The loss of the mare had thrown all Jed Harker’s schemes and plans plumb out of kilter. That he looked like fool, walking down the street with the awkward burden of the saddle causing him to resemble a hunchback, was a minor consideration. He might just about be able to scrape up enough to buy a horse, but he’d a strong suspicion that none of the local people here would be inclined to sell him one. It was while he was brooding in this way that Harker looked up straight into the eyes of Claude Chappe. He was glad to observe that Chappe’s smart clothes were still a little besmeared with the dirt which had flown up when Harker had discharged his pistol into the ground between them, not five hours since. Chappe was standing outside a store, watching him approach. He was glowering and looked furiously angry. Harker wondered if Chappe had discovered yet that his boy was on the run. He nodded amiably at the Frenchman, and was unable to avoid saying in a friendly enough way, ‘Lordie, that suit of yours could do with a thorough cleaning. It’s all over mud.’ It may have been childish of him, but the look on Chappe’s face as he made this helpful observation was priceless.
‘You think that we are finished, you and me?’ said Chappe, ‘But no, it is not so. I will have your head yet.’
Harker stopped and placed the saddle on the ground. He said, ‘I’d have you recall to mind that I spared your life. I could’ve killed you, all I did was muss up your clothes a little.’
From his expression, it didn’t look as though Claude Chappe was all that pleased to be reminded of this. Maybe, thought Harker, he was one of that brand who rated his dignity higher than his life and would rather have been shot than covered in filth. Out loud, he said, ‘You have anything you want to have out with me Chappe, I’m standing here before you right now, ready and willing. I don’t need no seconds, nor no other sort of fuss. You want to fight me now, man to man with fists or guns, just you say the word.’
At mention of guns, one or two loafers who were standing outside the store and near to Chappe, moved off casually; as though they had just remembered that they had important business to attend to elsewhere. Harker stared at the other man and said, ‘I don’t aim for to be shot in the back. Come down now into the roadway and let’s see what chances.’
For a moment, it looked as though Chappe might be about to take him up on the offer, for he drew himself up to his full, negligible height. Then, just when Harker was sure that he was about to step off the boardwalk and come down to face him, the Frenchman turned on his heel and walked off. Harker continued to stand there for a few seconds, feeling uncommonly foolish. Then he picked up his saddle and headed out of town towards Abednego Jackson’s house.
Jackson did not seem to be overly surprised to see Jed Harker fetch up again at his house. He was pottering about, doing something to Abigail Tyler’s wagon, when he saw Harker approaching. He hailed him cheerfully, crying, so you’ve a mind to join the little expedition after all, Mr Harker. I’m sure we’re all obliged to you.’
Never one for dissembling, Harker filled the other man in on the lamentable loss of his mount. Jackson said, ‘I’ve no doubt it’s as you suspect. Somebody in town has made off with the horse to inconvenience you as a reprisal for your unwelcome views on the subject of slavery.’
‘Inconvenience me?’ said Harker, ‘That’s a charitable way of putting it. Some of the territories I passed through, stealing horses is a hanging matter.’
Jackson chuckled and said, ‘You’ve a right dry sense of humour, you know that?’
Before he was able to frame a reply, Harker found that something or somebody was tugging at his sleeve. He turned to see the black boy, with whom all this difficulty had begun, standing at his side. He said, ‘You all right there, son? Is there aught I can do for you?’
‘I wanted to thank you, sir. For what you done.’
‘There’s no “sir” in the case. My name’s Jed, you can call me that. As for what I done, as God he knows, it was little enough. I never could abide a bully.’
‘My ma, she want to speak with you too.’
‘Well,’ said Harker, ‘Here I stand. Let her come over.’
The boy looked embarrassed and dug his toe in the ground, looking down at it as he did so. He said, ‘She don’t like to push herself forward, sir. She’s over yonder in the barn.’
When Harker went over to see her, he found Jemima fussing with her youngest child. He said, ‘What’s to do, ma’am?’
