He asked a few of the locals about Handcart Sally, showing them the poster, but hiding the reward. None of them had heard of her, it seemed, or they just didn't want to hear. Often it was better that way, for them. It meant you didn't have to take a side. Taking sides was dangerous. Yet, not giving the Coilhunter the information he wanted was dangerous too.
He saw a pedlar of goods on the town corner, with a crowd gathered around him. He seemed to be showing off a device for harvesting water. No wonder there was interest. Even the land must've been interested. He looked like a conman though, and maybe Nox could have stopped him, but the Wild North was a magnet for conmen and criminals. He had to be picky who he went after first.
So sometimes the conmen got lucky. And other times, he picked you.
“Tell me somethin', traveller,” he said, drawing up to the crowd. They parted like a wave.
Funny, that, he thought. Seems I got more control of water than this here harvester.
“I d-don't want any trouble,” the pedlar said. He was well-dressed. With all that con work, he could afford to be. “I'm just m-m-minding my own business.”
“You're mindin' everyone's business here. Hell, you're looking after their businesses real good. Quite a generous soul ya got there to mind so many purses. It must be terrible heavy. Back-breakin' even.”
“I, uh—”
“He's making water!” one of the women cried jubilantly.
“A magician, eh?” the Coilhunter asked, turning back to the pedlar. “Ya ain't pullin' coins out behind people's ears. No. You're pullin' 'em straight outta their pockets.”
“Why, I never!”
“I can do a trick or two. I can pull lead out from between your eyes.”
If the crowd hadn't already backed away by now, that would've done it. They kept going. A machine that made water wasn't worth it if you weren't alive to drink it.
“You scared them off!” the pedlar complained.
“I didn't mean for that,” the Coilhunter replied. “I was only tryin' to scare you.”
“Well, you've rattled me all right. I'll be off then.” He started to pack up his things. Nox grabbed his hand, and he let the machinery drop.
“Haven't I seen you before?” Nox inquired.
The pedlar's eyes widened. “No.”
“Well, you look like you've seen me.”
“We've all heard of you.”
“Good things, I hope.”
“I guess we all have to dream. And we all to make a living. That's all I'm doing here.”
“Selling hope to the hopeless.”
“Better than selling the other kind, huh? Some people bring the Hope drug up here too, you know, and we don't see you going after them. Just the legitimate traders like me.”
“Oh, I go after them all right. If you don't see it, well, that's because it happens in the shadows. Hell, you don't wanna see it. But you … Sam Silver, right? … Legitimate.” The Coilhunter gave a hoarse, chesty laugh, ending with a cough. “Oh, I ain't had a good laugh like that in a long time.”
“Can you let go of my arm now?” the pedlar asked. He didn't beg, like most. He'd encountered the Coilhunter before, no doubt, and got off with a warning. Some people didn't learn their lesson. Sometimes you had to teach them.
With a suddenness that caught Sam Silver off guard, Nox pulled him up and across the table, casting him into the sand with a wallop. Just as suddenly, he leapt at the man, pinning him to the ground.
“There,” he said. “I ain't holdin' your arm now, and I ain't holdin' your hand. I'm here to teach ya now, but when I ain't, you better learn on your own. See, I've seen you around, robbin' people right before their faces. You're a brazen type, Sam. You don't work in the shadows. You ain't afraid o' the light. It seems you ain't afraid of the law either. So, what are you afraid of? Shall we find out?”
Sam squirmed, but just like the venomous snakes that sometimes ended up in the Coilhunter's grasp, he couldn't wiggle free. “Let me go!”
“What, so you can go to another town and rob 'em there too?”
“I won't. I swear! I promise!”
“See, I like those words, but I like 'em better when people mean 'em.”
“I mean them! I swear, I do! I really do!”
The Coilhunter wafted his hand at the side of his face. “Music to my ears. And you know, I love music. Hell, I love it so much I'm gonna play you somethin'.”
The pedlar was confused, unsure if he should scream or sit back and listen.
