City of the Saints

by D. J. Butler

  Hishhhhhhhhh …

  The lift descended into view from above. It was small, fit to hold maybe four men, with three walls paneled in wood and brass, and a brass accordion gate replacing the fourth wall and meeting the lift door. It all gleamed of shine and polish and only Burton’s close watch and sharp eyes caught the furled edge of a coat on one side of the lift, betraying at least one passenger.

  “Back!” he hissed to the Irishman.

  O’Shaughnessy’s eyes were stupid with drink but something propelled him against the wall, back first, and he filled both his hands with silenced pistols.

  Burton raised his pistol.

  The lift stopped—

  —Bang! Bang! Bang!—

  —and Burton started firing.

  The Colt 1851 Navy punched three holes through the glass and shining wood in a tight pattern that should have placed all three bullets into the neck of the man hiding there. He collapsed forward into the middle of the lift but Burton paid him no attention. He was already shifting his aim to the second man, who spun into view holding a Sharps carbine and raising it to his shoulder.

  Bang!

  The Sharps fired first and Burton felt the bullet bite into his hip. He staggered back, losing his grip on the Colt as he pulled the trigger.

  Bang!

  Burton’s shot missed and the bullet tore away up the tunnel uselessly. The pistol clattered to the floor. Burton fought to regain his footing and bring the saber up into a guard position, pointless as that would be against a rifle, but his wounds were too much and he flailed backwards until he collided with the wall.

  The man with the Sharps stalked forward out of the lift. He was clean-shaven, with a cleft chin and the determined look of a professional in his eye. He kept the muzzle of the Sharps pointed squarely at the center of Burton’s chest.

  “Drop the sword,” Sharps growled.

  Zing! Zing! Zing! Zing! Zing! Zing!

  Tamerlane O’Shaughnessy’s first shot hit the Pinkerton in the side of the head, but he kept firing. Every bullet hit and the gunman crumpled to the floor under a tsunami of instant, nearly silent death.

  “I reckon you’d have got him with one shot,” O’Shaughnessy said with a lopsided grin. “I promise I’ll try harder next time.”

  Burton stooped to recover the Colt, hopping on one leg like a crane and wincing with pain. “I’ve reconsidered my view,” he said, trying to speak gently, but knowing that it came out surly. “Shoot as many bullets as you want.”

  “I’d give you a shot of my whisky,” the Irishman offered, “only I drank it all.”

  Pain seared Burton’s hip and thigh but he forced himself to walk with as much dignity as he could muster into the lift. “Think nothing of it,” he brushed away the offer, knowing he wouldn’t be quite so cavalier if there were actually a bottle to hand. “I’ve had worse.”

  “I can see that you have,” O’Shaughnessy agreed, nodding pointedly at the scars on Burton’s face. “Only I doubt you had to walk out of that jungle on your face afterwards, did you?”

  Burton checked his hip in the lift. It bled, but not profusely, and the bullet had entered, missed the bone, and exited again. He’d live. They dragged the bodies out into the hall and then wiped blood off their shoes on the dead men’s clothing.

  “Try not to step in the blood,” he urged O’Shaughnessy.

  “Do you reckon me that big an idjit, then? I’ll not be painting a bright red trail behind us wherever we go. Mother O’Shaughnessy might have raised a numbskull or two but she didn’t name them Tamerlane.”

  Both men climbed gingerly into the lift together. Burton shut the brass accordion door and heard a click outside as the external lever popped back to its NO CALL setting. Inside, a brass panel set into the wooden wall contained another lever running past five markers: GATE, TUNNEL, BAY, LAKE, and TOWER. The lever was currently set at TUNNEL.

  “It can’t have been just bad luck that these two men stumbled upon us,” Burton ruminated, examining the panel.

  “No, I reckon they’re expecting trouble,” the Irishman agreed. “Maybe they’ve seen what happened at the mine entrance, or they called down and got no answer. Then you called the lift with that switch outside, and they jumped on to see what they’d find.”

  Burton nodded. “I suggest we go to the Bay, one level up from where we are now.”

  “Bit of a gamble, isn’t that?” the Irishman asked.

