They bustled Hok’ee onboard and secured him below deck. Lazarus gave Vasquez and the two soldiers whatever help they needed in preparing for departure. He didn’t have to act the ignorant foreigner, for the needs of an airship were truly alien to him. Finally, after what seemed to him an unsubstantiated amount of fussing and checking, they were ready. Vasquez was in the process of casting off the anchor lines when one of the soldiers noticed his empty holster.
“Where’s your sidearm, private?” he asked.
Vasquez looked up at him. “Don’t need one,” he said, and planted his boot squarely in the chest of the young soldier and sent him hurling over the railing to crash to the deck below.
The soldier’s companion let out a cry and drew his revolver. Lazarus fired once, the bullet knocking him into a slump at the stairs to the wheelhouse. Together, he and Vasquez lifted the corpse up and tossed it over the side.
“So much for your mission,” Vasquez said with a smile. “That’ll sure have your government’s drawers in a tangle. Welcome to the outlaw’s life!”
Hok’ee slammed open the door to below decks and poked his head out. “Am I a free man again?” he asked.
“As free as the day you were born!” cried Lazarus. “Now help us cast off! They’re closing in on all sides!”
It was no exaggeration. Alarmed by the shot fired and the thudding of two bodies on the deck, soldiers were converging on the Azrael’s dock. Somebody somewhere was ringing an alarm bell.
They began to lift, still in the shadow of Fort Flagstaff II’s enormous balloon. As they drifted out over the deck, the desert yawned beneath them and made Lazarus queasy. But the deck of the air fortress began to drift around, following their shadow on the sandy terrain.
“Damn, their captain is quick off the mark!” said Vasquez. “They’re already moving after us—the whole goddamned floating fortress! Hok’ee! Start shoveling that mechanite! Full steam!”
The gargantuan air fortress began to lag as the Azrael zipped out from under its balloon, but other vessels—the Gabriel included—were beginning to take off, and these could match them pace for pace.
Vasquez joined Hok’ee in the engine room, and the two of them shoveled mechanite into the blazing purple furnace so that the sweat ran down them in rivulets. Lazarus busied himself on deck loading the six cannon and fitting new magazines into the deck-mounted dual Jericho Gatling gun.
“They’re trying to come across our port bow!” he called down to the engine room.
Hok’ee stormed on deck and set himself to aiming one of the Whitworth guns. Each of the six were on wheeled carriages, mounted on a swivel base for maximum articulation. He trained it on the nearest of the dirigibles and yanked the lanyard. It shot backwards in its tracks and sent its shot roaring through the sky to splinter into the wooden hull of the Gabriel.
“We need to aim for the balloons,” Lazarus suggested. This earned him a withering look from Hok’ee. “Sorry. I’m sure you’ll hit your mark next time.”
“Help me reload, Englishman. Then you can aim the next shot.”
They opened the smoking breech of the gun and began the process of cleaning and reloading. Lazarus aimed—with Hok’ee moving the carriage for him—and fired. The shot went higher this time and tore through the balloon of the Gabriel, causing it to sink instantly as its crew hurried about in a panic.
“Not bad,” Hok’ee grudgingly remarked. “For an Englishman.”
“Come now, Hok’ee, these guns were invented by an Englishman! And I’ve had plenty of experience firing them in the Ashanti Campaign.” A return shot tore through the railings and showered them in splinters. “Bloody hell that was close!”
Vasquez yelled at them from below. “What the hell are you two clowns playing at? Can’t you see one of them has crept up on our starboard bow? At this rate we’ll collide with it!”
Hok’ee made for the wheel house to correct their course, while Lazarus strapped himself into the Jericho gun. Much like the one Hok’ee had attached to his arm, its twin barrel clusters had an automatic cranking mechanism, leaving Lazarus’s hands free to grasp the two handles.
Once he had trained the cross-hairs on the balloon of the approaching ship, he squeezed both triggers and sent a hail of death its way. The distance was too great for it to do much damage, but he managed to pepper the hull of the ship.
