The Road to Hellfire

by Michael Panush

  Her comment made Orestes Coyle shift back to his original position. “Well, why exactly are you out here, in this cold corner of Texas?” he asked.

  “Ain’t your concern,” Cane said.

  “We’re searching for a small army of patchwork monstrosities – men that somewhat resemble Mr. Cane – who destroyed the town of Santiago. They are under the command of Dr. Angell, who happens to be Mr. Cane’s creator,” Emma explained, seemingly without hearing Cane. “They are going to the town of Hellfire and Silver Mesa, apparently to mine the unique rock formations there. We are going to stop them.”

  The Coyles exchanged a glance. “Patchwork monstrosities?” Orestes asked. “Searching for rocks?”

  “We’ll help you,” Maxwell piped up, with utter sincerity. “However we can, we’ll help you. It’ll be thanks for all the good that Mr. Cane has to done to me and my uncle.”

  “I ain’t done nothing much for you,” Cane grumbled. “And I won’t have you following me along as I go after Angell. You’ll slow me down and you’ll get hurt and I ain’t worth that, not one bit. I’m a killer and I don’t expect forgiveness or mercy – and I don’t want companionship on my way to Hell.” He pointed at Emma. “Ma’am, you oughtn’t be with me either. If you want to help me, go with Coyle and his boy in one direction and I’ll go in the other. They’re decent folks – even if they are annoying – and they’ll see you right.”

  Emma’s answer was quick. “Absolutely not. I count myself as your friend, Mr. Cane. And friends stand together.”

  Cane came to his feet, setting down his plate and mug. He sighed and then glanced up at the night sky. His eyes stared past the brilliant field of stars and then settled on some large cloud, floating slowly towards them. But it wasn’t a cloud. Its sides were far too regular and smooth. Instead, it seemed like great sausage, set up in the sky and drifting towards them while it sunk lower. Cane then saw moonlight gleam off of the canvas gasbag and the steel of a long undercarriage.

  The others noticed his stare and followed it. Maxwell figured out what it was first. “An airship,” the boy whispered, obviously impressed. “I’ve read about those.”

  The airship swung lower and Cane began to feel uneasy. He reached down and grabbed his revolvers, though he doubted they’d do much good against that mammoth flyer. He could make out more of the airship as it swooped into view. There was an intricate painting on the gasbag, showing a winsome angel with hands outstretched, the Confederate battle flag held in his hands. The figurehead was another angel, all cast in brass. Then Cane saw the crew, as they scurried about on the upper deck of the undercarriage.

  It was like looking into a distorted mirror. Even from a great distance, Cane could see they were somewhat like him. Most of them didn’t have his size, and some had limbs of different lengths, but there were scars on their faces and stitch-marks on their legs and arms. They had a loose uniform, all of Rebel gray, and wore broad-brimmed hats and forage caps. There was no doubt that this was Dr. Adolphus Angell’s ship.

  “We gotta run.” Cane came to his feet. “And we gotta run now. Get up and let’s get some distance.” He was already running back to his horse, pausing to grab his rifle and tuck it under his shoulder.

  Emma followed him, as the Coyles hastily broke camp. “What do you mean?” she asked. “We just run?”

  “Angell’s can throw lead down at us from on high and we’ll be even easier to hit if we stand still.” Cane swung into the saddle and looked down at Emma. “You said you’re my friend and wanted to stand by me. Well, here’s what you’re gonna get if you do.” He gave the horse some spur and headed down the hillside, then looked over his shoulder to see the others following him.

  Orestes and Maxwell Coyle had clambered into their wagon and Emma hopped on her own horse. They hurried after Cane. He considered breaking into a gallop and leaving them, but he knew he could never do it. Orestes, Maxwell and Emma had asked to stay with him. It was a mistake on their part, but it wasn’t their fault. And now they’d need protecting. He looked over his shoulder, still holding the rifle. The airship was drifting after them, the moonlight shining on the gasbag. It seemed like some great bird of prey, tracking down the animal it wanted killed.

  They rode ahead, the horses’ hooves pounding on the dark gravel and the Coyles’ wagon rattling as it rolled. “Look!” Maxwell called out from where he sat next to his uncle on the driver’s seat. “There’s some men about to jump down! And they’ve got wings!”

