Cold Copper: The Age of Steam (7 page)

Wil twitched his ears. Other than opening his eyes into slits for a moment, he didn’t move.

Cedar closed his eyes again, but sleep shifted further from his reach. He rolled over, which didn’t do anything but make his back hurt, so he turned the rest of the way, facing the stove, the women, and the window, with Wil and the door behind him.

He was exhausted, mostly dry and warm. Why couldn’t he sleep?

The skitter and odd scratch of tiny footsteps brought him awake, all of his senses open.

Something was in the room with them. Something was moving with uneven clawed feet toward the women. Toward Mae.

Cedar reached to the floor for his gun. He tugged it from the holster, then sat, aiming at the noise.

The noise stopped. It took a moment, no more than that, for Cedar’s eyes to adjust to the darkness.

Then he saw it.

A creature with too much head for its spindly body, fully the size of a grown man, hunched over Mae, who lay sleeping. Its big head turned toward Cedar.

It was made of bits of straw, spun in a tight twist as if from a spindle, with dirt and leaves and long, wet pine needles caught within it all. The arms were too long, overwide hands dragging along the floor next to buckled legs that ended in tiny hooves.

The head was round, but the face was sharp, with no nose and a wide, slotted mouth full of pointed teeth. Two very human eyes glittered with damp light.

Strange. It had to be. But the beast inside Cedar was not stirring to kill it; Wil was not stirring to kill it.

He’d felt no warning that it was in the room, no warning it had crossed window or threshold. Yet it was so close to Mae it could strike her.

It opened its mouth and made a sound like a hissing moan, almost like crying.

If Mae held still, he could shoot it. He would miss the curve of her hip by inches. But if she or the creature moved, he’d surely hit her.

“Mae,” he said softly, raising the gun slowly to show the Strange that he was about to blow it to bits.

“Mae.”

And then the creature rushed him. It screeched and howled as it ran on all fours across the room and leaped for him, mouth wide, teeth glistening like knives.

He raised the gun again, this time pointing it toward the creature as it whispered, “Hunt-er. Run.” It opened its huge mouth and sank teeth into his neck.

Cedar yelled and turned the gun.

“No! Cedar, don’t!”

Mae Lindson grabbed for his gun hand, pulling it away.

The creature was gone.

Cedar blinked hard, instinctively pulling his finger away from the trigger, since the gun was held by both him and Mae, and remaining very still until he gained his wits.

“You were dreaming,” Mae said. “A nightmare. A nightmare.”

Cedar took in the room. No more than a few hours must have passed since they bedded down. The Madders were still snoring. Miss Dupuis was awake, sitting wrapped in her blankets, staring through the dark at him. Wil stood in front of him, head lowered, eyes glowing.

Mae crouched in front of him too, wearing nothing more than her chemise, with one white strap having fallen off to reveal the creamy curves of her shoulder, collarbones, and breast.

“You were dreaming,” she said again, pulling the gun gently the rest of the way out of his hand. “We are safe here.”

“There was a creature. A Strange.”

Wil’s ears flicked up, and he started around the room, scenting for the intruder.

Mae took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Here? Now? Can you see it?”

He peered at the corners, looking for any shift, any odd shadow.

“No. It wore straw and leaves. It was bent over you.”

“I’m fine. Nothing touched me. Do you want me to light a candle to see if you’re hurt?”

Cedar glanced at Wil, who had finished a full search of the room. Wil’s ears flicked and he gave Cedar a steady stare.

There were no Strange in the room. Maybe there never had been. Wil would have woken up if there were, wouldn’t he?

He wiped his hand over his face, rubbing away sweat, and realized Mae must have woken to see him holding his gun to his own head.

“Mae,” he said. “I’m sorry. I…It must have been a nightmare.”

“It was,” she said firmly. She slid his gun back into the holster. “Can I get you anything?” she asked. “Help you in some way?”

She sat on her knees, beautiful and soft in the darkness. But she was also worried, and from the goose pimples on her skin, he knew she was chilled in the cold room.

“No, I’m fine,” he said. “Just fine. Go on back to bed. Morning’s coming soon enough.”

