Above, like an inverted river, the cloudless sky was sandwiched between rippled banks of red and purple rock, allowing plenty of light to see by. The chute in which she sat was more of a sandy riverbed, and the more she looked about her, the more astonished she became. The walls curved and fluted, as though at some time they had melted like ice cream and then frozen into rock again.
The curve in the chute that had allowed her to stop also blocked her view of the crack through which she’d come. That meant it would block the view of anyone looking in, too. She didn’t dare go farther in case she couldn’t get out again, so she tucked herself up in a ball against the cool red wall, wrapped the gray wool blanket about herself, and prepared to wait out her captors.
How long would it take them to abandon the search?
Everyone aboard was well aware that the young Viceroy was waiting for the appearance of his train and ordnance. Would they abandon her here in order to keep the schedule? Or would the Ambassador decide that the recapture of his scapegoat was well worth the prince’s anger at their tardiness? It could go either way, but Gloria was inclined to favor the latter. In which case, she was concealed as well as it was possible to be, and there was nothing more she could do.
A shout sounded from above, and now she could hear the scrape of boots on stone as the search party approached. She hardly dared to breathe, though she was at least eight feet underground and it wasn’t likely they would hear.
“Senorita!” someone shouted. The doctor? Perhaps they thought she had fallen and injured herself. “Senorita, call out so that we might help you.”
She buried her nose in the blanket.
She was not familiar with any more of the Californio tongue than she had managed to pick up over the past few days, but after some discussion, it appeared that someone may have suggested she had not fallen at all, but had vanished on purpose.
“Senorita Meriwether-Astor!” came the call again, more sternly this time. “Reveal yourself at once or the consequences will be most unpleasant.”
More unpleasant than a public pillorying by the Ambassador? She doubted it.
More scraping of boots, urgently this time, as the search fanned out to encompass not the search for an injured woman, but the pursuit of a running or hiding one.
The sounds faded, and Gloria dared to take a normal breath. Was it possible her ruse had succeeded so easily? Whether it had or not, she wasn’t moving until she heard the racket of the locomotive’s departure, even if that were two days from now.
A flicker of black wings drew her attention to the opening above, as a raven landed on the edge of the precipice and teetered there. It cocked its head and observed her with interest.
No, I am not your next meal. Lips pressed together, she glared at it as though it might understand her by sheer force of will.
Footsteps approached, and the raven flew off, croaking in irritation at being thus interrupted, and Gloria huddled into her blanket once more. Boots scraped, and she heard a whispering sound. The sound the sand had made around her own boots.
Her stomach plunged into a cold pool of fear.
Someone had seen the raven and made a most intelligent guess. He had found the crack, and in moments he would find her. He shouted something rapidly, and other voices responded as footsteps pounded toward him across the stone above.
No, no, no!
Gloria scrambled to her feet and used the blanket to erase the evidence of her rest in the sand. They would find no trace of her. She rounded the curve of the wall and nearly pitched over the edge as the chute ended abruptly.
A cave opened up around her, though the narrow opening of the crack above did not widen. It was as though a giant had scooped it out by blowing from one end, as a Venetian glass-blower might create a vase. Frantically, she scanned the smooth red walls below for a way down. How far? Twelve feet, perhaps? Could she scale them—and having done that, climb back up again?
There was no time to speculate.
She wrapped the blanket around her waist and lowered herself over the edge. A foothold here, a handhold there—
The excited voices of the men told her they couldn’t be more than twenty feet from her, around the curve of the chute.
Her exploring foot found purchase on a sandy ledge—slipped—
Gloria scrabbled for a second handhold, but the fluted curves provided none, and her own weight was too much for a single hand.
With a gasp, she slid ungracefully off the rock face and plummeted into the void.
CHAPTER 18
By sunset on the second day, doubt had begun to plague Evan Douglas quite as much as hunger, to the point that he felt nearly paralyzed by indecision.
As a result, he and the behemoth remained motionless even after the sun rose, while he attempted to decide whether he had been right in pursuing Gloria based on hearsay, or if he should give her up for dead and return to civilization while he still had the strength to pilot the machine.
For as carefully as he had hoarded his apples and cheese, they were now gone. One of the unfortunate results of a lack of fuel for the body was a lack of clarity in the mind, and for him, this was the greater problem. As a young man of much intelligence but few prospects other than those he created himself, he was no stranger to stone soup. But what if his guess had been right, and Gloria was at this moment being carried westward, with no hope of rescue but for him?
But what if his guess had been wrong, and in the horror of the battle’s aftermath Lorraine had mistaken one fallen pirate for another? If the coyotes and pumas had already done for Gloria, there was nothing for it but to make his way east, and attempt to scratch a living at some trade until he could pay his fare back to England.
In the pilot’s harness, Evan studied the desert, brightening into color with every moment as the sun rose. Put like that, even a fool’s errand stumping across the desert to rescue a woman who might not even be there held more appeal.
Right, then. He had committed himself this far. He must go on until he either found her or found himself—
Until he found himself.
Evan set the behemoth into motion as his mind seized upon a new direction.
