Steemjammer: The Deeper Truth

by John Eubank

  “Anyway, old wells get exceptions and don’t require licensing. The owners should, however, pour a concrete apron around the base to prevent dirty surface water from seeping down the sides. Would you tell them?”

  “Sure. I’ll even help them do it. Thank you.”

  “We don’t want to bother those people,” School Policeman Wateeb added, shuddering as he remembered the bizarre gong and face, “but they have no phone and don’t seem to come to the door.”

  “They don’t even have a front door, anymore,” Jane observed.

  “My wife,” Ron said, guessing what the officer needed to hear, “is a retired teacher and will gladly help them with the home schooling forms. It may take a few weeks, but we’ll get them to you as soon as we can.” He turned his head. “Isn’t that right, dear?”

  “Mmmfarkle,” she moaned from the couch, and then she sat up, wild-eyed, and screamed. “RUN FOR THE HILLS! EVERYONE’S GOING TO DIE!”

  Jane and Ahmed reacted with concern.

  “Her new medicine takes a while to kick in,” Ron explained calmly. “Poor dear. It’s not her fault that she imagines things. They made her teach sixth grade too long, and it got to her - quite badly, actually.”

  “My aunt,” Jane agreed sympathetically, “taught middle school, too. I know exactly what you’re talking about.”

  “There’s always hope. Well, anything else?”

  No, the officials told him, everything had been covered. They thanked him, they wished his wife a speedy recovery, and to Ron’s relief, they drove away.

  “I warned you, Waverly,” he said gently.

  “Purple monsters!” she rambled. “Bright lights! Creatures appearing from thin air!”

  “There, there. I’ll have your mother make some lemon balm tea. They say it has a marvelous calming effect.”

  ***

  “You don’t seem to understand,” Marteenus said disdainfully, “but I hold all the cards. If you want Deetricus back, you must give me what I want.”

  He’d returned to consciousness later that morning and found himself firmly tied to a pillar in the sub-basement. To his horror, the young Steemjammers glared at him, joined by a short man he recognized as Donell Ogilvy. Knowing, however, that he had a strong bargaining chip, he found his courage and felt certain he could snatch victory from the jaws of apparent disaster.

  “I don’t want to go on living,” he continued, “in this hideous place, so threaten me all you like. If you want Deet, you have to return me, unharmed, to a safe spot in Beverkenverlt.”

  Will squinted skeptically. “If we do, you’ll of course tell us where Onkel Deet is?”

  “Of course. My mother was a Steemjammer, and like you I must honor my promises.”

  “You’re not like me, Marteenus. Not at all. I don’t know how such a treacherous, self-centered creature like you could be related to me, much less open a verltgaat. You must have some sort of mental illness.”

  Marteenus winced. “That, young man, was a low blow.”

  “Enough!” Donell interrupted, hoisting a heavy hammer in his strong hands. “Do what we say or else!”

  “You thick oaf,” Marteenus cackled. “Didn’t you hear a word I said? Go on. Put me out of my misery, or restore me to B’verlt. There’s no other choice.”

  “Really? Ye’re badly bruised. The lass over there tells me you had a wee run-in with their family mascots.”

  “If by ‘mascots’ you mean psychotic, deranged waterfowl, yes. I would have killed them, too, if only I were better a better shot.”

  A nasty grin spread across Donell’s face. “Well, why don’t we give ye another chance tah get acquainted with ‘em. The igloo’s iced back up?”

  “Yeah,” Will said, guessing what Donell was thinking. “Enough to hold them.”

  “Marteenus. Take us tah Deet Steemjammer now, or I’m locking you up with those penguins!”

  A shocked gasp escaped from Marteenus’ lips. “You wouldn’t!”

  “I’d relish it! That’s it, then. Cut those ropes there, but leave his wrists and ankles bound. Oh, and let’s get a nice strong gag for his mouth. Wouldn’t want anyone tah hear his screams, would we?”

  “No! You can’t!”

  “Then take us to Onkel Deet,” Will demanded. “Hurry. I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop Donell. You know how he is once he sets his mind on something.”

