Scarlet Devices (19 page)

“Both of them keep stubbornly refusing to expire. Once Edmund was old enough to pursue legal action on his own, of course he looked into an annulment. They'd never . . . well, he had grounds, let's just put it that way. Then he realized it would be disastrous for Meggie if he abandoned her. Her parents would have her put in an asylum in a heartbeat without his protection, and her heart would be broken besides. She adores Edmund, and in his way he adores her. She's like a little sister to him. She lives at his country house with dozens of servants who are absolutely loyal to their little mistress, and he'd never be able to face them down either. So.”

“But where does that leave Lavinia? It doesn't seem honorable to ask her to give up so much. It may not be his fault, but he's still a married man.”

“Well, for one thing, the elder Specks have threatened to disown Lavinia if she shames them by marrying a grotesque who left his former wife under suspicious circumstances. I know, I know, but they're fixed in their thinking. They'd rather ignore the affair they must know she's having, than be forced to acknowledge Edmund as their son-in-law. So there's that. And for another thing, Edmund offered Lavinia marriage more than once early on, and she refused for reasons that had nothing to do with her family. He was prepared to hire the best lawyers, do whatever it took to ensure things could remain safe and constant for Meggie if he had the marriage annulled. Lavinia finally told him she couldn't decide until she'd met this infamous wife for herself. They went to visit Meggie, and the three of them had a picnic in the garden and played tiddlywinks. Meggie's very quick with her good hand. Edmund says that on the drive back to Oxford, Lavinia cried for a solid hour and told him he was never to ask her to marry him again as long as Meggie lived.”

He anticipated Eliza's reaction and had his handkerchief ready before she asked for it. She took it with a quiet sniffle.

“It's horrible and sad, but beautiful. It would have been much simpler to hate him for philandering, and think of Lavinia as a fool for love.”

“They are fools for one another.” And Matthew knew exactly how they both felt, because he'd joined their ranks now. A fool, a moth to Eliza's flame. He burned for her, and wondered if he'd ever be able to quench that particular fire.

“Let's go see about the signal fire. Then I'm for some sleep. Perhaps the hot rocks and extra blankets will warm the rest of me. This fire hasn't quite conquered the chill.”

I could conquer it for you
, he thought wistfully. The camp was too small and the tents far too closely arranged for them to risk it, however.

“Today was like a strange dream,” Eliza said as she stood up, stretching.

Matthew sighed and rose to join her. “At least it was a dream without any pirates in it.”

 • • • 

W
HEN
E
LIZA WOKE
, it was to the sounds of sleepy talk by the campfire, the dull clink of utensils against enameled tin plates and the jingle of harnesses as the mules were hitched to the wagon.

She dressed quickly, cursing the cold from the moment she left her nest of blankets until she was safely shrouded in layers of goose down, silk and wool. Exiting her tent, she saw Madame Barsteau at the fireside, looking windburned and exhausted but otherwise unharmed.

“You made it!”

“Oui. Here, and no further, I fear. My air intake has malfunctioned, and my boiler nearly exploded before I was able to land and attempt to repair it. I had to put a stick there to keep it open, in the end. The valve had snapped.”

Accepting a heaping plate of eggs and potatoes from the cook, Eliza sat next to the older woman. “More sabotage?”

“Just a part I should have replaced sooner. My own fault. I don't often participate in air rallies. I think this was probably my last.”

The initial relief of seeing Madame Barsteau alive had blinded Eliza to some details. Now she saw the bandages on her feet, the angry red marking the tip of her nose and the top of one ear.

“Were you injured, Madame?”

“Frostbite. The medic thinks I may lose a few toes before all is said and done. In truth, I was surprised to wake up at all this morning, so I count the toes as a small enough price to pay. My fingers are all quite well, and apparently my nose and ears will recover. Those I was able to keep just warm enough. The funny thing is, I was able to finish my temporary repair, launch my dirigible by myself—though I did have to cut the tether lines—and navigate accurately for two hours before it was even properly dawn. I didn't even notice the pain until I stepped out and saw the medic waiting.”

“We do what we must, I suppose. So where will you go from here?”

