Seven Days to Hell

by William W. Johnstone

  * * *

  The Sabine Queen came on. Rufus Barbaroux was up in the wheelhouse, the steamboat’s nerve center and operative “brain.”

  The Commander’s eyes glittered, his face shiny with excitement. His complexion was flushed almost as dark as his red hair and beard. He wore a white commodore’s hat with gold braid on the visor and a blue coat with massive oversized gold braid shoulder boards and gold stripes on the sleeves.

  The real captain, the one who actually steered and piloted the Sabine Queen, wore a plain cloth cap with a narrow-brim visor and a dark coat. He stood at the wheel, steering the steamer on course south along the point.

  Ahead Clinchfield Gaol burned, making a throbbing red blur of light in the sky farther on and inland. In the east the sky was paling. Dawn was near.

  The prison fortress’s firelight bathed Shoreline Road with a smoky red glow, revealing masses of men thronging the road heading east, the freed inmates. They looked like a column of ants.

  Barbaroux eyed them through the monocular telescopic viewer held screwed to one bulging twitching orb. “Prison break! I cannot image what that ass Munday is all about, but clearly he has lost control of his command. He’d better be dead if he knows what’s good for him.”

  Gripping the bell-mouthed speaking tube as if it were a snake he was holding by under its head, he barked, “Commander here! Attention, attention! Tell the forward gun crew to open fire on those men on the road!”

  In her cubbyhole of a cabin on the upper deck of the Queen, Malvina the Conjure Woman worked the Tarot cards trying to forecast the future. Her future.

  The cabin might as well have been a hole in the wall or dismal cave in the forest. It was dim, crowded, and messy. It stank of old crone, wood smoke, incense, and a variety of oils, powders, and potions contained in rows of stoppered flasks and bottles set along the walls.

  Malvina sat cross-legged on her bunk, shrunken head and narrow stooped shoulders wrapped in a brightly colored shawl embroidered with suns, moons, stars, and mystic signs.

  She worked the cards by candlelight. Her ancient face was that of a living mummy, her hooded dark eyes were bright as a snake’s and as alive with venom and malice. Clawlike hands with skeletal fingers handled the oversized deck of Tarot fortune-telling cards.

  She laid out the cards on her bunk before her in a cross shape. Up came the next card in the shuffle, and she turned it over to reveal it:

  The card called the Emperor—Barbaroux, surely. Next came the Wheel of Fortune—self-explanatory, really. Big events were in play.

  The next card: Death. Not necessarily a card of ill omen according to the arcane lore of Tarot, it could mean death to the foe, the enemy. Or spiritual death.

  It could mean just plain Death. Its meaning could only be interpreted in the context of the other cards in the reading.

  Now the final card in the configuration, the one signifying the ultimate result of the question.

  It showed a lightning bolt striking a castle, overthrowing towers, striking it down: the Tower. A card of complete and unmitigated disaster.

  Malvina hissed with dismay. Cabin walls pressed in around her, trapping her. Too late to get off the boat now . . .

  The Sabine Queen’s bow had been turned into a gun deck. A medium-sized naval cannon was mounted there. A five-man gun crew labored over the piece, readying it to fire.

  It was loaded with separate gunpowder packet and canister shot. A viciously effective anti-personnel weapon, the shell was filled with metal shrapnel. When it burst, a cloud of white-hot metal shards would erupt, tearing flesh, blood, and bone to pieces. Devastatingly effective at close range, it was of varying effectiveness farther off.

  The piece was sighted in on the masses of men fleeing east on Shoreline Road. The gun crew chief gave the command:

  “Fire!”

  A crewman touched the lit end of a length of corded match to the touchhole, igniting the powder. The cannon boomed, spitting shell, fire, and smoke, recoiling on its wheeled carriage.

  The shot arced over the water, zeroing in on the Shoreline Road.

  Whoosh!

  It missed its target, impacting harmlessly on the wooded slope above the road and its teeming mass of escaped men.

  “Too high!” the gun crew chief shouted. He had to shout because he and the crew were partly deafened by the cannon’s roar. “Lower the sights a degree or two, no more, and try again!”

