Liberty (Flash Gold, #5) (5 page)

“Doing a lot of hoping
tonight,” she whispered, flicking the switch to turn her tool from
drill mode to saw mode.

The blade surged in and
out, cutting into the wood. She maneuvered it, groaning at how
slowly it progressed through the boards. With the flash gold
powering the tool, it was far faster than a handheld saw would have
been, but she worried about the time she was taking.

As she reached the
halfway point in her ragged circle, she began to believe that it
might work, that she might finish her hole before anyone discovered
her. She leaned into the saw, urging it to work faster.

“Go, go,” she whispered
as she reached the three-quarters mark. The tool hummed happily,
blue streaks of lightning coursing along the metal body. “That
isn’t necessary,” she muttered.

“Wait for me, Ted,”
someone called from the mouth of the alley, someone in a Mountie
uniform. The man bent over to tie his boot.

Kali cut off the saw and
willed the streaks of lightning to go away. A few indignant sparks
erupted from the casing. She used her body to shield them from the
street. The man was tying
both
boots. What kind of dolt
ran outside before attending to his laces?

A soft knock sounded, and
Kali flinched, nearly dropping her saw. It came from the other side
of the wall. Cedar?

“Not now,” she whispered,
watching the Mountie.

The man stood up and, as
he adjusted his uniform jacket, glanced toward Kali. She did not
move, and her body blocked her tool from his sight, but that glance
turned into a longer look. She couldn’t tell if he saw her in the
shadows or was concerned about the lanterns that were out.

“Just a minute, Ted,” he
called, then took a step in her direction.

She cursed inwardly. Run?
Fight? No, even though she wore Cedar’s revolver in her belt, she
couldn’t contemplate shooting a Mountie. That was a far greater
crime than drilling a hole—at least, she was fairly certain it
was.

“They went that way,”
came Tadzi’s voice from behind Kali.

He ran down the alley as
fast as his lame leg would take him, passing Kali without glancing
at her. He pointed toward something behind the Mountie. Or maybe
nothing. Either way, the man was distracted, taking his gaze from
the lantern he’d been frowning at.

“I saw them do it,” Tadzi
blurted as the man focused on him. “The two men who lit the mill on
fire. They went this way.” He waved wildly at the Mountie as he
charged past him.

As the man turned to
watch him enter the alley on the far side of the street, Kali held
her breath.

“Are you coming, mister?”
Tadzi called back. “
I’m
not arresting them.”

The Mountie’s eyes
narrowed, but he walked after Tadzi. “Slow down, boy. Tell me what
you saw.”

Tadzi managed to lead him
into that alley. Not certain how far he would manage to convince
the Mountie to go, Kali flicked the saw back on. It only cut two
more inches before a snap and an angry hiss came from the core of
her tool. The lightning died, and black smoke wafted from the
casing. She cursed again, hoping that whatever she had broken was
something she could fix, but she worried that the lump of flash
gold she had been using might have run out of power. Kali had no
idea what the person who had blown up the block of it had done, but
the wilted lump had definitely seemed weaker after surviving that
detonation, providing less power than usual.

“Someone’s down there,”
came a whisper from overhead.

Dread flooded her gut as
Kali looked up. One of the soldiers on the airship was leaning over
the railing, his face just visible as he stared down at the alley.
At her.

A heavy thud sounded.
Wood snapped. Kali was barely aware of the wall moving before it
slammed into her, knocking her onto her butt. The saw flew from her
hands.

Cedar tumbled out of the
hole, almost landing on top of her.

Shouts came from the
airship. All Kali heard was an order for someone to bring a gun.
Then Cedar was grabbing her and hauling her to her feet.

A whistle blew from the
front of the headquarters building. Kali reached for the saw, but
Cedar tugged her along, deeper into the alley, and she didn’t have
time to grab it. It would only slow her down, anyway.

She sprinted along with
him, afraid to look back. He took the lead, for which she was glad,
because her mind blanked as blood and fear surged through her
veins—she couldn’t think of the best direction to run.

