Mississippi Raider (24 page)

“
And
then what will happen?”

“
Unless things have changed a heap up here, which I wouldn’t
count on a whole heap, seeing the same kind of thinking’s going on
down in the South, there’ll be some considerable talk about what to
do next before anything is decided.”

“
And
nothing might happen?” Belle inquired, knowing a man’s life could
be at stake as a result of what the answer should be.

“
That’ll depend on how much influence is behind him,” the
Texan judged, noticing the intensity with which the girl was
speaking. “Likely they’ll have the gun sent down for testing and
then decide whether or not to put it into production.”

“
But
dare we take the chance on that damnable thing not being accepted
for some reason?” the girl wanted to know.

“
How
are we going to stop it happening?” Stone inquired.

“
Any
way we can,” Belle replied, and her manner became redolent of
resolve that was chilling in its intensity when coming from one so
beautiful and feminine in every aspect, except for her attire once
again being that of a Union soldier in which she had traveled to
Glissade. “And I don’t rule out killing Burke so he can’t have any
more of them made.”

C
hristopher Burke was in a far from amiable
mood as he sat in the dining room of the small house just beyond
the fringes of Glissade that he had selected as being suitable for
his needs. The house was within a reasonable distance of the
contacts he had established in Washington, yet far enough away to
avoid too close supervision of his efforts and sufficiently
secluded to let him carry out his work in privacy. He had felt the
latter point to be a necessity when he embarked upon the project
that he felt would bring the acclaim he desired and offer the means
to take revenge upon a certain section of the population against
whom he had what a later generation would describe as being a close
to paranoiac hatred. No more than five feet four in height, with
mouse-brown hair allowed to grow long in the hope of hiding the way
it was thinning on top of his dome-shaped skull from being
noticeable, Burke had pale and acne-scarred features that were not
improved by an overlarge hooked nose and a receding chin above a
mouthful of too-prominent teeth. To make him even more
unprepossessing, he was thin with rounded shoulders and bowed legs,
even though he had never ridden a horse to create the effect.
Nevertheless, despite showing evidence of voluntary neglect, the
clothes he was wearing—he had not changed since returning at the
conclusion of the display of his weapon—were costly and cut from
materials of an excellent quality. His wealth was considerable,
having been inherited from a father who combined a brilliant
inventive brain with a shrewd head for business. Unlike his son, he
had produced several devices of such use that royalty payments of a
considerable sum were still regularly forthcoming.

The inability to duplicate his
father
’s
abilities in either direction had soured Burke. The disgruntlement
over repeated failures to create anything worthwhile had been made
worse by the far-from-favorable response that greeted the machine
he had felt sure would pick cotton far more efficiently and cheaply
than was possible by hand. Being treated with derision by some of
those he approached when the problems to which the machine in which
he had such faith was prone were made obvious to the potential
customers had left him with a deep and lasting hatred for all
Southrons, not just those who had done so.

Taking note of the growing
hostility between the
“slave” and “free” states with not a little
satisfaction, although he had no feeling on any of the issues
bringing it about, Burke had turned his attention to how he might
have his revenge upon the supporters of Secession and, by doing so,
also turn a sizable profit his way. Taking note of the rush to
acquire weapons of all kinds in the North, especially those that
offered the potential to allow the killing of numerous enemies in
short periods, he had considered this was the field that could
offer him the most scope and started searching for the means to
become involved.

About nine months earlier, coming into
contact with the metal-cased rounds that were appearing as
replacements for paper cartridges—or loading with an individual
percussion cap, loose powder, and ball—the less-than-successful
inventor had made what he regarded as a most significant
breakthrough in the field of firearms manufacture. This had come
about from buying the secret of a process and the necessary
machinery that allowed brass-cased bullets of a heavier caliber
than those currently available for the revolvers already on the
market, Smith & Wesson being the most prominent maker and
distributor. It had been his intention to patent the process in his
own name, having arranged for the designer to be killed in what was
accepted as being an accident, then offer to supply the bullets to
the major manufacturers of firearms who would have the finance and
means to turn out weapons capable of handling them.

Pure chance had led Burke to
discover how a firearm could be made to carry out the feeding of a
bullet into its chamber, cause it to be discharged, utilize the
kick of the recoil to extract the spent case and cock the action,
and have all ready for its replacement. Delighted to have arrived
at a solution to how he could cause the death of vast numbers of
the hated Southrons
by producing a device that would prove even more
financially successful than anything conceived by his father, he
had had no qualms over investing the large sum of money required
for putting the project into effect.

Burke had also been aware of how others
involved in the firearms-manufacturing business would be all too
willing to copy his product without reimbursing him if they could
avoid it. Therefore, he had decided not to take out patents upon
his innovations. Instead, spreading the orders so that no single
manufacturer could guess the purpose to which the various
components would be put, he had acquired them and built three of
the weapons he envisaged. Although they had all worked, the
mechanism operated for only a short time before the combination of
heat and friction from the moving parts had caused it to
malfunction.

Possessing a devious mind and knowledge of
how government departments functioned, despite having been unable
to arrive at a solution to the malfunctioning because he did not
wish to damage either of the remaining pair of guns while
conducting experiments, Burke had not considered that the problem
would prove insurmountable. Instead, he had felt sure that once
military interest was established, he could arrange a most
lucrative deal with the firearms-manufacturing companies such as
Colt, Remington, Sharps, or even the National Armory at
Springfield, Illinois, to take up a license for carrying out the
large-scale production. When the problems came to light, to avoid
the official bungling in discovering it existed earlier becoming
known, those responsible for it would insist upon whoever the
makers might be to have their technical staff find the answer to
preventing the jamming.

