Iron Rage (23 page)

“But surely they have not maintained their current deployment blocking the river for generations.”

“If you mean, have they had their big old fleets toe-to-toe the whole time, no. But they had patrol boats ready to troll us in, and either enslave us or just massacre us outright. So once we came here, we found ourselves stuck.”

“We've only been thinking of it, making a break for it, for a couple years now,” Ermintrude said. “Joe and me.”

“But why us?” Avery asked.

“Well,” Joe said, “to start with, you didn't come in here acting all hostile, like outlander folk usually do.”

“Except to stickies,” Ermintrude added. “But that's ace with us. We hate stickies.”

Mildred waved at the rest of the clearing. “We kind of got the idea.”

For her part, Krysty just hoped the rain would wash the stickie blood far enough away that the place wouldn't reek for days of rotting stickie. The bodies they'd just tossed into Wolf Creek. The crocodiles were welcome to them, if they wanted them.

“Also you have that big old ship,” Joe said. “And you seem to have a double-clever idea of how to pull off getting out of here, too. Making your own ironclad and everything. Where'd you get an idea like that?”

“It's all J.B.'s notion,” Nataly said. “I'll let him explain.”

“Years ago,” the Armorer replied, “a trader I ran with had a history book that said how way back predark in the Civil War, these Confederates armored up an ironclad of their own, to run the Union fleet that was blockading the river and bust out. Dark night, I think it was even on the Yazoo, that we come down.

“Supposedly they did it all out just setting in a cornfield, using old railroad iron. I also recall reading somewhere else as to how it didn't rightly go down that way. But that doesn't matter here. What does is that it set me to thinking.”

“Well,” Joe said, “I like the way you think. And that brings me to the business proposition we had in mind afore we decided to come lend you a hand today.”

“What's that?” Arliss asked, his brow narrowing in reflex concern. Krysty thought that was tipping your hand a bit much for a man who was supposed to be a master negotiator. Then again, they'd all had a hard
day, and nobody harder than him. Well, except for his friend Sean.

“We help you finish getting your ship ready to go,” the swamper leader said, “and you take us with you.”

“How many people have you got?” Avery asked.

“Two hundred fifty souls, give or take. Ermintrude's and my bands.”

The boatswain shook his head. “No way. Sorry. We can cram a dozen or two inside the cabin or belowdecks.”

“Nobody's riding
outside
the armor,” Abner said from another lean-to, “unless they don't mind winding up a red smear on the ironmongery.”

“We've got plenty of boats,” the swamper woman said. “And you've got plenty power to tow them, I bet. Even with all that excess scrap iron onboard. You were a river tug, weren't you?”

“We have the power to tow almost any number of light craft,” Nataly replied. “Especially downstream, which is the way we're going. But how will you survive, without armor to protect you from the New Vickville cannon? Not to mention possible small-arms fire.”

“You think they'll waste time on us, not to mention powder and ball, when there's another big old ironclad driving right through them thumbing her nose?” Joe asked. “They'll be too busy shooting at you.”

“There's a reassuring thought,” Mildred said.

“What are your thoughts, J.B., Krysty?” Nataly asked. The formality meant she was asking, What do you think of it as people who, though you don't like to call yourselves professional trigger-pullers, most certainly
find yourselves pulling triggers a great deal more than we do?

“Sounds ace to me,” J.B. said, after Krysty looked pointedly his way. “Don't see how it's going to worsen our chances any.”

Krysty nodded. “I certainly have no objection.”

“I trust you will pardon me for asking,” Doc said, “but what if our gratitude at being rescued by you failed to overcome your fearful reputation—or our own debased natures, should we turn out to possess such?”

Joe grinned. “We'd just wipe you out, feed what's left of you to the crocs.”

“Why not do that anyway and take our boat?” Jake asked.

“We're not coldhearts,” Ermintrude said. “We're mean because we have to be, when we have to be. And then, of course, we're powerful mean. But we don't cotton to chilling them as doesn't harm us.”

