Tools of the Trade (The Suntosun Chronicles)

by G. L. Francis

  “I don’t like this,” Bruce muttered. He gingerly touched his head again. “That really hurt.”

  “You go look in the boiler and engine shop. I’ll look in the toyshop.” Sophie scanned the yard uneasily as her brother started toward the larger building. Turning to the housekeeper, she raised her voice. “Go with Bruce, Mrs. Carlton. Help him find Poppa.”

  “It’s a mess, ain’t it?” Mrs. Carlton yelled.

  Sophie nodded, then watched the housekeeper scurry after Bruce. Had Kazimir suspected they would have to split up to find Poppa Tom? Was it why he’d told her to bring Mrs. Carlton? To keep an eye on Bruce? Not a bad decision after all. The old woman had survived the Battle of Westport, and she certainly had enough voice to holler across the shop yard.

  Sophie started toward the smaller shop. Before she reached the front step, she heard the housekeeper call.

  Sophie hurried to the shipping bay. She coughed from the cool but stifling humidity as she entered the bay. A few feet inside, she spotted Bruce and Mrs. Carlton standing near Poppa Tom, on his knees before some kind of box or tank. The housekeeper frowned in puzzled disapproval. Bruce looked confused, but it was from helplessness rather from a rusalka’s influence. Sophie drew closer.

  Exhaustion lined Poppa Tom’s face. “No, no. Nnnn . . .not her. Not . . . nnnn. No.” He chanted a litany of denial punctuated with little groans. Despite the bay’s chill, sweat ran down his cheeks. Dripped off his chin and nose. His eyes had a feverish shine, but they flared with recognition when he glanced up at her. “ . . . nnnno . . . no . . . not Abby . . . no, nnnn . . .” He returned to his task, now pressing down the pump handle of the small tank.

  He’s fighting it. Sophie watched him fumble with a retaining bail, his hands shaking. He’s losing. Isn’t he? She stepped up to him and raised her hand.

  Laughter, faint and malicious, sounded all around her.

  I can’t! Poppa, I can’t hit you! Dismayed, she lowered her hand. “Mrs. Carlton,” she yelled.

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s hysterical.” Sophie thought she would start coughing again just from shouting. “Smack him. Hard as you can.” She moved aside for the housekeeper.

  Pursing her wrinkled, old lips, Mrs. Carlton drew back her arm. Her clenched fist connected in a roundhouse punch to his jaw and sat Poppa Tom back on his heels. “Like that, dear?” she bellowed at Sophie.

  Poppa Tom blinked uncertainly at the housekeeper. “Abby?” he croaked.

  Affronted, Mrs. Carlton looked as though she might hit him again. “Thomas Asher, you straighten up!”

  Sophie knelt beside her father. “Poppa, let’s get out of here.”

  Tears mingled with the sweat pouring down his face. He got to his feet, helped her up, then gently moved her aside. He bent and grasped the tank’s hose, sliding his hand to the attached pistol grip. He raised the long, flared nozzle and pulled the trigger.

  Fire shot from the nozzle. Poppa Tom played it from the center of the shipping bay to the damaged rear wall. The flame diverted once, twice, outlining vaguely female shapes in the dank air for an instant. It hiss-roared like a hungry beast, part snake and part cougar. Poppa Tom swept the nozzle toward the middle of the wall and left a scorched trail across a large shipping crate. The flame danced around a concrete pillar, then enveloped a third female form.

  Above the flamethrower’s roar, Sophie heard fading shrieks.

  The flame went out. Poppa Tom lowered the nozzle.

  “Never saw fire do that,” Mrs. Carlton yelled conversationally.

  Sophie peered around, nerves thrumming with caution. The air smelled cleaner, less dank. Warmth crept back into the shipping bay. Whether due to the flamethrower’s scouring work or the spring morning reclaiming its natural place, Sophie didn’t know. The rusalki hadn’t taken shape for her eyes this time, but she sensed they were indeed gone. But for how long?

  Bruce caught her gaze and grinned.

  She jerked her head in a single nod to him, then turned to Poppa Tom. “Let’s go home, Poppa.” She indicated the flamethrower. “We’ll bring this and whatever we need to make another one.”

  By the time they’d gathered tools and fittings from the boiler and engine shop and an assortment of small gauges from the toyshop, Poppa Tom seemed more composed. They rode home in silence.

