Better Off Dead

by William W. Johnstone

  Trying to make as little sound as possible, Shawn advanced on the creek, keeping the walls of the station between himself and Maria’s attacker. He stepped around the ruin, walked through the oaks, and saw the man. He was a big-bellied brute with massive shoulders and arms and a thick mane of yellow hair. His plug hat, goggles above the brim, and his holstered revolver lay on the ground where he’d dropped them.

  Noticing Shawn, the unshaven man, dirty with soot, realized that he was at a disadvantage. Maria, naked as a seal, used her legs to push away from him and he did nothing to stop her.

  The big bruiser’s eyes flicked over Shawn and he grinned, his few teeth green and black at the gums. He saw a tall, slender young man, his chest swathed in a bandage, his face swollen and discolored from a terrible beating. Best of all, he saw no gun.

  “Damn you, boy, get away from here until I finish with that.” He nodded in Maria’s direction.

  She looked terrified and tried to cover her breasts with her hands.

  “And if I don’t?” Shawn said.

  “Then I’ll . . . hell, I’ll show you what I’ll do.”

  The big man, overconfident, pulled up his pants and made a major mistake. He came at Shawn, planning to beat him to death with his fists and boots and left his holstered gun where it lay.

  Luther Ironside’s words came rushing back. Lecturing Shawn and Jacob on the ways of the shootist, he had said, “When the history books are written about gunfights the feller still standing when the smoke clears is declared the winner. How he killed his man, front, back, while the ranny was a-saying of his prayers, or bouncing a baby on his knee doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. You boys remember . . . never fight fair in a shooting scrape. Fight to win . . . whatever it takes.”

  Shawn remembered, pulled the derringer from his pocket, and thumbed back the hammer. The big man hesitated.

  Shawn said, “Maria, did he . . .”

  “No. You arrived just in time.”

  “What you gonna do with me?” the big man asked. “I got friends in this town.”

  “I’ll make you a deal. You . . . you . . .” A strange darkness crowded in on Shawn and he felt the ground rock under his feet . . . and then he was falling . . . falling.

  Maria saw the derringer drop from Shawn’s hand a moment before he fell. She got to her feet and ran to the gun. Too late. The man was on top of her, the smell of his breath rancid in her face. Grinning, he pinned her down with his weight as he started to pull his pants down. She screamed and tried to fight him off, but her strength was no match for his and her head lowered to the ground in defeat.

  Shawn revived slowly, his senses returning. His first instinct was to pull the man off Maria, but weak, sick, and dizzy as he was he knew he would never make it. At that point, she was probably stronger than he was. As he tried to get to his feet, his fingers touched the cold steel of the derringer. With no time for thought, no time to consider the right or the wrong of the thing, Shawn pointed the Remington at the man’s temple and pulled the trigger.

  At close range, the .41 round from a short barrel was devastating. The would-be rapist paid dearly for the lust that made him underestimate Shawn O’Brien’s resilience and died without a sound, the hole in his temple trickling blood.

  Maria pushed the startled corpse away and rose to her feet. She stepped back into the creek and used soap to wash the dead man’s stink off herself. Without a word, Shawn picked up her robe and held it up for her until she’d soaped and scrubbed every part of her body. Only then did she allow him to place the robe around her shoulders.

  “Did you know him?” he asked.

  “I’ve seen him around town,” Maria said. “He’s one of the Abaddon slave masters.”

  “I didn’t give him much of a chance,” Shawn said.

  “And what chance would he have given me? After he finished with me, he would not have let me live. I believe the rape of a woman is still a hanging offense, even in this town.” Maria’s face showed her concern. “Shawn, I need to get you back to the tent. You must rest.”

  “I guess. I feel pretty used up, but I want his guns and his horse. What about burying the dead man?”

  “We’ll drag him off into the brush and leave him to the coyotes. He’s no longer a man. Now he’s carrion.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “My dear Count Von Jungen, think of the potential,” Caleb Perry said. “You can strike at the enemy’s heartland, topple tall buildings with a broadside, and send populations fleeing in terror for their lives. ‘Peace at any price’ will soon become the credo of governments all over Europe.”