The Coilhunter clambered off him and sat down on the sand nearby. He pulled his metal-plated guitar from his back and played a few notes, his fingers working the strings as quickly as he worked the triggers of his guns.
“Now,” he said, resting his arms on the reinforced guitar. “That's my tune. If you're off somewhere tryin' to sell somethin' ya shouldn't, and you hear this.” He played it again, quick and sudden, and now it was intimidating. “Well, you better run, boy, because I'll be comin' for ya.”
Before Sam Silver could react, Nox pressed a hidden button on the guitar, which opened a secret chamber. Out of this came a thick smoke, which spread around the Coilhunter until he vanished into it. When it faded, which took some time, it seemed that the Coilhunter had vanished altogether. Yet, from just beyond the edge of hearing, there was the sound of a familiar tune.
7 – THE BURG
Edgetown was no dice. If Handcart Sally had been through there, she'd been through quick and quiet. No one was giving her up. The best the Coilhunter could get was a rumour that she was away from the mines to get one of those amulets the women were all talking about. Could stop you getting knocked up, or so they said. As far as Nox was concerned, there was only one way you could stop that, but then you didn't get to have so much fun.
There weren't many amulet smugglers around these parts. They mostly served Regime territory down south, where the so-called “demons” reigned. If you didn't want a monster for a child, you'd pay a pretty penny for one of those necklaces. And if you were caught smuggling them, well, you'd pay with your pretty head.
Nox went to the only place you'd really find amulet smugglers in the Wild North: the Burg. That was the largest town there, perched on a plateau almost bang smack in the centre of all those fields of yellow and red. It was a trader's paradise, if there was any such thing as paradise. You got to make a buck at least, so long as you didn't run foul of the Dust Barons, who kept a kind of trader's law running through the streets. You paid your dues, and you were good to go. If you didn't, well, good luck to you, and good luck to those hands of yours too.
The Coilhunter pulled up close to the city, but not too close, or he'd have to pay for parking. There was nothing the Dust Barons wouldn't get you to pay for. That was how they got the name, because they'd almost charge you for the dust of the desert itself. They were the poor cousins of the Treasury down south, but that didn't mean they weren't trying their damnedest to get rich.
The Burg was a bit of a monument, half natural, half man-made, but all of it corrupted by man. The plateau must've been a hundred feet high, and the city itself wasn't much higher. They tried building up, but the fierce winds kept knocking them low. You can build on nature, but you can't quite tame it.
Nox strolled on through the southernmost of the Burg's eight gates, flicking a quarter coil over to the tollman, who gave him back just the tilt of his hat. The Coilhunter kept on going, shoving his way through the crowd, his gunslinger gait drawing a few wide eyes. No matter who you were looking for, you always seemed to find a dozen more you could probably add to the list.
Nox hated this place. There were just too damned many people, all trying to carve out a living, just like the city itself was carved out of the rock. You couldn't hear yourself think with all the yelling. Half-price this, a sale on that. You didn't so much as buy things as have them shoved down your throat
. Yet, for all the trade going on, you wouldn't find Sam Silver there. No, he'd be too cheap to pay the toll.
The Coilhunter didn't ask about Handcart Sally. He thought he'd get to her the long way around by asking for the amulet smugglers instead. It wasn't quite as dangerous to ask about them here compared to down south, but it still made people uneasy.
“I won't have anything to do with them,” a clothier told him, while simultaneously nodding his head to one of the back alleys. “How abouts I do you a deal on a neckerchief though.” He waved a bunch of them. “You could replace that mask.”
The clothier reached towards the mask, but Nox swatted his hand away. “I could replace that arm.”
The Coilhunter followed the trail of nods and gestures until he found a quieter part of the city, packed instead with shadows. There was a beggar there, with a sign that read Can't Walk, Can Sing, and a bowl, and not much else. You didn't get many of them in the Burg, because the Dust Barons put a tax on begging too.
Nox knelt down beside the man. “Making much business?”
“See for yourself,” the beggar said, rattling the bowl. It didn't make much of a rattle.
