The Lightning Lord

by Anthony Faircloth

  The woman stopped and looked at Persi, then at the counter. “I’m sorry, I get a little excited when something new comes into town. For someone raised in a metropolis like New York City, Orlando is like a crossroads, maybe smaller.”

  “It seems like it is growing rather quickly, and with the Morgan Landliner moving closer, I suspect you are not far from living back in the metropolis of which you are so fond,” Boots said.

  “Possibly, but I’ve been trying to live in the now, since Ralph was killed in the war. And the now, is a mouse small town in Central Florida.” Mel raised her head and smiled. “Now, what was it you wanted?”

  Persi looked at Boots then spoke, “We work for an insurance underwriter who is looking into the burning of a local factory around here. The fire was caused by lightning, or so it was reported.”

  Mel looked between both agents. “And you are thinking what, foul play?”

  “Perhaps,” Boots answered.

  “Nope, I saw the lightning show myself. I only live a short distance away. It was the oddest array of lightning, all concentrated over the factory. It must have been struck a hundred times while I watched.”

  “Interesting, were there other witnesses?” Persi asked.

  Mel smiled. “No, that place was queer. Folks ‘round here don’t talk about it much.”

  “It was an ammunitions factory, correct?”

  Well, it ‘was’ an ammunitions factory. ‘Bout five years after the end of the war, it was shut down, and stood empty for about a year, then all the sudden people started seeing activity there and around. Special, unscheduled trains would pull in late night and unload boxes and crates that got delivered to the old factory. There was even a giant airship that came in one night and lowered something into the compound. I only guessed that because, like I said, I can see the factory from my house and that airship never landed. And, they put up bigger, sturdier fences. No one comes or goes passed that fence, in fact they never put a gate in.”

  “What about supplies, what about normal things like grocery shopping?” Persi asked.

  “Nope. They built a couple large houses on the grounds and once a month an airship moored and dropped supplies, traded out people, whatever. Your theory would be as good as mine.”

  “Who took the picture?” Boots asked. “The one they printed in the Boston Gazette.”

  Mel pointed a thumb back at herself, showing all her teeth.

  “Nicely done. How?” he asked.

  Mel cocked her head at Boots in confusion, her curls bouncing like a hundred small springs.

  “I mean, with all the security you describe, how did you get close enough?”

  “I just walked up to the building. Nobody was there and the fences were blown down, big holes in the walls, everything still warm from the fire. Inside, the place was all bent and broken pipes, shattered glass, and mangled metal. I don’t even think an engineer could make heads or tails of what had been going on there.”

  Persi looked at Boots and nodded. “Mel, you have been of great help. If you will give us directions, we will look ourselves and probably be gone from your fair community by this evening.”

  Mel drew them a map and finished just as a grinding noise erupted from the printing press and curses erupted from the men. “Mel!” they all yelled and the cat jumped straight up, then off the counter and out the door. Mel moved to the machine and dived beneath it, supply her own curses.

  Chapter 13 – Clues are Discovered and Persi is Shot

  The agents found the facility as Mel had said. There were large gaps in the fence, debris strewn about but getting significantly denser as they picked their way through it to the building, passing large sections of roof. There was no evidence of the houses Mel had described, however, her description of the main building was accurate. Explosions of some type had created large gaping holes in the thick concrete walls, exposing a bigger mess within.

  The newspaperwoman had been fairly precise in her description of the building’s interior. The building, most of which was a single room, was several 100 feet long and at least 200 feet wide. It was strewn with copper and lead piping. Glass shards of various shapes and sizes also covered the floor causing them to take care they trip and fall onto the sharp edges.

  “Big,” Boots said.

  “Ahh, Boots,” Persi said, following his gaze, “you are showing that Harvard education again.”

  “Quite, though if you’ll remember, I did not graduate.”