Madame Barsteau nodded in the direction of the men's tents, where Cantlebury had just emerged. Swathed in fur again, he looked like a wooly creature of the forest. But Matthew had explained that the cold was particularly dangerous to Cantlebury, whose stature and poor circulation put him at higher risk of hypothermia and frostbite. Eliza hoped the fur was enough.

“Mr. Cantlebury and I spoke earlier. I shall return with these gentlemen here to Colorado Springs, to convalesce along with Lavinia. Assuming she's no longer contagious, of course. Otherwise I will convalesce
near
her and communicate at a distance. They offered me Salt Lake City, but I chose the opposite direction. In this way, I gain a companion to stave off the boredom of waiting to see if my toes will drop off, and Cantlebury is reassured that somebody is looking after his lady love.”

“I'll miss you,” Eliza told her. It was the truth. She'd come to admire Madame Barsteau's spirit, and appreciate her sharp, dry wit. She also didn't relish the knowledge that without Madame, they were down to three competitors with five days left in the race.

“We'll meet again in New York. I plan to stay until it grows too hot to bear, which I expect will be sometime in July.”

Eliza nodded, still sad but resigned.

Matthew came out of his tent, already in his flight gear just as Cantlebury was. The gentlemen, it seemed, had already breakfasted. Eliza was the last to rise, and once she was ready, they set off for Salt Lake City. The three of them.

T
O EVERYONE'S SURPRISE
and cautious relief, Salt Lake and Elk Cities were both hospitable and blessedly free of Temperance Society ladies. Nobody was blown up, shot at or crashed into. The weather held and promised to be somewhat warmer over the last few days of the race as they moved westward over the highest of the mountains.

After the decent accommodations at Salt Lake, and the rough but adequate housing at Elk City, Matthew had grown complacent enough to feel rather let down by the amenities at their next stop. Lake's Crossing was a grimy, dismal enclave of humanity stuck on the side of a mountain near a mine, and the one thing he could say in favor of the inn was that it appeared to be the cleanest place in town.

As they supped on bland, potato-thickened stew in front of a somewhat measly fire in the inn's small common room, Eliza told him to look on the bright side. “We've certainly slept in worse conditions during this race. At least the bedding appears free of not only bedbugs but fleas. Not sure I can say the same about those hay bales on the night of the storm.”

“You had hay bales?” Cantlebury exclaimed. “Lucky. I slept in my vehicle that night. To the extent I slept at all, which is to say not much.”

“Your night of roughing it sounds better than Madame Barsteau's,” countered Eliza. “At least you were in no fear of freezing to death.”

“True, true. It's all relative.”

A local walked into the room, glancing about with wide, deranged looking eyes before settling his attention on the threesome by the fire. “Who're you? Don't know you.”

Standing, Matthew sketched a short bow. “Matthew Pence. One of the rally drivers. Were you looking for anyone in particular, sir? We've been here for some time now and nobody else has come in.”

The man trembled with more than the cold. Though obviously a miner, by his dusty costume and goggles, he seemed barely fit to be walking about on his own.

“Where's Jimmy?” he demanded, his voice filled with panic and suspicion. He started toward them, his entire body shaking. With rage or a terrible neurological condition, Matthew couldn't tell.

“Um . . . I'm terribly sorry but I don't know a Jimmy.” Matthew edged between Eliza and the crazy miner, trying not to be too noticeable. He knew Cantlebury still had his pistol handy, but his own was in his room with his equipment. From the corner of his eye, he saw Eliza pick up an andiron from its rack and begin to poke the embers idly. Her grip on the handle was relaxed but firm, like a sword fighter's.
Smart girl
.

“Cletis, there you are.” The stout, rosy woman who kept the inn rounded the corner into the room and faced off against the worrisome intruder. “Now I told you we had special guests tonight and not to come around, don't you remember that?”

“But . . . But Jimmy. Mavis, I have to see Jimmy tonight.”

“You just come on with me. Jimmy came earlier and left you something. It's in my office. Come on, now.” She waited until he'd made his shuddering, anxious way from the room, then spared a glance at her guests. “You folks need anything else tonight?”

Her face was round and pleasant, but her eyes were hard and no smile could hide that. Matthew looked at Eliza and Edmund, lifting a brow in query.

