Cherie Priest - Fiddlehead

Gideon frowned. “What do you mean by that?” he whispered.

Grant whispered in return. “Confused? Good. They’ll be confused too. Let ’em think we’re up to something. Right now, they’ll assume we mean to dig in our heels, but we could also have a plan to sneak him away, or call in reinforcements of our own. Lincoln has many friends, and someone will come calling eventually—or, for that matter, someone will notice that the president is missing.”

“Good. If we can hold on until dawn, they may decide this is more dangerous than they’d prefer and try a different approach. But,” Gideon warned, “they’ll come again. For him. For me. ”

“Son,” Grant said. It was precisely the sort of voice that usually felt like nails on a chalkboard to Gideon, but for some reason, he didn’t mind it now. “All I can do is buy you time. But I doubt you need much more than that to think your way out of this.”

“Your vote of confidence is … meaningful to me.”

“You’re welcome.”

Someone outside disturbed the moment with a threat: “Don’t make us set fire to the house!”

Gideon and Grant paused and looked at each other across the door—each one trying to read the other, and gauge what they thought about that. Grant shook his head first. “If they could, they’d have done it already,” he said. “Haymes is a gambling woman, but she wouldn’t push them that far.”

“How do you know she’s a gambler?”

“She spends all her time with politicians. Name me a bigger risk if you can.”

“Are you going to answer them?”

Both men sat on the floor, watching from behind the swaying blankets. The wind had calmed, but only a bit. The night was still full of treacherous gusts, and threatening, broiling black clouds that hid all the stars.

“Yes, I’ll answer them. Like this, ” Grant said. Then he shouted, “Light up a flare, and we’ll shoot any man who holds it!”

Silence in response.

After a few seconds of what must have been conferral: “Our offer stands!”

Quietly, Grant said, “Oh does it, now? Well, good for them.”

Nelson Wellers came tiptoeing around the corner, and announced himself by saying, “They’ll do it, if they’re Haymes’s men. She’s done worse than cook a family alive.”

“Sit down, doctor.”

“I can’t let them harm the Lincolns. I won’t have that on my conscience, not when I prevent it just by being less of a coward.”

“Thinking beyond the first option isn’t cowardice. If we beat this, you stay alive, and Gideon stays alive, his credibility intact. His editorial finishes taking the nation by storm—we all know the story is well on its way around the globe, so maybe, if we’re very lucky, it takes the South by storm as well. The war ends. The walking dead are vanquished. Stepping stones, doctor. Stepping stones.”

“Send him out, or we’re coming in!”

Grant said, “See? They’re backtracking. They aren’t threatening to burn the place down anymore. First blood was ours, and the first retreat is theirs.”

“Maybe they couldn’t reach Haymes?” Wellers suggested, but he put a question mark on the end.

“That would make sense,” Gideon mused. “They’re rather marvelously disorganized out there.”

The president peered out once more. “You could be right. And if you are, that’s one more advantage. We’re racking them up, over here!”

“Until they actually try to come inside.” Polly stood at the edge of the foyer. She spoke from the shadows behind the staircase, where no one could see her very well. “ Then what do we do, Mr. Grant?”

“Then, my dear, when they try to come inside, we forcibly keep them out. Wellers, now that we’ve gotten the house as secure as possible, it’s time to ask: Does Abe have any other guns on the premises?”

“I’m sure he must.”

Polly answered. “There’s a cabinet in the cellar.”

“There’s a cellar?” Grant hesitated. “Oh that’s right. And it opens to the outside?”

“Yes, sir, it does.”

Gideon threw up a hand, volunteering himself. “Polly, take me to it. I’ll secure the cellar and bring up guns for everyone.”

Wellers was taken aback. “Mary, too?”

“Abe said she’s a better shot than he is,” Grant replied.

Gideon groaned. “I’ve seen her. She’s not terrible, but close enough. Still, he’s in that chair, and his hands barely work—so technically, he’s right. Doesn’t matter. We need every able body, and Mary’s able enough. Polly, take me to the guns, and be quick about it.”

“Good plan,” Grant said, endorsing it. “Now, Wellers, I want you to stay here and man the front. This is where they’ve been trying to communicate from, up until now, but they’ll be investigating the rest of the house, testing doors and trying their luck in other places. I’m going to do some reconnaissance. And as soon as Gideon gets back from his mission, I want him to relieve you.”

“All right.” Gideon agreed over his shoulder, one hand on Polly’s arm so she could lead him through the darkness.

The president’s instructions to Nelson Wellers followed behind him. “When he returns, you take the east wing. I’ll patrol the west. Do your best not to answer them, except with bullets. They may know your voice. Let’s keep them guessing about who’s inside.”

Polly drew Gideon into the large entryway, past the parlor and its unattended fireplace, burning low. Softly, she asked him, “Are you really going to give Mary a gun?”

“If she’ll take one.”

“So … that’s a yes?”

“Yes,” he affirmed. “She doesn’t have to shoot well or wisely; we only need people who can shoot from inside, at various locations, giving the impression that the whole house is occupied … and there’s not just the six of us to hold down the fort.”

“So you’ll give me a gun too?”

“Yes, and I’ll expect you to use it.”

“I don’t know if I can,” she whispered. “Watch out for that—yes, there. There’s a step before the door.”

He caught himself before he could fall, smacking one hand against the frame in order to steady his balance. “You can, and you will if you have to. This is the cellar? I’ve never been down here.”

“There’s not much to see,” she said vaguely. “Some storage, is all. Canned things, preserves. No books, though.”

“No books?”

She shook her head as she unlocked the door with a key from her apron pocket. “No. Mr. Lincoln says it’s too damp, and he loves them all too much to keep them there.”

“He doesn’t love any of them so much that he won’t build a wall with them, in the hope that it filters out any stray bullets.”

Polly shrugged a little and opened the door. “It’s different for him. He says books saved his life. I guess he figures books can go on saving his life, but he won’t stash them someplace damp and let them rot. They don’t do anyone any good that way. And, you have to admit, he has a point.”

The cellar was utterly black, without the first hint of a light. “Polly, I can’t see a thing,” Gideon said as he felt his way down the steps with his toes, scraping them across each board in search of its end, and then lowering them blindly until they stopped against the next one.

“Don’t worry. There’s a lantern at the bottom in case the electric lights go out.”

“Does that happen very often?”

“When there’s weather like this, yes. The gas lamps are more reliable, but Mr. Lincoln says electricity is the future. He’s having the old system replaced, a bit at a time, but he started in the cellar. He said he didn’t want to put the technology anyplace important until it was tested.”