Tin Swift (17 page)

She heard Mr. Cedar Hunt shift on the floor near her, and got a look at him. He sat, his back to the wall, his hat tipped down to shadow his eyes. Wil sat next to him, his bronze eyes aglow in the darkness, ears twitching to sounds in the ship she couldn’t hear. Mr. Hunt’s hand rested on Wil’s back, and Mr. Hunt was asleep.

The men at the end of the ship sounded like they were bedding down. She even heard the soft breath of a snore muffled by something like a pillow or an arm over a face.

And then Captain Hink was standing above her hammock, looking down at her.

She was startled to see him there.

He appeared just as startled to see her awake.

They held still, caught in a stare they could not seem to break.

He opened his mouth, closed it, glanced over at Cedar Hunt, who as far as Rose could tell hadn’t stirred, then finally back at her.

“My apologies,” he whispered. “I thought you were asleep.”

“I was,” Rose whispered back, enjoying his discomfort more than she probably should. He looked like he’d swallowed a prickly pear and didn’t know how to get it down proper.

“I didn’t mean to wake you.” He lifted his hand and showed her the pillow he was holding.

“What did you mean to do with that, Captain Hink?” Rose asked.

“Lee,” he said. “Please, call me Lee.”

“I’m not sure that I’m on first-name familiarity with you, Captain Lee Hink.”

He looked down at the pillow in his hand, then back at her with a
smile. “Maybe that’s not my first name,” he said. Then, “Would you be on first-name basis with a man who was going to offer you his feather pillow?”

Rose held her breath for a second. Was he just teasing her, or had he really come back here to try to give her a little comfort? Why would a stranger do such a thing?

“Is that what you were doing, Captain Hink?”

“Lee,” he said. “And yes. I just wanted to see you…just wanted to see if you were comfortable.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” a man grumbled from somewhere toward the head of the ship. “Just give the woman the pillow,
Lee,
so we can all get some sleep.”

Captain Hink looked like he was trying hard to count to ten before yelling.

Rose didn’t want to wake everyone on the ship, most of all Mrs. Lindson. “Yes,” she said quickly, “a pillow would be very nice, Captain Lee Hink. Thank you for your thoughtfulness.”

He stepped the rest of the way up to her hammock and then seemed to realize there would be a bit of situating to get the pillow under her head.

Rose held out her right hand. “Just don’t jostle my left shoulder.”

He leaned down. Instead of taking her hand, he placed his palm against her back and helped her sit, while simultaneously tucking the pillow down behind her head.

This close to him, Rose could smell the grease and oil and soot on his clothes. His breath carried the sharp honey-burn of alcohol, all of it made warmer by the very nearness of him.

For a flicker of a second, Rose wondered what it would be like to kiss his lips. And then the very thought of that, with him leaning over her in such an intimate manner, made her busy mind start thinking other things and asking other questions.

What would it be like if he just crawled into this hammock with
her? What would it be like if he took his shirt off, if they were all alone on this airship with nothing but the darkness of the sky to shelter them? How would he feel, heavy and naked against her?

She blushed so hard, her head hurt.

“Are you all right, Miss Small?” he asked, pulling back enough that he could see every inch of her blush.

What was wrong with her? Thinking such things. And blushing!

“Fine,” she managed. “Thank you, fine.”

Captain Hink paused and studied her face, which only made her blush until her stomach stung.

“It’s just, I’m not used to a man’s pillow…I mean, I haven’t seen a man’s kindness so, um, personal lately.” The last word sort of died on a whisper as she realized she was just babbling, and doing more to embarrass herself than to explain herself.

He bit his bottom lip, but couldn’t keep the smile from turning into a grin.

“Well.” He looked down at his boot for a second as if trying to decide something, then looked straight back at her. “Well.”

His eyes were piercing in the low light of the lantern, the angles of his face like something out of a fine art museum. And that half smile curving his lips let her know he knew exactly what she’d been thinking, and approved.

Good God and glim. If she’d been in a more embarrassing spot in her whole life, she didn’t know what it was. Still, Rose knew the best way to deal with a man was to step up to the dance. Stand up to him, and match him, move for move. Elbows out.