‘You saved my boy. I thank you for it.’
‘It’s kind of you to say so, but I didn’t save your boy from nothin’. Just spoke a few words to the fellow as was troubling him. It was nothing.’
‘It was everything,’ said the woman, searching Harker’s face, ‘Is it that you’re going to take us north?’
‘That,’ said Harker, ‘Is what you might call a tricky point. It’s certainly beginning to look that way. I hope you wouldn’t object to me as a travelling companion?’
‘I’d feel safe if you was with me, else not.’
‘Well, let’s see what happens, ma’am. Forgive me, I needs must speak a few words to your host.’
Abednego Jackson was deep in conversation with Abigail Tyler. Harker went up to them and said, ‘If I consent to ride on this little expedition, I want to know what’s in those crates in the back o’ your wagon, Miss Tyler.’
‘It’s nothing to do with you,’ she said indignantly, ‘Let’s just say it’s something which might stop this trouble brewing with the north, dead in its tracks.’
‘I won’t have any part in this, less’n I know what I’m getting into,’ said Harker firmly, ‘It’d be bad enough being caught assisting runaway slaves, but if you’re running guns to the Indians or something, I’ll have no part in it.’
Before the woman was able to reply, Jackson said sharply, ‘Hush now, the pair of you. I can hear horses.’ He shouted, ‘Get in the barn and hide, Pompey. Run now. Tell your ma to get up into the hay-loft and not to make a blessed sound.’
The boy needed no second bidding, but scooted off at once. Jackson too turned on his heel and walked into the house, leaving Harker and Abigail Tyler to see what might develop. A slight rise of land obscured the town of Lovett from view, even though it was barely a mile away, but now Harker too could hear hoofbeats coming from that direction. He made sure that the pistol was loose in his belt and was not overly surprised when Abigail reached into her wagon and lifted out the same rifle which she had fired at Harker the previous day. He said, ‘Don’t start any shooting, you hear what I tell you? Like as not, whoever’s heading this way is nothing to do with us.’ When the riders crested the rise of ground though, he saw that there were three of them. One was Claude Chappe and the other two were Colonel Quinnell and Captain Preston. Harker muttered under his breath ‘This is apt to be awkward.’
The three men reined in a dozen yards from Harker and the woman. Chappe said, ‘I see you everywhere.’
‘Well, I try to keep myself to myself,’ said Harker apologetically, ‘But you have a point, we do seem to keep bumping into one another. It’s a small world.’
‘My boy’s been stolen,’ said Chappe, ‘You wouldn’t know about that?’
‘Stolen? Sure he ain’t run away?’
‘He would not dare. He knows I’d flay him alive.’
‘You surely have a pleasant way with you, Chappe,’ said Harker, ‘Staring at the other man in disgust. ‘What’s this to do with me, anyway? I don’t have your boy.’
‘I wasn’t coming to find you. I heard that the man who moved here just lately is suspicioned. I think we’ll search this place.’
Jed Harker walked closer to the three riders and said, ‘This ain’t my farm, but I’m not sure that I should give you permission to do that.’ There was still no sign of Jackson who, Harker supposed, was most likely hiding in his house. He glanced back and was relieved to see that Miss Tyler was holding her rifle loosely, as though she had just picked it up casually, to put in a cupboard or something. The hairs on the back of his neck were tickling and Harker knew that this was one of those occasions when making the wrong move or even using the wrong word, could lead to bloodshed.
Claude Chappe laughed, and the two men flanking him smiled too. He said, ‘I wasn’t looking for you to give me your permission. You and I still have business to conduct, don’t press me to take it up with you now.’
‘I’ve known a heap o’ men like you in the past, Chappe. Bullies, full of bluster and showing off like little boys. I’m telling you now, you don’t want to get crosswise to me.’
