Chapter Three

My logic pathways told me this was another decision point. I could not consciously understand why, and hanging upside down seemed a terrible time for philosophical pondering. Still, I had no leverage to right myself, so it seemed I had nothing else to do. Something skittered across my face, and I brushed at it with my good hand. Strands of hemp from a sturdy length of rope caught at the abraded kidskin of my palm.

"Marshal Tina! Grab the rope!" Distance made Evelyn's voice tiny. I felt the weight of the rope in the palm of my good hand and grabbed it. I gripped the chance to continue down the path I was on as hard as my creator's genius allowed me.

Now I just needed to figure out what path I was on.

***

"Attention outlaws! This is Marshal Tina Eastman," I still don't know why I appended Jonathan Eastman's surname; perhaps I thought the outlaws would take it more seriously than Tina Tesla, "and this is a Tesla Electric Sling. Your remains will need to be collected with a shovel if I am forced to fire it at you. You are all under arrest for the kidnapping of and conspiracy to kidnap Evelyn Jennings. Any man who lays down his weapons and lies face down on the ground will receive a fair trial."

"You heard her, boys!" Cartwright had his horse back under control, and he didn't seem upset by my announcement. If anything, he sounded cheerful. "She's got one of Tesla's slings! Those things don't work, y'all know that! We got nothing to worry about!"

Why do they always say that?

"Kill the Marshal. Leave the other one alive." His horse skittered sideways, "Bitch shot my horse."

One of the outlaws caught a glimpse of his companion's body. "Uh, Boss?" Cartwright must have missed his man's death, because when he saw what was left, he grabbed at his mouth like he was about to vomit. Unfortunately, his men were already following his orders.

Bullets flew around me; at this distance pistols were so inaccurate as to be near-useless. Even the one that hit, a forty-five-caliber slug traveling at low velocity, only punched a hole in my outer casing. The lead of the slug did nothing but add a thin layer to the shielding on my pitchblende chamber. Nothing short of anti-Mechanical weaponry would harm that.

I had the only anti-Mechanical weapon on the battlefield. It whined again and again, each shot blowing a man into smoking chunks. I had to be careful where I aimed; my sling could easily punch a hole through a bandit and still have enough force left to kill a child. Of course, after a few shots one of the bandits realized where I wasn't shooting.

He shouted, "One more shot and I start shooting the kids!" and shoved his pistol into the back of one of the covered wagons. I didn't dare fire on him. My aim had been a little less accurate with each shot; I'd almost missed last time. I froze in place.

"That's got her, boss, she doesn't want to shoot the..."

Mrs. Jenkins' shotgun roared, and the hostage taking slaver dropped like a stone. From the opening shot of the fight, I'd lost track of her. Now I saw why. A trail of blood marked where she'd dragged herself to the end of the trailer. Now she lay there, driven to the ground by the recoil of her scattergun. Cartwright and his last remaining man fired in her direction.

I tried to take down Cartwright's horse, but my damaged hand made my aim worse than ever. The shot hit Cartwright's man squarely, blasting bits of his torso across the landscape. Cartwright's horse spooked, galloping away with the man himself barely holding on to the saddle. I retargeted, but before I could pull the trigger a cascade of conclusions crashed through the wax and wire of my conscious mind.

If I killed Cartwright, I would never find the identity of his associates. Someone else would take his place. I needed to capture him alive to have a chance at apprehending all of his men, all of his suppliers, and all of his clients. He could run, but I would never stop tracking him. Before I could reconsider, his horse disappeared over the next rise.

Every fiber of my being cried out to chase after him, to bring him to justice, but there were others in the hollow below who needed my help.

***

I limped into the slaver's camp to the sounds of quietly crying children, confused lowing oxen, and painful labored breathing. I knew none of the slavers I'd hit were still alive. I limped to the last spot I'd seen Mrs. Jennings.

She lay propped against the wheel of one of the wagons full of children. Her face pale, her eyes closed, her hands clutched to a spot on her midsection where her dress darkened with blood. When she heard me moving toward her, she scrabbled weakly for the scattergun lying in the dirt beside her.

"It's me, Mrs. Jennings."

Her hand went still. "Oh, thank the Lord." Her voice was a breathy whisper, barely audible.

