“It’s not in the cave,” Kali said. “It’ll remain hidden until I’m ready to plug it into the engine.”
“Good.”
She didn’t volunteer to tell him where she had hid it, and he didn’t ask.
“But there’s a powerful lot of things that could be done to my ship to delay the building.” Kali grabbed a shovel and dumped coal into the banked fire of the steam bicycle’s small furnace. “You ready to go?”
Cedar gazed through the trees and toward the river. There was nothing else to find out here. Cudgel and the clues leading back to him, they must be in town. He would talk to Tremblay—especially if they found out someone had searched Kali’s cave—and he would check that address just in case the owner of the lip paint knew anything. He wished he could think of more, some trap of his own to lay.
“Cedar?”
“Just thinking.” He rubbed his head again. “What if... I don’t know how we could manage it since he recognizes both of us, but we just saw that couple leaving their claim. Reckon that means it’ll be for sale soon.”
Kali caught on immediately. “You want to disguise ourselves and pose as buyers?”
“Might be a way in.”
“Even if we came up with clever disguises—and we’re both distinctive enough that it would be hard—we would need money to show to someone. If your sergeant’s words are anything to go by, the price will be exorbitant, and I’ll wager some lowlife would vet the potential buyers before sending them up to see the boss.”
“A reasonable wager.”
“We would either need a pile of coin, or something else of great value.” Kali’s eyes narrowed.
Cedar shook his head. He wouldn’t ask her to risk her flash gold for his trap. She didn’t know how to make more—the secret had died with her father—and it was the fuel for her dream. “Maybe I can get lucky playing a hand of faro tonight.” Though he would have to get lucky at a lot of hands to come up with fifty thousand or whatever those claims were going for.
“I might... know someone who can help,” Kali said. “Who can convincingly pose as a rich feller, even if he’s not. And someone new to town, who isn’t known yet to be a friend of ours. It’s dangerous, so he might not be eager to work with us, but the catching of Cudgel would certainly make a good story.”
“He?” Cedar asked, an uneasiness gathering in his gut.
“Travis Andrews. And might be, if I put on a dress and a wig, I could go in with him and Cudgel wouldn’t recognize me, either.”
Kali was finishing bringing the SAB to readiness, so she didn’t see his scowl. Cedar didn’t want to involve that kid. He certainly didn’t want Kali going off with him to meet Cudgel. Even without all the men he surrounded himself with, Cudgel was a dangerous fighter. A dangerous killer.
Part IV
“I knew it.” Kali stomped around inside the airship hull, her boots thudding on the wooden innards. “Tarnation, what a mess. I knew it!”
Cedar didn’t have to crawl through the hole in the side to understand what she meant—he could see the evidence of intruders in the cave. Boxes of tools and crates of parts had been torn into, the pieces scattered across the earthen floor. The sleeping area in the back had been demolished, with bedding and clothing everywhere.
“Shall I visit Sergeant Tremblay now?” Cedar asked. “Or after you’ve finished stomping about in irritation?”
A few clumps and clanks sounded from within the craft, and Cedar was on the verge of leaving, sensing that Kali might still be cleaning and reorganizing when he returned in a couple of hours, but she appeared in the hole before he turned away. She was clenching a pair of pliers the way someone else might brandish a sword.
“I’m coming. I’ll twist off his favorite body part if he doesn’t answer our questions.”
Cedar might have laughed at this notion, but he had heard about how Kali had brought a man to his knees with those pliers. “I thought you preferred it when I handled interrogations and other necessary but oft unpleasant acts of violence.”
“Oh, you can interrogate him. Just so long as I get to twist something.” She demonstrated in the air with the tool. “Did you see what he did to my engine room?”
“It might not have been him. This looks like it may have been the work of a team. The sergeant may have been blackmailed or otherwise coerced.”
“Something he can tell us all about while I’m twisting things.” Kali stalked out of the ship, past Cedar, and to the mouth of the cave. “You coming, Cedar? Get a wiggle on.”
