Liberty (Flash Gold, #5) (7 page)

“Why don’t you finish
with that, and I’ll show you where her trail ended?” Cedar asked
quietly. “We shouldn’t wait too long though. If the only reason she
was loitering in Dawson was to destroy your flash gold, she might
be packing to leave.”

Kali sniffed. “I know.
Just give me a minute. I—”

The faint thrumming of an
engine reached Cedar’s ears, and he stepped away from her to find a
spot where he could peer through the branches toward the sky. He
wasn’t surprised when the dark blue hull of the American airship
came into view.

He waved for Kali to join
him in the shadow of a tree where they shouldn’t be visible to
anyone peering down from the deck. He hoped. That craft was flying
low, its wooden belly almost brushing the treetops. Cedar supposed
it was too much to hope that the soldiers would drive off the
scavengers. Surely, none of them had permission to dig up here—he
was fairly certain this land belonged to the town, or maybe the
local tribe.

Kali bit her lip and
frowned at the contraption she was building. “That shouldn’t be
visible to them, right?” She squinted at it and then toward the
gaps between the trees.

“I don’t think so.” Cedar
kept his voice quiet since he could hear orders being shouted as
the airship drifted past just above them. “Even if it is, it looks
like a bunch of leaf litter and debris blown down in a storm,
nothing more.”

“I’m not sure if I should
thank you for that assessment of my work.”

“Well, it’s a comely pile
of litter and debris.”

She wrinkled her nose at
him. “It’s a good thing you have some fine attributes, because your
courting compliments could take some adjustments.”

“I didn’t know we were
courting right now.”

“I thought that’s what
you were keen to start when you blurted out those words about
porch-sitting as you were being arrested.”

“I
am
keen to
start,” Cedar said, watching the airship drift out of view. “You’ll
know when I’ve begun in earnest, because your feminine heart will
flutter as I woo you with my ardor.”

That earned him another
nose wrinkle. “If my heart starts fluttering, I’ll be at Doc
Morgan’s place, praying he’s got a potion to fix that.”

Cedar patted her on the
shoulder. He definitely intended to woo her—and show his gratitude
for what she’d given up to break him out of jail—but they had other
matters to worry about now.

“I’m going to see where
they’re heading.” He hadn’t missed the fact that their route would
take them right over the landslide. “Finish up here, and I’ll be
back to take you to where I think Amelia landed her craft.”

Kali waved in
acknowledgment and returned to her comely pile of debris.

Sticking to the trees and
keeping an eye skyward, Cedar trotted up the hillside. He slowed
down as he came to the landslide, since many of the trees had been
taken down in the explosion, leaving the area exposed with little
to no cover. He crouched behind a stout spruce, peering around the
branches. Three of the scavengers stood in his view, jabbering to
each other and arguing about something rather than shoveling. They
didn’t concern him. More alarming was that the airship had lowered
to within twenty feet of the ground and dropped an anchor. That
must be what the men were arguing about. Should they stay or should
they run off?

As Cedar watched, the
first of two soldiers came to the railing of the craft and tossed a
rope ladder over the side, the end dangling down right above the
dark crater. Cedar backed away. He had seen enough. Soon, soldiers
would be searching the entire hillside, looking for him and for
Kali. He hoped she was finished with her project, because they
couldn’t stay here. He also hoped the soldiers didn’t have access
to any hounds, because he’d left enough of his gear in the
headquarters building that they would have no trouble giving the
animals his scent.

He leaned his head into
the prickly needles of the spruce. Staying anywhere near Dawson was
suicidal.

But he had promised to
help Kali find the woman who had destroyed her prospects, and he
intended to do so, no matter what the risk to both of them.

Kali kept glancing back as Cedar led her over
the ridge. They were a good mile away from where the airship had
disgorged a platoon of soldiers, but the back side of the ridge
lacked the cover of the front. A forest fire had burned here a few
summers past, leaving charred husks of trees, the blackened
branches devoid of foliage. Shrubs and grass were regrowing in the
area, but nothing tall enough to provide cover. She and Cedar would
be visible if the airship started patrolling again.

