Uncrashable Dakota

by Marino, Andy

  Nice move, old man.

  Up ahead, hijackers rushed to block the exit. Hollis slid around a boxy machine topped with a glass dome spitting ticker tape that heaped, unattended, in curlicues on the floor. He turned down a passage of archived sky-charts. Up ahead was an exit. For all he knew, it was locked or it dead-ended inside a closet, but he had no other choice.

  With footsteps pounding behind him, he slammed into the door and spun the knob.

  It swung open.

  Hollis sprinted up a stairwell lined with hazard signs that warned of terrible danger to unauthorized personnel. He took the steps two at a time, trying to control his ragged breathing. If his mother wasn’t being held alongside Captain Quincy, where was she? Not that he’d be much use to her right now, even if he succeeded in discovering her location. The hijackers bounding up the steps behind him left only one open lane: a steel pathway that took him on a winding tour through the forest of pipes that delivered exhaust from the bridge machinery to the air outside. A sudden rancid smell almost knocked him flat. It wasn’t until Hollis was almost on top of them that he became aware of the nests stuffed in the gaps between the pipe-work. At some point in the ship’s construction, birds had colonized the ventilation chamber, and now their feathery remains seemed to be guarding the exit. Gagging, Hollis nudged the gristle out of the way and spun the wheel in the center of the door. He burst out onto the highest promenade deck, not far from where he had greeted passengers in what seemed like a previous life.

  The sky was streaked with storm clouds. The wind whipped around him, sliding behind his back and curling between his arms and legs in wild figure-eight gusts. He wished for heavy sky-boots, but as soon as he heard the footsteps behind him, he was glad for his loafers. He ran past the few passengers left on deck, who pressed their floppy hats to their heads and squinted against the wind as they made their way to the Grand Staircase. The only person at the long bar was Edmund Juniper, who was pouring his own moonshine julep and struggling to keep the sprig of mint from blowing off the surface of the overflowing drink. He seemed to be enjoying the weather and greeted Hollis with a friendly wave.

  “Bracing day we’re having!”

  Hollis tried his best to indicate that he needed help, but the wind changed direction with a vicious about-face. He pumped his arms and lowered his head; the wind beat him back with such force that it stopped his forward progress and turned him into a flailing octopus struggling to run.

  Sir Edmund was torn from his chair, moonshine julep in hand. He tumbled down the deck and slammed into one of the two hijackers who had managed to follow Hollis outside. The other man planted his feet in a wide stance and drew his revolver. Hollis grabbed one of the bolted-down barstools, hoisted himself over the top of the bar, and dropped behind it. Stray bottles and highball glasses rolled back and forth. The wind howled over his head, but the sturdy oak bar provided enough shelter to pull out the transmitter and send a message to Rob.

  STEERAGE NOW

  He packed the book away and crawled along behind the bar until he reached a dumbwaiter, which had very quickly become his preferred method of interdeck travel. With a swipe of his hand, he cleared the small metal cube of snack trays and clean glasses that were still warm and steaming from the dishwasher. Hollis stuffed himself inside, knees pressed against his chin. He released the brake lever and descended into darkness, the abrupt silence broken only by the hysterical pounding of his heart and the echo of Jefferson Castor’s betrayal.

  THE HISTORY OF FLIGHT IN AMERICA

  PART

  THREE

  PRESIDENT LINCOLN agreed to pay Samuel Dakota fifty thousand dollars a month to build and test flying machines, with the United States government as his exclusive contractor. Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase balked at this exorbitant sum, which he called “a gross miscalculation” on the president’s part.

  “Would you care to provide me with an estimate of what you think each individual soldier’s life is worth, then, Mr. Chase,” the President responded, “so that when Mr. Dakota’s secret weapon ends this terrible conflict in months rather than years, we can compensate him in a manner more to your liking?”

  Secretary Chase signed the check.

