Liberty Read online

  He stuttered a few times before finding the words to reply, and when he did, he used Hän instead of English. “The cave is buried in rocks! I heard someone trigger one of your traps, so I ran outside to check. Before I found him, someone made the—” he groped in the air with a scratched-up hand, then switched to English, the native language probably lacking the necessary words. “There was an explosion. Right under the cave, I think. I didn’t see exactly. I don’t know who or how. But the noise was so strong, it knocked me over. Then rocks started flying everywhere. A boulder almost crushed me!”

  Kali knew she should check him over and take a moment to comfort him—Tadzi was only eleven—but his words drove horror into her heart. Waving for him to follow, she raced up the trail, once again running at full speed.

  “Where’s Cedar?” Tadzi called from behind her.

  With his limp, he was quickly falling behind, but Kali couldn’t slow down, not until she reached the cave. “Jail,” was all she shouted back.

  He might have asked something else, but she didn’t hear it. She sprinted the last two hundred meters and would have kept going at that speed, but a giant boulder blocked her path. It was the first of many. She scrambled around it, climbed over another, and then had to pick her way atop rocks and rubble that buried the trail, a trail she had walked down just an hour earlier.

  When the hillside that held her cave finally came into view, she stopped to gape. She could barely call it a hill anymore. The entire shape of the ridge had changed from peaks to a saddle, with rocks and dirt tumbled down the side of it. Trees that had stood earlier lay on their sides now, branches broken and gnarled roots exposed. Her cave, if it still existed at all, wasn’t visible. She stared dumbfounded at the spot where it had been. The rockfall had completely buried it.

  “Do you think the cave is under there?” Tadzi asked, limping up to her side. “And the ship? I was working on the sewing this morning for the big balloon.”

  It crossed Kali’s mind to correct him, to inform him it was called an envelope, not a balloon, but she couldn’t manage to speak. What did vocabulary words matter if the entire ship had been destroyed, crushed by the rockfall? Given the amount of destruction all around them, she couldn’t imagine that the cave remained intact. She had never thought to reinforce it. Who would?

  “I wanted to see it fly so badly,” Tadzi whispered, his voice tight. “I wanted to escape this place. To go somewhere that I could carve and people wouldn’t think I’m a useless—” He wiped his eyes with a dirty, bloodstained hand. “It doesn’t matter now, does it?”

  Kali rubbed her own face. She felt too stunned to cry, but that would come. Already, the feeling of defeat washed over her. She had worked so hard to build her ship from scratch. She’d ordered special parts from the United States, parts that were expensive and slow to arrive. There was no way she could build another airship before winter. She wasn’t even sure she could build another airship ever. With Cedar in jail, she wouldn’t be getting fifty percent of the bounties he collected anymore. She never could have afforded the parts without that coin.

  “Kali?” Tadzi said. “I didn’t see who did it. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Kali looked at him, at the tearstains streaking his dirty cheeks. “Nobody else was up there in the cave, were they?” Sometimes Kéitlyudee, the girl she and Cedar had rescued from the pirates, came to help, and there had been other Hän people who had come out at times to assist with the construction of the hull and the decks.

  “No, it was just me today.”

  “Good.” Kali gazed around the torn hillside, wondering if she should look for clues as to how this had been accomplished. She couldn’t imagine how much black powder had been required to cause so much destruction. Perhaps dynamite had been used? Even so, it would have taken a lot. The rockfall ran for at least a half mile in each direction, with the scarred ridge up above completely altered.

  “How come Mr. Cedar is in jail?” Tadzi asked.

  “A mistake.” Kali didn’t feel like explaining Cedar’s complicated past to the kid, not now. Still numb, she picked her way up the slope in the direction where her cave had been. “Will you stand watch? Let me know if someone comes?”

  Tadzi’s head came up. “Of course.”