  Bruce stopped the buggy at the front of the house, and Mrs. Carlton climbed out. “We’re done, ain’t we? I’ve gotta hang out laundry, then start bread for supper,” she blared.

  “Yes, Ginny,” Poppa Tom shouted. “Thanks for the help.”

  A small workshop was attached to the rear of the house via a breezeway from the kitchen. Sophie helped unload what they’d brought as Bruce carried the flamethrower prototype into the shop. Poppa Tom took the reins and drove the buggy to the stable at the back of the property.

  Inside the workshop, Kazimir was cutting sheet metal. He’d tacked Sophie’s blueprint to the board above the workbench.

  Sophie watched as Bruce took her drawing down and studied it.

  “This is a better size for carrying,” he commented thoughtfully. “Pop will like it. Especially the piggyback arrangement of the tanks.” He smiled at her and tacked the drawing back on the board. To Kazimir, he said, “Rusalkas—sorry, rusalki—showed up at the shop.”

  Kazimir set aside the metal shears and picked up the rectangle sheet he’d just cut. “I have no surprise to hear this. You and your father are targets.” He took the rectangle to the sheet metal brake. He positioned the metal, then reached for the lever to bend a crease.

  A boom shook the workshop.

  Sophie stared blankly at Bruce. “What was that?”

  Screams of horses pierced the air.

  “The pump! The stable!” Bruce dashed from the workshop.

  Sophie hurried after him. In her haste, she stumbled over the threshold but Kazimir’s hand caught her, steadied her. She ran toward the stable.

  A twisted heap of scrap metal was all that remained of the steam pump. Mrs. Carlton was on her knees beside Poppa Tom. The housekeeper appeared to be doing something to his leg. As Kazimir ran the other way, Sophie drew closer to her father, terribly afraid.

  Blood masked half of Poppa Tom’s face. The other half of his unconscious face was pallid, pasty-gray with shock. The housekeeper was rapidly twisting the rein of a bridle around Poppa Tom’s right knee. Sophie swayed in horror. The leg below her father’s knee was gone.

  “Get a doctor!” Mrs. Carlton yelled. “Hurry up!”

  Sophie glimpsed Bruce flash past on the roan gelding unhitched from the buggy but still wearing the harness. At the same time, Kazimir came running from the shop. He carried a portable benzoline stove containing Poppa Tom’s new brazing bits. He crashed down to his knees beside the housekeeper.

  “Please to pull fabric away,” Kazimir loudly told Mrs. Carlton. He took an untinned bit from the stove. The housekeeper rucked back Poppa Tom’s shredded trouser leg while keeping a grip on the leather strap.

  The stench of burning flesh filled the air. Sophie covered her mouth with her hand trying not to gag or scream. Kazimir exchanged the bit for a hotter one. The sizzling sound sickened her as much as the smell of the cauterizing. She clenched her teeth and fished in a pocket for a handkerchief. Kneeling by Poppa Tom’s head, she started carefully wiping the blood from his face.

  “Lots of men get hurt on a battlefield, dear,” Mrs. Carlton shouted conversationally at her. “His leg’ll mend.” The housekeeper frowned thoughtfully. “O’ course, folks’ll call him Peg-Leg Thomas.” She peered at Kazimir’s work and nodded approval. “If you hold the rein, young man, I’ll fetch some bandages and sulfur powder.”

  When she’d gone, Kazimir looked at Sophie. “We must hunt rusalki today, I think. They will try again.”

  Sophie moved to where Mrs. Carlton had been. Poppa Tom’s boot protruded from under a distorted sheet of metal a few feet away. She turned her gaze to the cauterized stump of her fathe
r’s leg.

  “I must ask. Is water from river here?”

  Sophie nodded but didn’t look at Kazimir. “The steam pump was for drawing water into the stable cistern. River water. I’m sure that’s what was in the boiler.”

  Kazimir eased the twisted rein around Poppa Tom’s knee. “We will build flamethrower you designed. We can use nozzle and grip of prototype your father made.”

  “Kazimir.” Her voice quaked. Sophie swallowed but her mouth felt too dry. “There’s plumbing like this all over the city.”

  “Da. I know.” He looked at Poppa Tom’s still face, then turned his head toward the stable. “Please to get saddle blankets, Sophie. We must keep him warm and raise leg until doctor arrives.”

  Sophie got up and hurried to the stable’s tack room. She rummaged briefly and selected three of the cleanest blankets. Returning, she spread one over him, then rolled the others and elevated her father’s amputated stump. “Kazimir, are the rusalki here because you’re here?”

