“I was musing that, if we get out of here without being eaten—” Cedar eyed a snake that had slithered closer, “—we might set a trap of our own.”
“You think Cudgel will come out personally to deal with you?”
“Probably not. He won’t even know it’s me, unless that girl’s mighty fine with her descriptive words.”
“You don’t think Cudgel will know it’s you based on big, tall, and talks to himself and his guns?” Kali patted at her pockets, causing a few clinks and clanks, then pulled out a couple of fasteners of some kind.
“That describes more bounty hunters than you’d think,” Cedar said. “It’s a lonely road. You can’t talk to the people you’re hunting, or they become a little too human in your mind, and the shooting and beheading gets hard. Gotta talk to something.”
“Perhaps you could get a pet.”
“As appealing as a dog or wolf can be, I’ve grown partial to this woman that’s been wandering around with me this last year.”
“Well, she’s not that partial to the shooting and beheading and prefers being back in her workshop, if not her airship.” Kali glanced up from her work long enough to give him a quick smile. “You might talk her into getting you a cat for Christmas.”
“A generous offer.” Even if Cedar couldn’t see himself sharing the trail with anything less fierce than a wolf or a big ugly dog. “Though I’ve been thinking... that when I finally get Cudgel, I might be ready to pursue a different career.”
“Does the shooting and beheading bother you too?” she asked.
Her tone was light, but he sensed that there was a seriousness beneath it. Like she wanted the answer to be yes. She had always been blunt that the work bothered her, even if she allowed that proven murderers deserved to be beheaded, and he had seen for himself how much it disturbed her when her inventions proved more powerful—more destructive—than she intended, and when they caused death.
Cedar almost said yes in reply to her question, but wanted to be more honest than that. “What concerns me is that it doesn’t bother me much anymore. In the beginning, it was the hardest thing I’d ever done, looking into the eyes of a man pleading for his life and promising he would go straight and never cross the law again, and then shooting him in the heart. You knew they were lying most like, and even if they meant what they said, they’d already committed their crimes and the law is the law. But it was hard anyway. It was always easier to kill a man in a fight, in the heat of the moment. But to look him in the eyes...”
“I can see where that’d be difficult,” Kali said.
“Over the years, it got less difficult. In the beginning, you’re consciously trying to harden yourself, to distance yourself from those you hunt, but eventually it becomes a habit. And doing the job... it’s a mechanical act rather than one of... humanity.” Cedar set down the vial and stared across the pit, his senses still alert to the movements of the snakes, though he wasn’t focusing on them anymore. He was seeing the past, the men he’d hunted, the different terrains he’d stalked them across, the inevitable ends for all of them. “When I was younger, one of my mentors—the one who gave me the katana—told me that there’s a fine line between hunting criminals and becoming one of them. The easier it gets to kill, the harder it becomes to draw the line between when to do it and when not to, between a man who’s a stone-cold killer who deserves death and a man who picks a fight with you over cards. One dies as easily as another. One death is righteous in the eyes of the law and one turns you into the men you’ve been hunting.”
Cedar pushed a hand through his hair. He was rambling, not explaining himself as well as he wished. Kali probably thought he was crazy. So long as he never put a doubt in her mind that would lead her to think she might ever be in danger if he got wrathy. He would hate himself for that. “I’ve never crossed that line, despite what that Pinkerton agent believed, but I’ve seen other bounty hunters go bad. This last year... since meeting you, really, I’ve decided... I want to quit once I’m done with Cudgel. All of this only started because of him, and I think it’s right that it should end with him. I’m not sure what I’ll do afterward, but I’m thinking on it.”
He shifted his weight and tossed the dregs of the kerosene bottle at a couple of snakes that had ventured close. One on the other side of the pit was slithering in and out of the rib cage of one of the fresher corpses. Kali kept glancing at it, and he thought about shooting it, just so she wouldn’t have to be disturbed by the image, but the bullet would go straight through its head and ricochet off the wall. Best not to stir up the rattlers until they were safely out of the pit.
