Mississippi Raider (25 page)

“
My
gun!”
the inventor croaked, realizing that the intruders were not
aware that he had two of the weapons completed and on the premises.
“I—I don’t know what you me—!”

“
You
lying, profiteering little bastard!” Jervis yelled, so filled with
the exhilaration of having killed with it before entering the
grounds that he strode forward and slammed the knuckle bow of his
bloodstained sword against the side of Burke’s head. “We know all
about it even if we weren’t invited to the show—!”

The words came to a halt as the speaker saw
what the inventor was doing.

Sent to the floor and hurt by the blow, the
hatred he always felt toward men larger and better-favored than
himself forced an involuntary response from Burke.

Spluttering
a profanity, the inventor sent
his right hand swiftly into the pocket of his jacket.

Burke had always believed that
the work on the weapons
was
known only to himself and his assistant, over whom
he exerted a control that made exposure extremely unlikely to have
taken place. Therefore, although he had never considered that an
attempt to steal them would take place, he was aware that the
property would strike thieves as a potentially profitable source
for robbery. With that contingency in mind, he always had a
twin-barreled Derringer pistol suitably sized for concealment and
ease of carriage, in the pocket of his jacket and had acquired
skill in its use.

Like his companions, Jervis was
under the influence of the narcotics they all needed to give them
sufficient courage to put their scheme into practice. This and the
surge of excited elation he had experienced when driving his sword
into the body of one unsuspecting sentry while Whitehead killed the
other caused him to respond swiftly to what he realized was a
threat to his own existence. Screeching an equally profane
exclamation, he went into the kind of lunge he had learned during
lessons at fencing. By chance rather than deliberate intent, before
the Derringer could be brought clear of the pocket, the point
arrived between the inventor
’s skinny ribs on the left side at a point that it
could enter and pierce his heart. His body gave a convulsive jerk
and then went limp.

“
Thank
you, you Yankee
scum!”
said a feminine voice with a Southern accent and redolent
of loathing. “You’ve saved
me
from having to kill him!”

~*~

Despite the solution to the
threat posed by the weapon she had seen in operation that Belle
Boyd had made to Captain Stone Hart, she had had no liking for the
thought of what carrying it out would entail. Nevertheless, being
able to envisage how great would be the slaughter when examples
were manufactured in numbers and employed against members of the
Confederate States Army, she had steeled her resolve and had every
intention of removing the threat by the means suggested. As a sop
to her conscience and with the approval of both Texans when she
told them what she hoped to achieve, she said they would burn down
wherever the device and its ammunition were being kept along with
its inventor, but would not try to find the plans that could be
used for producing more
of them in the South. Ever a realist, Sergeant
Waggles Harrison had claimed it was most unlikely that their people
possessed the specialized machinery that would be required to
manufacture either the mechanisms or ammunition and he would hate
like hell for foreigners to learn how to do so, even if they were
willing to supply the finished products to the Confederacy. The
girl had found an added solace from the comment.

Remaining in the area from which the
undiscovered observation of the demonstration was carried out until
the sun went down, Belle and her companions had made their way to a
small cabin in another wooded area, where she had arranged for a
rendezvous with Doctor Fritz Conried. When she had asked whether it
was prudent for him to come, he had assured her that he could leave
Glissade without arousing any suspicions. He had established a
reputation for taking an occasional night away from his duties to
indulge in his genuine hobby of fishing; he preferred to do so
alone, on the grounds that it let him get away from people and the
problems of their health, which they invariably insisted upon
describing in the hope of obtaining free advice.

On being told what had been
seen and was intended, Conried had said Belle had arrived at the
only possible solution. Sensing her feelings of misgivings about
the means to be employed, the doctor had sought to lessen them by
telling of what a thoroughly unpleasant and unlikable person
Christopher Burke was and described his often virulently expressed
bitter hatred for Southrons, which went far beyond feelings of
patriotism and belief in the issues that caused the Union to embark
in the War. Then he said he would remain where he was until he
learned the outcome of the mission. Agreeing with this, the girl
had suggested that she and Stone carry it out while Waggles
remained with Conried. In that way, should they fail and be caught
or killed, the sergeant could take news of this back to Rose
Greenhow and allow further measures to prevent the weapons being
brought into use to be put into effect. The leathery-faced noncom
had been far from
enamored of the part assigned to him, but had grudgingly
accepted it as correct.

Taking only one horse apiece,
as doing so would arouse less suspicion should they
b
e seen than
having two each, Belle
and Stone had set off in accordance with the
information supplied by Conried. Stating that he felt honor-bound
to do so and that its cadet-gray color would not be discernible in
the darkness, the Captain had changed into his Confederate uniform.
Accepting the decision without hesitation or qualms, to allow the
greatest possible ease of movement, the girl was wearing her man’s
black shirt, riding breeches, and boots. Like Stone, she had on the
military weapon belt and its personal armament. However, as the
unusual design of the girl’s
epee de combat
was unlikely to be noticed in the poor
light, it was determined that these would give credence to their
being nothing more than a pair of Union soldiers going about lawful
activity.

Having been told by the doctor what little
to expect by way of defenses, Belle and Stone had settled upon how
they could gain admittance on arrival at the small house. Although
steeled in their resolve over how Burke must be dealt with, neither
had wanted the death of the two sentries added to the toll
regardless of their being nominal enemies. Therefore, they had
elected to make use of the drugged whiskey that had served them so
well against the three Yankee cavalrymen. They found the pair dead
from what had clearly been unexpected thrusts by some kind of edged
weapons, but circumstances had not permitted a sufficiently close
examination to establish what these might be.

