Alvina felt her bottom lip give way. In a spark of inspiration, she recollected that somewhere, out in the Dead Corridor, Ralust was going to be following to pick up the goods – provided that Cole and Blake had managed to get them off the ship of course.
‘Ralust! Ralust! Where the hell are you?!’ Alvina hoisted her rifle and fired into the night sky until the magazine it harboured ran empty. The cracks echoed off the canyon walls until finally dissipating. It was too dark to see anything and any voices on the wind would have been blown away by the constant churning of the struggling Messiah. By the time she had finished, Alvina fell on all fours, feeling quite defeated.
‘If you left me now, you would be a free woman. Could go off and make something of yourself … Be all fancy, like … You deserve that …’ A spluttering cough robbed Jack of any further words.
‘Whatever would I do with all that time?’
There was no response. Jack’s head became loose and his eyes began to roll back.
Jack passed out, lying limp in Alvina’s lap as she cradled him.
‘Come on, hold on in there, help will come soon. Help will come.’
Alvina lay cradling Jack in the Dead Corridor. She was not a religious sort but prayed to the Sorceress that luck would ensure their discovery no matter how doubtful it may be given these circumstances.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Feathers from a jackdaw
The jackdaw soared through the sky, bathing in a glorious, perfect sun.
Its rays contrasted against the bird’s pitch-black body, like a strike of night trespassing in hours it was never meant to see. It had flown quite the journey, had avoided hardships and predators to come to Esquelle, for travel from one settlement to another in the Sand Sea was fraught with danger. A bead-like eye flicked in its socket, spying the buildings in turn, examining the roads and the ceaseless flow of people travelling through them. It turned its flight into a glide, riding a thermal from the buildings below, joining a kettle of others who each rode the hot air, rising higher and higher into the perfect blue. The jackdaw felt the calmness of the desert, the quiet of flight and, while content, knew not what content was.
Then, without any hint, it dropped from the sky, barrelling downwards at speed. The rooftops shot towards it and when low enough, extended its wingspan and took flight much closer to the town and people therein. It travelled over the boisterous markets, where trouble and trade were one and the same. The older, more dilapidated districts with their confused, contorted streets lacked what it sought, from nestled bars to ramshackle placement of street vendors. A final circle took it above the docks where cluttered warehouses jostled for space and lastly over the grand train station where steam trains squatted.
Finally, after a great deal of searching, the jackdaw descended and landed with a trot on a windowsill, attracted by something in the interior. It quirked its head and blinked its eye rapidly, almost as if it was trying to communicate. When that failed, it took to striking upon the glass with its beak.
* * *
Inside, Blakestone raised his head to the distraction, spying the bird striking on the pane of glass with annoying frequency. Every time Blake met its eyes, the bird tilted its head as if questioning why it wasn’t among them. Tap-tap-tap went the window as the bird drilled its beak against the glass. Its insistence became borderline annoyance as he patiently sat in the chair beside him. Finally, he banged the window with a fist, irritated that it had managed to raise his backside from the chair, sending it back into flight in alarm.
‘Fucking birds,’ he cursed, settling back into his chair.
‘What’s the problem?’ Alvina asked, sitting opposite with no small measure of concern on her features. She looked tired, her clumped black hair ragged and out of place, as if sleep had shunned her for good.
‘Probably pining for the boss’s rings.’ Blake scooped up the collection of silver jewellery from the windowsill. ‘A little bit of a sparkle and they’ll snatch it up. Little thieves, the lot of them.’
‘It’s not like the boss can wear them, is it?’ Cole added, seated on the floor, his back flat against a well-decorated wall. There were spaces available on the lounger in the room, but he preferred the firmness of the wall upon his back and the solidness upon his buttocks. Cole shunned the need to be comfortable, as if it was a small gesture of penitence.