“Head of security for a freighter captain?” Kali said.
Cedar snorted softly. “Something like that might work.”
“Because I’ve had your cooking, and I definitely couldn’t recommend you for galley work.”
“Good to know.” He cocked his head. “Freighter captain, huh? So this isn’t a one-time trip you’re thinking of making?”
“It started that way, with some of the Hän looking for an escape—there’s not much left for them here anymore, more disease and hunger than anything—and then me thinking that I might bring some cargo back to finance some further trips. Running freight isn’t all I’d like to do, but with all the money it’s taken to get this ship together, I’ve been realizing that getting it built won’t be the end of my journey but the start of a new one. Paying for repairs and supplies and keeping it in the air—well, we won’t be able to just fly around the world for free, not unless we take up pirating, which I’m not looking to do.”
“I reckon the difference between dreams and goals is that one has to be stoked with more than thoughts.”
Kali nodded. “I’m sure there would still be time to do some pure exploring, and I don’t know, I’ve thought about trying to learn more about the flash gold and this legacy my father left me, but running freight, it’s honest enough work, and it could take a captain—or a security chief—to some interesting places.”
“Places where Pinkerton agents wouldn’t be likely to follow?”
“The world’s a big place, I hear. Lots of other countries out there, some of them real distant from California.”
Cedar smiled again. Kali’s hands had continued to work while she spoke—while he spoke—and her grappling hook looked to be almost done. As usual, it appeared much more sophisticated than anything he would have made.
“This... isn’t the place for this, I know,” he said, “but I was wondering, when you were saying captain and security head, did you ever imagine...”
“Yes?” Kali prompted when the seconds ticked past.
A snake slithered out of the nose hole on a head that had been gnawed down to the skull. No, this wasn’t the place for this conversation. He would wait for a more appropriate moment. “Were you thinking we would be fifty-fifty on the earnings, like we have been with this bounty-hunting partnership, or do security guards rank lower on the pay schedule?”
“Hm.” Kali met his eyes, and he tried to decide if she knew what he’d truly been thinking about. “I don’t imagine security chiefs get a huge cut in normal circumstances, but as a co-owner, I expect you would be entitled to fifty percent. I’m just looking to have freedom, not to be rich, and that arrangement has worked fine for me so far.”
“It’s worked well for me too,” he said, though he couldn’t help but think he wanted more. More than a business arrangement. What they had started and stopped and started... how much did it mean to her?
She pointed her wire cutters at him. “Just don’t take that as a license to sleep on the job. With all the pirates I’ve heard about down south, I’ll need a good security man watching the skies for me.”
Cedar smiled, though not quite with all his heart, as he regretted chickening out and not asking what he’d truly meant to ask. “I understand.”
Kali stood up and handed him her grappling hook. “I also need someone who can chuck this up there and catch it on some r
ocks. Are you up for the task?”
“Yes, but if I pull that rockslide down on us, I hope you won’t curse me too much from the grave.” One of the snakes slithered around the edge of the pit, eyeing them. “Although at least I would bury the rattlers along with us.”
Kali thumped him in the chest with the back of her hand. “I wasn’t talking about the future with you so you could think like that. Look.” She held her hands out flat in front of her side-by-side, then tilted one down at an angle.
Cedar looked up, twenty-five feet up. “Ah, there’ll be a big crack up there now, won’t there?”
“Get to hooking it. That snake is giving you the eye.”
Cedar tied his rope to the end of the hook. “You sure he’s not eyeing you?”
“You’re a much bigger meal.”
He took some time setting up his throw, not wanting to have the hook miss and clunk back down on a snake’s head. Talk about irritating the wildlife...
He tossed the hook, aiming a bit farther behind the edge, figuring the claws could catch on the way back. It clanked as it landed on the stone floor up there. He tugged it carefully... and let out his breath when it caught.
