With commendable understatement Flintlock said, “Well, there’s a thing you don’t see every day.”

  Evangeline, still frosty over Flintlock’s bank robbery and the retribution it could bring down on the swamp, said, “We must help them.”

  Flintlock let a clap of thunder pass, then said, “No need, Evangeline. They’re probably all dead, and besides they’re Ritter’s men.”

  “Sam, I’m not talking to you,” the woman said. “But if I was, I’d tell you to go see if there are any survivors. We can’t leave injured men to the alligators.”

  “There’s a thunderstorm, Evangeline,” Flintlock said.

  “Oh, very well then, I suppose I’ll have to go by myself,” the woman said.

  Flintlock read that female warning sign and said, “O’Hara, let us charge to the rescue.”

  “I said I’ll go,” Evangeline said.

  “No, you won’t,” Flintlock said. “Here, take ahold of my Hawken and don’t drop it.”

  Evangeline, who’d planned to visit Cornelius that morning, was dressed like a librarian in a long gray skirt and severe shirt of the same color with a white rounded collar and black tie. A straw boater with a black and red band sat atop her piled-up hair and Flintlock thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life.

  “She’s the most beautiful woman I ever seen in my life,” Sam Flintlock said as O’Hara poled the pirogue through the swamp, pausing every now and then to scan the tree islands for wreckage.

  “She’s all of that,” O’Hara said. “Evangeline could make a glass eye blink, an’ no mistake.”

  “Ah well, back to business,” Flintlock said. “You see anything?”

  “Nothing. That flying thing probably broke into—wait! What’s that noise?”

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Sounded like a man yelling.”

  “Where?”

  “Straight ahead of us, Sammy.”

  “Well, punt this thing, O’Hara. Put your back into it.”

  “You ever think of taking a turn?”

  “No. I’m the white man here, remember?”

  “You never let me forget it,” O’Hara said.

  The knees of a huge bald cypress that might have been a thousand years old stuck out into the channel between two tree islands. O’Hara punted his way around the obstacle and into a large area of clear water. About a hundred yards ahead of them was a small island, covered in willow. Rain lashed the bayou and ticked from the branches of the trees. The thunder had growled its way northward and the air smelled of smoke, rotting vegetation and the sharp ozone tang of the lightning.

  “Man over there, Sam,” O’Hara said. “See him among the willows?”

  Flintlock squinted through the trees and at first he thought it was old Barnabas come to haunt him again. But as the canoe drew closer . . .

  “For God’s sake look at that,” Flintlock said. “Seems like one of them fell out of the airship and landed smack on a willow.”

  “Is he still alive?” O’Hara said.

  “I can’t tell. We’ll have to get closer.”

  O’Hara grounded the canoe and he and Flintlock investigated the fallen man. A man impaled through the belly on the pointed spike of a broken tree is as dead as he’s ever going to be. “Damn,” Flintlock said. “I hope he didn’t live too long.”

  “Terrible death for a man,” O’Hara said. “Help me get him off of there. Dying like that is an obscenity.”

  Flintlock and O’Hara were both strong, stocky men but it was a five-minute struggle to remove the body from the tree. When they were done the body lay at their feet and the stake was covered in blood.

  Then, from the other side of the tree island, a man cried out in mortal terror.

  Flintlock and O’Hara exchanged a startled glance then drew their guns and headed toward the sound. There it was again, louder this time, the shriek of a man facing certain death.

  The ground under their feet muddy, Flintlock and O’Hara did their best to quicken their pace. They were in time to see Professor Jasper Mealy die in the jaws of a gigantic alligator. The animal dived and then went into its death roll, tearing its prey apart. The churning water turned red then the alligator swam away, what was left of Mealy’s body in its jaws. A severed arm, still wearing an elbow-length leather gauntlet, bobbed to the surface and then a top hat appeared, goggles on the crown, and drifted away on the muddy current.

  Flintlock looked sick. “I couldn’t get a shot at him,” he said.

  “I’m sure that was Basilisk,” O’Hara said. “I think your bullet would have bounced off him.”

  “I wanted to shoot the man, not the alligator.”

