Cold Copper: The Age of Steam

  Just her luck, she’d get scraped right off the side.

  The top of the car didn’t seem much safer. But there might be a way down into the inside. She liked that idea. Liked it very much. And even if Hink hadn’t gotten around to finding a way in, she’d be more than happy to do so.

  Rose braced her left arm tight and uncoiled her right. She reached up for the rope and guided it one-handed over her head, then under her arm. She relocked her right arm over the rung, then positioned the rope under her left arm. The rope fit nicely around her ribs, and even though it was only a slight improvement in her situation, it lent a strong feeling of security.

  The rope tugged, and Rose reluctantly let go of one rung, reached up for the next, and convinced her feet to do the same. She did not look down. And she tried very hard not to think about just what, exactly, she was doing.

  Then she was over the top. Hink walked backward with the rope over his shoulder, then expertly tied a knot in it around the huge loop where the main cable attached between the freight car and the airship. He walked back over to her and bent, his hand extended.

  He wasn’t tied down to anything, not a safety line in place, and yet he strode around up there like he was stomping across a barn floor.

  His days as a glim pirate were paying off. He was as steady on his feet as any seagoing captain.

  Rose reached up for him, and with his help, was soon standing on the roof of the freight car, a rope still tight around her, and Captain Hink glaring down at her.

  “What in the blazes are you doing here?” he yelled.

  “Let’s get inside,” she yelled back.

  He looked up and around, obviously completely unconcerned that any hard gust of wind would send them toppling, or worse, that the weather would drop and the whole of the thing would be covered in ice.

  “This is not a game,” he yelled.

  Rose held up one finger to silence him. Then she pointed at her feet. “Inside.”

  His lips moved through an impressive array of cusswords, which Rose ignored. Then he took her by the arm and stomped along the top of the crate to a hatch.

  So there was a way inside. Good.

  Her heart leaped at the thought of having four strong walls safe around her.

  Hink kicked the hatch open with the toe of his boot and held her arm as she crouched at the edge of it. She held her breath and dropped down inside.

  A soft landing was out of the question with the entire car swaying in the wind. Her ankle shot with pain, and she barked her knees, but she was on the floor, the rocking floor, more whole than less.

  In a moment, Hink dropped down over the edge, a much shorter fall for him since the tall of him took up a good chunk of distance between the top of the car and the floor.

  “What in hell are you doing here?” he repeated almost before his boots hit the floor.

  “Where did you expect me to be? Back on that train while it was getting robbed?”

  “I told you that wasn’t a real robbery.”

  “There are two dead men back there who might think otherwise.”

  “Yes. Two men I shot,” Hink said. She pulled her shoulders back and stood up to him, craning her neck so she could stare into his stormy blue eye. “They were robbing the train, and you left me there. With them.”

  “They weren’t breathing much when I was done with them. You’d have been safer there.”

  “I saw you jump on this…on this blamed train car and then the ship yanked it off the track. I thought you were going to die.”

  He closed his mouth around whatever he’d been about to say.

  “Rose.” He said that much softer than before. “You know I have a dangerous job. You throwing yourself into danger after me doesn’t make it any easier. Or safer.”

  “I don’t care,” she said. “I know what I want, Lee. And it’s you.”

  She reached up on tiptoe and kissed him.

  He stood there for a second or two, caught by the surprise of her bold move. Then his arms wrapped around her possessively and for that world-erasing moment, she was once again right where she most wanted to be.

  “Ain’t that sweet?” a man’s voice said from the corner of the car.

  Hink broke the kiss and swung himself between Rose and the man, the whole of him wide enough to set Rose completely in the dark.

  “Get both your hands out where I can see them and drop your gun on the floor,” the man said. “Slow and easy.”

  Rose made to step out from behind Hink, but he had snuck his hand around his back. In it was a flare with a flint-and-steel starter.

  “We have no quarrels with you, friend,” Hink said, as he adjusted his hold on the flare up to his fingertips, offering it to Rose.

  Rose took it and stuck it up her sleeve.

  “I ain’t no friend of yours,” he growled. “Now show me your palms. Both of them. And, miss, I know you’re behind him. Won’t do you any good to hide. Step on out.”

  Rose couldn’t get to her gun at the bottom of her bag without an awful lot of maneuvering, but she unlatched the top of her satchel so if there was a chance, she’d be on it faster.

  “Don’t get her involved in this,” Hink said. “She tumbled out the window and caught on hold of this box by accident.”

  “That so?” the man said. “Don’t believe a word of it. I’ve seen just as many women in this war as there are men. Step out.”

  War?

  Rose stepped out from behind Hink, her hands clenched together, and tried to look frightened and helpless. The frightened part wasn’t all that hard to manage, but the helpless had never come very easily to her.

  “Please, don’t shoot,” she said.

  The man was in dark clothing from hat to boot, just like the robbers. Only he didn’t wear a kerchief over his mouth. Rose made a point to memorize the wide angles of his face, narrow-set eyes, and large nose.

  “We don’t mean you any trouble,” Hink said.

  The man jerked his gun. “Put that peashooter of yours on the floor, and kick it to me,” he said.

