remember Absolution, don’t you?”
“I do,” Jonas said. “We just killed over a hundred of those things. Maybe more. With what we killed in Absolution we’ve taken Malachi’s numbers down a fair bit. He can’t have turned that many. We kill those left out there right now, we weaken him even further. He made a mistake. He didn’t know what our tactical capabilities are and he sent too many of his men. Just like Lee at Petersburg. We’ve got to get them now!”
Monkey Pete’s third Fire Shooter was empty, but Hollister grabbed the Ass-Kicker, and Chee and Shaniah picked up their Henrys.
“Pete! We’re going out, on the count of three you start singing with that Gatling!”
“YOU’RE WHAT?” Pete hollered back.
“One… two… three.” Hollister threw open the door.
“Dog! Hunt!” Chee shouted. Dog lunged through the door like he’d been shot out of a cannon. He leapt at the first Archaic he met, about ten yards from the train and took it by the throat. It had been a human woman and it was small but Archaic strong, and it tried to push Dog off, but the animal was too enraged. He tore the throat from the Archaic with a howl.
Hollister went out the door firing a Henry. The Archaics regrouped and charged. Chee came next, then Shaniah. The creatures lunged toward the train and Pete’s Gatling cut down the first row of them, the wooden bullets stitching them like quilts. A handful of them exploded into dust.
The trio stood with their backs to the train, firing away. When his Henry emptied, Jonas tossed it to the ground, took the Ass-Kicker by the stock, and pulled it to his hip, ready to shoot. He worked the action, the gear clicked into place, he leveled it at the Archaics, and fired.
The percussion wave blasted out of the barrel of the gun and six of the Archaics exploded in a wave of body parts. Three shots left. Maybe twenty creatures to go. He worked the action again, fired, again and again. The final shot took down the last four. It was over. They were all dead. Dog returned from somewhere, and for a moment, Hollister’s heart jumped because he had forgotten about the animal and was happy he hadn’t accidentally shot it. It loped over to Chee and dropped something at his feet. Hollister thought it might be an Archaic hand but wasn’t sure.
The area surrounding the train was a morass of body parts, burned skeletons, and piles of ash. Hollister couldn’t believe it. The four of them had beaten off a massive attack.
For the first time since Pinkerton had shown up and gotten him out of prison, he started thinking that maybe, just maybe, this Malachi could be beaten.
One way or the other, they were going to find out.
Chapter Sixty-one
There were a few Archaics wounded but still alive lying outside the train. Chee volunteered to dispatch the remaining creatures. He took Dog and a Henry with wooden bullets and returned to the train about thirty minutes later, the same impassive expression still painted on his face.
Hollister felt nearly euphoric. It was a common condition among soldiers who experienced combat. He and those under his command had survived. Not only that, but they had inflicted heavy casualties on their enemy.
And with Monkey Pete’s new device and the Ass-Kicker, he had a plan. It would take a little more of Monkey Pete’s genius and it would require a lot of luck. But it just might turn the tide.
It was early morning, and none of them had slept. They sat in the main car at the table, with the littered remains of Monkey Pete’s pancakes and coffee. Hollister was busy making sketches on sheets of paper.
The train Pinkerton had outfitted was full of machines, machine parts, and tools and loaded down with weapons. Monkey Pete had attached Gatling guns and hoses that shot holy water, and he’d extended the range and power of the train through his modifications of the engine in ways Jonas would never understand. The train gave them a huge tactical advantage. The problem was, there was no way to get the train to the Clady mine. The grade was too steep. Not to mention the lack of tracks.
Hollister had thought about it for a while and decided that the best thing to do was to send part of the train to the mine.
“Shaniah, can Demeter pull a wagon?” Hollister asked.
“Yes, why?” she answered.
“Pete, you don’t happen to have a small wagon on board the train, do you?” Hollister was crossing his fingers here.
“No, sir, I don’t reckon…” he started to say, and Hollister’s heart sank. But then he noticed Pete was getting that dreamy look in his eyes.
Pete smacked the table with his hand. “I ain’t got ‘wheels’ like wagon wheels or anything like that, but I got two extra flywheels in my supply car. Carry ’em as spares in case somethin’ goes wrong with the engine. I could rig those into a cart pretty easy.”
Hollister wanted to kiss the little guy.
“What is your plan, sir?” Chee asked. He was always so quiet, even when Hollister could tell he had strong opinions about something. When this was over. If they survived, he was going to have to work on getting Chee to loosen up a little bit.
“When the Archaics attacked us last night, and when they stormed the train in Absolution, I think it showed this train is our best tactical asset. They cut down or pushed over a few trees and they’ve got us boxed in here, but we still fought them off. Almost two hundred of them,” he said.
He held up his sketch to show the others. Chee and Shaniah couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but Pete got it right away.
“So if we can’t get them to the train…” Hollister said.
“You’re going to take the train to them!” Pete said, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice.
Chapter Sixty-two
Malachi was stunned, though he showed no outward signs of it to his people. Only seven of his followers had staggered back into the camp. They were injured, mostly burned, but healing quickly. The rest had died. How was this possible? How had Shaniah managed to kill nearly two hundred Archaics?
Jonathan and Lucas were both dead, he was told. Before him stood an Archaic who had once been a Blackfoot Indian. He had been turned when Malachi and a few of the others had stumbled across their hunting camp the previous winter. His Blackfoot name had been Walking Cat. He looked as though he had been in a fight.
Most of his chest and face had been burned. Two small wooden stakes stuck out of his right shoulder. Malachi removed one of them to study it. It was made from a hardwood, likely oak, and sharpened to a deadly point. Walking Cat’s left arm hung loosely at his side, although it was already beginning to heal. The flesh on his burned face and chest was returning to normal, and a few seconds later the other wooden stake popped loose from his shoulder and fell to the ground.
“Tell me what happened,” Malachi said.
“We went for the train, as you instructed. It was stopped at the end of the spur, as you said it would be,” he said. Malachi’s followers had learned that he loved to be flattered by being told he was or had been right about things.
“We pushed trees onto to the track behind them, big trees, ones humans could not move or lift, so they could not escape. We were lining up, readying ourselves to attack when…”
The young Indian stopped. Though he had not been turned long, he should be fearless, Malachi thought. Archaics were afraid of nothing. Yet this man was afraid. As if he was reliving something horrible and could not bear to think of it.
“Go on, tell me,” Malachi prodded.
“They opened the doors of the train and… they…” Walking Cat stammered. Malachi was growing impatient.