  Samuel Dakota promptly bought and consumed two strawberry-rhubarb pies from the best bakery in Washington. Then he scoured the ranks of the Union Army engineer corps for smart, hardworking, trustworthy men. He assembled one team to harvest sap, another to hand-pick the proper beetles from the soil, and a third to distill vats of moonshine—reverse-engineering the precise recipe from the original bottle—to be mixed with the sap for beetle food. They traveled south under heavy guard to the spot where he had made his discovery, marked by the gaping hole and disturbed earth left by the tree that was probably still soaring up into the heavens, toward God or at least some other world unknown to man. In three weeks, they built an office, employee barracks, and the first of several warehouses. Samuel surrounded his compound with a high fence like a prisoner-of-war camp, keeping away the curious onlookers who never seemed to run out of questions for the men in the guardhouse. After that, a few persistent locals returned every day to peek through the fence. Samuel supposed the construction was free entertainment for them. While the sap was being harvested and the beetles transferred from the countryside to dirt farms within the compound, Samuel busied himself with the design of the very first airship.

  Dakota Aeronautics was born.

  * * *

  ONE DAY, sitting at his drafting table alternately scribbling and chewing on his pencil, Samuel recalled a boyhood trip down the Susquehanna River. He began idly sketching the old, rickety boat his uncle had made for their journey. As he retraced his lines and shaded the edge of each chopped and sanded strip of bark, a thought began to buzz around in the back of his mind. By the time he finished sketching the thick braided rope that attached the boat to his uncle’s dock, the nagging buzz had become a full-fledged idea. Samuel grabbed the drawing and ran outside to find Solomon Pembroke, his chief builder, who was sitting beneath a tree whittling a toy train out of a stick. Pembroke had been whittling every day since he’d been hired, waiting for Samuel to deliver the first design.

  “Solly!”

  The lanky engineer stood up to greet his boss, stooping to avoid a low-hanging branch.

  “Sir.”

  Panting and out of breath, Samuel handed Pembroke his drawing. Pembroke handed Samuel his toy train, almost finished except for the back wheels, and squinted at the sketch. Samuel studied the toy train.

  “Hmm,” each man grunted at the same time.

  “This is fine work,” Samuel said once he’d caught his breath. He meant it: the train was a perfect scale model, right down to the impression of a tiny conductor’s profile in the window.

  “This is a canoe,” Pembroke said, holding up the drawing and cocking his head, as if he had to explain to Samuel what he’d just drawn.

  Samuel nodded. “Sure is.”

  The two men stared blankly at one another for a few seconds. Then Pembroke grunted again, snatched back his toy train, and wandered off with the sketch, shaking his head.

  * * *

  THE FIRST DAKOTA AERONAUTICS airship looked like a hollow, upside-down hedgehog. Pembroke had improved upon Samuel’s design, adding square flaps that stuck out of the side like blunted wings. His idea was that once the whiskey-sap and beetles were applied along the bottom of the canoe, additional beetles could be added to the flaps for extra lift, or scraped off the bottom to begin descent. For this purpose, he built small, oarlike protrusions into the sides of the canoe that could be controlled by the pilot. Proud of his craftsmanship, Pembroke had to admit it just might work. And while he didn’t exactly admire Samuel Dakota—not yet, anyway—there was no denying the man’s crazy willingness to see things through to the end. The probable end, in this case, being his death from a high-speed plummet to the ground.

  “Solly.” Samuel clapped his chief builder on the back on the morning of th
e launch.

  Pembroke nodded hello. “Sir.”

  “Tell me the truth.” Samuel pulled on his new leather helmet with straps that flopped down over his ears. “I look okay in this?”

  The three dozen employees gathered at the testing field eyed their boss with a mixture of amusement and the kind of frightened awe reserved for asylum inmates.

  “Like a man on the verge of winning a war,” Pembroke said.

  Samuel climbed into the sky-canoe, which was resting three feet off the ground on wooden posts. He cleared his throat.

  “Gentlemen,” he began, launching into an impromptu speech, “for centuries mankind has dreamed—”

  “Mr. Dakota, sir!” One of the compound guards came running up to hand him a glass bottle with a rolled-up paper inside. “Sorry to interrupt. Messenger said it was urgent.”

  Samuel held the bottle up to the light. Someone had scratched a crude letter C into the bottom with a knife.

