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

by Jonathan Fesmire

  Creed gave a hard frown. “I want her to trust you.”

  “Do you see that happening?”

  “I might.” He placed a hand on Heidi’s lower back.

  Anna looked to Jonny, horrified, as Creed stepped forward. Frowning, the madam backed away. Even Heidi gave Jonny a stunned glance before she followed.

  Jonny entered after their visitor, pulling the trapdoor closed should any other surprise friends of Creed’s decide to drop by. How had he gone from tending the bar to allowing Anna’s secrets to be exposed?

  When they reached the floor, the widow turned slowly, mouth agape. She flinched when she saw Zero, which stood beside the forge.

  Heidi faced Creed and touched his head unit. “She did this to you?”

  “Yes.”

  Heidi patted Creed’s chest, left hand on pale skin, right hand over the heart unit.

  “Well,” she said, “all right, then.”

  William Roseberry, called Bill by most, and Melba stood at the other side of Maxwell Gregg’s curving oaken desk. The sun had set more than an hour ago, and Gregg had closed the shutters in this above-ground office. Half-way through a cigar he had bought the night before, he took a long drag then placed it in the bronze ashtray on his desk.

  The night before, sitting at the table in his room, lights out, nursing a bottle of single malt scotch, he had wanted to choke the life out of Corwin Blake. The boy had killed one guard and let loose the half-dead dogs on two others, wounding them badly. Bill had found all three guards, informed the Syndicate’s only doctor other than Gilmore, then taken Gregg to the site of the carnage. There, the leader had looked with anger on fallen cages, bodies of Gilmore’s rats chewed and tossed like toys, tiny gears strewn about, and blood spatters all over the floor. He found what he expected in the jail room: blood covered the floorboards, Drew’s body already removed.

  Gregg had stamped his way to the guard room where Jeng-shen, the middle-aged owner of the smoke shop, sat anxiously wringing his hands. After assuring the proprietor that he didn’t blame him in any way for Blake’s escape, the Chinese man explained what he had seen. Minutes after Blake bolted through, the zombie dogs had followed. Gregg had bought four boxes of cigars and paid the man fifty dollars as thanks for supporting the Syndicate.

  Now, the leader of the Evil Eye Syndicate pushed the ashtray a few inches farther on his desk and stood up. He glanced at the oil painting of himself that overlooked his desk from behind. Though in that picture he looked in control of himself, his frustration currently threatened his composure. Behind Bill and Melba were two paintings of nude women that Gregg had moved to his office a little over a month earlier. A glance at each calmed him, a little.

  “So,” said Gregg, “you and your posse found nothing.”

  Melba bit her lip but otherwise stood stoic. “Doesn't mean we won't find something tomorrow.”

  “We heard plenty of stories,” said Bill.

  “News, not just stories.” Melba looked pointedly at Gregg. “El Tiburón and Bodacious Creed—”

  “I hate when people call him that, as though he's something special,” said Gregg.

  “Well,” Bill asked, “ain't he?”

  “No!” Gregg squeezed his hands together and tapped a foot. “Besides, you think I haven’t heard everything today already? They killed at least two of the dogs, and Creed left with them. Unless you have other news—”

  “Sorry, no.” Melba glanced at her feet. She had always fidgeted when in trouble as a child. With her hair done in a braid, she looked a bit like her younger self.

  “No dogs, and no Blake.”

  “We'll keep trying,” Bill said. “Every day 'til we find them. We both need to sleep though. We looked all last night, slept I don't know, maybe three hours today, and just got back from searching again. We're exhausted.”

  “Then send others out and sleep a few hours. But if you and the deputies under you don't find them soon, I can’t even predict what might happen. Thanks to Morgan and his law we can’t patent this technology.”

  “Didn’t someone else invent it, anyway?” Bill asked. “Whoever brought Creed back—”

  “Do I care? No patent, no ownership.” Of course, only Morgan could legally patent anything mechanical in California. Gregg thought the law grossly un-American. Without it, might he, Maxwell Gregg, have gone legitimate, formed a company with the brightest doctors and scientists to compete with Morgan? He could have leveraged his black-market money. Instead, he cared only about retrieving as many of his assets as possible, from the canine machinery to that ungrateful outlaw, Blake.

