Steampunk'd by Rabe Jean

Author:Rabe, Jean [Rabe, Jean]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: PENGUIN group
Published: 2010-10-13T21:00:00+00:00

Scourge of the Spoils

Matthew P. Mayo

Matthew P. Mayo’s novels include the Westerns Winters’ War, Wrong Town, and Hot Lead, Cold Heart. His non-fiction books include Cowboys, Mountain Men & Grizzly Bears: Fifty of the Grittiest Moments in the History of the Wild West, and the forthcoming Bootleggers, Lobstermen & Lumber-jacks: Fifty of the Grittiest Moments in the History of Hardscrabble New England. Matthew’s short stories have appeared in a variety of anthologies, including DAW’s Timeshares. He and his wife, photographer Jennifer Smith-Mayo, travel all over the world in search of lost treasure . . . and tasty coffee. Visit him at: www.matthewmayo.com.

Tico squatted in riverbank mud the color of an old miner’s skin. His coarse brown hair hung from under his hat like ends of frayed rope, and the water he scooped in the bowl of his hands leaked slowly through his thick fingers. He cut his eyes upstream, then back to the girl. Finally he drank, swallowed, made the noise that men the world over make after they’ve finished a needed drink, like pressure released from a worn valve.

“Shall we continue, then?” asked the girl from a horse behind him.

Tico remained squatting in the mud, his suede boots darkening as the water leached upward. “No.”

The young woman said nothing, but straightened in the saddle and gritted her teeth.

Tico drank more, filled his canteen, and then squelched back through the mud to where his horse, Colonel Saunderston the Third, had finished drinking. Tico checked the four glass tubes that served as reservoir level indicators, one in each of the horse’s legs, the graduated numbers long since worn away. Satisfied with the water levels, he gathered the sopping reins from where they hung in the water, sluicing the excess through his fingers, then he mounted.

The young woman forced a smile and nodded toward Colonel. “I’ve been meaning to ask—is that a special model? I don’t recall seeing any quite—”

“Modified mount, same as that one.” He nodded toward her horse.

Under the grime and welted ropes of brazing from years of repairs, Constance Gatterling saw something of the beast it once was. “The original creature must have been a beauty.”

Tico stared at her as if she were speaking a foreign language. “Been a long time since it was a real horse.”

“Surely you’re curious.”

“Gets me from here to there and back.” More of the stare, then he said, “You talk too much. Let the bay drink full, then catch up with me.” He heeled Colonel into a lope.

“Catch up? What? Hey!” Constance looked at the receding back of the stained buckskin shirt, an ancient holstered pistol bouncing on the man’s hip with each clanking gallop. “Hey, Tico! I’m paying you to get me to the West Edge, not leave me here!” But the horse decided for her and plunged into the river up to its knees, the cool grey water sizzling and becoming steam vapor where it touched the hot metal of its legs and sipping muzzle.

“Damn you, horse, no! Tico is getting farther

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