The Boneshaker (2 page)

"Who cares what kind it is? It's ten years old! Dad says Doc could drive it over to the soda fountain, maybe, but only 'cause it's downhill all the way."

"Sure, if it was up to your dad. If it was up to
your
dad, Doc's motorcar wouldn't make it ten feet." Natalie spat a seed to the ground. "
Your
dad couldn't change a bicycle tire."

George's hands curled instantly into fists. Natalie jumped down, shoved her bangs out of her face, and brought up her knuckles the way Jack Johnson did in boxing pictures. If George was stupid enough to try anything in front of the whole town, she'd abandon all scruples and go straight for the knee he was still favoring after their last fight, her third—no, fourth—thrashing from George this month.

But before either of them could make a move at the other, the lumpy head of an alligator landed on George Sills's shoulder. He took one look, made a sound like a creaky window being shoved up, and jumped back about four feet.

The leathery shrunken head was little, brown, and attached to the end of a cane in the hand of a man as tall and thin and pale as a birch tree. His white hair stood up in windblown shocks all over his head, and his face had more lines than space between. "I'll have you know a fellow drove a motorcar like mine all the way from California to New York before there were proper roads across the country, Master Sills."

"Hi, Dr. Fitzwater." George tried to look as though he hadn't just screamed like a little girl.

Doc wore a monocle in one eye. The look he gave George through the little gold-rimmed lens made the boy turn tail and flee across the street. Then he took the monocle out and began to shine it with his handkerchief. The look he gave Natalie without it was much kinder.

"I understand you were in charge of polishing, Miss Minks. I expect the old beast will blind us all when it comes into the sun." His voice didn't match his creased and pitted face. It was more like the way new tires ran over smooth dirt roads: a steady, low sound like a purr. She opened her mouth to tell Doc how pretty the motorcar looked now, but the metallic whine of rusty hinges interrupted her. Every head in the street turned.

The shop doors were opening.

Ted Minks, sooty-faced and grinning, appeared in the dark gap between the big barn doors. He pushed one wide, then the other, and disappeared back into the shadows. A moment later, the broad nose of the Winton emerged.

It was a dark red motorcar with two high, tufted leather seats open to the air, and wheels with spokes, just like bicycle tires. Two of its headlamps were like eyes set back on either side, wide like a frog's, and the third was a single, Cyclopean eyeball in a brass casing, fixed right to the middle of the radiator. It had a steering wheel stuck up in front of the seat on the right-hand side. The brass fittings and trim that Natalie had polished so obsessively glowed.

She caught George Sills's eye across the street and stuck out her tongue.

"Hey, Doc!" her father called, wiping the sweat off his forehead and leaving broad, grimy fingerprints there instead. "How about a drive?"

Doc made a show of considering. "Wouldn't want to disappoint all the good folks who happened by to see me off."

"Guess we'd better see if your car works after all." Mr. Minks spotted Natalie leaning on her barrel. "Mind giving me a little help, Nattie?"

Mind? She was in the driver's seat almost before he finished talking, fingers wrapped securely around the wheel, just in case.

Her father turned the crank with both hands. "Ready?"

"Ready!"

It sputtered to life, just as he promised it would, and the street around them erupted into applause.

"Listen to the old beast growl." Doc Fitzwater put a gnarled palm on the steering wheel. "I can't believe you did all this in just three days." Natalie resisted the urge to smirk at George again. Anyway, her dad could've fixed the Winton up even faster if he'd wanted to. She had spent more time pestering him to let her help than he'd spent on the motorcar itself, until the three of them—Natalie, her brother, Charlie, and her father—had had to work through the night to get it ready for today.

Now Doc turned to Mr. Minks and spoke quietly, his back to the crowd. "I'm going as far as the Pearys' farm today, then by tomorrow afternoon I'll be in Pinnacle and you can ring the central exchange if you need me. Maybe sooner, if Maggie Peary doesn't insist on having a giant brunch before I leave." Natalie's father nodded, smiled tightly, and held out his hand to shake Doc's. "Nothing to worry about," Doc said.

It was a dark red motorcar with two high, tufted leather seats open to the air, and wheels with spokes, just like bicycle tires.

Natalie climbed reluctantly out of the driver's seat while Charlie put Doc's old Gladstone medical bag and his pebbly leather suitcase in the back of the motorcar. Doc turned to face the people on the street and shouted over the puttering engine.

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you all came out for the old Winton, not for me." He climbed into the seat and propped up his alligator-head cane beside him. "As soon as the epidemic in Pinnacle's under control, I'll chug straight back. In the meantime, Lester's ready to step in if anyone gets a headache while I'm gone."

Actually, red-faced Lester Finch looked pretty nervous to Natalie as he waved from the doorway of the pharmacy a little ways down the street. Then again, when had she seen him looking any other way?

Natalie looked around at the assembled town. There was her little gang of friends, a pair of boys and one prissy-looking girl; there was George Sills, giving them all the evil eye; her teacher, Miss Tillerman; Mr. Maliverny, who ran the saloon; and a drifter with a carpetbag and an old lantern at his feet. The drifter had the delighted look of a kid who'd stumbled on a sporting event. He caught Natalie's glance and winked one pale green eye.

There was Mr. Swifte, the smith from Ogle's stables; the woman Natalie privately thought of as the town hag, Mrs. Byron, who was (as usual) scowling disapprovingly at her; Simon Coffrett, the man who lived in Arcane's only mansion, flipping his pocket watch over and over in his fingers as he watched the scene over the rims of his glasses; and tiny, bent, old Chester Teufels in his shabby, threadbare suit being studiously ignored by everyone around him as he stood in an unobtrusive corner chewing on a fingernail. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

Her gaze passed over all the excited or doubtful or curious folks watching Doc and his motorcar until her eyes fell on Old Tom Guyot's face, black and craggy and sharp-planed as a nugget of coal, and his ancient tin guitar slung over one shoulder.

