Peacemaker (The Flash Gold Chronicles, #3) (2 page)

“
Is she alive?” she asked.
An inane thing to ask—the woman wasn’t moving and there was more
blood on the grass than water in the river—but she wanted to say
something so Somerset wouldn’t be surprised by her arrival. Men up
here could be twitchy, and she had given him his gun
back.

He glanced her way, but voices came from
somewhere down the trail, along with the rhythmic clomps of horses
trotting. A flash of crimson moved between the trees, and Kali’s
grimace deepened. Mounties. Though her adventures had not run her
afoul of the law, she had an inkling it might not be a good idea to
be seen loitering nearby when bodies were found. She backed toward
the tree line, but paused when she spotted a third figure jogging
alongside the mounted men.

Despite being on foot, Cedar burst into the
clearing first. He started toward the dead woman, but noticed Kali
and halted.

She had not seen him in
nearly a week, and, with mud spattering his deerskin trousers and
oilskin duster, he appeared to be fresh from a hunt. Only the sword
hilt and rifle butt poking above his shoulders remained free of
dirt; he would never let grime besmirch his weapons. Someone who
didn’t know him, or wasn’t on friendly terms with him, would see
those weapons and his grim face—made grimmer by a vertical scar
that ran from his brow to his cheek—and step out of his way,
far
out of his way, but
Kali knew he was a fair man.

Cedar started to smile, an expression that
made him look a little less fearsome, but a glance at the dead
woman kept the smile from breaking out. Instead, he tipped his
slouch hat and said, “Afternoon, Kali.”

“
Cedar,” Kali said. She
knew his real name but had decided to keep it to herself since he
supposedly had a Pinkerton detective after him for some crime he’d
been framed for down south. Sometimes when they were alone, she
called him Milos, but they were, alas, rarely alone. Since their
last adventure, where they’d shared a kiss, she had been to the
dancing hall with him once and to supper a couple of times, but
he’d been scarcer than diamonds during the last month. She hated
thinking or acting like a silly girl, mooning after a man, but
she’d been wondering if she’d said or done something that had made
him realize their relationship was a mistake. “I didn’t know you
were in town,” Kali added. “I’d been hoping you’d come by and help
me build…stuff.” Conscious of the other men, she kept the details
of her airship project vague. Cedar would know what she meant; he’d
even shown interest in going along on some airborne adventure
someday. “I should’ve known it’d take a crime to lure you up
here.”

Something—chagrin?—flashed in his eyes, but
he didn’t say anything. The Mounties had ridden past him and were
swinging off their horses to investigate, one stopping to examine
the body while the other jogged into the cabin.

Kali blinked and spun a circle. The gambler
had vanished.

“
It’s the third one in
three nights,” Cedar said.

“
Huh?” Kali swung back to
face him.

“
Third woman killed, her
body ravaged by claws. The other two were pretty young tribal
girls, too, one hitched to a white man, and one working at
Peckerby’s Saloon.” He removed his hat and scratched his head. “You
hadn’t heard?”

“
No, I’ve been busy
with…stuff.”

“
I have, too, but the
whole town’s talking about the slayings. It’s hard not to hear
about it.”

“
Well, my stuff is
powerful engrossing,” Kali said.

“
Miss?” one of the
Mounties asked. “You might want to go back to town. This isn’t a
fitting place for a girl.”

Kali propped her fists on
her hips, not sure whether she was more offended that they thought
women couldn’t handle seeing dead people or that they weren’t
asking her any questions about the killing. Did they not believe a
female could be responsible for such a vicious crime? Kali caught
Cedar raising an eyebrow in her direction, and she kept herself
from voicing her thoughts. It was better
not
to be held as a suspect, after
all.

Despite the twitching eyebrow, Cedar said,
“She’s tough, Harrison. I don’t reckon she’ll lose her vittles over
some blood.”

No, not when she had seen Cedar slice the
heads off of any number of criminals.

“
T’ain’t proper for a
woman to be exposed to such ugliness, Cedar,” the Mountie said.
“You had a good look yet?”