  “What about Corwin?” Melba asked. “I should be the one out there looking for him.”

  “You’re the reason we have a Corwin problem!” Gregg cried, fists bunched at his sides. Leave it to Melba to strip his emotional control.

  Gregg leaned his knuckles against the desk, staring at his sister. Years ago, in San Francisco, she’d worked for a time as a maid in an orphanage, the very institution where Corwin Blake ended up after his mother’s death. She and the youngster both had a dark side. Hers came out in stealing cash from the orphanage and drinking at all hours. Blake’s came out in bullying the younger children. Sensing a kinship with each other, Melba had turned a blind eye whenever he punched or tripped another child. When he’d come to Santa Cruz more than a month ago, Blake found Melba, and she insisted that Gregg take him in.

  She slammed her hands on her brother’s desk. “You put him behind bars! Exactly where he didn’t need to be. Should have left him to me. I understand him.”

  Though Gregg wanted to stay angry, he saw Bill backing away and had to suppress a laugh. He breathed deeply. Time to return to reason.

  “Bill, Melba,” he said, “Go down and have dinner. Next, have your rest. Two hours. After, I want you to find the dogs, then Blake.”

  “But—”

  “He’ll keep. I’m not worried about him.” As Gregg said this, he realized it was true. The technology the dogs carried, drilled in their skulls, had to be secured or his new business venture might fail before it started, especially if it fell into Miles Morgan’s hands. Blake could hide out awhile on his own. Might the outlaw snitch on The Evil Eye Syndicate? Possibly, but Gregg didn’t imagine the kid betraying Melba.

  Blake wanted nothing more than another shot at Creed. Perhaps Gregg would get lucky and they would kill each other.

  The night of Blake's escape, the outlaw dashed from the smoke shop and kept running up the street. Though he breathed hard, he imagined he could dash as quickly as with Gregg’s technology and wore a toothy grin. The looks on Mark and Jed’s faces! Had no one told them about the dogs, so close to their guard room? Blake wanted to laugh. No time to stop, though, not for miles, maybe. More of Gregg’s men might follow any moment.

  He thought it might make sense to leave town, but not go far. So, Blake headed east over the San Lorenzo River, then turned north, to where most of the ranches were and no streetlamps showed the way. His vision adjusted to the moonlight and he slowed his pace. His sweat, sticking his shirt to his chest and back, chilled him that summer night.

  Blake figured he had made good time, so he stopped to catch his breath. As he leaned forward, letting the cool air fill his lungs, he heard several gunshots. He didn’t bother to count them, but the first startled him. Had someone found the mutts? He thought it likely. He laughed for at least a minute, then cried “Woohoo!” and fired Drew’s gun twice toward the sky. He had escaped from Gregg! He would have to go back, though. He owed Creed a death.

  Blake thought perhaps he could camp out for the night in Scotts Valley. In time, he skirted the town north of Santa Cruz and entered the woods near the mountains. Looking up past the redwood branches, he saw the stars well enough to estimate that two hours had passed.

  He followed a mountain face, twigs and leaves crackling underfoot, cool air blowing against his chest, and discovered old boards pressed against the wall of dirt and stone.

  “What
’s this, a mine?” he asked himself. In the darkness, he felt the boards, patting them to avoid getting any splinters. A few had been pulled free. He climbed through the space, walked perhaps ten feet in, but decided to not go any further, not when he couldn’t see his hands in front of his face. He lay down on the hard earth and managed to sleep.

  The next morning, August eleventh, daylight allowed him to look a bit deeper. He went no more than twenty feet along the passage, as even during the day, the mine became dark not far in. Well, so long as he had a place to sleep, he didn’t have to go exploring. For the next several days he managed to lay low there, expecting at any moment for Gregg, or a hired man, maybe El Tiburón, or even Creed himself, to discover him.

  Though Blake didn’t want to draw attention his way by firing the gun, he knew animal traps. He found a farm, from which he stole a knife and twine. He found the chicken coup and killed a hen, grabbing it and twisting its neck.

