Flash Gold

Part III

Daylight brought little reprieve from the cold. The sun occasionally peeped through a cloud, but it provided only light, not warmth. The wind continued, whistling down the river valley between snow-smothered hills dotted with spruce trees. Kali’s sled chugged along at the rear of the pack. The next slowest sled disappeared around a bend ahead.

“Should we be concerned?” Cedar asked.

He jogged beside Kali, frosty breaths puffing before him. Though he wore a heavy pack, the pace did not appear to bother him, and his sure feet never slipped on the ice. She steered from the rear of her contraption, riding footboards as a real musher would. She would have preferred to create a seat up front so she did not have to peer past the gray plumes of smoke rising from the stack, but Francis had insisted she build something that looked and drove like a real dog sled.

“No,” she said. “The dogs will get tired. My girl won’t. We’ll make up lots of ground after we get off the river at Forty Mile. The return route goes through the hills.” Kali patted the side of the smokestack with a gloved hand. “Welovehills.”

He eyed her sidelong, probably thinking her odd. He wasn’t the first.

Something glinted on the hillside ahead, like sunlight bouncing off a watch or a spyglass. Kali frowned. Trailsdidrun through the forest up and down the river, but few traversed them in the winter. And she and Cedar were more than ten miles outside of town.

His face had turned toward the hill too.

“Did you see it?” she asked.

“Perhaps nothing,” he said.

“And perhaps something.”

“Yes.”

Cedar removed his rifle from his back and flipped the safety off. For the first time, Kali got a good look at it. Meticulously cared for, the Winchester 1890 had a fancy checkered walnut stock and engraved inlays.

“Nice rifle.” Kali arched her eyebrows. “Though not the kind of weapon you expect from someone desperate enough to sign on for work with a gal who can only pay him if she wins a race.”

“Bad economy of late.”

“Uh huh.” Kali checked to ensure her father’s old Winchester 1873 was in reach. Nobody would call her an expert marksman, but she had taught herself enough to be deadly-occasionally to animals instead of herself. Thanks to a couple modifications, it fired more rapidly than normal as well.

“Will the other teams stop and come back to help if there’s trouble?” Cedar asked.

She snorted. “It’s a race for one thousand dollars. What do you think?”

He turned a steady, considering gaze toward her.

“Probably not,” she said. “Even if they put human life above money-which isn’t all that common out here-I’m not the best liked girl in town.”

“Because you’re a witch?”

“I’m not a witch,” Kali snapped.

His eyebrow twitched.

“It’s none of your business.” She studied the hill, but no movement or further glints came from that direction. That did not reassure her. There were not as many hiding places as during spring and summer, when dense green undergrowth cloaked the hills, but the evergreen trees offered plenty of cover.

“Down!” Cedar shouted.

Even as Kali ducked, a rifle cracked. The bullet clanged against the metal frame of the sled and ricocheted off. She heaved on the brake lever and stopped the machine a heartbeat before Cedar grabbed her and dragged her to the side of it.

They crouched behind the boiler, using it for a shield. Something that would only work if attackers waited on only one side of the river. She wouldn’t count on it.

Cedar rose, laid his rifle across the sacks and supplies loaded on the front of the sled, and fired. A return shot came promptly, but he ducked in time. The bullet hammered into the ice behind them.

“Did you see him?” Kali slid her own rifle out, grabbed a wooden box, and put her back against the sled. She scanned the shoreline and the hills on their side of the river.

“Them,” Cedar said.

“Oh, them. Of course. They might get lonely planning ambushes without friends.”

Several meters in front of her, a branch dumped a load of snow. Too much weight building up over time? Or had someone bumped it? Kali went down on one knee, pressed the stock of the rifle into her shoulder, and watched over the sights.

Cedar fired again, then dropped to reload. “See something over there?”

“Perhaps nothing.”

“And perhaps something?” He smiled as he quoted her words back to her. God, was he enjoying this? What a nut. “Stay here. When their rifles are empty and they’re reloading, I’m going after the ones on the hill.”

“Youarea nut.”

“I prefer offense to defense.”

She thumbed open the wooden box. Four shiny brass globes rested on velvet inside, each one half the size of her fist. She slid one into each parka pocket and returned the box to the sled.

“What are those?” Cedar asked.

Before she could answer, he leaned out and cracked a shot. Return fire pounded the sled and the ice. Cedar nodded to himself with each shot, counting rounds, Kali guessed.

