Chapter Three

When the first faint light of dawn painted the sky outside the cave, I powered back up. The snow had stopped midway through the evening, leaving the day to dawn clear, bright, and achingly cold.

I slipped carefully out of the pile of girls and made my way to the remains of my arm. A few moments examination showed that I wouldn't win any prizes for elegance or beauty, and my range of motion would be limited, but I would have two mostly functional hands. While the girls slept, I set to work reconnecting my hand and forearm. By the time enough light filtered into the cave to wake the girls, I had my arm reconnected, and I was ready to address my malfunctioning leg.

"Angela. Evelyn." Both girls fitfully in the light. At the sound of my voice, Angela's eyes snapped open. Evelyn sat bolt upright, her eyes darting about.

"Is he... Have they caught up with us?"

"No, Evelyn, but we need to be going. Are there any blankets or clothes in this cache?"

Lorelei answered in mid-stretch, "yes, Marshal. Some of each. There are some backpacks, too."

"Good. Wake the girls. Make sure everyone has an extra pair of pants, an extra shirt, and a blanket. Pack all the socks and food you can find into the packs."

"Yes, Marshal."

"You want us to wear pants?"

I had no time for Wendy's shock. I stood and spoke firmly, addressing all the girls. "Wear them under your skirts. They will keep your legs warm. Wear two pair of socks each. None of you have good boots, and you'll all need to walk."

"Yes, Marshal!"

With all the girls were nominally awake and preparing to move out, I turned my attention to my malfunctioning hip. "Everyone, cover your ears for a moment."

When they all had their ears covered, I twisted and slammed my hip into the solid granite wall of the cave. My recalcitrant cog refused to seat. I set myself and tried again. The kidskin of my hip tore away, but the cog wouldn’t seat yet. On the third strike, the cog slipped back into place with the sound of metal teeth meshing. I flexed it; like my arm, it wasn't perfect, but I could walk. Not fast, but this was to be a marathon, not a sprint.

I spent the next few minutes loading a pack with all the food and clothing I could find. If it came down to a firefight, extra guns wouldn't make a difference. We had to keep moving and hope we had enough of a head start to keep away from Cartwright until we reached safety. By the time I finished loading, all the girls were as ready as they could get. I set my pack on the ground and picked up the rope I'd carried them with the night before.

"Are you going to carry us all up?" The fear in the little one's voice was clear, as was her effort to control it.

"No. I can't be sure my grip will support all of you. I'll climb up myself, then lift you up one at a time. Evelyn, can you loop the rope around them at this end?"

"Yes, Miss."

"Will you be able to put it around yourself?"

This time far more hesitation colored her answer. "Yes, Miss."

I stared into her eyes, challenging her statement. She shrank back but refused to look away. After a few moments, her chin jutted out stubbornly, much like her mother's had when insisting Evelyn had been kidnapped.

"Yes, Marshal. I can."

"Good. Each time I lower the rope, send up a girl or a pack."

They all nodded their understanding. I pulled the fabric from the cave entrance, and the cold of the morning sliced through the cave. Thanking Tesla for making my thermometer something I could ignore at will I stepped out and scaled the cliff.

***

The climb was remarkably easy. I hadn't thought of what an Explorer Autocannon did to a cliff face when it clambered up, but in retrospect it was obvious. The cliff was pocked with hundreds of holes, giving me near perfect hand and foot holds. I reached the top before the girls could grow impatient and call to me.

When I looked at the wagon, I was immediately grateful for that silence. I wasn't an expert tracker by any means, but I knew the Explorer left some tracks. The snow around the wagon was smooth and unmarked.

Someone had been here in the night and covered their tracks afterward.

I pulled my electric sling from the remains of the wagon, then laid it back. It was hopelessly fouled. I would have to recover it and return it to Forge for repairs later. For the moment, the best I could hope for was that one of the slavers would try to use it. The results would be impressive and catastrophic. The thought of that fate visited on the villains brought a fierce smile to my face.

Working as quickly and quietly as I could, I lifted the girls from the cave one at a time. As I pulled each over the edge of the cliff, I placed a hand over her mouth, pulling her in to whisper in her ear, "Be absolutely silent; someone was here in the night."

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While I lifted, I considered whether our pursuers were ahead of us or behind. For all that I wished they were still behind us, that made no sense. They were ahead of us, and we would have to cut back and find another path to safety.

In minutes I had all sixteen girls lined up, each one wearing an oversized infantry uniform and carrying an oversized pack. I tapped Angela on the shoulder and pointed back down the pass. She furrowed her brow inquisitively but nodded and started to move down the steep mountain trail. The line of girls followed her, single file. I held Evelyn back. I wished I could break the trail, but with Cartwright's men behind us, probably close, I needed to bring up the rear. Angela would need Evelyn to spell her, so for the meanwhile she stayed at the back of the line.

We moved that way for nearly half an hour, making our way slowly along the path. Angela was already faltering. I touched Evelyn on the shoulder and motioned her forward. While she worked her way along the line of girls, I stopped and looked behind us. Other than our footprints, nothing marred the trail. Other than the soft crunch of our feet in the snow, no sound broke the silence.

At Evelyn's shriek of horror my gaze slewed back to the front of our troop. Beyond her, silhouetted against the first trees below us, a single horseman stared up at us. I twisted my optics to their full magnification.

