Blowhard (The Clockwork Republic Series)

by Katina French

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Epilogue

  Author's Note

  About the Author

  Also By Katina French

  Blowhard

  Katina French

  Blowhard: A Steampunk Fairy Tale

  Electronic Edition

  Copyright © 2013 Katina French

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. I you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  http://www.3fatespress.com/

  ISBN 978-1-940938-09-7

  First Edition 2013

  Electronic Edition 2013

  CHAPTER 1

  Elias Hamm stared off at the horizon, his attention focused on what might lay beyond it rather than the three pigs he was supposed to be slopping. The bright afternoon sun failed to warm the icy air. His breath puffed out like smoke filtered through his muffler. It curled over the brim of his weathered brown hat, before disappearing into the clear blue February sky.

  Here in Kansas territory, the meeting of earth and sky seemed an endless distance away. Interminable plains surrounded the homestead he shared with his two older brothers, Jeremiah and William. Their new home could not have possibly been more different from the one they'd left in Philadelphia, back East in the Republic of Pennsylvania. In the crowded city, you could hardly walk ten feet without encountering a wall of some sort. He could barely imagine such endless vistas as the prairie offered, back when he was a boy picking stones out of hooves in the stables next to his Pa's farrier shop.

  Before moving West, he'd hoped the frontier might cure the ache for adventure in his gut. It hadn't. His feet still itched to trod new ground, far from hearth and home. The horizon might seem a million miles away, but the responsibilities of the farm fenced him in on every side. The flat, treeless plains could still hide dozens of dangers and deprivations. To keep the farm running required all three brothers working from morning till night. Family duty made a more effective hobble than any in their father's farrier shop. Elias' adventures were over before they'd begun, and the ending left much to be desired. Not that the beginning or middle had been all that exciting, either.

  One of the hogs wobbled up towards the trough, shoving Elias' calf with his nose to hurry up with the slop. The hungry pigs had no more use for his dawdling and daydreaming than his eldest brother, Jeremiah. He'd often accused Jeremiah of being pig-headed. Maybe it was the other way around. Maybe the pigs were starting to think like his brother. He snorted a laugh at that idea. Even pigs weren't as stubborn as the oldest Hamm. He'd proven that just a few weeks ago.

  A German railroad man, Otto von Rudolph, had come by the homestead. He'd made an offer to buy their land. The railroad's offer wasn't a fortune, but it was a fair price. Elias wished his brothers would have at least considered it. Elias had no interest in fortune; he wanted freedom. He wasn't suited to a farmer's life, any more than he'd been suited to the similarly unexciting life of a farrier. It didn't matter. Jeremiah was having none of it, and William wouldn't directly oppose their eldest brother. Heaven forbid Jeremiah not get his way in an argument, or admit he didn't know everything.

  When they'd first arrived, Jeremiah insisted they build a sod house. He said the earthen bricks were the sturdiest material the land had to offer, and it was probably true. But the soddy was always dark, damp, and worse when it rained. Months of being shut up in such a small space together, along with the worms and mice that crept in through the cracks, wore on all three of them. Still, Jeremiah refused to admit how miserable the living conditions had become. He met every complaint with a derisive snort and a dozen reasons why the soddy was a perfectly fine home.

  After a brawl that broke their one good chair, William diplomatically announced a previously-unknown hankering to build a wattle-and-daub house. He spoke with excitement about pictures he'd seen in books he'd carted out from back East, of houses built with sticks and mud. If they could build a house with nothing but twigs and dirt in the Old World, why couldn't they do it here? Elias suspected William's proclamation had more to do with his tendency to play peacemaker than any real enthusiasm about centuries-old building techniques.

  Still, he'd jumped at the chance to be out of the sod house. It was also a sweet relief to do something more interesting than monotonous chores. They'd spent days in the nearest river bed, gathering wagon loads of saplings, reeds, rushes and buckets of mud.

  Building William's cottage was one of the few happy times they'd enjoyed since coming out West. Splashing around in the creek bed, Elias managed to surprise Jeremiah with a mud ball to the face. After a second of shocked indignation, Jeremiah grabbed up a handful of muck and slung it back at him.

  They'd played like boys again, flinging mud and having a refreshing swim in the deepest part of the river. For just a day, life wasn't all work. Then they finished the round cottage, and the arguments began anew.

  Jeremiah refused to leave the soddy. Before long, he complained the wattle-and-daub house was a waste of time and materials. William tried to smooth things over.

  "You're the oldest, Jeremiah." he'd said "You deserve a house of your own!"

  Elias even joined in teasing, "If you're lonely, you'd best get busy finding a wife."

  But it was clear the gruff eldest Hamm was offended, wanderlust still afflicted the youngest, and try as he might, nothing the middle brother could do would reconcile them.

  A few months later, William suggested they build a house for Elias. Maybe he'd hoped a place of his own would settle him down. Maybe it was another attempt to convince Jeremiah they hadn't deserted him.

