Flash Gold

Part VII

Kali chugged into town well after the race finished. Gray clouds hovered low, promising snow. Smoke wafted from chimneys, and the smell of burning wood hung in the air. Nobody lingered at the finish line by the docks, though boisterous noises flowed from the bit house up the bank. The winner buying everyone rounds, no doubt.

She wondered if she would have won if she had not gone back. Surely she would have if she had not been attacked three times and could have pushed straight through without delays. She could have taken the winnings, ordered the parts she needed, and escaped Moose Hollow by summer. She could have sailed the winds and explored the world, a moving target the pirates and gangsters would never catch. But not now. She scraped at ice droplets in her lashes, telling herself it was weariness that made her eyes water, not self-pity.

A lone figure rushed outside when Kali steamed down main street.

“Honey, you made it. Thank the Lord.” Nelly jumped off the covered sidewalk and threw her arms around Kali.

“You weren’t expecting me to? What’d the other racers say?”

“Not much, but there were men here looking for you yesterday. Mean men. They roughed up a couple of my girls.”

Kali winced. Her troubles were bubbling over to affect others.

“And…” Nelly bit her lip.

“What else?” Kali asked, certain she did not want to know.

“They ransacked your home.”

Kali’s shoulders slumped. She told Nelly about the last couple days while they trudged up the street with the sled. As promised, the door to her workshop had been kicked in and hung from a single, broken hinge.

Kali gripped the frame for support and gazed inside. Ransacked, yes, that was a suitable word. Devastated and violated also came to mind. Tools, upturned furniture, and her half-started projects scattered the floor, many in pieces now. A trunk from her bedroom lay beneath the railing, clothes thrown free.

Nelly laid a hand on Kali’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, honey. About your home and especially about the race. I can’t help but feel your loss is my fault. I thought that fellow seemed a good sort. You know you’re welcome to stay at my place as long as you need.”

“Thanks,” Kali mumbled. Maybe the fact she had not slept the night before was a blessing, for gazing at the carnage left her more numb than anything else.

The door to the cubby where she kept the mechanical hounds was bashed in. A crowbar and pickaxe lay on the floor before it. She needed to check…

“Nelly, could you let me be alone for a spell?”

“Of course. You come by my place for dinner. I insist.”

Kali nodded. Though spending time with all those pretty girls in their pretty dresses always made her feel awkward, some company would be better than none.

As soon as Nelly left, Kali shuffled through the mess to check on the dogs. Someone had dumped pipe tobacco on the floor, and the scent of smoke lingered in the air. She propped her rifle against the wall and pushed aside wreckage to peer inside the cubby. The pickaxe had done its work. The dog bodies were mutilated, heads dented beyond recognition. Scraps of metal littered the floor.

Brass plaques screwed into the dogs’ backs had been torn off. She checked inside. The thumbnail-sized piece of flash gold that powered each hound was gone.

“Bastards,” she muttered, stroking one of the broken heads. Having the gold stolen was irritating; having her work-herart-destroyed…hurt.

She wandered around the workshop, making sure nobody lurked in a corner, then climbed the stairs to her tiny office and bedroom. Tangled ropes and bells in the latter proved someone had triggered a booby trap. Too bad she had not been there to do anything about it.

In the office, she removed a slender pick from the backside of the stovepipe, then counted the knots in the pine floorboards. She slid the pick into a specific crack and disengaged a hook. She pulled the board up. None of the tripwires inside had been triggered, so she hoped that meant nobody had found the niche. It took a couple minutes to disarm a trap involving pinchers and a razor blade. Finally she braced herself and pulled out a heavy iron box. The heft reassured her, but she opened the lid to make sure.

Gentle flashing yellow light pulsed through the room, emanating from the pure brick of gold within. Aside from a few tools and books, this was the one thing her father had left her. She had no idea how to make more and considered it priceless. It would power the airship she had planned to build with her race winnings. The airship she stillwouldbuild. One way or another.

She had made the mistake of sharing those dreams with Sebastian, of showing him the flash gold, and then she’d found out the truth: before he ever met her, and long before he’d professed to love to her, he’d researched her father and found out about her. All along, his plan had been to learn if she had the gold and to get it. She had not given it to him-her only parting gift had been a flung smoke nut, which she hoped had done permanent damage-and she was not going to give it to any cursed pirates or gangsters either.

Kali closed the lid lest anyone outside notice the strange light seeping through cracks between the shutters. Before she could put the box back, a weight slammed into her from above.

