Story: "Steam and Grit"

"Give me what I want, and no-one gets hurt."

"I know that voice." Marshall Calhoun swiveled on the barstool. "Silas McReady. Ol' Lead Heart."

"In the flesh."

"Been a while."

"Fifteen years, Ethan. Long time."

"What's with the gun, Silas?"

"Wanted to start this off on the right foot. Heard you've turned lawman now, Ethan. You were a quick draw back then, fifteen years ago, and from what I hear you're quicker now. Still don't think you're as quick as me, but I'm not anxious to find out. So, figured I'd get the draw on you from the get-go. And then there's this, my ace in the hole. Bring her in, Cookpot."

The saloon doors swung open and Cookpot — a tall, broad-shouldered, blonde, bearded man — entered, his left arm around the neck of fourteen-year-old Annabelle Pinion, his right holding a Colt Cog Action Army .45 pointed at her head.

"Heard tell this little one is special to ya, Ethan," Silas said. "Near to an adopted child, is what I hear. Like you were to me, back when."

Annabelle was short, flat-faced, buck-toothed, wore her hair in long braids under a man's Stetson several sizes too large, and she had something wrong with her eyes so she had to use powerful goggles to read, reading being her favorite pastime. Since she wasn't reading at the moment, the goggles were perched up on the hatband.

"You doing alright, Annabelle?" Calhoun asked, voice steady, but there was a thickness in his throat.

"Yes, Marshall Calhoun, sir, he hasn't hurt me none, as of yet, though I can't say I like the looks of things."

Marshall Calhoun stood up from the barstool, hands held up at shoulder height, palms towards Silas.

Ethan "Iron Hand" Calhoun was tall, slim, with narrow eyes in a narrow face. He wore all black, except for the red kerchief around his neck. On his right hand, his gun-hand, he wore a mechanized glove, clockwork-powered for fast-action shooting. His left hand was bare, and he was missing his left ring-finger.

The man Calhoun was facing, Silas "Lead Heart" McReady, was shorter by a head, and in contrast to Calhoun's jet-black hair, Silas's lead-gray shag was threaded throughout with silver strands, his weatherworn face creased and wrinkled with skin tough and worn as old boot-leather. But he had the same narrow eyes as his once-near-adopted 'son', the same intense stare, the same at-the-ready gunman's stance.

"So, what do you want, Silas?"

"Treasure."

"Then you've come to the wrong place, old man. Gearsville's full of dust, but it ain't gold-dust."

"You know what, you always were a straight shooter. So, I believe you don't even know," Silas said. "But I know. Believe me, there's treasure in this town, and, what's more, I know where it is. We're gonna take a walk down Main Street to the clocktower, get that treasure, and then head right out of here in the airship we just sailed in on."

"Treasure, in the clocktower? News to me."

"It's there alright. You're coming with me, Ethan, just so there'll be no trouble until we leave." Silas turned. "Cookpot, we're bringing the girl too."

"What about that one?" Cookpot pointed to the grizzled codger slumped at the end of the bar, the only other patron in the saloon at this early hour, nine in the morning. "Hey, ol' timer, what's your name?"

The old man stood up from his bar-stool. With his left hand, he smoothed down his rumpled shirt and vest, ran a hand through his unkempt white mane of hair and over his bushy beard. In his right hand, he still clutched his whiskey. His watery, unfocused blue eyes peered in Cookpot's direction.

"Who's askin'?" he slurred.

"I'm askin', ol' timer. What's your name?"

"Phineas Cogsworth. Folk 'round here just call me Phin."

"The town drunk, huh?"

"Mr. Cogsworth is an inventor." It was the tinny, metallic voice of the automaton who was tending the bar.

"An inventor?" Silas said. "This one? What did he invent?"

"He made me, for one," said the automaton barkeep. "And many other wonderful machines."

"Okay, Inventor Phin, you're coming with us too," Silas said.

"And what about that one?" Cookpot motioned at the clockwork automaton barkeep.

