Hunted [The Flash Gold Chronicles] (6 page)

“As you wish.”

The tracks only ran parallel to the ridge for
a quarter of a mile. Then they surprised Kali by angling back
toward the main river and the route she and Cedar had been on when
they were attacked.

Her heart lurched. “We’re heading back toward
the cabin.” And the SAB.

What if the woman, deeming her own transport
too damaged to keep, stole Kali’s vehicle? While they were not so
far from Dawson that they could not walk, she hated the idea of
losing her latest invention. She had so many refinements she wanted
to make. For one, a brush cutter was a brilliant idea. And she
could add an—

“Kali!” Cedar grabbed her arm.

She tumbled back against him. “What is
it?”

Nothing stirred in the brush, and birds
chattered in a nearby thicket. When she detected nothing
out-of-place in their surroundings, she searched his face. He was
peering at the tracks a few feet in front of them.

“What’s that black rectangle?” he asked.

It took Kali a few seconds to find the
object. There, mostly buried beneath needles and leaves, lay
something flat and dark, the size of poker card.

“Back up,” she said.

When they had gone ten meters, she grabbed a
rock and tossed it at the object. Her projectile clipped the
corner. A boom thundered through the forest, and rock and dirt flew
twenty feet into the air, pelting branches overhead and landing all
about. Kali lifted an arm as shards rained down upon her and
Cedar.

“There’s my booby trap.” Kali had no reason
to be smug, not when she would have blundered onto it if Cedar had
not stopped her, but being proven right about her hunch mollified
her. The woman
was
someone to employ protective
measures.

“And now the owner knows exactly where we
are,” Cedar said, an eyebrow arched.

“Oh.” Yes, that sound had probably been
audible for miles. Kali closed her eyes. Idiot. “Guess we could
have gone around it without detonating it.”

“Likely.”

She would have given him a lengthy glower,
but she was worried about her bicycle. With an eye toward the
trail, she strode forward again. They passed—and avoided—three more
booby traps before reaching the cabin.

“There’s the SAB!” Kali blurted, relieved
when it came into sight.

She kept herself from running over to check
it since the tracks led straight toward it. She and Cedar stepped
carefully, searching for hazardous deposits on the ground. They
found nothing more treacherous than a pile of bear dung, but Kali
lingered a few feet from her vehicle without going close enough to
touch it.

“Let’s be optimistic,” she finally said.
“Maybe she knew we were after her and went straight through.” She
pointed to the tracks, which continued past the bicycle and back
down the road she and Cedar had followed up the river. It made
sense that the woman would need to return to town to have her wound
treated.

“She stopped here.” Cedar pointed to the
ground next to the bicycle. “The tracks are deeper where the
vehicle came to rest.”

Kali groaned. She spent the next fifteen
minutes inspecting the SAB, checking all the spots she would booby
trap if her goal were to incapacitate someone’s steam vehicle.

Cedar spent the time leaning against a tree,
cleaning beneath his fingernails with a knife. “Shall I set up
camp?” he asked at one point.

“No, but I wouldn’t mind something to eat, if
you’re offering,” Kali said, her voice echoing oddly since she had
her head stuck in the furnace. The fire had burned out while she
and Cedar were roaming the hills. When he did not respond to her
comment, she withdrew her head and looked at him. “Oh, was that
sarcasm?”

His eyebrow twitched. “Possibly.”

He had to be getting impatient with this side
trip. Might he be wondering why he had bothered to take her along?
Aside from providing a mode of transport, what had she done to
assist him? Even the transportation was of dubious worth. He would
be closer to Wilder’s claim by now if he had walked up the
trail.

Maybe they would catch this woman and find
out she was some sort of super villain with a huge bounty on her
head, and that would make this detour worthwhile.

Kali climbed on top of the SAB seat. Though
the bicycle was a broad, sturdy contraption, it wobbled under her
weight, and she kept a hand on the smokestack for balance. She
peered inside it. And froze.

“What the blazes is that?”

“What?” Cedar strode over.