  “Aye-aye, sir!”

  None of the escapees was hurt by the first shot, which passed harmlessly overhead to detonate against the side of the hill. But the effect on morale was immense, throwing the mass of men into a panic.

  They were men kept caged for months—starved, beaten, and abused—many of them barely able to stay on their feet and keep going. You wouldn’t have known it by the way they broke into a run at the first burst, scrambling in all directions, shouting, scattering.

  The gun crew chief ordered, “Fire!”

  The shell was low. It hit the water and bounced, skimming across the surface, taking another bounce to hit some few yards below the road.

  “Lord, did they free us just to kill us here?” one man cried aloud.

  * * *

  Waiting, waiting for the Sabine Queen. That’s what the Gator Al and its crew were doing.

  The watercraft was the steam-powered launch recently stolen from the now-defunct Gun Dogs. In the last six days it had been worked on around the clock, night and day in Deep Hollow, refitting and refurbishing it, making it a deadly new weapon.

  It now sat floating in the waters of a cove in the south shoreline of Pirate’s Point at a site several hundred yards north of where the road from Clinchfield Gaol connected with Shoreline Drive.

  The nameless cove was sheltered, virtually hidden by overgrown drooping boughs of cypresses, willows, and water oaks.

  That was its name: Nameless Cove.

  It was large enough to hold a barn or boathouse. It had neither but what it had was a boat: the Gator Al.

  The steam-powered launch was oblong-shaped with a slightly curved convex bow. It was a shallow-draught craft with minimal freeboard allowing it to go into water of only a few feet’s depth. Its long roller-shaped stern paddlewheel could be raised clear out of the water and the craft transported by man-powered long poles for short distance should the water become too shallow for the paddlewheel. Gun Dog patrols used to use it to nose far into the backcountry bayous, lakes, channels, and sloughs.

  A bow-mounted eight-pounder swivel gun was the something extra that had sunk Belle Nyad’s boat in the run-up to the Battle of the Pier. After being stolen by the swampers, the steam-powered launch was under new management.

  Something new and lethal had been added by the swampers to the watercraft: It had a stinger now.

  Battened to the bow was a three-sided sharply tipped skeletal metal spike ten feet long. Its three long axes were metal railroad rails scavenged from a long-defunct branch line connecting the Blacksnake and Sabine Rivers. The line had gone out early in the war but stretches of intact track remained. Such a stretch had yielded the three rails.

  Deep Hollow smiths and ironworkers, most of them recent fugitives from Barbaroux’s tyranny, used a framework of crossbeams and trusses to brace what looked like a narrow three-sided metal obelisk tapering to a sharp point: the Ram.

  This tapered obelisk-like construction had then been fastened to the steam launch, bolted and battened to the stoutest beams and ribs for extra strength and security.

  The craft was partly shielded against ordinary small-arms fire by the strategic placement of cotton bales to protect the crew. The tied-down bales would stop rifle bullets though they were ineffective against heavier shot.

  Here was the swampers’ secret weapon against Barbaroux’s mighty Sabine Queen.

  One finishing touch remained. The launch was renamed Gator Al in honor of the recently slain Tonkawa leader and warhorse. The name was painted in large black letters on both sides of the bow.
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  Belle Nyad and a select crew of River Rats would put it into action. Having recently lost her own steam-powered boat to Barbaroux, vengeful Belle was the natural choice to make the run.

  She wouldn’t have it any other way. And since it was likely to be a suicide run, no one cared to dispute the point of pride with her.

  Now Belle and her River Rat crew of Harry Sauder, Pol Philpott, Crazy Chester Coughlin, and Mantee made final preparations for the assault.

  Belle alone would be making the run all the way, but the others would jump overboard well clear of the Sabine Queen.

  For Gator Al was not only a ram, it was a floating bomb. The bow was packed with kegs of black powder and bundles of dynamite wired together and rigged with waterproof marine fuses.

  The explosives were so arranged in the bow as to become a shaped charge, fitted in a fan-shaped iron funnel whose large end was wedged into the front of the bow and whose small end emerged just below the crude instrument panel holding the wheelhousing and steam-engine control levers.