Old Tom was watching her.

Natalie tilted her head. Was that so odd? After all, a minute ago she'd been the center of attention, sitting up in the driver's seat. But Tom wasn't just looking at her, he was
watching
her. All the while his head nodded slightly, as if to say
Yes, You're rightt; yes...

She looked away quickly, blushing a little as if she'd been the one caught staring. Her gaze landed on Simon Coffrett, and she flinched. There was no mistaking it.

Mr. Coffrett was watching her, too.

It came out of nowhere—one minute she was just another part of the excitement of Doc's departure, the next she was part of something else entirely. Something was happening here that had nothing to do with Doc's motorcar. Something was happening here that she didn't understand.

Or something was
going to happen...

A grinding pop drew her attention: Doc releasing the brake. Once again Natalie was just a thirteen-year-old girl standing with her curious neighbors, watching an old man drive an old motorcar out of town on an ordinary June morning.

They followed him down Bard Street, the main road through Arcane, then watched him go as far as the crossroads, where he became a dark little speck heading east. Soon he was out of sight.

"What's an epidemic?"

The moment it was out, Natalie wished she hadn't asked. Annie Minks always took questions seriously, which meant you had to be careful what you asked, and when. The kitchen was smoky already, and her mother didn't need anybody's help to burn another batch of pancakes. She turned away from the stovetop with the eager look she got when she was about to explain something. Natalie sighed.

"It's when a lot of people get sick with the same thing at the same time. Like the black plague, or smallpox, or influenza." Behind her, a plume of gray collected over the griddle.

"Like what's happening in Pinnacle?" Natalie asked, staring at the stovetop. The pancakes had smelled good for a minute, too. "Mama...?"

Her mother opened her mouth to answer, then sniffed the air and remembered she was cooking. Natalie propped her chin up with her fist, elbow resting on the table, and watched Mrs. Minks turn the pancakes one by one to reveal their burned black bellies.

People said Natalie and her mother looked alike. It was hard to tell at thirteen, though; her mother was tall and liked brightly colored lawn dresses and shoes with heels, and her hair seemed perfectly happy all twisted up at the back of her head the way she had it right now. She had a compact of face powder that smelled like sunlight and a string of pearls that had belonged to Natalie's grandmother, which Natalie had worn exactly once, in a school play. She was, Natalie thought it was fair to say, beautiful.

Natalie wore dresses under protest. Overalls were much more convenient, and her favorite shoes were a pair long outgrown by her brother. Her hair mostly stayed in a ponytail nowadays, but a few pieces still insisted on coming loose (although those bits were growing out pretty well, considering how short she'd had to cut them a few months back—there had been an incident at school with some glue that she was pretty sure was George Sills's doing).

On the other hand, Natalie's disorderly hair was just about the same shade of nearly-black as her mother's, and her eyes were almost the same color, too: light brown, the color of coffee made just the way her mother liked, with a slosh of cream and a homemade sugar cube and a tablespoon of rum. Usually, starting about May, they even got the same wildly multiplying batch of freckles across their noses, which they would compare at the end of each sunny day, looking for any new matching spots. This year, though, Natalie's freckles were even more profuse than usual—lately her mother's face looked downright pale by comparison.

Mrs. Minks scraped the blackened pancakes into a pail with the rest of the spoiled ones and poured fresh batter on the griddle. "In Pinnacle they just have a persistent sort of flu, but it's got a lot of people sick."

Natalie decided to keep quiet until at least one batch made it safely onto a plate; her stomach was grumbling and the kitchen was getting hot. Then she remembered something. "Mr. Finch looked worried when Doc left."

Her mother's shoulders did something funny, as if she'd felt a sudden draft.

"Well ... people will be expecting Mr. Finch to fill Doc's shoes while he's gone. I'm sure that's upsetting ... to him."

"But Mr. Finch knows how to give out medicines and take care of people, doesn't he?"

"Yes, but it's not the same as having Doc." Her voice did something chilly, similar to what her shoulders had done a moment before. "It's ... not the same."

Not the same? Not much of an answer by anybody's standards, let alone her mother's. Still, it looked like this might be the one: the batch that survived. Natalie bit her lips to keep quiet while the edges of the pancakes set. Two more minutes. Maybe less...

Then her father and Charlie came in, smelling like the rough soap they used to get the oil and grime of the bicycle shop off.

"You didn't need to cook," Natalie's father said. Mrs. Minks turned and hugged her husband tightly. It looked like the end of the pancakes' last chance for survival, until Charlie took the spatula out of her thin hand and removed them from the skillet himself.

"What happens," Natalie asked when all four of them were seated with breakfast safely on the table, "if people start getting sick here?"

"Mr. Finch will take care of it," Charlie said.

"Mama says it's not the same."

Their mother looked at her plate. "Mr. Finch is fine."

"But that's not what you
said.
"

For a moment there was quiet around the table. "I'm sure Lester Finch won't think twice about wiring a message to Doc in Pinnacle," Natalie's father said, looking at his wife.

"Just send a
wire?
" Natalie demanded. "That's
all?
But what if it's the Pinnacle flu? How would we
know?
"

"Mr. Finch could tell if the flu from Pinnacle showed up here," Charlie put in. Natalie shot him a
Shut up, will you?
look. Since when did her brother know anything about flus?

Flus, epidemics, persistent strange ailments, and know-it-all big brothers ... she emerged from her thoughts just in time to hear her father say, "I bet I know how Natalie's going to spend the first day of the summer."

"Can we work on my automaton? I found a piece that only fits when it's backwards, so the, the
cam
doesn't—"