Slowly, she bobbed her head in the affirmative. “Yes — me, too. Tonight she said we had to learn to manage them now, before they become unmanageable.” The thought made her head hurt. Then her exhausted brain caught up to something else he’d said a moment before. “I’m sorry, did you just now say you’d seen hundreds of them?”
“That’s right. Mexicans, and other assorted folks they’d picked up along the way. They’d been migrating, if you could call it that. Maybe wandering is more like it, but they roamed from a spot southwest of Oneida all the way up to the Rockies.”
“Dead men?”
“Women, too.”
“Dear God,” she breathed. “If only we knew what was making them — what was causing them, I mean.”
His mustache bounced upward at the corners. He was smiling. “Ah, that’s where me and you might have some useful things to tell each other. Nobody believes what I tell ’em, same as nobody believes you when you say that the dead are walking. That’s why you didn’t report what happened to those men, isn’t it? You thought McCoy — or whoever was in charge until he got here — would’ve thrown you in the clink, figuring you had something to do with their deaths.”
“Of course that’s why,” she lied. She’d kept the information to herself because if she’d shared it, she would’ve had to explain what she was doing following the men. And that’s what would’ve gotten her thrown in jail. “They were swarmed, Ranger Korman. Absolutely overwhelmed. Two Texians, armed to the teeth, and there were too many of the things for it to matter. What’s doing this? You have to tell me!”
“I’d be happy to tell you. Goddamn, I’ve been telling the world, but the world isn’t listening. Zombis happen one of a couple of ways, all of it going back to a very strange gas that’s being toted down from the Pacific Northwest.”
Stunned full of questions, Josephine had no idea what to ask first. She stammered, “Gas? A gas? From where?”
“Gas, you heard me. Like hydrogen, only not like hydrogen at all. This gas comes out of the ground, and it has something to do with volcanoes — that’s all I know.”
“They have volcanoes in the Northwest?” she asked, mystified. “I had no idea.”
“At least a couple of ’em. Best I can figure, from talking to a whole bunch of folks between here and there, this gas is mostly collected in a little podunk backwater of a place — some port city in the Washington Territory called Seattle.”
Seattle? Where Cly was living?
She sat there openmouthed, struggling for words and not finding them.
The Ranger continued. “This gas is sometimes called blight, and it’s not hard to figure out why. By the sound of things, it basically killed that little city. The locals had to wall it off and abandon it.”
“I … I didn’t know.”
“Hardly anybody does. No one wants to talk about it, not anymore. Thirteen years ago, the city’s former residents petitioned the Union to see if they’d accept Washington as a state. They thought if they were part of a country, and not just a distant territory, maybe they’d see some tax money or some military help. As far as I can tell, they gave up a few years later. With the war going on, the Federals weren’t looking to take on any new responsibility — least of all, responsibility thousands of miles away.”
“So … what happened to the people who lived in the city? The ones who abandoned it?”
“Couldn’t tell you. Either they moved back East, or maybe they stayed out there. Might’ve gone to Tacoma, or Portland. Might’ve gone up north to Canada.”
“All of this…,” she began, trying to arrange her thoughts into words. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but I will say that it sounds far-fetched.”
“Dead men walking around a riverbank sounds far-fetched, too.”
“I’ll be the first to admit it, and both of us know it’s true. But this gas … why would anyone store it, or transport it? And what would anyone do with it?”
His smile swelled. “You’re asking the right questions. The gas is processed through some method or other. Distilled, or something like that. Then it’s dried down to a yellow residue, which can be cooked up and smoked, or snorted, or even swallowed.”
“But why on earth would anyone—?”
“Miss Early, have you ever heard of a substance called sap?”
“Like … like tree sap?”
“No, ma’am, like yellow sap. That’s the most common term I’ve heard for it, though I’ve also seen it called cracker piss, sick sand, and a few other things. It’s a drug, something like opium but a whole lot stronger and a whole lot cheaper. Soldiers are taking to it left and right, looking to escape the war, as you do. As anyone does.”