"Cog-boy stays," Silas said. "Don't care for his kind anyhow. You're gonna keep quiet, right, Cog-boy, lest your betters get hurt?"

"Yes sir," the automaton said in its tinny, metallic voice, fixed grin engraved on its steel features, eyes two shining blue gems. "Please don't hurt anyone, sir."

"Now, give me your gun, Ethan," Silas said. "Nice and slow. No quick moves. I've got my finger on the trigger, and it might twitch if I get startled."

* * *

"I know it's here," Silas said.

They were in the clocktower at the end of Main Street. Cookpot was standing guard outside, and a twitchy, freckled redhead desperado had joined Silas to watch over Marshall Calhoun, Annabelle, and Phin while Silas searched the place.

On the ground floor of the clocktower, the room was bare, except for two dusty old chairs upholstered in green velvet, each on one side of a large portrait of Alexander Gearhart, the founder of Gearsville, with his neatly trimmed moustache and his iconic monocle and top hat.

"I was told," Silas said, "that I should take a closer look at the painting." He peered at the portrait, then grabbed a hold of the frame and lifted the picture down off the wall.

Something fell out of the back of the painting, a glint of gold as it rolled on its edge across the floor, landing at the tip of Phin's left boot. Phin deftly stepped on it, hiding the item. Neither Silas nor the freckled redhead had noticed — they were too busy staring at what had been hidden behind the painting.

"See, I told ya!" Silas said. "A safe!"

This was an older model safe, one that used a key, rather than a combination lock.

"Guess you need to find that key next," Marshall Calhoun said.

"Nah, this one I can blow easily," the redhead said. "All I need is some gunpowder. And it just so happens, I brought some along." He guffawed.

Sure enough, in less time than it would take to recite the twenty-third psalm and the Lord's prayer three times at a decent pace, the freckled redhead blew the safe open.

Inside they found a good sized chest, about two feet long, a foot deep, and a foot-and-a-half tall. It was padlocked, but Silas fixed that in no-time, jimmying the lock with a crowbar.

They all gathered around as Silas opened the lid, to find that the chest contained ...

... nothing!

"I guess the joke's on you," Calhoun said. "Someone musta gotten to it first, and then just put it back again empty, whaddaya say?"

"I say something's not right here," Silas drew his gun and pointed it at Marshall Calhoun. "I say you've been playing me all along, Ethan."

Calhoun raised his hands. "Now hold on, Silas. You said yourself that I was a straight shooter. I didn't know it was here, honest. Look at the dust and cobwebs on the wall where the picture used to hang. This is the first time in a really long time that anyone got to that safe."

"Well, then, we'll just have to find some other treasure," Silas said. "We'll round up the Gearsville citizenry and see what they can contribute, rob your bank, and then torch the whole damn town. What do you think of that, Ethan?"

"I say that's rotten."

"Well, that's what you think of me, ain't it? Wasn't that the last thing you said as you rode off back then, fifteen years ago? That I was rotten to the core? Well I'll prove you right, son. I'll show you just how rotten I can be. Let's get outta here!"

* * *

Outside on Main Street, the gang's big airship was tethered to the clocktower, hovering a few feet above the street, ready to take off on moments notice, a ramp extended to the ground.

In front of the airship there were nine steam-powered horses with Cookpot and six other desperadoes mounted.

The freckled redhead stepped into the stirrup of the nearest of the two riderless steam-horses, swung his leg over the horse's back and settled in the saddle.

Off in the distance, a man approached, walking slowly down Main Street.

Silas leveled his gun, then relaxed as the 'man' came closer and he could see that it was the automaton barkeep.

"What're you doing here, Cog-boy," Silas said. "Who's mindin' the bar?"

The automaton barkeep ignored Silas and addressed Marshall Calhoun:

"I made all the arrangements, sir, according to your standing instructions. The town is at the ready."

"Thank you, Joe," Calhoun said, then brought his fingers to his lips and let out a loud whistle.

The rooftops suddenly sprouted rifle barrels all around. The clockwork ratcheting of Winchester auto-repeaters echoed.