He might be without food, but he could drink from the boiler. That would give him a day or two more of his pursuit. And he was not without resources. He had a behemoth. How many behemoth operators were there in the world, after all? Perhaps he was now the only one. Granted, it didn’t do much besides shoot and crush, but perhaps it could be modified and he could hire himself out for more useful work.
If he repaired its arm, it could be used for—for construction. For building bridges and trestles. Or for setting rafters into place in tall buildings. For that sort of work, though, one needed a destination where things were being built. There must be towns out here with aspirations. Once he had calmed the townspeople’s initial alarm at the behemoth’s appearance, he could give them assistance.
Feeling somewhat less hopeless—for he now had two reasons to be traveling west—he increased the length of the behemoth’s stride.
Hours later, after two nasty-tasting draughts from the boiler and many miles of walking, the sun had dropped nearly to the horizon, and the pilot’s chamber began to cool. Evan had fallen into the habit of approaching crests and dips in the landscape with caution, so as not to frighten the trains should there be one, or in case he saw the locomotive he pursued. Now he slowed as the track passed between two towering mesas that gave him no visibility ahead, even though the pilot’s chamber was so many feet in the air.
He moved the behemoth through the gap, and a fresh vista opened before him. It contained the same sere hills and red rocks, the same railroad track, the same endless sky.
It also contained a large and familiar locomotive, resting at a siding and puffing contentedly.
He’d caught up at last! His heart leaped, and Evan allowed himself a grin of triumph before schooling himself to caution. In his weakened state, he was no match even for the Ambassador�
��s secretary, should he have one, to say nothing of any mercenaries that might still be aboard.
The first order of business was to find out if Gloria was inside. Oh, if only he’d had some food today, he could think clearly! He forced himself to drink a little more from the pressure relief spigot, shuddered, and despite the taste in his mouth, felt somewhat refreshed.
He could not simply go stumping up to them, point an arm at the locomotive, and demand they hand her over. While this plan had the benefits of directness and simplicity, the people who had ordered the behemoth were no doubt aware of its limitations, and could very well shoot the legs out from under him before he could say Jack Robinson.
After some minutes’ gazing at his quarry, it became puzzlingly apparent that it was simply sitting there, unmanned. Where was everyone? Were there men inside, having lunch? Was Gloria inside, watched by twenty armed guards? They couldn’t have abandoned their only transportation, so they must be about somewhere.
There was nothing for it. He was going to have to reconnoiter the situation on foot. Even if he were taken prisoner, at least if Gloria was there, they would be together.
And perhaps the Californios might share their provisions.
Evan pushed levers and controls, and the behemoth bent into its now-familiar night resting position, sheltered from view in both directions by the gap in the rocks, and off the main line behind an outcropping. Then he opened the exterior door and cautiously climbed down the off-side leg.
His own legs felt rather wobbly, but he steeled himself to ignore the sensation. His body needed fuel, and that locomotive undoubtedly contained it. Moving from rock to scrubby pine to hillock, he crossed some hundred yards of ground, until at the last he abandoned caution altogether and loped up to the rear of the locomotive.
No one shouted to alert the others of his presence. For goodness sake, why had they abandoned the train? Were they out hunting jackrabbits?
He eased up the ironwork steps and opened the door just enough to put one eye to the crack.
The saloon was empty of men, but he could smell food. That was enough to lure him inside, like some scavenger animal, his hunger overpowering his fear of man. The table did not boast the luxury of the saloon car he had looted back in Resolution, but he was not fussy. Bread and hard cheese went into his mouth with no regard for utensils or finesse. When he was satisfied, he found a haunch of what must be roast rabbit, and ate that too. A long draught of water followed by one of wine went a long way to restoring him to himself.
At which point the absence of the locomotive’s occupants began to weigh more heavily on his mind.
Had Gloria been here?
A quick search of the saloon turned up no evidence of her … until he rifled through the sleeping cupboards and found a single metal hairpin lying on the bare ticking where a head might have been.
He held it up. Only a woman would possess one of these, and to his knowledge, there had been no women accompanying the Ambassador’s party. It had to have been Gloria. A wave of relief passed through him at this confirmation that he had done the right thing in pursuing her across so many miles of desert. But now what?
A thick iron door led through to the business end of the locomotive. Taking a deep breath, he leaned on the lever and eased it open. Voices immediately came to his ear—Californio voices, speaking idly in their musical tongue. The engineer and the brakeman, no doubt, bound to stay with their engine no matter what the rest did. There was no sense of danger, simply two men talking until the Ambassador saw fit to come back.
Evan closed the door with infinite care, wincing as the iron latch clicked into place. Perhaps it could be mistaken for the sound of the metal all around them, expanding and contracting with the temperature. When they did not raise the alarm, he moved back into the saloon and went out the door. He descended the steps and took refuge at the rear of the great engine to think.
The two men up front were waiting for the rest. Gloria must be with the others, but only one sensible reason for them to be perambulating about the landscape seemed likely. They must be hunting, for the locomotive could not have been stocked with food the way the lounge car had been. Their departure had been too precipitate, and now they must supplement their stores.
