Romulus Buckle & the Engines of War by Richard Ellis Preston Jr. Read Free Book Online

Penicillin Paste, eight ounces of water in a cylindrical steel canteen, a small steel pot, and six firearm cartridges—three for a musket and three pistol shots.
    “I think we lost the beasties, at least,” Buckle said. “In a way, it is a bit unfortunate. I would have enjoyed chopping another one.”
    Buckle felt like he was running out of time. He cut off half a foot of the hemp and jammed it under his kindling tepee, tossing a half dozen of the matches under the stack as well. He lit one more match with the fire horn and tossed it in. The fire burst to life with harsh puffs of flame as the match heads ignited and set the hemp to burning. Thick gray smoke waftedup to the ceiling and pooled there, spilling away and upward into whatever depressions had the most elevation.
    Buckle wanted to keep talking. To let Max hear his voice. He wanted to describe a shared memory they had from childhood. But, he realized, they had never shared anything pleasant as children. That had been his fault. “How shall we pass the time? I am awful at telling stories,” he said, forcing lightness into his voice. “And I know you don’t want me to sing.”
    Once the kindling, frozen, but dry as parchment, caught flame, Buckle tucked the steel pot against the wood and filled it with the eight ounces of water from the canteen. He carefully nudged the stem of the heavy tree branch into the opposite skirt of the fire, close enough to allow the flames to lick it, without smothering them with its cold weight and melting ice. The wood immediately began to smoke black, the bark splitting, and that was a good sign. Buckle placed the syringe near the fire so the cold glass would warm and not crack when he filled it with hot water.
    “Look at that fire, eh? I make them good. Real rat cookers.”
    Buckle tucked back Max’s hood and placed his fingers on her fur-lined flying helmet, squarely pressing the spring-loaded switch on the aqueous humor reservoir; the clear liquid evacuated from the interior of her goggles within a few seconds, and he lifted the goggles up onto the helmet.
    “You have made quite a business out of saving my skin, Max,” Buckle said as he slowly, carefully removed her leather helmet. “I would be most pleased if you would allow me to return the favor. If you care about my feelings one whit, you will kindly find a way not to die on me.”
    Max’s eyes were closed, of course, but Buckle hoped that they might open. Once again, he pressed his fingers againstthe white flesh over her jugular vein, battling a lurking despair that she was going to die on him right there. Her neck muscles tightened against his cold fingers—she was still alive, if only barely, and the knot in Buckle’s stomach eased a little.
    “And when a captain gives an order, he expects it to be followed,” Buckle said. “It appears that when I give an order, my own wicked officers only consider it a suggestion, as if I were asking them what they think of the Darwinists, or what, perhaps, might they like for dinner. I expressly forbade anyone to follow me up the mountain.”
    Max lay motionless under the heavy fur coats, her face now wreathed by her luxurious black hair. Her wide eyelids with their thick black lashes fluttered once as the flames of the fire rose and warmed her face, the yellow illumination pulsing across her white skin and the black, curving stripes that framed it. Her breath was coming and going, too quick and shallow for Buckle to feel good about it. On her forehead he noticed her little pink scar, thin and straight as a needle, which ran about two inches up from the end of her eyebrow to trail off into her hairline.

    Buckle had been seven years of age, Max of an age unknown. Buckle and Elizabeth had recently arrived in Balthazar’s house, the newest adopted orphans, and Buckle was confused, angry, and prey to night terrors after the violent deaths of his parents. Max and her brother, Tyro, were already there, well sequestered in the