Hunted [The Flash Gold Chronicles] (8 page)

Too soon, he broke the kiss. His calloused
hand came up to cup her jaw, and he stroked her cheek with his
thumb. Another night, the touch seemed to promise, when we’re not
on the ground, in a camp full of strangers, with a mission to
accomplish. And, as close as they were, she had no trouble
believing his interest now.

“Milos,” Cedar murmured.

“What?”

“My name.”

Oh! The M on his Winchester. “That doesn’t
sound so bad,” she said.

“Milos Kartes. I got close to Cudgel in
Denver, and he framed me for an ugly series of murders. There may
be a Pinkerton detective after me. I figured it wisest to go back
to my childhood nickname.”

“Ah.” So, someone was hunting him as well.
Although it was criminals who sought her, while the law stalked
him. If she continued to work with him, could that mean trouble for
her someday? Did it matter, given all the trouble already courting
her? Once she had her airship, she could evade those who hunted
her. No need to stay in any one port for long, not when she had a
world to see. Maybe Cedar would even want to come along. “Thank you
for trusting me with your name. Though I must admit, your
reluctance to share it had me hoping for something
embarrassing.”

A long moment passed, as if he were
considering something. Finally, he said, “My middle name is
Kallisto
.”

“That’s...pretty.”

“Oh, very pretty. It was my Greek
grandmother’s name.”

“Grand
mother
?”

“Yes, my mama had been saving it for when she
had a girl. After only boys, she decided to pass it on to her
youngest. Me. Apparently it means most beautiful.”

Kali did not manage to keep from laughing,
though she stifled it quickly. The last thing she wanted was to
ruin things by offending him.

“My Hän name is Tsul Gäh,” she said, feeling
the need to match his honesty. “Small rabbit. My mother thought I
was going to be a precious little daughter, not a troublemaker who
disassembled the chief’s dog sled to make skis out of the runners.
When I went to live with my father, he just called me, “girl,” so I
decided to pick my own name, a white name. The only white women in
Moose Hollow were prostitutes. Kali was the middle name of one who
was decent to me. I later learned it was a Hindi name that means
black. Guess I wasn’t meant to be white.”

He did not speak for a long moment, and she
wondered if she should have kept the information to herself. The
explanation for his middle name was cute and endearing. Her
explanation was... Well, it certainly made her childhood seem
pathetic.

“Did you ever know happiness growing up?”
Cedar asked.

“Making things made me happy. Being
good
at making things. If you’re good at something you like
to do, it gives you the self-assurance and confidence to deal with
the world’s disappointments.” Mostly.

“Then I’m glad you had that.”

He kissed her again, though it had the
brevity of a goodnight kiss. She forgave him for not offering more
when he slid his arms around her and snuggled against her back.

“I like Milos,” Kali said. “May I use
it?”

“Yes.”

“What about
Kallisto
?”

“Not unless you want me to use your pliers to
pull your tongue out through your nostrils.”

She smirked. “Do you always threaten women
after you kiss them?”

“You didn’t think I was a nice boy, did
you?”

Kali woke to something pressing against her
mouth. Her first thought was of Cedar giving her a kiss, but that
fantasy evaporated quickly. The pressure was too hard. It smothered
her nose as well as her mouth and cut off her air. Someone’s hand.
She tried to unleash her teeth, to gnash down on it. The grip
merely tightened.

She tried to sit up, but failed to rise an
inch. Hands forced her shoulders down, and something across her
legs pinned them to the ground.

Darkness still blanketed the forest, but she
figured out what was going on. Cedar had gone to investigate the
other camp, and Sebastian was taking the moment to truss her up
for...whatever stupid plan he had now.

She writhed and bucked in the blankets,
though only to disguise her real goal: she found the two smoke nuts
in her pockets and yanked them free.

“Hurry, pick her up,” Sebastian
whispered.

Trying to be quiet was he? He must fear Cedar
would hear and return. Good.

