Oh dear. Courage, she heard the Lady say in her memory. Courage and good cheer, Maggie.
Well, she could not manage the one, but she could certainly try for the other. “Courage,” she said in bracing tones to Four.
He did not respond.
Right, then. She was on her own.
The clattering drone of the Lass’s steam engine changed pitch, and Maggie knew beyond doubt that Alice had seen Mr. Malvern’s pinnacle.
“Look sharp, ladies,” came her voice. “We’ve been spotted. Seems like they were expecting some kind of rescue—though maybe not from this angle.”
Maggie doubted they expected anything like them at all—how could there be another airship flown by a girl who’d probably not even seen twenty summers, a boy who’d come back from the dead, a pair of nearly eleven-year-olds, half a dozen automatons, and a hen in a hatbox?
Below, a shot rang out, and she flinched, expecting the bullet to tear through the fuselage and strike her where she stood. But it did not hit the ship at all. Instead, Alice’s laugh came rat-a-tat through the horn.
“They’re gonna have to break out something more serious than a sixgun with a three-hundred-yard range if they want to scare us.”
“I dunno, it worked up ’ere,” Maggie muttered.
Never mind. Concentrate. Do your part.
And then she sucked in a breath of air that chilled her lungs, but the sight was so grand that she hardly felt it.
Mr. Malvern!
He clung to the top of what was surely the smallest pinnacle of them all. If the other poor blokes had had enough flat space to spread themselves out, then they had it good. Mr. Malvern had only enough to sit on with his feet drawn up. It was cruel—inhuman. A man could not sleep, nor stretch, nor do anything but sit or stand—and once unconsciousness finally claimed him, nothing would keep him from slipping off the side and falling to his death.
“This is ’ow you keep yer word, eh, Mr. Gold Birds?” she snarled. “Guarantee ’is safety, will you?” The only thing she’d guarantee was that the Lady would blast him to bits if she ever saw him again.
“Girls!” came Alice’s voice, urgently. “We got company to port—look sharp, Lizzie!”
Down below, an enormous engine with as many arms as a spider or an octopus lumbered into view at the base of the pinnacle. Maggie recognized it at once—Jake had hidden behind it not eight hours before. In the open chamber at the top of it stood at least eight men—one to operate each arm—every one with his eyes trained upward.
An arm ratcheted back and Maggie’s eyes widened as she realized what was in the bucket at the end of it. In the next moment, the arm gave a great heave and flung a boulder as big as Alaia’s house straight at them.
It struck the pinnacle fifty feet below where Mr. Malvern clung, and Maggie heard him cry out as the spire of stone shuddered and cracked.
Below, men began to scream.
A flash in the air—the tinkle of glass far below—more screams.
Three of the engine’s arms fell idle, whatever their purpose had been abandoned as their operators shrieked under the assault of the gaseous capsaicin, and attempted to scramble free.
“Well done, Lizzie!” she shouted, though she had no idea if her twin could hear her.
“My stars, that’s a nasty trick,” came Alice’s voice. “I guess that makes us vicious rabble—or a criminal gang, maybe. Look sharp, girls, it’s got five arms left. Jake, stand by to lower the basket.”
This time Maggie did not wait for an arm to reveal its weaponry. She threw down the glass globe full of its crippling liquid, and the aim that had not failed her with stone and brick did not fail her now. An arm with a giant grappling hook—one from which an entire cargo car might have hung on a mighty chain—halted in midair, touching the pinnacle as softly as a woman touching a child’s cheek.
The gondola obscured Maggie’s view of the Lass’s basket, but from the encouraging sound of Mr. Malvern’s shouting, he was able to see what they were about.
Boom!
Maggie staggered. “We’re hit!” she shrieked to Four, who still did not reply.
“No, we’re not. Steady on, girls. Seems they’ve got a few Canton chemists roped into this. That was an exploding rocket. Maggie, watch it—one more of those and we’ll be landing on this pinnacle ourselves.”
