Buffalo Soldier

by Maurice Broaddus

  “I mean, despite how Desmond portrays our international appeal, we’re fairly off the beaten track.”

  “You’re here,” she said.

  “I happen to own a residence here to oversee some of my interests, but, to be frank, most folks find this here town to be like a wart on a gentleman’s unmentionables. No one finds their way here on accident.”

  “I’d say the tent city on the outskirts begs to differ.”

  “Those are drifters and migrant workers. Folks like Mr. Coke here, looking for work as they pass through.”

  “And I couldn’t be?” Cayt asked.

  “Don’t be so modest.” Mr. Hearst stirred. He leaned forward, his eyes intense. His voice dropped a little with the vague hint of patience running out.

  “I’m a girl of gossamer interests.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I come and go as I please.” Cayt met his eyes, unblinking. She reached into her purse. Mr. Hearst hard-eyed her movements but relaxed when she withdrew her fan.

  “A leaf blown in the wind,” Mr. Hearst said.

  “Exactly.”

  “A woman of independent means? I’m not familiar with the Siringo family name.”

  “We’re . . . I’m from Matagorda State. In southwestern Tejas.”

  “I thought I recognized that particular brand of twang. Living off the family trust?”

  “Manners.” Cayt unfurled her fan and began to flutter it. She upticked her chin toward the boy. “I almost died when I was his age. Smallpox. My mother passed away soon after. I learned early on how to make my own way.”

  “What work brings you to Abandon?”

  Desmond turned to her to take particular note of how she’d respond to this line of inquiry.

  Cayt passed the briefest of glances between them. Her lips upturned slightly at the edges, enjoying an unspoken game. “I’m strictly a consultant. I take on jobs that intrigue me.”

  “A woman of intrigue. How did you get into . . . consulting?” Mr. Hearst asked.

  “You know how you get to that age when you find yourself rather adrift in life? Folks didn’t think I was going to make it, especially since I was a scrawny something. When I got better, I was determined to be a cowgirl. I was a crack shot and pretty fair with a rope. Then I bumped into a phrenologist at a county fair. He took a reading of my cranium and convinced me to change my line of work.” Cayt closed her fan. “I might ask you the question of why do you take such an interest in us.”

  “You two are what I call anomalies.”

  “How so?”

  “Neither of you quite fit. You’re like a tick bite that I can’t seem to scratch. A couple of strangers who blow into town about the same time. You may know each other already, you may not. It might all be coincidence, but I’m not a big believer in coincidence.”

  “A place like Abandon, off the beaten track as you say, would be the perfect place for someone to make a fresh start for themselves,” Desmond said with caution. “Away from interference from the crown.”

  “A place for a feller . . . or lady . . . to get lost,” Cayt said.

  “Or to be found.” Mr. Hearst settled back into his chair.

  The waitress arrived with the drinks. She poured out the bottles of sarsaparilla into tall glasses and left the remainder in the bottles besides them. She set the two shot glasses in front of both Mr. Hearst and Cayt. Everyone eyed their drinks. The air between them slowly soured as their patience with the game were thin for them all now.

  “To good health,” Mr. Hearst raised a shot glass.

  Cayt raised her glass, clinked it against his, and then downed her drink in a single gulp. She overturned the empty glass and slammed it to the table. “Sipping is for a lady’s tea party.”

  Mr. Hearst tossed his drink back and slammed his glass to the table. He shook two fingers at the waitress before turning back to Desmond. “It’s not too often that we get a Negro passing through here.”

  The man delivered the words like a probe, waiting to see how Desmond would react.

  “It’s a free republic, as I understand.” Desmond sipped his sarsaparilla.

  “The freest.” Mr. Hearst threw his head back with a relaxed chuckle. “That damn fool regent, Lincoln, did his level best to tear the country apart way back when until the crown saw fit to have him removed.”

  “A conspiracy buff?” Cayt asked.

  “A realist. Regent Lincoln was bad for business. And this here United States territory is the engine that drives the business of Albion. We can trace the Tejas Free Republic and the current tensions directly back to his original missteps.”