  Feet squelched in mud to Flintlock’s right. He swung around, his Colt coming up, and saw a tall man wearing riding breeches and tall lace-up boots. “Who are you?” he said. “State your intentions.”

  The man stopped dead still in his tracks. His hands rose above his head as he said, “My name is Leander Byng. I was on the Star Scraper.”

  “On the what?” Flintlock said.

  “The dirigible,” Byng said. “We got hit by a flock of birds and then lightning and came down.”

  “Put your hands down,” Flintlock said. “But be notified—I may shoot you later.”

  “When the alligator attacked Professor Mealy I ran away,” Byng said. “Oh my God in heaven, is that his arm?”

  “Yeah, it is,” Flintlock said. “The alligator got the rest of him.”

  “There was nothing I could do,” Byng said. He seemed to be on the edge of hysteria. “I never carry a gun.”

  “What do you do for Brewster Ritter?”

  “I’m an engineer. I’m setting up the sawmill to process the cypress.”

  “You were setting up the sawmill,” Flintlock said. “You ain’t doing that any longer.”

  “Are you going to kill me?” Byng said.

  “That depends on how mean I feel,” Flintlock said. “It won’t take much, a mosquito bite might do it.”

  Byng looked around him as though checking for mosquitos in the immediate area. Then he said, “Have you found Travis Kershaw?”

  “Young feller, wore a gun?” O’Hara said.

  “Yes. He always carried a gun.”

  “He fell onto a broken tree and impaled himself,” Flintlock said.

  “Then he’s dead?”

  “As a rotten stump,” Flintlock said. He looked at O’Hara. “Do we gun him or take him with us?”

  “Sammy, you’re in bad enough with Evangeline already. We’d better take him.”

  Flintlock’s eyes were ice-cold on Byng. “You got lucky in the crash, engineer man, and you got lucky again. Let’s go.”

  “Should we bury Travis first?” Byng said.

  “The alligators will bury him,” Flintlock said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “They’re not coming back,” Brewster Ritter said. “They must have crashed in the swamp and got eaten by alligators or the damned swamp trash.”

  “I’ll tell Mr. Cobb you carried out his orders,” Sebastian Lilly said. “He’ll be so pleased.”

  “I needed the dirigible. It was supposed to cover my logging crews while they cut the cypress.”

  “Hell, Ritter, hire more guns and put them into a few flat-bottomed boats,” Lilly said. “You don’t need a balloon that can’t even fly in a storm.” He jutted his rock of a chin. “Hell, man, just get the job done.”

  “I’ve lost my engineer,” Ritter said.

  “Then hire another one. The country is full of engineers.”

  Ritter stared out at the bayou. After the rain, trout and bass rose at flies and spread tiny circles across the flat water. “What about the bank robber?” he said.

  “I’ll find him,” Lilly said. “I’ll comb this swamp until I do.”

  Ritter turned. “You? There are no saloons and dancehalls out there, Lilly, just alligators and rubes with rifles.”

  “I said I’ll find him and I will,” Lilly said. “I’ll come back tomorrow or the next day and I’ll take Bon Toohy with me.”

  “Toohy doesn’t know the swamp either,” Ritter said. “He’s a draw fighter like you, Lilly. He carries out his business in towns, not swamps.”

  “Then we’ll learn together,” Lilly said. “Now start cutting trees.”

  “What about the sawmill?” Ritter said.

  “I’ll ask Mr. Cobb about the sawmill. He always has the answer.”

  “The man is a damned incompetent, a nincompoop,” Mathias Cobb said. “Why did he send a ten-thousand-dollar dirigible up in a thunderstorm?”

  “I tried to warn him that it was too dangerous, but he insisted, boss,” Seb Lilly said. “Ritter lost the balloon and three men, one of then the engineer who was building the sawmill.”

  “Damned fool,” Cobb said. “Is there any sign of the outlaw who robbed my bank? He’s got a big bird tattooed across his throat. A man with a disfigurement like that can’t lose himself in a crowd.”

  Lilly smiled. “I’ll find him and I’ll get your money back, Mr. Cobb. Give me a chance and I’ll get the cypress cut as well.”