“Hok’ee, bring us in closer!”
“Closer?” he heard Vasquez yell, but Hok’ee understood and obeyed without question. It was a dangerous gamble, but it was the only way to get the final balloon off their trail.
They drifted towards the path of their pursuer, and Lazarus winced as a shot from its bow tore into their own balloon.
“That’s done it!” said Vasquez, his head poking out of the engine room. “We’re going down unless I do something fast!”
“Then do it, man!” Lazarus shouted. The pursuing ship was within a decent range now, and he squeezed the triggers again, holding them down as the ammunition ran through the chambers like a mountain stream. The bullets made Swiss cheese of the enemy’s balloon, cutting it to ribbons and sending it hurtling towards the ground faster than the Gabriel.
“Great shot, limey!” yelled Vasquez. “Now if only we can stay afloat long enough to get out of the reach of any ground party they send to recover our wreckage…”
Lazarus unbuckled the straps and climbed out from behind the red hot smoking guns. “Is it really as bad as all that?”
“We’re losing helium fast. All I can do is open all tanks and pump her full of it. It won’t take us far but it might carry us over the mountain range. We’ll have to lighten the load as best we can.”
“Right. We won’t be needing these cannons anymore.”
“That’s the ticket. You and Hok’ee get to it. I’ll handle the piloting.”
As a pair, Lazarus and Hok’ee wrestled the guns out of their carriages and tossed them overboard, followed by the carriages themselves. The Jericho gun went too, and Lazarus swore as he blistered his hand when he accidently touched one of the barrels. Vasquez had opened all valves and their descent had slowed a bit, but they were still dropping. Lazarus went below and looked for anything that wasn’t bolted down. Chairs, tables, pots and pans all went the way of the guns, littering the mountain range that looked ready to start tickling their bellies. Vasquez was steering the craft wildly, following canyons and passes as if he was following a map.
“Where exactly are you taking us, Vasquez?” asked Lazarus, stepping into the wheelhouse.
“Only place I can think of where a ground party won’t reach us.”
Lazarus peered at the red mountains. Beyond them was the State of Deseret. Below them, the Colorado River diverged into its tributary of the Little Colorado, surrounded by stacks of limestone. In this natural ‘Y’ shape lay the badlands of the Painted Desert; Navajo lands.
“We’re going to Hok’ee’s people?”
“Not quite so far as that,” said Vasquez. “Not enough helium. There’s one other place in the mountains where we can set down, though I’m not sure what sort of a welcome we might get. They ain’t much used to white folks. It ain’t on any map, you see. Well apart from one, that is.”
“You don’t mean…”
“Yep. We’re about to take you to Cibola.”
“You mean it really does exist? You’ve been there?”
“Only once and only for a very short time. Like I said, they don’t much like white folks.”
“They? Who lives there?”
“Pueblo people. Much like the Zuni and the Hopi, but they’re their own tribe. A mountain people more or less untouched for centuries. You’ll understand why soon enough. Hold on tight. It’s going to be a bumpy landing.”
They came so close to scraping their keel on the mountain ridges, that Lazarus was about ready to start ripping up the decking and hurling it overboard to lighten the load some more.
“We’re almost there,” said Vasquez. “Get your head down
, I don’t think we’re quite gonna make this one!”
He was right. Lazarus was hurled off his feet as the keel struck an outcropping and sent the craft spinning around in dizzying circles. Vasquez desperately tried to regain control, but the wheel spun like a demon as the little craft was swallowed by a vast open basin. Lazarus caught flashes of green forest and turquoise water, vividly contrasting against the dusty reds and oranges of the arid mountains, and thought he must be hallucinating as they went down, down, deep into another world.
Chapter Nine
In which Cibola is seen for the first time by an Englishman
Lazarus spat the blood from his mouth and rolled over. He could hear Vasquez struggling to do the same. Hok’ee was hunched over the wheel, and the way he eased himself off it and slumped to the floor with a groan made Lazarus wonder if he hadn’t broken a rib or two. The floor of the wheelhouse was tilted at a dizzying angle, and Lazarus found it hard to get to his feet. All the windows but one were broken, and the branches of pines had been thrust through several, curling up under the ceiling.