"Are you in much pain?" There was nothing I could do for a wound like that. If an artery had been hit, she would be dead in minutes. I hoped perversely that one had been. If not, it would take hours.

She cracked one eye open, a terrible fey grin stretching her mouth. "What kind of a question is that?" A grimace drew her eyes shut again. "Come here, please."

I knelt by her side. The moment she heard my knee press into the mud beside her she grabbed for me with one unsteady hand. When her questing fingers encountered my shirt, she clutched at me with strength born of dying madness. "Find my daughter. Take care of her."

"I will." Her hand fell away, and she lapsed into silence, her breathing ragged.

I stood and made my way to the cage door at the back of the wagon she leaned against. During the fight I'd seen a flash of Evelyn's red hair from within. The lock on the door was a sturdy one, made strong enough to ignore the best efforts of men to break it. As I may have mentioned, I am not a man. Watched from the darkness by a crowd of fearful eyes, I locked my good hand around the lock, braced one foot on the metal of the cage door, and pulled.

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The lock mechanism gave with a screech of tortured metal. The hasp ricocheted through the cage, drawing a yelp of pain from one of the children within. I yanked the door open, bending the hinges in my haste, then backed away. The children cowered in the back of the wagon.

"Evelyn Jennings, come out."

"Ain't none of us named Evelyn, Miss... Marshal." The girl spoke quietly, no doubt from hunger and fear, but in no way seemed uncertain of her companions’ names.

"All of you come out. Unless you'd prefer to stay in that cage until Cartwright returns with his men." As the girls began to scramble from their confinement, I raised my voice to carry to the other wagons. "Evelyn Jennings?"

A sharp voice, more angry than afraid, called out from one of the two remaining cages. "Over here!"

I stumbled over, annoyed at how clumsy my replacement hip joint made me. This time I warned the girls before removing the lock. Of course, the hasp snapped this time, and nothing flew into the interior of the covered wagon cage.

Evelyn came through the door before I could even reach to open it. She scrambled past me and ran to where she'd last heard her mother. I didn't watch their reunion. I had another cartload of children to free.

By the time I got back to Mrs. Jennings, Evelyn's cries quieted into gentle sobs. Mrs. Jennings forced words out in bursts, panting between each effort. "You listen... to the Marshal... She's going to... take care of you... from now on."

"Momma, no!"

But her mother didn’t listen. She had no time for that, she and I both knew. "You be good... say your prayers... find your da..." She reached up, hand shaking with effort, and laid a palm atop her daughter's head. "Momma loves you, child." She let out her last breath, and her eyes rolled open to stare sightlessly at the sky.

I reached out to pull Evelyn away from her mother's body. She resisted me for a moment, then my arms were full of crying child. Had I been as light as I look, I would have wound up in the mud. Instead, I stood silently, no clue what to do, and waited for her sobbing to subside.

***

The freed girls milled around aimlessly. A few scrounged at the pans hanging over the fires in the center of camp. A boyish looking one kicked savagely at the remains of one of the guards. After a quick scan through them I realized Evelyn was likely the oldest, and certainly the largest. There was next to no way most of them would be able to keep up a pace that would keep them out of Cartwright's hands. One of them clambered up into a supply wagon, yanking the canvas top off and rummaging through the boxes within.

At the sight of her perched atop the boxes a plan formed in the wax and wire of my mind.

"Are any of you familiar with oxen?"

The girls all jumped at the volume of my voice. Most of them reveled, each in their own way, with their newfound freedom, and they seemed a little startled to find me still in their midst. I do not sigh, but at that moment I realized why humans do.

"Are any of you familiar with oxen, wagons, or guns?"

Out of the nearly twenty orphans in the clearing, only three hands went up. One of them belonged to the girl kicking her former captor's corpse. Her hand shot up when I mentioned guns.

"You three, come over here. The rest of you, start collecting all the food from those two wagons," I pointed to indicate which I meant, "and take it over to that one."

The girl with the interest in guns stood unmoving, arms akimbo. "And who the hell are you?"

"My name is Marshal Tina Eastman. I am here to bring these slavers to justice. I cannot do that until you girls are safe."

She looked doubtful. "Cartwright's gonna lie down and go quietly, is he?"

