by George Wier
“Mine, too.”
“What are you two looking at?” Abigail said as she squirmed between them. Ekka stiffened, but Abby didn’t act as if she noticed. She put her arm in Billy’s and said, “So, what are you watching?”
Billy held his composure. He pointed, “The buffalo.”
“Those stinky old things? I think cattle are nicer looking.”
Ekka said, “That statement gives a good image of you, Abigail.”
“Why, whatever do you mean?” Her eyes were cool as she looked at Ekka.
“A person’s likes and dislikes say much about them.”
“Well, I like Billy, so what does that say about me?” Abigail smiled sweetly, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
Billy unhooked her arm from his and stepped away from the two women, “I’m going to check on Two Hats and see if he needs any help.”
When Billy was gone and they were alone, Abigail said, “And what do you like Ekka, besides buffalo?”
“Many things. Faithfulness is one.”
Abigail reacted as though slapped. “How dare you! You’re jealous because Billy wants me!”
“Billy Gostman is a man, and he may choose those he will.”
“And when he chooses me?”
Ekka playfully tweaked Abigail’s nose and said, “Dreams are nice things to have, Abby, but they are simply that, dreams.” Abigail’s cheeks went bone white and pink spots blossomed in them.
“I have to assist Nikola on an experiment. I bid you good day, Abby.”
Abigail stood stiffly, clenched fists at her side as Ekka walked away. She had never been addressed in such a manner! As if she were…inconsequential! She whispered, “We will see how haughty she is when I have Billy in my bed.” The thought of Ekka’s face when that day came made Abby smile. She hummed as she walked away, making plans for the seduction.
Jude decided to open up the Arcadia a bit and see how it handled at a faster pace. He eased into it, and climbed to a higher altitude where the currents were smoother. The earth passed underneath the craft at a quick but steady pace. Nikola and Ekka joined him on the bridge. Jude said, “I’ve increased the air speed.”
Nikola said, “Will we reach our destination this day?”
“Yes, and before sundown.”
“Most excellent.”
Ekka said, “We are not landing in the town, correct?”
“We will put down in a area outside of San Antonio, a place named Government Canyon, where we can’t be easily seen.”
“I will go into town tonight and arrange things,” Ekka said.
“Take Billy with you.” Jude replied and Ekka smiled.
They landed an hour before true sundown. Merkam said to Ekka and Billy, “Our contacts will be at the Vaudeville Theater on the Main Plaza.”
Billy said, “I know the place. Ben Thompson and King Fisher were ambushed and killed there.”
Jude said, “The famous Texas shootists murdered just a few years ago, yes. I recall reading about it. Your contacts will be upstairs in the first booth to the right.”
Ekka said, “We will return when it is accomplished.”
As they left Jude, Ekka took a small key from around her neck and gave it to Billy. “I think this would be a good time for you to use that.”
Billy looked at it, “What does it open?”
“The green locker in the storage room. It is my present to you.”
“When did you get me a present?”
“Before the trouble in Colorado.” They descended to the storage room and Billy slipped in the key. He opened the door and there, in a polished oak shadow box were two matched short-barreled Colt Peacemakers resting on black velvet. They were the most beautiful weapons Billy had ever seen. Exquisite silver and gold engraving covered the barrels and cylinders, while the frame was an incredible deep blue-black. The handles were black gutta percha, with gold tracings of running buffalo on both sides of the weapons. Beside the shadow box was a tooled gunbelt with two holsters. Billy was speechless.
Ekka said, “I know you fancy the Colt’s revolvers, and when I saw these, I thought of you.”
“These are too expensive, Ekka.”
“You wish to hurt my feelings by refusing them?”
“No.” Billy pulled her to him and kissed her softly. “You are an amazing woman.”
She said, “Will you wear them today?”
Billy slung the gunbelt around his hips, “I may never take them off.”
