Kill or Die (11 page)

“They're not coming back,” Brewster Ritter said. “They must have crashed in the swamp and got eaten by alligators or the damned swamp trash.”

“I'll tell Mr. Cobb you carried out his orders,” Sebastian Lilly said. “He'll be so pleased.”

“I needed the dirigible. It was supposed to cover my logging crews while they cut the cypress.”

“Hell, Ritter, hire more guns and put them into a few flat-bottomed boats,” Lilly said. “You don't need a balloon that can't even fly in a storm.” He jutted his rock of a chin. “Hell, man, just get the job done.”

“I've lost my engineer,” Ritter said.

“Then hire another one. The country is full of engineers.”

Ritter stared out at the bayou. After the rain, trout and bass rose at flies and spread tiny circles across the flat water. “What about the bank robber?” he said.

“I'll find him,” Lilly said. “I'll comb this swamp until I do.”

Ritter turned. “You? There are no saloons and dancehalls out there, Lilly, just alligators and rubes with rifles.”

“I said I'll find him and I will,” Lilly said. “I'll come back tomorrow or the next day and I'll take Bon Toohy with me.”

“Toohy doesn't know the swamp either,” Ritter said. “He's a draw fighter like you, Lilly. He carries out his business in towns, not swamps.”

“Then we'll learn together,” Lilly said. “Now start cutting trees.”

“What about the sawmill?” Ritter said.

“I'll ask Mr. Cobb about the sawmill. He always has the answer.”

 

 

“The man is a damned incompetent, a nincompoop,” Mathias Cobb said. “Why did he send a ten-thousand-dollar dirigible up in a thunderstorm?”

“I tried to warn him that it was too dangerous, but he insisted, boss,” Seb Lilly said. “Ritter lost the balloon and three men, one of then the engineer who was building the sawmill.”

“Damned fool,” Cobb said. “Is there any sign of the outlaw who robbed my bank? He's got a big bird tattooed across his throat. A man with a disfigurement like that can't lose himself in a crowd.”

Lilly smiled. “I'll find him and I'll get your money back, Mr. Cobb. Give me a chance and I'll get the cypress cut as well.”

“It may come to that, Mr. Lilly,” Cobb said. “It may come to that. All Ritter has to do is foul up one more time and he's out.”

“What about the sawmill?” Lilly said. “Ritter doesn't even have it built yet and now his engineer is dead.”

“Just tell Ritter to start cutting the trees,” Cobb said. “I'll arrange to have the sawmill built. On your way out, Mr. Lilly, tell Mrs. Sally Turpin to come in.” A smile spread across Cobb's jowly face. “A sad case, Mr. Lilly, a sad case indeed. I was about to foreclose on the Turpin family mortgage when dear Sally offered me . . . shall we say sexual favors.”

Lilly grinned. “You're an excellent man of business, boss.”

“Of course after I tire of her I'll still foreclose,” Cobb said. “That is the exquisite irony of the affair. Oh, wait, before you go, a question, Mr. Lilly.”

“Ask away, boss,” Lilly said.

“How would you feel about getting Brewster Ritter out of the way?”

“You mean gunning him?”

“A crude way of putting it, but yes . . . gunning him.”

“I'd feel just fine, Mr. Cobb.”

The fat man beamed. “That's exactly the answer I expected from a man of daring and integrity like yourself, Mr. Lilly. But let us just leave it at that for now, though the day may come.”

“When that day gets here I'll be ready,” Sebastian Lilly said.

Evangeline stepped onto the cabin deck and watched O'Hara bring the pirogue alongside. A strange young man sat in the canoe between him and Flintlock. “Got a prisoner,” Flintlock said. “One of Ritter's killers.”

“I'm an engineer,” Leander Byng said as he climbed onto the deck, a statement that earned him a swift kick in the butt from Flintlock. “You speak when only you're spoken to,” he said.

“There were others,” Evangeline said. “I heard Basilisk sing his victory song.”

“Yes, the alligators did for one of them, the other was killed when the dirigible crashed.” Flintlock decided not to go into details. Then, “O'Hara, bring the rope and I'll tie this ranny to the deck.”

“No need,” Evangeline said. “He can't go anywhere.”

She was still dressed like a librarian, but the sky was full of clouds drifting from the Gulf with the promise of more rain, and Flintlock figured she'd put off visiting Cornelius to a more pleasant day.

“Maybe not, Evangeline,” he said, “but he could murder us while we slept.”

Byng risked another kick. “I'm an engineer,” he said. “I don't murder people.”

“But you work for the people who do and that makes you just as guilty,” Flintlock said. “If it was up to me you'd be dead by now, so shut your mouth.”

