Cherie Priest - Fiddlehead

Allan Pinkerton paused, settling back in his chair and peering thoughtfully across the desk at her. “Presumably,” he said at last. “I’ve never asked before, but perhaps this is the time, before I send you jaunting down to D.C. on a delicate mission—”

It was Maria’s turn to interrupt. “You want to know how I feel about the war.” She folded her hands atop the paperwork. She took a moment to organize her thoughts, then she told him. “It’s a hard thing to explain, you know. I earned my fame as a child, Mr. Pinkerton. I thought—and operated—with the fearlessness of a child, accepting what I was told by my nearest elders. I still believe some of it—or, it might be more accurate to say that I still feel some of it. The South was my home, and I do not believe it was fairly treated in the years leading up to Fort Sumter. When war broke out, the whole thing felt like a grand adventure.”

Pinkerton snorted. Maria smiled tightly, unhappily. “Oh, I know. A stupid thing to feel. But, again, I was still in my teens, and the war was young too. It hadn’t taken so much yet.” Her voice trailed off, then recovered. “So I sit here now, two decades and thousands of miles away from my youthful adventures, with tens of thousands of lives lost to a cause I didn’t understand very well and I understand even less now. And you want to know how I feel about the war.”

“Well,” he pointed out, “you still haven’t told me.”

She swallowed. “I still believe in the rights of states to self-govern, and some of the points the Rebels have fallen back on as they’ve lost slavery as a political option. But the older I get and the farther I travel, the less I think of slavery itself—and I won’t pretend the war would’ve happened without it. It’s complicated, that’s all. I understand why some people thought the subject was worth fighting over … but at this point, is it worth fighting further? I … I don’t think so. The South isn’t fighting for slavery anymore, but for survival. The North isn’t fighting for abolition anymore, but for reunification. And there are days when I feel … when I feel like the whole world is burning to the ground around us.”

Burned like her father’s hotel, and her brothers’ bodies. Like her family homestead. She fought to keep the bitterness out of her voice, but failed. The words tumbled out, landing in a pile between her and the man who’d saved her. “It’s taken enough already, from both sides, that any victory may be Pyrrhic. Give it another few years, and we’ll all be scrabbling around in the dirt, fighting for scraps and starving, regardless of who wins.”

“A sad summary, Miss Boyd.”

“A sad state of affairs, Mr. Pinkerton. In my more cynical hours I don’t know who to resent more: the slave owners for the peculiar institution, or the slaves themselves for what it’s cost to end it.”

“That’s hardly fair.”

“I know, and I hate myself for it, particularly since I’ve come to know and respect … some former slaves.” Her voice petered out again. There were things her employer was welcome to suspect, but needn’t know for certain. “But you’re decent enough to insult me directly, so I’m decent enough to tell you the truth. I’m only being honest.”

“As if that excuses anything.”

She sighed, and met his stare blink for unhappy blink. “You asked me how I felt and I told you. I wish I were more noble than this, but I’m not. I wish there had never been slaves. I wish there had never been a war. But if wishes were…” She hunted for some expression she hadn’t heard a thousand times before. Failing to find one, she tried again. “I am capable of controlling my behavior, if not the sentiments I learned in the cradle. I would like to believe that actions are more meaningful.”

“There might be something noble in that. Or maybe only hypocritical; I can’t decide.”

“Decide whatever you like. You’ve already told me that my performance is satisfactory. I have grown accustomed to compromise, sir.”

“And do you think compromise is enough?”

“Not particularly. But it’s worked for the last twenty years, and it’ll work for the next month in D.C., if you’re still game to send me.”

His chair popped and creaked as he leaned forward. He tossed another envelope onto the pile of paperwork and said, “Oh, I’ve already booked your ticket. I just wanted to make sure you were still game to go. ”

Mary Todd Lincoln brandished a gun. She was small in stature and getting along in years, and guns made her feel better, stronger, and more prepared.

Gideon understood. He had one, too, tucked into the back of his pants, underneath his grandfather’s coat. It wasn’t within easy reach, but he needed both hands free in order to rummage through the wreckage of the Jefferson. Night was falling, and it was already dark enough in the basement where the Fiddlehead lurked, even with the lantern Gideon held aloft, aiming its watery white light into every corner.

Some curiously hopeful part of his brain thought some of the missing printout might have fallen into the basement with the rest of the debris, but he wasn’t stupid enough to bank on it. That was good, because he could barely find the monstrously sized machine, much less anything lighter or more ephemeral.

Dynamite had blown the laboratory windows outward in a spray of fine glass shards, and it’d taken down two of the walls, too. The ceiling dipped and teetered ominously, held aloft by the work of some architectural wizard whose load-bearing walls were bearing more than they were expected to. For the time being, the roof remained where it ought to be, though it creaked unhappily and leaned at a frightening angle.

It all felt very much like being in the hold of a ship, surrounded by damp and danger, listening to the environment moan and grumble like a hungry stomach.

He could see the roof through a crack in the basement floor. He could see the sky, too, and Mrs. Lincoln pacing back and forth above him, gun in hand and a grim, fierce look that stopped just short of being comical.

She paused her pacing and peered down through the rubble. “Gideon, is everything all right down there?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he assured her. It was only somewhat true.

“How’s the … the machine?”

“I won’t know for certain until I can see the whole thing, and right now—” A grating scrape announced the imminent fall of something from above; Gideon pinpointed its location with his ears and sidestepped in time to avoid being hit by a clump of bricks held together by old masonry and force of habit. “Right now that’s not an option,” he finished.

“Oh dear. I was hoping it might not be so bad as all that,” Mrs. Lincoln sighed. “I heard Abe say ‘intact,’ and I hoped for the best.”

Gideon murmured, “Never a good idea, really.”

“I’m sorry, come again?”

Louder, he replied with a fib. “I said, I wonder if the generator’s still good.”

“Why does that matter?”

He sighed, and was glad she couldn’t see his face. “Because the Fiddlehead can’t run without it, even if everything else is whole and undamaged.” He shoved a beam up out of his way, clearing a short path that took him a few feet closer to his goal. “Without power, it’s useless.” It wouldn’t be easy to rig up a fresh supply. The generator had been a cobbled-together affair, more powerful than anything in the District except perhaps the big machine that ran the plates and presses at the mint.

A series of thoughts flickered faster than lightning through his head. The mint: Its generators would be hearty enough. The Fiddlehead was too badly damaged to move, even if it weren’t too bulky. The mint’s generators … would also be difficult to move. How difficult? He’d need a look at them to know for certain. Impossible at this time of night, but maybe he could get in tomorrow. Or maybe he’d have a better plan by then.