Colt Buchanan and The Weather Walkers
Patrick Bates
Copyright 2011 Patrick Bates
All rights reserved.
Smashwords Edition
Red Willow Books
Table of Contents
ONE
Randall Buchanan urged his horse to gallop faster than she had ever gone before. Stealing glances over his shoulder, he watched the prairie duster whip its tail across the dry, sandy desert as it chased him.
And it was chasing him. Randall Buchanan had no doubt about that: The cyclone cut a trench two feet deep behind him in a zigzag line and was headed straight for him and his horse.
Looking forward, he saw the ghostly gray puffs of smoke coming from his house just below the next rise. Jenny would be making supper right about then, but it would be a supper that would get cold. He leaned forward and patted the horse’s neck and willed her to go as fast as she could. He would have only seconds to spare once he got to the house. He reached down to the switch on the side of the saddle and pushed it forward. The horse responded to the extra help from the metal and mesh leggings Randall Buchanan had dressed her in for that day’s experimental ride.
A cloud of sand blew up in front of them. A second prairie duster joined the pursuit. The sudden burst blinded Randall. He fell from his horse and felt her tumbling along with him. He braced for the crushing blow from her weight, but it never came. As soon as the sand cloud dissipated, he saw her off to his right. The metal exoskeleton he had equipped her with had protected her from breaking any bones when she flipped.
He whistled over the rush of wind from the two twisters howling around them. She turned, recognizing his call. The horse shook off its confusion and came for Randall, who raised his hands and caught the bell of the saddle with one hand and drew up the reign with the other all as he pulled himself up on the back of the horse. It was going to take more than a couple of novice twisters to stop him from getting to his home and family.
Randall Buchanan leaned forward once more and patted the horse on the neck in the same spot he had earlier. The mighty animal lowered her head and pushed through the rising curtains of sand. Even through the muted view, both Randall and the horse appeared to navigate with ease up to the split log house he’d built with his own hands.
He didn’t have time to tie her off nor put her in the pole barn to protect her from the whirlwind of grit. The horse seemed to sense this and snorted, then whinnied as if telling him to go in and mind for his family. As he went into the house, he turned to push the door closed just as two swirling clouds of sand enveloped the horse. Within seconds it reduced the mechanized beast to a pile of scrap.
Pushing the heavy brass door shut, he smashed his elbow into the wall. A small panel appeared. Randall threw up two switches and spun a wheel. The walls hissed; outside, the steam from the jets disguised as knotholes, mixed with the swirling sand creating clumps of light brown clay that fell to the ground in heavy plops.
“Randall? What is it?” Jenny asked. She stood in front of the Ben Franklin stove, lifting a boiling kettle of stew from the flat lid.
“Get Colt into the cellar,” he said. His eyes must have told his wife the rest. She set the heavy pot back on the hot stove and went up into the loft to get their son. He wrapped his hands around the pegs they more often than not used to hang up coats and shawls and pulled back in the opposite direction from where they stood. The brass reinforcement bar hidden behind the wooden walls slid into a locking position securing the door, at least for the time being.
Randall moved quickly around the room while his wife moved backwards down the wooden ladder. Colt, his son, watched wide-eyed over his shoulder, directing his mother, who was only a couple of rungs from the floor, to be careful. Even in such a moment of adversity, Colt thought only of his mother and not himself. Randall had to smile.
A peppering of sand pellets rattled the glass in the windows. Randall yanked up on the lower window pane, revealing a shiny copper shade. He held the shade in place with brass clasps. With the windows secured, there was now another task for Randall Buchanan to undertake. Regardless of the outcome of what was about to take place, this task was probably the most important of all.
Buchanan went to the Ben Franklin stove. From the mantle above the fireplace, he took a small brass ball and inserted it into the stovepipe through a swinging door on the shaft. He closed the door and turned away. There was a small hiss and then the ball rocketed up through the pipe. With any luck, once it reached the outdoor air the gas pellets would propel it the distance to those who could assist them.
“Father, do you need help?” Colt asked.
“I got it here, buddy,” Randall said. He looked at his son and tried to smile to reassure him.
“Colt, come here,” his mother said.
Jenny Buchanan stood halfway out of the hatch that led into the cellar. It wasn’t much of a room, less than half of the size of the small house. Still, it would conceal Colt from the twisters outside, which is why the cellar had been added in the first place. Dr. Wanderer had said it was a silly precaution, that Anvil Smith would never be able to locate Randall and his family.
But Dr. Wanderer had been wrong before.
Randall watched his son disappear below the wooden floor panels. Jenny blew a kiss down to their son and dropped the hatch down. She worked her finger into a knot hole and slid the plank it was in across the top. Even over the roar of the wild wind outside there was an audible click.
“You should be down below with Colt,” Randall Buchanan said.
Jenny shook her head. Tears ran down her cheeks. “The best I can do for him is help you fight off the Weather Walkers.”
Randall Buchanan had never been so proud. He hugged his wife.
