Ransacker

by Emmy Laybourne

“Now, I need to remove this gag, little miss. I want to give you a tonic to help you rest and heal. They made me put the gag on you, but I’m hoping to leave it off now. I know it’s not comfortable.”

  With cold, slim fingers, he untied the rope and removed the cloth.

  Slowly, through her nose, Sissel took a deep breath. As soon as he removed the cloth, she shouted, “Help!” Her voice came out shrill, raspy. “Help me!”

  Several men laughed at the campfire.

  “Shut it!” she heard someone rebuke them.

  Dr. Oakman frowned at her.

  “No!” he said, as if scolding a dog. “That’s very bad!”

  Peavy and O’Brien, the gray-eyed man from the carriage, came over.

  O’Brien took her jaw in his hand and turned her face gently to the left and right.

  “We weren’t properly introduced. I’m Jasper O’Brien, and I’m in charge now.” Sissel saw Peavy shift with irritation.

  “No one can hear you, Miss Hemstad. We’re miles and miles away from anyone. Don’t waste your energy. How do you feel?”

  He seemed smart and normal and responsible, and this troubled Sissel more than any of the rest of it.

  “Please,” she said. “Please, let me go.”

  “Does your head hurt overmuch?” he asked.

  “I’ve done nothing wrong,” she pleaded.

  The man continued as if he hadn’t heard, speaking to Dr. Oakman. “Does she have a concussion?”

  Peavy interrupted, “Clements hardly touched her. Like I said, she was using her powers on me—”

  “I’ve heard enough from you,” O’Brien said.

  “Mr. O’Brien, it was not an easy task, to get a girl out of a busy hotel in the daylight—”

  “I am not talking to you, Mr. Peavy. You can present your excuses for your incompetence to Mr. Pinkerton yourself when we get back to Chicago. Now you’ll excuse us, I wish to talk to the doctor about the health of this young girl!”

  O’Brien turned back toward Sissel. Peavy stood glowering at O’Brien’s back, then tramped back to the fire.

  “I don’t know this Baron Fjelstad,” Sissel said. “He has no right to have me held, you realize that, don’t you? This is a crime.”

  Mr. O’Brien nodded; there was an air of regret on his face, as if he didn’t like the job himself.

  “Make her sleep,” he said to the doctor.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Owen did Hanne the favor of not speaking for the first half-day of the journey. He understood her need to ride hard and fast.

  But when they drew to a stream, he told her they needed to let the horses drink, and forced her to eat one of the ham biscuits Witri had packed for them.

  “What did Tincher say?” she asked.

  “Very little,” Owen said. “He was disappointed, but if we can make it back quickly, he’ll allow us to rejoin the drive.”

  “Good,” Hanne said. “I’ll feel so stupid if we’ve left for nothing.”

  But she didn’t feel like it was nothing. Ever since Mandry had been shot, there had been a sense of something creeping up on her. Some slow, hidden danger, like a cancer spreading, deadly and persistent.

  “What did you feel? Back at the camp?” he said.

  “First she felt a terrible shock. She was afraid for her life. Then someone hit her,” Hanne said. “And now … now there’s a slippery feeling. It’s hard to describe. She feels like she’s floating.”

  “Is she in danger right now?”

  “No,” Hanne said, her shoulders slumping. “Not that I can feel.”

  Owen thought about that as he chewed on a mouthful of biscuit. Daisy sat at his feet, and he tossed her a chunk, which she caught neatly out of the air.

  “Then we need to slow down.” He saw Hanne’s position shift, saw her prepare to argue with him. “Just a little. If we ride our horses lame we’ll have to go on foot.”

  “I never should have left her!” Hanne burst out. “This is my fault!”

  “Whoa, now. There’s no saying what’s happened. Maybe she had a bad shock and fainted. Maybe what you felt was someone, I don’t know, slapping her back to her senses…”

  Hanne nodded, but that did not feel right at all.

  “And you know another thing to take into account—”

  “Can we ride now?” she interrupted.

  * * *

  ALL THE REST of the ride, and through the breaks Owen made them take when it got too dark to ride safely or when the horses needed rest, Hanne listened for her sister. There was nothing.

