Bodacious Creed: a Steampunk Zombie Western (The Adventures of Bodacious Creed Book 1)

by Jonathan Fesmire

  Past the tree trunks, he watched as a large group traveled north along the hard road. A half-block from the local marshal’s post, the group wheeled left onto a side street. They moved in four distinct groups. First came mounted riders, then three horse-drawn carts filled with men. Though he couldn’t know for certain under the faint light of the streetlamps, he thought they all wore black.

  Under ordinary circumstances, he might think it a procession to a late funeral. Tonight, though, and well after midnight? They had a connection to the kidnappers. Cantrell leaned forward on Malcolm’s back and stared, wondering if Maxwell Gregg was among them. He’d helped Gregg once and defied him another. Both times, he’d hurt good people. Time to make up for that.

  After the last cart disappeared down the side road, Cantrell and Bernard came out of hiding and followed them from about a block away. The travelers turned right at the train tracks, which occupied a road parallel to Center Street. It made sense. They wanted to avoid getting spotted by either of the marshal posts. Also, few buildings here faced the tracks, their doors and windows opening to the adjacent streets.

  He remained at least a thousand feet behind them as they followed the tracks past Mission Street to the woods north. There, they turned again, this time left, away from where the path cut through the forest and into the mountains and entered the forest that way.

  A trail, scarcely visible, led most of the way until the trees bunched too closely. Cantrell waited as the groups left their carts and continued on foot, now shining mechanical torches. These brought their shadows into relief against the redwoods and brush.

  He continued through on horseback, passing the steeds and carts. The former appeared calm, the latter, empty. In moments, he emerged into a clearing where the moon shined on a modest mansion.

  “I know that place,” he whispered, then it came to him. On one of his early days in Santa Cruz, he had spent about three hours in City Hall, looking at the few photographs on the walls and learning about the city’s history. The mansion was about twenty years old, built by a local sourdough bread baker who had made a fortune selling baked goods and sandwiches to miners during the gold rush. In the last year, the former owner of The House of Amber Doves had bought it. Cantrell held his fist to his head, trying to recall her name. Full… Fullerton. Margarita. She had bought this house and secluded herself from everyone else.

  What did the criminal underground want with this place? Lights began coming on from inside, illuminating curtains at the windows. As if they had signaled the lights to shine in Cantrell’s head, he suddenly understood. They thought the zombie, the plowshares killer, was Fullerton herself.

  For a while, Cantrell watched. He had a mind to wait until one of the strangers came out alone and to grab him for questioning. Too risky, he knew. Instead, he would report to Marshal Peake and bring backup.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Creed tapped on Anna’s bedroom window and waited for her to open the back door. The restless white cat squirmed in his arms, but the worst thing he could do was let it go and risk someone new getting ahold of the technology nested in its fur. The sea air tingled against Creed’s neck, the feline clawed his coat, and he wondered if Anna had heard him. Maybe she was working in her laboratory.

  Footsteps approached from inside and the back door eased open. Anna waved him in, but stopped, hand frozen, her gaze on the cat, her lips moving as though she meant to speak but had gone as mute as Jonny. At last, she looked into Creed’s eyes. “I haven't seen him since February!” She reached for the animal and it leaped into her arms, instantly purring.

  Though he felt eager to share what he had seen, Creed simply followed her down to the laboratory. He shut the trapdoor above them and descended the rest of the way. Jonny sat at the desk with a thick needle and a leather glove, while Zero hammered something on the anvil.

  “Hush!” Anna waved a hand toward Zero. The steely plunged the piece into a bucket of water. As steam rose, Anna pulled the chair beside Jonny and patted the cat. Jonny looked from the animal to Anna to Creed.

  As Anna checked the unit on the cat’s shoulder, Creed pulled up a chair for himself. “The killer was Margarita Fullerton, without a doubt. As for the cat, I found it in the basement, along with dogs, a coyote, and a slew of rats. All had metal gadgets attached to their bodies, mostly their skulls. These notes, too.” He pulled the ledger from his coat and passed it to Anna, but she gave them to Jonny.