They all turned to the ornate four-poster bed between them. Spread out under the chocolate sheets, Jackdaw lay, swollen, cut, but quite at peace. They had each agreed that it was the first time any of them could recall him looking so at ease. There was always something in his head that made him irate, on edge or argumentative. When speaking to him, Cole pointed out that it was as if he was always scheming, predicting what they were going to say next. He was a planner, always proud at being two steps ahead of anyone else. Blakestone added that it was his most irritating attribute, but that’s what a good crook does; he predicts the situation before anybody else makes a move. It keeps you alive when all else goes wrong.
‘Unless you do something stupid.’ Alvina squeezed her hands together and bowed her head in prayer. She would give anything to the Holy Sorceress to hear Jack scold her once more and in realizing this, secretly wiped away a tear.
‘What are you going to do now?’ Cole looked up from his place. ‘We need to make arrangements. We can’t keep –’
‘I know.’ Alvina tossed her head and blinked back the wetness.
‘I’m just saying that Donovan might –’
‘We know, Little Fish,’ Blakestone added, reaching over and resting his hand upon Cole’s shoulder, almost totally engulfing it. With that, Cole decided to forgo any further questions about the future and instead focused on the here and now.
They all sat silently for an age.
‘What would you say to him if he could hear you?’ Alvina struggled, her brow spasming as emotion clawed at her stoic demeanour. Her words threatened to break at every point. ‘What … what would you tell him?’
‘Thank you, probably.’ Cole pressed his lips together firmly, looking at the bed and the profile of Jack’s head. ‘Despite how dangerous and stupid these last few months have been with you both, I … would have to say thank you.’
Blake drummed his large fingers on the chair armrest, mulling this over himself.
‘I would call him a fool. A ridiculous, risk-taking fool who – plenty of times – managed to drag us into the dark with jobs that no sane person would agree to.’ Blake stared at Jackdaw lying quite still. ‘He put us through hell without a single apology.’
‘He always led us out the other side though, didn’t he?’
Blake spluttered a smile, nodding wearily at the exchange. ‘That he did. That he surely did.’
‘Good thing too …’ a voice wearily rasped ‘you’re useless … on your own …’
Alvina and Cole sprung to their feet and cried out in unison.
‘Jack?!’
* * *
Jackdaw turned his head on the pillow slowly, uncomfortable at having to make the smallest of movements.
‘Unless you’re insulting … someone else …’
Cole wrenched the door open, calling to anyone and everyone in earshot.
‘He’s awake!’ Cole announced loudly before closing it once more. So loud in fact it pained Jack to hear.
‘What in the …’ He patiently rubbed at his eyes. ‘What happened?’
‘What happened is that I owe Alvina twenty bucks. I said you wouldn’t make it through today,’ Blake grunted, reaching for his wallet.
‘Did … you bet on me to –’ Jack struggled to communicate his disgust.
‘He’s joking, boss. Nice to see you still with us. How are you feeling?’
‘Sore. Considerably sore. How did we …’
‘We got picked up.’ Alvina tried to hold back her smile, so relieved that she could cry. Not that she would, because that would give the wrong impression and Blake would taunt her mercilessly for i
t. ‘I made such a racket with my gun and all, what with it being dark, that we were seen. Blake and Cole came running like heroes. Good thing too otherwise you would have been wolf food.’
‘You as well,’ Jack added.
‘No, I would have been out of there like a shot. They would have been distracted making a corpse out of you.’ Alvina smirked.
Jack sniggered to himself, before collecting his thoughts together. He stared at the ceiling, having a good deal of trouble stringing a coherent question together. His throat was raw and he beckoned for a drink of water from the pitcher at the bedside.
‘You okay, boss? You seem sort of … off.’
‘Given what’s happened that’s to be expected.’ Then he scanned the room. The décor was nice, set aside for moneyed folks. Too nice, in fact, for a Jackrabbit. ‘Wait. Where are we, where is this? We don’t have digs this handsome …’
Cole fielded the question. ‘You’re aboard the Morning Star.’
‘And why would that be?’
The door to the carriage eased open, revealing the train’s owners making their way inside. The door latch clicked to a close behind them as Franco and Misu took in the sorry sight of the man who had caused them significant amounts of stress.