The Canton chemists looked like dolls from this height, but even so Maggie could see the chains looped from one to another.
“I’m sorry!” she shouted to the poor devils before she lofted another globe, and winced when, moments later, it shattered all over the cannon they were using to launch them. Men spilled over like ninepins, writhing. She shouted another apology as if they could actually hear her, and threw another one as a second crew ran into to replace the first.
The great engine, dragging four of its arms, backed up.
“They’re giving up!” she yelled.
“Maggie! Fire!”
“But they’re—”
And then she saw what they meant to do. The engine growled and seemed to gather itself—and then it picked up a train car with two of its arms.
It had cracked the spire of basalt the first time. One more strike and it would shatter, raining rock down upon the poor suffering Cantons chained to that cannon, and burying Mr. Malvern in the wreckage.
“Lizzie!” she shrieked. “One—two—three!”
She flung the last globe and saw another fly from the opposite bay. Winking in the sun, they fell, and shattered dead in the center of the chamber where four of the men cranked the levers and gears with mad precision.
Gaseous capsaicin formed a green cloud of agony, and Maggie shouted, “I’m out! If ’e’s not in the basket now ’e’s a goner!”
Not five seconds later, Alice hollered, “Winch, Jake, fast as you can! Seven, Eight—up ship!”
Someone had roused the poor Cantons, who were now tracking their course with the mouth of their cannon tilted skyward. Sandbags rained down among them and they dove for cover.
The Stalwart Lass fell straight up into the sunrise … and freedom.
Chapter 27
Mr. Stanford Fremont, as might be expected, owned the train on which they were to travel. It departed from the railyard at whose laboratory Andrew had been apprehended shortly after dawn, steaming due west away from the rising sun.
Claire had not had a single opportunity to give James or the infernal black coats the slip. During every moment, he accompanied her, and when she required the use of the ladies’ powder room, he produced a female black coat to attend her there as well.
“No offense, ma’am,” the woman said. “But I got orders to wait in here with you.”
“None taken.” If she were pleasant and civil and utterly ladylike, perhaps they might let down their guard for just the second she needed to run. “We all have our obligations.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I appreciate your forbearance.”
“Are you to accompany me all the way to San Francisco?” she inquired as she washed her hands at the shining copper sink in the waiting lounge before they boarded.
“Yes, ma’am.” The woman tucked a strand of hair into her Gibson coiffure, a new style that seemed enormously popular among the Texicans—perhaps for its sheer bouffance. “With what they’re paying me to watch—er, attend you, I can send my kids, Kate and Jeremy, to the city school for a year.”
“Well, then, I assure you I shall be as little trouble as possible.”
They issued out onto the platform, where the train waited, steam hissing out of the wheels and pistons of the locomotive, and porters bustling this way and that to load luggage. Down at the very end, a small crane hefted the crate containing the Selwyn Kinetick Carbonator into the caboose.
The woman gazed at her, her brows slightly knit. “You ain’t a bit like Mr. Fremont said.”
Claire hardly dared ask, but the temptation was too great. “What did he say?”
“He said you’re a great heiress a
nd you’re leading Lord Selwyn—”
“Lord James. Lord Selwyn would be his father.”
“—Lord James a merry dance. You’ve broken his heart so many times that he’s finally had to carry you off before your enraged father can stop the wedding.”
A laugh bubbled up out of Claire before she could remember she was supposed to be civil and ladylike. “My father would need to be enraged indeed to climb out of his grave to do so.”
The woman’s eyes widened.
“It is quite true that I am here against my will, and you are obligated to see that I stay. However, I am neither an heiress nor Lord James’s fiancee, much as he would like to think so.”
“But the carrying off part? That’s true?”
“Quite true.” Down the platform, James and Fremont were coming toward them.
“Why, those rascals,” the woman said in scandalized tones. “It’s one thing to assist in an elopement, but it’s quite another to aid in a kidnapping. What am I to do?”
