Cold Copper: The Age of Steam (26 page)

“You’ll just leave him here to die?” For some reason Rose was shocked about that. She shouldn’t be, not after everything she’d seen. Cruelty was all too common in this world. “What did he do?”

“He broke the law, miss. Just like everyone else on your side of the bars.” The man walked away.

“I haven’t broken a law,” Rose said quietly, knowing he wouldn’t hear her. “Not yet, in any case.” She put her hands on her hips and turned to assess just what she had to work with in the tiny cell. Not much: bars, a cot, a blanket, two buckets—one filled with water, the other empty. That was all. Certainly not much to plan an escape with.

And then a voice drifted down from the end of the line of cells. A very familiar voice.

“Rose Small?” Alun Madder asked. “Is that you, girl?”

C
edar took a deep breath, savoring the warmth and ease of the soft bed. Nothing hurt. He could sleep all day and not be the worse for it.

But the soft bed was rocking enough he began to wonder if he were still aboard Captain Hink’s airship, or maybe in the back of the wagon forcing its way through the blizzard toward Iowa.

That—a moment of sheer fear that he was still trapped in the blizzard, drowsy from the cold, and possibly on the edge of death—sent him rushing up through the warmth and comfort to wakefulness.

He was indeed in a wagon, the back of their traveling wagon, bundled beneath several layers of blankets. Wil lay next to him, sleeping in wolf form.

Cedar shook his head, trying to shell reality from dream. Wil had been a man, and so had Cedar. The curse was temporarily lifted by Father Kyne.

And then the curse had fallen upon them again, leaving Cedar a beast until the sun rose and Wil a beast until the next three nights of no moon.

Dawn must be upon them. And with dawn, Cedar had once again regained his man’s body.

Which explained why he was naked.

Other memories tumbled through his mind, a chaotic mix of double images he could hardly put reason to. A few stood out clearly. He had followed the Strange with the pink ribbon. He had heard the children trapped in the icy river, and sensed the Holder down in that black watery grave. He had watched the Strange steal away that sleepwalking child, and had felt the pain of Father Kyne being beaten by someone.

Vosbrough. Father Kyne had been beaten by Vosbrough.

He rubbed his face. There was more: the children in the rock-tumble cave. Wil thought they might be alive, but how could they be after all this time, stashed away behind rocks?

The Holder, though—that he knew was beneath the river. He knew it like he knew his own heartbeat. He had to find a way to pull the deadly device free. He had no idea how to do that.

The wagon hit a bump, and he realized they were driving somewhere. Mae. He hoped she was holding the reins. He searched the wagon for clothing, found a pair of breeches and a spare shirt, not as heavy as his other shirt. He’d probably lost his clothes when he’d shifted shapes.

These would have to do. He had an extra pair of boots with a hole in the heel, but a wad of cloth would keep them mostly watertight.

Wil was going to be so disappointed his favorite boots had been left behind. Cedar combed his hair back with stiff fingers and paused at the pain tightening his chest. He inhaled too quickly, which set him to coughing. His lungs hurt, his back hurt. Usually when he took the form of the beast, all his injuries were healed. But the spell Mae and Father Kyne had laid upon him must have changed that.

When his cough was settled, he scrubbed the sweat off his face and blinked to clear his eyes. He took several short, careful breaths to test that his lungs were still whole. Breathing hurt, but his cough was the least of their worries.

He gathered himself and swung out the back of the wagon, leaning wide so he could see their surroundings.

He was surprised to see the tall buildings and crowded street of the city. A quick look at the shadows told him it was just an hour or two past dawn. With his heightened senses from the change, he knew the two voices at the head of the wagon were Mae and Miss Dupuis.

Mae was there. Mae was safe. His heart seemed to unclench as relief flooded through him.

The wagon turned down a side street. Cedar recognized it as the alley that ran beside the courthouse. Mae called the mules to a halt, and then he heard her and Miss Dupuis jump down from the driving seat to the snowy ground.

They walked around the wagon and Cedar called out softly to Mae, “Good morning.”

