Devon Monk - Tin Swift

He pushed the door open.

“Problem, Captain?” Ansell called out from the nose of the ship, his gun in one hand and knife in the other.

“Just taking a stroll, Mr. Ansell,” Hink said. “No need to stay awake on our account.”

“Aye, that, Captain.” He stowed his gun and rolled in his cot so his back was to the rest of the ship.

Captain Hink stepped fully into the ship. “Shall I set you on your feet, Miss Small?” he asked quietly.

“Please.”

Rose held her breath as he adjusted his hold on her and let her feet touch the ground. Her stomach roiled at the movement and she broke out in a cold sweat. But that couldn’t dampen her joy. She was determined to see the ship, all of her, or at least all of her that she could before either fatigue or pain made her pass out.

“Tell me about her,” Rose said, looking around.

“What do you want to know?” he asked, watching Rose as she held on to the metal bars and slowly walked toward the rear of the vessel.

She looked over at the captain, a big smile on her face. “Everything. I want to know her like a friend.”

He paused, studying her. The intensity in his gaze near took Rose’s breath right out of her chest.

Then he smiled, just so much that it curved his lips. It was an intimate sort of smile. As if he was intending to take his time and show her pleasure she had never known before.

“Let’s start in the boiler room,” he said. “It’s always a bit warmer there.”

Rose realized she was shaking. From the cold, yes, and the pain, and the effects of the coca leaf. But also with excitement. She was standing in an airship. With a handsome captain.

If she weren’t aching and cold, she might think this was a dream. A pleasant one at that.

Captain Hink paced up near her and wrapped his arm around her back, helping to guide her to the back of the ship. “This way.”

He opened the blast door, then turned a small gear, which struck a spark against flint. The burnt sulphur smell tickled her nose, as light caught across a network of glass globes around the metal rafters of the room.

Rose stopped full and put her hand to her heart, unable to speak. The lights were beautiful, catching flame in the burnished copper and brass of the big iron boilers.

Pipes, flues, and tanks filled the room, mahogany and teak adding their own beauty among the valves and compasslike gauges, even more lovely than when Molly had brought her back here.

“I’ve never imagined,” she began. “Well, I’ve imagined, but I was wrong.”

“Thought it might be a bit fancier?” he asked, turning his shoulders so he could walk into the room, his thumbs tucked in his belt.

“No. She’s more wondrous than I’d hoped. I can’t seem to make my eyes big enough to take it all in.” She smiled, and found Captain Hink smiling right back at her.

“Molly has a cot here.” He pointed to the snug bed in the corner of the room. “Why don’t you sit before you lose your knees?”

“You don’t think she’d mind?”

“Molly? Might be a bit hardheaded, and Lord knows she doesn’t listen to orders well, but she has a heart the size of the seven seas. I hear Gregors are built that way.”

Rose got herself over to the bed and was out of breath from that much activity. “I knew a Gregor,” she said, puffing a little. “He was just the same.”

The captain strolled to a boiler, and out of habit touched it, checking for heat, before leaning back against it.

“So this is the heart of the ship,” he said, looking around the room. “Molly’s the pulse that keeps it beating. Up front, I stand as the brains. Seldom is my navigator, that makes him the eyes. And Ansell and Guffin, I suppose, are her wings. We run a small crew, but we like it that way. Less chance of us stepping on top of each other and wanting to finish our disagreements with guns.”

“How long have you been harvesting glim? Three years?” she asked.

He looked down at his boots and shook his head. “That’s about right.”

“What did you do before that? Transport? She seems a small ship for that.”

Captain Hink took a deep breath and then started walking toward her. “I haven’t told you all the truth, Miss Small. Plainly, there hasn’t been time.”

He sat himself down beside her. So close, his shoulder brushed against hers. He rested his arms out over his knees, and loosely carded his fingers together.

“I’ve been running glim for three years. Several years before that I was a soldier in the war. And since the war, I’ve also been working for the president of the United States.”

“You’re a statesman?” she asked, confused. Didn’t make any sense for a statesman to be out in the wilds hopping skies for glim.

But then, Mr. Hunt was from the universities back east, and had been a teacher before hard times fell upon him. Maybe Captain Hink’s story was the same.

“Not so much a statesman. I’m a lawman. U.S. Marshal.”

“Really, now?” Rose said.

He tilted his head to get a better look at her. “You don’t believe me?”

“I just think if a fellow were trying to impress a girl, being an airship captain, a glim pirate, and a U.S. Marshal just might do the trick, unless maybe you’d like to add doctor, lawyer, or war hero for good measure.”

She was trying not to smile but couldn’t help it. He looked so confused.

“I suppose war hero might be true too,” he said, “or not, depending on whose side you believe. But I swear on my sweet mama’s grave. I was a U.S. Marshal long before I took to flying or harvesting glim.”

“Yes,” Rose said, keeping her expression serious. “Of course you were.”

He frowned and blew out air. “It’s”—he gestured with his hands, as if trying to catch a fleeting thought—“true,” he finally managed.

“Then why don’t you wear a badge?”

“I have a badge.”

“Can I see it?” she asked solemnly.

He dug in the inner pocket of his coat, hesitated a moment, then drew his fingers out. In his hand was a tin badge shaped like a star.

“Oh,” Rose said. She really had thought he was teasing her, trying to impress her. “So should I call you Marshal Captain Hink now?”

“I’d rather you not. And it would be Marshal Cage if you did.”

“What about ‘Lee’?”

“That’s one of the names I answer to.”

“How many names do you have, Captain?” Rose asked.

Hink hesitated. “I’d hate to tarnish your opinion of me, Miss Small.”

“Over a name or two?”

“Not that, as such.” He took a breath as if bracing for something, then let it out. “I have one name for each man who might have been my daddy.”

Rose pressed her fingers over her mouth. “Oh, I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Not at all. I had it coming.” He grinned wickedly at her.

“My mother was a woman of some adventure , if you understand what I’m saying. Wonderful woman, and I loved her very much. But she once told me she wasn’t quite sure which of her suitors had fathered me. So she gave me a name from each of them, in case they ever came back to claim me.”

“Your mother was a…”

He raised one eyebrow and nodded encouragingly, as if daring her to use a word to describe his mother.

“She was alone to raise you?” she asked.

From his look, that was not at all what he had expected out of her. She liked being able to surprise him.

“Some other adults lent a hand now and then, but yes. She raised me alone.”

“And did your father return?”

“No.”

“So how many…names do you have?”

“Four.”

“Four?”

“Lee Cadwaller Hink Cage.”

“That’s an impressive list.”