Tracks

by K. M. Tolan

  He plunged into the cabin, praying Samantha hadn’t found herself in similar trouble, though his pity should be for those in the switch house. He looked out a window toward the slope in time to see the building’s lights flicker and die. Signal lamps across the yard began switching colors, the one directly ahead of his locomotive flicking from red to bright green. Good girl. My turn, now.

  He chanced flicking on an overhead light and stared at a broad green panel hosting a confusion of dials, levers, and knobs. There, a silver knob that looked pullable. He tried. His reward was an air horn’s echoing hoot.

  Now the whole damn yard’s awake.

  A second sliding lever succeeded in revving the engine, but the cab only quivered without the locomotive budging. Great.

  He shoved the third lever.

  The diesel rocked forward with a hiss of compressed air. Satisfied, Vincent slammed the throttle all the way forward, the diesel roaring with bloodthirsty eagerness. He scooted out the cab’s door and swung off the ladder, the roadbed moving by at an alarming rate. All of a sudden, the machine lurched and bucked as if stung, miniature geysers blowing off side vents.

  He leapt with cane in hand, enduring a bruising roll across unforgiving gravel. Something had gotten into that engine, or someone.

  “Freedom?” he shouted after the diesel as it vanished, leaving nothing behind but gray swirls.

  Had his sister freed herself? Was it possible she was behind this covering fog? Not knowing which line of reasoning to cling to, he listened to the receding rumble and groaning protest of tortured track. The machine wove through the yard like a drunken sailor. It was time to get the hell out of here.

  He ran perpendicular to the tracks, praying he wouldn’t twist an ankle in the ties or loose ballast. The ground shook to the grinding rumble of wrenching metal, the smash and bang culminating in a huge bell-like collision. Yellow-green flashes lit up the fog. His attention shifted to a roiling wall of vapor whooshing toward him. He dropped to the oily roadbed. Hot steam swept across his back. Riding on the concussive wave was an apparition of vengeful whimsy.

  A reedy steam child with half-mad eyes bore down on him. He saw cat’s ears and a whipping tail. Braided hair streamed behind hollow cheeks and bared teeth. The lines of her elfin face literally crackled with electricity.

  “No!” Another girl’s voice hissed.

  Vincent recognized the second steam child thrusting herself between them. His savior wore a British morning suit and square glasses perched on a misty nose. “Glory?”

  She ignored him, her concentration reserved for the enraged girl-child in front of her. “Don’t you dare.”

  “I’ll scald them all,” the other fumed. “I’ll kill them. I swear I will!”

  “You’re just angry,” Glory huffed, twirling around the newcomer with a disapproving frown. “You don’t want to stop playing, do you, Quickly? Besides, he’s the one who freed you. Go find Mischief before she lets her temper get the better of her. I won’t have either of you become storms. They never have any fun.”

  “Storms?” Vincent asked after the other steam child jetted off into the grayness.

  “That was Quickly,” Glory introduced. “She likes cats. Did you really believe I wouldn’t follow you here?”

  “The fog,” he guessed.

  “Steam, fog, it’s pretty much the same. You did wonderful, Brass. You freed Mischief and Quickly, but your sister wasn’t in the boilers. She’s up at the house—imprisoned in the same diesel that brought her here. Quickly and Mischief were the only ones the baron managed to catch after the last escape. Don’t blame them for being a bit upset.”

  He picked himself up. “What about Samantha? Have you seen her? Did she make it to the garden?”

  “I think so. Hurry. People are coming from the house.”

  He starting running again, keeping the bright flashes at his back. Mists were thinning enough for him to see too many flashlights coming down a sloping road. He glanced back at the sounds of arcing electricity, grateful Samantha had gotten herself clear. Half-yegg or not, she was trying her best to do right, which was more than he’d ever say about the true monster pretending to be her father.

  The best way to avoid an unappreciative reception committee was straight up a moderate rise to his left. He kept low and raced for a low limestone wall glimpsed in the flickering light of the dying power plant. He couldn’t see the estate itself, no doubt due to the lost power. Ah, there was the gate she talked about—an ornate series of iron swirls. Cane at the ready, he slid inside, entering a large garden.

