This man knew where Gloria was, and Evan was not about to allow him to drown before he told him where.
He set the behemoth into motion, and when he reached them, he shouted into the speaking horn, “Climb the legs!”
And just in time, too. The men leaped upon the metal legs of the behemoth, clawing their way higher while Evan turned it about.
The water hit so hard it nearly lost its footing, but the machine was heavy, and he knew its capabilities well now. He set one huge foot in front of the other, water foaming around them and up to the knee joints. The locomotive was already steaming away. Once he regained level ground, he set off after it, trying to ignore the shouts of the two men clinging to the metal rungs below, for there was no time to stop.
They traveled for a good two miles, Evan grim in his harness and the men outside soaked and cold. At last the locomotive came to a halt where the ground opened out and it seemed that flash floods were not in the habit of rearranging the landscape. He brought his machine to a stop within hailing distance and sat back against the metal webbing, breathing heavily.
Men descended from the locomotive to assist the Ambassador to the ground. Dripping, with a man on either side to hold him steady, he looked up at the pilot’s chamber. “Senor!” he called. “That was very well done. To whom do I owe my life and the life of my companion, el doctor?”
“Never mind that,” Evan said, throwing his manners to the wind. “Where is Gloria Meriwether-Astor?”
The Ambassador staggered a little. “Would that I knew.”
“What do you mean?” he shouted. His stomach churned and his lungs felt as though a great hand were suddenly pressing on them. “What have you done with her?”
The Ambassador gazed up at him. “Please come down, senor. This is not a conversation to be shouted at the tops of one’s lungs, even if one had the breath to do so.”
“I shall not. Not until you tell me what happened. She was supposed to be taking the air with you.” His voice cracked.
“And so she was. Until the flood came. And now—now I fear we must form a recovery party, for her and—several of my men.” His gaze locked with that of Evan. “Your help would be invaluable—I had thought that only two men on this earth could operate this machine. One is in Philadelphia, and the other is now dead. But I see that I was wrong. Please come down. You need not fear—I owe you my life, and yours therefore has as much value among us as my own.”
He hadn’t a choice—a search party of one wouldn’t be of much help to Gloria, and until the floodwaters receded, nothing could be done. He needed information, and sustenance, and manpower, all of which the Californios could provide. He needed to control himself, to rein in the urge to hit something in his fear and grief, and show them nothing but a man confident in his own abilities.
So he bent the behemoth into its resting position and climbed down its iron leg-rungs to the ground.
He was the only one in the company besides the engineer and brakeman who was still dry. The Ambassador extended a cold hand. As Evan took it, beside him, his shorter companion’s dark-eyed gaze searched his face, and widened in recognition.
“Madre de Dios,” he breathed, putting a hand on the Ambassador’s arm and indicating Evan. “I know this man.”
CHAPTER 19
I t was fortunate that Alice was female, for it meant that other than a woman out on the ward recovering from pneumonia—asleep at the moment—there was no one near her room. Alice did regret the necessity of having the window open, in case it affected the lady’s health, but Ian had promised to close it after they were gone.
A slight commotion erupted among the saltbush and chamisa outside. Alice sat up, checking that her buttons were all fastened, her canvas pants were belted and ready, and her lightning pistol was still in her pocket. Ian had had to lend her a shirt, which was several sizes too large, to replace the bloodstained one in which she’d arrived, but he’d had everything else laundered, and recovered all her property.
It felt good to be clean. Sore and slow, but clean. Ready for whatever the day would bring, as long as she could share it with him.
Fingers gripped the sill, and in a moment Jake’s eyes appeared above it, marked her location and that of Ian, who was standing by the window, and vanished below. It was a good six feet to the ground, and in her current condition the most she could do to assist them was to cross the room by herself.
A wide board tilted up and through the window. Ian grasped it and balanced it on the sill. “Your chariot awaits, madam,” he said, his smile just for her, but his gray eyes worried all the same.
