Blood Riders (8 page)

“Sir! No, sir, we’ve got to get into that orchard sir, come on now. The lieutenant is dead, sir, you need to rally the men.” It was a grizzled sergeant named Dawson, from B Company, who had stopped him.

The next hour was lost in Hollister’s mind. He vaguely remembered following Dawson into the orchard. His officers had finally understood what he was asking and had rallied the men through the trees until they reached the south end of the village and the advancing Union line. Custer had routed the Confederates out of the town, just as he predicted, but the general’s actions had driven the Rebs right into Hollister’s regiment, where his men had been chewed up like beef in a meat grinder.

When the buzz of the fight subsided, Hollister returned to the fencerow. It was littered with dead and dying rebels and the medical corpsman had gathered the bodies of his men who had fallen. Thirty-seven bodies were lined in the shade covered by blankets. Hollister sat on his horse staring at the corpses, feeling the anger grow; a small nugget of fire in the center of his chest. No one approached him, asked him for orders, or bothered him. The look on his face was a warning for everyone to stay away. After a while he turned his horse and rode hard for the Union camp.

A half hour later he arrived at General Sheridan’s camp. He could hear the sound of celebration coming from the large campaign tent. He handed the reins to a young private guarding the horses and entered the tent. The noise dimmed as the buzzing in his ears became louder. The edges of his vision turned red, and small arcs of light traveled across his eyes like a summer thunderstorm.

Custer sat at the end of a table, his hat off, revealing his long blond hair tangled with the yellow silk scarf about his neck. He was leaning back in his chair with his legs crossed while vanity oozed from his pores.

He heard the clump of Hollister’s boots behind him, and turned just in time to see the first blow coming. It staggered him and he slumped to the ground, landing awkwardly on his ass. Hollister kicked the chair out of the way and leapt on the prone man.

“You arrogant son of a bitch,” Jonas shouted, and landed another punch on the point of Custer’s chin. His arm was cocked for another swing, but it never landed because someone grabbed him, and he felt himself being lifted to his feet. Custer lay on the ground stunned, blood seeping from his mouth and a cut on his chin.

“Fucking bastard . . . you no-good prick!” Hollister shouted.

“Colonel Hollister!” Jonas came out of his rage at the sound of General Sheridan’s voice. He didn’t recognize the officers holding him by the arms but the general stood between him and Custer, who still lay on the ground.

“Jesus Christ, Hollister,” the general said. “Are you going to take a swing at me, Colonel?” Jonas’s breath came in ragged gasps but he shook his head.

“Then let him go,” the general said. “Good God, man. What the hell have you done?” Sheridan examined the prone body of Custer on the floor of his tent. He nudged him with the toe of his boot. Sheridan was a short man, no taller than five and a half feet, hence his nickname “Little Phil.” He was as cocky as a rooster and his voice had always sounded how Hollister thought God’s would sound, deep and resonant with just the slightest trace of an Irish brogue. “Sergeant! Get the general to the surgeon. Move it!”

Hollister stood stock still, all the fight gone out of him. He knew he was in trouble, but he didn’t care. All he could see was poor Mac, lying on the ground, his face caved in where the bullet had struck him. A sergeant and two privates entered the tent and lifted Custer from the ground. Hollister didn’t know it then, but that was the last time he would ever see the man.

Finally he was alone with General Sheridan. Little Phil stood with his back to Jonas, massaging his temples.

“Jesus Christ, Jonas! What the hell was this all about?” Hollister stood silent. Sheridan waited for him to speak, finally spinning on his heel and confronting him. “God damn it, Colonel, you’ve got one chance here. You better tell me what happened in the next sixty seconds, or so help me God, I’ll see you shot!”

Hollister instinctively came to attention. He threw his shoulders back and kept his arms straight at his sides.

“Sir! I was ordered by General Custer to the south of the orchard to attack the rebels from the rear . . . I . . . ”

“You what?” Sheridan stared hard at him, then the realization of what Custer had done washed over him. He sagged, and started pacing again. “God damn him, those weren’t my orders, I
specifically
told him not to divide his command! The yellow-haired bastard . . .” Sheridan began stalking back and forth. The general was a profane man, and also a bigot and a racist. None of those facts affected his ability as a brilliant cavalry commander.

“What happened?” he asked.

“We were overrun. I only had one regiment and there were at least four thousand rebels on the retreat. I lost thirty-seven of my men, General. Including Lieutenant McAndrews, sir . . .”

“Aw shit, not McAndrews! Kid was going to be something special,” Sheridan interrupted. Hollister went on.

