Airship Hunters Read Online Free PDF Page B

other,” Wellington said. “You’ll be working together.”
    Valiantine frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, sir.”
    The major produced an odd smile.
    “Agent Cabot is your new partner, Lieutenant.”

 
     
    BROKEN
    Duane Spurlock
     
    June 1897
     
    R ash Howard’s only impulsive moment was when he proposed marriage. In all other matters, he was careful and methodical, patient and slow. In this way he faced nature’s deviltries and worked a farm outside the community of Broken Toe, Kansas.
    Today he drove a wagon pulled by a spotted mule to the home of Mrs. Brecker and her son, Sam. The widow and boy kept a small farm with a few pigs and chickens and a garden big enough to provide for their needs plus excess for selling to neighbors and bartering for goods in Broken Toe.
    Five days ago Rash had looked up from sawing a log to see Sam Brecker facing him. The Breckers lived about five miles from the Howards. The ten-year-old had come to tell him his mother had a new milk cow that produced more than the two could use, and the Howards and other neighbors were invited to purchase the overflow.
    “Mr. Howard, you never saw such a cow for making milk,” Sam gushed. “Ma could probably make enough butter for the whole county if she had the time.”
    Sam had chattered about the cow. A man had arrived at the Brecker farm with the cow, had convinced Mrs. Brecker to trade her old cow in exchange for the new cow.
    Sam’s eyes shone. “And he threw in a gold coin, to boot!”
    This transaction sounded odd to Rash. But perhaps Sam didn’t have all the details straight.
     
    The Brecker homeplace—a soddy dwelling, a sod-and-timber out-building, a fenced-in pig lot—came into sight. Rash knew the widow and her son were pressed to work hard, and the place showed the results: the house and grounds were tidy. Flowers bloomed in the soddy’s door yard, and the garden patch behind the house was weed free.
    Rash drove the wagon closer.
    Something looked wrong.
    The pig lot was empty. Not a chicken was in sight. There was no sign of the remarkable cow.
    Rash neither hastened nor slowed the mule as he approached. As he pulled up before the soddy, he twisted his neck and surveyed the empty lot and yard.
    Rustlers? Rash saw no obvious signs of violence.
    The woman and boy—where were they?
    Rash listened. The silence seemed unusual on what should have been a working farm. So much so, Rash heard the slight noise of the mule flicking one of its long ears.
    “Hello!” he called out. He winced at the sound of his voice cracking the silence.
    No response.
    Rash stepped to the ground. He hesitated at the door, listening still. He knocked; no response. Then he reached and opened the door.
    Rash was not a man who rushed. But he was light on his feet, and if he needed to hurry, he could move quickly.
    When Rash saw the interior of the soddy, he whipped around and ran toward the wagon. Fast as he could.
    He wasn’t fast enough.
     
    When, in the summer of 1800, the capital of the United States moved from Philadelphia to Washington at the direction of President John Adams, only one building in the District of Columbia was ready for use: the Treasury Building.
    The building had been the site of much activity since then. It was nearly destroyed by fire within six months of its first occupants’ arriving. The British razed it during the War of 1812, and another fire consumed its replacement in 1833. The new building the government eventually constructed was occupied by troops during most of the Civil War. President Andrew Johnson used the site for his offices to allow President Lincoln’s widow time to grieve before she moved from the White House.
    Such volatile situations were not present this day. Instead, a minor firestorm of rumor swept through a small suite of offices on the second floor.
    Three men—each in the neighborhood of the age of thirty years—appeared to busy themselves in the large room that served both as an open