  “Sounds like given Tejas’s independent status, you ought to be more grateful to him, then.” Desmond hoped that he disguised his bristling at any disparagement of Regent Lincoln and what he attempted to do. With his efforts to free a people, in Jamaica, he was hailed as a hope for a new era of relations between the two countries.

  “I am but a simple businessman with several business interests. As my reputation is largely the stuff of dime novels, I’ll admit that some of my family’s fortune found its origins in smuggling, bootlegging, and piracy before we fully legitimized and headed west. I followed the railways and airships, like a hopper, except my goal was to control them, not hitch rides on them. And when I found Abandon, I found my home. Well, my base of operations hidden from all things civilized. It was here that I established my consortium of like-minded businessmen.”

  Desmond took another swig of his sarsaparilla. The saloon patrons chatted amiably in low murmurs. None of them ordered any drinks. No one touched their cards. Too many cast surreptitious glances toward their table. “Kabbalists.”

  “It has taken on the appearance of a quasi-political movement. At its heart, it is about people pursuing truths. About themselves. About mankind. About the universal forces that govern our lives.” Mr. Hearst took another cigarette for himself. “Politics is always a tricky business to discuss in polite company.”

  “I hope you don’t hold back on my account,” Cayt said.

  “All right, then, the take-home lesson is that people always get the government they allow. Albion officials telling us we’re trespassing on our own land. Here in Tejas, we got sick and tired of the crown creeping into our everyday lives. No matter what you’re doing, there the crown is with a law and a tax. We just want to be left alone. The tensions you referred to began with our protests over the crown declaring ownership of public lands. Land seized for their mineral reserves. That was the final straw. It didn’t take much to stir up some anti-crown sentiment. Albion rules with a heavy hand, too much control, too much interference in lives and businesses. We were already frustrated with the crown over their oppressive laws and regulation. Taxation without representation. All of their oppressive tactics. Dissidents had been fleeing to Tejas in such droves, the phrase ‘Gone to Tejas’ became popular.

  “Our little . . . insurrection party threw a cog into Albion’s Western Design dream: a coast-to-coast version of the United States, and they’ve resented us ever since. The crown can label us occupiers all they want. Our armed citizens patrols our borders as members of the Watchmen. Our militia men stand as our first line of armed resistance against government tyranny.”

  “You protect what’s yours,” Desmond said.

  Mr. Hearst leveled a cool eye at him; his gaze flicked behind him to Lij. He downed the second shot of whiskey and slammed the empty glass on the table. “Doesn’t that boy ever speak?”

  “All the time. To me. When he feels safe.” Desmond re-gripped the handle of his cane.

  “I grow weary of these games. Let us get down to the business at hand.”

  “And what business is that?” Cayt asked.

  “I assume the same business that brought you to Abandon, Miss Siringo. Shall I tell you a story?”

  “I do so enjoy a good yarn.”

  “In Jamaica, there was a Maroon leader named Colonel Malcolm Juba. Malcolm the First, he declared hi
mself, a petty tyrant of a man, unreasonable and generally a misanthrope when it comes to business, but no one could say that he lacked vision. Or audacity. Though he ruled his kingdom with a cruel hand, he could not stem the raucous tide of people whose interests collided. None were strong enough to overthrow him, but their constant agitation made his rule troublesome. He constantly had to deal with threats within his kingdom.

  “No outsider could be at all certain about the internal politics of the Jamaican power structure. The Rastafarians had their own factions. Obeahists worked ‘The Science,’ mixing their brand of mysticism and politics. There was even this group of radicals who called themselves the Niyabingi. They fancied themselves secret soldiers who carried out the will of the people. They planned to ride the world of the Colonel and allow the people to remake their government.

  “All of the various interests vied for the power or minds of the people. So Malcolm decided that he needed a symbol, a story to stir the imaginations and unite the hearts of his people. A living idea he could control as well as exploit. If he could not find a symbol, he would make one. He thought back through the history of his people and chose their most personal story. The Rastafarians had a leader, Haile Selassie, the Roaring Lion, who fit the bill. We have to be careful because names have power.” He tried to guess an answer from Lij’s face, but none was forthcoming. “Born Tafari Makonnen, the King of Abyssinia, a messiah descended from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.

