Chapter 1.5 - All

Mariette lethargically waves him over and so he comes over to look at her, then he turns to his friend and says something in a language none of you understand. The second man nods and heads off back down the gully.

"I sent him to get the horses, one of us will take her to Mother, the other one will lead the rest of you back to our camp. Does that sound acceptable?"

The second man comes back a few moments later with two horses, he hops up on to one, "Help her up here and I will take her to Mother," he says gruffly.

Buford stands up, "You're sure about this? I mean not that I think these fellers are working for those fellers but still."

"I'm sure it'll be fine Buford," Helen says patting his arm in a reassuring manner.

"Should I go with her?" Ruby asks as you help Mariette on to the back of the second horse.

The more congenial of the two native men nods and stands beside his horse making a stirrup with his hand so that Ruby can climb up behind Mariette. Ruby puts a hand on his shoulder and hops up behind Mariette and the two horse start off slowly down the gully.

"It’s going to take us a bit to walk back to our camp, we’ll stay low in the gully, so their flying machine doesn’t see us." He nods in the direction the horses just left in, "My name’s Hector, by the way. What happened to the train boss?"

Hector smiles, "No, I'm calling you boss, what happened to the train? Normally it goes through, makes a lot of smoke and noise, sometimes it sets things on fire. This was different."

"That's not normal right? I mean even for you guys," Hector ducks under an overhang, "watch your head and there's a puddle on the left here."

"I mean we hear about these guys, anarchists going around blowing stuff up in Europe, you think these guys are anarchists?"

"They're to organized," Buford grumbles having to almost crawl to get under the overhang.

"You're a big son of a buck aren't you?" Hector says with a smile helping Buford back up.

"Anarchists work in small cells," Helen says taking Hectors hand when he offers it, "one or two men and a bomb maker, they're all about bringing about the end of Empires and revolutionary change."

"Aren't you just a red ragger," Donovan remarks, "how come you know so much?"

"I'm a reporter," Helen replies, "I research my topics to get my facts straight before writing an article. Rather than creating a story that confirms my own narrative."

There's a change in the noise of the airship, looking back you can see it's beginning to make a wider circle around the wreck instead of simply hovering over a single location.

"Freedom fighters want to replace the existing infrastructure, the hierarchy," Helen says in response to Napoleon, "they want change to benefit the populace, or sometimes just themselves. Anarchists on the other hand just want to burn everything to the ground."

Hector nods, "So that's a no to the Anarchists, they're not Americans, Confederates or otherwise. Heard 'em talking, that ain't English. We've only ever seen one airship here before so it's kind of a big thing."

"Sounded German to me," Donovan says stepping around a puddle.

"It's not exactly German," Helen says, "it's close, maybe a local dialect."

"You mean like the difference between Americans and Englishmen?" Buford asks, "Both speakin' the same language but not quite understandin' one another."

The chatter goes on like this for the better part of an hour as you follow Hector down an escarpment to a sharp crack in the bluff. A handful of yards back into the crack there's an opening with a dozen or so horses and a hand full of small fortified stone buildings. He exchanges words with a middle aged man with a rifle standing post on a rock above the crack.

Hector nods towards one of the buildings, "Over here, you can rest in this one, catch your breath. I'll go check on your injured lady friend, see how she is."

Buford looks about at all the Indian's looking back at him, "Oh ya this feels safe."

"At least they're not shooting cannons at us Buford," Helen comments.

"You got a point there ma'am."

Inside the structure is a well organized and clean native house, there are sleeping mats on the floor and large pottery jars filled with dried food of various types. Rows of dried peppers hang from the long wooden beams that support the adobe roof. Near the middle of the room there's a hole in the roof and a wooden ladder leads up to a second floor.

A young woman working on some kind of loom looks up as you enter the room, she raises an eyebrow and goes back to work on the large blanket she's working on. Next to the door there's a large ceramic pot full of water, "Grab a drink if you're thirsty," she says quietly, the loom clicks and clacks as she works, "sit and relax, are you hungry? I can have Leon bring some food if you're hungry."