Peacemaker fgc-3 Read online

  She couldn’t help but feel she owed thisgirl a debt, if only for being a distraction for Sparwood.Otherwise, it might have been Kali in there. She never could havefought off Sparwood one on one, and she wouldn’t have had time tomake her weapon.

  A sob escaped the woman, and Kali releasedher breath. Still alive.

  “He’s gone,” she said,wishing she had something more comforting to say, but there wasn’ttime for anything but the practical. “Can you stand? We’re going tohave to run if we’re going to have a chance of escaping.” ThoughKali hadn’t quite figured out how to make that happenyet.

  The girl didn’t respond. Kali flexed herfingers, wondering if she should creep forward and touch her on theshoulder or leave her alone. Being touched might send her over theedge. Kali looked around the cabin for inspiration, but the placeonly made her stomach churn.

  Different colored patches of hair werenailed to the walls. Clumps cut free from the man’s victims?Mounted above them, a strange glove with long brass claws gleamedin the candlelight-the tool he’d used to make people think ananimal had killed the women.

  “Deranged beast,” Kalimuttered.

  Shouts came from above decks. Sparwoodrousing his comrades to fight? Kali was surprised men hadn’t rusheddown the stairs already. Her dream of commandeering the ship seemeddestined to fail unless something up there was distracting thepirates. Maybe that was why they hadn’t charged down yet. Hopestarted to sprout, hope that Cedar might be up there, but shesquashed it. Because she’d run off without telling him herdestination, he wouldn’t know where she was, and, even if he didknow, the airship was likely flying high enough that nobody couldboard it. No, she’d be better off finding some rope, sneaking up toa railing on the main deck, or maybe into that cargo area with thetrapdoor-wherever that was. Of course, she didn’t know if her newally was in a condition to hold onto a rope and climb down whatmight be dozens of feet or more.

  Kali cursed again, wishing she had a betteridea.

  Though she didn’t lift her head, the girlstirred at Kali’s cursing. Strange. It had been in Han, notEnglish. Was it possible she understood? Kali didn’t think any ofthe dancers were from her mother’s tribe, but the northernlanguages did have a lot of similarities.

  “Do you understand me?”she asked in Han. “I’m…Kali. Tsul Gah,” she corrected, using thename her mother had given her.

  Finally the girl looked up. And stared.“Tsul Gah?”

  Kali almost stumbled. Though blood smearedthe side of the girl’s face, and her lip and cheek were swollen,Kali recognized her, not just as a Han, but as someone from thetribe she had grown up in. Keitlyudee, the name came to her, a girlthat had been a couple of years older than she. They hadn’t beenfriends, exactly, but Keitlyudee hadn’t been cruel either. Shesurely didn’t deserve this fate. She-

  The cabin door slammed open.

  Kali jumped, whirling in the air to landwith her flame weapon pointing at the man in the corridor.Cedar.

  “What’re you…” Kalistarted, but stopped and grinned. She couldn’t imagine how he’dgotten up there-she wasn’t even sure where the ship was in relationto the city and the saloon any more-but she was relieved to seehim.

  “I’m here to rescue you,”Cedar said, raising an eyebrow at her modified shotgun. “Though itseems that, as usual, you don’t need my help.”

  Kali didn’t know about that-she had lockedherself in a tiny room with no escape after all-but Cedar’sattention shifted before she could think of a good response. Hiseyes grew grim, his face somber, as he looked around the cabin. Henoticed the girl, who was still huddled in the corner. She hadburied her head in her arms and wasn’t moving.

  Cedar winced. “Is she…?”

  “She’s alive,” Kalisaid.

  Shouts and heavy footfalls sounded from thedirection of the stairs. Cedar lunged into the cabin and spun tolean back out into the corridor, a six-shooter in his hand. Kaliskittered back. In his other hand, Cedar gripped his sword, andrivulets of blood ran down the long blade to drip on the woodenfloorboards.

  “Problem?” Kaliasked.

  Cedar fired the revolver twice. A salvo ofreturn gunshots thundered through the corridor. He ducked back intothe cabin a split second before a bullet hammered into thedoorjamb, sending shards of wood flying.

  He slammed the door shut. “I thoughtshooting that giant burned man and decapitating a couple of otherswould make them pause. Not long enough it seems.”

  “You killed Sparwood?”Kali asked.

