Jessie's War (Civil War Steam) (3 page)

He cleared his throat. “You
look different.”

“You mean I don’t look like
some pretty little white girl.”

He picked up one of her
braids, her black hair contrasting with his pale hand. “No. I mean different
from how I remember.”

Jessie stepped away from him,
trying to pretend his simple gesture didn’t remind her of a time when her heart
had been whole. Her braid fell from his fingers. “Always been different. I just
stopped acting like something I wasn’t.”

“I meant no insult.”

With a frown, she shoved a
steaming cup of chicory into his hands. “Here. Drink this.” She pushed past him
into the sitting room.

“Thank you.” He paused. “I
noticed you’re still taking in strays. Barn’s full of them.”

She waved away his comment. “Winter’s
been hard this year. There’s nothing for the wild horses to eat, and they’re
sick and starving. When they’re not being poisoned along with the antelope and
the sheep, that is.” She walked into the sitting room. “I guess I always did
have a soft spot for strays.”

Their eyes met from across
the room. Was that shame she saw in his eyes? A second later, his expression
shifted, and he joined her in the front room. His foot dragged.

An old injury? A new one?

She didn’t want to think
about it, so she sat down on her worn sofa. “Your bath’s waiting for you.”

He leaned against the wall,
and shoved his hands into his pockets. Something about the stiffness of his
shoulders looked uncomfortable as he shifted his weight, but his laugh was
easy. “I take it that’s a hint?”

Her cheeks heated and she
sniffed. “I wouldn’t try the patience of my
very
generous
benefactor, if I were you. I might also mention a bath could make
your presence a little more tolerable. You’re lucky I didn’t sic Muha on you.”

Luke looked at the wolf, who
thumped her graying tail in eager canine devotion. “You wouldn’t bite me, would
you, old girl?” Scratching her head, he caught Jessie’s eye. “See,
she
still loves me.”

“Well, that’s one of us.”

“Right.” He dug into the
pocket of his vest, removed a small, folded envelope, and extended it to her. “I
brought you something.”

The paper trembled, and it
took Jessie a moment to realize his hands shook.

She folded her hands in her
lap. “I don’t want anything from you, except your promise that tomorrow you’ll
leave and you won’t come back.”

“Can’t promise you that, but
I can give you this.” He shoved the envelope at her.

“Don’t overstay your welcome,
Bradshaw.”

“I always do.”

A nervous laugh escaped
before she could stop it, and she took the letter from Luke’s outstretched
hand. It was well worn and wrinkled, the edges charred, as if it had been
rescued from a fire.

She ran her hands over the
paper, and she sensed smoke and the heat of flames.

With shaking hands, she
opened the envelope. She wasn’t sure what she had expected to find, but it wasn’t
this. It wasn’t a photograph and a flood of memories.

Two young men. Union
soldiers. Luke, clean-shaven and an older version of the boy she remembered,
smiled broadly at the camera, his free arm around the shoulders of the young
man standing next to him.

Gideon. His black hair and
eyes, skin and high cheekbones showed the native blood he and Jessie shared.
His mouth was set in a somber line, but she recognized the mirth in his eyes.
Luke had never failed to amuse her brother.

On the bottom of the
photograph, written in Gideon’s strong, precise hand, was,
Me and Luke. October 28, 1867.

The day he died.

She put the photograph down
beside her and turned to the second piece of paper, and her throat tightened as
she began to read.

Jessie,

We
leave for South Carolina today. Luke and I are assigned to different airships,
but we’re both expected to be there by this afternoon. We don’t expect much
resistance. There are rumors the Rebs have developed a weapon against our
airships, but I’ve been working on something with Pop’s blue silver alloy. If
it works, the Rebs will never be able to take us out of the sky. I only wish
Luke were on my ship.

Don’t
worry about us. Any day now, and we’ll be back where we belong. Luke sends his
love. I’ll take care of him for you—don’t you worry. You take care of
yourself and Pop.

--Gideon

The letter they’d received
from Gideon’s commanding officer had assured her father that her brother had
died quickly when his ship had plummeted to the earth and burst into flames. She
had never believed those words, but she had pretended to, for her father’s
sake.

She traced Gideon’s words
with the tip of her finger, trying to feel some remnant of her brother’s
presence in the strong lines of his penmanship. New pain built in her chest
when she realized her efforts were futile—his energy wasn’t there. His
letter contained his words, but no trace of him.

“I always meant to come back.”
Luke’s voice sounded rough. “I walked all the way back to the crash site,
looking for him or something of his. I was given this. I’ve carried it ever
since. I always meant to give it to you.”

She set the photograph in her
lap. She memorized this last image of her brother, dressed as a solider with
his best friend by his side.

Luke put his hand on her
shoulder.

She flinched. “Don’t. You
should have sent this when you found it.”

He dropped his hand. “I
wanted to give you the letter in person.”

“Go away.” The words came out
strangled.

“Jessie—”

“I wish you had been the one
to die that day.”

This one small memento of her
brother ripped her open and tore out her heart all over again. The pain was as
raw as the day she’d learned of his death.

“You have no idea how many
times I’ve wished the exact same thing.”

She closed her eyes. “Go
away.”

Jessie expected a protest,
but when she looked up minutes later, he was gone.

Her legs shook on the way to
her bedroom. A faint glow emanated from below the door of her brother’s old
room.