Someone leaned out of the
hole they had made and shouted. “Stop, or I’ll shoot.”

Cedar shoved her around
the corner. A rifle fired, a bullet lodging in the mud scant inches
behind Kali.

“It’s our man,” someone
yelled from the direction of the airship.

Cedar turned and turned
again, leading her deep into the maze of Dawson’s alleys. A shadow
blotted out the stars over them. The airship.

“Oh, sure,” Kali said
between gasps for air. “
Now
they move that damned bloated
cloud.”

“Such foul language,”
Cedar said, pausing to wait for her. “Is that my pack?”

“It’s your everything.”
She shrugged out of it as she ran and thrust it at him. He had been
resting up since being arrested. Let him carry it.

“You’re a thoughtful jail
breaker.”

Someone fired from the
airship. The bullet didn’t come anywhere close, but it reminded
Kali that they couldn’t linger. The entire city was alive with
shouts, and she doubted they were all about the burning building
now.

She and Cedar took
another turn, and the dark placid waters of the Yukon River came
into view.

“We’re not swimming, are
we?” Kali had gotten turned around. She’d thought they had been
running for the woods on the other side of town.

“I thought we’d borrow a
boat, but that might not be a good idea.” Cedar glanced
skyward.

“Not unless you want to
be a target.”

When they reached the
docks, he turned down the street that ran along the river instead
of racing out to grab a boat. Kali struggled to keep up, having
fantasies of her SAB and lamenting once more that it was buried
with everything else.

Two Mounties charged out
of an intersecting street ahead of them. Kali skidded to a stop,
but Cedar barreled into them, punching as he went. They were down
before Kali could even consider how she might help.

“Hurry,” Cedar urged,
glancing up the street but continuing along the waterfront.

“Experiencing some
pent-up aggravation?” Kali leaped over one of the groaning men and
rushed after him.

“I’m not aggravated. I’m
invigorated.”

Though it was getting
harder to gasp in air as she kept running, Kali couldn’t resist the
urge to tease him. “How would one know the difference?”

“I’m not shooting
people.”

“You don’t have a
gun.”

“Oh, right.”

They passed another
street, and Kali nearly tripped. The mill she had set on fire was
in view, with smoke spewing into the night, hazing the stars.
Flames leaped from the interior of the building. There had been
more wood left in there to burn than she had realized.

“That your work?” Cedar
asked.

“I thought I needed a
distraction.”

She expected him to say
something flippant, but the look he cast over his shoulder was
grim. It reminded her that whatever else happened tonight, she had
marked herself as a criminal. She would never again be able to walk
into town to deal with customers or even to buy something to eat,
not without worrying about being arrested.

She looked at Cedar’s
back as they ran, the dark shoreline of the river waiting ahead of
them. It had been worth it.

Cedar and Kali did not slow down until they were
deep within the woods, miles outside of town, and many minutes had
passed since they had heard indications of pursuit. Cedar had no
doubt that the Mounties and the Pinkerton detective’s men would be
out here tomorrow to search, likely with the help of that airship,
but it shouldn’t matter now if they stopped to rest for a few
minutes. He could hear Kali puffing along behind him with her
shorter legs.

He slowed down, turning
to stop her. He only intended to reach out with his hand, but he
had been so certain that he would never see her again that his
gesture turned into a fierce hug.

“I know I told you not to
incriminate yourself over me,” he whispered, “but I’m glad you
came.”

Kali said something, but
with her face pressed into his shoulder, it was hard to hear. Cedar
forced himself to loosen his grasp so she could speak. And
breathe.

“I need your help,” she
said, squeezing his arm. Hopefully, that meant she hadn’t minded
the bone-crushing hug.

“Anything.”

“You remember that
explosion we heard?”

“Yes.” Cedar
grimaced—he’d forgotten about it as soon as Commissioner Steele and
the airship had shown up. “Was it something to do with you?”

“You could say that.”

Cedar listened in silence
as she explained it all: the blasted side of the mountain, the
rockfall that had smothered her cave workshop, and the crater where
she believed her block of flash gold had somehow been
detonated.