  “Is that who that was? Iwondered. Yes, shot him square between the eyes.”

  “Good,” Kali saidgrimly.

  Cedar took a closer look at the modifiedshotgun in her hands. “Are you the one who…”

  Kali swallowed and forced herself to nod andacknowledge her actions. Admittedly, she didn’t feel that bad aboutcausing Sparwood such pain. The other pirate…. She hoped he hadcommitted heinous crimes of his own, so there might be somejustification for torching him. Her insides still twisted at thememory of that flesh, seared and melted like candle wax.

  “Good work,” Cedarsaid.

  Kali winced, not wanting praise formutilating people, but Cedar had turned toward the corridor anddidn’t see her face. He yanked the door open, leaned out for aheartbeat, fired twice, and ducked back inside. A scream and astring of curses bombarded the corridor. Return fire came, but toolate. Cedar was already back inside, though he left the door openthis time. He fished bullets out of his ammo pouch and reloaded thesix-shooter.

  “They’re on the stairs,”he whispered. “I think I can hold them at bay, but only if there’snot another way down here and they can’t come at us from bothsides.”

  At that moment, clangs came from the hatchin the corridor floor. Eyes wide, Cedar started to lean out, butKali caught him before he could risk his head.

  “After I escaped from theboiler room, I left a couple of men down there,” Kali said, “butthe hatch is locked. I don’t think they’ll be breaking out any timesoon.”

  “Ah. Excellent.” Cedargrinned and grabbed her for a one-armed hug made awkward by theweapons in his hands. He planted a kiss on her temple, surprisingher, mostly because that was the last thing on her mind, but he hadan adventurous gleam in his eye again, like he was having a goodtime. Crazy man.

  “There’s a pirate in hiscabin a couple of doors down though. I convinced him to go backinside-” Kali twitched her flame weapon, “-but he might decide tocheck on things at some point. I suppose there could be otherscowering too.”

  “Understood.”

  In the corner of the cabin, Keitlyudeestirred, peeking over her shoulder to look at them. Cedar liftedhis hand, as if to tip his hat, but seemed to remember he had asword in it. He lowered his arm and simply said, “Ma’am.”

  The girl shrank back into herself. Kalicouldn’t imagine that she’d want anything to do with a man for along time. “That’s Keitlyudee. She’s Han. I want to drop her off atMoosehide after we take over the ship.” Kali glanced at the girl,but she had her head buried again. “I reckon her kin will take bestcare of her.”

  “Take over the ship?”Cedar asked. “When did that become the plan?”

  “Recently. I was thinkingI’d just grab her, and we’d escape, but then the reinforcementsburst in.”

  Cedar’s eyebrows rose. “Should the wordreinforcements be plural when there’s just the one of me?”

  “There’s you, thesix-shooter, and the sword,” Kali said. “If you and your team of weapons theremanaged to cut off the captain’s pants, then taking over the shipshould be a simple matter.”

  “I see. What do you needme to do?”

  Something in the corridor drew Cedar’sattention, and he went down on one knee and leaned out to shoottwice. The return fire came instantaneously, but it pounded intothe jamb where his head had been the first time. He’d thrown themoff by firing from a lower position, and he withdrew before theycould hit him.

  Gasps of pain followed the gunshots alongwith the sound of someon
e tumbling down the stairs.

  “Is there any chance I canget to navigation without being shot?” Kali said.

  “It’s out in the open, ina little room with windows on all sides.” Cedar leaned out andfired again.

  “Oh, so even if I couldget inside up there, I’d be target practice for pirates on accountof all the windows.”

  “Essentially.”

  Kali drummed her fingers on the barrel ofher weapon. If not navigation, maybe she could take control fromthe engine room. If she could manually control those fans, thepirates would be at her whim. Of course, she wouldn’t be able tosee where they were going, but-

  “Can you do anything fromthat machine closet at the end of the hall?” Cedarasked.

  “The what?”

  He waved toward the corridor, at the endopposite from the stairs. “I took a wrong turn during my previousvisit and ended up in there. Had to fight my way out. There were abunch of pipes and controls.”

  “What’d they say?” Kaliasked.

  “There was a passel ofpeople shooting at me. Perusing the wall literature wasn’t foremostin my mind.” Cedar leaned back out, pistol at the ready, to checkon the situation.

