“Poor Mr. Platov,” Dashwood cried. “All his tools . . . God, I hope he’s not inside.”

“Poor Mr. Platov,” Bell repeated grimly. A shop car filled with tanks of oil and gasoline burned hot and fast.

“Lucky the car wasn’t coupled to Mr. Stevens’s special,” said Dashwood.

“Very lucky,” Bell agreed.

“What is that smell?”

“Some poor devil roasting, I’m afraid.”

“Mr. Platov?”

“Who else?” asked Bell.

Horse-drawn fire engines came bouncing over the tracks. The firemen unrolled hoses to the river and engaged their steam pump. Powerful streams of water bored into the flames but to little effect. The fire quickly consumed the wooden sides and roof and floor of the rail car until there was nothing left but a mound of ash heaped between the steel trucks and iron wheels. When it was out, the fireman found the shriveled remains of a human body, its boots and clothes burned to a crisp.

Bell poked among the wet ashes.

Something gleaming caught his eye. He picked up a one-inch square of glass framed with brass. It was still warm. He turned it over his fingers. The brass had grooves on two edges. He showed it to Dashwood. “Faber-Castell engineering slide rule . . . or what’s left of it.”

“Here comes Steve Stevens.”

The fast-flying cotton farmer waddled up, planted his hands on his hips, and glowered at the ashes.

“If this don’t beat all! Ah got a socialist red unionist creepin’ up on me. Every sentimental fool in the country is rootin’ for Josephine just ’cause she’s a gal. And now my high-paid mechanician goes and barbecues hisself. Who the heck is goin’ to keep my poor machine runnin’?”

Bell suggested, “Why don’t you ask the mechanicians Dmitri helped?”

“That’s the dumbest idea Ah ever heard. Even if that damn-fool Russian couldn’t synchronize my motors, nobody else knows how to fix my flying machine like him. Poor old machine might as well have burned up with him. He knew it inside and out. Without him, Ah’ll be lucky to make it across the New Mexico Territory.”

“It’s not a dumb idea,” said Josephine. Bell had noticed her glide up silently behind them on a bicycle she had borrowed somewhere. Stevens had not.

The startled fat man whirled around. “Where the heck did you come from? How long have you been listenin’?”

“Since you said they’re rooting for me because I’m a girl.”

“Well, darn it, it’s true, and you know it’s true.”

Josephine stared into the smoldering ruins of Platov’s shop car. “But Isaac is right. With Dmitri . . . gone . . . you need help.”

“Ah’ll get on fine. Don’t count me out ’cause I lost one mechanician.”

Josephine shook her head. “Mr. Stevens, I have ears. I hear those motors chewing your machine to bits every time you take to the air. Do you want me to have a look at them?”