Cold Copper: The Age of Steam

by Devon Monk

  Battery? she thought.

  “Yes. Of course. I’m going to put it down now, just as you said.” She knelt, as if to place it on the floor, then tucked her other hand into her pocket. She wrapped her palm over the wooden ball filled with nails. Looked like she was going to have a real life test for the little grenade after all. She threw the device straight at his knees.

  Hit him too. Nails flew out like shattered glass in a yard radius, striking all three men.

  They yelled and stumbled backward, firing wild shots as they ducked for shelter behind the crates.

  “Run!” Thomas shouted.

  Rose was not running. She took aim and threw the battery at the men.

  Thomas swore, grabbed her by the arm, and dragged her to the door. “I said run!”

  “You can’t just order me around!”

  “Then consider it a suggestion,” he said with a grin.

  Thomas yanked the door open and all but shoved her out of it. She threw her arms out to the side to catch her balance, then ran across the narrow walk to the next car. She expected Thomas to be behind her.

  She turned. He was inside the freight car, hands in the air as a gunman slammed the door behind him. Her gun was back in her luggage by her seat two cars away. She didn’t know if she could reach it in time.

  She pulled the door open.

  “Miss, there you are.” A middle-aged man with a brimmed flat-topped cap and the uniform of a porter reached through the door to help her into the car.

  “Let’s get you inside now.” He reached past her to close the door and shuffled her into the train car.

  “I was told you’ve been running between the cars. That is not allowed. Not allowed at all. I believe your seat is in second class?”

  “There’s a man in trouble,” Rose said. “Back there. In the freight car. We need to help him.”

  “I’ll see to it he returns to his seat after I escort you to yours. Please,” he said, pressing a small gun to her ribs. “The sooner you return to where you belong, the sooner I can look in on your friend.” He leveled his other hand at the crowded aisle indicating she should get walking.

  Was he in on this too? Was he a part of the men keeping Thomas trapped in the freight car?

  Several faces turned her way, but hardly anyone could hear the conversation over the rattle of the train. She was sure no one would notice the gun before he had a chance to shoot her.

  She could try to rouse the passengers to help her, but as she met each person’s gaze, they quickly looked away. Helping a friend was one thing; getting into trouble with the porter for a stranger—and getting thrown off, family and all, because of it—was an entirely different sort of risk.

  Rose made up her mind. She needed her gun, and needed it fast.

  The porter opened the next door and helped her across the narrow space between the cars before repeating the process all over again until she was back in the car where she and Hink had sat.

  “I believe this is your car,” he said.

  “It is,” Rose said. “You don’t need to worry about me now.”

  “I’ll just show you to your seat.”

  Rose bit back her frustration and quickly walked down the aisle and to the open bench.

  Captain Hink was not there.

  “This is it,” she said. “My luggage is right where I left it. This is my seat. Thank you. I’m sorry to have been a bother.”

  “Just see that you don’t go out again, miss. It’s dangerous out there. Very dangerous.” He leaned down over her, smiling as if he were her best uncle, but his tone was hard and clipped. “As a matter of fact, if I were you, I’d make a point to stay right here the rest of the trip. Stay out of the cargo, forget your ‘friend’ back there, and stay out of things that aren’t your business. When you get off at the next stop, don’t look back.”

  Then he straightened, his hand still on the gun in his pocket. “Do you understand me, miss?”

  Rose nodded. “I promise to stay completely out of your business, if you’ll just let my friend go.”

  “That isn’t going to happen.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “No,” he said. “It is not.”

  He walked down the aisle and stopped in front of the door that would lead her down to the freight car, turning his back to the door so he could look down the aisle at her.

  Thomas might not be dead yet. He was a smooth talker and seemed to keep his wits sharp. He might have talked his way out of the fight. Which could have left him wounded or tied up.

  Or he might have talked enough that the men in the freight car shot him dead.

  She couldn’t just sit here if there was a chance she could save him.

  But how?

  “Get tired of the tenderfoot and come back here for a real man’s company?”

  A man’s shadow fell across the bench. Captain Hink stood blocking the light and the aisle, one hand up on the brass rail above the seat, the other tucked in his belt loop.

  He still wore his hat, and, Rose thought, he smelled a bit of tobacco and whiskey.

  “Where have you been?” she asked.

  He raised one eyebrow, but did not smile. “On the train,” he drawled.

  “I walked through the car. I walked through several cars. You weren’t here.” She pointed at the seat.

  “Maybe I was. Maybe I was sending a wire to Seldom telling him where to meet me with my ship. Maybe your eyes were filled with that toff, Wicks.”

  “He’s in trouble,” Rose said. “Three gunmen have him.”

  “Three?”

  “I don’t think he’s armed. You must help me save him.”

  “Must? Don’t recall ever signing a waiver as that dandy’s protector. He get himself in a row? Fine by me. Might look better with a few less straight front teeth.”

  “Paisley Cadwaller Hink Cage, I cannot believe you can be so heartless.”

  “Heartless? I never threw my lovers in your face.”

  “Lovers? So you did fraternize with those women!”

