Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon

by David Barnett

  The woman, who had very short hair but was strikingly beautiful, smiled at her. “In a way. We’re far from any aerodrome, true, but we were heading here.” She pulled off a leather glove when the four of them arrived and held out her hand. “I’m Rowena Fanshawe, and that’s my ’stat—sorry, airship—the Skylady III. She’s in a pretty bad way, I’m afraid.”

  Rowena turned and introduced the others. “Mr. Gideon Smith,” she said of the handsome young man with curly black hair. Then she pointed toward the older, fat man, squinting at the sun and sweating already. “Mr. Aloysius Bent, a journalist.”

  “Charmed,” said Bent, mopping his brow with a dirty handkerchief. “Christ, it’s effing hot.”

  The tallest of them touched the brim of his hat, his mustache twitching. “And I’m Louis Cockayne.”

  Rowena, Smith, and Bent were English, Cockayne American. Inez nodded and said, “I am Inez Batiste Palomo.”

  “Is this your home?” said Smith.

  She glanced back at it. She supposed it was, now. “Yes, in a way.” She frowned. “You said you were making for here? But why?”

  “Long story,” said Smith. “We had a little … trouble in a place called San Antonio. You know it?”

  Inez spat in the dust. “Steamtown.”

  “She knows it.” Bent chuckled. “Some chap called Ackroyd, runs a ranch north of the Wall, he told us to come here. He’s on his way with a thousand head of cattle. Those Steamtown thugs burned his farm down. Said he was told there was a new community here.” He turned to Cockayne. “Who did he say told him to come?”

  Cockayne was watching Inez closely. “The Nameless. You ever heard of him?”

  She nodded. “New community? And this farmer is coming here?” She looked at the crowd that had gathered around the gondola of the airship. “And these people…?”

  “They were on their way to Steamtown, sold into slavery,” said Rowena. “They have no home.…”

  Inez chewed her lip for a moment then said, “You had better all come inside. I have water, and there is a rabbit stew on the stove.” She clicked her tongue. “Although I wasn’t expecting so many for dinner…”

  * * *

  After the stew—vastly bulked out by an impromptu rabbit-hunting session on the prairie—was gone, Inez and Rowena organized the passengers into small parties to clean up the rooms and to go and get fresh water from the creek, as well as to gather bundles of reeds to form makeshift beds. Bent and Cockayne stood on the veranda, smoking, while Gideon stalked up and down in the dust. Bent had his notebook out and showed it to Cockayne.

  “You know Japanese, Cockayne? You ever seen this symbol?”

  Cockayne glanced at it. “Can’t say I have. Where’s it from?”

  “On the neck of a ninja tried to assassinate the New York governor. Something about it’s been getting my goat.”

  Cockayne took another look and shrugged. “Japanese, Chinese … I can never tell their writing apart, I’m afraid.”

  Bent put the end of his pencil thoughtfully in his mouth, then looked up, annoyed, as Gideon kicked up a cloud of dust. “Sit down, for eff’s sake, I’m trying to concentrate.”

  “I can’t,” said Gideon. “I need to be doing something.”

  “Listen to him, Smith. You’re just expending energy.”

  Rowena and Inez came back from where they had been inspecting the ’stat. Bent murmured, “Pretty little thing, the Spanish girl.”

  Cockayne raised an amused eyebrow. “You noticed?”

  “Well?” asked Gideon. “What’s the verdict?”

  “She isn’t going to fly again anytime soon,” said Rowena, wiping grease from her hands with an old rag. “Two cells completely deflated.”

  “She needs special gas to fly?” asked Inez.

  “Helium.” Rowena nodded. “I need an aerodrome or a big city. What’s the nearest major settlement in New Spain?”

  “I was made to learn the classics back in Uvalde, where I lived before … before,” said Inez thoughtfully. “Helium is from helios, yes? The sun?”

  “Yes,” said Rowena absently. “It was named because it has a yellow signature on the spectrum.… How big is this Uvalde? Does it have an airfield?”

  “No.” Inez pointed toward the abandoned mine. “But the Nameless, he said that he could see a gas coming from the pit. He said it looked like sunshine.”

  Rowena frowned. “Helium is invisible to the human eye.”

  Inez shrugged. “He said he could see all kinds of things.”