Something dark and lumpy nestled inside the
smokestack. It lacked the clean lines of the booby trap from the
trail and did not appear mechanical—or explosive—but Kali stared at
it for a long moment before reaching an arm inside. Her fingers
came up a foot short. Her own body blocked the daylight when she
leaned in farther, and the bicycle seat wobbled beneath her
toes.

“I need help,” she said. “Can you hold me, so
I can lean in farther?” She must sound ridiculous with her head
stuffed in the smokestack.

Hands squeezed her waist, and she squawked
when Cedar lifted her off the seat so her feet dangled in the air.
His firm grip had the steadiness of steel, though, leaving her more
secure than when she had been relying on her own balance. Thanks to
his height, Cedar could also boost her entire body above the
smokestack without trouble.

“Thanks,” she called, her voice supremely
muffled now. “I appreciate your strength and—” She inhaled soot and
broke into a coughing fit. The stuffy, hot environs pressed in from
all sides, and she could see nothing. Lingering smoke made her eyes
tear.

“My strength and what?” Cedar asked, his
voice distant to her ensconced ears.

When she tried to speak, she ended up
coughing again.

“Ah,” Cedar said. “I’m to guess at the rest.
I see. You appreciate my strength and...masculinity?”

The confines of the smokestack made movement
awkward. Kali had to wriggle and twist to loosen a shoulder enough
to extend her arm to touch the obstruction. It was hard, lumpy, and
faintly sticky. It did not tick or whir or do anything to suggest
moving parts or a timer set to spark an explosion. More likely it
was there to stuff up the smokestack, which could cause an
explosion of its own volition if built-up exhaust could not
escape.

“Strength and virility?” Cedar asked.

Kali felt around the edges of the
obstruction, hoping she could remove it, but the solidified mass
stuck to the inside of the stack with the tenacity of a badger. She
scraped a sliver off and held it to her nose. Though the sooty
smokestack made it hard to put her olfactory organs to satisfactory
use, the gunk had a pungent identifiable scent. She groaned.

“No? Strength and good looks?”

“Pull me out,” Kali said.

“Not until you finish that sentence.”

“What?” She had barely been paying attention
to him.

“You appreciate my strength and what else?”
Even though the smokestack dulled the nuances of his tone, she had
no trouble imagining the amused smirk on his lips. Better than the
sarcasm, she supposed.

“Strength and willingness to grab my
hindquarters and hold me aloft,” Kali said. “Now get me down.”

“Hm, I doubt that’s a trait unique to
myself.” Cedar lifted her free of the smokestack and lowered her to
the ground. The smirk she had anticipated rode his lips, and it
transformed into a full-fledged grin when he saw her face. “You
look like one of the black gang on a steamship.”

“What?” Kali wiped her face. Her already
sooty sleeve grew sootier. “Ugh. I’m losing my love for this woman.
She’s starting to vex me.”

“Did you get the...whatever it is you
sought?” Cedar asked.

Kali scowled. “No. It’s just pitch glue, but
it’s wedged in there good. We can’t use the bicycle until I can get
back to my workshop and find some turpentine or something suitable
for breaking the bond.” Kali jammed her hands against her hips. “We
shot this woman, Cedar. How could she possibly be spry enough to
perform all these pursuit-delaying feats with blood gushing down
her arm?”

“Human beings are resourceful and dangerous,
doubly so when they’re desperate. Which is why tracking them is
always perilous and takes experience and expertise.” Cedar folded
his arms over his chest. He must be employing great restraint not
to add, “I told you so.”

“All right, I apologize for belittling
tracking,” Kali said. “I know your work is dangerous and hard, and
I know a dog couldn’t do it. I was just...irked about the money,
even though I knew you were right and I hadn’t done anything to
contribute, much as I haven’t done anything today.” She curled a
lip at herself. “I’m not...good at patience. I had hopes of getting
my airship together this summer and escaping this place before I
was stuck here for another dark endless winter of being haunted by
memories that are impossible to forget when you face constant
reminders.”

Cedar lifted an arm and stepped forward, as
if to hug her. Her eyes widened. She was just letting loose some
steam; she didn’t need a hug. What kind of female meltdown did he
think she was having?

He must have read her expression, for he
dropped his arm before touching her. He clasped his hands behind
his back, and she wanted to kick herself. No wonder he had no
interest in going to the dancing hall with her. She was as warm and
inviting as a glacier.