  “My fellow industrialists are very interested.” Werner Von Jungen smiled. “Leveling London with an air weapon has its attractions to many European governments. Not least, my own.”

  “London and beyond,” Perry said. “After a few years of further development on the steam engines, New York and this country’s entire eastern seaboard could be laid waste. Once the frightened American government sues for peace, your honorable self could be the most powerful man in the world.”

  “A laudable ambition.” Von Jungen was a tall, gaunt man who looked good in a military uniform but not in his present gray broadcloth. “This chaotic world needs a strong master who will bring order, by the gun if necessary. I can fulfill that role by subjugating lesser races all over the globe.”

  Perry nodded. “On that subject, we are of one mind. Black, brown, or yellow, their backs can be bent to serve the empire.”

  “May I see the prototype?”

  “Of course, mein lieber Graf, but bear in mind that it is only one quarter the size of what future terror frigates will be.”

  “I believe I can visualize the finished product, Herr Perry.”

  “Yes, yes of course you can.” Perry opened a desk drawer and handed the German a pair of goggles. “Since we will walk through the foundry I must ask you to wear these. There are many hot sparks in the air.”

  Von Jungen’s smile was wintry. “In Germany, I have visited the Krupp Foundry in Essen many times and I’m aware of that hazard.” He settled the goggles into place.

  Perry thought that the count looked like an ogre. “They become you,” he lied. “Now, if you will please follow me.”

  The walk to the bay where the weapon was stored took them across a section of the foundry floor where the doors of enormous, blazing furnaces yawned open like the jaws of dragons. A dozen naked men shoveled coke in unbearable heat and Count Von Jungen was forced to remove his coat.

  He yelled into Perry’s ear above the roar, “Slave labor?”

  “Of a sort,” Perry yelled back. “The laboring trolls are Mexicans. The white men are overseers.”

  The German smiled again and nodded, approving what he believed was the natural order of things.

  A steel door accessed the construction bay where the frigate was kept and inside was much quieter, the background noise kept to a dull growl.

  Speaking in a normal voice, Perry said, “If you’d care to examine the gondola first, we can later climb the stair to the gantry and you can examine the canopy.”

  Von Jungen stroked his chin as he examined the gondola, a sleek, wooden craft that looked like a Viking longship but for the four cannons mounted on each side. Toward the stern were the miniaturized boiler, furnace, and the steam engine that drove a massive two-bladed propeller.

  “Iron cannons, as you can see, Count,” Perry said. “I would like to use bronze, but they are heavier.”

  “And the speed of the air frigate?” Von Jungen asked.

  “At least ten to twelve knots. Maybe more, depending on the wind.”

  “And there will be eight cannons on the finished weapon?”

  “No. I’ve asked my designers and engineers to provide for twenty-four on the full-sized ship, the equivalent of six batteries of cannon.” Perry smiled. “A few well-placed broadsides and the walls of London will come tumbling down.”

  “And how large a crew?”

 
; “The full-sized, eighty-foot-long airship will be manned by six officers and a hundred airmen plus a few boys as powder monkeys. Unfortunately, the crew must be large because of the need to serve the guns.”

  Von Jungen thought for a while and then said, “Can you increase the length of the frigate to accommodate marines? There are adventurous governments that may wish to kidnap the English queen and assassinate her advisors.”

  “I will talk with my engineers, but making room for a score of marines should not present too great a problem.”

  “Then let us take a look at the canopy,” Von Jungen said. “By the way, the name of the first frigate delivered will be Graf Von Jungen. His royal highness Prince Rudolf of the Rhine, my company’s biggest shareholder, has graciously granted me that honor.” An industrialist, a man of iron and steel, Von Jungen had little interest in the dirigible’s canopy except to say, “Will it stand up to small arms fire?”

  “Yes indeed. Even at maximum elevation, there is little threat from our most modern cannons. And in any case, by the time a ball reached”—he bowed as he flattered—“the Graf Von Jungen, she would be long gone.”

