Magnificent Devices Page 8

  The stars she had lied about gazing at before twinkled down on her.

  At least, some of them did. The rest had been obscured by thick cloud. And in the distance, she heard a rushing, roaring sound, almost like the wind. No, not wind. Water.

  Water. Oh, dear heaven.

  The torrent bore down upon the town like a train, rushing in the path it had clearly cut many times before. There was nothing she could do but stare in motionless horror as it raced toward them, slurping up a half mile, then three hundred yards, then the last hundred feet.

  With a bone-shaking sussuration, it leaped forward, rushing between the buildings, slapping against the stone foundations—stone, that was why the first floor of even the most wretched house was stone—heaving great whitecaps up into the air as force met resistance.

  The sound was deafening, the shuddering of the house as the water engulfed it terrifying. Why, one loose board or stone and the water would tear in and the entire house would go whirling off into the maelstrom.

  Off into the maelstrom.

  Claire yanked the window up. The water shot past a mere ten feet below her. The house shook once again as something—a tree trunk that must have been uprooted miles away—struck the side of it like a battering ram and spun out into the current.

  Floating.

  Claire’s horror snapped into intelligent thought. In less than a second she had swung her legs outside. She sucked in a deep breath, clutched her chignon where the precious coupling hid, and leaped feet first out of the window into the roaring night.

  Chapter 10

  Cold.

  Claire had swum in the sea below Gwynn Place, but even that had not prepared her for the chilling cold of water that must have come from mountains far away. One hand clutching the back of her head, she struggled for the surface with the other, hoping her boots would stay laced to her legs and thankful that at some point earlier, she had rucked up and fastened her skirts.

  Her head broke the surface just in time for her to see a solid wall looming up. Kicking furiously, she allowed the current to take her around it rather than mashing her into it, where she would be pinned like a struggling butterfly until it receded.

  The current pushed her into the street and widened out into a rushing river, carrying her like a piece of gasping flotsam all the way through town in a matter of seconds. She had no choice but to let go of her hair and use both arms to half-swim, half-steer herself, mostly feet first to fend off posts and structures.

  Once free of the unnatural canyon made by the houses and store fronts, the water spread, scouring yet deeper the channel she had seen on the way in. Before long, her weight and her sodden skirts made her drag along the bottom until at last she could gain her footing.

  She staggered up a sandy bank and collapsed upon it, gasping and crying at the same time. Thank you, blessed Lord, for saving my life. Oh, how foolish she had been—but bruises and filth notwithstanding, she was free!

  The coupling! She clutched at her chignon. Thanks to the wire pins and the thickness of her hair, not to mention the ivory pick, she had a fine sopping mat decorated with leaves and bits of flotsam. And here it was. Nothing had ever been so welcome as the feel of that U-shaped bit of brass. She may as well leave it, because nothing would dislodge it from this mare’s nest.

  And now she must rest. Just for a moment. Her limbs felt so heavy …

  The cold woke her.

  Shivering, she rolled to a sitting position, her wet clothes clinging like the hands of the dead. How could such a hot, dry place get so cold at night?

  She drained the water from her boots, wrung out what she could from her skirts, and pushed herself to her feet to get her bearings. Below her, the river chuckled and bubbled, but even as she watched, it seemed to be receding, soaking into the thirsty earth and losing itself in the flat spread of the plain. How strange and wonderful and deadly—coming and going in what seemed like a mere flash of time.

  She, meanwhile, felt as though she’d aged a year. And how long had she been unconscious?

  In the distance somewhere lay the town. And ahead loomed a thicker darkness that blacked out the stars.

  The cliff?

  There had only been the one, that she could remember—a red sandstone monolith cut by centuries of wind and storm, with caves scoured out of its faces and pinnacles left where rock had fallen away. There had been a shack snugged up against it, directly to the west of the canyon where they had moored the Lady Lucy. She would simply have to circle around to avoid being detected by whoever lived in the shack. And as far as boarding, there must be a way other than by the locomotive tower. If she had to shinny up a mooring rope, she would do it.

