, Mr. Lane. We’re almost there.”
“Oh my God! I’m dead,” Lane yelled.
The airship glided into thick smoke belching from the factory and the searing upward draft of heat was almost unbearable.
Tick . . . tick . . . tick . . .
“Let it go!” Pym howled. “Let the damn thing go!”
“Tick . . . tick.
“It’s stopped ticking,” Pym screamed. “Drop it!”
His belly doing somersaults, Jacob peered through the curtain of black smoke and figured he was close enough. He tossed the bomb away from him . . . and an instant later it exploded.
It was a tremendous air blast. The huge lethal ball of scarlet and yellow flame and greasy gray smoke collapsed what remained of the Abaddon building. The ragged walls fell with a tremendous cacophony of shrieking corrugated iron, clanging steel beams, and the dong... dong... dong of heavy chunks of cast iron. Blast after blast ripped the foundry apart.
Jacob saw a headless, armless body soar into the air, tumbling over and over.
* * *
For a moment, all eyes in town were on Abaddon as a massive explosion rocked the already ruined building and metal debris reined down in the street and sent people scrambling for shelter.
* * *
“We’re hit!” Lane yelled. “Look at the canopy.”
A great hunk of flying iron had ripped through the balloon and the torn and tattered bats flapped around as though mortally wounded. Still driven by its propeller, the ship was dangerously out of control. Jacob and the others held on to anything they could find as the frigate cartwheeled across the brush flat like a dog chasing its tail and then dived bow first into the ground. The cloud of dust that rose around the wreck suddenly glowed pink and then red as flames from the furnace spread to the wooden hull.
Two columns of smoke marred the blue Texas sky. The one above the shattered hulk of Abaddon drifted high in a great, billowing mushroom shape. The one that marked the crash site of the steam frigate was slighter and soon blew away in the prairie wind.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Shawn O’Brien saw the airship hit and start to descend, spinning to the ground out of control. Is Jake onboard? Or is he with the escaping workers? He had no time to ponder that question as the sound of breaking glass and screaming women broke into his concentration. The escaped Mexicans were looting the town, smashing down doors and windows. Scores of skinny men with ferocious faces forced food down their throats as they wandered from store to store. Shawn had seen riots before. Once the vengeful Mexicans looted the saloon and got among the whiskey, the real trouble would begin.
Reading the mayor’s face, he saw that Deakins knew it, too. He realized that it was only a matter of time before his town was ravaged by an orgy of wholesale rape and murder.
Deakins, his top hat askew on his head, raised his hands and advanced on the mob. “Now see here, you men. You will gather at the far end of town in an orderly fashion and your needs will be attended to.”
Very few of the Mexicans spoke any English and they ignored the big man. It was unfortunate that Deakins, in his frustration, grabbed the thin shoulders of a young Mexican and shook him hard. “Do you understand me?” he yelled. “Do you damn fools underst—”
Deakins went down under a pile of punching, clawing arms and the man’s dying shrieks stirred Shawn into action. To the men around him, he yelled, “Get the women and children into City Hall and guard them there. If you’re not armed, arm yourselves.” He turned to Flora March. “You go with the womenfolk.”
“The hell I will. I’m staying right here.” She hiked up her skirt and pulled a derringer from a lacy black thigh garter. “I can take care of myself, Professor.”
“And so can I.” Archibald Lark reached his arm around Flora’s waist. “We stay together.”
Shawn shrugged. “Let’s hope you don’t die together.”
A rioting mob is a savage creature with many heads and one mind, it’s single thought—get even.
The last thing Shawn wanted to do was to shoot into the ranks of men who’d been held as slaves and suffered unthinkable atrocities, but they had to be stopped before the slaughter and destruction started in earnest and gave a savage voice to the voiceless. Across the street, the men of the town herded women and children into City Hall, a partially brick-built building that was the strongest structure in town. Most of them were armed and they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot to protect their loved ones.
Ambrose Hellen stood guard outside his saloon, a shotgun in his hands. The bartender was grim-faced.
The situation was bad and getting worse and Shawn saw his duty clear—he would join the defenders of the women and children. No matter where his sympathies lay, he had no other choice.
A small miracle happened . . . or a large miracle if one based it on the imposing size of Jacob O’Brien. He appeared at the end of the street with one man thrown over his shoulder and supporting another, a weak-kneed youngster with auburn hair and a pained expression.
A young Mexican broke from the crowd, called out to the men with him, and pointed to Jacob. He said something very fast in Spanish that Shawn didn’t understand and his words drew cheers. Mexicans stepped out of the few stores that had already been looted, one of them wearing a woman’s poke bonnet, and joined in the revelry.