  Maybe Owen was correct. Maybe Sissel was safe.

  But when they finally got to Carter after two and a half days of hard riding, Hanne knew all was not as they’d left it.

  The town was glutted with strangers, for one thing. She recognized only a few of the faces she saw. Most were men, prospectors, by the look of it. She felt tension in the town itself, like it was humming.

  They rode up to the Royal, and Hanne slid off her horse, throwing the reins to Owen. She knew he would see to the horses. She couldn’t care less about the horses.

  She took the steps in two bounds and strode into the lobby. There stood the fussy Mr. Collier at the counter. His face lit up with surprise seeing her. She opened her mouth to speak, but it was Stieg she heard.

  “Sister!”

  She turned.

  Stieg was seated in a slim, ornate armchair. In a matching chair next to him sat Isaiah McKray. Knut was behind them, seated on the floor, leaning against the wall. His face pure misery. All their faces drawn and gray.

  They’d been waiting for her.

  “Where is she?” Hanne said.

  “Come this way,” McKray said. He gestured to a door behind the front desk.

  “Where is she?” Hanne crossed to Stieg and grabbed him by both arms.

  “Taken,” Stieg said, low enough that no one could hear. “And we can’t find where.”

  “Collier, have the kitchen make up coffee and sandwiches,” Mr. McKray said, then to Hanne,”Please, do come into my office where we can speak in private.”

  “What does he know?” Hanne asked Stieg of McKray.

  “He knows everything,” Stieg told her.

  Hanne scowled at them both. McKray looked determined and unflappable.

  “Sissel trusted him,” Stieg said. “And after the past few days, I do, too.”

  Hanne stalked into the office. She heard Owen come in and greet Stieg and Knut. They all entered the oak-paneled room behind her.

  “Does Collier know, too?” Hanne said to Stieg.

  “He knows only that Sissel has been kidnapped,” Stieg said.

  “But McKray knows everything else?” she said. She did not try to hide her anger.

  “He knows more than you do, Sister. Stop glowering at us all and listen. There is much I need to tell you!”

  Everyone sat down, but Hanne would not, could not.

  Stieg had sat down in an armchair near McKray’s desk. He looked comfortable in the office and Hanne realized her brother had spent a lot of time in there in the past few days.

  Stieg leaned over, resting his elbows on his knees.

  “Sissel has a Nytte,” he said. “Shortly after you left, it developed. And you should know that her health immediately improved. She’s much stronger now, Hanne, much—”

  “What is the Nytte?” Hanne asked. “Is she a Shipwright?” That seemed the only reasonable guess.

  “She’s a Ransacker.”

  Hanne put her hand out to steady herself against the wood paneled wall.

  “A Ransacker? But how can that be? Are you sure?”

  “She can find metal, Hanne, and pull it to her—”

  Hanne took this in, then burst out, “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you … send word? Or come for us?”

  Stieg held his hands up.

  “How were we to find you? And she wanted to surprise you, Hanne! She wanted to get strong and find gold and make up our fortunes—look
, it doesn’t matter why we didn’t tell you, she’s been taken.”

  “Who took her?”

  “As best we can tell, it was Mr. Peavy,” McKray said.

  “From the general store?” Owen asked.

  “That’s the one.”

  “James’s father?” Hanne said.

  Stieg scrubbed his hand over his face.

  “Several employees saw her leave the hotel with James and Peavy. James had been beaten badly. Peavy told onlookers he was taking him to the doctor, but they never arrived.”

  Hanne was clenching her teeth together, her hands in fists.

  “McKray has been helping us to search for her. We’ve kept it quiet. Obviously we didn’t want to involve the law.”

  “If I can weigh in, I think it’s time to call the sheriff,” McKray said.

  “We can’t,” Hanne said.

  She focused her gaze on Isaiah McKray. The sleeves to his shirt were rolled up, the collar rumpled. There were shadows under his eyes, a trace of beard on his jaw.

  To his credit, McKray didn’t flinch from her examination.