  The younger man pulled the free sheet of paper from the book and passed it to Anna.

  “Oh my,” Anna said. “That’s about the size of her hand.” She gazed at Creed. “Tell me everything.”

  Creed covered from when he entered the clearing around Fullerton’s mansion to when the others arrived.

  “I’m just glad you made it there first.” Anna closed her eyes and rubbed her cheek against the top of the cat’s head. It’s purring grew louder. “This is a lot to think about. The scientist might work for Miles. Something tells me he was doing this without Morgan knowing. I’d wager he’s the one who tried to kidnap you, too. How’s the underground involved? Did they know what was happening all along?”

  Creed removed his mask and rubbed his beard. “I can’t say.”

  “We’ll get this figured out.” Anna looked at Jonny, who nodded his agreement. “I paid Margarita a lot for this place. Some say more than it was worth. Even after she bought her mansion, she would have been set for life. Maybe she paid them.”

  “That’s what I suspect. He wants to sell extended life to the rich.”

  Anna kissed the cat’s furry cheek. It sneezed, and she set it on the floor. She took the ledger from Jonny and flipped through it. Creed stood and draped his coat over the back of his chair. Here in the lab the air was always cool, and that would help him stay focused.

  Anna tapped the page. “This scientist doesn't understand what he’s working with. See this, Jonny? He’s using the right sort of alloy, but the wiring’s wrong. You must get this right, or a couple things can happen. The subject’s tissues may become enlivened, even heal, but the mind will remain catatonic. The heart won’t even beat. This, though, must have brought Margarita back with brain damage and turned her mad.

  “This writing.” Anna closed her eyes and lowered her eyebrows. Jonny gazed at her curiously. “I know who wrote this!” Anna stood suddenly, running her finger along with the script. “He was part of the healing research at Morgan’s. His name is…” She bit her lip, as though searching her mind. “Dr. Raleigh Gilmore.”

  She flipped through the pages, eyes narrowed as she scanned the pictures and words. “He didn’t leave his name in here, but this is his writing. I told Miles that ether could heal dead flesh, but not that it could raise the dead” She looked at the cat. “Math was my first experiment.”

  “Ah, so this is Math.”

  “When I found Math, he’d been dead a couple hours. I decided to test my theory that the ether could heal enough to raise the dead. He got away last February, I think it was. That worried me, for a while, then I stopped thinking about it. I figured he died in the wild and no one found him. I reckon that Gilmore found him and learned from the unit on Math’s leg. Must be how he got the idea he could resurrect people.” The cat padded over to Anna and mewed at her feet.

  “He’d have all he needed to start experimenting,” Creed said. “The wires, the dials.”

  “Even so, they missed details, and humans are more complex than cats. There were dogs there, too? They’d also need different tuning.”

  “Well, the syndicate has Fullerton now, and I suspect your Dr. Gilmore.”

  Anna shivered. “If they start experimenting with this, who knows what will happen?”

  “We need to inform the marshals.”

  “That’s crazy!” Anna exclaimed. She stood and wrung her hands. “Then they'll know what this technology can do. They'll—”

  “They already know.” Creed tapped his brain unit. “They know about me. They know the killer had
machinery, too, and pale skin.”

  Anna lifted Math and held the animal tightly. Jonny squeezed her shoulder. He then headed up the stairs.

  “We need them to help us stop this from spreading, don’t we?” Anna asked.

  “I’m afraid so, and I won’t lie. It is a gamble. They wanted to bring me to San Francisco to study these things.” He made a gesture from his head to his heart. “We don’t want the government or the syndicate getting their hands on this knowledge. I think, though, that Marshal Peake is on our side, and I doubt Bateman has any reason to go against Peake.”

  “There's a good chance neither the government nor the underground, will ever get the technology sorted like Jonny did.” The man in question came back down the stairs with two ceramic bowls. He set them on the floor by the staircase and Creed noted that one was full of water, one full of chicken scraps and skin. Math leaped from Anna’s arms and went for the food.