“Miss Hardison, Mr. Cantlebury? Anything?” They shook their heads, and he relayed their answer and gave her their collective thanks. Once she was gone he sat down again heavily, plucking his trencher and bowl from the settle beside him. “And what, I wonder, did Jimmy leave for our friend Cletis, that he was so anxious to get?”

“Something for his nerves, one hopes,” Cantlebury suggested.

“Opium,” Eliza said bluntly. “I'm not exactly guessing. I went down to the front desk to ask Mrs. Brinks if she had a needle and thread, and inadvertently overheard her accepting delivery from someone I can only assume was Jimmy. He was quite miffed to alter his usual schedule, which I gather involves sitting here receiving his customers one at a time like a doctor—”

“Or a tax collector,” quipped Cantlebury.

“He referred to them as ‘patients,' but if he's a doctor, he only has one remedy to prescribe. Mrs. Brinks complained about the quality of the last batch, full of debris, didn't look like it had been filtered at all from raw. Jimmy assured her this lot would be superior.”

“I'd say your guess was educated, at the least. But why didn't you tell me sooner, Eliza? Us, I mean.”

“Wanted to wait until we'd at least had something to eat. But I'm glad I did wait, because it gave me time to think. I don't blame them, Matthew,” she said earnestly. “For taking the opium. Look around at the few people you've seen in town. The vast majority of them are clearly ill. Cletis was no exception. I don't think we were seeing opium addiction alone there.”

“What else, then?”

“I know the answer to this one,” Cantlebury volunteered. “That place they all work at calls itself the Silver River Mine, but that's a play on words. They're not mining silver, they're mining quicksilver. These men are all suffering from various degrees of mercury poisoning. I've seen it before. The Trans-China Rally runs directly through a village much like this one. There, it
was
doctors prescribing opium for the sufferers. A tincture, like laudanum. It calms their nerves, helps ease the tremors and quiets the stomach enough to allow them to eat.”

“And makes them a more docile workforce, no doubt,” she added with a cynicism Matthew hated to hear. “Less likely to complain.”

“True. And many of them simply worked until they fell dead or ran too mad to continue laboring. They had no choice if they wanted to feed their families. The bosses encouraged the opium habit. It kept the workers even more dependent, after all, and allowed the bosses to make good use of them awhile longer.”

Matthew considered his friend. “You either spent some time there, or asked a lot of questions.”

“The latter. And I was glad not to spend time there. The quicksilver gets to everyone eventually, it's in the groundwater. In their food.”

“Mr. Cantlebury, say that again,” Eliza requested.

“The quicksilver is in their food?”

“No, earlier—about why the bosses in China encouraged the opium habit.”

“It made the miners dependent and kept them useful longer.”

Matthew could almost see the gears turning in Eliza's brain before she spoke again. “It's just like Parnell's suicide note. You say the workers in China took a tincture of opium but were still able to be of use as miners?”

“Well, most of it isn't highly skilled labor. Some of it takes strength, but if you're paying your workers next to nothing anyway it doesn't cut into profits too much to hire more of them to help get the job done.”

She nodded, thinking some more. “And if you're paying them nothing at all, it's even more lucrative.”

“You really think Orm is using opium-addled kidnap victims to man his farms? Using them as slave labor? I know that's what you suggested to that general in Salt Lake, Matthew, but I thought it was just to get them enthused enough to investigate. It seems so fanciful.”

“Probably not to the victims,” Matthew pointed out. “Eliza, are you suggesting he doesn't simply press-gang the opium addicts, force them into slave labor, but actually keeps them addicted?”

“Think about it. It's as Cantlebury said, they would become dependent on him for the opium to ease their symptoms. Withdrawal symptoms, in this case. As a dilution, perhaps in the food, it would be pitifully easy to distribute, and a worker would have to starve himself to resist ingesting more of the drug. As slaves, he wouldn't have to pay them, just feed and house them, and not very well. He can always get more as long as the opium dens are operating, and as he controls the flow of the drug that seems likely.”

“What if they escaped and told someone?” Cantlebury argued. “The inherent flaws in this business model are glaringly obvious.”