  But now she needed to decide between two urgent questions—and quickly, before her shivering and chattering teeth became uncontrollable. Should she strike out to the east and try to locate Rosie and the hatbox before one was discovered and the other eaten? Or should she secure the girls and Willie and the lightning rifle?

  On a moment’s reflection, the airship won out. The children’s safety was most important. And with the lightning rifle, at the very least, she could shoot any threat to Rosie.

  With a sense of relief at having real work to do once again and a clear path to it, she turned toward the cliff.

  A dark shape rose out of the river course behind her. “Hey!” it shouted. “This stretch is mine!”

  Claire gasped and whirled, in the same movement snatching the ivory pick from her hair. “Who’s there?”

  “What do you mean, who’s there?” The voice sounded indignant. “This is my stretch. You go find your own.”

  Now there were two figures, moving toward her cautiously, as though she presented some danger.

  That was comforting. In a way.

  “I have no idea what you mean. I was carried here by that—that—” What did one call it? “That act of God.” Briskly, she rubbed her arms.

  “What, the flash flood?” The voice rose to such a pitch that Claire realized with a jolt that the speaker was a woman. “How did you survive that? Who are you?”

  She carried the lamp close enough now that Claire could see the outline of a body. Rolling the pick in her fingers, she glanced from the woman to the dark figure moving next to her. “I’m Claire. Who is that with you?”

  “Oh, that’s Nine. I’m giving him a trial run. He’s an automaton. See?”

  She lifted the lamp just enough for Claire to see a metal contraption vaguely human in shape, with buglike eyes and enormous feet. She stumbled back. An ivory hair pick would do nothing against a brass casing. And who knew what malevolence was contained behind that blank stare?

  “Oh, don’t worry, he’s harmless. He’s a metal picker. Like I said, we were just doing a trial run when I saw you climb up the bank. Say, you’re all right, ain’t you? Nothing broke? Or worse?”

  The woman lifted the lamp to examine Claire’s face, and in the light, Claire took in what appeared to be a mechanic’s overall and a leather cap on which were perched a pair of goggles. They bore no resemblance to the driving goggles she owned herself; in fact, they seemed to be made of sterner stuff. Poking out from under the cap were a few strands of frizzly blond hair.

  “Are you a w-welder?” she asked.

  The woman—no, girl, really, she couldn’t be more than a year or two older than Claire herself—wagged her head back and forth. “Welder, tinkerer, picker. You name it, I probably done it. Alice Chalmers, at your service.” She stuck out a gloved hand.

  Claire moved the pick into her left and shook it.

  Alice gazed at her as if she couldn’t believe she was real. “You look like a drowned rat, so your tale must be true.” Shaking her head, she said, “Come on. You could probably use a hot toddy before you get hypothermia, and you can tell me all about it. I’m that keen on a good story.”

  A hot toddy sounded divine, but her story was hers to keep. Too many lives depended upon it. “I’m so sorry, I can’t. I have urgent b-business.
Where do you live?”

  “Over there.” She jerked her head in the direction of the cliff. “Got a place to myself. I make my living picking and wrecking, sometimes mooring. Whatever it takes, you know?”

  “You mean the sh-shack by the cliff?”

  “Sure, where else?”

  “Are you the operator of that locomotive tower?”

  “Sure am. Built it, run it, fix it every time it breaks, which is daily. Say, how’d you know about that?”

  Claire felt the irrational urge to weep.

  Out of the frying pan, into the fire, as Mrs. Morven used to say.

  *

  It wasn’t so hard to find where the Dunsmuirs and the crew were … all you had to do was follow the sounds of fighting.

  Somehow the crew had seized their chance in the calm after the deluge, and the pirates were giving back as good as they got. The street was filled with debris—tree branches, rocks as big as one’s head, pieces of buildings—so when Lizzie tossed her a jolly great branch to use as a club, and picked up a rock in each hand, Maggie prepared herself.

