Tin Swift (22 page)

“See that she sets anchor. Bring Mr. Mullins to me immediately, but any remaining men with him are to stay on the ship.”

“Yes, sir.” He stepped out and Saint heard the rousing of men ready to catch lines to hold the ship steady.

He pulled out his pipe and tamped in tobacco, lighting it and waiting for Mr. Mullins to arrive. Got through a bowl before a knock on the door was quickly followed by the same private stepping through and holding the door wide.

Two soldiers carried a litter. And on that litter was Les Mullins. The parts of him outside the blanket were bandaged. The parts of him that weren’t bandaged were pale and sweat-slick.

“Do you have news for me, Mr. Mullins?” Alabaster asked.

The man swallowed hard as if trying to set his words rightways in his throat. “Marshal Cage. Found him.”

“Where?” the Saint asked.

“Stump Station. Down in the Bitterroots. Running glim.”

Alabaster leaned back in his seat and puffed on his pipe. “Glim? Wouldn’t think he had the guts for it.”

“Payment,” Les Mullins said.

“Your payment?” Alabaster sat forward, the wooden chair crackling as he shifted his weight. “Of course, Mr. Mullins.”

He strolled over to the man.

The bandages around Les Mullins’s neck and chest were brown with dried blood. His head was wrapped too, both of his eyes going black.

“It appears you have made a poor acquaintance of someone, Mr. Mullins,” Alabaster said. “Who left you in this condition?”

“Hink Cage,” Mullins growled.

Alabaster stared down at him. “Then I will give you your reward. After you bring Hink Cage to me. Until then your word is no better than a rumor.”

“My blood’s your proof. He shot me and that damn Irish broke my hand. They would have finished the job if that raft of his hadn’t been shot at.”

“Raft?”

“He’s flying the
Swift
. You want him, find the fastest ship in the western sky. He’ll be on it. Now, give me my damn pay.”

The general ignored the rancor of his tone. He paced to stare out the window that faced the dock where three airships waited.

He did indeed want Marshal Cage. The man had disgraced him, and stood trial against him to end his military and political career. And now Cage was working for the president, spying on the glim trade.

Marshal Cage was a dangerous man to leave wandering these hills
while the Saint built his network of glim harvesters, trade posts, and militia who would join his rebellion against the east.

He did not want the president’s eyes prying into his plans.

“Unfortunately your services are inadequate and incomplete, Mr. Mullins. I sent you to bring him back with you, which you have not done.”

“Like hell,” Mullins wheezed. “You wanted to know where he’d hid himself, and now you do. I’ll take my money.”

“What you will do, Mr. Mullins, is allow my doctor to tend to you, free of charge, of course. After that, you will attend to one last mission. You will travel with six of my men and follow Marshal Cage’s trail. You will find him and bring him to me. Alive. Upon completion of that task, I will pay you. Very generously. A full glim stake in the fields above the Cascade Range.”

The Saint waited. He knew the man wouldn’t say no. Knew that glim, and the profits that could be made off it, was a powerful motivator to a man like Les Mullins.

“You drive a hard bargain,” he said.

“Take him to Mr. Shunt,” the Saint said to the soldiers. “Tell Shunt I want him on his feet by nightfall.”

The men picked up the litter and hurried out.

“Not you, Private.”

The soldier stopped at the door. “Sir?”

“Tell Captain Dirkson I want to see him.”

“Yes, sir.”

The boy left the office and the Saint returned to his desk.

The Bitterroots. Near enough there was a good chance they’d catch his trail. And if he was making a point of bragging that his ship was the fastest in the skies, surely there would be more men who would point to where he’d been seen.

It was a stroke of luck that General Saint would not let slip through his fingers.

The private was back shortly, knocking on the door.

“Come,” he said.

“Captain Dirkson, sir.” The private held the door and a man walked in past him.

Dirkson was a burly man with a square plug of a face, small eyes, and a nose broken flat into the shape of a shovel. He was a force on the battlefield, unafraid and merciless.

“Captain Dirkson,” the Saint said. “I want you to choose six men to accompany you on a mission to locate Marshal Cage and his ship, the
Swift
, in the Bitterroots. You will take Mr. Les Mullins with you, once the doctor has seen to his wounds.”

“Yes, sir,” he said. “And when I find Marshal Cage?”