Luke Bradshaw was in her
house, in her brother’s bed, in the room right next to hers, separated from her
not by the veil separating Earth and Heaven, but by a few inches of wood and
miles of hurt. Jessie let herself into her own room and forced herself to keep
her hands quiet, to prevent her from touching the wall behind her and feeling
Luke’s presence in her house.

Wood creaked and groaned as
she knelt beside the bed and pressed her hands against the floorboards. With a
quiet hiss, the planks lifted to expose her secret compartment. These were the
treasures of her past: old journals, a well-worn doll with mechanized eyes, and
a large, metal box.

She pulled the box into her
lap and punched in a series of buttons, and the gears whirred as the lock
unlatched. The lid lifted, opening the door on the pain she so carefully locked
away so she could continue to live a life even she wasn’t sure was worth much
of anything.

Inside were old newspaper
clippings and every one of Luke and Gideon’s letters to her. They’d written
faithfully for five years, and she’d kept every letter. On October 28, 1867
,
the letters stopped.

She read Gideon’s letter one
last time before filing it behind the others, and went to put the picture with
the newspapers. But she couldn’t help but look at the old photographs and
remember the horror of when Gideon died and what was left of her family with
him.

What would eventually be
called the Battle of Bear Creek was supposed to be the Union’s final push to
subdue the rebellious Confederacy. A massive airship attack, supported by tens
of thousands of ground troops, Bear Creek should have been the battle to bring
peace and restore the broken United States.

It was a bloodbath.

Unbeknownst to the Union, the
Confederacy possessed a weapon capable of shelling from miles away, from what
ought to have been out of range. The Mathew Brady photographs in the papers
showed the horror. Shells of burned airships, blackened fields, the stacked
bodies of men who had died in Bear Creek, the husk of the Capitol after
Washington had fallen to Confederate artillery.

The only weapon her father
ever created in his long years as an inventor had broken the back of the Union.
It hadn’t mattered that his plans had been stolen by Confederate agents, or
that he’d never intended for the device to fall into Confederate hands. It only
mattered that he’d created the technology that killed thousands, including his
son.

When Luke stopped writing
after Gideon’s death, they had believed his body lay somewhere on that same
field of battle. But she’d been unable to voice her grief, unable to dance
either of their spirits to the other side. Her father’s anguish had been so
overwhelming, so consuming, she had swallowed hers. One of them needed to go to
market or go into town for the post.

Because her father had been
unable to do so, she’d faced the wrath of the town alone. What they’d done in
their anger was yet another thing she had forced herself to swallow, and
eventually, their rage settled into quiet disdain.

Well. She had survived it.

Now Luke’s ghost had returned
to life and lay on the other side of the wall, taunting her with his presence.
Mocking her with the life she’d thought he’d lost.

She rubbed her palm against
her chest to alleviate the ache, and felt the ring he’d once given her against
her palm. Pulling the silver chain from beneath her clothing, her fingers
curled around the cheap piece of silver. Luke gave her this ring the night
before he’d left, when he’d asked her to wait for him. She had waited for
years—and continued to wait long after she had given him up for dead.

She would have waited
forever.

The ring went into the box.
As she closed the lid, she felt the imprint of that silver ring against her
skin still, her body aching for the comfortable familiarity of it.

Tears gathered in her eyes,
and Jessie, for the first time in a long time, allowed them to fall.

She missed her mother and her
brother. She missed her father, who’d died that day as surely as Gideon had,
though he’d continued to wake each morning for another two years.

“Oh, Gideon.” She clutched
the box to her chest.

Luke
, her heart whispered.

No
, she told herself sternly.
Never again.

She closed her eyes,
banishing the image of him from her mind. Exhausted, she rested her cheek
against the cold metal and wept.

The sound of soft-soled shoes
against the wooden floor told Luke that Jessie was finally awake.

He’d heard her through the
thin walls the night before. Long after he’d extinguished the lantern beside
the bed, he’d listened to the sounds of her moving about in her room and
quietly weeping.

When he turned in her
direction, he found her standing framed in the doorway of the kitchen, dressed
in a simple buckskin dress and trousers. Beaded earrings of hollowed, polished
bone brushed against her shoulders, an identical choker around her throat. The
bone pipe choker and earrings stood out, pale against her golden skin. Her
waist-length black hair was braided into two plaits, through which she had
woven a leather cord. The pale brown fabric bound the ends of her hair, and
matched the beaded dress.

She was even prettier than he
remembered. His chest tightened at the sight of her.

Then their gazes collided.
Her face was ashen, and judging by her swollen, red-rimmed eyes, she’d been
crying again. He knew he had hurt her when he’d let her go. It wasn’t his fault
she hadn’t understood that, as long as there was war, he couldn’t come home.

Wasn’t
hers, either
, his
conscience chided. It had been silent for so long he’d almost forgotten he’d
had one. Damn thing was both unfamiliar and unwelcome.

He turned back to the stove
and continued with his task.

“What are you doing?”

“Making you breakfast. I
figure it’s the least I can do, since you’re letting me stay.”

He’d intentionally kept his
tone light, because he needed to set her at ease, and her brother’s words hadn’t
done it. He couldn’t say what he needed to regain her trust. All he could do
was cook her a meal and hopefully remind her of a time when his presence hadn’t
caused her pain.

He needed to forget his own,
too.

She crossed her arms across
her chest and squared her shoulders. “The night, you mean. You leave today.”

With the knife he held in his
hand, he made a vague gesture at the gray, sooty landscape outside the window. “I
think we’re snowed in, Jess. I can’t imagine I’m going anywhere.”