  A ground-hugging mist crept up behind him. Glory glided around to his left and pointed toward the shadows beneath a sculpted bush. Nodding, he moved deeper into the grounds, catching the smell of lilacs. “Sammy?” he whispered.

  “Slaver’s daughter,” came Quickly’s sibilant accusation, the rider appearing off his right shoulder.

  “Shadow’s child,” another steam child breathed out, the newcomer a tangle of wild hair over narrowed eyes crackling with blue sparks. The gray figure hovered over the bush in front of him, her fingers extending in menacing serpentine tendrils.

  “Freedom’s friend,” Glory interjected, jetting around him to confront the other two. “Beware the lightning in your gaze, sisters.”

  “We will,” Quickly promised with a petulant frown before wrapping herself around the other steam child in an adoring hug.

  “We will,” the third sighed, rising in the fog as her eyes cleared.

  A figure detached itself from the darkness, Samantha glancing up at the circling wraiths before joining Vincent’s side. “You okay?”

  He rubbed his sore jaw. “Just great. Where’s this side door into the house?”

  “Follow me. We’ve got to be careful.”

  He didn’t need her caution. The shouts and sounds of boots to their right were warning enough. “Let’s go.”

  A weak quarter-moon peeked through clouds, allowing him to spy rising towers and sloping roofs beyond the garden’s trees and shrubs. Apparently, Erie’s barons saw no conflict in planting a huge French chateau in the middle of the Ohio countryside. Both the house and grounds were little more than darker shades cast against a lighter sky, without a lamp to be seen. Even that vision was lost in a rolling fog the steam children cast before them.

  Sweating in the ultra-humid atmosphere, he kept close to Samantha who trotted confidently along decorative flagstones winding through a maze of manicured shrubs. Passing under an ivy-entwined arch brought them out onto a narrow courtyard framing three stilled fountains. He glimpsed stone silhouettes of deer for only a moment before the third steam child, Mischief, transformed the ring of water into vaporous cascades. The only thing he counted on in the resulting murk was Samantha’s sense of direction, the girl not breaking her stride. Undaunted, she turned left and picked up the pace upon entering a field whose grass carpet could stand in for a pool table.

  She nearly ran him into a low decorative cement border. Hopping over it, Vincent crossed a much wider plaza in growing amazement at the estate’s size. Next came a gazebo, and finally the looming wall of the chateau itself. They slowed to a creep, edging along clammy granite bricks until reaching the base of a broad tower.

  “One of my ways to get in without father noticing,” she whispered, approaching the lip of a cathedral windowsill. Her hands felt along the edge of an iron lattice until he heard a grating click. She lifted until the grillwork swung out on hinges. He wasn’t surprised to find the stained glass window unlocked as well. She swung up the window’s lower panel and beckoned him forward. “I’ll need your cane a moment to prop it up.”

  “Yeah,” he absently agreed, handing her the needed leverage. “You hear that?”

  She paused. The rumble and click of an idling diesel was clear now, and from the sound of it, not too far away.

  “That’s our private station,” Samantha provided impatiently.

  “That’s the diesel my sister came in,” he clarifie
d, moving forward.

  “First things first.” She looked skyward through the murk. “You three up there? Glory, get your friends back to the yard and keep the fog heavy. I want the workers confused and staying put in the yard well out of our way.”

  “We are not your slaves, anymore,” Mischief’s voice sneered through the grayness.

  “She’s trying to help,” Glory rebutted. “Anyway, it will be heaps of fun. Come on, we’ll make them good and lost.”

  “And stay away from vacuum bottles,” Vincent added. He turned to Samantha. “Yeah, first things first. I’m going to free my sister.”

  “Don’t trust this baron’s daughter,” Quickly hissed.

  The trio vanished into the fog before Samantha offered a suitable retort. Scowling, she motioned Vincent to the window. “While the house is still empty, please? Or would you prefer to wait until my father and everyone else comes back?”

