Peacemaker (The Flash Gold Chronicles, #3) (7 page)

“
From the Hän point of
view, all the white people here are just visitors,” Kali pointed
out.

“
Lots of visitors,” Tadzi
said. “I don’t mind. I like your people. And your shiny
contraptions!” He patted the seat.

As the SAB drew near, the man with the
shotgun stepped onto the trail to block their way. Kali did not
recognize him, though he was young enough that they should have
been children at the same time. Maybe he had come from another
tribe through marriage.

He wore the same sort of wool britches as
the folks in Dawson, a derby hat, and a beaded caribou shirt.
Though Kali had seen Hän in town wearing a mixture of traditional
clothing with white man’s garb, it was strange seeing it here, in a
true Hän setting. She remembered a few men in the tribe having
prize coats or dusters they had traded furs for, but everyone had
worn predominantly caribou or buckskin clothing when she’d been a
girl. But the men, women, and children working and playing
throughout Moosehide wore a mix.

“
Who are these people,
Tadzi?” the man asked in the Hän tongue.

“
Friends,” Tadzi said.
“They stopped the sky bandits.”

Kali thought she might get a curious look,
since she had Hän hair and skin coloring and wore her tool-stuffed
overalls instead of a dress, but the SAB itself captured more of
the man’s attention. He walked about it, studying it from all
angles, his shotgun drooping.

Cedar noted the lowered weapon and shook his
head with a soft, “Tsk, tsk” on his lips. No, not exactly a
military-trained guard.

Kali supposed she should introduce herself
and let the man know she understood the language, but she couldn’t
decide whether to use her Hän name or the one she had chosen for
herself when her father hadn’t been able to pronounce the
other.

“
I’m Kali,” she said,
deciding she wanted the name
she
had chosen, “and this is Cedar. We’d like to talk
to…is Kesuk still the medicine man?”

The guard’s eyebrows disappeared beneath his
hat. “Yes,” he finally said. “Wait here.”

“
I’ll go with him,” Tadzi
said, still speaking in English. “I’ll tell the
anatkok
you help people. He doesn’t
care much for…” He looked up at Cedar.

“
Understood,” Cedar
said.

When they were alone, he came to stand
beside Kali and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Are you all
right?”

“
Fine.”

“
You seem tense. And
grumpy.”

“
I’m not grumpy,” Kali
said. “This is my usual state. It’s probably caused by living here
in a climate without enough sun. I really want to see that Florida
place you mentioned.”

“
There’s plenty of sun
there, but alligators and crocodiles too.”

“
I’m still waiting for you
to show me that scar,” she said.

Cedar kneaded the back of her neck, thumb
teasing out the knots in her muscles. It felt good, and she had to
keep herself from making contented sighs or displaying other
obvious signs of pleasure. She had a notion a respectable girl
shouldn’t lean up against a man like a hound getting a scratch.

He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “I
appreciate you coming along with me. I know it didn’t work out well
for you the last time I talked you into coming on one of my
adventures, and I can tell you’re not comfortable here.”

“
It’s not that bad. It’s
just…” Under his continuing massage, Kali’s chin drooped of its own
accord, and millimeter by millimeter her shoulders relaxed. He
really ought to spend less time in the woods, chasing criminals,
and more time with her. “I never fit in. I don’t fit in in Dawson
either, but everyone’s a stranger there, and people speak all
different languages and look all different ways. You feel less
odd.”

“
That’s all there was to
it? Not fitting in? Or did they treat you poorly?” Cedar’s eyes
narrowed as if he wondered if he should smack someone around on her
behalf.

“
They treated my mother
poorly, because of her powers. If she’d been male, she would have
been a medicine man, but they called her a…you would say a witch.
They blamed anything bad on her. She was young, too, when she had
me, and I heard…. I don’t know if it’s true, but some people said
they’d seen her do things out of spite. Hurt people. She never hurt
me. She was kind, and I hate that I doubt her, but somehow she got
a reputation that spread amongst the different tribes. My father
heard of her and sought her out because of her power. He
wanted—well, you heard what that Amelia woman said. I think he was
hoping for some powerful heir to carry on his alchemy legacy, to
further refine flash gold.”