  She wasn’t so keen on fighting. She was a fine scout and even better on watch, but she had to admit that being ten and not very tall had its disadvantages in a scrum.

  But there were ways to turn disadvantages upside down.

  Darting in and out of the fray like birds, Maggie swung her club at the head of a pirate who held the first officer down in the mud. When he collapsed with a grunt, Mr. Andersen finished him off with his own air rifle. Lizzie had a good eye and deadly aim, so she chose her targets and launched rocks one after the other. Maybe they landed hard enough to do damage and maybe they didn’t, but they distracted their opponents just long enough for a crewman to get the upper hand.

  Even his lordship fought like a madman. He’d stuffed her ladyship behind a cart loaded with what looked like engine parts, snatched up a healthy length of pipe in each hand, and was wielding them like a proper dockside drayman.

  Someone caught Maggie from behind and smashed the breath right out of her. She dropped her branch and clawed at the iron fingers around neck and waist, a scream choked off before it fairly got out of her throat, her feet kicking and trying to find purchase on flesh.

  “Aiyeeyah!” The most unnatural cry she had ever heard came from somewhere behind her captor, and in the next second his head jerked forward, clocked her on the back of the noggin, and something made an awful snap. She fell, rolling clear and scrambling to her feet so quick Snouts would’ve been proud.

  The pirate lay dead in the mud, and Mr. Yau nodded at her as calmly as if she’d come into the engine room for a lesson in mechanics. “Thank you, sir,” she managed to gasp, remembering at last to drag in some air.

  “Duck, missy.”

  She dropped to the ground and his leg lashed out, catching a pirate under the chin and snapping his head back with lethal force. There was that sound again—the sound of neck bones being permanently snapped. The pirate’s weapon fell on her and she caught it.

  “Take this, sir.”

  “No need.” He waded into the fray with pleasant determination while his appendages moved so quick the eye could hardly follow. Every man he touched fell.

  What wouldn’t she give to know how to do that.

  However, as the Lady might say, one made the best of one’s circumstances. Maggie hefted the rifle. All right, then. If a pirate could shoot it, so could she.

  It had a big fat barrel and weighed a ton. Must be a royal sized bullet in there.

  Someone roared with rage and she sucked in a breath. The earl. Two pirates advanced on him, screaming for him to put his weapons down and surrender. Both of them had air rifles trained on him and while Mr. Yau and two of the crew were fighting their way to him, he was so mad and so determined to protect her ladyship that they’d have to shoot him.

  But Maggie couldn’t raise the gun. The blasted thing was so heavy it wobbled all over the place. Aiming at anything but a warehouse was out of the question.

  Her ladyship’s cart!

  Maggie dashed behind the earl and took up her position. If anyone but the countess saw her, she’d be surprised, but in a trice her ladyship took in what she was up to.

  “John!” she shrieked. “Duck!”

  It was a rare man who would do what his wife screeched at him in such a tone, but the earl seemed to be that kind of man. He dropped like a stone, leaving the pirates gawking at him for just a second.

  A second was all Maggie needed. She pulled the trigger, wondering what on earth she’d got them all into—

  A pair of cannonballs, each as big as her fist and tied together with a length of chain, exploded out of the big bore of the rifle. Whirling like a very dervish of destruction, they struck the pirates and then whipped around the two of them, cracking their skulls and tying them up tight all in the same graceful swirl.

  The countess shot her the kind of triumphant look that Maggie had only seen on the Lady’s face when she’d got her times table right or fixed the mother’s helper that cleaned the cottage. Except the Lady didn’t look quite so bloodthirsty when she did it. “Well done, Maggie. Well done indeed.”

  The earl scrambled up and joined them. “If I’d had any idea you were such a good shot, I’d have come and found you first.”

  “Where’s Will?” the countess demanded. “Is he with you?”

  “Not likely. ’E’s on the ship, ’elping Tigg get ’er ready for liftoff.”

  “He’s safe.” Her ladyship’s eyes could burn a hole in a hanky. “You’re sure he’s safe.”

