The Oilman's Daughter

by Allison M. Dickson

  At last the chain gun stopped and the house itself groaned as if it was in pain. The bullets had torn through so many structural members that the roof and walls might crash down at any moment.

  “They’ll rush the house now,” whispered Phinneas. “Make sure we’re deaders. The bloody bastards might already be in the barn for all we know.”

  Jonathan nodded. “Give me the shotgun. And take that rifle. Keep Frank behind you.” He crawled up to the kitchen door and sat with his back against it, resting the shotgun against his left hip and the pistol raised in his right hand. Despite the ringing in his ears, he heard the footsteps in the dirt outside and knew he would only have a moment.

  Someone yanked open the door and Jonathan fell backwards into the dirt, staring up at a surprised man wearing red suspenders. Jonathan put a shell into the man’s brain and then looked left to see the last Henry man, his eyes wide. The man yanked on the trigger and the drum cartridge jammed on the first bullet. Jonathan squeezed the shotgun trigger and blew the man’s guts out into the dirt.

  The shotgun’s stock had dug so deeply into his thigh with the recoil that he didn’t even know if he’d be able to walk. “Aw, hell, that hurts!” Jonathan yelled.

  A man shouted, “Hit ‘em again, Smitty!” The chain gun opened up once more. Half the chickens had already died in the initial assault, but now the rest of the birds exploded into a storm of bloody feathers. Jonathan crawled between the coops, one gun in each hand. Every time he moved his left leg, pain shot through his hip. He glanced back and saw Phinneas and Frank just behind him. Although conversation was impossible with the din of the machine gun, he raised his eyebrows at Frank.

  The boy nodded. His cheeks were muddy from a mixture of tears and dust, but he looked as if he’d found a semblance of acceptance. Jonathan passed him the shotgun, and Frank switched with Phinneas so once again he clutched the Spencer.

  Just as he cleared the coops, Jonathan saw the barn doors burst open. Grant rode out on a horse, teeth bared, his eyes wide as saucers as he clutched a pottery jug with a flaming cloth dangling from it. The surviving men started shouting when they saw him.

  “Quick, cover him!” shouted Phinneas. He fired the shotgun at the nearest attacker. From this distance, the pellets wouldn’t have done more than sting, but it was enough to get the man to flop to the ground and crawl for cover. Frank raised his rifle at last and fired a wild shot that ricocheted off the armored carriage’s boiler.

  At least the attackers finally felt threatened enough to seek cover behind the carriages. The fellow in the cupola ducked down as well. Jonathan suspected he was loading a new ammunition belt. He popped off a shot toward the cupola to keep the man honest about staying under cover.

  Grant hurled the jug at the armored carriage. It crashed onto the roof, and it was as if he’d unleashed hell itself. Fire exploded outward in all directions, reeling of burning kerosene and a sharp chemical odor. The fuel stuck where it hit instead of splashing off the carriage. The man in the cupola jumped out and fell screaming, a human torch.

  Grant’s horse bucked him off in fear of the flames and galloped off into the fields. “Pa!” shouted Frank, and ran to his father.

  The armored carriage driver bailed out and ran toward the second carriage, shouting and waving for it to back away. Jonathan realized why the man was so fearful. That raging inferno spreading would heat the boiler beyond its tolerances in seconds.

  Nobody was far enough away from a boiler explosion to be safe.

  “Protect the women,” Jonathan called to Phinneas, and ran after Frank. He slid down into the dirt beside Grant and fired a couple bullets toward the men who’d gathered behind the second carriage as it pulled away from the burning one.

  “That was the bravest thing I ever seen anyone do.” Jonathan and Frank helped Grant up to his feet. “Come on, that boiler’s going to go any second.”

  His ears popped and a blast of heat scorched him and sent him flying through the air. His pistol spun out of his grasp as he crashed into the dirt, smoke rising from his clothing. A white hot piece of iron sliced into the ground right in front of him. He scooted back away from its dangerous heat and became aware of a keening wail in his ringing ears. He glanced back and saw Frank cradling his father in his arms, staggering away from the blast site. The boy’s clothing had burned almost completely away and his skin was charred in some places and the angry red of burns in others. He’d been peppered with shrapnel from the explosion, but the trickles of steaming blood from his arms and legs were mere scratches compared to the horrible trauma Grant had suffered on his back.