Cartwright.

I reached for my sling, swearing silently when my hand grabbed at nothing. I had no sling, no rifle. The only weapon I had was my sidearm. I started slogging through the snow as quickly as I could. A moment later a single rifle shot echoed through the pass.

"That's far enough, Marshal!" I ached to rip the insufferably smug look off his face, but my girls weren't armored. I stopped in my tracks.

"Looks like the pass beat you back to me, eh, girlie?"

"I will not allow you to enslave these girls, Cartwright."

"You gonna kill 'em yourself, Marshal? That's about the only way I can think of you're gonna stop me."

I ached to pull my gun and shoot him down. I needed to protect the girls. The only way I could stop him was to shoot him before he could fire. I had to make him flinch, buy myself just a second to draw, aim, and fire. My voice was the only weapon I had. "If you drop your weapon and surrender quietly, I will speak on your behalf at the trial."

He lifted his rifle, aiming it squarely at me. "I don't think so Marshal. In fact, I'll tell you what, girlie. If you drop that pistol real slow, I'll tell my men you're off limits." Cries of annoyance sounded from beneath the branches. "Best deal you're gonna get, Marshal. On the count of ten, it goes away."

"Mr. Cartwright, if you harm even one of these girls, I will hunt you down. I will find you. I will bring you to justice."

"Five more seconds, girlie. You just don't get it, do you? I'm untouchable. The men I work for run this state."

"You are not employed by the state government, Mr. Cartwright. You are a criminal. You are under arrest. Drop your weapon and surrender, now."

"Okay, boys. Take 'em."

Two dozen men shuffled out from under the trees. The girls screamed and ran, stumbling back up the trail they'd just broken. I stood motionless, waiting for them all to pass. Angela and Evelyn passed me at the same time, each carrying one of the little girls in her arms. Cartwright's men were still thirty feet away. I waited. Twenty feet. I waited.

When his men were ten feet away I drew. My hand was a blur, but not even I am fast enough to dodge bullets. A single rifle slug slammed into my left eye, through my left audiophone, and shattered the back of my skull explosively. Angela cried in pain as fragments of steel and ceramic pelted her from behind.

As I may have mentioned, I do not have any critical functions located in my head.

My first shot hammered Cartwright from his saddle. The next five ended the lives of five of his men. They froze in shock at my continued activity, but the click of my pistol's hammer on an empty chamber thawed them. I set myself to fight, but with my damaged leg and arm, I knew I would be no match for them. It mattered not a whit; I would sell myself as dear as possible to buy the girls even a few moments of freedom, a slightly larger chance of getting away.

I stared at the slavers, my attention totally focused on them, when the impossible happened.

The snow behind and around the slavers exploded upward. Men in the pale green of the United States Infantry leapt on the slavers, long knives flashing. In sixty seconds of screaming and chaos, it was over.

A man with the paired shoulder bars of an Army Captain trudged up to me, Cartwright's limp form dangling from one hand. His skin, which looked like it ought to be the color of old bronze, was pale from the cold. If that bothered him, it didn't show at all in the broad grin stretched across his face. When he was two arm lengths away, he stopped and nodded.

"Ma'am. Sorry we took so long to move, but we had to be sure the girls were out of the line of fire."

I pulled my hood up to cover the extent of my head wound and nodded, uncertain of my vocoder after Cartwright's bullet. "I understand."

My voice was harsh, hard for me to understand with only one ear, but the Captain nodded in reply. "Captain Jonathan Eagle, United States Army, at your service."

"Marshal Tina Eastman. Thank you. What brought you here."

"We were up in the pass training when we saw your flare. We couldn't make it down in the snow, so a few of us scouted out the area and found this lot," he tossed Cartwright on the ground and spat at him. "We set up our ambush here, where they'd have to bunch up. It was just bad timing you came down just then."

I shrugged my reply to his implied apology. The timing had cost me an eye, but it was nothing I couldn't replace, and it wasn't his fault. Any blame I laid firmly at Cartwright's feet. Any thanks were due the Native infantrymen in front of me.

"Thank you, Captain."

He nodded, sketching a salute. "All in the line of duty, ma'am."

"I have a favor to ask. These girls are all orphans. If they are returned to the coast, they'll likely be taken by men like Cartwright again..."

"Say no more, Marshal. There are plenty of families that would love to take them in. We'll see to it they're safe." His smile faded, replaced by a look of concern. "You were lucky, you know."

"How do you mean?"

"In the past two years, we've heard of a lot of Marshals being ambushed and killed by some organization on the coast. Washington sent a new one, an Army veteran by the name of... Are you him? Er, her?" He stopped; his confusion evident.

"No, Captain. He was my mentor."

"Oh." His confusion hadn't lessened, but he rallied. "I think... I think you may be the last one left on this side of the Rockies."

I had been mentally preparing myself for the long trek back up the hill after my girls. When he said those words, however, I realized I had no time to see the girls to their new home. Nodding my farewell, I started trudging down the hill.

"Marshal! Where are you going?"

"I have a duty, Captain. I need to see it done. I thank you for all your help, and I thank you for seeing my girls to safety, but the time for giving thanks is over. It's time for me to get back to work."