The Mighty Airship Kaede. (The Mighty Airships of Earth. Book 1)

by Gary W. Feather

  "Nope," Commander Matsuo said. "If you mean a real tracker then you should try looking from one among the locals here."

  "Where?" Momiji said.

  "I don't know. Then again, I'm sure Chief Grey might know. He can find out a lot of strange things."

  "Strange?" Momiji said.

  "You might say underground or criminal things," Commander Matsuo said.

  "Is he aboard?" Captain Parsons said.

  "No, sleeping over at the sheriff's hotel," Commander Masuo showed an evil grin.

  "Maybe you should go and bail him out, Sumiko," Captain Parsons said to his first officer.

  "Yes, sir," she laughed.

  "Still you shouldn't do this without eating first. Napoleon once wrote that an army marches on its stomach."

  "Yes," Momiji said. "That's probably a good idea."

  "Good idea, Doctor Sakusa," Captain Parsons said. "Mr. Stones, bring some sandwiches and tea for the four of us."

  "Yes, Captain," said the steward.

  "He's in a hotel?" Hirohira whispered to Doctor Sakusa.

  "What?"

  "The captain said that the man was in the sheriff's hotel."

  "That's slang, Hirohira-san," Momiji said. "He meant the jail."

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Chief Grey.

  Doctor Sakusa, Commander Matsuo, and Hirohira walked into the Toronto police station and approached a man sitting at a desk wearing a Canadian constable’s uniform with sergeant’s stripes on the arm.

  "Hello there, I'm Sergeant Stevens," the sergeant said. "How can I help you?"

  "Hello." Commander Matsuo politely nodded to the police sergeant with a motherly smile on her chubby face. "I am Commander Matsuo Sumiko of the Imperial Union Air Navy. We are looking for a man named Tom Grey. I believe he may have been arrested for drunkenness or something."

  "Ah...Yes, madam, uh, commander." Sergeant Stevens picked out a folder on his desk to look at. "Yes. Do you wish to pay his fine for his release?"

  "Yes, Sergeant Stevens. I would."

  "Good. Good.”

  The sergeant dropped some papers in front of Commander Matsuo. He picked a fountain pen out of a box and stuck the head into a bottle of ink to get some ink into it. Commander Matsuo took the offered pen and looked down at the papers.

  "Please sign here, Commander. And here."

  Commander Matsuo signed the papers. The sergeant stood up and called one of the constables to get the prisoner named Tom Grey. A little later the Chief Petty Officer that Hirohira met when he first came aboard the Kaede appeared in clothes that looked slept in, except now he had a torn sleeve, probably from a fight.

  "Hello, Chief," Commander Matsuo said.

  "Hello, Commander," Chief Grey said. "I'll pay you back for the fine, ma'am. Sorry about the uniform."

  "I know you will, Chief. Now let's go. We have more important things to talk about than your nonsense."

  "Uh...Yes, ma'am."

  Chief Grey stood over six feet tall and just about as wide as he was tall, but he politely and submissively followed the much shorter Commander Matsuo. Not that the commander was a little woman. At five foot eight she was fairly tall for a Japanese woman.

  "Take this, Chief." Commander Matsuo handed the chief petty officer a pump shotgun that she had been hiding under her navy coat. Chief Grey stuck it under his own coat and held it against his side. "Don't fire unless I say so."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Commander Matsuo had a .38 Osaka revolver on her hip, standard issue for Japan's air/sea naval officers. Hirohira still had his Colt Katana and his much smaller Osaka revolver. Hirohira walked quietly behind everyone with the hope of not being noticed. I really screwed up. Doctor Sakusa and Commander Matsuo brought Chief Grey up to speed on what had happened.

  "Muuph..." Chief Grey rubbed his shaggy head of hair, which had started to lose its brown color. "I might know where we could find a good local tracker. Uh..."

  "At a local pub?" Commander Matsuo said.

  "Uh...mmm...Yes, ma'am," Chief Grey said.

  "Okay, chief," Doctor Sakusa said. "Show us the way."

  #

  Chief Grey led them to a poorly designed log cabin. On the front was a brightly colored sign with lights around the edges. Two dirty big white men were roughhousing, wrestling, or whatever it was called locally, in front of the door. Chief Grey grabbed and tossed one of them off the porch. Grey slammed the second one into the door and the man fell down. Grey kicked him off the porch into a mud puddle. Chief Grey held the door open and stood at attention for Doctor Sakusa and the officers to enter.

