Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon (13 page)

“Yes, sir!” said the boy, pushing roughly past Chantico and out of the stone building, where he paused only momentarily to puzzle over the strange cargo on the back of the newcomer's horse before untethering his dead compadres' mounts and hightailing it east toward San Antonio with the two riderless horses galloping behind his own.

*   *   *

“Thank you,” said Inez. Chantico had moved to her side, stepping gingerly over the dead bodies of the two Texans. Inez didn't know if she was furious with him or if she wanted to take him in her arms and never let him go. Both, she thought. But she still wasn't entirely sure the danger had passed. “Who are you?”

He looked at each of them in turn. “Who are
you
?”

“Inez Batiste Palomo, of Uvalde,” she said.

“The governor's daughter?”

Inez blinked. “Why, yes. Yes I am.”

“Chantico,” said Chantico, his eyes on the floor.

“You're Yaqui?” asked the man. “From the settlement on the north side of the canyon?”

Chantico nodded. The man said, “You've been there awhile now, more than a year. Your people don't usually stay in one place so long.”

“The Spanish kept moving us on,” said Chantico, glancing at Inez. “The hunting's good where we are now, and the fishing.”

“And I'll warrant that the place of power in the big cavern has proved both useful and fruitful,” said the man, his eyes twinkling.

Now it was Chantico's turn to be surprised. “How did you…?”

He glanced again at Inez, who scowled back. Place of power? Chantico had never mentioned that to her. She said to the man, “Now it is your turn. Who are you?”

The man nodded to Chantico. “The Yaqui know me.”

Chantico looked at Inez and licked his dry lips. “My people call him Chichijal, which is like … the spirit. The ghost.”

Inez looked at the dead bodies of the Texans. “His bullets looked pretty solid to me.” She turned back to him. “What is your name in English? Or Spanish?”

“I have no name.” He gazed thoughtfully at the pair of them. “But suppose you tell me what
you
are doing here? The daughter of a Spanish governor and a Yaqui boy.” He raised an eyebrow. “And why is the Yaqui boy dressed like
that
?”

Inez folded her arms. “Yes, Chantico, can you explain this?”

Chantico sighed and sat heavily on a broken piece of roof timber. “You are always going on, El Chupacabras
this,
El Chupacabras
that
. The savior of New Spain's downtrodden. I made the costume … I thought…”

Inez laughed, the tension flooding from her. “You thought to fool me that El Chupacabras, the great cowled hero of the dusty plains, was not missing or dead after all, but had been
you,
Chantico of the Yaqui, all along?”

Chantico scowled. Inez went on, “With your mask made from … what is this? An old flour bag? Dyed with…?”

“The juice of juniper berries,” muttered Chantico.

“Juniper berries! And a rapier made of old fence wire! Oh, Chantico.”

“You're lovers,” said the man without a name.

Inez glared at him. He held up his hands and smiled. “I have traveled the length and breadth of this land and the only time I heard a boy and a girl speak to each other thus, with such honeyed barbs, was when they were sweethearts.”

“It is none of your damned business, sir!” said Inez.

Chantico laid a hand on her arm. “Inez,” he said softly. “You cannot speak to him like that. He is Chichijal. The Texans, they call him the Nameless.”

“Very original,” said Inez sourly. She brushed down her skirts. “Well,
Señor Sin Nombre,
I suppose I should thank you for rescuing us. If in fact you have. You are not planning to take us to San Antonio yourself, for profit?”

The Nameless shook his head. “No, ma'am, I'm not. The Texans are no friends of mine. They abuse the land as much as the British, or the Japanese.” He looked pointedly at her. “Or the Spanish.”

Inez drew herself to her full height, her nostrils flaring. “What do you mean, sir?”

The Nameless shrugged. “This land … something's not right here. It's not meant to be carved up and fought over by folks from far away. This isn't how it is meant to be.”

“I am Yaqui,” said Chantico. “I was born here.”

“So was I!” said Inez.

