by L. A. Witt
Nothing.
Just a hiss of steam beneath the mech’s front end, but the engine remained still and quiet.
John knelt and peered under the mech. “Damn!”
“What now?”
He held up the severed ends of the lines connecting the boiler to the engine. “Apparently we’re staying here a little while longer.”
I swallowed. “How long will it take to fix?”
“Depends on how much damage there is.” He glanced at the caravan of teams inching past us. “But we may as well set up camp again.”
From the Diary of Dr. Jonathon W. Fauth — October 17, 1898
More than ever, I question the wisdom of continuing this journey. Multiple times since we’ve crossed the Chilkoot Pass, thieves have attempted to obtain my device.
This morning, we found our mech sabotaged with ice and a cut line. We repaired it, but it cost us valuable time.
Now, I am truly afraid of every mile between here and Dawson City. These are no longer simple, greedy thieves. Someone is biding his time, slowing us down until we are, as we are now, alone and isolated, immobile out here in the wilderness.
My heart pounds and my hands sweat whenever another team overtakes us on the trail, so certain am I that every man on this route is a potential thief. Neither of us can sleep. As such, we are both terribly weary, and our progress has slowed dramatically.
I’ve tried again to persuade Robert to move on without me. I can navigate the mech alone if I have to, or we can both shoulder whatever we can carry and go on that way.
Stubborn as a mule, though, he’s still here with me. As I write this, he sits just an arm’s length from me, his hands hovering over the fire, his eyes tired and his face expressionless. Any sound—a woodland creature, a branch cracking beneath the weight of ice and snow, sap popping in the fire—makes him jump, and his weary eyes immediately come to life, widening and scanning the shadows. Then his shoulders sink again, and his gaze returns to the fire.
My reactions are not unlike his. Every sound, every movement has me seizing the rifle that now leans against my leg, and it takes very little to send us both into panic. I can’t imagine how either of us will be able to sleep tonight.
How many days lie ahead, it’s impossible to say. I don’t imagine last night’s sabotage will be the last such effort, but there—
Something cracked nearby.
John’s head snapped up, his journal nearly falling out of his hands and into the fire. “What was that?”
I tensed, searching the darkness for movement. “I don’t know. But it was close by.”
“I know.” His hand casually drifted to the rifle at his side.
We both rose.
The fire at our feet was a double-edged sword. It illuminated our campsite, but deepened the shadows beyond. Firelight glinted off the mech, which we’d parked within sight this time instead of chaining to a tree, but aside from that, we were surrounded by a thick curtain of black.
Another cracking sound turned our heads. John shouldered the rifle, and I rested my hand on the pistol at my hip. Movement behind me caught my attention, but before I could turn, something blunt hit the back of my head. I grunted and dropped, my knee landing hard on the frozen ground.
Pain and disorientation blurred the resulting commotion for a few seconds. When my vision cleared, everything was still, and John stood poised with the rifle up, aimed at someone behind me.
“Get back, or I’ll put a bullet through every one of you,” he snarled. “Robert, are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Rubbing the back of my head, I staggered to my feet.
“Just give us the device, Dr. Fauth.” The voice sent a shiver down my spine. Immediately, I was back on the deck of the steamboat en route to Ketchikan, and my stomach coiled with the same nausea that had driven me outdoors that day in the first place.
“You want a device like this?” John’s voice was steady and cold. “Why don’t you go back to Sidney and ask him to build one.”
“Let’s not play games,” came the equally steady reply. “With this weather, I think we’d all like to sleep sometime tonight, no?”
“Then get moving. You’re not getting this device.”
Logan laughed. “Are you really foolish enough to die for your equipment?”
“Are you?” John growled.
“He’s bluffing,” one of the other men snarled.
“Am I?” John asked.
“I have a better idea,” Logan said from behind me.
