Kitner turned to see Preacher Mason holding his .45 aimed straight at his face. “I really don’t want to shoot you.” The preacher said, voice shaking.
“Good. I really don’t want to get shot.” Kitner replied. Then in a motion so fast it looked like nothing but a blur, he flicked out his mechanized hand and crushed the pistol in his magically-enhanced grip.
Preacher Mason gaped at the bigger man for a long second, then Kitner brought his other fist around and clobbered Mason to the floor. The preacher landed a few feet away from Tavvy, and Bubba almost swore that he saw her scoot over to get closer to the unconscious man of the cloth.
Bubba struggled to his feet. “I can’t let you leave with that bear bone. I’m sorry, but it don’t belong to you.”
“It not belong to you, either, stupid hillbilly. I have as much claim to artifacts as you.”
“Probably, I just needed another second or two to breathe before I went back to whuppin’ your ass.” Bubba grinned and tackled the other man. They rolled around on the floor scuffling, neither one gaining a significant advantage for several long moments. Finally, Kitner got his clockwork arm wrapped around Bubba’s neck and squeezed. Bubba looked up at the ceiling one last time, then everything went dark.
*****
Bubba woke up on the dirty floor surrounded by pieces of the shattered Dervish with a headache worse than his best night drinkin’. He slowly rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself up into a crawling position. A few seconds’ looking around revealed Tavvy and the Preacher still out cold across the room, and no sign of Kitner. Great. I got my ass kicked, I lost what I came here for, and there ain’t even any ladies of ill repute hanging around laughing at me. This is not shaping up to be a great vacation. Bubba limped over to Tavvy’s prone form and knelt down beside her. A tender look passed over his oft-gruesome visage as he regarded his sister. She looks just like she’s sleeping. Except for the corset. I reckon she don’t sleep in one of them. ‘Course, knowin’ how laced-up Tavvy is, she’s liable to do just that.
He reached out and shook her shoulder gently, then more firmly as she she didn’t stir. His brow knit with worry and he pulled her up into a sitting position. Her eyes fluttered open and she mumbled something. Bubba leaned closer. “What was that, Tavvy, I couldn’t hear you?”
She rolled in his arms like she was fighting through a dream. “Charles . . .” She murmured, a small smile slipping across his lips.
Bubba almost dropped his sister in shock, but managed to catch her before she hit the hard wood floor. The jolt shocked Tavvy the rest of the way awake, and her eyes locked with Bubba’s. “Not. A. Word.” She said, her eyes hard as the cast-iron skillet their Mama had used to beat Bubba’s behind with when he misbehaved.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tavvy. You were just muttering in your sleep there. I couldn’t understand a word of it.” Bubba tried to keep a straight face, but cut his eyes over to Preacher Mason’s unconscious form.
“That’s good, Bubba. Good idea.” Tavvy reached out a hand. “Now help me to my feet. I am uncomfortable and do not relish the thought of being seen in such an undignified posture.”
Bubba pulled her up and she stood there for a moment, brushing dirt and mechanical spider-bits off herself. “Relish? I don’t know about no relish, Tavvy. I don’t think you’re supposed to eat right after you been whopped in the head. And besides, just relish by itself is a little strong don’t you think? We might ought to put it on something, like a good barbecue sandwich. That’s be good, wouldn’t it?”
“Are you trying to kill me, Bubba, or just make me pass out again?” Preacher Mason asked from the floor. He had managed to maneuver into a sitting position and held his head in his hands. Bubba walked over to where a mangled mess of levers, lenses and armatures lay on the ground. He picked it up and brought it back to Tavvy. “I think your helmet’s messed up, Tavvy.”
She snatched the helmet from him and proceeded to attempt to bend it back into some semblance of shape. After a few minutes of beating the demolished hat back into shape, she sighed and dropped it to the floor. “It’s useless. It’s destroyed. Beyond all repair.”
“Well, I got some worse news,” Bubba said. “The Dervish is wrecked, too. I kinda landed on it, and it broke all to hell. Sorry.”