Cedar headed for the body, and Kali followed
him—after being called “tough,” she supposed she shouldn’t hang
back and appear squeamish. Massive claws had raked parallel lines
through the woman’s abdomen and torn her entrails asunder. Two
shallower slashes had ripped open her jugular.

“
Just like the others,”
the Mountie said. “Looks like a bear did it, but bears don’t amble
into town and rip people to pieces.”

“
It wasn’t a bear,” Cedar
said.

“
What then?”

“
I don’t know,” he
said.

The second Mountie joined them. “Nothing but
human prints around the cabin, and plenty of those. Vixen had a
number of regulars. Hard to say which might belong and which might
not.”

“
Vixen?” Kali asked. The
girl looked no older than she, and her face was familiar, though
Kali had never known her name. She had only been in Dawson for
three months, and, with its thousands of people—maybe
tens
of thousands by
now—most folks were strangers. “You knew her?”

“
Er, yes.” The Mountie
cleared his throat and studied the ground. “Elizabeth Hardee over
at Hardee’s Girls wouldn’t let no colored ladies work in her
establishment, so Vixen—I don’t know her rightful name—put herself
up out here and made do with clients who like Injuns or don’t want
to put up with high prices.”

“
I’ll have a look at the
tracks,” Cedar said. “Will there be a reward for the murderer’s
head?”

“
For…a bear?” the Mountie
asked.

“
It’s
not
a bear,” Cedar said.

“
No human did
that.”

“
You see any bear tracks?
Any non-human tracks?”

“
No, but—”

“
I’ll have a look around,”
Cedar said again.

“
Suit
yourself.”

“
And so will
Kali.”

“
I will?” Kali
asked.

Cedar patted her on the back and guided her
toward the edge of the clearing. “You’ve got an observant eye, when
it’s not engrossed in ‘stuff’.”

“
Well, I’d just as soon
get back to my stuff while you tramp around in the woods.” Kali
wasn’t sure why she said that. If she could help the girl’s spirit
find a peaceful journey to the afterworld, she should, but she had
a notion that she shouldn’t jump to please Cedar when he hadn’t
explained his scarceness. Then she rolled her eyes at herself. Quit
acting like a dumb girl, she thought. If you want to know why he
hasn’t been around, ask. “But I’ll help if you take me out for
supper tonight.” Then she could talk to him without Mounties
around.

Cedar looked away. Kali
swallowed. Maybe she was right. Maybe he
had
changed his mind about
her.

“
Very well,” he finally
said, but he didn’t sound happy about it. She thought about
revoking the offer. If he didn’t want to spend time with her, she
wouldn’t make him. But he spoke again, adding, “I reckon I should
keep an eye on you anyway with all this about.” He waved a hand
toward the body.

Kali scowled. She wanted a beau, not a
nanny. “I can take care of myself.”

“
I think your people are
being targeted, and I don’t want you being next.”

“
They’re not my people,”
Kali said. “I’ve nothing in common with any of them. That’s why I
left.” That and because they’d all thought her odd for liking to
tinker and doubly odd for being the daughter of the crazy witch who
took her own life.

“
On the outside, you do,
and killers aren’t particular about the inner lives of
victims.”

“
I’m just a scruffy
half-breed,” Kali said, “not some voluptuous
prostitute.”

Cedar gazed down at her. “Are you arguing
because you refuse to believe that you might be in danger, or just
to be stubborn and ornery?”

“
Uhm, the last thing.”
Also, Kali wouldn’t mind hearing him say she wasn’t scruffy. She
plucked a tuft of moss out of the fastener for her overalls. Though
that might be asking a lot of a man.

“
I thought so.” Cedar
spotted something on the edge of the clearing and walked over to
examine the ground.

“
Should we arrange for a
burial?” one Mountie asked the other.

“
We ought to find some of
her people and let them handle it,” his comrade said. “They got
peculiar notions about sending off the dead.”