She hoped devoutly that they would not drop her. It was the best they could come up with on short notice, for she could not be lowered by her armpits because of the shoulder wound, nor could she jump lest she land badly and cause the bleeding to start again.
She arranged herself along the board in a fashion reminiscent of an effigy upon a tomb, and reminded herself that she could trust her men.
With Ian handling it from inside, and hands reaching for it on the outside, Alice gripped the board for all she was worth with her good hand, and slid out of the hospital window. She was lowered to the ground and in moments engulfed in the rustling, scented shrubbery.
“All right, Captain?” Jake asked, his eyes pinched with concern. “Did we hurt you?”
“I’m just fine,” she assured him and Benny. “Help me up, would you? Ian will meet us at the ship.”
He would pretend to take leave of her empty bed, then bid the matron good afternoon as he had done every day of her stay here. Meanwhile, Jake and Benny helped her through the garden to the wooden gate in the adobe wall at the rear, where a hired conveyance waited driven by one of Alaia’s sons.
He grinned at her, his dark eyes sparkling with enjoyment of one more prank. “Alaia will have my head,” she murmured to Jake as he climbed in next to her, with Benny on the opposite seat. “Involving her boys in my scrapes again.”
“He volunteered,” Benny informed her. “Besides, this mechanical contraption is a marvel—it would be wrong for you to miss it. See how it goes?”
It looked to her like a combination of a galloping horse and a pair of scissors, but its workings moved too fast to follow. And since they covered ground at a terrific rate, she could do nothing but close her eyes and concentrate on staying upright.
Half an hour later, they passed through the gates of the airfield and found Ian waiting for them at the base of Swan’s gangway.
He was not alone.
“Who on earth—” Alice leaned forward. “Great heavens, is that Perry Connelly?”
“If it is, I’ll have satisfaction from him,” Jake snapped. “I don’t take kindly to jumped-up boys keeping honest folks prisoner and enjoying it.”
“Get in line, Navigator,” she said wryly. “Help me down out of this machine, will you?”
They made their farewells to Alaia’s son, and bade him convey their thanks once again to his mother. As they approached Swan, she could see it was indeed Perry, struggling futilely in Ian’s grip. “For goodness sake, Ian, where did you find him?”
“In your galley, helping himself.” He shook Perry like a rat. “Explain yourself to the captain of this vessel, you wretched excuse for a man.”
“Alice—you know I didn’t mean any harm,” Perry gasped, for Ian’s grip on his shirt was forcing the collar up around his chin. “With Ned, you ain’t got a choice but to do what he says.”
“Are you referring to your imprisonment of me on my vessel?” she demanded, though it was difficult to sound stern when he looked so miserable. Tears stood in his eyes, but that could be from chagrin at being apprehended as much as from regret for his actions.
“I am. I’m heartily sorry for it, Alice.” Ian shook him violently. “Ma’am! Captain!”
“Captain Hollys, please release your prisoner, but remain on alert,” she said, gripping Benny’s shoulder rather more firmly in order to remain standing.
When Ian did so, Perry rubbed his throat and shook himself into order. “I stowed away, ma’am. Captain,” he said hastily, when Ian growled. “When I saw your boys load you on the ship there in Resolution, I followed fast as I could. They was undermanned and didn’t see me sneak into the hold when they lifted.”
“Why?”
He gazed at her blankly. “So’s I wouldn’t be shot—why else? I been with your ship all this time. Guarding it until you was well. I’m heartily glad to see you ain’t dead, Al—Captain.” He glanced at Ian. “This gentleman caught me off guard, is all.”
“This gentleman is my fiancé, Perry, and you’re lucky he didn’t put a hole in you a raven could fly through.”
Perry blanched, and bobbed his head at Ian. “Thank you, sir. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir.”
“You imprisoned my fiancée?” Ian said with dangerously enunciated syllables.