  “Malcolm turned to the science of the Age of Reason. From a sample of His Imperial Majesty, his scientists played with cells, the building blocks of life, to create new life in a glass womb. Without mother. Without father. Only Malcolm. The plan was to raise the boy as the returned Haile Selassie, with Malcolm as the man behind the curtain. But he didn’t count on a member of the Niyabingi going off script and taking the boy out of play entirely. Stirred up quite the hornet’s nest.”

  “As you said, people get the government they allow,” Desmond said.

  “I don’t like that story,” Lij whispered in his ear. “And there are a lot of shadows in here.”

  “I noticed.” Desmond had that feeling again of being watched. Stalked. His hunters remained out of sight, though he knew they were there. Like mirages noticed only out of the corners of his eyes.

  “If I may, I’d like to propose a peaceable solution to our little impasse,” Mr. Hearst said with the smugness of a man hiding an ace up his sleeve at the card table. “What if war was declared, everyone showed up, but no one fought? Not Albion, not Jamaica, not Tejas.”

  “Like a standoff?” Desmond frowned skeptically.

  “No winners. Well, except for the people who designed and sold their weapons.”

  “And the people in charge of rebuilding afterwards,” Cayt added.

  “And the gravediggers,” Desmond said. “There is always big business in death.”

  “We are on the cusp of a new age. A technology race to the next breakthrough. He who controls the technology controls the future. And Lij is technology.” Mr. Hearst rested both arms on the table and huddled toward them. He continued in a conspiratorial stage whisper. “I have my agents placed about this room. All of them watching and waiting for my signal.”

  “I know. They’re sloppy. I spotted them when we arrived at the Fountain. I imagine a couple are going through our room as we chat.”

  “You imagine correctly.”

  “What about Cayt?”

  “What makes you think I couldn’t handle myself?” Cayt asked.

  “Oh, I suspect you can. My guess is that you’re a special operative with the Pinkerton Agency,” Desmond said. “And that was your partner Mr. Hearst or the good citizens of Abandon left on display.”

  “I wondered,” Mr. Hearst said. “For whom do you . . . consult?”

  “I wouldn’t be much of a consultant if I just gave up that sort of information, now, would I?” she said.

  “I have my suspicions. Lord Melbourne would have great interest in the secrets the boy carries within him. So, the ways I see it, you ain’t got but a couple of choices. You see, you ain’t as lost as you thought you were. I know you’re here. Lord Melbourne knows you’re here. I’m guessing your own people were on the next airship out of Jamaica and can’t be far behind. So, either you make your deal with the devil of your choosing or you make peace with whatever god you people pray to these days.” Mr. Hearst pushed away from the table slightly, like a man stuffed after a full meal. He surveyed his guests one more time. “I’ll leave you two to discuss your options among yourselves. You can reach me in my suite with your answer.”

  Cayt put her hand on his, halting him. “Before you go, I have a couple of observations.”

  “And what might those be, little lady?” Mr. Hearst asked.

  “The first is strictly conjecture. The name Garrison Hearst carries with it a significant weight. He is a man of note, used to dealing with captains of industry, regents, even royalty. I have trouble believing that he would, in person, have a face-to-face meeting that a low-level aide-de-camp; am I saying that right?” She turned to Desmond, who half-shrugged. “That an aide-de-camp should handle.”

  “Are you saying that I’m not who I represent myself to be?”

  “Oh, I believe who you represent, only that you aren’t him. Second.” She turned to Desmond. “How many do you count?”

  Without missing a beat, Desmond noted the positions of the other patrons and the bartender. “A dozen.”

  “A dozen of your men stand between us and the front door. I have trouble believing that you’re just going to let us walk out of here, no matter what we decide.”

  “How you leave here is entirely up to you.” For the first time, Mr. Hearst’s voice wavered.

