The League of Seven

by Alan Gratz

  There were screams in the train car. A raygun blast. Footsteps. Fergus rubbed the underwear faster. He would be lucky to get one good jolt from the static. Maybe enough to stun someone and make a getaway—

  The Cherokee family backed into the space between their seats, their son tucked protectively behind them. The woman saw him with her underpants and blinked.

  “Ah-heh,” Fergus said, trying to laugh. He handed the bloomers to the woman. “They, ah, fell out of your bag.”

  The mother and father stared at him like he was some kind of pervert.

  “You there!” a voice said. “Come with us.”

  Fergus focused on what he wanted to do. A hand to the chest, then zap! and I make a run for it. He was all set when a Muskogee warrior with war paint on his face grabbed the family and dragged them out into the aisle.

  “What do you want with us?” the father asked.

  “Shut up, Cherokee!” The Muskogee cuffed the father with the butt of his oscillating rifle. The mother cried out, and her son buried his face in her side again.

  Another Muskogee appeared and spared Fergus a glance, then moved on. Fergus sat up, surprised. It wasn’t Edison’s men who had stopped the train. It was a Muskogee raiding party.

  The two Muskogee tribesmen moved up and down the aisles, pulling more Cherokee from their seats at raygunpoint. Were the Muskogee and Cherokee at war? No, they couldn’t be—there had been peace between the two tribes for a hundred years, ever since they had joined the Iroquois Confederacy and formed the United Nations.

  But these Muskogee certainly didn’t look like they were escorting the Cherokee to the dining car to buy them a sandwich. There were only two of them and more than half a dozen Cherokee, but the Muskogee had oscillators, and nobody seemed to want to challenge them.

  Fergus slumped in his seat, relieved. Edison’s people hadn’t found him, and the Muskogee didn’t care about a Yankee. He was safe. All he had to do was lie low until whatever this was blew over, then get on to the rendezvous point in Standing Peachtree. He closed his eyes and waited.

  Someone sobbed at the far end of the train car. There was another resounding crack from the butt of an oscillating rifle, and another scream.

  Fergus opened his eyes. The last time he had kept his head down and ignored trouble, Kano had been killed.

  You can’t close your eyes to the rest of the world, Fergus, Mrs. Henhawk had told him. You can’t ignore what’s right for anything.

  Fergus groaned. Being a coward was so much easier, but he had to do something. He stood and went down the aisle toward the Muskogee raiders, his good leg shaking.

  “Oy,” Fergus called to one of the Muskogee warriors. “Sorry, but you mind letting me through to the bathroom? My eyeballs are swimming.”

  The Muskogee turned, and Fergus put his hand to the man’s chest. Zap! The Muskogee jerked and fell to the floor, unconscious. His aether pistol dropped and skittered across the floor.

  “Whoa,” Fergus said. “Those were some serious underpants.”

  The Muskogee’s partner pushed through the Cherokee prisoners. He took one look at his friend and raised his oscillating rifle at Fergus.

  Zap! Fergus thought. Zap! Zap! Zap! But nothing happened. He was spent. He closed his eyes and waited for the shot to come, but it didn’t. The Cherokee father he’d been sitting with jumped the Muskogee from behind and rode him to the ground. Fergus dove for the loose oscillating rifle and aimed it at the fighting men.

  “That’s enough now,” Fergus said. “I said that’s enough!”

  Fergus fired the rifle at the roof to prove his point. Bwaaaaat. The other passengers cried out and ducked, but none of them tried to help. Jump in anytime, people, Fergus thought.

  The Muskogee man ignored Fergus and kept fighting. The train lurched, and Fergus felt the great wheels of the Iron Chief grip the tracks. They were moving again. The engineers had regained control and were trying to get them out of there. The next car down, the train’s private security men were restoring the peace, but the Muskogee raider in their car was still fighting like a bobcat.

  “It’s over,” Fergus told him, but the Muskogee wasn’t finished. He kneed the Cherokee man beneath the belt and rolled out from under him to come for Fergus.

  Fergus hobbled backward. “Stand down now,” he told the Muskogee. “Security’s on the way. Let’s be sensible about this then.…”

  The Muskogee didn’t appear to have much sense left. His eyes were empty, almost distant—a look Fergus had seen before in Edison. Fergus raised the oscillating rifle.