“I need your help
tracking down the person who did it,” Kali said. “I need to—I don’t
even know, but I need to find out who did that and make sure
they’re not going to keep coming after me. They must have known I
wasn’t in the cave, since they sneaked in to steal my belongings
and obviously didn’t see me there, but was that all they wanted to
do? Destroy the flash gold and my airship? Or was that Step One?
What if someone’s trying to kill me?”

“Valid questions, though
before we consider the ramifications of staying near Dawson when
lawmen from two countries are after us, let me ask you
something.”

“Yes?”

“Did you break me out of
jail because you need my help tracking your nemesis or because you
couldn’t stand being apart from me any longer on account of how you
were pining away without my company?”

In the darkness, he
couldn’t see her face, and he knew she couldn’t see his smirk, but
he hoped she sensed that he was joking. He knew full well that she
would have come for him. After all, she had offered to do just that
earlier that day.

“Honestly, I’ve been
pining more for my airship,” Kali said. “It’s almost certainly
destroyed and lost forever. You were just… in holding. Though if
I’d known that some Pinkerton agent was here to collect you, I
would have come tonight, whether you wanted me to or not.”

“Pining for your
airship?” he asked. “When it never kisses you or hugs you or takes
you on picnics?”

“It might have taken me
on picnics.” She leaned against his chest. “I never got the chance
to find out. Also, I would have been alarmed if it did any of those
other things.”

Since she didn’t sound
like she was in the mood for his teasing, he simply put an arm
around her and let her lean against him. Crickets chirped in the
forest, and a breeze whispered through the trees, rustling branches
and licking at the sweat on his brow. Even though it was late
summer, he could feel a hint of a chill in that breeze, the promise
of autumn and then winter. He knew Kali had dreamed of being long
gone from the Yukon before the seasons turned dark and cold again,
but he didn’t know how realistic that would be if airship travel
was not open to them. Nor did he like the odds of surviving as
outlaws living in the woods somewhere, without the ability to head
into town for supplies.

Well, they would figure
it out. He was out of jail, and he had her in his arms. He was in a
much better position than he had been an hour ago.

“Have you seen that
Amelia woman lately?” Cedar asked, remembering the last time they
had crossed paths with someone who wanted to destroy the flash gold
instead of possessing it.

“I haven’t,” Kali said,
“but her name has been in my mind.”

“You didn’t see any sign
of flying contraptions or those awful shooting butterflies, did
you?”

“I didn’t see any sign of
anything except blown up rocks. That’s why I came to get you.”

“Ah. I reckon it’s good
to be appreciated.”

“I’ll appreciate you even
more after you find her. If we can’t wring her neck and throw her
in the river to drown, I’d settle for chaining her in my cave—in a
new cave—while she builds me another airship.”

Kali’s tone came out as
flippant, but Cedar knew how much that ship meant to her, how long
building it and escaping the Yukon had been her dream. He pulled
her close for another hug.

“I’ll find her. You can
do the deciding between whether to wring her neck or enslave
her.”

“You’re generous.”

Cedar glimpsed a light in
the sky, visible through the evergreen boughs overhead. He released
Kali and searched for a spot where he could see more without being
seen. Even though August was on the wane, the hours of darkness
were still few, and the stars had already faded with the promise of
dawn. It did not take him long to spot the dark shape drifting over
the forest. It had to be the same airship that had come to collect
him. He eased back under the cover of the trees. The soldiers on
the deck would have a hard time spotting him now, but once the sun
rose, that would be a different tale. His instincts told him to
flee to the south, to find a way over the Chilkoot Pass and to keep
going until he found someplace safe, perhaps into Mexico. If he
wanted to live, he ought to leave Canada and the United States far
behind.

But he had to help Kali
first. And that wouldn’t be easy with all of Dawson looking for
them—and with the Mounties knowing exactly where her workshop had
been.

“Let’s get going,” Cedar
said. “I’ll start looking for signs as soon as it’s light enough to
see. And hopefully before the Mounties show up to search that
area.”