Scarlet Devices (16 page)

But wasn't part of her goal in leaving New York, her safe society home, to find out what life was like when the only permission she needed was her own? Why was she still waiting on those outside voices, that external approval? Was even the threat of death not enough to jolt her from her old limitations?

Matthew and his two friends were deep in conference over Parnell, who had been freed from the scrub now and was kneeling in the center of the group with head bowed. Somebody had bound his hands. Their voices murmured over the soft prairie wind, a strange counterpoint to the scene of devastation in the valley below. Fires dotted the grassy plain, flitting like the playful children of the great blaze that still burned where the two airships had gone to ground. The land was still too damp from recent rain for a wildfire, or they would have all been in greater danger than the airships could have ever posed. If Eliza hadn't seen the sinkhole so recently, she might have called this a hellscape. She didn't like having that framework for comparison.

Closer to the hill, the steam cars of the three race leaders provided a focal point for some of the child fires. Miss Davis's car was still burning hot, and the lady herself appeared to be reeling as she attempted to climb the hill.

“Miss Davis!” cried Eliza, leaping to her feet and down the slope as fast as her feet could take her.

“Sweet Mother of God!” one of the men yelled. “We forgot about Cecily!”

“I thought she was dead,” Madame Barsteau replied.

A rustle behind Eliza suggested the others were in pursuit, and they soon caught her up. Together, they swarmed the dizzy Miss Davis and helped her ascend. She fainted at the top of the crest, and Whitcombe was just in time to catch her before she hit the dirt.

An ominous bruise bloomed on one of the lady's temples, and even with limited medical knowledge, Eliza had seen at a glance that her eyes looked wrong somehow. As none of them were quite sure what to do, and they didn't want to linger where other pirates might soon descend in search of their missing cohorts, they finally agreed they should all press on to Colorado Springs.

“C
ALL THAT DRIVING?
What'd we just run over, a damn boulder? My old aunt Tillie steers better'n you!”

Matthew should have insisted on gagging Parnell when they trussed him up.

“Shut up,” he told his unwilling passenger for what must have been the twentieth time since leaving the site of the pirates' attack.

“None of y'all will live to see the end of this thing. My boss will spring me from whatever pissant sheriff you're taking me to, and you idiots will all be
dead
. I'll be drinking his best liquor and laughing about it when you're in the cold ground, son.”

But Matthew heard a note of something else in Parnell's sneering tone, and rather than stop and throw the accused into the increasingly rocky countryside to fend for himself, he decided to take a different tack.

“Is that what Orm told you and Jones? That you would be laughing at the end, rewarded for your service, after we were all taken care of?” He put all the amused skepticism he could muster into the question.

“Beyond our wildest dreams,” the man assured him. Then he repeated it, suggesting less than complete assurance. “Beyond our wildest dreams, that's what he said.”

Matthew snorted. “So you finally admit it's Orm.”

“Aw, goddammit, you little piece of—he's the Lord of Gold, that's all. And he'll send you all west.”

“Excellent. I've always wanted to see the Pacific Ocean. But tell me this, does your Lord of Gold like his money?”

He could almost hear Parnell's brain working, even from all the way back there on the floor space behind his seat. It was a silence that spoke volumes.

“'Course he does,” the villain answered at last.

“Does he take extreme measures to guard his property and his involvement in the illegal opium trade? Have you ever seen him shrink from any measure, even murder, to keep himself and his wealth secure?”

“That's just what any rich man does.”

Matthew tsked, shaking his head. “Those pirates were Orm's men, and they left you on the ground. Laughed at you. He'd given you equipment to signal them. Do you think they'd ignore that signal if he hadn't ordered them to? They were never going to rescue you. You were set up. Your Lord of Gold abandoned you. Was it because you hadn't managed to round enough of us up into a cluster, and so many escaped the ambush? Or was that his plan all along, perhaps, regardless of how the attack went . . . yes, that makes more sense. Why even risk leaving you alive? If Madame Barsteau and I hadn't done away with the pirates, I strongly suspect they had a grenade in reserve with your name on it. And with you out of the way, who would have ever known that it was anything other than a tragic attack by prairie pirates, one of so many that happen in the Western Dominions?”

“You figured it out.”