  “Who gave this to you?”

  The guard fidgeted. “Like I said, sir, a messenger came to the guardhouse. Said you would know what it meant.”

  “You didn’t see this,” Samuel said.

  “Y-yes sir. I mean, no sir. I didn’t. See what, sir?” The guard, clearly puzzled at Samuel’s tone, retreated down the steps.

  “Dismissed,” Samuel said. But the guard was already running back to his post.

  Samuel stowed the bottle beneath his seat. His men were watching him curiously. Without another word, he nodded to his chief whiskey-sap mixer, who slid beneath the ship on a rolling board and smeared the mixture evenly across the underside with a paintbrush. When he rolled out, Samuel nodded to his chief beetle keeper, who slid beneath on the same board and carefully applied eight evenly spaced beetles.

  The pungent flatulence wafted up. Samuel, who had grown to value, if not quite enjoy, the smell, flared his nostrils and sniffed it proudly.

  The ship ascended with an abrupt, purposeful jolt that almost spilled him over the side. He began a mental checklist of improvements for the next test flight: seat harnesses. After shifting his weight to regain balance, he saluted Solomon Pembroke as his chief builder took on the size and demeanor of a surly ant. He took a deep breath and looked out across the flat expanse of Virginia countryside that had been fenced off into neat squares of brown soil for the beetle farms, dense rows of transplanted trees rich with sap, steel tanks full of moonshine, and half-finished factory hangars waiting to produce the Union Army fleet. His heart swelled with pride. It was amazing how far a man could come in a few weeks with the right combination of brains, hard work, and—

  His foot brushed against the bottle beneath his seat. The little hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and he felt a chill that had nothing to do with altitude. He was floating alone in the empty sky, but suddenly felt as if he were being watched. Off to the right, his landing spot—the Shenandoah River—was a thin blue ribbon curling through the countryside. He grabbed hold of the little scraping-oars, prepared to swipe beetles from the undersides of the canoe to begin his descent. It had been a short flight, but he didn’t want to push his luck; he just had to wait for the air current to carry him over the river. As he hung in the gentle sky for what seemed like an eternity, he added another item to his checklist: steering sails.

  He stretched an arm over the side and opened his hand so that his palm caught the wind. He gazed out at the surrounding clouds and thought, There will be more of us up here very soon. Finally, when he couldn’t put it off any longer, Samuel grabbed the bottle and slid the rolled-up paper out into his hand. The scrawled message read:

  TO MISTER SAM DIKOTA,

  YOU OWE ME.

  HEZEKIAH CASTOR

  PS: IM WASHING YOU.

  Samuel tore the note into pieces. What’s done is done, he thought as he scattered the flecks of paper into the gently swirling air that he had conquered on behalf of the United States of America.

  11

  STEERAGE BEGAN WITH A STRUCK MATCH.

  Hollis had descended as fast as he could from the promenade bar to the depths of the pelican’s belly—a straight vertical drop on a map, but maddeningly slow going within the physical reality of the ship. As a hunted fugitive, he had to stick to the back-alley network of the Wendell Dakota, seeking pools of shadow like a dog on a hot summer day. He skirted Coal Town by ducking into the third-class infirmary, where minding one’s business was an art form. An all-out sprint through a rank tunnel that connected the lift chambers provided express service from aft to fore. Then a bad guess had gotten him lost in a place where even his own hands were difficult to see.

  A smoker lit her pipe by scraping a match along the wall. Hollis would have blundered right into her, but now he followed the orange glow. If she noticed him, she didn’t say, just kept going as if she were taking a stroll to clear her head. When the tunnel emptied out onto a gangway that overlooked the massive hold, the smoker vanished and Hollis was confronted by a potent blend of noise, heat, and stench. A mangy Labrador bounded past, trailing a viscous rope of saliva from its bared teeth. Something thudded against his shoe, and he looked down to see a little girl retrieving an errant marble. She grinned up at him and snatched it away, sliding back into the game circle while her companions laughed. At the edge of the gangway, a rickety catwalk connected two makeshift tent cities nestled among the rafters. Hollis found an empty spot next to the railing and peered over the side. Some families had staked out shelters with blankets strung from clotheslines, little checkered tents. Others simply camped out in the open. Groups of men gathered around overturned crates, playing cards and tossing dice. But most people just milled about, jostling endlessly for a sliver of space.