Tavvy looked at the pieces of her shattered creations and slumped down onto a box, her face in her hands. “Well, now what? We can’t find him, and we can’t fight him if we do. How are we supposed to get your relics back, now, Charles?”
Bubba raised an eyebrow at the use of Preacher Mason’s first name, but he kept his mouth shut. Tavvy wasn’t the type to take kindly to her missteps being pointed out, and she’d already had a rough day. So Bubba just nodded and said, “Yeah, Preacher. What’s the plan now? And what kept that Kitner dude from killin’ all of us anyhow? I figured he was gonna choke me to death for sure, then move on to killin’ the rest of y’all.”
“Well, that might have been my little contribution. I used this on him.” Mason reached underneath him and pulled out a thighbone. “This was one of the relics that was not stored with the others. I thought it might become useful. I had no idea exactly how useful. Kitner had choked you unconscious and was about to move on to do Octavia serious harm when I pointed this thighbone at him, and he literally flew away. I don’t know exactly what happened, but somehow the bone called up a gigantic wind that blew Kitner out of the building. Unfortunately, it also blew a lot of the debris around inside the building, and I’m afraid I may have knocked us both unconscious in the process.” The young minister’s cheeks colored a little with his final admission, but he stood up straight looking at the others.
“Well, Preacher, that’s better than I did. I got knocked out and didn’t even manage to run off the bad guy first. So I reckon you did good.” Bubba clapped the smaller man on the shoulder, not noticing the wince of pain that flashed across the preacher’s face.
“Well, now what? We need something that can beat this jerk Kitner. Something that can stand up to his arm. Your thighbone seems to make a pretty good breeze, but Kitner’s got a bunch of these little rocks here stuck in his bear legbone, and got the whole thing wound up together like a steam shovel. Come to think of it, it felt kinda like getting punched with a steam shovel.” Bubba said.
“That’s a great idea, Bubba!” Tavvy said, moving through the room. She knelt several times and picked up the strange silvery stones that had scattered all over the warehouse with the destruction of the mechanized spiders.
“Thanks, Tavvy. What idea?” Bubba sat on a crate and watched his sister collect the rocks without a single clue what she was doing.
“We make a weapon of our own. Something combining the mystical powers of the thighbone with the magical abilities of these sky rocks.” Tavvy waved over to the men. “Well, come one. Are you gonna help me gather these rocks, or are you just going to sit there looking stupid?”
Bubba got to his feet and whispered loudly to the reverend. “If I’ve ever learned anything, Preacher, it’s that she ain’t really asking when she says stuff like that. She really means for me to get off my butt and do whatever she tells me to or I’ll regret it. Now I’ll get these over here, and you get them over yonder.” With all three of them working at it, they had a sizable pile of the sky rocks heaped onto a shipping crate in minutes. The rocks had a silvery sheen to them, shot through with a metallic sheen.
“How do we get this turned into a weapon?” Bubba asked.
Tavvy smiled at him. “I know a man in Atlanta that specializes in unique weaponry. He will be delighted to help us.”
*****
“Not in a million damn years, Octavia! I told you I would never lend assistance, credence or any other -ence to another of your half-baked ideas after the last one burned off my eyebrows! Do you have any idea how long it takes eyebrows to grow back??”
“Now, Gerald,” Tavvy held out her hands to the ranting little man, but he backed away from her an
d slammed the door in her face, leaving her out on the street with Bubba and Preacher Mason hiding their grins behind their hands.
“Well, that didn’t go quite as expected.” Tavvy turned to her brother. “Beauregard, I may require your particular style of persuasion in this matter.”
“You mean punch the little dude ’til he does what I want? That don’t hardly seem sporting, Tavvy.” Bubba held his hand out near waist level. “That little feller ain’t but about yeah high. I land one solid punch I could kill ‘im! And then how would you feel?”
“I meant get him drunk and make him like you.” Tavvy replied primly.