“Easy,” Kali said.
Cedar was glad to know he made it seem so. He opened his mouth to tell her to climb up first, but a noise drifted down into the pit from above. A scrape and then a clunk. It had nothing to do with his grappling hook, which had already settled into the crack.
“Did you hear that?” Kali whispered.
Cedar nodded. “Someone is coming.”
When he had imagined setting a trap, he hadn’t been thinking of having himself in the middle of it. He shouldered his backpack and, hoping his boots still smelled of kerosene, darted over a snake to grab his katana. It had landed point down in one of the skeletal ribcages. He had no more than plucked out the weapon when an angry hiss filled the pit.
“Look out,” Kali whispered.
Though she kept her voice low, urgency flooded the words, and Cedar spun around in time to catch the snake’s head rising. Fangs flashed and the maw darted for his leg. He cut down with the blade, intercepting the attack. The katana sliced through the sinewy body, sending the head flying across the pit. It smashed into the rock wall and landed between two other coiled snakes. More rattles stirred.
Cedar would have cursed, but there was no time. He lunged for the rope.
“Hide the light and follow me up,” he whispered, already climbing.
Worried about the riled rattlers, he would have preferred to send Kali up first, but there was just as much trouble up there. He could hear footsteps now, men walking toward the pit. More than one man. The glow from the flash gold disappeared, and he felt Kali’s weight on the rope below him. By now, all the snakes were rattling, the noise reverberating off the walls.
Climb fast, he urged her mentally, wanting her out of their reach. He didn’t speak, though. Light had come into view above, the flame of lanterns, more than one.
“Someone’s got the rattlers agitated,” a man said.
“Must be excited about their dinner,” another man responded. They sounded like they had already started into the excavated tunnel. They would see Kali’s hook any moment now. He had to take them by surprise first.
Cedar paused a couple of feet below the lip, tightening his grip with his left hand, the harsh twine biting into his calluses, and eased his Winchester out with his right. He almost chose the katana, but if they spotted the hook, they might stop back in the tunnel, out of reach. The rifle was already loaded, six rounds that, thanks to Kali’s tinkering, would reload without needing to be manually chambered, something that would have been next to impossible to manage while hanging on a rope.
“Pete, what is that?”
The shadows at the top of the pit bumped and twisted as someone lifted a lantern for a better look. Cedar chose that moment to pop up with the rifle. He scarcely aimed, knowing he had to take two armed men out before they had time to notice and shoot him. No, four men. There were another two in the rear. Two had six-shooters out. Tarnation, how many peons did Cudgel have up here?
His first bullet hammered into the chest of the man with the lantern. The light flew, scattering shadows. Even with the automatic loading mechanism, a half second that seemed an eternity passed before the rifle was ready to fire again. Cedar used the time to lunge out of the pit. He wasn’t surprised to hear the cocking of a hammer, but he was ready to fire again by then. He knelt against the wall, hoping to provide a small target, and shot again.
Someone grunted in pain, but he couldn’t tell if it had been a killing blow. The lantern lay on the ground now. It hadn’t gone out, but it shed little light from its side in the dust. Someone returned fire. Cedar dropped to his belly and fired again. A bullet clanged off the wall above his head. He wished the tunnel offered some cover—maybe he should have stayed on the rope below the pit’s edge, but that was no position to fight from, and he risked kicking Kali off the rope. Another bullet scraped rock off the mountain, this one even closer to his head. Cedar caught movement beyond the fallen lantern and fired again, hoping his eyes were better adjusted to the darkness than those of these newcomers.
He rolled away from the wall and came up with his katana in hand, remembering the low ceiling at the last moment. He ducked and charged, kicking the lantern when he reached it, even as he slashed out with the blade. Darkness swallowed the tunnel at the same time as he connected with flesh. A man cried out. Cedar swung again. He had the advantage in close quarters—he could swing at anyone and meet an enemy, whereas they would have to worry about hitting each other.