She glanced up at him, the worry slipping away for a moment as dawn brushed her soft features with the watery tones of spring roses.

“You’re awake,” she said.

“I am. Why are we in town?” He jumped down to the ground beside her.

“Because,” Miss Dupuis said, coming up from the other side. “I have very bad news. The Madders are scheduled to be hung this afternoon.”

“What? Have I lost days? There was to be a court hearing. You were to defend them. To stay the hanging.”

“You’ve only been asleep a few hours,” Miss Dupuis said. “The mayor has changed his mind. He has decided the charges against them are too egregious and numerous against the nation for a jury of peers to decide their fate. He has declared them guilty and the judge agrees. The jury hadn’t even been assembled. But the court clerk was there and made note in the record.”

“Is there no way to stop this?” Cedar asked. “Legally?”

“I sent a wire to the attorney general of the United States, but I don’t believe I will receive a response before noon.”

“And the mayor?”

Mae spoke. “He’s set to kill them, Cedar. No matter what the law says. The Madders said it was an old rivalry between them, an old hatred. And for Vosbrough there was only ever one way to end this: with the Madders’ death.”

“They’re still in jail?” he asked.

“Yes,” Mae said.

“So we break them out.”

“I agree,” Miss Dupuis said. “But there is more you must know. Father Kyne is injured. And he too is in jail.”

Cedar nodded. He remembered the injuries from his visions last night. “Can he walk?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Mae, could you help him with that? Heal him enough for us to free him?”

“I could try, but healing is gentle and difficult to speed along. And if we’re running from the law, it will be even more difficult.”

“What weapons do we have at our disposal?” he asked.

“The things you see here,” Mae said. She pulled open the back of the wagon, and drew away an extra blanket that he didn’t recognize. Beneath that blanket were rifles, pistols, and a couple sticks of dynamite.

“Where did you get these?”

“Some from the church, some from the Madders’ supplies,” Mae said. “I took you and Wil to the church first. Miss Dupuis met me there and told me the news. I assumed we’d need guns to work our way out of this.”

“You are a practical woman,” Cedar said with a smile.

“I can hold my own in a pinch.”

“They’re set to hang at noon?” Cedar asked.

“Yes,” Miss Dupuis said. “We have a few hours.”

“And no plan.” Cedar rubbed his face again. Hunger and a lingering ache were stealing his thoughts away. He needed food. “Do we have water?”

“Yes,” Mae said. “I’m sorry, Cedar. I should have told you that first. I brought you some food.” She walked around the front of the wagon and returned with a saddlebag. He could smell the hardtack and jerked meat even through the leather.

“I didn’t have time to make anything,” she said, opening the bag.

“It’s fine,” Cedar said. “More than fine.”

Mae handed him the bag. His hands were shaking from the hunger, but he managed to chew before he swallowed. Mae also gave him a canteen of cold water in which she had steeped some dried tea leaves. It was a humble meal, but more than a feast for his needs.

He saved half the meat and water for Wil, but finished all the hardtack, which he knew Wil wouldn’t eat in wolf form.

His hunger temporarily abated, he went through the things at their disposal: guns, dynamite, the wagon, horses.

“Maybe in the middle of the night,” Cedar said, “we’d have a chance. But to break them out in broad daylight, just the three of us, and somehow make it to the wagon with an injured man, and then get out of a town this size without being stopped…I don’t know.”

“Perhaps Wil could be a distraction?” Miss Dupuis suggested. “A wild wolf in the middle of town is sure to draw attention. And the law.”

Wil must have heard his name. He lifted his head, then stood and stretched. He walked to the end of the wagon. He didn’t step outside of the shadowed interior, but he was listening now.

Cedar quickly repeated the situation with the Madders and Father Kyne, and told him Miss Dupuis’s suggestion.

“You could get into the jail,” Cedar said, “lure out the lawmen. We could go in behind you, take out anyone else who was left, then get Kyne and the Madders out. We’ll need to have the wagon close by for Father Kyne, and once we’re out of that jail, we will need to leave town as fast as we can.”

