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

cry out and warn Anderson that the flying machine was close, but he was very much afraid that he would be rewarded by a bullet from the old man’s Sharp and stayed silent.
    Moments later Anderson, wearing overalls and a red plaid shirt, stepped onto his deck. He stared at the sky for a moment and then rushed back inside.
    Zedock Briscoe would say later that it was Anderson’s hatred of blacks that killed him. If he’d dared yell out to him, the man might have been able to jump into the water and swim clear.
    The dirigible was over the cabin and something dropped from the gondola. The missile looked like a large cannonball, but it had a fuse that smoked as it tumbled downward. Zedock heard the bomb crash through the cabin’s roof. A few moments ticked past and then the cabin exploded with a deafening roar. A sheet of flame erupted into the air and broken spars of wood and flying fragments of metal splashed into the waters of the bayou, churning up the surface.
    Zedock had closed his eyes and now he opened them again. The cabin’s walls had been blown out and the roof had landed yards away among the cypress. Smoke rose from the flattened cabin and scattered flames fluttered like scarlet moths on pieces of charred wood that spiked at crazy angles from the wreckage.
    If there was anything left of Obadiah Anderson it was not evident.
    Stunned, Zedock watched the dirigible chatter around the destroyed cabin a few times and then fly south. He didn’t move from his spot until he was sure the craft was gone.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    Sam Flintlock had just finished a dinner of boiled trout and some kind of swamp vegetable when a knock came to the door and a moment later O’Hara stepped inside.
    â€œWhere the hell have you been?” Flintlock said.
    â€œScouting,” O’Hara said. “Seen stuff. Done stuff.”
    â€œWhat kind of stuff?”
    O’Hara, who’d swapped his headband for a top hat stuck all around with white feathers, ignored that and said, “Evangeline, black man outside to see you. He says it’s important.”
    Alarmed, Flintlock grabbed his Colt from the table but O’Hara said, “Says his name is Zedock Briscoe. Do you know him?”
    â€œYes, I know him,” Evangeline said. “Put your gun down, Sam. It was Zedock’s fish you just ate.”
    â€œHe refuses to come inside,” O’Hara said.
    â€œI’ll talk to him from the deck,” Evangeline said. She wore a black casual dress that ended midway down her thighs and knee-high boots. “Zedock doesn’t trust witches at close quarters.”
    Flintlock followed the woman outside, the Colt in his waistband, but O’Hara sat at the table and poured himself coffee.
    Zedock stood in his pirogue, a lantern casting a halo of orange light at the bow. Around him the swamp lay in moonlight and mist.
    The black man spoke in a rush. “Obadiah Anderson is dead, Miz Evangeline. A bomb fell from the sky and blew him up and it was the flying machine and—”
    â€œMr. Briscoe, slow down,” Evangeline said. “Take a deep breath and then tell me what happened. Obadiah is dead, you say.”
    â€œYes, Miz Evangeline,” Zedock said. “Seen it with my own two eyes.” A fish leapt out of the water near the man’s canoe and he jumped and looked around him.
    After a few moments to recover from his fright, he told Evangeline what had happened while he watched from the cover of the tupelo.
    â€œAnd you’re sure Obadiah is dead?” Evangeline said.
    â€œHe was inside the cabin when the bomb came down,” Zedock said. “I got to be moving on now, Miz Evangeline. The loup-garou are out, heard them howling at the moon. It ain’t good for Christian folks to be abroad when the loup-garou howl, no.”
    As the black man punted away, O’Hara came out onto the deck, a coffee cup in his hand. “I killed two men today,” he said.