  Kali chewed on her lip. Pipes leading fromthe bowels of the ship to somewhere up above. Could they behydrogen and pressurized air lines that fed the balloon? If so, shemight be able to force the ship to land.

  “He’s just one man,” camea voice from the top of the stairs. “If you don’t get your blightedasses down there to shoot him, I’ll have you walk the plank on topof Mountie Headquarters.”

  “He’s got a gun,” adissenter cried.

  “You’veall got guns. He’ll runout of ammo eventually.”

  “I haveplenty of ammunition,”Cedar called back. “I came prepared. Show your heads down here onlyif you want them blown off.”

  He ducked back inside before the answeringshots were fired.

  “Are we still above thecity?” Kali asked.

  “Yes, above the TraplineHotel when I came up. I ran into Lockhart and almost didn’t makeit. I was busy looking for you, and he caught me by surprise.”Cedar gave her a significant stare, and Kali lifted a hand inapology.

  “Sorry about that. Ishouldn’t have gone off without telling you, but I was hoping Icould explain things to Lockhart and that he’d realize you weren’tresponsible for those murders.”

  “Yes, and how’d that go?”Cedar asked sarcastically.

  “Poorly. He waved his gunat me and told me only your death would bring peace to those whowere murdered.”

  Guns fired, though they sounded far away.Down below them somewhere. Cedar cocked his head but dismissed thenoise. It filled Kali with hope. Maybe Mounties were even nowtrying to figure out a way to eliminate the pirates. If she couldbring the craft down, there might be an armed force waiting to takeon the criminals that had been plaguing the claims along the YukonRiver. Of course, landing in the city would be a problem,especially if she was steering from a closet. The citizens mightnot be happy with her if she crashed the ship into one of thepopular saloons.

  “Wait until you see what’sin the closet before making plans,” Kali told herself.

  “What?” Cedar asked. Hewas checking the corridor again.

  “Nothing. Just thinking.How’d you get from the hotel onto the ship?” Kali didn’t see anyspecial climbing gear on Cedar.

  “After I evaded Lockhart,I circled back to the saloon, grilled some of the patrons, learnedabout the kidnapping and that you’d been there. I saw the ship andhad a hunch you’d be up here too. I made a grappling hook, ranacross the rooftops until I could get close enough, threw it overthe railing, and climbed up.”

  “Sounds like a lot ofwork. I appreciate you coming.”

  “I figured you could useme for…. What’s the plan again?” Cedar pressed his ear to the door.“They’re being quiet. That can’t be good.”

  “I’d like to check thatcloset you mentioned, see if I can give the pirates some trouble todeal with. Can you distract them long enough for me to run to theend of the corridor and shut myself in?”

  Cedar frowned at her. “That door won’t stopbullets. I don’t want you running for it if they’re still shootingin this direction.” He thunked the tip of his sword onto thefloorboards thoughtfully. “Though if you had some of your smokenuts or some such, I reckon I could charge on up there and keepthem from looking down here for a while.”

  Kali deposited her lone smoke nut in hishand, then handed him her flame weapon. “I expect you can make alot of smoke with that. Just don’t burn anything important. I stillaim to claim this ship for my own.”

  Cedar frowned. “As much as I’d be tickled toput your latest invention to use, I don’t want to leave you withouta weapon.”

  There wasn’t time to go into why she didn’tparticularly want to use the deadly flame-maker again herself, soshe simply said, “I’m sure we can find something here.” Kali gavehim a quick demonstration on how to use the weapon. Between it, thesword, and the blood spattering his clothing, he would look likesome hell-spawned demon bursting into that group of pirates. Ifthey were smart, they’d jump overboard while they could.

  A concerned furrow crinkled Cedar’s brow,but Kali gave him a firm it’s-settled wave, then pulled open a seachest and threw out clothing that stank of sweat and blood. Sheshoved candles and matches out of the way and, at the bottom, founda pair of six-shooters and ammunition. She stuffed one revolverinto her overalls and held the other out. “Keitlyudee, can youshoot?”

  The girl lifted her head and stared at theweapon without answering.

  “Look,” Kali said,switching to Han, “if we don’t get out of here, you’re going tosuffer more torment at the hands of these pirates. We all will. Ineed your help.”