  It was hard to believe they were all passengers on the same ship. He had always imagined steerage to be a slightly more cramped version of third class. But this was something else entirely—there didn’t appear to be any bunks. It was as if the population of several tenement buildings had simply been transported en masse into the belly of the Wendell Dakota.

  He was thankful not to be wearing a finely tailored suit, but still felt as though his outfit screamed spoiled first-class dandy to the passengers cradling babies swaddled in rags or herding wild-eyed, barefoot children. He had gone out on the catwalk in hopes of spotting the rendezvous point, when he realized—too late—that he was halfway inside the moist, dim closeness of someone’s tent.

  A gruff voice came out of the darkness.

  “It’s about time.”

  Hollis straightened up as a man stepped into view, old and gaunt, with thin wisps of hair that spilled across his forehead. He carried a cane, which he extended to thump Hollis in the center of his chest. Then he pressed the cane harder, forcing Hollis back into the creaky wooden railing.

  “Sorry, sir,” Hollis said quickly. “I’ll be on my way.”

  “Now, hold on. Not so fast, boy.” The man, still pressing his cane into Hollis’s chest, leaned forward slowly, reminding Hollis of a medieval knight sliding down the length of his foe’s sword. The man cocked his head to the side and said, “I could use some more soup.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t … soup?”

  The man pulled the cane back slightly and jabbed Hollis once again. “That’s right.” He thought for a moment. “More soup.”

  Another voice came from the darkness, an old woman. “Leave ’im alone, Sidney. Godsakes, you’ll scare the poor boy to—” The woman blinked in surprise as she moved forward to lower the man’s cane with a liver-spotted hand. “Oh,” she said. The saggy skin of her face seemed to tighten as she regarded Hollis. Her mouth made a thin line. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “He’s getting my soup!” protested the old man. The woman ignored him as she pointed back across the catwalk, the way Hollis had come.

  “Get along, now,” she said, not unkindly. “There’s nothing but trouble for you here.”

  “I have to meet someone,” Hollis said. “Can you help me find the message drop?”


  The woman’s face softened, as if an invisible mask had been removed from her skin. She studied him for a moment and shrugged. “Downstairs, smack in the middle.”

  “We’re going to Ireland,” explained the old man matter-of-factly as the woman melted back into darkness. “Where it’s quiet and the dust don’t settle in the soup.”

  Hollis felt ashamed of something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. “Safe journey, sir.”

  The old man’s mouth stretched into a toothless grin. He broke into hideous peals of wheezing laughter. Hollis ducked away from the cane, backed out of the tent, and took the first set of stairs down to the floor of the hold. Rattled and out of breath, he leaned against a stack of crates and stared up into a ceiling of faded shirts and graying undergarments hanging from a web of clotheslines. A haunting tenor voice sang a few bars in Italian. Hollis picked his way past piles of trunks, baskets, and cardboard boxes. And barrels! There were so many barrels down here, he wondered if the hold doubled as barrel storage. He was careful not to step through the middle of any conversations—the last thing he wanted was to disturb anyone and draw attention to himself. Off to one side, he was relieved to see the framework of a partition, separated from the main area by a wall of sheets, with the silhouettes of bunks on the other side. Perhaps most of the steerage passengers slept in there and came out here to socialize. Then he noticed the SICK BAY sign tacked to one of the crossbeams and turned away.

  Directly in front of him was a crudely drawn portrait of an infant in a crib. It was nailed to a thick support beam that stretched all the way up to the ceiling. More drawings, along with a few letters, were pinned up around the portrait, their edges overlapping like tree bark. Hollis stepped back and took in the full sight: pictures of people and animals, scraps of paper with names and hearts and addresses. Just above his head, someone had fastened a wooden cross, upon which a realistic carving of a beetle was crucified.