The last one clanked off the boiler. Kali clenched her fist. If they ruptured the boiler, there would be more trouble than a little gunplay….

“Quit shooting at my sled, you bastards!” she yelled.

Cedar must have decided their attackers had spent their rounds, for he lunged around the corner and sprinted across the ice. The idiot was going to get himself shot before he reached the cover of the trees. Nelly should have put intelligence down as a prerequisite for the job, not pugilism.

The branch that had dumped snow a moment before shivered. Someone swaddled in furs leaned out, a rifle in hand. Kali fired instinctively.

The person ducked back behind the tree for cover, but left blood on the branch. She chewed on the inside of her cheek, debating. From that side of the river, she was an easy target, but to move around the sled would open her up to the people firing from the hill.

“We have you in our sights,” a woman yelled. “Three of us. Put down your gun.”

“Show me,” Kali called.

A man and a woman stepped out from behind trees several meters away. One carried a shotgun, one a rifle. Lastly, the man she had shot sidled out, his gun aimed at her chest. A hatchet large enough to brain a dragon was slung across his back, the head poking over his shoulder. Blood dripped from his temple. She had only grazed him, but the snarl on his lips and the way his two eyebrows crashed together suggested he was not pleased with her.

“My comrade will be back shortly,” Kali said.

“Not likely,” the woman said. “Jim and Cold Fish will run him all over those hills, while we have a little chat and get what we want.”

“I know what I want,” the bleeding man said, eyeing Kali up and down as he scowled.

“You can have her when we’re done talking.” The woman snickered. “She’s got to be alive when we turn her in, but there’s all kinds of levels of alive.”

A rifle cracked in the distance. Kali grimaced. If that was Cedar, he was nowhere nearby. If that was someone shooting at Cedar…well, he was still nowhere nearby.

Kali lifted her chin. No matter. She did not need him. She had gotten herself out of irksome situations plenty of times.

She laid the old Winchester down and lifted her hands. Inside her pockets, the smoke nuts bumped against her thighs. They would do her no good, however, until her foes drew closer.

“What do you want?” Kali said. “I’m trying to win a race. It’s rather inconsiderate of you to interrupt.”

The woman strolled off the bank and onto the ice, though the two men remained near the trees, covering her. She wore a wool cap with a bandana snugged over her nose, leaving little but brown eyes and freckles for identification. “Yes, I’m surprised your machine doesn’t go faster. Isn’t it powered by flash gold?”

“Flash what?” Kali blinked innocently.

The woman pinned her with a knowing glare.

“The sled uses coal or, in a pinch, wood. See for yourself.” Conscious of the weapons pointed her direction, Kali moved slowly as she opened the firebox door.

The woman drew close enough to peer inside, though not so close Kali could thump her in the back of the head with the door. Just as well. With the rifles pointed her direction, that would not be wise.

“If you want to win the race,” the woman said, “why wouldn’t you use flash gold? All that power in so small a concentration-surely you’d fly down the trail. And they say an engineer can embed commands in it. An ounce is worth a fortune.”

“If flash gold exists, I’ve never seen it,” Kali said.

“That’s not what I’ve heard.” The woman picked up Kali’s discarded rifle, took a couple steps back, and leaned it against the sled.

“Oh?” Kali kept her hands by her side, near her pockets, though there was little point in tossing the smoke device with the two men out of range.

“Thanks to your chatty lover, you’ve come to the attention of Soapy Smith and the Scar of Skagway.”

Kali closed her eyes. That explained much. She had feared Sebastian, out of spite, would blab her secrets to some bartender on his way back to San Francisco; she hadn’t counted on him going to the most notorious gangsters in the West.

“Up until a couple years ago, the world thought your father died in the Civil War,” the woman said. “He did a good job of hiding up here. When his existence was ferreted out, he was already dead. Nobody knew about you. Until now. Soapy wants you brought in for questioning. The Scar, he just wants the recipe for flash gold, whether you’re alive to explain it or not. And my boss would like a sample before we turn you in. She’ll reward me handsomely if I bring it to her.”

“It was my father’s project,” Kali said, seeing no point in continuing to deny the existence of flash gold when this woman knew so much about her. “I lived with the Han until I was ten, and Old Ezekiel barely acknowledged my presence when I was forced to come live with him. I was on my own. He was busy with his projects. He never shared anything with me.”

