by Cat Rambo
She and Timothy had identical expressions on their faces, puzzled and irritated and as though their fingers were itching to get at the root of the problem. The expression was more appealing on Mandy; the faint freckles on her nose and cheeks formed a perplexed constellation under her fine, gingery brows. Her father’s hair had once been the same color, but gray was overtaking it, or more accurately had won that race a good decade ago.
“Still having trouble with that loobey-stuff?” Chaz asked, dismounting with a genial nod to the pair. Dr. Brown nodded back before returning to his contemplation of the mechanicals.
“Lubricant,” Mandy said, not sparing him a smile. Her eyes studied the mechanical as though telepathically dissecting it. “Lessen you got something genuinely useful to say, Charles McCartney, you might as well get back up on Comet there.”
Chaz scratched between his horse’s ears, one of which flicked forward at mention of his name, before continuing to tether the reins to the porch rail. “Well now,” he said, drawing the words out carelessly. “I reckon I would if I’d come to see either of you, but truth is, I’m here to talk to Miz Brown.”
“Mother’s in back, boiling,” Mandy said. For the first time she looked at him, a little irritated and a little impatient and a little something else. His face, regarding her, was steady and placid. Her eyes were the first to drop. At that motion, he stirred. “Then I’ll go find her. G’morning to you both.”
He wanted to look back as he went around the side of the house, but he knew it’d be a tactical mistake. He’d been trying to get Mandy to warm up to him for years now, and she remained fixed on her work. His only consolation was that she dismissed her other suitors just as easily. He didn’t mind that she’d taken up a profession or even to following Lady Suffrage. He didn’t want a doormat of a woman. But she’d taken the words of that Susan B. Anthony to heart, swearing not to marry, to devote herself to science.
The thought soured his expression, and when he swung into sight, he was scowling.
Ma Brown was a burly woman, with farm-raised muscles, honed from chopping wood, birthing calves, and above all else, stirring one the kettles, famous through the countryside, that stood to her waist. In the depths of the one she was standing beside now, murky red fluid bubbled and popped.
“Mind you don’t stand in the steam!” she snapped as Chaz ambled up. He sidestepped the steam hastily, expression easing as he peered into the kettle.
“What is that? You coming up with a new kind of barbecue?”
“Hot sauce. My cousin in the Territories sent seeds last year she got off a trader there, calls ‘em phantom chilis. Hottest thing you ever tasted.”
“Why do they call them phantom chilis?”
“Eat one and that’s what you’ll be.” She smirked to herself. “Anyway, why are you back here talking to an old lady and not the one you’re sweet one?”
“They’re too busy figuring out their dilemma to be talking to the likes of me,” Chaz said with a sudden grin.
“I already told ‘em how to fix it, but they won’t listen to me.” Ma snorted. “Tim ain’t never paid attention, but Mandy used to, at least.”
“I came to see you, actually. You got a special delivery letter, so I’m special delivering it.” He fished in the pockets of his coat, drawing out a thick vellum envelope.
She propped the long wooden spoon across an arc of the kettle in order to take the envelope, using the edge of a fingernail to slit it open. She squinted at it despite the sunshine blazing down over her shoulder.
“Want me to read it?” Chaz said. He was used to this exchange.
She handed it to him.
“Dear Ms. Brown, We regret to inform you of the death of your cousin Vaughn…”
She snatched the paper from him before he could read further. “Vaughn dead!” She crumpled it in her hand. “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
“Don’t you want to read further? You might have some sort of inheritance coming.”
“Ain’t nothing I’d inherit from that man that I’d want.”
Chaz had never seen her so angry. But before he could say anything, a shout from the front of the house caught his attention.
He turned around to answer that cry, but an upraised gun stopped him. Two men stood there with steam-pistols at the ready.
“What do you hellions want?” Ma exclaimed.
“Sssh, Ma,” Chaz said. His eyes were fixed on the nearest steam-pistol’s muzzle, a round hole deeper than oblivion. He could hear the gentle hissing of the guns, even over the crackle of first beside him. “These are Dr. Lightning’s gang, if I’m not mistaken. Can I ask you fellas what business you have here?”