They each ran to a different corner of their cabin and each of them turned a large brass flywheel in a clockwise direction. Large brass poles slowly rose up from the floor. A great brass ball was attached to each. When the ball reached the roof, Randall and Jenny Buchanan turned another flywheel on the wall. Above them two holes big enough to let the brass rod pass through appeared. Sand began to pour in like it was seeping through the bottom of a sieve. They went back to turning the flywheels on the wall until the poles rose up through the hatches above them. Randall slid a small brass ring up to the ceiling and twisted them into place, sealing off the gaps and blocking the rushing sand.
Randall hurried over to the potbelly stove. He pushed on the wall and it spun. The stove disappeared into a nook and in its place was a great steam engine already heating up from the fire in the stove. He pulled on a lever jutting up from the floor. The engine coughed and wheezed. He returned the lever to its starting position and began to pump up and down on an accordion air blower. Jenny poured water from the ice box tray into the cistern, adding more fuel to the water already boiling inside. Randall went back and pulled on the lever once more. This time the engine sprung to life.
Randall could smell the ozone crackling around them. The static charges generated from the steam engine began to pulsate up and down the copper rods. High above them the charge arced between the brass knobs.
Randall moved to the center of the room and pulled down on a dangling length of rope. A small apparatus with a brass and glass eye piece slid as he pulled. He put one eye to it and peered through. He could now see the twisters approaching from the south, which was odd since most weather patterns always came in from the west. Randall pulled away from the eye piece and looked at his wife.
“Go to the engine,” he said. “When I tell you to, squeeze that spring activated handle above the engine.”
“What will it do?” Jenny asked.
“If it works as Dr. Wanderer theorized, it should release a bolt of energy that should disrupt the cyclones.”
Jenny smiled. “There’s a lot of should and not a lot of would.”
Randall smiled back. “We’ll get through this, Jen.”
“I know.”
A long, howling gust of wind rattled the roof beams. Randall cupped his hands around the eye piece. As he walked around in a circle inside the house, a larger lens above the house spun in a similar direction. He counted two from the south, one from the east. The largest came at them from the northwest. It was, without a doubt, Anvil Smith.
Randall Buchanan calculated the probabilities in his head. He knew there wouldn’t be enough of a charge in the dynamos above the house to knock out Anvil’s cyclone. It would be difficult to knock out the two coming at them from the south. They could, theoretically, take out one cyclone rider and damage the second, but they would still be attacked from three sides. The best bet would be to take out the one from the east. It still wouldn’t stop the attack, but it would be enough to send a message to Anvil Smith and the Weather Walkers that there would be a fight on their hands.
Randall Buchanan turned to the east. He took one hand away from the eye piece and held it up in the air. “Get ready, Jenny,” he said. “When I drop my hand, squeeze the grip and pull back on the lever.” He kept one eye on the scene outside and the other one tightly closed. He counted in his head as he listened to the charge build and crackle above him. As the smaller twister drew within a hundred feet, he dropped his hand and yelled, “Now!”
He heard the click of the handle as Jenny squeezed it, then heard the pressure valve release as she pulled it back. Above him a great burst of static electricity rippled through the dusty, sand filled sky. It looked like a great snake streaking at the tornado spinning across the prairie. When the bolt of electricity hit the twister, it exploded it into a great ball of dust. An egg shaped capsule big enough to hold a man tumbled out of the sky and bounced across the plains. The large circular fans on either side of the egg broke off sending the spinning blades in opposite directions. To Randall they looked like toppled windmills rolling through the dust.
Randall turned to his wife. He wanted to tell her how successful they had just been. He looked into her tear filled eyes. There was just enough time for him to cross the room to her and take her in his arms before the remaining cyclones converged on the house.
When the dust settled, both Randall and Jenny Buchanan were gone.
And they would remain that way for a very long time.
TWO
Colt stayed below throughout the storm. The room he squatted in smelled of old coins. The glow of the filament inside the bell shaped jar attached to the far metal wall dimmed. He wouldn’t have light for much longer. He wanted to undo the latch and find his parents, but he knew better. How many times had his father told him that in just such an emergency he should wait until one of them opened the hatch from above? Too many. Every bedtime story ended with a reminder of what Colt had to do if ever there was a time where he would have to go into the room.
Still, it felt like it had been forever. And while it wasn’t completely sound-resistant in the room, Colt thought for certain many hours had passed since he had gone below. Surely the twisters had dissipated since then.
The glow of the filament dropped to a dull orange. Colt knew there wasn’t much life left in it. The idea of being below, in the dark, in a room that smelled of old coins, didn’t exactly settle well with him. He decided he would have to check, just this once, and if his dad gave him his usual reproachful glare for Colt’s having disobeyed him, Colt would rather suffer the consequences of punishment rather than stay below by himself in a dark, stifled room.
Colt reached up and felt along in the shadows for the release notch. He wiggled his finger into it once he felt the indent. With a determined push he undid the latch and pulled down. The hatch above him sprung upwards.
