by D. J. Butler
Brigham Young turned and paced deliberately across the room in Jed’s direction, the cabin floor creaking under his steps. He looked like Daniel in the lions’ den, Jed thought, except the only man in the room who carried himself like a lion was Brigham Young. He was a lion in a jackals’ den, maybe.
Young stopped himself in front of the fireplace, then stopped and turned to face Lee.
“Shoot me here,” he told his adopted son.
“Aren’t you troubled you’d make a mess of Sister Kimball’s floors?” Lee asked, but he drew a pistol from the holster at his hip. “But why do I ask? Consideration of others has never been your strong suit.”
“The blood of Brother Brigham would make this a holier temple than you’ll ever set foot in, John Lee!” the farmer’s wife snapped. “Don’t you worry about my floors!”
“My Brother Joseph died in a jail cell,” Young said quietly, “surrounded by his friends. Dying in a cabin surrounded by my friends would be no less honorable.”
“Move!” The shouted instruction came from the Danite by the nearest window, the man Jed had been planning to slip past. Now he pointed a pistol at the prisoners and urged them to their feet.
Jed pretended to wake up, then carefully held his unbound hands together as he scrambled to his feet and followed the Kimballs as they shuffled across the creaking floor to the far wall.
“You happy?” he grunt-whispered to Fearnley-Standish. “Now we ain’t by the chimney.”
The Englishman had a look of pure consternation and worry on his face. “He’ll die,” he whispered.
“Who, Young?” Jed shot a look over his shoulder. The President of the Kingdom of Deseret stood with his back to the chimney and his hands over his head. John D. Lee stood in front of him with his pistol drawn but not yet raised. All eyes in the room were on them. “Yeah, he might. But he’s only getting what he chose.”
“He’ll die.” The Englishman patted the waistband of his pants like he had an upset stomach.
“Hey,” the red-headed Danite Robison said, “what about Wells?”
“Do I get last words, John?” Young asked. He stood directly before the stone column of the chimney, his arms spread wide like wings, and he edged forward slightly, taking small steps that brought him closer to the man holding a gun on him. His eyes were calm, Jed noticed. He was one steel-spined son of a bitch, Brigham Young. “A last meal? Brother Heber is tone deaf, but will you let him sing A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief for me, anyway?”
“You’re no martyr,” Lee said. “You’re no Joseph Smith. You’re just in the way.”
“The chimney,” Fearnley-Standish murmured, and suddenly Jed guessed what he was worried about.
John D. Lee raised his pistol—
and Jed tackled him. He hit the man knuckles-first, missed his grab at the jug ears and tumbled to the floor.
Bang!
Lee’s shot went wide, the bullet biting into the wooden ceiling.
Jed rolled, racing for a window. The room around him bustled into action, guns swerving and men barking, but unfortunately all the guns were in the hands of the men who wanted Jed dead. He came out of his somersault reaching to plant his foot on a chair and leap for a window and freedom—
and a booted foot caught him in the midriff.
Jed crashed hard into the log wall of the cabin. The room tipped to one side before his eyes and then spun around in a greasy yellow kerosene swirl and when he could see again, he was looking up the barrel of a heavy rifle at the snarling face of the Danite Robison. Behind his attacker, Young and Clemens and Rockwell and the Ambassador all stood still, guns to their heads.
So much for the little rebellion he had started.
So much for worrying about other people. You should have run when you had the chance, Coltrane.
“Go to hell,” he drawled to the Danite in his best Cracker accent.
“Kill the dwarf,” Lee said.
The powerfully-built Danite raised the rifle and grinned. “This is for Wells,” he snarled.
Pip! Pip! Pip!
Robison’s head exploded, spurting a fountain of blood out one temple. He dropped the rifle, took two jerky steps forward and then toppled to the floor. Jed turned to stare at the source of the shots, with everyone else.
They had come from Absalom Fearnley-Standish. He stood upright, if trembling a bit, and in his outstretched hand he held a tiny derringer, a little four-shot lady’s gun. In any other moment, Jed might have found him silly looking, with his scalloped hat brim and badly scuffed city boy shoes and the look on his face, part scared, part determined and part totally insane. Trembling as he was from the close scrape with death, though, Jed was happy to have a champion of any appearance whatsoever.