  The boy was right. Perhaps a dozen patchwork men leapt suddenly off of the deck of the airship. Cane wondered what was wrong with them and expected their bodies to plummet down and splatter on the earth. But then strange mechanisms unfurled from their backs and they flew away from the ground, heading for the two horses and the wagon. Cane stared at the strange fliers and realized what they were as they soared closer. These patchwork men had been given wings of steel and taut leather, grafted on to their shoulders like parodies of angels. They flew after Cane and his friends and had rifles and shotguns in their hands.

  A bullet whined over Cane’s head. He turned in the saddle and fired, blasting down one of the flying patchwork gunmen. His bullet took his strange doppelganger in the chest, sending him spiraling to earth while blood trailed behind him. Seeing them die from a bullet was almost a relief. Cane worked the lever on his repeating rifle and fired again, as his horse pounded on.

  “They didn’t have the wings when they attacked Santiago!” Emma cried, as she urged her horse onwards.

  “Dr. Angell’s been busy!” Cane called back. “I guess he didn’t want to make just one kind of monster!”

  Soon the patchwork angels were swarming around them, firing down and kicking up dust at the heels of their horses. Cane kept his rifle firing, doing his best to hold them back. A scarred angel swept down and came at him from the front, a gleaming sword humming through the air in his hands. Cane tugged the reins of his horse, yanking the beast to the side. He knew he had no bullets left.

  He swung his rifle around, using the heavy butt to block the sword blow. The angel floated over him, then flexed his wings and came at Cane again. Cane looked up into a face even uglier than his own. The lines of scars ran down from the angel’s nose to the edges of his face, like rays of light in a painting of the sun. Cane raised his rifle and brought it down, straight into the scarred face. He heard bone crunch and the angel went down, right into the pounding hooves of Cane’s horse.

  But the next shot whistled closer to home. Cane heard his mare whinny in pain and then slid to the side, bleeding from the shoulder. Cane was thrown free, falling hard into the dust and rolling twice. He winced as he landed and then gritted his teeth and stood. His horse was dead. His sword had fallen free and lay in the sand at his feet. Cane slung his rifle over his shoulder and picked up the blade.

  “Mr. Cane!” It was Maxwell voice, as the Coyles’ wagon rode closer. “Grab on! Hurry!”

  Cane did as the boy asked, grabbing the edge of the wagon and hauling himself up. He pulled himself aboard and stood, then looked back at the angels. Another of the scarred fliers was hurtling down towards him, keeping his distance. The angel raised his rifle and soared in, flying closer for the kill. Cane felt the wagon rumble under his feet. Getting a clean shot would be difficult. The sword was easier.

  He ran to the edge of the wagon and slashed out as the angel flew past. His sword came away bloody. The angel spun to the side and then crashed into the dirt, sending up a plume of gray dust. Cane was suddenly glad Dr. Angell hadn’t seen fit to graft those wings onto his own back.

  “Mr. Cane.” Orestes looked back from the driver’s seat. “I think you’d better have a look at this.”

  Quickly, Cane turned. When he saw what was in front of the wagon, he knew that his sword, rifle and revolvers were next to useless. The airship had soared past them and floated down, directly in their path. Now it had lowered, presenting them with a broadside. Cane looked at the scarred men on the deck and saw that
they were riflemen, their guns all aimed in their direction. At a single order, he, Emma, Orestes and Maxwell Coyle would be blown to pieces.

  “Slow your team,” Cane ordered Orestes. The snake oil salesmen tugged at his reins, bringing the wagon to a halt.

  Emma rode up next to them, slowing her own horse. “Mr. Cane?” she asked. “Why aren’t they opening fire on us?”

  Cane swung down from the wagon and landed on the packed desert earth. He glared up at the airship. Emma had posed a good question. “What the hell do you want?” he asked, raising his voice to a shout that carried over the plains.

  The ranks of scarred riflemen parted. Two figures stepped to the railing to look down at them. One was a scarred man, a patchwork giant who was even bigger than Cane. He had a foraged cap low over his eyes and was missing a nose. There was no scar – just blank skin, like the nose had never been there to begin with.

  The man next to him, in the shadow of the giant, was someone who made Cane shiver. He was a thin fellow, wearing a white frock coat and golden waistcoat, a matching tie neatly knotted around his throat. He ran a thin hand through very straight dark brown hair tinged with gray, and the edges of his lips curled up in a slow smile of recognition.