“Ned Mose told me to!” Perry’s voice cracked with desperation. “But I’m a changed man, I swear. I come with the aim to sign on with your crew, Captain. You won’t find a truer man than me, I promise.”
“As true as you were to Ned?” Time was when Perry had been her only friend—a few years younger, and with an unlikely innocence and faith in people—unlikely considering he was Lorraine’s son.
“More true,” Perry said. “I’m volunteering to sign on with you. With him, it’s obey or get shot. Ma told me I’d better obey because she didn’t go to all that trouble to bring me into the world just to have Ned Mose use me for target practice.”
He’d been brought up with the desert flowers same as she, and forced to work for Ned just as she had. Alice supposed she ought to give him a chance rather than turning him loose here in Santa Fe, where he’d probably fall in with bad company out of habit, and be irretrievably lost.
Lorraine had done right by her, back there in Resolution. Perhaps it was only fitting to return the favor—before she returned him to his mother.
Alice studied him a moment longer. “Did you look after my garden like I asked you to?”
His eyes widened eagerly, and for a moment she saw again the boy he had been. “I sure did, Alice. I swear the pumpkins the autumn after you left were the biggest Resolution ever saw. We had a grand Christmas, with pies and everything.”
Maybe there was hope for him yet. A man who kept the small promises was likely to keep the big ones, too. “Did Melvin come with you?”
A shadow passed over his face, and he dropped his gaze to the ground. “He got shot. Ned, too.”
Jake shifted as though a chill had run up his back, but Alice was conscious only of the relief that welled up inside her. “I can’t say I’m sorry. And your mother?”
“I don’t know. But if Ma can survive Ned Mose, she can survive anything. Plus every girl in that house is armed to the teeth. Ain’t nothing coming in there they don’t want there.”
“Then we’ll go and see.”
“What?” Jake said. “Back to Resolution?”
“Aye,” she told him. “Have you forgotten that Gloria and Evan are still there? If Ned’s dead, maybe they had half a chance of surviving. Get ready to cast off, Benny and Perry. We’re pulling up ropes as soon as Captain Hollys helps me aboard.”
* * *
ALICE HAD FLOWN into Resolution many a time, but she had never seen it like this. They had come in low, on a long approach, in order to spy things out before they moored. Wreckage strewed the wide flat where the spur had been blown up, and around the line of train cars lay the ravaged bodies of men, right where she had seen them last.
Days ago.
“No one’s buried them,” Perry said. He might pretend to be a man of hard experience, but in that murmur Alice heard shock and pity. She had done the right thing in hiring him on.
“This ain’t right,” Jake said, peering out the viewing port.
“I’ll say. Swan, slow engines for landing. Descent at five degrees.” After a moment, the Daimlers responded, and they floated closer.
“Not about the bodies, though that ent right, either. Captain, where is the locomotive? And the behemoth? They’re gone.”
“That’s impossible.”
It felt strange not to be at the helm, but she could not imagine her ship being in more competent hands than Ian’s. But no matter how she wiped the isinglass or strained her eyes, all she saw was the impossible, large as life. The two biggest machines she had ever seen had simply vanished.
Ever cautious, Alice directed Ian and Jake to moor on the same rocky hill where they had found such brief refuge on their previous visit. Then she fetched her second best flight jacket—she had not quite got over the loss of the first one during the battle—thrust her good arm into the sleeve, and bade Ian fasten the toggles over the sling.
“You are not going with us,” he said in disbelief. “Alice, your shoulder—”
“I’m not going to be walking on it, dearest,” she assured him, shrugging the jacket into a more comfortable position.
“But we do not know the situation here.” Reluctantly, he fastened the toggle that kept the fleece-lined flight hood closed at her throat.
“All the more reason to have as many people familiar with Resolution as possible in our party. I can shoot one-handed, don’t you worry. We have one job, don’t forget—to find Gloria and Evan as fast as possible. After that, maybe someone will tell us what in the Sam Hill happened to that locomotive.”