  The iron funnel was shaped like a giant megaphone, the idea being that the blast would be directed forward and outward in a tight fan.

  Such was the concept, anyway.

  Yet something old and new—someone old and new—had been added to the mix, overshadowing even the volatile, lethal, lusciously shaped Belle Nyad.

  This was Skinner Kondo.

  Skinner Kondo, near-legendary founder and master of the River Rats. In his day he’d been a slave master, blue-water and river pirate, brawler, lover, thief extraordinaire, and killer many times over.

  The acknowledged master of the Blacksnake whip, he’d once been able to use the bullwhip’s thirteen-foot-plus length to use its tip to flick a fly out of the air—a mosquito, even. Not to mention taking the eyes out of a man’s head or flaying the skin off his bones.

  At one time overseer of the Nyad family plantation, he’d taught young Belle the technique of wielding the bullwhip as a deadly weapon. An apt pupil and quick study, she became expert with the Blacksnake but could never surpass master and mentor Kondo.

  When war came, Skinner Kondo reformed the River Rats gang, bedeviling Yankee and Confederate forces alike with his outrageous smuggling ventures and bold plunderings along the river.

  But a chance minee ball fired from a sentry’s rifle during a routine warehouse raid had struck Kondo low on the spine, shattering it into fragments and paralyzing him below the waist, spelling finis to his active depredations.

  His body was a half-inert hulk, but his cunning brain was more active than ever, craftily hatching out master plans for rapine and plunder that were masterpieces of the marauder’s art.

  Belle Nyad became his mouthpiece and go-between, relaying his orders to the gang, bringing their information to Skinner Kondo. Her unparalleled ability at smelling out planned treachery and killing the betrayers before the betrayal, and her mastery of violence and the arts of murder, established her dominance over the gang.

  But this night, tonight, Skinner Kondo had finally come out. It had taken four able strongbacks to carry him from a wagon on Shoreline Road down the slope to Nameless Cove.

  He now sat lashed in place to a forward thwart in ready reach of the launch’s spoked control wheel, a hulking bald-headed long-bearded two hundred and fifty pound man-monster. Dead below the waist, he still retained tremendous upper body strength.

  His mind was made up.

  “I’m taking my last ride, Belle. I’ll pilot the ram into the Queen. I’ve outlived my time and I want to make myself useful once again and go out in a blast of glory. That’s how I want it and that’s how it’s going to be.”

  Belle tried to talk him out of it but before she could even get started he held up a bear paw–sized palm out, his signal that discussion was ended.

  “I have spoken,” he said, voice rumbling like water rushing through underground pipes.

  That was that. Nothing for it but to continue making the launch ready for the run.

  Skinner Kondo took out a cigar from an inside breast pocket. It was fat and about a foot long. He bit off the end and spat it out, then stuck the cigar in a corner of his mouth.

  “I’ll use this to touch off the short fuse,” he said. “Light me up.”

  Belle struck a match, holding its flame to the end of the cigar while Skinner Kondo puffed away, setting it alight.

  There was a fallback device in case the cigar went out or failed to light the fuse. A wide-mouthed single-shot pistol lay ready at hand to touch off the fuse.

  Strongbacks Pol Philpott and Mantee shoveled kindling into the firebox, driving the pounds-per-square inch pressure gauge up so that the needle kept flicking into the red danger zone. The steam engine shuddered against its mountings from the force at which it was being driven. The launch trembled to be in motion like a twelve-horse team straining at the harness in eagerness to be off.

  “We’re in the redline!” Belle shouted.

  “That’s where we got to be to make this work!” returned Crazy Chester.

  Through swirling river mists and fog the Sabine Queen swam into view, running lights shining like blazing jewels.

  “There she blows!” Crazy Chester cried.

  The crew clambered aboard, taking their places, Belle throwing herself down on a thwart beside Skinner Kondo.

  Kondo held up a warning hand before Harry Sauder could enter the launch. “Not you, Harry! You stay here.”

  “What the hell, Skinner?!” Sauder said, face collapsing like a new bride’s soufflé.

