Devon Monk - Tin Swift

“I didn’t get much of a look at her. Distinctions?”

“Narrow hull, three steamer, so you should be able to see three stacks if she shows her rump. She’s an open deck, so you’ll see sunlight between the hull and the airbags.”

“What type of propellers on her?” Cedar asked.

“Quad. Two front, two rear.”

“I see fans, front and rear, but I only see one stack…no, two.” The ship tipped out of sight, but for a bare second he caught the flash of sunlight between the deck and bags. “Open hull.”

“It’s the Saginaw ,” Captain Hink said. “Hear the cough in her throttle?”

Cedar listened. The ship gave off the strange chugging and hum that all airships emitted. “No.”

“Well, I do. It’s Captain Smith. Don’t know what I did to cook his cockles.”

“Maybe he’s looking for what you were looking for,” Cedar said.

“The Holder?” Captain Hink started down the tumble of rocks, kicking pebbles free. “Don’t think so. Most men think that’s just a bluff. A contraption to keep men spooked and under the president’s thumb.”

“The president?” Cedar asked. “What’s his part with the Holder?”

“He owns it, Mr. Hunt. Or so much as. This is his country, and to keep the peace, he has the right to control the weapons.”

“And what makes you think the Holder’s not a bluff?” Cedar asked.

“Besides you saying you’ve seen it? Records. Drawings sketched out by men learned in the wild sciences. I came across a man once who swore he’d seen it. Said it was headed out west in the possession of a peculiar aristocratic sort of man. A railroad tycoon.”

He stopped next to Cedar. “The power a man would carry in the palm of his hand if he had the Holder is enough to take all the states, and the world beyond for the spoils.”

“So how well do you know the president?” Cedar asked.

Captain Hink paused. He considered his answer just long enough for Cedar to know he’d hit a nerve. Regardless of what Captain Hink might say, he knew the president. Possibly had served under him. Maybe still did.

“Not well at all,” the captain lied cheerily. “But if I get my hands on the Holder, I’m going to march right up the hill and sit down to tea with the gentleman himself.

“We’ll need to patch the Swift enough to get her to a repair site,” he continued. “Old Jack’s isn’t too far off. We’ll have to do it quiet and slow. Crawl the cliffs and stay out of the clears, but we might make it by nightfall.”

“Then what?” Cedar asked.

“Then I drop you and yours off at the nearest town, we shake hands and let our paths take us where they may.”

Cedar didn’t think there were towns in these parts big enough to offer up the mounts and supplies they’d need to make it to Kansas. There might be a doctor for Rose, but if what Alun had said was true, they’d need the Holder to get that piece of tin out of her.

He’d promised the Madders he’d find the Holder for them. And he planned on doing just that. But he’d also promised he’d do anything necessary to get Rose the medical attention she needed. This was his last bargaining chip for her life.

“I can find it,” Cedar said.

Hink had taken three strides back toward the Swift , but he stopped dead.

“Find what?”

“The Holder.” He’d promised to find it for the Madders, but he had promised no man he’d give it into their possession. Wasn’t much promising he’d give it to Captain Hink either. Only that he’d look and find. After that, there’d be bargains to be made.

“I’ve seen it. I’ve smelled it. I know what it is. I can find it.”

Hink turned around, his head tipped just a little, as if he wasn’t clear that he was hearing correctly.

“I’m to take your word on this, Mr. Hunt?”

“If you think it’s a valuable opportunity.”

“Huh.” Captain Hink tucked his thumbs in the rigging gear at his hips. “What would it cost me to hire your services?”

“I find the Holder, and you take us to Kansas as fast as your ship can fly.”

“To Mrs. Lindson’s family?”

“That’s right.”

“Are you sure you have your bargain in order?” Captain Hink asked.

“I’m sure.”

The captain started off toward the ship again. “Most men would ask for the payment first, and service second.”

“I’m not most men.”

“So there’s a reason you want to find the Holder before taking Mrs. Lindson to her home?”

“Yes.”

“And what reason is that, Mr. Hunt?”

“Rose Small will die if I don’t.”

Cedar was watching Hink in profile as he said those words. The captain had placed his hand on the ship’s door. But his shoulders pulled back and his chin jerked up.

“Are you a doctor, Mr. Hunt?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then why should I believe your prognosis?”

“Because she has a piece of the Holder in that wound.”

“Impossible.” He turned. “The Holder can’t be broken. Each piece has been constructed so that nothing short of the fires of hell can melt it, no hammer can break it, and no vise can bend it. It’s made of Strange elements, Mr. Hunt. It isn’t just a tinker’s toy.”

For a man who had only seen sketches of it, he seemed to know an awful lot about it.

“It’s broken into seven pieces,” Cedar said, watching his eyes, the pace of his breathing. The Holder meant more to the captain than just a fancy bauble he could bargain with the president for over tea. The Holder was important enough to him that even implying it had been broken, tampered with, possibly destroyed, made him angry.

Not, not just angry. It made him fearful.

He had something on the line in finding the Holder, or in keeping it whole.

“Someone broke it into smaller bits,” Cedar said. “This one piece of it, at least. Someone who found this section of it tinkered with it. And I don’t think it’s an accident. That piece inside Miss Small was meant to kill. I think it was meant to kill me.”

“Are you so important that someone would destroy a weapon of that magnitude just to kill you? Isn’t a bullet good enough to stop you, Mr. Hunt?”

“I bleed,” Cedar said. “I can die. But I don’t do either easily.”

Hink narrowed his eyes, reassessing Cedar. Cedar waited. Let him make his own conclusions. Cedar had survived fatal wounds, from many of which he still carried the scars. The shift to wolf in the full moon sped up his healing to a remarkable degree.

He was a hard man to kill.

“Yet you’ll put the Holder in my hands for a ride on my ship,” Captain Hink said. “Not sure I’d trust a man who would hand over that weapon to the first sky rat he took ship with.”

“You’re not a sky rat,” Cedar said. “You’re the president’s man.”

Hink tugged the door open. “Says you.” He stepped into the Swift, Cedar right behind him.

The relief from the cold was a blessing, even though the interior of the ship was barely warmer than the frigid morning. At least there was no wind.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” Cedar said.

Captain Hink held his gaze for a long moment. Then he strode off to the front of the ship. “It’s half past dawn, you lazy slacks,” he said. “Get up, men, we have wings to mend.”

The men were already up, already busy stowing bedrolls and strapping the cots to the walls and overhead storage. They didn’t do much more than give the captain a glance, familiar with his moods as only a long-standing crew could be.

Wil, next to Rose’s hammock, whined. Rose was awake, though she stared at the ceiling and held as still as she could. Her coloring was off, a strange gray paleness in the shadows of her face.