  “Safe as houses, ma’am.”

  The intensity in her gaze was dissolved by relief. “Good heavens, Maggie. You just saved my husband’s life. I think we can dispense with the ladyships and ma’ams. My Christian name is Davina, and I would be honored if you would use it.”

  Goodness. Wait till Lizzie heard!

  “I—well, all right, then, yer la—er, Davina.”

  “If you ladies are finished with the proprieties, perhaps we might consider getting back to the ship,” his lordship said. “Maggie, is that rifle on your back operable?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Has that thing in your hand got another shot?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Can you use it as a club if you must?”

  “Oh yes, sir.”

  “Right, then. It appears our side is carrying the day. Let us locate Ian and Jack as fast as possible. If I do not see my son within half an hour, I won’t be held accountable for the consequences.”

  As it turned out, Maggie could have stood to find Captain Hollys about two seconds later than she did. Then she would have missed the sight of some dilapidated old sword going right through a raggedy pirate’s chest. Why that bothered her more than having a man’s neck broken right next to her ear she couldn’t say, but there you were.

  Compared to the Texican Territory, life in Blighty was tame. In fact, she’d almost be willing to shake the Cudgel’s hand after this.

  Almost.

  They found Lizzie with Mr. Yau, and after that, the officers rounded up the crew right quick. They dragged the wounded and dead into one of the houses the captain said had been used as a prison, made the former as comfortable as possible under the circumstances, and left the latter for Mose to deal with.

  “Where is Ned Mose?” Maggie ventured to ask Mr. Yau. The man had saved her life—she felt a connection to him now that went deeper than admiration for his sash and his skill with the engines.

  “I don’t know, little missy.” She and Lizzie had to jog to keep up with the pace they set across the wash and along the bank on the other side. “This is merely a skeleton crew. If the entire band had been here, the outcome would have been much different. Apparently they have urgent business elsewhere.”

  “Pirating other people, maybe,” she grumbled.

  “I think not. The Stalwart Lass is disabled, and unless they have taken the Lady Lucy to do so—ah.”

  Mag
gie looked up to see the smooth fuselage of the Dunsmuir vessel protruding from the canyon, exactly as she and Lizzie had left it.

  Her ladyship picked up her skirts and broke into a run.

  *

  Alice Chalmers grasped her arm, but Claire was shivering too hard to shake it away. “Come on. We’ve got to get you warmed up. I’m surprised you ain’t dead. Not many people get washed up out of the flash floods alive.”

  She was of no use like this—better to be restored to herself than to let the night air finish what the water had not. The shack was several hundred yards away, and by the end of it, sheer stubbornness was all that kept her on her feet.

  Alice ushered her inside, poked up what appeared to be a boiler combined with a stove, and stuck a hand into the hot water reservoir. “Won’t be a shake. Meanwhile, better knock back some grog. That’ll help.”

  She handed Claire a brown bottle. Another thing mama need never know. One swallow was enough to make her splutter and cough, but oh my, it burned all the way to the pit of her stomach.

  A thick, uneven slice of bread and honey, and a chunk of surprisingly creamy cheese went down next. Claire began to feel as if walking out the door might not be such an insurmountable task after all.

  “D-Does this happen often? This flash flood?”

  “All the time. The minute you hear the thunder up in them hills, you batten down the hatches. Me, I’m out of the way, so I just wait till it all goes down, and then I see what there is to see.”

  “But why build a town in the middle of a riverbed?”

  “They didn’t, originally. But the water goes where it wants, so there’s not much to do but live with it. They could move the town, I suppose, but there’s no guarantee it won’t be just as bad in the new place. Here, have a wash. I make the soap myself. We’ll do your clothes after.”

  “No, really, I must be on my way.”

  “Best listen. I been living out here close on five years now. If you don’t want to be scratching red sand out of places you never knew existed, you’ll want to wash it away. Here, behind the curtain. I’ll bring you a tub. Take your time.”