The New Orleans Zombie Riot of 1866: And Other Jacob Smith Stories

by Craig Gabrysch

  “What now?” Christopher asked.

  “Says to forget Fort Smith. We gotta get to New Orleans by the end of the month. Meeting some Pinkerton with a relic so we can deliver it to the monastery.”

  Christopher swung up and into the saddle with a grunt. “Guess we got a boat to catch, then.” He guided his horse around till they were both pointed back to St. Louis. Jacob mounted and fell in beside the other Templar.

  They rode out of town together.

  Back to Contents

  The New Orleans Zombie Riot of 1866

  July 26th

  July 27th

  July 28th

  July 29th

  July 30th

  August 6th

  July 26th, 1866

  Jacob Smith hated New Orleans. He hated the heat, the humidity, the smell, and the trash in the street. Most of all, though, he hated the mosquitoes.

  He swore as he squashed one on his neck. He looked at the little starburst of blood on the palm of his hand. Why anyone would build a city on a swamp was beyond him, but built it they had. He took a sip of his coffee and went back to reading a copy of the New Orleans Daily Crescent.

  “Almost ready?” Christopher Freeman asked as he walked out of the small cafe and sat down with Jacob. He was armed, just like Jacob, and just like most of the men on the street. The police were less than dependable in New Orleans. Jacob couldn’t remember the last one he’d seen, in fact.

  “Almost,” Jacob replied from behind his broadsheet. “Still don’t like the coffee in this town.”

  “Locals say it grows on you.”

  “Tastes like milk, sugar, and dirt mixed with ground coffee.”

  “Well, you stay boarded up in your town behind a Union blockade for a couple years and we’ll see what you do to make your coffee last.”

  “You’d just think,” Jacob said, taking a sip of coffee and making a face, “they’d go back to the good stuff, the real thing, when the war ended.”

  “People are strange. People round here in particular.”

  Jacob went back to reading.

  “Anything interesting?”

  “Radical Republicans are reconvening the Constitutional Convention. Some folks seem pretty upset about it. Saying it’s illegal.”

  “Well, lots of people don’t want me to get my vote.”

  “Yup. Heard anything more about them Kukluxers?”

  “Col. Winnie sent a telegram. Says they ain’t been moving,” Christopher replied. “So that’s one thing we ain’t gotta deal with.”

  “They’re either licking their wounds, or collecting themselves for another push,” Jacob said, flipping to the next page. “Yellow fever’s coming back, by the way.”

  “Starting to sound like a preacher talking about the end of the world.”

  “Says here fire and brimstone are expected next week.”

  “You keep reading that, I’m gonna shoot you.”

  “Let’s get this over with and get back to the monastery,” Jacob said, folding the paper and tossing it on the table. He stood and stretched.

  “Don’t like New Orleans?” Christopher asked, following suit. They walked down Canal Street in the direction of the river, merging with the stream of early morning pedestrians.

  The street ran as a divider in time. On their left stood the French Quarter, full of old Spanish buildings from seventy and eighty years before. The first French Quarter had burned when the Spaniards controlled the city. They’d rebuilt in their own style. The more modern buildings, the ones that had been erected when the American settlers came after the Louisiana Purchase, spread out to their right.

  “Between the mosquitoes, the mugginess, and everyone seeming on the verge of drawing pistols on you? No, don’t cotton to it much. Gimme the prairies or the mountains.”

  “Country boy.”

  They turned left on Levee Street and headed to the docks. Traffic was heavier here. Horse-drawn and push carts wheeled their way through the streets. Empty wagons headed downriver, towards the ships waiting to unload. Full carts headed upriver, back to Canal and the shops beyond. People entered and left hardware shops, boutiques, and shipping offices. It bustled with activity, and the din it raised reminded Jacob of the docks in Chicago.

  Three blocks later they came out on New Levee St. The docks and its forest of ship masts stretched out in front of them in a southward bending arch. A fine mist was creeping in from the other side of the river.

  “Know where we’re headed?” Jacob asked, peering at the stretch of ships.

  “Telegram said it would be on the Isabella.”

