Fields of Gold: A steampunk adventure novel (Magnificent Devices Book 12) by Shelley Adina

Author:Shelley Adina [Adina, Shelley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939087683
Publisher: Moonshell Books, Inc.
Published: 2017-04-23T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Six months ago, if someone had told him he would be working for an enemy army, in the company of the husband of the woman he had once had hopes of, and enjoying himself, Evan Douglas would have told them they were utterly mad. Would have said he chose his company better. Would have said he didn’t even know any women of whom to have hopes.

How his life had changed! Well, as a schoolboy he had craved adventure. Now that he had it, he would give almost anything to be back in the schoolroom, the bespectacled professor he had always vowed he would never be.

Almost.

For despite the harrowing dangers he had been exposed to hitherto, there was something very rewarding about operating the behemoth—it made him feel capable. Powerful. And rather possessive of its huge, awkward iron self. Even if all he was doing was lifting horizontal beams into place.

For despite the familiarity of the work, everything was different now. Joe was gone, and in his place working the behemoth’s arms was Captain Fremont. The guards who had shared the pilot’s chamber were gone, and in their place was a modicum of trust. Commander de Sola had not actually believed that he would keep his promise to return, and in his astonishment, he had removed the guard and moved Evan, Fremont, and his old cellmate Dutch into the soldiers’ dormitory. While it had far less privacy than the gaol cell, it did have the advantage of a bed and sink—two gifts for which Evan had learned to be grateful.

Carefully, Captain Fremont dropped the beam into its trusses and lowered the behemoth’s arms. Evan turned them about and they stumped back in the direction of the staging yard to fetch the next one.

“I must say,” he said over his shoulder to Fremont, “I am still having difficulty understanding why you choose to stay when you could be piloting your own steamboat and taking orders from no man.”

“I am not certain myself,” the captain admitted, swinging down from the gunner’s chair, his sailor’s legs adjusting easily to the movement of the behemoth. “But I suspect that this feeling in my gut is simply a need to be on the same side of the mountains as Gloria. If there are fewer obstacles between us, then there is less to prevent my reaching her should she need help.”

Evan couldn’t help but admire such reasoning, since he shared it himself.

“I might ask you the same question,” the captain went on. “Any other man would have broken his word and taken the first train to Reno, Santa Fe, and beyond.”

Evan chuckled, his legs moving in an even rhythm that caused the behemoth’s mirrored movement to eat up the distance far below. “Perhaps. For I would be free … but friendless and alone. Better to be foolish and honorable and close to my friends. And as you say, available to help should I be need—”

Something hit the side of the behemoth with a clank.

Their stride faltered as Evan lost his rhythm.

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