  “How long to produce twenty of the steam frigates?”

  “I can deliver in a year,” Perry said.

  “I want them delivered in six months,” the German said. “I can see concern in your expression, Herr Perry, but let me just say that a certain central European power is anxious to launch an attack on London that will bring England to its knees and with it the British Empire. Six months from now will be spring, the campaign season. A Channel crossing in force will follow the aerial bombardment and Queen Victoria’s fat neck will be under the heel of the Prussian boot. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Perfectly, mein lieber Graf,” Perry said. “I will hire more men. Just this morning, there were a score of Mexicans lined up at the door looking for work. I can find many others.”

  “And the price per frigate?” Van Jungen asked, now the shrewd businessman.

  “I can deliver for a cost of just over a million dollars per unit. Say twenty-five million for the twenty-ship fleet.”

  Von Jungen nodded. “That is quite acceptable, but cut costs where you can as far as the slave labor force is concerned. Feed them starvation rations and work them to death. That is how overheads are reduced in this modern age. Gruel and the lash, Herr Perry, a combination that never fails.”

  “It shall be done. And Count Von Jungen, when you and your fellow industrialists are masters of the world, remember my humble contribution.”

  “Mein lieber Perry, stick a pin in the map of the United States or Europe and you will be governor of that region with dictatorial powers. You have my hand on it.”

  As he shook hands with the richest man in Europe, Caleb Perry was the happiest man on earth.

  CHAPTER TEN

  In the West, saloons were storehouses of information, not only for local news but farther afield. National and political reports were keenly followed, as were the doings of notable gunslingers and outlaws. In many towns, desperadoes like John Wesley Hardin, Wild Bill Longley, and the James boys became household names.

  With that in mind, Jacob O’Brien dismounted outside the Alamo Bar & Grill and dropped the reins at the hitching post. He had little fear that his hammer-headed yellow mustang would be stolen. Unlike his brother Shawn, who rode like a Comanche and sat his blood horse like a king on parade, in the saddle Jacob had all the grace of a sack of grain. He was known to fall off now and again, a gleeful occasion for the mustang that believed in kicking a man while he was down.

  After one last lingering look at the gigantic cannon foundry that dominated the town like a dark mountain, he stepped into the saloon. After the glare of the sun, he stood in the doorway and let his eyes grow accustomed to the gloom before he stepped up to the bar and ordered a rye.

  Ambrose Hellen ran a cloth over some spilled beer, laid a shot glass on the counter, and poured the whiskey. “Welcome to Big Buck, Jake. It’s been a long time.”

  “Ambrose Hellen. Not so long that I’ve forgotten your name.”

  “I appreciate that. Makes a man feel like he’s worth something.”

  Hellen took note of Jacob’s shapeless hat, washed-out blue shirt, frayed canvas suspenders, and the bandana tied loosely around his throat that had once been red but was any color you’d care to name. Same old Jake, he decided. “You passing through?”

  “Looking for somebody, Ambrose,” Jacob said.

  “I reckon you are, but don’t say the party’s name out loud. He has enemies here.”

  “He all right?”

  “Took a bad beating, but he’ll recover.”

  “Not like him to lose a fight.”

  “Easy to do when there’s a bunch of them putting the boot in.”

  Jacob was rough as a cob, but he had God’s gift in his fingers. He looked around. “Me and the man I can’t mention are here looking for someone.”

  “I know. And if he’s in the foundry . . . well, the only way a man leaves there is through the chimney. His sister is in town.”

  “Maria?” Jacob was surprised.

  Hellen nodded. “You’ll find her and that other party by the old stage station south of town. Jake, I advise you to—” Hellen shut his mouth abruptly as three men stepped into the saloon.

  As the newcomers bellied up to the bar, Jacob decided they were worth a second look. All were big men, muscular in the chest and shoulders, and each carried a holstered Colt. They wore plug hats with goggles on the front of the crown, a sight that Jacob thought was mighty unusual. He pegged them as fist and boot fighters, not gunmen, but reckoned they’d be dangerous in any kind of scrap. Are these the toughs who’d beaten Shawn?

