Golden Heart (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles) (4 page)

Just as Lazarus was about to enter, a bullet ricocheted off the iron banister an inch from him. He hit the deck as two more crunched into the wood. The bounty hunters were firing at him from the doorway of what was now the last carriage in the train and were a rapidly decreasing target. Lazarus thrust his hand into his right boot and pulled out the Belgian snub, cocked it, aimed and sent a slug towards the open door.

It struck the varnished wood and exploded, sending chunks of debris tearing into the gunmen. Smoke billowed from the open doorway, and the screams of wounded men could be heard briefly before the wind carried them away.

“Holy shit, friend!” Vasquez cried. “What does that limey government issue you with?”

“Belgian?” Katarina asked out of professional interest.

Lazarus nodded. “Fresh off the line.”

Lazarus had noticed that Katarina’s own pistol was a Smith and Wesson Model 3 Russian with an unusually long barrel. It appeared to be silver plated and was an exquisite piece, engraved with swirling Art Nouveau motifs. She raised the hem of her skirt to reveal the pale skin of her long, slender right thigh. Lazarus and Vasquez goggled at it but she didn’t seem to care. Strapped to the flesh was a holster, into which she slid her revolver before sweeping her dress back into place. She caught them looking at her.

“I don’t know why women always carry those silly little snub pistols in their handbags when there is plenty of room for something much more powerful under our skirts,” she said.

“Um, quite,” said Lazarus, knowing that he was flushed from something other than the stifling heat.

They made their way into the horse car, and pushed past the sweating flanks of the beasts towards the door. Hok’ee had already picked out the four best horses for them.

“Alright, crew, this is our stop coming up!” Vasquez said, mounting his horse. The ceiling was low and he had to lean forward over the animal’s neck. Katarina did the same, her attractively curled hair just brushing the ceiling. “Hok’ee, open her up!”

The Navajo slid the wide side door open. The dust whirled into the carriage, making the horses nicker and stamp their feet nervously. Lazarus shielded his eyes.

“Are you sure about this?” he shouted.

“Know any better way off a train, Englishman?” Katarina cried back.

“We could wait until the carriage comes to a standstill!” he suggested.

“And risk the authorities or more of that bounty hunting gang catching up with us?”

“Quit jawing, you lily-livered cowards and follow me!” cried Vasquez. “If both of you want me then you’ll have to catch me!” and with a chuckle he spurred his horse into a leap that took him out into the sunlight and down and away, galloping hard and fast into the dust. Hok’ee followed, leaving Lazarus and Katarina gaping at the feat they had just witnessed.

“Does it occur to you that they may be making a run for it?” Lazarus mused aloud.

Katarina did not answer but instead leaped forward, her shapely figure astride her mount vanishing into the dust. Lazarus took a deep breath as if he were about to perform a high-dive and took the plunge.

Chapter 4

In which our hero is afforded a bird’s eye view of Arizona Territory

The sun set across the vast flats of Arizona, stretching the shadows of the plateaus long and thin. The blistering heat of the day quickly evaporated as darkness filled the deep valleys. All the cold-blooded creatures that had been sunning themselves on the rocks vanished into their holes to escape freezing.

Lazarus’s face was a mask of sweat and dust. They had been riding for a long time, and both horses and riders were tiring. Vasquez led the way with Hok’ee at his side and the other two trailing behind, unused to such lengthy periods of harsh travel. Katarina, in her thin bodice, was visibly cold however hard she was trying to hide it. Lazarus took off his jacket and held it out to her. She studied him hard before taking it.

“This doesn’t mean we are friends, Englishman.”

“Can you not call me Longman? Or Lazarus, perhaps.”

“Lazarus? What a name!” she said, taking his coat.

“I just don’t want to see you freeze to death before we get to our destination.”

“Wherever that is,” Katarina replied, looking ahead at Vasquez.

Owing to their having no water and empty stomachs, Vasquez had offered to take them both to his temporary lair that lay less than a night’s ride away. Considering that they were both trying to abduct him—and in Katarina’s case, had even tried to kill him once—this was considered a mightily generous gesture by all concerned.

“What does the Tsar want with Vasquez anyway?” Lazarus asked Katarina, pleased to see that she had warmed up a little under his jacket that was two sizes too big for her.

“Nosy. What does Queen Victoria want with him?”

“Well, I don’t suppose Her Majesty knows anything about him. But the people within her government that I work for are greatly concerned that he is kept alive and delivered into Confederate hands.”

“My task is much the same.”

“And yet you tried to kill him only a few nights ago.”

“That was my original brief, yes. But after his true value was brought to our attention, I was given new orders to protect and escort him.”

“As we both appear to be pursuing the same end, wouldn’t you say that Britain and Russia could be allies in this affair?” Lazarus suggested. “No need to threaten each other or stand in each other’s way.”

Katarina smiled. “A lovely thought, Longman. There is just one problem.”