  During his retreat, as Blake began to think of it, he used the string, leaves, and sticks to set traps. He managed to capture a few squirrels, rabbits, and a raccoon, and with the knife, he skinned and gutted them. None tasted better than the chicken.

  With sticks and twigs, he made fire at the mouth of the cave when he needed to eat, and cooked the meat. He managed to find blackberries, roots, and some edible mushrooms in the woods and added those to his meals. He drank from a nearby creek.

  On the morning of August fourteenth, four days after his escape, he figured the time had come to return. He didn’t have to worry about the marshals. Gregg would never report his departure to them. Blake laughed at the idea.

  By now, Gregg probably figured that Blake had left for good.

  That night, he crept into Scotts Valley and found a general store across a wide road from the plain, brown post office. The sign affixed to the awning proclaimed it as Herman’s General Goods. There, he hoped to pilfer ammunition, some clothes, and maybe a few peppermint sticks. If the owner were awake at this hour—he looked toward the stars and figured it for about eleven—he could rough him up.

  “No, don’t do that,” he whispered and gritted his teeth. “Lie low or you’ll just get Creed after ya. And if you see a timepiece, take it.”

  Without tools to pick the lock, he went to each window, where the streetlights couldn’t breach the shadows, and attempted to lift one after the other. Many would be surprised how often people left their windows unlocked. The second window on the second side he checked popped open when he pushed. Blake pulled himself up, kicked a leg over the sill, and dropped to the floor. He crouched, waiting for his eyes to adjust as he took in the smell of leather.

  All the devices he used for the Syndicate, the goggles, the finger spikes called roach claws, the leg braces, and dust bombs, couldn’t help him now. He had to rely on wits and patience. His belly knotted, whether from his diet over the last half a week, or nerves, he couldn’t say.

  Blake stood and quietly shut the window. Enough street light came in through the big front panes that he saw clearly enough. Though he stepped carefully as he could, he frowned as his dusty, noisy boots thumped against the wooden floor. He glanced over stacks of folded shirts and jeans, women’s dresses hanging on a rack between two windows, bags of flour and beans, then to what interested him most.

  Ammunition belts sat out for anyone to examine, but the guns were locked away behind glass. There were Winchesters, Prietto and Sons, Colts, Austins, and Deringers. He grabbed a belt of forty-five caliber bullets and slipped it over his shoulder. When he tugged the cabinet door, he found it locked.

  Blake drew his pistol, prepared to shatter the glass with the grip. As he lifted it, a door squeaked and banged against a wall.

  Blake ducked, as a gun cocked. He edged behind a rack of foodstuffs and saw the head and torso of an elderly man step out, holding a rifle.

  “Whoever's in here, you're gonna be mighty sorry you broke into this place.”

  Blake didn't get it. Sure, he heard his own footsteps and that made him nervous, but realistically, the sound shouldn’t have carried. Breaking the glass would have made noise, but he would have grabbed a pistol or two and skedaddled without the other things he wanted. Blake shook his head. His impulsiveness would have left him with guns and ammunition, nothing more.

  How had the old man known someone was here? Blake supposed that with all the other strange technology he’d seen in Santa Cruz, maybe opening the window rang a bell upstairs.

  The outlaw crawled to a coat rack to get a closer look at the owner. The light of the streetlamps turned the old man into a shivering silhouette.

  “Stand up and show yourself or I'll start shooting!”

  Blake imagined drawing and putting a bullet into the man’s face. He shut his eyes hard and slipped his weapon into his belt. A holster. He needed one of those, too. The owner looked from one window to the next, maybe wondering which had opened.

  “Ah, it ain't nothing.” The man lowered his pistol, and his bare feet thumped against the wood as he walked through the side door. His footsteps continued upstairs.

  Blake knelt there, hand over the pistol butt, watching the door from around the coat rack, for what seemed like minutes. With that sort of luck, maybe fate had chosen to watch over him. Maybe it wanted Creed dead as much as he did.

  As his legs began to ache, he stood and looked around again. He grabbed an empty rucksack, tossed in a new shirt, parchment-wrapped beef jerky, three peppermint sticks, a box of extra bullets, and a holster that looked about right for his Colt. He found pocket watches, but they were also behind glass. Once again, he held back the urge to break it.