Very well. He could not trick them into giving her up, but now that he had eaten, he wondered if perhaps the direct and simple plan might not be best after all. What if he brought the behemoth here and refused to let them board their train until they sent Gloria up to join him? The rotating firing apparatus would not work, but there was nothing wrong with the cannon in the other arm.
He had no time to waste in formulating any other plan. He took off at a ground-eating pace, confident he no longer needed to worry about being spotted. Within ten minutes he had regained his former position in the pilot’s cabin, and set the behemoth into motion toward the locomotive.
The siding was built in a flat pan that might once have been the bed of a small lake, now overgrown with scrub and grass. Evan took up a position ten yards in front of the stair into the locomotive’s saloon, his rotating arm trained on the engine.
The locomotive squawked in alarm.
It took a moment for Evan to realize that he was being hailed by the engineer through a speaking horn. The man clearly recognized the behemoth—did he think its original operator was still aboard?
A moment’s startled perusal revealed that he had his own speaking horn, there on the side of the viewing port. “Throw down your arms!” he said in his most businesslike tone.
“El capitan?” the engineer said. “Is that Captain Escobar? State your name at once.”
“I’m the one with the gun, and I will ask the questions.” Never in a thousand years would Evan have imagined those words coming out of his mouth. He felt rather as though he were in a flicker. Perhaps he should not have had that wine.
“We bear no arms, senor. We operate this locomotive only.”
They could be lying, but even if they were, his guns were bigger than theirs. “Where is Gloria Meriwether-Astor?”
“She is taking the air with the Ambassador’s company, to the north of the track.”
Another wave of relief. She was here. Unharmed. Thank the good Lord.
“I have come to fetch her back,” he informed them. “Do nothing to prevent me, and you will not be harmed.”
“But senor, who are you?”
“I am the operator of this machine. That is all you need to know.”
“As you wish, senor.”
He was rather pleased at their civility. Either they were wily as foxes, and were armed indeed, or they were men who focused upon the task they had been set, and were no threat to him. He turned the behemoth about so that his viewing port faced north, and discovered that next to the speaking horn was a lever that opened two grates on either side of the port, to admit air.
He wished he’d known that earlier, when he’d been sweating and losing moisture copiously in the warmth of midday. But it had not been warm for an hour at least, as clouds had massed up against the mesas and skeins of rain were falling from their bellies.
Since the behemoth could not climb about in the rocks, he must wait, so wait he did.
An unconscionably long time.
When the skies clouded over completely—so completely it became almost twilight—and rain fell in earnest, pounding the desert floor in sheets that bounced and bubbled, unabsorbed by the soil, he watched the rocks anxiously. What on earth was taking them so long? Gloria would be soaked to the skin. Perhaps the engineer had been lying, and she wasn’t here at all. But that would not explain the disappearance of at least a dozen men.
And now the speaking tube squawked once more. “Senor! The rain!”
“Yes, obviously,” he said into the tube. Did they think he was blind up here?
“Senor, there may be a danger of the flash flood. You must take refuge in the locomotive.”
And put himself at their mercy? He thought not. “I doubt there
is a danger, sir, but I thank you for your concern.”
This was surreal—polite remarks exchanged between two metal machines so large they could form their own hill.
And then he became aware of a sound he had not heard before. A sort of whispering thunder that he would not have heard had he not opened the air vents.
“Senor!” was all the man in the locomotive had time to say before there was a sound like a thunderclap, and a plume of water leaped over the rocks to the north.
“Great Caesar’s ghost!”
There was nothing he could do but watch a torrent fling itself out of what must be a canyon below, splashing up on the rocks. How could so much water appear so suddenly in the desert?
Too late, he remembered the rain that had been falling all afternoon in the upper elevations—rain that had nowhere to go but dry courses it had carved into the earth over the centuries. A dry course such as a lake bed in which a siding had so foolishly been located because it was conveniently flat.
And now figures appeared on the rocks. Half a dozen, dressed in short black uniform jackets and silver-trimmed trousers, running as if their lives depended on it. Evan counted them off one by one—and found among them no slender figure in a boy’s buff canvas pants.
The puffing of the train had increased, and now its whistle screamed with urgency. The brakeman hung out the window, urging his compatriots on with sweeps of both arms, shouting for them to hurry.
And with horror Evan realized that the torrent would not be contained in its canyon on the other side of the hill for long. Clearly both locomotive and behemoth were in danger.
In a moment he was proved right. With a sound like an explosion, the water crested the hill and began to pour down, heading for its level in the lake bed. If they did not want to be marooned, they would have to move, and they had only seconds in which to do it.
Half a dozen men flung themselves up the stair of the locomotive, leaving two bringing up the rear—the Ambassador and one other. Shouting encouragement, a man hung off the stairs, waving, but it was clear the Ambassador was not going to make it ahead of the torrent of water bearing down upon them.
Fields of Air: A steampunk adventure novel (Magnificent Devices Book 10) Page 17