Westward Weird Page 4

  “Get up!” Raul screamed. “This is our only chance to get it, and then we have to go!”

  I shouldn’t have been surprised that he was still set on completing our mission. I was just trying to figure out how to get back to the ground ... alive.

  Raul focused on the demon, who seemed dazed and unsure what to do—attack or flee.

  Just as I stood up, I saw Raul pull the trigger of the Cannon, and to his surprise, and to my amazement, nothing happened. The giant gun had jammed.

  The demon seemed to understand that it had a chance. A smile grew on its face, exposing a mouth full of black, slobbery, picket fence teeth. It jumped at Raul.

  I had a second to react. The gun was too far and my other weapons seemed to be inadequate. Raul was pulling the trigger repeatedly, trying to fire the gun.

  I ran and jumped upward, one foot out in front of me, the other spinning in a circle. It was a move I’d learned a long time ago from a Chinaman before I met Raul, who had taught me some of the secret Oriental fighting arts that he had brought from his homeland.

  The heel of my foot landed just below the demon’s sternum, so I knocked the wind out of the thing. It screamed like it had been stabbed instead of kicked.

  I landed on a step just above Raul. I ran through my inventory of weapons. I doubted the holy water or a stake would waylay the demon. Before I could reach for a six-shooter on my hip, Raul stepped up beside me, nodded, which was as much of a thank you I could expect for saving him from an attack, and pulled the Cannon’s double-trigger one last time.

  This time the gun fired. But instead of a bullet coming out of the barrel, a net made of pure silver exploded from the side chamber, flying through the air, landing directly over the demon, pinning it down in another fury of screams.

  “We need to get out of here,” Raul said. He rushed to the captured demon and picked up the silver cage like it was a feather.

  The next part of our mission was to get the demon to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, in exchange for our payment. The demon would then go on display, its presence a guarantee to increase ticket sales, and restore the fortune lost on the skystead. We would be justly rewarded.

  I rushed out of the hotel with Raul on my heels. LADY ANNE’S HOUSE OF PLEASURES was on fire, as were all of the other buildings. The smoke had devastated the demons, rendered them incapable of thinking, planning, moving—or jumping off the island to an obvious death.

  I was shocked when we reached the elevator. It was not there.

  I looked over the side of the skystead. The entire shaft had fallen over, most likely taken out by the first rumble.

  I turned to Raul, who had set the demon to the ground and was digging in the munitions bag. The silver kept the thing from moving. “Here,” he commanded, tossing me what looked like a large sheet with armholes in each side. “Put it on and jump. Don’t hesitate. Jump.” He looked over his shoulder, and I saw the same thing he did: a crowd of demons rushing toward us, trying to outrun the fire and smoke.

  “This is your backup plan for getting down? A sheet with holes in it?”

  “Put it on and jump.” It was an order not a request.

  I did as I was told, and jumped. I held my breath, closed my eyes, and put my faith in Raul’s invention.

  Miraculously, the wind caught the material, and I floated down to the ground safely. Only to find myself face to face with Harry Norman and a Winchester ‘73 aimed straight at my head.

  “You best get up from there before that thing falls on you,” he said.

  I stood up, untangled myself, and looked to the skystead just in time to see Raul jump over the side with the captured demon in tow.

  “You set this in motion, didn’t you?” I said. “You’re destroying it.”

  “I am,” the old man said.

  “Why, when we’ve done what Bill asked? We just have to make the delivery.”

  “Ain’t gonna be no delivery. The king is dead.”

  “What did you say?”

  “The king is dead. There’s more money to be had with your head than that demon’s face behind zoo bars in Bill’s Wild West Show.”

  “There’s a bounty on my head?”

  “There is now. The Queen is set on eliminatin’ any claim you might have on the throne, Mr. Lockwood.”

  “How’d you know that?”

  “What, you think I’m just a stupid caretaker for Buffalo Bill Cody? I’m a business partner. Always have been. I need my money back from this tragedy just like he does. He told me in his letter. We get the demon and you. I’ll be sailing the South Seas before spring comes to the Territory, you can count on that.”

  “That’s what I get for being noble and not reading the damn thing. Bill’s no killer, though. I can’t believe he’s a part of this.”

  “I got my own values and debts to see to.” Harry Norman nodded, then glanced upward, eyeing Raul as he floated down. I realized at that moment that Raul was a target. I wondered who Harry would try to take out first.

  Pieces of the skystead started to break away and fall to the earth. Steam from the other stacks started to blow out the side, and black smoke and demon screams filled the air.

  I spun upward again, knocking the Winchester from Harry’s gnarled fingers. The old man stumbled backward and fell straight on his back. He yelled out in fear as soon as he hit the ground, as a huge piece of the flaming skystead fell on top of him, crushing and burying him in a giant thud.

  ~ * ~

  “So you are the king now?” Raul asked.

  I shook my head no. “I serve my country at the pleasure of the Queen.”

  “But she seeks your death.”

