Airship Hunters (12 page)

“Cabot, I’ve not seen you since you left the department. Has our nation’s capital come to bore you? You’ve returned home to seek more excitement? Or has the District of Columbia simply tired of you?”

Cabot smiled. “I’ve come here as part of an investigation.” He gestured. “Chief Taylor, my partner, Agent Valiantine.”

Taylor did not extend a hand, but offered a curt nod. Valiantine made an even slighter nod.

The chief returned his gaze to Cabot. “I know you work for the Treasury. Are you here about the coins?”

Surprise tightened Cabot’s chest. Remembering the dangers he’d encountered while tracking down coins in Kansas ran a cold thrill along his ribs. He cleared his throat before speaking. “Coins?”

Taylor’s face did not change expression. And he did not answer immediately. When he spoke, his voice carried no hint of what he was thinking. “Yes. Gold coins. Three. They were found by a watchman near the Canal. He turned them over to his supervisor, who notified the department. Gold coins are rarely left behind on the ground without someone missing them at some point.”

Cabot asked, “Has anyone reported them missing?”

“Not yet. But I don’t recognize them. I’ll see you get a look at them before you leave. Perhaps your work with the Treasury will allow you to identify their origin.”

The chief paused. He didn’t blink as he stared at Cabot. He said, “The coins were found only yesterday. To be here now, you must already have been on your way to town before then. So apparently some other reason has brought you to my office. Why are you here?”

Cabot held his breath a moment before answering. He remembered Yankee Bligh once saying,
When you have questions, try to control the meeting as best you can. If you can’t control the meeting, control your answers.
He’d had no control over this encounter—Chief Taylor had the advantage today. Cabot made sure his expression didn’t give away a clue to his frustration. Still, he had unexpectedly learned about some mysterious coins, so perhaps the meeting hadn’t gotten completely out of hand.

“We’re investigating reports,” he finally said, “of things people have seen in the air.”

“In the air?” Taylor blinked. He looked at Valiantine, then back to Cabot. “Like balloons?”

“I rely upon your professional discretion,” Cabot said. Taylor responded by lifting his chin, and he appeared more attentive. Cabot continued: “No, not balloons, but something large. Like a boat, you might say. But not with the river as its home. Instead, the air.”

Chief Taylor’s gaze again went from one visitor to the other. “That’s preposterous.”

Cabot made a slight gesture. “There are reports. We are investigating them. You have not heard of them?” He knew this type of question could work against his wishes: Taylor’s pride might be offended by the suggestion that his knowledge about the city—the leverage for much of his authority—might be lacking.

“I’ve heard gossip,” Taylor admitted, “fanciful tales from fools too drunk to keep from tumbling into the street from the saloon door. You’ve actually come here to chase such phantasms?”

Yankee Bligh:
When you’re telling someone something he doesn’t want to accept, use familiar, comforting words
.

“We’re investigating reports,” Cabot said. “We have done so in other towns. We’re doing so here.”

Cabot waited, expectant.

Taylor’s eyes narrowed. “I see.”

“Your welcome home has been less than warm,” Valiantine said.

They were overdue a meal, so Cabot led the way to a chop house after leaving Police Headquarters.

Cabot spread his hands. “Louisville was settled by clannish immigrants. That still influences the local culture. If you leave your place—your family, your employer, your proper station—it’s viewed as a sort of betrayal. The locals would say by leaving for the Treasury Department, I was ‘getting above my raisings.’”

“Know your place and be satisfied with it.”

“Right.” Cabot drank his coffee. “Things with Taylor could have gone better, but we still learned a bit.”

The lieutenant chewed and spoke: “He let us see the coins. What is their significance, anyway?”

“Before we were partnered, I was sent to Kansas to investigate a possible counterfeiting case. Two coins disappeared. I recovered a third. Similar to what Taylor allowed us to see in the police vault: gold, very worn, mint dates of 1861 and 1862. The design looked slightly different from what I found in Kansas.”

“So? What have they to do with our investigation?”

Cabot looked down at his plate. “While there, I encountered something. I didn’t know what it was. But from what I’ve learned since we began working together, it’s clear it was an airship. The one—or one of those—we’re looking for.”

When Cabot looked up, Valiantine’s eyes were shining. “The coins are connected to the airships?”

Cabot held his fork above his plate. “I have no clear evidence they are linked. But I have a hunch. Unscientific, but if coins like these make an appearance in two airship locations, the fact shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand.” He waved his fork, and Valiantine dodged a glob of gravy. “We know something else: Chief Taylor put no credence in the airship reports. But someone does. The report got to our superiors from some source. If not Taylor, who sent the news?”

“Indeed.” Valiantine pushed away his cleaned plate while Cabot emptied his coffee mug. “Now where?”

“The Portland Canal. I’m intrigued by the honesty of a watch-man who would find gold and hand it over to someone else.”

* * *

The only obstruction to traffic on the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to the Gulf of Mexico were the falls near which Louisville was founded. Providing portage for cargo had been a booming business locally for generations.

“Politics and national economic needs for uninterrupted commerce led to building the canal around the Falls of the Ohio,” Cabot explained.

“I suppose local businesses that profited from portage fees weren’t very happy,” Valiantine commented.

The third man who stood alongside the two agents answered, “Exactly.” The three peered out a large window of a block structure overlooking the locks that allowed craft to navigate through the Portland Canal and avoid the falls. Currently a stern-wheeled packet sat in the locks while the water level fell for it to continue its trip downriver.

The tall, gaunt man beside Cabot said, “That’s the
Tennessee
, built over at the Howard Boat Yard across the river.” He was Delbert Bontonne, Commissioner of the Locks for the canal. He wore a dark uniform with brass buttons. His stiff cap bore the insignia of his office. Bushy side whiskers offset the thin appearance of his long face.