  Marteenus squirmed in desperation against the ropes. “Wait! How do I know you won’t just kill me, anyway?”

  “Because I solemnly promise,” Will said, “as a Steemjammer, that if you take us to Onkel Deet and if he’s still living, I’ll leave you there alive and unharmed.”

  “Will, no!” Alfonz objected. “Too good for him, this is!”

  “Too late. Onkel Deet’s life is worth more than revenge, and I want to make sure Marteenus is motivated to take us to the right place.” He turned to the traitor. “Well? It’s the best deal you’ll get.”

  A nasty idea occurred to Marteenus, but he remained stone-faced so they wouldn’t suspect. “That, and promise you’ll give me a chance to survive and get away.”

  “I promise that, too,” Will agreed.

  ***

  They found the airship tied to a tall tree where Marteenus had left it the night before. Climbing the rope ladder, they got a sense of the weight it could support and decided that Will and Giselle would go. As much as Donell wanted to accompany them, it was Alfonz who knew this world and might be able to tell if Marteenus was leading them astray. So he’d go, along with the traitor.

  After getting some gasoline from Ron, they marched Marteenus out the back of Beverkenhaas through the woods. Fearing he might overpower them and fly away, they refused to untie him so he could climb up. Instead, they used a rope to hoist him up like he was a sack of provisions. He protested loudly, but soon they were all in the gondola.

  “You’ll need to untie me,” Marteenus suggested, “so I can pilot it.”

  “Keep quiet,” Alfonz ordered. “Will promised safe-keeping, but that doesn’t mean I can’t dangle you over the edge by your ankle.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “Verraader!” Traitor!

  “Fine. Fine. It’s not my fault if you crash.”

  Giselle gave him a suspicious look as she boarded, and when Will came up, they started the boiler and soon cut free.

  ***

  Alfonz had yet to find a vehicle he couldn’t drive, steer or pilot, and airships were no exception. Also, he’d flown them in Beverkenverlt in the old days, so even though the controls of Marteenus’ craft weren’t familiar to him, he soon figured them out.

  “You’re running it too hot,” Marteenus complained.

  “I want to get there before dark,” Alfonz said. “The boiler’s doing fine.”

  “Get some altitude, then! You want to hit something?”

  “Tell us the heading, verraader, and nothing else.”

  Marteenus started to argue but realized how angry Alfonz was. He pointed south and bit his tongue.

  ***

  The airship sped along surprisingly fast, cruising at just over 50 miles per hour. They had to skirt large towns and cities, and in just over three hours they reached the Ohio River. Kentucky and Deetricus, Marteenus told them, lay on the other side. Will guessed it was four in the afternoon, and it would get dark around six o’clock.

  Sitting up now and taking more interest in things, Marteenus looked for landmarks and urged them to get higher. He had them turn east, and soon they saw why he’d been complaining about the low altitude. Ahead lay a high, wooded ridge that seemed uninhabited.

  “They call it a ‘wilderness area,’” Marteenus scoffed. “They’ve gone to great lengths to protect it and exclude people, so no one seems to notice me flying in and out.”

  “You’ve got a base hidden in there somewhere?” Will guessed.

  “Correct. Aim for that high, central spot.”

  “I see cliffs,” Alfonz noted. “You must not g
et bothered too much there.”

  “No one,” Marteenus said, “ever comes up there. The cliffs are like high, unclimbable castle walls, and on top there’s a cave.”

  “My father’d better be all right,” Giselle said.

  Marteenus scoffed. “Or what? You’re just a girl.”

  WHACK! Losing control of herself, Giselle balled up her fist and slugged the strange, short man in the face. He tumbled backwards and then looked up in shock. A trickle of blood ran down his nose.

  “You said you’d keep me safe!” he cried fearfully at Will. “You promised.”

  “He’d better be alive,” Will said.

  Marteenus studied their faces and fully sensed his danger. Let the slob be alive, then, he told himself. If he is, then everything will fall into place. They have no idea, he mused, at the trap they’ve fallen into.