  “She does. But I understand why. We’ll just have to keep our eyes open—and make sure our weapons work when they’re supposed to.”

  Raul nodded sheepishly and flipped the reins of the draft horse, driving the wagon over the snowy ridge.

  The skystead was gone. Only a stream of black smoke survived behind us. The demon hissed from its cage, and both Raul and I ignored it.

  “We’ve got some business to see to with Buffalo Bill,” Raul said.

  “And money to collect,” I said. “Since I’ll no longer have an annuity to rely on.”

  “We will survive, signore.”

  I smiled and nodded as we made our way west. “We always do. Somehow, we always do.”

  <>

  ~ * ~

  LOWSTONE

  Anton Strout

  T he gunslinger looked worn; at least so it seemed to Alice Hartwell, watching from her stool at the saloon’s bar. Then again, the mother of one was wearing a fine silk jacket, lace collar, waistcoat and heavily ruched skirt, her boy standing at her feet dressed down drinking a tall mug of the fizzy caramel water that the bar’s new gearmachine produced. The figure wasn’t the usual sort of gunslinger she or her son saw stumbling in through the saloon doors of Babbage’s after dark. Not here in Lowstone, South Dakota, anyway.

  The long denim duster, the low cowboy hat, and worn leather bags hanging off the gunslinger’s figure wasn’t what caught Alice or her boy’s eye. It was that they were being worn by a woman, and by the mixed reactions of silence, laughter, and occasional male catcalls, the rest of the saloon’s patrons had never seen a woman dressed that way either.

  The gunslinger had taken to a table by herself, and ordered a hot meal of barbeque biscuit pie, scalloped corn, and fried tomatoes. The woman’s eyes were mere slits. She half fell asleep while waiting for the meal to come but also while eating it. Some travelers looked tired when they came into town, most looking for work in the skymines along the drop off at the far end of Lowstone, but this woman looked the very definition of hard-ridden and road-weary, dust smudged thick on her face, hiding what little femininity she had. Nonetheless, the lady gunslinger set to the food on her tin plate while the bartender placed a steam compressor under a mug on her table, which heated the coffee to drinkable in mere seconds.

  One of the men sitting at a table
with several other miners off to the left stood up, a hint of menace in his dark, tiny eyes. Alice didn’t recognize him from her husband’s crew of aeroship drivers, gear grinders, or piston drill operators, but that didn’t mean much. Plenty of people came to the burgeoning town now that mining gold and other precious metals was starting to prove profitable. This man, however, had a face harder than the stone they drilled. Alice reckoned he had come to Lowstone with not only greed on his mind, but with much of what hard men wanted, no doubt.

  The gathered crowd fell silent as he crossed the room to the lady gunslinger’s table while she helped herself to the coffee once it was ready.

  “Now this here’s a woman after my own heart,” he growled out with a lascivious laugh, loud enough that it could be heard halfway across town. “Weathered duster, range ridin’ hat ... no bonnets for this one!”

  He leaned forward on the gunslinger’s table, but she paid him no mind.

  “Mind your manners, mister,” she said, not even looking up from her tin plate. “I may not dress in frills, lace and bows, but that don’t mean I ain’t a woman, worthy of respect nonetheless. All I want is to finish my meal and hopefully get me a little time to rest. Now, are you going to keep interrupting a lady while she’s eating?”

  He laughed at that, then looked around the main room of the saloon, catching Alice’s eye for a moment. She tightened her grip on her son’s shoulders, but let go once the man’s eyes moved on.

  He leaned back over the gunslinger’s table, planting his hands hard on it, the mug of coffee rattling on its heating plate. “Dressed like that, though, I bet you’re looking for a lady yourself, ain’t ya? Bet you’re looking for something else to be chowing on instead of just this grub, too.”

  The woman laid down her fork, taking her time, and looked up at him. “No need to be vulgar . . . friend. World’s got enough troubles without you adding to them.”

  “I ain’t your friend,” he said, lunging for her across the table.

  “Good,” the woman said, standing up quick as lightning and stepping back from the table as her chair slid off across the floor, toppling over. “Because I don’t like shooting friends, unless’n I have to.”

  The gunslinger made no move to back away and the man took advantage of the moment, grabbing her by her wrists, staring into her face with his wild, angry eyes. She met them, unmoving. A grim smile crossed her lips.

  “What the hell are you smiling at, girl?” the man asked, his voice suddenly wavering, unsure.

  “Works every time,” she said, then pulled her left wrist back, hard.

  The man held his grip, but a sharp metallic click rose up from within the gunslinger’s sleeve, the cloth pulling back from it. The man looked down in time to catch a gleam of metal where the woman’s forearm should be. A sharp crack sounded out, a flash of a muzzle, and the man pulled his hand away, clutching what remained of two of his fingers, the rest of his hand a mess of bloody flesh and powder burns. He cried out, stumbling back.

  “Jesus Christ!” he shouted. “My hand!”