“Your employer suffers from hubris. He's left his marks all over this business, for anyone who knew what they were looking at. Almost as though he signed it, certain he would never be caught or face reprisals.”

“No one can touch him,” Parnell said. Matthew would have expected bravado, but instead Parnell's obvious awe of Orm seemed to verge on fear. “You have no idea who you're dealing with.”

“Orm? Middling height, unprepossessing looks, seems to like wearing gaudy trinkets? Likes to hear himself talk?”

“Joke now if you want. It doesn't change the fact that if you keep going toward those mountains, you'll be dead before you ever see the Pacific Ocean. All y'all will be dead.”

“But
why
? Why the elaborate schemes, the expense, why go to all this
trouble
?”

“I ain't saying no more.”

Matthew sighed. “Well, at least I've accomplished
that
.”

 • • • 

M
ISS DAVIS HADN'T
spoken for almost an hour, and Eliza was growing concerned. Well,
more
concerned, as she'd been worried about Cecily since spotting her on that field. Her stumbling gait and eerie, uneven pupils. She'd vomited
before
getting in the steam car, at least, and so far had not done so again.

Madame Barsteau's trim rally steamer was a single-seater, with no room for a passenger. Miss Speck's car was also too small for a second rider. Eliza didn't mind taking on Miss Davis for the drive, but feared the woman would need medical care she was helpless to provide. As Madame Barsteau had helped her colleague into Eliza's vehicle, she'd warned Eliza to make sure Miss Davis remained awake and talking as much as possible.

“She has a . . . I haven't the word.
Une commotion cérébrale.
”

“Concussion,” supplied Whitcombe.

“
Oui, exactement.
Concussion. Cecily, you must stay awake if you can, at least until we reach a doctor.”

Miss Davis nodded, listless and gray. “I know, Mother, stop telling me.”

Frowning, Whitcombe leaned into the car, blocking most of the doorway as he peered into the injured lady's eyes. “Miss Davis, do you know what year this is?”

It was as if the answer danced just out of her mind's grasp. Her pain and frustration were evident. “I . . . do. I know I do. Just forgotten. So tired. And it
hurts
.”

“I know, it happened to me once. For two whole days all I wanted to do was sleep, and they kept waking me every few hours. Yours is worse, though.”

“Hurts.”

Cantlebury trotted up with a pair of dark spectacles. “Here, she needs them more than I do. We need to move now. The longer we stay here the less I like it. Whitcombe, you're riding with me, yes?”

“Yes, I suppose.
Dammit
.”

“You drove well.”

“I was never in the running after Colorado Springs anyway. But I'd have liked to make it to that point on my own, at least.”

They'd resumed their long file for the journey. Eliza was second to last, with Cantlebury and Whitcombe bringing up the rear. Matthew had taken the lead, with Parnell tucked into his cargo area, and Eliza had to wonder if he'd drawn the livelier companion.

“Miss Davis. Cecily, are you awake?” She nudged her passenger's shoulder and was relieved when Miss Davis mumbled something. “What was that?”

“What happened? Where am I?”

“You were driving in the Sky and Steam Rally, and some saboteurs bombed your steam car. You have a concussion. I'm driving you to the next stop in Colorado Springs.”

Eliza had the answer down pat now, because it was the same thing poor Cecily had asked every time she woke up enough to speak.

“What time is it?”

“Four o'clock in the afternoon. We should be there in another few hours.”

“
Hurts
.”

“I know, Cecily. Just a few more hours and we'll get you to a doctor. Try to drink some more water if you can.”

The woman licked her dry lips and accepted the water flask Eliza handed her, but as she lifted it to her mouth she shuddered violently and lowered her hand again. “Can't.”

“
Please
try. Just a sip. You're parched.”

Though the shaded spectacles made it difficult to tell for sure, it appeared as though her eyes were closed again already. Eliza rescued the flask before it could fall from her fingers and put the cap back on tightly.

The bruise on Miss Davis's temple had darkened to a truly frightening purple black. Her periods of wakefulness were growing shorter and, to Eliza's mind, less lucid. Her speech slurred, and even when she slept the pain seemed to be unbearable. She alternated between fitful whimpering and, more worrisome, periods of deathlike stillness.