“Sam, you want me to tie him?” O'Hara said. “I can loop the rope through the deck boards and make him snug.”

“Yeah, do that,” Flintlock said. “Later you may need to use your blade on him to get information about Ritter's plans. So tie him tight.”

Evangeline didn't hear that last. She'd gone inside and now she stepped back onto the deck with a basin of water, a towel and something in a tiny brown bottle.

She said, “Your face is cut in several places . . . what is your name?”

“Byng, ma'am. Leander Byng. We got hit by a flock of birds just before we crashed. A couple of them struck my face.”

“More than a few, Mr. Byng. Sit there in the rocker and let me do what I can for those cuts.”

“Don't baby him, Evangeline,” Flintlock said. “He's our enemy.”

“Enemy or not, he's wounded, Sam. I'm duty bound as a healer to treat him.”

Flintlock muttered under his breath as Evangeline began to dab at Byng's face with the towel. “No, Sam, I'm not an interfering female,” she said. “I just can't bear to see another human being suffer.”

Flintlock shook his head and whispered to O'Hara, “I swear she can hear the moon rise.”

“Yes, I can,” Evangeline said. “And the sun set.”

 

 

“That's all I can tell you,” Leander Byng said. “Ritter is to start cutting the cypress within the next few days. The logs will be stacked up until the sawmill is in operation. There's nothing else.”

“How many guns does he have?” Flintlock said.

“Maybe a dozen. Bonifaunt Toohy is the best of them, or the worst, depending on your viewpoint.”

Rain swept across the bayou and birds lifted briefly on the fair wind and settled again. The bruised sky was thick with purple and mustard cloud but the thunder was silent and there was no lightning.

“What about the loggers?” Evangeline said. “What manner of men are they?”

“They work for wages,” Byng said.

“If we shoot a few will the rest pull out?” Flintlock said.

“I don't know. They're not gunmen but they're tough. I think you'd kick over a hornet's nest.”

“Will they fight for the brand?” Flintlock said.

Byng took a deep breath. “The loggers work for wages. No, they won't do Brewster Ritter's killing for him, but if you harm one of their own, they will fight, and there's a lot of them.”

“When will Ritter get another flying machine?”

“I don't know. Maybe never.”

“What about the swamp monster?”

“That was Professor Mealy's project, a steam-powered, armored barge. As far as I know, it's been repaired and ready for launch again. Ritter will probably use it to protect the loggers as they work.”

Flintlock said, “What about you, Byng? Will you be missed?”

“No. With the money he's paying, Ritter can easily find another steam engineer. The entire civilized world runs on steam, so there's plenty of them around.”

“That's why the world has become such a dirty, grimy place,” O'Hara said. “And now we stand to lose the swamps.”

Byng smiled slightly. “The British say, ‘Where there's muck, there's brass.' In other words it's dirty, grimy factories that make men rich.”

“If that's your world, you're welcome to it, engineer,” O'Hara said.

“I want no part of it either,” Flintlock said. And then, remembering Barnabas's blast furnaces, “Hell must be full of factories.”

 

 

“Well, what do we do with him?” Evangeline said.

“I say shoot him,” Flintlock said. “He's one of Ritter's boys and that's enough for me.”

“O'Hara?”

“I'm with Sammy. Gun him and be done.”

“He's very young,” Evangeline said.

“A lot of the Yankee enemy we shot in the war were very young,” Flintlock said. “Age has nothing to do with it.”

“He's an engineer,” Evangeline said.

“Damn it all, woman, you and him bandy that word around like he was a saint or something,” Flintlock said. “If it helps you feel better I'll shoot him with my Hawken.”

“What difference does that make?” Evangeline said.

“It will blow a fifty-caliber hole in him. He won't feel a thing.”

“No, I don't want that,” Evangeline said. “You and O'Hara take him out of the swamp and set him free. He can't harm us now.”

“Not unless Ritter gets another flying machine,” Flintlock said.

“That's unlikely to happen, Sam. It would be bad luck to kill the engineer. We're defending our swamp. We're not murderers.”

“I'd sleep better at night if I gunned him, Evangeline,” Flintlock said. “But seeing as how the bank robbery didn't set right with you, I'll oblige you on this one and won't blow Byng's brains out.”

“There speaks a true gentleman,” O'Hara said. “Sammy, you're a national treasure.”

“Evangeline didn't mention you in her amnesty, Injun,” Flintlock said.

But he smiled as he said it.

Sebastian Lilly was a horseman. Hunting a man in a swamp was foreign to him, especially in the fading hours of daylight. He had no real hope of success, not in the couple of hours left to him before dark, but he might be able to get a lead on the robber and track him down later.