‘He’s asking why he’s on your train.’ Cole glanced to Misu who slanted her hips. Franco, on the other hand, was less relaxed, leaning against the door with arms firmly crossed.
‘Because rather than letting you die in a disastrous crash or turning the desert red, we decided to do something nice. Misu here insisted that we stop and rode out to meet you after the ship went off course. Naturally, I was against this plan.’ Franco paused before realizing he would be left wanting. ‘You can thank us any time you like.’
‘I’m not following. I thought Ralust got us – he was supposed to be following behind,’ Jack queried, looking to the Jackrabbits in turn as best as he could whilst his neck felt like a rod of iron. Alvina and Cole both looked away.
It was only Blake who answered. ‘Ralust is dead,’ he grimly revealed. ‘The girl he hired to come with did the dirty on him. He was found back at the marker, dead before he got a chance to follow behind. The Bluecoats came upon the body after the Messiah crashed. Shot in the back by all accounts; at least that’s what the papers say.’
‘Did they find her?’
‘Not a hope. Would have been long gone. Why she did it, nobody knows. Cole bounced around the notion that she might have been one of Donovan’s but … that doesn’t add up.’
Poor Ralust. The old man had been a voice of reason whenever Jack felt his passion overwhelm sensible thought. How long had he known him? Eight years? It was difficult to recall. Ralust had always been a sour-faced bastard since the first time they had been introduced. Never one to hold his tongue – if a job was worth doing, Ralust was the man to do it. He never called himself a Jackrabbit of course – he hated the title in fact – preferring to be something of a freelance organizer for people like Jackdaw even into old age. Like Jack had told him once, men like him didn’t have the desire to retire.
And he hated how correct that was.
Jackdaw wiped his face, pushing a hand against the bandage wrapped around his forehead. A shock of pain rippled through the flesh as he tested it.
‘Don’t fiddle with that,’ Cole said, realizing that he was, inadvertently, telling Jack what to do, which never went down well.
‘Are you a doctor now?’ Jack mumbled, actually taking the advice.
‘No, not exactly. But who do you think stitched you together again while help arrived?’ Alvina smiled, instigating a flicker of a smile on Cole’s face.
‘That true?’ Jack turned his head once again, painfully shimmying himself up the bed. Every wiggle of his hips introduced him to new bruises.
‘When Blake and I got off with the diamonds, we saw Alvina shooting away in the night. I patched you up as best as I could, finishing the job when we dragged you on the train.’
‘He was so protective he wouldn’t even let my girls put their hands on you. Not to insult the good man here, but ours would have done a tidier job at some of those stitches,’ Misu exclaimed.
Cole took amusement in what he assumed to be a good-natured insult.
‘You had lost a lot of blood; in fact we weren’t too sure if … y’know.’ Cole’s words trailed off, leaving him to look elsewhere, blushing across the cheeks.
‘Huh. I never knew you were any good with fixing a man up,’ Jack croaked.
‘You never asked.’
‘So I didn’t. Thank you. What’s the damage?’
Cole cracked his fingers, and then waved a hand about. ‘Mainly it’s superficial but I suspect you’ve got a couple of hairline fractures in there. I’m not entirely sure what’s with the arm, a slim break possibly but I need to check that further. Your hands are a complete mess – plenty of swelling there so I’m assuming you’ve got some torn muscle.’
‘I wondered what happened to my rings …’ Jack grunted.
Cole continued. ‘Left knee had been twisted so that’s looking unpleasant. As is a graze from what I assume to have been a gunshot. Luckily that knife didn’t go any deeper into your guts otherwise we would be talking about you in the past tense …’
Blake heavily folded his arms and muttered to the woman beside him. ‘We’re as surprised as you. It was about time the Little Fish made himself useful.’
‘That it was …’ Alvina smiled to herself.
‘Hey!’ Jack quickly snapped and then winced, correcting their wording. ‘His name is Cole. Augustus Cole. You would be wise to use it from this day on.’
Blake, who seemed taken aback, mumbled an apology.
‘How long have I been out?’ Jack queried.
