“Wait—you know this rascal?” George had finally found his voice, although the whites of his eyes still showed as his gaze swung from Jake to Claire. “Where’d you learn to shoot like that? And what kind of a gun shoots lightning instead of bullets?”
Claire patted the rifle affectionately and holstered it. “Did you think it just for show?”
“I don’t make no assumptions about a man’s ordnance,” George said. “Guess there was a few I shouldn’t have made about a woman’s, neither.” He grasped Jake’s shoulder and shook him. “I’d best not find out that rock was meant for me.”
“Course not,” Jake said. “You stepped practically in its path. I were aimin’ at that miscreant, obviously, or I woulda hit you instead of ’im.”
“Do unhand my navigator, George,” Claire said.
“Navigator?” the man snorted.
“Assumptions, George,” she reminded him gently.
“Fine. Fine. You’re her navigator and—” He swung to Claire. “—you need about as much protection as a wolverine and—” He set off. “—I’m going to the Tiller right now and ordering up the biggest whiskey they got.”
“I shall stand you all the first round,” Claire called after him, and then pointed up ahead. Two people were ducking into a low door in a long building that appeared to be half of a giant pipe embedded in the ground. “Look, isn’t that Alice?”
Chapter 6
The good thing about airmen, in Alice’s mind, was that they tended to congregate with their own kind and exchange news, gossip, wind and weather, and general badinage. They rarely fought among themselves—they were a tightly knit breed, looking down in more ways than one on the men who chose a groundbound career. If a person needed to find information, an airman’s honkytonk was the place to do it.
The bad thing about airmen, as Alice had found in the Crown and Compass, was that you couldn’t count on them to stay in one place very long. They were forever moving, following the wind. One word of a storm front and the whole flock of them would scatter like so many starlings with a ssnostartled cry of “Up ship!”, leaving you standing with your mouth full of questions and nothing to show for your pains.
Her father had been a mining engineer, and had been gone most of Alice’s life, but she never gave up hope that somewhere there was an airman who remembered him and could point her to him. The fact that she didn’t remember him and couldn’t say what he looked like other than that one eye was damaged from falling rock didn’t stop her inquiring about him of every airman she met.
In Resolution, mind you, most of them were dead by the time she got to their wrecked ships, so up until now she hadn’t actually spoken to as many as she would have liked. But that one man in Santa Fe hadn’t been quite drunk enough to forget he’d seen a one-eyed man up here in the Canadas.
That was more than enough for her. It was more than she’d heard in years.
If her mother had been a different kind of woman, she would have stayed to keep her company in the afternoons, before business got going at the Resolute Rose. But Ma, having become the hardheaded practical sort out of necessity, was Ned Mose’s kind of woman. A girl had to survive in any way she could, and Alice wasn’t about to judge the woman who had borne her for the choices she made.
She had to live with them. Alice didn’t.
She’d sent a pigeon from Santa Fe letting her know she was riding the winds and probably wouldn’t be back. There had been no reply, and Alice expected none.
Expectations were a luxury Alice Chalmers couldn’t afford. But hope didn’t cost a thing.
There was a commotion near the door and Alice turned to see Claire and Jake and a crowd of the rope monkeys who had been at the Crown all coming in together. Naturally, Andrew took one look and made the wrong assumption.
“Claire? Are you all right? Are these men being troublesome?”
“On the contrary,” she said gaily. “They are keeping me out of trouble. Andrew, this is George, Reuben, and Elliot. Gentlemen, this is Andrew Malvern, and the blond young woman at the bar is—”
“Alice Chalmers.” George touched two fingers to his brow in acknowledgement. “I see you found the place.”
“Your directions were precise.” She turned to Claire. “I’m going to make inquiries at the bar. Do you and Andrew and—Jake? What are you doing