The short yaps from the derringer faded and Fearnley-Standish lowered his gun. His face shone with sweat and his eyes trembled and Jed wondered if the other man might be just a little bit drunk.
“Mr. Lee,” the Englishman said slowly, tugging at his waistcoat and jacket in effort to smooth them that was doomed to failure. “The first step in any successful negotiation is the making of an offer. We are all reasonable men here, President Brigham Young more than any of us. Please tell us what you want and why you want it, and I’m sure that together we shall all be able to find common ground.”
“Kill them both!” John D. Lee barked.
Danites cocked pistols all over the room.
KABOOM!
The chimney exploded.
Chapter Fifteen
KABOOM!
Two Danites standing nearest the chimney collapsed under the barrage of flying stones. Then the ceiling around the fireplace caved in, and Young, Armstrong, Rockwell and Clemens all disappeared from Absalom’s view.
“Not that easy!” John D. Lee raged and waded into the mess of fallen timbers, one hand clawing at the rubble and the other holding a pistol high.
“Get outta here!” the dwarf Coltrane shouted. He wheezed a bit and sounded generally thrashed, but he had a knife in his hand and he started cutting ropes off the hands of the Kimball family.
A Danite with a scattergun stepped close to the knot of prisoners and raised his weapon. “Stop right there!” he growled, aiming at the midget.
To Absalom’s own surprise, he didn’t hesitate. He raised his derringer and took aim at Scattergun’s neck.
Pip!
Scattergun toppled sideways and then Coltrane was on him like a dagger-wielding ape, stabbing him twice in the face before Absalom pulled his gaze away—
and found himself staring down the barrels of three long pistols in the hands of two furious-looking men.
For a split second, Absalom considered the very real possibility of his own death and found that he wasn’t terribly troubled. He’d carried out his duty to his family and he’d served his country well. If he died on the errand of his Queen, he joined thousands of greater men than himself in a shared patriotic glory. A faint smile crept across his lips.
Crunch!
A long, laced-up boot spun sideways crashed into the temple of One Pistol, flipping him over like a rag doll thrown by a petulant child. A swirl of skirt like a pinwheel followed the boot, and a flash of petticoats and sleek legs, and when Annie Web landed her other boot came down hard on the Danite’s throat.
Snap!
Two Gun’s eyes slipped sideways for a moment in surprise as his comrade vanished under an onslaught of petticoats. When the moment ended, his face twisted into a snarl, his eyeballs rolled forward again to target Absalom—
boom!—
and his head exploded.
Blood and worse spattered over Absalom’s face and chest. He resolved not to think about it; he had business to take care of.
He heard the shouting of men and gunshots outside the farmhouse.
He tucked the derringer into his waistband and strode across the floor towards John D. Lee. The square-headed man shoved a timber out of his way and unearthed Brigham Young, who stared up at him with a fierce, unyie
lding brow.
“I’m not leaving!” he heard Heber Kimball shout behind him.
Men with knives closed in on either side of Absalom. One spun suddenly backwards in a nearly perfect circle as Annie Webb’s toes crunched into the underside of his chin; the other disappeared in a cloud of red mist that spattered Absalom even further.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
Through the missing wall, Absalom glimpsed one of the Striders only a dozen paces away, and he realized that Master Sergeant Jackson was watching over him.
John D. Lee straightened up. He cocked and aimed his pistol at Brigham Young’s forehead.
Absalom had vaguely imagined that he’d pick up a fallen pistol or other weapon from the floor as he crossed it, but there hadn’t been any. So when he reached John D. Lee, he simply punched the man as hard as he could in the jaw.
Bang!
Lee staggered sideways. His gun went off and the bullet sank into the wreckage of the roof and disappeared. He turned, off-balance, raised his pistol—
and Absalom punched it aside, sending the gun flying.
The Danite stared.
Absalom took off his hat and tossed it aside. He raised his fists into guard position in front of his face.