  Hink reached for the gun under his coat.

  “Slowly.”

  Hink reached slower for the gun under his coat.

  He pulled it out, holding it by one finger, then dropped it on the floor.

  “Good. Now kick it.”

  Hink put the sole of his boot on the gun. He didn’t say anything, but there was tenseness in him, like a coil wound too tight.

  Rose knew that was her signal. It was time to throw the flare.

  She slid her hand up her sleeve and struck the flare, then hurled it at the man. The crate filled with blinding orange light.

  Rose ducked and dug in her satchel for her gun, but Hink was already rushing the man, then was on him, fists slamming into his face and stomach.

  The man got off a shot or two, then both of them fell to the floor, just as the entire crate tipped alarmingly to the side, forcing everything not tied down to slide from one end of the car to the other.

  Rose slid too, but held tight to her gun as she thunked against the crates and coffins. The flare went out and darkness thumped down so thick it felt like a blanket fell over her eyes.

  The freight car leveled somewhat, and she stood with the help of the ropes tied around the freight.

  She couldn’t see anything. But she heard someone breathing heavily. Then a groan.

  “Rose?” It was Hink.

  “I’m all right,” she said. “The gunman?”

  “Out cold. Find a light, will you?”

  He groaned again, then moved off to her left, probably toward the man. Maybe to tie him up.

  Rose felt her way along to a wall, and then felt for the lantern that should be hanging there. Found it. It only took a moment to bring the wick to a cheery yellow fire.

  Hink sat back on his heels, looking down at the man, who was not moving. She didn’t think he was alive.

  “Is he dead?” Rose asked.

  “Hope to hell he is,” Hink
said. “Don’t feel like breaking my knuckles on his face again.”

  Hink stood, and lifted his hands out to the side for a second, gaining his balance. But the car was level and smooth at the moment.

  That’s when Rose noticed the blood on his shirt.

  “You’ve been hurt,” she said.

  “Not my blood,” he said.

  Rose got around in front of him and pulled his coat open. Steam from the heat of his blood wafted up from his shirt, which was soaked. “Yes, it is,” she said. “Sit down and let me try to stanch it.”

  “Stanch what? I said I’m not wounded. I feel fine. We need to knock out one of these boards so we can see where this crate is flying.”

  Rose pressed her fingers against his ribs and he hissed in a hard breath.

  “Good God, woman. Why you have to be jabbing at me like that?”

  “Let me take care of the bullet hole in your hide.”

  He shook his head.

  “Paisley Cadwaller Hink Cage, “she said sternly. “Sit down before I kick out your kneecaps.”

  He blinked hard, then gave her half a smile. “You would, wouldn’t you?”

  “Faster than you could say Nelly.”

  “Don’t know what I did to deserve the likes of you,” he muttered as he made his way over to a stack of crates and carefully—very carefully—lowered himself to sit in the dust.

  “Well, it wasn’t all those years of you being an altar boy,” she said, kneeling beside him.

  He chuckled and pressed his hand over his side. “Never quite got the hang of spiritual purity. Or any other kind of purity for that matter. Too many interesting things that needed being done.”

  “Move your hand.” Rose set the lantern down and dug in her satchel. She didn’t have much in the ways of medicine, but had kept the black salve Mae used on her shoulder wound when she’d been hit with that piece from the Holder, and she had her sewing kit.

  “Hold this.” She placed the jar of salve in his palm and then unbuttoned his shirt.

  “Had dreams about this sort of thing,” he said in a soft drawl. “Me, you. A dark train car. You ripping off my shirt…”

  “You’re delirious,” she said.

  “I’m clear as a bell.”

  “Well, then your bell is cracked,” she said. “A fact I’m willing to ignore since you are also bleeding. Oh.” She lifted the lantern to better see the wound. A wet, stone-red gash in his side was pouring blood rather freely.

  “I think it went straight through,” she said.

  “Told you it was just a graze.”

  “You said no such thing.”

  “Huh. Did I mention me dreaming about you pulling off my clothes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Wouldn’t want to die without you knowing that. The things I think about you.”

  “You are not going to die.” She twisted the lid off the jar and dipped her fingers into the mixture. “And I know exactly what you think about me.”

  “I really don’t suppose you do.”

  She spread the salve on as gently as she could, and he held his breath through it. Even though there was no bullet buried in his gut, that gash had to hurt. She pulled out her sewing kit, grateful she’d left the needle threaded.

  “You think I’m young, untested in the world, and innocent,” she said as she pushed the needle through the skin as quickly as she could.

  Hink winced, but remained silent, watching her.

  “You think I don’t know what a man can have on his mind when he looks at a woman. Or visits them in their parlors for weeks at a time.”

  She tied a knot and then cut the thread with her sewing scissors. The stitches should help slow the bleeding. But this was not a minor wound. She reached over for another fingerful of the salve.

  He caught her wrist gently. “Rose Small. There aren’t many people who bring the truth out of me, but you are one of them. I did not sleep with those women. There’s only one woman who has the key to my heart. Only you.”

  This close, she knew he was not lying. Knew he meant every word he said.