Moonlight poured in through the door, or what had once been the door. The great brass rectangle stood pushed off to the side on its heavy hinges now bent like circus wire used to make little mechanical men. The hardwood floors took on a dusty gray sheen in the bluish white of the full moon and stars. Colt stood half-way out of the sunken room and looked at the empty house.
Something that looked like long, wide shadows dotted the floor. As his eyes adjusted he realized they were footprints in the dust only these were huge footprints, bigger than even those his own father would have left behind. Colt looked at a pair that stood parallel to one another directly in front of where the hatch fell seamlessly into the floor. Colt was certain that if there had been prints on the hatch they had slid off once he raised it.
Distantly he heard the call of a coyote. His skin rippled in gooseflesh. While he probably would have been safer in the room his father had installed especially for this reason, he just couldn’t stomach the thought of closing that hatch over top of him one more time. He would, however, leave it open as a precautionary measure should he need to get back inside.
Cautiously, Colt hoisted himself out of the sunken room. He put both of his feet in the giant footprints in front of the hatch. They dwarfed his ten year-old feet. Standing inside of the two large, black gaps, Colt scanned the room. He was alone.
The coyote howled again. Was it closer now? Did it bring others?
Colt looked over his shoulder at the black hole he had just crawled out of. The last spark of the filament extinguished itself. A gaping square hole opened like a dark abyss in the floor.
He made his way across the dark room for the wooden ladder leaning against the edge of the loft where the three of them slept; mom and dad at one end and Colt at the other near the small round window. Sometimes at night he undid the wing nuts and swung the glass and brass window open. On those nights the call of the coyote gave him a sense of security. On this night, with the great brass door unable to close, he left the window in place and slept on the end where his parents usually slept.
Sleep did not come easy for Colt that night. He lay awake for a long time wondering where his parents had gone and what had happened to them. This had always been the part of the bedtime story his father left out. Colt knew the procedure for going into the room, for staying in the room, for waiting to come out of the room. The one part of the story he never heard was this part, the part about being alone.
When sleep did come and he closed his eyes, he had dreams of sand giants with feet the size of stage coaches that could kick down great brass doors and carry off parents.
Colt woke the next morning untouched by coyotes or giants. A prairie wind rustled the brush. It also blew sand into the gaping hole that had once been the front door. For an instant Colt thought the twisters had returned, but unlike the winds from yesterday, these gusts were not man-made.
His stomach rumbled. Colt knew it was time to get moving. He was going to have to find a way to get into New Laramie, the nearest town to where they lived. Before leaving the loft, he rolled over and buried his nose in his mother’s pillow and took a deep sniff. There was just a trace of the smell of her hair still embedded in the cotton pull over of the goose down head rest.
“Hello?”
Colt froze face down in the pillow.
“I say, Colt Buchanan, are you in here?”
It was a man’s voice he heard. At least he thought it was a man. The voice was a little higher than he’d heard on a man, but the manner in which the person spoke did not indicate it belonged to a woman.
“Colt Buchanan, if you are in here, my name is Conrad Givens. I was sent here by Dr. Elkin Wanderer as requested by your father.”
Colt sat up in the loft. Another year or two older and he would have banged his head on the crossbeam. The only jolt he felt came at the mention of Dr. Elkin Wanderer. He had always thought Elkin Wanderer was just a character in his father’s bedtime stories. If this stranger knew about Elkin Wanderer then surely he must know Colt’s father.
“My father is alive?” Colt asked.
The man below, Conrad Givens, looked up into the loft and smiled. He was a heavy set man who appeared to float in place. He sported a curly red beard on a balloon-like face and it matched the thick tangle of coarse red hair poking out beneath his green bowler.
Givens’ clothes were far too fancy for prairie living. He wore a green corduroy suit that matched his hat. A pink and white striped vest poked out from his open jacket and covered a wing-tip collared shirt accented with a black bow tie. White cotton gloves on his hands bore the undeniable stain of prairie dust.
“Is he?” Colt asked.
Givens’ smile widened, but he looked away. “I’m afraid I don’t know that, Colt.” Givens looked back up into the loft. “Sometime yesterday he shot a messenger-ball that eventually landed at Fort Discovery.”
“Fort Discovery?” Colt’s young mind raced. Fort Discovery was in every one of his father’s stories. “It’s a real place?”
Givens laughed. It filled the small room. “Of course it is. It’s the home of Dr. Wanderer and his—”
“Institute of Reformed Science.” Colt said in unison with the man. Colt had heard all about the wondrous advancements created by Elkin Wanderer and his school of geniuses. “Did my father tell you all about these places?”
Once again, Givens chuckled. His merriment filled the house. “My dear Colt, your father and I were classmates. I’m sure he must have mentioned me?” Givens leaned forward as if he wanted an answer. When Colt didn’t say anything, he managed to keep a grin on his face yet still frown. “No, well, I guess he did have other things on his mind, those being you and your lovely mother Jenny.”
“Do you know my mother too?”
