Native Wind

by A. M. Burns

  “I think that was just about right,” she replied, taking a sip of the sarsaparilla she’d gotten from the bartender right before Connelly arrived. “Now the deputy is going to remember a brash young woman who’s out looking for a new husband and her brother who’s looking for ranch work. When we’re seen hanging around the show tomorrow or trying to find the ranch later, no one’s going to think anything about it.”

  Trey looked at her, reassessing the hard woman he’d gotten to know. “Have you done this kind of thing before?”

  Sarah laughed. “In real life? No. But I’ve read a lot of penny dreadfuls.” She smoothed down the front of the long, heavy blue skirt she wore. “Isn’t this the exact kinda thing that Belle Starr would do?”

  Having never read a penny dreadful, all Trey could do was shrug. “I guess.”

  “Then we’re on the right track.”

  AS THE night grew long and the crowd dwindled, they managed to learn that a number of the townsfolk found both McNair and Dabinshire a little odd. Folks still talked about the Indian war ten years back and how the redskins had tried to stop McNair from raising the wall. It was odd to Trey to hear Rockwall McNair viewed as a hero. He’d grown up hearing about the war, knowing the earth mage was evil. And having felt the horrid mess the magical energies around the ranch were in, he tended to agree. But a majority of the folks of Cheyenne thought the man was their protector. Even if they did think he was a bit strange.

  “So you used to work out at Dabinshire’s ranch?” Sarah cooed to the drunken cowboy who sat next to her at the table they recently moved to.

  “Sure did. It was a sweet gig for a long time,” the man replied, unable to lift his eyes from her magically enhanced bosom to her face.

  “So what happened?” Sarah ran her fingers delicately across the man’s hand.

  “Well, first there was that business of the wall. You know the one.”

  “I’ve seen the wall.”

  “He changed when that happened. But it took a while for us all to see it. He started acting like one of those plantation guys back before the war. Treating us more like slaves than hired hands. Then, a couple of years back, his wife up and died. Most folks know that she hadn’t been right since their son died. Some of us out at the ranch think that as he changed toward us, he was changing toward her too. She probably just died of sadness. We wondered, though, if that first metal man McNair made… if maybe it didn’t jest scare the life out of her. You know it looked just like his dead brother, Seth?”

  Sarah’s hand flew to her mouth while Trey tried to wrap his mind around why anyone would create a brass clockwork to be the image of a dead relative. “That sounds just frightful,” she replied.

  “Yeah, that’s what we all thought too,” the cowboy continued. “We’d all known Seth, and he was a good guy. I guess we should all be thankful that none of the newer metal men are as detailed as that first one. These new ones look more like wooden soldiers than dead people.”

  Blocking out Sarah’s renewed cooing and the cowboy’s continued drooling, Trey wondered how much Copperpot really looked like McNair’s dead brother, Seth. From his brief look at McNair back at the sheriff’s office, he could see a slight resemblance, but Copperpot was taller and broader than McNair. Maybe he’d been an older brother and therefore viewed as bigger and stronger by the younger sibling. This revelation renewed his need to get Copperpot to Singing Crow and see if, together, the two of them might be able to break through the energies surrounding the construct’s magical heart and find the spirit inside that drove the thing. He would love to know how McNair actually created the metal men. If he knew that, he might be able to reverse the process and set the soul within Copperpot free.

  19

  GRAY TALON didn’t bother to hide the nervousness that permeated the small gray canine body he wore. All the people around made him jumpy, and from his limited exposure to lapdogs, most of them were skittish. Maybe it was due to their size and how easily they could be to step on. He focused on Sarah’s boots and stayed close to her. They hoped she would be able to work her charms on Dabinshire and get invited back to his ranch after the big demonstration. The cowboy she and Trey met the night before gave them the name of the foreman for Trey to talk to in an attempt to get a job at the ranch, but the man hadn’t sounded too hopeful on that happening. Gray Talon hadn’t bothered letting Sarah know how much of their evening he’d been able to hear as an owl, perched up on the saloon roof. Right now, all the humans clustered together threatened to overwhelm his senses. As undignified as it was, he really wished Sarah would pick him up and carry him so he didn’t have to worry about being stepped on. Then he would also be up out of the reek of horse and cow manure that covered everyone’s boots and shoes.

  Ahead of them several men and a young woman stood on a small wooden platform. The crowd was denser here, but they’d stopped moving, other than a little foot shuffling. Gray Talon pushed against Sarah’s leg. She looked down at him.

  “What is it, Gray?”

  He inclined his head toward the platform.

  “Okay, you just be a good pup and stay out of trouble.” She winked at him. Gray Talon wove his way among the legs and feet, careful not to bump anyone on his way. He wanted to get close enough to see and hear more than he could from down low. The people pressed right up to the edge of the platform. Luckily the platform was raised enough that, in his small dog shape, Gray Talon could easily crawl under it. That didn’t help his view of things, but he could hear everything that happened on the platform and see bits and pieces through the cracks between boards. An odd scent caught his attention. It didn’t smell like any person he’d ever known before. It reminded him of a Gila monster.

  “Where is McNair?” a gruff voice asked. It had a thick eastern accent.

