Hink wondered if Les Mullins had pulled himself off his cabin floor back at Stump Station and talked Smith into a little round-the-mountain look-see.
It was getting to weigh on his conscience, keeping these men at the chase. He much preferred to gun right for them and solve the problem on the clearest of terms—with firepower, or if they wanted the personal touch, fists.
A racket from inside the ship had Hink pulling his face out of the wind.
Seldom was cranking up the basket.
“I’ll be damned,” Hink said.
In that basket was a wolf. Looked common enough, gray fur with black at the head and tipping the ears. Except it was sitting that basket as easy as a conductor sits a train. Ears perked up, and tongue lolling.
Cedar Hunt said something to it, and the wolf held still until he and Seldom pulled the basket into the ship. Seldom gave Hink one last look—a chance for him to change his mind.
“Let the beast go, Mr. Seldom,” Hink said. “You do know we’ll kill it deader than Adam if it does any harm.”
Cedar Hunt pushed his hat down closer on his head. “There will be no need, Captain. Wil, stay with Mae and Rose.”
And darned if the wolf didn’t give Cedar Hunt a glance, then trot off to the hammock and the women.
“Buckle up and hold on to your saddles, ladies and gents,” Captain Hink said. “We’re flying this bird out of here.”
He strode to the prow of the ship and clamped his line onto the overhead, then stomped his boots into the floor belts. Cedar Hunt, Mae Lindson, and likely that wolf got themselves settled as Mr. Seldom secured the door and stowed the basket.
Another gunshot bloomed gold and white against the sky, licking across clouds and terrain alike. Coming from the northwest. Hink waited for the next shot, which would give him a better fix on which way the Saginaw was drifting.
“Captain?” Guffin asked.
Hink held up one finger for silence, then leaned forward to better scan the sky. Another boom roared out, a little farther north. Good enough—she was drifting back up to the stations on the west side of the mountains. All they had to do was ease out of here east-wise.
“Keep her low and slow, Mr. Guffin,” he said. “Due east, easy like.”
Captain Hink pulled the bell line and knew Molly would stoke up the furnace. Not that they needed speed now, but if they were seen by the ship, they’d need to be out of there as fast as this tin lady could scream.
The fans changed their song again, and the Swift made her way easy above rooftops and trees, hugging the side of the valley as she snuck along to the east.
Half a mile, a mile. Coming on three, Hink started to think they might have done the near impossible and picked the devil’s pocket.
“Captain,” Lum Ansell shouted. “Captain, sir! We got a hawk.”
“Where?” Hink checked the windows for a hawk-class ship. Unlike the Swift, which was built for height, and speed in climbs and dives, a hawk wasn’t so much built for glim harvesting. Hawks were built for disabling other ships, ripping them to shreds, taking their glim, and scavenging anything of value.
Not a friend of any station, not a friend of any harvester or pirate, hawks weren’t nothing but killing crafts, bristling with edges and flame and guns.
“Port side,” Guffin said. “She’s lighting her arrows.”
“High damn it all,” Captain Hink said. He gave it a second or two, just enough time to decide if it was the kind of situation to stay and fight, or the sort of thing that a smart man ran from.
He hit the bell three times. “Give me every ounce she’s got, Molly Gregor,” he said, though he knew she couldn’t hear him.
“We’re gonna outstrip her, men. Mind your heads and keep your hands on the controls. The road’s about to get rough.”
“Bad, bad idea,” Guffin was saying. He was so against it, he’d forgotten he was cursing by the alphabet and was instead just repeating “bad, bad idea” over and over again.
Seldom jogged back to the cannons, laying the lines so he could load two as fast as possible. Without orders, Mr. Hunt stepped up and took over preparing the port cannon for fire, freeing Seldom to man the starboard gun.
The bell from the boiler room rang a sharp three hits. Molly had her stoked up hot and ready to ride.
“If you’ve got it, hold it,” Hink said.
Then he hit the full throttle. The engine surged like a river breaking a dam, a tornado’s worth of roar pushing through her.
The Swift shuddered, riding to the edge of rattling apart, shaking so hard and flying so fast, she was screaming. The tin bones she was strung upon screeched like a choir of angels with the devil’s hands around their throats.