"Here's the deal, Silas," Marshall Calhoun said. "Three options. Number one: I can give the signal and the townfolk up on the roofs will light up on you and your men. Or, number two: you can just take the easy way out and head up the ramp to your airship."

"That's two options," Silas said. "What's the third?"

"Back there in the bar you said you think you're still a quicker draw than me. Wanna find out once and for all?"

Silas gave him a long look, then smiled. He held out the Marshall's gun.

"Yeah, Ethan," he said. "Let's find out."

* * *

"Any time, Marshall."

They were twenty paces apart, facing each other, right hands hovering over their holstered guns.

"When the clock in the tower strikes ten," Calhoun said.

The clock in the tower began striking, one bell ... two bells ... three bells ...

"You were just a kid, Ethan. I taught you everything."

Four bells .. five bells ...

"You left out the most important part."

Six bells ... seven bells ...

"What's that?"

Eight bells ... nine bells ...

"You never taught me to be a good man. I had to figure that out for myself."

At the tenth strike of the bell, both men drew at blinding fast speed.

* * *

Silas looks so small, Calhoun thought. I remember him being so much bigger, so solid, so strong. This crumpled scarecrow was a frail, broken rag-doll, half the size of the Silas of Calhoun's memory.

Calhoun leaned down, used his left hand, the ungloved one, to feel for Silas's pulse at his neck. Nothing. The fixed stare in the pale blue eyes told the same story, as did the growing bloom of blood soaking the front of Silas's shirt. Dead. Gone.

Calhoun moved his hand from Silas's neck to his eyes, closing both eyelids with thumb and index finger.

Marshall Calhoun stood up, turned around, clockwork six-shooter still in his mech-gloved right hand.

"It's over," he said, addressing the townsfolk riflemen up on the roof tops as well as Silas's gang down on Main Street, the eight desperadoes on their steam-powered horses.

Calhoun stepped closer to the nearest horseman, the twitchy red-headed, freckled one. Calhoun cocked his gun, and in reply the redhead aimed his six-shooter at Calhoun. On the rooftops twenty rifles took aim at the gang below, the clockwork sound of levers winding up for mechanized repeater-action.

"There's no need for more bloodshed," Marshall Calhoun said. "If you leave now, sail your airship into the big blue, we'll give you free passage, no posse, no-one even needing to know what went down today. You saw it, the treasure chest was empty, so there's nothing for you here. Silas had the wrong information, is all. Silas is dead. And I'll give him a good burial. There was a time when I loved the man, and there's still a fair bit of love for him left in me. Let it go. Leave now. I'll put him in the ground."

"Eat dirt," the redhead said, gun still leveled at the Marshall's head. "You think you can get away with gunning down Ol' Lead Heart like that? No way. There's one of you and eight of us, and I don't believe that gaggle of hick-birds up on the rooftops could hit the side of a barn. For all we know they're pointing broomsticks at us, and winding alarm clocks, pretending to have cog-rifles."

The big, blonde, bearded man, the one Silas had called Cookpot, rode up, clockwork-horse puffing steam.

"The Marshall is right, Freckles," Cookpot said to the freckled redhead. "It was a fair fight. The Marshall outdrew and outgunned Lead Heart, that's the way of it. He's dead and gone, there ain't no treasure, and nothin' good comes from getting into a gunfight with these hick townies." He squinted up at the rifle barrels poking from the roof-tops all around, then yelled: "We're leaving. You hear? Your Marshall promised us free passage, and we'll take it."

The eight men rode off to the airship, up the ramp, which closed behind them. The airship released its grapple hook tether from the clocktower, lifted off, and soon became a smaller and smaller dot in the big, blue sky.

* * *

"See here's the thing!" Phin cackled. "It ain't so empty as you think, Marshall, this treasure chest. Lookie here, will-ya!?"

The wiry, grizzled old man held up the golden cogwheel they had found behind the portrait in the clock tower.

