much they try to hide it. The train was ready to go: steam was pouring out of the engine and the ramp to the stock car had been lowered. He and Shaniah rode Rose and Demeter right up into the car and unsaddled the horses, giving them water and straw.
When they stepped off, Monkey Pete pulled a lever and the ramp rose up until the car was secure. Then he locked it into place. He tried hard not to pay attention to Shaniah and the major, while Chee waited outside the main car, wrestling around with Dog. Pete and Chee made every effort they could to not look at each other or at Shaniah and Jonas. Finally, Jonas couldn’t take it anymore. Might as well clear the air. But he’d be damned if he’d say anything in front of Shaniah. He was an officer and a gentleman after all.
“You two got something on your mind?” Hollister asked.
“No, sir,” Pete said. “Just enjoying the night air.”
Chee had some kind of knotted rope that he threw through the air. Dog leapt after it, returning at a sprint to drop it at Chee’s feet. This apparently was the greatest game ever invented as far as Dog was concerned.
The quiet hiss of the engine was the only noise disturbing the night. It was almost fully dark now, with a half moon rising in the east.
“Well then, I suggest we get moving,” Hollister said.
“Yes, sir,” Chee said. “Sounds like a good idea.”
“There is one thing I’d like to show you before we leave, Major,” Pete said.
“Sure, Pete, what is it?” Hollister said.
He scampered onto the train and disappeared inside. He was so quick and agile crawling around the train, Hollister understood why General Hunt had given him the nickname “Monkey.” He returned a few minutes later with another strange contraption strapped to his back. There were two metal cylinders inside what looked like an army rucksack an infantryman might carry. At the top of each cylinder was a gauge and from one of them came a hose attached to a long metal barrel welded to a double-barrel shotgun handle.
“What the hell is that?” Hollister asked. He noticed Chee had perked right up at the prospect that Monkey Pete might have invented another weapon.
“See that pile of scrap wood yonder?” he said.
The two men nodded, fascinated as Pete worked one of the gauges on the contraption he was wearing. He pulled one of the triggers on the shotgun handle and Hollister thought he caught a brief smell of coal oil, then Pete turned another knob and there was a spark near the head of the barrel. Without warning, a flame shot out of the barrel with a mighty whoosh. Pete leveled the barrel at the pile of wood and it burst into flames.
Pete released the trigger and the flame from the barrel died out and disappeared. The wood continued to burn.
“Holy shit!” Hollister exclaimed. “What in the hell have you done, Pete?”
“I got the idea from Winchester’s Ass-Kicker,” he said, shrugging out of the contraption and setting it on the ground. “I figured out a way to pressurize one of the tanks, just like on the gun, only this tank is a little bigger so it can hold more steam, which means more pressure, and it can push out more of the mixture with extra force and distance. It funnels the mixture out through the barrel, sort of like a beam of fire, and you can aim it how you please and burn up most anything. Think of it like a shotgun that shoots fire instead of slugs or buckshot.”
“I’ll be damned,” Hollister said.
“What’s in the mixture that catches fire?” Chee asked.
“My own little concoction of coal oil, kerosene, and corn alcohol,” he said. He glanced at Shaniah “and there’s some special additives, certain… well these things we’re after won’t like it.”
“You can make fire… with this machine,” Shaniah said, the look on her face a combination of fear and admiration.
“Yes, ma’am,” Pete answered.
Shaniah shook her head in amazement.
“Pete, if I’m wearing one of these, can I still carry the Ass-Kicker?” Hollister asked.
“Oh yes, sir. You can store the barrel for the Fire Shooter in the holster, like this.” He slipped it into a slot on the canvas straps that fit over the shoulder. “The Ass-Kicker won’t get in the way. In fact, you could shoot off your four rounds, leave it on the sling and then draw the Fire Shooter. You’d have hell of a lot more power,” he said.
“I’ll bet you would,” Hollister said.
“How many of these do you have?” Chee asked.
“I made three,” Pete said, “but there is one thing. If you’re facing someone that’s got guns, you don’t really want them shooting at you when you your tank is full of mixture.”
“Why not?” Chee asked.
“ ’Cause if a bullet punctures the tank, you’d likely explode and any parts that was left of ya would burn to a crisp.” The engineer replied calmly.
“All right. That’s a drawback,” Hollister said. “But from what we saw in Absolution, the Archaics ain’t much for guns. So we should be okay.”
Chee nodded in agreement. The young sergeant was a fan of anything that might kill more of his enemies faster and more efficiently.
“All right then,” Hollister said. “Let’s head for Clady. See what this Malachi fellow has to say for himself.”
Chapter Fifty-seven
They spent the rest of the ride in the armory, checking weapons, charging the Ass-Kicker, sharpening bowie knives and generally getting ready to go to war. Hollister didn’t like going into a fight like this with so little intelligence. Especially when they were likely to be heavily outnumbered. Chee looked happy as he prepared his weapons. Shaniah’s face was impassive. Dog didn’t seem to care. He lay on the floor of the car, never far from Chee, chewing on the giant knotted rope the sergeant had made for him. He also never took his eyes off Shaniah.
Hollister tried hard not to stare at Shaniah and he knew she was trying just as hard not to stare back at him. But there were times he couldn’t help himself. She was beautiful. He was not a poetic man. The words to say she had eyes like pools of melted emerald, or hair like golden flax-those words weren’t in him. For him it was enough to say she was beautiful, the most gorgeous woman he had ever been so close to. He couldn’t for the life of him imagine what possessed her to make love to him. He didn’t particularly consider himself a catch. Now though, it didn’t matter. It had happened. And that was all.
At the Point he’d been required to go to balls and cotillions and had occasionally heard young women speak of him as he passed by, calling him “handsome” or “dreamy” or some other such girly description, but he didn’t understand it. And especially after the war, with the way he’d been beat up, scarred, his face pocked by shrapnel, so much so that when he looked in the mirror he saw forty miles of bad road.
But Shaniah had seen something different. She had been the one. While he had lain beaten and battered on the hillside in Wyoming she had come to him. Like a dream. Only not a dream because she was real. And though Hollister didn’t believe much in these things, he felt like she was an angel. He knew, intellectually, that she was an Archaic, by all accounts a monster, though she had given up her very nature in order to be more human and though she hadn’t specifically been there to help him, that day had led to this moment. At least that is how he saw it. In his mind and in his heart she came from heaven. She had saved him. He didn’t know why, he didn’t care how he had been deemed worthy of a woman so beautiful, and he was not foolish enough to ask. He would take this blessing and no matter what happened, if he died tonight or tomorrow or next week, he would do so knowing he had found the one.
He couldn’t read Shaniah’s mind, but he knew she felt something for him. While they worked she studied him and smiled. Her hands lingered over his when she handed him a box of bullets or a weapon, and she watched him as he worked.
“What are you carrying, Chee?” Hollister asked.
“Modified Colts in a double rig. One Henry, two backups on my saddle, and I reckon I’ll give Pete’s Fire