Chappe looked as though he could scarcely believe his ears. In a leisurely fashion, he reached forward and began pulling a short, military carbine from the scabbard which held it at the front of his saddle. Harker was torn between his instinctive desire to protect himself, by drawing his own weapon, and the hope that even at this late stage, bloodshed could be averted. He was saved from having to make any immediate decision, when a loud voice called, ‘Pull that gun and you’re as good as dead!’
The Frenchman froze at once and his two companions began casting their eyes around to see who had issued this challenge. It took a few seconds, but they eventually identified a rifle poking coyly out of one of the upper windows of the farmhouse. It was some fifty yards from them and both they and Chappe realised almost at once that if it came to a shooting match, then the man firing from the shelter of the house would have the drop on them. This was before they noticed that Abigail Tyler had also raised the musket she was holding up to her shoulder and was now drawing down on them too. A quick murder, followed by a search of the property would have been one thing. A protracted gun battle between their party and an equal number of defenders though; that was another thing entirely.
Chappe opened his hand and let the rifle fall back, under its own weight, into the scabbard. He said loudly, so that the man at the window of the house would also be able to hear him, ‘Don’t anybody be hasty now. See, I have no weapon.’
‘There’s nothing for you here,’ said Harker, trying to keep his voice calm and level, ‘Were I you, I’d just turn around and ride back to town. That way, nobody’ll get hurt.’
Claude Chappe glared at Harker and said, ‘We’ll go. For now.’ Then he turned his horse and dug his spurs viciously into the beat’s flanks. The two other men took a more leisurely departure, giving Harker and the woman the once-over, before leaving themselves.
When Jackson came out of the house, there was no sign of the rifle he’d poked out the window. Harker said, ‘I thought I understood you to say you was a Quaker. Ain’t they opposed to bloodshed and war and suchlike?’
‘Not if it’s for the better good,’ replied Abednego Jackson, with a wink, ‘Sides which, I never said I was a perfect Christian. That’s enough gossiping, those boys’ll be back directly. You folk best be on your way. Abigail, there’s baskets of victuals in the kitchen. Happen you could bring them here and stow ‘em on your cart. Mr Harker, will you lend a hand to hitch up them oxen?’
There was ten minutes of bustling around, during the course of which Jemima and her children came out of hiding and stood; looking around them uncertainly. When all was ready, Harker said, ‘Well, I reckon I’m in on this game, whether or no. That little Frenchman wants my blood and so I might as well be doing something worthwhile while he hunts for me. You want I should drive those creatures?’
‘I’d be eternally obliged to you, if you would,’ said Abigail Tyler, ‘They won’t take a bit o’ notice of me.’
Seeing that the black woman and her children looked a little lost, Harker went over and said, ‘I shall be taking the reins, ma’am. I don’t know if you or your boy would like to sit next to me or if Miss Tyler will wish to do so. Come over and join the deliberations afore we set out.’ Jemima brought her two children over to where Abigail Tyler was standing and engaged her in conversation in a low tone. It was not a quarter hour after Chappe and his companions had left, heading back towards Lovett, that the ox-cart began lumbering its way north towards the territories of the so-called ‘five civilised tribes’.
Before they left, Jackson spoke privately to Jed Harker. He said, ‘I don’t doubt that the Lord will richly bless and reward you for undertaking this task, Mr Harker. From all that I am able to apprehend from Abigail, that is to say Miss Tyler, there is considerably more at stake than just the rescue of those poor souls who you’re taking north. I don’t know it all, but it might be that Abigail’s enterprise is more important than just the lives of one or two people.’
‘You’re speaking in riddles,’ said Harker, ‘Would you care to be more plain?’
‘I think I’d best leave that to the lady herself.’
The wagon progressed at a maddeningly slow speed and even with the frequent application of the goad, Jed Harker was unable to coax the oxen into more than around five miles each hour. So leisurely was their pace, that Jemima and her son, walking alongside the wagon, outpaced it. Abigail Tyler, who was seated next to Harker, observed quietly, ‘Jemima don’t know what to make of you. She’s uneasy.’