“And it’s made from a poisonous gas?”
“Deadly poisonous. So deadly, it kills you without stopping you. I’d heard tell that this sap has been finding a place among sailors, and with the young Texians, too — the ones sent far from home, especially. The lonely men, or bored men. Men without the sense to know any better, or men who’ve lost so much already that they don’t care.”
“It starts with a gas.”
“Yes. The gas itself turns people into zombis faster, more directly. Breathing it will kill you deader than a stone before you know what’s happened. But the drug does it slow. It takes time — time to build up in a man’s body, time to work into his blood. And gradually: not all at once, but in time…”
“In time, the men who use the sap become zombis?”
“Men who’ve used too much of it, for too long.”
“But you said a group of Mexicans in Texas … they weren’t all using the sap, were they?”
He shook his head. “No, no. A dirigible from Seattle was carrying a big load of gas, and it crashed out in the desert — right on top of them. It’s a long story,” he added fast, as if he wished to cut off commentary. “But that’s what happened to them, and it could happen here, too. Out at the airyard, or at the pirate docks — anyplace where dirigibles come and go, moving the gas around. Any leak or failure of their equipment could unleash it.”
The shivers on Josephine’s neck went down to her knees, which were beginning to tremble against her will. “How much gas are we talking about, Ranger? How much will a dirigible hold? How many people could one load of gas—?”
He held up his hands, and thereby his hat, which dangled from his left one. “How much gas depends on how big the dirigible is, and what kind of equipment’s on board. The one that turned some seven hundred Mexicans and their kin was pretty big. One of the biggest, I’d say.”
“Seven hundred!” she exclaimed. “And out in the desert? Here in the city, we have that many people on a given block at the right time of day or night. More than that down at the market on a Saturday, to be sure! And the market isn’t terribly far from the—”
“Ma’am, let’s not panic yet. I don’t know all the factors that make up a tragedy with this sap; I’m still learning, myself. All I’m suggesting is that maybe it’s one reason you’re getting such a population of the things here, collecting at the riverbank. It’s possible someone wrecked a craft and it’s leaking, or it happened once before. Or maybe with all the servicemen, and sailors, and pirates, and airmen … maybe you’ve got a whole lot of men here who are looking to escape their problems. Now I’m asking you, Miss Early, can you tell me anything at all that might help me out, given what I’ve just told you? I’m aware that I’m in a house of … that I’m in a ladies’ boarding house, and it sees a great number of visitors from the kinds of men I’m talking about. So I’m asking you, and praying to God that you’ll cooperate with me even though I’m sure you’ve got no great love for the Republic … do you know of your clients abusing any substance that might fit this bill?”
She took a deep breath and said quietly, “Yes, I do know. They don’t call it sap here — they call it devil dust—but that’s what you’re looking for, Ranger Korman. You’re looking for the men who make and sell devil dust.”
/> He snapped the fingers of his free hand and said, “I knew it! And I don’t suppose you could point me toward anyone involved in the manufacture or distribution of this devil dust, could you? Obviously I’d never mention it was you who sent me.”
“I can’t,” she admitted. “None of my ladies are allowed to touch it, or anything like it. This isn’t that kind of place, and these aren’t those kinds of women, no matter what you might think.”
“I never said—”
“I know what you did and didn’t say. But I can’t help you find it, unless…” She rose from her seat, pushing it aside. “I know someone who might have an idea.”
“A customer or two?”
“He’s more like a resident, these days,” she muttered. “A Texian. I wouldn’t accuse him of using the dust, but if anyone could point you toward it, it’d be Mr. Calais. Let me see if he’s indisposed.”
Horatio Korman rose from his seat and waited for her to lead the way again. “He lives here?”
“He might as well. Wait here. I’ll knock, and bring him up.”
Down on the second floor, she stood outside Delphine’s room and rapped in her most businesslike fashion. Momentarily it was opened by the girl in question, mostly dressed.