  "More settlers are arriving in Kansas territory every day. It won't be long now before we've got enough folk to declare ourselves an independent republic, just like Arkansas, New Africa, or the Free Sioux Nation," William had reasoned. "The more people who come, the more land disputes we'll see. We don't want a situation like the James boys dealt with last month. If we've got three houses on the property, they'd be almost like guard posts. If you count the barn, that's four buildings standing on our claim. Might make it seem like we're more of a fight than most would want to take on."

  Appealing to Jeremiah's pessimism was usually a good strategy, and it had worked. As for Elias, he'd do anything William asked.

  He'd tried to get excited about the house. They'd built it out of straw bales covered in the same clay adobe mixture they'd used on William's cottage. There weren't enough saplings or reeds left in the creek bed for another wattle-and-daub house. Another soddy was out of the question. Elias had sneered "Even the livestock hate their sod barn."

  Since he'd moved into the straw bale house, there'd been fewer fights between he and Jeremiah. A fine house, it ended up by far the nicest of the three they'd built. It boasted waxed paper in the windows, and a thatched roof the old Irishman from a nearby claim helped them build. It was so fine, William had started pestering Jeremiah to build one for himself. Neither Elias nor Wil
liam could figure why Jeremiah refused to leave that filthy old soddy.

  Of course, Jeremiah's pride would stand for no such thing.

  "You know about the wind storms they have out in this country? Twisters, they call 'em. First time one passes this way, you two will be lamenting all your hard work gone, and I'll be snug in my soddy. Maybe then you'll listen to me."

  Elias snickered at that thought. They'd been here nearly four years, and had not seen a single one of these twisters Jeremiah went on about. The old timers spoke of them with awe. Maybe they were just a tall tale concocted by the local tribes, or earlier settlers, to keep people from moving out to stake a claim. Even if they were real, with so much land, the odds of one crossing their tiny farm seemed remote. Certainly not odds worth living in a house as cold and moldy as the grave.

  He looked up from the hog trough after another impatient nudge from the pig. It was much darker than it should have been for this time of day. A bank of black clouds moved swiftly across the sky. A thick fog rolled in, making it impossible to see more than a few feet in any direction. A hard rain pelted his hat and coat. Icy wind slapped his face and numbed his hands, which still clutched the slop bucket. The pig snorted and trotted off in the direction of the barn.

  "That was awful sudden." Later in the year, storms could come up quick like this, exploding in the summer heat like popcorn over the fire. Might odd weather for February, he thought.

  A sound like the trains back East roared behind him, just over the nearest prairie swell. Elias turned. His muffler whipped around him, lashing his face. Sheer terror gripped him as he spotted a great whirling cloud rushing towards him. It looked like a spool of dirty grey wool, spinning upwards on a spindle that reached the heavens. He dropped the slop bucket, but it never hit the ground. The wind snatched it away before plucking him off his feet. It spun him around as if he weighed no more than a stalk of wheat. It held him aloft for a long moment, sucking the breath from his burning lungs. One of the pigs sailed through the air past him, squealing in panic, its legs flailing.

  The next thing he knew, he shot backwards like a cannonball, landing in the frigid wet pig trough. He struggled to get up, but the wind still blew in a high gale. Bits of straw filled the air, along with much fouler debris from the pig pen. The wooden slop bucket he'd dropped in surprise sailed back at him, mercifully empty. It slammed into his head with stunning force. He fell backwards again, his head resting against the lip of the trough. His vision filled with blurry red, then grey, and finally black.

  CHAPTER 2

  "William! I've found him!"

  Jeremiah's voice rang through Elias' head like the peal of a brass church bell on Sunday morning after drinking cheap whiskey Saturday night.

  Elias blinked his eyes open to discover both his brothers leaning over him, worried looks etched on their faces.

  "Help me get him out of this thing," said Jeremiah, "We'll be lucky if he doesn't die of frostbite." Soon their thickly gloved hands were wrapped around his shoulders and knees, tugging him out of the pig trough.

  "What happened?" he asked, groaning.

  "The same thing I've been telling you fools would happen sooner or later. A twister. Came up out of the south and blew right across the farm. William and I saw it and came running."

  William looked at him sadly. "It took your house, Elias. I'm sorry."

  "What do you mean, it took my house?"

  "The twister just blew it to bits. There's nothing left but piles of straw and pieces of busted adobe. Your clothes, the bedstead and quilts, the table -- it's all flung hither and yon."

  "The pigs?"

  Jeremiah shook his head, glancing over his shoulder. "Looks like one of them is dead. Neck's broken. Not sure how that happened."

  Elias was pretty sure he knew, but telling his brothers he'd actually seen a pig fly seemed like a quick way to get himself sent back East to Greystone Asylum.

  They'd managed to get him mostly upright. He was a little dizzy, and he felt bruised and beaten. No worse than after a particularly rough brawl with Jeremiah. Nothing seemed to be broken, at least. He was soaked to the skin, freezing cold, and his teeth chattered so hard he was afraid they might break. He looked up into a clear winter sky. The thick clouds had disappeared along with the wind and rain, although he could see that peculiar fog bank rolling off a mile or more away.