The woman yawned. “Tragic story, I’m certain. I’m also certain I don’t care. You’ll march us back to your tinkery in town, and show us to any secret stashes you might have. If we don’t find anything useful… Well, we will. One way or another.” She nodded toward the axeman. The bandana hid her lips, but creases at the corners of her dark eyes signaled a smile.

“I’d be happy to show you around,” Kali said, thinking of the various booby traps she had around the shop, “afterthe race. Why don’t we meet in town?”

“With all the people hunting you? I’ll not have you out wandering around where someone else can lay a claim.” The woman gestured for her men to come closer. “Time for a hike back to town.”

“I’m not leaving my sled,” Kali said.

“Yes, you are.” The woman nodded toward the bleeding man. “Big Rock, you want to convince her?”

“You people certainly have colorful names.” Kali backed up until she bumped against the furnace door. She slipped a hand into her pocket.

“You’re the one what’s going to be colorful soon,” Rock said. “All blue and black and bumpy.” He chuckled at his own wit as he approached.

The third man stood back, keeping a rifle trained on Kali. It was not an ideal chance, but she might not get a better one. And she had no desire to be made colorful.

Rock reached for her. Kali yanked a sphere out of her pocket, twisted it, and threw it on the ground. Smoke spewed out, and ticks sounded-a countdown timer.

“What the Sam Hill?”

Kali used the distraction to grab her rifle and lunge around the sled.

“It’s just smoke,” the woman growled. “Grab her. Don’t-”

The countdown finished with a hollow clank.

“Yeow!”

Kali was charging away from the sled, slipping and sliding on the icy patches beneath the snow, and did not see the smoke nut in action. She had designed it, though, and knew its operation well. The spring-loaded cache was shooting out metal needles excellent at piercing layers of clothing and gouging holes in tender flesh, especially flesh located waist level and lower.

She reached the snowy bank without any rifles firing behind her and scrambled up the slope into the trees. Climbing the hill was no easy feat. Her snowshoes were on the sled, and her boots sank into deep powder with each floundering step. Unfortunately, it would be impossible to hide her tracks. Though the idea of killing made her stomach churn, she would have to find a good spot and pick them off. Otherwise, they would keep hunting her. And there was the matter of her sled. She was not leaving it there for them to mess with.

Kali spotted a thick copse and squeezed into it. Anyone following her tracks would have no trouble finding her, but at least she could use the trees for cover. She wriggled deeper. Snow dumped from the branches, pattering onto her head. An icy clump slithered past her scarf and invaded her shirt. She grunted and worked it out. That unpleasantness summed up the day so far.

She paused in the middle of rearranging her clothing. Her shoulder blades itched, as if someone’s eyes were upon her. Kali peered through the brush behind her. Nothing stirred.

Shouts came from the river below. It sounded like the pursuers had not started after her yet. Then what-

Something touched her arm.

Kali jumped. Cedar. He squeezed in beside her.

She cursed in her mother’s tongue, a chain of expletives that would have embarrassed most men in the tribe. She had not heard anyone crunching through the snow. It was as if he was a ghost, appearing from nowhere.

“I took care of the other two.” Cedar put his back to a tree and lowered a branch so he could watch the river.

“Took care of?” Kali asked. “That lady down there was sure they were taking care of you.”

“Not likely.”

In the tight space, she could smell the scent of gunpowder clinging to him. He slid a collapsible spyglass from a pocket and studied the river.

“What is that thing you threw at them?” he asked.

“I call them smoke nuts.”

“Because they make smoke and…?”

“The needles they expel tend to land about, er, nut-high.”

Cedar’s eyes widened. “Ouch.”

A gust of wind rattled the branches. Kali had started sweating during her traipse up the hillside, but her skin was cooling now. She flexed her muscles and bounced on her toes. “I imagine they’re down there picking things out of…things.”

“Good.” Cedar lowered the spyglass. “You specialize in making weapons?”

“Not weapons. Security devices.”

“The mechanical dogs?”

She nodded. “I made those.”

“Huh.”

His scarf hid most of his face, but she thought he sounded intrigued. Maybe even pleased. That notion warmed her more than bouncing in place. She started to smile, but caught herself. She knew nothing about him, and she knew better than to be flattered by some man’s attention by now. Whatever he wanted, it surely had little to do with her ability to make silly devices.

“Do you have any more of those…nut crackers?” Cedar asked.