Behind her, Fenn Calais was seated in a pair of pants and nothing else. He looked up from a chessboard. “Miss Early?”
“Mr. Calais, you’re up. Excellent. And I’m glad I’m not interrupting anything.”
“Only the whipping this girl is giving me.” He scooted off the bed, which he was using as a seat, with the board on an end table. “You never do give room and board to the dumb ones, do you, Miss Early?”
“Not if I can help it. Could I possibly have a word with you? In my office? Momentarily?”
“Should I dress?”
“It’s up to you. There’s a Ranger present, if that makes a difference.”
He nodded solemnly. “It does.” Rather than reaching for his shoes or shirt, he grabbed his hat, jammed it onto his head, and said, “Let’s go.”
Eleven
Captain Cly and his crew members had spent as long as possible getting further acquainted with the intricacies, quirks, and foibles of the strange machine. By the onset of nightfall, they knew it well enough to usher it around even in the dark — not speedily, not perfectly, but effectively.
Could they shuttle it around the lake? Absolutely.
Would they be able to navigate the river in it? Debatable. But no longer negotiable.
Word had come from the Valiant, by taps and spies and eventually Norman Somers, that the ship wouldn’t wait much longer. Texas was homing in, hovering and sweeping, gathering enough forces to chase the airship carrier farther out into the Gulf. It wouldn’t be safe for the Union to hang around any closer, any longer.
They had forty-eight hours to bring Ganymede out to the Gulf to dock with Valiant. After that, the window would close and the opportunity would be lost … perhaps indefinitely.
As the sun set on that afternoon, the shadows all stretched out until they lost their shape, and the lake was dropped into the golden-edged dimness of twilight.
And then, these tense, frightened, brilliant men set their plan irrevocably into motion.
It was a precision operation, planned to the very smallest detail and — as Cly learned from Chester Fishwick — it had been dry-rehearsed at quiet, sneaky length. Not with the actual Ganymede in tow, of course. That would be too risky. They’d get only one shot at moving the enormous contraption from Lake Pontchartrain to the Mississippi River, and it had to count.
Eleven men worked as a unit, setting up an enormous cagelike contraption — a custom-made crane bracing a winch with the power to do what a thousand men would be hard-pressed to accomplish.
Lights flared to life throughout the bayou, dimmed by shades and covered with blue or red glass. They burned in lanterns, on poles, marking the pier’s edges as the hoist began to crank. The craft began to rise.
On the lake’s banks, just at the spot where it could be described as land instead of muddy water, a set of braced reinforcements had been sunk into the soggy earth to shore it up against the Ganymede’s unseemly weight. Backed up to these reinforcements, the two rolling-crawlers were hitched to the largest wheeled platform Cly had ever seen. The pilfered Texian machines were set up like a pair of draft horses, ready to pull.
Houjin whispered the captain’s own concerns. “Will those machines be able to tow it? And will they fit through the road leading out of the bayou?”
Before Cly could tell him that he didn’t know, Anderson Worth replied, “Those things can pull it, no problem. But they can’t cut through the bayou, not the same way you folks came inside it. There’s a secondary road — one we’ve been building up for the last few months. We’ve cut it as wide as we can, given it all the beams, braces, and support possible, and we’ve covered it up with the nettings, like the ones we use in the camp.”
“An entire road?” Houjin gaped.
Worth patted him on the shoulder. “Not a very long one. Less than a mile of it, even. It only has to reach from the swamp to the streets outside Metairie. From Metairie, we’ll have to haul tail to make it to New Sarpy without anyone seeing us.”
“How do you plan to do that?” Troost asked, watching as the winch worked hard against the dead, dangling bulk of the Ganymede’s hull. It was halfway out of the water, and still rising — and the pier was sagging where one leg of the enormous hoist contraption was braced. One of the other legs was pushing a clump of railroad ties deeper into the mud with every clicking rotation.