“We better go if we want any chance of
reaching Sebastian’s claim before it’s completely dark out here,”
Kali mumbled. “Especially since we’re walking.”

“Do you want me to go after the woman? I can
deal with her and meet you at the claim.”

“No, it looks like she’s heading back to
Dawson. Her annoying booby-trap skills aside, she’s still human, I
assume, and she’ll need time to heal and recover. I bet we can find
her there when we’re done up here.” Besides, as good as Cedar was,
Kali worried this woman might have tricks up her blood-saturated
sleeve that could thwart him. “And,” she added, “if I show up alone
with my bedroll forgotten, Sebastian might think I want to reunite
with him.”

“I assume you would be quick to disavow him
of that notion,” Cedar said, but he was already heading up the
trail.

She caught up and walked beside him. “With my
Winchester if necessary.”

“Good.”

Though long days graced the Yukon in May,
Kali and Cedar still did not make it to Sebastian’s camp before
nightfall. The faintest hint of twilight lightened the horizon, but
full darkness blanketed the forest. Fortunately, a well-used trail
ran along the Sixty Mile. The sound of rushing water guided them
further, though they had to step carefully when they reached the
claims. Sluice boxes, pans, and mining tools littered the rocky
bank, and in places water flowed over the trail. With the snow
melting, the river ran wide and high. One might stand on one side
and shoot a critter on the other, but swimming would be a tricky
endeavor. Since Wilder’s claim lay on the far side, she assumed
Cedar would have to borrow a boat to investigate.

“Are we getting close?” Kali asked softly,
aware of men nearby.

The claims were long and narrow, each with a
small piece of waterfront, so numerous camps were visible along the
shoreline. Cedar and Kali had already passed through several
without the prospectors noticing.

“Yes,” Cedar said.

Campfires burned at intermittent spots, most
near the water. Men’s voices rose and fell in conversations and
sometimes song. Drink gave some of the voices a boisterous slur.
Kali doubted there were many women out here, if any, and she was
glad to have Cedar at her side.

She tapped a pocket where she carried two
smoke nuts. Her Winchester, fastened to her packsack, was within
easy reach as well. She trusted Cedar still had her two vials of
flash gold flakes; they were not weapons but, given time, they
could be made into useful tools.

Kali picked out a familiar voice, fortunately
not singing.

“That’s him,” she murmured to Cedar, who
walked quietly, even with no light to brighten the trail. She
reached out to brush his arm now and then to make sure he was still
there.

Sebastian sat with five other men around a
fire pit. All had the bearded, grizzled appearance of veterans, and
more than one sported a scar on his face. A fellow with a greasy
beard dangling halfway down his chest scratched beneath an eye
patch with the stumpy nub of a half-missing finger. Rifles and
shotguns leaned against logs or rocks, no more than an arm’s length
from their owners.

Rectangular shadows behind the men delineated
tents. The claim farther up the bank from Sebastian’s lay dark, its
prospectors either gone to sleep or perhaps into town, but a fire
burned at the one diagonally across the river, the one that
supposedly belonged to Cudgel’s crony. Nobody sat around it, though
a tent and the beginnings of a log cabin rose near the flames.

“Doesn’t look very active,” Kali said.

“Your old beau?” Cedar asked. “Well, he has a
flask of whiskey in his hand. That slows a man down.”

“I meant the camp we’re here to spy on.”

“Ah. I’ll sneak over tonight if I can find a
way across the river. Let’s get settled in here first. Those men
look rougher than I expected based on my initial encounter with
your Sebastian.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d stop calling him
my
this-or-that,” Kali said. “And just because he’s a dandy
doesn’t mean he’s not a fine flannel-mouth. I’m sure he talked
these fellows into helping with promises of riches, and they
believed him. As for their roughness, Sebastian probably picked
them for that. It’s dangerous up here, and you’re like to have your
claim jumped if anything shiny comes out of it.”

“Understood.”

When they were within a dozen meters of the
fire, Kali called out, not wanting to surprise anyone with twitchy
reflexes. “Sebastian?”