Givens got a faraway look in his eye. Now his smile seemed sad. “We all do. Randall and Jenny Buchanan were thought to be the future of the Institute.” Givens looked around the room. His eyes lingered on the flywheels and poles and glass tubes. He directed his attention back to Colt. The warmth in his smile returned.
“You really do need to come with me to Fort Discovery, Colt.”
“I haven’t had breakfast yet.”
“Well, grab a jar of preserves. The air ship has a limited supply of fuel and I’ve let the lift rockets hovering.”
“You came in an air ship?” Colt threw the blankets back and all but leapt down from the loft. He rushed past Givens, barely noticing his chuckle. Colt reached the door and stood there in awe.
Across the yard a balloon as long as the horizon blocked the morning sun. Beneath it hung a long, wooden ship fitted with brass bolts and copper trimmings. An unfolded metal ladder bobbed on and off the sand as the lift rockets fought with one another to maintain balance and height. Across the deck, Colt saw a crew of maybe twenty men and women moving about performing their duties. Each wore a matching uniform consisting of navy blue pants, a blue and white striped shirt, and a cap as white as a cloud.
“Shall we go?” Givens asked. “I grabbed you a jar of apricots.” Givens held the apricots up next to his face and smiled. To Colt, he looked like a man in a newspaper advertisement hawking preserves.
“One second,” Colt said. He turned and went back into the house. He went up the ladder, leaned into the loft, and grabbed his mother’s pillow and a quilt. He wasn’t sure how long he’d be away and he wanted a bit of his home to be with him.
THREE
It took a little while for Colt to get used to being up in the sky. He had often imagined what it would be like to be up as high as the tips of the Grand Tetons, but now that he found himself flying almost to the point where he could reach out and touch the tip it was more than a bit of a dream come true.
“Well, Colt, what do you think of the journey so far?” Givens asked. He stood on a flying bridge manning a great wooden wheel. Unlike that of a ship that would steer a rudder for direction in the water, Givens’ wheel turned the hover engines left or right, or port and starboard to keep with the nautical vernacular Gives was apt to use with the crew.
Colt closed his eyes as the wind rushed through his sandy hair. He drank in the cool, clear sky. “Did my father ever travel aboard an air ship like this?”
Givens laughed. Even in the sky it thundered as it had in Colt’s house. “My dear Colt, your father invented ships like this. In particular, he developed a series he called the Pelican class.”
“Pelican?”
“It’s a seabird. Your father designed one that had a large cargo underbelly for hauling materials great distances. The shape resembled the bird’s rather large neck.”
“What class is this ship?”
“Gull. They were made for covering similar territory in shorter amounts of time.”
Colt looked at the large cannons on the front and rear, or bow and stern, of the sleek vessel. “Is this a warship?” Colt asked.
“Those guns are strictly for defense. One wouldn’t do well to mount an attack with this class.”
Colt watched the shadow of the air ship glide along the side of a mountain. It was nothing short of amazing in Colt Buchanan’s book. Even though the chronometer hanging on the exterior wall of the cabin house behind Givens clearly indicated it had been over three hours since they left Colt’s home in the lower southwest corner of the territory, to Colt it felt as if they had only moments ago lifted off the ground.
A bell rang near the great wheel in Givens’ hands. Givens lifted a cone from a brass cradle and put the large end next to his ear. He listened for several moments then placed the cone back in the cradle. Switching hands, he lifted a second cone on the opposite side of the wheel and spoke loudly into it.
“Attention crew, I repeat attention crew.”
Colt could hear Givens next to him and all around him. The men and women on the deck stopped their routines and formed four rows of five. They looked to the flying bridge.
“This is a precautionary measure. Mr. Thomas in the observation roost has spotted possible Weather Walkers below us.”
Several of the crew pulled out short spyglasses from the utility belts they wore around their waists. Several other crew members rushed to the static-cannons stern and bow. Everyone kept his or her eyes on the horizon. One crewwoman followed something off the starboard railing.
“Confirmed, Mr. Givens,” said the crewwoman. “I count two cyclone riders at about four o’clock.”
Colt knew what she meant. Imagine facing a large clock. The cyclone riders would be off to the starboard, or right side of the air ship nearer the ground.
“Mr. Webster, Mr. Royce, steady the cannons.” Givens said. He spoke once more into the cone on his right.
“Aye, sir,” the tailor crewmen said. One took a crew of three other men to the aft cannon while the other gathered a crew for the bow’s cannon. Colt noticed the man in charge of the forward cannon stopped and exchanged a glance with the woman who had spotted the cyclone riders. It was only a blink of a moment, but it was enough for Colt to recognize a look he’d often seen between his mother and father.
“The ride might get a bit bumpy, Colt,” Mr. Givens said, “Perhaps you should go below and buckle in.”
“But what if you need me to do something?” Colt asked.
Givens smiled. “I can’t take the risk of you getting tossed overboard, now can I, Colt? Dr. Wanderer’s orders were specific. Get Colt Buchanan to Fort Discovery pronto. Miss Perkins,” Mr. Givens said. Perkins, the crewwoman watching over the starboard side and the woman who had given the cannon chief a look of mounting concern, spun around, slipped her spyglass back into its holster, and snapped to attention.
