Dead Man’s Hand (56 page)

The Austrian government, when they heard about all this months later, denied they’d
had any part in it; but for all those of us on the Sacramento knew, young Franz-Joseph
had actually declared war. Swarms of refugees fled San Francisco on every boat and
raft they could find, and they spread stories that were even more fantastic than the
reality.

It was then that I realized that the game had changed. Instead of carefree freebooters
trying to outwit each other in plundering the wealth of the diggings, there was a
homicidal madman in the sky raining death on helpless civilians.

Nor was there any more plunder to be had. No miner had any reason to carry his gold
to San Francisco when Professor Mitternacht would only confiscate the gold and enslave
the miner. Perhaps worse, the flow of supplies coming up the river from the city was
interrupted. Not only were there no more immigrants, no picks and shovels, no mules
or canvas or line, no wine or whiskey or champagne, there was no
food.
No flour, no bacon, no corn meal. Some victuals were trekked in from Monterrey, but
not nearly enough. The miners at the diggings were all in danger of starvation unless
they somehow turned themselves into farmers overnight—and with autumn coming on, there
was no time to get a crop in the ground.

Professor Mitternacht offered to feed anyone willing to become one of his slave laborers.
I believe that a few desperate people accepted that offer.

My own folk were all right. We had food and drink in plenty, and—with no piracy to
contemplate—little to do but enjoy ourselves. Though I tried to savor our celebrations,
I wasn’t really inclined to pleasure. Instead, I worried that our hidden bases and
forts were all visible from the air, and I occupied myself with schemes to hide ourselves
from the
Schrecken
, and ways to bring the craft down. I experimented with cannon rigged to fire on a
great incline, like a mortar, but the tests were not a great success.

There seemed to be a truce among the various forces in California while we worked
out what to do about the invader. The Condor was active in trying to liberate Mitternacht’s
slaves. The Bowery B’hoy made a raid on San Francisco just for the devilment of it
and rescued a young woman who became his Bowery G’hal. Aero Lad tried to board the
Schrecken
from his Mechanical Dragonfly, but was captured and thrown overboard to a long fall
and death. The Regulator was captured, broken on the wheel, and killed.

Aye, Professor Mitternacht was a glorious bundle of fun, all right.

That was where things stood when the Mad Emperor, from his castle fortress on Lake
Tahoe, declared war on the Austrian—and sent a courier to deliver a message calling
Mitternacht a slimy, jumped-up, demented foreigner. The message was so successful,
in fact, that Professor Mitternacht lopped the head off the courier and took the
Schrecken
up the Sacramento to bomb the Mad Emperor’s fortress.

Which was the end for the Emperor. Not that I missed him—he had a certain style, but
in the end, the essential monotony of your self-promoting conqueror is difficult to
ignore.

It was while Mitternacht was about this errand that I had a visit from the Condor.
He came in a small steamboat, his cape streaming out behind him as he waved a white
flag. Which, as a gentleman pirate, I was compelled to honor.

The Condor came aboard the
New World
and got straight to the point, as was his practice.

“The
Schrecken
is on the far side of the Sierras,” says he. “If things go on as they are, we’ll
all starve to death by spring. But we’ve got a Miners’ Militia now, well-armed, and
if we can get our troops across the Bay we can recapture the city. There aren’t many
of those Grenzers, you know.”

I knew perfectly well where this was headed. “You don’t need the
New World
,” says I. “There are plenty of steamboats on the river.”

“It’s not the boat we need.” He gave a look at one of the cannons I had mounted on
the foredeck. “We could use your guns,” says he. “We need something that will intimidate
the Grenzers in their forts.”

I give him a narrow-eyed look. “And after the battle?” asks I. “How do I know you
won’t bang me on the head and drag me up in front of some vigilance committee?”

He drew himself up and looked at me solemnly. “I give you my word of honor,” says
he. “You and your crew will have a fair opportunity to withdraw once the city is ours.”

Well, I couldn’t do better than that. And truth to tell, I was fretting in any case,
knowing it was only a matter of time before the
Schrecken
appeared overhead to pacify the Delta by dropping poisonous fluorine on me and all
my men. The airship’s absence seemed by far the best chance to give the flying madman
a knock. Best, I reckoned, to strike while the striking was good.