Now if Cedar’s fancy blanket weren’t
constricting her almost as much as her assailants, she might be
able to do something. The men—at least four of them—hefted her into
the air with the Euklisia Rug still tangled about her. She gripped
a smoke nut in each hand, thumbs poised to press up on the trigger
tabs.

“In the tent?” a man with a guttural accent
rasped.

They started moving her, stumbling over the
rocky ground as they went. Maybe they would be more distracted
now.

“No, we don’t want her lover to be able to
get to her,” Sebastian said. “We need to—argh!”

Kali grinned fiercely as she bit down on his
hand, glad he was the one who’d sport tooth marks. He snarled and
let go.

“Cedar!” she bellowed.

One of the hands gripping her shoulder let go
to reach for her mouth. The maneuver dipped her down, so her head
almost cracked against the rocks.

Sensing she had her moment, Kali yanked her
arms from beneath the blanket, flicked a trigger tab, and dropped
one of the smoke nuts. She twisted and used her free hand to grab
the closest thing to her face. A belt. Perfect.

Something slammed into her back. She almost
dropped her second smoke nut, but she managed to yank on the belt
and stuff the device down the owner’s trousers.

Unfortunately, she was as close to the smoke
weapons as the men. Kali burrowed back into the cocoon of blankets,
squeezed her eyes shut, and dug for the knife at her belt.

“What did she—”

“Damn it, move!” Sebastian yelled. “It’s one
of her things!”

Whoever held her legs dropped them. Kali
thrashed, though she made sure not to leave the padded shelter of
the blankets. The last man with a grip on her lost it, and she hit
the ground, a hard nodule gouging into her side. She rolled away,
not wanting to smother her own artillery.

She did not hear the click that heralded the
release of the metallic shards, but yelps of pain told the story.
Though she was rolling away as fast as she could, several
projectiles struck the side of her blanket. A couple burrowed
through the material and her clothing, slicing into her skin. It
was not as bad as it would have been if she had no padding though,
and she scampered out of the blankets without permanent damage.

Smoke from the weapon stung her eyes. In the
darkness, she struggled to see what was happening, but angry shouts
of “It got me!” and “Get it out!” told her where people were.
Agonized screams came from the man who had taken the projectile in
the pants. Given these thugs’ goals, she could feel little
remorse.

Kali patted about, looking for her rifle.
They must have taken it. She could not find her packsack—her
tools!
—either. Damn Sebastian. He must have moved all her
belongings first. Damn her heavy sleep too.

Knowing the smoke nuts would not buy her
indefinite time, she scrambled away from the camp. All the fires
along the shoreline had gone out, and clouds hid the stars and the
moon. Only the sound of the river helped her navigate. Though she
was on the wrong side of the waterway, she headed in the direction
of the Wilder camp, hoping Cedar had heard the commotion and was
coming to help.

“Which way’d she go?” one of the men behind
her snarled.

Kali kept running, not bothering with
stealth. The pained curses of the most injured man pierced the
night, and concerned calls from other claims covered her
retreat.

“Get her, you idiots,” Sebastian yelled.
“She’s worth a lot of money.”

That quieted some of the outcries.

A blocky shape loomed out of the darkness
ahead of Kali. She threw out her hands to keep from crashing into
it. Hard, cold metal met her touch. A couple of seconds of groping
allowed her to identify a steam engine and furnace. Had flames been
burning in the firebox, she might have come up with a creative use
for the machinery, but she merely noted it was probably used to aid
in digging and that a mine shaft would be nearby. She skirted the
area.

“Sebastian?” came a man’s whisper from ahead
of Kali.

She froze.

“I lost track of the big bloke with the gun
skills,” the speaker went on, raising his voice. “Sebastian, is
that you?”

“Stay up there,” Sebastian yelled to the man.
“She may have gone that way. Head her off.”

Boots crunched on river pebbles. Kali eased
back until she bumped against the boiler. She hunkered in its
shadow, hoping it would camouflage her. A hint of dawn brightened
the sky, and it would grow harder to hide soon.

“A hundred dollars cash to whoever finds the
girl,” Sebastian called.