Harker looked round in amazement and said, ‘I’m sure I don’t know why. I treat her like everybody else. You ain’t uneasy about me, I’m hopeful to think?’
‘No, course not. But Jemima, she can’t figure out why you call her ma’am and so on.’
‘That’s no mystery. I’ve not known her above a few hours. I only know her given name and I can’t hardly take the liberty o’ using that. I’d call any lady ma’am if I’d only known her a short while.’
‘Well it makes her feel strange. She’s never had a white man speak so formal. Just call her Jemima, same as I do.’
‘I’ll tell you what, Miss Tyler,’ said Harker, a little sharply, ‘I don’t need lessons in how to conduct myself from you. By the by, Mr Jackson gave me to understand that those crates of your’n have some importance. Now we’re travelling together, perhaps you’d have the goodness to let me know what’s in them?’
For a spell, it looked as though Abigail was minded to keep her own counsel, but at length she said, ‘You ever use a sewing machine?’
‘I ever use a what?’ said Harker, thinking that he must have misheard.
‘A sewing machine,’ she said impatiently, ‘You must have heard of them or even seen one. A needle goes up and down, very fast. You know what I’m talking about?’
‘I seem to recollect hearing of some such, but I never seen one, let alone used it. Where is this tending? You sayin’ you got sewing machines in those wooden boxes?’
‘Don’t be silly. So you never used one, is that right?’
‘Do I look like a seamstress?’
‘Not overmuch. Here’s the way of it. Some five years back, I invented a machine to do sewing. Fellow called Singer, away up north, he thought he’d got that line of machines pretty well tied up, but my one beat his hollow. I was in partnership with an engineer at that time and he dealt with that Singer, come to an arrangement. Singer bought me out and I had a tidy pile, me and my partner. I’m not goin’ too fast for you, I suppose?’
‘No, I ain’t simple, for all that I’ve not had much in the way of schooling. You made money by inventing a gadget to sew clothes, is that it?’
‘Yes. Well then, I asked myself what I could invent next. I came up with something which used the same idea, which is to say a needle going back and forth.’
The woman at Harker’s side stopped speaking for a while, staring ahead at the bleak plain which they were traversing. Over to the left, they could hear the voices of Jemima and her son Pompey, as they talked over what had befallen each other since the had been separated a year or so earlier. It seemed to Harker that Abigail Tyler was choosing her words carefully. At last, she continued. ‘Two things I hate. One’s slavery and the other’s war.’
Jed Harker said nothing, but sneaked a sideways glance at Abigail Tyler and said, ‘So what did you come up with?’
‘I asked myself what would happen if the bolt on a rifle, a repeating rifle you know, what if it went backwards and forwards rapidly, like the needle in a sewing machine. I figured that you could have a gun that fired more or less continual.’
‘What would make it go back and forth?’ asked Harker curiously, ‘Meaning, what’s powering it?’
‘The recoil. As you fire, the recoil drives back the bolt and then a spring brings it forward again. An advantage would be that then you’d have a gun without hardly a bit of recoil.’
Harker pulled on the reins and halted the oxen. When the wagon had ground to a halt, he said, ‘You tellin’ me that you come up with all this idea by your own self?’
‘Pretty much. There’s others working on the same idea, but they’re not doing so well. Man called Richard Gatling in New York and then over in Mobile, Alabama, there’s a captain at the arsenal there called Gorgas, who’s doing something much the same. I corresponded with them both, but they neither of ‘em have anything like my device.’
‘You’re something else again, you know that?’ said Harker, admiringly. ‘I never heard the like. So where are you taking this little toy now?’
‘You told me that you’re not an abolitionist, Mr Harker?’
He said slowly, ‘Well, I surely don’t hold with buying and selling folk, like they was cattle, no. But then again, I ain’t a great one for politics, neither. ‘
‘There’s no middle path. You’re either for slavery or against it. One or the other, not both.’
