In drips and drabs, Maria extracted the remaining facts from the small sheaf of paperwork. The Clementine was coming from San Francisco, where it underwent a hull reconstruction following battle damage—for it was a retired war dirigible. On the ship’s voyage back east she was moving medicine, bedding, and canned goods to a sanatorium outside Louisville; and there, she would be assigned to a Lieutenant Colonel (presumably of the Union persuasion) by the name of Ossian Steen. Upon the Clementine’s safe and formal arrival into this man’s hands, Maria would be recalled to Chicago.
Little was known about the ship in pursuit. It was described as a smaller craft, lightly loaded and perhaps lightly armed. This unknown vessel had made at least two attempts upon the Clementine. The most recent had resulted in a crash outside of Topeka, Kansas, but wreckage of the unnamed ship had not been located. It was suspected that the ship was once again airborne, and once again hot on Clementine’s tail.
At the bottom of the folder, Maria found a ticket that guaranteed passage aboard an airship called the Luna Mae. It would take her from Chicago to Topeka, where the pirate Croggon Beauregard Hainey and his crew had been spotted by a Pinkerton informant. The fugitive had been seen bartering in a gasworks camp for parts and fuel.
Just as Maria was on the verge of closing the folder, Allan Pinkerton approached her desk with a second slip of telegram.
“Incoming,” he announced. He dropped the paper into her hand and said, “Your lift leaves in thirty minutes. There’s a coach outside to take you to the docks. You’ll have to change the ticket when you get there. ”
“Yes sir,” she said. Her eyes dipped to scan the paper but then she swiftly asked, “Wait, sir? Change the ticket?” But he’d already whisked himself back to some other department, and was gone.
She looked down at the new telegram. It read:
HAINEY NEARING KANSAS CITY STOP CRAFT DAMAGED BUT STILL FLYING EAST ROUGHLY ALONG COACH ROUTES STOP INTERCEPT AT JEFFERSON CITY
STOP ADVISE GREAT CAUTION BEWARE OF RATTLER STOP SEE ALGERNON RICE 7855 CHERRY ST STOP
Maria gathered up her folder, her papers, and she tucked the money into her skirt’s deepest pockets. She gathered up the large carpeted bag she almost always toted (a lady needed to be prepared, and anyway, one never knew what trouble might lurk around a bend); and she palmed a smaller handbag for essentials.
She was as ready as she was going to get.
“Beware of rattler? What on earth does that mean?” she puzzled aloud, but no one was within earshot to answer her, and outside, a coach was waiting to take her to the passenger docks.
3
Croggon Hainey, first mate Simeon Powell, and engineer Lamar Bailey gave up on the unnamed ship somewhere over Bonner Springs, Missouri. Smoke had filled the cabin to such an extent that it could no longer be ignored; and maintaining altitude had become a losing struggle in the battered, broken, almost altogether unflyable craft. They’d set the vessel down hard west of Kansas City and abandoned her there to smolder and rust where she lay.
Fifteen miles across the bone-dry earth, as flat as if it’d been laid that way by a baker’s pin, the three men lugged their surviving valuables. Lamar was laden with ammunition, small arms, and two half-empty skins of water. Simeon toted a roll of maps and a large canteen, plus two canvas packs crammed with personal items including tobacco, clothes, a few dry provisions, and a letter he always carried but almost never read. The captain held his own satchel and his own favorite guns, a stash of bills on his money belt, and a white-hot stare that could’ve burned a hole through a horse.
The Rattler was in its crate, gripped and suspended by Hainey’s right arm and Simeon’s left. It swung heavily back and forth, knocking against the men’s calves and knees if they fell too far out of step.
Simeon asked, “How far out do you think we are?”
And Lamar replied, “Out of Bonner Springs? Another four or five miles. ”
The captain added through clenched teeth. “We won’t make it by dark, but we ought to be able to scare up a cart, or a coach, or a wagon, or some goddamned thing or another. ”
“And a drink,” Simeon suggested.
“No. No drinking. We get some transportation, and we get back on the road, and we make Kansas City, before we try any sleep,” Hainey swore. The pauses between his words kept time to the swinging of the Rattler. “And one way or another, we’ll get a new ship in Kansas City,” he vowed.
“Ol’ Barebones still owe you a favor?” Simeon grunted as the crate cracked against his kneecap.
“Barebones owes me a favor till he’s dead. Four or five miles, you think?” he asked the engineer without looking over at him.
“At least,” Lamar admitted, sounding no happier about it than anyone else. “But it’s a miracle we got this close before the bird gave up the ghost. I could’ve sworn she’d never make it back into the air, but man, she made a liar out of me. ” He kicked at the dirt and shifted his load to strain the other shoulder for awhile. “I never thought she’d fly again,” he added.
The captain knew what Lamar was fishing for, but he was too distracted or too exhausted to humor anybody, and he didn’t say anything in response. He only ground his jaw and stared into the long, stretch-limbed shadow that stomped in front of him, and he wondered if his arm would fall off before they reached Bonner Springs.
But Simeon’s free arm swung out to clap the engineer on the back, and he said, “That’s why we keep you around. ”
“Not five other folks of any shade, in any state or territory could’ve got her back up into the sky with only a set of wrenches and a hammer, but I made her work, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, you sure did,” Simeon said. “It was a nice job. ”
Hainey grumbled, “Would’ve been nicer if the patches could’ve held another five miles. ”
Lamar’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t snap back except to say, “Would’ve been even nicer if nobody’d crashed our ride into Kansas in the first place. ”