  The Templars kept walking, horses and their carts trundling by, as they checked the names of each ship they passed. They finally came to the Isabella’s berth.

  She was a two-masted side-wheel steamship, one built for travel on the open water. Cargo covered the deck, with men moving it off as quick as it appeared from the hold below. Smokestacks from the steam engine rose on either side of the pilot’s bridge near the center of the ship.

  Crewmen pulled crates and bushels of goods up from the hold and their fellows moved the dry goods to the dock. One of the sailors was talking to a teamster on the pier. They both took turns signing off on a bill of lading. Their transaction finished, the teamster came up the pier. The sailor turned around and looked out across the river. The Templars walked down to him.

  “Beg your pardon, mister?” Jacob asked the sailor’s back as they approached. He was short, but solid-built. “We were wondering if you could help us find someone?”

  The sailor turned around. His clean-shaven face was sun-beaten and weathered, but his eyes were cool and clear.

  “Who might you be looking for?” the man asked in an indistinct, vaguely British accent.

  “Name given to us was Mr. Gibson,” Christopher replied.

  “Gibson, eh? As chance may have it, we’ve a Gibson aboard.”

  “Mind if we see him?” Christopher asked. “He has a parcel for us.”

  “I’ll have one of the boys bring him up,” he replied, a smirk dancing on his lips. The sailor hollered to the men working the cargo. Another sailor, this one taller, thinner, and younger came running over to the pier. “Tell the passenger they’ve a guest,” the first sailor ordered.

  “Aye, Captain,” the second sailor replied.

  “Begging your pardon again,” Jacob said, looking out to the Algiers neighborhood across the river, “didn’t realize you were the captain.” The mist was getting heavier. The cluster of squat building crowding upon the opposite bank were almost completely obscured.

  “No harm,” the captain said with a shrug. “Didn’t introduce myself as such, did I?” He followed Jacob’s gaze out to the river. The fog drifted in their direction from across the river. “Strange time of day for fog to be rolling in.” Jacob watched the captain look up at the mast where the colors, their flags, flew out towards Algiers. “Odd that,” the captain said, going back to work.

  Jacob was about to ask what was odd about the flags when Christopher elbowed him and pointed at the figure walking out of the Isabella’s cabin.

  Gibson was beautiful, and no one would have described her as a mister. She was petite and young, but glided through the bustle of the ship with the determination and gravitas of a battlefield general. She wore a cream-colored blouse and a full, dark-green skirt that matched her eyes. Her curly, red hair piled on top of her head, and she wore a fine top hat cocked to the side. Jacob couldn’t tear his eyes from her.

  She stopped at the gangplank.

  “Howdy, gents,” she said, wearing an easy grin. “Y’all must be the two fine gentlemen Abbot Oullet sent to meet me.”

  Christopher took off his hat. Jacob, stunned for a moment, followed suit.

  “We are,” Christopher said. “The abbot didn’t mention—”

  “That I was a woman?” Miss Gibson interjected. “Doesn’t in the least surprise me. Priests are a bit shady when it comes to dealing with the fairer sex. Capt. Abe
l, they been granted permission to come aboard yet?”

  Capt. Abel turned, looked the Templars up and down.

  “Permission granted,” the captain said, nodding. “Make sure it’s quick, though, gentlemen. And try to stay out of the way. We still have plenty of work.”

  Jacob and Christopher replaced their hats and crossed the gangplank to the ship.

  “Miss Charlotte Marie Gibson,” the young woman said, offering her hand to Christopher, “official head of the Pinkerton Detective Agency department of Occultism, Supernatural, and Witchery.”

  “Christopher Freeman.” He shook her hand. “Apologies for our shock.”

  “No need, Mr. Freeman. I understand being a Pinkerton detective is a peculiar line of work for a lady.”

  “Jacob Smith.”

  “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Smith.” Charlotte and Jacob shook hands.

  Charlotte turned and led the way to the nearest hold, threading in and out of crewmen at work. “Have your higher-ups told you what exactly I brought back?”

  “No,” Christopher said. “You see one relic, might as well seen them all. We just carry them back to the vault for safekeeping.”