Not wishing to debate the topic, for fear that Abigail would prove the stronger protagonist in such a contest, Harker said, ‘You’ve yet to come to the point, you know. Meaning, you haven’t said how this invention of yours is going to have any bearing on anything.’
‘Oh, but don’t you see? Right now, all the slave states are about ready to boil over. Everywhere you go, all you hear is about states’ rights and the rest of it. Give it a year and I’ll take oath that at least a half dozen will have worked themselves up into a fit state to try and secede from the Union. Washington won’t wear that and they’ll come to blows.’
‘I don’t say you’re wrong, but I can see where this new gun of yours has any bearing on the case.’
Abigail Tyler didn’t speak for a while. Jemima and her son were looking over towards the wagon, wondering perhaps what the delay was. The woman had her infant in her arms and put Harker strangely in mind of some of the chromo prints he had seen of religious subjects, such as the Madonna and child. He said, ‘We can talk while we move, I guess,’ and jerked the reins to get the oxen going again. ‘I won’t feel easy ‘til we’ve put a fair bit of distance ‘tween ourselves and that town.’
Jed Harker was feeling more and more uncomfortable about the fact that he and Miss Tyler were sitting up here at their ease, while the black folk were trudging along on foot. He said, ‘Miss Tyler, I think we ought to let the others have a go of sitting, while we walk. It’s only right.’
Abigail Tyler looked at him as though he had taken leave of his senses. She said, ‘Why, my shoes aren’t precisely suited to travelling ‘cross rough ground like this…’ She stumbled to a halt, because she had suddenly realised that Jemima and her elder son were both bare-foot. She said wonderingly, ‘I swear to you, I never thought once of that. Meaning that that woman and child have no shoes at all on their feet. Isn’t that strange?’
‘My grandpapa, he had a saying. “Fine words butter no parsnips!” All well and good talking fancy about the rights of man and such, but when we’ve shoes on our feet and others are going unshod, well something’s amiss.’ He called over to the others, crying, ‘I wonder if the two o’ you could favour us with a moment of your time. We’ve something to say.’
When Jemima and Pompey were walking alongside the wagon, Harker said, ‘Time you two had a go at resting your legs, I reckon. Either of you ever drove oxen?’
‘I can drive a team, sir.’ said Jemima, ‘Well as a man, I reckon.’
‘Well then, you and your boys hop up here and me and this lady will go along by shank’s pony for a spell.’
It was as he climbed down from the driving seat that Harker saw something which caused his hear to sink. They were working their way up a slope which led to the foothills of some mountains; which they were intending to skirt around, in order to enter the Indian Nations from the east. This line of travel had meant that since leaving Abednego Jackson’s home, they had been steadily rising and now they were at a height of perhaps three or four hundred feet above both Jackson’s house and also Lovett. A column of grey dust hung in the air and seemed to Harker’s eyes to be moving more or less in their direction. He couldn’t be sure at that distance, since he was unable to distinguish individual figures, but if he was any judge of the signs, this indicated a party of at least a dozen riders coming on towards them. They were probably at least five, maybe six miles away, but even at a trot they would be upon them within an hour.
‘I don’t like to alarm anybody,’ said Harker casually, ‘But given the signs over yonder, I’d say we’re the object of some pursuit. It may be that those riders have no interest in us, but I wouldn’t bet a dime on it.’
At his words, Jemima gave an unearthly shriek, redolent of fear and despair and she looked as though she were about to fall to the ground. Harker said, ‘Hold up, ma’am. It ain’t time to give up yet. Pompey, take that baby from your ma, or she’s like to drop it.’ He looked around, to see if there was any hope of hiding. There was nothing, other than a pile of boulders a few yards from the trail. They might, at a pinch, be able to crouch behind them, but the wagon would betray their whereabouts at once. He said, ‘Miss Tyler, less I’m mistook, you’ve got some sample of this wonderful new weapon o’ yours in those crates. Am I right?’
