Airship Hunters (8 page)

Except for what remained in Cabot’s pockets.

He reached, felt the watch, the locket.

And the coin.

There might be clues to be seen in the daylight. Cabot ached with a number of pains, and new ones were making themselves known with each step. But he had no interest in bedding down in this area tonight. And he had no desire to be caught asleep in this vicinity if any of the mysterious
whatevers
came back—the thing that had chased him or the thing that moved through the air.

Cabot turned his back on what had been the Brecker home. It was a long walk to the Widow Howard’s door.

The children remained missing.

The adults were all found. Even Mrs. Brecker.

After his long walk back to the Howard place, Cabot had slept—
collapsed into an unconscious void,
he thought—in the shed rather than frighten the widow after midnight by appearing beaten and bedraggled at her door. She’d found him there the next morning. In the swamp of her grief, the woman showed no surprise at finding the Treasury agent sleeping beside her Brinly plow.

She’d tended his minor injuries, fed him breakfast, and loaned her remaining mule for him to ride to Broken Toe. He’d returned on another mount—not the piebald—leading the mule.

He’d been accompanied by Walker. Chief Barker had harrumphed at stepping into the county sheriff’s business, but had waved Walker out with Cabot and told Williams to send a message to the sheriff about the happenings at the Brecker place.

Cabot and Walker had searched the ruins of the Brecker structures and found nothing of use. Even the pail of rotten milk had disappeared. And the force of the explosion had wiped out any tracks Cabot’s pursuer might have made.

But in the timber, they found signs where the creature— the beast—the
thing—
had broken through undergrowth during the chase. Cabot tried not to use the word
monster
. He had no tangible clues and no real description of what he’d encountered, and tagging it with a word like
monster
based on fears fed by the stories he’d heard from Mrs. Howard—well, Yankee Bligh would have said he was being influenced by hearsay, not discovered facts.

Walker pointed out a gap in the tree canopy. Limbs broken, branches shattered—it was about ten feet across. Cabot thought it was the place he’d heard the beast bellowing when the piercing blast of light blinded him.

They also found Mrs. Brecker. Like the other adults, she was rent limb from limb, as if by a raging giant. But she was buried in a shallow grave, not far from the tree Cabot had climbed, and her parts were assembled and arranged in their proper places.

That accounted for all the adults. But the children were still missing.

That bothered Cabot. He stayed in Broken Toe several days. He asked questions. He learned the Smiths were hard, callous people and used their boys roughly. They would strike the boys in public and berate them loudly and at length with coarse language.

James Kelly, a recent widower, had taken solace for his loss from a jug. Gossip whispered, while eyes were averted, suggested he might have been seeking comfort from his fourteen-year-old daughter.

Mrs. Brecker and her son, Sam, doted on one another. She was kind. He was obedient and good-humored.

Cabot reported to Assistant Director Hammond Gallows all he’d learned upon his return to Washington. In his Treasury Department office, Gallows had nodded, and then raised a hand. In the half-circle formed by index finger and thumb was the gold coin Cabot had found in Kansas.

“You can still see the minting date,” Gallows said. “1861. There was a plan at the beginning of the War Between the States to strike a limited number of gold coins specifically for trade with foreign powers for material the Union might need during the conflict.” He opened a small hinged box made of walnut and lined with green felt. “However, that plan was never carried out.” He placed the coin on the felt, closed the lid, and latched the box with a brass clasp. “I’ll take charge of this.” He placed the box in a drawer of the ornate desk behind which he sat. He shut the drawer and locked it.

Gallows patted the stack of papers of Cabot’s report. “This is fine work, Agent Cabot. A decision has been made to change your alignment within the Department. From this moment, you are re-assigned as an operative for the United States Secret Service.” Cabot just stared in surprise as Gallows plucked a badge from a waistcoat pocket and placed it on the desk before the young man.

That was the news Cabot had received this morning. Gallows had told him a meeting had been scheduled for Cabot at the War Department. With whom, the Assistant Director didn’t say.

Now Cabot sat alone on a leather loveseat in a well-appointed office. Red seemed to be the dominant color scheme for the room, although its paintings and fixtures exhibited nautical themes.
Wouldn’t blue and green be more appropriate for a marine setting?

The door opened. Cabot stood as two men entered. Both were in Army dress. The older of the two strode forward and nodded crisply to Cabot before speaking: “Lieutenant Michael Valiantine, this is Agent William Cabot, of the Secret Service. Cabot, Valiantine.”

Cabot extended his hand, and the two men shook.

“Get to know each other,” the older officer said. “You’ll be working together.”

Valiantine gave voice to Cabot’s thoughts: “I’m afraid I don’t understand, sir.”

The major smiled. Cabot detected no warmth in it.

“Agent Cabot is your new partner, Lieutenant.”

THE MISTS OF MORNING

Jim Beard

July 1897

R
ubbish!”

Lieutenant Michael Valiantine slammed the small metal badge down on the table and sat back. Staring at the object where it lay among the dinner dishes, he wished it every kind of ill.

After a moment, he picked up the badge again and fingered its embossed surface.

“‘Aero-Marshal,’” he read aloud. “What in hell is that supposed to mean?”

Agent Cabot leaned forward across the table, wagging his head slowly. “That we’re very, very special, I’d wager.”

“Or just very foolish,” Valiantine added, unsure if the man was being facetious. “It’s hard to credit it. The two of us, from different departments, thrust together to form... whatever this is.” He held up the badge. “I’m not afraid to tell you I don’t like it. Not a bit.”

The lieutenant glanced over to take in his new companion. He knew Cabot’s own badge had already been secured in the agent’s wallet, ready to be shown at a moment’s notice. Cabot was young, certainly, and capable, no doubt, but Valiantine felt he had much to learn yet about the other agent. He only hoped Cabot was smart enough to never completely trust his superiors; he himself had lived through many a scrape by relying on himself far more than his orders.

