Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl Read Free Page B

and with their help Trigger foiled the French plot to assassinate the British Governor of Michigan.
    It was a chilly tale for a summer edition but a thrilling one. And like all the Trigger stories, it was prefaced with : This adventure, as always, is utterly true, and faithfully retold by my good friend, Doctor John Reed, followed by the flourish of the good Captain’s signature.
    One day he would leave Sandsend, Gideon promised himself for the hundred-thousandth time. One day he would seek adventure, just like Captain Trigger. Gideon Smith would be the Hero of the Empire, and he would meet his one true love, and he would truly live in a world of wonders and marvels. One day, but not today. Maybe tomorrow, thought Gideon, as he drifted into sleep.
    Arthur Smith awoke before dawn from the disturbed sleep that sometimes troubles those who live their lives in tune with the sea. While not given over to whimsy as much as his son Gideon, Arthur had learned over the years not to ignore the insistent little voices speaking at the back of his mind. When he drew back the drapes in his bedroom and saw the thick sea mist rolling up the cliffs and making black islands of the ramshackle roofs of the fishermen’s cottages, he felt a slight shiver. He would have given anything to close the curtains and return to his bed, but there was a living to be made.
    In the darkness, he creaked open the door to Gideon’s bedroom and for a long moment observed his son, snoring gently with the bedsheets wrapped around him, the pale square of a penny dreadful on the rug by his bed. Arthur felt a sudden wave of love for his only remaining flesh and blood. He’d told Gideon to be fit for work this morning, but his troubled sleep still bothered him, and he didn’t like that sea mist rolling in off the bay. Arthur fingered the polished piece of jet hanging around his neck on a leather thong. Gideon had found it on the beach fifteen or sixteen years ago and fashioned it into a good luck charm for his daddy. Arthur Smith never put out to sea without it, and he had a feeling he’d need it on this early morning more than any other. Let the boy sleep, he decided. Another day of dreaming wouldn’t kill anyone.
    The Cold Drake, like all the Sandsend trawlers, was a gearship, built seventy-odd years previously on the Clyde. Arthur remembered the first time he had skippered her, taking her out beyond the bay just three hours after they had buried his father in St. Oswald’s churchyard on the top of windblown Lythe Bank. As his boots slapped along the wet stones, he could hear Milton’s heavy breathing as the old first mate cranked the paddle- gear, but couldn’t see him for the fog.
    “Ho,” called Arthur.
    “Skipper,” grunted Milton, his lined face framed by his oilskin hat emerging from the mist. “She’s cranked up and ready to go, the old girl.” He paused and chewed his ever-present tobacco. “We’re the only ones out, you know.”
    Arthur grunted. “More for us, then, and more fool them. We got a full crew?”
    “Aye.” Milton nodded, then squinted over Arthur’s shoulder. “Except . . . no Gideon?”
    Arthur said nothing. Milton, like him, would have had that feeling in his bones that today was not going to be a good day. He muttered, “Shall we get moving? Those fish won’t catch themselves.”
    The pace of a gearship was slow, and it was two hours before they reached the deep waters where they could drop the nets for cod. The sun was rising somewhere ahead of them, but the fog stubbornly refused to lift, so they were little better off. Arthur applied the shaft-brake, and the Cold Drake drifted in a silence that unnerved him. There weren’t even any gulls crying overhead.
    The nets down, Arthur settled into the wooden chair he kept on deck and lit his pipe. The sea was millpond calm, and all there was to do was wait for the cod to flock into their nets. He puffed on his pipe and wondered what Gideon was doing.
    At first, he thought