‘Yes, I have two of them.’
‘You’ve ammunition for them too?’
‘Yes, one of the boxes is full of cartridge.’
‘Think you could instruct me in the use of the things inside a half hour?’
Abigail Tyler’s face was drawn and white, but she replied quickly enough, saying, ‘Yes, there’s naught to the matter. I’ll load them and you only need pull the trigger.’
Harker said, ‘What it is, even if you and me hide behind those rocks and start firing our rifles at those men as they come on, they’ll split up and take us anyway. If those guns of yours can lay down enough fire, we might just have a chance.’
If there was to be fighting, then Harker wanted all the party out of sight and under cover, so that he had a free hand with his shooting, without fretting about hitting those on his own side. He shepherded Jemima and her children behind the rocks and said, ‘Don’t be afeared ma’am. I’ll do all in my power to stop any harm befalling you and yours. Just keep your heads down is all.’
When he got back to the wagon, it was to find that Abigail Tyler was prising up the lids on two of the wooden boxes. Both looked to be full of straw, but when she delved inside, she hauled out a long black gun which looked like nothing Harker had ever seen before. For one thing, it was entirely made of gleaming, dark blue gunmetal. Even the stock looked to be made of metal, with no wood to be seen on it at all. The stock was a skeleton butt; no more than a triangular frame. Harker said, ‘What rate of fire can you achieve with this thing?’
‘About three hundred shots a minute,’ said the woman, as she reached into the other box and brought out a large, circular piece of metal which was about the size of a dinner plate.
‘You can’t be serious?’
‘You think I’m apt to be joshing with you at a time like this?’ As she spoke, Abigail Tyler was taking brass cartridges from the crate and fitting them into the metal disc, which now he could see it more clearly, Harker saw was really a thin drum. As she worked, the woman said, ‘There’s not much recoil. I’ve fired this and I hardly felt a thing. But keep your finger on the trigger and swing the gun slowly in an arc while it’s firing.’
‘Swing it in a what? An ark, did you say?’
‘Just a narrow bit of a circle. I chopped a tree down using this thing, when I was testing it with that fellow who died yesterday.’
Glancing up, Jed Harker observed that the group of horsemen were a good deal closer now than they had been before. He could pick out individual riders now and they couldn’t have been above three miles off. He counted eleven horses.
‘You know,’ said his companion in a conversational tone of voice, as though the information ere of no great import, ‘Those men are as like to be after me and what’s in this wagon as they are to be recovering any runaway slaves.’
‘You think these are friends of that fellow I took out yesterday?’
‘Truth to tell, I think there’s a few men in the south who’d like to speak to me and see these weapons.’
The personal dispute between he and Chappe, combined with the little matter of aiding and abetting a black family escaping to the north, had rather driven all thoughts of the circumstances of his meeting Abigail Tyler the previous day, but now Harker began to mull the question over in his mind. He said, ‘You’re that important to them?’
‘It’s the difference between them having a racing chance for independence from Washington and knowing that they’re like to be under the thumb of the federal government forever.’ She had finished charging or loading the black metal drum now and placed it on top of the strange looking rifle. It snapped home with a satisfying click. She handed the weapon to Harker, saying, ‘Just recollect what I said, aim at the end man in the line and then keep firing while you move the sight across the whole boiling of ‘em.’
Despite his extensive experience in warfare, Jed Harker had no desire at all to massacre a bunch of strangers and still hoped that it might be possible to parlay with the men coming on towards them; who were now only a mile or so off. These pacific inclinations were rudely dispelled when one of the men raised a rifle and sent a ball whistling in Harker’s direction. Whether it was meant as a warning shot or a signal to surrender, he had no idea, but at that range whoever had fired on them was running the risk of causing injury or death. The ball went wide, but as far as Jed Harker was concerned, this act brought him personally into the quarrel. Any man who fired in his direction was declaring himself fair game for Harker’s gun; that at least was the way that he saw the case. He said, ‘Are those fellows only after what you got in those boxes or are they aiming to take you too?’
