Dead Man’s Hand (43 page)

The howl of the machine behind Willie deafened him. Shells bounced around the wagon’s
floor, smoldering as they struck wood.

The droning sound lessened, and the light dimmed.

“The marshals report directly to the president,” Douglass said, clearing the gun and
awkwardly loading a new belt of ammunition. “Sometimes they’re used as instruments
of executive policy. In this case, I was asked to find the lost crew of an airship.
And the airship, too, if possible. The president chose me because most cattle hands
or cowboys in these western territories are either black or Mexican, and he felt I
might better navigate these parts with my team.”

Willie blinked. “An airship?”

“You’ve heard of hot air balloons? Lighter than air travel?” Douglass asked.

“I saw one once. In the war. Used to spot troop movements.” The great globule had
hung impossibly in the air, tethered to a pine tree by a rope over a bloody meadow
growing a black gunsmoke cloud that soon obscured the machine.

“Our army built a rather advanced version of a balloon, one capable of moving under
its own power. Like a steamship of the air. A wealthy count from Prussia who observed
balloons here during the war and was quite taken with the concept of using lighter
than air machines for military purposes worked with the army to help build an experimental
hydrogen airship. Perfect for avoiding the treacherous and snowy grounds of the territory
of Alaska.”

“Alaska?” Willie glanced back at Douglass. “The territories we purchased from the
Russians after the war?”

“Yes. President Hayes demanded a modern day Lewis and Clarke expedition. We hardly
know what, if any, resources lie in the territory, after all.”

Willie looked up into the sky at the pursuing beam of light. It must be like a lighthouse
signal, focused to become a spotting light. And behind it, a floating machine.

“The army is chasing us?” Willie asked.

“No, Mr. Kennard. It looks like they lost control of their machine when they were
overrun, just like this town was.” He looked up into the sky and pulled the Gatling
gun into position. “I need to fire off another belt to keep them farther back from
us again, I’m afraid. They’re trying to get close again.”

An ember landed in the road ahead.

Willie squinted. Then slewed the horses off the road as hard as he could. He reached
back with a hand to steady Mr. Douglass, who pitched to the side. The whole wagon
tilted onto two wheels and the horses screamed.

And then the world exploded in a rush of dirt and violence that blew Willie off the
wagon.

* * *

“Can you hear me, Mr. Kennard?”

Willie looked off into the night and blinked. Shook his head.

“Are you well?” Douglass asked. The old man was holding him up, helping him stumble
through the stunted, scraggly trees and toward a cut in the foothills. Blood ran from
one of Douglass’s nostrils.

Willie looked down and saw the front of his shirt stained with dark blood. “Am I hurt?”

“Was the horse,” Douglass said.

“I don’t remember any of it,” Willie said.

“We took a violent tumble thanks to that damn dynamite they were tossing from the
airship,” Douglass said. As if to underscore his point, a nearby explosion filled
the air with a cloud of sharp-smelling dust. “Fortunately they’ve lost sight of us
again, and are randomly tossing the stuff out in hopes of hitting us.”

They hobbled together, helping each other over rocks and up scree toward the cut.
The beam of light had died out—maybe they’d run out of fuel for its light. Willie
could discern a large, cigar-shaped shadow gliding between the stars and him. Which
meant that at any moment a lit stick of dynamite could land near them.

“The last thing I remember is you telling me that airship thing was made by the army,”
he said.

Douglass grunted. “One of the last reports before the machine went missing was that
they’d found a crater. With a large metal object buried in the center of it. One of
the officers sent back a simple sketch via carrier pigeon.”

Both men winced as another stick of dynamite exploded. But this one was farther away
than the last, and Willie breathed a sigh of relief. That old instinct to shelter
he’d learned from being shelled by artillery hadn’t gone away, but there was no betraying
whistle of an incoming shell to help him here.

“There’s a book by a gentleman by the name of Jules Verne called
From the Earth to the Moon
,” Frederick Douglass said, “where some men from Baltimore build a gun large enough
to shoot a sort of bullet with men inside of it to the moon.”

“I have not heard of it,” Willie allowed.

