Flora's Fury: How a Girl of Spirit and a Red Dog Confound Their Friends, Astound Their Enemies, and Learn the Impo (20 page)

Sieur Wraathmyr wasn’t a salesman for Madama Twanky. He was an express agent for the Pacifica Mail and Freight Company.

W
HEN
S
IEUR
W
RAATHMYR
had been pouring his guts out to me, he sure as fike had forgotten to pour out that little fact. I felt a stab of something—irritation—hurt, maybe. I’d told him everything and I thought he had told me everything as well. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to be taken by pirates. He was just a courier; he probably had no idea that the Dainty Pirate and Buck were in league with each other. And no wonder he had looked upset when I told him I hadn’t found any documents with the map; he’d thought the dispatch was gone for good.

And it must be an awfully important dispatch for Buck to send it via an express agent, rather than a regular military courier.

But why would Buck be sending a dispatch to the King and Queen of the Kulani Islands to begin with? The Kulanis have no diplomatic ties with Califa; they are aloof and removed and don’t really have diplomatic ties with anyone. They limit their contact with the outside world. They send out trading ships and raiding ships, which return to their islands. Sieur Wraathmyr’s story was one example of just how insular they can be.

The seal on the dispatch was unbroken, but that would be no trouble to me. In my time at the CGO, I’d lifted hundreds of seals and put them right back again, so no one ever knew the difference. It only takes a hot knife and patience. For a moment, I hesitated. Then, remembering all that Buck had done to me, I got my knife out of my dispatch case, lit the bedside lamp, and got to work.

The paper had been folded to make its own envelope. I carefully unfolded it and saw more of Buck’s familiar handwriting. Normally she dictates her letters; sometimes she scrawls an addendum in her own hand. This was no addendum. It was a solid page of text, written in High Protocol, the grandiose language of diplomacy, in which everything is couched in delicate and fancy phrasings and nothing is said in one word that can’t be said splendidly in ten.

Lucky for me, I’d been halfway through an introductory course in High Protocol before I was pulled from the Barracks to serve as Buck’s slave. I couldn’t translate the entire document, but I could get the gist.

And when I was done reading, I felt like the world’s biggest fool. Here I had thought all this time that Buck had been bowing her head meekly before the Birdies. Even the Dainty Pirate’s claims hadn’t persuaded me otherwise. Now I realized her lap-doggery had been a pose, a ruse, a lie. While she’d been pretending to be meek and mild, all along she’d been quietly plotting and scheming, searching for allies.

And in the Kulanis she had found what she was looking for. This dispatch was clearly the latest in a long line of communications, because it agreed to previously discussed Kulani terms. Buck would provide the Kulanis with enough hardwood timber to build fifteen raiding ships, four hundred head of breeding cattle, one ton of iron ore, and a thousand pounds of jade. In return, Kulani raiders would blockade the Birdie ports, disrupt Birdie shipping, and support Califa’s freedom.

I flopped back on the pillows, lousy with guilt. I had misjudged Buck as much as I had misjudged Sieur Wraathmyr. But why hadn’t she trusted me? Why had she let me live on in such despair? She could have at least hinted that things were afoot. Poppy had hinted—is this what he was talking about? Were they in it together? Did everyone know but me?

But I couldn’t afford to wallow in my private sorrows about how Buck had treated me. If this dispatch wasn’t delivered to the Kulanis—or if it fell into the wrong hands—the Alliance would fall apart, as would Buck’s plans and Califa’s rebellion. I had to get the dispatch back on track, which meant I had to find Sieur Wraathmyr and make sure he delivered it safely.

I quickly folded and resealed the dispatch and stuck it in the inside pocket of my buckskin jacket. Redressed in my nasty dirty clothes, I shoved all my gear back into my dispatch case—everything but the map. I’d waited for it long enough; I wasn’t waiting a minute longer. A quick glance would take no time at all.

When I had stolen the map from Buck’s map case, it had shown the whole world. Now, when I unfolded it and cast it over the bed, I saw that the contours of the map had become unfamiliar. Califa had vanished; the Pacifica Ocean vanished. Tiny rows of triangles marked out mountain ranges I had never heard of: the Hierophants, the Dragons, the Verdes. Red lines traced out unfamiliar roads: Banastre Road, Hell’s Track. Blue lines delineated unknown rivers: Sandy, Acre’s Creek, Blue Wash. Where the fike was Calo Res? Or Hooker’s Ranch? Or Camp Kumquat? A dotted line was drawn on the eastern side of the map, the only straight line on the entire piece of linen. To the right of this line, the map was utterly blank except for a small notation in block letters:
BRONCOS
.