“Besides,” Joe added, with a grin even more lopsided than his oddly uneven features could account for on their own, “should you turn out to be snakes after all, we can always wipe you out and feed you to the crocs then.”

Nataly cocked a brow at Doc. “Does that reassure you?” she asked.

Doc grinned and shot his cuffs. He had his long black coat on.

“Speaking just for me,” Abner said, “I wasn't looking forward to digging enough of a hole to float the poor old
Queen
out with just the hands we had. Goes triple with all that pig iron piled on top of her.”

None of the other crew objected. Nataly nodded in her ultra-precise way.

“Very well. Captain Conoyer has authorized me to make all such decisions, including agreements, in his absence. And I am pleased to accept your kind offer, Mr. Trombone, Miss Strank. As well as to thank you again for saving us today.”

She reached out and shook hands with the two chieftains.

“It's not like Myron's gonna object,” Moriarty said, rallying somewhat, “at the prospect of anything that'll help him get the
Queen
underway again.”

Joe and Ermintrude rose together, then the other swampers stood.

“We'll be heading back, then,” the tall man said. “Long row back upriver.”

Ricky scrambled to his feet. “Mr. Trombone?”

The swamper looked at him.

“Do you play?”

Joe laughed.

“Kid,” he said, “I play chess and mumblety-peg, but I don't play a note of music. My name's Trombino, actually, but nobody ever bothers calling me that.”

Another sunset over the Sippi. Another little steamblasterboat was making its way toward the flagship of the Grand Fleet, carrying Ryan and his squad of the day. The sky had mostly gone indigo, with streaks of blue-gray emanating from a yellow glow where the sun had just rolled down beyond the western weeds.

Ryan didn't remember the blasterboat's name. He barely even recalled the name of the squaddie who'd been bitten by a water moccasin, bringing an end to their day's patrol down another dead-end bayou. The man looked to Ryan as if he'd make it, even if they had to tie him down to a makeshift stretcher to haul him back. Water moc bites were painful. He'd quieted down now, since the blasterboat crew had poured half a bottle of local rotgut down his throat to shut him up.

It was uncharacteristic of Ryan to have trouble keeping track of details like that. It didn't help that his personnel changed day to day. The only constant was Chief Jones and his sarcastic manner, always just nosing almost up to the point of challenge or insubordination. Ryan took for granted he was a spy for the baron now, not just a sec man along to give some seasoned backup as the new officer got some experience, although he
was also good at his job, and handy in a fight, as he had shown in a couple brushes with crocs and stickies.

They were working their way closer to Wolf Creek with every new reconnaissance patrol. That concerned Ryan, though not as much as the fact that two weeks had gone by since he'd been hauled aboard the
Pearl
with a bag over his head and deposited in Baron Tanya's stateroom.

His plan to do something fancy enough she'd be willing to let him and his friends just steam out of this place was starting to seem mighty threadbare. Between the slowly accumulating rad count his friends were experiencing, and the risk they'd be discovered, he was going to need to make something happen, sooner rather than later.

“Hail the blasterboat!” a voice called through a bullhorn. “Stand by while we pull alongside.”

“Fancy buggers,” remarked a crew-woman of the patrol boat Ryan and his troops were riding. She spit over the rail. “Think their drek don't stink.”

Ryan eyed the approaching steam launch. It was narrower than the blasterboat, if not much shorter. Instead of a permanent wooden structure that covered the helm and the boiler, if it didn't quite enclose them, the launch had a canopy of fancy-looking cloth set up on the forward half of it. The boiler was exposed to the elements in the stern.

The officer commanding the blasterboat ordered the helm and engineer to comply. He was a young man and seemed cowed.

“What's going on?” Ryan asked. “Who are these people?”
They did fly the colors of the Grand Fleet from their stern. Then again it wasn't as if a Poteetville craft would steam brazenly in here, in blaster range of some of the capital ships' screening frigates.

“Captain's launch from the
Revenge
,” the black-haired woman said.

A young officer stuck his head out of the canopy. “Is Junior Lieutenant Ryan Cawdor on board?”

Ryan stepped forward. “Yeah. That's me.”

