Flaming Zeppelins Read Free

Bill friend of Custer, so thought you should know.”
    â€œYou cut his ass off?”
    â€œNo. He Dog. He give to me. Said, ‘Here asshole.’ Have thought on that long and hard. He Dog like Bull only little better than Custer.”
    Hickok nodded. “Well, Custer was a friend, but you’re a friend now. And frankly, I always thought that Libby Custer might have somethin’ for me, and that Audie could have treated her better.”
    â€œLike Bull said, Custer friend, now Bull friend. Wild Bill’s taste no better.”
    Hickok grinned. “Let’s me and you have that drink, Bull.”
    Japanese biplanes buzzed them in.
    The little aircraft were like hornets, flicking this way and that. They weaved in and out between zeppelins, the long white scarves of the pilots trailing like the tails of kites.
    They flew near the huge cargo zeppelins where the faces and bodies of buffaloes and horses could be seen through portholes. They glided through the zeppelins’ bursts of steam, were pushed back by it. They flew close enough to hear the machinery in the gear house of the zeppelins clicking and clashing like a frightened man’s teeth.
    On the promenade deck of
Old Paint,
Sousa and his band struck up a lively tune, tuba blasting, Sousa horn wailing, bass drum pounding.
    Cody’s head, in its jar, sat on the shoulders of a steam man, its silver body glistening in the sun. From behind, his hair, floating in the preserving and charging liquid, looked like seaweed clinging to a rock.
    Hickok, Annie Oakley, Captain Jack, Bull, and Buntline, a few assorted cowboys and Indians, Cossacks, and Africans, all dressed in their finest, surrounded Cody.
    The Japanese pilots flew so close to the front of
Old Paint,
Cody and his companions could see the slant of their eyes through their big round wind glasses. Everyone waved except the steam man. That was more trouble than it was worth.
    Inside the steam man’s chest, a midget named Goober worked the levers that worked the steam man. The interior of the steam man was hot and the fan that blew down from the steam man’s neck only gave so much air. The grating Goober looked out of had limited vision; therefore, as the mind and reactions of the steam man, Goober had limited response.
    Buntline was drunk again, but at least he was standing, his black suit looked only slightly wrinkled, his bowler hat was cocked to one side. His boots were on the wrong feet. He was trying to remember his real name before he took the name of Ned Buntline as his pen name. He smiled as he finally remembered. Ed Judson. Yeah. That was it.
    He had one hand on the crank that attached to the battery in Cody’s jar, and from time to time, with much effort he would crank it, giving Cody the juice. When he did, the liquid glowed, Cody’s head vibrated and his hair poked at the amber fluid like jellyfish spines.
    Frank Reade, the inventor of the steam man and the airships (he had improved on the German design), had donated the steam-driven man to Cody to promote his line of products. Reade had come to prominence pursuing Jesse James and his gang across the U.S. with his steam-driven team of metal horses, and now his products ruled the United States and were spreading rapidly across the world. Even if he had failed to capture James.
    The steam man Cody used had been modified. The head with its conical hat through which steam had been channeled, had been removed, and the steam now puffed out a tube in the back, a tube that carried the steam above the jar and spat it high at the sky like periodic orgasmic eruptions.
    Where the steam man’s hat had been, Cody’s jar now fastened, and on top of the jar was a great big white hat with a beaded hatband.
    On the steam man’s feet were specially made boots of buffalo leather, dyed red and blue, decorated with white and yellow beads. On the toes of the boots there were designs of buffaloes cavorting.
    In his room, Cody