  “It may come to that, Mr. Lilly,” Cobb said. “It may come to that. All Ritter has to do is foul up one more time and he’s out.”

  “What about the sawmill?” Lilly said. “Ritter doesn’t even have it built yet and now his engineer is dead.”

  “Just tell Ritter to start cutting the trees,” Cobb said. “I’ll arrange to have the sawmill built. On your way out, Mr. Lilly, tell Mrs. Sally Turpin to come in.” A smile spread across Cobb’s jowly face. “A sad case, Mr. Lilly, a sad case indeed. I was about to foreclose on the Turpin family mortgage when dear Sally offered me . . . shall we say sexual favors.”

  Lilly grinned. “You’re an excellent man of business, boss.”

  “Of course after I tire of her I’ll still foreclose,” Cobb said. “That is the exquisite irony of the affair. Oh, wait, before you go, a question, Mr. Lilly.”

  “Ask away, boss,” Lilly said.

  “How would you feel about getting Brewster Ritter out of the way?”

  “You mean gunning him?”

  “A crude way of putting it, but yes . . . gunning him.”

  “I’d feel just fine, Mr. Cobb.”

  The fat man beamed. “That’s exactly the answer I expected from a man of daring and integrity like yourself, Mr. Lilly. But let us just leave it at that for now, though the day may come.”

  “When that day gets here I’ll be ready,” Sebastian Lilly said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Evangeline stepped onto the cabin deck and watched O’Hara bring the pirogue alongside. A strange young man sat in the canoe between him and Flintlock. “Got a prisoner,” Flintlock said. “One of Ritter’s killers.”

  “I’m an engineer,” Leander Byng said as he climbed onto the deck, a statement that earned him a swift kick in the butt from Flintlock. “You speak when only you’re spoken to,” he said.

  “There were others,” Evangeline said. “I heard Basilisk sing his victory song.”

  “Yes, the alligators did for one of them, the other was killed when the dirigible crashed.” Flintlock decided not to go into details. Then, “O’Hara, bring the rope and I’ll tie this ranny to the deck.”

  “No need,” Evangeline said. “He can’t go anywhere.”

  She was still dressed like a librarian, but the sky was full of clouds drifting from the Gulf with the promise of more rain, and Flintlock figured she’d put off visiting Cornelius to a more pleasant day.

  “Maybe not, Evangeline,” he said, “but he could murder us while we slept.”

  Byng risked another kick. “I’m an engineer,” he said. “I don’t murder people.”

  “But you work for the people who do and that makes you just as guilty,” Flintlock said. “If it was up to me you’d be dead by now, so shut your mouth.”

  “Sam, you want me to tie him?” O’Hara said. “I can loop the rope through the deck boards and make him snug.”

  “Yeah, do that,” Flintlock said. “Later you may need to use your blade on him to get information about Ritter’s plans. So tie him tight.”

  Evangeline didn’t hear that last. She’d gone inside and now she stepped back onto the deck with a basin of water, a towel and something in a tiny brown bottle.

  She said, “Your face is cut in several places . . . what is your name?”

  “Byng, ma’am. Leander Byng. We got hit by a flock of birds just before we crashed. A couple of them struck my face.”

  “More than a few, Mr. Byng. Sit there in the rocker and let me do what I can for those cuts.”

  “Don’t baby him, Evangeline,” Flintlock said. “He’s our enemy.”

  “Enemy or not, he’s wounded, Sam. I’m duty bound as a healer to treat him.”

  Flintlock muttered under his breath as Evangeline began to dab at Byng’s face with the towel. “No, Sam, I’m not an interfering female,” she said. “I just can’t bear to see another human being suffer.”

  Flintlock shook his head and whispered to O’Hara, “I swear she can hear the moon rise.”

  “Yes, I can,” Evangeline said. “And the sun set.”

  “That’s all I can tell you,” Leander Byng said. “Ritter is to start cutting the cypress within the next few days. The logs will be stacked up until the sawmill is in operation. There’s nothing else.”

  “How many guns does he have?” Flintlock said.