Vasquez staggered over to the door and opened it. Lazarus tried to follow, disliking the way the airship bobbed and bounced with every footstep. The ground was many feet below them, and the Azrael teetered precariously in the branches of two close trees.
“Don’t nobody move,” said Vasquez in a whisper, as if even a loud voice might dislodge them and send them crashing downwards.
“We’ll have to step out, one by one, as softly as possible,” urged Lazarus. “Another minute in this thing might be the death of us all.”
“You first,” said Vasquez, apparently preferring to remain in the trees for a bit than meet the ground prematurely.
Lazarus moved as an old man, slowly easing himself over the railing, feeling the burn in his arm muscles as he lowered himself into the branches of the tree. He began to climb, but quickly ran out of branches and had to wrap his arms and legs around its trunk and slide down in grating agony before he felt the reassuring needle-blanketed ground beneath his feet. Hok’ee came next, in double time, more eager to meet the ground than even Lazarus had been.
“I’ll toss down some things we might need!” called down Vasquez.
Down came a cascade of tools, ammunition and medical supplies as well as food rations and full canteens.
“Now for the mechanite!”
“What do we need that for?” Lazarus called up.
“It’s value! Might be able to trade it with anybody we might meet.”
“Don’t try to reach the boiler room,” Lazarus cried. “It’s folly!”
But Vasquez’s head had already disappeared. The Azrael jolted sickeningly and his pale face reemerged. “You’re right. We won’t need that mechanite.” He came down quickly, slipping and sliding like a drunken bear. “Lord a’mighty, I’m glad to be out of there.”
As soon as he had finished his exclamation, the Azrael slipped several feet, with a great tearing sound and a shower of needles.
They stood on a forested slope that led down to the shores of an enormous lake. Towering mountains rose behind them and ringed them on all sides, enveloping the lake and meeting in the distance in a haze of purple. Patches of green streaked the feet of the mountains, making a stark contrast to the fiery red rock. Right up to the edge of the lake crept the thick forest of firs, junipers and ponderosa pines. It was a genuine lost world; a timeless land set amid the arid deserts and barren canyons of Arizona.
“This whole rock basin must act as a rain trap,” said Lazarus, looking about at the crawling tendrils that stretched up the slopes of the mountains like a frayed green carpet. “That’s how such a fertile land can survive surrounded by desert.”
The three of them stood for a while and admired the view. There was no doubt in Lazarus’s mind that, golden cities or no, they had truly found the land of Cibola.
They made their way down into the forested basin. The going was tough, and every so often one of them would put a foot wrong and go sliding down on his rear in a cascade of pine needles and dust. No paths showed themselves and they saw no dwellings or any sign of human habitation. A large rattlesnake hissed its warning at them from nearby, and Lazarus proceeded more carefully, remembering the array of deadly animals that America held in its bosom.
The sound of rushing water reached their ears and they made for it with renewed vigor. At last, they emerged on the edge of a glorious pool at the foot of a waterfall. Hot, sweaty and thirsty, the three of them stripped off and plunged into the cool depths of the pool, drinking up the fresh water. They splashed about for a while, letting the moisture wash away the dirt and soak into their tired bodies. They were so wrapped up in their enjoyment that it took them a while to realize that they were being watched.
Upon the side of the pool stood six men. Their skin was coppery like Hok’ee’s, but their clothing and ornamentation was wholly unlike the Navajo. They wore simple garments of animal skin and cloth, and carried stone-headed weapons. Their hair was extraordinary. In every case it was bound and tied into various sculptures and woven around ornaments of bone and colored stones. They were tall too, far taller than was usual in Native American peoples.
They had been fishing and carried an enormous catch between them on poles. Their leader barked out something and thrust his fishing spear three times in some sort of offensive gesture. Hok’ee replied in a dialect that Lazarus assumed was Zuni or Hopi or one of the other pueblo languages, for it certainly wasn’t Navajo.