Mr. Worth smiled without any mirth. “We’ve got lots of friends between here and New Sarpy, and we’ll have to rely on them to look the other way while we’re working. There’s a warehouse on Clement Street where we’ve made room to dry-dock Ganymede over the next day. And then, tomorrow night, we throw her into the river and you boys will take her out to sea.”
“Easy as that,” Troost observed, but whether or not he was being funny, it was hard to say.
Cly said, “Simple as that, anyway. I think we’ll be all right. She handles like a big, drunk salmon — but she does handle, and that’s something. With your boats topside, guiding us with the poles … it should be fine. We’ll be counting on you, though,” he said, bobbing his head at Wallace Mumler and Honeyfolk Rathburn, who had done most of the poling so far. “I don’t like moving blind. You’ll have to keep us out of trouble.”
“And we will,” vowed Mumler, who’d come to stand beside them as the big ship rose.
There were only so many positions where a man could observe and still stay out of the way. The winching contraption was a marvel of pulleys, foldable spiderlike legs, and a diesel engine determinedly chugging against the series of cranks that hauled Ganymede not merely to the surface, but up out of the water entirely.
The craft was watertight, and there was no longer any immediate risk of drowning within it — not so far as Cly could tell during his earlier inspections. If there were structural problems left undiscovered, well, they’d have to deal with that when the moment came. Two escape hatches were built into the thing, after all. He tried not to worry about the fact that Houjin could not swim.
After a full twenty minutes of too-loud jangle from the slowly spinning winch, Ganymede rose fully from the swamp. It emerged covered in mud, roots, plants, and primordial slime, dripping like something newly born, yet somehow ancient. Its hull shimmered in the red lights, giving the whole craft an unearthly appearance, as if it’d landed from some other planet — or been fired out of a volcano, and now hung suspended, dripping with cooling lava.
From the structurally buttressed bank, Rucker Little used the whole of his body to draw down a lever. The timbre of the ratcheting changed as a new set of gears engaged, and with a slowness that was painful to watch, Ganymede swung in a semicircle toward the wheeled flatbeds that awaited her.
The crane groaned and the gears strained, their teeth clacking in
agonized chomps; the legs of the makeshift device quivered and sank into the still-unstable turf, shuddering with every bite. But the structure held, and when Rucker leaned on another lever, the craft dropped, an inch or two at a time. It settled with a creak and a bong, with the scrape of a dozen seams and a hundred rivets grinding against the waiting pair of mated flatbeds.
The wheels compressed and the crawlers sank on their axles, but nothing broke.
Not a single cheer went up. There’d been too much noise already.
One by one, the lights were snuffed until only the bare minimum remained. Norman Somers removed the dimming lens from his own light, mounted on the front of the rambling vehicle he drove that night. It was smaller than the machine he’d used to bring Cly and his crew into the bayou, but still so large, it could hold Norman in the driver’s seat and Ruthie Doniker beside him.
It was their job to lead the way out.
The rolling-crawlers revved to life, and plumes of billowing diesel smoke choked the low, dark places between the bayou canopy and the soupy ground. Wallace Mumler drove one, with Captain Cly and Fang inside it. Honeyfolk Rathburn drove the other, with Kirby Troost and Houjin as passengers. The machines were joined together by a pair of bars on floating hinges. These bars kept the vehicles from separating and causing the flatbeds to split, which would drop Ganymede into the middle of the swamp, or the middle of the road. The coordination made driving difficult, a constant fight for navigational control, but like everything else about the operation, this had been practiced. Wallace and Honeyfolk knew what they were doing.
Cly clenched his jaw. It was excruciating, all this tedious caution, but he knew as well as anyone how necessary it all was. The bayou boys had a million and one things to worry about, and this kind of care was the only surefire way to remove as many of those variables as possible. It was wise. It was important. And it was driving Cly insane, because it gave him time to think of all the horrible things that could go wrong.
They could hit a bump and open a crack in Ganymede’s hull. A fuel line could be jostled out of place. The exhaust system could be unsettled, dumping bad air and fumes into the cabin when it came time to navigate the river, poisoning everyone where they stood.
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