Better Off Dead Page 7

  The darkness parted and Maria Cantrell stepped to Shawn’s side, the Winchester in her hands. “Are you all right, Shawn? Are you wounded?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Are they . . . ?”

  “Yeah, they’re dead. Jed Rose and Hank Locket, the one they called the El Reno Kid. They had sand, both of them.”

  “I think they were the men who killed old Crop Hermon,” Maria said.

  Shawn nodded. “I reckon they were the ones all right. Maria, tomorrow I want to drop off a note at the Abaddon foundry. You’ll need to go in your old lady disguise.”

  “We need coffee and some other things. I’ll do it then.”

  “Be careful.”

  The woman’s beautiful eyes lifted to Shawn’s face. “Tell me, is my brother still alive? Is all this for nothing?”

  Shawn shook his head. “I don’t know, Maria. I just don’t know.”

  “I’ll help you get back to camp.” She stared at him. “What are you thinking? I can see something in your face.”

  Shawn’s smile was slight. “It was a wish, is all . . . a wish that my brother Jake was here. I could sure use his help.”

  “Maybe he’ll come, Shawn. Stranger things have happened and Jacob is such an odd man to begin with.”

  Shawn’s smile grew. “My feeling is that he’s gone from Dromore and is holed up in a monastery someplace, maybe in Tibet.”

  “I loved him once, and I think he loved me, but one morning he had to flee from his demons and he just saddled up and left.” She nodded. “Yes, he could be in Tibet, a place at the edge of the world where he has nowhere else to run.”

  “You can run in this direction anytime, Jake,” Shawn said, staring into the night. He shook his head. “Listen to me. I’ve lost so much blood in the last few days I’m getting downright silly.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Both of them dead?” Caleb Perry cried.

  “Yeah, shot dead. And a horse,” Valentine Kilcoyn said.

  Perry slammed his fist onto the desk in frustration. “Hell, I don’t have time to deal with this right now. I have twenty steam frigates to build and at the same time maintain cannon production. Damn it, who killed them?”

  “As of this time, I don’t know, Mr. Perry. Rose and the El Reno Kid were the best shootists in Texas or anywhere else for that matter. We’re dealing with a gun here and I don’t know who the hell he is or where he comes from.”

  “Then we must find him, Mr. Kilcoyn. Find him and kill him. But not right now. I need all my foremen right here at the foundry. Once the first full-sized frigate is launched, maybe then. What about the man and woman I sent Rose to exterminate? Could they have been the ones that killed him and the Kid?”

  “You heard what Egbert Killick told us. The woman was dressed like a saloon girl and the man looked like a down-on-his-luck snake-oil salesman. They didn’t outgun Jed Rose and the El Reno Kid. Not a chance in hell.”

  “Maybe it was a private quarrel,” Perry said. “Maybe someone we don’t even know ran into them on the trail and settled an old grievance.”

  “I don’t think that’s likely. Those two were our best with the iron,” Kilcoyn said. “We need to find their killer. The man is dangerous.”

  “Yes, yes, but later. Let me see that damn note again.”

  Kilcoyn dropped the scrap of paper on the desk and Perry read it.

  “It tells me nothing,” Perry whined. “Anybody in town could have written this.” He thumped his desk again. “Who delivered the note?”

  “Some old woman. She says a black man paid her a dollar to deliver it.”

  “A black man?”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “I can’t believe a black man killed Rose and the Kid. Maybe he works for somebody. Hey, what about that O’Brien fellow, the one they call the Town Tamer? They say he’s fast with the Colt.”

  Kilcoyn’s lips curled into a contemptuous smile. “Him? He was nothing. Blaine Keeners kicked his ribs in and then put the crawl on him. He’s long gone.”

  “Blaine Keeners?” Perry asked.

  “Junior foreman. A good man,” Kilcoyn said.

  “How is he with the laborers?”

  “He’s killed a couple slackers and sent a few of the sickly up the chimney.”

  “Good. Promote him and send him to the airship construction bay.”

  “I already have a foreman there. New feller by the name of Buck Ross. He’ll work out after he gets over his shyness.”

  “We can always use another foreman and he can help the new man figure things out.”