“We’ll pass through it
quickly,” Cedar said, then pointed at the ground. “The prints came
this way, and the landing spot is down there.” He nodded toward
green trees that started halfway down the slope.

“Less talking and more
tracking.” Kali shooed him forward and glanced back again, feeling
exposed.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He trotted down the
hillside, and as she followed, she regretted being snippy with him.
He was doing her a favor, after all. If they were smart, neither of
them would be sticking around the area. But Kali couldn’t let go
easily. Not only did she want some semblance of satisfaction when
it came to Amelia, but she also hoped those scavengers might
uncover something of hers, so she and Cedar wouldn’t have to head
into the wilderness without a coin to their names. She also
couldn’t help but hope that her ship might be salvageable, at least
enough of it that she might yet get it into the air.

The hum of airship fan
blades drifted over the ridge.

Cedar cursed and picked
up his pace. They were only halfway through the burned area.

“They must have dropped
off their people, then gone back to an aerial search,” he said over
his shoulder.

Kali was too busy running
and pumping her arms, trying to keep up with his longer legs, to
comment. As they raced between dead, charred trees, she glanced at
the shrubs and ferns, wondering if any were big enough to hide
under. If the airship rose higher than the ridge, the people on the
deck would be able to see them, even from a mile away.

The buzz of the blades
increased in volume. Surprisingly, it now seemed to be coming from
the direction they were heading, somewhere behind those trees. Were
the authorities circling the area? It seemed strange that she
wouldn’t have seen the ship fly over the ridge at some point.

Kali leaped over a log,
almost falling when a branch nub snagged her boot. She fumbled and
caught her balance, then tried to run faster to make up for the
lost seconds.

“Almost there,” Cedar
said, slowing down when he saw that she was falling behind.

She waved for him to
hurry, not to wait for her. As tall as he was, he would stick out
more to someone looking in this direction.

Instead, he crouched down
behind a blackened stump. They were still at least a hundred meters
from the unburned forest with its protective camouflage of trees
and leaves.

The bow of an airship
sailed into view above that forest. Kali dove to the ground beside
Cedar. The stump provided poor cover, but their path would have
taken them right toward that airship. She scooted close to him,
trying to keep the stump between her body and the ship, but it
seemed pointless. If it followed on its present course, it would
fly directly over them.

“How’d they get over
there?” Kali asked, panting between words.

“That’s not them,” Cedar
said.

“What?”

“It’s a different ship.”
He pulled out his six-shooter and frowned at it, probably wishing
he had his Winchester.

That made two of them.
Kali’s rifle was buried along with everything else.

“Do you think it’s
backup, sent to help the Americans with their search?” Kali asked.
“Or is it pirates or something completely unrelated?”

That would be nice, but
she didn’t know if she dared wish for that. It was always possible
some wealthy would-be prospectors had hired an airship to bring
them in to the Yukon while bypassing the slog through the pass, but
she hadn’t seen that happen yet. As far as she’d heard, most of the
legal airships in the world belonged to militaries, since they were
so expensive to build and required mechanics specializing in them
to keep them flying. Pirates and gangsters had some they had
acquired illegally, but she had yet to see a legally owned civilian
one. Still, they must exist in the world, and Dawson had become a
much more interesting place to visit in the last year.

“Don’t know,” Cedar said
after a long peek around the stump. “There’s not a banner flying
that announces their origin or intentions.”

“Inconsiderate.” Kali
started to lean around the stump for a peek of her own, but Cedar
put his back to the charred wood and pulled her close.

A shadow fell across the
dead forest, an oblong shadow that preceded the airship. A moment
later, the bow drifted over their heads, about fifty feet above
them. The black paint of the hull made Kali think of pirates, and
the cannons visible thrusting from gun ports along the sides
suggested that they were well armed. If it
was
a pirate
ship, it was brazen of them to fly straight toward the city. They
must not know that a military vessel waited right over the ridge.
Maybe the two ships would end up in a battle, and the soldiers
would forget all about Cedar and Kali.