  “He said he’d be here, with several of his metal men, and he’ll be here,” replied another man. This one sounded more like Southern aristocracy.

  “He better be, Dabinshire,” the first man, who was bald and heavyset, replied. “We didn’t come all this way not to see those things of his in action. Our time is valuable.”

  “Trust me, Mr. Walfred, you won’t be disappointed. Justin McNair, the legendary ‘Rockwall’ McNair, has spent years developing these metal men to be the perfect workers. They can do everything that a good slave could’ve done back in the day. But they never tire, so they can work day and night, as long as they have light. They’re stronger than any man alive and don’t require food or water, perfect for the extreme environments out here in the west.”

  “We’ll see, Dabinshire, we’ll see,” Walfred replied.

  The ground shook with what Gray Talon had come to know as the feeling of a metal man running, but it was more extreme than Copperpot’s strides. He turned and peered out the rear of the platform. Ten metal men jogged up the slope there. They’d be hidden from the audience view until they crested the rise alongside the end of the railroad track bed beside a stack of rails. Behind them, sitting on his horseless carriage, McNair came up, wearing a pair of leather goggles across his narrow face, with a long scarf trailing along behind him. The constructs lined up behind the platform. They made a nice neat line that reminded him of a cavalry maneuver he’d watched one time. Then, like now, he’d been shifted and hidden from view.

  McNair took off his goggles and laid them on the carriage seat. He proceeded to walk up the steps on the side of the platform. His boots clicked on every step.

  “It appears that I’m right on time, gentlemen,” McNair announced. His voice sounded calm and neutral, not at all like the shouting voice he’d used when speaking with the sheriff the last time Gray Talon had seen him. The man moved with arrogant confidence.

  “As always, Justin,” Dabinshire said before anyone else on the platform could say a word.

  “Good. Then shall we get on with our little demonstration?” McNair asked. Without waiting for a reply, he turned to the gathered crowd. “My good friends, people of Cheyenne, and visitors
who have come to see my creations in action. This morning my metal men will finish this stretch of rail from here to the west side of Cheyenne, a distance of two miles. As you have probably observed, not even the rail bed has been laid yet. Rest assured, my creations will do all of the work and have it completed by lunchtime.”

  People in the audience gasped.

  “So please, come as close as you dare and let us show you what they can do.” He turned away from the crowd to the men with Dabinshire. “Gentlemen, if you’ll watch closely, you’ll be amazed at what I’ve accomplished.” A bated silence hung over the gathered people. Gray Talon inched forward until his nose nearly stuck out from under the platform. “Construction crew!” McNair shouted. “Complete the rail line, join it to the existing tracks, and run it in a straight line from here to the west side of Cheyenne.”

  “But there’s a stream about half a mile down,” one of the men on the platform said.

  “I know,” McNair replied.

  The metal men began to move. Four of them pulled shovels from their shoulder blades, just as Copperpot had when they buried Sarah’s husband. These began working on the rail bed. Three of the others started carrying timbers from a stack near the rails and laying them on the newly completed bed. It took two of them to carry the iron rails and set them in perfect alignment on the timbers.

  Then the last one came along. A metal hopper stuck out above his right shoulder. His right hand bent backward at an angle that would’ve been awkward for a regular human. He placed his wrist down against the rail. A loud clang and a puff of smoke issued forth. When he moved his hand and the smoke cleared, a shiny, new spike held the rail in place. In a matter of minutes, the team of metal men had the first section of the track laid.

  “I have to say,” Walfred said, “I’m most impressed with this so far, but as was pointed out, there is a stream up ahead where you’re going to need a bridge.”

  “Just watch, good sirs, just watch,” McNair replied. “The need for a bridge will barely slow them down.”

  “So just how do you make these metal men?” Walfred asked.

  “They are a combination of technology and magic. Not really that hard to make if you know what you’re doing. I’m a very competent earth mage, so working with metals comes naturally to me. When I started seeing some of the clockwork creations that inventors in the east are coming up with, I knew I could use my talent to create things that would improve people’s lives. My metal men are the culmination of years of hard work and a lot of luck to make them work.” The constructs completed the second section of track as they spoke. “As you can see, the metal men are strong, hard-working individuals. Think of what they can do to improve lives, particularly since owning other humans is now illegal in the United States of America. We’ll no longer have the need for the immigrant labor force that brings as much crime and depravity as it does work to our lands. We won’t be constrained by the limitations of human endurance, or even daylight. If you have need for a nighttime work detail, they can be equipped with special lanterns that will allow them to see even in the darkest night or mine.”

  “So how much are you looking to get for each one of these fine contraptions?” Walfred asked as McNair paused for a breath.

  “We think that two thousand a piece would be a fair asking price,” Mister Dabinshire interjected. “The metal in them alone is worth half that. Discounting that, it will only take you a year per man to get a return on your investment. Not only that, but you won’t be dealing with the unions anymore. These metal men aren’t workers, they’re tools. You buy them. You own them. They won’t be requesting time off, not even for lunch breaks or rest periods.”

  “And what if one of them breaks down?” one of the other men asked.

  “That depends,” McNair replied.