She raised one eyebrow, and held his gaze, daring him to call her out on her inappropriate thoughts.

“It’s a pity,” he said softly, “that you’ve not seen, personal, a man’s
kindness
, lately,” he said, keeping his smile down to something that looked platonic, though his eyes blazed with mischief. “If I’d known—”

“Good night, Captain Hink,” Rose said firmly. She glanced past
him to indicate he could just turn that smirk around and get to walking now.

“Good night, Miss Small.”

He was still standing there. Still smirking.

She turned her head away and closed her eyes. After what felt like an eternity, he walked away, the sound of his bootheels against wood more and more distant. She opened her eyes again and watched as he moved out of the low lantern light.

The slight bell-tone sound of his palm gripping and releasing the metal overhead bars as if he were in the air instead of on the ground sang a soft counterpart to his retreating footsteps.

How could she have acted like such a fool? Maybe it was the laudanum muddling her mind. Or maybe she could blame it on the pain in her shoulder, which seemed to be getting worse.

The memory of his eyes, the angle of his jaw, that soft smile, the smell and nearness of his body all came rushing back at her and made her skin go tingly with itch.

It wasn’t her injury that made her lose her wits around the captain.

It was the captain.

And now he’d had a good old laugh at her expense. She didn’t know why it bothered her so much. She usually didn’t give a hog’s heel for what a stranger thought about her.

But there was something different about Captain Hink.

Maybe it was his airship. Maybe she was the kind of girl who turned into a doe-eyed fool when she met a man who could fly.

Rose considered that for a moment. It was possible. But they weren’t flying, and she certainly didn’t want to be moving off the ground right now. It was entirely possible it was just the man himself that tightened her spring.

She wasn’t thinking straight, that was for sure. The pain was interfering with any logical thought. She needed the tea. She reached out for the cup on the shelf, but that only kicked everything up to hurting more.

She bit back a little groan and decided holding still was much better than trying to reach the tea.

“Would you like some tea, Rose?” Cedar asked quietly.

Had he been awake this whole time?

Of course he’d been awake this whole time. She and the captain had practically had their entire conversation on top of him. He must have heard it all. Every stuttering, embarrassing word.

“Yes,” she said, miserable with pain, and now with a whole new kind of embarrassment.

Mr. Hunt got to his feet. He didn’t make any noise at all moving in the dark. She’d always wondered about that. He had a way of fitting into his surroundings and taking on the silence of them, much like the natives of this land.

Maybe it was his wolf self that made him like that. Or maybe that was one of the reasons the Pawnee gods had chosen him to carry their curse.

He stood beside her, almost in the same place the captain had been standing. She hesitated to meet his gaze, but when she did, she discovered he wasn’t smirking at her. His eyes were kind, searching her face and then taking the measure of the wound on her shoulder.

She didn’t think she had the strength to hold out her hand again, but she didn’t have to. Cedar Hunt brought the cup to her lips and helped her drink.

The tea was cold and so bitter she almost couldn’t swallow it down, but she managed.

“How’s the pain?” he asked, replacing the tea on the shelf.

“Not so bad I want to claw out of my skin, but not so good I want to stay in it so much either. What happened, Mr. Hunt?”

“Someone rigged explosives to the girl. The dead girl. I tripped some kind of spark. The whole house went up. And you were hit. I tried to block the blast—”

“I remember,” she said. “Do I still have a piece of…” Her eyes went wide as she considered what might be embedded in her shoulder.

“…tin,” Cedar said.

“Tin,” Rose said, relieved. “Do I have tin in my shoulder?”

“Yes. It’s a very small key. The Madders think it’s a part of the Holder.”

“Oh.” She tried to work that through. The medicine was already starting to rub the edges off her brain, sanding her thoughts down to dust. “Do you think it is?”

Cedar nodded. “If we had the device, it would draw the key out quick. But we don’t yet. So we’ll need to try and dig it out. Mae has the steadiest hand, and she’s…” His voice tightened up on a growl, but he managed to breathe that down and continue in his scholar’s tone. “She’s unable to do that just now.”

“What happened to Mrs. Lindson? Are the Madders here?”