  Rowena was tapping a finger on her chin. “It’s possible … it’s naturally occurring underground.…”

  “There’s a portable helium gauge on the Yellow Rose,” said Cockayne excitedly. “And a small liquefaction engine. For emergency extraction.”

  “I know,” said Rowena, glaring at him. “And she’s the Skylady III, not the Yellow Rose. I’ll check it out.”

  “I’ll help,” said Cockayne, flicking his cigarette into the dust.

  “No need,” said Rowena tightly. “I can do it.”

  Gideon turned to Cockayne. “Wait. You said you’d heard of this Nameless. Who is he?”

  Cockayne shrugged as Rowena walked back to the ’stat. “There’s lots to tell, but it’s all hearsay and legend. I’ve heard tales of the Nameless for years. They say he was born in ’seventy-five—”

  Bent laughed. “He’s a boy?”

  Cockayne gave him a withering look. “Seventeen seventy-five.”

  “But that would make him more than a hundred years old,” said Bent.

  “Seventeen seventy-five,” said Gideon. “The year of the failed rebellion.”

  “Some say he’s walked the land ever since, trying to put things right,” mused Cockayne. “According to some stories, he’s no longer human. Others, they say he never was. I never saw him, and never met anyone I trusted who said they did.”

  “I have met him,” said Inez. “He was here. He saved us from the Steamtown rabble.”

  “Us?” said Cockayne.

  “Chantico is my … my lover. He is Yaqui Indian. We were meeting here when we were ambushed. The Nameless saved us. I had a … a disagreement with my father in Uvalde, and I have come to live here with Chantico. The Nameless said things were wrong, that the land should not be split up between the great powers, Britain and Spain and Japan. He thought he had found what he was looking for with us, with this place.”

  “And what was that?” asked Gideon.

  “America,” she said softly. She looked around at the small knots of people who had been bound for slavery in Steamtown. People with nowhere to go. Nowhere but here. “I didn’t know what he meant, but now…”

  She blinked and looked up. “There is something else. He wanted us to look after … well, I was going to say a woman. But she’s made of clockwork.”

  “Maria!”

  Inez jumped as Gideon grabbed her by the arms. “A clockwork woman? Maria? He had her? Where is she?”

  “You’re hurting me,” she said.

  Cockayne pulled him off. “Smith, calm down for God’s sake.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Gideon, taking a deep breath. “But that is why we’re here. We’re looking for Maria … she looks like an ordinary woman. Very beautiful.”

  “Very beautiful,” agreed Inez. “Apart from the key in her back.”

  Gideon felt his legs buckle, and Bent put out a hand to steady him. “Is she well? Did she say anything?”

  Inez shrugged. “She is unconscious. Wound down. I don’t know what you would say. You want to see her?”

  Gideon gaped at her. “She’s here?”

  Inez led them into the house, along the dusty corridors to the inner room where she and Chantico had laid Maria. The door was locked, and Inez rattled the handle irritably.

  “That idiot Chantico has the key,” said Inez. “I thought he would be here now.”

  “No problem,” said Cockayne. “Stand back.”

  He put his boot against the p
adlock, braced himself on Gideon and Bent, and kicked hard, twice, until the wood splintered. Inez pushed open the door. “She is in—oh.”

  The room was empty.

  Gideon made a muted roaring sound and punched the stone wall.

  “Calm down, Smith,” ordered Cockayne. “This Indian must know where she is, if he’s got the key. We just need to wait until he gets here.”

  “Where does he live?” asked Gideon. “We should go there now.”

  Cockayne held up his hands. “Whoa, Gideon. You don’t just go riding into Yaqui camps shouting your head off.” He gripped his shoulder. “We’ve waited this long, another hour or two won’t kill us. Besides, you’re beat. We’re all beat. We’ve been up all night. We need some rest or we’re no use to anyone.”

  “Amen to that,” said Bent, yawning. “Where can I lay my throbbing head?”

  “We have collected reeds. You will just have to make a rough bed,” said Inez.

  “I’m so knackered you could hang me on a clothesline and I’d sleep for a day,” he said.

  “I’m going to turn in as well,” said Cockayne. Bent farted, sighed, and departed. “Though not in the same room as him. Wake me if there’s any trouble. Smith, I suggest you get some sleep, too.”

  “I’ll go and see if Rowena needs any help,” said Gideon as Cockayne went to find a quiet room. He looked at Inez. “Thank you. For taking care of Maria.”