  Chief Grey casually looked around the room and rubbed his nose. "I see them, Commander," he said without pointing or nodding towards them.

  "Good, Chief," Commander Matsuo said. "Take us to them."

  Chief Grey led them to two Indios, one of which Hirohira thought that he had seen before.

  "Greetings, Joseph," Chief Grey said. "My friends and I are in need of a couple of fine trackers. They're willing to pay well for your help."

  "Who are your friends, Tom?" Joseph said.

  "They are the ones I work. The one I told you about," Chief Grey said. "Commander Matsuo, Doctor Sakusa and Lieutenant Izumo."

  "A woman doctor," the other Indios man said with an appreciative nod. "Medicine woman."

  "Actually, I'm a scientist and not a medical doctor," Doctor Sakusa said.

  "Scientist woman and a woman navy officer?" The other Indios man snorted. He didn't sound impressed.

  Commander Matsuo snatched a couple of knives out of her coat. She laid them on the table in front of the two brothers.

  One of them picked up the knife and looked it over. "A good knife. Japanese?"

  "Okinawan," she said.

  "Thank you," the other brother said.

  "This is my older brother, Paul Red Badger," he said. "I am Joseph Red Badger."

  "Who or what are you after?" Paul hauled out a long tobacco pipe and laid it on the table.

  "Jeremiah Klein," Commander Matsuo said.

  The two Indios brothers startled and glanced at each other for a second.

  "Dangerous man to hunt." Paul jerked a bag out of a pocket and produced tobacco out of the bag. He began filling the pipe. "May I ask why?"

  "He kidnapped an English woman in my employ," Commander Matsuo said. "Wendy Montgomery."

  "It happened as we left the Buddhist/Shinto temple," Doctor Sakusa said. "Lieutenant Izumo and I were with her. Another stranger was working with this Klein fellow. I recall seeing you there, Mr. Red Badger with an Indios woman."

  "Yes," Paul Red Badger said. "My wife and I always go to the temple to pray. We used to be Christians, but changed when we heard the teachings of the Buddha."

  "I see," Doctor Sakusa said.

  Joseph laughed. "It'll probably be a great hunt. The man with Klein is probably that half-breed George Donaldson, a fair tracker himself. He won't be easily followed."

  "We'll do it." Paul nodded. "Now we seal the deal with a smoke of the sacred pipe."

  Paul lit the pipe and took a long inhale. He blew smoke out of his mouth. It floated up and away from him. He handed it to Commander Matsuo. She took a puff and released the smoke from her mouth. She handed the pipe to Doctor Sakusa who did the same and then she handed it to Lieutenant Izumo. I’m not going to like this. Hirohira held the pipe for a while before taking a puff. Hirohira coughed. He felt Chief Grey patting him on the back. Horrible! Hirohira thought, but said nothing.

  “Good, sir,” Chief Grey said. “You’ll get used to it.”

  Hirohira handed it to Chief Grey, who seemed happy to take his turn and then he handed it to Joseph. After Joseph was done he returned it to Paul.

  Paul nodded. "Good. We will do it. Take us to where she was kidnapped."

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Kidnapping and Beatings.

  Paul and Joseph Red Badger walked around the area where Wendy had been kidnapped. They nodded most of the time without say
ing a word, until they looked up at the tree. Then Joseph said something in Objiway.

  "Who stepped into the trap?" Paul said.

  "Me," Hirohira said.

  Joseph laughed and Paul smiled.

  "We see where the trail leads." Paul pointed.

  The two Indios brothers gestured at different spots on the ground as the walked forward and spoke quietly to each other. They continued on trail with the four foreigners following them. The hunt was slow and dull. Every once in a while the brothers would stop and point at things, or gesture in different directions and argue over them. Sometimes they just kept going with no need to speak.

  It all bewildered Hirohira. He had been taught to hunt as a boy, but these two seemed skilled in something he barely understood.

  "Yes, George Donaldson has been here, I see," Paul said. "He made changes in the tracks and wants us to go towards the southwest. No, I think they went that way."

  They worked at it for six hours and traveled a long while on foot. It was getting dark. Commander Matsuo had sent Chief Grey back to get rations and blankets. Once he returned Chief Grey heated a pot of tea and handed out round rice cakes and beef jerky.