  “Anything we do is a gamble,” Burton agreed. “I’m gambling that there aren’t other Pinkertons waiting for us at the Bay level, either because there aren’t others waiting anywhere, full stop, or because they’re waiting at a higher position.”

  “I’ll wager on the same horse,” O’Shaughnessy deferred to him. “If we actually had a horse, mind you, I’d gladly force the beast up the tunnel with me on its back, because I don’t mind admitting I’m a wee bit nervous. But I can’t do any more of these stairs.”

  “No more stairs,” Burton agreed, and began reloading the 1851 Navy.

  When they had both reloaded, he shoved the lever to BAY.

  Hishhhhhhhhhh!

  The lift slid smoothly upward and the lever in the panel climbed to show their progress.

  Jed Coltrane’s hands were free. He’d cut his own bonds before he’d handed the one knife the Danites had missed in searching him to the Englishman, and he’d kept his eyes shut and his head down since then.

  Now he opened his eyelids a crack and examined the room.

  Danites in long coats stood at every window, peeping out past the animal skin curtains that covered them, and one more waited behind the door. Jed counted six of them, including the leader with the jug handle ears, Lee, who paced up and down the center of the floor rubbing his hands together like he was warming up to pray. A single kerosene lantern burned, shedding its oily stink and its wavering yellow light from the hook by which it hung from the center beam of the ceiling.

  Jed lay piled in the corner by the chimney with the farmer and the rest of his family. They all had their hands tied and a few of them had bruised faces or bloody lips but they wore patient, serious expressions on their faces. Maybe they were sure help was coming. Or maybe they were just ready to die.

  Jed wasn’t ready to die, not by a long shot. He wasn’t sure what it was he thought he had to live for, exactly, but whatever it was life brought him, he hadn’t had enough of it yet. He looked for a way out, and it wasn’t hard to find. The Danite at the nearest window watched the yard outside and not the prisoners, obviously relying on the fact that they were tied up and had been beaten. Either end of the cabin’s long plank table or the rough wooden bench running along the wall would give Jed plenty of platform from which to launch himself into the air and through the window. The Danite would never see it coming, and then Jed would be out in the night and running for freedom.

  He was an acrobat, after all.

  Hell, maybe he ought to escape, to warn Brigham Young and Sam Clemens and the others. Jed had no reason to be confident that the young Englishman had somehow pulled it off. For all he knew, John Moses might be merrily on his way into the trap at that very moment.

  But if he jumped out the window, he’d be leaving prisoners behind. They had no one else to help them … that wasn’t right.

  Dammit, Coltrane, what’s happened to you?

  He clenched his jaw to keep from gnashing his teeth and giving away the fact that he was awake. Don’t go soft now, Jed Coltrane, he browbeat himself. Those are real guns those men are carrying and they’ll happily blow you full of holes to make a point, much less to snatch the keys to this Kingdom they want so badly. They’re willing to burn down the whole damn show. They won’t bat an eye at having to snuff out a rousty like you.

  You can come back for the farmer and his family, or tell Brigham Young and he can send his people back. It’s his problem, anyway, not yours. Just because you went all soft on a little kid once doesn’t mean you have to go soft on everybody.

  Count to
three, then go.

  One. The Danites kept their watch strictly. The man at the nearest window was fixed on the back pasture and wouldn’t even see Jed until he was flying past.

  Two. “Ain’t they a bit late getting back?” a big-shouldered, red-haired Danite asked his chieftain.

  “Patience, Brother Robison,” John Lee answered. “We’ll give them a few more minutes.”

  Three.

  Jed stayed put.

  Dammit! he cursed himself.

  “Hoo-whee!” the man standing beside the doorway called out and opened the door wide, letting in a rush of cold night air. Every Danite in the room turned into the breeze, pulling his pistol or readying his rifle to shoot.

  Jed had another clear shot at the window and still he did nothing.

  He looked at the farmer Heber Kimball. As if the old man were echoing Jed’s own thoughts, he shook his head sadly.