“Sir!” she said.
“Take Mr. Buchanan below and secure his safety.”
“Aye, sir.” Perkins gave Givens a salute. She gave Colt a wink. “Come along, son. It’s not every day we get to protect the son of Randall and Jennifer Buchanan.”
Colt took her outstretched hand. She helped him down the ladder from the flying bridge and opened the door to the lower cabins. It was just as well that she did for just about that time there was a sudden drop in the ship as the air pressure changed.
“Steady, all,” Givens said. “Man the cannons.”
A gust of warm, gritty wind blew across the deck. The Gull class ship listed to its port side. Colt became separated from Perkins who tumbled to the deck and rolled like a log downhill. Colt could see she was about to topple off the side. Wasting no time, Colt grabbed a coil of rope secured to the rigging and tied it around his waist. He took one, then two, then three leaping steps towards Perkins and caught her hand just as she was about to tumble over the rail. He swung his other hand down against the hand that held Perkins. Above him he could hear Givens shouting out orders.
“Ballast!” Givens cried. “And catch the boy!”
The deck wobbled a bit beneath his feet. He felt like he was atop a board laid over a barrel and was trying to maintain his balance. His feet slipped and he found himself moving forward. Perkins tried to grab a hold of him with her other hand. Colt could feel the hand he held twisting as she swayed back and forth. Colt dug his heels into the deck and strained, but still he felt himself moving forward. He looked down once only to see the rocky world beneath him slide quickly past.
Colt realized he was in real danger. He tried to get a better grasp of Perkins’ hand. He felt like she was going to slip away. Then, as if to complicate the situation even more, he saw the rising vortex of one of the cyclone riders. At first he thought it was all in his head because sand and rock didn’t normally spin like the painted top of a top. Colt looked down, straight down, into a twister. He’d never seen inside a twister before, but there it was, with sand and stone swirling in a fast vacuum around an egg shaped capsule. Two great fans spun ridiculously fast on either side of the egg. Beneath it was the biggest fan of all and it pushed the egg higher as it drew up the wind and whipped into the twister. The gaping end at the top was moving up like the mouth of some gritty worm and would soon over take Perkins and then Colt himself before it bit into the air ship. He was pretty certain there was great destructive power inside it.
Oddly enough, Colt realized later he smelled the lightning bolt before he saw it. The air around him crackled and hummed as the snap of static electricity from the bow cannon struck the weather walker below the ship. It pushed the cyclone away enough that several of the crew could grab hold of Perkins and pull her back aboard as other crew members pulled on the rope around Colt’s waist.
There was a loud cheer as the two were pulled back aboard. Colt felt the rewarding claps on his back as the crew congratulated him. He saw Miss Perkins smile and snap off a salute to the front cannon chief. He returned the gesture with a big smile.
The weather walker was far from finished in its attack, however. It came back at the ship. Colt waited for the bow cannon to fire once more. When nothing happened, he looked up to see the crewmen turning the crank of the cannon to recharge its cell. Now Colt understood why the cannons were only good for defense and for that matter, weren’t very good at all. While powerful and accurate, their report was slow and tedious to maintain. The man cranked as quickly as he could. The cannon chief placed his shoulder into a padded C shaped brace and squinted through a series of small rings as he took aim at the cyclones. A green bell bulb flickered on and the crewman let go of the still spinning crank as a second man spun the cannon and a third man took aim. The third crewman slammed his palm down on a leather knob. A second bolt of electricity sprang out like a coiled rattler and smacked directly into the cyclone.
Sparks sputtered from the weather walker’s capsule. A few shot as high as the balloon.
“Man the fire hoses!” Givens said. “Extinguish those sparks before they land on the balloon!”
The attacking weather walker broke off defeated and damaged. The crew had little time to cheer as it had to put out several small fires.
“Get Mr. Buchanan below!” Givens said.
Perkins lifted herself up from the deck and put an arm around Colt. This time she got him through the door. He could smell smoke from the deck above him. The crew rushed from one end to the other.
Perkins pulled Colt into a room. The metal walls gleamed and carried a smell similar to the escape room back at his house. There were no windows in the room. Somewhere around him he heard the hum of the hover rockets helping to propel the air ship.
Miss Perkins helped him into one of two chairs that sat atop separate brass pedestals. There was a padded headrest that she gently helped adjust to fit him even though it felt like there wasn’t much time for such pleasantries. Next, she pulled up leather straps from behind Colt and threaded each into a buckle on either side of his chest. The straps formed a heavy-fitting X over top of him. Perkins sat in a similar chair and did the same to herself only this time she grabbed a third strap between her legs and lopped it around the crux of the X before she locked into a second buckle. Colt did the same.
