by Amy Braun
“You’re going to need money to escape,” Trajan said. “Have any?”
“No...I expect we’ll just deal with that later.”
“You could sell your tools and such...to me.”
“How much you got?” Andy said, desperate enough to consider it.
“How much I have isn’t rightly your business, is it?” the old man replied, gently waving his manumission papers in the air. “Fifty dollars for the whole lot—and Estelle, once you’re through with her—and the wagon.”
“Seventy-five.”
“Done!” Trajan went in to rustle about in his own bag, and returned with paper money, backed by Confederate gold.
“All right,” Andy said, once Estelle was saddled. “I’ll be back.”
“Let’s hope so,” Trajan replied, as Andy tried to convince Estelle a trot was an achievable goal.
#
Andy found Lilly Mae packed and waiting in the shadows behind Thredgull’s. He took her bag, put it in front of him, reached down, and swung her up behind him.
“Be quiet, my darling,” he said. “There may be men looking for you.”
Lilly Mae held her peace until they were away from town, riding down a little trail to a ford on the Colorado River.
“Did you get the gold, honey?” she said, hugging him tightly.
“No...It was a trap, courtesy of the Rangers. That’s why they’ll be looking for you. They want to know who passed on the story about the gold.”
“Well, did you get anything?”
“Away with my life,” he said, gently urging Estelle into the water. The horse eyed him meanly. “Any more than that...hell, even that, was asking the Good Lord for more miracles than any man has a right to ask.”
She snuggled back up to him, as they rode toward Talmidge, and asked no more questions.
#
“Trajan! Trajan, we’re back!”
Andy saw the old man come out of the Lilly Mae’s cabin with cleaning rags in hand.
“Just getting her nice for you,” Trajan said, grimacing slightly as he helped Lilly Mae down from Estelle’s back.
She ignored him and headed for the airship, bag in hand.
“Here’s Estelle,” Andy said. “Think I actually got her up to a canter on the way back.”
“Tonight’s miracles never cease,” Trajan said, smiling. “You take care of yourself, boy. You won’t have me around to patch you up after your errors in judgment anymore.”
“I will,” Andy said, before he slumped over, dart in his neck.
Trajan stood still and waited for his. “Boy never did have even a drop of common sense,” he murmured, before he too slumped to the ground.
#
“Somebody was tired,” Trajan said as Andy finally stirred.
“I was going to sleep while Lilly Mae piloted...oh...shit... Tell me she’s still here and the dart was an accident?” Andy sat up, and rubbed his face with a dirty hand.
“Oh, it was, it was! Followed by another accidental dart for me, and accidentally stealing all our money, and then accidentally stealing your airship! All most regrettable accidents.”
Andy sighed, and looked up at the sky.
“I must’ve slept about six hours by the look of things.”
“You did. What do you want to do now?”
Andy got up off the ground, and dusted his clothes off.
“Aren’t you going to say ‘I told you so’?”
“I was going to be kind and wait a while,” Trajan chuckled. “But don’t worry about it, I would have before we parted ways.”
“Have you by any chance heard a distant explosion, like...a steam boiler blast?”
“No,” Trajan replied, “but I have been praying for one.”
“Well, I guess I’ll go see if they’re looking for help at the Waterloo Dirigible Works.”
“Boy, you are the stupidest man I know! The Rangers are going to find out from the other girls about Lilly Mae, and they’re going to find out about the young idiot making a fool of himself over her.”
“I guess you’re right,” Andy said. “So I don’t know. Guess I’ll head for Galveston, take to the sea.”
“Not so fast, Andrew Augustus McKinney,” Trajan said. “Your granddaddy would rise up out of his grave and make me start talking, and working, like a field hand again if I let you go wandering about.” Trajan looked his soon-to-be-former master over. “Might be I could use a partner.”
“For doing what?”
“That remains to be seen...I hear there’s good money to be made in aerial piracy, so long as you listen to someone with common sense.” The old man slapped Andy across his sore shoulders. “Very good money.”
