Devon Monk - Cold Copper

She shook her head.

“Damn it!” he yelled.

Then he backed away from the edge and in a moment a rope lowered down, the end of it knotted in a loop big enough to fit down over her shoulders and latch up tight around her ribs.

She’d have to let go to get the rope in place. A terrifying thought.

“Rose!” he yelled.

She didn’t want to let go of this slight safety, but had no idea how far the frigate was transporting the train car. And once they landed, they might not take into account the fact that there was a person on the side of the car, especially if they were taking it somewhere like a forest or a dock with other freight stacked upon it.

Just her luck, she’d get scraped right off the side.

The top of the car didn’t seem much safer. But there might be a way down into the inside. She liked that idea. Liked it very much. And even if Hink hadn’t gotten around to finding a way in, she’d be more than happy to do so.

Rose braced her left arm tight and uncoiled her right. She reached up for the rope and guided it one-handed over her head, then under her arm. She relocked her right arm over the rung, then positioned the rope under her left arm. The rope fit nicely around her ribs, and even though it was only a slight improvement in her situation, it lent a strong feeling of security.

The rope tugged, and Rose reluctantly let go of one rung, reached up for the next, and convinced her feet to do the same. She did not look down. And she tried very hard not to think about just what, exactly, she was doing.

Then she was over the top. Hink walked backward with the rope over his shoulder, then expertly tied a knot in it around the huge loop where the main cable attached between the freight car and the airship. He walked back over to her and bent, his hand extended.

He wasn’t tied down to anything, not a safety line in place, and yet he strode around up there like he was stomping across a barn floor.

His days as a glim pirate were paying off. He was as steady on his feet as any seagoing captain.

Rose reached up for him, and with his help, was soon standing on the roof of the freight car, a rope still tight around her, and Captain Hink glaring down at her.

“What in the blazes are you doing here?” he yelled.

“Let’s get inside,” she yelled back.

He looked up and around, obviously completely unconcerned that any hard gust of wind would send them toppling, or worse, that the weather would drop and the whole of the thing would be covered in ice.

“This is not a game,” he yelled.

Rose held up one finger to silence him. Then she pointed at her feet. “Inside.”

His lips moved through an impressive array of cusswords, which Rose ignored. Then he took her by the arm and stomped along the top of the crate to a hatch.

So there was a way inside. Good.

Her heart leaped at the thought of having four strong walls safe around her.

Hink kicked the hatch open with the toe of his boot and held her arm as she crouched at the edge of it. She held her breath and dropped down inside.

A soft landing was out of the question with the entire car swaying in the wind. Her ankle shot with pain, and she barked her knees, but she was on the floor, the rocking floor, more whole than less.

In a moment, Hink dropped down over the edge, a much shorter fall for him since the tall of him took up a good chunk of distance between the top of the car and the floor.

“What in hell are you doing here?” he repeated almost before his boots hit the floor.

“Where did you expect me to be? Back on that train while it was getting robbed?”

“I told you that wasn’t a real robbery.”

“There are two dead men back there who might think otherwise.”

“Yes. Two men I shot,” Hink said. She pulled her shoulders back and stood up to him, craning her neck so she could stare into his stormy blue eye. “They were robbing the train, and you left me there. With them.”

“They weren’t breathing much when I was done with them. You’d have been safer there.”

“I saw you jump on this…on this blamed train car and then the ship yanked it off the track. I thought you were going to die.”

He closed his mouth around whatever he’d been about to say.

“Rose.” He said that much softer than before. “You know I have a dangerous job. You throwing yourself into danger after me doesn’t make it any easier. Or safer.”

“I don’t care,” she said. “I know what I want, Lee. And it’s you.”

She reached up on tiptoe and kissed him.

He stood there for a second or two, caught by the surprise of her bold move. Then his arms wrapped around her possessively and for that world-erasing moment, she was once again right where she most wanted to be.

“Ain’t that sweet?” a man’s voice said from the corner of the car.

Hink broke the kiss and swung himself between Rose and the man, the whole of him wide enough to set Rose completely in the dark.

“Get both your hands out where I can see them and drop your gun on the floor,” the man said. “Slow and easy.”

Rose made to step out from behind Hink, but he had snuck his hand around his back. In it was a flare with a flint-and-steel starter.

“We have no quarrels with you, friend,” Hink said, as he adjusted his hold on the flare up to his fingertips, offering it to Rose.

Rose took it and stuck it up her sleeve.

“I ain’t no friend of yours,” he growled. “Now show me your palms. Both of them. And, miss, I know you’re behind him. Won’t do you any good to hide. Step on out.”

Rose couldn’t get to her gun at the bottom of her bag without an awful lot of maneuvering, but she unlatched the top of her satchel so if there was a chance, she’d be on it faster.

“Don’t get her involved in this,” Hink said. “She tumbled out the window and caught on hold of this box by accident.”

“That so?” the man said. “Don’t believe a word of it. I’ve seen just as many women in this war as there are men. Step out.”

War?

Rose stepped out from behind Hink, her hands clenched together, and tried to look frightened and helpless. The frightened part wasn’t all that hard to manage, but the helpless had never come very easily to her.

“Please, don’t shoot,” she said.

The man was in dark clothing from hat to boot, just like the robbers. Only he didn’t wear a kerchief over his mouth. Rose made a point to memorize the wide angles of his face, narrow-set eyes, and large nose.

“We don’t mean you any trouble,” Hink said.

The man jerked his gun. “Put that peashooter of yours on the floor, and kick it to me,” he said.

Hink reached for the gun under his coat.

“Slowly.”

Hink reached slower for the gun under his coat.

He pulled it out, holding it by one finger, then dropped it on the floor.

“Good. Now kick it.”

Hink put the sole of his boot on the gun. He didn’t say anything, but there was tenseness in him, like a coil wound too tight.

Rose knew that was her signal. It was time to throw the flare.

She slid her hand up her sleeve and struck the flare, then hurled it at the man. The crate filled with blinding orange light.

Rose ducked and dug in her satchel for her gun, but Hink was already rushing the man, then was on him, fists slamming into his face and stomach.

The man got off a shot or two, then both of them fell to the floor, just as the entire crate tipped alarmingly to the side, forcing everything not tied down to slide from one end of the car to the other.

Rose slid too, but held tight to her gun as she thunked against the crates and coffins. The flare went out and darkness thumped down so thick it felt like a blanket fell over her eyes.