“It seems our best chance,” Miss Dupuis said.

“There is one other thing,” he said. “I know where the Holder is.”

“What?” Miss Dupuis said. “Where?”

“In the river not too far from here. At the bottom of the river under ice,” he clarified.

They were silent a moment, and Miss Dupuis closed her eyes and whispered something in her native French.

“You must retrieve it,” she said.

“It’s under ice.”

“But you must. If it falls into the wrong hands, the world will suffer.”

“Maybe the world’s going to have to suffer a bit until spring. The lives of our traveling companions and Father Kyne are more important than a piece of a weapon no man can reach.”

“Men will reach it,” she said. “Men always do. The Holder must be contained.”

“Not before we save the Madders.”

She took a breath, held it, then said, “I believe they would think otherwise.”

“Well, then, they can tell me I’m wrong while I’m dragging their hides out of this town and away from the gallows strung up for three.”

“They will come with us if we break them out, won’t they?” Mae asked Miss Dupuis.

Miss Dupuis shrugged. “I have known the brothers Madder for many years. But I still do not understand their ways. There is one thing I am certain about, however. They will risk anything, and anyone, to see that the Holder is gathered up and securely, permanently locked away.”

Cedar started around to the driver’s side of the wagon. “Well, we’re about to tell them they’re going to risk leaving it behind. Let’s get this done.”

“M
r. Madder?” Rose said. She walked to the farthest side of the cell bars so she could look down the hall toward where she’d heard his voice.

At the end of a hall was another cell. And standing with one elbow resting on a crossbar, holding several playing cards, was Alun Madder.

Rose had never been so happy to see him in her life.

“What trouble have you gotten yourself into now, Rose Small?” he said with a smile and a wink. “Always knew you were a spirited woman.”

“Trespassing, apparently,” she said. “Do you know they mean to hang you? You and your brothers?”

He nodded. “Building a gallows in our honor, I’m given to understand. Did you come in alone?”

“No, Captain Hink is with me, and a Mr. Thomas Wicks.”

“Wicks?” Alun said. “Thin fellow, curly hair, tends toward bowler hats and books?”

“Yes. Do you know him?”

“We’ve made acquaintance.”

She couldn’t tell by his tone of voice whether they had met on good or bad circumstances, but made a note to herself to ask him, if they ever got out of this place.

“How long have you been here?” she asked.

“Came into town two nights ago. And were thrown in jail yesterday morning or so.”

Bryn Madder and Cadoc Madder both walked up to the bars and gave her a wave.

“Good to see you, Miss Small,” Bryn said.

“Hello,” Cadoc added.

“Hello,” Rose replied. “Why did they throw you in jail?”

“That’s a long story,” Alun said. Then, to Bryn, “It has been a full day and night now. I suppose that’s long enough for Hunt to find what we’re looking for, don’t you think, brothers?”

“Should be,” Bryn agreed. “Cadoc?”

Cadoc stared at the ceiling. “Lots of cracks in that mortar.”

“There is, isn’t there?” Alun said. “Rose, you’ll want to stand back a bit.”

“Rose!” one of the other prisoners called. “Is that your name, sweetheart? When I make bail, I’ll come and get you and show you what a man can do for a woman.”

“Or at least as much a man can do with a broken neck,” Hink said placidly.

That got all the men in the cells riled up, and threats, the like she’d never heard before, sprinkled with more than a little blue language, filled the air.

Rose ignored the taunts and whistles, and moved away from the bars of her cell as the Madders had told her.

But the noise brought the lawman back to the hall. No, not just the lawman, the sheriff himself.

“What’s all the racket back here?” He ran a nightstick against the other prisoners’ bars, then headed down the rest of the hall. “You.” He pointed at the Madders. “Stand away from the bars and shut your yaps.”

Rose could hear the scuff of the Madders’ boots as they each took one step backward.

“I said get away from the bars.”

“You know, Sheriff,” Alun said conversationally. “These bars are pretty strong. Solid steel. Good quality too; the mayor does not disappoint. I don’t think even three men could break them down.”