  Jonathan realized that the father must have sacrificed himself to protect his son. He struggled back to his feet, his hip shooting twinges of pain with every move. A blur of motion in his peripheral vision made him jerk back in reflex. His leg folded and he fell, and that motion likely saved his life. One of the attackers swung a section of shattered fence post at Jonathan’s neck, and Jonathan rolled to one side as the heavy plank struck the earth. He lashed out with his foot, more out of instinct than any real skill, and caught the man’s ankle. The man yelled and staggered back for a moment, giving Jonathan time to get his feet under him again. He glanced around, trying to find his errant pistol amid the smoldering shrapnel of the boiler.

  The fellow swung the post at Jonathan’s waist, making it whistle even over the roar of the flames. Jonathan jumped back. His hip burned like the fuel bomb had broken upon it. He dodged another swing and his foot came down on a piece of debris. His ankle turned and he sprawled onto the dirt once more. The man raised his club, yelled like a caveman about to defeat an enemy, and Jonathan knew he was done for.

  A gun roared and instead of smashing Jonathan’s skull into paste, the man’s fence post tumbled into the dirt between Jonathan’s legs and the man fell beside him, his lifeless eyes staring at whatever laid beyond this world. He looked up to see Phinneas lowering the shotgun and nodded his thanks at the pirate.

  Then came the sound Jonathan most feared: Cecilie screaming. “Phinneas! Help me!”

  Jonathan saw two men wrestling Cecilie into the back of the second carriage. She fought them like a wildcat, hissing and spitting, until one of them checked her across the jaw with the stock of his rifle. She slumped and they threw her in.

  “No!” Jonathan scrabbled through the dirt, desperate to find a weapon. And even as he located his pistol, in the back of his mind he wondered why she’d called out to the pirate instead of to him. She must not have seen Jonathan. That had to be it. “I don’t have my gun, Phinneas! Stop them!”

  Phinneas raised the shotgun, but then he cast it aside. “Bloody hell. I’m empty.”

  The surviving attackers hopped onto running boards and into the carriage van, and the driver dialed up the pressure, making the India rubber tires spin in the dirt. One of the kidnappers raised a pistol at Jonathan.

  Jonathan grabbed the body of the man beside him and used it to shield himself against the bullet aimed at his heart. Then as he shoved the body aside, he spotted Frank’s discarded Spencer rifle. He scrabbled across the dirt for it. The carriage’s boiler sang and it careened out of the yard, making for the road as fast as an express train. Jonathan retrieved the rifle and, still on his knees, raised it to his cheek. He worked the lever down and back to chamber the next round as the carriage skidded onto the road, fellows hanging onto the outside for dear life. He was a Texan, goddamn it; he could make that shot.

  Phinneas slapped the barrel down just as Jonathan fired, sending the bullet harmlessly down into the dirt.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Jonathan roared.

  Phinneas yanked the rifle from Jonathan’s suddenly nerveless grasp and threw it to the ground. “Are ye daft? Ye’d just as likely hit Cecilie as one of them sons of whores.”

  Jonathan’s yell turned inarticulate and he lunged at Phinneas, catching the older man with a surprise left cross. The shock of the blow traveled all the way up Jonathan’s arm to rattle his
own head almost as much as he felt he’d rattled Phinneas. He steeled himself, expecting the other man to answer with a heavy blow of his own, but Phinneas only nodded and wiped away a streak of blood from the corner of his mouth.

  “I’ll give ye that one for free, lad. Someday ye can be sure I’ll repay it with interest. But the truth is we’ve lost this round.”

  At first, he was all for saddling up the Clays’ remaining horse and going after the kidnappers, but Phinneas pointed out that an old farm horse would kill itself trying to catch a much faster target. And what would he do even if he did manage to catch them? Take on a half dozen heavily-armed thugs with a half-loaded Spencer rifle?

  The enormity of their defeat and losses they’d sustained finally sank in, and Jonathan felt ill. The Clays had taken them in without question or suspicion, and as a reward they’d lost their house, their livelihood, and their patriarch. Frank was kneeling in the bloody dirt, oblivious to everything except his silent father’s head cradled in his lap.