  She had better not take too long—he needed to be patched up. If she could have accessed the cave, she could have found some bandages. She’d been sleeping up here and had far more supplies here than in town. She didn’t even keep a room down there anymore, not with the prices in Dawson so exorbitant these days, and just had a few things at Cedar’s place. It occurred to her that this could have happened during the night, while she had been sleeping inside. At least she hadn’t been caught in the cave-in. Somehow, she couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to consider that a good turn.

  Surprisingly, the way grew less rubble-filled as she drew closer to where the cave had been. A crater of blackened earth came into view, smoke wafting up from several spots. This had to be the place where the explosives, whatever they had been, had been detonated.

  If she had thought it had been a mistake or bad luck that her workshop had been caught in this, the crater assured her otherwise. It was so close to the cave that she had no doubt it had been the target. She was half-surprised the miscreant hadn’t set the explosion inside, right under her airship. Perhaps her booby traps had convinced the person not to get that close. Hadn’t Tadzi said that one of the traps on the path had been triggered?

  Too bad Kali hadn’t passed anyone screaming and hollering with a bear trap clamped onto his ankle.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Kali glimpsed a small flash of blue that came from the center of the crater. When she turned toward it, it disappeared. She frowned, wondering if her eyes had betrayed her. Though the area inside of the crater lay mostly clear, there was still some rubble and some charred rocks and wood, so she couldn’t see everything from the rim.

  She crouched down, holding her hand over the charred and smoking earth, trying to gauge if she could walk on it. Heat bathed her palm, and the ashes were unpleasantly hot when she touched them, but she wore thick-soled boots. Besides, people had walked across coals three thousand years ago in India, hadn’t they? She remembered reading that in one of her father’s books.

  She risked jogging across the scorched earth toward the middle of the crater. The smoke rising all about her and the charred rock and dirt convinced her that more than black powder had been responsible. Probably more than dynamite too. She had heard that boom a good twenty minutes ago. The crater should have cooled by now.

  Another flash came from behind a rock up ahead, and for an instant, Kali glimpsed a tiny streak of blue lightning. A cannonball settled in her belly, and her pace slowed, despite the smoke wafting up all around her. She had seen that lightning before, usually crackling about some tool she had made and powered with a few flakes shaved from her block of flash gold.

  When she could see over the rock, she halted. A coin-sized melted lump of gold lay atop the blackened earth. Another tiny streak of lightning spurted from the center of it. Compared to the usual power that emanated from the gold, this was definitely weak. She couldn’t tell if the power source had been damaged beyond repair, but as she stared down at it, she realized she wasn’t looking at a piece of flash gold that had been shaved from a larger block. She was very likely looking at all that remained of the block.

  “No,” she whispered.

  Though aware of the heat seeping through the soles of her boots, she could only stand and stare. Unless this was somehow the block that Cudgel had hidden, it had to have been taken from her workshop. Taken and then used to blow up the mountainside. Her workshop… her airship… everything.

  “Why?”

  “Kali?” Tadzi called from the edge of the crater. “Your feet are smoking.”

  Kali almost left the melted gold where it was, but it was all she had left. She pushed her hand up into her sleeve and used the material to insulate her
fingers as she picked up the sad lump.

  The warmth on her soles had grown intense, so she turned and ran out of the crater.

  “What did you find?” Tadzi looked curiously at her sleeve.

  “The destruction of my hopes and dreams.”

  The mangled lump reminded her of the one person she had met who had wanted to see the flash gold destroyed, that woman who had once worked with her father as an engineer and alchemist. Amelia had been her name. She and Cedar had defeated her, but not easily. Months had passed since she had been swept down that river, but she could easily have survived. Maybe she had come to complete her self-appointed mission.

  “Huh?” Tadzi asked.

  Kali sighed. “Can you go talk to the Hän and see if anyone is willing to help clear rocks? I’ll pay...” She trailed off. She had a few coins on her, but her stash had been in the back of the cave. If someone had found her flash gold and gotten past all of the booby traps she had around it, then stealing her coin purse would have been simple. The majority of her tools were buried in there too. “I think I just need a favor,” she amended, sighing again. “Think anyone would be willing to help for free?”