  “Nyet.” Kazimir's eyes flicked toward her. “Already rusalki were here. You know of them because I am here. Do you understand?”

  Sophie nodded. She looked around and saw Mrs. Carlton returning.

  The housekeeper held her apron draped over her arm. As she set the impromptu sack on the ground, she gave Sophie a pleased nod. “Glad you covered him. I forgot to tell you.” To Kazimir, she shouted, “You’ve done this before, haven’t you, young man?” She knelt and began to clean the cauterized area with something from an amber bottle.

  “Men get hurt on battlefield, Mrs. Carlton,” he responded loudly. In a lowered voice, he said to Sophie, “Can Bruce learn river schedule?”

  “Yes,” Sophie said. In the distance, she heard the clanging bell of an ambulance.

  “I will make flamethrower. We will go to yacht club later when there is no boats on river.” His grim smile was brief. “Bruce and I, we will be like insect or little fish on hook to catch big fish.”

  “Bait?”

  “Da, bait.” Kazimir looked at Poppa Tom’s face again. “It is my wish that he could be with us. He would have been great aleksei.”

  Sophie’s eyes teared at the sincere admiration in Kazimir’s voice.

  “Do not fear for him, Sophie Asher.” Kazimir’s tone softened. “Spirit is strong in your father.”

  Chapter 6

  ~*~

  A late-afternoon train rumbled on the Missouri-Pacific tracks behind the Kansas City Yacht Club’s building. Sophie wiped coal dust from her hands, placed a lid on the coal bucket, and straightened. Bruce and Kazimir had moved the club’s 23-foot steam launch Fidelity along the padded rollers of its storage cradle onto the turntable trolley. They handled the launch with ease, careful of the propeller as they settled the boat in place.

  Bruce and Kazimir were attaching the crane’s straps to the Fidelity when Sophie rejoined them. As soon as they’d hoisted the boat clear of the trolley, she helped guide the launch over the opening to the river as the two men lowered it. While her brother secured the launch to the dock, Kazimir carried the coal can and covered buckets of distilled water down to the short dock below the building. Kazimir stepped into the boat, then went to the boiler’s firebox.

  Bruce approached her and held the new flamethrower up by the straps. “Ready to put this on? It’s pressurized.”

  Sophie turned her back to him and slid her arms into the shoulder straps. “Are you nervous?”

  “No.” Bruce paused as he handed her the belt straps. “Yes. I don’t like being rusalka bait. I wish Pop was here.”

  She cinched and knotted the straps as though she were saddling a horse. There hadn’t been time to trim them to size and attach buckles. “So do I.”

  He turned her around and planted a kiss on her forehead. “I checked all the river schedules I could think of. We’ve got two, two and a half hours before we get traffic.” He readjusted his cap over his bandage. “And I lit the beacon on the observation deck.”

  Sophie nodded. “Let’s get to the launch.”

  Kazimir had finished building fire to heat the boiler. In the Fidelity’s bow, he now set up the small theodolite from his toolbox. Bruce helped Sophie into the launch. She moved astern cautiously, trying to get the feel of the boat while wearing the unfamiliar extra weight on her back.

  As Bruce stepped down from the dock to the launch, Kazimir turned and handed him a stout line with a heavy, brass spring-clip attached to one end.

  “What’s this?”

  Kazimir pointed to the stern. The other end of the line was tied to the boat’s Siamese tow bitts. “Extra protection.” He tilted his head, directing her attention to the bow's railing beside him. “I also have one too.”

  Bruce laughed uneasily and clipped the line to his belt. “Now I really feel like bait on a fishin’ line.” He took his position at the brass wheel of the launch. He tapped the gauge on the boiler. “Coming up to temp. It won’t be long.”

  The lowering sun’s apricot hues moved on the Missouri’s surface. Sophie settled on the aft bench, keeping her gaze on the river as Bruce engaged the engine.

  The Fidelity eased away from the dock and left the shade of the building above. Sophie glanced back at the receding clubhouse and found the beacon’s steady light. Leaning, she peered around the engine and her brother’s bulk to see what Kazimir was doing.

  Kazimir put his eye to the theodolite. He flipped down a lens and turned the crank on its base, scanning from bank to bank. His hand moved from the crank to a knurled knob on the theodolite. “Steer to other side of river,” he said tersely. He pointed without removing his eye from the instrument. “Where water is yellow color by sandbar.”