“I’m a wanted man, Trajan, or I soon will be. That’s going to make buying the supplies to build a new airship mighty hard.”
The old black man looked at his former master, his friend, his partner.
“No suh, Massa Andy, no trouble a’tall. It be the same as when you had yo’ head buried in dem plans and designs. I’s go inta town, get what we needs, brings it back out to you.”
“So you don’t have a problem pretending like that? Even now that you’re a freed man? Even now that you’re, well, the senior partner of the business?”
Trajan grinned. “Boy, we bring in good money, I’ll play that role with no regret.”
Andy mused, “I’ve heard tell there’s a lot of rich cargo—and just plain old gold—being shipped in and out of Galveston...”
“Always wanted to see the ocean,” Trajan said as he started loading their wagon.
A Clouded Affair
by Steven R. Southard
William Starling scowled as he gazed into the periscope, seeing nothing but two eagles battling in flight over a fish held in one bird’s talons. It looked like the scarred eagle with the tattered wings might keep its catch despite vicious attacks by its faster, nimbler foe. Loife is full o’ bloomin’ surprises, William mused.
He hated the thought of another day without finding prey. His crew would become restless without ships to attack.
He made another sweep with the scope. “ There, Gorblimey!” he cried. In their port quarter, a distant, dark dot grew larger.
“Nell, there’s our next target,” he said. “We’ll stay ‘ere in the cloud until we’re in attack position.”
His first mate, Nell Remige, acknowledged him with an “Aye.”
“’Elm, turn left an’ steer us ter the south-east,” he ordered. Their seventy-foot long, steam-powered ornithopter banked left and flapped its canvas wings to head toward the target.
“She’s a beauty,” William said. “’Ere, ‘ave a look.” He backed away from the periscope eyepiece to let Nell see. He’d never quite understood why the young, blonde woman wanted to join his band of aging air pirates in the first place, but Nell had become a first-rate buccaneer, as if born to it. In fact, she’d been the logical choice to appoint as first mate.
William had come to regard her as a sort of half-daughter/half-son. Her hard facial lines and windblown skin gave her a masculine impression most times, but when she turned from the periscope, her smile seemed that of a little girl getting her first doll.
“A beauty, all right,” she nodded. “A passenger dirigible, no defenses visible. Bound west to Chicago, I should think, without a care in the world.”
He returned her smile, long used to the way her proper English contrasted with the way he and the rest of his six-man crew spoke. He turned to his men and raised his voice. “Listen, up yer filthy scum.” He used the sort of congenial insult shared by tight-knit teams who’ve worked together for decades. “We might soon all become filthy rich scum.”
That brought smiles to the men, and on some of them a smile looked scary. All wore beards, hailed from the back-streets of London’s East End, and bore the signs of many years spent in air piracy. With their missing ears or noses, patched eyes, and hooks for hands, they’d each lost some piece of anatomy while battling in the skies over
England. His own right leg ended in a wooden peg. Among them, only Nell retained intact—limbs and organs both—probably due to her shorter time engaged in the business.
“’Ere’s the plan. We’ll attack this dirigible by the bloody book,” he told them. “We’ve ‘eard the Yanks aren’t onto air piracy yet, and don’t defend against it like the blokes do back ‘ome. But keep on your guard, in case that’s rubbish. Arm yerselves with cutlasses and pistols. If yer ‘ave ter use a pistol, aim low so yer don’t ignite them bags o’ ‘ydrogen.
“Break into the pilot gondola first, tie up the crew, then ‘ead for the passenger gondola. Stuff jewelry and money in your bags, then we cop out of there, right quick and tidy. Understan’ me?”
He gazed into the eyes of each assembled crew-member, getting an “aye” in return. Each one smiled too, no doubt thinking of the jewelry and bank notes soon to be lining their ornithopter’s hold, and later to be split among them as their prize.
The London slums had given William no chance to move up in society, but as a pirate he could do his bit to correct the world’s unfairness. He fancied himself a sort of airborne Robin Hood, with his like-minded crew of Merry Men.