  ***

  “I should go first,” Alfonz said after they’d approached the flattened mountaintop and looped a rope around a sturdy tree trunk.

  Giselle, however, had already kicked over the rope ladder and was quickly descending.

  “Well?” Marteenus said. “Aren’t you going to cut me free?”

  “You’d better hope he’s safe,” Will said.

  “I’ll guard this verraader,” Alfonz said. “Make sure she’s all right.”

  “Would you stop calling me that?” Marteenus complained. “That was a long time ago, and I’ll have you know that a lot of people consider it tyranny that the Steem-failures never shared their secrets!”

  Alfonz picked up a wrench, and Marteenus attempted to squiggle away.

  “Fine, fine,” he said in a placating voice. “I’ll be quiet.”

  ***

  “Dad!” Giselle called into the dark cave.

  When he didn’t answer, she rushed into the cave. In the darkness she stumbled and almost hurt herself.

  “Dad!” she cried, forcing herself to slow down.

  A light appeared behind her. It was Will with a lantern. They found some empty crates, a dirty old cot, and some trash. At last, in the back, they saw an iron cage and a dark form lying on the cold, stone floor.

  “Dad!” she screamed.

  Rushing up, she reached through the bars and put her hand on his back.

  “Please be alive,” she begged.

  To her relief, he moved and seemed to be waking from a deep sleep. His weary eyes opened and took a moment to come into focus.

  “Kint?” he said in a weak, hoarse croak. “Zeet welk oo?” Child? Is that you?

  “Dad!” she said, trying to hold back tears. “Stay still. Don’t try to get up.”

  Fishing through her dress pocket, she found the key that Marteenus had given them earlier. She got the door open, and they went inside. As Will held up the lantern to give them some light, she shuddered.

  She’d never seen her father looking so thin. His lips were dry and parched, his cheeks drawn in, and his eyes sunken. Thinking he was still in a dream, Deet put his hand on Giselle’s. Relief flickered in his tired eyes as he realized his ordeal had finally ended.

  “I knew you’d come,” Deet managed to say.

  ***

  Having put together a makeshift stretcher from wooden poles and a blanket, Will and Alfonz carried Deetricus Steemjammer out of the cave. Giselle had given him a few sips of water and a little sugar, but Alfonz had warned her against too much at once.

  “Not too fast being,” he said. “We bringing him back, one sip at a time.”

  “Your English,” Marteenus grumbled, “is the worst I’ve ever heard in my life. You’ve had eleven years to improve it, and if anything you’ve gotten worse!”

  They scowled at him, but he grinned. When Alfonz had lowered him, still tied at his ankles and wrists, to the ground by a rope, he’d been worried. When he saw that Deet was still living, however, everything had changed. Now it was time to tell them the news.

  “All right, then,” he said merrily. “I upheld my end. Time to untie me and let me fly off in my airship.”

  “Where’d you get that crazy idea?” Will snarled.

  “Oh, I’m afraid it’s no mere ‘idea.’ It’s grim reality, young Steemjammer. You made a promise on your name. Just like you can’t lie, you can’t break it. I used to be that way, and I suppose part of me still is. But I know what’s going on inside you. You will obey the promise you made as if you’d chained yourself to it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Giselle said. “You’ll stay here.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Let’s gag him,” Alfonz said.

  Marteenus sneered. “Will, you promised that if Deet was alive that I would be set free, unharmed, and – this is the important part – with a chance to survive and get away. You can’t leave me here. If you do, you break the promise, because this place is unsurvivable without that airship.

  “So, like it or not, it’s your fate to remain here, while I fly away and perhaps sneak up upon Beverkenhaas in the night. I think I know how the machine works, and I will get back to B’verlt – perhaps with your little sister as a present for Zander.”

  Ignoring him, Will and Alfonz put Deetricus in a makeshift rope harness to hoist him up into the airship’s gondola.

  “Amusing, but you’re wasting time,” Marteenus said. “You’re bound by your words. If you don’t give me the airship, you’re breaking them.”

  Will spun with an angry scowl on his face. “Wrong!”

