The Steam Man's Plantation: A Clockwork Cowboy Story

By J. Steven York

"J. Steven York's Clockwork Cowboy stories aren't just 'weird Westerns.' They're quite touching, too. Yes, Liberty Brass is a metal man with a busted 'governor.' But he's got as much heart as any other hero you'll find riding the range."
-- Steve Hockensmith, author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Dawn of the Dreadfuls, and the Holmes on the Range mystery series

Throughout the west tales are told of a legendary Clockwork Cowboy, a restless mechanical wanderer who rode a clockwork horse, and whose bullets never missed. Some called him traitor, or monster, or murderer, but some called him hero. Some said he never stood by idle when the strong preyed upon the weak, and no bad men, mechanical or flesh, were safe while he wandered the plains.

As Liberty Brass and his amazing clockwork horse, Piston, make their way west, they are attacked by a clockwork highwayman. They have no sooner subdued their attacker when they are all three made prisoner by a mysterious pair of clockwork men named Copperpot and Kettle, and taken to a forgotten plantation house deep in the Kentucky hills, ruled by the wondrous Steam Man. At first it seems a utopia, where mechanical men live in peace, free from the wars of men, and work for their common good.

But there are secrets here, deep as a mine shaft, and dark as Kentucky coal, and Liberty learns that the price of truth just might be the loss of his freedom -- or his mechanical life!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tsunami Ridge Publishing
• Release date: Sep 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301866052

J. Steven York

Steven J. York is a science fiction and fantasy writer. He has been published in many magazines and anthologies. He has also worked as a technical writer for computer games. He lives on the Oregon coast with his wife Christina F. York, where he continues to work on both original and tie-in fiction.

Book preview

Copyright 2012, J. Steven York

www.YorkWriters.com

www.ClockWorkCowboy.com

www.Vacation is Murder.com

Twitter: @JStevenYork

Google+: J. Steven York

Published by

Tsunami Ridge Publishing

Smashwords Edition

www.TsunamiRidge.com

Smashwords Edition, Licence Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Also by J. Steven York

Available on Tsunami Ridge Publishing ebooks

Tales of the Clockwork Cowboy (Steampunk Western):

The Unwinding of Liberty Brass

The Steam Man’s Plantation

The Hero of Calliope Springs

The Panorama Beach Mysteries:

The Best Devil Money Can Buy

A Breath Away from Dying

(Coming)

The Beat of Angel’s Wings

By the Rocket’s Red Glare

Small Bones (A Mustang Sawtell Mystery)

A Fist Full of Sand Dollars

Other Fiction:

Walking the Virtch

Dead Ringers

Boldly Reimagined

Contents

The Steam Man’s Plantation

Author Biography

Also by the Author

The Steam-Man’s Plantation

A Clockwork Cowboy Story

By

J. Steven York

What do you want, Liberty Brass? said the tin-man’s voice from over my shoulder. Where are you taking me?

I urged my clockwork horse, Piston, on into the morning fog without a look back. For now, this troublemaker, Rusty Jack, wasn’t going anywhere I didn’t take him. And he wouldn’t be shooting anyone else for some time to come. I knew he’d stay right where I’d left him, lashed facedown over the back of the plow horse mare he’d ridden out into the Kentucky hills to ambush me. Or, at least, to ambush the first clockwork man he’d seen with anything worth stealing. Just my bad luck, and his, that it had been me.

We're going to find you a gearsmith, you damned fool. Now, you’d be best to shut your horn, Rusty Jack. That rifle ball in your chest shifts half an inch and binds on your mainspring or blocks your escapement, that will be the end of you!

What do you care, Liberty? It was you what put that ball in me in the first place! You want me propped up again so you can take another shot at killing me? You just mad you missed?

I cursed my luck; my shot had taken every power of movement and action from Jack except the ability to speak. He had hardly stopped talking since the moment we’d met, before and after I’d shot him. I don’t miss, Jack. Never. I was built a Confederate artilleryman, and thanks to the special gears and forks in my poor, cracked head, shooting comes as natural for me as larceny seems to come for you. I hit you right where I was aiming for. But I’m not a gearsmith, so I had to guess where I could shoot to stop you without killing you. It could have been a worse guess.

It could have been better one, Brass!

Jack, if you’re trying to rile me into finishing you off, you’re doing a good job of it!

I had no plan to do that, of course. I’d seen plenty of killing in my short days, of men of metal and of men of flesh. War had left its scars on my metal shell, and the works far beneath.

No, there would be no killing him, if I could choose in the matter. I just hoped to end his prattling, dump him in some town where they could deal with him, and ride on in peace. I was going nowhere, and I was in a hurry to get there.

Jack, I'll number it among my best days when I can get your rusty hide fixed up enough to turn over to the nearest lawman!

"I