  “This damned gang’s gone need a leader if Belle don’t make it back and you’re the best man for the job.”

  “Hell, Skinner, I want to go with you! We been together for years—why break up a winning combo now—?”

  “I have spoken! It’s done.”

  “Aww . . . hell.”

  The Sabine Queen neared.

  “Let’s go!” Skinner Kondo roared.

  Belle threw the lever, which caused the steam-power plant to engage the drivetrain of the stern wheel. The steamroller-like construction churned water, the launch lancing forward out of Nameless Cove and into the river.

  “So long, Harry! See yah in hell!” was Skinner Kondo’s farewell salute to his old comrade-in-arms.

  TWENTY-NINE

  The Blackskimmer rounded the point’s southern tip, making for the Sabine Queen.

  Named for the predatory swamp bird notorious for stealing the catches of other birds right out from under their beaks and claws, the Blackskimmer was a steam-powered cutter, long, fast, sleek, and low in the water, an ideal smugglers’ craft. No boat on the river could catch her.

  She was armed with swivel-mounted guns fore and aft and her crew of six plus her captain were all first-class fighting men as well as veteran sailors.

  The Blackskimmer was skippered by Captain Quent Hazard, the most skilled pilot and smuggler on the river. He had been a blockade-runner for the South during the war, trading valuable contraband cotton for much-needed medicines and ordnance, as well as such luxuries as fine brandies, wine, and cigars.

  After the war he continued to ply the smuggler’s trade, specializing in gunrunning. He’d been a particular thorn in Barbaroux’s hide but continued to elude Combine patrols, spies, and informers.

  Hazard’s trade had risen dramatically in recent weeks as a result of his association with the Major, that shadowy figure with a steady and inexplicable supply of Winchester repeating rifles and ammunition.

  Expert in his trade, Hazard knew at first sight that the crated ordnance had come from some U.S. Army arsenal, though no open thefts of same had raised a hue and cry or even been acknowledged by the authorities. This would hardly be the first time that a conspiracy to defraud the government of its lawful property had been carried out by insiders.

  The pay was good, the business was brisk, and Captain Hazard asked no questions as he stepped up his schedule to run guns into Deep Hollow several times a week. It was obvious, though,
that whoever he was and for whatever reasons, the Major was the front man for an outside effort to arm a resistance against the reign of Commander Rufus Barbaroux.

  Now Hazard and the Blackskimmer were on a different kind of mission, a combat mission. The Major was paying the freight and the pay was good. More, to Hazard it felt good to get into hot fighting action once more.

  Mysterious though the Major’s origin and motives might be, the man himself was a real vital presence of flesh and blood. He was on board the Blackskimmer, too, along with Shrike, his omnipresent Tonkawa sideman.

  In preparation for the mission, a shooting platform had been built and attached toward the boat’s stern. It was not unlike a crow’s nest set atop an eight-foot-tall four-sided scaffold made of sturdy wooden beams and diagonal cross-braces. The square-shaped platform atop it measured four feet on a side and had a three-foot-high safety railing.

  The construction was lightweight, sturdy, and well secured to the boat.

  The Major was up on the platform now, armed with a Winchester Model 1866 repeating.

  He was none other than Sam Heller.

  Sam Heller was an undercover operative for the Department of the Army, originally commissioned by General Ulysses S. Grant himself to suppress foreign and domestic subversion in the West. Sam was a contract agent with virtual freedom of movement and action and a wealth of extraordinary powers and resources to draw on. But then, he was an extraordinary man.

  His long-term mission had brought him to Hangtree, Texas, a town set squarely on the frontier line between civilization and savagery. Its vital strategic location made it the focal point of a number of ongoing conspiracies involving Comanche raiders, Comanchero gunrunners, private marauder armies, would-be bandit kings, and worse.

  Sam had gotten on the trail of Malvina from the moment he first delivered Bill Longley to safety in Hangtree. Call her Conjure Woman, Gypsy, Witch, or whatever, the fact remained that she was a cunning, vicious mass murderer who had slain a hundred troopers or more at Fort Pardee by the use of poison in the mess hall.