One of those frightening, too-quiet stretches had begun as Eliza drew close enough to the distant mountains to make out some details. After some rough patches of travel through craggy hills and valleys, the land had leveled out around them, a great flat plain stretching out to the foothills of the true mountain range. Eliza felt as if she were an insect crawling along an enormous plate, vulnerable to whatever unfeeling hand from the heavens cared to flick her away or squash her into oblivion. On the other hand, the range of visibility was far too great to make it a likely ambush point for the sky pirates. Her existential anxiety heightened, but her fear of actual attack by the hand of man eased for the first time in hours.

There had been a few simple bridges and raised fords along the way, but for the first time since leaving Westport, Eliza began to see signs of actual human maintenance in the roadway. It wasn't paved, but it was smoother and flatter than it had been, the larger ruts filled with gravel or sand. There was a small, sturdy bridge at one point, and then a larger trestled one of metal and heavy timbers, spanning a gorge they could have never crossed otherwise. The smattering of single cabins near the road swelled to hamlet size here and there. And then at last a sign, hand-painted and rough, but reassuring, with an arrow pointing west,
COL. SPRINGS 5 M.

Eliza chuckled, wondering who had put the sign up, and how often it was read by people who didn't already know the distance to town. “Cecily, wake up. Look, we're nearly there.” She shook Miss Davis gently by the shoulder, but the lady slept on. “Come on. Time to wake up. Cecily.
Cecily!”

She took her eyes from the road for a quick glance, then jerked them front again, trying to breathe slowly and carefully and not think of anything in particular. She especially could not think of what she'd just seen, the thin trickle of blood from Cecily's ear.

“Puppies. I'll think of puppies and keeping the car on the road and that is
all
I shall think of until we reach the checkpoint. Happy, fluffy puppies gamboling in a field of grass. Cecily, wouldn't that be adorable?
Cecily
. Puppies, tumbling and playing, picture that.” She reached for Cecily's shoulder again but drew back, unwilling to investigate more closely until she had to. At this point it no longer mattered; there was nothing more she could do.

By the time she reached the checkpoint, she had passed through that point of being overwhelmed by hysteria and entered a state of unearthly calm. She parked the steamer carefully, narrating each point of action meticulously to her silent companion.

“I'm venting down the boiler. Turning off the spirit flame now. And double-checking the brake to make sure it's fully engaged. You should always do that, Cecily, even on the flat. It's quite hilly here, though, of course. All the more need for caution.”

The first rally official to reach her car looked grim enough at first. After one glance at Eliza's face and another to take in her passenger's condition, the man turned chalk white himself. A furor broke out, the crowd's noise turning to panic and frantic activity, as somebody opened the door and Miss Davis tumbled out. Eliza never saw who caught her, only knew she didn't hit the ground.

Eliza was not so fortunate.

She came to from an application of smelling salts, and after a moment's disorientation felt a keen sympathy for Cecily Davis. The first thought in her mind was
What happened? How much time has passed?
The sky over her head was a lurid blend of reds, pinks and purples. It was either the most spectacular sunset she'd ever witnessed or she had hit her head like Cecily and was hallucinating the whole thing.

“No, we're old friends from childhood. I'll do it once we're sure she's all right.”

“Matthew?”

Getting her bearings slowly, she realized she was lying on her back on the street, her head pillowed on something softer than packed earth. Matthew knelt at her side. She blinked when he bent close, inspecting her eyes in the quickly dimming light.

“You do
not
appear to have a concussion. Do you know where you are? Do you know
who
you are?”

“Colorado Springs, Eliza Hardison. Oh, mercy, did I
faint
? Tell me I didn't.”
Mortifying
. She'd never fainted in her life.

“I think I would have too, under the circumstances. Also, your lips are dry and it was warm in the steamers. Did you remember to drink?”

“Oh. No, I suppose I didn't think to. I was so busy trying to get Cecily to . . . oh, Matthew. Oh no.” She struggled to sit up, looking frantically around her. All the cars had arrived, and most of the crowd seemed to have moved down half a block or so to a grassy area in front of a bandstand.

“Miss Hardison, if I may?”

The new voice startled her. It was a woman with a kindly face and iron gray hair, who had evidently been standing near her head. She carried a small torchlight in one hand, and now she knelt down by Eliza and lifted a hand to her forehead. With the skill of many years of experience, she positioned Eliza's head and raised first one eyelid, then another, shining the light in each eye and then holding it back to observe them both at once.