  It was all too strange. The old timers agreed the only good thing about a Kansas winter was the absence of twisters. Even in the summer, storms could seem to come out of nowhere, but you could still see the clouds receding into the distance. He wondered what on earth happened to cause this freak storm.

  CHAPTER 3

  Otto von Rudolph cackled like an old chicken. He rolled with hilarity from one side of the luxurious red velvet sofa to the other, as the curious steam carriage chugged away from the Hamm's property. The buttons on his brocade waistcoat strained at the pressure of containing his bulging gut as it shook with laughter. His polished boots beat the floor in gleeful excitement.

  "It worked, my dear girl! It worked! Did you see the hog? As God is my witness, even if I didn't need those fool boys' land, it would have been worth the effort just to see a pig fly!"

  At the steering wheel of the carriage, Mathilde "Mattie" Amsel didn't think it was all that funny. She'd been appalled when she'd spotted living creatures, including a man, through her spyglass. Guilt gripped her heart when she'd realized they were right in the path of their machine-made tornado. She'd winced at the loud crack of the poor pig's neck as the winds slammed it into the ground after whirling the terrified beast in circles.

  She hoped the man their storm had tossed into the pig trough had survived. Otherwise, she was guilty of murder. If that were the case, the tight leash Uncle Otto had around her neck could quickly become a noose if she stepped out of line. She could hardly bear it, even before now.

  Why, she wondered for the thousandth time, had her parents decided to leave Bavaria for the New World? Both her parents were struck ill during the long sea voyage. Neither had ever recovered, dying within days of each other only weeks after arriving in the Republic of New York. Mattie had been taken in by her uncle Otto, who'd emigrated with his grandparents as a child.

  At the time, she'd been grateful. Now she wished he'd sent her back to Bavaria.

  Mattie adjusted her driving goggles under the earflaps of her shearling cap, and pulled her muffler up around her neck. Her straw-blond hair was braided and coiled into a knot. It provided no protection against the cold. The fog that swirled around the steam carriage as camouflage gradually dissipated. The curious conveyance was more comfortable than a traditional horse-drawn carriage would have been over such rough terrain. She'd worked hard on the springs and coils in its suspension to ensure that much. Unlike a locomotive, it could travel anywhere without need for tracks. But the open cockpit was still miserably cold, far from the boiler in the back which powered its steam-driven engine.

  The boiler also powered the Wind Oscillating Lift Field Engine, or W.O.L.F.E., which was her uncle's idea but unfortunately her own creation. She may have created it under duress, but she was still responsible for the destruction it wrought. She should have just refused to do as Uncle Otto had asked. She should have pretended to be incapable of creating such a device, no matter how dire the consequences of failure had seemed. Now, it was too late. The machine had worked, all too perfectly. There was no going back.

  After the events of today, there was no denying her uncle was not simply an egotistical, lazy old braggart. He was a ruthless, murderous thief. No one with a scrap of conscience could have turned on the machine even after Mattie had screamed there was a man in the path of the storm. The young man had been too far away to hear her warning, but Uncle Otto had heard her clearly enough. He'd glared at her and thrown the switch, every bit the monster she'd long suspected.

  She'd tried to learn to like him when she'd first come to live with him. She knew she should be grateful he'd taken her in,
instead of letting her go to an orphanage. Despite her best intentions, Otto's interminable lectures and endless gloating had soured her disposition towards him. For all his boasting, he was really only a cog in the railroad company machine. She doubted even the company's owners knew exactly how far their cog would go in pursuit of his own ambition.

  Her uncle's work meant they were always moving from place to place. They weren't rich, but Otto's salary provided them with a relatively luxurious life. They traveled for free, ate in the dining car for free, and never paid rent. The railroad maintained company boarding houses in most of the republics and territories. Some of them were quite large and impressive. Otto and Mattie moved from one to the other as her uncle's work had demanded.

  Her favorite places were cities where other families had boarded in the railroad house, but she never remained long enough to make friends. After ten years of constant travel, Mattie wanted more than anything to settle down somewhere pleasant, and never leave. In her dreams, she would move to a port city, and let the world come to her for a change.

  No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't quite bring herself to love her uncle. It was more than his off-putting personality. There was something about him that just wasn't quite right.

  Mattie had always enjoyed taking things apart and putting them back together. As a young child, she'd occupied her time building small devices from spare parts left lying around the railroad boarding houses. Most were simple, but a few were quite ingenious. By the time she was ten, she could fix almost anything broken around the house, given a few parts, some time and some basic tools.

  When he discovered her talent for mechanical work, Otto gave her free reign in the railroad garages. At first, she was delighted. However, she soon learned that for every hour she got to work on her own inventions, Otto expected her to spend a dozen doing tedious maintenance work for the railroad. From the time she was twelve, Mattie had kept some of the railroad's oldest and most worn-out steam engines running.