  “We haven’t done a very good job,” she said.

  He smiled. “Cockayne is right. We’ll find her when Chantico comes back. I’m sorry if I hurt you before.”

  Inez said, “This Maria, she is your … you are…?”

  Gideon nodded. “I know. It’s difficult to understand.”

  She shook her head. “I know what it is like to love someone different from yourself.” She smiled. “Though maybe not so different.”

  “You are going to rest, too?”

  “No,” she said tightly. “I have just remembered something I have to do.”

  * * *

  Inez felt like crying tears of anger. Chantico, you idiot! She stared at the note in his feathery scrawl. Lo siento. Presumably he had been too cowardly or too idiotic to write what he really meant. Sorry for stealing the clockwork girl. She stalked up and down the room she had assigned to them—to them! He was going to have to swim a sea of horseshit if he wanted to share her bed again!—and kicked at her saddlebags on the cold stone floor. The question was, where had he taken her—where had he taken Maria? She remembered his look of guilt and reproach when the Nameless had mentioned the place of power near the Yaqui camp. Why had Chantico never mentioned that? Could he have taken Maria there? If so, presumably he had done this in secret. The Nameless would hardly abet Chantico in taking Maria away when he had expressly said that they should keep her safe here. Perhaps the Nameless somehow knew, in his grim prairie spirit way, that someone would come looking for Maria. She kicked the saddlebag again, and the rapier she had taken from the casa skittered along the floor.

  Inez had never been to the Yaqui settlement, but she knew it was just over the far side of the canyon, beyond the hills. Not far at all. She rummaged in the saddlebag and pulled out Chantico’s black shirt and trousers, the silly mask. Back in Uvalde … the people, they had truly thought she was El Chupacabras. The Texans had been scared of her, and the townsfolk had been inspired. Perhaps … she swiftly unbuttoned her blouse. Perhaps El Chupacabras would ride again, put right whatever idiocy Chantico was lo siento for. But no. Not El Chupacabras. El Chupacabras had gone. Like Sergio de la Garcia. Like Chantico. Like the Nameless. Men went away, or were weak, or idiotic, or all three.

  She pulled on the black shirt, buttoned up the trousers, and fastened the cowl tight around her head. No, not El Chupacabras at all. She took up the rapier, hefted it in her gloved hand.

  La Chupacabras!

  * * *

  “Can you fix it?” asked Gideon.

  Rowena laughed lightly. “I love the faith you have in people, Gideon. But yes, I think I can. The gauge is showing that there is indeed helium down that mine. Whoever started digging for coal must have fractured the rock and released it.” She looked out across the prairie. “This whole landscape could be full of it, just below the surface. Anyway, without boring you, there’s a long, laborious process of liquefaction to extract it and turn it into usable lifting gas, and this”—she patted the large, square device on wheels, as big as a steam-cab with twice as many pipes, pistons, and valves across its back—“is going to do the job. In the meantime, I’m going to get the balloon patched up. Are you any good with a needle and thread?”

  But Gideon was looking into the distance, where a wide dust cloud was approaching. “What now?” he said.

  Rowena climbed on top of the liquefaction engine and peered through a brass extendable telescope. “Don’t panic,” she said. “It’s our friend with the cattle.”

  Gideon glanced back at the house. “Have you spoken to those people who were bound for Steamtown? What do they want to do?”

  “Unsurprisingly, not many of them are keen to return to New York. They’ve been betrayed by whichever company or organization was rounding up immigrants and packing them off to trade for coal. And, by extension, they’ve been betrayed by the British government itself.”

  “Do you think they’ll stay here?” he wondered. “The rancher talked about a new community.…”

  Ahead of the approaching herd, two figures on horseback emerged from the swirling cloud. Oswald P. Ackroyd and his nephew, their chaps yellow with trail dust, hailed Gideon and brought their horses to a halt near the Skylady III.

  “Howdy, Mr. Smith. You beat us here, then?”

  Gideon nodded at the ’stat. “Only just.”

  Ackroyd let himself down from his horse and stretched, looking around. “The Nameless was right. This is a nice spot. And that’s good grazing land over yonder.” He frowned at the stone building, at the people sitting around in the morning sun. “These folks all live here? We’re gonna need a bigger homestead. Good thing Albert’s handy with a saw and hammer.”

