Bardwell fire walled what he believed to be the throttle, pulling back on the yoke. The nose of the airship started upward along with the artificial horizon on the panel. With the throttle wide open, the gasoline engines outside, screamed into the night.
“Sir…?
“Those boys don’t know who’s operating this thing,” Bardwell said. “They’ll be gunning for us.”
“Why not just land this shit and walk?” Curtis asked.
Bardwell shook his head. “It’s more than a mile back to the entrance and I’m not as young as I used to be.”
Curtis started to laugh as the ship nosed onward into the night sky. Below, anything that could burn…burned. The two boys had seen to that. Karsyn had been right, most of the place had been let go for some years. Flames from a grass fire licked at the south wall and the vines growing there.
“Listen,” Bardwell said over the drone of the engines. “When we get close enough to jump, I need you to take out the engines with your rifle if you can?”
Curtis nodded watching as the west wall—the entrance—neared.
The lawman cut the throttle and started the ship downward by pushing forward on the yoke. The ship responded by descending gently.
“Now,” Bardwell yelled, twenty feet from terra firma. Curtis opened up on the number one and two engines through the missing glass. The motors hissed but continued to run. Bardwell opened the throttle again. The gasoline rushing through shot up igniting the hoses. Flames leaped from both engine cowlings.
“Last stop, Green River,” Curtis said, bracing for impact.
The nose of the airship slammed into the wall throwing Curtis to the broken glass at his feet. One of the dead outlaws on the floor shielded his blow.
The giant gas envelope was really a bag containing a series of gas chambers amounting to nothing more than a bunch of balloons within. The nose of the airship crumpled which softened the blow. If it had been Black McDaniel’s flying machine, both lawmen would have been killed.
Curtis struggled to his feet. Bardwell shoved the yoke forward and pulled back the throttle. The engines continued running themselves to hell from the sounds of the grinding steel. Smoke and flame poured from the cowlings.
“Come on, Son,” Bardwell said, reaching out a hand to help the boy to his feet. The open door of the gondola was no more than four paces from the ground but wouldn’t remain there long. The lawmen jumped for it running to put a little distance between them and the doomed flying machine.
Untethered and without a master now, the great airship drifted slowly skyward. Bardwell opened up the rifle, the boys had provided, unleashing thirty of the 5.56 rounds into the gas balloon.
Curtis started back to the flying craft as Bardwell inserted another magazine. So far this night, he had expended more bullets that he had in most of the past year. “Where the hell are you going?” he yelled.
The young lawman turned and smiled with the stub of a cigar in his teeth. Curtis pulled the remaining stick of dynamite that he had carried in, from the pocket of his trousers.
Bardwell nodded and held his fire as the boy ran for the open gondola door. He could see his partner hold the fuse to his smoke, toss the piece, and run like the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels. Curtis never looked back once he started in Bardwell’s direction who was now seeking cover from the coming explosion.
Both ducked behind one of the machines. The carriage sat rusting and forgotten after all of the years since it had last been used.
Fire lit the night sky overhead, as the basket under the airship was ripped apart by the dynamite the young lawman had thrown inside. Metal twisted and shrieked as the blast nearly tore the gondola from the ancient craft that continued higher into a painted purple sky.
“I guess they won’t be fixing that one anytime soon?” Curtis laughed.
Near the edge of a nearby building, Jaxen Castro, a demolition expert, stood watching. In the light cast from the explosion, Curtis could see the young lawman thrust out one arm. The fist attached to the appendage had a thumb pointed skyward. Curtis smiled.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here, Sir,” Curtis said, watching as the two boys did what they did.
Bardwell shook his head. “We’ll cover the boys when they come running. You take that side of the wall.”
Curtis understood what was expected of him. He would remain in the shadows of the entrance to provide cover for Ritchie and Castro when they retreated.
“They sure are taking a long time?” Curtis yelled across opening in the west wall of the fortress.
“They expected us to fight our way back,” Bardwell said. “Not hitch a ride on that airship of Butterfields?”
Both lawmen turned to look for the doomed flying machine. The airship skidded onward with the gondola hanging by only the wires that controlled its movement. It drifted slowly north of west till it had raised itself enough to take on the breeze blowing over the rise of a nearby hill. It halted momentarily before turning southward into the prevailing wind.
Bright light flashed in the fortified compound. The lawmen could see the dark figures of the brothers darting in the shadows like fleeting ghosts skittering at the edges of peripheral vision.
One of the mooring towers, painted bright white teetered from the blast.
“Oh well,” Curtis said before a second blast. “They tried.” The second explosion sent the spire over on its side, falling onto the nearest building.
The dark figures were gone. The lawmen peered into the darkness just inside of the complex for any sign of the brothers.
Another blast played hell with the brick foundation of a four-story building just to the south of the main entrance. The building swayed but held.
The boys were seen running toward the now gateless entrance with a dozen or more of the Red Owl Mining Company not far behind. The brothers held to the shadows as best they could. Bardwell and Curtis were allowed a clear line of fire and put the new rifles to the test.