She paused, then leaned forward and gently pressed the palm of her hand against his cheek.

He wanted to hold her, draw her in to him, bring her beneath his blanket and warm her. But then she leaned away, walked back to her bedding, and folded down beneath her covers.

Miss Dupuis, still across the room, released the hammer on her gun like the slow crack of knuckles.

Cedar nodded slightly. She’d had a gun beneath the blankets aimed at him. Practical. But unsettling, nonetheless.

She shifted and stretched out under her blankets, but lay facing him.

Cedar rubbed at his hair and tried to settle his mind. His neck ached from where the dream creature had bit him. He pressed his fingers there and didn’t feel blood, though it was too dark to see.

He was no stranger to nightmares or the Strange. And he knew that creature had been watching them. It had known what he was and had called him “hunter.”

Maybe he wouldn’t let Mae chain him at the full moon. Maybe it was time for the hunter to hunt.

R
ose left the house at a run. She’d overslept and dawn was already starting to shine up the sky. There was no time for walking now. If she was going to catch the train out to Kansas City, she was going to have to steal Hink’s horse.

But before she left, and even though it might mean she’d have to gallop a mile or two, she wanted to take one last look at the
Swift
. She was the first airship Rose had ever been aboard, and the first she’d ever had the chance to help repair. She couldn’t leave without saying good-bye.

The door to the big wooden shed was propped open by an overturned bucket. The voices of two men drifted out.

“. . .get word back to you soon, so watch the wire,” Hink said.

“Chicago, you think?” said another voice, that of Mr. Seldom, Hink’s second-in-command.

“It’s where I’ll start looking. If you hear anything, send me a dove. There has to be another connection between the east and west trade and I want to know what it is, and who’s behind it. And watch Miss Adeline. I’ve a feeling the witches are in this deeper than they’ll admit.”

“What about Miss Small?”

Rose skidded to a stop and ducked just behind the open door.

“She’s…” Hink sighed. “Look after her for me. Keep her on the
boilers. She’s got a hell of a knack for steam and I have no doubt will be the best boilerman the
Swift
has ever had if she gets over her stubborn foolishness.”

Rose made a small sound but clapped her hand over her mouth.

There was a pause, wherein she wondered if he’d heard her. Then he said, “Do me a favor, Seldom. There’s a man named Thomas Wicks who’s sweet on her. Kill him.”

“No!” Rose gasped. She stormed around from behind the door.

And ran straight into Hink’s massive chest.

“You were spying on me.” Hink reached out and caught her elbows to keep her from falling.

Rose adjusted her wide-brimmed hat and pushed away from his embrace.

“I was not. You were talking too loud.”

“I was having a private conversation. I can talk as loudly as I please.”

“You. You.” Rose felt the heat creep across her face. Too many thoughts were colliding in her brain, and too many emotions in her chest. He’d said she was good at her job, a better boilerman than even his last crew member, Molly Gregor. He’d told Mr. Seldom to look after her for him.

Because he cared about her, or cared about getting the
Swift
’s boiler repaired?

“You will not have Thomas killed,” Rose blurted.

“Thomas?” Hink tipped his head down just a bit so that his eye was covered in shadow. “Are you on a first name basis with a man you’ve just met?” he asked softly. Too softly. “You
did
just meet him last night, didn’t you?”

Rose closed her mouth and glared at him. “I was on first name basis with you quickly enough. Why not also with an educated gentleman?”

“I had to beg you to use my first name.”

“You never told me your first name! I had to bribe it out of Mr. Seldom.”

“Aha!” Hink turned to his first mate and stabbed a finger toward the man. “I knew you told her.”

Mr. Seldom was a thin man with close-cut red hair and a face most often set in a droll expression. He wore coveralls, leather gloves, goggles, a flat cap, and a tool belt with an alarming range of things attached to it, each of which he could handily use as a weapon. He gave Hink a bored look.

Behind Seldom, filling every spare pocket of the shed was the
Swift
.

It didn’t take much imagination to see that she was an airship, even though bits of her were scattered out across the floor, stacked up against the shed walls, and hanging by chains from the rafters.