From their position, Kali
couldn’t see if anyone stood at the railing with a spyglass, but
the ship did not slow down as it sailed over them. It drifted past,
its fans whirring and pushing it toward the ridge.

“Looks like they didn’t
see us,” Kali whispered.

“Or they didn’t care
about us,” Cedar said.

“I’m fine with either
scenario.”

“As am I.” He waited for
the black-hulled craft to disappear over the ridge, then stood up.
“Back to tracking?”

“Yes, please.”

Once they entered the
unburned section of the forest, it didn’t take long to reach the
spot where Cedar had found the skid marks, parallel, ski-like
tracks that had been left in the moss and dirt. They were
exactly
like the tracks Amelia’s one-person flying craft
had left.

Nerves tangled in Kali’s
belly like snakes in one of Cudgel’s pits. She wanted to confront
the woman, to demand reparation for the damage that had been done,
but she also remembered that it had taken both her and Cedar to
defeat Amelia the last time they met. It had been anything but
easy. During their previous meeting, Amelia couldn’t have known
what to expect from either of them—she had likely underestimated
them. This time, she would be ready, and this time, neither Kali
nor Cedar was as well armed. Kali wished she at least had a few of
her smoke nuts.

“This is as far as I went
before coming back for you,” Cedar said, “but you can see the
broken branches up there. They’re fresh, and as high as they are,
I’m sure that wasn’t done by someone on foot.”

“Let’s see where she
went,” Kali said, though another bout of nerves afflicted her
belly. Maybe they could find Amelia’s hideout, then swing back to
town for some supplies to build a few weapons. How they would do
that without getting arrested, she didn’t know, but she feared she
would need more than fists and a hammer to defeat Amelia again.

A distant boom sounded as
Kali and Cedar walked through the woods, searching for broken
branches and locations where the craft had knocked leaves and
needles to the ground. Three more followed the first in rapid
succession.

“I don’t know who that
was in the black ship,” Kali said, “but if they’re distracting the
soldiers, then I’m pleased to take advantage of that.”

Cedar frowned
thoughtfully, but pointed at another broken branch and did not
answer. Kali didn’t know if he was too busy tracking to worry about
the airship or if he knew something she didn’t.

“I’m surprised she risked
flying down here,” Kali said as they passed through a copse of
trees growing closely together, and spotted a trunk with a fresh
gouge in the side. “She must have dented up her contraption with
all the pruning she did.”

“She might have taken off
running—and flying—as soon as she set that explosion. She couldn’t
have known if the city would send retribution. She’s lucky those
rocks didn’t tumble all the way down the hills and damage buildings
on the outskirts of town.”

“If she was worried about
retribution, she should have flown all the way to Mexico. Maybe she
already did.” Kali wondered if they were on a pointless mission. If
Amelia’s goal had been to destroy the last of the flash gold and
she had done that, why would she have stuck around? Of course, she
hadn’t
destroyed the last of the flash gold, had she?
Somewhere, the chunk that Cudgel had hidden remained.

“That’ll make the
tracking more challenging,” Cedar said, “but it won’t be the first
time I’ve followed someone across the world.”

Yes, he had tracked
Cudgel through numerous countries. Kali couldn’t imagine having the
patience for that. Even though Amelia had wronged her grievously,
it wasn’t as if she had killed someone close to Kali. How much of
her life would she be willing to devote to this notion of
retribution?

More booms drifted to her
ears, cannons firing on the other side of the ridge. Whatever was
going on, those had to be more than warning shots. It sounded like
the ships were working up to an all-out battle. That was odd. Why
would an American ship pick a fight with pirates over Canadian
ground? True, it had seemed that the soldiers were working with the
Mounties, but she assumed that was because they’d wanted Cedar,
nothing else.

“Water up ahead,” Cedar
said after they had walked another mile and the booms had grown
even more distant.