“Bring him to me. Breathing.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Dismissed.”

Dirkson turned and walked out into the silence of the morning.

“Is there anything else, sir?” the private asked.

“No, Private, that is all.”

But before the private closed the door, the Saint saw Lieutenant Foster being helped out of Mr. Shunt’s tent. He looked pale. Other than the sweat that soaked his shirt, he was sharp as ever, not a stitch out of place.

He saw the general looking at him, pulled his arm away from the man who was helping him keep his feet, and stood unsupported.

Alabaster gave him a short nod, which he returned.

Good. The men would soon be repaired, and now Cage would be brought to his knees before him without Mr. Shunt’s help. That changed the game a bit.

After Mr. Shunt mended his eye, General Alabaster Saint would have him killed.

C
edar Hunt waited just inside the
Swift
. Captain Hink and his men were on the ground, out in the hard wind and drizzle. Negotiating with Old Jack was what the captain had said he was doing.

Sounded a lot more like arguing.

“Two days at the most,” Captain Hink was saying. Again. For the hundredth time.

Cedar rested his shoulder against the doorway. He intended to keep to the shadows unless it looked like Captain Hink had gotten in over his head. Or if he suddenly decided his passengers were part of his bargaining chips.

“Beds, hot water, supplies for repair, and restocking our larder and needs.” Hink went down the list. “We’ll pay in glim dirty, or gold pure, either way you want it. Half now, half on lift.”

“You’ll leave in the morning,” the man said in a ruined voice.

Cedar expected he’d taken a blast to the throat, or maybe had a habit of drinking kerosene. Whatever he’d done to his voice, or had done to it, it had left it sounding like the rasp of a saw against metal.

Old Jack was white-haired, white-bearded, and bent so bad at the shoulders that he had to tip his chin up to look out from under the brim of his hat.

But Cedar could count the glimmer of four cannons mounted
in the rise of cliff that took up three sides of the landing field, and the four silent Negro boys who stood behind them.

He could also count the one very bright Colt in Old Jack’s steady hand.

“It will be two days, you know that, Jack,” Hink said, his patience going sour. “She’s shot full of holes, and I have a young woman in need of a bed and medical attention.”

“The young woman have a name?”

“I suppose she does,” Hink said. “Don’t think that much matters in our price. You know how it is. I don’t ask what you’ve got stashed here in this labyrinth of yours, and you don’t ask me what, or who, I have stashed in my hold.”

Hink’s men shifted slightly. Not making a big deal of it, but enough that anyone would know they had their hands on their guns.

This was the line in the sand. Well, mud. Cedar knew if Jack crossed it, they’d be in for a fight. He didn’t like the odds of facing down cannons with a ship that didn’t have fuel to fly.

Finally, Jack took his finger off the trigger.

“Medicines will cost you twice as much as last visit,” Old Jack wheezed. “And you know why.”

“I told you I’d make clean on our last dealings.” The clink of coins under cloth shook in the cold night air. “This takes care of our previous meeting.” A second clink rang out, this one a little louder.

Cedar heard Guffin’s whispered curse.

“And that,” Hink said, “is a generous thank-you for extending our credit. For two days.”

“Two days,” Jack said. “No longer. Medicine still puts you back double, food isn’t cheap, but it don’t have bugs. You want hot water, boil it over your own fire. Follow me this way.”

“Good doing business with you,” Hink said. “Gentlemen, let’s see to a bed that’s both warm and dry tonight. Except for you, Ansell. Stay with the
Swift
.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“Seldom, please follow our proprietor.”

Seldom strode off behind Old Jack, silent as a ghost in the wind.

Hink walked up to the ship, and paused short of the door. “Didn’t see you there.”

Cedar moved away from the threshold so the captain could step in.

“We’ve a bed for the night and the next, Mr. Hunt,” Captain Hink said, pulling a satchel down from the overhead rack and filling it with maps and other oddments. “Old Jack can’t much be trusted, but we’ve paid him to keep his mouth shut, and keep his hands to himself. We won’t be robbed or shot in our sleep.”

“Don’t mean he won’t rob us or shoot us when we’re awake,” Ansell rumbled, walking in behind the captain.

Cedar glanced over at Mae, who stood stiff, her hands clenched at her sides. She looked as if she’d been frozen in ice; only the slight movement of her lips, as if she were whispering, betrayed her.

