by C. Litka
01
The following weeks are a haze of steam, smoke, passengers, and the thumping of the Shadow Bird's engine. I had stokers and oilers underfoot on the voyage out to Chasm Lake, and the engine room to myself on the return trip for the first four trips. A tent city sprung up along the twilit shore and in the dark woods as thousands of eager prospectors rushed to Chasm Lake and the "Gold Mountain Find" to make their fortune. The smoke of their campfires replaced the odor of rotting fish. The pounding of nails, the buzzing of the steam powered saws, and the laughter and music from the tent taverns and dance halls replaced the cries of the sea birds.
The gravel strand became crowded with barges and fliers that were going nowhere fast - since they were abandoned by their crews for the gold fields on Gold Mountain's foothills and meadows. There may've been 5,000 prospectors camping around Chasm Lake, some waiting for a hint as to where gold was found before rushing off - others stayed, perhaps having second thoughts, or too short of money or supplies to move on, while others may have simply decided that there was more money to be made as the hired hands of the enterprising store keepers, tavern owners, dance hall proprietors, and whore house operators who were racing to build their establishments before the first fools and their gold arrived back from the digs beyond the dark woods. The first rumors had gold being found in the meadow valley over the first ridge line to the right of the newly christened "Gold Mountain" that towered over Chasm Lake. That sent a surge of prospectors out over that hill. By the time we landed with our third or fourth load of prospectors (the frantic first few weeks are all rather hazy), a steep trail had been cut through the tall pines over the ridge to "Lormia Flats." They were soon stringing a tram cable through the gap that would carry people and supplies up and over the ridge to Lormia Flats on a platform swinging under the cable, since the meadows beyond were too wet and marshy to allow barges to land, or at least to take off again once they had landed. Many of the just arrived store owners and taverns keepers were hauling their goods over the ridge to open up shop in the new tent city on the other side of the ridge. The first breathless reports said that there was plenty of gold for all.
By our fifth or six run we were carrying more supplies than people, and the people we were carrying were the shopkeepers with their goods, the tavern owners with their spirits, and the whore operators with their girls. Along with them came the gentlemen gamblers carrying a well traveled carpet bag who expected to find their gold no further into the wilderness than the taverns on Lake Street or the twisting back alley now known as Gold Mountain Street. The more enterprising ones may've made it as far as the taverns in Lormia Flats as well.
'Ain't he a dream come to life?' said KaRaya with a discrete nod of her head towards the clump of our passengers arranging themselves on the deck.
We were in Bindare awaiting the arrival of Captain DenMons and the last consignment of goods she had purchased. We'd gotten into selling goods on our own account - flour, beans, dried and canned, kaf and tey, and such offered for sale off the barge's deck. They were commanding outrageous prices on the strand so we now had a wholesale business in addition to the transport one. "Mom" saw no point in transporting supplies for merchants when she could buy and transport them just as easily, and rake in twice the profit herself. My engine room staff was polishing the engine and washing the charcoal dust from the deck - I like a nice and neat engine room, to start - and I was just hanging about the deck, hands in pocket watching KaRaya and her deck crew working to get everything ship-shape for sailing in the bright light of Bindare's bustling aircraft port.
'Who?' I replied absently.
'Him,' she said, nodding again, 'The tall one.'
'You mean the gambler?' I replied.
'Who says he's a gambler?' she demanded sharply.
'I was being charitable. Which ones are his girls?'
'Listen, Wilitang, if you weren't my friend you'd be sporting a black eye by now.'
'Oh?' I said, 'What did I say to warrant a black eye?' I wasn't clueless, but I was now a chief engineer, and had a long tradition to uphold. And, well, KaRaya ought to have known better. The tall, handsome gentleman in the faultlessly tailored black suit, with his shiny broad feathers tied behind him, with a nice black ribbon under his wide brimmed hat, was clearly trouble.
'You know exactly what you said. And if I wasn't certain that you were just teasing me, I'd have sent you flying.'
'Like him, do you?'
'Oh, he's just my type. Handsome, dashing...'
'Well groomed...'
'A true gentleman with those laughing blue eyes...'
'Who could deal you a winning hand of DuDan's Folly if he really liked you, but it would not quite win if he didn't...'
'Oh, come on now, Wil. You don't know he's a professional gambler. At least not one like that. How can you tell just by looking at him? How many gamblers do you know?'
'I don't know any personally. But I've seen them in the vids, which is to say, in the theater, and he fits the type to the last detail. He could've been sitting next to me and taking notes. I bet he has a small springer pistol hidden in a pouch in his sword belt and a knife in his boot, and several decks of cards in his belt pouch.'
'You have a little firearm in your pocket and that glass knife around your calf. Does that make you a gambler as well?'
'I don't have a deck of cards in my pocket...'
'You've got a dragon that has one in her pouch. You're a fine pair of gamblers.'
'Well, then how come you haven't fallen head over heels for me?'
'Your eyes aren't blue.'
'That close, hey?'
'And you're a chief engineer. I've got some sense of self-worth.'
'I should hope so. And I should hope that you use it when it comes to yon Gentleman Jim, man about the islands, who dabbles in cards every once and a while. Just for fun.'
She gave me a dark look and returned to directing her deck hands. And watching her dream come true.