  “Listen to me,” Fergus told him. “You’ve got to snap out of whatever this is. Be sensible.”

  The Muskogee charged.

  Bwaaaat. Fergus shot him in the chest, and the Muskogee fell.

  Fergus slumped against one of the seats, the train wobbling as it picked up speed. He felt more tired than he had ever felt in his life: tired of standing, tired of fighting, tired of keeping his eyes open.

  He had killed a man. Shot him in cold blood.

  An arm went around him, helping him stand. It was the Cherokee father who’d sat next to him and fought alongside him.

  “My name is Degotoga,” he told Fergus, “and I would be honored to show you back to your seat.”

  “Name’s Fergus. And thanks. I’d be grateful for the hand.”

  * * *

  When the Iron Chief finally arrived in Standing Peachtree, the passengers were held behind to talk to the sheriff and his deputies. Fergus sat on a bench in the city’s Union Station away from the others, watching them being interviewed. More than a few of them pointed over in his direction before being released. At last he was joined by an officer, a dark-skinned First Nations man with a star on his black uniform and an ivory-handled aether pistol in a holster at his side. Fergus started to get up, but the man motioned for him to stay where he was.

  “Sit, sit,” the man said. “You look like a man who needs ten nights’ sleep. I’m Sheriff Sikwai. I understand you had a bit of an adventure getting here.”

  Fergus didn’t want to talk about it, but there was no way he could have avoided it. He was a Yankee in a kilt with black lines all over his skin. He didn’t exactly blend in in a city of Muskogee and Cherokee. He very carefully went back over the details of what had happened on the train, leaving out everything before he had sat down, wet and exhausted, next to the Cherokee family. All the sheriff was interested in was the Muskogee attack anyway, writing things in a notebook and nodding as Fergus told his story. Fergus left out the lektric shock too, substituting a punch to the Muskogee’s face. It was easier to explain, and it sounded more heroic anyway.

  “Pretty brave,” the sheriff told him. “Those Muskogee didn’t want anything with Yankees, or any of the other tribes on the train. You could have let them be. Not gotten involved.”

  “No,” Fergus told him. “I couldn’t.”

  The sheriff nodded. “I wish more people felt that way.”

  “What did those Muskogee want? Are the Cherokee and Muskogee at war? I haven’t heard anything about that.”

  “Not at war, no. But the tribes are restless.” The sheriff closed his notebook. “This town is half Cherokee, half Muskogee—Great Selu, I’m half Cherokee and half Muskogee—and after generations of peace, suddenly there’s trouble again. Arguments, fires, fights in the streets. And now this. I would blame it on the full moon, but that isn’t for a week yet.”

  “Are the Cherokee and Muskogee halves of you fighting?” Fergus asked.

  The sheriff laughed. “No. But maybe my wolves are.”

  “Your wolves?” Fergus said.

  “I have two of them inside me, just like everyone else. One good, one bad,” Sheriff Sikwai told him. “One is angry. Cruel. Heartless. The other is gentle, kind, and caring. Always the two wolves are fighting each other for control. And do you know which one will win?”

  “No.”

  “Whichever one we feed,” the sheriff said. “You have someo
ne coming to the station to meet you? Someplace to go? It’s almost curfew.”

  Curfew? The bad wolf must have been eating well in Standing Peachtree. “Yeah, um, maybe you could give me directions. I’m looking for Lady Jennifer’s Academy? No. Um, Lady Joanna, maybe?”

  “Lady Josephine’s Academy?” Sheriff Sikwai asked.

  “That’s the one,” Fergus told him.

  The sheriff looked surprised, but he gave him directions anyway.

  Fifteen minutes later, Fergus turned down a cobblestone street past a tavern with a stuffed buck’s head over the door. A Muskogee man lit the gas lamps that lined the avenue, and a steam-powered streetcar clanged past full of First Nations tribesmen and a couple of Yankees, all wearing black suits and bowler hats. A gaggle of Cherokee women hurried down the other side of the street wearing hoop skirts and matching bonnets and carrying parcels. Overhead, a sky liner droned toward the Piedmont Public Airship Park, reminding Fergus unhappily of the pneumatic post capsule that had deposited him, Hachi, and Archie underneath a similar airship in Mannahatta.