  “No,” he said leaning down so that there was nothing to be seen but his tightly controlled anger. “I did not sleep with those women. Don’t,” he warned when she opened her mouth, “start talking. Listen. Just listen.”

  He tipped his head slightly, waiting for her agreement.

  “He could be dying right now. Or dead,” she said.

  “If you sit there and listen to me, I promise to go look for the dandy. Agreed?”

  “We go look for him.”

  He considered for a moment, then nodded and sat down next to her.

  For the first time, she realized how much he had been making it a point not to touch her. When he sat, he made sure his leg didn’t brush her skirts and deftly turned so his wide shoulders fit the space available.

  “I haven’t been completely true to you about my…activities,” he began. “You’re right that I haven’t told you everything. Honestly, it’s such a habit to keep certain things…private. Things I don’t even share with my crew.”

  Rose clenched both her hands together and resisted the urge to stare out the window to see if Thomas was bouncing down the track.

  “You know how I was raised, what sort of business my mother was engaged in.”

  “Yes,” she said. He had been raised in a brothel. He’d told her that was one of the reasons he had so many names. His mother believed in giving him one from each well-off man who had visited her bed, hoping to secure a father for him.

  “As a younger man, I found myself feeling quite at home in such places,” he continued. “You may not believe this, but I made friends with some of the women over the years.”

  “Years? Is this supposed to be making me feel more kindly toward you, Captain?”

  “This is meant to tell you the truth.” He inhaled, held his breath a moment, then exhaled. “I’ve visited hundreds of brothels, dance halls, and parlors. Maybe thousands. And while I do not pretend to be a saint, the truth of it is, I visit su
ch places for information.”

  “Is that so?” Rose said with a smile clenched between her teeth. “So this is purely altruistic of you. Of course. You are only exchanging information with thousands of beautiful, available women of ill repute.”

  A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth and she glared at him. The man was maddening. The angrier she got, the more he seemed to enjoy the challenge of testing her temper. If only he wasn’t so frustrating, she might be able to ignore him.

  But he made her blood heat up. In more than one way.

  There was a roguish charm and power about him. Even with the eye patch, he still looked every inch the U.S. Marshal and airship pirate. And when he was this close to her, it didn’t take much for her mind to wander to the kisses they’d shared and…gentler moments.

  “They are that, just what you say,” he said calmly, his voice a warm burr beneath her skin. “I’d expect a woman who plans to live her life adventuring to be more open-minded about women who are also trying to make their way in the world with their particular talents.”

  “So you are just helping these women make their way. Lovely.”

  “I am helping them, and they are helping me.”

  “I am certain they are!”

  He gave her that grin again, enjoying her reaction. “By spying,” he said. “They spy for me. Well, not just for me.”

  Rose opened her mouth, then shut it fast.

  “They spy,” he repeated, “for the American government. No better place to harvest a man’s secrets than between the sheets.” At her look, he added, “Not my secrets. Well, not always mine. There was this one woman…” He pulled back just a bit at her glare.

  “Guess that’s a story for another time,” he said. “These women gather other men’s secrets. Important men, unimportant men. Rumors, brags, lies, pillow-talk truths. All gathered up by the doves, and given to me. For a reasonable payment. For money.

  “Telegraphs can be intercepted, but a message by dove always comes through.”

  “Spies? Do you expect me to believe the president of the United States would use women, those kinds of women, as spies?”

  “Women like my mother?”

  Rose closed her eyes. The man made her want to shout. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “All right,” she said. “I did. I just can’t believe a word coming out of your mouth, Captain Hink. Weeks. You spent weeks at that bordello. No secret takes weeks to hear.”

  Hink looked down at his hands folded on top of his leg. “There are things happening, Rose, things I cannot tell you for fear of you falling in harm’s way. Those things take more than a week to piece together.”

  “And you want me to believe that you alone, naked and sweaty on your back, are somehow saving the world?”

  “Don’t have to be on my back, necessarily.”

  “Is that all?” Rose asked archly.

  He nodded and tipped a glance her way. “It is all I can say now. And it is the truth. Is it enough?”

  “For what?”

  “Forgiveness.”

  Rose thought it over. She could lie to him, and tell him yes. But he’d know. For all he was a charmer and a man of lose morals, he had a keen eye when it came to reading people—her especially.

  “No. But it’s enough that I’ll think it over. What you said. About what you have and have not been doing. Now will you help me find Thomas?”

  At the mention of his name, Hink visibly tightened. “I don’t understand what you see in that cheap suit.”

  “Discussing him wasn’t part of our bargain,” Rose said.

  Hink just shook his head slowly. “All right. So where did he get himself caught up?”

  “We were in the freight car—”

  “What in the blazes were you doing there?”

  “He’d seen some odd packages getting loaded. I was curious.”

  “The man lured you into a dark private train car so he could show you his package?” Hink said it real evenlike, but something about the way he asked it made Rose hesitate.

  “I was curious,” she repeated.

  “I bet you were.”