  Keitlyudee closed her eyes, took a deepbreath, and stood up. She turned her back to Cedar and wrapped herarms around herself. “I understand,” she whispered, also in Han,though she surely had to understand English if she’d been on theroad with that dancing troupe.

  Kali gave her the gun.

  “I need…” With a shakinghand, Keitlyudee waved to encompass her naked state.

  Kali looked away from the welts and blood.Seeing what Sparwood had done made her want to fry him again. “Lotsof clothes to pick from.” She kicked the heap of shirts on thefloor.

  Keitlyudee’s back stiffened. “I will shoothis gun, but I will not wear anything that monster touched.”

  “They’re planningsomething,” Cedar said after another corridor check. “I can hearmuttering at the top of the stairs.

  “You’ll have to go nakedthen,” Kali told Keitlyudee, this time in English.

  “Why wouldthat be a requirementfor distracting them?” Cedar looked over his shoulder. “Oh, youmean her.”

  “You’re welcome to strip,too,” Kali said. “I’m still waiting to see if you havehammertoes.”

  “I do not. My toes arehandsome. Like the rest of me.”

  Cedar set his weapons aside while he removedhis shirt. He handed it to Keitlyudee and reclaimed his gear. Sheregarded the shirt briefly before pulling it over her head. Itdangled to her knees like a dress.

  “Looks like we’re ready,”Kali said.

  A metal tin clinked down the stairs androlled to a stop near their door. Blue smoke hissed into thecorridor. Cedar looked like he might lean out and kick the thingback the way it had come, but a gunshot rang out, and a bulletsmashed into the door frame, inches from his head.

  Cedar drew back, flinging an arm over hisnose and mouth, and grumbled, “Smoke grenade.”

  “That’s not a smokegrenade.” Kali pointed to the smoke nut in Cedar’s hand.“That’s a smokegrenade.”

  “Yes, right. I’ll put itto good use.” Cedar nodded to himself. “You two ladies, go takecare of bringing the ship down. I’ll give you the time youneed.”

  “Be careful,” Kali said.“If we land-” she decided to be optimistic and not use the wordcrash, “-Lockhart could be there waiting. And Cudgeltoo.” />
  Cedar had been readying the smoke nut tothrow, but he froze in the middle of arming it. Slowly, veryslowly, he lifted his eyes to meet Kali’s through the haze waftinginto the cabin. “Cudgel is here?”

  “I assume it was him. Theycalled him Mister Conrad, and even the captain was deferential. Hewanted me and was interested in the flash gold, but he said he wasgoing off to set things up, so the Pinkerton detective would besure to find you.”

  Cedar was statue-still. If not for thesubtle rise and fall of his chest, Kali might not have known he wasalive.

  “He wore a white suit,”she went on, “and had green-blue eyes. Seemed more like the slick,gentlemanly type than a ‘Cudgel,’ but I reckon you can’t go bylooks.”

  It was smoke billowing into the room and around of coughing from Keitlyudee that finally bestirred Cedar.“No, you can’t. That’s him.” He offered Kali a quick smile, thoughit did not reach his eyes. “I better survive these pirates, so Ican get him. I’m not going to fail when I’m this close.”

  “Be careful,” Kali urgedagain. She was thinking that she ought to give him a kiss for luckor elicit a promise that he’d return to her, or one of those otherthings women always did when men they cared about went into battle,but she was too slow, and Cedar opened the door and slipped intothe smoky corridor. The haze swallowed him.

  “What’s that?” a pirateblurted from above.

  “He threw our grenadeback-no, wait, it’s-” The speaker broke off with a cry ofpain.

  “Time for us to go,” Kaliwhispered to Keitlyudee.

  She trusted Cedar to give her the time sheneeded; now she had to make use of it. She tied a kerchief aroundher nose and mouth, then slipped out of the cabin, heading towardthe door at the end of the corridor.

  Though the pirate smoke grenade was spewingits last gray puffs, the acrid air stung her eyes, so Kali hustled.Behind her, gunshots fired. This time, they weren’t near thestairway, and she knew Cedar was on deck with the pirates.

  When Kali opened the door, she almosttripped over a man sitting on the floor inside a closet full ofpipes and levers. He stared up at her with bleary eyes and a bottleclenched in one meaty paw. Almost as surprised by his presence ashe clearly was by hers, Kali scrabbled for her revolver.