“Oh?”

“I am escorting Vasquez to the Unionist partisans, not the Confederate government.”

Lazarus groaned aloud. He should have known. Relations between Russia and Britain had been poor ever since that debacle in the Crimea. With the Civil War that had raged across the American continent and the ensuing stalemate, it only made sense that they should both support opposing sides. The British Empire needed its trade links with the southern states, and Tsar Alexander had been friendly to the Union since the beginning.

Vasquez, who had been listening to this conversation, hooted with laughter and fell back to join them. “Well, what a pretty pickle this is! Two foreign agents want to be my best friend and I get to sell my services to the highest bidder!”

“Now, Vasquez,” said Lazarus, “there has never been any talk of purchasing your services. My orders are to escort you, by force if necessary.”

“As are mine,” said Katarina. “And to dispose of anybody who gets in the way, got that Longman?”

Lazarus sighed. Vasquez was right. It was a pretty pickle indeed.

They were high above the desert now, amid the peaks and plateaus of the mountain passes. The ground leveled out into the likeness of a gigantic billiard table. The stars were out, and with no cloud cover Lazarus felt the heat rushing out of his body, leaving him with a feeling of nakedness.

When they had reached the center of a plateau, Vasquez and Hok’ee dismounted. Lazarus and Katarina looked around. The plateau was devoid of anything that Lazarus could see might be of interest.

The two bandits crossed the flat area of rock to where a clump of dry bushes grew. With several mighty heaves, they pulled back the foliage—which wasn’t as securely attached to the ground as Lazarus had assumed—and cast it aside. The ground beneath them seemed soft, like a skin on cream. Vasquez and Hok’ee began tugging at it on one side and it came loose, unfurling and billowing up clouds of dust, and Lazarus realized that it was a simple canvas affair.

They walked forward and found themselves standing on the edge of a large basin that had been hollowed out of the rock and concealed by the canvas. In the bottom of the crater was a vessel the size of a small fishing steamer. Its little brass portholes and single funnel made it appear ludicrously out of place in the rocky passes of the Southwest.

They climbed down into the crater, which was many feet deep. Lazarus recognized the vessel as a small military dirigible of the interceptor class. A logo of a corseted dance hall girl had been painted on its side, sitting astride a bomb with the words, ‘Terror from Above!” banded around her. As Lazarus inspected it, he saw that it had been painted over what looked like the symbol for the Confederate Dirigible Corps.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” announced Vasquez, with one foot on the ladder, ‘meet the
Santa Bella
!”

The interior of the vessel was as unmilitary as anything Lazarus might have expected. A covered cockpit showed the brass knobs, levers and dials involved in piloting the airship, but they were poorly polished. Above the varnished wooden steering wheel was a calendar showing various ladies painted by an artist who apparently hadn’t mastered female clothing and had decided to do away with such frivolities entirely.

The cabin had a table and cushioned bench seating, and beyond there was evidence of two unmade beds. There was a little pot-bellied stove covered in a layer of grease and grime, and many unwashed pots and pans lay cluttered about.

“Home sweet home,” said Vasquez cheerfully, tossing his hat into a corner. “Hok’ee’s getting a head of steam up so we’ll soon be out of here.”

“Wait a minute!” said Katarina, following Vasquez back out on deck. “Where are we going? I’m the one taking you into custody, not the other way around.”

“Not on my ship, lady! Here you do as I tell ya!”

“But what’s your plan, Vasquez?” Lazarus asked.

Vasquez grinned at him as he jammed a cheroot into his mouth and lit it with a match. “I know why you’re both on my tail, even if you won’t tell each other. Your respective governments are after that map of ours. Am I right?”

Lazarus eyed Katarina and saw that she was doing the same to him.

“Well, I’m done with the Confederate army,” Vasquez continued, “and I have no real desire to throw in my lot with the Yankees, so I was thinking the best plan was to fetch the damned thing and hold ourselves a little auction. Whoever pays me the most gets it and can take it to their chosen camp without my having to come with! Now don’t worry, we’ll hold the auction on safe ground and I’ll give you both plenty of time to wire your respective governments for money. I’m not sure how things’ll pan out after that. One of you is likely to shoot the other, but once I’m sailing away with my money, it won’t be my problem!”

Lazarus and Katarina stared at each other as their host went about the business of preparing the vessel for its journey. They were clearly thinking the same thing. This whole affair had got wildly out of hand and the future for one of them looked bleak.
But which one?

“Either of you two gawking Gladys’s ever been onboard a dirigible before?” Vasquez called over to them as he wrestled with one in a series of six trapdoors set into the vessel’s deck.

They both shook their heads. Lazarus had heard of the devastating effects these craft had wreaked on the unprepared Union troops. It was the Confederate Dirigible Corps that had bombed New York City and Boston into smoking ruins.