“Son of a—”
Boom!
Indistinctly out of the corner of his eye, Absalom saw Heber Kimball blast with a scattergun, knocking down a Danite who came charging into the farmhouse door.
Shooting and shouting continued outside, but inside the farmhouse was as still as the eye of any hurricane. Soft groans came from the rubble. Absalom knew that Young was still alive, and felt optimistic that Armstrong and Clemens might be equally lucky. It wasn’t that heavy a roof, after all.
John D. Lee eyed his pistol where it lay, across the ravaged room.
“Are you man enough to fight without it, Mr. Lee?” Absalom dared him. “Fisticuffs, like gentlemen, though I hesitate to sully the word by associating it with you!”
Lee flared his nostrils. He shrugged out of his coat and tossed it aside onto the floor.
“My ancestor Richard Lee emigrated from England and made a fortune on this continent in tobacco,” he snarled slowly. “Thomas Lee founded the Ohio Company that opened up the great inner reaches of this land for the civilizing touch of the white man. Francis Lightfoot Lee and Richard Henry Lee signed the Declaration of Independence that severed the noxious umbilical that tied us to the tyrants of Old England.” He pushed his shirtsleeves up over his forearms, revealing a surprising amount of wiry, corded muscle. “And when your whining grandfathers objected, Lighthorse Harry Lee rode roughshod over their lobsterback underlings at Paulus Hook, Camden and Yorktown, and sent them weeping back to their kidney pies.”
Lee spat on the floor and raised his fists.
“Then you can consider this a repayment,” Absalom said.
He punched first, straight for Lee’s nose. It was a light punch, to which he didn’t fully commit, because he wanted to test Lee’s guard.
Lee turned it aside easily and punched back, hard, turning with his shoulders and throwing a fist at Absalom’s stomach—
but Absalom easily stepped aside.
He punched for Lee’s temple with a right cross that glanced off the other man’s shoulder, and then they both pulled back into defensive stances.
Lee started circling to his right. He had a wary look in his eyes now. Absalom saw the dwarf Coltrane scramble over the rubble of the fallen roof, so he circled to the right too, and drew Lee away into the center of the room and away from Brigham Young and the other trapped men.
Lee charged, hurling punch after punch at Absalom’s sternum. Absalom caught the flying fists against his forearms, again and again—
ducked under the punches—
slammed his own knuckles into John D. Lee’s belly—
and caught a sharp punch to his own jaw.
Absalom staggered away. His vision spun and he fought to keep his guard up. By luck more than by skill, his flailing hands managed to slap away two more punches before his vision calmed enough for him to focus on Lee.
“You’re in over your head,” Lee barked.
Outside, the battle continued, many reports of handguns and the booming of the larger firearms mounted on the Striders.
The thrill of the fight rushed through Absalom’s body, almost making up for the blow he’d taken. He saw Annie watching from the side of the room; she looked like a coiled spring, ready to hurl herself into action. He saw the Strider outside, too. It traded shots with a knot of men in the farm’s outbuildings, but it held its position, and Absalom felt it was keeping an eye on him.
Absalom didn’t want to be rescued, especially by beautiful women. He wanted to rescue them, by George.
“Ha!” he spat out his contempt, and jumped forward punching again.
Lee stood his ground and met Absalom’s jabs with his left hand guarding and a right uppercut for Absalom’s jaw.
Absalom swerved, took the punch on his shoulder.
He buffeted Lee on the cheek, backhand. It was a little irregular and bad form, but it connected.
Lee headbutted Absalom in the forehead.
The attack was so fast, Absalom didn’t see it coming. One moment, he was swiping the other man across the face, and the next, the space inside his head felt infinite and echoed with pain and his vision narrowed to a tiny tunnel the only image in which was the sight of John D. Lee’s hammer-hard head pulling away after the blow.
“Ugh,” Absalom said, and fell back.
He kept his feet under him, though not by much, and he staggered and slipped like a dancing marionette.
“Ouch!” someone yelled as Absalom stepped on him.
He lurched forward again, trying to raise his hands to intercept the—
POW!