“Nothing a yer concern,” the closest said. “But we’re not the killing type unless pressed to it, as you’ve no doubt heard. So, if’n you’ll lie down and let us undertake to tie you up, we’ll do our business and begone so you can start working yourselves free.”
“That’s my daughter shouting round to the front.” Ma squared her fists on her hips. “I ain’t lying down till you promise no harm to her.”
The bandits exchanged looks. “I’m afraid you’re not in a bartering position, ma’am,” the second said. “If you don’t lay down, I’ll shoot you in the foot, and if that don’t do the trick, in the head to follow.”
“Hold on now,” Chaz said. But Ma was already in motion.
The bandits didn’t expect the attack; that was what saved her. They weren’t used to resistance, let alone from a woman. Their expressions wavered before hardening to the trigger-pulling stage and in that moment Chaz followed Ma’s lead.
She plowed into one first, bowling him over and grappling for the gun. Her arms, covered with the brawn necessary to farm work, wrapped around him.
Chaz hit the second as his gun swung towards Ma, hugging him ferociously. This close, a steam-pistol could do a lot of damage, and he knew from the sound that both were well-primed. In a half hour, the chemical reaction powering them would be spent and they’d be useless until reloaded, but he didn’t have that sort of time. Blue sky and ground flashed by as they rolled. He heard the pop and hiss of a shot, but couldn’t see whether Ma or her opponent had been hit. He wasn’t much used to fighting, but grim determination made up for lack of experience.
They crashed into the other combatants, who reeled towards the kettle.
Hands locked around each others’ throats, Chaz and the bandit struggled. Breathing was hard now, and an agonizing stab as he tried to gasp for air told him he had at least one broken rib.
The other bandit screamed, yanking Chaz’ opponent’s attention sideways and Chaz let go in order to punch, a straight hard jab that snapped the man’s head backwards and closed his eyes.
Chaz pulled himself to his feet. Pain banded his throat, constricting it, and his heartbeat drummed so loud in his ears that he could hear nothing else. Now he could see why the first bandit had screamed. The man’s head had been shove d into the kettle and was submerged, a sticky red mass of barbecue roiling around his motionless shoulders. He was clearly dead, or else he would have reacted to the flames licking up his legs.
Ma crouched nearby, hands on her knees, watching him.
“Are you all right?” Chaz asked.
“For now.” She rose, dusting off her hands and eyed the supine bandit. “That fellow out for the count, or should we dump him in too?”
Ounce for ounce, a woman could out-savage the hardest man, Chaz thought, but all he said was, “Leave him there, I reckon. Let’s go check on the doc and Mandy.”
But all they saw on the front porch were the motionless mechanicals.
“Took em,” Ma said.
“But why?”
Ma’s eyebrows knit in query. “Something to do with Dr. Lightning.” She glanced down at the paper in her hand and started to speak, then reconsidered. She went on, “There’s something we don’t understand.”
She looked towards the back of the house. “But I bet I know who can tell us.�
�
They trussed the bandit in a sitting position, his back against a hitching post. The man’s head hung limp at first. Ma roused him with a bucket of water, which brought him sputtering back into consciousness.
Chaz knelt beside him. “I ain’t going to take up too much of your time,” the postman said in his most reasonable tone. He jerked his head towards the kettle. They’d pulled the dead man away from the pot and extinguished the flames licking at his pants and boots, but he still lay in an unsavory, motionless heap. “All I’m saying is you can talk to me, or I can step aside and let Ma be the one getting answers from you.”
Terror filled the man’s face as Ma smiled meaningfully at him. “What do you want to know?”
“Your friends took the doc and his daughter. Why?”
“Yellow fever took Lightning, couple weeks ago. He was the only one who knew how everything worked, so we figgered we’d take us a new mechanic. Townsfolk said the girl was just as good as him; thought we’d use one to persuade the other.”
Chaz’ jaw went tight, but all he said, his voice mild, was, “And where are y’all holed up, that they’d be taking her to.”
“The Pearlie slough,” the man said.