Lilly wore a slicker against the steady rain and paddled between the cypress trees, Spanish moss garlanded above his head as though he was a Roman general riding a chariot at his triumph. When Lilly was a boy his pa took him duck hunting in the Arizona Territory's Anderson Mesa country. He remembered how a duck would slam into a wall of birdshot and hurtle straight down and splash into the water. Then old Ranger would jump into the water and retrieve the bird. Pa's old cocker spaniel was stone deaf from the roar of the guns but Pa said he was the best waterfowling dog in Coconino County and beyond. When Ranger died, Pa buried him and erected a wooden marker that said here lies the best hunting dog in Coconino County. But one day the marker blew away in a big wind and Pa never put up another.

That was then and this was now, and Lilly hunted another kind of game.

He'd gotten a pirogue from Ritter but was unused to the craft and his progress through the swamp was slow. The constant rain was a misery and he was about to turn back and wait for fairer weather when he saw the glow of lamps in the distance. It had to be a cabin and Lilly had a decision to make: Should he inquire about the bank robber and risk darkness overtaking him? The idea of a spending the night lost in the swamp did not appeal to him, but Lilly decided to throw the dice. He paddled toward the cabin at a faster pace.

 

 

By swamp standards the cabin was large, with a deck out front, half of it covered by an overhang. A weather vane in the shape of a galleon under full sail stood at the top of the roof and pointed the way of the wind. The cabin had two large windows to the front, rectangles of yellowish light in the rain-lashed gloom.

Lilly laid his Winchester across his knees and yelled, “Hello the house!”

A full minute passed before the door opened and a woman stepped outside. Her hair tumbled in waves over the shoulders of a gleaming black oilskin with a high, stand-up collar. The coat, closed at the front by seven silver buckles, was cut narrow at the waist, clung to her hips and fell to her ankles. Lilly, his mouth suddenly dry, saw the toes of black boots peep out from under the hem of the coat. The woman was lovely in an almost supernatural way, Lilly realized, the kind of dazzling beauty that no mortal female should possess. She seemed half-angel, half-devil and all woman . . . the kind a man would kill to possess.

“What can I do for you?” Evangeline said. “It's unusual for men to be abroad on an evening like this.”

It took a while for Lilly to find his voice. When he did he said, “I'm looking for a man, ma'am, an outlaw who robbed the bank in Budville. He's a kind of stocky feller, looks like a real hard case and he wears a buckskin shirt and has a big bird”—he drew a forefinger across his throat—“tattooed across there. Have you seen him?”

“Oh dear me, if I'd seen such a desperate character I'm sure I'd remember,” Evangeline said. “Are you the law?”

“I work for the bank, ma'am.” Lilly's eyes feasted on Evangeline, her face, her body, her promise.

“I'm sorry I can't help you,” she said.

“You shouldn't be out here alone, ma'am,” Lilly said. “Maybe I should come inside out of the rain and we can get better acquainted.”

Evangeline smiled. “I'm never alone.”

Lilly was about to say something, but his mouth snapped shut and he looked frantically around him as he held on to the sides of the canoe. “What bumped me?” he said.

Evangeline saw fear in the man's eyes. “It's only the alligators,” she said. “They're my watchdogs.”

“Then call them off,” Lilly yelled. He had his rifle in his hands.

“When they see you start to leave they'll let you alone,” Evangeline said. She pointed. “You see that large one over there?”

Lilly turned and saw a gigantic, reptilian shape undulating through the water toward him. “What the hell is that?” he said.

“His name is Basilisk,” Evangeline said. “He's jealous of you, fearing you might harm me. I put a bullet into him years ago and I think it still causes him pain. He very badly wants to kill me.”

“Hell, lady, I don't want to kill you,” Lilly said. “I'd something else in mind.”

“Basilisk doesn't know that,” Evangeline said.

The canoe rocked wildly as one of the larger alligators prodded it with his snout. “Call him off,” Lilly yelled.

“Paddle away and you'll be safe,” Evangeline said. “At least, I hope you will.”

“We'll meet again,” Lilly said, using the paddle to push himself off the dock.

“I look forward to it,” Evangeline said. “We'll have fried trout and cornbread for dinner.”

The alligators parted to give Lilly a passage and he paddled quickly into the gathering gloom of the swamp. He looked back only once and the woman still stood on the dock. The massive alligator she called Basilisk lay still in the water, his head pointed in the direction of the cabin.

Evangeline said, “Not today, Basilisk. Not today.”

The alligator lashed its tail, turned and swam into darkness.