“Commissioner Bontonne, we understand one of your watchmen turned in gold coins he found near the canal.”

Bontonne gave the agents a sharp glance. “Oh, I turned those coins over to the police, and I received them, yes. But not from one of my canal guards.”

Cabot frowned. “No?”

“No.” Bontonne’s right hand rose and fingered his gray whiskers. “He was a stranger to me. A man in uniform. I thought at first he was a policeman, but his dress appeared more military.”

Valiantine asked, “Did he have a rank?”

“Again, no. No stripes, no braid, no ribbons or badges. So I may have been incorrect in my assumption, but he carried himself very precisely, and the cut of his clothes reminded me of a uniform. Perhaps he had recently left the Army and still wore his uniform, but had removed anything that displayed his rank.”

The lieutenant asked, “What color was the uniform?”

“Black, or nearly so,” Bontonne answered. “Coat and trousers both.”

“Did he say anything about the coins?” Cabot asked.

“Only that he had found them near the canal, on the path that runs to the east from here. Said perhaps someone had lost the coins and might be looking for them.”

Cabot and Valiantine made their way to the place the stranger said the coins had been found.

The path was not tended—just hard-packed earth along the top of a weedy levee overlooking the canal. A tangle of trees and wild grape vines edged the south side of the earthworks, separating it from the streets and structures of Portland, the mercantile and residential foundation of the town as it was originally developed before the city sprawled to the east into what was now named Louisville.

Using markers along the riverside as guides, the agents stopped at the point of the path Bontonne had described.

Valiantine glanced about while Cabot spiraled around the area, wading through knee-high grasses and briars. The sunlight flashed off the water. The humidity beaded sweat on the lieutenant’s face. Cabot heard a note of irritation in his partner’s voice: “There’s nothing here.”

Cabot nodded. “If ever there were. I wonder if the stranger gave the commissioner the coins from his own pocket, and fabricated the story of finding them?” He cautioned himself from saying more when he heard Yankee Bligh’s voice:
Don’t make theories and look for proof. Look for clues and build your case from what you find.
“What do you think about what we heard on the ferry? About strange lights over the river?”

“One said he was reminded of the 1870 tornadoes. After he drank from his flask.”

“Something must be going on for Assistant Director Gallows to send us here.”

Valiantine planted his fists on his hips. “Now what, Cabot?”

Cabot swabbed his face with his handkerchief. “Now I need a new hat.”

The painted sign over the door had not changed since Cabot had left Louisville for the District of Columbia: JOSEPH TAUSTINE ~ HABERDASHER. The Main Street store sat not far from the wharf. The back of the building faced the river.

Valiantine followed Cabot into the store. A bald man wearing pince nez, crisply dressed despite his stoutness, bustled forward to meet them. “My goodness, is that Mr. Cabot after all this time?”

“Indeed, Mr. Taustine. Good to see you again.” Cabot introduced his partner, and Taustine shook hands vigorously with both men.

“I need a new hat,” Cabot said. He soon was viewing his reflection under a high-crowned bowler. He asked, “Mr. Taustine, have you heard anything about strange events around the river?”

Taustine’s lips moved as if he were shifting a cud inside his mouth. He frowned at the floor. “I must say I haven’t, Mr. Cabot. Gossip from the businessmen along the river usually makes its way here when they need something for the wardrobe. But I haven’t heard anything out of the ordinary. Have you any details you may share?”

“No, Mr. Taustine, but I think you’ll know immediately if you hear the sort of thing I’m seeking. You may find me at The Phoenix. I’ll just take this hat, please.”

“Excellent!”

Back on the street, Cabot adjusted the tilt of his hat. Valiantine sighed and said, “You really put hope in getting information from him?”

“He’s excellent for details. He remembered my hat size after two years, you’ll note. And he’s right about the professional men who visit his store: they are marvelous gossips.”

“Now?”

“Now we go to the corner, follow the alley and go to the back of the shop.”

At the rear of the building, Cabot knocked on a paneled wood door painted blue. A small sign beside the door read, DELIVERIES ~ TAUSTINE ~ HABERDASHER.

The door opened to reveal a slender Negro. The gray in his short hair and the many wrinkles curving from the corners of his eyes revealed he was older than his visitors, but he radiated a great vitality. He wore a blue chambray smock over canvas trousers. His mouth opened in a wide grin. “My goodness, it’s Mr. Cabot! It’s quite the day to see you again, sir.”

“And you, too, Mr. Bibb.” The two shook hands. “This is my partner, Agent Michael Valiantine. Allow me to introduce Mr. Richard Dean Bibb.”

Bibb invited them in and shut the door. Here was a tailor’s workroom, with all the requirements for the needle trade: three forms for fitting suits and shirts, tape measures, racks of spooled thread, yards of fabric, and prickly pin cushions. “I’m sorry, I don’t have enough chairs.”

“No chairs are necessary, Mr. Bibb,” Cabot said. He turned to the lieutenant. “Mr. Taustine hears news from businesses on Main Street and south. Mr. Bibb creates the clothes Mr. Taustine’s customers order, and sews and does repairs for the people working on the wharf and the boat crews. He hears everything of interest anyone would want to know about the river.”

“That’s still true today,” Bibb said.

“I thought so.” Cabot asked Bibb if he’d heard strange news from his river customers.

Bibb nodded. “I have heard men talking about lights and noises over the river at nights. Always cloudy or no moon when this happens, so nobody sees anything that explains what they see or hear. ‘Comets,’ one fellow told me. Someone else said it’s the ghosts from Corn Island.”

Valiantine asked, “Corn Island?”

“George Rogers Clark established a military settlement there during the American Revolution,” Cabot explained. “The settlement eventually grew into Louisville. Over time the river flooded the island and it disappeared.”