She tried to roll away, but it smothered her whole body. She lost her grip on the box. A calloused hand clasped onto the back of her neck and forced her face into the floor. Her cheek mashed against worn floorboards. She could not buck, twist, or even wiggle an arm free. Whoever he was, he weighed twice as much as her.

Cedar? Had he followed her back and hidden, waiting until she revealed her secret cache?

Hot breath whispered against her neck. It smelled of tobacco.

“Got you, love,” the man crowed in a deep, raspy voice.

Not Cedar. The same bastard who had ravaged the workshop the day before.

“And you’ve got the mother lode,” he breathed.

Though she could not see him, she knew he was staring at the gold. The box had fallen open, revealing the bar inside.

“Guess it’s your lucky day.” Kali tried again to get her hands beneath her, to push up and away from him. The hard, round shape of a smoke nut in her pocket dug into her hip.

“Not luck,” he said. “Smarts. I knew you’d run right to your stash and check it when you saw you’d been robbed. And you did. Ain’t too bright, are ya?”

“I’ve not been having an overly intelligent week, no.” She tried to buck him again. If she could get the lummox off her long enough to dig into her pocket… “What now? Someone’ll see the flashing gold through the window if we let it sit there all day.”

“Gotta tie you up.” He shifted, lifting his head to peer around.

Yes, she just needed her arm free for a second. “There’s rope in the other room.”

“You’re being a little too helpful for my tastes, girl.”

Erp, she had best not be too obvious. Dumb as he seemed, hehadcaught her. “You’ve got me. What am I supposed to do? You’d prefer me to bite and kick?”

He laughed. “Actually, I do like a feisty wench.” The hand tightened around her neck, and he leaned back. “Get up.”

That was all Kali needed. Under the guise of getting her feet under her, she slipped the smoke nut out of her pocket. She held her breath, closed her eyes, twisted it, and thrust it over her head at the man.

“What are you-” His words ended in a series of coughs.

His grip loosened, and Kali tore away. The smoke nut dropped to the floor. She sprinted for the door, knowing she had to be out of the room before the needles shot out. She planned to run down the stairs and grab her rifle, but she turned the corner and crashed into a second man on the landing. She twisted away, trying to wiggle past, but his arm wrapped around her.

A snap sounded, and projectiles pinged against the wall inside the office.

“Son of a whore!” the man she had run from cried.

Footsteps thundered toward the landing. Kali tried to pull free of her captor. Her knuckles bumped against the hilt of a knife.

A gun fired over her head, the report pounding against her eardrum.

“Out of my way, you hairy hog!” She yanked her captor’s knife free.

A hand clamped onto her wrist before she could do anything with it. “Miss Kali,youran intome. I’d be obliged if you didn’t eviscerate me.”

For the first time, she tilted her head back to see the face of her captor. Cedar gazed down at her, an eyebrow cocked. He released her, and she turned to check the doorway behind her. Smoke poured out, but it did not obscure the man sprawled across the threshold. Blood drained from a bullet hole in his temple.

In addition to the smoke billowing from the office, golden pulses of light escaped too. Cedar stepped past Kali to peer inside. She watched his gaze settle on the glowing brick. She had heard many tales of good men turning on one another over a lucrative vein of ore. And her father’s last batch of flash gold was worth far more than a productive claim.

“Pretty,” was all Cedar said.

“The gold or the man?” Kali stepped over the body to close the box and return it to its niche in the floor, though it hardly seemed safe there now.

“The gold. When it comes to aesthetics, my tastes don’t run toward men. Especially dead ones.”

“I thought he might have a bounty on his head that would make him attractive to you.” Kali stepped back onto the landing and peered over the railing. “You didn’t bring the sack of heads did you? Though it’s hard to tell at the moment, I like to maintain standards, and there are certain items I don’t care to have in my workshop.”

Her words sounded inane to her; she was delaying the question she needed the answer to: what was he going to do now that he had seen the flash gold?

“Mind if we talk a spell?” Cedar asked.

“Have a seat.” She glanced at the carnage in the office. “If you can find one that’s not broken.”

Cedar walked down the stairs and sat on the bottom step. Kali hesitated, her emotions tangled inside her. Despite what he had done, relief at seeing him rose to the top of the mess. Thinking she must be crazy, she joined him on the bottom step. His size and the confines of the staircase forced their shoulders to touch. She clasped her hands between her knees and stared at the floor.