  Jessie raced out of the barn screaming, and fell to the ground beside Grant. Anita had fallen to her knees in prayer or despair or both, while Georgette squeezed young Louise tightly, comforting the girl.

  Jonathan had never felt so helpless in his life, but he followed Phinneas’s lead and started fighting the fire, throwing clod after clod of dirt onto the remains of the armored carriage to try to keep the flames from spreading into the dangerously dry prairie grass.

  Neighbors arrived from two nearby farms: a childless Swedish couple and a family of Jews with the boys sporting dark curls under their hats. The women immediately took charge of the surviving Clays, helping to treat Frank’s wounds and consoling everyone through their grief. The rest joined in the fire fight.

  “Elijah saw the smoke and came to get me,” said the father of the clan, who’d introduced himself to Jonathan and Phinneas as Samuel Rosen in solemn tones, as if he felt raising his voice would be disrespectful of the dead. “He’d heard what he said was thunder from a clear sky, but when I listened, I knew. I served the Union in the War.” He shook his head and threw another shovelful of dirt onto a burning patch. “Terrible when folks and their guests can’t be safe in their own homes. I’ve known Grant Clay for fifteen years. His farm has kept my family from starving in these lean times. I’m indebted to him.”

  “As am I,” said Jonathan. “And believe me, I intend to repay his family as handsomely as I’m able.”

  The Swede came over to join them, wiping his bloodstained hands upon a rag. “I’ve got the bodies stacked,” he said in his peculiar, lilting accent. “What to do with them?”

  “Burn them,” said Jessie Clay, vicious tears tracking down the dirt on her cheeks. “Burn them all and let the wind take the ashes away. They don’t deserve no Christian burial.”

  “I’m so sorry that this happened,” said Jonathan.

  “No, don’t you say that. I don’t want to hear any apologies, and I don’t want your pity. I want you to get the sons of bitches that did this.”

  Jonathan bowed his head, his shame hanging over him like a shroud. “Whatever I can do to make things right, Jessie, I promise I will. You tell me what you need and it’s yours. Money, tools, laborers. I will foot the bill.” He took a deep breath. “I hope you will consider it a meager penance for the hardship I brought upon you.”

  Jessie sniffed but said nothing. The Swedish woman wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and took her aside, murmuring soothing words in her native tongue.

  “Lad,” said Phinneas quietly. “Ye are a good man. A better one than me. But now ain’t the time to get all mushy. We ain’t even out of the woods with this particular battle yet.” He cocked his head towards the road. “Looks like we’re about to have company. We best hope they’re not more of them bastards comin’ to finish the job.”

  Jonathan followed Phinneas’ gaze. At first he saw nothing on the road, but then his gaze drew upward toward a small dirigible approaching them. He recognized the proud logo painted across the vessel’s nose and relaxed. “Maybe we’re not completely out of luck,” he said. “That’s an Orbital Industries derry.”

  The dirigible was a small model. Really only a courier, built for speed and maneuverability. Its apparent progress was slow, but Jonathan could tell the ducted fans were running at top speed the way the craft’s shadow raced across the prairie. As it approached the ruined Clay household, it shed altitude and velocity rapidly, the pilot actually using the fans to push it down faster, a skill Jonathan recognized as one used by Air Army pilots.

  Nevertheless, he kept the Henry he’d claimed from one of the bodies at the ready, and Phinneas had the shotgun reloaded. Without a cradle or airship dock at the ready, the pilot had to drop lines, trusting people on the ground to tie down the ship.

  “Secure those lines,” said Phinneas in his captain’s tone of command. The Rosen boys and their father hurried to wrap the lines around the sturdy and undamaged fence posts by the barn. Thus secured, the pilot set the fans into station-keeping. He opened the lightweight aluminum cockpit door, tossed down a rope ladder, and shimmied down it.

  Jonathan’s eyes widened as the man loosened his leather skullcap and raised his goggles up to his forehead. “Jefferson!” All decorum forgotten, Jonathan embraced his oldest friend. “I feared you’d be dead.”