“Good, you’re a quick learner,” Miss Perkins said. She opened a compartment on the arm of her chair and removed out a pair of dark-tinted glass goggles set in leather frames. She pulled them over her head and adjusted a strap through a buckle behind her head. Once again, Colt did the same.
Perkins reached to her right and pulled over a table on wheels. Once it was in front of her, she pulled down on a wooden spindle held between two silver brackets. As she pulled forward and pressed down, the brackets slid into slits. Colt heard mechanisms lock into place.
“What are you doing?” Colt asked.
Perkins looked over at him and smiled. “You saved my life,” she said. “Now I’m going to save yours. Lean back and relax. Don’t tense your muscles.”
“Why not?”
“Because it will hurt a lot less when I do this.”
Perkins used both hands, one over the top of the other, and pressed down on a leather padded knob. Colt felt the cabin shake before it tore itself away from the rest of the air ship. Three full walls remained, but in front of him was only half a wall. Colt found himself staring directly at the facing of a rapidly approaching mountain. He looked above him and saw the Gull class ship. It looked like it was suspended in the air. Moments later a smaller balloon inflated above the breakaway room and blocked his view of the air ship.
“You okay?” Perkins asked.
Colt could only nod.
“Good, because we still have a little ways to go.” Perkins pulled back on a lever, flicked several toggle switches, and pressed down on the padded leather knob. Colt heard the whine of hover engines just before the cabin ship shot forward.
FOUR
“Will he be okay?” Colt asked. He shouted over the roar of the hover engines and the rush of the wind.
Miss Perkins smiled at Colt. “Mr. Givens? Of course he will. He needed to remain back there to distract the Weather Walkers.”
“Who are the Weather Walkers?”
“How much do you already know, Mr. Buchanan?”
Colt felt odd being called mister. “Could you just call me Colt?”
Miss Perkins laughed. “Of course, Colt.”
“Up until this morning, I thought places like Fort Discovery and the Institute were just places in the stories my dad told me each night. I didn’t know Dr. Wanderer was a real person.”
“He is. Your father was one of his smartest students.”
Colt could believe that. The house his father had built was full of contraptions. Unfortunately, they weren’t great enough to prevent the destruction Colt saw after he emerged from the safety room.
“Did my dad know about the Weather Walkers?”
“I’m afraid he did.” Miss Perkins looked again at Colt. He saw her eyes searching his. “I don’t know how much you know, Colt, but for now all I can tell you is that the Weather Walkers are part of a collective of scientists who are trying to manipulate the New Knowledge to their benefit.”
“New Knowledge?” Colt asked. Her explanation was only serving to confuse him further.
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you much more than that, Colt. Dr. Wanderer wants to have a meeting with you and the other children.”
“Other children?”
“I really can’t say any more than that, Colt. Like I said, Dr. Wanderer will explain it to all of you.”
“Is it much farther to Fort Discovery?”
Miss Perkins shook her head. She pointed to a valley between two buttes stretching out like fingers on a hand. Near the back of the valley Colt spotted a crystal blue dot that soon grew into a lake. Sitting on an island in the middle of the lake was what could only be Fort Discovery. A circular metal fence surrounded the complex of tall, curved buildings and rows of rectangular shaped ones as well. The closer they got the more he could see. Colt counted three wooden bridges, two of which were raised. Only what appeared to be the main bridge reached out past the lake and touched the far shore.
To Colt it looked too small to land upon. He didn’t say anything more to Miss Perkins because he didn’t want to distract her from landing. As they came closer, Colt picked out several water crafts that appeared to be circling around the island Fort Discovery sat upon. Every now and then Colt caught a glimpse of something shiny off a craft. A few moments later he saw that it was from the glass lens eyes of a crew of metal men.
Fort Discovery was going to live up to its name.
Miss Perkins maneuvered the small craft that had once been a room to the far side of the shore. Looking up at the edging of the walls, Colt saw a series of casters set in a track. He knew now that the room hadn’t simply been ripped out of the hull of the air ship, but had slid off a track the casters had been threaded onto.
Colt looked below and saw a series of circular platforms that were painted white with a large red X. Four smaller towers stood off at the ends of the X. A single woman stood on one of the platforms and waved flags in their direction. As Miss Perkins came closer the, woman hurried down a staircase that ran like a curving snake along the side of the platform. In her place, two men and two women, dressed like those aboard the air ship only in brown instead of blue, ran up the same flight of stairs and went off to the four corner towers. Miss Perkins turned a flywheel on the side of the table. Colt watched as two of the people below reached up for dangling ropes. They came down on Miss Perkins’ side of the craft.
Looking at the side of the control table in front of him, Colt saw he had his own flywheel to turn. He tried to crank it one way, but it didn’t budge. He tried the other way, but it still wouldn’t turn. He felt around the base of the wheel shaft and found a small latch. He pressed it with his thumb then gave the wheel itself a counter-clockwise turn. He strained forward and looked to his left where he now saw the other two people reaching up for his rope.
“I knew you were a fast learner.” Miss Perkins said.
