Cherie Priest - Fiddlehead

The craft did not shake or stutter, it simply exploded—the punctured tank first, and the other one an instant later. A ball of fire flared mightily above them and shot higher yet, and a warm wave of searing air snapped back against the Black Dove.

“Pull up, pull up!” Maria shrieked at Henry. He was already trying to level the craft, but the drag and the wind and the new push of heat were working hard to stop him. “Get us steady!” she added. She felt stupid for it immediately, but the ground was right there, and they were flinging themselves toward it, and the thruster—was it even working? It spit like a snake, and a thin, diluted jet of black smoke went streaming out behind it.

“Hang on,” Henry told her. Maria hoped he felt as stupid about saying that as she’d felt about giving him orders.

She jammed the gun into her coat. No way she could get it in the satchel, which had only remained in the craft this long by virtue of being slung across her chest and smushed between her and Henry. Even through the wool of her pocket she could feel the gun’s freshly fired warmth. It might singe the fabric, but what other option did she have? It was that or throw it away, and it was worth more than the coat and dress together.

Not that her clothing should be her biggest concern at such a time. Then again, what thoughts should she be having, in a moment like this? She wondered, faster than the speed of light, about what was appropriate to consider in one’s last moments. A prayer? A wish? A bargain with whatever gods, saints, or angels might wait on the other side of the dark?

“Oh, God,” she said. It meant nothing, but it was all she had.

The engine surged—so no, it hadn’t stopped after all—and though a hard southwestern current shoved them into a lilting curve, the Black Dove righted itself. Maria’s stomach dropped back into its usual position, and Henry’s arms did not relax, but they quit fighting so hard.

The sky fell quiet, and Maria’s ears popped from the shifting pressure of it all. But the thruster was definitely damaged, and the road stretched many miles before them. The CSA dirigible was nowhere in sight.

“Do you think,” she began. It came out too hoarse and quiet, so she tried again—louder this time, and once more near Henry’s ear. “Do you think we can still make Atlanta in this thing?”

He eyed the smoke dribbling from the thruster, and took a moment to listen to the ominous hiss. “I don’t know. But we shouldn’t have to make it all the way there, should we? We’re bound to catch up to them sooner than that.”

“Right.” She nodded.

“If not, we … we set it down beside the road and hunt for a couple of very fast horses.”

“You think we’ll get the chance? To land, rather than crash?”

“Oh, yes.” He nodded back at her. “Absolutely. It’s a steering problem, not a propulsion problem. Might land us in a field, or on top of somebody’s house, but I’ll land us.”

“Good to know.” She patted his arm, breathing hard and trying to calm herself, with limited success. She scowled out across the skyline. “Now, where’s the other damn dirigible?”

“A plan ?” Grant snorted. “She’s already planned a thousand years ahead of us. She picked a fight, and we must answer it—and answer it with greater speed and power than she expects. Frankly, she expects so little in the way of return fire that it shouldn’t be that hard to surprise her.”

Gideon put his hands to his forehead as if it ached. “You’re right,” he admitted grudgingly. “But you’re also wrong. She has orchestrated this, and orchestrated it well—but we’re not so helpless as all that. After all, we’ve forced her to improvise.”

“When? Where?” he asked, wracking his brain to think of a misstep the woman had made thus far.

“The murders, ” the colored man said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Maybe it was, but he didn’t need to be so insulting.

“Well, yes. Those. ” Grant felt a little silly for not having seen it, but he was still feeling the whole matter very keenly, very personally. Very guiltily, for the dead pawns—as she’d called them—had been captured on his behalf, and his fervor was fueled with an acute, painful awareness of it. He wrestled with the matter and came at it from another angle. “But maybe not: she’s tried to silence and discredit you before.”

“She did nothing but inconvenience me. She’s very good, but she’s wrong as often as she’s right. If nothing else, her attempt to shut down my operation in the Jefferson drove me to proceed with a public undoing of her scheme.”

Lincoln pondered this, and agreed. “She’s smart and ruthless, but she’s been sloppy with the details. She’s very dangerous, but we are dangerous too. Though we are few in number, we are capable of mustering a response. Hell,” he offered a rare curse, “we’ve done so already, as individuals. Banded together, we might successfully undo her.”

“She’s only one woman, after all,” Nelson Wellers noted.

But Gideon Bardsley shook his head. “She must have an army of mercenaries at her disposal. How else could she manage so many things at once? And you don’t believe for a second that she killed those people herself, do you?”

“No, of course not. But where would she get such an army?” the doctor asked.

Grant sighed. “Fowler could commandeer a few men for her, straight from the Union’s forces. Or some of those dratted Secret Service agents who follow me about unless I threaten to shoot them.”

But Lincoln didn’t think so. “No, not our men. And not the Service, either. Not because they’re above such things, but because the evidence might wend its way across your desk. I think Gideon’s right: mercenaries, hired from elsewhere. Men like the Pinkertons, who’ve been accused of similar behavior—if you don’t mind me saying so, Dr. Wellers.”

“Hard to argue with you,” he said graciously. “But these aren’t Pinks in her pocket right now; the head man wouldn’t play us opposite one another.”

“Then that other firm, the one in Virginia. What’s it called again?”

He might’ve speculated further, but Polly knocked nervously on the doorjamb to get their attention. Grant was startled to see the windblown girl wringing her hands, her cap and clothing askew and a dead leaf stuck to her hair. She appeared on the verge of tears. “My dear, whatever is the matter?”

“Some men are here,” she whispered with just enough volume to be heard throughout the library.

Lincoln appeared puzzled. “I didn’t hear anyone knock…”

“No, sir. I saw them coming up as I was outside closing the storm shutters. I asked them to wait on the stoop. I said I’d come and get you right away, but they must be patient because you’re not in your chair, so I’d have to help you.”

“Good girl, Polly. What do they want?”

Her eyes darted to Nelson Wellers. “Him,” she said. “They’re here to arrest him.”

“Not me?” Gideon asked.

The girl said, “They’ve already been here looking for you. They did ask again, but I told them you still hadn’t come back, and I didn’t know if you ever would. They said that was all right, and that they were here to arrest Dr. Wellers, since they believed he was present at the killings.”

“What did you say to that?” Lincoln asked.

“I said I couldn’t say for sure if he was hanging about, because I’d been doing laundry, then closing up the barn and the shutters. I said that if he was here, I hadn’t seen him.”

“And these are police officers?” Grant asked, doubting it strongly.