An instant later, a hand seized the back of my jacket collar and someone kicked my knees out from under me. For the second time in minutes, I hit the ground hard, pain shooting up from my kneecaps. My gun clattered onto the frozen dirt beside me, and a boot toed it out of my reach.
Cold metal pressed against the side of my head.
I froze, staring up at John.
“I’m not asking again, Dr. Fauth,” Logan said. The distinctive creak of a hammer drawing back made me gulp. “Give us the device.”
John swallowed hard. The rifle’s barrel dipped slightly, but he didn’t lower the gun all the way. “Let him go.”
“Hand over the device.”
“Hand him over first.”
Aside from my pounding heart and the softly crackling fire, the night was eerily silent. Firelight danced along the rifle barrel and across John’s features. His dark eyes were fixed on the man behind me.
“Give us the gold finder.” Logan tapped the side of my head with the pistol. “It’s him or the device, Dr. Fauth.”
John swallowed. My stomach lurched. He’d told me to reconsider traveling with him, never quite denying that he’d take a bullet to save his work, but I’d never asked if he’d expect me to take one.
John . . .
Slowly, John lowered the rifle. “Let him go, and it’s yours.”
My heart stopped.
The pistol dug into my temple. “The device first.”
John hesitated. His eyes shifted from me to the men behind me to me again. Then he nodded, and a second later, disappeared into the tent.
“My, my, he is attached to you.” Cold gloved fingers stroked my hair, and I couldn’t help shuddering.
“Isn’t that charming?” another asked. “And to think we all thought that was just a rumor.”
“A rumor?” Logan snorted. He trailed a fingertip across the back of my neck along my hairline, his taunting caress contrasting sharply with the ice-cold barrel digging into my temple. “Hardly.”
The tent flap moved, and John reappeared, holding the wooden box in one hand and his rifle in the other. “All right. Here it is.”
The hand lifted off my neck. “Open the box.”
“Let him go, and I’ll open it.”
“Dr. Fauth, I’m not in the mood to play games.” The man jabbed my temple with the gun, making me wince. “Open the box, or I’ll open his head.”
I gulped. John met my eyes, and the fear in his did nothing to calm me.
He reached into his pocket and withdrew a small key. Kneeling, he laid the rifle by his feet and reached for the box. With the click of the lock, a lump rose in my throat. His entire livelihood, his one chance to complete his research, and he was trading it for my life.
God, I am so sorry, John.
The hinges creaked, and John gestured at the device, which was nestled safely in its padding. “There. Now let him go.”
“Step back from it.”
John took a step back.
“William,” my captor said. “Pick it up.”
One of the men stepped forward, closed the box, and picked it up. John watched, his lips twisted with a hundred different emotions. He winced and looked away as the man named William returned to this side of the campsite with the box in hand.
John took a breath. “You have the detector.” His voice shook now, though I couldn’t tell if it was fear or fury. “Now let him go. We had a deal.”
“I’ve changed my mind.” The g
un left my temple, and someone hauled me to my feet by the scruff of my jacket. “He’s coming with us.”
John started to bring up the rifle but paused in midair. From the corner of my eye, I caught the glint of firelight off the barrel of a raised pistol.
“Give it up, Fauth,” Logan growled. “He’s coming with us. You take one step, he’s a dead man.”
John stared at him in horror, eyes wide and lips apart. “Why? I gave you what you asked for. Why do you need him? He’s not part of this.”
“Call it a little insurance,” came the reply. “I see you or a Mountie come anywhere near us or this device? He’s dead. Now why don’t you just go about your business while we continue? Men?” He hauled me back a step. Then another. “Don’t cross me, Fauth. I will kill him.”
I met John’s eyes. I’d never imagined it was possible for the man to look so terrified. Or for me to feel this helpless. Oh God, how do I get out of this?
“Come on.” Logan turned me around and forced me to walk forward. Step-by-step, we headed into the dark of the night, leaving my campsite and my lover behind.