[ 28 ]
When Billy and Ekka entered the Vaudeville, they failed to see the table of men sitting in the dark corner at the end of the bar, but the men saw them. George Armstrong Custer said, “Our emissaries of espionage were right, gentlemen. We will still claim the Arcadia.”
One of the captains said, “It’s a good thing you ordered the military train to take us poste haste or we would not have beaten them to San Antonio.”
“Beating them here by an hour was cutting it thin. But we did it. Custer’s luck again that they have had delays and have been busy making repairs.”
“Do we take them now?”
“No, we bide our time and follow them to the ship. They are expecting a shipment of arms and we will take them before the weapons arrive, then we will take the weapons as well. For glory, gentlemen, for glory.”
Ekka and Billy concluded their meeting in half an hour. They shook hands and told the men they would take delivery at the Arcadia first thing in the morning. “Do not be late,” Ekka said.
“We won’t ma’am.”
They left the Vaudeville and made their way to the San Antonio River where they ordered food at a small restaurant. The tall cypress trees and the clear, flowing stream made the outdoor seating a nice atmosphere. Billy said, “We should do this often, after we return from our adventure.”
“I would like that, Billy. My life has been too much the opposite of this.”
“Mine too. All that adventure and action reads well in the penny dreadfuls or in Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe or James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales, but it ain’t so grand to go through in real life.”
“You enjoy reading. I like that about you,” Ekka said.
“That is something else we will do when we get back— build a room so we can fill it with books.”
Ekka smiled and touched Billy’s hand on the table. “Are you saying we will be sharing a home, with a room full of books?”
“It may just be you and me and a room full of books, but we will be there together.”
Ekka laughed, and it was music to Billy’s ears. Billy said, “I love you, Ekka.”
Ekka grew serious. “Do not say these things lightly, Billy Gostman, for I take your words deep into my heart.”
He took her hand, “I never meant anything more in my life.” He had never been looked at with so much love.
“I love you, too, Billy. For as long as I live, I will love only you.”
[ 29 ]
Billy Gostman and Ekka Gagarin mounted their horses and moved away from the sad, darkened wall of stone that was the Alamo. Both horses had been loaned them by Jay-Patten, who made provision for them before arriving in Colorado Springs. Billy’s horse, a black Arabian stallion, was nearly a head taller than Ekka’s roan. They seemed well suited for the long ride back to Government Canyon where the Arcadia was safely nestled away from prying eyes in the deep defile twenty miles west of downtown San Antonio. But first they would swing past Merkam’s and Jay-Patten’s small armaments factory, nose about and make certain everything looked secure.
During the ride, Billy pondered the depths of what he and Ekka had committed to one another.
There was something she did to him, and he couldn’t peg it down to anything specific. There were too many of those damned things. What the hell was it? When he thought of her standing there in her small room with her breasts bared, his throat went dry. When he smelled her delicate fragrance, his head spun. When she smiled at him and looked into his eyes, his heart did a
little flip-flop in his chest. Ekka was so damned much smarter it was frightening. Then how was it she could tell him she loved him, and it be true? Maybe, just maybe, she was a little bit crazy. And maybe they both were. But then again, wasn’t that what love was all about?
“What are you thinking about, Billy?” she asked him.
“Nothing much. You, I guess. Well, you and me.”
They rode for a moment more in silence. Ekka reined in and stopped and Billy followed suit. He backed his horse up a pace and sat looking at her. Her knee brushed his lower leg.
“What?” he asked.
She stood up in her saddle. “Damn you, Billy. Won’t you kiss a girl?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and leaned over to her. She brought her lips up to his.
“Ssst!” They heard from the darkness.
The moment was dispelled. Billy whipped his Colt from his holster before his lips left Ekka’s.
“Do not shoot, Billy,” a deep voice whispered from the darkness.
“Two Hats?”
“It is I.” He motioned them to him, “Come in shadows.”
Billy and Ekka moved their horses slowly out of the broad street and beneath the draping branches of a tall water oak.
“What is it?”
“Yellow Hair here. Many bluecoats come with him.”
“Where?”