“However,” Bryn added. “Stone is another matter.”

“A Madder matter,” Cadoc echoed.

“Don’t make me shoot you, gentlemen,” the sheriff said. “Mayor would hate for you to bloody up the new gallows before your necks snap.”

“There’s no need for guns,” Alun said.

Rose snuck up to the front of her cell again. The sheriff had walked past her cell and was standing just out of arm’s reach in front of the Madders’ cell.

Just as she’d thought, each brother had stepped away from the bars. As a matter of fact, Bryn and Cadoc were even farther back in the cell, each of them leaning one hand against the stone wall there, as if loitering in front of a saloon.

Only Alun stood in front of the sheriff. And he was smiling.

One thing Rose had learned in the time she had known the Madders was a smile like that meant they were intending to make trouble.

“These metal bars are more than strong enough to hold us right where we stand. Only thing is, I can’t say the same thing about the stone in which they’re anchored. Do you see that?” Alun pointed to the ground.

The sheriff looked down. “The floor?”

“The floor,” Alun agreed. “Brick and mortar. Stone held together by more stone.”

“Your point, Mr. Madder?”

“Well, stone isn’t at all the same thing as metal. Stone is known to crack, break, to move about if it so chooses. Metal? It stays in one place unless a man goes through some hard sweat to shift the stone aside and break the metal free. If a man really wants to set metal free, all he has to do is convince the stone to step aside a bit.”

Bryn and Cadoc both had something small and shiny in their hands that looked like a brass piston. They placed the bottom of the piston
against the wall where they were leaning and then depressed a button at the top of the device.

The building filled with the sound of ice cracking. Rose glanced at the ceiling and floor. The sound wasn’t coming from outside the building; it was coming from inside. Every wall around her, the floor, the ceiling, was breaking apart. Cracks in the stone nearly a finger width snaked out from the base and top of each bar of her cell and ran lines up the walls.

The entire jail was cracking apart, all the stone crumbling.

“Rose!” Hink yelled. “Are you all right?”

“Fine!” she yelled back.

But the noise had brought all the rest of the lawmen crowding into the hallway.

“What in the hell is going on?” the deputy demanded.

The sound faded like the last rumble of a distant drum, and it was eerily quiet inside the jail again.

Until Alun spoke. “The rocks moved aside a bit,” he said. “So the metal could come free.”

And then Alun pressed one finger against one bar of his cell. The bar creaked and fell out into the hall.

Like a cascade of dominoes that just needed a push, all the other bars of his cell fell out too. And so did all the bars of the other cells.

There wasn’t even time to take a deep breath before the entire jailhouse erupted into a brawl. Prisoners rushed for freedom, prisoners rushed the lawmen, prisoners rushed prisoners, raising bare-knuckled fists or brandishing the bars of their cells.

The Madders were right in the thick of it, throwing punches at every man who wore Vosbrough green and laughing their fool heads off.

Rose ducked through the space of two fallen bars and kept her back against the side of the hall as she made her way toward the main room. The fight was an undulating sea of men and sweat and swearing. There were twice as many prisoners in the place as she’d seen on her short walk
down the hall. Maybe the jailhouse was a lot bigger than it looked from the outside.

Right behind her was the cell with the dying man. She glanced in. He turned his head and opened his eyes, just slits of pain.

He didn’t say anything. Didn’t ask her to save him or give him mercy. Still, there was something that caught at her, caught at the deep parts of her, and made her want to help him.

“Time to be moving.” Hink came up behind her and grabbed hold of her arm.

“We have to take this man with us.”

“No, we have to get out of here,” Hink said.

“I’m not going if he’s not going,” Rose said.

Hink scowled down at her, and she held his gaze.

“Oh, for the love of glim, woman.” He gave her a small push out of the way so he could enter the man’s cell. “Death of me. Always thought it’d be my ship, or some pirate come to stab me while I sleep, but now I’m pretty sure it’s going to be you. You’re death in petticoats.”

