Cherie Priest - Fiddlehead

“I wouldn’t call it impassioned.”

“You don’t have to, because I just did. You’ve written a fine piece of propaganda. Let us hope it works as well as it ought to, if only to get people talking.”

Gideon sighed hard with frustration. “We need for people to do more than talk. ”

“Yes, but this is a start.”

“It’ll have to be a quick start,” he grumbled. “The Fiddlehead suggests wrapping up the war immediately—preferably years ago. We’re given a window of six months to instigate a complete turnaround in hostilities, and to engender absolute cooperation between the states.”

“Six months? When you put it like that, it sounds impossible.”

Neither of them spoke for a moment, but then Gideon agreed. “You’re right. It sounds impossible. And it might be impossible, but if we don’t try, we’re doomed for certain. It’s this or nothing, until and unless someone else comes up with a better plan.”

Nelson Wellers rose from his seat and stretched, cracking his back and straightening his waistcoat. “I don’t imagine any better plan forthcoming. You’re our last, best hope. I pray that isn’t too much pressure.”

“Not at all. Do you think I should’ve mentioned Haymes and her project? I left her out because I couldn’t tell if it would help or hurt.”

“When in doubt, leave it out.”

“Very funny,” Gideon sighed, fiddling with the papers as if he couldn’t yet bear to part with them.

“A little funny; surely no more than that. But I do mean it: You’re right, and there are too many ways her interference could be viewed. The Southerners don’t like her, but they think she’s useful. The North might want to use her research for themselves. She’s somewhere in the mix, but it’s hard to say what she really wants, or means to do. It was the right decision, leaving her out for now.”

“Then I suppose it’s finished.”

Nelson nodded. “Good. Then give it here, and I’ll take it to the Washington Star-News. ”

Gideon stood up and shook his head, folding the missive and slipping it into his vest. “No. It’s my editorial, and I’ll run the errands to see it in print. But you’re welcome to come with me. If anything, I expect you’re duty-bound to do so.”

Wellers made an unhappy little grunt, but admitted, “Yes. I promised I’d keep an eye on you.”

“If you must,” Gideon surrendered, and grabbed his grandfather’s coat.

In truth, he didn’t mind having Wellers assigned to his personal safety. Better the physician than the Confederate spy, after all—send that unreliable woman on some other errand. Wellers was preferable by far. For that matter, ever since Gideon’s talk with Frederick Douglass, he’d been increasingly worried, though no new violence had occurred. He had a plan now, and that was the problem. It was just the one plan, and if someone were to interfere with it, there was no backup waiting in the queue.

All offhanded responses to Wellers aside, the pressure was getting to him.

Together they left the Lincoln homestead and climbed into one of the former president’s personal carriages—a carriage with a ramp that lowered to the ground, so that his mechanical chair could be lifted aboard with minimal effort. Gideon liked these carriages; they were oversized to accommodate the bulky seat, and there was plenty of room to stretch out when its owner was not present.

The city was still brittle and bright with a sheen of ice, a half-present crust that made the world look damp and uncomfortable, too wet to be warm, and too warm to freeze.

Gideon sank into his coat and buried his chin in his scarf, watching small puffs of his own breath dampen the air and vanish. The streets scrolled past outside the window, and Nelson Wellers gazed out at his side of the avenue—both men watching for suspicious persons, or for any vehicles that might be following them. Nothing piqued their sense of alarm, but they still didn’t relax. Being out in the open required too much of their attention, and their previous good moods shifted into something less friendly and free, and far more wary.

They did not speak the rest of the way to the Star-News.

The newspaper office was an impressive building—a monument to the freedom of the press, if you believed in such things, though Gideon tended not to. Regardless, he had to admit it was handsome, with Georgian columns over brick and wide stairs funneling visitors inside. Tasteful landscaping, and tidy walkways. It looked efficient and earnest.

Inside they found the office they needed, and an editor by the name of Sherwood Jones—a once-burly man whose impressive shape was beginning to sag. He was bald, and one of his prominent ears had a long-ago-healed tear in it; his nose looked like it’d been broken once or twice, and maybe a third time, a long time ago.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” he asked, rising from his seat behind his desk and shaking both Gideon’s and Nelson’s hands. “A pair of doctors, ganging up on an old man. I hope I’m not dying or in need of some … scientific treatment. I hope you’ll pardon me, Bardsley, but I’ve never been too clear on what it is you do.”

“A little of everything.”

“Then my potential for peril is great indeed! Draw up a chair, fellows. What can I do for you today?”

“You can help us spread the word on a matter of national importance,” Gideon told him, and handed over the statement he’d so meticulously prepared. “You can publish the most important letter you’ll read this year.” Then he sat back with Nelson Wellers and waited as the editor read it, watching for the man’s eyes to widen, or for a gasp to escape his lips.

They were disappointed on both fronts. Sherwood Jones maintained a stony silence and stillness as he read. When he finished, he put the paper down on his desk, then folded his hands atop it. “So you want me to run this as an editorial?”

Wellers, a little surprised by Jones’s lack of surprise, made a guess at what he wanted. “That’s where you’ll have to run it, unless you could be persuaded to accompany it with an investigative piece.”

Gideon instinctively balked at his friend’s suggestion. “No, we don’t need … we shouldn’t have … No.”

“Why not?” asked the editor.

“Because the machine … There was an explosion,” he said vaguely. “The information is not reproducible at present, and the original paperwork is in safekeeping at the Lincoln estate. Attempts have already been made on my life, and there is some concern for the Lincolns’, as well.”

But the editor said, “If I understand what I’m reading, there’s concern for the whole damn continent. I understand your desire to protect the Lincolns, but isn’t getting the evidence out more important in this case? If you’re serious about this—”

“What do you mean, if? ” Gideon asked, annoyed, and now somewhat inexplicably anxious. Something about being in this office, on the verge of going so very public. Something about making a shout like this—a shout to the whole world—and knowing that the world might not listen.

Wellers also went on the defensive. “Are you trying to say you don’t believe us?”

Sherwood Jones sighed and shook his head. “The awful thing is, I do believe you. Or, if nothing else, I think you’re on to something. It might not be such a big something; perhaps this is just another one of those things like typhoid or cholera or consumption that is making the rounds through the ranks these days. But I’m hearing about it more and more. Everybody’s hearing about it. We’re already running a piece or two a month on the subject.”

“I read the most recent one,” Wellers said. “You talked to a colleague of mine—or, your reporter did, at any rate—wanting to know the medical details of the situation. Not all newspapers are so precise with their facts.”