  He held his ground. “Freedom first. One pull of a valve and she’s out. I’m sure she knows where Timepiece is.”

  She groaned. “Fine, Come here and give me your walking stick. The window’s stuck.”

  He inspected the open sill after handing her the lining rod. “There’s enough room for us to squeeze in after we get back.”

  She drew in a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry. You should’ve listened to her. And for what it’s worth, I love you too.”

  He saw her swinging the cane in a slow-motion horror, but there was only time to think she wouldn’t do that before the brass knob connected with the side of his head.

  ~ * ~

  Vincent blinked back the pain, his mouth tasting dry and medicinal. It was hard to get a thought out, let alone clear the blur in his eyes. He was lying on a lumpy mattress in somebody’s basement, according to the broken impressions he managed to pick up. And he was in trouble.

  Someone in a dark blue corseted dress was sitting beside him on a chair. He blinked repeatedly. “Katy?” his thick tongue croaked.

  “She’s okay,” Samantha’s voice assured. “So is Timepiece. Father’s kept him in the guest quarters. Like I told you, he doesn’t want problems with the conductors’ union.”

  He concentrated until her face solidified into a mournful frown surrounded by smooth black tresses pinned with gold combs. White lace bordered a throat that swallowed nervously as she turned toward the bare room’s single door.

  Yeah, he remembered her too. “You bitch.”

  “Hasn’t everyone been telling you that about me all along? Myself, included?” Her sarcasm melted into sincerity. “I really didn’t mean to hit you so hard. Your stupid cane was heavier than it looked. Doctor said you’ve a concussion, but you’ll be okay. I really wish that were true. You should’ve listened to me and not blown up half the rail yard.”

  “I should’ve left you beneath that tree when I first saw what you were,” he snarled back through the pounding in his head. “So what’s the plan now, Miss Van Erie? Think I’m going to get you your damned candy mountain rock after your daddy has me shot? That’s what this is about, right? You didn’t want me near Freedom in case she agreed to use the thing herself. Now nobody gets one. Gandy dancers don’t get to come back after taking a bullet to the head, dumbass.”

  “He’s not going to shoot you, and the plan’s still on despite…complications.” She wiped at a cheek. “My plan. The only idea with a chance at working. When the day’s over I’ll have the signet ring and your sister will be free. I promise.”

  “I promise to see you in hell.”

  “And leave your sister canned up in that diesel until she goes mad?” she snapped back. “You saw what those other steam children were like, is that what you want for Freedom? I can do this. Father’s already agreed to allow you a chance. You’re going to take the Trial of the High-Priced Man he told you about. If you finish it, you can live.”

  “I can live? Are we talking about the same trial? The one he told me about was supposed to be faith inspiring to the point of making me an instant Taylorist. What’s the catch?”

  Her voice dwindled. “You’ll be poisoned. My idea, I’m afraid.” She held up a small brown bottle. “I showed my father the potion Chepi and I cooked up so you could call the Westbound. He doesn’t believe you’d come back alive, so he made me a deal. The trial is about lifting a bunch of iron ingots over eight hours. If you manage to last that long, and get the entire load up the ramp, you’ll be given an antidote by our doctor.”

  “We both know I won’t make eight minutes.”

  She nodded, and looked away. “They’ll believe you died.”

  He raised a weak hand to feel bandages around his head. Wishing the room would steady itself, he forced himself into an upright position. “I will die after they toss me in a hole, idiot. Assuming I’m not cut open first.” Damn the little snake for showing him a glimmer of hope, let alone still caring about him.

  “Then you’ll get your wish about meeting me in hell, because I’ll be right behind you. I know a place in the garden. I promise to get you there.”

  “All by yourself with a mob after you?”

  Her voice steadied. “I said I will get you there. Now drink this before my father arrives. Try not to gag it back up.”

  He badly wanted to refuse her, seeing how adroitly she maneuvered him into handing her a piece of the Rock Candy Mountain regardless of his intentions. How long had she been laughing behind his back? How many times had she tried warning me this was where she was heading? His trouble was in not wanting to listen. At least she still talked about freeing his sister, despite no small risk to herself.