That’s when I realized I was looking at a map of Arivaipa Territory. The dotted line was the Bronco Proclamation Line, drawn up at the end of the Bronco Wars, when the Califa Army, under Hardhands, had fought the natives of Arivaipa. Under the terms of the final peace, all territory to the west of the line was ceded to Califa and became Arivaipa Territory. All land to the east was left to the Broncos, as the natives are called. No Califan was allowed across the Proclamation Line except on pain of death—a very long and protractedly painful death, enforced by the Broncos themselves.

Arivaipa Territory. A few years ago a song about Arivaipa had been very popular; every band in the City played it, and you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing someone whistling it, humming it, or belting it out at the top of his or her lungs. The chorus went:

Old Arivaipa again
,

full of outlaws and bad bad men
.

They don’t do the Califa dip,

but they shoot you from the hip,

out in old Arivaipa again, again.

But where was my blood mark? It was very hard to find, but I did, finally. The tiny splotch had landed near an equally small dot. I had to squint to read the label—Fort Sandy.

What did I know about Fort Sandy? There isn’t much military presence in Arivaipa, just a couple of posts scattered along the Line, making sure it stays secure. Fort Sandy was the southernmost of these forts; there were two companies stationed there. I remembered the letter I had filed for Buck right before I left Califa—Fort Sandy had a chupacabra problem.

What in Califa’s name was Tiny Doom doing in Arivaipa Territory? Buck had been posted there when she first graduated from the Barracks, and she had nothing good to say about the place. It only rained a few times a year and everything there was dangerous: the plants, the insects, the snakes, the animals, the people. It’s so dry that you think your blood has turned to dust, so hot that you think your skin might burn away, so bright that you think you might go blind.

And Arivaipa shares a southern border with the Huitzil Empire. If I were Tiny Doom, I’d want to get as far from the Birdies as possible, instead of hiding out right on their doorstep. Granted, very few people cross this southern border, because it’s a pitiless dry desert, but that would still be too close for comfort for me. Well, I guessed I’d find out her reasons when I got there. Arivaipa was only a hundred miles east of where I was now. With a little bit of luck, I could be there in less than a week.

But first things first. Sieur Wraathmyr and the dispatch.

When I poked Octohands, he grabbed at my hand.
You’ve got to go after him! Don’t let him get away! Hurry!

I am hurrying!
With no prompting, Octohands crawled into the towel I held out and then allowed me to stow him in my dispatch case. Flynn wanted to stay in bed, but I rousted him and made him follow me. It seemed best if we all stuck together.

Downstairs, the innkeeper disavowed all knowledge of Sieur Wraathmyr; whatever he was up to now, he wasn’t staying here. Outside, the weather had turned gray. A chill wind blew off the water. I pulled my jacket closed, and hurried.

The Pacifica Mail did not have an office in Cambria, so I went to the General Store and, using the excuse of purchasing new undergarments, asked the clerk if his Twanky rep had been in recently. The clerk said they were expecting a visit from their salesman but he was overdue, and anyway his name wasn’t Wraathmyr, it was Jones, and he was a she. I checked the blacksmith’s; Toby’s Coffee Shack; the
Cambria Elixirs
office; the dentist/barber’s; the Purple Pig Saloon; the cooper’s; and the wharf office. Sieur Wraathmyr was at none of these locations and they were it; Cambria was not a big place.

Fike. Had he left town? He couldn’t possibly be gone already. The livery clerk at the stage stop informed me there had been no stage today, nor had anyone hired a horse. But then hadn’t Sieur Wraathmyr said he didn’t ride? Maybe he’d gone back to Valdosta’s to try to find the missing dispatch. I did not relish the idea of following him back there.

What if I couldn’t find him? I could try to deliver the dispatch myself, but I wasn’t sure where it was going. Surely he wasn’t taking it all the way to the Kulani Islands; they were several weeks’ journey, even by fast clipper ship, and the dispatch had made the timeline sound urgent.

I walked down Main Street again, trying to swallow my panic. A thin rain was beginning to fall. The streets looked muddy and gray, hopeless. Flynn nudged my knee; he was damp and starting to shiver. I ducked into Toby’s Coffee Shack. Toby, the coffee jerk, hadn’t seen Sieur Wraathmyr, either.
When you need to think, drink more coffee
, Nini Mo said.

I was waiting for Toby to finish making my mocha when I heard a commotion outside. I looked out the window and saw a crowd gathering, their excited murmurs loud enough to be heard through the glass. The door flung open and a girl rushed in.