  “I’ll check.”

  When Kali had first rescued Kéitlyudee, many of the Hän had been appreciative, but gratitude wasn’t a currency that lasted as long as gold. Kali had no idea if anyone would come to push boulders around. Would she even find anything buried in the rubble if people did help? Anything worth digging out?

  Frustrated, she glowered around at the abused landscape. She had never craved violence or had urges to kill people, but nobody had ever wronged her to this degree. Even Sebastian’s betrayal seemed almost innocuous compared to this. She had the urge to track down Amelia or whoever had done this and pummel the person senseless with her hammer. Many times.

  “Too bad the only man I know who tracks people is in jail,” she muttered.

  “What did you say?” Tadzi asked.

  Kali looked at him. “You’re still here.” She had been too busy fantasizing about pummeling and hadn’t realized he was still standing here.

  “I wasn’t sure if I should leave you here alone. What if whoever did this comes back?”

  Her first thought was to point out that a boy with a limp wasn’t going to be much help to her if the intruder returned, but she bit her tongue to keep the comment to herself. It would hurt his feelings, and he had already suffered enough on her behalf. Besides, didn’t people underestimate her and what she could do all the time?

  “You’re right.” Kali patted his shoulder and pointed toward the trail, what remained of the trail. “Neither of us should stay here. You need to head back to Moosehide so someone can patch you up.”

  “And so I can find help,” he said brightly.

  “And so you can find help.” Kali wished she could manage some brightness of her own. Maybe he believed that all they had to do was dig out the cave and everything would be tucked inside of it, undamaged. She wished she could believe that.

  “Where are you going?” Tadzi asked.

  “To plan a jail break.”

  • • • • •

  The cell did not offer a lot of room for pacing. That was unfortunate, because Cedar was a man of action, and the confinement bothered him more than the idea that his death might be looming somewhere up ahead.

  No, he wasn’t going to accept that this was the end for him. He had finally gotten Kali to agree that they were officially courting. With Cudgel gone, he was ready to go on with his life—his life with her. He would find a way to escape.

  A scrape and a thump came from somewhere overhead.

  Cedar frowned up at the knotty pine ceiling. He could reach the boards and had already tested them for weaknesses. They, like his entire cell, were sturdily put together.

  Another thump sounded, and he thought of Kali’s interest in helping him escape. He had meant what he said—he did not want her to risk becoming a criminal herself to help him. Having Pinkerton detectives and bounty hunters after you was no way to go through life, even if she eventually had an airship in which to flee the law.

  Still, a little thrill coursed through his veins. Maybe she cared about him too much to heed his words. Maybe she was up there right now, cutting a hole in the roof.

  Except those thumps were quite loud. Wouldn’t she work more quietly? And wouldn’t she have waited until deep within the night to attempt a jailbreak? The shadows had deepened inside his cell, and sunset might be approaching outside, but he could still hear the clip-clop of horse hooves in the street and the occasional yells of men on the boardwalk outside the window.

  The door leading to the front office thumped open. Cedar assumed an indifferent expression as someone in a Mountie uniform walked into the hallway, trailed by the constable who had escorted Kali earlier. The newcomer brought a lantern and hung it on a hook just outside Cedar’s cell door. Cedar recognized him, even though they had only spoken once.

  As the man turned toward the cell, his graying hair and mustache neatly trimmed, his uniform tidy, his weathered face cool, nerves tangled in Cedar’s belly. Commissioner Sam Steele. The man who had apparently decided Cedar’s past crimes—supposed crimes—in the United States were not worth overlooking, despite all of the felons Cedar had brought in, despite all of the good Cedar had done for the Mounties. Granted, he had been paid well for the bounties he had collected, but he couldn’t help but feel bitter that the Canadians, his own people, wouldn’t believe him over some interlopers from another country.