“True,” said the Nameless thoughtfully. “You were both born here. That's right.” He stared ahead, as though studying something that neither Inez nor Chantico could see. He blinked and said, “Both born here … but still. How do a Yaqui boy and the daughter of the Governor of Uvalde find each other?”

Inez folded her arms and stared out the window. Chantico smiled. “My people, we move around a lot. We used to go into what the Spanish call Uvalde on market days, selling leather and cactus juice. Every market day, I feel like someone is watching me. Eventually I see Inez, looking from a window in her big house. She cannot take her eyes off me.”

Inez snorted and aimed the toe of her riding boot at Chantico. “You lie. You were like a puppy dog, mooning about outside my window.”

“So why did you throw me the note? Asking to meet me after dark?”

“I pitied you!” roared Inez, her cheeks flushing. She paused. “Besides, I like puppy dogs.”

The Nameless was smirking at them. “You might be just what I've been looking for, these long years.”

Inez turned to him. “Looking? For what?”

The Nameless seemed lost in thought for a moment then said, “Looking for America. Follow me. I have something to show you.”

*   *   *

They stood in a row outside the abandoned mine shaft, the old winding gear partially collapsed, the square hole shored up with rotting timbers. The Nameless took a clay pipe from one of the crazily stitched pockets of his jacket and struck a match, puffing until it began to smoke, then tossed the match into the shaft.

Even Inez knew this was foolhardy, and she pulled Chantico back sharply. She glared at the Nameless. “Don't you know there are gases in there that can explode?”

He gazed into the black pit. “Usually, there are. There must have been no coal in there, or maybe just a little. That's why this place is deserted.”

Inez put her fists on her hips. “So…?”

“So…” said the Nameless eventually. “So, there is some kind of gas. I can see it.”

Inez screwed up her eyes and peered at the pit. “I see nothing.”

“It's like … sunshine,” said the Nameless, a little uncertainly. “I have seen it before, on occasion, though I have no idea what it is.”

“I still see nothing. Do you, Chantico?”

Chantico shrugged. “No.”

The Nameless puffed thoughtfully on his small white pipe. “I see things that most men can't,” he said shortly. “And there's a gas like sunshine coming out of that pit. I think it's important. I just don't know why, or how. Not yet.”

“So you brought us out here to show us something we cannot see?” said Inez.

“No,” said the Nameless. He turned and led them to the far side of the building, where his horse, a gray stallion, was tethered alongside Inez's mare. “I brought you out here to show you this.”

On the back of the stallion was a woman, still, facedown. Something stuck out of her back—something that looked like a giant key.

“Is she dead?” whispered Chantico.

“I don't think she was ever alive,” said the Nameless.

The woman wore long skirts and a small jacket that was torn, as was her white shirt. Blond hair cascaded over her face, and Inez moved it gently to one side. She was quite beautiful, with pale skin. She appeared to be sleeping. Inez laid a hand on her cheek. It was cool, but not cold. There was the faintest
thrum
of movement deep within the woman, but not like a heartbeat, not like breathing. Inez touched the key. “She has been stabbed with this thing?”

“No,” said the Nameless, hauling her down from the horse and laying her on her side in the shadows. “I put that there.”

“You killed her?” said Chantico.

“No. I found her, in the desert.” He took from his saddlebag a cloth sack. “She had these with her.”

Chantico peeked inside the bag. There were all kinds of strange things: a little fat man made of stone, a box that shone with precious stones, a ruby amulet. He asked, “Is that apple made of
gold
?”

“What do you mean, you
found
her?” asked Inez. “You don't just find women like this. And why did you stick a key in her back?”

“Did you see the dragon?” asked the Nameless.

“I did,” said Chantico quietly.

“I heard of it,” said Inez. “My father said it was a new kind of airship, maybe something the Japanese were testing.”

“It was made of brass,” said the Nameless. “She was with it. I took her away before the Texans came for the dragon.” He bent down and lifted up the back of her shirt. There was no blood where the key stuck into her back, as Inez expected. The Nameless tugged it out. There was a small, metal-ringed aperture there. “The key fits her. I wound her up, but nothing happened. But the key fits.” He looked up at Inez. “I think she's made from clockwork. I don't think she's a real woman.”