‘The best part of three days.’
With a weak curse, Jackdaw exclaimed how he had set up the deal with the buyer for the diamonds in town for yesterday. From what he could spy from out of the window they were at least pulled in to a station, which he presumed to be Esquelle’s.
‘Already taken care of, boss,’ Alvina said proudly, looking between the other Jackrabbits in attendance. ‘The deal is done and dusted. No problems on that front. We went in your stead.’
‘And the price?’
‘We negotiated twelve per cent under market,’ Cole proudly stated. ‘Well, I did, not that I’m implying that those two didn’t help, but I did the talking.’
‘You can shut up at any time,’ Blake grunted, swatting Cole’s ego back down to its usual size.
‘Twelve? Even with them being so hot?’ He must have misheard, considering few would even pay fifteen.
‘It wasn’t a problem. The jeweller had a buyer all set up so he couldn’t get them quick enough.’ Cole added: ‘We’ve got the money stashed safe at Cutter’s. Even he doesn’t know about it. I suggested that we keep it from the bank just in case the Bluecoats begin to look at any large local transactions given the attention that the Messiah gained.’
Jack fell back against the headboard, staring at the wood panel ceiling above, though rather than appreciate its finery, he was adrift with the amount of money he had gained. For someone used to moving large amounts of currency about, or at least goods’ worth, even he was excited at the outcome.
They had done it. The heist of a lifetime and the Jackrabbits had only just gone and succeeded!
‘Twelve per cent,’ Jackdaw repeated with a gigantic smile crawling over his face, though the effort pained him. ‘Twelve goddamn per cent.’
‘Looks like you did it, Jack. Congratulations. You’re a very rich man,’ Misu said with sincerity. ‘With this, I consider our debt settled. I’ve fulfilled my part of the bargain. It’s been a delight.’
Jackdaw shuffled himself up further to a seated position where his bones didn’t scream for mercy.
‘That you have. Sterling work to everybody on board – please do give them my heartfelt thanks.’
‘Heartfelt, eh?’ Misu liked the sound of that. S
he had grown fond of Jackdaw, his roguishness and bullish demeanour. He kept his word when things went wrong and that was a quality she respected. ‘Consider it done.’
Franco found Jackdaw’s company more abrasive. That is not to say he wasn’t impressed by the achievement, as one doesn’t simply heist a sand ship. The planning, the teamwork, the whole deal was something to be admired; that was, if you admired something so brazen.
And Franco did.
Despite that, the longer Jackdaw remained on the Morning Star, the greater the chance of the law snooping around and causing all manner of repercussions.
‘You can’t stay on my train for ever, Jack. You can enjoy our hospitality for a few days but after that I’m going to have to send you on your way. We on board still have a business to run.’
‘I get that. I suppose there’s one last thing to do.’
Jackdaw readied himself for the next part of the plan. After all, everybody owed somebody in the Sand Sea and Donovan wouldn’t be kept waiting for any excuse. Business was business.
‘Alvina. Blake. Go do me a favour and tell Cutter to expect me. Clean out whatever we have stashed there and get it ready to be moved as soon as possible. Separate off everything of mine while you’re at it too. I’ll need someone to lend me a piece as well.’
Blake withdrew his revolver, an eight-shot stub barrel that had never done him wrong. He placed it on the tableside.
‘Don’t lose it,’ Blake warned.
The pair said their goodbyes and left the carriage.
‘Cole, I need you to fetch me some stationery … You’re going to deliver a letter to one of Donovan’s businesses who pony up money to his protection racket,’ Jack said, getting comfortable in his bed, wrapping an arm around his abdomen as the stitches pulled.
He complied, wishing Jack well before leaving to complete his task.
Franco and Misu remained, quite prepared to let Jack gain some much-needed rest, but surprisingly he resisted. No, Jackdaw wasn’t quite done yet. There was more work to do. He had made a vague promise to the pair before performing the heist and he always stayed true to his word. A little thing like a brush with death wasn’t significant enough to turn him into a liar. Instead, he insisted they sat and had a small conversation.
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