For a moment, Emma let herself think about losing Eddie. He and Otis had been out cold since they got airborne back in Chicago City. She should go back and see how he was doing.
It’d just take a minute.
But they still had to get fueled up.
“Can you work the fuel lines?” Emma asked the Conroy kid. “Can you run the pumps, and shut them off when I give the word? The gearboxes down there put the lines into the ship, but without anyone to work the station house radio, we’ll have to disconnect them manually. Can you do it?”
The kid nodded, but his head turned slowly back so he was facing the corridor again. Emma followed his gaze with her own and then, quick as lightning, she snapped her face back around.
Eddie’s fine. He has to be.
“Kid, I’m talking to you here. I’m sorry about your mom back there, but I’m guessing you’ve already seen that vanishing act Brand pulled. You know what it’s about, or at least you know as much as I do. My father did it a couple times back in Chicago City. So now Brand’s in on the game. Fine. But how about we make good on the help he gave us and get this ship back in the sky?”
“O— okay, Miss Farnsworth. Yeah. Okay,” he said, sniffling a bit and then pulling it in, holding his head up and looking her in the eye. “What do I do?”
~•~
A gust of wind came up as Aiden dropped off the airship’s ladder, making him hit the deck with a jolt. He stumbled sideways and just missed falling off the edge by hanging onto the ladder with both hands. The wind picked up again, but he was ready for it this time. He waited until he had both feet steady before letting go of the ladder.
Aiden dropped to a crouch by the posts on the edge of the deck. He fished the two restraining cables and pins loose from their clasps. Then he manhandled the ladder into position and drove the retaining pins home on each post.
The fuel pumps stood down the deck behind him; two great metal canisters attached by hoses to the storage tanks below the deck. Another pair of hoses extended past a set of stirrups beside the pumps. The hoses were joined to the fuel valves on the
Vigilance
. Aiden looked past the fuel pumps at the two automatons in their small, covered shed. They stood stock-still, like they were frozen. Something about the way they stood there worried Aiden. He’d always liked watching them work back in Chicago City. But these two . . .
He wondered if they were still powered up. He couldn’t hear the clatter of their little two-cycle engines over the wind.
Miss Farnsworth’s voice carried down to him from above and he cupped an ear to catch her words better.
“Go ahead and run the pumps, kid. The valves are open.”
Aiden stepped up to the pumps and ran his hands over the gauges and buttons until he found the handle he was looking for. These pumps were older than the ones he’d used before, but the system was simple enough to figure out. Aiden rotated the handle in its slot until the arrow at the handle’s end lined up with the word RUN. Aiden heard the fuel begin moving through the hose.
While he waited for Miss Farnsworth to give him the word to shut down, he let his eyes roam the surface of the pump casing. The metal was scratched up but good, and someone had painted all the signs and letters back on. The hoses joined the pump casing with new collars, though. The gleaming aluminum rings stood out like a set of city bracelets, making Aiden think about what waited for them in New Orleans.
Would they land safely? Would the coppers be there, holding out their jewelry? Or would they just shoot the
Vigilance
out of the sky?
Aiden listened to the fuel sloshing and bubbling through the hoses. He wrapped his arms around him and kept wondering how this would all turn out.
Miss Farnsworth’s voice broke in on Aiden’s thoughts.
“We’re about full. You can shut it off.”
He walked out from behind the pumps and waved up at the cabin, seeing her shadowy figure standing at the door. Back at the pump he flipped the handle to OFF and reached for the levers that would release the fuel lines. It took all his strength to move just one of them. When the second fuel line released, Aiden made for the ladder, but Miss Farnsworth reminded him they were still moored.
“Get us loose. You’ll have to work the winch by hand. Can you do it?”
“Yeah, I got it,” he yelled up at her, hoping his voice sounded more sure than he felt. The pump levers were a real doozy to work, and he knew the mooring winch took both gearboxes to operate. With the machines still standing pat in their shack, he’d have to manage it on his own. Maybe there was a trick to it though, like a—
“C’mon, kid! Get us loose! They’re back!”
Miss Farnsworth’s voice carried down to him in angry fright.