  “Not curious at all?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Safer that way,” Jacob said.

  Charlotte gave them a queer look as she stopped in front of the stairs leading down into the hold.

  “Watch your head,” she said, heading down the steps first. Christopher went next. Jacob looked across at the quickly thickening fog as his head came level with the deck. He paused for a moment, the hair on his arms raising into gooseflesh. He shook his head, told himself it was just fog, and followed after Christopher and Charlotte.

  The hold smelled of stale sweat and vegetable matter mixed with the salty damp of the open sea. Charlotte navigated the wooden structure like a second home.

  “So, ” Jacob asked as the trio walked aft past hammocks slung from the low ceiling, “what exactly does the Department of Occultism do?”

  “Department of Occultism, Supernatural, and Witchery, Mr. Smith,” Charlotte corrected. They continued through the hold as she spoke, passing by crates of foreign goods, and barrels of preserved food. “We investigate items of import, like your relic here, and find ways to secure them. We spot supernatural actors on American soil. Finally, we aid the Templars and the federal government.”

  They stopped in front of a padlocked, steel-grated door. An unassuming wooden crate sat on the floor of the cell. Charlotte pulled a necklace from beneath her collar and went to unclasp it.

  There was a gunshot, followed rapidly by three more, from on deck.

  “Wait,” Jacob said, placing his left hand on Charlotte’s shoulder. His right went to the pistol on his hip.

  “What was that?” Charlotte asked. The sound of three more rapid fire shots came from the bow of the ship. “Gunfire?”

  “I’m going to go check it out,” Christopher said, pistol already drawn. He headed back through the hold, out the way they’d came.

  “I’ll come with you. Miss Gibson, you stay put.”

  “But, what about the—”

  “Relic can wait,” Jacob said, turning to follow after Christopher.

  The Templars raced through the hold and back to the stairs. The sound of gunfire, a mix of calibres, came faster now. The rhythmic crack crack crack of shots from one weapon in particular underlined the battle-noise on deck. They stopped at the foot of the stairs and peered up into the heavy fog covering the deck

  “Dammit,” Christopher said over the din of gunfire. “Can’t see a lick out there.”

  “How many do you think?”

  “No telling,” Christopher said. “Hear that gun?”

  “Sounds like a Gatling,” Jacob said.

  Bullets whizzed over the stairwell’s opening. Bullets bit into the ship with thunks and the sound of splintering wood. A man punctuated it all with a scream.

  “What do you want to do?” Jacob asked.

  “We need to get up there. Men are dying.”

  Jacob nodded. Christopher took a deep breath, pushed down his hat with his left hand, and rushed up the steps. He crouched on the deck at the top of the stairs and went left. Jacob followed suit, but went right.

  The fog almost had a tangible consistency to it, like it was coating Jacob’s skin in an oil. Bullets whizzed overhead. He groped with his free hand for a crate or a barrel. Something, anything to hunker down behind.

  He grabbed the boot of a prone sailor’s corpse instead. Jacob felt farther, putting his hand in a pool of warm blood. He grit his teeth and kept searching, finally coming across a stack of thick, heavy crates and boxes. He crouched and slid behind them, whiping his hand clean on his pants.

  Bullets kept coming. Two whizzed over his head. Two more impacted with his makeshift cover, sending splinters past his face. A man, Capt. Abel from the sound of it, wailed and cursed somewhere on the ship’s foredeck.

  The fog began to thin. The stream of bullets from the Gatling gun slowed. Jacob popped out from behind the cargo. The mist had diffused enough that Jacob could see Christopher up ahead. He sat with his back to one of the more forward masts, the surrounding deck splintered and riddled with bulletholes. Two sailors’ corpses lay beside him. Another sailor, this one clutching at his bleeding throat, was just beyond.

  Christopher saw Jacob peering out. Jacob put a finger to his lips.

  The clumping and heavy thuds of booted heels resonated throughout the ship. Jacob glanced right and saw a figure moving in the greyish-white fog. He ducked back around the crates.

  He’d seen a man wearing a white robe.