  “Yes, foolish man, I remember. You wanted to go gallivanting off to the deepest jungles of Africa, looking for a doctor instead of becoming one.” When there was no replay, she turned to Boots who she found looking at her. “Oh, I’m sorry, my love,” Persi said, “that was rather colder than I intended. Had you not left Harvard, and had you not joined Stanley, you would not have saved my life in Zanzibar, found your way into the agency, and we would not be together. Thank you for choosing your heart over your pocket.”

  He smiled, “Truly?”

  “Yes, my dear, now please focus that immense intellect on this shamble of architecture and technology.” She brushed several mosquitos from the netting Boots had hung from her hat. “I would sincerely like to be on our way this evening. Had you not equipped me properly, I fear I would be now be a bloodless husk lying at your feet.” She shewed away several more mosquitos from her view.

  Boots pulled his hand across a brass ball, slightly larger than his head, then looked around to see several more of various sizes. “This was definitely NOT an ammunitions factory.” Other elements, that to his knowledge where not found in ammunitions factories, at least not in the amounts he was seeing, where strewn about. The amount of glass caught his attention for not only was it everywhere but the oddness of the various shapes. There were long broken rods and hour glass shaped pieces in which lengths of wire were still coiled. Most of it was shattered as Mel had said, but Boots felt he could make a guess at the facilities purpose. “I am not sure exactly sure what this place had become, but I believe it had something to do with electricity.”

  “Like the experiments Mr. Edison is doing?” Persi asked.

  “No my dear, much more powerful, like what might harness a lightning storm.”

  “Or cause one?” Persi offered, kicking the remains of a charred bookcase, which turned to ash as her foot touched it.

  Boots placed a hand to his chin and considered, “Possibly but take another look there is something missing.”

  Persi looked but initially saw nothing but destruction, then it occurred to her. “There is not enough …” She paused to consider her words. “structure. There is a lot of glass but the things to which they must have been mounted are no longer here.”

  “Correct. Machinery has been removed prior to the destruction,” Boots said, and smiled wryly. “And most eloquently said, my dear.”

  Persi raised an eyebrow in warning, then turned and looked down the room’s length. “Look there, Boots, in the corner, a second room, possibly an office?”

  “We can but look,” he said, holding out his hand for Persi to steady herself as she stepped across melted metal and shattered glass.

  They made their way across the broken building disturbing lizards, spiders and rats, what had become the new staff of the facility. Arriving at the doorway to the small room, the door long gone, they stopped and looked in. Every wall in the room was charred and there was little remaining of furniture or equipment. In the thick metal cabinets, having once held documents, Boots found nothing but ash, but not enough ash, evidence the cabinets were relatively empty when the fire engulfed the room. “They had gone,” he said, his thought escaping through his mouth. “Like the missing equipment. Whomever was in charge of this facility packed up and left before it was destroyed.”

  “They were covering their tracks?” she offered.

  “I believe so,” Boots agreed.

  The agents were leaving the room when Boots noticed the floor. He moved several larger pieces of debris out of t
he way with the toe of his boot. Persi stepped outside the building through one of the many large holes and found a dead palmetto leaf. Returning to the room, she swept the dirt and ash from the area and there before them, taking up most of the center of the floor, a talented craftsman had created a map of the states and territories. It was beautifully made using small multi-colored tiles, and included representations of rivers, lakes and mountain ranges. The intense heat had damaged much of the floor, breaking tiles and melting the glaze making much of it hard to read.

  “Look here,” Persi said, pointing to a black star in the middle of Florida. “I think that spot is uncannily close to Orlando, don’t you?”

  “Yes, my dear.” Boots agreed. “I believe it must represent the very town, perhaps this very spot.”

  Persi moved quickly to the upper part of the map. It was a piece that had not fared well. “And here,” she said pointing the tip of her boot at a dark spot of black melted glass presumably in the area of the Dakotas. “Deadwood perhaps?” she asked.

  “Seems correct,” Boots said.

  She took her makeshift broom and swept again to reveal the whole map, in as much detail as the damage would allow. She dropped the leaf and pointed her boot at another spot. Boots stepped to her side. “It appears to be in the Rocky Mountains.” Boots knelt. “If this is Denver,” he pointed at a point top center of the state, “then the star is located about a hundred miles or so southwest.”