Throwing a quick glance at the station house below, Aiden didn’t have to ask who had come back.
“Move it, Aiden! Now!”
Aiden ran to the ladder without looking at the station house again. He’d seen the slim line of light in the corner of his eye. Someone had copped the sneak from the little building, trying to get the drop on him before he got back inside the airship.
A gunshot snapped through the windy evening air and Aiden heard the bullet zip past him. He dropped to the deck and crawled on his belly, just like he’d done with Mr. Brand when they’d run from the Governor’s boys back in Chicago City. Memories of that awful night flooded Aiden’s mind and his heart threatened to bounce him off the deck. The ladder was just a foot away now. He’d make it. He knew he’d make it.
Another gunshot snapped below him and a bullet
thwacked
into the deck beside his legs.
Aiden couldn’t hold in the scream of fright, but he got his hands under control in two shakes. With a quick slap, he popped the retaining pins out from the base of the ladder and then he climbed with everything he had as another shot cracked the sky and then another.
The shots went wide, behind Aiden as he raced to the top of the ladder. Miss Farnsworth revved the engines and the ship gave a lurch as Aiden hoisted himself inside, sending him sprawling into the cabin.
“The mooring—” he started to say, but the whip-crack of the line snapping away answered his worry.
“That deck was just scrap wood, kid,” Miss Farnsworth said. “This boat may not be much to look at, but she’s got a team of Packards driving her. We’d be stuck on an honest municipal deck, but that old pile of sticks didn’t stand a chance.”
Aiden worked the levers to close the cabin door and draw up the ladder. As he did, he spied a bulky object swaying in the wind beneath them, hanging off the nose cone mooring line. It looked like a winch wheel.
“Won’t that overbalance us, Miss Farnsworth?”
“Not too much,” she said. “Like I said. That deck was mostly just sticks and glue, by the look of things. I wouldn’t be surprised if that wheel is made of wood, too. We’ll get it off the line next time we set down.”
Aiden told her about the new collars on the fuel lines, but she swatted his worries aside.
“They probably stole the lines and pumps and everything else before they knocked the deck together out of whatever was lying around. New collars just means they’re smart enough to make sure they don’t blow themselves up.”
~•~
The kid asked her a few more questions about the ship and she answered them as best she could. What she’d learned from the mechanics at her father’s plant couldn’t be passed along overnight, but she did her best to teach him the hows and what fors.
“That’s your rudder pedal. This one here works the fuel. Step on it to give it more gas, lift up and it’ll slow us down. The stick here works the flaps so we go up or down. And this valve,” she said, working a handle counterclockwise, “this is your launch ballast for when you start out. This one,” she said, aiming a thumb at a handle on the other side of the control board, “is for when you land at the end of the ride.”
“Can I give it a shot?” the kid said, surprising her. She thought for a minute and figured it’d be good to have at least one more person on board who knew how to work the ship.
Breathing slow and struggling to keep her heart from beating out of her chest, Emma stepped out of the cockpit and let the kid get settled in the chair. His hands and feet went where they belonged natural enough, and Emma relaxed a bit.
“Keep us moving, but don’t go for broke on the gas, okay?”
“Sure thing, Miss Farnsworth. And thanks, hey? For giving me a shot, I mean. My pa . . .”
Emma put a hand on his shoulder. She thought about saying something to make him feel better about his father, but the words got tangled up in her mind. Instead she just smoothed one of the tufts of his hair that still stuck out like a horn. Then she put a hand to her own head and felt the short curls and snarls she had left after their escape from Chicago City.
She’d have the finger waves she used to wear. Someday. She’d have to find a good cloche hat as soon as they got settled in New Orleans.
The kid shivered in front of her and Emma chided herself for worrying about having the right wardrobe. The cold night air came at them through a bullet hole in the glass, the hole that Emma had put there only a week earlier. She shook her head to clear the memories, but they forced their way in just the same.
Archie Falco, the guy who used to fly the ship, and the way he’d grinned like a wolf. Then the way he’d pawed at her like she was some kind of . . . and the way his head drooped forward on his neck while her ears rang with the gunshot.