  Brigham Young came into the room first, hands raised in surrender. The Mexican Ambassador followed, and Orrin Porter Rockwell, and then Sam Clemens, and finally the Englishman Fearnley-Standish, all holding their hands up and bowing their heads in meek submission.

  “Shit.” The curse escaped Jed in a whisper but it escaped him. No one seemed to notice except the farmer Kimball, who turned and shot Jed a curious look. Jed winked back at him and dropped his eyelids back to slits.

  “You’ve got us, John,” Young said gruffly. “You’ve surprised me here like you surprised me in the Beehive House. Now let me surprise you.”

  “With what?” Lee asked. “A burst of pointless temper, followed by an even more pointless offer of forgiveness? Save your breath, whatever it’s worth to you. Jesus may be able to forgive me, Brigham. All you can do is promise not to bring me to trial. And even if I believed you, your promise is meaningless now, because as of tomorrow morning, you won’t be President of the Kingdom anymore.”

  Absalom Fearnley-Standish edged over to the knot of prisoners beside the fireplace and sat down. The Danites paid him no mind.

  “What if you fail?” Young asked.

  Lee laughed, harsh. “If I do, you won’t be there to see it. You’ll never see another sunrise, Brigham. I’m going to take you outside now, purely out of courtesy to Sister Kimball, and kill you in the goat pen. Of course, I don’t know how long Sister Kimball will appreciate my courtesy, that’s entirely up to Heber. Once you’re dead, he’ll have to choose to be with me or against me, like the Savior said. Naturally, there will be consequences, whichever choice he makes.”

  “We have to move,” Fearnley-Standish hissed in a soft whisper. Jed barely heard the words, they were so soft, and Heber Kimball shook his head to clear it from the distraction of the Englishman’s voice.

  “You’re not the Savior.” Brigham Young’s voice was gentle.

  “Neither are you.” John D. Lee’s voice was hard and flat. It was the sort of voice you’d use to accuse another rousty of gaffing a card game.

  “We can’t … be by … the chimney.” The Englishman was still whispering out of the corner of his mouth, shooting out his words in staccato bursts like the bullets out of John Browning’s machine-gun. The Danites, transfixed by the confrontation in the center of the room, didn’t hear him, and Jed and the Kimballs ignored him. His eyes began to twitch frantically.

  Brigham Young turned and paced deliberately across the room in Jed’s direction, the cabin floor creaking under his steps. He looked like Daniel in the lions’ den, Jed thought, except the only man in the room who carried himself like a lion was Brigham Young. He was a lion in a jackals’ den, maybe.

  Young stopped himself in front of the fireplace, then stopped and turned to face Lee.

  “Shoot me here,” he told his adopted son.

  “Aren’t you troubled you’d make a mess of Sister Kimball’s floors?” Lee asked, but he drew a pistol from the holster at his hip. “But why do I ask? Consideration of others has never been your strong suit.”

  “The blood of Brother Brigham would make this a holier temple than you’ll ever set foot in, John Lee!” the farmer’s wife snapped. “Don’t you worry about my floors!”

  “My Brother Joseph died in a jail cell,” Young said quietly, “surrounded by his friends. Dying in a cabin surrounded by my friends would be no less honorable.”

  “Move!” The shouted instruction came from the Danite by the nearest window, the man Jed had been planning to slip past. Now he pointed a pistol at the prisoners and urged them to their feet.

  Jed pretended to wake up, then carefully held his unbound hands together as he scrambled to his feet and followed the Kimballs as they shuffled across the creaking floor to the far wall.

  “You happy?” he grunt-whispered to Fearnley-Standish. “Now we ain’t by the chimney.”

  The Englishman had a look of pure consternation and worry on his face. “He’ll die,” he whispered.

  “Who, Young?” Jed shot a look over his shoulder. The President of the Kingdom of Deseret stood with his back to the chimney and his hands over his head. John D. Lee stood in front of him with his pistol drawn but not yet raised. All eyes in the room were on them. “Yeah, he might. But he’s only getting what he chose.”

  “He’ll die.” The Englishman patted the waistband of his pants like he had an upset stomach.

  “Hey,” the red-headed Danite Robison said, “what about Wells?”