“Sir, I pleaded with General Custer not to split the troops, but he assured me you had given the order.”

“That vainglorious sonuvabitch. Good Christ, Hollister . . .” General Sheridan’s face was a light shade of purple. “You should have come to me,” he muttered. Knowing full well Hollister had not had the time, nor would Custer have allowed him any such action. He would have viewed Hollister seeking confirmation of Sheridan’s orders as an affront to his command.

“Yes, sir,” Hollister said. It was the only answer he could give. This would be made out to be his fault, he was sure. He saw his mistake in physically attacking Custer. If he’d gone through the right channels, gotten Custer’s order on the record, he might have gotten somewhere. Now he was headed for a court-martial at least, a firing squad at worst. And if Sheridan didn’t have him thrown in the stockade, he would have to watch his back now for as long as Custer remained in the army. He wouldn’t let Hollister get away with this, no matter what the official outcome.

Sheridan didn’t say anything else for several minutes. Hollister thought the next words out of his mouth would be an order to surrender himself to custody.

“All right. I’ll deal with Custer. The thing is, Colonel Hollister, I can’t court-martial him or you. I believe you, Jonas. But this story can’t get out, or all of us will be fucked once Sam gets word.” Sam was General Grant, commander of the Army of the Potomac. “Sam can’t stand Custer and he only barely tolerates me because I win, the drunken bastard.”

“I know the skinny, shit-eating little prick wanted to be the one to chase the rebels out of the town and cut them up in the orchard so he could be the hero. And he put your men in the shitter along the way. He’s a pompous son of a bitch and we both know it. But he’s winning his fights. He’s all over the papers, and as much as Sam hates his guts, he likes the good publicity. Grant has the personality of a horse turd and can’t stand talking to the press. So he’s happy to have someone like that cocksucker Custer woo the reporters. If he’s court-martialed the press will crucify us.” Sheridan ran his hands through his salt-and-pepper hair in frustration. “Jesus Christ, man.”

“So that’s it, sir, he gets my men killed and that’s it? He gets away with it?” Hollister felt the anger welling inside him again.

“Grow the hell up, Colonel. That’s not it, and you goddamned well know it. Are you right? Yes of course, god damn it. But you’re going to take it. Go back to your regiment. See to your men and you leave Custer to me. I’m going to bust you but there won’t be a court-martial. Consider yourself one lucky bastard. Now get your sorry ass out of my sight. Report here at oh five hundred for staff meeting and orders.”

Hollister stood still, seething. He was about to open his mouth.

“Don’t you say a goddamn word to me, Colonel! Get out of my sight or swear to fucking God I’ll shoot you myself!” Sheridan put his hand on his sidearm for emphasis and dismissed Hollister with a wave, returning to his desk.

As mad as he was, he also realized he was lucky. He knew Sheridan thought highly of him, but he had no indication that the General held him in such regard. He was about to voice his thanks, when Little Phil interrupted him, turning back from his seat.

“So help me God, if you open your mouth you’ll be digging latrines until this war is over. Do you understand me? I want you gone, and I mean now.”

“Yes, sir,” said Hollister saluting smartly as he left the tent. He worked things over in his mind. The word of the dust-up spread through the camp like the clap. Men whispered and pointed at him as he walked back to his horse. He met no one’s gaze. Some of the men here were firmly in Custer’s corner and wouldn’t hesitate to give him a thrashing if he provoked them. Others knew Custer was dangerous. And as far as they were concerned, his beating had come far too late.

The next day Custer was absent from the staff meeting. Word had worked its way back to Hollister that the yellow-haired general had been unconscious for hours with a broken jaw. When the officers convened at Sheridan’s tent the next morning, no one mentioned the missing general, and Sheridan was his usual brusque self. Hollister had spent the evening writing letters to the families of the men who had died the day before, but as had happened before and would happen again before the war was over, he found there was little time to grieve. Orders were delivered, the battle plan discussed, and they were dismissed. The fight was forgotten for the time being. There was another battle ahead of them and it required complete focus.

The following week, Hollister was transferred to the 4
th
U.S. Cavalry. The 4
th
was regular army and kept him out of Custer’s orbit, and a little less than a year later, the war was over.

Custer secured his notoriety for chasing Lee to Appomattox Courthouse from the west. He never spoke to Hollister again. Jonas had narrowly avoided a career-killing mistake.