‘I think that they want to take me alive, but that if I’m killed, that will satisfy them just as well. I have plans for my gun. Just with those alone, you could start production in a cannon factory.’
‘Then I reckon we’d best hunker down behind this wagon of your’n and get ready to defend ourselves.’
Of all the reactions which Harker might have expected to this grim declaration, the one he received from the woman was the last he would have looked for. She threw back her head and laughed, saying, ‘You got the case all wrong. It’s them boys as will need to defend themselves against us!’
As though she had read his mind, the woman said, ‘They aren’t going to shoot up the wagon. There might be nitro in it and they don’t want to destroy what’s here. If they get close enough to be sure, they might try and take us, but they’d be fools to risk hitting these crates.’ When Harker began to ask a question, touching upon his reservations about taking part in a battle while sitting next to a quantity of high explosives, Abigail Tyler interrupted him, saying, ‘Look now, those boys are on the move.’
It was true; Harker looked to his left and confirmed that the riders were indeed on the move. They were strung out in a line and he could see that if once they attacked at the gallop, then there was not the least chance that he and the woman, no matter how good shots they both might be, would be able to get every one of the men before they were upon them. The case looked utterly hopeless and Jed Harker wondered whatever could have possessed him to become embroiled in such a lost cause. He, who was always so careful of his own skin, found himself now allied with a complete stranger against insurmountable odds!
Instinct took over and Harker rested the strange-looking gun on the side of the wagon, with the muzzle pointing outwards at the advancing riders, who were now only a couple of hundred yards and coming on at a trot which, if he was any judge of cavalry tactics, would soon be quickened to a canter and then a gallop. He sighted down the barrel and took aim at one of the men in the centre of the line. From what he could see, these men were all kitted out like irregular forces or bandits. They carried themselves like soldiers though and he wondered if they might be regular troops in civilian clothing.
The horsemen had reined in about fifty or sixty yards off and one of them called out, ‘You folk lay down your weapons and I promise you’ll come to no harm. You know what we want.’
At this moment, Jed Harker had a premonition, although as a plain, simple sort of fellow, he had no use generally for those who foresaw the future. He realised suddenly that whatever business these men had with Abigail Tyler and her boxes, he himself was surplus to requirements. They would be unlikely to leave a witness to what they were doing and the most likely outcome if he threw down his gun would be that they would shoot him out of hand. The boy and his mother would also end up back as slaves, most likely. It was this which decided him. He muttered, ‘What the hell!’ under his breath and pulled the trigger of the ungainly weapon which he was wielding.
Harker’s first impression was of the terrific din which the weapon made; the explosive hammering sounded like an iron foundry at work. He was also aware that for all the size of the gun, Abigail had been quite correct; there was very little recoil. He’d braced the stock against his shoulder as he would any rifle, but there’d been little need. Then he recollected what he’d been told and, keeping the trigger depressed, he turned the gun through a narrow curve, trying to cover all the men. As he fired, the used brass cartridges flew out of the side of his weapon; ejected by some mechanism, presumably. Abruptly, silence fell. He was seemingly out of ammunition. Instinctively, he ducked his head down, fearful of the firing which must inevitably come in reply to his own shots. There was nothing. He peeped over the board and was astonished to see that all the men and half the horses appeared to be dead. The scene didn’t make any sense to Harker. Surely, he alone could not have wrought such devastation with just this one weapon? The surviving horses wandered aimlessly about and even at that distance, he could hear the whinnying of the injured animals, mingling with the groans and cries of what he supposed must be wounded men.
Abigail Tyler was beside herself with glee, which Harker found distasteful. She cried, ‘First field test! Just look what it achieved. Thought I was exaggerating or bluffing did they? Well sir, I guess they’ll be obliged to own as they were wrong after this.’