  “That’s what Stieg told me,” McKray continued. “And I know about the former warrant on Knut as well.”

  “Stieg!” Hanne said.

  “He found out on his own months ago. It turns out he can keep a secret,” Stieg said.

  “But the law doesn’t need to know about the Knit-tah thing you all have,” McKray interjected. “They don’t need to know how you came here, any of that. Sissel’s been kidnapped, and we know who did it. They’ll put out a reward on Peavy. They’ll hunt him down.”

  “No,” Hanne said. “If we are trusting you, then you will trust us. I can find her myself.”

  Stieg let out a breath. “That’s what I told him.”

  * * *

  WHEN SISSEL WOKE it was midday. She was terribly thirsty, and hungry, and hot under the blanket.

  The Pinkertons had set up a makeshift sun shelter above her. Two stout, sharpened sticks had been planted in the ground. A length of canvas was stretched between them, anchored to the ground behind her and stabilized by two thin ropes attached to heavy rocks in the front.

  There was another such tent fashioned nearby. Dr. Oakman and two other men sat underneath it, playing cards. She did not see Peavy or O’Brien.

  Sissel fought her thirst. The doctor might dose her with laudanum again if he knew she was awake. She needed to think and to plan.

  She lay still and opened her senses to the metals in the camp. She did not know what she would do with them, but she wanted to know what was at hand.

  First Sissel felt shiny, flimsy reverberations around her. It was tin, lots of it. Tin plates and utensils …

  Then she touched on shotguns held by the men near the campfire. The vibration of long lengths of steel were augmented with gunmetal, a monstrous alloy of bright, flashy copper with sickening lead and green-tasting zinc. The guns were like eels, slippery and vicious. They’d bite her if they could.

  Casting farther out, she found a large collection of guns, all stored together a distance up the mountain. She had to reach for them as if they were buried, through rock. They must have stored additional firearms in a cave.

  She drew her sense back. For a moment she had to close her eyes and rest. Dizziness and nausea threatened to overtake her.

  She was weak, she noted. She needed to eat.

  Sissel cast her sense out again. Could it be that she’d find some nearby farm? Maybe she could get someone’s attention somehow. Maybe send them a signal?

  Sissel imagined herself a beacon, sending out a signal all around, searching, searching for metals to speak to.

  She felt six more of those shotguns spaced evenly below the mountainside camp in a perfect half circle.

  Sissel let the Nytte drop. Tears flooded her eyes. She didn’t want to feel hopeless. She wanted to believe Hanne would find her and she would be rescued, but it was hard when faced with the certain knowledge of six shotguns pointed outward and herself in the center.

  When her hearing came back, she gave into her thirst.

  “Water,” she croaked. “Please.”

  Dr. Oakman came over straightaway.

  “My little one,” he said. The puckered white scar running across his left cheek made his smile seem a sinister sneer.

  He helped her to sit up.

  “Bring some fresh water,” he ordered the man in the tent. “And start the broth to warm.”

  One of the men playing cards got up quickly and moved to the supply wagon. He wore an apron and held a pipe clenched between his teeth—the cook, Sissel reasoned.

  “You must be famished,” the doctor said. “I have a special broth laid by. Pork and ginseng—reviving and strengthening. After such a sleep as you’ve had, you must take broth first or you’ll be sick. Then I’ll have the cook make you some toast and jam. If you keep that down, I’ll have him scramble you some eggs. How does that sound?”

  The doctor spoke to her with a forced and patronizing jollity, as if he were a nursemaid and she a pouty ten-year-old. Sissel could hardly bring herself to look at him.

  The cook brought over a tin cup of water. Dr. Oakman held it up to her mouth. Sissel hunched forward eagerly.

  She would have drained the cup, but he allowed her only a couple of mouthfuls.

  “Now we wait a moment, then you can have more.”

  Sissel sat, looking at her bound wrists, avoiding the doctor’s eyes and thinking of what to do. Could Hanne be in Carter by now? Rolf had once said that Berserkers could sense danger to their clan from leagues away. Certainly Hanne would have felt it when the brute Clements had struck her.

  In fact, she thought, Hanne might be close enough to feel it if Sissel was hurt again.