The army shrank rapidly with the war’s end. Hollister reenlisted and stayed in the 4
th
. He had no intention of going home. Like most officers who stayed in the regular army after the war, he was reduced in rank to lieutenant and posted first at Fort Laramie. Sheridan was put in charge of the Indian wars and he made sure to keep Hollister away from Custer when it came to assignments. And then came that morning on the plains in Wyoming, where everything went wrong. There were times, as he wrote to everyone he knew during the first year inside Leavenworth, when he was certain his thrashing of Custer had kept some in the army from coming to his defense.

A sharp blast of the train whistle brought Hollister back to the present. He wondered if he would get used to the rickety motion of the car and be able to sleep. The events of the day still tumbled around in his mind like autumn leaves caught in a whirlwind. He had gone from digging holes in Leavenworth to being on his way west on a special assignment in a matter of hours. Then there were Pinkerton and his friend Van Helsing. What odd men they were. And he had dragged Chee along not knowing he came complete with a goddamn giant dog. It was a lot to grasp and he could only think of one thing to say before sleep over took him.

“Huh.”

Chapter Twelve

H
ollister had slept in his clothes, which only contributed to his disoriented feeling when he opened his eyes the next morning. Waking up in a new place was something he hadn’t experienced in four years. There was a broad selection of outfits hanging on his cabin wall, much as Chee had found in his quarters, but he left them there and wandered out to the main car and found Pinkerton and Chee seated at a wooden table that appeared to open up out of the floor. The two of them were eating breakfast and another man Hollister didn’t know was spooning eggs out of a skillet onto a plate.

“Ah! Good morning, Major,” Pinkerton said. “Did you sleep well?”

“All right, I guess,” Hollister muttered.

“Have a seat. Dr. Van Helsing will join us shortly. In the meantime, Monkey Pete here is a fantastic cook. You’ll be willing to kill for a cup of his coffee before too long.”

Hollister studied the man with the skillet. He was short and skinny, like he hadn’t had food in weeks or months. Jonas bet he wouldn’t top 130 pounds even if he were holding a ten-pound sack of flour. His shirt was rolled up and his forearms were thick and roped with muscle. A curious expression looked as if it had taken up permanent residence on his face, which was covered with a thick brown beard. Dark eyes peered through a pair of glasses perched on the end of a twisted nose, which looked as if it had been broken repeatedly. He noticeably limped around the table to shake Hollister’s hand, presenting one with twisted and broken fingers. Whoever this Monkey Pete was, he’d been through a couple different kinds of hell. His grip was strong though, and Hollister was amazed at the amount of strength on such a thin frame.

Hollister wondered about his broken-up fingers and hands. At West Point, cadets had been drilled in basic hand-to-hand combat, taught by a Master Sergeant Woodson, who had lost a leg in the Mexican War and could still whip every cadet on the campus. He had taught his students three things. First, anyone you meet in any situation is a potential enemy. Second, look at your opponent’s eyes. They will advise you of a man’s intentions if you learn to read them. And third, look at the hands. If somebody has cut up, scarred, twisted, or broken fingers you are probably in for a tussle. Hands get in that kind of shape from hard living, which usually includes throwing a punch or two. Hollister had never forgotten the lessons. He had studied Pinkerton’s eyes and hands, and the detective’s words and actions had since convinced Hollister that he was no one to be trifled with. Hollister wondered how this Monkey Pete had come to have his hands in such shape. He was sure there were some stories behind it.

“Pleased to meet you, Major,” he said.

“Monkey Pete?” Hollister asked.

“Yes, sir. Served in the artillery during the war. General Hunt gave me the name, after Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. Said I was crawling back and forth over them Howitzers like a monkey. ‘Monkey Pete’ he said. It stuck.”

“And how’d you find yourself on this train, Monkey Pete,” Hollister took a swig of the coffee and had to admit it was pretty good.

“Well, fact is, I like to tinker. Got a job with the railroad after the war. Trains get robbed now and then and I’ve run into Mr. Pinkerton here a few times. First time we met he thought I was the one done the robbin’.” Monkey Pete paused and laughed. It was a low-pitched snorting sound and Hollister thought it sounded more like a rutting hog. Mr. Pinkerton just shrugged. “Anyway, I like messin’ with engines and mechanical things and whatnot, and Mr. Pinkerton here heard about my ideas during one of our conversations. He liked ’em. Asked me to put ’em on paper and finally one day, come to get me to work for him and get one a my designs built. Once this here engine and cars got built, I figured no one else knew how to run it as good as me, so I stayed on,” he said.

Hollister looked at Pinkerton. “What’s so special about this train?”