Cedar lowered his hand, and Kali tamped down
a noise of protest. Tadzi was returning with an older man, one she
recognized. Kesuk.

Though she had asked for him by name, she
had hoped he would be out of the camp and someone else would have
come to answer Cedar’s questions. Kesuk had always been quick to
malign her mother. As he approached, tension seeped back into
Kali’s shoulders. He did not look in her direction. Twin gray
braids of hair hung down his chest, and he carried a pair of
fishing spears over his shoulder. Annoyance flattened his lips, and
Kali could already tell they’d be unlikely to get much from
him.

When the medicine man stopped before them,
Tadzi stood a couple of steps back, though he watched with curious
eyes. Kesuk faced Cedar and ignored Kali. She couldn’t tell if it
was because he remembered her or because he figured women should
stay silently decorative while the men talked.

“
Afternoon, Shaman Kesuk,”
Kali said with a smile. Either way, she would not be
ignored.

He briefly curled a lip at her but remained
facing Cedar. “What business do you have here, White Man?” he asked
in Hän.

“
Show him the bead
things,” Kali told Cedar.

Cedar withdrew the pair of decorated patches
and laid them out on his open palm. He seemed content to let Kali
take charge of their half of the conversation.

“
One of these was found
near the body of a Hän woman murdered yesterday morning in Dawson,”
Kali told the shaman. “The other on a ship of…” There was no word
for airship or pirates in the language, and such things had never
floated the skies of the Yukon when she was a girl. What had Tadzi
called those people? “Sky bandits,” Kali finished. “Do you know
anything about them? Is it possible one of our—one of your people
made them? Do they have any power?”

“
You speak too much for a
woman,” Kesuk said, glaring at her without seeming to notice the
patches. Kali opened her mouth, an angry retort on her lips, but
Kesuk added, “That’s what happens when girls don’t grow up with
proper mothers. At least you’re not a witch.” He took the patches
and scrutinized them.

Kali clenched her fists, still tempted to
make the retort, but it was better to simply finish and leave as
soon as possible.

She caught Cedar watching her, a concerned
expression on his face. She loosened her fingers and mouthed, “I’m
fine.”

“
These are trash,” Kesuk
said. “They mean nothing, and if one of our people made them, it
would be an embarrassment.”

He handed them back to Cedar, and Kali
translated. Cedar’s face darkened, and he slid them back into his
pocket. It was disappointing news, so Kali could understand a
frown, but Cedar seemed more upset than the dead end warranted. For
a long moment, he said nothing, simply standing there with jaw
clenched, but he finally tipped his hat toward the medicine man and
said, “Please thank him for his time.”

Before Kali could relay the message, Kesuk
said, “Leave now. We must keep our people safe from the crime these
white men have brought. Take that monstrous beast with you.” He
stabbed a finger at the bicycle, though it idled quietly, not
bothering anyone as it puffed soft clouds of smoke into the
area.

Kali gritted her teeth, more indignant on
the machine’s behalf than for the sleights the medicine man had
delivered to her.

“
Tadzi, you have chores.”
Kesuk turned his back on them and strode away.

“
Where are you going now?”
Tadzi asked. “If you wait here, I can get you some supper from my
grandma. She won’t mind sharing.”

Kali suspected she would—nobody wanted to
risk a medicine man’s ire, and befriending her would probably do
that—but she understood Tadzi’s reluctance to let them go. She
would have reacted in the same way if someone riding a
steam-powered bicycle had come into the camp when she was a
girl.

“
Thanks, Tadzi, but we
need to solve this mystery.” Kali considered Cedar. He was waiting
at the bicycle, his back rigid with determination, his head down,
thoughts inward. “I have a feeling that means going dangerous
places and doing dangerous things. Again.”