  Anna’s gaze never left Creed. “They’re bound to make monsters, and monsters get free. Don’t go to the station yourself. I’ll tell them I saw the fight in front of the brothel, that I saw them take Fullerton, and what she looked like. I’ll take Dixie with me.”

  Twenty minutes later, Anna rode Espiritu along Pacific Avenue, Dixie’s steel feet pounding behind them. The air smelled of the salty ocean. The city’s law keepers had their hands full that night, and she could help them in the right direction.

  Anna pulled on Espiritu’s reins and considered the star-filled sky. Though she doubted Peake’s trustworthiness, a wish on a star wouldn’t help. Those distant suns didn’t care enough to assist an insignificant woman on Earth.

  The sound of a hard gallop came from behind Anna after she had turned on Center Street. She urged Espiritu to the roadside then brought a finger to her lips, signaling for Dixie to be silent. Whoever approached had probably seen and heard them, but maybe not. Anna had not been near a lamp post when she heard the other rider.

  She turned Espiritu around under an awning and slipped on her goggles, flipping a switch that initiated night vision. The approaching stallion cantered along, the rider’s coat flowing, a steely hound running up the dirt road a few feet nearby. El Tiburón, the man who turned in her father.

  Anna imagined his face and thought about how she’d like to slap it. Another image came to her, that of a man with a gambler’s hat and a broad nose.

  Anna snapped and pointed. “Get him.”

  The steely sped at the bounty hunter. Cantrell had no time to react as the powerful automaton rushed forward, but Anna thought she saw his eyes open wide. Dixie shoved Cantrell off his racing steed. The horse kept going for a few seconds as the large man hit the road with a thump and a pained cry.

  The mechanical hound leaped on Dixie, but its attack lasted less than a second. Dixie reached into its mouth and the hound fell, dead still. Anna grinned. Her steely had deactivated Cantrell’s without harm. She eased her goggles to her forehead and removed a mechanical torch from a saddlebag.

  She rode up to Cantrell and shone the light on his face. He groaned and looked at her, arm shading eyes, and for a second she suspected him of playing possum. Still, his horse had been running fast, and he had fallen like a crate of machine parts. He might have even broken a rib or two when the earth hit his side. His steed brought its muzzle to Cantrell’s face as though urging him to get up. Cantrell pushed away from Anna with his feet, hands on his chest as he wheezed, struggling to breathe.

  She held Espiritu’s reins with her left hand and kept the light on him with her right. “You broke into my home.”

  The big man’s breath became steadier by the moment as crickets chirped. Impatient, Anna continued. “Not only that, you turned in someone I care about. I hope the reward was worth it.” She shifted the light to her other hand and reached into a hidden pocket in her dress, removing her Deringer. She had no intention of shooting him, but El Tiburón had a dangerous reputation.

  “Yeah, I turned in Creed, so he could go to trial.” Cantrell held up a hand to block the light of the mechanical torch.

  “Oh, that's comforting.” Anna had no experience with interrogation, but anger had taken the perch. She leveled her gun at Cantrell's head. “You’ve been to my lab. You know too much. What do you think I should do about that?”

  Cantrell’s mouth went wide and he dropped his hand, oblivious to the torch light. “I... I don't... I can tell you the name of the man who hired me to go to your lab. Listen, I've been struggling to support my family this whole year. I could have brought Creed to him for much more than the law was willing to pay, but I didn’t. That's why I'm looking so hard for Corwin Blake. The reward on him is huge. If I bring him in that will solidify me as a bounty hunter the law can count on.”

  Anna felt sympathy growing in her chest and didn’t like it. Her father had worked hard to provide for her and her mother before the fire that left him thinking they both had died. Cantrell should have left him alone.

  “Who hired you,” Anna asked.

  “A man named Maxwell Gregg.”

  Anna swallowed. Powerful men like the mayor and Miles Morgan trusted her, and brothel patrons spoke plenty to her girls. The name Maxwell Gregg came up from time to time as someone selling illegal devices, bribing railroad workers, and more. There was another name, too, Heilong. She wondered if the two men were the same.