“Smoke nuts.” Kali withdrew another from her pocket and handed it to him. She demonstrated how to arm it.

“How do you make them?”

She blinked. “You want to know? I mean…most people don’t….” She snapped her mouth shut. No need to tell him people usually ignored her when she talked about her inventions. Or that they shooed her away, afraid her witchy ways would bring bad luck.

“Yes. I have an interest in weapons. I-” He lifted the spyglass abruptly. “The two men are coming.”

Kali shifted until she could see through the branches. Rock and his male comrade were tramping up the hill with snowshoes on. The men hunkered low, moving from tree to tree as quickly as the terrain allowed.

She rested her rifle on a branch and pressed her cheek against the stock. For a heartbeat, she had someone’s head in her sights, but she hesitated to fire, and he slipped behind a spruce. For all that she spoke of security and defense, she had never tried to kill anyone. She had only used the rifle on hunting trips. The shot she fired at Rock had been nothing but a defensive instinct.

“Be ready,” Cedar whispered.

Branches shivered, and Rock left cover, angling for a snow-covered boulder. The second fellow tramped back downhill and moved laterally through a small gully that hid him from view. They were angling to surround her. They must not know her exact location-or that she could see them. Cedar had probably slipped in without attracting their notice either.

Rock was not fully hidden by the boulder, not from her position. His side poked out. Kali picked a target that should not be life-threatening if his comrades cared enough to tend to him. She let out a breath and squeezed the trigger. The man howled, clutching his butt, and staggered away from the boulder. That ought to take the fight out of him. She lowered her weapon.

The man seemed to realize his mistake and lunged back toward cover. Too late. Cedar’s rifle cracked. His bullet took the man in the neck. He pitched sideways and lay still, blood spattering the snow around him.

Kali stared at Cedar. “He wasn’t going to trouble us again.”

“They’re criminals.” He watched the gully without glancing her direction. “Bandits who work for gangsters and crime lords. They’ve killed before and would do so again. The authorities would issue them the same fate.”

Maybe so, but a warning twanged in the back of her mind.

“How do you know who they are?” she asked. More importantly, did he know what had brought them out here after her? Did he know about the flash gold? Maybe he had questioned the other two. They could have revealed everything to him. Or maybe he had known before he signed on with her. Maybe the only reason he was here was because-

“Look out!” Cedar pushed her out of the copse.

A fist-sized black oval with wood fins sailed through the trees. It bounced off a branch and landed in the copse behind her. Curious, Kali craned her neck, trying to get a look.

“Go, go,” Cedar barked. He shoved her again, then crashed into her from behind, bearing her to the ground.

The fall did not hurt, but it startled her. Cold snow scraped her cheek. Kali tried to push up, but Cedar pressed her face down.

“What are you-”

An explosion roared, hammering her eardrums. Wood splintered and snapped. Branches and needles pelted the snow around them.

“What wasthat?” she asked when Cedar rolled off her.

“Grenade.” He patted the snow. “Tarnation, where’s my gun?”

Her ears rang, and she barely heard him. A rifle fired, the sound puny compared to the previous blast, but a bullet burrowed into the snow inches from her face, reminding her how deadly the threat was.

Kali rolled to her back. She had retained the grip on her rifle, and she lifted it, searching for the gunman.

Cedar, sword in hand, plowed down the hillside, churning snow as he high-stepped through the powder. The man in the gully popped up, rifle pointing toward Kali, but he shifted it toward Cedar.

Not able to target him from her back, she lunged to her knees. She feared she would be too slow to help Cedar, but somehow he anticipated the gunman’s shot. He hurled himself into a roll, and the bullet flew harmlessly high.

Kali fired, aiming for the man’s shoulder. She clipped him, but he did not go down. He howled in pain-or maybe anger-and turned his rifle on her. He pumped the lever, but she fired again first. Once, then again. Both shots took him in the chest.

Eyes bulging wide, he stared in disbelief. His rifle fell to the snow, and he slumped out of view behind the gully wall.

Dead. By her hand.

Kali propped herself on her rifle for support and closed her eyes, chin drooped to her chest. It was not the first time she had wounded someone, but it was the first time she had killed. Self-defense or not, it did not sit well in her gut. As if becoming a killer added some measure of truth to the imprecations the townsfolk sent her way. Evil witch, they whispered. Harbinger of death and misfortune.