Though Cedar wanted nothing more than to gather information on Cudgel’s whereabouts, he was not enthused about the idea of interrogating a Mountie, or twisting anything off one. He followed Kali but hoped her anger would settle to a simmer by the time they made the walk to town.
She spotted a number of tripped booby traps on the way down the hill, though, many of them destroyed by people who had cut their way out, and she only stomped harder as she descended the path. The fading daylight didn’t slow her down, either. Even with his longer legs, Cedar had to jog from time to time to keep up.
It had grown darker by the time they reached the outskirts of town, the hour late despite the hint of light lingering on the horizon. Cedar doubted they would find the sergeant working at headquarters this late in the day and would rather face him without his fellow Mounties around, anyway.
“Where will we find him?” Kali asked. “Fort Herchmer?”
“The sergeants and some of the officers are actually in a boarding house until new quarters can be built. The barracks can’t hold the full complement of men that have been moved into the area.”
“Good, we don’t have to charge into the fort to get our man.”
“Just a boarding house full of Mounties who might not appreciate one of their sergeants being molested.”
“If he didn’t want to be molested, he shouldn’t have set us up,” Kali said.
Cedar wished she would stop waving the pliers around. He wouldn’t mind if she wanted to twist body parts off a known criminal, but a Mountie who had been on the force for years... that was going to mean some delicacy had to be employed. Nonetheless, Cedar led her through the muddy streets of Dawson toward the hotels and boarding houses. He didn’t know the sergeant well enough to know his room location, but they stopped a young constable in the foyer and asked him.
The man gave Kali’s pliers a curious look—she was twirling them now—but responded. “Upstairs on the left, the door after the bear head mounted on the wall.”
“Thank you,” Kali said.
Cedar tipped his hat and jogged past her to head up the stairs first, ostensibly to protect her from trouble in a gentlemanly manner, but mostly to protect the sergeant. Kali grumbled something under her breath but didn’t otherwise complain.
They strode down the wood-floored hall, passing several doors—and several animal-head trophies mounted on the walls—before stopping at the specified room. Cedar knocked politely. Kali gave him a withering why-aren’t-we-smashing-through-his-door look, but thankfully didn’t start prying the hinges off when the sergeant didn’t answer right away.
“I can’t get in trouble with the law here,” Cedar whispered. “Not again. I can’t catch Cudgel if I’m among the willows.”
Some of the bluster faded from Kali’s face, and she slid the pliers into a pocket of her overalls. “Sorry, I know. I understand. I just get... wrathy when someone gets the upper hand with me.”
Cedar managed a smile. “No, you get wrathy when someone throws your tools around.”
“They were in the mud, Cedar. The mud.” Kali knocked again, not quite as diffidently as he had, but she didn’t tear off any hinges. “Too late for supper. Is he the sort to carouse with the girls of the line after he lures innocent men and women to traps?”
Cedar leaned his ear to the door, but didn’t hear anything. He tried the knob, though he expected it to be locked. It wasn’t.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs, so he di
dn’t open the door. He clasped his hands behind his back and merely stood in the hallway as a uniformed Mountie strode onto the floor, his hat in his hand, a Springfield propped over his shoulder. He yawned and nodded toward them.
“Evening, Cedar. Ms. McAlister.”
Cedar recognized the corporal but didn’t remember his name. “Evening,” he responded with a nod.
“I’m just in from the mail run, if you can believe it. Mail. Not what I signed on for, that’s for sure.”
“Not enough postal employees to handle all the newcomers?” Cedar guessed, though he silently willed the man to go into his room, so he and Kali could get on about their errand.
“That’s right, so naturally the police get to handle it.” The man shook his head ruefully. “You here to see Tremblay?”
Tremblay’s door, at the moment. “Yes,” Cedar said.
“Tell him he still owes me five dollars.” The corporal unlocked a door beside a mountain lion’s mounted head and ducked into his own room.
“Will do,” Cedar said.