“Finish your breakfast first, then we’ll take the full tour. I think you’ll find it interesting,” Pinkerton said. He said no more and busied himself reading from a sheaf of papers he held in one hand, eating with his other.

Hollister looked at Chee but the young soldier bent to his meal, his expression revealing nothing. Hollister wondered if Chee was ever scared or happy; he doubted the kid’s expression even changed when he had been thrown into the box.
Must remember never to play poker with the sergeant,
Hollister thought.

They finished eating, with no sign of Van Helsing. Monkey Pete cleared the dishes and Hollister watched as he first wiped down and then folded and collapsed the table and chairs and slid them neatly into a compartment in the floor.

“Come with me, gentlemen. Monkey Pete, lead the way,” Pinkerton said. They followed the engineer outside. The train was stopped on a track siding.

“Last night we stopped in Lawrence to add the rest of the cars,” Monkey Pete said. Hollister was surprised he had slept through it. But he had gone to sleep in a real bed for the first time in four years and probably could have slept through the First Battle of Bull Run.

“We picked us up a coal car, a guest car, a car for the horses. The one there with no windows and doors is the armory, don’t want no one breaking in and taking all our nice weapons. The one behind the coal car, well, I call it my gadget car. Where I tinker on some o’ my designs,” he said.

As they walked along the side of the train, they finally reached the engine.

“I’ve never seen an engine that looks like this,” Hollister said studying it from top to bottom.

“I’m certain you’ll find the engine to be a great advantage,” Pinkerton said. “It’s a technical marvel really, and Monkey Pete has even developed a way to transfer ballast on the train so that you can run nearly as fast backwards as forwards. Sometimes there won’t be a turntable for locomotives available so it’s a very useful feature.”

Chee and Hollister had no idea what Pinkerton was talking about, but nodded as if they did.

“I know I’ve been away awhile, but this engine seems . . . I don’t know how to describe it . . .” Hollister mumbled, his eyes locked on the contraption.

“Monkey Pete has made quite a few other improvements to the standard steam engine. First, it’s armored. It might not stand up to a continuous assault from a cannon, but rifle or small-arms fire won’t hit vital systems and stop it. The engine has been modified—those baffles over the release valves are made of solid steel. They’re honeycombed inside so that the pressure is released, but the steam is recaptured and the water vapor is returned to the engine,” Pinkerton said with a note of awe in his voice. “You understand what that means, don’t you, Major?”

“Of course,” Hollister said, nodding. “No. sir. I have no idea what it means. Do you, Sergeant?” He looked at Chee, begging him for help.

“Um . . . I . . . think it . . . must make the train go faster, sir,” Chee stammered.

Monkey Pete sighed. “It ain’t got nothing to do with speed, Major, it captures the water vapor from the steam so’s we don’t have to fill the boiler up as often. Improves the range of the train by hundreds of miles!”

Jonas realized he’d never seen a man in love with a train before. The next hour was spent combing over the features of the remarkable machine. Pinkerton was adamant that they know every capability of the vehicle as he had spent a great deal of government money in outfitting it. And, he insisted, it might just save their lives.

Chee visibly perked up when Monkey Pete demonstrated some of the weapons the train had built in. “Major, if you’ll step back a few yards so you can see this.”

“Follow me, Sergeant,” he said. He and Chee went back inside the main car. A second later, Chee’s head and torso appeared on the roof above them, the sergeant having popped through a trapdoor inside. Directly in front of him, with a hiss of steam, a large, cylindrical cannon-shaped gun came up out of the roof.

“A portable cannon?” Hollister asked, incredulous.

“A water cannon,” Pinkerton said.

“Water? What the hell?”

“You’ll learn more from Van Helsing, but his research shows vampires don’t like water very much. It won’t kill them—well, maybe it will, we don’t know yet—but it will keep them away. Water, fire, and sunlight. Remember that and you might stay alive.”

Hollister was happier when he saw the next weapon Monkey Pete had altered. Four Gatling guns, modified with a lot of gauges and hoses Hollister didn’t understand right away, were mounted on the roof and sides of the car. Whatever the energetic little engineer had done to them, it made them look even more lethal.

Pinkerton pulled back the slide on the magazine of the closest gun. He removed one of the rounds and handed it to Hollister. Jonas was surprised to find that in every other way it looked like a normal round with a brass casing, except the bullet was made of wood.

