Jessie's War (Civil War Steam) (27 page)

The hat wasn’t just ugly. It
was outrageously ugly.

Luke didn’t look in her
direction, but something in the way he moved seemed amused. “Yeah. Tuck your
hair up, and put on your gloves.”

She did as he asked.

By the time she was done,
Luke was laughing quietly. “That thing is hideous.”

“You put me in it.”

“Hide in plain sight. No one
will remember what you looked like, but they’ll remember that hat. Believe me
on this one.” He picked up the bags and put them on his shoulder. Faltered.
Tried again until she took them away.

“You can’t, Luke.”

“Neither can you. I got this.”

“No, you don’t. Let me help
you.”

As if to prove her wrong,
Luke hoisted the bags onto his shoulders. Arched an eyebrow as if to say, “See?”

She pretended not to notice
the way his nostrils flared, the tension in his shoulders, or the way his hands
shook. She let him maintain the ruse he was fine.

But once they disembarked,
Jessie immediately marched up to the porter’s station—they were on every
platform—and hired one. When Luke didn’t argue, she knew he was in bad
shape.

Jessie followed him into the
belly of the station. A massive structure of glass, wrought iron and brick
mortar, the station housed both the train and the airship stations. Gas lamps
still sparkled as the morning sun streamed in through the massive windows, and
when she looked up, airships in all colors floated gracefully above her like
clouds. Once they exited the train station proper, going over a wide, uncovered
walkway that served as an observation platform for the airship station, Jessie
got her first real glimpse at what made Fort Bastion the most important hub in
the entire West.

Before her, dirigibles
stretched in all directions. Hundreds of them, in all sizes. Transport ships,
military ships, passenger ships, even the occasional private airship for the
massively wealthy, all shimmering in the early light of dawn. Some were painted
bright colors, but those were dull compared to the ones that had been left
bare. Those sparkled an iridescent bluish-gray, a color unlike any other. Her
father’s blue silver alloy, still emitting a faint, pearlescent glow from the
electricity arching through it.

It made her miss him all the
more.

Men yelled to one another and
pulled long tethers, anchoring airships to the ground. Others unloaded the
massive beasts, putting baggage and cargo into open rail cars to transport to
the station proper. She watched as one took off. The skein glittered an
electric blue as the ship lifted off, and the propeller whirred faintly.

It was so quiet, so unlike
the roar of trains, reminding her of how eerily quiet things had been right
before Virginia City had been shelled. Airships could be such quiet monsters.
For a moment, she was grateful she lived in Nevada, where clear skies dominated
for more than three hundred days a year. Many cities back East suffered under
the constant danger that any turn in the weather could lead to an attack, and
was part of the reason why the seat of federal government had been moved to
Chicago years before. The area in and around Chicago didn’t allow airships, and
the weather and the winds really didn’t allow for a sneak attack. To this day,
the majority of transportation into and out of the city still occurred via
train or ship.

Luke draped his arm around
her shoulders. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” she whispered.

“C’mon,” Luke said.

Jessie was startled out of
her reverie. She’d been so lost in the marvel of the airships she’d almost
forgotten getting help for Luke. Not that she was entirely sure how that would
be accomplished.

He led her deep into the
airship station, which was a veritable city in itself. There were restaurants
and hotels, a tailor and even a bank. The parquet floors were a gleaming,
polished mahogany, and dappled sunlight filtered in through the windows and
glinted off the diamond glass panes of the gas lanterns.

Luke paid the porter and
disappeared into a washroom for a few minutes. When he returned, his hair was
damp and his face washed.

Somehow, he managed to look
worse.

“Are you going to get help
now?”

He didn’t smile, though she
suspected he would have if he had been able. Already, he had begun to sweat,
despite the chill in the air and the damp clinging to his skin. He picked up
the bags and his features tightened, but he didn’t wince or complain.

“Have to get to a telephone,”
he said.

Jessie had heard of such
things, but never seen one. The forts had them, and many of the larger mines
had a closed circuit telephone system, but she still used letters to
communicate with people outside her immediate area—even telegrams were
too expensive for her. Forget about a telephone. The cost of a single call was
worth five telegrams, and she didn’t even have the money for one.

Telephones were like the
private airships, and reserved for the fortunate few.

“Where will we find one of
those?”

“Come with me,” Luke said,
putting his arm around her shoulders. She thought he meant it to be a comfort
to her, but the moment he did it, he leaned heavily against her.

She wrapped her arms around
his waist and held him tight. “It’s going to be fine.”

“Yup.” Luke stumbled and
regained his footing.

Luke
, her heart whispered. She tightened her
hold on him.

“You all right, Jess?”

“Of course.” She plastered
her brightest smile on her face.

“Then don’t do that. That
smile looks like it hurts.” He opened the doors to the bank and led her inside.
He asked for the bank manager, showed his identification, and led her back to a
small, vaulted room not so different from her father’s vault—the door was
thick iron with heavy metal and brass locks.

The bank manager pulled out a
large contraption of dark wood with brass escutcheon, the metalwork intricate
in the small details, brass numbers on ebony buttons. Once he was finished, he
nodded to Luke and left.

The doors closed, and
outside, the wheel turned. Once the lock latched, Luke put the bags down on the
floor.

“Luke?” Jessie asked
nervously.

His mouth twisted into
something not quite a smile. “Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”

He picked up the hand
receiver and held it to his ear. Punched in a series of buttons and the device
chattered and whirred. After a time, he said, ‘Forty-five eighteen. Connection
needed.” He paused for about thirty seconds. “Forty-five eighteen. One, seven,
four, two, nine. Extraction from Fort Bastion, with passenger.” A pause,
followed by more chattering. “Immediate. Will await instructions...” More
whirring. “Yes.”