Someone with a wild swing clipped his shoulder, but it was only a fist. Cedar responded with a slash at stomach level. The katana bit into clothing and flesh, drawing another cry.
Footsteps pounded in the opposite direction, someone trying to flee. Cedar didn’t want anyone reporting back to Cudgel. He charged after the man, stepping on someone else as he did so. The fallen figure didn’t cry out or respond. Dead or unconscious. That ought to be most of them, though the darkness made it hard to be certain.
The running man made it to the wan light filtering in from the cave opening. He jumped, trying to climb up the wall. The ceiling opened up, and Cedar had the room to hurl his blade. He had light enough to line up his target too. The blade wasn’t meant for throwing, but it spun across the dark cave, regardless, cutting through air and then through flesh. It struck the man in the back of the neck, the force enough that it lodged there. He stiffened, then tumbled back to the ground.
Cedar snatched his katana free and spun back toward the tunnel, sensing the light level rising there. It wasn’t the lantern. Kali was crouching in the passage, her vial of flash gold out again, its fluctuating light revealing three fallen men, none of them moving.
Her expression was hard to read. It wasn’t disapproving, exactly, but grim. She probably wished they hadn’t fallen for this trap, so this wouldn’t have been the result. All she said was, “I’m guessing they didn’t come from town.”
“They must have had a hideout much closer,” Cedar said, extending an arm to her, wanting to take her out into the daylight, away from all this carnage. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Don’t you want to... er, questioning is out, I guess. Search them?”
She was right. One of them might hold some clue as to Cudgel’s whereabouts. Questioning one of them would have been even better, but he hadn’t been in a position where he could do anything other than react. React with a great deal of accuracy, it seemed. Once that might have made him proud, but it was just part of the job now.
“I’ll handle it,” Cedar said. “Why don’t you wait outside.”
“I can—”
“They might have disturbed your bicycle.”
Kali’s eyes widened. “Tarnation, that’s right.” She hustled out of the tunnel so fast it was as if those kerosene-soaked britches had caught fire. She forgot to leave him the flash gold, so he c
ould see. He fished out his flint and relit a lantern.
The search revealed little, a few coins, cards from one of the faro halls on Tiger Alley, a scrap of paper with a hotel room number on it. He might have found that encouraging, but a woman wearing lip paint had kissed the corner. Somehow he doubted he would locate Cudgel there.
Cedar climbed out of the cave. He would leave the rest of the investigating for the Mounties. Kali was lying in the mud by the pool, examining the SAB. To him, it appeared as if it had been ignored by the men, but someone had sabotaged it before, so he wouldn’t fault her for being thorough.
“Find anything?” she asked.
“Not unless I want to visit an available woman with low standards.”
She leaned out from beneath the vehicle and gave him a squinty look, but didn’t comment. He wondered if that meant she would be disturbed if he did seek out such a person. He hoped so.
“Guess this was all a waste,” he said.
“Maybe not. We found out a few things, didn’t we?”
“That Cudgel might be the one behind this claim-grabbing scheme, I suppose,” Cedar said, wishing again that he’d had the opportunity to question one of those men.
“And that your Sergeant Tremblay might be in bed with him.”
“That’s... not a certainty. Just because he sent us out here doesn’t mean he’s Cudgel’s man. He could have legitimately wanted this scheme investigated.”
“By you. Like I said before, I find it right suspicious that he was so eager to send me out here with you. I’ll be driving straight back to check on my cave.”
Cedar grimaced. If her work area had been plundered because she had agreed to go off with him, he would be irritated with himself—and Cudgel. “You aren’t... I mean, is your item stored in there?”
He doubted there was anyone around to overhear them, but the flash gold was so valuable and so desired by so many that he had grown accustomed to speaking of it in secret. She had long since made the flakes disappear, returning them to whatever pocket or sock the vial had come from.
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