  Maybe he would see Hachi again, at least. A small sign just off the sidewalk, written in Cherokee, Muskogee, and Anglish, gave the name of the school where Hachi had said they could lie low. Fergus went through the school’s metal gate and up the tree-lined walk to its door. It didn’t look much like a training ground for warriors. It was built in a neoclassical style like some Yankee buildings—white marble and square-shaped, with tall Doric columns supporting a triangular roof. The only nods to the local Muskogee and Cherokee architecture were the small round buildings that dotted the grounds beyond it.

  Fergus limped up to the massive wooden front doors and knocked, happy to finally be someplace warm, safe, and friendly where he could rest. He looked around at the school grounds while he waited, spying a lacrosse field and archery targets. If this was the school Hachi had gone to, he wouldn’t have been surprised see a rifle range too.

  The deadbolts on the door unlatched behind him and he turned, smiling, to find an oscillating rifle pointed right in his face.

  22

  Hachi woke in one of the hammocks on the Hesperus. Or what was left of the Hesperus. Steam hissed from cracked and broken pipes, and the ceiling bent down to the floor, crushed like a giant had stepped on it. And the airship wasn’t rocking, which meant it was on the ground. Clearly the Hesperus had crashed, but she didn’t remember a moment of it.

  “Circus,” she said wearily. “Showtime.”

  Only three of her little clockwork friends came out this time. Zee was gone, given to little Della Henhawk in a moment of weakness. No—she couldn’t beat herself up for that one. Hachi knew what it was to lose a father and to need a friend. But Tusker … the little elephant had gone over the side with Archie. Fallen with him, or been lost on the winds.

  Now only three of her circus remained: Jo-Jo, Freckles, and Mr. Lion. But that was all right too. Soon she wouldn’t need their help ever again. But first things first.

  “I need a way out,” she told them.

  The three clockwork animals fluttered away, darting here and there around the odd angles of the crushed cabin. She closed her eyes while they were gone but tried not to go back to sleep. She had to stay awake. Stay focused. She repeated her mantra:

  Talisse Fixico, the potter.

  Chelokee Yoholo, father of Ficka.

  Hathlun Harjo, the surgeon.

  Odis Harjo, the poet.

  Iskote Te, the gray haired.

  Soon her little friends were back, chirping and chattering in their infant language.

  “All right,” Hachi said. “Looks like the only way out is through the conning tower hatch.” It was just beyond her on the bent ceiling, but to get there she’d have to slide through the tight space between the bent roof and the twisted floor. Hachi shifted in the netting, and her ankle flashed hot with pain. She sucked in a gasp, willing herself not to cry out.

  “Roar-roar-roar-roar,” Mr. Lion said.

  “I know, I know,” she said. But she had to get out of the airship. Mixed in with the steam she could smell smoke, and she heard the boiler popping and hissing. It was still building pressure.

  But that, she knew, wasn’t the worst of the danger.

  Hachi grunted her way along the floor until she could reach the wheel on the hatch. She tugged on it, her circus pulling with her, but it wouldn’t budge. It was bent beyond use. That just left the front window, which was on the other side of the bent ceiling. It would be a tight squeeze, but maybe she could wiggle her way through the twisted metal—

  CRUNK. The hatch suddenly lifted away, and Mr. Rivets’ brass face appeared in the crooked round hole.

  “Miss Hachi—I’m so very relieved to find you conscious and intact,” he told her. The machine man set the broken hatch aside and helped her out while her circus flew around the Tik Tok’s head, chittering at him.

  “Are you seriously injured, miss?”

  “A few cuts and bruises. Twisted ankle is the worst of it, I think. I’ll be all right. What about you?”

  “Dented, miss, but undaunted.” Mr. Rivets turned to show her a large depression in his backside.

  “Where’s Fergus?” she asked. “Is he still inside?”

  “No, miss. He was not on board when we crashed. I fear he gave his life saving us from Mr. Edison’s lektric weapon.”

  Hachi felt a pang of grief at the news, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it. Neither of them did.