So it was, barely two nights later, that I found myself conning the
New World
down the river and across the Bay. The city—renamed Sankt Ruprecht after the patron
saint of Salzburg, of all places—was guarded by three masonry forts, charmingly named
Angst, Tod, and Panik. Angst and Panik had been built by slaves, and covered the western
and eastern approaches; Fort Tod was the old Spanish Presidio on the Golden Gate.
Fortunately Mitternacht was forced to defend so much of the peninsula that the forts
didn’t support one another. We made Fort Panik, on the east side of the city, our
first target.

I had two companies of militia on board, partially protected by log ramparts, and
I was trying to peer around the wood cladding of the pilothouse when I saw, walking
along the Texas deck, a tall, cadaverous cove, dressed in a long black cloak and a
stovepipe hat. He carried a strange pipe-like weapon that was attached to a canister
he wore on his back. I stuck my head out of the wheelhouse, then gestured for him
to join me.

The weapon, I discovered, made strange muttering sounds, like a coal fire in a boiler
with all the dampers shut.

“That gun of yours ain’t going to set my boat on fire, is it?” asks I.

“I hope it will set
everything
on fire.” He spoke with a ponderous Russian accent. He gave a formal bow. “I am the
Nihilist,” says he. “It is my mission to destroy all forms of oppression, starting
with the champion of Habsburg reaction across the Bay.”

I regarded him. “When you say
everything
…” says I.

“I mean everything,” says he flatly. “In order for humanity to be liberated, it must
be returned to a complete state of nature.”

“Well,” says I, “it’s hard to find a less civilized place than the gold fields.”

“Yes,” says he, “but the miners still pursue
gold
, the single vital element of our oppressive economic system. This greed must be…”
He searched for the word. “
Cured
,” he decided.

I gave him a hopeful grin. “I trust you will avoid curing us until Professor Mitternacht
is dealt with.”

“I am a reasoning man,” says he. “I am capable of making tactical alliances.”

Another solemn madman
, thinks I. He wants to liberate San Francisco only to burn the place down.

The Nihilist, I reckoned, was another of a new breed of cranks and enthusiasts on
their way to California, and who were already well on their way to spoiling the place.
The only difference between him and Professor Mitternacht was that Mitternacht had
a more efficient way of killing people.

I determined in the upcoming battle to send the Nihilist straight at the enemy, and
to let fortune determine the rest. He could destroy civilization, I decided, or die
trying. Preferably the latter.

I returned my attention to guiding the
New World
to its destination, and to worrying that I would get a roundshot through my tripes
before I ever saw an enemy.

It is impossible to make a surprise attack with steamboats—they make a lot of noise,
from the clanking of the engine to the thrashing of the paddles to the great throat-clearing
howl of the relief valves—and my heart was in my throat for much of the crossing as
I imagined myself in the sights of some diabolical German engine from Professor Mitternacht’s
laboratory.

There were twelve steamboats in our fleet, and most of them towed sailing craft or
barges crammed with men. The militia were half-crazed with drink before we even set
out, and their shouting and singing and accidental discharge of firearms were hardly
the thing to boost my confidence.

Yet we were within a couple thousand yards of Fort Panik before star shells went up
and the first cannon flashed in the fort’s embrasures.

I had timed things pretty well. A golden dawn was just creeping down Blue Mountain
to the west, but the Bay was still in darkness, and from the ramparts our boats were
just shadows on the deep black water. As cannon shot came skipping over the waves,
I rang to the engine room for more speed.

I think the Condor had it in mind that I would keep
New World
offshore and engage the fort in a gun duel. This was the best recipe for suicide
that I could think of, and so I ran in as quickly as possible. I threw out a kedge
anchor so that I could pull the boat off the mud flats if I needed to, then ran her
in till she just touched ground, after which I lowered the gangways and watched the
drunken militia charge forward, sloshing through water and muck and wrack and flotsam
to dry land. I thought I saw the Nihilist’s stovepipe hat in the throng.