  “I’ll get it done,” Kilcoyn said. “What about Rose and the Kid?”

  “Set that investigation aside for now, Mr. Kilcoyn. Our main purpose is to build the steam frigates and that takes priority over all else. Do you understand?”

  Kilcoyn nodded. “I understand.”

  “Good man. Now be about your business and let me be about mine.”

  * * *

  Maria Cantrell stood on the boardwalk in her guise as a little old lady, a shopping basket over her arm, and watched a door swing open at the side of the Abaddon foundry. A moment later, a powerful steam horseless carriage roared outside and took the road through town, its attendant dust cloud trailing behind the back wheels.

  A stocky man with iron gray hair sat in the backseat beside a woman Maria knew, the hard-bitten little blonde Lizzie Skates. In contrast to Maria’s shabby dress and moth-eaten shawl, Lizzie wore a dark blue corset, buckled as tight as the bark on a bois d’arc tree, that left her shoulders and the top of her breasts bare. She flashed her legs in fishnet tights under a flimsy taffeta skirt that barely covered her thighs. Both she and Caleb Perry sported cloth caps and goggles and between them a magnum of champagne cooled in a silver ice bucket.

  Perry’s driver showed his usual reckless disdain for pedestrian traffic as the carriage, belching smoke, hurtled at a high rate of speed along Main Street. Maria watched the steam car until it was lost in distance and dust. She felt a great sense of disappointment. If only . . . if only she’d been carrying a revolver, she could have shot Perry and ended the horrible business and perhaps seen Manuel walk out of the foundry a free man.

  Maria Cantrell made a vow. Never again would she tread the boardwalks of Big Buck without a gun.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The young stoker shrank back from Jacob O’Brien in terror, his thin body trembling.

  Jacob tried again. “Es el nombre de Manuel?”

  Raising his shovel like a shield, the man shook his head. His black eyes were huge, fearful, uncertain. A moment later, the young Mexican lay on his back among the coke, felled by a powerful blow to the side of his head.

  Anstruther Breens lowered his meaty fist and glared at Jacob. “You don’t talk to these people. If they’re slow to carry out your orders, hit them. If they’re still slow, kill them.”

  Fighting down his anger, Jacob couldn’t blow his cover, not yet. “I’m new here. I haven’t learned the ropes yet.”

  “What’s your name, mister?” Breens said.

  “Buck Ross.”

  “Yeah, Val mentioned you. You’ll be working in the air frigate bay.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well shape up, Ross, or you won’t be working anywhere.” Breens prodded the young Mexican with his toe. “Get that one back to work and keep your conversations for the bar girls. Understand me?”

  Jacob nodded. “I’ll remember. I don’t forget easily.”

  Breens gave him a slightly puzzled look then said, “See you do remember.” He walked away, his muscular body highlighted by the demonic crimson glare of the furnace.

  Jacob helped the felled man to his feet. The right side of his skeletal face was badly bruised and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Without a word or a glance at Jacob, he went back to work, shoveling coke into the roaring furnace. Overhead, a conveyor belt of finished cannons headed for the loading bay. They were long and enormou
sly heavy and moved with the slowness of a funeral procession.

  As Jacob turned to walk away, a small, bald man carrying an oilcan walked past him. Out of the corner of his mouth, he said, “Try workers’ canteen. Carry bread.” And then he was gone.

  * * *

  “You’re new here, huh?” The young mechanic’s goggles were perched on his forehead and like Jacob, he wore a watch on a chain around his neck.

  “Yeah. Name’s Buck Ross. I just got in today.”

  The mechanic stuck out his hand. “Pleased to meet you. My name is Garrett Mallard. I work on the foundry’s steam engines.” He smiled. “Those things with the huge gears and drive wheels.”

  “I’ve seen a few of those today,” Jacob said. “I’d thought I’d stop in for a cup of coffee.”

  “Coffee and meals are available here twenty-four hours a day. Day or night, you can order a steak and eggs, chops, stew, whatever takes your fancy. The coffee is down this way.” Mallard led Jacob past rows of tables and benches to a counter where half a dozen men dressed like Le Cordon Bleu chefs worked on various stages of food preparation. “These boys have a lot of hungry men to feed. They seem to work nonstop around the clock.”