“Oh. I can do that.” Bubba knocked on the door and yelled “Hey little feller! Tavvy says I can get you liquored up to get her way, which means she wants this done something awful and ain’t neither one of us gone get any peace ’til whatever she wants to happen happens, so why don’t you open up, do whatever she tells you to, and I’ll give you this here gallon of apple pie I brought down the mountain with me. I was saving it to burn up a bank robber, but he done gone and crushed my flamespitter, so we might as well get drunk.”
After a few seconds the door opened and the small man came back out into the street. He looked up at Bubba from his full height of maybe four and half feet tall and said “I reckon you’re right, she ain’t gone leave me alone ’til I do it, so I might as well get some liquor for doing what I was gonna do anyway.” He spat in one hand and held it out for Bubba to shake. Bubba’s massive hand engulfed the smaller man’s, but he almost went to his knees with the power of the dwarf’s grip.
“You’re a stout one, ain’t ya?” Bubba said after he had rescued his paw from the vice-like grip of the small man.
“Gerry Harris, blacksmith and weaponscrafter. Pleased to meet ya.” He turned and stumped back into the shop. He was a small man, but solidly built, with the barrel chest and thick forearms of a man that worked hard every day, and had the split knuckles of a man that wasn’t afraid of a fight. Bubba, Preacher Mason and Tavvy followed him into his shop. Bubba and the minister gaped at the sheer volume of weapons hanging from the walls. Every type of sword, axe and hammer one could imagine hung from pegs, while cases filled with ornate pistols and rifles fronted every foot of wall.
Bubba paused before a case holding a pistol the length of his arm. “What do you call this one?” The pistol was a work of art, gold filigree twining around a nickel-plated barrel and pearl handle. It was a revolver, but the cylinder was almost as big around as Bubba’s wrist, so the gun held far more than the normal six shots.
“I call her Beauty. She’s not for sale.” Gerry said without turning around.
“But . . . But . . . But . . .” Bubba’s mouth opened and closed like a large-mouth bass flopped up on the shore.
“Now, what do ye want, lassie?” Gerry stopped in front of a large work table and tied a leather apron around his middle. Then he hopped up onto a step and put both hands on the table. Tavvy motioned to Preacher Mason and he dumped the contents of a small towsack onto the table. The wolf’s thighbone rattled out, followed by several dozen of the small silvery rocks that they had reclaimed from the floor of the warehouse.
“And what might this be, love?” Gerry picked up one of the silvery rocks and examined it from all sides. He even went so far as to bite into the rock, getting noting but a sore tooth in the process.
“I dunno, Ger. I was hoping it would make ore of some type.” Tavvy replied.
“Well, it looks like that might be the case, but let’s take a look.” He grabbed up three of the small rocks and hopped down off his steps. He turned and waddled off into a back room, then stuck his head back through the door. “Well, are y’all coming to the forge or not?”
Bubba and the others hustled single-file through the shop and into the back room of the store, which was really a quite well-appointed forge, complete with chimney and a sluice to bring water in from the rain barrels outside. Gerry already had the chunks of space rock in a mold and shoved into the fire.The space rocks heated to a silvery glow, then the rock released the metal with a hiss and the molten material flowed into the mold. Gerry waved for Tavvy to bring him more rocks, and he added them to the fire. When all the rocks they brought had melted, Bubba leaned over and peered into the fire.
“I ain’t never seen metal do that, have you Gerry?” He pointed into the fire where the metal gave off a blue glow.
“No I haven’t, but I think this might not be a metal I’ve ever worked with before. Now get your giant arse out of me way and let me pour it into this other mold before it hardens.” He nudged Bubba in the gut with an elbow, and the bigger man got out of the way.
“What am I supposed to be making, Tavvy-love?” Gerry asked over one shoulder.
“Well, I thought you could use the ore from the space rocks to make a sword, and use this for a hilt.” She gestured with the thighbone.
“Don’t you think you should ask that bone’s owner if he wants it to be made into a sword?” A new voice came from behind them, and they turned to see a man in leathers standing in the doorway. He was dark-skinned, with long dark hair braided over his shoulders. He wore a six-gun on one hip and a long knife on the other. He was a young man, barely thirty, but his eyes hinted at long years and wisdom in the ways of fighting.