  Cayt patted Mr. Hearst down while keeping a friendly smile on her face. “Whether you live longer than the next few minutes so that you can give Mr. Hearst our answer depends on you keeping your hands in plain sight and you remaining all friendly-like.”

  They sat in silence. The moment stretched. Two men blocked the main door. The ones playing poker hadn’t overturned a card in quite a while. It was like they were too bored to keep up the pretense while waiting for a signal. Mr. Hearst’s exit was probably their sign. Now they grew anxious.

  “Do you still have the music box?” Lij asked.

  Mr. Hearst jumped at the sound of the boy’s voice.

  “I sure do, hon.” Cayt retrieved the box and handed it to him. “You can keep it.”

  The opening notes of “Beautiful Dreamer” tinkled from the metal tines as the clockwork gears spun the tiny porcelain dancer.

  “You want him for your employer,” Desmond said.

  “The only thing I want right now is to make it out of this room alive. You saw what they did to my partner.”

  “If they are armed like the last agent who attacked us, their weapons are probably set to stun in order to not to risk hurting the boy.”

  “Mine aren’t,” she said. “Besides, they might be hesitant to fire with their ringleader here with us.”

  “Are you even armed?”

  “A lady never tells. You?”

  “Swords don’t have stun settings.” Desmond slowly turned the handle of his cane and withdrew his blade underneath the table.

  “You seriously brought a sword to a gunfight?”

  “I held out hope that all I’d have to fight tonight was an overdone steak.”

  The weight of a person creeping down the stairwell caused a step above them to creak. With the flick of her wrists, twin modified Colt Mustangs slid into Cayt’s hands along mechanical arm braces hidden by her dangling sleeves. She fired twice above them and a body tumbled over the bannister. Desmond overturned their table.

  “Thirteen, then,” he said.

  The men in the saloon scrambled for cover and began to fire. The air sizzled. Electric pulses from handheld weapons battered the overturned table. Desmond stretched his neck to the left, then to the right, slowly poppi
ng his joints. He glanced from Cayt’s drawn weapons to her eyes. She gazed from his sword back to his eyes. With a nod, they established the barest of truces.

  Cayt dove. Sliding from behind the table, she fired from her side. Two men yelped in response.

  Desmond lunged toward the nearest table. The rude man took cover behind a wooden pole near his table. Desmond leapt at him before he could fire. With his free hand, Desmond took him by the hair and slammed his head into the table. Desmond kept moving. The man who could have been kin to the rude one fumbled in bringing his weapon to bear. Desmond rammed the hilt of his cane into the side of the man’s skull.

  I guess there’s a stun setting after all, he thought.

  Desmond whirled to scoop up Lij and make a break for the door. When he turned, a man clutched the boy to him. His weapon trained at Lij’s head.

  The man started to speak. “Now, you just . . .”

  A weapon fired. The man’s face grew quizzical, as if not understanding what happened. A neat hole perforated his forehead. His eyes rolled skyward and his body dropped where it stood. Desmond turned and nodded. Cayt returned the gesture.

  She leapt and ran along the bar, firing her weapons madly. Yet she hit targets with a preternatural ease. Four more bodies dropped. When she ran out of bullets, Cayt flung the guns as distraction. She laughed wildly as she pounced on several men.

  With Lij in tow behind him, Desmond wasted few movements. A man aimed a shotgun at Desmond’s head. Stepping toward the man, Desmond knocked the weapon to the side like he was blocking a punch. He ran the man through with his blade. There was a wet chuff and the man let loose a soft grunt. Desmond withdrew the blade and moved toward the door.

  Four men in black capes ran into the room to join the two men guarding the door. The ponchos unfurled, revealing the mechanical works of their lower torsos. Gears whirred around a central cavity, which housed a series of electrodes. Electricity arced between them. Kabbalist agents. The men formed a semicircle.

  Cayt tumbled into them like a four-limbed bowling ball. From the corner of his eye, he caught her kicking a man. She sent him headfirst into the corner of the bar. A punch sent another man sprawling. She grabbed a mug from the bar, shattering it against the head of one man, she jammed the handle of what remained into the chest cavity of another.