  “About the freight,” she continued. “Margaret had a box that was loaded aboard. She looked like she was trying to hide it. The initials VB were stamped on the side, and when Thomas said he’d seen something unusual…what? What is it?”

  Captain Hink had gone a shade whiter than just a moment before. “Be very clear with me, Rose,” he said in a voice befitting a U.S. Marshal. “Margaret Wood from the coven had a crate with the initials VB on the side?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were there more of those boxes in that freight car?”

  “Yes. Is that bad?”

  “Yes. And you say Thomas is trapped there? By men?”

  “Three men with guns. Looked like ranchers, but they told us to get away from the goods, and put them down.”

  “Down? You didn’t take one of the crates, did you?”

  “We…he…opened one.”

  “Oh, for the love of glim, Rose. What were you thinking?”

  “I wasn’t thinking, I was curious.”

  “Well, your curiosity might have just killed a man.” He stood, and took a step toward the end of the car.

  “We can’t go that way,” Rose said. “The porter threatened me with a gun. I think he’s with the other gunmen.”

  Hink tipped his chin up so as to better sight the man standing at the door. “He pulled a gun on you?”

  “Yes, a small pistol.”

  “Stay here.”

  Hink strode down the aisle, imposing as a blackened summer sky, storming to kill. Rose hurried behind him. Her gun was still packed away in her luggage, the ammunition in a separate pouch.

  She’d just assumed taking a civilized sort of transportation meant she wouldn’t have to get into a shoot-out before they’d even made the first station.

  Hink had a long set of legs on him and was already in front of the porter. Rose paused, ready to duck or run or find something to throw, but neither man drew a gun.

  Hink just grabbed ahold of the man by his lapels, picked him up off his feet, and walked with him through the door.

  She rushed after him just in time to see him throw the man off the speeding train.

  “Wait! No!” Rose yelled. “What are you doing?”

  “Throwing a man off a train, what does it look like I’m doing?”

  “But he’s…he’s the porter.”

  “I don’t care if he’s the king of England,” Hink said. “He was in my way.”

  Hink walked the short distance to the next car, then turned to look at her. She nearly ran into him and had to grab the railing not to tumble the way of the porter.

  “You, stay here,” he said.

  “We do this together.”

  “We?” he said, maybe angrily. But then he smiled, and it was a wicked smile. “You are a crazy soul, Rose Small.” He pulled a gun out of one of the many pockets of his heavy coat. “This shows how much I trust you. Can’t think of another woman as angry as you are that I’d go and give a gun to and then turn my back on.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “If I’m angry enough to shoot you, you’ll see me coming.”

  “Promises, promises,” he said with a soft smile that made Rose wish that maybe she weren’t quite so angry with the man.

  He reached out to clasp her hand, which she took, and then they were moving together, walking across the span, then in through the next door, and once again all the way down through the cars until they stood at the end of the third-class car.

  Rose was beginning to think rail travel wasn’t all that wonderful, and was tired of keeping her balance while getting half blown off and half frozen between cars, since it was now raining icy pebbles.

  But when they came to that last door, and Captain Hink squeezed her hand once before letting go, she was tingling and alive. This was adventure. This was the world. Her world
. And even if it was wet, cold, and full of danger, she was going to face it, gun drawn.

  “Don’t crowd me,” Hink said. “Don’t get in the way of fire. And don’t go heroic, woman. Understand?”

  “Clearly. Same goes for you, Captain.”

  “Ain’t never been a hero a single day of my life,” he said.

  “Yes,” Rose said, gathering up the material of her skirt, twisting it, and then tucking it into her belt so it stayed out of her way. “You have. You’ve been my hero.”

  When she looked up at him, he had such an expression on his face: maybe a bit of surprise, maybe a bit of hope.

  “Ready?” she asked, her hip braced on the railing.

  “Since I took my first breath,” he said. Then Captain Paisley Hink drew his gun and kicked in the door.

  The Madders were quickly pushed into the back of an enclosed steam wagon, which puffed its way down the lane toward the heart of the city.

  Cedar paused on the stairs outside Vosbrough’s manor. From the height of this hill, he could see the towering buildings, brick and wood, and the brass tether towers spiring up above even the tallest structures. There were no airships at rest there now, probably because of the snow that fell in bitter, ragged squalls.

  He’d heard at least one ship pass over when they’d been coming this way, so likely there was a landing field and air sheds outside the city.

  Black smoke curled out of chimneys, wings of coal smudged the sky.

  But there was more than just smoke in the air. There was the sound of the Strange, a low, slow weeping he’d never heard before. And with the sound of the Strange came the faintest scent of the Holder.

  The Holder was here. Somewhere.

  “Mr. Hunt?” Mae said from a short distance ahead.

  He glanced one last time over the buildings. He didn’t see the Strange, though if they were close enough he could hear them; he should be able to glimpse them. They weren’t invisible. Not to his eyes anyway.

  He tipped his hat down over his eyes and walked down the stairs.

  “Are we going to let them take the Madders to jail?” Mae asked.

  “For now.” He walked with her toward Vosbrough’s carriage and helped her navigate the slick steps up into it.