Peacemaker (The Flash Gold Chronicles, #3) (9 page)

“
You killing that one
too?” she asked, in case he would feel guilty over accidentally
strangling a pirate.

Cedar’s eyes came back into focus, and he
loosened his grip. “Probably should. No telling how many honest
working folk these men have robbed, but I didn’t see any heads with
bounties on them when I was skirmishing on the ship. We’ll just let
the Mounties know where to find these men. Maybe they can arrest
the pirates before they fix their ship.”

Though the prisoner was busy gasping for
air, he still managed to pale at this statement. Kali chewed on her
lip. If the Mounties took care of the pirates, she wasn’t going to
have much of a claim on the ship.

“
Get some rope out of my
pack, will you?” Cedar asked. “We don’t want this one scurrying
back to warn the others.”

Kali retrieved the rope, but she was mulling
over alternatives to relying on the Mounties. If she and Cedar took
care of the pirates, they’d be able to legally claim the ship for
themselves. That wasn’t foremost on his mind though. She’d have to
talk him around to her way of thinking. “What if they get their
ship fixed before the Mounties come?”

“
That’d be a shame, but
catching that murderer is my priority.” Cedar held out his hand for
the rope.

“
Maybe we could take care
of both somehow.”

“
How would we get in there
to incapacitate everyone without being noticed? There are close to
twenty men over there.” Cedar waved toward the ship. “At night,
when everyone’s sleeping, we might be able to get the jump on them,
but that’s hours off, and I want to get back to Dawson before this
Sparwood strikes again.”

“
We got one out.” Kali
pointed to the man as Cedar bent to tie him. “Maybe it wouldn’t be
so impossible to subdue the others.”

“
Unless you know someway
to knock them all out at once, I don’t see how it could be done
without a passel of unneeded danger for ourselves.”

Kali could think of chemicals that could
make that happen, but she didn’t have anything like that. They
could start a fire and drive them out of the area, but burning the
airship wasn’t what she had in mind. Ideally, she’d take it without
doing any more damage to it than was already there. “No,” she
admitted.

“
Best to go back to
Dawson,” Cedar said, “catch this murderer, and let the Mounties
deal with the pirates.”

“
They could be gone by the
time the Mounties get here,” Kali said again, though she sensed she
needed to come up with a stronger argument to sway him. “Think of
all the people they might kill, going after folks along the
river.”

Cedar had finished tying the pirate to a
tree and had torn the man’s shirt to create a gag to keep him
silent. He propped his hands on his waist and eyed Kali. “What’re
you angling for exactly?”

“
Me?” Kali shrugged.
“Nothing.”

“
Really.”

Kali shifted from foot to
foot and avoided his knowing gaze for a long moment before saying,
“All right, I was thinking that if the pirates were all captured or
arrested or otherwise incapacitated, we could
relieve
them of the airship. That
would destroy their ability to thieve from the air.” Yes, make it
noble, Kali, she told herself. Make it about helping the miners.
She stifled a snort of derision for herself.

“
You want to steal their
ship?” Cedar asked.

“
If they stole it first,
then it’d hardly be called stealing, right? We’d just be liberating
it for a nobler purpose.”

“
Such as?”

“
Taking us around the
world. Or hunting slimy villains from the sky. It’d be easy to keep
up with Cudgel if we had our own transportation, something that can
go right over mountains and inaccessible terrain. And I wouldn’t
have to booby trap all of my working and sleeping areas to
tarnation and back because I’m so paranoid that someone’ll sneak up
on me and try to tote me off to Soapy Smith or the Scar of Skagway.
Sure, the ship would need a lot of modifications, and it’d likely
be fall before we could take off, but we could get out of Dawson
this year. It’d be—” she clenched a fist, almost tasting the
triumph, “—heavenly.”

Cedar, eyebrows raised, seemed bemused by
her enthusiasm, but at least he didn’t laugh. He took her arm and
moved her out of range of the tied prisoner’s hearing. “I suppose
it would be safer for you to be in the air where enemies seeking
your father’s secrets couldn’t sneak up on you.”