They were almost in earshot now.
“I shall not hold it against you.” Claire held out a hand. “I am Lady Claire Trevelyan, of River Cottage, Vauxhall Gardens, London.”
“Tessie Short, of Sand Street, Santa Fe.”
“Do give the impression you are restraining me,” Claire suggested.
Tessie’s workworn hand slid around her wrist. She had a grip like iron, which under any other circumstances would have given Claire pause. But the frown had not left her forehead, which was a good sign.
A lady of integrity, then.
The stuff of which allies were made.
James’s gaze took in Tessie’s hand, though they stood close together to screen it from passersby. “That will be all, Mrs. Short, thank you,” he said, and offered his arm to Claire.
“Welcome aboard the Silver Queen,” Fremont said proudly, and led them up a set of steps into the most luxuriously appointed lounge car Claire had ever seen. Even the train on which Ross Stephenson had tested the carbonated coal did not look like this.
Velvet covered every possible surface, even the walls, which were chased in a hunting pattern of horses and hounds. What was not velvet was mahogany and teak, and on top of every surface were metals: copper, tin, brass—inlaid in the wood, forming the trim, decorating every possible corner and curve, ceiling, wainscoting, and window.
One could go utterly mad trying to force the senses to take it all in.
Beyond the lounge car was a dining car, and beyond that, a smoking car saturated in the smell of the cigarillos Fremont favored. A library was a welcome respite—books covered every wall and surface there, too, but somehow the mind did not shudder away from those as it did the chaos of the lounge.
Disappointment settled heavily upon her when she reached to take down a volume and discovered the entire bookcase to be a false front.
“This one’s real,” he said heartily, indicating the glass-fronted shelves that ran under the window frame. “Feel free to read what you like—as long as you like books on engineering!” Another hearty laugh with his head thrown back, which meant he missed the keen glance Claire bestowed on the titles as they passed.
One shelf of the sane and rational. An oasis in a wilderness of ostentation and sheer vanity.
There were a number of sleeping compartments beyond the entire car designated as Fremont’s sole domain. Claire and Mrs. Short were to be housed in the second to last car, immediately before the caboose, which suited Claire admirably. The farther she was from that lounge, the better she would feel—though the sleeping compartment, alas, had its share of velvet as well.
“We’ll expect you for breakfast in fifteen minutes,” Fremont told her and James in the corridor outside. “Feel free to wash up if you like—there’s hot and cold running water in every car. Only the best, eh, Selwyn?”
Laughing his donkey laugh, he went away down the corridor, swaying slightly with the motion of the train.
Claire inclined her head to James and stepped into her compartment, closing the door firmly behind her.
The outside lock clicked.
She stood there a moment, fuming. No, a display of temper and pounding upon the gleaming panels would net her nothing except a closer watch. For the moment, she must channel her emotion into examining her situation.
The window was large and surrounded by a cowling that did not look like that of the windows on the other cars. In a moment she saw why. The window had once tilted open, but it did so no longer. It had been soldered in place, and the decorative brass trim fitted over it.
Heavens. Someone must have been up late cutting off this means of escape.
Well, the other windows had not been augmented in such a manner. She would simply find one she could use.
Breakfast was very welcome, though she would have preferred a tray in her compartment or at the very least, the library. Biscuits had been heaped with creamy gravy laden with crumbled sausage, and there were mountains of eggs and potatoes and fried tomatoes and squash.
Eggs. She felt a pang of anxiety.
Rosie. The girls. Tigg and Jake. What had become of them when she did not return? She had been so upset at James’s perfidy and threats and Andrew’s arrest that she could not even remember seeing the twins after he had been taken away.
She was the worst guardian in the world, losing children left and right, leaving them scattered across the landscape, just as Maggie had said.
She could only hope that the Dunsmuirs would have collected them all and taken them away to safety in the Canadas. This hope must sustain her as she made her way there herself.