“Compliments of Senior Lieutenant Danville of Danville, and he wishes to speak to you on board
Revenge
at your earliest convenience.”

* * *

“M
R
. C
AWDOR
,”
THE TALL
, thin young man said as an orderly ushered Ryan in. “What a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Senior Lieutenant Dober Danville of Danville, First Officer of the
Revenge
, at your service.”

He stepped up and shook Ryan's hand. His hand was very slender, but his grip was firm enough. He was a few inches shorter than Ryan, and slim, with impossibly sleek brown hair. His uniform had been fussily tailored.

The stateroom was far less spacious than Baron Tanya's. It wasn't much bigger than Ryan's cabin aboard the
Pearl
, but it was decorated enough for two of the baron's rooms, with lots of bric-a-brac and a big painting of what looked like Lieutenant Dober standing with an older, heavier version of himself.

“My dear old da,” Danville said, following Ryan's eye. He released his hand. “I'm not
the
Danville yet, of course. Not while the old dragon breathes. Ha, ha.”

That didn't seem to call for any response, so Ryan made none. “Please, be seated. Brandy?”

“No, thanks,” Ryan said, as he parked his weary behind in a red velvet chair. “So, what do you want from me, Lieutenant?”

“Ah, direct, as befits a man of action such as yourself.”

Ryan couldn't help noticing the young man wore a sidearm in a flapped holster. He hadn't gotten enough of a look at it to identify it.

The lieutenant leaned forward. “Tell me what you think of the baron,” he said.

That set warning bells to ringing loud enough in Ryan's head that by rights they should make his forehead bulge. So that's how it goes, he thought.

“She's the boss,” he said. “I do what she says.”

“Oh, of course. Of course.” The man sat up again. “You're a man who does his duty.”

“I do my job.”

“Yes, yes. Precisely. And since you put it in those terms—would you consider a change of employers?”

“Baron Tanya seems to like my work,” Ryan said. “I don't reckon she'd exactly release me from my contract.”

“Ah, but the baron doesn't need to know! Not until it's too— That is, there would be no reason to consult her preferences in the matter.”

“What's your proposition, exactly?”

“The baron is a usurper,” Danville said. “She's leading New Vickville to disaster.”

Why are you telling me this? Ryan wondered. He already knew the surface reason. It was the reason for
them making the offer to him, now, in this way. There had to be more.

Arrogance
was clearly part of the equation. Ryan knew the signs double well.

He leaned back in the chair, scooted his butt forward, crossed his legs and settled into a relaxed sprawl. “That's pretty blunt,” he said.

Danville smiled. “You are a realist, Mr. Cawdor, and you are a man whose loyalties are for sale. The baron seems to value your services highly. Understandable, based on your recent actions during the nighttime sneak attack by Poteetville, and the way you came to be in the Grand Fleet in the first place.”

Got it now, Ryan thought. The conspirators Baron Tanya had said were out to get her? They were. It didn't mean there was no such thing as paranoia. But in the world Ryan had grown up in if you thought somebody was plotting against you, he or she probably was.

And likewise if you didn't. “I represent a cadre of leading citizens of New Vickville, which you must understand is by way of a federation of villes, joined into a more powerful whole for mutual benefit and defense. As such, we have banded together in recognition of the benefits of a strong guiding hand on the tiller of state.

“But when that hand is itself guided by the mind and morals of a gaudy slut, well…”

You've decided I'm dangerous, Ryan was thinking. So you're thinking you'll either turn me, or burn me.

He remembered an expression he'd heard somewhere: You're so sly—but so am I.

“And?” he said.

For a moment Danville blinked, seemingly nonplussed. Then he recovered and plastered his smarmy smile back across his face.

“And so I want to hire you on behalf of my associates, Mr. Cawdor. To the extent you may care about such things, the future welfare of New Vickville lies at stake here. But you're an outlander as well as a mercie. What do you care for that sort of thing, right? We can pay. And offer what this Baron Tanya would not—true status among the landholders of the barony. A barony of your own, I mean.”