Clementine

boots. She ignored it, waited behind one other man in line, and approached the thin-faced fellow behind a counter with the declaration, “Hello sir, I beg your assistance, please. I have a ticket to Topeka, but I need to exchange it for passage to Jefferson City.”

“Do you now?” he asked, not brightening, lightening, or showing any real interest. He pulled a monocle off its sitting place at the edge of his eye socket, and wiped it on his red and white striped vest.

Instinctively, she knew this kind of man. He was one of several kinds that were easy enough to handle with the appropriate tactics. The ticket man was thin-limbed and sour, overly enthused with his tiny shred of authority, and bound to give her hassle-she knew it even before she clarified her difficulties.

“I do. And I understand that the Jefferson City-bound ship leaves rather shortly.”

He glanced at a sheet of paper tacked to a board at his left and said, “Six minutes. But you shouldn’t have bought a ticket to Topeka if you wanted to go to Jefferson City. Exchanges aren’t simple.” He spoke slowly, as if he had no intention of accommodating her, and orneriness came naturally because he was essentially weak-and he would not be moved except by threat of force.

She was not yet prepared to resort to a force past feminine wiles, but she could see the necessity looming in the distance.

“I didn’t buy the ticket,” she told him. “It was purchased for me by my employer, whom you are more than welcome to summon if you take any issue with my request which is, I think we can honestly agree, a reasonable one.”

“It would’ve been more reasonable if he’d gotten you the right ticket in the first place.”

She spoke quickly, firmly, and with the kind of emphasis that didn’t have time to cajole. The ticket man did not know it because he was a little bit dense, but this was his final warning. “Then indeed, we can agree on something. But the situation changed, and now my ticket needs to be changed, and I’d be forever in your debt if you’d simply accept this ticket and provide me with a substitute.”

He leaned in order to look around her, in case there was anyone else at all whom he might address. Seeing no one, he straightened himself and deepened his smug frown. “You’re going to have to fill out a form.” Maria glanced at the clock on the table, but before she could say anything in protest the ticket man added, “Four minutes, now. You’d better write quickly.”

Before he could utter the last syllable, Maria’s patience had expired and her hands were on his collar, yanking him forward. She held him firmly, eye to eye, and told him, “Then it sounds like I don’t have time to be nice. I’d prefer to be nice, mind you-I’ve made a career out of it, but if time is of the essence then you’re just going to have to forgive me if I resort to 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 doesn’t fight us, we’ll hold more or less steady at seventeen miles per hour. Welcome aboard my Cherokee Rose, Miss…?”

“Boyd,” she said. “I’m Miss Boyd, Captain…?”

He removed his hat and bowed. “Seymour Oliver, at your service. Can I help you stash your bags?”

“Thank you sir, very much!” She handed over her large tapestry bag and held close to the smaller one with Pinkerton’s instructions.

The captain heaved the luggage into a slot at the stowing bays, secured it with a woven net that fastened on the corners, and he told her, “Take your pick from the seats available, and please, make yourself comfortable. Refreshments are available in the galley room, immediately to your left-through the rounded door with the rivets, you see. A small washroom can be found to the rear of the craft, and the seats recline slightly if you adjust the lever on the arm rest. And if you need anything else, please don’t hesitate to stick your head through the curtain and let me hear about it.”

Captain Seymour Oliver retreated with two or three backward glances, and when he was gone Maria chose a seat in the back, without any other occupants in the row.

The seat was as comfortable as she had any right to expect on a machine that was made to move people from one place to another with efficiency. Though padded, it was lumpy; and though she had plenty of space to stretch out her legs, she could not raise her arms to stretch without knocking her knuckles on a metal panel affixed above her head. This was no flying hotel, but she could survive almost anything for twenty hours.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the seat’s edge, holding her smaller bag and its informative contents in her lap-and covered with her hands.

Through the speaking tubes, the captain announced that they were prepared to depart, and asked everyone to make use of the bracing straps built into the seats before them. Maria opened one eye, spotted the leather loop, and reached out to twist her fingers in the hand-hold; but it wasn’t as necessary as she’d expected.