Glass and brick flew outward from the building. A steel door was sent flying into the next building as the structure gave into the wishes of the young lawmen. Some of the followers stopped to witness the great building crumble just ten paces from where they stood.
Falling building or not, the lawmen tore into Butterfield’s men with the rapid-fire weapons. The boys were close enough to hear now.
“Run, run,” they shouted.
Bardwell looked to Curtis standing with a blank stare and the stub of a cigar that had gone out earlier. They shrugged their shoulders and started for the clearing to the west of the facility.
“Run,” the boys shouted from behind.
A hundred paces from the ancient correctional institution, the brothers passed Curtis and Bardwell. Bardwell was winded from age and Curtis took a painful stitch to his side from lack of vigorous exercise, but they continued on. The boys dove behind a rock wall with a green sign written in the letters of the elders, each carrying the nearly empty bags of gear they had started with. The lawmen joined up just as the granddaddy of all explosions rocked the very ground where they hunkered down.
Dust and brick from the prison’s outer walls and nearby buildings crumbled into a heap of rubble that was nearly unrecognizable.
“Now that’s blowing shit up,” Curtis said, smiling as he reached out for another cigar. The boys nodded their agreement before grabbing up their gear and starting back up the hill to where the horses had been tied.
As Silas Ritchie and Jaxen Castro stripped their gear and packed it away, Bardwell and Curtis looked back over the destruction they had caused.
“Ain’t anyone going to be using that place again,” Curtis said, drawing hard on his smoke.
“Well, gentlemen,” Ritchie and Castro said, walking up and reaching out their hands. The brothers were dressed in the digs of a cowboy now, complete with black hats and long canvas coats.
“It’s been great working with you and I’m sure that our paths will cross again someday,” Ca
stro said, shaking Curtis’s hand.
Curtis pulled the brother in close. “I only hope so friend.”
“No one is to know of our meeting,” Ritchie said, looking at both men at the same time. “There will nothing in your report, Sir,” he said, directing the comment to Bardwell. “Understand?”
“I do, Son,” Bardwell said. “I understand it very well.”
The boys continued packing their gear, eventually mounting up and turning their animals to the north and west.
“Sir,” Ritchie said. “We’ll meet up two rods south of the mission at Palo Alto if God wills it. My brother and I still have orders to destroy the remaining airship, if it remains there.”
“We will meet in ten days, Son,” Bardwell said. “And you boys ride safe. I’ve had a hell of a time working with the two of you.”
“Godspeed, Sir,” Castro said, putting the spur to his mount.
Bardwell pushed a foot in his stirrup and swung himself aboard for what would prove a long night’s ride.
“What about the girl?” Curtis asked, mounting up. Smoke from the young lawman’s cigar drifted on the unseen breeze.
“I’ll ride as far north as Sweetwater,” Bardwell said. “Then turn west to intersect the old mission road north. That should place me there well before the boys reach it.”
“And me?” Curtis asked. “What about me?”
Bardwell tugged at the lead rope tethering the unsaddled spare. “You ride back into town and see that the little girl gets on that coach at four o’clock. You stay with her son and see that she gets to the city unharmed.”
“Wait,” Curtis asked for clarification. “You want me to ride behind a coach all the way to Sacramento when I just know that shit is going to be blowing up in two weeks’ time?”
“You heard right, Son,” Bardwell said. “And you’d better be moving along. It’s better than three hours into town. You’ll do fine,” the lawman said. “I trust you with my life Franklin.”
Franklin Curtis turned his mount to the west putting the spur to it without saying more. The young lawman knew what his superior—his mentor, his friend—expected of him. Come hell or high water, he wouldn’t let him down.
Bardwell looked out across the dark night. The brothers had long been taken by the darkness and were probably a mile or more ahead. Ritchie and Castro would stick to the more eastern route up the long valley the elders had called 99. A last glimpse of Curtis departing to the west and town was all the lawman would see of the boy for some time. After nearly ten years of riding together, this would be the boy’s first time alone in the wilds, a place where bad things could happen to a man if he were not careful.
The lawman reached down into his saddlebag and bit off a chew. It would be several hours till the morning sun had cleared the range to the north and east. He spit over the side and spurred his mount onward. “Come on girl,” he said.
Chapter Forty-One
Bardwell sat in an old chair blowing the steam away from a dented tin cup. Franklin Curtis, his young partner had often asked over the years why he chose to use the tin cup when he had China in the cupboard. It just tastes better, Son, he had said over and over again.
His coffee or what he called coffee did seem to taste better from the old cup. It had been given to him by Deadeye Bob James and probably the best lawman that Sacramento had ever pinned a badge to. If the tin cup was good enough for James, it was more than good enough for him.
It had been a long ten days in making the mission at Palo Alto for Bardwell riding alone. He knew that the brothers would go after the remaining airship whether he and Curtis showed up or not. All three men were slightly wounded in the melee, but nothing, that time wouldn’t heal.
The senior lawman had time to think on the situation and his life in general. The big house in the hills, it wasn’t anything with no one living there to enjoy it, no one cooking in the iron stove or wiping the dust from the table. No morning smiles.
