“Our paths could part here,” Cedar said. “We’re grateful for your help out of Vicinity, and for putting us down to earth again. But there isn’t any reason we must continue on together.”
“Other than you owe me for those things.” Captain Hink leaned forward. “We had a deal, Mr. Hunt. And I’d be sorry to see what would happen if you stepped back on it.”
Mr. Seldom strolled into the room, his hard-soled boots somehow silent on the stone floor.
“So who’s our company, Mr. Seldom?” Hink asked.
“Coin de Paradis,” he said.
“Heard of them?” Hink asked.
He shook his head. “Northern from the look of her. French, from the sound.”
“How northern?” Cedar asked.
Seldom shrugged. “Pacific-rigged. Sleds for ice.”
“So she can ride the sea and the mountains,” Hink said. “Must be a regular delivery barge to Old Jack.”
“You don’t think she’s a glim ship?” Cedar asked.
“Not in a specific way,” Hink said. “Glim ship’s not going to be rigged to take the storms over the ocean, and won’t much care about landing in snow since pulling harvest in the brace of winter is just a quick way to catch a bad case of dead.”
He continued. “There ain’t a ship out there that would take the cold upper with the weight of extra equipment. So if she’s rigged Pacific and ice, she’s bringing supplies over and through on those conditions. I’d wager she’s come down from Fort Vancouver at least. Maybe up the Alaska territory. Old Jack has a hunger for things only got from exotic shores.”
“How many in the crew?” Cedar asked.
“Ten or less,” Seldom said.
“They tied down yet?” Hink asked.
Seldom shook his head. “Lashing on the south pad.”
“In that case, find us all some food, won’t you, Seldom? Something hot with meat in it.”
Seldom walked off out another door that must have been a larder and came back with a pot, which he set on a hook over the fire, and a pan he set to the side. Then he was gone again and back with supplies wrapped in brown paper and canvas.
He pulled his knife and got busy working up some food.
“Been here a time or two,” Cedar noted with a nod toward Seldom, who was moving around the kitchen like he grew up here.
“Sat out the tail end of winter a season or two back,” the captain said. “Us and four other crews. Got to know our way around the living quarters, but not much more. The tunnels Jack blasts in these mountains don’t have a map, except for whatever he keeps in his noggin. And every blast does as much to close down a tunnel as open another.
“Don’t go wandering off, Mr. Hunt. And for glim’s sake, don’t let Mae or Rose or that wolf of yours get out of eyesight.”
The scuff of approaching footsteps and low murmur of voices put a change in Captain Hink.
He gave Cedar one last nod, then leaned back, shifting his wide shoulders so one arm slung over the back of the chair, flask open in his hand. He smiled, and looked just a little drunk.
Which he most certainly was not.
Cedar eased back, but made no attempt to hide his manner. Friend or foe, he’d deal with it squarely.
Eight people walked into the room. Two women, one slender and tall as the men around her, wearing a proper skirt and corset, an umbrella clasped in her kid-gloved hand, the other shorter by at least a foot, uncovered hair hanging in two yellow braids, skirt split for riding. A lady and her maid? What were they doing all this way out in the hills? On an airship?
He scanned the men, looking to see if there was a husband or a father in the mix.
They were scanning him back. Four of the men had on gear that resembled the coats, vests, and harnesses Hink and his crew wore around as easy as tuckers and suspenders.
Cedar would count them as crew to the ship.
The man with the wild brown curls and impressive handlebar mustache might be the captain, and the other man, a quiet-looking fellow wearing a wool check suit, a bowler hat and sporting a carpetbag in one hand, didn’t quite fit in with Cedar’s notion of a crew. Maybe a passenger. Maybe a salesman.
“You must be Captain Hink.” The mustachioed man strolled across the room toward Hink with an easy roll to his gait and surveyed the place like he was inspecting a crop ripe for the picking.
“Oh, I’d say ‘must’ is a rather strong word, Captain.… Have we made acquaintance?” Hink didn’t stand. He just peered up at the man, who stopped next to their table.
“I’ve seen your ship,” the man said. “The Swift. Not a faster ship in the sky, nor a sharper man behind the wheel, they say. I am Captain Beaumont of the Coin de Paradis.”