“You snuck up on us, partner.” Bubba said, his voice low and serious. He stepped in front of Tavvy and put a hand on his own six-gun.
“The door was open. I apologize if I startled you.” The man replied.
“You speak pretty good for an Indian.” Bubba said.
“Thank you. I studied in your schools after white men moved into our land and ran most of my family off. But that’s not what I’m here for. I’m here for that.” He pointed to the thighbone in Tavvy’s hand. “I heard there were relics of my people being used as weapons in Atlanta, and I am here to put a stop to it.”
“That’s what we’re doing, friend. We’re gonna make a sword to kick that dude Kitner’s ass.” Bubba said with a grin.
“You are making a weapon to destroy a weapon. That always works.” Bubba’s grin fell with the Indian’s words. “Stupid white men. Give me my people’s totem and let me leave you. I believe there were three here.” He held out his hand.
“I’m sorry, Mr.—“ Preacher Mason said.
“Smith. Jacob Smith.” The man stepped in and held out his hand.
The preacher shook his hand. “I’m Reverend Charles Mason, and I was given the task of keeping these relics safe.”
“They will be no safer than with their rightful owners. I am the last medicine man of the Creek in this area, so they should be in my care. There were four items holy to our people — the foreleg of a black bear, which allows us union with the earth and brings us prosperous crops. There was the skull of an otter, which brings us closer to the water and helps us to fish. I hold the jawbone of a mountain lion, which howls with the spirit of the air and calls down lightning, and that is the thighbone of a wolf, which channels the spirit of fire and purifies the bearer against harm.”
“I’m sure that what you say is true, Mr. Smith —“
“How come you’re called Jacob Smith and not Running Bear or something?” Bubba asked. Tavvy took a moment to kick him, but Jacob smiled indulgently, as one would with a small child.
“When I was taken from my people, I was but an infant. I had not yet been given a name, so the white family that adopted me gave me their name. They named me Jacob, after the man who became my father.”
“They adopted you?” Preacher Mason said. His eyebrows were high on his forehead in surprise.
“Yes.” The Indian said. “When my people were forced to leave their land, the medicine man of my tribe told my parents that I had greater work to do here, so they wrapped me in blankets with the bones of the spirits and left me on the Smith’s doorstep. They did not know what to do with the bones, so they gave them to the church, afraid they were some kind of evil magic. They only kept the jawbone bec
ause I was teething, and it soothed me to gnaw on it.”
“That’s a little nasty, Mr. Smith. Letting a baby chew on a mountain lion’s jawbone. No offense meant, of course.” Bubba blurted. Tavvy took the opportunity to kick him again.
Jacob laughed. “Yes, large white man, it is not the cleanest thing in the world, but if it is a choice between a screaming baby and a baby with a nasty bone in its mouth . . .”
Bubba laughed and reached over to clap the man on the shoulder. “Yep, I’m gonna let that little anklebiter chew on anything it wants to!”
Jacob’s face turned somber. “But now this man Kitner has stolen the relics of my people. It was bad enough that the white church had them, but at least they had sense to keep them locked away where they could not be used for evil purposes. Kitner has no such restraint. I am afraid that if we do not stop him soon, he will do something very bad.”
“Yeah, like murder the owners of the Southern Atlantic Railroad.” Tavvy said. “I remember him saying something about that before he . . . “
“Beat our asses, little sister?” Bubba asked.
“I would never have used such coarse language, but yes, my imbecile brother is correct.” Tavvy replied.
“Well, what’s the plan, Tavvy?” Bubba asked. “We don’t know where he went, we got nothing but half a sword to fight him with, and a grumpy Indian that wants his bone back.”
Gerry chimed in from the forge, where he had been hammering the metal as they talked. “Well, if he’s after the railroad men, then he’ll be at the Fox Theatre tonight. They’re showing one of them newfangled moving pictures about the railroad pushing west across to the other side of the country, and all the Southern Atlantic bigwigs are supposed to be there.”
Grits, Guns & Glory - Bubba the Monster Hunter Season 2 Page 38