At first Kali thought he was still trying to
rally his men, but an answering call came from a claim downriver.
“What’s she look like?” That wasn’t one of Sebastian’s thugs.

“A woman!” Sebastian called. “There aren’t
many up here.”

“Oh, right. You want her dead or alive?”

“Women ain’t no good dead!” came a call from
across the river.

Kali thunked her head back against the
boiler. The entire Sixty Mile River was going to be after her in a
minute. She glared down at the puny knife she still held. If she
had her pack, she would have tools and supplies and might be able
to build something. In lieu of that, her rifle would be handy just
then too.

“Anyone who touches the woman dies.” That was
Cedar. Good. His voice came from across the river. Not good. How
had he gotten over there and how long would it take him to return?
She had not seen any boats.

“Says who?”

Kali had no idea who that was.

She patted around the dormant steam engine.
Maybe this claim held something useful she could use. Since nobody
had come out to check on the ruckus, she figured the owners were in
town.

“The last man you’ll ever see if you hurt
her.” Cedar’s voice was closer. He must be on the shoreline
directly opposite from her.

In the growing light, she thought she could
pick out his tall form over there, but she dared not call to him.
She patted the ground, found a stone, and hurled it in his
direction. The surrounding shouts kept her from telling if it
splashed down or clattered onto the bank next to him, but she hoped
he heard and guessed where it had come from.

A shot fired. It originated in Sebastian’s
camp, and she had little trouble guessing the target. Her stomach
churned with concern for Cedar, but it was best to leave him to his
own devices and figure out a plan of her own.

Kali returned to her inspection of the
equipment. Her knuckles bumped against a wood box. She found the
lid, opened it, and groped inside. Charcoal and a smaller box
containing long wooden matches. She grabbed the latter, though she
did not know how she might use them yet.

More gunshots fired, going back and forth
across the river, and the chatter died down. So far no bullets had
slammed into the ground near her, but the scout was still standing
guard up ahead—she could make out his dark figure now too—-and he
was bound to see her if she made a run for the forest.

On her hands and knees, she crept around the
boiler, still hoping to find something she could use. Her fingers
brushed air. The mine shaft entrance, nothing but a hole in the
ground with a pipe leading into it. Not digging equipment after
all. Maybe some sort of heating system to thaw the permafrost and
make it easier to work? If so, there might be a whole network of
tunnels beneath her.

Tunnels she could get herself trapped in. She
shook her head. Going in was not a good idea.

Unless...

Could she make them believe she had gone in,
get them all to follow, and then escape into the forest while
everyone was searching the tunnels? She better check and see how
extensive the system was first.

Hoping the one-man-versus-the-entire-river
gunfight Cedar had started would give her time, she eased over the
lip of the hole. She probed for a bottom with her feet. There. Five
feet below.

She released the lip and dropped to the
bottom, clunking something with her elbow on the way. A lantern
stuck in a niche in the wall. She grabbed it and followed the
piping system into a low tunnel that led away from the river. The
walls radiated coldness and smelled of damp earth. Creeping into
the Stygian darkness made her think of the tombs and sepulchers in
a book she had once read about the Dark Ages. The gunfire grew
muffled and distant. When she judged herself far enough from the
entrance so the flame would not be visible, she lit the
lantern.

Pickaxes and shovels leaned against dirt and
stone walls marbled with quartz and thin threads that might have
been gold. For all she knew about mining, it might have been iron
pyrite too.

A few meters ahead, the passage branched into
three tunnels. Enough exploring. The mine promised the maze she had
hoped for, one her would-be captors could waste several minutes
exploring. All she had to do was set a decoy at the entrance so
they believed she had gone down and then hide nearby until they
dropped down to explore. It’d be better if she could figure out
some sort of time-delay device to cause a sound, making the men
even more certain she was down there, but she did not want to risk
delving further and genuinely being trapped.

Kali was about to turn around when something
glinted in the darkness, reflecting her lantern light. She only
hesitated a heartbeat before jogging toward it. Just another
moment....