“I’d like to explain my actions…further,” Cedar said.

“No need. I got the gist.”

“You were correct in your guesses. I learned of the five-thousand-dollar reward for your capture and came seeking you personally.”

She gawked at him. “Five… Fivethousanddollars? For me?”

“For you. For that.” He waved in the direction of the office. “I knew a prize like that would draw every pirate and claim-jumper in the north. I was hoping it would draw Cudgel Conrad.”

Not familiar with the name, Kali shook her head.

“Murderer, thief, whiskey peddler, gangster.” His jaw tightened. “And the man who killed my brother.”

“Ah. Is that…” She hesitated, remembering the abrupt way he had withdrawn from her personal questions that first night in the tent. Figuring he owed her this explanation, she pressed on: “Is your brother the one you spoke of who disappointed you by not being perfect?”

A faint nod. “Andre had been a Mountie less than a year. At that time, Cudgel was relentless in our piece of the mountains. My brother figured to take him down, but he insisted on licking him by the rules of the law. Maybe if Andre had been scrappier and reckoned more like a gangster….” Cedar prodded a whorl on the wooden stair tread. “It doesn’t matter now. He was a good man, and Cudgel killed him. Cudgel killed a lot of others who didn’t deserve it. I aim to kill Cudgel.”

“I can tell you’re serious by the number of times you’re saying his name,” Kali said gently.

Surprise flashed across his face. She smiled tentatively, not certain if teasing him had been the right choice. She did not want to belittle him, just to lighten his mood. And to let him know…she forgave him.

After a long moment, Cedar snorted softly. “Yes, I don’t like to hunt a man across the country without having his name fixed in my mind. Repetition is good for memorization.”

“So, you want his head. And these others you’ve been collecting are for…?”

“I swore I’d find Cudgel and avenge his death, but I didn’t want to be restrained by regulations and procedures-that’s what got Andre in trouble. So I found mentors and trained at fighting and shooting. I started collecting bounties on other criminals so I could fund my quest. I got good at it.” He shrugged. “But I keep missing Cudgel.”

“I’m sorry,” Kali said.

“Don’t be. Please. I didn’t come looking for that. I just wanted to explain and…apologize for using you. I wasn’t expecting you to be so…someone who I, ah…well, who’s…”

She watched with bemusement as his fingers groped in the air.

He finally said, “When it comes to fighting and such, you’re as fine as cream gravy.”

“Gravy?” She rubbed her lips to hide the smile. He must not compliment women very often. “Well, now, those are nice words, thank you, but there’s no need for flattery. Unless you’re trying to win me over? Did you still want me to modify your rifle? If so, you just have to promise not to tell anybody about…” She tilted her head back toward her office.

Cedar blinked. “I don’t care about any of that. Well, a little about the rifle, but if I’m a flatterer, it’s because I want you to come with me.”

This time Kali blinked. And stared. “Withyou? To be permanent bait until this Cudgel bloke comes along?”

“No, to be my partner.” He fished in a pocket, pulled out a sack, and dropped it in her hand. Coins clinked. “That’s half of the money from the ones I just turned in, and there’s another five hundred if you come with me to Dawson to drop off the pirate captain’s head. A couple more bounties after that, and you’ll have as much as if you’d won the race. I owe you that much at least.”

She started to shake her head and say he didn’t owe her anything, but hehadwrenched up her plans. Or rather, his presence had turned her into someone who wrenched up her own plans.

“Once you’ve got your thousand dollars, you could go,” Cedar said. “Or you could stay. I sure wouldn’t mind having you around to help on the day I do find Cudgel.”

Kali fiddled with the sack. “I don’t know what to say. I’m not that comfortable with the idea of killing folks, criminals or not. I have this belief that heads look better when they’re attached to bodies. I can’t see myself as a bounty hunter.”

“How about anassistantbounty hunter? I’ll find the scalawags, and you hand me some fancy invention of yours to help wrestle them into surrendering.”

She scratched her jaw. “Dawson, huh?” Maybe she could go for a while and see how life went. The Lord knew there was nothing for her here. And she was bait going forward no matter what. She might stay alive longer with a decapitation-specialist bounty hunter at her side. “I guess it might be more interesting than dinner with Nelly’s girls.”

“That I can promise.”

She pointed a finger at his nose. “This doesn’t mean I trust you.”

Cedar’s blue eyes crinkled at the corners. “Naturally.”