By contrast, Nell, who’d joined the crew later, had grown up in privilege. A banker’s daughter, she’d become bored with upper crust society with its limits and expectations. She’d left home and taken up piracy for the adventure of it.
William managed the approach while the crew made their preparations. When William had started out in the trade, he could fly straight at his target. No longer.
Commercial airships across Europe had gotten wise to pirates over time, and now all of them employed defenses. All English dirigibles sported machine guns, readily manned for protection. They could also deploy anti-piracy netting. Some even flew in the company of armed escort aircraft.
These measures had so reduced their haul that William had decided to leave Europe for America, where targets would be less prepared, or so the rumors maintained. “New hunting grounds for the new decade of the 1920s,” William had said. Leaving home had been difficult and winging across the Atlantic treacherous, but his crew had all come along.
“Come right one point,” he said to the helm, while peering through the scope. “Nell, what’s the wind?”
“Ten knots from the south’ard,” she said.
“Aye.” As always, the trick was to stay hidden in clouds until the last moment. Only the periscope, painted white, showed above the gaseous blanket.
He looked around at the long-familiar interior of their ship—his ship—the Raptor. The clanking, hissing sounds and oily smell of the steam engine comforted him. He knew every plate and piston, every lever and linkage from her six pounder Hotchkiss bow cannon to her canvas tail rudder. Though old-fashioned, perhaps even obsolete, the Raptor had proved rugged and reliable through many attacks over the years. He could have bought or stolen one of the modern, fixed-wing types with gasoline engines, but he’d never done so.
“Now,” he said. “Full throttle, up twen’y degrees.” He lowered the periscope as the ship leapt out of the cottony, cumulous cloud and flapped at high speed toward its quarry. His well-trained crew stood by the gunwale and readied their coils of rope.
Few things in William’s experience matched the beauty of a steam ornithopter in flight. The engine’s piston rods rotated a large flywheel. Gears and linkages connected this brass wheel to the vast, hinged, bat-like wings. Here, the supreme intellect of man had produced a beautiful machine that imitated—even rivaled—Nature’s most graceful creature, the bird. Guided by its skilled helmsman, the craft swooped, soared, banked, and climbed in a style so rhythmically exquisite it must render eagles jealous. William exulted in the joy and exhilaration of standing in the open cockpit with the wind coursing through his hair.
When the Raptor drew abeam of the dirigible’s pilot gondola, six grappling hooks sailed across the gap. Four latched on to the gondola and William’s men began pulling the Raptor closer. The craft’s wings folded back against the fuselage like a grounded bird. With practiced skill, the crew ensured alignment of the Raptor’s half-door with the dirigible’s gondola door. Armed with his cutlass in his belt and his pistol drawn, William charged through the doors first.
Two men stood in the large gondola, one with both hands raised in surrender, and the other gripping the large rudder wheel.
“We’re ‘ere for yer cargo and yer passengers’ valuables, then we’ll be on our way,” William said as his crew entered behind him. “And, mind, no trouble from ye.”
He wondered if the cargo might be booze. Now that America had declared alcohol illegal, the price had soared, making it a commodity well worth stealing. He nodded to one of his men, who took over the wheel with no resistance from the helmsman.
“I’m Captain Potts, of the airship Sky Challenger,” said the one who had his hands up. A pudgy man, his jowls jiggled as he talked. His face held a puzzled expression. “Who are you people?”
“We’re pirates,” William answered him. “Now take us—”
“Captain,” Nell said, and William held up a hand to silence her.
“I don’t want any shooting,” Captain Potts said, eyeing the pistols. “We’re unarmed. Say, are you from England?”
“Never ye mind that,” William took a step forward with his good leg.
“Captain,” Nell tugged his sleeve. “You really ought to—”
“Not now,” William said, then turned to Potts. “Take us to your passengers.”
Small but firm hands grasped both sides of William’s head and snapped it to face the starboard windows. “Someone’s coming, Captain,” Nell said, and pointed.
