Lord of Order by Brett Riley (the reading list book TXT) 📕

Lakeside. The sites of his birth, his raising, his life. Despite hurricanes and the blood that had soaked the ground, he loved these streets. The rich stores of grain and barrels of wine and canned preserves in New Orleans’s storehouses; the way the river chopped and thrashed in a storm; the landfill, with the rubble from the old times buried under its refuse, the twisted and rusting metal skeletons of strange machines, the crumbling mortar of once mighty buildings. Many times he had stood high on rooftops and tried to imagine New Orleans during the great burning—flying machines falling from the heavens, explosions rising ten stories high and spurting steel and human shrapnel in all directions, unimaginable ships stalling on the waters until their crews died of thirst or while careening rudderless onto shore, crushing all in their paths. Troy had helped build and repair dwellings and forges and tabernacles before he had ever picked up a gun. He had defended the city from Troublers and slept in her embrace almost every night of his life.

Now it was over.

At the river, he hitched the mare and sent a passing boy to procure a feedbag. The river glittered like a field of diamonds. No canoes or rafts or fishing boats, only a few Crusade patrol crafts gliding along, their lookouts armed with shotguns. Troy smelled gumbo and jambalaya, red beans and rice. His stomach ached with wanting. He tried not to think about what he might be forced to eat in the coming days.

He sat on his bench near the river until the sun rode low in the west. Day workers headed home, passing the night watch and the lamplighters and the bearers of water barrels and fuel, fellow nodding to fellow, some pausing to shake a hand or speak to a neighbor. Sheep living among wolves none of them could even smell.

Troy got up and walked back to the mare and unhitched her. Then he mounted up, rode over to Decatur, and waited.

Soon enough, Ford and Long rounded the corner. He waved. Long pointed at him. They reined their horses thirty yards away.

Lord, help us, Troy prayed.

Everybody clear the street, Santonio Ford shouted.

People stopped in their tracks and gawked. Ford sat his roan with a rifle across his lap. LaShanda Long rode her favorite paint, a six-gun drawn.

He means now, she cried.

The crowd scattered, many glancing at Troy, confused. Seconds later, faces appeared in every window.

Good. I hope they can hear us.

Gabriel Troy, Ford said. Throw down your weapons in the name of Matthew Rook and the Bright Crusade.

The mare nickered. Troy patted her neck. On what charge?

Sedition. Mister Royster knows your heart.

Does he now?

Gabriel, please, Long said. If we don’t bring you in, somebody else will.

Dead or alive?

We’d prefer alive, said Ford. But it’s up to you.

You got your duty, Troy said. I got mine.

And with that, he drew his guns.

Muffled screams from the closed-up buildings as Troy fired high over Ford’s head. Long’s and Ford’s horses reared up. Ford was nearly thrown. He saved himself by wrapping the reins around one arm and grasping the pommel with his other hand. The rifle struck the pavement. Troy turned the mare toward Poydras and spurred it. Ford’s rifle bellowed. He had recovered even faster than expected. The slug whizzed past Troy’s right ear, close enough to trim his hair. Long’s six-gun boomed, and a piece of pavement just under Troy’s mare’s back hoof disintegrated.

Citizens hugged walls and dove into open doors as Troy rode past. He turned in the saddle and fired again, aiming down and to Long’s left. Father, please don’t let me hurt somebody.

Long glared, her teeth set in a snarl. She fired again, and Troy’s hat flew off his head. His scalp burned. Something warm trickled over his ears. Heaven above, LaShanda.

He turned. Several lengths back, Ford steadied the rifle on his forearm, the reins gathered in his trigger hand. Troy faced forward as he reached Claiborne Avenue and yanked his own reins, peeling west just as the rifle crashed again.

They’re cuttin it too close. Maybe Royster got his hooks into em after all.

Ford shouted for everyone to clear the streets, watch out, get outta the way.

On the walk ahead, a mother covered her children’s bodies with her own. A father grabbed a toddler before she could blunder into the mare’s path. When Troy passed, the adults picked up the children and ran for the nearest doorway.

Troy tied the reins around his left hand and turned again, aiming for Ford’s center mass. His finger tightened on the trigger.

Dang it, Santonio, are y’all still with me or not?

Ford veered his horse onto the far sidewalk, scattering citizens. A girl of no more than eight crouched in his path, hands over her head, screaming. The hunter sawed his reins again, and the horse careened back onto the street, missing the girl by inches.

Long fired, the bullet whinging by Troy’s face. He spurred the mare harder and harder, the buildings and citizens no more than a blur. Bullets whizzed by every few seconds as they passed south of Tulane.

I’ll do my part, Ford had said.

So will I, Long had added.

But what had they meant?

Wagons on the road ahead. Troy weaved between them, the drivers shouting in surprise, the harnessed horses nickering. Had his own mount left swatches of hair on the boards, the nail heads?

Santonio and LaShanda can’t fire with all these folks here. But if a wagon drifts at the wrong time, they won’t need to.

Ford and Long were still shouting for him to stop in the name of Royster and Matthew Rook and the Crusade. And if he could hear it, so could all these citizens, who would spread the word, as people do. Perhaps, if this chase accomplished nothing else, it would measure the city’s true temperature.

Troy passed a wagon on his left, avoiding another collision by a hair. Behind him, a crash and a startled cry. He turned. Ford was riding sidesaddle and struggling