  “Commissioner,” Cedar said, not letting his disappointment and frustration show.

  “Kartes,” Steele said, his voice as cool as his face.

  Another thump came from above. Cedar kept his face neutral, though panic flashed through him. If that was Kali…

  But the commissioner did not bat an eye at the noise. “They arrived more quickly than I expected,” he said. “I haven’t talked to Detective Thomas yet, but I get the impression they were already sending someone up to look for you.” For the first time, Steele’s gaze shifted upward.

  “They’re coming in through the roof?” Cedar asked, that sense of panic increasing within him, not because he worried about Kali this time, but because the ramifications of Steele’s words were sinking into his skull. He was about to be transferred to the custody of the Pinkertons.

  “Their airship is docking up there. Apparently, nobody in Dawson thought to build a better place for aircraft to come in. Not that we get many people who can afford to come over the pass that way.”

  Cedar barely heard him. The thumps on the roof had taken on a new meaning. He didn’t know whether it would be easier or harder to escape from the Pinkertons than the Mounties, but he did know that he wouldn’t have anywhere to go if he escaped while aboard an airship. It wasn’t as if he could grab a life preserver and hop over the side.

  “Sir,” Cedar said, “I’m not a criminal. I was wrongfully accused of the murders in San Francisco.”

  “Yes, criminals are always wrongfully accused. Especially when they’re behind bars or the hangman’s noose is settling around their necks. Besides, witnesses saw you shoot a man in the back outside of a mill that you lit on fire.”

  “That was Cudgel Conrad. Surely, you were able to identify him once you had the body.”

  “And what about the people in the cave? And the men who were killed in the mill, as well?”

  “Those were his men. If they weren’t known criminals yet, they were working for one.” Cedar gripped one of the bars, his fist tightening. Steele hadn’t denied that they had identified Cudgel. So, what was this about? Though he was getting the sense that his arguments were pointless, that Steele had taken a dislike to him from the beginning, he added, “If you let them take me, you’re losing someone who’s been helping your people catch real criminals.”

  “The law’s the law. The United States already found you guilty in a trial. The punishment is death. They’re here to take you back and ensur
e you pay for your crime. Even if I approved of your vigilante justice, I wouldn’t interfere with them. Dawson is growing into a respectable city. We’ve no call for bounty hunters here.”

  Steele snorted, stirring his mustache, and walked out of the room.

  Other arguments floated into Cedar’s thoughts, but he kept his mouth shut. Steele had made up his mind, and Cedar wasn’t going to beg.

  As more thumps sounded, followed by the cordial voices of fellow lawmen greeting each other in the front office, Cedar leaned his forehead against the cool bars. He wouldn’t give up. He didn’t know how long an airship took to travel from the Yukon to San Francisco, but he had that much time to figure out how to escape. He just wished Kali would be at his side to help with that figuring. The worst part about all of this was that he wasn’t going to get a chance to say goodbye. She would simply come in to visit the next day and find out that he was gone, taken in the night, never to see her again.

  “Damn it,” he whispered.

  For the first time, he allowed himself a pang of regret, to feel that all the years he had spent chasing Cudgel might not have been worth it.

  Part 2

  As dusk fell, darkening the streets, Kali leaned against the wall of a bank half a block from Mountie Headquarters and considered the airship floating above the building. To say it was unexpected was an understatement. Seeing it filled her with a mixture of longing and frustration. Longing because her dream of flying her own airship was further away than ever, and frustration because… Tarnation, how was she supposed to break Cedar out of jail when what was probably some kind of law enforcement aircraft hovered right over the headquarters building?

  In the dark, she couldn’t see the name on the side of the ship, but she couldn’t imagine that a pirate craft would have anchored so brazenly close to the Mounties. The hull was painted a dark blue, and big artillery guns were visible at different points. Lanterns burned on the deck, and a man carrying a rifle and wearing a blue uniform jacket and a blue hat with a pointy spike on top came into view.