  Rumor said Gregg had once led a gang of train and stagecoach bandits ten or so years back, and that the bandits had formed a new enterprise. A syndicate, some said. As no investigation had ever found him, some wondered if Maxwell Gregg might be no more than a legend.

  “You’ve seen him?” Anna asked.

  “On a few occasions.”

  “What about you? Why were you riding down from the north?”

  “I’m heading to the federal post. I came from Margarita Fullerton's.”

  Anna’s breath caught for a moment. “Really?”

  “She owned Amber Doves before you, right? Her place is swarming with outlaws. Had my doubts about them being organized before, but not now. I don’t know how many of them. Thirty or forty.”

  Anna moved the light away from his eyes to the street. “You're coming with me. We’re going back Fullerton’s mansion.”

  “Why? We need to see the marshals, get deputies. I know your steely’s tough, but there are too many of them.”

  “We're not going in, but we’re not telling the marshals either, not yet. I need to see what the hell is happening.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Cantrell glared at Anna before forcing himself to his feet and settling into Malcolm’s leather saddle. Physically weaker than a man or not, Anna had an Auto Sapient steely protecting her. He wanted to knock it, and her, to the ground. Still, he had invaded her home, made her breathe chloroform, and electrocuted her partner, all for an infamous criminal. Maybe he deserved to get roughed up.

  “Right. The mansion.” Cantrell rubbed his lower back.

  “Dixie,” Anna said, “please activate the hound.”

  Anna’s humanoid automaton lifted poor Bernard, hit the switch in its mouth, and set the steely down. Bernard rolled into a ball and clicked shut. Dixie passed it to Cantrell, who slipped a leather strap through Bernard and hung it from his saddle.

  “We’ll head up Pacific.” Anna pulled on Espiritu’s reins and the horse cantered back a few steps. “Less likely the group you spotted will go that way.” She rode ahead, but Cantrell refused to be the follower. He kicked Malcolm’s flanks and they went just past her, where he stayed a good five yards in front. They crossed to Pacific Avenue, then turned north.

  “We’d best hurry,” said Cantrell, glancing at Anna over his shoulder. He whipped the reins and cried “Yah!” Malcolm sped to a gallop, and he heard Espiritu and Dixie pounding the hard dirt behind.

  As they approached where the buildings stopped and the woods began, they slowed and entered the forest. The scent of ferns and sorrel punctuated an undertone of sea air. The moonlight through th
e leaves and branches cast distorted shadows and brought Cantrell a feeling of dread. How much of that was from the environment, and how much from his rising sense of guilt? His anger at the madam had ebbed. Now, he wanted to apologize but had no words. How did one say sorry for burglarizing a home?

  About a hundred feet from the clearing and Fullerton’s estate, Cantrell decided what he could say. “I haven't told anybody about what you got under the brothel. I have no intention to. The man who hired me though, Maxwell Gregg, he already knew.”

  In the light-speckled, but otherwise dark forest, Anna didn’t respond. She simply kept Espiritu moving at a steady trot.

  At the edge of the clearing, they dismounted. Dixie stood beside Anna, motionless. The crickets chirped loudly, as though desperately trying to shout a warning. No interior light shined from the mansion, and Cantrell turned his head and listened for sounds of people. Above the racket of the crickets, he heard nothing, and they hadn’t spotted any carts or other horses in the forest.

  “Looks like they’re gone,” he said. “Follow me.”

  Anna lowered her eyebrows, but Cantrell squared his shoulders and walked Malcolm back about twenty feet from the forest line. As he hitched the reins around a strong branch, he heard Anna’s feet and Espiritu’s hooves crunching sticks and leaves, and the quiet clanking of Dixie’s parts.

  Anna tied her steed to the same tree but didn’t look at Cantrell.

  “We should leave the steelies here,” said the bounty hunter. “Too noisy.”

  “Maybe yours,” Anna said. “Dixie, go quiet.”

  Steam rose like twin ghosts from the steely’s shoulders, but as it headed back for the tree line, it was silent. “Special feature.” Anna gave a coy grin that would melt any man's heart. “Takes more energy, but handy in times like this.”