Inez crouched beside the Nameless. There was something about her … almost as if she was actually too flawless to be real. Her skin felt smooth, like the softest, most expensive kid leather. Putting a hand to the woman's breast, Inez could feel the faint hum of machinery, but no heart pumping.

“But I think she is, somehow, alive,” said the Nameless. “I don't know how or why, but I feel it.”

“Like you can see the sun gas?” said Chantico.

He nodded. Inez said, “So what are you going to do with her?”

“Leave her here,” said the Nameless. “This is a safe place now. You are going to look after her for me.”

Inez stood. “But I have to be back at Uvalde before nightfall! And Chantico at the encampment! We can't stay here and babysit your … your clockwork woman!”

The Nameless stood also. “I'll get rid of those dead Texans, bury 'em away from here. I'll fix up the roof, bring you some water. Then I've got errands to run.”

“But I need to get home!” said Inez.

The Nameless looked into the middle distance again. “I know. But something's coming.”

Chantico frowned at the blue sky. “A storm?”

“Maybe,” said the Nameless. “Maybe.”

*   *   *

While the Nameless was inside, Chantico and Inez embraced by their horses. She pushed him away as she felt the lump in his groin press against her.

“Please, Inez,” he moaned. “I will be quick.”

“No,” she said firmly. “And I don't like you being
quick,
Chantico. When will you learn? Besides, I'm quite not in the mood anymore. What do you make of him? Is he crazy?”

“He is the spirit, Inez. The one with no name. You can't say he's crazy.”

Inez mounted her horse. “I will come back tomorrow. I will make some excuse. See you here?”

Chantico nodded as he untethered her mare.

Inez turned the horse toward Uvalde and looked down at Chantico. “I do love you, you know. And I think you were very sweet, with that El Chupacabras business.” The costume and Chantico's makeshift sword were in Inez's saddlebag. The fabric smelled of Chantico, and she wanted it with her in bed that night.

“I love you, too, darling Inez.”

She looked thoughtfully at the house. “Everyone is someone, Chantico. He must have a name, a history. He must come from somewhere.”

As Inez spurred her horse into movement, Chantico blew her a kiss. “I think he does come from somewhere,” he said, almost to himself. “I think he comes from America.”

 

10

A
UBREY
'
S
B
AR
& G
RILL

After Gideon, Bent, and Hart had departed for the military airfield in Newark, Rowena mooched around the Albert Gardens, following its meandering paths, resting in its meadows. She sat in contemplative silence in Sheep Meadow, watching the rising smog of the city that, by lunchtime every day, had obliterated the view of the higher skyscrapers from the street level. The elevated steam stilt-trains thundered between the towers, ferrying commuters to their jobs and goods from the airfields and docks to the big stores downtown and the communities of the five boroughs that came under Edward Lyle's governorship.

It was peaceful in the Albert Gardens, though the clamor of Manhattan was never too distant, only a shout on the breeze or an exhalation of steam away. The trees of the Gardens fought valiantly against the encroaching smog to keep the air clean, but New York was a lost cause once the mighty engine of American business was cranked up.

As the day wore on, Rowena picked at the packed lunch the servants had prepared for her in the kitchens of the governor's mansion. She was already bored. Rowena understood the need for Gideon and Bent to travel south of the Wall by covert means, understood they could not go flying in on the
Skylady III
. And she was no fool; she had heard enough of Steamtown to steer well clear of it all her adult life. Hell, most male 'stat pilots gave Steamtown a wide berth. Some places, you just didn't go.

Still, she felt uncommonly like she was missing out on something. She chided herself; she had been engaged for a job, one that had paid handsomely. She had fulfilled the assigned task, brought Gideon and Bent to New York. Should she wish, she could fly away now—she looked over to where the top of the
Skylady III
's balloon could be seen, bobbing above the trees that bordered the Governor's Residence. There was more money on offer, to take Gideon and Bent back to London should they complete their mission, but she was under no obligation to do so. There were any number of passenger 'stats or military dirigibles that could transfer them back to England.