  Hirohira bit into a rice cake, while Doctor Sakusa gnawed on a stick of beef jerky. She ate more beef than most people in Japan. Of course, he had been told that the Japanese in California ate a lot more beef than folks back in Japan. Probably due to the large cattle herds raised in the California territories. California was a strange quagmire for his people with its great diversity of racial/ethnic groups. In the eastern part there was a large population of whites called Mormons that had a new version of Christianity that was frowned upon by other versions, though he wasn't sure why.

  "Doctor Sakusa?" Paul said to her.

  "Yes?"

  "I was thinking about this problem of yours. I'm no friend, but most folks know that Klein is fond of a whore named Abbie Tail."

  "Tail?" Doctor Sakusa smiled.

  "That's what guys call her," Joseph said. "They say it’s better to look at her tail than her face."

  "Now, Joseph." Paul hit his brother's arm. "Mind your manners around the ladies."

  "Oh, sorry." Joseph bowed his head.

  "No offense taken, Joseph," Doctor Sakusa said.

  "Yes, I wasn't offended," Commander Matsuo said. "But that is a good idea, Mr. Red Badger. Where can this Miss Amber be found?"

  "She works at Pete's Piss, a pub over near Chinatown," Paul said. "One of the first shacks you come across as you turn east on Forts Street. Not too hard to find."

  "Commander," Sakusa said. "I will go check out this pub in the morning and take Lieutenant Izumo with me, while the rest of you continue to follow the tracks. Is that okay?"

  "Yes, Doctor Sakusa," Commander Matsuo said. "Just be careful."

  "We will, Commander," Doctor Sakusa said. "Let's see if we can hail a carriage that might be able to take us there."

  "Yes, Sakusa-sama," Hirohira said.

  "Oh don't call me that, Hirohira-kun," Doctor Sakusa said. "I don't hate you. I just was scared before when they kidnapped her. I don't expect you to be some all-knowing prophet."

  "Thank you, Doctor Sakusa," Hirohira pointed. "There's one!"

  "Hurry! Run!" Doctor Sakusa said.

  The two took off running for a carriage taxi and waved it down in time. Hirohira helped Doctor Sakusa into the carriage and she told the driver where to take them.

  #

  "You did what?" Jesse James said in disbelief.

  "I said that me and George there--" Jeremiah Klein nodded at the man sitting on a stool by the door. The man held a shotgun in his arms—-"kidnapped some English girl."

  Jesse James whispered into Belle's ear, "We shouldn't have hired this idiot."

  Belle nodded and kept looking at Klein. "And?"

  "We wait for them to show up." Klein seemed surprised that he didn't see it.

  Jesse shook his head again and took a sip of the horrible stuff they called whiskey around here.

  This is piss, that certainly is true, Jesse thought of stupid names for the dump that they were in. It's too damn near Toronto's Chinatown. All of those slanted-eyed Chinamen. They make me nervous and we have to deal with this stupid son of a Texan whore! Of course they were better than the damn Japanmen. At least they respected the value of slavery.

  "You do realize that they have a large airship full of Imperial Union Navy sailors and marines?" Jesse said.

  "A lot of them, huh?" Klein said. "I don't remember you mentioning that."

  "We assumed," Belle said, "that you would simply challenge Izumo to a gunfight and be done with it."

  "Well, how are they going to find me?" Klein said.

  "Its not like you're hiding out anywhere," Jesse said. "I might have suggested you found a...cave or old cabin out the woods someplace."

  "How would they find out where I am?" Klein said.

  "Everyone knows that Jeremiah Klein hangs out at the Pete's Piss." Jesse tried real hard not to yell at the fool. Klein was a vicious killer—not that Jesse hadn't killed plenty in his time, but savage men like Klein killed just about every day. "It wasn't difficult for us to find you. I'm sure they could."

  Belle placed her hand on top of Jesse's and patted it lightly. She glanced over at Klein's friend George. "Now, Mr. Klein, should we assume that Miss Wendy is here in this charming tavern?"

  "She's tied up real good, ma'am," Abbie said. She had come out of a door that Jesse assumed went to a basement or something. "Downstairs in Pete's hideout cellar. Pete's even got a lock on the hidden door and he gave Jeremiah the key, so no fearin'. We got her safe."

  "Shut up, Abbie!" Klein slapped her.