  The doctor didn’t seem to like Sissel’s silence. He tapped the binds at her wrists, pointing out that the ropes had been padded with strips of silk.

  “I didn’t want your wrists to become chafed,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice small and hoarse. “That was thoughtful.”

  “Some of these men are little more than butchers,” he said. “And I travel with them, patching them up. Such is my lot! It’s a rather nice change for me to have someone young and pretty to care for.” He brought the tin cup back up to her lips.

  She gulped as much water as he would let her have.

  “Easy, easy,” he chided.

  “Can you tell me where we are?” she asked. She added a shade of fear to her voice. “Are we very far into the wilderness?”

  “Oh gosh, I don’t know myself,” he said. “We’re in the hills. Came north a bit. The roads twist all around, don’t they? Me, I just came along with the wagon!” He smiled.

  “What day is it? Is it Saturday?”

  “Sunday!” he said, as if telling her the punch line to a joke. “You’ve had quite the sleep!”

  Now the cook came with the cup of broth. Steam issued from the cup, and he was using his apron to shield his hand from the hot handle.

  Sissel’s pulse quickened. Here was a chance.

  As the cook bent down to set the cup on a flat rock near Dr. Oakman’s hip, she reached for the Nytte.

  She gritted her teeth and batted the cup toward herself with the Nytte. The liquid splashed down onto her arms and shoulders. Some of it landed on the sleeve of her dress, but enough of the steaming-hot broth fell on her left arm and the back of her hand that she felt sharp, boiling pain.

  * * *

  HANNE WAS RUBBING Jigsaw down with a piece of gunny sack. As dignified a mount as he was, Jigsaw made ecstatic faces as she worked.

  McKray and Owen were arguing with the livery master about which horse from his stock might be strong enough to bear Knut’s considerable weight, when Hanne’s head jerked up. Sissel had been burned!

  Hanne grabbed Jigsaw’s mane and swung up onto the horse, kicked him into a gallop.

  “Wait!” Stieg called. But Hanne raced out of the stable, holding on to th
e horse’s mane.

  An old miner leading a mule and cart cussed at Hanne as she and her horse sprang out into the road.

  “We’ve got to follow her!” she heard Owen shouting.

  * * *

  SISSEL BREATHED THROUGH gritted teeth. The burns stung as Dr. Oakman applied ointment and bandages. Low, angry red blisters had welted up on the back of her hand where the broth had touched her.

  Dr. Oakman had cursed the cook to the devil and beyond. Oakman made a slit at the shoulder of Sissel’s tan dress so he could treat the blistering skin underneath. He did not untie her wrists though, despite her assurances that she would not try anything.

  Sissel scanned the woods outside the circle of the campsite for movement. She saw nothing.

  The ointment the doctor applied seemed to be helping. She didn’t want that. She needed the pain.

  The cook brought another cup of the broth, walking very slowly. This broth was cooled to lukewarm. Sissel sipped it greedily and planned and waited.

  The blisters throbbed, but she wondered if that steady kind of pain was the kind that would bring a Berserker on the run. She suspected not.

  * * *

  OWEN, STIEG, KNUT, and McKray caught up with Hanne about twenty minutes later. The trail had gone cold, and Hanne was off Jigsaw by then, pacing through the woods, looking for tracks. Daisy joined her, sniffing the ground, circling like she’d lost something in the brush.

  Owen had brought Jigsaw’s bridle and saddle. He didn’t say a word to Hanne, just saddled Jigsaw and gave him some oats.

  Hanne sat on the ground. She spat into the dirt and worked up a little paste of mud.

  Using it as paint, she drew runes on her face.

  Odin’s rune, the Othala, to ask for protection, guidance, success. The Fehu, Freya’s sign. Thor’s rune for aggression.

  She began to pray. Knut came and knelt behind her. He put one of his broad, beefy hands on her shoulder and began to echo her prayers in his deep voice.

  McKray watched them from beside his horse.

  Hanne cared not a whit what he thought.

  “She’s asking the Gods to help her,” Stieg said. “Praying for control.”