The rumbling, roaring sound grew louder, approaching from behind them, back the way they’d come. Rector desperately shuffled through his moth-eaten memories, hunting for some idea of what the noisemaker might be. The closest he could come was the steam-powered works at the old sawmill, but that wasn’t quite right. The volume was correct, and the mechanical rhythm of it was absolutely right, but the timbre and tone were all wrong. This was something smaller but still impossibly heavy. The close-pressed air made the rattling feel like an assault, and the vibrations were a personal insult as they butted and shoved. The ground beneath his feet quivered like it wanted to fall.

“What is that?” asked Zeke.

Houjin replied, “It reminds me of something I saw in New Orleans.” And he might’ve elaborated, except that the persistent clank drowned out every other sound, and everyone had the good sense not to shout, in case it suddenly stopped. Instead they covered their ears and watched as a machine came crawling up the hill and into view.

It rumbled and rolled, a war carriage without a war horse, riding on enormous wheels that were spiked with great nubs for the sake of traction. The rear of the carriage was covered with canvas in an old-fashioned wagon style, but the front was sealed up with glass to create a compartment for the driver. The driver himself was a wide-set man sporting glasses and a bow tie. He was not wearing a mask, a fact that Houjin called attention to by pointing at the one he wore and gesturing back at the transport machine.

Angeline nodded, and everyone frowned. The machine’s cabin must have air filters, or carry its own air supply for clean breathing. Rector could see the wheels in Houjin’s head turning, calculating how on earth it could’ve been done … and wondering how he might be able to repeat it.

Rector tapped Angeline’s arm and drew her closer. Right into her ear, he said, “That’s Otis. I never seen him before, but I heard he was a tall fat man who’s always dressed nicer than he ought to be. They say you can’t mistake him for anybody else.”

“Not a lot of fat men around these parts.”

“Not a lot of bow ties, either,” Zeke observed. “Nobody dresses up like they’re going someplace fancy.”

“Yaozu does,” Houjin muttered, and Rector realized it might be true. He didn’t know what a Chinaman wore to dress up and go out someplace fancy, so it was hard for him to say one way or the other, but it made sense to him that rich men ought to dress like rich men, and act like rich men, too. How else would anybody know they had any money?

And in Rector’s experience, people didn’t often take orders from men without money.