I looked pointedly at the corpse at her feet. When I met her gaze again, a savage grin stretched across her face. "I guess he might, then." She swaggered over to me. "I'm Angela. Pleased to meetcha."

I took her hand gently in my good one, the other still holding Evelyn. "Good to meet you, Angela. You seem preternaturally self-possessed."

"What's that?"

"I mean you are not in shock, the way your fellow orphans are."

She smirked at me. "Oh, that. These are all war orphans. I'm the oldest here, I'm from before the war. My ma and da died in the pass, and when the rest of them were gonna sell my family's wagon and put me in an orphan house I lit out on my own."

A life on the streets may well have hardened Angela enough to survive, but I had to save all of them, not just her. "You are familiar with guns?"

She waggled a hand at me. "More from being menaced with them than using them, but I seen plenty. Even pulled a trigger or two."

It was likely the best I was going to get. "Go through all the wagons and gather all the guns and ammunition you can find. Pile them up by that wagon. Don't try to load or fire them; they may have been damaged in the fight."

She shrugged and set off. I turned to her two companions. "What are your names?"

"Lorelei," said the first, a skinny blonde with skin like milk.

"Wendy," said the other, a taller, chubbier girl with long brown curls.

"Wendy, Lorelei, do either of you know how far an Ox can pull one of these carts in a day?"

Before either of them could speak, Angela called back from where she pulled a pistol belt from the sodden mess that remained of one of the slavers. "Twenty miles if you're lucky. Ten if you're us." At my silencing frown, she shot me an unrepentant grin. "What? Like we're gonna start getting lucky now?"

I looked back at the other girls, trying to keep my disappointment from showing on my face. A horse could run nearly three times that fast, even if the men riding it weren't pushing hard. That left me only one option. "Girls, I need you to unhitch all the oxen and lead them off. Can you do that?"

"We might need help lifting the wagon tongues."

"Get some of the other girls to help. Call for me if you still can't lift it."

They trotted off to do as I'd asked. Meanwhile Evelyn had gone still and quiet in my arms. I looked down, but the top of her head told me nothing. I pushed her back out to arm's length so I could focus on her face.

"Evelyn?"

She started muttering, her words half incoherent. "Told me she was dead. Didn't believe them. Now it's true. She's gone. She's..." Her words dissolved into an incoherent wail.

I reached out and gently took her chin in my good hand. I waited until I had her full attention before I spoke. "Your mother died saving your life. I do not believe she would want you to spend it wailing."

Her mouth dropped open. She stared at me, shock at the frankness of my words overtaking the shock of her mother's death. If I was to get any of the girls away, I would have no time to waste on sentiment. I nodded at her and moved toward the wagons.

I watched her as I loaded my chosen wagon. It was a little larger than the other two; with the food lined along the sides, there would be just enough room for the girls to hide. It would be snug, and uncomfortably warm at first, but that would end when we got further up in the mountains.

When I had the wagon loaded, I grabbed the tongue and pulled. It was heavy, but it rolled easily. The slavers had taken good care of their personal wagon. My plan fully formed and ready to implement, I called out to the former slaves. "Girls! Get into this wagon!"

Most of them started scrambling toward the wagon. I directed them into their spots, making sure the little ones were supported and surrounded by the bigger ones. Before I started, I did a quick count to be sure how many passengers I had. The count came up to fifteen. None of whom were Evelyn Jennings.

"Wait here, girls."

A quick limp through the camp turned the young woman up almost immediately. She knelt near her mother, scrabbling at the ground with her fingers. I realized almost immediately what she was doing. She was trying, inexpertly and with no tools, to dig a grave.

"Come along, Evelyn."

"I'm not leaving my mother here on the ground."

"We don't have time to argue. Come along or I will pick you up and put you in the wagon myself."

Evelyn pulled herself to her feet. "I'll just jump out again. I'm not leaving her without a proper funeral."

I limped toward her, and she skipped backward, staying out of my reach. She was right, if she kept running away there was no way I could catch her. Not until I managed to wear her down, and if she had the endurance typical to her age and apparent health, that could take the better part of a day.

"We have to go."

"I am not leaving her for the animals! I am not leaving her soul to wander! We are going to bury her! We are going to give her a funeral!" She fell to her knees again, screaming her demands to the uncaring sky.