  Belle had the sudden urge to hit him over the head with her chair and then shoot the loon. Belle rubbed the bridge of her nose. God help us! We should have just gone after him ourselves and not hired this madman. Well, dear. You can't change that.

  Belle was then about to say something when the man in question, Izumo Hirohira, walked into Pete's Piss. Jesse saw her jaw dropped.

  "Oh shit!" Abbie yelped.

  Izumo was followed by Doctor Sakusa. Both stopped by the bar to ask Dekker the barkeep a question. Dekker shook his head no, but Doctor Sakusa turned and looked right at Klein. She grabbed Izumo's arm and whispered to him.

  Klein stood up, but didn't reach for his gun. "You two looking for a pretty, yellow-haired English girl?"

  Before either of them could move, George cocked back the triggers of his double-barreled shotgun and aimed at the Japanese woman. Both of the Japanese people raised their hands. Klein calmly walked up and took Izumo's revolvers.

  "These Katanas of Colt sure are pretty, and a lot lighter than the Peacemakers," Klein said. He twirled the revolver in his hand. "How much would you give me for this fine gun, Mr. James?"

  Jesse grunted. He didn't like it that Klein had mentioned his name, because he was a Confederate spy.

  "Not interested? Okay." Klein tossed the guns across the pub. By that time, most everyone had disappeared outside as fast they could. Klein unbuckled his gun belt and handed it to Amber. He turned and smiled at the Japanese man. He literally got right up to his face.

  "So, you looking for her, Mr. Slant-eyes?" Klein said.

  "Yes. I am," Izumo said through clenched teeth. "Mr. Round-eyes."

  "You have a thing for white women?" Klein asked. "Where I come from, a fellow like you would be hung, or worse. Actually, it would usually be worse, and then hung. If ya know what I mean. Ain't that right, Mr. James?"

  "Dammit, Klein!" Jesse shouted and stood up. "Do you have to keep using my name?"

  Klein laughed.

  "I was thinking about killing him right here in front of you. Then maybe we could have some fun with the Oriental girl, like we did the English girl."

  "What?" Belle said. "You uncivilized asshole!"

  "No!" Doctor Sakusa yelled and cursed something in Japanese.

  Klein belly-laughed, enjoying himself. "Actu
ally, Mr. Slant-eyes," Klein said in a serious tone. "I was wondering how tough you were without a gun. Why don't we step outside? Just the two of us."

  "Idiot," Jesse mumbled.

  "Let's just get out of here, Jesse," Belle whispered and Jesse nodded.

  George waved his shotgun at Doctor Sakusa to and then gestured Izumo towards the exit. Everyone else followed. There were more people outside and some retreated as everyone joined them. Most seemed to want to stay and watch Izumo. He was seemed the center of attention. Jesse and Belle took the distraction to take off.

  #

  Hirohira wondered what to do. Klein seemed to have at least one man to back him up, but he wasn't sure if there were any more.

  We shouldn't have come alone. Should have brought Chief Grey as backup. Now we might be dead, and Doctor Sakusa will be raped and maybe sold to a Chinese brothel. The same will happen to Wendy. Stupid! Stupid!

  After everyone had gotten out of Pete's Piss, Hirohira stood still with his hands over his head. He found himself inside a circle of people watching them.

  Klein stepped in front of him. Klein waved his hands toward his chest. "Come on! I'll give you the first punch! Come on!"

  Hirohira faked like he was going to punch, instead he kicked Klein's shin. The kick feint at Klein, so Hirohira could move in close and get his backside against Klein's front for a hip throw. After Klein was thrown Hirohira kept a grip on Klein's wrist, so he could break the arm. Klein slipped free of Hirohira’s hands. Klein kicked upwards and his boot hit Hirohira in the head. Hirohira backwards and shook his head in attempt to chase away the stars. Klein rose and tackled him. Hirohira suddenly found himself on his back with pain and terror being pounded down on him by Klein's fists. He grabbed at one of Klein's arms, but Klein shook him away. Hirohira reached for Klein’s throat and got bit. Hirohira tried to buck him off, but he was tired and losing his eyesight. Hirohira felt Klein’s weight leave his torso. Hirohira rolled to the left and tried to get to his feet.

  "He still ain't done," Klein said. "Look at him. Come on! Here I am!"

  Hirohira could barely see through his beaten eyes. He tried to stand. Everything was a blur.