Kali barely heard him. In her mind, she was
already picturing the ship and what might be done to it. It was a
larger vessel than she’d thought to make, but she would have plenty
of room for a crew, and maybe they could even pay for the expenses
of maintaining an airship by taking on passengers. She’d end up
being a captain with people under her. Huh. She’d have to think
more on that later, but now she imagined crawling around inside,
inspecting and measuring every inch, sketching up schematics,
planning her modifications. She’d clamber up in there right now, if
it weren’t surrounded by pirates.

“
All right,” Cedar said.
“I’ll help you, but let’s get the murderer first.”

His words catapulted Kali back to the
moment. “First? But if he’s in Dawson, and we’re right here, surely
we could…”

“
It’s only a few miles
back to town,” Cedar said dryly, “and that won’t take long on your
bicycle.”

“
True, but we don’t have
any idea where in Dawson to look for this man. He could be hiding
out anywhere. It’s a big city these days. And if those men get the
ship fixed before we get back, we might lose the
opportunity.”

“
Kali, I know the airship
is important to you, but if another woman gets murdered tonight,
will you be able to live with yourself, knowing you chose personal
gain over helping out? Those are
your
people getting killed, whether
you want anything to do with them or not.”

“
What can I do? You’re the
tracker. I don’t know how to hunt men down in the city.” Kali
stepped back and stuffed her hands into her pockets. He wasn’t
wrong, but she didn’t care for having someone lecture her. And,
damn it, she didn’t want to do the right thing, not if it meant
delaying her dream. She could be a do-gooder after she had her ship
in the air. “Look, why don’t you go and hunt this Sparwood fellow,
and I’ll stay out here and work out a plan to get the—”

“
No.” Cedar gripped her
arm so tightly it was almost painful. “They’re a danger, and that
Pinkerton detective is a danger to you, if he finds you too. And I
don’t want to imagine what would happen if Cudgel knew about you,
and found you, and—” He dropped his chin, staring at his hand where
he gripped her. He loosened his fingers, but did not let
go.

Kali’s anger and irritation faded. “Is that
why you’ve been so scarce lately? Cudgel’s about, and you don’t
want someone letting him know we’re…something?”

“
I can’t let that happen,”
Cedar whispered. “Not again.”

“
Again?”

Cedar dropped his hand and walked a few
steps away, turning his back to her. Was he talking about his
brother? Or maybe the murdered girl from San Francisco? Had she
been someone he cared about? But she’d been married, the article
said. It had also said he’d been having an affair with her. She
grimaced, not wanting to think of Cedar doing something like that.
Somehow cutting off heads seemed less despicable. More unsettling
perhaps, but given that they were the heads of murdering
criminals….

Kali shook away the thoughts. He wasn’t
saying anything else, and they shouldn’t stand up here, this close
to that pirate camp forever. One last idea came to her, one more
way she might be able to sway him.

“
That man barely gave us a
description and didn’t give us any hint of where to look,” Kali
said. “Maybe there are pirates in the ship who know more about this
Sparwood. If we figure out a way to subdue them and question each
of them, maybe we can get more of a lead.”

Cedar had not turned back to face her, and
he remained silent for a long moment. The sun had set, finally
bringing evening, and mosquitoes buzzed about, nipping at Kali’s
skin.

“
Do you believe that?” he
finally asked. “Or are you saying what you think I want to hear in
an attempt to change my mind?”

Hands still in her pockets, Kali scowled and
studied a gnarled root at her feet. “Yes, I want the ship, but
there could be something useful to be learned there too. We don’t
know enough to pick someone out of a city of thousands.”

“
There aren’t that many of
your people living in Dawson. We can look them up individually.
Maybe you can even name some.”

“
Me?” Kali bristled at
having them called
her
people. As everyone on both sides was quick to point out, she
was a half-breed, some mongrel who didn’t belong to anyone. “I
haven’t been living in Dawson any longer than you, and I pay less
attention to people than you do.”

“
Why don’t you care more
about this?” Cedar asked, facing her again.

“
I don’t
not
care. I just don’t
see why
you
care
so much. The city is full of Mounties. Why do you have to be the
great savior for this problem?”

Cedar seemed taller than ever as he stared
down at her, his expression as dark and craggy as the bark of the
tree that was his namesake. He turned on his heel and stalked away,
heading back downhill toward the river.

Kali kicked at the root. What was wrong with
him?