The punch hit him squarely in the nose and it was bigger and louder and more painful than the exploding chimney.
He punched back, without form or discipline. His head heart so much, he couldn’t even feel his hand and he had no idea if his fist connected.
Thud!
Lee punched him in the stomach.
“Unnph!” Absalom gasped, and he doubled forward. He was still on his feet, but only barely, and he knew the killer, bout-ending punch was inevitable now, was surely about to land on his face. He felt humiliated. Annie would rescue him, or if he fell maybe Master Sergeant Jackson would simply squeeze the trigger and blow John D. Lee to smithereens, but he, Absalom Fearnley-Standish, had personally failed.
Abysmally.
The expected punch didn’t arrive. Instead, Lee grabbed him in a clinch hold, pulling Absalom tight to his own chest.
Absalom dimly heard a snick and then felt a cold, metallic line against the side of his neck. Is that a knife? he wondered.
“I’m leaving now.” John D. Lee’s voice was gigantic and booming in Absalom’s ear and inside his empty, quivering skull. “Anybody tries to stop me, I kill the Englishman.”
* * *
Hishhhhhhh!
The rock surface skimming past the accordion gate and punctured glass of the lift door disappeared first at the top, and then the gap in the stone slid down until it filled the entire door. Tamerlane O’Shaughnessy stood beside Richard Burton in the center of the lift. At Burton’s suggestion, they didn’t try to hide, and just stood with their heads down. Hopefully, Burton had lectured during the lift ride, their concealed faces would create enough uncertainty to give them a small margin of initiative if anyone were waiting for them. Hopefully, Tam thought but didn’t say, the bloody-damn-hell Pinkertons wouldn’t just shoot first and then examine their faces later. After all, Burton openly held a saber in his hand. The sword and the man’s mustache made Tam feel like he was in some mad piratical pantomime. He half expected to be made to walk the plank at any moment, and he was half tempted to shoot Burton the first moment the man turned his back, only he didn’t think Sam Clemens would like it, and after all, he and Burton were on the sam
e side now, more or less.
Tam had punched through the linings of both pockets of his coat, so he could keep his hands in his pockets, each filled with a loaded Maxim Husher ready for action. He was beginning to feel sober again. He itched all over, ached and was grumpy. He didn’t like the feeling, and he disliked it even more than he usually disliked the sensation of sobering up. He felt light-headed and a little sick. He wondered if something was wrong with him.
Besides the two gunshots and the missing chunk of his ear, of course.
No one waited for them at the Bay level. Burton quietly slid the doors open in two quick movements and they both looked out.
The Bay was a single vast chamber, thirty feet tall at least and large enough to hold several good-sized village greens. It was lit by the blue light radiating from Franklin Poles that jutted from the ceiling upside down like iron stalactites, illuminating everything and leaving the floor unobstructed. Obstruction was provided by the stacks of lumber and iron and brass and piles of crates that stood all around the chamber like toys in an untidy child’s room. Several steam-trucks, of various sizes and no consistent make or appearance, stood haphazardly in the Bay as well, motors stilled. To one side a plascrete ramp, wide enough for two steam-trucks to drive abreast, led up through the ceiling into a darkness that looked like the darkness of night outdoors. There’s your exit, me boy, Tam thought.
Directly across the Bay was another opening in the cavern wall. As Burton and Tam watched, a steam-truck rumbled into the Bay and ground to halt, idling its engine. Half a dozen tall men in long coats stood around it with guns, and one old man with hair so white and wild that Tam could see it from the lift.
“That’s our steam-truck,” Burton said in his lecturing way, as if it wasn’t obvious.
“No wonder there weren’t any Pinkertons to welcome us,” Tam answered, showing he was just as smart as the Englishman. “They all went over to welcome the truck.”
Burton shut the gate and jammed the control lever up to the LAKE slot.
This ride was short, but it felt extremely fast and violent to Tam. Burton looked unfazed, and he glared down at Tam as the Irishman bent at the waist, leaned with one hand against the wooden panels of the walls and breathed deeply.