Shawn walked to the edge of the mob, ignoring the surly or threatening glances thrown his way. “Jake, what the hell is happening?
”
“Didn’t you see me up there playing hob in the flying machine? That’s why they’re cheering. The Mexicans reckon they’re free because of me. Here . . . you men, help me with this feller. His name is Mathias Lane and both his legs are broke.”
None of the Mexicans moved and a growl of anger rose from the crowd.
The man in the poke bonnet said, “We kill him. He’s Perry’s hombre.”
Jacob shook his head. “No. He’s an engineer and he had no part in Perry’s killings or his plan to destroy this town.”
A few white men carrying rifles had moved closer and one of them said, “Destroy Big Buck? What the hell are you talking about, mister?”
At some considerable length, Jacob told them.
The townsmen stood in stunned disbelief and then anger. “Are you telling us the truth?” a man said. “All that jabber about testing cannons and a bomb on people sounds like a big windy to me.”
That last brought nods of agreement and Shawn was aware that Jake’s temper was on a hair trigger.
“Look at the damn foundry,” Jacob yelled. “That was what Big Buck was supposed to look like, you damn fool.”
“He’s telling the truth!” Manuel Cantrell stepped out of the crowd of angry Mexicans. “Caleb Perry planned to destroy the town and kill everyone in it.”
“Why would he do a thing like that?” a white man asked.
“Because he could. That’s all. Damn him to hell, because he could.”
Manuel still sensed doubt. He ripped off his ragged shirt and revealed his shrunken, emaciated chest, his ribs standing out like a picket fence. “Look at me. Look at the rest of us. What do you see? Skeletons, not men! We were Perry’s slaves—starved, beaten, and murdered. And why? To produce cheaper cannons and flying machines. Slaves like us don’t need to lie. The truth itself is terrible enough, don’t you think?”
A couple Mexicans helped Jacob place the groaning Mathias Lane on the ground.
Jacob turned to the crowd. “Listen up, all of you—Mexicans and Americans alike—Perry believed that steam-powered flying machines could destroy great cities and to prove it he planned to wipe out Big Buck. If he’d succeeded, there wouldn’t be a single man, women or child, alive in this town. You damn lunkheads, open your eyes.”
Ambrose Hellen stepped forward. “I believe there’s truth in what you say, O’Brien, but our town is under threat again. The Mexicans have already committed one murder and they plan to loot and destroy the town. Our womenfolk and the children are forted up in the town hall and by God, we’ll fight to save them.”
From the white men came shouts of “Damn right,” and “Let ’em try it.”
Shawn was on edge, his hand close to his gun. The situation could get out of hand almighty sudden and there would be dead men on the ground. It was time to do some town taming.
The Colt in his fist spoke louder than words, but the words he spoke were loud enough. “Ambrose Hellen, if you want to end this threat to your town, it’s got to come from you and the rest of the men and women of Big Buck. One way or another, you all profited from Abaddon and the railroad it brought with it. Did it ever occur to any of you that many men—mostly Mexicans, but there were others—stepped through the foundry gates and never reappeared. Didn’t you even once think that strange?”
“Hell, O’Brien, we lived in the town. We’d no call to go anywhere near the cannon factory,” Hellen said. “Isn’t that right, men?”
Shawn ended the murmurs of agreement when he said, “Behind those corrugated iron walls, men were being starved, beaten, and murdered on a daily basis, yet you knew nothing.”
“We heard rumors . . .” Hellen offered.
“But did nothing?” Shawn asked.
Hellen shrugged. “The mayor went up there from time to time. . . .”
“The mayor is dead and can’t talk for himself. I want to hear you talk, Ambrose, you and the rest of the people in this town.”
“You go to hell,” a man in the crowd shouted. “We didn’t know.”
“The next man who interrupts my brother, I’ll kill him.” The look on Jacob’s face convinced everyone present that he meant what he said.
“You heard rumors but did nothing,” Shawn said again. “Ambrose, is that the way of it?”
The big bartender nodded. “I guess you could say that.”
Shawn took the skeletal arm of a young Mexican who was no more than a boy and gently pushed him toward Hellen. “Then you’re just as responsible for this as Caleb Perry.”
Hugo Long, the owner of the hotel, cast a worried look at the grim Jacob O’Brien then asked Shawn, “Hell, what do you want us to do?”
“Do? Take care of these men, feed, clothe, and house them until they recover their strength and health. I can’t do that. Only the people of this town can do that. It’s not up to me. It’s up to all of you.”