  “Maybe a dozen. Bonifaunt Toohy is the best of them, or the worst, depending on your viewpoint.”

  Rain swept across the bayou and birds lifted briefly on the fair wind and settled again. The bruised sky was thick with purple and mustard cloud but the thunder was silent and there was no lightning.

  “What about the loggers?” Evangeline said. “What manner of men are they?”

  “They work for wages,” Byng said.

  “If we shoot a few will the rest pull out?” Flintlock said.

  “I don’t know. They’re not gunmen but they’re tough. I think you’d kick over a hornet’s nest.”

  “Will they fight for the brand?” Flintlock said.

  Byng took a deep breath. “The loggers work for wages. No, they won’t do Brewster Ritter’s killing for him, but if you harm one of their own, they will fight, and there’s a lot of them.”

  “When will Ritter get another flying machine?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe never.”

  “What about the swamp monster?”

  “That was Professor Mealy’s project, a steam-powered, armored barge. As far as I know, it’s been repaired and ready for launch again. Ritter will probably use it to protect the loggers as they work.”

  Flintlock said, “What about you, Byng? Will you be missed?”

  “No. With the money he’s paying, Ritter can easily find another steam engineer. The entire civilized world runs on steam, so there’s plenty of them around.”

  “That’s why the world has become such a dirty, grimy place,” O’Hara said. “And now we stand to lose the swamps.”

  Byng smiled slightly. “The British say, ‘Where there’s muck, there’s brass.’ In other words it’s dirty, grimy factories that make men rich.”

  “If that’s your world, you’re welcome to it, engineer,” O’Hara said.

  “I want no part of it either,” Flintlock said. And then, remembering Barnabas’s blast furnaces, “Hell must be full of factories.”

  “Well, what do we do with him?” Evangeline said.

  “I say shoot him,” Flintlock said. “He’s one of Ritter’s boys and that’s enough for me.”

  “O’Hara?”

  “I’m with Sammy. Gun him and be done.”

  “He’s very young,” Evangeline said.

  “A lot of the Yankee enemy we shot in the war were very young,” Flintlock said. “Age has nothing to do with it.”

  “He’s an engineer,” Evangeline said.

  “Damn it all, woman, you and him bandy that word around like he was a saint or something,” Flintlock said. “If it helps you feel better I’ll shoot him with my Hawken.”

  “What difference does that make?” Evangeline said.

  “It will blow a fifty-caliber hole in him. He won’t feel a thing.”

  “No, I don’t want that,” Evangeline said. “You and O’Hara take him out of the swamp and set him free. He can’t harm us now.”

  “Not unless Ritter gets another flying machine,” Flintlock said.

  “That’s unlikely to happen, Sam. It would be bad luck to kill the engineer. We’re defending our swamp. We’re not murderers.”

  “I’d sleep better at night if I gunned him, Evangeline,” Flintlock said. “But seeing as how the bank robbery didn’t set right with you, I’ll oblige you on this one and won’t blow Byng’s brains out.”

  “There speaks a true gentleman,” O’Hara said. “Sammy, you’re a national treasure.”

  “Evangeline didn’t mention you in her amnesty, Injun,” Flintlock said.

  But he smiled as he said it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Sebastian Lilly was a horseman. Hunting a man in a swamp was foreign to him, especially in the fading hours of daylight. He had no real hope of success, not in the couple of hours left to him before dark, but he might be able to get a lead on the robber and track him down later.

  Lilly wore a slicker against the steady rain and paddled between the cypress trees, Spanish moss garlanded above his head as though he was a Roman general riding a chariot at his triumph. When Lilly was a boy his pa took him duck hunting in the Arizona Territory’s Anderson Mesa country. He remembered how a duck would slam into a wall of birdshot and hurtle straight down and splash into the water. Then old Ranger would jump into the water and retrieve the bird. Pa’s old cocker spaniel was stone deaf from the roar of the guns but Pa said he was the best waterfowling dog in Coconino County and beyond. When Ranger died, Pa buried him and erected a wooden marker that said here lies the best hunting dog in Coconino County. But one day the marker blew away in a big wind and Pa never put up another.