Kill or Die by William W. Johnstone Read Free Book Online Page A

Ritter’s technicians he had goggles pushed up onto his forehead. “I ask you to allow me to start up my steam pumps, all of them. We can drain the swamp right out from under the miscreants. When their cabins are high and dry, surrounded by mud, dying fish and hungry alligators we’ll soon be rid of them.”
    Ritter ran a hand through his short hair, thinking. He was a small, compact man and as tough as they come and mean as a curly wolf. A ruthless employer, he’d once owned a textile mill near Savannah but the place burned down in the winter of 1878, killing eighty-three women and girls, and he’d left Georgia in a hurry. “How long to get the pumps up and running?” he said.
    â€œTwo weeks if we drain right directly into the Sabine,” Byng said. “If we empty into the Gulf a week longer, depending on how fast the steam shovels can cut us a channel.”
    â€œThen we’ll use the Sabine,” Ritter said.
    â€œWe can expect localized flooding of farmlands,” Byng said.
    â€œLike I give a damn,” Ritter said. “I want those pumps started, working night and day. Let’s get this show on the road.”
    Byng rose to his feet. “I’ll get on it right now.”
    â€œGood man,” Ritter said. The engineer stooped to go through the tent flap, but Ritter stopped him. “By the way, Byng,” he said. “If the pumps aren’t up and running in two weeks I’ll have you shot.”
    Byng said nothing, but his face suddenly paled.
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    Zedock Briscoe had traveled far into the swamp and had pulled his canoe into a patch of relatively dry land thickly covered in tupelo trees, black willow, privet and inkberry. Somewhere among that tangle of growth was a hog that Briscoe badly wanted to shoot. It would keep him, his missus and their five young ’uns in meat for a long time. He’d scouted tracks along the water’s edge and he figured the hog was a monster, an easy three hundred pounds of pork on the hoof and maybe more.
    Zedock lifted his Winchester from the canoe and walked a hundred feet into the trees, then stopped and listened. A feeding wild hog makes considerable noise, but he heard nothing but the buzz of flying insects and the rustle of small, timid things in the undergrowth.
    â€œMister Hog, you come out here now and get acquainted,” Zedock said. He fingered his rifle. “I got something for you.”
    He was greeted by only a chirping, squeaking quiet.
    His footsteps whispering through sun-dried weeds, he stepped farther into the tupelo growth. The air was humid and thick and smelled of smoke, the sort that trickles from a chimney and carries the odor of frying fish and hushpuppies. What Zedock didn’t smell was the musky scent of a hog. His rifle at the ready, he crossed the entire extent of the dry land then stopped at a bayou where a large but run-down cabin on high stilts stood about fifty yards away.
    Zedock Briscoe knew the cabin well but avoided it like the plague. The place belonged to a trapper by the name of Obadiah Pendred Anderson, a cantankerous, some said crazy, old coot who harbored a passionate hatred for blacks. He didn’t like whites much either, but reserved his special loathing for those of the Negro persuasion. A canvas tarp hung between two posts on his deck, painted in red with the words:

    SHARPS BIG .50 SIGHTED
IN AT 100 YARDS
STAY THE HELL AWAY OR GET SHOT

    Anderson had been vocal in his opposition to Brewster Ritter and on a recent trip to Orange for rifle ammunition had threatened to kill the man on sight, a statement heard by many ears.
    It was Zedock’s destiny to witness how swift and brutal Ritter’s retribution could be. As he backed away from the water’s edge, from high above the tree canopy Zedock heard a sound he’d heard before, the heavy drone of Ritter’s dirigible pounding across the sky.
    Zedock stopped in his tracks. He wanted to