land-leave by Mr. Yau to accompany them, supervised the unloading of the landau, Claire and the Mopsies changed into raiding rig.
“Not that I expect any danger, of course,” she assured them, buckling her leather corselet. “But it would be foolish to set off into a wilderness populated by bears and caribou without some means of protecting ourselves. And the lightning rifle cannot be holstered in a sash.”
The young man had innocently provided them with a map and an offer of assistance, one of which was accepted with gratitude and the other declined with the same. And before long, they set off along a track of packed and already frozen gravel, which seemed to receive frequent use.
“How far is it, Lady?” Tigg asked, leaning over the bolster between the compartments. “Will we see a bear?”
“Mr. Eliot said about five miles as the pigeon flies, but that does not take into account the turns and—ouch! My apologies, that was a big one—the potholes.”
“We’re lucky there’s a road at all,” Alice observed, hanging on to the seat with both hands. “Oh, kids, look—a bear, to be sure!”
An enormous brown heap of fur back in the trees lifted its head to observe their chugging passage. They probably looked as strange and exotic to it as it did to them … but nevertheless, Claire increased the steam as they passed just in case it took exception to their presence.
She had never been so glad to see the end of a road—if eight miles of unrelenting torture could be called a road. They crested a rise in the ground to see a river valley spread out below them, and clustered along it, a series of gleaming humps in the ground, in front of which smoke rose gently in the afternoon sun.
“They bury their ’ouses, too,” Tigg said. “Bet they gave the miners the idea.”
Claire rolled slowly to the outskirts of the village and before she could even begin to shut down the boiler, they had been surrounded by children of all shapes and sizes, in colorful dresses and thick jackets, their awed, bright-eyed faces rimmed in fur hoods.
“Now, now, don’t be touchin’ this landau, you lot,” Tigg warned, trying to push the wing open wide enough to get out. “That bonnet’ll be ’ot.”
Smiling, Claire and Alice descended, and lifted the Mopsies down. Two little girls who couldn’t be more than Willie’s age immediately reached out to touch Lizzie’s golden hair where it streamed over the breast of her coat, their velvety eyes huge. “Chama,” one of them said. Then her gaze moved to Alice’s head of blond curls, which she’d drawn up carelessly in a bunch and tied, unfettered by either pins or hat. “Chama.”
“Chalmers.” Alice pointed to her chest. Then she swept a hand out to onteen so glaindicate the village. “Chalmers?”
The children shrieked and ran like a pair of rabbits, bouncing and dodging between two of the mounds and disappearing.
Alice’s shoulders sagged. “So much for trying to talk. Maybe Chama means Shove off or I’ll shoot in Esquimaux.”
The chattering crowd of children seemed to be pushing them willy-nilly toward the village. “Tigg, stay with the landau,” Claire called over her shoulder, rather unnecessarily. For Tigg had planted himself bodily between the bonnet and two older boys who were trying to see where the tendrils of steam were coming from. She had no doubt that by the time they returned, Tigg would have given them a lesson in basic physics and they would be using a wrench for the first time.
As they approached the strange silvery mound where they had last seen the little girls, a door opened in its basal structure and a woman stepped out.
Claire’s first thought was that this was Alaia—the Navapai woman who had cared for her and her friends in her dwelling on the mesa outside Santa Fe. Her face held the same calm confidence edged in joy. But there the resemblance ended. Where Alaia had been slender and graceful, this woman was stocky and solid—at least, she appeared to be under her red dress and fur-trimmed coat. Clinging to each hand was one of the little girls.
Ah. This must be their mother.
The deep brown gaze passed over Claire and Maggie, lingered a moment on Lizzie, and proceeded to Alice, where it missed no detail of Alice’s appearance. Then she lifted her chin.
Alice found her voice. “Um. Chalmers?” she said, no doubt feeling as foolish as she sounded.
The woman planted her feet, as if she were expecting a blow. Claire