“She used magic, cast some sort of spell on the captain. She’s the reason we landed in one piece. But she fainted and hasn’t come to. As for the Madders…” Cedar rubbed at the bridge of his nose as if weary from too many hours spent reading a difficult text.

“Last I saw, they were fighting their way through the unalives in Vicinity. Do you remember them rising?”

Rose nodded. She’d likely be nightmaring on it for years.

“The Madders said they can track us and find us. Captain Hink and his crew pulled us out of that mess.”

“How…” Rose searched for the word. Couldn’t quite find it. “Nice,” she finally said. Her eyes were staying closed longer and longer between each blink. She didn’t think she had much more time being awake. “Thank you, Mr. Hunt,” she said softly. “For…keeping us safe.”

“You’re welcome, Miss Small.”

For a second, Rose thought she heard a man in the distance curse, and then sleep came and took her to gentler lands.

C
edar knew Wil would keep watch during the few hours between night and dawn, but sleep did not come easily to him.

They were in trouble. No horses, no supplies, and winter coming on. Everything they’d had, they lost when the crew of the
Swift
pulled them on board. Cedar had some money and his guns. But they didn’t even have a change of clothes, a scrap of food, or a spare pair of socks.

He’d been encouraged by Rose’s waking and being mostly clearheaded, though in pain.

But Mae hadn’t stirred since she’d cast that spell to bring the ship down softly. He didn’t know when she would wake, and when she did, he had no idea what kind of condition she would be in for travel.

The captain had assured him that he would take them to the nearest town after the ship was repaired. Captain Hink didn’t seem to be a man who’d likely prey upon the misfortunes of others. He’d seemed amiable enough in following Molly Gregor’s instructions that they be treated as guests and passengers. But there was something more to him than just a man skimming the western glim fields.

He asked a lot of questions. About the Madders, about the railroad in Hallelujah, and was curious as to any rumors Cedar had heard about men dealing glim in these parts. Many of his questions pointed squarely to the Strange and roundabout to the Holder.

The Madders had said most people wouldn’t recognize the Holder. Cedar bet Captain Hink would. Might even have been looking for it. Not that he’d exactly said as much.

Cedar’s ability to sense the Holder gave him an edge on those others looking for it. Whether his sensitivity to the weapon was a product of the Pawnee curse in his bones, or pure bad luck, he didn’t know and didn’t care.

Being able to track it gave him a position of power if it came down to bargaining for their lives.

All he wanted was to get Mae back to her sisters before she was driven insane, and to see if the witches had a way to break his and Wil’s curse. Along with that, he felt obliged to see that Rose Small was safe as she found her place in the world.

He hadn’t thought much about his future past those things. Maybe he’d find a place in this world where he could start a life again with Wil. Help his brother rebuild a life he’d been cheated out of all these years.

They’d need land, home, and income of some kind.

He could turn back to his scholarly pursuits, or stay outside the hub of civilization and make his living bounty hunting for farmers and ranchers. He could marry.

The image of Mae Lindson came to him. He found himself savoring the memory of her touch as she tended his wounds in Hallelujah, remembered the warmth of her leaned full against him, his arms around her as she wept for her dead husband.

Like counting precious coins, he rolled through the moments he’d caught her, gathering herbs, or gazing at the sky, her face gentle and kind, her voice bent to song. He recalled the sweet sound of her all-too-rare laughter.

He’d been married. Loved his wife well and full. Never thought another woman would pull on his heart.

Mae Lindson called to him like a thirst to water. Not in the same
way as his wife. The part of his heart that had loved her had died with her.

He thought, or maybe he only flattered himself in thinking, that some days when Mae was watching him, she was seeing him with the kind of desire he saw her.

He could build a life with her. If she’d have him. If he could still be the kind of man who lived for more than just surviving the rise and fall of the full moon.

The wind outside the airship gusted, and the frame and wood of the ship rocked and creaked a bit. Cedar knew the basic principles behind the steam airships. He’d heard the captain tell his men to drain the airbags—a good precaution so that they didn’t get broadsided by a big gust that might send them tumbling in the night even if they were anchored and lashed.