Clementine by Cherie Priest Page A

something baser.”
    Flustered, he leaned back to attempt a retreat; but Maria dug her feet into the half-frozen dirt. As the ticket man learned, she was stronger than she looked. “Oh no, you don’t. Now put me on the ship to Jefferson City, or I’ll summon my employer and let the Pinkerton boys explain how you ought to treat a lady in need.”
    “P—Pinkerton?”
    “That’s right. I’m their newest, meanest, and best-dressed operative, and I need to get to Jefferson City, and you, sir, are standing between me and my duty.” She released him with a shove that sent him back into his seat, where his bony back connected unpleasantly with the chair. “Am I down to three minutes yet?” she asked.
    With a stutter, he said, “No.”
    “And how long will it take me to find the ship that will take me to Jefferson City?”
    “M—maybe a minute or two.”
    “Then maybe you’d better hurry up and swap my ticket before I get back in my coach, go back to my office, and explain to Mr. Pinkerton why I missed the ship he was so very interested in seeing me catch.” She planted both hands on the edge of the counter and glared, waiting.
    Without taking his eyes off the irate Southern woman who was absolutely within eye-gouging range, the ticket man took the Topeka slip and, reaching into a drawer, retrieved a scrap of paper that would guarantee passage aboard a ship called Cherokee Rose .
    Maria took the ticket, thanked him curtly, spun on her heel, and ran up to the platform where the ships were braced for passenger loading. The ticket said that Cherokee Rose was docked in slot number three. She found slot number three as the uniformed man stationed at its gate was closing the folding barrier, and she held her hand up to her breastbone, pretending to be winded and on the verge of tears.
    He was an older gentleman, old enough to be her father if not her grandfather; and his crisply pressed uniform fit neatly over his military posture, without any lint or incorrectly fastened buttons. Maria did not know if dirigibles were flown like trains were conducted, but she was prepared to guess the estimable old gentleman to be the pilot.
    He was essentially a strong man, and most easily handled by appearing weak.
    “Oh sir!” she said in her sweetest, highest-class accent, “I hope I’m not too late!” and she handed him the ticket.
    He smiled around a pair of snow-white sideburns and retracted the gate in order to let her pass. “Not at all, ma’am. We’re only half full as it is, so I’m more than happy to wait for a lady.”
    She lowered her lashes and gave him her best belle smile when she thanked him, and said, “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your kindness.”
    “It’s no trouble at all,” he assured her, and, taking her tiny gloved hand, he escorted her to the retracting steps that led up inside the Cherokee Rose . “I’ll be your captain on the airway to Jefferson City.”
    “The captain?” she said, as if it were the most impressive thing she’d ever heard a man call himself. “Well isn’t that grand! It must be a terrifically difficult job you have, moving a machine of such size and complexity, up through the skies.”
    He said, “Oh, it’s sometimes a trick, but I can promise you,” he let her go first, and rose up behind her. “We won’t meet much trouble on the way to Missouri. It’s a quiet skytrail, generally unremarked by pirates and too high for the Indians to bother us. The weather is fine, and the winds are fair. We’ll have you safely set down in about twenty hours, at the outside.”
    “Twenty hours?” Maria’s head crested the ship’s interior, where half a dozen rows of seats were bolted down into the floor, off to her right. The seats were plushly padded, but worn around the corners; and only about half of them were occupied. “That’s a marvel of science, sir.”
    “A marvel indeed!” he agreed, releasing her hand. “It’s three hundred miles, and if the weather