Elisa stood by the wagon, the boiler moving to power the pumps she had once thought only to move water to a dig for washing and plaster casting, now to act as one of the fire engines the idea had come from. Five long hoses radiated out, three towards the crops, one in the tents, and one into the slowly rising pond made by the stone mason and miller's makeshift dam. So far the steam to power the pumps was off, but she understood that soon the valves must be opened to prevent the wind drying from making things too dry to save.
Buckets lay filled in lines from the new shore up to the tents and two wooden buildings raised for the new trading post and inevitable saloon that every western town had. Around the building many barrels had been placed, all filled with water as well. What preparations could be done, were done.
Now only the fire and how well things worked would matter. The line of fire reached the valley floor, and slowed for a short hour, burning into marshland grasses kept moist by a thick layer of waterlogged soil and the recharge from the river, whose southern levee was missing from spring floods. Soon though, the fire began to win the battle as the winds made the river dry up, sucking the moisture from the ground's topmost layer, and then bursting through the cattails and other grasses in the manner of a stream overcoming waterfall. It moved in streams and waves, bowing out in one place, holding back in others, until it rushed and changed places. Firetails, the deadly tornadoes made of flames, spun in the burning areas, while behind the main fire, ashes smoldered and pockets of tougher grass or shrubs still flamed long after the grass fire moved on.
All eyes were on the river, praying to whatever power they worshiped that it would hold back the fire. Once there, the flames and sparks in the air took the cottonwoods slowly, their soft green wood burning slowly, resisting the fire more than most thought, but the leaves of each tree curled and dried in the heat, the flames shot upwards, crowing across the channels in minutes. Terrifying speed hit the flames as the winds now raised more. At the dig the brave young men who had stayed there lit fires around the dig, to be sucked with the wind racing to rise with the flames, and thus save the fossils and gear still there.
"Ivan! Start the pumps!" Elisa's cry came as she opened the valves to release the steam to the lines leading to the main pump at the river, and the pump that powered the waters into the narrower hoses of the split lines after the juncture. Water and air mixed as the pumps first primed then caught hold filling with water. The new island became covered in a smoke and mist mixture, the hoses watering crops, land, wagon, tents and buildings. Each person not in the hose lines moved to the buckets, the youngest taking blankets dipped in the water barrels to beat out flames that might still take hold.
Elisa monitored the gauges of the boiler, the pressure climbing as she stoked the fires with more coal, fires she had to ensure did not escape to finish what Nature tried to do with her fiery winds. The sloshing of bucket began, as did the beating of fabric on surfaces. Her breath came in short bursts, and the normally cooler and fresher air away form the vessel was no longer easier to catch your breath in. Smoke and embers, heat near that of the fires that protected the encampment seared the lungs with every breath. She lifted the cloth bandanna over her face to find it no longer even damp, as the worst of the heat raged over the island.
For a few minutes the world was nothing but orange, red, and black. A strange image, so like the coppery plates she had sent to have taken here. Then it was black, smoke and ash falling out from the great cloud raised by the fires. A cloud not flowing north, but east southeast, heralding a change of winds to come, but not in time to save the dig, Elisa feared. Still they had to keep working for a long while afterwards, a small corner of the saloon was charred, one section of corn was gone to ahses, but in all, other than small spots, and a few patches of grass being beaten out, the island idea proved its success.
Ivan came up to her, coughing severely, but happy. "We... have ... won."
She motioned to some tonics from her father's supplies that had survived the years, holding up one finger to indicate only one bottle to be out at a time. Leather gloved hands danced across the valves again, changing flows of steam to new pipes, ones to fill a pressure bottle to allow a rapid transit to the shore by a rowboat as Black Coyote started to gather men to go check on the brave ones at the dig site.
Ivan was still having a hard time breathing, so she worked the controls quickly, wishing there was a doctor in the area, but as yet one had not yet arrived seeking a place to set up a practice. Perhaps it was just the smoke, and would pass in a short time. Many others were coughing as well. But during the steam explosion that left him maimed, the scalding vapors reached his lungs, leaving them weak and susceptible to irritations and illnesses.
To lose him after just finding him was not acceptable to the young necromancer. Raising the dead was forbidden to be done on humans, and without the brain, no soul came back form the beyond to inhabit flesh, no matter the claims of some charlatans who defamed her profession. Without the soul, the knowledge, skills and love were gone. All one had was an image of the one raised. Which was why the profession tried to ban it. Not that Elisa would cross that line, she already knew it was useless, otherwise her parents would have been brought back when they died.
The boiler took a long time to bring down to a cooling idle, the fires had been too hot, to drive more steam and pump water faster. She heard the bottle driven propeller chopping across the still waters of the channel dug to make the island, then the cries of men trying to walk across the scalded terrain. She had given them her two pressured water sprayers, but as always, some had to try proving their courage against a foe that could care less about fear or courage, only if you burned brightly.
When she managed to settle the boiler, she walked over to her uncle, lowering her mask to speak clearer. "No work the next week for you, and into the wagon, Geranof. I spent too much money on your contract to lose you now." She laid a soft emphasis on the word lose, to get her uncle's attention
.
The lone eye met hers, with a grim look. "I caught steam is all, but yes, I will rest."
His understanding came from the way he took her arm to stand up and enter the wagon. Sleep would do him good, and she would do all she could to ensure he recovered, from her father's notes and remaining medicines not sold to fund her raising and education back east. Some remained, as did the most important thing, if she could find an alchemist to team with, his notes on the chemicals for metal making his mother and he had perfected. Notes worth more than anything else, notes she had never shown anyone, but hidden away until coming back.
Those notes, she thought, could be the lure the hunters sought, seeking the secrets of her parents skill and fame from their creations, to steal for profit. Or she could use them as bait, pretending to not know they might be hidden in some concealed compartment of the wagon.
It was nightfall by the time the best news came, the dig, and the young men, had survived, with only a few burns, and one broken bone. The bone being an arm of one of the men. She only hoped the ground cooled quickly afterwards to allow more digging.
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