  “Do I get last words, John?” Young asked. He stood directly before the stone column of the chimney, his arms spread wide like wings, and he edged forward slightly, taking small steps that brought him closer to the man holding the gun on him. His eyes were calm, Jed noticed. He was one steel-spined son of a bitch, Brigham Young. “A last meal? Brother Heber is tone deaf, but will you let him sing ‘A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief’ for me, anyway?”

  “You’re no martyr,” Lee said. “You’re no Joseph Smith. You’re just in the way.”

  “The chimney,” Fearnley-Standish murmured, and suddenly Jed guessed what he was worried about.

  John D. Lee raised his pistol—

  and Jed tackled him. He hit the man knuckles-first, missed his grab at the jug ears, and tumbled to the floor.

  Bang!

  Lee’s shot went wide, the bullet biting into the wooden ceiling.

  Jed rolled, racing for a window. The room around him bustled into action, guns swerving and men barking, but unfortunately all the guns were in the hands of the men who wanted Jed dead. He came out of his somersault reaching to plant his foot on a chair and leap for a window and freedom—

  —and a booted foot caught him in the midriff.

  Jed crashed hard into the log wall of the cabin. The room tipped to one side before his eyes and then spun around in a greasy yellow kerosene swirl, and when he could see again, he was looking up the barrel of a heavy rifle at the snarling face of the Danite Robison. Behind his attacker, Young and Clemens and Rockwell and the Ambassador all stood still, guns to their heads.

  So much for the little rebellion he had started.

  So much for worrying about other people. You should have run when you had the chance, Coltrane.

  “Go to hell,” he drawled to the Danite in his best cracker accent.

  “Kill the dwarf,” Lee said.

  The powerfully-built Danite raised the rifle and grinned. “This is for Wells,” he snarled.

  Pip! Pip! Pip!

  Robison’s head exploded, spurting a fountain of blood out one temple. He dropped the rifle, took two jerky steps forward and then toppled to the floor. Jed turned to stare at the source of the shots, with everyone else.

  They had come from Absalom Fearnley-Standish. He stood upright, if trembling a bit, and in his outstretched hand he held a tiny derringer, a little four-shot lady’s gun. In any other moment, Jed might have found him silly looking, with his scalloped hat brim and badly scuffed city boy shoes and the look on his face, part scared, part determined, and part totally insane. Trembling as he was from the close scrape with death, though, Jed was happy
to have a champion of any appearance whatsoever.

  The short yaps from the derringer faded and Fearnley-Standish lowered his gun. His face shone with sweat and his eyes trembled and Jed wondered if the other man might be just a little bit drunk.

  “Mr. Lee,” the Englishman said slowly, tugging at his waistcoat and jacket in effort to smooth them that was doomed to failure. “The first step in any successful negotiation is the making of an offer. We are all reasonable men here, President Brigham Young more than any of us. Please tell us what you want and why you want it, and I’m sure that together we shall all be able to find common ground.”

  “Kill them both!” John D. Lee barked.

  Danites cocked pistols all over the room.

  KABOOM!

  The chimney exploded.

  ***

  Chapter Fifteen

  KABOOM!

  Two Danites standing nearest the chimney collapsed under the barrage of flying stones. Then the ceiling around the fireplace caved in and Young, Armstrong, Rockwell, and Clemens all disappeared from Absalom’s view.

  “Not that easy!” John D. Lee raged and waded into the mess of fallen timbers, one hand clawing at the rubble and the other holding a pistol high.

  “Get outta here!” the dwarf Coltrane shouted. He wheezed a bit and sounded generally thrashed but he had a knife in his hand and he started cutting ropes off the hands of the Kimball family.

  A Danite with a scattergun stepped close to the knot of prisoners and raised his weapon. “Stop right there!” he growled, aiming at the midget.

  To Absalom’s own surprise, he didn’t hesitate. He raised his derringer and took aim at Scattergun’s neck.

  Pip!

  Scattergun toppled sideways and then Coltrane was on him like a dagger-wielding ape, stabbing him twice in the face before Absalom pulled his gaze away—