by Kin S. Law
The basement door slid open smoothly, unlike every penny dreadful Hargreaves had ever read. They were thankfully in the back of the house. She paused, uncertain, until Funny Goat slipped past her and led the way through a back hall, past a number of open rooms that looked like barracks. None of the rooms were occupied except for a number of clockwork frames like costume hangers, most of them hung with the makeshift clanker suits. They made a soft hiss as they pulled steam from the house’s taps through long hoses and into cannister-shaped capacitors.
“In here,” said Funny Goat, and he nudged open a door in the very back. Hargreaves drew a sharp breath when she saw Emory there, lying beside a large and snoring man in his fifties or sixties. The man was naked, but thankfully, Emory still wore the clothes Hargreaves had last seen him in.
“Here. Emory,” hissed Hargreaves gently nudging the child. She thought he was asleep, but the stark whites of his eyes opened as if he had been waiting for her. He was as quiet as she had ever known him. “Come on now. Let’s go.”
Emory opened his mouth and said something that made Hargreaves’ heart break.
“Yes, yes, we’ll find your mother. Come, before the man wakes.”
Emory got up, and with agonizing slowness, padded over to Hargreaves. She knelt with her arms out for what felt like an eternity before he got close enough and Hargreaves scooped him up.
“It’s all right now. It’s all right. You’re safe. Come on and let’s go home to Mother.”
“Gehh?” was the only reply.
“Yes? Yes, Emory?” said Hargreaves, but even as she said so she realized a simple truth that made a cold something dribble down her back.
The sound wasn’t coming from the child. The man was awake.
Even before she saw the man in the bed open his eyes, Hargreaves turned and shot him dead as he rolled toward them. He managed to loose a deep, hearty grunt before his throat became a ragged wet hole, ripped through by those nasty .22 rounds in Hargreaves’ Tranter.
“I’m sorry,” Hargreaves said to Funny Goat, but he was already pulling her out the door, ignoring the mewling from the little dark bundle in Hargreaves’ arms. She clung to Emory tightly even as her front grew warm and wet again. And still, he didn’t scream, did not cry.
When the first man appeared in the doorway, his bald head turned into a red flower almost before Hargreaves saw Funny Goat draw on him. The half-Indian was fast, even with an enormous Bacon six-barreled gun that barked like a mule. Then everything became a blur as they backtracked through the hallway, using the heavy clanker armor as cover and shooting their way out. They made it as far as the back door before Hargreaves saw the endless sea of grass that might as well be an actual ocean for how far they would have to go to get through it. She could hear the others rousing, screaming, gathering to come and kill them.
“Goat!” cried Hargreaves.
Funny Goat turned and whistled, and from seemingly nowhere the drumming hoofs of a clockwork horse came thundering around the house, running down first a barrel of water and then a man who got caught in that billowing cloud of steam. It whirled around the equine, wreathing it in a mystic fog that seemed to catch at the ankles of their pursuers. Funny Goat caught the braided reins as his mount swung by, and he held Hargreaves as she and the child swung on. Then he climbed up himself, pressing in tight behind the inspector.
“Go, go!” said Funny Goat, and made an odd sort of click. The horse reared, almost bucking, and then they were off, charging into the woods before the will-o-wisps of their passing had time to fade.
The horse had no care for unsound ground or where branches threatened to cave their heads in, which made for careful riding. On the other hand, the metal horse was indifferent to brambles, and the embers in its eyes lit just enough of the darkness to see, which made their going easier. Funny Goat communicated his directions almost preternaturally to the horse, without visible spurring. For some reason it reminded Hargreaves of Rosa, steering the Huckleberry. By and by Hargreaves asked about the Scream men, anything to forget they were running from the monsters that had wrought the abattoir in the basement.
“Beneath the mask, Wilhelm Scream is the Reverend Francois Devereaux,” Funny Goat said, as calmly as he said everything else. “His men do not know this. His power comes from fear and misinformation, and the things the Ghost Train sells him. The deputies do not ask questions. They are taken in by his charm, and his promise of kicking out the blacks, the gypsies, the aeronauts with their worldly acceptance of the different…the Indians.”
“But he allows you to be with his group,” said Hargreaves. Funny Goat did not deny it, and rode forward in furtive silence.
Strangely, this outlook did not surprise Hargreaves. She’d seen too many on the road with many strange and sordid problems. On Funny Goat, it seemed as if this stoicism, this quietly borne cross, was his birthright. She thought she might have finally tracked down a quintessential American attitude, to those who had inhabited it first.
Goat started out reluctant to speak, but she told him something of her life growing up in the English country, and her father the chief constable of their little town, how she played with his badge and his pips. She told him about her difficulty entering the service, and the drive to prove herself, so much that she was recognized by Scotland Yard for exceptional service. Being given undercover assignments, and resenting it, both because she was so good at it and because it was considered a woman’s specialty. She did not tell him of Maple Cross.
Something she said must have moved the Indian, for he began to speak. Hargreaves learned he was the child of a French colonial mother, who had come south escaping a bitter cold. She had not one thing to her name save fine, high cheekbones and milky skin, so found refuge with a wealthy caravan man, who put her to work singing in his traveling caravan’s tented saloon.
The caravan man was very fond of her. When the swell of her belly made it inconvenient for them to travel farther, Goat’s mother had convinced the owner it was his. Whether or not it was true, when the squalling babe was born Goat’s older brother looked enough like the caravan master for them to lay down roots. Later, Funny Goat was born, but came dark, the new moon to his brother’s full. Goat’s true father was a sideshow Indian in the caravan, a master of the throwing tomahawk.
His mother hid him as best as she was able, and that very night his true father smuggled him out to live with his own people. It was understandable then to Hargreaves why Funny Goat approached the fairer sex in so inadequate a fashion—his mother had in infancy dealt him a cruel hand so they all might live. He must expect all women to be so practical.
Funny Goat grew up with the Blackfoots. He had gone back as a younger man to try to find his mother, in the city where he had been born. It was there he learned of Devereaux, the company he kept, and the opportunity to make a life for himself. As for his mother, the town was full of people who could recount the nice caravan owner’s wife, who died of the dreaded consumption far too early, and perhaps left too much of her son’s schooling to his carny father. Her grave was atop a high hill, laid to rest by his elder brother. And Funny Goat had only one family in the world, so he had gone to him, not knowing what he would find.
Funny Goat seemed to know the country well, and when he grasped for a tree it almost grasped him back, like an old friend. They did not go quickly, but it seemed they were suddenly quite far from the barn, and quite near to the mountains. When the moon was high in the sky, they reached a stream, with still, dark pools along the edge. There were thick stands that hid the stretch of rocky beach from view. Funny Goat tied up the horse on the far side. Emory had fallen asleep. Hargreaves took the opportunity to tidy up her shirt, all the while aware of her arrangement with present company.
When she stepped in the river it was crisp, bracing, and it made her acutely aware of how her hips swung when she walked. And she wasn’t totally oblivious, not in shock. She had enjoyed his long legs, and his taut chest stretched over strong ribs. She wonder
ed how she would do with a man shorter than her and a bit thicker round. Hargreaves needed this as much as he did.
“Through the water. And the shirt. The dogs will make easy work, with the child’s scent on you.”
“Yes, I know,” said Hargreaves, and stripped off the garment unthinkingly, unfeelingly. The water was a rushing cold like silver in the dark. The woods were dangerous, but they dared not light a fire. The militiamen had the clanker suits, and would not tire. But they would not tread too far in the darkness, either. By the crackling, dark belly of the clockwork horse, the little bundle that was Emory lay, terrified but finally asleep after many hours of riding. Hargreaves shivered. Her body was sore, but they had put many miles between themselves and that accursed place they had saved Emory from.
“Quickly. We’ll use Baccarat for warmth,” said Funny Goat a few steps away in the river. Somehow, she was happy he had taken a peek, though he was just a shape to her outlined in starlight.
“Baccarat?” said Hargreaves. Her skin felt numb, and it wasn’t for the cold of the Montana evening.
“The horse. You’re in shock,” said Funny Goat, and suddenly he was there by her. Hargreaves didn’t even step back or cover herself as he led her out of the river and sat her on a log by Baccarat. They were on the other side of the horse from the child, but hidden beneath some bluffs.
Slowly, she began to regain some feeling, and after some moments realized it was because Funny Goat was wrapped around her, his arms crossed over hers and rubbing her shoulders. A rough blanket was wrapped around him and folded over them both. She felt his skin on her back, and he was breathing hard, but he didn’t seem to be doing anything but warming her up. Hargreaves was acutely aware how close their bodies had come.
“Oh,” said Hargreaves, starting, but there wasn’t much to do but inch herself forward. It was cold, after all, and there wasn’t much room under the blanket. Her first instinct took over, and words tumbled from her lips. “This isn’t proper.”
“Proper is a white man’s word,” said Funny Goat. “Out in these lands, I suspect this might be more proper and right.” He clutched her closer, and somehow Hargreaves turned under the blanket, holding his bare chest back with her hand, just an inch from her own front. It was strong, and muscular, and slightly musky. She liked it far too much to trust herself so close to it.
“And what is this? Are you asking for recompense now?” said Hargreaves. It was only after she said it that she heard the bitterness and sadness in her voice.
“No,” said Funny Goat simply. “I did not fulfill my end of the bargain, after all.”
“But you came with me,” said Hargreaves. “And we saved Emory. All those people…why would someone do that, Goat?”
“I know,” said Funny Goat. Then, perfectly understandable to Hargreaves, “I don’t know.”
They sat quietly for a moment, and Hargreaves slowly turned back around, letting their closeness ward off the cold in the blanket. Funny Goat resumed his rubbing, but slower now, with his fingers, keeping his movements from shifting their covering. Hargreaves saw their clothes draped on Baccarat’s back, slowly steaming dry. They had shared an unspeakable horror together, and Hargreaves needed this too, this closeness and the feeling of another’s pulse against hers to dry out the damp in her heart.
“Are you cold?” asked Hargreaves, though she knew he couldn’t be.
“I’ll have that recompense now,” said Funny Goat, and his voice was hoarse with lust. He moved slowly but with purpose, and then his lips were there, finding their way across her cheek. Hargreaves mumbled some weak protest, but soon she tasted him darting about like a furtive animal, felt her wrist clutched in his strong fingers, and returned the favor as savagely.
Ordinarily, she might have said no. She might have told him what he could do with himself that would leave him ruined for other women, or gone with her original plan to knock the bugger out. But at the moment, Hargreaves didn’t have much respect for herself. She felt incompetent, she felt lost, and she felt guilty letting all those people down. Most of all, she felt the long stain of corruption by her betrayal of the Queen. The death of the man in Appleton still clung to her like an oily slick, and the blood of the others in the house just now were on her hands too. She felt it filthy between her fingers, and she wished for some pure flames to lick them clean.
At last Funny Goat broke from her, his face opaque with the breath rising from their bodies. His fingers dug into the top of her trousers. They had chafed slightly during the ride, and his fingers seemed to burn with need against the tender swell of her hips. There was no pretending she was a man, not with those.
“I have seen too much death tonight,” said Funny Goat, and Hargreaves knew what he meant.
“Yes. Yes, oh God. Show me life,” said Hargreaves.
She grabbed his large, strong hand and pressed it to her backside, where she felt it grasp tight. She slipped off the log, and felt her bottoms catch and slide down as the pair of them slipped to the soft forest floor. And as they danced the first steps of this much-needed waltz, the events that had just happened came rushing back to her, as if the experience had been jostled loose. As Funny Goat’s breath feathered along her ear, she felt for his desire under the blanket, she arched for him to taste the sweetness pooling at the base of her neck.
Funny Goat proved a perfect gentleman, and when his fingers set her to moaning, he stopped, letting her come down from that shining spot. When she finished, they talked, naked under the blanket, Hargreaves teasing him by holding his unrequited desire loosely in her fingers.
Hargreaves nestled tighter into the wideness of Funny Goat’s chest, though her long legs threatened to poke out of the blanket. Sod it, she thought, and slipped her knees around his hips as she kissed him deeply, feeling her warmth press against him. Her golden hair fell loose and wanton about her shoulders.
Funny Goat began slowly, though his desire was clearly at zenith. She could feel it up on her stomach, throbbing insistently. He writhed with her, sliding up and down, and Hargreaves groaned, barely noticing him draw closer to her with every pass. And getting more imposing as well…where was he hiding all of himself? When Funny Goat slipped suddenly low, she took his strong neck in her hands, as if it gave her some symbolic control. He made no complaint, merely looking at her with the barest hint of amusement.
“What? I am no prude. You’re just, well…” Instead of admitting her sudden shock, she shimmied under the blanket, kissing and tasting smooth, burnished chest. She felt hands at her thighs, not letting her stray too far. She felt his firmness against the downy skin between her thighs and gasped, fearful. The thoughts in her mind were of duty, and abandonment, and of murder. Maybe she wanted the pain, as if it would cleanse her of the doubt, uncertainty and guilt dogging her journey. Perhaps if she had spoken with her Queen more, understood what was wanted of her…Then he put one hand on her back and reached behind her, underneath him, and there was no denying Funny Goat from possessing Hargreaves, and no denying her from him.
“Oh! Oh yes!” gasped Hargreaves, no louder than Baccarat’s breath rustling the leaves. Her first impression was of a terrifying fullness. In the first moments, she did not think herself equal to the task, but she made the attempt anyway. He stroked her golden hair as she worked at him, and she cupped him gently. The chiseled rear she had admired from afar was firm under her fingertips. His smell was clean, making her think of the wild open country. Vast vistas seemed to cross her mind, images of infinite blue skies, roaming herds of bison, gold plains that stretched from horizon to horizon. His fullness took her breath away, but his sweetness made it bearable, a warmth that suffused her like flaming fairy floss.
She had been on the pull once or twice, certainly, but not with anybody like Funny Goat.
As promised, he enjoyed the softness of her breasts and her legs. She had large breasts and Vanessa sometimes thought of them as unwieldy, needing quite a lot of cramming and handling to fit into corsets and dresses. Bu
t his hands felt like impossibly well-made underthings, soft and supportive even as their dance made the silver of the river before her jostle like a plucked string. She didn’t have to pretend, didn’t have to go knockers in special knickers. Funny Goat didn’t need anything but a good shag.
Then he was insistent in a way that could only be described as the linguistically vulgar ‘turgid,’so often in penny dreadfuls, but so much more satisfying when experienced. She was being gobsmacked by something turgid, and that was just ace to Vanessa Hargreaves. At one point she looked down at herself and thought her legs went on forever, and she was the flatlands of the universe, and there was his rippled, burnished abdomen with its cloven tattoo and white scars like the sky to her earth. She remembered seeing the steaming automata horse upside-down, and by the time she regained her faculties the horse had cooled, pinging itself quietly to its metal sleep.
By her reckoning, Hargreaves was in a safe time of the month for this sort of thing. She knew it was no guarantee, but in the wilderness and on the lam, the patch of tacky wetness she found on her stomach in the morning was nearly high society. Funny Goat had somehow woken before her, or maybe he did not sleep, so before Emory could wake they did it again propped up by a tree. Hargreaves tasted him this time, enjoying the look of rapture on his face.
Best of all, she felt no guilt, no remorse. Instead, there was a lightening, as if a burden lifted from her shoulders. No devil had appeared in a puff of smoke to claim her. To those in so-called progressive Britain who would say so, even the occasionally prudish Hargreaves had to say “bollocks!” Behind the facade of a clean-cut conservative place like Essex or Spelter, folk were having a good old time of each other. Vanessa Hargreaves felt herself entitled to a little every now and again.
Once Hargreaves had it clear in her head, she saw no reason not to utilize Funny Goat for all he was worth. He had been very resourceful, even catching some small fish for breakfast before their impromptu social. If she explained the urgency of retrieving Alphonse and the nature of her mission, Goat would be all too willing to assist her. So she asked, but before she could tell this part of her story, Goat stopped her.