Whatever Martin was going to say next was lost in the agonized cry that rang out over the stead. Entigh had found the bodies on his own, or been shown them by some idiot who should have known better.

“NOOO!” the old man wailed.

“Move!” Martin told Watkins as he strode past him toward the old hog shed. “And get these gottdamn’ yard lights lit!”

Hendrel Entigh was up and charging across the yard by the time Martin had made it halfway to the shed. He was fumbling with one of the pirates’ strange rifles as he moved, trying to figure out the controls.

“Henry!” Martin shouted peremptorily as the old man neared.

Entigh turned to him, glaring angrily, tears streaming from his eyes, but didn’t stop his rush. Instead, he threw down the strange black rifle and made a grab for Martin’s Thompson. “Give me that!” he sobbed.

“No.”

“I mean it, Martin,” the old man laid hands on the weapon. “They killed my grandson and they’re going to pay for it!”

Martin didn’t even try to struggle for control of the heavy weapon. He just torqued it around and bounced the heavy walnut stock off of Entigh’s chin.

Entigh reeled backwards and hit the ground, raising a dust cloud with his rump.

“Gottdamnit, Martin,” he raged through a bloodied lip. “Didn’t you hear me?” “They killed Rolly! They killed him! He was only fifteen years old and they shot him dead! They deserve to die! Every last one of them!”

Martin held his empty hand out to help his old friend to his feet, but Entigh just batted it away.

“You aren’t the man to do this, Henry,” Martin said calmly, ignoring the gesture, his hand still out. “It’ll ruin you.”

“You think I can’t—?” Henry blustered. “I’ve killed men before! You were there!”

“In battle,” Martin pointed out. “When they were trying to kill you. This is different and you know it.”

Entigh shook his head, trying to clear his vision, for the clout Martin had fetched him with the buttstock had been authoritative.

“No!” he sobbed. “No! You know what I was!” his right hand pressed in at the depression of the old, ugly burn scar on his chest.

“You never were, Henry,” Martin told him flatly. “You played at it, sure, but you weren’t ever like them any more than you were ever like me.” His arm was still out, offering.

“I was—”

“You were and are a good man, Henry,” Martin told him. “You’re a builder — a preserver. You’re a family man and a community leader. Those are good things to be, Henry. Be happy that you can be them and leave the butchery to those of us who have it in our natures.

“You gun down those prisoners and it’ll end you in a year, Henry,” he insisted. “Is that what you want? Is that how you’ll honor Rolly’s memory? By destroying yourself and all the good you’ll ever be able to do? By leaving the whole rest of your family without you?”

Entigh was still glaring, but some of the madness was fading from his tear-streaked face.

“The man who ordered the attack is dead,” Martin told him. His second in command is dead. There’s at least a fifty-fifty chance that whoever actually pulled the trigger is also dead. The Crown will have the rest of ‘em dangling from a gibbet within a month. Isn’t that enough?”

It wasn’t. But Entigh finally, grudgingly, took the offered hand and allowed himself to be helped to his feet. He blinked owlishly, his eyes still not working just exactly right, and tried to steer himself forward.

Looking slowly around, rubbing his chin, he saw that every eye in the stead was focused on him and the elder Palin. What were they expecting to happen next?

The sound of an uneven gasoline engine intruded upon the silent scene, growing slowly into the racket of Dr. Singh’s old Vauxhall Cadet saloon bouncing along the ruts of the entry road.

The car had been black at one point — glossy and deep. The color had faded to an indeterminate grey over the course of the years, and the chrome had pitted extensively. The island roads had also taken their toll, and the carriage work was dented here and there. The lens of the left headlight was cracked.

Dr. Singh pulled right up alongside of Martin and Entigh, bringing the old car to a halt amidst a cloud of disturbed dust that rolled slowly over it and the men before settling back to the island’s surface.

“I trust that I am not too late?” Dr. Singh leaned out the driver’s side window.

Martin shook his head. Singh’s nurses were in the back seat of the saloon, and a man he didn’t recognize in the front, beside him. The doctor must have left Plubbetton well before the battle had engaged to have reached the stead so quickly in the Vauxhall.

“I thought Watkins had neglected to ask you along,” he said.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Singh shrugged broadly. “I cannot answer for the foolishness of others,” he said airily. “I can only do what I feel must be done. There was to be a confrontation, and that meant that there would likely be injury. Should I remain behind in the town far from the need? I am a doctor after all.”

The nurses and the strange man were already sliding out of the car and rummaging around in the boot for the gear they’d brought along. Martin sent them along to the wounded prisoners with a chuck of his chin.

To the doctor, he said, “I think you might want to look in on Mrs. Pascal, Doc.”

Singh’s face clouded. “She has been injured?” he asked anxiously.

“Widowed,” Martin replied.

“Ah.” And he reached for his black bag on the seat beside him.

Henry was already reaching for the handle to open the door for him. He ushered the doctor towards the house.

Dar hobbled up beside his father as he watched the two men hustle towards the farmhouse.

“Pop?” Dar said blearily. “Pop? I—”

Martin barely caught him as he pitched forward. “Doctor!” Martin’s voice rang out.

Dr. Singh spun about and saw what was going on. He hoisted his bag and broke into a run as Martin leaned his son against the fender of the old Vauxhall.

One quick glance was all it took, and Singh was looping Dar’s arm over his shoulder, motioning for Martin to do likewise with his other as they joined their off hands beneath the boy’s rump. “Into the house,” he ordered. “Hendrel! Is there a place we can make the boy comfortable?”

Entigh nodded and motioned for them to follow.

Av raced up at his best speed, but Martin waved him away. “We’ve got it covered, Av,” he said. “I need you to keep things under control out here.”

The old man brought up. “But—!”

“Out here!”