  A blackened coffeepot about the size of a rum keg hung on a post from the ceiling and was hinged so that it was able to tilt by means of a handle at its back. Mallard held a cup to the spout, tilted the pot, and filled Jacob’s cup. “All the comforts of home. Enjoy.”

  Jacob looked around him. A dozen men sat at various tables, eating. A few others nursed coffee. All wore bowler hats with goggles above the brim that marked them as foremen or mechanics. A woman wearing a frilly dress, thigh-high boots, and a top hat let out a brassy laugh at everything a foreman said. She wore a black patch over her left eye that was decorated with a scorpion picked out in rhinestones. The counter where the chefs worked was loaded with deep trays of various dishes kept hot by spirit lamps. Between them were baskets heaped with bread rolls. After the fire and brimstone stench of the foundry floor, the canteen smelled like a fine Boston or New York restaurant.

  “Do the workers eat here?” Jacob managed to make his voice sound like his next sentence would be, Perish the thought.

  “The trolls, you mean?” Mallard smiled. “That’s what we call them. No, they have their own place. Come, I’ll show you. Bring your coffee.”

  “Let me grab a bread roll,” Jacob said. “I feel the need of a snack.”

  “Help yourself. We go this way.” Mallard led the way out of the canteen and along a lit passageway that led to one of the outbuildings. He made a turn into a narrow corridor with doors opening to the right and left. He chose the one on the left and Jacob followed him into a dingy, dark room that stank of man sweat and boiled cabbage. The room was larger than the foremen’s canteen but lit only by scattered lamps that cast shadows everywhere. At one end of the room was a counter where a young, dark-eyed man stood stirring a large cauldron of what seemed to be soup.

  “This is also the troll sleeping quarters. As you can see, they sleep anywhere they can, wallowing in their own filth. Lord, but greasers are disgusting people.” Mallard led the way to the counter. “What’s the soup today?” he asked the dark-eyed man. It was a rule at Abaddon that any man wearing a hat had to doff it to a superior with the rank of foreman or mechanic and above. The cook wore a round hat that he removed before he said, “What it is every day, soup made from the leftovers from the foremen’s canteen.”

  “Good, good.” Mallard sniffed the steaming vessel. “Ah, I can detect pork in the mix.”

  “The pork was added last week,” the cook said. “When it was already rotten.”

  But Mallard wasn’t listening. “Good, excellent. Well carry on. You’ve got a lot of hungry men to feed.”

  “I have a lot of dying men to feed,” the young man said.

  If that remark had been made to a foreman, the young cook would have been soundly beaten for impertinence. But the mechanic let it go.

  “Health through hard work is the key.” Mallard turned to Jacob. “If you want to poke around the trolls, can you find your own way out? My shift starts in”—he consulted his watch—“five minutes. I have to go.”

  “Sure, I’ll manage,” Jacob said. “I’ll see you later.”

  Big as it was, there must have been a hundred men jammed into the place, sleeping on every tabletop and corner. The smell was almost unbearable.

  After Mallard left, Jacob took the bread roll from his pocket and laid it in front of the black-eyed man. “For God’s sake, put your hat back on your head.”

  The man did.

  “Now, eat the bread I brought you.”

  The young man wolfed the roll and then carefully picked up crumbs from the counter and fingered them into his mouth.

  “What’s your name?” Jacob asked.

  “In this place, there are no names, only numbers.”

  “Is it Manuel?”

  When the young man looked surprised, Jacob, looking equally surprised, said, “Are you Manuel Cantrell?”

  “Yes. But how did you—”

  “Maria is here in Big Buck. She asked me to find you.”

  “Is my sister well?”

  “I reckon so. Worried, but well.”

  “And you are?”

  “Just call me Buck Ross. The man who plans to get you out of here.”

  “The only way out of here is up the chimney. A few tried to escape, but all were caught and thrown alive into a furnace. Now, nobody attempts to break out of Abaddon. It would be easier for the damned to storm the gates of hell.”