  “I’m not the worst thing that’s going to happen to you today, mister,” the woman said. “Believe me. Now let me finish my meal in peace. I’m so damned tired, and there’s so much I need to do. Now go on, get! I suggest you have that looked at right quick instead of standing here blubbering at me like a little child who done soiled himself.”

  All wildness had left the man’s eyes, replaced by a dull obedient shock. Without another word, he backed towards the doors and stumbled down the steps. By the time he hit the mud of the darkened streets, he was loping off at a steady gait, presumably towards the town’s resident saw-doctor.

  The gunslinger looked around the silent room, meeting the eyes of everyone who was staring, including Alice, until they turned away. Conversation resumed throughout the saloon. Alice busied herself with anything but looking at the gunslinger, adjusting the lace of her collar and straightening her waistcoat. When she could make no more pretense of fixing her clothes, she chanced another look back at the gunslinger, her eyes widening in rising horror. While the rest of the saloon had decided to leave the gunslinger be, one of them was set on approaching her. Her own son. He was at the gunslinger’s side now, his arm raised out to her, reaching for the exposed metal of the arm that stuck out from beneath the cloth of the gunslinger’s sleeve.

  “Michael!” the woman called out, hopping off her stool and running over to him. “Do not touch that... thing.” Alice realized she didn’t know exactly what to call it.

  The boy stopped his hand mid-reach and the gunslinger shifted her eyes to the boy’s mother, but made no effort to move her arm away. After a moment, the gunslinger looked back down at the boy and offered her arm to him, pulling the sleeve of her coat back even further.

  While the gunslinger flexed the joints of her metal hand, the pistons, gears, and cylinders spun, whirled, and slid in near constant motion. The boy’s eyes went wide as his fingers lit gently on the frame of the metal housing.

  “Is that your arm?” he asked.

  Alice stepped over to her son, pulling him away so hard his mug of fizzy water fell from his other hand. “I am so sorry, ma’am,” she said. Her face reddened as she looked her child over, her eyes darting back to the machinations of the woman’s arm. “He didn’t mean no harm.”

  “It’s fine,” the gunslinger said. “No harm done. It’s good for a child to not shy away from the modern wonders of our world.” The gun hand was still smoking with tiny tendrils of gray rising up from it. Her thumb rose to meet her middle finger, and she snapped them against each other. A shower of sparks flew from her hand, causing the boy to laugh. “Ain’t that right, Michael?”

  Alice’s face relaxed a little, but still kept itself serious. “I do apologize. I didn’t mean to call your . . . arm a thing,” she said. “Are you here looking for work in the skymines?”

  The gunslinger held up her gun hand. “Now, do I look like I’m looking for work?” She grasped hold of the hand, pressing in on a hidden release mechanism, pulling it free. She laid it on the table and slid her good hand into the leather bag strapped to the side of her thigh, pulling out another and snapping it into place at the end of the replacement limb. “Name’s Sadie.”

  “I’m Alice,” the woman said, shaking the mechanical wonder. The grip was strong, but unnatural, and she fought the urge to flinch. She let go and rested her hand on her son’s shoulder. “You’ve already met Michael.”

  The gunslinger tipped her hat to the boy and he smiled, nodding back.

  “I’m sorry,” Alice said. “I thought you might have been a miner, what with ...” She stopped herself short of pointing at the hand again. “Do you miss it?”

  “My real arm?” The gunslinger said. She rolled it back and forth, looking it over before pulling the sleeve of her jacket back down over it. “I don’t miss what would have become of it, no. However, I am not a miner. My calamity did not come from hard labor, Alice. I have no love for mining or working in the deep roads of the world. Strange things ... lurk in that darkness, as my husband would attest to if he could, the Lord rest his soul.”

  “I’m sorry,” Alice said, uncomfortable still. The boy was still staring at the gun hand lying on the table.

  “Don’t be,” the gunslinger said. “It is I who should be sorry.”

  Alice gave a nervous laugh, grabbing the shoulders of her son, squeezing them. “You? For what?”

  “For what I may have brought to this town,” she said, her eyes narrow but filled with sadness. “I am hopeful, though. This place isn’t like Guyet, Marshall, or Parkington—all mining towns where the streets were already silent and stained red with soaked up blood. All those towns were so quick to tear the earth open looking for more material to make gears, pistons, compressors, never thinking about the consequences of what they might unearth.” She tapped at the metal of her gun arm. “Not that I’m not thankful for all some of those discoveries, all things considered. I just thank the
Lord I’m not too late this time.” Her eyes fluttered with exhaustion. “I just need to rest a spell...”

  Alice’s voice dropped to a whisper, timid. “Sadie, what happened to those towns?” she asked.

  “Something from the darkness,” the gunslinger said. “Something not quite alive yet not quite dead, either. Something took my Ward’s life. Something that is heading for this town.”

  Alice’s throat went dry. “What is it?”

  The gunslinger looked down at the table and shook her head. “I do not right know, but I aim to stop it.”

  A scream rose up off in the darkened streets— human, scared, pained. Alice and little Michael both flinched.

  “What was that?” Alice asked. “Sadie ... ?”