Chaz rose. “Fair enough,” he said. “I’m going to go get Comet and get him saddled up. Guess you can entertain him till I’m ready, Ma.”
He didn’t ask what she’d done when he returned, but he could see the bandit’s threat had been removed for good.
“What are we going to do?” Ma said.
Chaz tilted his hat back on his head, rubbing at his brow.
“There ain’t no room in this for you, Ma, as I see it. I’ve got to ride to Pearlie, fast enough to catch up with em before they get their ship fixed and float away.”
“You’re going to face down a pack of bandits by yourself?” she asked. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll need assistance.” She pointed at the mechanicals.
He tried to make his tone patient. “Those ain’t working. That’s what the of them were arguing about.”
“And I know that, son. As I was saying, I have some ideas on that.”
At first he thought her insane, but she backed her theory up with hexological reasoning. The Law of Similarity. The Law of Contagion. And the fiery heat of the phantom chilis. It all boiled down to BBQ.
She used a fine sieve lined with cheesecloth to strain the steaming liquid into a clear glass jug before using a long thin funnel to drip it into the appropriate receptacle on each mechanical, talking all the way as she did. “Told you they’d regret not listening some day,” she said. “They think if you don’t have a string of letters after your name, your opinion’s worth no more than a half-et ear of corn.”
Chaz thought privately that perhaps they hadn’t been too crazy if they’d rejected the notion of exposing their machines to a liquid composed primarily of vinegar and peppers.
Ma’s sparker snapped, igniting the last mechanical. Like the others, it shuddered into motion, emitting oily whiffs of smoke, a red gleam shining in the bulbous glass lenses serving it as eyes, giving each a strange, bug-eyed appearance. She set each one into motion with one of the big brass toggles on each side. They trundled after her in a nosy mob as she came back to Chaz.
“That’s a sight better,” Ma said. “I’ll get my hinny saddled up and we can be off.”
“Hold on,” said Chaz. “I don’t remember anything about you going with me.”
Ma eyed him. “You need me to operate the mechanicals.”
“Whyfore?”
“They’re voice controlled.”
Chaz harrumphed, but nodded, shifting in his saddle. He glanced up at the relentless sun. “Let’s go, then.”
He kept Comet to a swift trot, but the horse, sensing his impatience, kept outpacing the mechanicals and Ma, so he’d have to wheel and wait for them.
They made an unlikely army. A rain barrel shaped one boasted four scythe like arms, the one beside it swinging three hammers of various size. A fragile-looking, attenuated one sported clippers and shears. Struggling valiantly to keep up, one dragged a box on wheels behind it, its many arms hugged to its side with the effort.
The bandits hadn’t feared pursuit. They’d left a swathe of trampled bushes and cracked sapling, smelling of fresh new growth. As they left the road, Chaz slowed to a pace that allowed the mechanicals to keep up; Ma brought up the rear on her raw-boned, long-eared mount.
Chaz paused and held up a hand. The mechanicals clustered around him. Ma came up and he beckoned to her, leaning close in order to speak quietly. Comet eyed the hinny sideways; she returned the look with disinterest.
“We’re coming up on the slough,” he said, glancing down at the mud squelching around their mounts’ hooves. “Keep back, Ma. I don’t want to be worrying about you.” He undid the strap on his holster, glancing down at his pistol to check it.
Ma gave him a reluctant nod. He crept forward, slapping away mosquitoes, hearing the squashy footsteps of the mechanicals, making him wonder if there was any actual point to stealth.
As it turned out, there was too much commotion in the bandit camp for anyone to notice him or the mechanicals.
The zeppelin dominated the center of the circle of lopsided, dun tents, sagging, hovering half-inflated in the air, ropes tethering it to circular metal objects on the ground. Everything was mud – each tent was set up on a platform of wood whose neat accordion folding showed a scientific nicety.
The oddest thing about the scene was the line of purple light, its origin unapparent, that surrounded the tents. Like the zeppelin, it hovered, but where the vast balloon was some twenty feet above the glistening puddles, the line lay a scant inch from the ground and water. Above it, sporadic sparks indicated some presence in the air. As he neared, Chaz realized the sparks were insects encountering some invisible barrier.