  “I’ll find a way to do it and keep both our skins intact,” Jacob said. “Now listen up, this is important, Manuel—”

  “Don Manuel. If you please.”

  Jacob might have been irritated, but allowances had to be made in the man’s case and he merely smiled and nodded. “Don Manuel it is. If a foreman asks if you’ve had any experience shooting cannons, you tell him that you have. Understand?”

  “What you said is easy to understand, but why tell him I’ve shot off cannons?”

  “Because I want to get you into the flying machine building bay where I’ll be one of the foremen. The ships are to be armed with cannons and they’ll need men to test fire them. You’ll be one of the cannoneers.”

  “I don’t know how to fire a cannon,” Manuel said, his dark eyes sunken in his pale, starved face.

  “It’s easy. You put in a charge of gunpowder and a ball and then touch off the fuse. You learned how to do it in the Mexican army. Savvy?”

  “If anyone asks me, I’ll tell him that.” Manuel nodded, but still looked uncertain.

  “You may have to volunteer. But the chances are they’ll come round asking for men with artillery experience. And you have it in spades, Don Manuel. You got that?”

  The Mexican nodded again. He seemed less unsure.

  “It will work out all right, don’t worry,” Jacob said.

  Manuel managed a smile. “Look around you, Buck. If it doesn’t work out, what do I have to lose?”

  The obvious answer was Not a damned thing, but Jacob didn’t say it.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  A week passed. With the amazing resilience of Western men, Shawn O’Brien began to recover. The swelling left his face and when he shaved off a seven-day growth of beard and trimmed his mustache, Maria Cantrell declared him, “The handsomest man in Texas.”

  He grinned. “West Texas maybe?”

  “No, all of Texas.”

  “Don’t let Jake hear you say that, Maria.”

  “Jacob is many things, both good and bad, but one thing he is not is handsome.”

  “He favors our pa’s side of the family,” Shawn said.

  Maria smiled. “That, I will not touch.”

  Shawn didn’t answer as his eyes reached out to distance. “Hamp coming in at a gallop.”

  Sedley drew rein and dismounted into a cloud of following dust. As he brushed his hands over his coat, he
said, “Posse on the way, Shawn. Them boys are looking for somebody and it could be us.”

  “Let them come. We haven’t broken any laws.”

  “The only laws around these parts are Abaddon’s laws and we’ve broken plenty of them.”

  Shawn buckled on a dead man’s gun belt and holstered Colt, his attention directed to the approaching dust cloud. At least six riders, maybe more. Maria Cantrell stepped beside him, the Winchester in her hands. She was dressed for war in a red and black laced-up corset, a mid-thigh red skirt, and black knee boots fastened along the outside with a row of seven silver buckles.

  Despite the imminent danger, Shawn was amused. “How many clothes do you have in that trunk of yours?”

  “A lady knows how to pack, and corsets don’t take up much room. That is, if the lady’s waist is slender like mine.”

  Sedley grinned. “I’m about to get hung, but I still think you look wonderful.”

  “I have another ten trunks of clothes back in Mexico, Hamp.” Maria’s black eyes stared right ahead of her. “Let’s hope I get a chance to wear them.”

  Shawn took a step in front of the others as the posse swung into sight and halted about ten yards away. Mayor John Deakins, in a tan duster and top hat with goggles above the brim, was in the lead.

  “What can we do for you, Mayor?” Shawn’s eyes moved along the line of horsemen and stopped at the smirking towhead who’d taken a shot at him outside the Abaddon foundry. He wore Shawn’s gun belt and ivory-handled Colt and had made no attempt to cover the rig with his slicker.

  “I’m hearing bad things, Mr. O’Brien,” Deakins said. “Not half a mile from here two men were killed in the dead of night and no one to answer for it. Would you know who was responsible?”

  “Who sent you, Deakins? The owner of the Abaddon foundry?” Shawn asked.

  “That’s neither here nor there,” the mayor offered. “The culprit or culprits must be found.”

  The towhead smirked. “Enough damn talk. We know it was these three that done it. The hanging tree is right there”—he pointed—“I say we string them up and have done.” He looked around him. “Are you with me, boys?”