  Gideon followed his gaze and frowned. There was a figure all in black creeping away from the house, leading by the reins the only horse there—Inez’s. While Rowena pointed out the creek and the arable land to Ackroyd, Gideon picked up her telescope and put it to his eye, taking a moment to focus on the figure—which, it turned out, was masked as well. Even so, that fan of black hair, the voluptuous shape … it could only be Inez herself. But where was she going, and why was she dressed so outlandishly?

  Gideon turned to Ackroyd. “A fine horse you have.”

  Ackroyd patted the mare. “Strong as an ox, this one. She could do that journey twice over without breaking a sweat, there and back.”

  Gideon smiled. “In that case, do you mind awfully if I borrow her?”

  20

  MARIA

  ++VERNACULAR ASSIMILATION: TRUE++

  ++HOST BRAIN TO BODY-MASS RATIO 1:40++

  ++BRAIN: ORGANIC MATERIAL. NONORGANIC MAKEUP: GLASS, COPPER, BRASS, DRIED ANIMAL SKIN++

  ++AUTOMOTIVE FORCE: MAINSPRING-POWERED MECHANISM ACHIEVING VARIOUS LEVELS OF TORQUE. COLLOQUIAL: CLOCKWORK++

  ++FUSION OF BRAIN/CLOCKWORK COMPONENTS TO ACHIEVE INDEPENDENT AUTOMOTIVE FORCE: 96 PERCENT COMPLETE. HOST REMAINS IN STASIS++

  ++READYING SIGNAL++

  ++DOPAMINE LEVELS: INSUFFICIENT++

  ++SEROTONIN LEVELS: INSUFFICIENT++

  ++OXYTOCIN LEVELS: INSUFFICIENT++

  ++SIGNAL TRANSMISSION: FALSE++

  ++AWAITING FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS++

  Chantico hung back in the dancing shadows cast on the limestone walls by the torches, the bag containing the diverse and mysterious treasures that had been found with the clockwork girl hanging from his hand. He had made a terrible, terrible mistake.

  Inez was going to be furious with him.

  He had been to the abandoned mine at dawn and manhandled the clockwork girl—so heavy!—on to the bac
k of his horse. The Old Man had been delighted with his work, but Chantico felt sick to his stomach. Still … what was a bunch of cogs and gears, no matter how much like a living woman it looked, when balanced against the life of his beloved?

  He hoped Inez would see it that way, too.

  The clockwork woman was stretched out on the altar, the Old Man standing at her head, presiding over the gathering. There were more people than he had ever seen in the cave, perhaps thirty. Word had spread like wildfire that the Old Man was going to do something special, that he was going to bring Quetzalcoatl to save the Yaqui people.

  So why did Chantico feel so bad?

  The Old Man was swaying, his eyelids fluttering, his gnarled hands on either side of the clockwork girl’s head. In the basin below, the gathering swayed along with him. Someone was banging a drum in rhythm with Chantico’s pounding heart, and the people began to hum, low and steady, like an approaching swarm of insects. Chantico’s blood roared in his ears, and he redoubled his grip on the bag.

  The drumming stopped.

  The Old Man opened his eyes.

  He licked his lips and rasped, “Life is because of the gods; with their sacrifice they gave us life, eh? They produce our sustenance, which nourishes life. In return, we make our own offerings.”

  He raised his hands in supplication.

  “Quetzalcoatl is a just god and does not demand the spilling of human blood. It was Tezcatlipoca, angered by what he saw as Quetzalcoatl’s weakness in this regard, who imprisoned the great feathered serpent in brass and metal and sent him crashing in flames to Earth, eh?”

  Chantico frowned; this was new. The Old Man was embellishing the story. Chantico took a step forward, out of the shadows. Despite himself, he was intrigued to see how a thing that was not alive could be sacrificed, and just what effect it would have.

  “Thus,” said the Old Man, “a suitable sacrifice must be found. And we have been delivered this mockery of a woman, a thing neither alive nor dead, with which to parlay for Quetzalcoatl’s return to grace.”

  The Old Man looked around the crowd, their faces hidden in shadow. He put his hands together and steepled his fingers in front of his dry lips. Then he whispered, “Quetzalcoatl appeared to me in a vision last night, eh? I took the fruit of the peyote into myself and asked for guidance in the desert. And guidance came.”