  “On what?”

  “If it breaks due to a technical flaw that I failed to find before they were shipped out to you, then I’d, of course, replace it free of charge. If, however, it breaks due to something that you caused… oh, say you make it walk off a cliff or buy low-quality supplies, which injure it. Then the cost of repair is on you. I’ll be happy to make the repair, though.”

  “Fair enough.” The man sounded disappointed.

  “On the topic of supplies,” McNair said. “I am currently working on a low-cost, high-quality rail that we can discuss at a future date. But it should be available sometime early next year.”

  Several of the men guffawed. But Walfred replied, “Dabinshire, it actually sounds like you and McNair here are thinking about getting into the railroad business.”

  Dabinshire laughed. “Oh, rest assured that we aren’t planning anything along those lines. Your business is quite safe, Mister Walfred. We plan on helping out the railroads. There’s more money to be made doing that than actually running one of them on our own. You’ve done such an excellent job expanding the rails west and connecting the coasts with the rest of the country. Why upset what works when we can provide enhancements to make what you already have in place work better?”

  “That’s good to hear,” Walfred replied. “With the unions breathing down my back, I really don’t need anything else to worry about.”

  The metal men reached the small stream. The ones working on the rail bed returned their shovels to their shoulders and equipped themselves with a variety of hand tools. They set to work using the railroad ties, and before the first one reached them with the crossties, they already had the footing for the bridge set. Constructing the bridge caused only a slight slowdown in the crew’s overall efficiency. In less than fifteen minutes, they had the bridge built and were continuing their progress across the northern edge of Cheyenne.

  “Most impressive.” Walfred broke the silence that had engulfed the men on the platform as the metal men worked on the bridge. “On a larger expanse, I take it they would take longer to complete the project.”

  “That is correct,” McNair said. “But if you have enough workers correctly deployed, it wouldn’t take them very long to complete a bridge. Mr. Walfred, why don’t we step down and inspect the quality of the work. They’ll continue working without further instruction until they reach the west side of Cheyenne.”

  The railroad man followed McNair and Dabinshire down the steps and over to where the first set of rails was laid out perfectly next to the existing rail. Walfred ran his hands along the rails, then inspected the spikes holding the rails. From the look on his face, he was judging the straightness and alignment of the rails. A slender red-haired man came running up to him after inspecting the next section.

  “Mr. Walfred!” The man’s thick Irish accent carried easily over the murmurs from the crowd that now eased its way around the platform. “This work looks as good as any I’ve seen by regular workers. Better than some by union people.”

  “Very good,” Walfred said with a slight nod.

  A cheer went up from the gathered people.

  “Why don’t we check on the bridge?” McNair suggested.

  “Gray! Where’d you go, boy?” Sarah’s voice rang out as the crowd walked down toward the new bridge. Gray Talon stopped trying to move with the crowd and headed toward the woman’s voice. He spotted her boots as the last of the townsfolk moved from around her.

  “Oh, there you are.” She bent down to scoop him up. “I was getting worried you might get stepped on in this crowd. Why don’t we go over and talk to Mister Dabinshire? The man appears to still be standing on the stage up there with that young woman.”

  Gray Talon wished he could speak to her, mind to mind, like he did Trey when he was in animal form. But that was as much a part of the link they shared as lovers as his partner’s magic. He wondered how Dabinshire would take her advances during the demonstration. From what he’d been able to tell, the rancher was the business end of this proposal to the railroad men, and white men took their business very seriously.

  Sarah wove in and out of the people walking down the tracks away from the platform. Dabinshire stood
quietly on the platform, watching the people move away. A couple of the railroad men and the woman were still there, but most of the people had moved off, down with McNair to inspect the new bridge. Sarah stopped at the foot of the steps up to the platform.

  “Perhaps we should wait a moment,” she whispered. “I think the men are still talking shop up there.” Gray Talon whined in agreement but was thankful he could still hear what was being said. At least from this angle, he had a better look at the people. The woman drew his attention. More conservatively dressed than the men, she almost looked like a servant. Then she turned, and the sun caught a strand of her hair that had fallen free of the gray prairie bonnet she wore. It was dark blue. Gray Talon looked directly in her face; her eyes glittered golden in the sunlight. Here was the dragon’s daughter. Why is she acting more automated than the constructs?

  “This is most impressive, Mr. Dabinshire,” Walfred said. Apparently his bulk made it uncomfortable for him to walk the short distance, and he settled in a sturdy chair after regaining the platform.

  “That’s what I told McNair when he created the first one,” Dabinshire replied.

  “I had heard rumors that there were problems with his first one.” Walfred wiped sweat from his brow with a white handkerchief.

  “As with any new technology, there were bugs to work out of the system.” Dabinshire smiled. “But Justin assures me that all the problems have been resolved. His original model is no longer around the ranch. I recall something about it now working in the saloon in town, which shows their diversity. How long did it take, back during the glory days, to train a slave to do multiple tasks? Justin tells me that his metal men can be easily programmed to do any number of things, not just build railroads.”

  The man to Walfred’s right nodded. “That may be, but I heard the sheriff was looking for the original. Didn’t it kill a man a few weeks back?”