  “My darling,” Persi said. “Would it be presumptive of me to suggest we return to your most airworthy ship and set course for Denver, Colorado.”

  “No my dear, I believe we are of like mind on this point,” Boots replied.

  Boots stood and gave his hand to Persi. She took it and they made their way to the nearest breach in the wall. The sun was bright but had begun its journey into dusk and a light breeze stirred the green leaves above them. The horses were still tethered to the small oak, though they seemed agitated. Perhaps the heat. Boots thought.

  They were passing a large piece of timber and metal that had once been part of the roof, when Boots’ hat flew from his head followed closely behind by the boom of a rifle.

  The agents threw themselves behind the debris and drew their weapons.

  “Two o’clock perhaps,” Persi suggested.

  “But with those gusts, maybe even one-thirty,” Boots offered.

  Persi looked behind them at their horses a good thirty feet away, and searched her memory for a plan. She suddenly smiled, “I’m thinking about, Argentina.”

  “No, the sun is wrong for Argentina. I say Prague, or maybe San Francisco,” he suggested.

  “Oh yes, definitely Prague, San Francisco would never work. We don’t have the chicken and I doubt our aggressor is an oriental dwarf.” She removed her hat, placed it on the end of a convenient stick, and slowly edged it into the open. It had no sooner appeared from behind the metal roof, then a shot rang out and her hat jumped from the stick.

  Boots rolled to his feet and unloaded one of his revolvers into the dense brush from where the sound had come. Persi left her position and grabbed her bullet pierced hat as she ran for her horse. Half way there, she spun and unloaded one of her pistols in the same direction Boots had shot.

  A second shot exploded now further to their left and Persi felt the burn of the bullet as it tore through the flesh of her left leg. She stumbled but had not completely hit the ground before Boots was at her side. She struggled to her feet and began running again when another shot rang out, the sound coming from a point a few feet to the right of the last shot. They both dropped back to the ground.

  “Our shooter is moving around, quite professional,” Boots said, into her ear as he emptied his second revolver into the bushes. This time he heard a grunt and the sound of heavy crashing through the undergrowth, then silence.

  “My dear,” Boots said, “You will listen and obey me, do you understand?”

  She shook her head, knowing what was coming.

  “Yes,” Boots said, and his look transmitted the concern of both a seasoned partner and loving husband. He helped her to her feet and into her saddle. “You will ride to the ship and tell Grimm of our trouble. He is to unload Icarus post haste and return armed. YOU will stay and see that your wounds are treated.”

  “No...” she started.

  “Persi, I suspect I have wounded the devil and need to stalk him. I cannot do this with you injured and bleeding.” He looked to see a thin line of blood trailing down the side of her boot and drip from the toe. “I shall be fine, now go.”

  She bent and kissed him. “Don’t be long, Cook is making that pigeon dish from the train you liked so well.”

  He smiled, “I shan’t.”

  Persi gave a single nod and spurred her horse into a run.

  Boots stepped behind a large oak and quickly reloaded his pistols. No sound came from the woods as he crept from tree to tree. Upon entering the underbrush, he found it incredibly difficult to remain quiet. Decades of dry leaves and broken twigs snapped and crunched with every step. Four steps in and he found fresh blood, and knew he was close, but he also understood the shooter must also know his position. He was about to return to his horse when he heard rustling in a dark patch of bushes followed by a low moan.

  Gun drawn, he moved towards the sound and almost immediately tripped over a pair of worn brown cowboy boot sticking from beneath a wall of palmettos. Raising a low hanging branch, he moved to stand over the body. The man was bearded, dirty and wore clothes that were so near to rags he wondered if the man were a crazy hermit, into whose home they had wondered. He had a red spot blooming from his shoulder and was unconscious.

  Then Boots recognized him, this was Gerald Haskins, the train robber from the Journey.