Gears whined and clicked, and
in her mind’s eyes, she could see how they linked together.

He returned the hand receiver
to its cradle. Weary eyes met hers, and his lopsided smile made her heart
squeeze inside her chest.

“And?” she asked.

“And we wait.” He took a key
from the pocket of his vest and opened one of the many safe deposit boxes
lining the walls. He handed her a packet of papers, took some out for himself,
and opened his jacket to put them in his breast pocket.

The jacket fell away for the
briefest moment, and she glimpsed the bright red stain spattering his white
shirt.

“Luke?”

He hastily closed his jacket.
“It’s fine.”

“Listen to me. If you need a
doctor, we need to find you one. I’m sure they have them here.” She put her
hand on his arms.

He shook her off. “They do,
and if it were only me, I’d chance it.” His eyes met hers. “But it’s
not
just me.”

“Look, if you need help, we’ll
stop and get it.” He’d do no less for her.

“No.” He clenched his jaw,
though she couldn’t tell if he did it because he was angry or to hide the fact
his teeth chattered. He stalked up to her, and threaded his hands into her
hair. “I’m not stopping until I know you’re safe.”

Jessie’s face felt tight,
pinched. She couldn’t hide her concern, so she didn’t bother to try. “If you
die…”

“Not dyin’, Jess.”

She took a kerchief from the
pocket of her dress and mopped his damp forehead.

He scowled and turned away.

She dropped her hand. “Well,
if you did, I’d be put out.”

“You sayin’ you’d miss me?”
The humor had left his eyes.

The telephone rang shrilly,
and she jumped, startled by the sound.

Luke picked it up. “Go.” He
wrote down a series of numbers and replaced the receiver. He nodded to her. “C’mon.”

“Where are we going to go?”
She motioned to the vault door. “We’re locked in.”

“You of all people should
know there’s always another way out.” He punched in another series of numbers
into the phone, and the device answered by whirring to life, gears shifting and
clicking into place. Luke turned and pressed some of the safe deposit boxes
lining the wall.

She had the vague thought
that the gears needed to be oiled when an entire panel swung open, revealing a
long, curving staircase that descended into darkness. Her father would have
approved.

Plucking the kerchief from
her hand, Luke wiped down the telephone. Then he pulled a lever and gears
ground and cranked. He lit a hand-held gas lamp and handed it to her, picked up
their bags and swung them over his shoulder. His eyes creased at the corner,
the faintest acknowledgment of pain. He moved to pick up the last satchel.

She took it from him. Holding
it by the straps, she gave it a firm tug. “Let go.”

Eventually, he released the
bag.

“Give me another.”

He held her gaze for a long
time.

“Bossy,” he muttered, but
handed her another bag.

“Yeah, well, if you fall, we’re
both in trouble, so you can thank me later.” She turned and descended down the
stairs, pretending not to know that his giving her one of the bags was more of
an acknowledgement of his condition than his words could ever be. They left so
much unsaid in the spaces between their words. All the things existing between
them they recognized but wouldn’t speak of.

Things they could never speak
of.

They descended down that
long, curving staircase into the dark. At the end was a doorway, and she stood
aside to allow Luke to open the door. Bright sunlight streamed into the
windowless passage. The light blinded her and she hesitated, and once her eyes
adjusted, she found Luke had already started toward an airship and was several
yards ahead of her.

His long strides ate up the
ground, and she struggled to catch up. He waved an arm, and a man wearing a
dark uniform climbed down from the airship platform and beckoned to him. Men on
either side of the airship released the tethers holding the massive beast to
the ground, and electricity sparked as the airship lifted a few feet off the
ground, nearly pulling free of the platform as it attempted premature liftoff.
Angry shouts from the base of the platform filled the air, as men fought to
keep the airship in place.

No,
no, no
. She’d never make
it in time.

A uniformed man took Luke’s
bag from him and helped him climb the platform. Another man came running out to
Jessie, grabbed her bags, and jerked her savagely up the stairs to the platform
before tossing both Jessie and her bags into the belly of the airship.

He slammed the door shut
behind him, blotting out the light. “We weren’t expecting passengers. You’ll
have to make do in the cargo hold. You’ll want to strap in.”

Before he’d finished
speaking, the engines whirred and a sense of vertigo washed over her as the
airship left the ground. Faint lights flickered overhead as she blinked a few
times to clear her head and found Luke lying on his back a few yards away.

Kneeling next to him, she
placed a hand on his chest. His new shirt was damp, a dark stain across it. “Let
me see what you’ve done.”

He caught her hand in his,
the first movement she had seen him make since they’d boarded. “No. It’s too
dark in here.” He pushed himself up onto his elbows and rubbed his face
wearily. “Help me up.”

Jessie did as he asked, and
he buckled himself in with quick efficiency. Motioning to the seat next to him,
he helped her strap herself in to the odd little seats. They sat in silence for
a time as she tried to get over the vertiginous, weightless sensation that
permeated the ship as the airship defied gravity and maneuvered in the sky.

She must have fallen asleep,
because the next thing she knew, she was being jabbed in the side. Hard.

“Wake up,” a voice said
gruffly.

“Luke?” she asked, her mind
fuzzy. Light spilled into the compartment, too bright, and her eyes watered
from the glare.

“Get off. We’re unloading.”
She unstrapped herself and stood up on wobbly legs, only to have her bags
shoved into her hands.