“Well, the illustration the officer sent to us could have been taken right from its
pages. It was a scarred and burnt tip of a bullet, nestled in the center of a crater
it caused. I believe, from what I’ve pieced together since arriving here, that the
creatures that infected the crew of the airship above us, and the townspeople of Duffy,
are creatures from another world that arrived on it. That arrived via some kind of
machine, like Verne described.”

“These are moon people?” Willie asked incredulously.

“I do not know whether they are from the moon, or from Mars.

There is an astronomer, Giovanni Schiaparelli, who said just this year that he has
seen canals on the face of Mars. Maybe these things come from there. Maybe from farther
away. I do not know. They do not parlay; I lost the men I traveled here with when
I tried that futile initial gesture. The creatures are violently hostile.”

Willie nodded as they struggled up loose rock and into the safety of the narrow crevices
of a valley made by carved cliffs. He found himself a bit relieved they were not facing
demons, but creatures. Even if otherworldly ones. Creatures could be shot. And hunted.
“But why are they here?”

“Our world? I don’t know.”

“No, I mean, why Duffy?” Willie asked. “Why did they take the airship? Why did they
fly all the way down here?”

“That I can’t tell you,” Douglass said wearily. “Come, there is an abandoned mine
just ahead of us. It is stocked with supplies and weapons, and should be easy to defend
from the entrance.”

* * *

They passed a trio of fresh graves just inside the mouth of the mine, which was located
in a natural cave entrance at a high point in the rocky canyon-like area of the foothill.
A very defensible spot, Willie noted with pleasure before he walked deeper inside.
Willie had been around a few gold strikes before. Enough to tell that the timbers
looked thick and recently placed. This one had been dug in quick for exploration,
then abandoned.

Several crates were stacked deeper inside.

Not surprising to find a mine here, he thought. Just ten miles away was a bustling
hill full of prospectors who all used Duffy as their nearest town. The camp he’d been
hired to protect had been planning to try their luck there.

“Only one way out,” Douglass said. “But it means we can stop them from coming in if
they find us.”

“For a while,” Willie observed. “But we’ll be the rats. And they have dynamite. Better
for us to get our ammunition and stay out front to hold them off than try to hide.
How did those men out near the front die?”

“I brought them here. Three other marshals I took with me for this mission. They may
have become those… things. But the men I’d traveled with deserved a Christian burial,”
Douglass said. “Listen, we just need to last until tomorrow afternoon. Can we defend
this mine that long, do you think?”

“In a pinch,” Willie agreed. “But what happens then?”

“Cavalry stationed at a fort forty miles away. I sent for them via pigeon.” Douglass
levered open a box full of rifles and ammunition. Willie looked in with approval.
He picked up a small pistol that he didn’t recognize.

“What’s this?”

“A Very pistol. It’s a Navy signal device they just designed. It shoots a burning
flare into the sky. I’ll be using it to signal the cavalry where we are.”

“And what do you think the cavalry will be able to do against that airship?” Willie
asked.

Douglass looked at him with troubled eyes. “Shoot it down with the rockets I ordered
them to bring.”

“Rockets?”

Douglass sang, “‘And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air?’ They’ll get
high enough.”

It sounded possible. If the airship was still around.

But a stick of dynamite boomed somewhere in the distance. The possessed crew of the
airship seemed obsessed with finding and destroying the two lawmen.

Willie had a feeling they would still be out there.

They broke open a case of canned food and levered it open by candlelight, risking
the flicker since they were deep in the mine for now, and ate cold canned beans with
wooden spoons that Willie quickly whittled out of a piece of the crate’s top.

“How’d you end up deputized to be a marshal?” Douglass asked.

Willie tapped a piece of hardtack against the side of the can of beans, an old habit.
The long-lasting, brick-like biscuit was fresh though, as nothing wriggled out. “After
the war I came out west. Did this and that for some years. Four or so years ago I
fetched up near the town of Yankee Hill. They needed themselves a new marshal.”

Douglass raised an eyebrow. “What happened to the old one?”