Jake checked his pistols again. “I’m not easy about this, Captain. I could maybe see the behemoth being packed away into whatever crate it came out of, but not the locomotive. It beggars reason.”
Alice didn’t tell him that reason had not been a feature of life in Resolution before this, so there was no use expecting it now.
She nodded at Ian and Perry to take the lead. She and Benny followed, and Jake brought up the rear to make sure they weren’t taken by surprise.
The dry creek bed they’d used as a road before was now running with water—which was only to be expected. She’d seen the clouds massing in the west and north, and could only hope that Gloria and Evan had had the sense to get into one of the buildings before the water hit. There was a reason all the lower floors in town were made of stone and for the most part left unused.
As they approached the town, she could see Ian taking note of landmarks and changes since his last visit five years before, when he too had been a prisoner of Ned Mose. “The floods have not been kind,” he murmured over his shoulder. “But should there not be some people about? Why have they not buried the bodies?”
Perry’s face had set in hard lines that Alice would wager concealed his fear. “Captain, permission to find my mother?”
“Granted,” Alice told him. “If Gloria and Evan are there, send one of the girls to tell us. I don’t like the look of this one bit. And watch out for animals. Those poor souls’ bodies will have brought them in from all over the mesa.”
Ian thumbed his lightning pistol into the charging position. It began to hum. Prudently, Alice did the same.
The doors to the saloon swung loosely, creaking in the wind, and when she pushed one open to look inside, no one stood at the bar or dealt a hand of cards at the table. All the bottles behind the bar and the mirror that had hung above it were smashed to bits. A shiver of cold air ran down the back of her neck.
They checked inside the first house they came to, but Alice could tell by the silence as she climbed the stairs that there was no one in residence on the second floor. An odd smell hung in the air, and it wasn’t from the three chickens who had taken up residence on the iron bedstead. The remains of two eggs lay in the middle of the mattress, smashed and eaten. The hens, it was clear, had had no one to feed them in some time.
“We’re going to Lorraine’s,” she told her companions. “I know the battle was bad, but even if all Ned’s men were killed, where are the Ambassador’s men?”
“They left on the train,” Benny said sensibly.
“Except the tra
in couldn’t leave, ye numpty,” Jake told him, ruffling his hair. “Our Alice blew up the spur.”
“You did?” Ian glanced at her. “Rather rash of you.”
“I hadn’t much choice, with Ned holding Evan hostage until I did. Oh, where is Evan? I hope he’s all right.”
They had nearly reached the Desert Rose, trailed by the hens, who apparently had decided to gamble on the prospect of food, when Perry staggered out of the door and sat rather abruptly on what was left of the raised sidewalk constructed of boards.
“What’s happened, man?” Jake demanded.
Perry looked up and met Alice’s gaze. “Don’t go in there. It ain’t a fit sight for a lady.”
“What is it? Is your mother—”
He shook his head, turned away, and vomited into the street.
Ian vaulted up onto the sidewalk and pushed into the house, Jake on his heels. “Benny, keep an eye out,” Alice ordered tersely, and followed them inside.
Not Lorraine. Granted, the woman was as hard as a stone, but she had been Alice’s mother’s friend, and had been kind to her as a child.
The smell was ten times worse here, and this time she recognized it. Blood, feces, and urine had created a noxious cloud that was nearly visible. The house seemed to have been pressed into use as a hospital, but every patient’s throat had been cut, seemingly as he slept, for the bedclothes were not disturbed. Near the door lay the bodies of two men in black uniforms, blood stiff and congealed from a fatal head wound and a gunshot to the back.
Upstairs they found the same, the rooms where the girls had plied their trade only tombs for dead men now.
“Is no one left alive in the entire town?” Ian wondered, his voice leached of sound. “Who could have done this?”
“Someone who hated a black uniform,” Jake said. “Captain, I’m worried for the desert flowers. And our friends.”
Fields of Air: A steampunk adventure novel (Magnificent Devices Book 10) Page 18