“In drinking place you entered. Why did you not see him? Where are your eyes?”
“Our eyes are fine, Two Hats,” Ekka said.
“Why did you not see the two men following you?”
“What two men?” Billy whispered.
Two Hats chuckled softly. “The first man was this Sioux warrior. The second man wears black. He is one hundred yards behind you.”
“Give me your hat, Two Hats,” Ekka said. She swung off of her horse. “Here is my shawl. Billy, you two ride slowly down the road. I’ll wait for him here.”
Billy started to object, but Two Hats was already in Ekka’s saddle.
“It may be dark and all,” Billy whispered, “but I’m willing to place bets you make an ugly girl, Two Hats,” Billy whispered.
“All same, we act like lovers. Let us ride a bit. We hold hands.”
“Not on your life, you savage.”
“All same, I Ekka,” Two Hats said, and rode ahead.
“Go,” Ekka whispered harshly. “He’s coming.” She gave Billy’s stallion a light swat and the horse moved forward to join Two Hats.
Ekka waited in the dark until the figure was even with the tree. The figure stopped, his light footsteps on the cobblestones gone.
Ekka stood five feet away from the man’s left rear quarter and aimed her gun at his head. She started to speak, but found there was a gun aimed at her. The outstretched arm had made no sound. The man was a specter.
“Your name?” the man asked. He had yet turned to see her.
“Ekka. Yours?”
The man turned her direction slowly.
“Pat,” he said. “Pat Garrett.”
[ 30 ]
“So, you’re telling me that this wild tale of a flying ship is true?” Sheriff Pat Garrett asked.
The four sat at a table in the Colonial Room of the Menger Hotel, a block from the Alamo.
“Ekka and I, and even Two Hats here, are crew,” Billy said. “We flew here from Colorado Springs. The damn thing flies, I tell you. And without any hot air to make it light.”
“Me fly,” Two Hats stated.
Garrett regarded them one by one.
“All right, so you fly. Right after burning half of Colorado Springs to the ground.”
“That was Custer,” Billy said, and Ekka nodded in agreement.
“Yeah,” Garrett said. “There’s a bunch of Army men in town. They’re unloading over at the train station now. A lot of armaments, too. You say it was Custer who burned up Colorado Springs.”
“The insane man attacked a well-fortified position,” Ekka said, “without foreknowledge of its strength. Typical military bravado. More guns than brains.”
“Amen to that,” Billy agreed. “By the way, not that I’m not happy to see you, but why are you here?”
“You, Billy,” Garrett said. “By the time the wires were singing from Colorado Springs—and let me tell you, they’ve been singing all across the United States—I was already on a train to San Antonio.”
“You got my letter.”
“I did.” Garrett pulled it from the inside of his vest pocket. “It’s simple logic, Billy. ‘Leaving all the countries,’ you said. I wasn’t sure what you meant by that, and figured maybe you’d gotten a job on an oceangoing ship, or maybe one of those newfangled dirigibles. But then there’s been all the articles and speculation about Judah Merkam and what he was about to pull. Put that together with the postmark on the letter—the fact that you were in Colorado Springs—and the rest was easy. Particularly after the national news of the burning of the town and Merkam’s ship taking to the skies to escape the town’s wrath. Wherever Merkam’s planning to go, he’d better not go back there. I’ve heard that there will be a hundred lawsuits filed against him for damages to the town. Also, there’s a federal warrant out for him.”
“Big papers,” Two Hats waved a dismissive hand in front of his face.
Pat Garrett looked up at the ceiling for a moment, as if trying to recall something.
“What is it, Mr. Garrett?” Ekka asked.
“Probably it’s not related to anything. It seems like there was a report of a killing in Colorado Springs a few days before the fire. Did you happen to hear anything about it?”
Billy looked at Ekka, who shrugged.
“Me read little Chinese,” Two Hats stated. “No read folded papers of the news.”
“What was it about?” Billy asked.