  Chapter 14 – Acquaintances Reunited

  Haskins was unconscious. Boots pulled the ragged shirt aside and assessed the wound. It was not life threatening, the blood merely oozing, though in the man’s present decrepit state, it might be. His skin was pale and his hair dirty and full of leaves. Boots identified the two pea-sized shiny bulbs attached to the man’s scalp as ticks.

  Boots rolled him on his side and saw the exit wound. The man was fortunate the bullet had come out the other side cleanly. A long barreled six-shooter still lay in the Haskin’s hand, which Boots retrieved quickly and tucked it into his own belt. “Well, there’s nothing for it,” he said, reaching down and taking the man by both legs. He pulled him from the bushes, then bent over, pulled the man onto his shoulders and began to carry him toward his horse.

  He had just placed Haskins across his horse when an overly cheerful newswoman rode up on a huge mule. “I guessed right,” Mel said, her grin broader than he had yet seen. “I figured wherever you two went there would be action and a potential story. Who is he?”

  “One Gerald Haskins, escaped bank robber,” Boots said. “My conscious told me I could not leave him to die in the bush, though he was shooting at us, even hitting Persi in the leg. I need to get him to town and have him seen by a doctor, with haste, before he awakens.”

  Mel shifted in her saddle, “No need for that, my house is just a few hundred yards away.”

  Boots glanced at her. “I did mention he is an escaped train robber, didn’t I?”

  “No, you said ‘bank robber’ but either way is fine. It appears he will not be doing much moving, let alone robbing banks or trains. I’ll give him a day or so to recover, then contact the sheriff to come pick him up. Meanwhile, I can get a story. I’ll call it, ‘Memoirs of a Train Robber,’ or something like that. ‘Should shoot newspaper sales up.”

  “Mrs. Brown, if you cannot build your paper to the very heights of success, it cannot be done.”

  “Thank you, sir, now if you’ll follow me,” she said, turning and moving her steed down the road toward town.

  They rode their animals gently, trying to keep from jarring the man any more than was necessary. In three hundred yards, Mel steered her mount right, down a well-wor
n path that seemed to once have been something larger. A house and small barn appeared ahead and she quickly rode to the barn.

  Throwing her leg over the saddle horn and sliding down the mule, she ran into the barn. “Bring him in here,” she yelled over her shoulder.

  Boots guided the gelding beside the mule and dismounted. He pulled Haskins off the horse and onto his shoulder, then stepped into the barn. He heard movement and saw a small room built under the wide wooden stairs which ascended to the hayloft. The room was only a few feet wide but twelve-feet long. It was configured as a bedroom with a small bed, only slightly wider and longer than a standard-sized man, an old dresser, and a shelf mounted against the wall.

  Mel dropped the last of the horse tack on the floor and threw an old horse blanket over the mattress. “Lay him here.” She said, pointing to the bed. “Once we’ve doctored him,” her face squinched as Boots carried the smelly man by her, “and washed him, I’ll bring out some clean bed sheets and a real blanket.”

  “You’re sure about this?” Boots said.

  “Oh yes. Now, you must tell me what I need to bring you so we can patch this murderous bank robber, Mr. Haskins,” she said.

  “Well, I mean, I didn’t actually call him murderous. I ...” Boots objected.

  “Shh, you’ll disturb my muse,” Mel said with a wave of her hand, “I must remember my reader’s need for vicarious adventure.”

  Twenty minutes later, Boots and Mel had cleaned the wound and bandaged it. It took another thirty minutes to clean the man of the layers of dirt and grime. She had started with a washbasin but the water was a dark brown in seconds so she left and returned a minute later with a washtub. Mel even cut his hair and shaved him. Boots was amazed to see that Haskins was not as old as the beard and grime made him look. He was probably only in his mid-thirties, and was quite handsome in a rough, roguish way.

  Boots had washed his hands and was just putting on his jacket when he heard the rumbling of the Icarus coming up the path to the house. He stepped to the barn door as Grimm and the sooty Joseph leapt from the velocitor both brandishing guns, while Nicholas stood on the back footman platform manning a smaller, mounted model of a Burlington repeater. The captain took the steps to the porch in a single graceful leap and prepared to kick in the door.