The leader beckoned them to come out of the pool, which they did, Lazarus and Vasquez acutely aware of their nakedness. The hunters came forward and inspected them, further ruining their dignity with prods and pokes as if they were men from the moon. Clearly, white men were an exceedingly rare sight in this basin. They paid Hok’ee’s skin color less attention, but compensated with great interest in his metal implants.
Once he was satisfied, the leader of the hunting party bade them dress and follow them. His troop picked up their fish and escorted them through the forest. Lazarus was uneasy. He had no idea where they were being taken or even if these new friends of theirs had good intentions towards them or ill. He guessed that their village was not far, for none of the hunters were equipped for a long journey.
They followed the river, crossing it twice as it twisted and curved through the forest on its way to the lake, and ascended a steep incline that took them up and out of the greenery to a red rocky hillside. They heard the sound of voices; children playing and a woman singing. Stairs cut into the rock led up to a dizzying height. Below them stretched a vast mesa of fertile crops.
They emerged onto a wide ledge that fell back beneath a bulging overhang. Into this natural recess, the tribe had built their village. Some dwellings were cut into the rock, while others had been built of stone and logs. Ladders led up to flat roofs and small, square windows peeped out at them. All about were people. Women ground corn and shaped pots, blackening them in fires. Men cut stone tools and were engaged in the hauling up of water from the river below using a pulley system. Baskets of corn and squash came up from the irrigated mesa. Other women plastered houses, while turkeys strutted about with proud dignity at their freedom to roam.
Lazarus realized that it was not just the ones sent out as hunters and warriors who were the tallest. All of these people—Cibolans, he supposed they could be called—were large, much larger than the average Englishman. He put this down to their diet, which must be a vast improvement on the diets of their Navajo or Hopi cousins due to the lush fertility of their land. They also wore garments of fine cotton, hinting at an abundance of that material down in the valley.
The new arrivals had attracted a good deal of attention. A crowd had gathered about them and were jabbering excitedly in their own language, while the lead hunter tried to tell them his story. An elderly man wearing ornamentations of jade and shell came towards them, the crowd parting respectfully to let him through. Lazarus put him down as some sort of healer or
medicine man. After being examined by this old man and questioned at length, they were led away into a part of the village complex. Hok’ee translated what had passed between them. “His name is Tohotavo. He is the priest for the clan. We are being taken before their chief. His name is Eototu.”
These were the most words Lazarus had ever heard Hok’ee string together at any one time. In the dim interior of the pueblo, it took a while for their eyes to grow accustomed to the light that streamed in through the square window. Logs crackled in a corner fireplace. Benches had been carved out of the rock on one wall and constructed of flat stones on the other. The stream of Cibolans that filed into the room sat down on these benches, eager to witness the audience with the chief.
Eototu came in from an adjoining room, with his family in tow. He was tall, proud and strong, clothed in colorful threads tied over one shoulder. He swept those majestically as he seated himself at the head of the room. An in-depth interrogation was conducted of the hunters and of Hok’ee. Hok’ee then conversed with Vasquez in Navajo.
“They ain’t pleased to see us,” Vasquez told Lazarus. “Eototu has heard the tale of us from the last time we dropped in. He thinks our flying machines are a demonic menace.”
“What exactly happened here the last time you ‘dropped in’,” Lazarus asked, growing increasingly nervous. “I think it’s about time you told me.”
Vasquez sighed. “Not much and that’s the truth. We came here and realized that there was no gold to be found, and so we left. We only stayed a couple of days and even that was more than we were welcome to. These people just want to be left alone. They’ve got their own private slice of paradise here and nobody’s got the right to take it from them. That’s why they’re so secretive.”
A sudden feeling of guilt and impending doom stirred in Lazarus. He spoke in a hurried voice, “We have to warn them! We have to tell them that General Reynolds is coming with an army of flying machines, and when he finds that there is no gold here he’ll be enraged.”
Golden Heart (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles) Page 8