  Fine. Do it her way – not that he had any choice now. “What about getting the ring from your father?”

  “I’ll be standing next to him. The ring will be mine. Now drink. It’s going to taste terrible.”

  “This whole thing’s terrible,” he growled. He downed the bottle, and fought hard to keep it in his stomach. “Just remember whose job it is to bring in the troops. That’s still in your grand plan too, isn’t it, or is all of this about getting that rock in your hands?”

  “I could’ve slipped the poison into your food anytime I wanted since we left Red’s,” she countered. “Isn’t freeing Katy worth letting me free myself too? I need what the Rock Candy Mountain offers far more than she does. Take her home in a kettle if you have to, but let me cleanse this yegg out of me. Why can’t you understand? Why does everything have to revolve around what you want?”

  “I meant what I said about taking the Westbound a second time for you, damn it. Then you go and do this.”

  She rose in a rustle of petticoats as the door behind them opened, Samantha a picture of poise and propriety save for the fists clenched at her sides. “Now you won’t have to.”

  Baron Bram Van Erie stepped in; his black business attire offset by a deep purple vest much like a raven’s breast. He handed his top hat to a hulking man in dungarees. Vincent recognized Jake—Samantha’s true father. The foreman cast a feral grin over the baron’s shoulder before escorting his daughter from the room.

  The baron kicked at the discarded medicine bottle. “Oleander and jimson. Consider this a generous mercy. Myself, I would’ve had you shot, had my daughter not interceded on your behalf. She’s quite taken with you, much to my surprise. Samantha believes you’ll finish the trial despite the poison. I don’t, however, I will honor her wishes and allow you her hand in marriage should you survive the eight hours.”

  “You’ll allow us to marry,” he repeated, soaking in the man’s statement. Was this the complication Samantha spoke of? Had she offered herself along with the poison in order to convince her father and save his life?

  “I will do more than that, Mister Maloney.” He settled in Samantha’s vacated seat. “Marriage to my daughter is a surprising request, but her business acumen is sound. As I had explained before, gandy dancers are not without value and can open new markets. So, I’ll add my own wedding present—a treatment of charcoal and other medicines to sta
ve off the toxins inside you.”

  “The catch?”

  Bran inclined his head. “Yes, the catch. Your sister must agree to be on the Erie payroll of her own freewill. She does this, and you will be administered the counter to my daughter’s poison so that you may complete the trial successfully. In turn, your sister will be given her freedom to recruit others of her kind in order to help drive my new breed of locomotives along living track.”

  He eyed the baron, knowing the man was deceitful right down to those muttonchops. There was nothing in the statement about his own freedom—he would be a hostage to keep his sister in line. There was more to this as well. Vincent batted away the muddled webs growing around his thoughts. “Your diesels don’t work well with slaves, I take it.”

  “A steam child’s anger is a potent impediment. We nearly derailed on our return journey and had to keep our speed to a minimum due to Freedom’s recalcitrance. I need her to work willingly. I can assure you she’ll be treated well and handsomely paid.”

  He damn near pitied the poor bastard. “Yeah, her kind is all about the money. You don’t know a damn thing about them, do you?”

  The baron’s smile didn’t look encouraging. “No, but you do. The Book of Scientific Management lays out the rewards of initiative and incentive. What better supervisor for my new engineers than a gandy dancer? Your sister gets her freedom. I will give you my daughter’s hand and indoctrinate you into the family business.” He pulled a pocket watch from his vest and flipped open the cover. “Well, we haven’t much time in any case. I’m told the poison works swiftly. We need to get you up to where your sister can get a good look at you.”

  “Your daughter was right,” Vincent slurred. “You are a monster.”

  The baron rose from the chair. “This is business management, not brutality for brutality’s sake. I cannot afford to have my authority challenged without consequence. Not with the kind of men under my hire who rightly respect strength and the willingness to exercise it.”

  “Yegg.”

  “Building blocks toward the new man. Workers fit for assembly lines, not romantic notions about craftsmanship and parasitic unions. Men who won’t walk away in weakness such as my elder brother William did.”