Moments later the four people below tied off the craft. Miss Perkins shut off the hover engines. There was still a little bobbing from the balloon above them, but it didn’t bother Colt. He quickly undid the straps holding him into the chair. Colt couldn’t wait to touch solid ground.
FIVE
Colt’s feet had barely reached the platform beneath the floating room when an older woman came tromping up the stairs. She wore a checkered brown and white shirt, a long blue denim skirt, and high leather boots. Her hair was short and wavy.
“Are you Colt Buchanan?” the lady asked.
“I am.”
She stuck out her hand. “Dagnubit,” she said. “Pleased to meet ya. I’ve been hearing all about Colt Buchanan since the sender-ball landed in our midst yesterday.” The woman bobbed her hand. Colt reluctantly put his hand in it. The woman’s smile beamed at him as she vigorously pumped it up and down. “The name’s Jane. Dakota Jane. I’ll be one of your advisors while you’re here.”
Colt watched Jane with uncertain eyes. He desperately wanted his hand back. His arm was growing cramped from her pumping it up and down. He’d never used that much force to prime the hand-pump back at his family’s barn. Jane must have sensed this as she released her grip on an upswing. She slapped her palm against his. “Know what we call that, Colt?”
“No ma’am,” Colt said. He rubbed his palm where she slapped it.
“We call it a cactus-whacktus. It’s like a thumbs-up with a heck of a lot more oomph.” Dakota Jane laughed. Like Mr. Givens, it filled the sky around them. “Well, get your things and follow me. I have to show you to your bunkhouse. Come on now, we have to hurry. Dr. Wanderer is waiting for you in the main hall with all the other children.”
Colt took a step back from Dakota Jane. He wasn’t used to the familiarity she showed. Life back at his house hadn’t been quiet or simple, but it hadn’t been as thunderous as the one he now found himself in.
Colt found the blanket and pillow he had brought with him sitting in neat pile on the platform. He looked around to thank Miss Perkins for gathering it up for him and to thank her for getting him to Fort Discovery, but she was nowhere to be seen. Nor was the crew who had tied off the floating escape room.
A shrill whistle made Colt turn around. Dakota Jane was a step or two below the platform. She took her fingers out of the side of her mouth and waved her big hand at him beckoning him to hurry on over. Colt took one last look around the platform for Miss Perkins. When he didn’t see her, he hurried over to Dakota Jane.
He followed her as she went on and on pointing out various spots around them. She showed him where there were watch towers hidden in the rocks. Off to their right a gusher of water shot high into the air, making a wet sounding whush as it peaked. The white water vaporized into a mist that fell like a cotton sheet to the stony surface beneath it.
“Doc Wanderer calls it thermo-aquatic energy,” Jane said. “I don’t know a lot about it myself, mind you, but I know what it’s called. It’s the same type of power he uses in this here contraption.”
Dakota Jane slapped her hand on the side of a carriage. To Colt, it resembled ones he had seen being pulled by horses when he went into town with his mother and father. While it was black and had four wheels, it had no horse. A heavy looking steel and brass tank rested on the back of the carriage. A single bench seat padded in black leather sat in front of the tank. Rising up out of the middle of the floor board and behind the front dashboard was a single brass rod. At the top of the rod was a squeeze handle and at the base were two spring hinges that allowed the user to push or pull on the lever. Colt also noticed the lever moved side to side which was probably how the buggy was steered.
“Climb on up,” Dakota Jane said. She put one foot on a lower step jutting out on her side and pulled herself up into the carriage. Colt went around to the other side. He handed his blanket and pillow up to Jane before he pulled himself up onto his side of the bench the way she had hers.
“All righty, Colt, here we go.”
Jane pulled on a pair of goggles similar to the ones he and Miss Perkins had worn on their flight. Colt looked around for his own pair, but saw none. He also noticed there were no leather straps to hold him into place like there had been in the escape room. In fact, the only thing Colt could find to hold onto was his pillow and blanket. He put them both over his chest and wrapped his arms around himself.
Dakota Jane squeezed the handle. There was a loud hiss from behind him. The carriage lurched forward a bit then stopped. Jane said something under her breath he’d heard his father say once or twice when an experiment he was working on failed. Colt knew these words he shouldn’t use until he was older.
A second squeeze of the handle released a longer hiss of steam. The wheels rocked forward. Colt lurched backward then forward. He put one of his hands on the dash. Dakota Jane pushed down heavier on the handle. The carriage began to move faster.
Colt kept his eyes focused on the rapidly approaching edge of land. There was a single, and what appeared to be narrow, bridge for them to pass over. The only problem was Dakota Jane was going to be off the mark unless she veered to the left and veered quickly. Their current path was pocked with ruts, holes, and stones. They bounced up and down, rocked side to side, but Dakota Jane only hooted and howled as she pressed forward and down on the lever. Just when it looked like they were going to hit the water at full steam, Jane jerked the steering rod to the left. Colt felt the wheels hit the wooden planks and he momentarily breathed easier.