Av scowled, but brought up to pantomime attention, saluting exaggeratedly. “Yessir,” he growled angrily. “You got it sir. Three bags full, sir!”

Still, he didn’t turn until the trio had disappeared into the house. When he did, his face was harder than it had already been, and militia started edging away at his approach. This one they’d already feared, for his reputation was as fierce as it was mysterious.

The yard lights flickered to life, throwing the whole panoply of the battle’s aftermath into sharp, glaring relief, sending the stead yard into a sort of kinetoscope surreality.

Spying Watkins moving away from the generator shed, Av shouted, “You! Milo Watkins! Haul yer skinny ass on over here, boy!”

Watkins raced over, hunched like a child frightened of a scolding, bringing up before the old bandit and saluting sloppily. He had no more idea of Av’s rank or position than he’d had of Martin’s, but he recognized overt authority when it battered him about the head and shoulders.

“What’s Marty got your lot doing?” Av demanded.

Watkins filled him in.

“Fine,” Av told him. “And your men are on it?”

“Yessir!” Watkins gulped.

“Good. How many you got left who aren’t doing a gottdamned thing but picking their noses and smoking cigarettes?”

Watkins turned about, scanning the yard and doing some quick math. “Maybe twenty, sir.” he said.

Av nodded. “Okay, here’s what I want you to do. Have somebody who knows what they’re doing hitch up a hay wagon and get it on out here. Coupla saddle hosses too.

“Then get you some rope — there’s probably plenty of it in the hoss barn. Get you a mess of baling wire from the machine shed. We’re gonna string these prisoners out on a catch line.”

“A what, now?” Watkins asked.

Av sighed. “You tie each man’s hands together and string them to a long rope,” he explained impatiently. “One after the next about four feet apart. Wrap the wrist loops around with baling wire so’s they don’t get any notions to untie ‘em.

“Tie off the front of the rope to the back of the hay wagon and the back of it to a cow pony with a good rider aboard.”

Watkins nodded, but kept standing there.

“You waitin’ for something?” Av demanded impatiently.

Watkins’ ears reddened and he bolted, shouting orders to less scary men than the old timer with the Thompson.

Av oversaw the tying off of the prisoners, Thompson at the ready. He nodded approvingly as the hay wagon trundled out into the yard behind its team of draft horses. He waited until the string of sullen prisoners was tied off before addressing Watkins again.

“Okay, get them two or three non-walking wounded up in the back of the wagon. No, don’t ask the other prisoners for help, just do it.”

With that done, he strolled over to where the pirate doctor and Lieutenant Jaeger were still huddled over the bootsmann. “He stable enough to move yet?” he asked almost casually.

The doctor glared up at him and shook his head angrily. “He shoult be in hospital,” he grated.

Av shrugged. “He should be in the grave, but we’re being charitable tonight, I guess. Lemme rephrase. Is he more likely to survive if we put him up on that wagon or if I let some light in through his skull with this here Tommygun?”

The doctor nearly choked on his indignation, but got himself under control. “He vill propaply die eizer vay,” he fumed.

Av nodded and waved for a couple of militia to hustle over and lift the groaning man, cautioning them to have a care with the ruined legs, which the doctor had splinted for all the good it would do. Belatedly, Av reached over and sliced the bootsmann’s tunic and undershirt. He whistled. Five stars. Lower initiate of the inner circle, by God! Jackpot!

“You,” he turned to one of the men who’d been carrying the wounded man. “What’s your name?”

“Flynn, Sor,” the militiaman said more or less calmly. He looked like a laborer and a brawler — one of the Irish roughnecks who worked the docks. A hard specimen with a cauliflower ear and crooked, mashed nose.

“This guy dies,” Av ordered, “shoot the doctor.”

Flynn’s eyes flared, but his face remained closed. “Aye, Sor. Shoot th’ doctor.” he patted the revolver stuffed in his belt. “T’death, Sor? ‘Er just—?”

“To death,” Av caught the doctor’s glare out the corner of his eye. He wouldn’t put it past the man to murder the bootsmann now that he realized his captors understood what he was. Hopefully, he wasn’t dedicated enough to commit suicide doing it.

Av waited until both men and the young lieutenant were up in the bed of the wagon and Flynn had removed his revolver and settled it in his lap, finger laying alongside the trigger guard. He nodded and turned away.

Homer Parsons was wandering in through the allox gate with his big double over his shoulder, slung barrels first like a hobo’s possibles stick, his wrist draped over the muzzles and the heavy cartridge belt dangling from the stock behind him. His smile was as innocent and happy as though he’d been out hunting doves for supper rather than blowing men off the deck of an airship from nine hundred yards away.

Av smiled. There was the last puzzle piece he needed. “Homer!” he cried happily.

“Av!” Homer called back, laughing. “You allus throw the dangedest parties! Where’s the beer?”

The two old timers shook hands. Homer was surveying the stead yard critically, reading the story of the battle as though it were written down in a book.

“Homer,” Av asked. “You remember that cave where I keep my hosses when there’s a big storm due?”

Homer nodded. “I b’lieve so,” he said. “That one up the cul de sac out behind your place? Where we got that big roc that one time was feeding offa old man Hardigan’s stock?”

“That’s the place,” Av said. “Think you can get this lot up there without taking any main trails,” he motioned to the wagon with its string of prisoners.

“Sure,” Homer told him. “Why?”

Av shrugged. “Let’s just say that I want to ask them some questions before I let RN have them,” he said. “And the fewer folks know I have them or where, the more likely that is to happen.”

“Ah,” Homer nodded. “No main trails and nobody seein’ us. That’s a mite trickier, but I guess I c’n do ‘er.”

“Milo!” Av turned back to the militiaman. “Get somebody to saddle a hoss fer Homer!”