“Up and died,” Willie said, picking at the hardtack. “Lost two marshals to a gunslinger
by the name of Barney Casewit. They tried to bring him in for the rape of a girl of
fifteen years’ age. And killing her father when he struck out for vengeance. As well
as other murderings. I figured, with the war over, our folk voting and getting jobs,
that I would ask for the job. Particularly as they were a town of very scared white
folk desperate for a solution, I allowed myself to think that maybe they’d overlook
the color of my skin in their desperation for a marshal.”

Douglass laughed. “This man, Casewit, though?”

Willie didn’t laugh. “As hard a man as they come. But then, he’d never been on the
other side of a Confederate line of soldiers facing a company of fellow negro riflemen,
knowing that they’d never give you surrender.”

Douglass’s smile faded.

Willie continued, “The town’s councilmen asked me to arrest Casewit right there that
minute. I don’t know if they were looking for entertainment, or desperate to end that
despot’s reign. But I agreed. Took the star, pinned it, and made my way across the
street to where Casewit was playing poker with two of his hands, where I then told
him he was under arrest.”

“Just like that?” Douglass asked. They both stopped, though, and cocked an ear. No
more dynamite had exploded since Willie started his recollections.

The airship was backing off from the hills. Maybe finding somewhere to drop down its
crew. Douglass blew out the candle. They’d need to move out front to defend their
spot soon.

Willie grimaced and continued. “Just like that. Casewit’s sitting there and he asks
if he’s just supposed to follow me. I told him it was his choice: jail or hell. So
he stood and reached for a pair of Colt .44s. I shot them both in the holster.”

“What? Why?” Douglass was engaged, but didn’t take his eyes off the entrance to the
mine. With his night sight coming back, Willie could see where starlight seeped down
to faintly illuminate the wooden frame.

“The councilmen told me to arrest him, not kill him. I was trying my best to do it,”
Willie said. “Casewit’s two partners drew, and since no one told me nothing about
whether they were to live or die, I shot them both between the eyes. Casewit put his
hands up and surrendered. I hanged him the next morning after the trial for raping
that girl and his murderings. Bastard kept trying to shimmy back up the pine tree
I hung him from, but after twenty minutes or so he finally gave up and hung.”

Douglass nodded. “And then you became their marshal, just like that?”

“Some didn’t much like me as marshal,” Willie said. “Some tried dueling me to get
rid of me.”

“Yeah? What happened?” Douglass asked.

“They’re not here to talk about it, are they?” Willie said, leaning back against a
crate. If that airship had dropped off more attackers, he needed a rest to get ready
for them. “Think I’ll take advantage of your hospitality, old timer, and take the
first sleep while you cover the entrance.”

Willie settled down with one of his Colts on his chest and closed his eyes.

* * *

The sound of a Winchester firing and the lever-action reload snapped Willie awake
with his Colt coming up in the direction of the shot. He ran up from the depths of
the mine in time to see movement down the hill in the scrub. After fetching a Winchester
of his own, he joined Douglass and leaned against a large slab of rock.

“You let me sleep all night down there?” he asked Douglass. “Or did you fall asleep
on watch?”

“I wanted the gunslinger you told me about last night to be as fresh as possible for
the morning,” Douglass said with a tired smile.

Willie sighted down the scree and rock. “Miners,” he said.

“What?”

“You’re holding off a band of miners. That one’s got a pickaxe.” He looked up at the
morning sky and squinted with a sour expression. “Means that airship’s gonna be floating
around too any moment.”

One of the miners made a stumbling run up at them. Willie’s Winchester cracked, and
the man stumbled and dropped. He began to pull himself along with his hands, fingers
digging into the hard soil to drag the rest of him toward the two marshals.

Willie snapped the lever down, back in, shot again, and the body fell still.

There were more coming up from the scrubland. How many miners had been out at the
strike outside Duffy? He couldn’t remember.

A bullet whined and struck the ground to the left of the mine opening. Willie moved
in toward the rock for better cover.

Douglass reached inside his jacket and checked a pocketwatch on a long chain. “Six
or seven hours to go, Mr. Kennard,” he said, patting the signal gun in his waistband.