  “What?”

  “You gambled, Marteenus, but you lost.”

  “You promised!”

  “To leave you alive and with a chance to survive.”

  He dropped a canteen to the ground.

  “That’s a few days worth of water,” he continued. “You can climb down the cliff and reach help, if you’re careful. Maybe you won’t slip and break your neck.”

  “That’s no chance at all. It’s impossible!”

  “Liar. It is possible. I only promised you a chance, not a good one. That’s more than you deserve, murderer.”

  They locked eyes, and Marteenus realized the boy wasn’t budging. A panicked whimper escaped his lips, and he backed away in fright.

  In moments, Will and Alfonz got Deet safely hoisted up into the airship’s gondola. Giselle gave him another sip of sugar-water and covered him with a wool blanket. Marteenus stared up, hoping that somehow the certainty of his death would occur to them and force them to obey the promise they’d made.

  “You can’t!” he screamed as Will and Alfonz went up the rope ladder. “Please. At least untie me.”

  Ignoring him, they kept climbing.

  “This is no chance,” Marteenus argued. “No chance at all. I’ll starve or die of thirst!”

  Will and Alfonz climbed into the gondola.

  “Why, look at you,” the short man cried. “You’re nothing but a bunch of thieves!”

  When no answer came from above, Marteenus’ eyes filled with mad desperation.

  “This is more than a lie,” he whined. “You’re breaking an oath. It will ruin you.”

  “No, I’m keeping an oath,” Will called down, “though I’m sure I’ll regret it. I hope I never see you again.”

  While Marteenus pleaded with them not to leave him, Alfonz started the engine, which drowned out his words. They untied from the tree and soared away into the sky, never looking back.

  ***

  That night, Angelica couldn’t sleep. Finally back in her old home, Beverkenhaas, she was surprised to see what a mess had been made of the place. Tante Klazee had urged her to bed, assuring her that everything would be all right, but she’d snuck out on the top of the tower to look around.

  Thinking she heard a clattering steam engine above, her heart raced. A dangling rope came down from the dark sky, snagging some of the stonework. She ran to tighten it.

  “Let me get it,” a familiar voice said.

  Suspended in mid-air was her brother – except he was actually hanging on
to a rope ladder that dangled from the airship in the darkness above.

  “Will!” she cried excitedly.

  Soon the airship was tied off, and they lowered Onkel Deetricus to the tower. Angelica thought he looked thin and pale, but he opened his eyes and managed a smile.

  “Little Angelica,” he said, reaching up to put his big hand on hers. “So goot to see you.”

  While Will and Alfonz got him onto a stretcher, Giselle climbed down and joined her father.

  “We got one of them,” Angelica said.

  “We’ll find your parents,” Giselle comforted her.

  “Will,” Deet said, “what was that noise again – the one before your vader disappeared?”

  “Dad, you need to rest,” Giselle chided.

  “I will, I will. Just tell me, first.”

  “Thump, thump, thump, snap,” Will said. “Any idea what it means?”

  Deetricus made a face and glanced away. “Maybe. I’m not sure, but there’s a clue in that. Enough to start - tomorrow.”

  “Tell us more, Onkel Deet,” Angelica asked. “I want to start, now.”

  “Patience, little one. They say on this verlt that twins share a special connection, and there must be some truth to that. I’ve seen my brother in dreams, and I know he’s still alive.

  “But he’s far, far away and in a very strange place. More than that, I can’t say. We should rest, and tomorrow, if I’m not well enough to search, I’ll give you enough to get started.”

  He hugged his niece.

  “Have faith, little one,” he said. “We’ll find them. Lekker shlaapees.” Sweet sleeps.

  After carrying Deet down to his parents’ bedroom, Giselle and Alfonz stayed with him. Will and Angelica decided they should go to sleep, too, but they had to check Beverkenhaas, first, to make sure all lamps were out and the boiler was safe. They stopped at the place where they last saw their father, heading downstairs with a lantern.

  “Do you think we’ll find them?” Angelica asked.

  “Yes,” Will replied. “I’m sure of it.”