“You remember how you killed that thing in Wyoming, Major? We believe wood stabbed into their heart is another way to kill them. They will turn to dust, as you saw. So we’ve made modifications on the weapons aboard the train. Everything here is new technology developed by some of the best minds in the world, and given a practical application by those men, some of it tested and improved upon by Monkey Pete here, who if you haven’t noticed already, is a genius in his own right. He’s also a crack shot with pistol or rifle, a munitions expert, a better field medic than most doctors you’ll meet, and a hell of a cook. And let’s just say he’s developed an abiding interest in Dr. Van Helsing’s work and is becoming something of an expert on these things. If he weren’t so crippled up, I might have been tempted to send him after them instead of you.”

Hollister’s eyes narrowed, and he studied the detective’s face for any sign he might be joking. There was none. He was working up a retort, but swallowed it down. It wasn’t the time, and he was sure he’d rather chase the things that killed his men than dig wells all day long. Well, reasonably sure.

Pinkerton met Hollister’s stare without flinching.

“All of these things are going to come in handy if you find those creatures, believe you me.”

Hollister wasn’t quite sure what to say. He’d hoped to have a chance to clear his head a bit this morning, given all of the changes that had taken place yesterday. But that seemed impossible now. He could barely grasp what he was seeing.

“It all looks fancy, Mr. Pinkerton,” he said. “But I think I’ll rely on my Colt.”

Pinkerton looked at Hollister for a moment. “Major, do you remember what happened on that ridge in Wyoming? How effective your sidearm was against those things?”

“Yes . . . I—”

“The answer is not effective at all. If your report was accurate, you shot one of those creatures at least twice at point-blank range. To no effect. Do you really want to pursue these things, who may have grown in numbers to God knows how many by now, with just your Colt?”

Jonas had to admit the detective had a point.

“You make a convincing argument, Mr. Pinkerton. What else should I know?”

When they’d finished, Hollister had a basic understanding of most everything. Chee was like a drunk in a brewery, reveling in the guns and asking Monkey Pete questions about each aspect of every single system. It was clear to Hollister that Chee had been overlooked and ignored by the army because of his race. A capable soldier, certainly, but they had failed to notice his natural curiosity, intelligence, and creativity. He may have served ably for many years, but had Hollister not rescued him, he would have languished in prison and been dishonorably discharged, if he was ever released. The army, especially the post-war army, was not an intelligent or progressive institution. And though the war against slavery had been convincingly won by the North, racism was still alive. Good men like Chee were still going to be chewed up by it.

Hollister hadn’t realized Chee’s dog had disappeared until it returned, loping around the engine with a rabbit in its mouth. Apparently it was still hungry.

“I’ll be damned,” Monkey Pete said. “That is some critter. I’ll cook us up a nice pot of rabbit stew.”

Dog sat on his haunches next to Chee and growled low in his throat when Monkey Pete made to take the rabbit from his jaws.

“Whoa,” Monkey Pete said, scrabbling backward.

“Dog . . .” Chee said, snapping his fingers twice. Dog stood and stepped toward the engineer and placed the rabbit at his feet.

“Sorry, Mr. Pete, sir,” Chee said. “I forgot to tell him you were a friend. He won’t growl at you again.”

“How can you be so sure?” Hollister asked.

“He just won’t, sir, and he won’t growl at Mr. Pinkerton or Dr. Van Helsing either. Once I tell him, that is,” the sergeant replied.

“You, ‘tell him’?” Hollister asked, incredulous. “How, exactly?”

“I just tell him like I’d tell anyone, sir,” Chee replied. “He speaks English. And Creole. And a little Chinese. I didn’t have a chance to teach him French before I was . . . I had to go to Leavenworth.”

Hollister and Pinkerton stared at each other, then Pinkerton laughed.

“He speaks English, does he?” Hollister asked.

Chee just shrugged as if it were something beyond explaining. It just was.

“Let’s get under way, Monkey Pete,” Pinkerton said. “And see if Dr. Van Helsing is awake. If I know Abraham, he was up all night scribbling away in his journal.”

“Where are we?” Hollister asked, noticing for the first time that the train had pulled off on a siding in the middle of nowhere. Except for the train and the track, which disappeared on the horizon, there was no sign of civilization.

“We are about four hours away from Denver,” Pinkerton said.

Hollister was stunned. They had traveled over four hundred miles during the night. How was it possible?

“What . . . that can’t be! We just left Leavenworth . . .” Hollister was unable to keep the shock out of his voice.

“It has guns, armor, and an extended range,” Pinkerton said. “And there is one other thing you should know about your new train, Major.

“It’s fast as hell.”