“
I could come with you. I
could help!”

“
No,” Cedar said without
looking up.

Tadzi’s shoulders drooped.

“
You can help us another
time. And—” Kali checked to make sure the medicine man was out of
earshot before making her next offer, “—if you ever want to see
more of my steam-powered machines, you can come to my shop in
Dawson.”

“
Really?” Tadzi asked.
“That would be right fine.”

She patted him on the back and joined
Cedar.

“
What’re you thinking?”
Kali asked when they were alone. Mostly alone. The guard leaned
against a tree nearby, his rifle cradled in his arms as he kept an
eye on them.

“
You should take the
bicycle and go back to town,” Cedar said. “Stay in your workshop
with all of your alarms and booby traps in place. Don’t let anyone
in.”

Kali propped her hands on
her hips. “And where will
you
be going?”

“
I intend to find out why
those pirates had one of these on their ship.” Cedar held up one of
the beadwork patches.

“
Somehow I don’t think the
captain is going to be amenable to answering your questions after
you cut his pants off.”

“
Then I’ll make him.”
Cedar started to walk away.

“
Wait,” Kali said. “Get on
the SAB. I’m going with you.”

“
There’s no need to risk
yourself on this. I’ve already wasted your time by bringing you out
here.”

Kali patted the seat of the SAB. “Might as
well stop arguing and mount up. You don’t really think I’d let you
go tour an airship without me, do you?” And if Cedar decided he
needed to turn in all of those pirates—or their heads—to the
Mounties, maybe she could claim what remained of the airship for
herself. Oh, she’d want to refurbish it, to make it truly and
completely hers, but it’d take months off her timeline if she
didn’t have to build everything from scratch. A broad smile curved
her lips as these thoughts wandered through her head.

Cedar’s eyes closed to slits as he watched
her. “Why do I have a feeling you have something more than
questioning pirates in mind?”

Smile broadening, Kali patted the seat
again. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Now, are you
getting on or not?”

Kali huffed up the steep stump-filled
incline behind Cedar. The airship had long since disappeared from
the sky, but he seemed to know where he was going. Thanks to the
steepness of the valley wall, they’d had to leave the SAB by the
riverbank below. For the first fifty meters, Kali kept glancing
over her shoulder, making sure nobody was sneaking up to bother it.
Fortunately, the boat traffic had dwindled with evening’s
approach.

After more climbing—and huffing—they reached
the crest of the ridge. This time, when Kali looked back over her
shoulder, the view gave her a start. A couple of years had passed
since she had reason to climb up there, and the difference in the
landscape was astonishing. Where verdant trees had once lined both
rugged valley walls, hillsides of stumps now stretched. Oh, a few
sturdy spruce and pines remained, those with trunks too thick to
entice a miner searching for easy firewood, but the barrenness of
the scene made Kali’s gut twist. Too many people were pouring out
of the south, changing the face of the only home she had ever
known.

She shook her head and reminded herself she
wanted to leave anyway. Come winter, firewood would be scarce, and
that was a good incentive to double her efforts on her airship. Or
to acquire an already-built airship that only needed
modifications….

“
I smell a fire,” Cedar
said. “We might be close.” He was not breathing hard. His longer
legs must mean he took fewer steps.

Ahead of them, the land rose more gently,
and evergreens still stood, stretching for the sky.

“
What’s the plan?” Kali
asked. “Wait until dark, sneak in, and look around the
airship?”

He eyed her over his shoulder. “I was
planning on dragging a guard away to question, not strolling
through their craft.”

“
There might be clues
inside.”

Cedar raised an eyebrow.

“
What?” Kali smiled
innocently.

Cedar pointed through the trees to a fallen
log ahead and crept toward it. He stayed low, and Kali followed,
mimicking his movements. She hadn’t seen anything yet, but Cedar
seemed to think they were close.

Kali crouched beside him behind the log.
“What do you think we’ll find when we reach the pirates? Were they
victims, too, or could they be responsible for the murders?”