Dieselpunk: An Anthology by Craig Gabrysch Page B

at her real close, that mouth grinning like he’d planned what come next. “That’d be a criminal waste, pretty as you might be, if you ever stopped being a man.”
    “ I ain’t no man,” Missy Gin said, putting the gun to Mr. Smith’s forehead.
    An Mr. Smith smiled. “Now, girly, didn’t I tell you? That won’t do me no harm.”
    Missy Gin nodded. “No, but this might.”
    An she whipped the gun down to his eye an fired.
    Mr. Smith reared back, screaming. He clapped his hands to his eye, falling to the deck, writhing an curling like a maggot on a hot pan. An the life-water in the panners heard an felt an burned up high an hot, dragging up the Tonic higher into the Blue.
    That criminal was in pain, though. He cursed Missy Gin an scrabbled out towards her, but she just stepped out of his reach, waiting, an he moaned an thrashed an cussed, water leaking out between his fingers an smudging the deck in large black curves of soot.
    He finally quietened, back up against the inside of the rail, legs curled up, back hunched an heaving. Missy Gin judged it was her time, an so she come forth an crouched.
    “ Now, you may have some notions of coming back after me,” she said to him. “I aim to make sure that don’t happen.” She hefted the revolver. “I got another shot in here, an six more in the other, for your other eye an agin any other surprises you have for me, you hear?”
    “ No!” Mr. Smith was shaking. His fingers was clutched to his dead eye, water leaking out all along his face. His other eye looked at her aghast. “You can’t!” his voice cracked hoarse. “I’ll die!”
    “ Well, that didn’t seem to bother you none with those girls,” Missy Gin said. “I seen what you done to them, don’t think I don’t know there’s others.”
    “ But I’ll die!” Mr. Smith said, like it didn’t make no sense. “You can’t do that!”
    Missy Gin stayed looking at him. Then she stood, still aimed at him. “You get back on your ship. You go. An I’m taking you to a Silver Mountain. You don’t want to die, well, fine. But you ain’t gonna live no more either, you hear?”
    Mr. Smith peered up at her through the cage of his fingers.
    “Git,” Missy Gin said, gesturing with the gun.
    Mr. Smith stood. He limped down the deck, down to the grappling-wire. He gripped it with his fingers, hauled himself onto the gunwale, an started to heave himself away.
    “An Mr. Smith?” said Missy Gin.
    That man looked back.
    “I ain’t no girly, I’m Missy Gin,” she said. “I’m Missy Gin, an I am the trouble that you are in!”
    Mr. Smith’s face flushed. He turned an clumb down the rope down to his own ship. Missy Gin turned to the panners to turn them down, then back to the stern just to keep an eye on Mr. Smith’s ship.
    An well she did, for Mr. Smith come out of that cabin with a shotgun. He loaded it walking an cocked it as he reached the prow, an Missy Gin dropped down behind the gunwale an drew her revolver out. He aimed, looked at her through that one blue, blue eye, an grinned, an fired.
    An so did she.
    Hydrogenium went up in a huge fat cloud that crystallized instantly into fat puffs of cirrocumulus. That Deep Blue was far, far below, an Missy Gin peeked her head over the gunwale to watch the parts fall.
    “ I told him,” she said, aloud, so the panners could hear. “I’m Missy Gin, an I don’t stand for no sin. I ain’t gonna kill if I can stop me, but put a gun to me an no man can top me. Mr. Smith, I was ready to let you live, I never shoulda been, for all the trouble you give. I ain’t afraid of no man who can count to fourteen without using his toes, but how many eyes you took? I shoulda counted those, I shoulda put you away a year for each, see if that could teach you what you did, how much you did . . .”
    An there Missy Gin ran out. That weren’t a boast no more. What else was there to say about Mr. Smith?
    “Nothing,” she said, hauling herself up. The gunwale under her fingers