“Hey, Toby You gotta come quick. The sheriff’s caught an outlaw!”

“What kind of an outlaw?” Toby squirted a giant pile of whip on my mocha and pushed it across the counter toward me. He didn’t look terribly excited, although considering all the fuss, this could not be an everyday occurrence.

“A big one!” the girl said.

“The last time Cletie said she caught a big outlaw,” Toby said, “he turned out to be nothing but an egg thief. Where I come from, an egg thief don’t qualify as a big outlaw. Twenty-two glories.”

I handed Toby the money and dropped five glories in his tip jar. He nodded at me and went over to the sandwich board, where he began to slice bread.

“Naw, this one is really big. I saw the poster myself!” An old lady had followed the girl in. Her hat was shaped exactly like a plush toy horse. In fact, it was a plush toy horse. The horse’s mournful face flopped over the lady’s forehead, and a plush hoof dangled over each ear. She said, hooves bobbing with excitement, “Wanted for larceny, thievery, and cupidity!”

“That’s a busy outlaw.” Toby continued with his sandwich-making.

“Aren’t larceny and thievery the same thing?” I asked.

The old lady peered at me suspiciously, the horse-hat quivering. “It ain’t funny, girl. He’s a dangerous outlaw!” She waved a piece of paper: a
WANTED
sign. I had vaguely noticed the
WANTED
signs hanging outside the sheriff’s as I had passed by, but I hadn’t looked at them closely. Now I took the sign, and as I read it, all the air rushed out of my lungs.

WANTED: T. N. WRAATHMYR! Wanted for larceny, thievery, and cupidity: FIFTEEN-HUNDRED DIVAS IN JADE. DEAD OR ALIVE. Offered by the Sheriff of Pudding Pie, Califa
. The drawing illustrating the poster was rough, but clearly Sieur Wraathmyr. The artist had caught his stuck-up attitude perfectly.

Pigface! How many people were looking for Sieur Wraathmyr, anyway? First the guy at the lodge, now the sheriff. He was more popular than the Man in Pink Bloomers. I could imagine Sieur Wraathmyr doing many illegal things, but larceny and thievery were not among them, and I wasn’t even sure what cupidity was, but I doubted that, too. It must be a set-up.

I abandoned my mocha on the counter and followed the horse lady outside. The crowd in front of the jail was swelling with people eager to see the big outlaw. I pushed my way forward, ignoring the dirty looks that the liberal use of my pointy elbows got me.

Inside the jail, the sheriff sat with her feet propped up on her desk, a rancid-smelling seegar in her mouth, telling her admiring audience how she had captured such a terribly dangerous criminal. “...recognized his shifty face immediately. I said, 'Throw-down, Mug,’ and he reached for his gun, but I reached faster and buffaloed him good!”

The crowd was hanging on her every lie; I knew that Sieur Wraathmyr did not carry a gun. Even the drunk in the first cell was quiet, leaning on the iron bars, staring in wobbly-eyed admiration. In the second cell, Sieur Wraathmyr was sitting on the edge of the iron cot, looking bearishly angry His left eye was swollen almost shut. My exclamation of dismay must have been pretty loud, because suddenly everyone, including Sieur Wraathmyr, was looking at me.

The sheriff glared at my interruption. “Can I help you, citizen?”

“Uh, ah—” I stuttered.

“You got something to say?” The sheriff stood up. She was a very large woman, at least a foot taller than me and a foot wider.

“Uh—” Flynn saved me. He had wiggled through the crowd with me and was now sniffing around the spittoon. Out the corner of my eye, I saw his leg lift, and I gave a shout. Flynn dropped his leg and flashed over to me, hiding behind my legs.

“Sorry,” I said. “I was yelling at the dog.”

“Get that dog out of here!” the sheriff roared. “Before I arrest you both.”

That dog and I retreated to Toby’s, where I reclaimed my abandoned mocha and tried desperately—and quickly—to think of a plan. Regardless of the merits of the sheriff of Pudding Pie’s accusations, I had to spring Sieur Wraathmyr somehow. Buck’s dispatch had to be delivered, pronto. And, with a shiver, I remembered Valdosta’s friend. At some point he would return to the lodge and find us gone. If he tracked Sieur Wraathmyr to Cambria and told the sheriff that Sieur Wraathmyr was a wer-bear ... I had a sudden vision of Sieur Wraathmyr, a noose around his neck, being harried to a tree by a lynch mob waving torches.