“They’re a vast improvement on the old design,” commented Vasquez. “The early ones had a rigid shell and could only travel at five miles per hour. This craft has limp balloons and so is much lighter.” He jerked a lever in the cockpit and there was a loud hissing sound. Balloons began to inflate from the six trapdoors.

“Isn’t hydrogen flammable?” Lazarus asked, looking nervously at the smoking cheroot that hung from Vasquez’s mouth.

“Sure is. None aboard this baby, though. Helium, folks. It’s the new thing. Discovered by some eggheads in France. All airships use it now.”

They stood and watched in awe as the light material began to rise higher and higher, expanding and billowing outwards, lifting the craft clean off the ground. Gas filled all the creases and soon the entire deck was shadowed by a monolithic balloon cluster. The anchor ropes strained and creaked as the craft bobbed in midair.

They went below deck. Hok’ee was in the furnace room, bathed in purple light as he shoveled mechanite into the glowing furnace.

“How’s she doing?” Vasquez hollered.

Hok’ee replied in Navajo and Lazarus realized for the first time that Vasquez must have a good understanding of the language, considering his first mate’s reluctance to use English. They waited for the steam pressure to build up and then, by pulling a series of brass levers and knobs, Vasquez put into motion the great rear propellers that drove the craft forward. They drew in the anchor lines and soon they were drifting high and sailing north east through the starry clouds, with the chasms and plateaus of the desert far below them.

By the lights of the gas lamps they sat in the cabin with the door shut against the chill air, and inhaled the smell of cooking bacon and eggs and canned beans as Vasquez prepared their meal. The smells reminded Lazarus of his favorite greasy spoon in London’s East End and, overcome by a sudden and unexpected pang of homesickness, he promised himself a meal there as soon as he got back. But for now, Vasquez’s culinary efforts would have to do.

“Soup’s on!” said Vasquez, sliding three plates across the lacquered tabletop. Hok’ee entered and sat down, seizing his fork and digging in. Katarina poked around at her plate with evident distaste. Vasquez sat down and began dousing Tabasco sauce over his plate with liberal carelessness. They watched him shovel the food down in great forkfuls.

“So where is it we are headed, exactly?” Lazarus asked Vasquez.

“You’ll find that out when we get there,” the bandit replied with a grin.

“There’s really no call to be so cagey.”

“Oh, there ain’t? Well how come you two can’t even bring up the matter of what we’re all chasing after, then? It’s Cibola, isn’t it?”

Lazarus and Katarina looked at each other.

“And you claim to know its location,” said Lazarus.

“All I claim is to know the location of the map. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“What good is a map to a place that doesn’t exist?” said Lazarus.

“You don’t sound very convinced that the matter is genuine,” said Katarina.

“I’m not.”

Vasquez dropped his fork with a clatter. “Now listen, limey, you’re the one on my tail, hounding me for the map. Now all of a sudden you don’t believe I’ve got the goods?”

“Oh I believe you’ve seen a map. Maybe even have it hidden away somewhere. I just don’t believe the seven golden cities of Cibola exist outside of fairy tales told to the Spaniards by the natives.”

“Get a load of this guy, Hok’ee!” Vasquez crowed.

The Navajo was watching Lazarus intently with his sullen, black eyes. The Golgotha rifle had been detached from his elbow, and in place of it he had screwed on a hook that served as a multi-purpose tool for tinkering about on the ship. He rapped this on the table top slowly.

“He aims to tell us how things are running in this here country of ours. What makes you such a goddamned expert, limey?”

“He’s an historian,” said Katarina. “And a grave robber.”

“Archaeologist,” Lazarus corrected, surprised that she knew so much about him. No doubt a file on him had been provided by the Russian government.

“Egghead, huh?” said Vasquez. “So you know all about Cibola. More than me, perhaps?”

Lazarus sighed and began the tale from the beginning. “I know that in fifteen-thirty-six four survivors from a Spanish shipwreck resurfaced in Mexico. With them was a Moorish slave called Estevanico; the first African to set foot in America. They had been wandering for eight years throughout the Southwest and had heard tales of a wealthy land to the north. The Spaniards in Mexico, who had recently amassed vast wealth from plundering the Aztec and Inca empires, became convinced that there must be a third golden empire in the northern continent. The Spanish had their own legend of seven bishops who fled Spain with all their wealth during the Moorish invasion hundreds of years previously. They believed that these bishops had set up seven golden cities in an unchartered land to the west. With the stories told by Estevanico and his companions, it seemed possible that these cities were somewhere in the American Southwest.

“The Viceroy of New Spain sent out an expedition under a Franciscan monk called Marcos de Niza who, with Estevanico as his guide, headed north to find this golden empire. Estevanico was an impetuous fellow by all accounts, who kept running on ahead and sending back promising clues. It seemed that they were drawing near to their goal. In one letter he said that he had found a fabulous city called Cibola, the first of many of its kind. Then, Estevanico drops off the map.”