Bookworm and Mariah spent a few weeks in Yellowstone.  Bookworm was endlessly fascinated by the geysers, and would spend hours, even days, watching particular geysers, trying to discover patterns in eruptive behaviors and intervals.  Mariah didn't have the patience for such work, but enjoyed riding out with groups of other visitors to explore lakes ( Read more... )

"So what do you want to do?" Marshal McKenzie asked.

"To allow him to keep his sight--" she held up a hand to silence the protests building from the three men, "*if* he agrees not to escape while in your custody."  In the stunned silence that followed her pronouncement, she turned to Lieutenant Richards.  "Do you think your commander at Fort Laramie ( Read more... )

Bookworm hurried out the front door of the hotel and turned aside to where Doc Williams was kneeling by the prone figure of Cavendish.  Marshal McKenzie and Mariah were shooing people away, urging them to go home and get some rest.  Bookworm knelt down by the doctor, in the pool of light shed by a lantern set on the ground nearby.  "Well?"

"Oh, he's ( Read more... )

"Damn, damn, damn!" Cavendish exclaimed as he stared down from his vantage point on the roof of the hotel. He'd been watching the progress of the battle while his last-ditch weapon warmed up in its concealing shed behind him, and for a little while, he'd been hopeful that his automata could hold their own until he was ready to give them support. ( Read more... )

Bookworm drifted quietly up the steps to the hotel's front door. She wasn't exactly happy making a frontal assault, but it really was the quickest way to the staircase, and time was of the essence now. She entered the front room, dark except for one lantern burning by the stairs. Still, she could just make out the exposed beams in the ceiling, a ( Read more... )

Bookworm took Mariah and Deputy Allen to one side. "You'll have to remind me of the layout of the hotel," she said to the deputy. "It's been too long, I'm afraid ( Read more... )

On their way out of the sheriff's office, Bookworm showed Mariah and Marshal McKenzie how she had disabled the automaton. "This isn't going to be easy," she warned, "especially when the alarm goes up ( Read more... )

Pulling a couple of hairpins from their hiding places, Bookworm silently knelt by the door and got to work on the lock. She blessed Tepic for his lessons as she poked and prodded, pausing whenever Marshal McKenzie's snoring temporarily diminished. As she did that, Mariah padded around quietly behind her, mounding up blankets and pillows on ( Read more... )

It seemed to take forever for Marshal McKenzie to fall asleep. Judging by his muttering and the creaking of the cot, he apparently kept forgetting that he was supposed to stay on his back. But as the sky outside, seen through one small, barred window, turned dark teal in the time just after sunset, his restlessness died down, and he soon began to ( Read more... )

The two cells in which Bookworm and Mariah, and the Marshal, were incarcerated were separated by a hallway that ran the length of the cells. At one end was a closed door. At the other was an open door that, Bookworm presumed, led to the sheriff's office. Now, though, that opening was blocked by two figures. The large one was one of the ( Read more... )