  Ignoring Hellen’s warning glance, Jacob ordered another rye and pretended to be what he was not, just another saddle tramp riding the grub line. The biggest of the three men, who’d been steadily watching him in the mirror, detached himself from the others and stepped beside him “Howdy.”

  Jacob nodded but said nothing.

  “Looking for work, are ye?”

  “You could say that. But I’m done with cowpunch-ing if that’s on your mind.”

  “Hell, I don’t blame you none. Cowboying is something a man does when he can’t do anything else. Name’s Val Kilcoyn. You ever make cannons before?”

  Jacob smiled. “No. I guess that’s a job I never got around to doing.”

  “Good. You don’t need to know anything about cannons to work at the Abaddon foundry. How does two hundred a month sound to you, plus grub, booze, and a woman when you need one?”

  “Sounds a hell of a lot better than the nothing I’m earning right now. What’s the job?”

  “Shift foreman. You oversee the labor, mostly men doing shovel work, stoking the furnaces, stuff like that. You’ll weed out slackers and those unfit for work and drive the rest with a bullwhip or club if you have to. Being a foreman is not work for the faint-hearted. Think you can handle it?”

  Jacob O’Brien hesitated only for a heartbeat. “I can handle most anything.”

  “You ever kill a man before?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I have.”

  “Then you won’t have any problem working at the Abaddon Foundry. What do you call yourself?”

  “Buck Ross, out of the New Mexico Territory.”

  “Glad to meet you, Buck.” Kilcoyn stuck out a hand. “Come over and meet a couple of your fellow foremen.”

  What Jacob O’Brien would always remember was how ordinary and normal all of the Abaddon men were. They would not hesitate to beat a slave laborer to death with their bare hands if they deemed him no longer fit for work. Yet when they talked about their wives and families or aged parents budding tears appeared in their eyes. The dozen or so kitty cats on factory floor rat patrol were constantly picked up and petted by foremen and often the hands that had just beaten the life out of a slave stroked a cat’s soft fur with the tenderness of a woman.

  Jacob thought it a
perfect plan that he work for Abaddon and search for Maria’s brother without suspicion. But perhaps if he’d known the horror that lay in store for him, he would have changed his mind.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  As the day shaded into evening, Hamp Sedley rode into camp, dragging a bundle of firewood behind his horse.

  Shawn saw the gambler’s face and knew he carried a heavier load on his shoulders. Even before Sedley drew rein, Shawn said, “What happened?”

  “Crop Hermon is dead. They hung him, Shawn. Shot his old dog.” Sedley’s face was ashen. “Now why would they do that? Why would they shoot his dog? And Crop’s feet were just inches off the ground. He strangled to death . . . his, his tongue was hanging out . . . and . . . and . . .” Sedley was obviously in shock and Shawn gently urged him to dismount.

  Maria Cantrell emerged from the tent with a glass of whiskey. “Drink this, Hamp. You need it. Sit by the fire and tell us what happened.”

  “I told it.” Hedley didn’t touch the whiskey. “They hung Crop and shot his dog. I liked the old man and thought I’d ride over and visit a spell.” He held up blistered hands. “I buried them side by side, Crop and his dog. His name was Trigger and he was just a dog.”

  Shawn finally got Sedley to sit beside the campfire. “You see anybody, Hamp?”

  The gambler shook his head. “Nobody. There were boot tracks around the wild oak where they hung him, but a lot of men wear boots.” He fished into the pocket and produced an empty shell casing. “I reckon Trigger was killed with a rifle, .44-40 caliber. Plenty of those in Big Buck.”

  “When you first spoke to Crop Hermon about the body from Abaddon, did anyone see you, Hamp? Anyone at all?” Shawn asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think he was killed because he told you about the condition of the dead man,” Shawn said. “Strange that it would happen right after a couple paid assassins like Jed Rose and the El Reno Kid arrived in town.”

  “It could have been them, maybe so,” Sedley said. “As I told you, I just don’t know. All I know is that Crop Hermon got hung.”