However, as the pair felt sure that no other
Confederate supporters had been assigned to perform a similar
mission to their own, they had assumed nothing more than that armed
thieves were responsible for the killing. With that in mind, they
had left their horses with the four already standing hitched to
rings in the walls surrounding the property and advanced on foot.
Having no doubt that they would meet resistance when putting in
their appearance, sharing what they guessed from the corpses was a
reluctance on the part of the men responsible to be a realization
that the use of firearms could attract unwanted attention and
investigation, they had left their revolvers holstered and intended
to rely on cold steel for their protection.

Having heard the conversation that took
place and noticing the obviously Northern accents of the speakers,
Stone finding the reference to the very adverse effect upon Texas
of whatever was planned for using the guns of especial interest, he
and Belle knew that they were not up against other supporters of
the Southern cause regardless of the attire worn by the four men.
However, Belle in particular found the sight of Frederick Jervis
killing the inventor something of a relief, as his death removed
the necessity for her—and she had been determined that it was she,
not the honorable soldier she knew the Texan to be, who must carry
out what was going to be a cold-blooded execution—to do so. In
spite of this, she could not prevent herself from announcing their
presence by making the statement that came as a shock to the men in
the room.

“
Rebs!”
Anthony Whitehead screeched rather than yelled, staring in
an alarm that was duplicated by his companions at the two figures
that came through the door. Stone’s uniform was evidence of where
his loyalties lay in the War Between the States. However, although
offering no such indication of her allegiance, Belle’s snugly
fitting attire established her sex beyond a doubt, and like her
reference to “Yankee scum,” her accent was sufficient to prove that
she, too, was a Southern supporter. “Kill them!”

The same idea had already
struck the other three
“liberals.” Thinking and moving more quickly than
Terence Higgins, for all his insistence upon wearing the stripes of
a sergeant—because he considered himself to be their leader on
account of having thought up the scheme that had brought them to
Burke’s residence—selecting the beautiful slenderly curvaceous girl
on the assumption that she would be the least dangerous of the
intruders, Frederick Jones and Peter Lowe darted toward her.
Arriving at the same conclusion, Whitehead followed them with an
equal alacrity. Much to his perturbation, the tallest of the
quartet found himself left to face the grim-featured Confederate
officer. He possessed some skill at fencing, but soon discovered he
was up against an opponent with even greater skill.

Finding herself being
approached by three men armed with swords, Belle was able to draw
some consolation from the room having been made large enough for
use during the frequently well-attended functions given by the
previous owners. Having no such desire for company, especially when
it would be at his own expense, Burke had had the furnishings
reduced
to
the small table with just two chairs at which he took his meals in
the center, a settee, and a few other small items placed around the
walls. This gave her the room she required to maneuver, and she
began to take advantage of it. What was more, the skill she
possessed was sufficient to prevent her from becoming the easy
victim her attackers believed would prove the case. It quickly
became apparent that none of them even came close to matching her
ability.

Far from finding the girl the
easy prey they had envisaged, the three
“liberals” soon discovered that they
were in contention against an extremely competent antagonist. Not
only did the blade of the
epee de combat
fend off their attempt at striking her,
aided by the trio’s getting into one another’s way in their
eagerness to kill her, she soon found an opportunity to put to use
part of the instruction she had received from Captain Anatol
de-Farge in unfair fighting.

Deftly snapping up her left leg
while beating away the opposing blades, despite its arriving with
much less force than she would have been able to apply under less
pressing conditions, the savate kick that the girl delivered to
Lowe
’s
crotch was sufficient to send him staggering back a few steps,
registering pain without totally incapacitating him. A moment
later, while knocking aside Whitehead’s blade with the side of her
left arm, there was none of the attempts to avoid striking a mortal
blow that had been employed during the fight in her sitting room on
the night her parents died and her home was burned to the ground.
Now, knowing it to be a matter of life or death, she fought with
savage and deadly intent. This showed as she went into a lunge that
sent her own point into Jervis’s left beast. Although this was a
fatal stroke, she realized she would not be able to withdraw the
weapon in time to prevent Whitehead’s resuming the deflected
attack.

Even as Belle was starting to
pull free the
epee de combat,
she received succor. Delivering a close-to-classic
“cut at head” attack that almost severed all the way through its
recipient’s neck, Stone saw her deadly predicament. Allowing the
nearly decapitated body of Higgins to fall aside without giving it
a second glance, knowing no further effort need be expended in that
direction, he darted toward the girl and her attacker. Even as he
was sending the blade of his saber into
Whitehead’s back so its point
inflicted a mortal wound, Lowe returned to the fray.

Although starting from so far
away that only the tip made contact, the Yankee
’s sword tore a gash down the
right side of the Texan’s cheek. An instant later, still not
showing the slightest hesitation in her response or seeking to
soften its effect, she executed a downward “cut at head” and the
last of the quartet met his end. With Belle’s right hand turned in
half pronation, the razor-sharp blade of the
epee de combat
struck the top of
Lowe’s skull. Such was the excellent quality of the steel that it
bit through hair and bone to reach the brain. Killed outright, he
crumpled to the floor and lay without movement. For a moment, with
a shudder shaking Belle’s slender frame and perspiration flowing
freely down her face, the two victors of the fight stood looking
about them to ensure there would be no further need for defense
against the quartet.