  No matter how he left he’d have to run, so he let himself out the front door and dashed south on what would be a two or so hour hike back to Santa Cruz.

  Blake figured he could find Creed patrolling Railroad Flats. He would have to find a place to watch, and wait.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Though Anna’s belly ached, she managed to lose herself while studying the inferior brain units from the undead dogs. From August twelfth to the fifteenth, though she insisted on working during the day, she forced herself to go to bed by nine at night. Jonny tended bar alone or with Karla, but came down to the laboratory each night and reminded her to rest. The night of the fifteenth, she felt she had healed enough that they made love and, especially relaxed, dropped off to sleep.

  Gilmore’s machines had revealed some interesting facts. Anna’s and Creed’s assumption that Coconino had received its artificial leg and other machinery while alive proved true, or at least, she found no indication the coyote had ever died.

  On the twelfth, Anna had given the coyote a mild sedative, enough to keep it asleep for a few hours so she wouldn’t cause it any distress. It lay on the operating table, paws supporting its head like a pillow.

  Anna found a scar along its back. Palpating the skin, she thought she felt thick wires underneath. Though she had no expertise in canine physiology, one of the cervical vertebrae felt asymmetrical, with a lump, as though it had broken and healed without being properly set. It seemed Dr. Gilmore had bolted on the head unit and fed wires through, bypassing a break in the spinal cord and giving the animal back movement. Two steel clips, each attached to a vertebra, helped keep the wires in place.

  “Now how did you manage that, Dr. Gilmore?” She worked off the main panel of the head unit and had another surprise. “Oh my! Wait until I tell Jonny about this.”

  Setting aside the flat piece of steel, she grabbed a notebook and pencil from her desk and sketched what she saw in the head unit. It held an ether rod, which she expected. However, it also contained steely circuitry. After jotting down some notes, Anna went back to her desk and took a pair of goggles from the top drawer. With these on, she flipped down two extra lenses, and with her magnified view studied the complex wiring and plating. Etched to one side was the following: LRM205-34C. Part of a Labrador retriever model.

  That explained Coconino’s behavior, which was more
like a loyal pooch than a wild scavenger. Gilmore was already experimenting with behavioral modification. It seemed a shame Anna never worked with him.

  Still, her examination of the other head units showed Gilmore’s failings. His work was far from reviving a dead brain into a sane state. Attaching steely circuitry might help alter behavior, but Anna thought that, until he understood the healing aspect better, whatever he revived would have an underlying psychopathy.

  On the thirteenth, Anna went to work on Bernard’s broken circuitry. Zero forged new plating for the head and neck and new tubing for the throat. She had spare guardian brain units, slightly different than blood hound circuits, and wired one together with Bernard’s remaining brain sections. Fortunately, the steely’s undamaged areas held its most important memories, so it wouldn’t have to learn about its master all over again. She believed the replacement parts would even improve its mental efficiency.

  Soon, she had activated Bernard and it seemed to act normally, sniffing around the room and going to her when she called its name. Once tested, she had it sit on a low shelf, roll into a ball, and shut off.

  To Anna’s regret, the undead bull terrier soon expired. She had surgically removed the bullet from its leg and strapped healing units to various parts of its body. Around noon on the thirteenth, she lay it on the secondary operating table and shut off its head unit. As expected, it stopped breathing. She screwed open the unit and adjusted the wires to better channel the ether.

  “Zero, help me here. Sedate it if need be.” With Zero by her side, Anna pulled and secured the table straps over the animal, then screwed back the plate and pushed the half-covered switch.

  The dog's eyes flickered open then went wide. She expected it to take slow breaths. Instead, it snarled, then coughed, its feet scrambling against the table top. Anna reached for the head unit, but the dog snapped at her hand, teeth less than a quarter inch from her fingers.

  Zero pushed the needle into the terrier’s front leg. It hacked and lurched against the restraints, muscles tensing and fur standing on end. Then, its eyes shut. The chaotic movement stopped and it lay panting heavily. Anna attempted to turn off the head unit again, but the dog’s entire body tensed, violently. At the other side of the room, Math mewed.