It only lasted a moment, though, because the sliver of a crack between planks the carriage rolled over jostled him in his seat. The violent vibrations made his teeth chatter. Add to that the look of terror on the faces of people they passed or nearly struck as they rocketed towards Fort Discovery’s main gate and Colt was ready to go back to the cramp and lonely security room beneath his toppled house.
Dakota Jane pulled up on a ring on her side of the padded bench. A loud whistle emitted from the fuel tank behind them. Colt looked away from the cloud of steam trolling behind them and faced the two large shiny metal doors that still sat closed. It looked as if Dakota Jane was going to ram her way through the main entrance into Fort Discovery.
There may have been a hiss or a whoosh, Colt wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of many things any more, but one thing he could bank on was that the two, 20-foot tall doors slid apart just as the carriage reached them. At the speed they were going, the gap between the towering, sliding doors appeared to be no wider than a hair yet somehow the carriage and its riders managed to jet through. The carriage spun to a sliding, grinding halt.
Colt could barely catch his breath. Dakota Jane slapped him on the back pushing out what little air he had left in his lungs.
“Yee-haw!” Dakota Jane yelled. She let out a couple of whoops for good measure.
“Jane!” a man said. His voice was stern. Jane immediately settled down. Colt stared at the man gliding across the courtyard towards them. He clutched the cross bar of a T-shaped pedestal that rose up from a short sleigh balanced on two wheels. The man came to a gentle stop on Colt’s side of the carriage.
Colt stared at the man in disbelief. It was too much to think that the man in the white shirt with garters on the rolled up sleeves and the brown pants could be none other than Elkin Wanderer.
“You were to bring the boy here in one piece,” the man said. He rattled a walking stick in a slip mounted onto the T-shaft. Inside of the man’s grasp was what appeared to be a solid gold globe at the top end of the cane.
“Didn’t I?” Jane asked.
The man looked at Colt. Two bushy, brown eyebrows knitted themselves into a constipated knot over his dark, brown eyes. The man had a thin brown beard flecked in white at the bottom of his long, narrow face. For a moment Colt sat motionless allowing himself only the tiniest of breaths through his nose.
“You practically shook him to pieces on that wild ride,” the man said. He and Jane stared at each other before they both broke into a fit of laughs. The man clapped an arm around Colt’s shoulders.
“Colt Buchanan, my good boy,” the man said. “You look every bit like your father.”
“You know my father, sir?”
“Indeed I do. He was- IS- one of my best pupils to date.”
Colt’s eyes widened. He recognized the man from all of his father’s bedtime stories. This was Dr. Elkin Wanderer of the Institute of Reformed Science.
“Are you,” Colt began “are you Dr. Wanderer?”
The man laughed. “I am indeed. Welcome, Colt, welcome to Fort Discovery!”
Dr. Wanderer threw his arms up into the air. He pointed towards the sky with the gold capped end of his walking stick. Colt saw Fort Discovery for the first time through steady, unshaken eyes. It was more than just a fort; it was a city, a mini city of shiny steel buildings trimmed in copper and brass piping. Smooth glass windows caught glints of sunlight. Giant cogs turned. Small wheels spun. An army of metal men slid by above them on some sort of belt that carried them in one direction while it carried the same with regular people in another. The very fort itself seemed to be a living, working machine.
“Have you ever seen anything so magical, Colt?” Dr. Wanderer asked.
“Only in my daddy’s stories, sir.”
Dr. Wanderer smiled at Colt. He tipped his head back and laughed. “Please, Colt. Call me Dr. Wanderer. Doc W if that’s too much to say all at once.”
Colt couldn’t take his eyes off of the cityscape. From the sky it had looked like nothing more than a shiny coin. Here on the ground it was a magical fortress. Carriages like the one he had ridden in on drove by in a calmer, safer manner on cobblestone pathways wide enough for two to travel in opposite directions. Steam trailed behind each. Some of the carriages carried people. Others carried contraptions Colt could only guess as to how they would be used.
“Your eyes look like they are laden with questions,” Dr. Wanderer said.
“I have so many.”
“Give me one.”
Colt spun around. While there were, indeed, many questions, the first one that came to mind was why have twenty foot doors if you only have a five foot wall going around Fort Discovery. Dr. Wanderer laughed when Colt asked.
“Fort Discovery’s main barrier is the land itself, Colt. Mountains on three sides, an island in a large lake, and of course, the great prairie itself.” Dr. Wanderer’s eyes darkened just bit. “But in the event that an enemy does reach us, we can raise the walls to match the height of the great gate.”
“How do you do that?”
“Did you see the geysers out front? We use heated water pressure. I have an army of metallic automen on hand ready to spring into action.”
Colt stared at the portion of the massive metal ring surrounding the fort that he could see. Every ten feet there was a guard tower armed with a larger version of the static-cannons that been aboard the Gull class craft. Two guards, each in the now familiar blue and white striped shirt and navy pants scanned the horizon or kept an eye on the goings-on inside what Colt could only think of as a city from the dreams created by the stories told by his father.