‘Hush up now,’ said Harker, more than a little scandalised, ‘It ain’t fitting to carry on so when men have died. Show some respect.’
‘Fiddle-de-dee, but you’re a delicate one and no mistake. I didn’t have you pegged for a man who’d behave so.’
‘It’s a fearful thing to kill a man, no matter if it’s in battle or anywhere. Those men fired on me, which made this defence in a manner of speaking, but that don’t mean I’m glorying in what I done.’
The woman had the grace to look a little sober at these words and said defensively, ‘Well, they were dirty slavers, weren’t they?’
‘They were fellow beings,’ said Harker, ‘Whatever else they might o’ been.’
When they realised that the fighting was over and they weren’t about to be dragged back into captivity, Jemima and Pompey came out from behind the rocks. Harker said, addressing his words both to all of the others, ‘Stay here a spell, while I go and see what’s what.’ He saw that Abigail Tyler was disposed to argue the point and he raised his hand, saying, ‘No, I don’t know if any of those men are just wounded. All of you wait here.’
Once he reached the site of what Harker could only, in his own mind at least, term a massacre, he found that one of the men he had shot was still alive. He went over to see what could be done. As he walked towards the wounded man, he kept a weather-eye out for any sign that the fellow might be about to gun him down, but he looked in too grave a condition for anything of the kind.
The first thing which Jed Harker observed when he came close to the injured rider was the terrible nature of his wounds. His right arm was all but severed, hanging off by a few shreds of muscle and he had a gaping hole in one of his legs. It looked to Harker as though death from blood loss could not be long delayed. He crouched down beside the man, who was probably younger than he himself, and said, ‘Is there aught I can fetch, to ease you?’
‘No, I’m shot to pieces,’ came the reply, in a distinctive Virginia drawl, ‘You took us all.’
‘I’m sorry. It was you or me and I didn’t want to die.’
‘No, I see that,’ said the dying man, a crooked smile on his lips, ‘But it comes to us all. Have you a canteen? I’m powerful thirsty.’
By the time Harker had returned from one of the dead horses with a canteen, the man had died. Looking around at the bodies of horses and riders, he was amazed at the sheer amount of damage to flesh and blood that the gun he had used on them had caused. Instead of neat holes, the flesh of both riders and mounts was torn and shredded. The only injuries of this nature he’d seen in the past had been where artillery had been used. Harker turned over all the bodies and examined them carefully. Then he went back to the wagon, where the others were waiting. He said, ‘Miss Tyler, would you mind telling me one or two things about this business, such as how such harm has been caused. I seen a heap o’ injuries from musket balls, but never the equal of this. It looks like these men were caught in a hail of canister-shot.’
‘The ball is made special. Each has a gram of black Hercules decanted into it. You know what I talk of?’
‘No, I haven’t the least notion, but we’d best start movin’ again and talk as we go. I think we arranged it so that you’d drive the oxen, ma’am,’ Harker said, turning to Jemima, ‘Pompey, you can help your ma, maybe hold the baby or something of the sort. Me and Miss Tyler have one or two things to discuss, so we’ll walk a way off, if it’ll cause no offence.’
Once they were on their way again, Harker remarked, ‘What’s this black something of which you spoke?’
‘Black Hercules. It’s nitro-glycerine, but stabilised. You use black powder to soak it up, till it’s a sticky liquid like porridge. The ball explodes when it hits something.’
‘You dreamed this up?’
‘Not the black Hercules, they use it for blasting on the railroads, but the idea o’ putting it in the bullets is mine.’
Hi Simon - you often tell us in your videos that you are an “elderly man” - as you write so clearly about the Wild West , are you sure you didn’t experience it personally?? 😀😀 as with Teeside Man above, really enjoying this one.
I don't normally read fiction, but am really enjoying this and look forward to each new chapter - really an excellent read - thanks.