  “Clayton Cane,” said Dr. Adolphus Angell, with only a slight Southern accent. “Why don’t you come aboard the Archangel? I believe we have much to talk about. Bring your friends as well. We’ll lock them in the hold while we discuss matters. They can even bring the wagon aboard and we’ll lash it to the deck.” He extended his hands. “Come aboard. You’ll find the man who made you a gracious host.”

  Cane had no choice. A gangplank extended from the edge of the Archangel’s deck and slammed into the dirt, making dust rise in a thick cloud. Clayton Cane slid his sword into his belt and looked back at his friends. He nodded to them, hoping that it was a comforting gesture. Then they all headed to the airship, Orestes hopping down and leading his mules on foot.

  After he was brought aboard, Clayton Cane was taken to a small stateroom near the forecastle of the airship. They didn’t bother taking his weapons – perhaps because they weren’t afraid of him. Emma Finch and Orestes and Maxwell Coyle were taken away, down to the hold. Maxwell tried to resist, but Emma put her hand on the boy’s shoulder and wordlessly comforted him as they were led off. Cane watched them go and then he was taken to the stateroom.

  It served as Dr. Angell’s quarters and was richly furnished, with mahogany paneling on the walls around a rosewood desk. The big patchwork soldier brought Cane into the room and wordlessly stood behind the desk, watching him. Cane looked at the mounted animal heads on the wall, along with scientific instruments in glass cases. There were oil paintings too, showing portraits of Dr. Angell’s three sons. Cane looked at the youngest of them, a towheaded youngster in Confederate gray.

  “Ah, my little Tobias!” Dr. Angell strolled into the room and stood next to Cane, hands folded behind his back. “So eager to avenge his brothers against Lincoln and the Yankees. He died at Vicksburg, you know.” Dr. Angell shook his head. “A Union shell smashed his legs to ribbons and he lingered for days in a surgeon’s tent before finally succumbing.”

  Dr. Angell walked around him and sat down in his desk. Cane said nothing and stared at Tobias Angell’s smiling face in the portrait. The boy couldn’t have been older than seventeen. Cane wondered sometimes how old the bodies that composed him had been when they met their end. He doubted that he’d ever know.

  “I do think about my family, on occasion.” Angell sat down and rested his palms flat on the table. “But I’m glad, in a way, that my sons are gone. A man’s family can inspire him to greatness, but his care for them holds him back and prevents him from truly reaching it. Now I have no family – only the desire for greatness.” Dr. Angell nodded to Cane. “And you’re the same way, aren’t you?”

  “How’d you figure?” Cane asked.

  “You are a beast who feeds on war. You travel the country, longing to fight and kill and win. And you have no family or friends at all to tie you down or stop you.” Dr. Angell smiled a little. “Well, except for the woman, the dandy and the cow-eyed kid we have in the hold. But you don’t care about them, do you? I could have them thrown over the side and you wouldn’t bat an eye. No, Clayton – you were made for better things.”

  “You know who I am?”

  Dr. Angell nodded. “I know your name and your legend. I’ve followed your career with some interest from my hideout in Europe. I’ve often wished that I could study you personally, to see my earlier efforts. I did not reach perfection in you, but I still created a masterpiece.” He glanced up at the goliath behind him. “And the independence you have, the freedom that all true tacticians need, simply does not exist in those like Uriel here. Isn’t that right, Uriel?”

  Uriel released a mumbling grunt.

  “He possesses less imagination than a clam.” Dr. Angell shrugged. “But he is strong and he follows orders without question. Still, he is far from the perfect soldier you are, after so many years in the field.” Dr. Angell pointed to Cane. “That’s why I must extend my hand to you and ask for you to clasp it in the brotherhood between a creator and his creation. I will ask you to join me, Clayton, in the coming campaigns of conquest.”

  “Conquest of what?”

  “Why, of the United States, of course! Followed by Mexico and Canada and then the world itself. If some bumbling Frenchman like Napoleon can nearly succeed at world conquest, than what’s to stop a genius such as myself, especially when I have an army of my creations to enforce my will.” He smiled to himself. “And you can’t tell me that I don’t deserve it. My entire family died on the altar of war and nationhood. The world owes me. God owes me. And I will take what I’m owed.”