“I'd offer you a quarter coil for directions, but somethin' tells me I've arrived.”
The beggar's eyes widened. “You don't look like much of a gal. Unless you're hidin' some lipstick 'neath that mask.”
“Don't have to be a gal to not want a demon child.”
“Will ya shut your big bazoo then? You're supposed to drop a bean in the bowl. That's the signal.”
Nox took out his pistol, holding it up. “Here's mine.”
The “beggar” got up swiftly. He was surprising nimble for someone with a gammy leg.
“We've only got a few left,” he said, glancing around. “Most of 'em are being bought up in Blackout. Too much demand and not enough product. How many you after?”
“I'm after a buyer.”
“What? No. This is my turf here. You can sell your trinkets some place else.”
“I ain't sellin' anything.” Nox prodded the man in the shoulder. “But I'll buy some directions off you.”
“You're some odd stick, you. Who're you after?”
“Goes by the name Handcart Sally.”
“Sally Hays, huh? She's a right wagon, that one,” the smuggler said. “Almost robbed me blind.”
“Lucky I came then,” the Coilhunter said. “I'm the law.”
“I wouldn't give her no amulet for the price she was offerin'. Weren't no fairness in that. Sent her off to Harvey the Hound's jurisdiction on the other side of the Burg. She won't get a better price off him though, I can promise you that.”
“This Harvey,” Nox said, remembering the name, but not the face. “Has he got a setup like you?”
The smuggler laughed. “He's got a castle, more like. Got in good with the Barons. Almost one himself at this rate. It's only smuggler's law that doesn't got him pushin' me out o' the city altogether.”
“Thanks,” the Coilhunter said, casting a quarter coil into the bowl. He turned to leave.
“Wish you had been a gal!” the smuggler shouted after him. “I'd 'ave made more than that!”
“Here,” Nox said, tossing something over his shoulder. It clinked in the bowl and rolled around. “A tip.”
The smuggler looked inside. Right next to the quarter coil was a bullet.
8 – THE SCENT
The Coilhunter made his way through the alleys, back out into the open trading plaza, stopping now and then to casually inspect some goods, make it look like he was buying, when he was just listening instead. He made his way to the other side of the city, following a trail of overheard words about the Dust Barons, until Harvey the Hound's name came up. It seemed he wasn't that popular with the traders, which was good for Nox, because bad news spread fast.
“Used to be one of us,” a fishmonger said to one of the buyers. The fish were half-rotten by this stage, an import from Rustport far south. The reek of it probed even through the pores in the Coilhunter's mask.
“He was never one o' us,” the buyer replied. “He was off galavantin' with the Scorpion's lot in the so-called 'Civilised South' for longer than he was up here fendin' off the heat like the Gosh-darn rest o' us.”
Nox knew the name, and now the face as well. He'd met the Hound once before, back when he helped Taberah Cotten (“the Scorpion”) hunt some ghosts. That wasn't quite as fun as hunting coils, and not half as satisfying as catching criminals. But Nox had been chasing ghosts of his own for a while now. The problem with that was you tended to chase them into a grave. The Hound had a bit of knowledge about that too, but he was more a ghost-maker.
“Well, you make sure he gets the prime cut,” the fishmonger said, “or he'll want a bigger cut of my wages.”
Nox followed the buyer as he left the stall, but he barely had to keep an eye on the man. The smell left a pretty good trail of its own. The paper bag was already starting to burst open from all the oils and salts used as preservatives, not just to keep it fresh, but to seal in the flavour. The “taste of the sea” was a luxury this far into the desert, one that only someone like the Hound could afford.
The buyer halted suddenly, then turned around. Nox flung himself into an alcove, shoving his back against the wall. He winced as his guitar made a twang. He gave it a moment, then sniffed the air. It was a little fresher now, so the buyer must've set off again. Nox peered out, spotted the man, then shuffled after him.
“How much for that there six string?” a local asked him as he passed.
The Coilhunter barely glanced at him. “Your life.”