Her huge tin envelope was almost whole now that they’d had a couple months to rivet, bend, and weld. And all of her internal framework, also made of tin, was strong again.

The ship had been nearly blown out of the sky, and been so filled with holes, Rose didn’t know how she’d limped all the way to Kansas.

It had been good to work on her, to know her quirks. Even now, Rose’s fingers itched to pick up a wrench or a hammer, and start in on making her whole again, strong and fast.

But that was done now. Breaking up with the man meant breaking up with his ship. She was sure she’d miss the ship more.

“I’ll have your word,” Rose said, looking away from the beautiful airship. “Mr. Seldom, I’ll have your word that you’ll not harm Mr. Wicks while I’m gone.”

“While you’re gone?” Hink asked. “Where are
you
going? And in a dress, I might add.”

“I’m leaving Hays City. By train. Like a lady.”

“Are you now?”

“Yes. And I’m already late. Mr. Seldom, please do nothing to harm Mr. Wicks. He seems a decent, upstanding man, whom I spoke with only once. Also”—she stabbed Hink in the chest—“you have no right ordering innocent people to their deaths.”

“Need I remind you I am a U.S. Marshal? I could hang the man before you could say Nelly.”

“Nelly.”

Seldom snorted.

Hink gave him a deadly glare.

Seldom went back to stitching up the net he had hung over a rafter, pulling the rope through it to rebuild one of the
Swift
’s glim-harvest trawling arms.

Rose walked over to Mr. Seldom. She stood with her back to Hink, hoping he hadn’t seen what she carried in her hand. “I trust you, Mr. Seldom. Please don’t bother Mr. Wicks.” She handed him the finder compass, which he took with a frown. “I think this should stay with the ship,” she said quietly. “A ship should always know where her captain is.”

She turned before he asked her any questions. He knew what the object was, had been mighty interested in her making a version for the ship, but now she wouldn’t need to. Seldom would be able to find Hink anywhere he was in this country. At least some good had come of all this.

“Good-bye, Mr. Seldom. Marshal Hink.” Rose turned and strode toward the door.

“Cage,” Hink corrected her. “It’s Marshal Cage or Captain Hink.”

“I’ll leave you to the sorting of your special names,” Rose said. “I have a future to find.”

Hink was quick and caught her arm.

“Without me?” He stepped up close, so she had to tip her head up to see the all of him.

Her heart about beat its way out of her chest. He’d left her. He’d gone sleeping with other women. Was he asking to be in her life, her future?

“Well…I have a train to catch,” she said softly.

“Isn’t that something?” he said with a smile. “So do I.”

She narrowed her eyes. “No, you don’t.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t know why you are so set upon bothering me!” she said. “I am leaving you behind.”

“This has nothing to do with bothering you. I’m set to leave on that train.” He stepped back and hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his long, heavy coat, then shrugged. “Bothering you is just a happy accident.”

“Happy for whom?” Rose demanded.

“Me,” Seldom said. “Because then both of you will be out of earshot. Winds are turning, Captain.”

Hink looked up and over Rose’s shoulder, his eye widening at the brightness of day. “Hell, woman. I have a train to catch. Why’d you have to go and make me late?”

“I’m so sorry to get in your way!” Rose shouted. “Oh, and by the way, I’m taking your horse.”

Seldom snorted again.

“We both take the horse,” Hink said.

“I don’t think the horse can carry me and all the people you claim to be.”

“Ho there, airship people!” a cheery voice called out over the rattling of a cart.

Rose glanced over her shoulder. It was Margaret, one of the witches she’d heard in the hall last night. Margaret’s wild brown hair curled across her forehead just beneath the brim of her bonnet, pulled back to reveal her rounded features, which were covered with a liberal sprinkling of freckles. She was just a few years older than Rose, and smiled brightly, bundled up in the driver’s seat of a horse-drawn wagon. Half of the wagon was filled with supplies of some sort, covered over with a canvas tarp.

“I’m going in to pick up mail,” Margaret said. “Do you need a ride?”