“I'm not suggesting he's sane,” Eliza said. “But he is clever. What happens if somebody tries to escape? Unless they escape with a supply of opium to keep them going, they begin to have withdrawals within a day or so, correct? Perhaps sooner. They'd either die in the mountains or be forced to find their way back for more. Opium eaters aren't known for their initiative, anyway, are they? I suspect they'd stay once they knew what would happen if they attempted to leave. And that's assuming they're even lucid enough to know what's being done to them. The sober ones, the guards and so forth, are complicit in a continent-wide scheme of kidnapping and forced drug addiction, not to mention the illegal drug trade. It's in their interest to remain loyal to Orm and keep his secrets for him.”

“And all the while they'd be producing more opium for him to use in keeping them enslaved. That's more than devious, it's vile.” Matthew pushed his food away, his appetite suddenly gone. “What's more, I think Orm enjoys the risks. He courts being found out, it's a game to him. The more outrageous the behavior, the more likely to lead to his exposure, the more thrilling the sport becomes.”

“Two more days. I wonder if Carson City is any better than Lake's Crossing?” mused Cantlebury.

“Don't let Mrs. Brinks hear you speculate like that,” Eliza warned. “You wouldn't want to be knocked out of the race by means of a swiftly wielded rolling pin to the head. She seems quite content with her little village.”

“Yes, because apparently she's its drug kingpin,” Matthew pointed out. “The biggest, strongest fish in a very small pond.”

“Bolt your doors tonight, children. ‘Ware the bogeywoman.” Cantlebury had started kneading his thighs, working out the cramps that tended to strike him after a day of exercise.

Matthew nodded in agreement. “But first shall I ask the bogeywoman to send you up some hot water bottles?”

The small man grinned, his old devilish charm surfacing. “Pence, you always were a prince among men.”

 • • • 

L
IKE ALL IDYLLS
, the racers' days of quiet soaring through peaceful skies had to come to an end.

Eliza, in the lead, spotted the first pirate craft shortly after noon. She was headed almost due west at that point, but when she saw the ominous black-sailed wind balloon to the north, she risked edging slightly to the south. Noting the course correction, she gauged her fuel levels and decided to chance flying a bit faster.

A stiff, choppy breeze slowed her down, and she had to struggle to control the pitch of her tiny dirigible against the buffeting gusts. The landscape below, while still awe-inspiring, was less starkly beautiful than the mountains farther to the east had been. Only rare patches of snow topped these lower peaks, and there was more grass visible, with fewer rocky crags. This, she decided, was
pretty
rather than beautiful. Green meadows filled with wildflowers, sweeping up into crests that looked more inviting than forbidding. Most young society ladies would probably want to paint the vista. Eliza just wanted to spot the pirates, and didn't like that the mountains made it hard to do so. Too many places for them to hide, to rise up unexpectedly.

The ship to her north maintained a steady distance. Matthew and Cantlebury seemed to have taken her example and altered course as well. They approached her slowly, Cantlebury slipping into the lead and dropping altitude slightly. Looking for a place to land if they had to, Eliza surmised. Matthew was behind her, and when she glanced into the curved mirror that allowed her a panoramic rear view, she saw with horror that a second pirate ship was gaining on him, rising swiftly from a valley and pushing to within a few hundred feet of them. The northerly ship began to close in as well, forcing them to tack south once more.

Eliza felt for her borrowed revolver, finding it secure in the storage pocket on the harness. She had a knife in her boot as well. The small pistol she'd started out with was stowed in a shoulder holster; it rubbed uncomfortably with the rigging straps, but she felt reassured by it.

This isn't how I expected to die
. As soon as the thought surfaced, she tried to quell it, to replace it with something else.
Perhaps we really will find Phineas,
or
perhaps these aren't pirates at all, but simple farmers out to dust their crops. With black sails. And crews of a dozen or more apiece.

She knew panic had set in when she realized she was trying to jolly herself out of it. Badly.

“With crop dusters like that, those must be some pretty impressive fields,” she said aloud, her words whipping away on the wind. She followed Cantlebury as he skimmed up a steep rise. He'd disappeared over the crest by the time she reached the top, and her first instinct was to scan the air and find him again.

She forgot all about Cantlebury for a moment as her brain tried to give meaning to the view before her.