I looked up at the fort, which was still booming away, and decided that I would be
safer on land than sitting atop a boiler filled with steam and subjected to plunging
shot from above. So I ordered the cannons fired, then drew my sword, waved my hat,
and led my crew in a charge.

Nor was I alone. The rest of our fleet had come to shore and unleashed their passengers.
I saw the plug hat of the Bowery B’hoy amid the throng, and his lead-weighted cane
waving in the air; there were the long ringlets and the broad plumed hat of the Cavalier
next to the scarlet kerchief of my traitorous bitch of an ex-wife. The Masked Hidalgo
swooped along in his cloak, his rapier flashing; and one mob advanced in complete
silence, the mesmerized followers of Captain Hypnos. Shanghai Susie ran nimbly along
with a party of Chinese, their pigtails flying. And Doctor Tolliver walked ashore
absolutely alone, because no one wanted to be anywhere near his box of explosives.

My heart gave a great lift at the scene, at all the great champions united against
a single enemy, and I gave a halloo and ran like a madman for the fort.

As I sloshed through the muck, I happened to look to my left, and to my great surprise
I saw the Condor being hurled into the sky like a rocket. He’d had a catapult constructed
on his boat to fling him aloft so that he could spread his wings and sail down into
the fort.

A great mob had surrounded the fort by this point, firing like mad into the embrasures
and trying to scale the masonry walls. The scent of gunpowder filled the air. The
Condor disappeared into the fort, and I suppose there was the usual thwacking and
thumping that followed one of his descents. Doctor Tolliver began hurling glass bombs
into the fort, not particularly caring if he injured the Condor as long as he killed
Grenzers; and then the Nihilist stuck his pipe-weapon into one of the embrasures and
let loose with a great jet of fire; and there was screaming and shrieking and the
sound of cartridges detonating, and that was the end of the Battle of Fort Panik.

Truth to tell, without the
Schrecken
, the Grenzers were doomed. There weren’t many of them; they were scattered in small
detachments trying to hold too much ground; and they were infantry, not trained artillerists—none
of their shot had come close to our little flotilla. And they had damned few cannon
to fire—the rusting old Spanish guns at the Presidio hadn’t kept Commodore Stockton
out in ’46, and they weren’t keeping us out this time. Fort Panik had only a few ill-assorted
pieces scavenged from ships that happened to be in the Bay when Mitternacht turned
up, and very little powder and shot.

As soon as dawn gave us a clear view of the proceedings, we organized and marched
inland. South of the city, we overran the landing field that Mitternacht had built
for his airship, and the factory that he had created to build new fluorine bombs.
We freed the slave workers there, then crested the city’s hills and marched in a great
surging mob down to Fort Angst, which we stormed in about three minutes. I found myself
fighting alongside the Condor, slashing with my sword as he pounded Grenzers with
his fists, and I had a chance to observe the flush of battle on his cheeks, and blue
glow of combat in his eyes.
He
lives
for this!
thinks I, and then some giant Croat lunged at me with a sword-bayonet as long as
my leg, and I had to look to my own safety.

Angst fell, and that left only the Presidio. Which, if inadequately armed and garrisoned,
was at least a proper fort; and it might have given us trouble if I hadn’t remembered
those fluorine bombs sitting in their racks at the factory. So I had the Condor’s
catapult fetched from his steamer, fixed one of Mitternacht’s own projectiles in it,
and ordered it hurled toward the fort.

It took a while to get the fort’s range, and we came damn near to gassing ourselves;
but once a few gas bombs had dropped behind the walls, the surviving Grenzers came
staggering out waving the white flag. The black-and-gold of Austria came down the
flagstaff and the American gridiron flag went up, and Sankt Ruprecht was San Francisco
again.

The enslaved citizens of San Francisco poured out to welcome us, at least once we
unlocked their barracks, and there was a massive day-long party.

The Gentlemen and I were extremely popular. For one thing, I was the only person wearing
anything resembling a uniform, so it was widely believed that I had generaled the
city’s rescue. I was cheered wherever I went. I believe I could have run successfully
for mayor.