John wasn’t ready to give up, though. We’d gone perhaps twenty yards when a gunshot cracked the night’s silence, and a bullet whistled past us. Then another.
My captors dived for cover, hauling me down with them. Someone pinned me to the frozen ground. I struggled to withdraw my own pistol, but couldn’t get to it.
“Kill the kid, Logan. Fool’s opening fire, so shoot the damned kid.”
“I have a better idea.” The next shot came from right beside me, and was so loud, my vision turned white. Another shot came from the distance, then two more from right beside me, and over the ringing in my ears, I heard a laugh, followed by, “That’ll take care of him.”
I wrenched away from Logan and looked back.
And immediately wished I hadn’t.
The fire backlit John. He was on his knees, wavering badly. Then he slumped forward and crumpled to the ground.
I heard myself cry out his name, I felt the tears sting my eyes, but everything was so far away. Like I was outside myself, standing off to the side and watching myself collapse with grief as these men, these thieves and murderers, hauled me to my feet and dragged me north while John’s blood soaked the snow behind them.
I couldn’t say how long we trudged through the still, icy night before they steered off the main road—if one could call it that—down a narrow side trail. Perhaps ten yards down that trail, we came to a campsite.
The men stripped me of the gun I’d carried in my pocket, then sat me unceremoniously beside a dark fire pit. They lit a fire, and I couldn’t even feel the heat coming off it. Nor could I taste the food they insisted I eat. I was just . . . numb.
And though they kept me warm and fed, it didn’t take them long to start debating my fate.
“Why even bother keeping him with us?” William asked. “Fauth is dead. This kid’s just a liability now.”
“No,” Logan said coolly. “He’s a liability if we let him go.”
“Who said anything about letting him go?” The third man asked. “Men turn up dead out here all the time. Nothing unusual.” He watched me over the fire, eyes narrowed and icy, and I shivered.
“We’re not murderers,” Logan said. “Fauth? We were defending ourselves. This one?” He gestured at me. “Well, the machine’ll find the gold, but we need someone to dig it up, don’t we?”
“Hold on now.” The third put up his hands. “We’re supposed to be taking this thing back to Chicago, not going north.”
Logan nodded. “But after all this cold and ice nonsense, I think we’ve earned ourselves a trip to the gold fields.” He grinned, the flickering fire adding sinister shadows to his face. “We ain’t expected back anytime soon, after all.”
“Do you know how to use the device?” William asked.
Logan shrugged. “Can’t be so complicated, can it? And anyhow, it’s got drawings and whatnot with it. If it can get us to the gold, we’ll damn sure figure it out.”
William scratched at his beard. “And it’ll really find gold?”
“That’s what Sidney told me. It finds some sorts of metal, and one of ’em is gold.”
The other men exchanged glances.
Logan clapped my knee. “And besides. He was heading that way anyway. Weren’t you, lad?”
They all looked at me. I stared into the fire and pretended their laughter didn’t turn my stomach.
Something told me I wasn’t going to live through this.
After a long day of walking beside my captors’ mech, I could barely take another step. My body was cold. My feet, knees, and back ached. My face was wind-burned and my fingers numb, but none of this compared to the deep, burning grief in my chest.
Though I was dead on my feet and even deader inside, the men ordered me to help set up the tents. Once the tents were pitched, it was my task to move certain provisions inside from the mech to keep them safe from thieves and snow. I did as I was told only because the sooner I did what they asked, the sooner they’d let me eat and get warm by the fire. To that end, they’d been kind enough; whenever they stopped to eat, I was allowed food and warmth as well. Couldn’t let their newly acquired servant starve or freeze, after all.
At last, it was time for us all to bed down. Logan and Michael took one tent. William ordered me into the other tent with him.
He put his bedroll beside the tent flap and kept a rifle at his side. They didn’t bother binding me—where could I go? I’d only just warmed up after my long, cold walk. I had no provisions beyond the coat on my back and a small wad of money in my pocket. Money that was all but useless out here. And this far north, only a fool would take for granted the kindness of passing strangers. Not when their own provisions dwindled and they were this close to the gold they sought.