Nox continued the pursuit, until he reached an unfamiliar part of the Burg. It looked like a new development, with stone that wasn't quite as well-kissed by the sun. But it was just as square and flat as the rest of the city.
There were guards outside the main complex, but the fish-buyer walked straight by them with ease. Nox strolled after him, but the guards blocked his advance.
“I'm with him,” he said.
One of the guards looked at him, bemused. “No one goes with Smelly Scales.”
Nox tapped the vent on his mask. “Why do you think I wear this?”
Before the guards could respond, a thick, green gas oozed from a little flask in the Coilhunter's hand, which he'd pulled from his belt as he reached for his mouth. The guards flopped to the ground and Nox stepped over them.
“Don't answer that.”
He ambled inside, picking up the scent again. That dog sure loved his fish. It wasn't long before Nox had found his way into Harvey's inner sanctum, so much as it was. It wasn't all that lavish, but the idea of the Hound even having his own kennel was something Nox wouldn't have thought of only a year before. But there he was, sitting at the table, a face full of fur, with a bit of a wild look in his eyes.
“You,” Harvey said, letting the slime of the fish fall from his mouth. He didn't even cook it. People said you'd dry up the sea that way. There must've been a lot of cooking to get that desert then.
“Me,” the Coilhunter said, holding out his hands. The Hound was lucky he wasn't holding his guns.
“Well, whaddya know?”
“I know what's for dinner.”
The Hound wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. He didn't look in the sharing mood. “Still chasing ghosts?”
Nox let out a puff of black smoke from his mask. “Still chasing cats?”
“If the cats are amulet buyers, I've not just been chasing them. I've been catching them too. And catching coils while I'm at it.” He patted his right pocket, which made a pleasant ching. “Looks like you're still hunting them.”
“Oh, I'm huntin' all right, and it looks like I'm huntin' one of your dear pussies.” He let the scroll unfurl, revealing her face and name.
“Ha!” the Hound barked. “Handcart Sally?
You picked the wrong minx there, Nox. You could set a whole pack on her and she'd outrun them all!”
“But she isn't runnin' now, is she? She's here lookin' for you.”
Harvey leant closer, letting the light show the bristles on his cheeks. “That's not how it works, Nox. I don't touch the goods myself any more.”
That was a turn up for the books. When the Hound was smuggling directly for Taberah, he didn't want to share a bone.
“Things change, huh?” Nox said.
“They sure do.”
“Well, don't change too much, Harvey. I wanna recognise ya when your face is on one of these posters.”
The Hound smiled. “That'll be the day.”
Nox smiled back with his eyes. “It sure will.”
“I'll give you this one,” Harvey said, “for old time's sakes.”
Nox almost scoffed. “For old time's sakes.”
“She's upstairs, with Grapevine Bill.”
Nox tipped his hat, just a little. Harvey the Hound didn't deserve any more than that. He left him to his meal, and let the stench filter out of his mask, replaced by the chemical odour he was used to from the tubes. There was something comforting in that, even though it often stung his lungs. Sometimes you didn't so much as survive the desert as limp on through.
He went upstairs, to where he saw young Grapevine Bill leaving a room carefully and quietly. Bill had some fascination with the Hound that was hard to explain, making him his lapdog. Sometimes you were just made to serve. And, in the Coilhunter's case, sometimes you were made to kill. When Bill spotted him, he scurried off, tail between his legs.
Nox pressed open the door Bill had come from, just as carefully, and even more quietly.
There she was. Handcart Sally. All locks and lashes. Her trademark blonde hair fell in waves upon her shoulders, and never seemed to dry up from the scalding sun. She wore a straw brimmed hat, with not a hint of make-up beneath. But she didn't need it. Even in her dungarees and soot-covered shirt, she had a rugged beauty about her. The image on her Wanted poster didn't do her justice. It was just a pity that the Coilhunter had to be that justice instead.
Coilhunter - A Science Fiction Western Adventure (A Coilhunter Chronicles Novel) (The Coilhunter Chronicles Book 1) Page 3