Bardwell did some thinking traveling up the mission road and he spent some time talking with the brothers as they rode north together for the last time.
“I’d like to see you, Boys, again,” he said, over squeaking saddle leather as the deadly trio traveled north for a meeting with Nathaniel Butterfield and the remaining airship that he used to transport dope and unwilling bodies north to waiting customers there.
Castro shook his head.
“It can’t be, Sir,” Ritchie said. “None of us can afford to be known as associating with each other.”
“And what of the young lady?” he asked. “What about your cousin, Karsyn?”
The boys didn’t reply.
“My partner, Franklin, will be arriving back in the city come the morrow if I figure right?” he added. “What will come of your kin then?”
“We hadn’t got that far, Sir,” Castro said, spitting tobacco juice over his knee.
“Look, Boys,” he said. “I’ve got a big place out in the hills overlooking Sacramento. The girl is welcome to live there and it will give you a reason to visit from time to time. Nothing work related, just a place to unwind when you’re home. What do you say?”
“That would be nice, Sir,” Ritchie said. His brother nodded approval.
“Then it’s settled,” Bardwell said. “She’ll stay on with me as long as she likes and you boys are welcome to drop in anytime you wish.”
The brothers smiled.
Nathaniel Butterfield was taken alive. Bardwell had given him over to the authorities just a few days ago. In better than thirty years of riding the dusty roads, it was one of the few where the lawman had turned over a live prisoner.
His airship wasn’t so lucky. It had been grounded indefinitely due to a catastrophic failure. Bardwell and the boys had a hand in it of course.
Franklin Curtis had done as he was instructed. The young lawman had followed his orders to the T. The boy had ridden back into town and saw to it the girl was safe aboard the first coach out and he remained with her till Bardwell rode into town leading Butterfield cuffed to the saddle horn. The young lawman had a few things to say about seeing his mentor of all these years leading the spare horse with Butterfield sitting upright, but that’s another story altogether.
Inside, the door on the iron stove squealed. “Could you use another cup?” Karsyn asked.
Bardwell got up smiling, even though his tired back said otherwise. The years had gotten by him somehow. The lawman wasn’t as young as he once was back when he rode with Deadeye Bob James. Maybe he’d slow down a little in the coming years, take it easy some? He’d have to for a time with his arm in a sling as it was.
“The boys will all be over for supper tonight,” she said.
Bardwell turned for a look back over the valley below as the morning sun rose. It was going to be nice having all of the kids around again. Come the afternoon, Franklin Curtis, Silas Ritchie, and Jaxen Castro along with, Karsyn Faye would be gathered around the table and telling the stories of their youth. The lawman pulled back the door and went inside.
The elders had referred to it as the Final Solution. Maybe they had been right, but maybe they hadn’t. With good young folk like these, just maybe humanity would have a future?
The End
About Christopher Davis
Christopher Davis is a central California native and grandfather of three rambunctious little ones. When not tending herd, he’ll try his hand at writing crime, western & horror fiction.
Chris lives with his wife and a little dog that has nearly lost his mind.
Social Media Links
Find out more at www.christopherdaviswrites.com
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Acknowledgements
A lot of folks have read Ain’t No Law in California over the years that I have worked on it (in its various formats), but it’s my pal Terry Anderson who has put up with the majority of the rewrites and was always more than willing t
o read the story again and again or offer an opinion.
Man…I can’t thank you enough for all of your time.
The original three versions of the story were traditional western or as traditional as I knew how to make them at the time. It wasn’t until writing a post-apocalyptic short story for an anthology that never got off the ground that I decided to let the lawmen ride into the future.
I hope that you’ll enjoy it.
If you enjoyed this story, check out these other Solstice Publishing books by Christopher Davis:
Cinnamon Girl
Cinnamon Girl begins as a father relates the surreal tale of his boat and how it came about the name, to his adult over a couple of beers. It’s a story that mom has never spoken of.
Going back to his youth, the father tells of a young woman and a summer spent in love. As that summer wore itself away, they drifted south into Mexico enjoying cocaine parties on the beach and the local hospitality. Each day, their plight got darker until the summer was over to leave them both spent from the long and trying ordeal.
http://bookgoodies.com/a/B01LZSXBER
Meet Me in Tulsa
Meet Me in Tulsa is a prohibition era tale, when hard men took on hard odds just to get ahead and make a dollar. Atlee Dodge and Elmer Johnson plan to rob the First National Bank of Missouri from behind bars with both Jefferson City and St Louis falling victim to the pair of hardboiled ex-convicts after their release. Dodge falls for the German accented Eva Dressler as he frequents an out of the way gin-joint, asking her to meet him in Tulsa where he and Johnson will divide their take and strike off in separate directions. Johnson doesn’t make it much farther than Springfield, but the dame is waiting at an Oklahoma bus stop. Dodge and Dressler drive west through the ill-fated night only to end up at the side of the road outside of Amarillo Texas as the sun rose in the eastern sky behind with the sound of the machine guns still ringing in their ears.
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