But my captors overestimated my fear of the Canadian winter. And perhaps they overestimated my sanity as well. Let the cold kill me, let a bear find me, let a bandit cut my throat, but I wasn’t staying with these men. I’d take my chances against the elements.
I waited until I was certain William was asleep. Then, moving as stealthily as I could, willing my teeth not to chatter and give me away, I got up. I leaned over him and pulled the tent flap back. Everyone else was asleep, and the fire had been doused. Perfect.
I held my breath and stepped over William. He didn’t move a muscle, didn’t even stir in his sleep, and in seconds, I was out of the tent and in the bitter, biting cold.
Thank you, Father, for teaching me to hunt in the snow. If there was one thing I could do, it was creep through snow as stealthily as the various animals my brothers and I hunted with our father in the wilds of Montana. Without making a sound, I made it to the perimeter of the campsite, and there, I stopped and looked back. The frozen ground crunched with the shifting of my weight.
John’s device was still in the camp. Though it was useless to me, I could get it back to the university where he’d worked. Or . . . something. I’d sort that out when I was safely back in civilization. For now, I couldn’t bear the thought of the invention that had driven John this far, right to his death, remaining in their possession.
But how could I get it back? I didn’t know where it was held, and I was unarmed.
I resisted the urge to groan as the truth set in: If I wanted to save the device, I needed to plan my escape. I couldn’t do it tonight.
Cursing under my breath, I backtracked. I returned to the camp, brushed the snow off my boots, pushed the tent flap aside, and crept over William once more. I eased myself onto my bedroll and pulled the thin blanket up over me.
For the rest of the night, I stared at the inside of the tent and ran through every possible escape plan I could come up with that allowed me to leave with John’s device.
“Whatever it takes, John,” I vowed into the stillness. “They won’t get rich off your invention and your blood.”
My third night in captivity, I was ready to make
my escape. Walking beside the mech each day, I’d taken a careful inventory of their provisions. I knew exactly what I needed, and where it was all stored. At night, the men only kept a few things from the mech in the safety of their tents: Food, guns, coal . . . and the locked wooden box. Everything else stayed in the mech, and after rehearsing my movements in my mind and counting my steps when I carried the food and coal into their tent each night, I knew precisely how quickly I could get everything I needed.
The routine each time was the same: Once I’d moved everything they’d ordered me to move, Logan would send me to sit beside the campfire with the others. Then, and only then, he’d take the locked box into the tent.
That was the one hitch in my plan. The tent was cramped, there were other boxes and crates stacked inside it, and it would be dark. I wouldn’t have much time to get in, find and retrieve the box, and get out.
Lying in my bedroll, I listened for William’s breathing to fall into its pattern of sleep. It didn’t take long, fortunately. Every one of us was exhausted, myself included. Had he taken another ten minutes to fall asleep, I’d have drifted off myself and had to wait another night to make my run.
As soon as I was sure he was asleep, I crept out of my bedroll just like I did the other night. At least this part I’d rehearsed; I knew I could get past him, out of the tent, and beyond the camp’s perimeter without detection. It was the rest of the plan I wasn’t so sure about.
Outside the tent, I stopped and listened. Quiet snoring came from the other tent, but otherwise, everyone and everything was still. I crept across the campsite to the mech, which was beside the other tent. Closer than I was comfortable with, but it would have to do.
It took less than a minute to gather everything on the list in my mind: matches, an empty flour sack, and a can of gunpowder. I moved my tiny cache a few paces away from the campsite so no one would hear if I made some noise.
The gunpowder can took a little work to pry open, and when the lid finally came off, my heart stopped. The resulting pop seemed to echo all along the silent trail, but after a full minute, no one had responded. I released my breath and went back to my task.