  “We’ve got to get as far away from the airship as we can,” Hachi told the Tik Tok. “Circus, return!” She hopped-limped as fast as she could toward a nearby line of trees, and within moments Mr. Rivets was there with an arm under hers, helping her run.

  “There is no need for alacrity, miss. The firebox has been compromised and flames have spread to the cabin, but there is no immediate danger of the boiler exploding. Once you are a safe distance away, I will go back and retrieve anything I can in the way of weapons and supplies.”

  Hachi kept hopping away furiously. “No, Mr. Rivets, you don’t understand. We’ve got to—”

  BOOM. The Hesperus exploded behind them, knocking Hachi to the dirt. The big machine man fell with a thud next to her, and Hachi covered her head. Smoking fragments of the airship rained down on them, a chunk of the helm missing her by inches.

  When the last of the debris had fallen, Hachi looked back over her shoulder. Where the airship had been was a scarred, black crater.

  “By the Maker,” Mr. Rivets said. “The boiler shouldn’t have caused that much destruction.”

  “It didn’t,” Hachi told him. “There were ten sticks of dynamite in there. I had them on under my clothes when I came aboard that first day in the swamp.”

  Mr. Rivets’ surprise subroutine raised his eyebrow. “You stored ten sticks of dynamite on board the Hesperus, miss?”

  “They were for that thing in the swamp. I thought I was going to get to try and use them again, but not now.”

  Mr. Rivets helped her up. “And I’m afraid all the weapons Mr. Tesla gave us are gone too.”

  “What about your talent cards?”

  They found Mr. Rivets’ talent card chest in a nearby tree. The cards themselves lay like crumpled brass leaves among the real red and yellow leaves scattered on the ground.

  Mr. Rivets held up the only one undamaged enough to use. “My Chef talent card.”

  “Great. Very useful. What have you got in right now?”

  “My Airship Pilot card, miss.”

  “Well, we haven’t got one of those anymore,” Hachi said. “Chef it is then.” She disengaged the Airship Pilot card from Mr. Rivets’ slot and replaced it with the culinary card. “You can cook me up a soufflé when we stop to camp for the night.”

  Mr. Rivets looked around at where they had crashed. They stood at the edge of a dense wood filled with half-bare trees. A crow cawed at them, and something small scurried under the bed of leaves.

  “Or perhaps, given our surroundi
ngs, miss would settle for ‘Squirrel Surprise’?” Mr. Rivets said.

  Hachi smiled in spite of herself, then gasped as she tried to take a step and collapsed. Mr. Rivets hurried to help her back up.

  “Just before the Hesperus went down, miss, we were approximately twenty miles from Standing Peachtree, as the airship flies. Given your present condition, I think it would be better if you allowed me to carry you.”

  “I don’t like being carried.”

  “Master Archie never liked to take baths, miss, but that didn’t mean I allowed him to refuse.”

  Hachi wanted to argue, but she couldn’t. There was no way she could walk any real distance with her ankle like this, and it would heal faster if she stayed off it. They couldn’t do anything until they reached Standing Peachtree anyway, and it would take them a day of travel to get there—more if they stopped for the night. Reluctantly, she climbed into Mr. Rivets’ arms.

  “There we are, miss,” Mr. Rivets said, immediately setting off to the southwest. “I promise not to tell anyone you allowed yourself to be carried.”

  As though there was anyone to tell, Hachi thought. Archie was dead—there was no denying that. She and Fergus had watched him fall. Fergus had seen him hit the ground. And Fergus, he was probably dead now too, doing something stupidly heroic like absorbing too much lektricity from Edison’s cannon to buy Mr. Rivets time to pilot her to safety. Fergus had just started to grow on her too. Both of them had.

  That familiar pang of grief came back again, and she fought it. It’s what I deserve. I can’t have friends. I can’t have friends and still do what I have to do. She put a hand to the long scar on her throat without thinking. I should never have let them take me away from Florida. I should never have let them become my friends.

  Hachi slipped her bracelet off and thumbed through the beads one by one.

  Talisse Fixico, the potter.

  Chelokee Yoholo, father of Ficka.

  Hathlun Harjo, the surgeon.

  Once again, she had been the only one to survive. Why her? Why did fate hate her?