  Jefferson Porter suffered the affection of his boss with a smile before stepping back. “I nearly was, sir.” He glanced over at Phinneas and his smile vanished. Nevertheless, he said, “It’s good to see you alive as well, Captain Greaves.”

  Phinneas nodded but said nothing, and then turned away to help Jessie with the bodies of the Arabs.

  “What happened to you on the Albatross?” asked Jonathan. “And how in God’s name did you escape that deathly tomb?”

  “I presume I was mugged. Someone dragged a bag over my head and knocked me silly. When I came to, my brother and I had been locked in a storeroom filled with decomposing bodies. We tried to break out, but with no success. Then when the Fulton crashed into the station, the wall buckled enough for us to squeeze through. We managed to get to a stovepipe and Lincoln flew us to Roosevelt Station.”

  Jonathan nodded. “Our own escape was risky as well. How is your brother?”

  “He kept the stovepipe. We presumed its former owner most likely wouldn’t come looking for it. I checked at the station for you, but nobody had heard from you there. I sent a telegraph to Pinnacle Station and likewise there was no news. I wouldn’t accept that you were dead, so I went down the elevator to Houston and contacted your father. That’s when I learned of your telegram. Your father pulled this courier derry from service and placed it at my disposal.”

  Jonathan recalled that Porter had served as a pilot for Britain during their war with Egypt. He’d never had the occasion to see his butler at the helm of a dirigible before. “But how did you find us here?”

  Porter smiled. “I was making for Kansas City at top speed. Your father suggested that as the best place to begin my search for you, or at least to determine where you might have gone and by what method. I spotted the smoke from this fire and heard the gunfire. Sound carries well across a prairie like this, and I was in enough battles over North Africa to know this was no mere house fire or hunter shooting at squirrels.” He took off his goggles and polished the smoked glass lenses. “Somehow, I just knew if there was trouble, you’d most likely be embroiled in the middle of it.”

  “Well done, Jefferson.” Jonathan clapped him on the shoulder. “Now, Mademoiselle Renault has been kidnapped in a steam carriage. Can we pursue them in your derry?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Ye best make room for me, Mister Porter,” said Phinneas. “I risked my neck too, and I’d like to see the job be finished.”

  Porter nodded, but looked at Jonathan for confirmation. “Sir?”

  Jonathan gritted his teeth. If only he could leave the pirate with the Clays. Jessie seemed to have more than a passing interest in the spacer. Bu
t despite his crass speech and boorish behavior, Phinneas had proven to be a valuable ally today. He was comfortable with weapons and useful in a fight, and there would certainly be more of both in the days ahead.

  However, Jonathan’s interest in keeping the pirate close had a shrewder bent. It all came down to keeping his enemies closer. What if Phinneas still had designs upon Cecilie, and not just financial ones? Something had clearly happened between the two of them, though it was unclear exactly what. She had called out his name while the men were herding her to the carriage. It was probably nothing, but Jonathan couldn’t shake it from his mind. “Phinneas, we would be grateful to have you join us.”

  “Very good, sir,” said Porter. “We’ll be heavy, though. It’s best we unload as much weight as possible.”

  Jonathan nodded. “We can do that. Do you have pen and paper aboard?”

  “Yes sir.” Porter climbed up and retrieved it, and then handed them to Jonathan. Phinneas then proceeded to help unload spare supplies from the gondola while Jonathan scribbled out a letter on the paper and signed it. He folded it and wrote an address on the back. “Jessie, mail this letter to my father. I’ve asked that Orbital Industries cover the costs of rebuilding your farm as well as provide a stipend to help you along.”

  Jessie raised her head. He could see the pride, desperation, and grief fighting a battle on her dirt smeared face. “We don’t want charity, Mister Orbital.”

  He shook his head. “This is not charity. It is payment for services rendered. You rescued my friends and me. You sheltered and fed and defended us to great hardship of your own. There are some things money can’t buy, like a father’s love, but others that it can. Like good shelter and his dream. Take the money, please. Rebuild your home and your farm. Continue your father’s work and gather up everything he wrote on his research. Once I’ve rescued Cecilie, I will see about what we can do about patenting it and continuing the work on a larger scale. Grant wanted to help change the world, and he can still do that with our help.”