  But she wondered if she could give as fully her heart to him. She’d just barely begun to see this great and wild world. Tying her star to this man would mean not meeting any others. It would mean settling for the sort of life he intended to lead, just as much as it would mean him settling for the things she intended to do.

  Of course, given the chance, they’d both jumped on a train car being stolen off the rail by a massive and unidentified airship, without so much as a pause. Maybe their intentions were compatible.

  “At least you’re smiling,” he said, letting go of her wrist so she could spread the salve. “I prefer my doctors to be in a forgiving sort of mind-set when they’re jabbing fingers in my innards.”

  “Hush,” she said as she reached into her satchel for a clean handkerchief. She pressed that against the salve-covered wound. “Do you think you can hold this here while I try to make a window we can look out of?”

  “I’ll help.”

  “You’ll help by staying right here and concentrating on not bleeding.”

  He took a deep breath to argue, but must have thought better of it since he stopped with a wince, halfway through. “Might be something in the crates you can use,” he said.

  “My thought exactly.” Rose swung the strap of her satchel off over her head and left it there next to Hink. She took the lantern and first walked over to check on the gunman. She placed her hand over his mouth, felt no breath, then placed her fingers on the side of his neck, searching for a heartbeat there.

  Nothing. Rose tried not to let his death bother her. He’d been more than prepared to kill her and Hink. And she didn’t think he’d have any regrets if he’d done just that. She lifted the lantern, spotted a sheet of canvas, and pulled it over the man’s prone body.

  Then, with more delight than she should probably be feeling, she started digging into the boxes and crates to see what sort of useful thing she could build.

  The road to the copper mine didn’t appear to be much used. As soon as it wound out beyond the edge of town, it became a narrow path that snaked off to a small hill a short distance away. In that hill was an iron door that stood slightly ajar, revealing a narrow mine entrance.

  He didn’t see any workers coming or going, though there were carts and a rail spur on which small steam matics about the size of a pony rested, coal black and covered in snow.

  Wil paused next to his stirrup, ears peaked high. He whined, took a step, then glanced up at Cedar.

  “Don’t like the look of the place,” Cedar said. “It almost looks abandoned. I thought it’d be a larger operation. Some kind of working site.”

  Wil turned his wide head toward the mine and waited. This was Cedar’s call. To decide if instinct was leading him the right way by checking out the copper mine, or if instead he should head back into town to find Mae and Father Kyne so they could break his curse.

  He glanced up at the sun, already on its slow decent to the horizon. The moon would rise in a few hours. Night would be on them. And so would his curse.

  A movement near the door of the mine caught his eye. A boy in cap and short pants stood there, looking at Cedar.

  And then, as Cedar watched, the boy faded from sight.

  The wind snagged across low bushes, pushing against his back, then scattering down the hill. In the wind was the sound of crying. Only it wasn’t the weeping of the Strange, it was the weeping of children.

  Could be a Strange trick to lure him into the mine. Could be a ghost.

  But then the faces of children, many more, appeared in the slim wedge of darkness beyond the mine’s entrance.

  These didn’t fade away.

  “Seems like we have ourselves an invitation,” Cedar said. “Let’s see what it brings us.”

  He urged his horse on, Wil pacing him. It didn’t make sense that the children would be stolen and locked up to work the copper mine. The mine wasn’t far enough
outside town for people not to look here, for people not to search for their children here.

  Surely, this mine had been searched.

  Cedar rode across the flat field toward the mine and came upon it at a trot. As he neared, he saw bits of brush and rocks and snow, tangled up like whirlwinds. Wil growled, as if he saw Strange in those gusts of debris. Cedar studied the whirlwinds and saw nothing but sticks and snow.

  “It’s fine,” he said to Wil. “No Strange there.”

  Wil growled softly in disagreement.

  Cedar dismounted with care so as not to trigger any more aches and pains that seemed only to be getting worse.

  He led his horse the remaining distance to the mine and tied the reins on a hitching post.

  Wil was still snarling at the wind. Cedar looked around again, but saw nothing.

  “There is nothing in the air, Wil,” he said. “Calm yourself.” He pulled a lantern off the saddle, and lit it with a striker from his pocket.

  The side of his neck stung, and Cedar pressed his fingers there.

  Wil growled louder.

  And Cedar finally knew why. A ghostly Strange stood at the mine entrance with eyes made of cold copper. “Please… ,” it breathed, in a voice made of bits of wind scratching though leaves and stone and ice. “Help…”

  He had seen this Strange before. In the bedroom, on the road outside the church. He was sure it was the same creature that had bit him.

  And then it disappeared, torn apart by the wind that scattered him with a hailstorm of snow, branches, and dirt.

  Wil snarled and paced the area, scenting for the Strange, but came quickly back to Cedar, ears up, and no indication that he had found a trail.

  Why would the Strange ask him for help? Twice now. Cedar pulled his gun and walked up to the mine’s entrance. A dozen or so small stones had been positioned in a straight line across the entrance to the mine, but there was nothing else impeding his progress.

  There were no children in the doorway. Wil slipped past Cedar, head low, and entered the mine. Cedar followed behind.