“They know me?” Kali whispered after the door shut.
“Your saving the city from that burning airship last month left a powerful impression in people’s minds.”
From the twist to Kali’s lips, it wasn’t clear she thought that was entirely a good thing. Probably because she knew she had caused the airship to catch fire and be in danger of crashing in the first place. Well, better to be a mistaken hero than a mistaken criminal, he could attest to that.
“Let’s check the room—even if he’s gone there might be a clue or two.” Cedar pushed open the door.
There weren’t any lamps lit inside, but a hint of twilight’s fading light seeped in through the window, letting him make out furnishings and a few other shapes. He didn’t need his eyes, however, to know that Sergeant Tremblay hadn’t left the room after all—and he wasn’t going to be able to pay back his debt to the corporal. The scent of blood stung the air, and his nose led him to a dark shape on the floor.
Maybe it wasn’t Tremblay. Maybe someone had attacked the sergeant, he had defended himself, and then he had gone to tell... no, he would have warned everyone on the floor if something like that had happened.
“Is that blood?” Kali whispered from the threshold. A moment later, she stepped inside with a lamp pilfered from the hall. The light confirmed Cedar’s suspicions.
Still in uniform, the sergeant lay dead on the floor, his throat slit by a blade.
After a quick search of the room to make sure they were alone, Cedar knelt and checked the body. “Happened a couple hours ago. He got his blade out—” he pointed to a dropped utility knife, “—but someone got him from behind. He was facing the door, so someone was in the room waiting or maybe came through the window.” The window was closed now, but that didn’t mean the murderer hadn’t come in that way originally. And then walked out through the front door? Brazen.
“We better report this before someone thinks we’re responsible,” Kali said.
“Yes.” Cedar didn’t want a Mountie to walk in on him standing over the body, but at the same time... He took another lap around the room, hoping for a clue. Had Cudgel or one of his men done this? But why kill someone they had blackmailed or otherwise finagled to their side? To ensure the sergeant couldn’t talk?
Cedar poked through a clothes trunk of uniforms, checked around the window, and finally joined Kali at the door. Thus far, all he had found was Tremblay’s belongings. “Let’s—”
He stopped. In turning toward the hallway, Kali had moved the lamp, and something tiny on the floor glinted ever so slightly. Cedar crouched and swiped his finger through several granules of a coarse powder. It was almost like salt, except next to the light, it had a pale bluish sheen, cobalt he would call it. He rubbed the granules between his fingers, and some of them broke. A faint oily wetness coated his skin.
“Odd,” he murmured.
A door creaked open. Cedar could have hidden, but Kali, halfway into the hallway nodded at someone. She had already been seen.
“You’re going to want to see this, mister,” she said.
The man who stepped into view was wearing his nightclothes rather than a uniform, but Cedar recognized him anyway, a sergeant who worked with Tremblay. He halted in front of the doorway and gaped inside.
“What happened?”
“We don’t know,” Cedar said. “He asked us to head up the Bonanza and investigate some of the claims today. We came to report back and...” He extended a hand toward the body.
Kali looked at him over her shoulder, perhaps wondering why he hadn’t given the whole truth, but she didn’t say anything.
“I... I’ll get his superior.” The man hustled out of sight.
“Do we stay or do we go?” Kali asked.
“They’ll probably want to talk to us.”
“I’m sorry, was that supposed to answer my question?”
Cedar snorted. “You’ve got magnifying tools, don’t you? Want to grab a few samples of this powder to take a look at...” He stared at his fingers. The tips were... He didn’t know what to call it. He could see the floor through them. Invisible. The tips of his fingers were invisible. He blinked his eyes, sure they were fooling them.
“I wonder if Amelia is back in town,” Kali said, her gaze toward his fingers as well.
“You see it?” He touched the invisible digits with his other hand. He could still feel them; he just couldn’t see them.
“I don’t see it, I think you mean.”
Cedar was too stunned to come up with a response.