“Do you want to know what I think of it?” Cabot asked, sitting back in his seat and fingering his hat, which sat next to him on the table.

Valiantine nodded somberly. “Absolutely.”

“It’s a series of tests.”

“On that we agree, then.”

The lieutenant looked out the window at the landscape hurtling by and wondered how much of his immediate future would be spent traveling on trains. He’d always been indifferent to traveling by rail, but decided he could soon grow to hate it.

They’d been charged not two days before by Major Wellington to make all haste to Detroit, in Michigan. Some inventor there had supposedly announced he’d solved that nagging problem of sustained human flight, and not by balloon. How the major had come by this news he didn’t say, but he’d ordered Valiantine and Cabot to go to Detroit, make contact with the inventor, and “see what's what.”

“Too much of a coincidence,” Wellington had said. “Find out if he has anything to do with the airships. And, if so, bring him in. Quietly.”

Valiantine had his doubts as to how quiet they could be about it if the man was demonstrative in his pursuits, so he hoped their target was of the shy, retiring type.

He looked up from rearranging everything on the table to see Cabot staring at him. He’d seen that look of curiosity over his peculiar habits before on others and forced himself to still his hands and concentrate on the situation.

“How do we operate?” Cabot inquired.

“Eh?” Valiantine said. “Oh, I see your meaning. Since it’s simply the two of us, my opinion is that there’s no need for a ‘leader,’ if you will. We weren’t given orders for any structure to this whole ‘Aero-Marshal’ business, so let us agree neither one of us is superior to the other. Offer what you have at the time and inform me of what you’re doing or will be doing. I promise to do the same. Agreed?”

Cabot nodded earnestly. “Agreed. That suits me. We should also consider setting up a base of operations, something more centralized to the area we’ll be covering. We can’t be wasting time traipsing back to Washington after every assignment.”

Valiantine conceded that it was a good point. Securing his badge in a pocket, he checked his watch. “Cabot, listen: as I said, you’re right to feel this is a test we’ve been given, though if true, Heaven knows why. But we have our orders and shall make the best of it. This business in Detroit with the inventor should go quickly and we’ll be on to the next wild goose chase. It won’t be the first for me, and probably not the last, so let’s just allow it to play out, eh?”

The young agent nodded, picked up his after-dinner brandy, and finished it off. “So, what do you make of it all? The whole ‘airship’ flap, I mean. Foreign military? Domestic crackpots?”

“Or mass insanity,” Valiantine said, smiling slightly under his moustache. He flashed back to the strange evening in Indiana. “That must be added into the equation. Or perhaps it’s the sole answer.”

He looked out the window again, not wanting to meet his new partner’s eyes as his face flushed from the memory of the unfathomable blackness in the sky over Lake Manitou. Valiantine could feel Cabot’s gaze upon him, scrutinizing him.

The young man stood up suddenly, dropping his napkin on top of his dishes. “Going to catch a few winks before we arrive, if you don’t mind.”

The lieutenant nodded and turned to watch Cabot walk toward the door of the dining compartment. The agent spun around to face him before exiting.

“Valiantine, I...I know there’s something you’re not telling me. That’s your prerogative, of course. But, I feel as if I understand it, though I don’t know what it is. And I hope you come to trust me in time.”

He turned to leave. Alone at the table, Valiantine smoothed down his moustache for the hundredth time and contemplated the wrinkles in the tablecloth before him, counting each fold and line.

There was something his companion wasn’t telling him, also, something to do with his own experiences and their new status. He felt sure of it. But if he himself wasn’t forthcoming about everything, why would he expect anyone else to be?

They hopped an electric railcar not far from the train depot in Detroit and made their way to their target. Valiantine looked around at the city while Cabot filled him in with a few particulars on the man they’d come to see.

“Andrew Carnavon. More an engineer than an inventor, really. Doesn’t seem to be a native of Detroit, but we’re unsure of where he was born. Kept a low profile in his work ’til now, which is mostly in the carriage trade. Made a few advances in load bearing, structural integrity, that sort of thing. Unmarried, as far as we know, keeps a small staff and has owned his current residence for almost fifteen years.”

“That’s not much, all told,” the lieutenant remarked. “But I guess it will do. Let’s assume that he hasn’t had much contact with the law, let alone federal agents. Easy does it, until the point where we must insist he cooperate.”

The Treasury man nodded. “I’m familiar with such situations. The velvet glove before the cestus.”

“Perhaps you should take the lead on this one, then,” Valiantine said with a slight smile.

The lieutenant began to point out the various businesses they were passing to his partner. Detroit’s diversity of industry and manufacturing astounded him. Since they’d boarded the railcar, they’d passed plants manufacturing bicycles, paint, beer and other spirits, and pharmaceuticals, as well as lumber yards, iron and steel foundries, and what appeared to be a place that produced entire railroad cars.

Over it all hung the smell of tobacco. Cabot informed him that one of the city’s major outputs was tobacco products.

“I once heard it called the ‘Paris of the West,’” Valiantine said with a smirk. “Can’t imagine what they mean by that with all this.”

They rode the rest of the way in silence, enjoying the gorgeous early June day and the wide expanse of clear blue sky overhead. Valiantine liked that; you could see anything that was coming with such a sky.

Disembarking from the railcar, they walked roughly a mile to Carnavon’s compound. The part of the city upon which they alighted was dirty and rough, occupied by several low buildings and dotted with smokestacks. The two agents passed few people on the streets, but those they did appeared to be tradesmen and laborers, going about their business and taking no real notice of the duo.