It might take months, but she would find a way.
Her appetite faded, but she forced herself to keep putting forkfuls of food in her mouth at regular intervals. She had gone hungry once and did not care to repeat the experience. If a person intended to escape, she had better do it on a full stomach.
“So, Lady Claire, what do you think of my train?”
Stanford Fremont leaned back in his chair, his thick workman’s fingers toying with the delicate handle of his porcelain coffee cup. At the table behind him, Claire noticed, Tessie was drinking hers from a plain white mug, as were the other black coats taking breakfast with them.
Hmph. Her own cup was porcelain, too—and he was speaking directly to her. How she had risen in the world!
“It is quite a marvel,” she said with sincerity. “I have never seen anything like it. Have you clocked its speed?”
“You must have been talking to James.” He grinned at her. “We have indeed. One hundred miles per hour on the flat—and there’s plenty of flat between here and San Francisco. Once we come down out of the mountains east of the Great Salt Lake, I expect she’ll clock closer to a hundred and twenty.”
“Goodness. Will that be a world record?”
“I expect so.” He looked so satisfied and pleased with himself that Claire wanted to fling her coffee in his face.
But of course she did not. That would get her thrown into her compartment, and what good would that do?
“So the trip to San Francisco, then, will take how long?”
“With the carbonated coal, we won’t need to stop as much. I expect we’ll make it in twenty-four hours.”
That was not much time. And at a speed of a hundred miles per hour? Even if she did contrive to lose Tessie’s surveillance and get out a window or a door, to leap from a train at that speed or even half of it meant immediate death.
“And the stops we do make? Are there towns along the route?”
Towns where she could send a pigeon or a tube or whatever passed for communication in this sprawling land?
“Sure,” he said, “though, you understand, there won’t be time for sightseeing.”
You will not be allowed off the train, she heard quite clearly.
“I shall be quite content to observe from these lovely windows,” she said, and addressed herself to the fruit cup which appeared before her.
Outsid
e, a plume of steam whipped past in the wind of their going. The window was open a sliver at the top, and she could smell it, over and above the smell of the grass and sagebrush that stretched to the horizon, punctuated by the red mesas and spires of rock that seemed to be unique to this part of the Territories.
Something didn’t seem quite right.
The steam and the hot oil and the working iron of the locomotive—these smells were familiar to her. Even the smell of carbonated coal was familiar, after eighty miles of it only a few weeks ago. But there was something else. Something … different.
She could not identify it, but it would bother her until she did. Perhaps one of those engineering books would hold the answer.
She laid her damask napkin upon the table. “With your permission, James, I should like to go into the library.”
“Certainly. I shall join you there.”
Fremont jerked his chin as Tessie looked up. She had not finished her breakfast, but she laid down fork and knife and stood.
Flanked by her two captors, Claire left the dining car feeling frustrated and anxious, her fine breakfast sitting uneasily in her stomach.
In the library, she perused volume after volume on subjects as varied as steam locomotion, metallurgy, and manufacturing, but she found nothing that might explain that peculiar smell. How odd that James had not noticed it. Was it something utterly mundane and she was being—as Lizzie might say—a worrywart over nothing?
It must be. There were any number of scientists and railroad men aboard, not to mention the owner of the railroad. If something had been out of kilter, they would have known.
By afternoon, they had steamed out of the desert, and stopped for the night in a thick forest, where they took on coal and the black coats set the Carbonator to work. When Claire woke the next morning, they were passing through a country of undulating grassland broken by pinnacles of stone and thundering herds of what Tessie told her was a creature called the buffalo. Claire had never seen any animal so huge and majestic—they reminded one of cattle in some ways, and in others were utterly unlike them. She watched leaping herds of antelope with fascination and something akin to joy, and, as they came down out of the mountains toward the enormous salt pan stretching for miles below them, on the side of the track Claire saw her first bear.
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