Part V
The next morning, Cedar followed Kali through town and toward the newspaper office where her new friend worked. He had barely slept, partially because the police had kept them up late with questions, but also because his mind had been whirring with the possibilities of a powder that could make a man invisible. His fingers had returned to normal when he had washed them, but land sakes... if Cudgel had this... magic—he didn’t know what else to call it—was it possible he’d always had it? That could explain so much. So many times Cedar had come close to catching him, only to have him disappear.
They walked along the mud-crusted boardwalk to the Klondike Chronicle and into the front room. There were three desks and a couple of filing cabinets, all built from rough-hewn wood clearly of local origins. Cedar glimpsed the printing press through an open door and wondered how much time and effort had gone into getting the bulky contraption up to Dawson.
“Help you, sir?” the man at the desk closest to the door asked.
“We’re looking for Travis Andrews,” Kali said, before Cedar could answer. He wasn’t sure he would have answered anyway. He hadn’t liked this plan from the start, mostly because he couldn’t be a part of it, and he liked it even less now that Tremblay was dead. Cudgel seemed to be one step ahead of them at every turn.
“In the back.”
Kali led the way. They found the young man on his hands and knees, cleaning the press with a rag. He jumped out when she walked in and stuffed the oil-stained cloth in a pocket.
“Kali,” he blurted. “I was just... ah, cleaning helps me think. I come back here when I’m working on story ideas.”
Cedar hadn’t shut the door, and someone out front snorted. As the newcomer, Andrews was low man on the totem pole, was he? Cedar admitted a touch of satisfaction at this revelation.
“If that’s true,” Kali said, “you should come up to my cave. I’ve got plenty that needs cleaning.” She scowled. “Plenty.”
Cedar’s satisfaction evaporated at the invitation—and at the fact that Andrews perked up at it.
“Might be I can slip away on the weekend to help you out, Ms. Kali.”
“The plan,” Cedar said.
Kali shot him an I’ll-do-this-in-my-own-time-thank-you look. “Travis, are you interested in finding an important story to cover for the paper?”
“Always,” he said.
“It would be dangero
us. We could use your help to trap a criminal.”
“I’m interested.” Travis blinked a couple of times. “Er, we?”
Kali nodded toward Cedar. Cedar wondered if the kid had even noticed him walk in.
“Oh, uhm, right.”
Kali took Travis’s arm and led him away from the door. “Here’s what we’re planning.”
Cedar was about to kick the door shut to ensure the reporters out front didn’t overhear, but one of the men was asking, “Help you, sir?” again.
When Cedar checked to see who had come in, his stomach clenched with unease. A Mountie sergeant had walked in, one who had been part of the questioning the night before. Two constables waited on the boardwalk outside, rifles cradled in their arms. Cedar forced his face to remain neutral when the man’s eyes met his.
“Cedar, the commissioner wants to see you.”
The commissioner? He had spoken to the old one a few times, but a new fellow, Sam Steele, had taken office a couple of weeks before, and Cedar hadn’t met him yet. The nervous way the constables were holding their rifles added to his unease.
“Is it an optional meeting?” he asked.
The sergeant grimaced. “No.”
“I see.” Cedar was reluctant to leave Kali with the young reporter—who knew what dangerous scheme they would come up with?—but it was clear he had little choice.
“Want me to come with you?” Kali asked quietly.
Yes, Cedar thought. “No. Figure out the plan. I’ll be back as soon as I’m done.”
“Want me to rescue you if you get arrested?”
The sergeant’s eyebrow twitched.
“I’m not going to get arrested,” Cedar said. “I haven’t done anything wrong.” Of course, he hadn’t done anything wrong in California, either, yet he had the Pinkerton detectives hunting him down....
“Was that a no to the rescue?” Kali whispered, her eyes serious.
“Better make sure your airship is finished before you run afoul of the law,” Cedar murmured, then waved a goodbye and followed the sergeant out to the boardwalk.
Claimed (The Flash Gold Chronicles, #4) Page 7