"She liked a place in Saint Joseph we visited. It had light wood walls with accent pieces in darker wood inlays and accent strips. Dark wood furniture and clean white table cloths." Black Coyote's words turned many hands to the effort, to show support for the woman and the town. Spirits of both had indeed picked up.
But Elisa's mind was on darker things now. The dark side of her craft, the making of bone and steam golems, instead of those of steel and steam. Bone and blood if truth be told, the steam was something all golems needed, or clockwork gearings from a Sorcerer's shop.
Her attempt earlier to speak with her uncle about the rogue master Katerina and the child. The only answer she got was a terse and sharp "Konyets", indicating he had said all he would on the matter. She hoped someday he would talk about it, but men, from her experience and the gossip with older women, rarely did. It was some part of their own part of the code of chivalry, that they keep silent, and never let others see their emotional hurts.
The longer Elisa worked the parts she spent the afternoon creating, simple corders, coils of copper to carry the steam to heat the oven and a few other pieces, to make steam by steam, allowing the type of cooking all the ladies spoke of the other day in her kitchen.
It would be tomorrow before she could see the ironmonger about gaining metals to make a steep boiler for the building, and then days to create that vessel, the ovens to heat it, and other items. At least on her advice, one wall was not being built yet, the one the kitchen sat against. Strangely, many asked if the kitchen would be visible, so others could see and marvel at the appliances that would be in the "most modern kitchen on the plains", as some called it.
Elisa still shivered from time to time, as thoughts of going against those cruel enough to create golems from the bones of children came to her. In conversations since the one last night, Plum had indicated many of the girls either died or were slain for trying to escape. Their corpses were flayed and animated as well. This left her with a dilemma, could she make copies beasts fast enough to one who raised friend and foe alike to fight for him. One with many more hands, or perhaps not, she might have that advantage, but only as long as Fuller did not know her plans to train the many young tribal youth in her arts. There was no guarantee that information stayed out of his hearing or that of his cronies during their time in camp.
She needed to work faster, train her students to as best she could in the time they might have, and pray that Fuller did not have some way to transport his Great Teeth this far east. Ivan would be of no use for the next few days, she knew this from the way he had withdrawn. Meachum had blanched when he discovered why Katerina was banned from the practice of Necromancy, and admitted that one of the merchants sold her tools months before in Council Bluffs, and that reports were she bought them with raw gold wire and nuggets, not coins. That indicated Day Gold and his legendary mine in the Sacred Hills.
Elisa made up her mind, setting down the fittings. Tomorrow, the class would work with her on boilers. Scaled down ones compared to the big one. Some would aid her, to be sure, but most would begin with boiler making. With a sure stride, the young necromancer went to find Mister Meachum, and warn him of the change in plan for the students, and see how much iron and steel was available.
Hours later, happy that the supplies while not in camp now, would be by noon, which gave her time to teach her apprentices how to build the forge fire, stock the forge and begin shaping steel plates, rivets and make the pressure seal folds needed to form the boilers properly. Tools would be at the forge, and the hands of all the merchants and craftsmen who made them at her disposal to help. It was not just western folk who desired a regular supply of bear sign. Elisa feared for the waistlines of all in town, save they were so busy working hard at the various things being built there was no chance for stomachs to grow.
Dawn would come early, so she retired to her wagon, noting that Ivan was not outside anymore. Inside he sat, coffee in hand, not the vodka of earlier in the day. And the book of the Lincoln Code was open before him. Beside him lay more loose sheets, with his own awful scribbles, the ones for just his eyes, filling with more charts, this time trying to connect something Elisa could not decipher from his attempts at letters.
Her uncle spoke as she lay her hand on his shoulder. "Katerina was part of it all along. This Catherine, that is English form of her name. Very clever, our president and his protégé are."
He lifted his work pipe, one with a simple ceramic stem and wooden bowl, tapping the mouthpiece upon the chart he had. "They knew they faced not one, but many necromancers. So they tried to warn you of each as they wrote you. See here, this letter you got early, and it mentions 'Catherine Black'. I should have caught that, debeitsa. Black is the color of necromancy in history, so he told us a necromancer named Catherine was in this. And he links her to Day Gold and his mine in a letter months later, via his protege, listing others, including the young boy with her, and many more suppliers and toolmakers than Meachum will care to hear about."
"How many more?" Elisa leant over seeking the answer, as the wagon rocked suddenly, and wood splinters sailed from left side wall. In the right side wall, a large bullet was lodged. One from a buffalo gun. The tribe and all the locals refused to hunt close since the stampede, for safety. And no hunting party was around. It left only one option for where the attack came from. The opposition was trying to kill Elisa or Ivan, probably both.
The whoops and calls of the guards told the two necromancers the chase was on, the flash of muzzle in the growing shadows of storms for the night giving the unlucky assassin away. But for Elisa, this was the final straw. She took a seat, grabbing paper and pen from Geranof. "Get me a rider, uncle. We have delayed long enough, I will see if Uncle Abe can get us Sitting Bull, or any other member of the council of Chiefs out here. Draft your own to any you need notify in the city of rapids. I am tired of playing their game, lets force them to play ours now."
Her script was feathery, lacking the frills Ambassador Lincoln told her to use unless in danger. She kept the facts simple, the attempts, Day Gold's claiming the dig, and other items she thought to bury the true meaning in. Then she mentioned his protege, not by name, but as if she forgot his name. That was the proceed at caution message agreed upon in pieces over the years.
Theodore Roosevelt would come running, she was sure, not to save her, but just to be here in time to get a part of the dustup that was coming now. The man loved a fight, she heard, even boxing himself from time to time. No, Thee would ride ahead of the official group, hell bent for leather, from what she had learned of him in the news and rumors that traveled the plains.
Ivan chuckled as he watched the letters flow across paper. No longer was he sad, or angry. Now his heart hurt with that other emotion of the chest. Pride. His niece was learning, taking steps to being a better woman than even her mother. Valeria ignored warnings, and tried to do things alone too often, or only with her current team. Elisa had learned that lesson somehow, that you had to have help.
Quietly, taking a second pen handle, and inserting a fresh metal quill, he shared her ink, and in his own hand, began a letter she would kill him over perhaps, but if things went as he suspected, she might not.
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