Brand said the places he could walk now were filled with memories. Emma wished the ones she had of this ship would stay back there with him, out of sight and out of mind.
Swallowing a sob, she let Aiden fly them on, occasionally telling him to correct their course or let up on the gas a bit.
Doing this, Emma realized something she hadn’t been wanting to admit. Her family was dead and gone, with her father’s suicide only the most recent Farnsworth desertion from life. She’d made a name for herself in Chicago City as a murderess, so she’d lost her only home and community as well. Searching the airship cabin, Emma knew that this boat was all they had left. After what they’d all been through, it’d be a cold day in hell before Emma let any of them, ship or crew, come to harm.
She let the feeling sink into her chest and warm her. Then she remembered what she knew as well as anybody could. Making a promise is one thing. Keeping it is something else.
Chapter 3
Brand sticks a foot out, lets the other man fall on his face in the mud. Then he’s off, running like a scared chicken and knowing that’s exactly what he is. The other tramps behind him stop to help their fallen comrade. Brand wonders if they do it out of some kind of bond, like what he felt with the guys he helped out of the mud in No Man’s Land.
Brand feels the tramps gaining on him. He risks a look back their way. Sure enough, he sees more now. A lot more.
“Don’t you guys ever get tired?” Brand hollers back at them. He feels like he’s been running since he hit the street back in Chicago City. A five-hundred-foot drop from the airship cabin did a number on his bones. The city’s gods went one further and made him one of their damn messenger boys wearing filth for the rest of his days.
The mud sticks to Brand’s feet and he pulls his legs up like his feet are shovels full of tar. As close as the other tramps get, they never seem able to touch him. Brand hopes it stays that way, at least until he makes it to New Orleans. That’s where the others are going, and something tells him he’s got no choice but to follow them.
Brand died to save the people on the airship, and it hadn’t been that hard. Then the gods traded out his newsman’s standard for a tramp’s rags and sent him on his way. They swapped out his shirt, slacks, and a tie, wrapped him in a set of dungarees and a greasy house robe, and only gave him one boot to run with.
He’d swapped that out himself, preferring two bare feet that could keep level on the pavement he’d landed on and sunk into like it was putty. He’d wound up under the streets, down in Old Chicago again, in the gypsy tunnels that connected their network of curio shops and hideaways and served as the railroad they had used to escape the Governor’s army.
Once he realized where he was, Brand set to searching out familiar terrain, looking for a way back up to the surface to maybe connect up with the other Bicycle Men he knew in the city. That little journey lasted all of two minutes. The mud men showed up like they’d bought tickets.
How did they know he’d be there, and why do they keep chasing him?
“Clear off!” he yells. Only the third time he’s tried it.
Maybe third time’s a charm
, he thinks. Looks over his shoulder. They’re still there. A clutch of bums, tangled in their own coats, all wrapped up like a mob fleeing a theater when somebody yells, “Fire!”
Now and then, when he looks back, Brand sees one get sucked under the feet of the others. Steamrolled and left behind, leaving fewer for Brand to deal with if they do catch him. And then, as soon as he’s thought it, the guy who got trampled shows up in front of Brand, racing for him from the other direction so Brand has to time it right so he can land a punch that puts the man down as Brand runs by him.
On and on it goes. Brand runs. The tramps chase. The mud feels heavier now. Before, when he’d started running, it was easy enough to shake off.
He could feel Conroy thinking about him, remembering the night they spent running from the Governor’s army in Chicago City.
Now, though, the mud has fingers. It digs into Brand’s heels with every step, clutches just long enough to slow him down. And if Conroy’s still thinking about him, it’s only in dribs and drabs, half-formed memories that don’t stick in the kid’s head long enough to matter.
Behind him, the tramps struggle more with one another than with the mud. They move like the mud welcomes them, like it lets them move through it.
Because they are mud.
Brand knows why they chase him. It’s his punishment for meddling in the gods’ affairs in Chicago City. He knows what’ll happen when they catch him. Brand thinks about going back to the airship, finding the others and seeing if they can help him.
A little reciprocation never hurt anybody
, he thinks.