She gazed toward the trees that hid the
airship from view, tempted to stay up there and scheme something on
her own. Twenty people, he’d said. At least. She might be able to
come up with something to get rid of the pirates, but she might get
herself killed too. And even if she did triumph, what then? Fixing
that fan alone would take time, and even if it was a quick fix,
could she get such a big airship off the ground and fly it
alone?

Grumbling and kicking more roots, and a few
rocks for good measure, Kali stomped back down the stump-filled
slope toward the river. She reached the SAB without spotting Cedar.
Where had he gone?

“
Here,” came his voice
from somewhere nearby.

With dusk’s approach, shadows filled the
valley, and it took Kali a moment to pick him out of the gloom. He
was leaning against a tall boulder overlooking the river.

Kali joined him. It was a wide boulder, and
she started to lean against it beside him, but he stretched an arm
out, caught her, and pulled her into a hug. It was a stiff hug, and
she could feel tension in his muscles.

“
I’m sorry,” Cedar said,
resting his chin against the top of her head.

Kali leaned against him. “Why? I mean,
you’re not wrong. You’re just a pain in the caboose.”

He grunted softly and wrapped both arms
around her. “For not explaining…things.”

“
Oh. Well, yes, you’re
truly being a pain about that.”

She waited, hoping an explanation was
coming, though she admitted she appreciated the warmth of his
embrace even if he was being a pain in the caboose.

“
The girl in the paper,”
Cedar finally said. “She wouldn’t be dead if it weren’t for
me.”

“
Oh?”

“
Cudgel found out that
she…meant something to me and killed her, not only to frame me, but
to hurt me.” His voice dropped into a husky whisper. “And he
succeeded. He’s taken not just my brother from me, but a girl—a
woman—that I…”

“
Loved?” Kali asked
hesitantly. It was unrealistic to think she was the first woman
he’d ever cared about, but a selfish part of her wanted the answer
to be, ‘no.’

Cedar sighed, his breath stirring her hair.
“Maybe. Yes, probably. It was going that way.”

“
Oh. The paper said she
was married,” Kali said, careful to keep her tone neutral, not
wanting to come across as accusing or judgmental, though something
inside her broke a little. She wasn’t sure if it was because she
had thought Cedar a better man, someone who was too honorable to
get involved with a married woman, or maybe because it hurt to
think of him loving someone else. Kali had thought…well, she’d
thought she was special, that he appreciated her creativity and
tinkering skills, and that was why he liked her. But, if he could
fall in love so easily, what did his affection really
mean?

“
Yes,” Cedar finally said.
“It was an arranged marriage, and he was older and barely paid
attention to her. He just wanted an heir for his business empire,
and…” He sighed again. “I don’t suppose having a bunch of
justifications for something makes an ignoble choice a noble one.
If, when I first met her, I’d just said she was married and walked
away, she’d be alive today.”

“
How…” Kali started.
“How’d Cudgel arrange it?”

“
There’d already been a
series of murders, all women, in town, so the police and the people
were on edge. I was busy tracking Cudgel and was barely aware of
the killings. I was getting close to him, and I’d taken out two of
his onerous henchmen just that morning. Cheryl’s husband was out of
town, so I went over to, uhm, visit, and…she was dead on the floor
of their parlor, blood everywhere. It was…ugly. I later learned
she’d been butchered in the same manner as the other murdered
women. The husband returned home early. He walked in when I was
standing over her, still in shock. Cudgel had arranged it all, sent
a message to let him know his wife was cheating on him. He was
charging home to catch us in the act, I reckon, and he was fixing
to kill me. Well, I could have taken him, but I didn’t want to. I’d
already done enough wrong by him. I escaped with my life, though
Cudgel had some henchmen lying in wait, figuring to help the
husband out.” He touched the scar on his face. “That’s when I got
this. I was too shaken to fight proper. I’m lucky I survived at
all. After that, the husband contacted the Pinkertons, and word is
he’s financing everything.” Cedar let his head fall backward, and
it thunked against the boulder. It sounded painful. Maybe he wanted
it to be. “I wish I’d never gone to San Francisco and never been
that stupid. But I can’t rewrite history, so now I just want to do
right when I can. If I can protect these girls…” His shoulders
drooped. “It’s never going to be all right, but maybe it can
be…less wrong.”