  Jacob muttered a curse. Kukluxers. He popped his head out again. Where did they come from? Shit.

  Christopher still crouched with his back to the mast. The fog was dissipating. Five figures moved amongst the crates near the bow. They must have boarded from there and begun moving sternward. They’d reached mid-ship already.

  “Christopher,” Jacob hissed. He pointed to himself and then to the bow, then pointed at Christopher and back at the stairs.

  Christopher nodded.

  Jacob cocked his revolver.

  Christopher, staying low to the ground, scrambled down into the hold.

  Jacob took Christopher’s place, crouching down with his back to the mast. Behind him the deck creaked. Someone gave a muffled cry. Jacob cringed, waiting. A gunshot followed. The Kukluxers were finishing off the wounded. Jacob stood, his back still to the mast.

  He switched his pistol from his right hand to his left and drew his broadsword. The deck creaked to his right. The Templar took a deep breath and brought his sword up to his chest. He mumbled a swift prayer and spun away from the mast, striking at head-height with his sword.

  The Kukluxer’s eyes went wide before his muffled cry was cut short by Jacob’s sword. The Kukluxer’s hooded head fell to the deck with a thud. Jacob grimaced as blood pumped from his opponent’s open neck. It ran in waves down the front of the white robe, coating it in crimson. The body stayed standing for a moment, the stump still pumping gore, before collapsing to the ground in an uncerimonious heap. Least these bastards bled. That was a nice change of pace from the last time Jacob had fought them.

  Beyond and to the left of the corpse, another Kukluxer crouched down with his left hand over a wounded sailor’s mouth and a knife in his right. Jacob strode over the fresh corpse, pistol raised. The Kukluxer dragged his knife’s edge across the sailor’s throat. Blood gushed.

  “Cowards,” Jacob said. The pistol jumped and boomed in his hand as he fired. The bullet entered the back left side of the Kukluxer’s hood and exited with a spray of blood and bone. The white-robed body slumped over its victim.

  The Templar looked right, down the length of the ship, beyond the bow, and to the dock. A wagon was there, the Gatling gun mounted on a swivel turret in its bed. A Kukluxer manned it, looking out over the Isabella. Jacob couldn’t do much on the ship with the Gatling surveyin
g it. He had to put it, or its operator, out of commission.

  Jacob raised his pistol and took a line on the gunner. He fired, but the bullet only winged the man. He cursed as the Kukluxer hollered and swung the gun around his way. Peaked hoods all over the deck turned Jacob’s way. The Kukluxer cranked the gun, and its multiple gun-barrels spun into motion. Jacob fired another shot as the Gatling spat bullets his direction, but his aim was off. The bullet went wide of the frantic gunner.

  Jacob retreated to the thick mast under a hail of bullets. The wood at his back trembled and shuddered as the Gatling gunner concentrated his fire on the Templar’s cover. Splinters and sawdust filled the air. Jacob figured they’d have to change out the ammo hopper on the gun soon, then he’d make his move.

  “Hold, boys,” someone bellowed from the bow, “hold your fire.”

  The gunshots tapered off and the bullets from the Gatling slowed to a stop.

  “You one of them Templars what killed my boys in Grace?” shouted the same voice.

  Jacob thought about not answering. He reconsidered.

  “I am,” Jacob hollered back.

  “You ain’t a nigger, so my presumption is that you are the one-and-only Jacob Smith.”

  “I am.”

  “Listen, Jacob,” continued the voice, closer this time, “I am Cyclops Potestas. I give you my word that you men can walk away if you just give us the relic. This deal cannot reach greater simplicity.”

  Jacob weighed his options. Footsteps came from all around him, just outside his field of vision. He could stay and fight, or he could run to a better position. But where would that be? The aft of the ship just put his back to the water, and left Christopher and Charlotte between him and the Kukluxers. As for just walking away in peace?

  Jacob had smelled manure before.

  “Jacob,” Christopher whispered. He looked down at the hatch leading to the hold. Christopher and Charlotte were both crouched on the stairs. Just their vehemently shaking heads were visible. “No,” Christopher mouthed.