Boneshaker (The Clockwork Century 1)

“Not a penny. Can I turn around? I feel stupid standing here like this. You can shoot me just as easy if I’m facing you. I’m not armed or nothing. Come on, let me loose. I didn’t do nothing to you. ”

“Let me see your bag. ”

Zeke said, “No. ”

The pressure came harder against his neck. “Yes. ”

“It’s just papers. Maps. Nothing worth anything. But I can show you something neat if you’ll let me. ”

“Something neat?”

“Look,” Zeke said, trying to wriggle himself away by inches and not succeeding very well. “Look,” he said again, trying to buy time. “I’m a peace-abiding man, myself,” he exaggerated. “I keep Maynard’s peace. I keep it, and I don’t want any trouble. ”

“You know a bit about Maynard, do you?”

“Well, I ought to,” he grumbled. “He was my granddad. ”

“Get out,” said the voice behind him, and it sounded more honestly impressed than dubious. “No, you ain’t. I’d have heard about you, if you were. ”

“No, it’s true. I can prove it. My mom, she was—”

The interrogator interrupted, “The Widow Blue? Now, come to think of it, she did have a boy, didn’t she?” He fell silent.

“Yeah. She had me. ”

Zeke felt the cold circle against his neck slide, so he took a chance and stepped away—still keeping his hands in the air. He turned around slowly, and then dropped his hands with an exasperated yelp. “You were going to shoot me with a bottle?”

“No. ” The man shrugged. It was a glass bottle with the remnants of a black-and-white label stuck raggedly to its side. “I never heard of anyone getting shot with a bottle. I just wanted to make sure. ”

“Make sure of what?”

“That you understood,” he said vaguely, and sat down against the wall with a sliding, slumping motion that implied he was reinstating the position he’d held when Zeke had interrupted him.

The man was masked as a matter of necessity, and he was wearing at least one fatly knitted sweater and two coats—the outer one of which was a very dark blue, or maybe black. A row of buttons pocked the front, and a pair of dark, oversized pants lurked beneath it. His boots were mismatched: One was tall and brown; the other was shorter and black. At his feet lay an oddly shaped cane. He picked it up and gave it a twist, then set it in his lap.

“What’s wrong with you?” Zeke demanded. “Why’d you scare me like that?”

“Because you were there,” he said, and there didn’t seem to be any smirk or smugness behind it. “And why were you, anyway?”

“Why was I what?”

“Why were you there? I mean, why are you here? This ain’t no place for a boy, even if you are Maynard’s. Shit, it might be a worse place for you, if you run around firing off claims like that, whether they’re true or not. You’re lucky, I guess,” the man said.

“Lucky? How you figure?”

“You’re lucky it’s me who found you, and not somebody else. ”

“How was that lucky?” Zeke asked.

He wiggled the bottle that still swung from his hand. “I didn’t stick you up with anything that’d hurt you. ”

Zeke didn’t see anything on the man that might have actually hurt him, but he didn’t mention it. He picked up his lantern again, adjusted his bag, and scowled. “It’s a good thing for you I didn’t have my gun out. ”

“You’ve got a gun?”

“Yeah, I do,” he said, standing up straighter.

“Where is it?”