His jaw fell. With improbable speed, another aircraft neared. A single-engine biplane roared toward them, its enclosed fuselage rivaling the dirigible’s gondola in size. The all-black plane appeared menacing, and William thought his Raptor comically clownish by comparison.
“Never seen a pirate before.” Captain Potts’ brow furrowed. “And now twice in one day?”
With a graceful precision William couldn’t have matched, the pilot of the black biplane pulled alongside the gondola and slowed. Tethered grapnels shot from its side, but William saw no crewmen heaving them. Hidden winches drew the plane closer as its propeller stopped. The gondola shuddered as the plane’s upper and lower wings thudded against the side opposite where William had moored the Raptor.
“Birds of a whole different feather.” Nell nudged him. “Don’t you think so, Captain?”
William only nodded in admiration for the modern plane, and the skill of its pilot.
A door opened in its enclosed fuselage and six figures walked across the lower wing toward the gondola. Each one wore a dark suit with white shirt, a black Stetson hat, and carried a Thompson submachine gun.
“Draw pistols, but keep ‘em aimed low,” William told his crew.
The gondola’s starboard door opened and the six newcomers—all men—filed in. They took stations opposite William’s crew, facing them. The black-suited men all wore mustaches, evidently an identifying mark for their band. With grim expressions, they all eyed William and his crew, but kept their machine guns angled down.
“Who’re you?” the one on the end asked. His mouth barely moved as he spoke, and he clipped off each syllable as if with a knife. With the brim of the Stetson shading the man’s eyes, William found it hard to judge the other’s age, but guessed him to be several years younger than himself.
“We’re the pirates ‘oo are attackin’ this dirigible,” William said, staring the man down. “That’s ‘oo.”
His adversary shook his head and reached to his inner breast pocket with his free hand. When every pistol in William’s band shifted in response, the man grinned and slowed his hand. He withdrew a cigarette and stuck it in his mouth. To William’s great relief, the bloke didn’t actually light the fag while aboard a hydrogen dirigible, but merely let it hang from between his lips while he talked.
“Youse in my territ’ry now, Pops,” the man said. “So take your toy guns and antique ship back to your own century, see?”
A couple of his men sniggered at the comment.
Something in the man’s stance reminded William of his own first attack as a pirate captain, decades ago. The proud swagger, the confidence crossing into arrogance, both made it seem like he stared across the years at a younger version of himself.
“I’ve been a pirate since ye were pissin’ in yer diapers, me boy,” William said. “We were ‘ere first. This is me own prize, mind ye, so move right along. Maybe next time you’ll be the early bird.”
The man laughed and his gang joined in. They all stopped when he spoke. “You slay me, Gramps. Doesn’t matta who got here first. Only mattas who owns the territ’ry, and that’s me, see? Crank Deco’s the name and I’m the boss here. Got it? So youse betta scram. Flap your way back to jolly ol’ England...” He looked at Nell. “But leave the hotsy-totsy Sheba. Me and the boys are gonna—”
A half second later, the sharp point of Nell’s cutlass reached within an inch of Crank Deco’s crotch, restrained only by William’s grip on her arm. Every Tommy gun muzzle pointed toward Nell, and almost every pistol pointed toward the pirate boss. William’s shout of “No, Nell!” still resounded in the confines of the gondola.
“Don’t make ‘er mad,” William said to Deco, slowly lowering Nell’s cutlass. “She might add your testicles ter her collection. I think she's makin’ a purse outa ‘em.”
Nell managed something between a smile and a sneer, conveying thanks for William stopping her rash action—and pure hatred for Deco. Most of Deco’s gang winced.
William’s threat wasn’t true, so far as he knew. Still, anything to put them off their game. “Why don’t we all lower our weapons, then, eh? The bladders up there are filled with ’ydrogen, and firin’ a gun could blow us all ter kingdom come.”
After a pause, Crank Deco lowered his Tommy gun and his boys did likewise. William’s men lowered their pistols at the same time.
“Look, youse can take your bearcat wit ya when ya blow,” Deco glanced at Nell, perhaps unsure whether ‘bearcat’ would make her mad. “Just vamoose.”