Kali stuffed her hands in her pockets and
was about to point out that white folks had peculiar notions, too,
but her knuckles bumped against something hard. She didn’t remember
sticking anything in there. Puzzled, she withdrew the object. It
was a jewelry box with a worn black velvet cover. Her heart sped
up. Had Cedar slipped it into her pocket? Surely he would know
she’d rather have useful gifts than jewelry, but a nervous flutter
teased her belly nonetheless.

Kali unclasped the lid. A thick silver ring
was mounted inside along with five miniature bullets, each with a
slot in the black velvet case. The gambler’s pistol ring.

The nervous anticipation in her belly turned
to unease. When had that man been close enough to slip something
into her pocket?

“
What’s that?” Cedar asked
from behind her shoulder.

Kali jumped, almost dropping the case. Maybe
the day’s events had her the tiniest bit on edge. “A job, I think.
We hadn’t discussed payment though.” Kali noticed Cedar was holding
something as well, a hide patch with beadwork and a polished black
stone in the center. “What’s that?”

“
I thought you might tell
me.”

Kali traded him the pistol ring for it. “I
don’t know. I never paid much attention to talismans and charms. My
mother always said people who used these things did so for show and
that true power came from within. That didn’t make the tribe’s
medicine man real happy with her.”

“
Power to do what?” Cedar
glanced at the body. The Mounties had found a blanket and were
wrapping it up.

Kali shrugged. “It depends on the purpose
the maker had in mind. A medicine man might be able to tell you if
it’s real and what it’s supposed to do.” She did not feel a tingle
of power from the beadwork patch, not the way she sometimes had
when handling her mother’s accoutrements. “Have you ever heard of a
gambler named Preston Somerset?”

“
It sounds familiar.
Someone from California?”

“
San Francisco, he
said.”

“
Lots of gold dust up here
to be won,” Cedar said. “Doing it at cards is easier for some than
mining for it.”

“
True.” Maybe the gambler
was what he said he was, and he’d simply asked around to find Kali.
It might be she hadn’t been as clever as she thought about hiding
her cave’s location.

“
Why do you ask?” Cedar
returned the ring to her. “Something to do with that?”

“
I’d like to get back to
my work. Why don’t we talk about it over supper?”

“
You shouldn’t go back to
that cave all alone.”

Kali had been planning to go to her workshop
in town—that’s where she had tools for working on something like
the pistol ring—but she crossed her arms. “We talked on this
already. I can take care of myself.”

“
She probably thought the
same thing.” Cedar waved toward the woman’s body. “I told you three
women have been murdered. You don’t seem to be taking the threat
seriously.”

“
Oh, I’m noting it, but if
I stopped work and hid every time a threat ambled by, I’d never get
out from underneath my bunk.”

“
This is different from
the bounty hunters. They want you alive.” Cedar gripped her arm.
“You shouldn’t go up to the cave.”

“
I’m sure I’m supposed to
think it mighty fine of you to worry about me and be protective,
but I’m not the sort who likes being told where to go and what to
do.” Kali extricated her arm.

“
I’m not telling you what
to do, just what I
think
you should do.”

“
How’s that
different?”

He arched his eyebrows. “One’s less
offensive?”

“
Uh huh. I wasn’t going to
the cave anyway. I’ll be in my workshop when you’re ready for
supper. Don’t worry. If bears try to ravage me there, I’ll be
protected.”

Cedar knew she had booby traps all over the
workshop, and he let her walk away without further argument.

Kali was bent over her workbench,
reassembling the pistol ring with the help of a pair of
multi-lensed magnifying spectacles, when a draft whispered against
her neck. The door opening? She’d locked it.

Her Winchester leaned against the end of the
workbench, more than an arm’s length away, but she had a number of
booby trap triggers within reach. No reason to panic yet. She
grabbed a rag, as if she had no inkling that someone might be
around, and used the motion to hide her free hand slipping into a
drawer. She pulled out one of her latest prototypes, a hand-sized
crossbow with bolts that packed a charge. Calmly, she turned around
and pointed the weapon at the door.