  Bruce kept one hand on the wheel as he opened the door of the firebox and scooped in more coal.

  Sophie craned her neck, peering over her shoulder at the gauge Kazimir placed at the top of the flamethrower's air tank. The needle was at the top of the green Full division on the dial. She reached up and tugged the pistol grip and nozzle from the holster at the side of the tank.

  Despite the light breeze over the river, the air felt heavy, oppressive. The ripples in the water shortened over the sandbar, but a disturbance roiled in the current closer to the launch. Eddies churned as though tiny maelstroms were forming. The water bubbled, swirling, but rather than sinking into whirlpools, it rose in waterspouts. On the port side of the launch, one of the spouts coalesced into a shape Sophie recognized. Wet reddish-brown hair, large pale brown eyes without pupils, a rippling gown the color of the river—the rusalka she’d seen while on the train.

  Sophie, my darling daughter, how good of you to—

  Sophie raised the nozzle of the flamethrower and pulled the trigger. Fire burst from the flared end and enveloped the rusalka.

  Something was wrong and very close. Sophie stood, turning slowly to find what she sensed.

  Another rusalka rose from the water aft of the launch. The water-clad shape of Momma Abby lazily dragged one swirling foot in the river as it closed toward the boat. The oversized, hazel eyes lacked pupils but were exactly the shade Sophie remembered. It beamed an impossibly wide grin of welcome.

  It’s so wonderful to see you, Sophie Sugar.

  Liar! Sophie bit her lower lip hard, denying her mental scream a voice. Momma Abby never called her Sugar. Only Poppa Tom used that endearment. Another gout of flame danced over the water and evaporated the imposter.

  Blinking away tears, Sophie stared at the water. The launch no longer made a distinct wake as it strayed with the current. She turned and faced forward.

  Bruce was standing, his task of steering abandoned. He gazed at a rusalka nearly touching the starboard side of the launch. His eyes shone with the unblinking, feverish glaze of one captivated.

  Sophie tried to bring the nozzle to bear on the demon, but Bruce was in the way. To her horror, she watched her brother raise his arms toward the rusalka. “Bruce, no!” she shouted. “Kazimir!”

  Kazimir's head snapped up
, then he lunged aft toward Bruce. The launch rocked. Bruce backhanded the elf, slamming him against the engine. He faced the rusalka again and stepped toward the side.

  The Fidelity dipped more violently. Water splashed over the gunwales and sizzled on the firebox. Bellowing in Russian, Kazimir seized the line attached to Bruce’s belt and yanked. Bruce staggered but threw himself forward onto his knees.

  The boat rolled hard and pitched Sophie against the starboard seat. She lost her grip on the flamethrower’s nozzle as she clutched the gunwale to keep from going overboard. She scrabbled for the pistol-grip, found it, then swept the surface of the water with flame. The rusalka vanished in steam.

  She glanced at Bruce. He’d turned, now staring portside. His expression had a semi-vacant yearning like a veteran absinthe drinker, but his eyes were fixed and glass-bright. Beyond him, Kazimir, too, had turned to port. His face had gone white, sweat-sheened with shock, and his eyes wide with horror.

  The rusalka’s wet hair shimmered darkly, revealing, then concealing the tips of pointed ears. Tiny drops of water in the undulating curls sparkled as though ice crystals dusted its head. An effervescent gown of water rippled on its shapely body. Its green eyes were beseeching, but its mouth twisted in a mad grin. It spoke Russian in pleading tones and raised its arms in entreaty toward Kazimir. Bruce reached toward the thing that looked like a woman.

  “No! God, please—!” Sophie swung the flamethrower’s barrel to port, pulling the trigger before she’d cleared the line of the gunwale. Fire leapt from the nozzle and seared the back of Bruce’s hand. He screamed hoarsely and jerked back his arms.

  Sophie held the pistol grip steady. Fire engulfed the rusalka, outlining a writhing female shape. As the thing sublimed into dense steam, its laughter faded into a distant shriek of Kazimir’s name.

  Standing carefully with the flamethrower ready, Sophie studied the river. The afterglow of sunset was enough light to see the Missouri had returned to normal. No strangely bubbling eddies. No ripples turning into whirlpools, into waterspouts, into rusalki. The Fidelity had drifted into the river’s deeper channel where the water appeared darker. Orange and violet reflections danced on top of the current’s ripples. She holstered the flamethrower’s nozzle and went to her brother.