Although an associate in
Washington who was under an obligation to the inventor was
successful in causing a deputation from the Army to attend the
demonstration of his machine gun, he had been far from impressed by
the quality of the officers who attended it. Instead of the
generals he had thought hearing about a weapon of its quality would
bring, there was only a full colonel—and not even one with
experience in warfare as an active participant, which would allow
an appreciation of the firepower it was capable of producing— in
charge of the party. The rest had been majors and captains
also from the
Quartermaster Corps or occupying similar non-combatant positions.
In his opinion, because of their pacific and never-dangerous
occupations, none of them was qualified to render an experienced
judgment on the excellence of his most recent
brainchild.

What was more, clearly being mere
bureaucrats with a disinclination to arrive at decision of any kind
than fighting soldiers, none of the party had expressed more than a
casual interest in the gun. Rather, the colonel had said vaguely
that it could have possibilities and he would report what he had
seen to his superiors for them to make the decision regarding its
future. Finally, when he had made it apparent that they could not
expect any hospitality on his part, the excuse that they must
return to Washington without delay was used for them to take their
departure.

Having returned to the residence he had
rented as offering him the privacy he required for his work, the
inventor had had the gun cleaned and put with the remaining
ammunition in the cellar until he would be allowed to show it
before a more knowledgeable and appreciative audience. Telling his
sole assistant to reload the expended cartridges until it was time
to finish work for the day, never one to part with his money—
although he was still wealthy regardless of his penchant for
developing devices that failed to produce the required results when
put to the test in actual working conditions—he had given
instructions for the man and woman he employed to keep house for
him that he would be staying at home and they could leave after she
had made his evening meal.

With the food gone, Burke was left alone in
the house. However, he had no concern over that. It was, in fact,
the way he preferred to be situated, since he was satisfied that
there was help within call should the need arise. By arrangement
with another of the associates who were financially obligated to
him, he had ensured, that this would be the case. The man was
commanding officer of a volunteer regiment based near the town
while awaiting reaching a strength that would allow them to march
off to war. By claiming he was on important official work the
nature of which he was not at liberty to disclose, the inventor had
had a guard of two men at a time appointed for sentry duty from
sundown to sunrise each day.

Their presence had been organized more as a
sop for his feelings of neglected self-importance than because he
had ever felt protection would be needed. Being of an unsociable
nature, he never invited the men assigned to the task to come
inside the grounds. However, as he had reported and incurred stiff
punishment on a couple who did not stay at their posts, he knew
there would not be a repetition of the breach of duty.

Finishing the drink he had poured as a
nightcap, the inventor was about to go upstairs and retire for the
night when the door to the dining room was thrown open in a violent
fashion. With a sensation of alarm, he realized that the four tall,
lean, and surly-featured young men who entered were wearing the
cadet-gray uniforms of the Confederate States Army, except all were
bare-headed. What was more, the swords held by two of them had
blood smeared along the blades. It did not need any deep thought
for him to know where this had been acquired.

“
Wh-wha-what do you w-want?” Burke gasped, staring with
growing horror from one to another of the quartet who had burst in
upon him.

“
That
gun of yours,” stated the tallest of the four, whose arms bore the
triple bars of a sergeant.

“
We’ve
a far better use for it than those god-damned fools in the Army
would have,” the shortest man claimed, waving his blood-smeared
saber.

“
A
whole lot better,” the third of the intruders supported. “We’re
going to make those bastards in Texas wish they’d stayed under
Mexican rule instead of joining the Union and then selling us out
to the Secessionist scum.”

“
And
that gun of yours is going to do it for us,” the fourth man
asserted.

Listening to what was said
despite his alarm, something began to impinge itself upon
Burke
’s
mind. By the time the last remark was made, he realized what was
wrong. Although the quartet wore uniforms similar to those he had
seen on the few prisoners of war to pass through Glissade, in each
case the accent was that of a Northerner with a reasonable
education. Nor was his assumption incorrect. Not one of them was a
Southern sympathizer, much less a serving member of its Army. In
order of their comments, they were Terence Higgins—in no way
related to the little Cockney housebreaker who had served Belle
Boyd so well—Anthony Whitehead, Frederick Jervis, and Peter
Lowe.

The quartet were members of
the
“liberal” faction who had used political influence to join
the United States Secret Service as being safer than serving with
the Army in the field, but their mission was not known to any of
their superiors, nor—especially where Allan Pinkerton, being a man
of honor and far more efficient in his duties than any of them
could truthfully claim to be, was concerned—had they any wish for
it to be. It was, in fact, a scheme they and a few others of like
persuasion had concocted to strike a serious blow at the people of
the Confederate States, for whom they had a hatred as pronounced as
that of the inventor, albeit founded on even less understandable
reasons. The means they were employing had been selected because
they felt sure no official sanction for what they planned would be
forthcoming; if it became known before its successful completion,
it would present the federal government with a fait accompli.
Filled with the blind hatred of all their kind for everybody who
refused to blindly conform to their ideals and wishes, that the
purpose to which the weapons were to be put would cost the lives of
numerous innocent women and children did not worry any of them in
the least.