He bent and without much fuss, picked up the man and slung him over his shoulder.

The man groaned, and promptly passed out.

Hink turned. “You.” He pointed at Rose. “Get walking. Now.”

Rose turned to do so and nearly ran into Bryn Madder.

“Rose? Thought you’d be long gone. Hey, there, Captain. What are your plans with that man?”

“Rose wants him carried out of here. I’m carrying.”

“Aren’t women curious contraptions?” Bryn asked.

“They are at that.”

“Curious contraptions?” Rose said. “It’s not as if men are exactly a deciphered wonder.”

“Rose, darlin’,” Hink said, “let’s finish this argument after we escape from prison.”

Bryn Madder stepped aside, and held his arm out for her like he was escorting her to a dance.

She took his arm, and they made a dash for the door, avoiding fists, broken bits of chairs, and swinging metal bars.

They were separated only once, and Rose made use of a lost boot to hit a man over the head, and then Bryn pulled her forward and out the door, Mr. Wicks on their heels.

Alun Madder stood outside the jail, smoking his pipe. “I do love a good morning brawl,” he said as he exhaled smoke. “Helps to get the blood moving. What exactly are you thinking of doing with that man, Captain Hink?”

“Ask Rose,” he said.

“What connection to him do you have, Rose?”

The fight seemed to be dying down inside, or at least there were fewer sounds of fists. There was, however, a gunshot.

“I think we can talk that over on the run, don’t you, Mr. Madder?”

“I surely do,” he said.

They took off at a run down the street and Rose couldn’t help but think of what a motley crew they made: Hink, with a man bleeding over his shoulder; the well-suited Mr. Wicks; the three rugged Madders; and herself—still dusty and unbelted—dashing away from the jail and down streets and darkened alleys at break-leg speed.

A few people stopped and stared, but no one took after them, nor stood in their way. That was nearly unimaginable to Rose, though she was grateful for their indifference. In the small town she’d grown up in, there would have been half the population of Main Street out to chase down people running away from a jail.

Here in the city, it appeared to be nothing more than a passing curiosity.

And then a great whistle went off, piercing the air and rolling over the rooftops like a banshee screaming. It must be a siren telling the city
they had escaped. It must be calling in more men, more guns, more matics to stop them.

“Where are we going?” Rose asked as Mr. Wicks paused at the end of the alley and turned left.

“Did you bring your ship, Captain Hink?” Alun asked.

“No. Came in by other means,” Hink panted. He looked a little flushed and Rose suddenly remembered that he’d been shot before pounding his way through a brawl. Some of that blood on his coat might not be from the man he was carrying. It might be his own.

“Train,” Hink added. “And air cable.”

“Both?” Bryn asked, suddenly seeming interested in the conversation. “How so?”

“I’d be happy to tell you, Bryn Madder,” Hink said. “So long as we survive this. You gents have any notions up your sleeves? Like, say, a bomb or two?”

“Not as much as,” Alun said. He pulled up short at the next opening to the street and reached out and grabbed hold of Wicks’s coat to drag him back into the shadows. “You hear that?” he asked.

Mr. Wicks shook his head. “Hear what?”

“Wagon wheels.”

“It’s a city, Mr. Madder. It’s filled with wagon wheels.”

“But these wheels are special.”

“How so?”

“They’re mine.” He stepped out and put his fingers to his lips, letting off a piercing whistle Rose had heard many times when traveling with them.

“Your wheels?” she asked. “Someone has your wagon?”

“I’m hoping it’s Mr. Hunt or Mae Lindson.”

“Hoping?” Mr. Wicks said. “You’re betting our lives on a vague hope?”

“I’ve bet more on less,” Alun said. “Haven’t regretted it. Often.”

“This…this is ridiculous. Risky.”

“Says the man who just broke out of jail.”

Wicks shut up and gave Madder a slight smile. “You and I have had too little time to come to a full understanding of where we each stand for the good of this great country,” he said.

“Let’s not lose the mystery.” Alun patted Wicks on the shoulder, then stood out in the middle of the street and waved the wagon down.