Snow crunched as Cedar approached. He had sheathed his sword and located his rifle. “How do you fire so quickly?”

Her surprised “Huh?” frosted the air before her eyes.

“Those rapid-fire shots. It almost sounded like a Gatling Gun.” His gaze fell to the lever of her Winchester. “How did you chamber the rounds so quickly?”

“You’re worried about how my gun works when we just killed a pile of men? Are weapons the only thing you care about? What’s wrong with you?”

His eyebrows rose at her outburst. Maybe it was not wise to berate such a proficient warrior.

His response was mild though: “Much, I’m told.”

Kali eyed the desecrated copse. The grenade had mauled the evergreens, leaving one knocked over and several with broken or missing branches. Her first feeling was one of indignation-the Mounties were supposed to be limiting firearms in the Dominion of Canada-but her second feeling involved inquisitiveness. She was tempted to see if anything remained of the grenade so she could take it with her to examine later. She caught herself before moving more than a step that direction. If her thoughts could shift so quickly from killing to tinkering, perhaps she was no better than Cedar.

He was watching her, though not, it seemed, with judging eyes. He simply waited for an answer to his question.

“I modified it to be self-loading.” Kali lifted the rifle.

“Do you do custom work for people?”

“Of course. That’s how I scrape together enough money to buy bacon and flour. It’s also, I suspect, the main reason nobody’s tried seriously to drive me out of town. I’m useful.”

Cedar nodded. “I’d be interested in some of those smoke nuts.”

“I thought you had no money,” Kali said, thinking she might catch him in a lie.

He spoke without hesitation. “We’ll win, and then I’ll have one hundred dollars.”

“Not if we have more delays like this.”

Cedar squinted at something below. “There’s a woman, too, isn’t there?”

Kali winced. She had forgotten. “Yes.”

They picked a route back down the river, following the trail of already-broken snow. Wind gusted through the valley, and powder skidded sideways. With the exertion past, Kali shivered as sweat-dampened skin cooled. She clawed at the moisture that had frozen in her eyelashes and under her nose.

The woman was nowhere in sight. Cedar gestured, and they split up to see if she was hiding behind the sled. They closed, rifles raised, but nobody hunkered there. Blood dotted the ice, thanks to her smoke nut, but not enough to imply a mortal wound.

Cedar followed a set of tracks toward the far shoreline.

Kali checked the sled for damage. Dents from bullets pockmarked the boiler and smokestack, but none had ruptured a crucial part. Kali patted the side of the sled, glad she had not, in her quest to achieve lightness, skimped too much on the boiler design. If they returned to the trail immediately, they might have a chance at catching up.

She shoveled coal into the firebox. Cedar trotted out of the trees and rejoined her on the ice.

“The woman went over the hill.” He pointed. “Back the way they came. I could catch her, but I noticed you preparing to leave.”

Kali lifted the brake, and the sled rumbled forward, runners scraping on ice. “The race is more important than killing people, however irritating they’ve proven themselves by trying to kill us. If I don’t win that prize money, I’ll be stuck in Moose Hollow forever.” Or until someone succeeded in dragging her off to some crime lord for torture. More than ever, she needed to get out of town.

“In other words,” Cedar said, jogging beside the sled, “you’d leave me if I went after her.”

“I’d toss your bag of supplies out so you could make it back to town.”

“Magnanimous.”

Kali twitched a shoulder. “I’m sure you can take care of yourself. Besides, she ran away. Unless she’s got an airship waiting for her, we won’t likely see her again before we get back to town.” She gave him a sidelong look. “You didn’t have some specific reason for wanting to capture or kill her, did you?”

“I doubt she’s anybody important. It’s simply unwise to leave enemies around to take a shot at you another day.”

As they chugged down the frozen river, Kali continued to watch him out of the corner of her eye. Maybe her previous experiences were making her too suspicious. He had been nothing but helpful so far, and he had not even demanded to know why those bandits attacked her. Whatever his motivations, he was riskinghislife onherquest.

“Thanks for your help with those bandits,” Kali said. “You’re not as much of an unwelcome burden as I thought you’d be.”

“That’s…a compliment?” A mischievous glint entered his eyes.

“Maybe.”

“You’re a hard woman to win over.”

“I’m not looking to be won over,” she said. The last time that happened, she ended up losing. Big time.

“I see.”

Kali clammed up. She did not want him seeing. She did not want anybody seeing.