All the time Shawn had been speaking, Manuel Cantrell had been translating and some of the tension had left the bright afternoon. The Mexicans seemed expectant, as though waiting to see how it all turned out. The man in the poke bonnet had taken it from his head and dropped it onto the ground and stared at Hellen.
In the end it was Ambrose Hellen who saved the day and the town. “Well, boys, what do we do?” he asked the white men present.
Hugo Long said, “I guess after what they’ve gone through we owe them Mexicans that much.” It seemed that he spoke for the rest of them because no one voiced an objection.
Hellen said, “Our first task is to feed those men and later we’ll form committees and . . .”
Shawn stepped away while the bartender was still talking. He’d let Hellen and his committees work out the details.
“What’s the reaction from your men?” Shawn asked Manuel Cantrell.
“They’ll wait and see. Starved, scrawny men are not much inclined to riot when a breath of wind could blow them away.”
Archibald Lark nodded to the couple looted stores. “You could have fooled me.”
“After their anger passed, reality set in,” Cantrell said. “The men will give this town no further trouble. And once they are ready to leave, I will lead them back to Mexico.”
“I think your sister is already there,” Shawn said.
Manuel nodded. “I will search for Doña Maria Elena and hope to find her well and happy.”
* * *
Jacob had Mathias Lane carried to the doctor’s office and dispatched Barnabas Pym to the saloon, ordering him to drink a brandy and maybe two. “Good for your nerves, boy.”
“I don’t think my nerves will ever be the same again.” Pym cast Jacob an accusing look. “Mr. O’Brien, you’re a wild man.”
“Damn right.”
CHAPTER SIXTY
Jacob O’Brien stood at Shawn’s hotel window and glanced outside. “I see some Mexicans wearing new shirts and pants. The town seems to be doing all right by them.”
Ambrose Hellen spoke from a chair beside the fireplace. “Maybe so, but Mayor Deakins is dead and some of those boys are murderers.”
Jacob turned from the window. “You might have a problem identifying them.”
“That’s the sheriff’s job,” Hellen said.
Shawn smiled. “Nice try, Ambrose, but I’m no longer the sheriff. My job ended when Jake blew up the foundry.”
“And a train waiting on the tracks,” Hellen pointed out. “Now that Abaddon is gone there’s no reason for the railroad to keep the branch line open.”
“So what happens then?” Jacob asked.
“Then? The town of Big Buck dies and blows away in the prairie wind,” Hellen said.
Jacob said, “Maybe some towns don’t deserve to survive.”
“It’s doing all right by the Mexicans,” Hellen agreed. “You said that yourself.”
“Only because I shamed the good citizens into it,” Shawn said. “The ruins of Abaddon will be a constant reminder of their failure and they will move on.”
Hellen shook his head. “
Hard talk, O’Brien, mighty hard.”
“Abaddon is a scar on the face of this town,” Shawn said. “Man or woman, every time he or she looks into a mirror, they’ll see the scar on their own faces.”
“I don’t have a scar on my face,” Hellen said.
“But it’s there all the same,” Shawn said.
Jacob was tired of the conversation. “Shawn, I think it’s time. Hellen, will you organize a search party?”
“Yeah. It will take me time to round one up, though.” The angled a look at Shawn. “They’re all taking care of their scars.”
“Then get it done, Hellen,” Jacob said. “Shawn and me will go on ahead.”
“I’ll come with you,” Archibald Lark said. “Perhaps there are some poor souls still alive who need a prayer.”
“I can almost guarantee it.” Jacob turned to Flora. “You stay here.”
“Why do men keep telling me to stay where I am? I’m going with Archie.”
“Maybe you won’t like what you see,” Jacob said.
“In my business, I’ve seen worse.”
* * *
The street was almost deserted as people stayed home to care for the Mexicans. A concerned middle-aged matron who met Shawn and Jacob on the boardwalk told him that two of the older men had already died from neglect and malnutrition. “And too much excitement. Doctor McKearns said their poor hearts were weakened and just gave out.”
“Where is Dr. McKearns now?” Jacob asked.
“I believe he’s still at Mrs. Afton’s place,” the woman said.
“Tell him to meet us at the foundry,” Jacob said. “We believe the wreckage has cooled enough that we can look for survivors.”
“I’ll tell him.” She hurried away.
When Shawn and Jacob stopped to talk to the matron, Flora and Lark had gone on ahead. They strolled slowly so the O’Brien brothers could catch up, but then halted in their tracks as a threatening roar filled the air. Caleb Perry’s steam car skidded onto the street and accelerated, trailing a cloud of dust and smoke.
Jacob yelled, “It’s Perry!” and then disaster struck very fast.
Lark raised his Bible and called out, “Stop in the name of the Lord!”
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