“Some prostitute got cut up, if I recall. Sliced and diced something devilish, I believe. Now why the hell is that familiar? I don’t know. Maybe it means nothing. Still, if Custer’s in town—”
“Saint Josephine!” Billy swore.
“What?” Ekka asked.
“If he saw us at the Vaudeville, then his men must have followed Judah’s agents back to the factory.”
“What factory?” Pat Garrett asked.
But Billy was already on his feet. “Come on Ekka. Two Hats. Custer may be about to confiscate the armaments factory. And there goes the whole game.”
“Shit,” Garrett swore and jumped to his feet. “Wait for me.”
[ 31 ]
The JPM factory was a three-story brick affair ten blocks north and a few blocks west of the Menger Hotel. It sat like a red monolith at the edge of an orchard of young pecan trees planted in soldier-like rows, while beyond it were a few small farms and the rolling Texas countryside. Steam billowed like streamers of white cotton from the factory’s two tall chimneys before dissipating into wisps in the blue sky, and the thrumming sounds of working engines carried well beyond the building.
Ekka and Billy raced slightly ahead of the others as they approached the tall, red walls. Ekka pointed to the west side of the building, “The freight entrance! We enter there!”
Billy glanced behind and said, “Spur ‘em boys, Custer’s right on our heels!” They reined their mounts around the corner and arrowed toward the open gate. Ekka leapt from her still-running horse and landed on her feet. Her horse continued into the walled yard with the others. She ran to one massive, iron-strapped wooden gate and pushed to close it. Billy and Pat ran to the other as Two Hats joined Ekka and the four of them slammed the gates together with a boom.
The instant the gates closed, Pat and Two Hats slid the crossbar into place while Billy and Ekka dropped inch-thick anchor pins into the ground holes at their bases just as the sound of Garryowen came on the breeze. Factory employees ran to Ekka, who told them what was happening, and for them to arm the roof with whatever weaponry they had.
One older Mexican man with a white walrus moustache and powerful looking hands indicated the other worker
s and said, “This is all of us. We’re a light crew today, but we will give them old Billy Ned.” He trotted away, barking orders in English and Spanish to send the ten other men racing into the factory.
Two Hats said, “We no see good here. We go up.” He pointed to the factory’s roof. “Up there, we see Yellow Hair.” His black eyes had a hardness about them when he spoke of Custer that made Billy glad he was not the focus of this tall Sioux’s wrath.
Ekka said, “Come,” and led them to a flight of stairs. When they stepped on the roof, Billy noticed the perimeter wall was a three-foot high parapet of red brick.
“That’ll be nice to hunker down behind, once the fireworks commence,” he said. The four stood side by side, looking at the massed group of men and equipment gathering on the grassy prairie a half-mile distant. One of the big freighters Custer had used in Colorado Springs steamed to a halt near the still-playing band, and from the dropped tailgate ramp emerged two TerraCycles streaming plumes of steam, and both showing the dents and scars of the Colorado battle. The sidecars still carried the harpoon cannons, but Billy could tell they were not nets, this time, but sharp, arrow-like points.
“They came ready to settle our hash,” Pat said.
“They not here to eat hash, they here to kill us plenty dead,” Two Hats said, and pointed to the tree line behind Custer. Four dirigibles floated into view, each with a large ship attached twenty feet below it by long cables. Bright, triangular flags of red and white fluttered along the silver skin of the blimps. Massive twin propellers extended on long metal struts from the back of each ship, and the blades spun slow but steady to maintain them in a fixed position in the breeze. Steam issued from two small, cone-shaped exhausts under each ship’s keel, and rifle barrels bristled like cactus spines from the four decks as soldiers prepared to fire down into the factory. Each ship had a two-pound swivel cannon as well, and a man ready to fire it stood behind each one.
“I’m starting to feel like Crockett at the Alamo,” Garret said. He pointed in the distance, “Look yonder, there’s more trouble.” Several miles away and so small in the distance they looked like toys, were more airships gliding toward them, coming faster than the wind.
