Read Online Napoleon's Pyramids by William Dietrich - Free Book Online

pleaded.
    “One!”
    “I sold the medallion to finance this trip,” I tried.
    “Two!”
    “I used it to pay the rent.” Talma was swaying.
    “Thr…”
    “Wait! If you must know, it’s in my bag atop the coach.”
    Our tormentor swung the muzzle back to me.
    “Frankly, I’ll be happy to be rid of the trinket. It’s been nothing but trouble.”
    The villain shouted up to the coachman. “Throw his bag down!”
    “Which one?”
    “The brown one,” I called, as Talma gaped at me.
    “They’re all brown in the dark!”
    “By all the saints and sinners…”
    “I’ll get it.”
    Now the pistol muzzle was pressed to my back. “Hurry!” My foe glanced down the road. More traffic would be coming soon, and I had a pleasant mental picture of a hay wagon slowly and deliberately crushing him under.
    “Can you please ease the hammer down? There’re six of you and one of me.”
    “Shut your trap or I’ll shoot you right now, rip open every bag, and find it myself!”
    I climbed to the luggage rack on the coach roof. The thief stayed close below.
    “Ah. Here it is.”
    “Pass it down, Yankee dog!”
    I dug and closed one hand around my rifle, tucked under the softer luggage. I could feel the small brass door of its patch box where I’d stuffed a cartridge and ball, and the curl of its nestled powder horn. Pity I hadn’t loaded it since shooting my apartment door: no voyageur would make that mistake. The other hand grasped my friend’s bag. “Catch!”
    I heaved, and my aim was good. The bag’s weight hit the pistol and there was a bang as the cocked hammer came down, shooting Talma’s laundry to flinders. Stupid sod. The coach horses reared, everyone shouting, as I tumbled off the coach roof on the side away from the thieves, pulling the rifle as I fell and landing on the highway margin. There was another shot and a splintering of wood over my head.
    Instead of lurching into the dark forest, I rolled under the carriage, dodging the grinding wheels as the coach rocked back and forth. Lying in its shadow, I feverishly began to load my rifle while prone, a trick I’d learned from the Canadians. I bit, poured, and rammed.
    “He’s getting away!” Three of the bandits ran around the rear of the coach and plunged into the trees on the side I’d leaped, assuming I was escaping that way. The passengers looked ready to bolt as well, but two of the thieves commanded them to stand where they were. The fake customs inspector, cursing, struggled to reload his pistol. I finished my own ramming, poked my rifle barrel out, and shot him.
    The flash was blinding in the darkness. As the bastard buckled I got a startling glimpse of something that had been hanging inside his own shirt, now dangling free. It was a Masonic emblem, no doubt expropriated by Silano’s Egyptian Rite, of crossed compass and square. There was a familiar letter in the middle. So that explained it!
    I rolled, stood, and swung my weapon by the barrel as hard as I could, clubbing another thief with my gun butt. There was a satisfying crack as eleven pounds of maple and iron trumped bone. I scooped up my tomahawk. Where was the third rascal? Then another gun went off and someone howled. I started running toward the trees in the opposite direction from where the first three had gone. The other passengers, including Talma, scattered as well.
    “The bag! Get his bag!” the one I’d shot was shouting through his pain.
    I grinned. The medallion was safe in the sole of my boot.
     
     
     
    T he woods were dark and getting darker as night fully descended. I trotted as best I could, alone, my rifle a makeshift prod to keep me from running into trees. Now what? Were the robbers in league with some arm of the French government, or entirely imposters? Their leader had the correct uniform and knowledge of my prize and position, suggesting that someone with official connections—an ally of Silano, and a member of the Egyptian Rite—was tracking me.
    It