Rose still sat on the floor, a blanket tucked tight around her, her fingers twined in Wil’s fur. Her eyes were open, her hair stuck down by sweat. She was watching Cedar, and more so, watching Captain Hink as he moved about the airship.

Mae was sleeping on her feet, and Rose was unable to stand but conscious. He didn’t know how they’d get either of them to walk to a bed through the rain and cold and rocks.

“Maybe we’ll stay in the
Swift
tonight,” Cedar said.

“What?”

“The women and I might best stay the night here,” he repeated.

Hink had finished filling the satchel and slung it over his shoulder. He turned and looked first at Cedar, then Mae, and finally Rose.

Something about how he looked at Rose made all his edges go a bit softer, as if seeing her hurt like that took the steam out of him.

Rose gave Hink a small smile. She didn’t do anything else but blink slowly. Her breathing was even and calm as if she were holding herself
very still against a pain that would bite to the bone if she shifted even an inch.

“I’ll bring a wagon,” he said. “Old Jack has a steam muler wagon that gives an easy enough ride. And it’s covered to shelter against the rain.”

“Didn’t see any structures out there,” Cedar said. “Where are we bunking?”

“Down in one of his catacombs—and those have elevators if we need it, though going more than a couple turns into the mouse run he’s burrowed through these rocks will get a man lost for good.”

At Cedar’s look, he continued. “There’s a half dozen big rooms he carved out for paying guests. Big enough each can hold a ship’s crew. Back in the day, they say he was commissioned to make this place livable in case the war took such a bad turn that the president himself would need a place to hole up. They used it as a base to tamp down the Indian uprisings for a bit, then lost interest in the place after the war was settled.

“But no one told Old Jack to stop digging. There’s plenty of space in this mountain for us, Mr. Hunt. And the main rooms are heated and free from hard drafts. Ask Molly here, if you need a second word.”

Molly had just strolled in from the boiler room and quickly took in the situation. “We can get us all there comfortable,” she said. “The medicines at his disposal would do Miss Small here a long bit of good. And I think Mrs. Lindson could use a rest too.”

“Yes?” Mae asked as soon as she heard her name. She shook her head slowly and then her eyes came to focus on the room around her. “We’ve landed.”

Cedar didn’t like his choices. Stay out here in a crippled ship under cannon watch for the night, or step inside the spider’s web of tunnels carved in the cliffs by a man no one trusted.

Not for the first time, he wished he still had his supplies, his horse, and a steady horizon in front of him.

“Mrs. Lindson,” Cedar said, stepping over to her. “We’re going to be staying here in the mountains for the night.”

She nodded. “Of course,” she said, her hands smoothing down the front of her coat and skirt. “And Rose. We’ll need to see to her.”

“I’ll get that wagon,” Captain Hink said.

Cedar heard the huff of a small matic coming closer. Then Guffin stuck his head in the doorway. “We thought we’d spare the ladies a walk, Captain.”

“Very thoughtful, Mr. Guffin,” he said. “Molly, see that Mr. Hunt has the assistance he needs.” The captain gathered up the bag he had packed and one extra that looked near empty, then stepped outside.

Cedar walked over to Mae, and Molly did the same.

“Can you walk, Mrs. Lindson?” Molly asked gently.

“Of course,” Mae said. “Yes, of course.” She took a step, then drew her hand out to the side as if trying to feel her way through a dark room.

Cedar caught her hand and her elbow.

“Oh,” she said, a breath of relief shuddering out of her. “Mr. Hunt. There you are. Could you show me to the door, please?”

“Right this way.” Cedar gave Molly a look and she nodded.

“I’ll wait until you’re back to help with Miss Small.”

Cedar took two steps and Mae followed like a woman suddenly gone blind, her steps hesitant even though there was nothing in her path.

“There now, you’re doing fine,” Cedar said softly.

“That helps,” Mae said, keeping her chin up.

“What helps?”

“Your voice. I can hear you. As if you’re right here next to me.”

Cedar winced at that, but kept his tone calm. “I am next to you, Mrs. Lindson. Right here. And we’re near across the floor of the airship on our way to a wagon and a dry bed. Heard there might be a hot bath at the end of it all, if that pleases you.”