  Cane stared at Dr. Angell. “And what do you want me for?”

  “Who better to stand at the head of my army than my very first creation?” Dr. Angell asked. “Now, I know you may not be so certain that we’ll succeed. You have a keen sense of strategy, Clayton, and you rarely back a loser. But let me show you the key to eternal victory.” He opened the desk and pulled out a lump of jagged silver rock, then slammed it on the desk. “I took this from the house of that fool in Santiago. It’s a rock from Silver Mesa.”

  The rock glittered a little in electric light. It seemed to have the solid hardness of rock but gleamed like silver, with a light that came almost from below its surface. Cane reached out to touch it, but Dr. Angell pulled it back, like a jealous child guarding his toys. Dr. Angell held up the rock with both hands, holding it above him like an idol.

  “I am perhaps the most intelligent man in the world,” Dr. Angell said, not taking his eyes of the stone. “And I have no idea about what composes the stones of Silver Mesa. Perhaps they fell from some distance and became embedded in earth, bringing with them the qualities of the firmament. Or perhaps they are from a different dimension, another plane of existence than our own. Perhaps this is the metal out of which the gates of Hell are forged.” He set the silver back down on his desk. “Whatever the source, every stone in Silver Mesa fairly seethes with spiritual power. I can extract this power and deliver it to my soldiers, through a mechanism I have recently created. It requires the open air to function, but it sucks up the energies from the silver stones and makes them flow in the veins of my soldiers. They become gods on the battlefield. Would you like that, Uriel?”

  The bodyguard grunted in agreement.

  “And what of you, Clayton?” Dr. Angell smiled at Cane. “Would you like to live up to the promise of your creation?”

  “No.” Cane’s answer was simple and cold. “I don’t want any part of it.”

  “You spurn the man who gave you life?”

  “I’ll send him straight to Hell, on account of he’s a stuck-up idiot who’s crazier than a sun-struck rattlesnake.” Cane came to his feet. “You think I ought to thank you for making me the kind of monster right out of a nightmare? A killer without no soul or compassion? A creatur
e of war?”

  Dr. Angell shrugged. “You cannot change what you are.”

  “I can sure as hell try.”

  “Then I’m afraid I must regard you as a failed experiment.” Dr. Angell nodded to Uriel, who leveled his shotgun at Cane. There was no time for Cane to go for his revolvers. “And one who has been replaced by the usefulness of his successor. I will order Uriel to euthanize you now. I can make your death painless, if I desire – but I prefer to cause pain, whenever I can.”

  Before Cane could go for his guns, the door slammed open. A patchwork soldier stepped inside, a rifle at his side. “Dr. Angell!” he shouted. “You are needed on deck! The Apache, they are—”

  “Don’t interrupt your betters when they are speaking!” Dr. Angell shouted. “What could be so important that you try to snatch away my attention from matters at hand?”

  “The Apache.” The soldier lowered his scarred face. “We are flying low, towards Hellfire, and they are massing and preparing their arrows to—”

  “What? Why did not we fly higher, out of range of their guns and arrows, you confounded imbecile?” Dr. Angell demanded.

  “You gave us no order to sail higher than our current height, sir,” the patchwork man explained. “And now the Apache have seen us. They are attacking.”

  But Dr. Angell did not have time for another curse as the Apache attack struck. One of their arrows or gunshots must have struck the gasbag, because the whole Archangel suddenly listed to the side, wood and steel creaking, like a ship caught in turbulent seas. Cane managed to keep his footing, but he knew that this was the best opportunity he would have. The killer in his heart was whispering to him, urging him that now was the time. He heeded its call.

  Even as the floor moved under his feet, Cane grabbed the shoulder of the scarred soldier behind him and yanked him forward, then roughly slammed his forehead hard into the front of the desk. Cane ducked back to the open door. There was no time to go for his pistols, as Uriel leapt over the desk and came towards him, the shotgun in one hand and his other formed into a heavy fist like the end of a sledgehammer. Dr. Angell was screaming something, but Cane couldn’t hear him. He grabbed the heavy wooden chair behind him and hurled it at Uriel with all his might. The wood shattered and Uriel sank down under the blow.