"This is the key," he said. "I mean, Marshall, it's literally the key. Let me show you."

Phin fiddled with the golden cogwheel, inserting it between the two other cogwheels at the bottom of the empty treasure chest.

Nothing happened.

Phin scratched his neck. "Well, I'll be durned. I was so sure."

"Needs a power source," Annabelle said. "And we have a great big one right outside, a white ball of hot fire up in the big blue."

They dragged the treasure chest out of the clocktower and into Main Street.

Annabelle took off her reading-goggles and used the lenses to concentrate the sun's rays to a bright dot which she aimed at the dull-gray jewel in the middle of the golden cogwheel.

The dull, gray jewel turned green, and the golden cogwheel began turning in a strange pattern, forward once, backward once, then forward twice, then backwards three clicks, then forward five clicks, then backwards eight clicks, then forward thirteen clicks.

"It's the Fibonacci sequence," Annabelle said as the cogwheel kept clicking backwards and forwards. The last was a long run of clicks.

"He's goin' for eighty-nine clicks this time," Phin said. "That's the next in the sequence, right, Annabelle?"

Annabelle nodded, just as the cogwheel reached that final click.

With a thunk and the grind of hinges that had not been oiled for a very long time, the whole bottom of the empty treasure chest swung open.

Inside the false bottom they found a leather-bound book and two rolled up documents.

"This ... " said Phin, "looks familiar."

While Annabelle unrolled the documents, which were blueprints of a complicated machine, Phin opened the book.

"Well, I'll be durned," he said. "I do believe I wrote this my own self."

"You," Marshall Calhoun said. "You wrote this, Phin? You hid this away in this complicated way? For Cog's sake, man, why?"

"I don't rightly know, Marshall," said Phin. "You see, when the whiskey-demon got me and I began losing my marbles, I started doing stupid shit, like burn my books, destroy my machines, or so they say. Me, I can't recall much of those days. This must have been awfully important, if I went through all this trouble to hide it from myself, being that it's the only thing that remains of all I wrote and most of all the machines I made back when I was in my right mind. Yup, musta been pretty, pretty important."

"Important?" Annabelle said, looking up from the blueprints. "You can say that again. Do you know what this is?"

"No, ma'am, I don't." Phin shook his head.

"It's the blueprints for a machine that would create unlimited power in the same way the sun does, except not hot," Annabelle said. "It's cold-sun-power. I don't know what else to call it. It's everything we could ever want. Why'd you not make this machine, Phin?"

"I remember now," Phin said, "the reason I hid this away."

"Yeah?" Marshall Calhoun said. "Why?"

"Because I was afraid of it," Phin said. "It's everything we want, that's true, but it comes with a terrible cost. You see, this machine can either make unlimited power, clean power, free power for everyone, or ... "

"Or?" Annabelle looked closer at the blueprint. "Oh," she said. "I see it. This machine could also be a bomb."

"The biggest bomb anyone ever made," Phin said. "So big that it could destroy a whole city, so big that in the hands of the wrong people, it could destroy the world."

"Put it all back," Calhoun said.

"But ... " Annabelle looked at him.

"It's too much power," Calhoun said. "We're not ready to wield the power of the sun. Not now. Maybe never. We'll play at being God and end up going to the Devil."

She sighed. "You're right."

"But what do we do with the chest?" Phin said. "That Freckles guy blew the safe to smithereens."

"We couldn't put it back there anyhow," Calhoun said. "Someone knew it was there. Maybe someone you told, Phin, back when you'd lost your marbles, who knows. I'll find a place to bury the chest, somewhere only I'll know." He held up the golden cogwheel. "And you, Phin, go find a place to hide this, somewhere only you'll know."

"Okay." Phin took the cogwheel.

"One day," Calhoun said. "Probably not in my lifetime, but maybe it'll be your grandchildren, Annabelle, who make a world where it's safe to share the secret of the sun."

— THE END —

The story was inspired by this Reedsy.com writing prompt:

 Your character gets everything they ever wanted — only to realize the true cost.

https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts