by Devon Monk
“Mr. Guffin, Mr. Ansell,” he said. “Turn us due west.”
“Aye, Captain,” both men said.
Seldom just gave him a knowing smile that said Hink had gotten himself whupped by a woman. Again.
“I’ll circle over town and give you one chance to spot this brother of yours,” Hink said to his passenger. “Because Molly Gregor there has taken a like to you and is vouching for your worth. But that’s all I’m going to give you, Mr. Hunt. Stand up here by the windows where you’ll have a view. If you can spot a wolf at this height in the dead of night, you’ve a head full of eyes far better than mine.”
Molly nodded, satisfied. “Welcome aboard, Mr. Hunt. Don’t mind the captain, he just has a stick stuck up his rudder tonight.”
Hink opened his mouth to protest, but she had already strolled off toward the women. The fair-haired petite woman stood next to the amber-haired younger woman who was lying in the hammock. The fair-haired woman was pressing a compress over what looked to be a shoulder wound.
Mr. Hunt strode up to the windows. He got his air legs surprisingly quickly and by the time he reached the window knew how to compensate for the motion of the ship. He’d likely spent some time on a riverboat, or at sea.
That was interesting.
“Molly,” Hink said, “how about you seeing to those boilers?”
She glanced away from the woman in the hammock, and the blonde nodded her permission. Well, wasn’t that a kettle of fish?
“Aye, Captain.” That was all Molly said with her mouth. But with her eyes she was telling him to mind his manners and treat their unexpected guests properly.
They didn’t have time for guests, was how he saw it. They had time for hunting down the Saint’s plans. That crewman he’d liberated from the Black Sledge had said something about a holder.
There were stories of a weapon called the “Holder.” Hadn’t been proved that it existed, but the president was interested in finding out who, or what, it might be. And Hink was just as interested if General Saint was connected to it.
If Cedar Hunt hurried up not finding his brother, they might be able to lash and land in some hidey-hole before dawn. Maybe check out the surrounding area for men willing to offer a little information on the Saint.
Mr. Hunt leaned up close to the window and slid his goggles down over his eyes, adjusting the lens. Captain Hink hadn’t seen that particular sort of lens setup and wondered if it helped him see through the darkness.
Captain Hink glanced out the open door and watched as the town of Vicinity rocked and pitched below, passing by like lumps of stone along a riverbed. They were high enough above the roofs, everything seemed to be a miniature of itself.
That sailor they’d plucked off the Black Sledge had babbled all through the night.
Course, could be true that old General Alabaster Saint was on the prowl out these ways. If the Black Sledge had fallen under his employ, didn’t take much to think there might be other ships, other captains, willing to lend their wings to the general. Especially if he put a stranglehold on how glim was caught and sold. And trading towns near the ranges, such as Vicinity, stood as ideal locations for the Saint’s business.
“See anything, Mr. Hunt?” Hink asked as he took out his knife and got to work digging a sliver out of the side of his thumb.
“No.”
Hink leaned a bit out the door to gaze at the land. They were outside of town now, just over the western rise of ridge covered in scrub and trees. Close enough to the trees that Hink could reach out and pull off a branch if Guffin were any worse of a pilot.
Nothing moved in these woods. Well, nothing natural. There was the occasional glimpse of the Strange fading from ghostly form to mist to night wind.
Hink shivered despite himself. He had a keen dislike of the things that walked this world in inhuman clothing.
Most men didn’t believe in bogeys and ghouls. But he’d spent a lot of the worst days of his life in darkened forests and bloody fields where the dying were going about it loudly and slowly.
He’d seen the things that came to watch. Sometimes with ragged teeth, ragged bone, ragged smiles. Things that found the suffering of mankind as attractive as an opera house play.
Below, a creek ran just north of town, a cold slate ribbon snaking through the night. He didn’t see the Strange anymore. Nor did he see a wolf. Looked like Mr. Hunt was on a cold trail.
“Strange things out this night,” Hink said under his breath as he went back to picking at his thumb with the knife.
Cedar Hunt grunted as if he had heard his words. Which was near impossible over the Swift’s fans and boiler.
“Turn around,” Cedar said. “Take us back over the jail, back where the fight’s going on.”
Guffin and Lum glanced at Hink, waiting his orders.
“Those townfolk wouldn’t want a wolf among them,” he said.
“Exactly. But that’s where he would be,” Cedar Hunt said. “Turn us back east straight over the jail.”
Captain Hink nodded at Guffin. “Let’s get this done and on with,” he said. “East, Mr. Guffin.”
The ship rolled a bit and felt as if she hovered there in one place as one set of fans pushed harder than the other, spinning her about tight.
“Bring her low, Mr. Ansell. Wouldn’t want our guest here to accuse us of leaving an unturned stone.”
The prow of the ship tilted down. Cedar Hunt grabbed ahold of the overhead bar to keep his footing, but didn’t once look away from the window.
The woman in the hammock let out a soft moan.
Captain Hink frowned, and walked his way uphill toward the women. “My apologies,” he said to Mae. “I haven’t properly introduced myself. I’m—”
“Captain Hink,” the woman said. “Yes. Molly told me. I’m Mae Lindson, and this is Rose Small. Could you hold this binding down, Captain? The knot’s come loose.”
Hink lent Mae a hand.
The woman in the hammock had her eyes closed. But even so, she looked like a beauty who slept in those old fairy tales he’d been told as a child. Her skin was too pale, her breathing too shallow. Still, the curve of her cheek, the arch of her lips, put a soft thud in his chest in a way only the sight of glim had managed before.
She was pretty, for sure. But not well. No, not at all.
“What’s wrong with her?” he asked as Mae tore back the length of cloth so she had a better strip to tie with.
“Caught in an explosion. A bit of…of tin is wedged in there.”
Hink frowned. “Small wound to be causing so much pain,” he said. “Did it blow through the back?”
“No. We checked. It’s in there. And it’s plenty big enough to kill her, Captain.” She paused as if listening to a far-off sound, then shook her head and got back to seeing that the binding was down tight. “It’s fine, it’s fine,” she said. Maybe to the woman, maybe to him. Maybe just to herself. “He isn’t looking, he doesn’t want it.”
“What?” he asked.
“The Hold—”
Captain Hink leaned in closer. The word had died on her lips, and she shot a glance up at him. Fearful eyes lowered, and she set her shoulders as if to remind herself of the weight of them.
“The hole,” she said. “That might have been blown through the back of Miss Small’s shoulder. You aren’t looking for it. Now, if you’d move your hand so I can tug the knot tight?”
“Talk to yourself often, do you?” he asked with his best bar-side smile. “They say the winds do that to a person. You often been aboard an airship?”
“No, Captain. I prefer to keep my roots in the ground. But thank you, for…” She looked up, looked around her as if maybe just seeing the place for the first time. “Oh. Thank you for pulling us up and out of that town. Why were you there?”
“We make drops, supplies and such. Doing a run before winter storms wash out the sky trails.”
Mae Lindson’s eyebrows notched upward. She clearly did not believe him. “Is that so?”
she asked, like a schoolmarm catching a student putting a frog in a neighbor’s lunch pail.
“Or maybe we’ve just come back from the mountains and are looking for some supplies ourselves,” he said with a wink. “You see what happened to that town, ma’am?”
“We just came through before sunset.” She buttoned up Rose’s dress, but not so high that it would pull tight across her bandages. Then she buttoned up her coat to keep her warm and decent.
“They were already dead when we got there.”
“The townfolk?” Hink asked, not quite knowing what to do with his hand now that he wasn’t touching Miss Small. He finally decided to loop his thumb through one of the rigging belts at his hips. “They looked lively enough to me.”
“It’s a difficult thing to explain, Captain Hink,” she said. “Very strange happenings.”
“There,” Cedar Hunt said. “Can you slow the ship?”
“Captain,” Guffin called out.
“Well,” he said to Mae, “once we put our feet earthward, I hope you’ll save some time to tell me your tale.” He tipped his finger to his forehead, even though he wasn’t wearing a hat. “Ma’am.”
Captain Hink strode away from the women and stopped beside Mr. Hunt, peering over his shoulder at the ground below.
There was a fair amount of movement going on down there. People moving about, but they seemed slower. As the airship paused overhead, they looked up. Well, the ones that still had eyes anyway.
“There’s a mess that’s gonna need cleaning up come morning,” he said.
Cedar Hunt didn’t say anything.
“Spot him?” Captain Hink asked.
“No.” The word came out more as a growl. The hair on the back of Hink’s neck rose up in response.
“Why are you folks out this way?” he asked.
“We’re headed to Kansas,” Cedar said. “Mrs. Lindson has family there.”
Captain Hink nodded. That might be part of the reason. The women didn’t look related. Rose Small looked nothing like Mr. Hunt. He hadn’t seen a ring on Miss Small’s finger. If she and Mr. Hunt were married, Cedar wasn’t acting like a concerned husband whose wife just might be dying.
“And you and Miss Small?”
“I’m headed east from there. Miss Small’s traveling for education.” He glanced over his shoulder, the ruby lens of his goggle giving him the look of a mad deviser. “That sustain your curiosity, Captain Hink?”
“Oh, not hardly,” Hink said. “My curiosity has a hearty appetite. Wants to know things like what those mangled folk down there are doing alive, and what came through to mangle them in the first place.”
“I don’t have clear answers to either of those questions,” Mr. Hunt said.
“Mrs. Lindson said you came upon the town at sunset. That’s late on the trail this far into the year.”
“We didn’t kill them.” Cedar looked out the window again. “We rode through for supplies. Found them dead. Miss Small insisted we stay to bury them.”
“And you listened to her?” Captain Hink glanced at the hammock where Rose tossed restlessly.
“She can be convincing,” Cedar said. “There!”
Captain Hink looked out the window again. They were over the outskirts of town near the mill that squatted over the wider end of the creek. Trees, scrub, more scrub.
“I don’t see anything,” Captain Hink said.
“By the barn. On the edge. It’s Wil.”
Captain Hink pulled his telescope out of his pocket and put it to use. He finally caught sight of something moving. “Big enough to be a wolf. You sure it’s the one you’re looking for?”
“That’s him. Land the ship.”
“That’s not going to happen, Mr. Hunt.”
“I won’t leave him behind.”
“And I won’t bring a wild animal onto my ship.” At the killing glare Cedar gave him, he had to work on not grinning. Meant a lot to him, that wolf. Enough he appeared willing to shoot Hink out of the sky for it.
“Then we are at a very dangerous impasse,” Cedar said. “I won’t leave him behind.”
“Heard you the first dozen times, Mr. Hunt. But the last thing I want on my ship is a beast that could kill us all. So you need to give me a damn good reason to make me change my mind. ’Cause where I stand it’d be just as easy to let you all off, down there into that town, and let fate have at you.”
A blast clapped across the heavens, cracking hard as thunder.
“Cannons, Captain!” Guffin yelled.
Hink glanced at his crewman, and then found himself getting grabbed and grappled by Cedar Hunt, who moved faster than a man should. Hink hit the floor with an oof, all the wind slammed out of him as an elbow bent around his throat.
The spine-chilling click of a hammer thumbing back filled his ears. As rightly it should, since the barrel of the gun was pressing a cold circle against his temple.
“You already have a wild animal on your ship, Captain Hink,” Cedar said. “And I’ll blow your head off unless you bring my brother aboard.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
It never took Captain Hink long to make up his mind. And whenever a man put a gun to his head, he right off decided that one, the man might not be the friendly sort, and two, he was not going to let anyone blow his brains out.
But before he could so much as make a move to ungun the man, the roar of another cannon splashed a wash of orange over the sky just north of them.
“It’s a ship, Captain,” Guffin said, not moving from his station.
“Damn it to glim, man,” Captain Hink said. “Of all the times to put a gun to my head it’s when my ship’s under fire?” Another blast thundered off, close enough it rocked the Swift. “Let’s you and I pick this up after I make sure we don’t go tumbling to our deaths.”
“Pull my brother up and I’ll put my gun down.”
Mr. Seldom was already halfway across the ship, a grappling hook hanging casually from one hand. Hink didn’t think there was an object, tool, or knickknack Mr. Seldom couldn’t make into a deadly weapon. He’d once seen him use a doily to strangle a man.
At a nod from Hink, Seldom would let that grapple fly. High chance he’d knock Mr. Hunt out before his finger squeezed the trigger. High chance Mr. Hunt might be faster with the gun than he looked, just like he was faster in a fight than he looked.
“Days like this I wish I’d listened to my mama and gone into robbing trains,” Hink said. “Let’s do as he says, Mr. Seldom.”
Seldom stopped in his tracks and tilted his head. It gave him a sort of startled-chicken look, but it was clear he thought Hink had gone straight out of his mind.
“I’m of a fine curiosity,” Captain Hink explained to his second. “You know how I hate leaving a puzzle unpieced.”
Another blast rocked the night, and Guffin started up on his swearing. Looked like he was going to go through it by the ABC’s, starting in Spanish.
“Just lower the catch arm, Mr. Seldom,” Hink said. “We should be able to scoop the wolf up. If he wants to be scooped.”
Seldom rubbed at his face, as if trying to scrub away the stupid of that order. “Aye, Captain.”
Man might not say much, but he got his opinion understood.
“You’d be better off taking your gun away from my head, Mr. Hunt,” Captain Hink said. “I don’t think your brother’s going to willingly jump into our net, but it’s the best you’ll get. There isn’t a clearing large enough to land in these hills, except for across and south of town. If you want your brother aboard, you need to come up with something that will lure him in.”
Captain Hink felt the squeeze around his throat lessen. He could have broken free right then. Could probably have broken free before that if he’d wanted to waste time on stabbing the man with the knife he kept up his shirtsleeve.
But he had made a promise to Molly that he wouldn’t completely kill their guests. And he was pretty sure Cedar Hunt was the kind of man who wouldn’t stop fighting until he s
topped breathing.
Cedar Hunt’s arm loosened and the gun was pulled away from Hink’s head.
Captain Hink took a couple steps forward and straightened his coat and breathing gear. “If you broke my gear, you’ll pay or replace it,” he said. “See to the wolf. Mr. Seldom will help you. And don’t get so close he can kick you out the door. He’s been of a short temper most of his life.”
A blast cracked against the mountainside, the ricochet sharp as the devil’s laughter.
“We have a visual on that ship yet, Mr. Ansell?” Hink didn’t care what happened between Mr. Hunt and Seldom. He had a ship that needed to keep her skin on her bones.
“What do you see, Mr. Guffin?” He walked up the rocking floor, keeping one hand on the overhead bars for balance.
“Not a mierda of a thing, Captain,” he said.
“Made it to the M’s already?” Hink asked. “Your Spanish is improving, Mr. Guffin. Keep her here. We’ll hover long enough to give Seldom a chance at the wolf. Maybe that will also give our cannon-happy companion a chance to go to hell.”
“Aye,” Guffin said. He pulled levers and Mr. Ansell, who was manning the wheel and humming a deep, slow song, set the rudders and wings in place. The Swift huffed and puffed, her fans running slower, as she came to a full halt, resting on her inflated envelope.
Hink scanned the skies, as much as he could see in the night, without lanterns, up against the wall of a cupped-off valley. He pushed away from the front of the cabin and stomped to the back, opening the rear starboard door. Mr. Hunt and Mr. Seldom stood about midway the ship, on the port door. So far, Mr. Hunt hadn’t gotten himself booted off the ship.
But both men looked intent as Seldom used levers and pulleys to lower the basket. Huh. Hink would have just tried to snatch up the beast with the arm, but it looked like Seldom had decided the basket—the same device they’d used to pull Rose Small up into the ship—was the better way to go.
Captain Hink was surprised Seldom hadn’t insisted that Mr. Hunt ride down and act as bait so he could dump him free a few hundred yards above the ground.
Seldom must have taken some kind of liking to the man. Or maybe he just feared Molly Gregor’s midnight wrench-to-the-head.