“Yes,” Rose said, spinning on her boot heel and quickly securing the
seat next to her. “Thank you so much. Quickly, I need to catch a train. We’re running out of time.”

Captain Hink said one last thing to Seldom and handed him a thick fold of bills. That would be enough money to finish the repairs on the ship and some.

“What about Captain Hink?” Margaret asked.

“He has other plans. Go. Go.”

Margaret flicked the reins and the horse started off at a brisk walk.

Unfortunately, Captain Hink had long legs. He jogged after the cart and jumped up into the back of it before they’d gone more than a short distance from the shed.

“Captain Hink,” Margaret said. “I thought you had other plans.”

“Not at all,” he said. “I’m bound for the rails. Seems there’s a future out there needs finding.”

Rose rolled her eyes and settled in for a long ride of ignoring him. Hands always restless for something to do, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small lock that she’d found broken on the ground in town the other day.

She ran her fingers across the tools and bits of metal, twine, and cloth she kept in her pocket. The feel of all those little oddments was as soothing as a hot bath and she felt her shoulders relax and her mood lighten. There were so many things she could do with the castaway bits in her pocket. Right away, she had half a dozen ideas of how it could all join together to make half a dozen different little whimsies.

The last thing she’d made and tucked in her pocket was a little hollow wood ball, spring loaded and filled with sharpened nails that shot out when the trigger was hit. It was just a model to see if that kind of nonexplosive grenade might do some damage in a fight aboard an airship. She had planned on showing it to Hink.

Not now.

Still, she loved putting things together, seeing her ideas take form between her fingers, exploring the world through screw and bolt and
curiosity. But today, on this ride, she worked on the little lock. She felt the need to fix, to repair, to make something work, since nothing else seemed to be going right in her life.

All through the ride, Captain Hink talked up the witch, making her laugh with that damnable charm of his. Rose wished she could block out the sound of his voice, but there was nothing else to listen to.

In the past, she could hear the sound of growing things, trees and bushes and the like, though mostly their comments were about sun, or shade, or water, or wind. But she hadn’t heard a single thought of any green since she’d been injured by the tin piece of the Holder.

The witches didn’t know what to say about it when she’d discussed her ability with them. Some of them had that same natural hearing of greenery. But none of them had just up and lost their abilities. And plus, she wasn’t a witch.

It was winter now and everything was sleeping, guarding roots, waiting out death, silent.

Maybe spring would bring her world back into full song again.

Margaret laughed and Rose hunched a little deeper into her coat, holding tight to the broken lock as they rattled over the rough trail.

Nothing about her world seemed worth a song right now.

*   *   *

The rail station was bustling with activity and noise. Rose looked up and away from the lock that she’d nearly gotten fixed. All the insides of it had frozen up, and she’d had to pry the pieces apart to get to the trouble. Once she had it opened, she’d been so distracted a cannon could have gone off and she wouldn’t have noticed.

She needed to put just a little grease inside to make sure the mechanism moved smoothly, but there wasn’t time for that now. Reluctantly, she dropped the lock into her pocket and took in the excitement around her.

The train station was a long, narrow wooden building, two stories
tall, with a steeple right up the middle of it. The platform around it was built nearly six feet off the ground to make loading and unloading onto the train from wagons and carts all that much easier.

Dozens of steam-powered wagons and at least that many horse carts and carriages surrounded the place on three sides, while the huge, hulking black train sat huffing on the track along the remaining side of the station. Beyond the train was a row of warehouses and silos.

There had to be at least fifty people hugging, handshaking, and saying their good-byes. The squall of babies and barking dogs made up all the middle-ground noise, punctuated by the yell of workers loading crates and boxes and bags onto the back cars of the train, while laughter and shouts from the soon-to-be passengers muddled up all the calm of the day.

It was exhilarating. Rose found herself wondering what each of the people might be getting on the train for, where they were going, and why they were leaving friends and family behind.

“I’ll pull up here so as not to get us run over,” Margaret said. She guided the cart to the far side of the muddy road, just avoiding a family of four—a father, mother, boy, and girl—who dashed out in front of the wagon as they headed for the platform stairs, clutching one bag each, hands on their hats to keep them in place.