Clementine

“Yes,” he said so softly she barely heard him.

“You must return to the basement and destroy the machine-and I don’t think the doctor will stop you. He didn’t want to build it in the first place. You must demolish it completely, so it can never be used and never be fixed. You must run and do it now, before anyone realizes what’s happened here. Do you know where you are?”

He looked back at the building, and then at the trail. He said, “Yes” a bit louder this time.

“You know the way back to the sanatorium?”

“Yes,” he declared, and sounded stronger still.

“Then run. Go. Don’t stop and don’t tell anyone but the doctor what you must do. Or possibly,” she corrected herself, “if you need assistance, you must ask A

The whine of the engine above was coming closer and soon she could see its shadow, like a swarm of birds or a cloud of insects, rising up over the treetops, and she felt a tremendous surge of joy to see that it was the Free Crow and not the Valkyrie; and on the bridge, through the windshield glass she could see a hulking black figure clad in a blue coat.

“You there!” someone shouted behind her, and she spun ar-ound to see a Union soldier threatening her with a repeating rifle.

“Stop right there!” ordered another uniformed man, the second guard who she hadn’t spied after the commotion in the outbuilding. “Drop your weapon!”

She jerked her attention back and forth between them and for the first time yet, she was uncertain. Maria had no intention of dropping the Colt and even less intention of stopping where she was told; and when the Free Crow soared over the outbuilding even the soldiers who commanded her looked up, and were amazed.

Thusly distracted, she took one last look down the path and saw not the faintest trace of Edwin-so she ran the other direction, back to the trees.

Behind her, the soldiers began to shoot. Bullets bounced off tree trunks and split branches, sending leaves raining down on her escape. They were ru

From the corner of her eye, Maria spotted her carpetbag lying where she’d left it. She did not pause her pace, but swept it up by the handle in a jerking lift that just barely threw her cadence off. She staggered, recovered her balance and her rhythm, and kept ru

13. CAPTAIN CROGGON BEAUREGARD HAINEY

“Well I’ll be damned,” the captain said from the bridge of the Free Crow. “That crazy little woman made it out in one piece.” He pointed down at the flat-roofed outbuilding, and the woman with the child on her hip. “That must be the boy she was talking about. Look, she’s sending him off.”

Simeon said, “Still no sign of Brink. Where’d you lose him?”

“Down there someplace.” Hainey swung his hand around, using his fingers to point out a general area to the east of the outbuilding. “He can’t have gone too far. I winged him, I’m pretty sure.”

“What bit of him did you wing?” Lamar asked.

“Shoulder, I think.”

The first mate shrugged and said, “He might run quite a ways with just a scratch on him. You should’ve aimed lower.”

“I was ru

“No one’s criticizing it,” Simeon said. “I was only saying, a winged kneecap would have dragged him a lot better.” He jammed his feet down on the pedals and slowed the craft, letting it pivot almost in place, the windshield scrolling a panorama of the scene.

The captain grumbled, “Too many goddamned trees. Too many goddamned leaves. I can’t see a thing on the ground except for her,” he cocked his head down towards Maria.

“Speaking of her,” Lamar said, drawing down a lever that would aim the engines at a slightly different tilt. “It looks like they’ve got her cornered.”

“Where? Who?” he asked, even as he spotted the blue uniforms scuttling out of the woods. “Oh hell.”

Simeon said with a small degree of pleasure, “They’re going to shoot her.”

“Or arrest her,” the captain halfway argued. “She’s been arrested plenty of times before. Maybe that’s all they’ll do.”

Then, as she turned tail and ran, even up inside the Free Crow he could hear the soldiers open fire.

“Well shit,” Hainey swore.

“Captain,” Simeon said warily, “You’re not thinking…”

He said grouchily, “Yes, I’m thinking. Lamar, how are the front swivel guns?”

“Um…” the engineer squinted at a set of gauges and said, “Mostly full. Not totally full, but mostly. We’ve got enough shot to give her some cover, if that’s what you want.”

He struggled with something for a minute, then said, “Yes, that’s what I want. Strafe the strip behind her-keep them in the clearing, let her get a lead on them.”

“But sir!” Simeon objected.

“I asked her for one favor in parting, and she paid it. She turned Brink loose for me when she could’ve shot him and saved herself a little peril. The least we can do is cover her getaway while we look for the thief.”

“Fine,” Simeon sulked, and he pulled a panel with munitions controls into his lap. “Left front-gun, stable. Tilt forty-five degrees, set.”

Hainey yelled, “Fire!”

And the Free Crow gently bucked as its front gun strafed the clearing floor behind Belle Boyd, who was now nothing more than a pale streak dashing between the trees. One soldier went down immediately, caught in the path of descending bullets; and another dodged in time to fling himself on the grass and cover his head.

“Where’s she going?” Hainey asked no one in particular.

But Lamar answered, “She’s ru

From their sky-high vantage point Hainey could see that this was going to work out poorly for the woman. The sanatorium was buzzing with activity…and with soldiers, yelling orders and herding each other out into a defensive formation. The spy was ru

“She’s a dead woman,” Simeon observed.

Below, she stopped as if she’d heard him.

She gazed up directly at the Free Crow, waved her arms over her head, and pointed west with all her might.

“I don’t get it,” Hainey said. “What’s she trying to say?”

“That she wants a ride,” the first mate guessed.

“No, no. She’s saying…”

She held her hands over her mouth and shouted something, over and over, and then she resumed pointing west.

Hainey followed her gesture with his eyes. He said, “Well I’ll be damned.”

“Again?” asked Lamar.

“Yes, again. Look at that-look at what that crazy bastard is trying to do!”

West of the outbuilding, and west of the woods where Belle Boyd was about to meet some unpleasant fate, the Valkyrie was inching its way off the hill.

Simeon said, “Brink?” as if he could scarcely believe it. “He can’t fly that devil all by himself! He’s good, but he’s not that good.”

“Maybe not, but he’s trying,” the captain observed. “Boyd must’ve heard him start the engines. She’s closer to him than we are.” And then he said, “Aw, hell.”

Lamar said, “Sir?”

“I mean, aw hell-there she goes again, making herself useful. I guess we’d better swing down and pick her up.”