Mandy was squared off with half a dozen bandits. Hands on her hips, she stood over a slumped form that Chaz recognized as Dr. Brown. Chaz counted over the opponents. An older Negro man with a pistol, two blonde young men near enough in looks to be twins, currently not brandishing the pistols that rode holstered at their hips, an older white, a middle-aged China man, and a scowly black-bearded fellow who looked to be the leader, or making a try at it, at least.
Everyone was shouting.
“I tell you again, I won’t cooperate until you bring him medical attention!” Mandy announced over a hubbub of “See here, Missy!,” “You’ll do as you’re told if you know what’s good for you!” and “Get that thing away from her!”
The last of those made Chaz note that Mandy brandished a small brass-plated device in her hand. She was as animated as Chaz had ever seen her, tendrils of strawberry-blonde hair escaping her usual tight bun to curl in the early spring sunlight.
“Stand down, boys, and let the lady have a little breathing room,” Chaz said, ambling forward and speaking with much more nonchalance than he actually felt. He hoped that the mechanicals behind him would impress the bandits. Farm machinery was capable of doing damage – Chaz wouldn’t have wanted to be hit by ol’ Shovel-arms by any account, but still there was a certain absurdity about them that diminished the overall menace.
Everyone whirled, Mandy included.
All the faces held the identical surprise.
Mandy was the first to recover.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said, holding herself poised as a parasol, “but your presence is unnecessary. These gentlemen and I are in the process of reaching an agreement.”
“What sort of agreement?” Chaz glanced around. “I hear your ol’ boss ain’t feeling so well.”
“Daid,” a blonde twin said. The other elbowed him in the ribs.
“Do ya need tah tell im alla our business?”
“How’d he come to die?” Chaz queried. Most of his attention was on Mandy, but he was tracking every gun clutched in a hand, as well as the small machine Mandy held, a knobby, button-covered thing of brass and scarlet glass.
/> “That’s aside the point,” Black-beard snapped.
Chaz held up his hands in a placatory gesture. “I’m just trying to ascertain all the facts, son.” He swatted at the back of his neck. “How about I come inside your circle, sit down, and we discuss how we can all part amiably?”
“Ain’t going to be no amiable parting,” the black man said. “You take the old fellah and we’ll be taking the leddy.”
“You don’t need to worry she’ll be subjected to no hankypanky,” Black-beard added, glaring at the other. “We just need someone with the knowhow, now that we don’t got the doc no more.”
“Mandy,” Chaz said. “Did you want to go with these gentlemen?”
The question was rhetorical. His fingers itched towards his gun. The denial would be his signal to move.
But she said, “Yes.”
He blinked. His fingers froze. “Beg pardon?”
“I want to go with them.” Her look was steady as a shot.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Ma snapped. She’d come up from behind as well. “You still got a passle of learning to do before you go off to become queen of the air pirates.”
Mandy’s chin titled upward. Stubbornness crept into her eyes. “I know plenty.”
“Not where it matters. Trust your mama, I still got a few tricks up my sleeve.” She jerked a thumb at the mechanicals.
Mandy blinked as though noticing them for the first time. “What are you using?”
“Never you mind!” Ma snapped, even as Chaz said, “Barbecue sauce.”
“Barbecue sauce?” Incredulity pitched Mandy’s voice even higher. “How…quaint.”
“Doing the trick, ennit?” Ma gestured the mechanicals closer.
Chaz was aware of a gentle hissing, a sound that tugged at his attention. It had been doing on for some time now, he thought. Movement tugged his attention upward. The zeppelin held considerably more gas than it had before, its sides rounder, the ropes tethering it straining now.
The China Man intercepted his gaze and snapped something.
Everyone exploded into action.
Mandy pressed a brass button. With a snap, the ropes holding the zeppelin retracted, slithering back into their metallic casings. At the gesture, her father’s head slumped down even further, then onto the ground fully as she released him. The mechanicals around Chaz clanked forward, but the bandits moved too swiftly. Black-beard grabbed Mandy about the waist, pulled her up the rope ladder with him, ascending even as his fellows swarmed after him.
