Jessie's War (Civil War Steam) (30 page)

“Which one are you?”

“Do I get to the tell the
truth, or are we all still lying to one another?”

A delighted smile spread
across Whitfield’s features, the dimples in his cheeks making him appear
boyish. “I think we can tell the truth, since we’re friends now and all.”

“A friend would take me to my
husband.” Whitfield’s face clouded again, and she hastily added, “I guess you
could say I’m Paviotso. Ewepu Tunekwuhudu, to be exact.”

“Never heard of them.”

“Most of you think of us as
Paiute.”

“But you’re not?” he asked.

“I’m not.”

“Any interesting stories to
tell?”

She opened the cupboards
looking for plates and laughed, even though it felt hollow. “Do I ever.” She
deposited two plates on the table.

“So tell me.” His eyes were
alight with interest.

“You know the story about the
shaman who danced all those Union soldier to death and ended the Paiute wars?”

“Yeah. What did they call
him? John Singing Death?”

“His name’s Ewepu So’wina’.
He’s my grandfather.”

“That’s brilliant!” Then his
face fell. “You’ve gotta be lying.”

“On my ancestors’ graves.”
She placed a hand over her heart. “My mother was his daughter. I just saw him a
few days ago, in fact. He’s the one who married Luke and me.”

“I thought he was dead.”

“They’ve been saying that
since before I was born,” Jessie laughed. “He falls off the map for a few days,
and suddenly, he’s dead. That man has died more times than I can count, but he
keeps turning up, so I guess the rumors of his demise are somewhat exaggerated.”

“You’re not jesting?”

Jessie shook her head.

Whitfield scowled, his eyes
anxious, and he glanced in the direction of the door. “Nah, Bradshaw’s not the
type to get hitched.”

“Ancestors’ graves.” She
hefted the skillet in her hand, deposited the eggs first onto his plate and
then onto hers. “I never said Luke wanted to get married. My grandfather has a
way of getting what he wants.”

“I bet he does.” He sat at
the table and looked at her for a long time.

She simply stood there
holding the heavy skillet in her hand and silently praying to her ancestors he’d
turn back around before she was forced to put the thing down.

“Damn if I don’t believe you.”

“Maybe you believe me because
I’m telling the truth.” She smiled.

He regarded her thoughtfully,
and stroked his chin. “Hm. Never thought of that. No one tells the truth
anymore.”

Her hand started to ache from
holding the skillet, but she smiled through it. “I do. Don’t have any reason to
start lying now. You get started on your breakfast and I’ll spin you a tale you
won’t believe. All true, too.”

He grinned before he turned
away.

Guilt twisted in her stomach
as she hefted the skillet like a club and hit him over the head.

With an
oof
, he fell forward onto his plate.

Lunging in, she tore his
pistol from his holster and raced for the door. Undid the chains and the
deadbolts. Behind her, something crashed, followed by a few guttural
swearwords.

And even though she was
trying to escape from him, and she’d pay dearly if he caught her, she was
actually relieved.

After what felt like an
eternity, she undid the final lock, threw open the door, and escaped into the
slums of Great Salt Lake City.

Jessie burst out into the
bustling city streets, where women carried crying children, men hawked their
wares, and a nearby factory belched black smoke into the already sooty,
dirigible-filled sky. The streets were lined with ramshackle houses and
multi-story tenements for the working poor, and the scents of cooking food, raw
sewage, and snow mingled in the air.

She took off running through
the muddy, slush-filled streets. Glancing behind her as she rounded a corner,
she saw Whitfield stumbling out of the house.

If she stayed on the street,
he would surely catch her, and she had no idea what he’d do to her when he did.
Taking the steps two at a time, she pushed past a young mother with several
screaming children and entered the nearest tenement.

The hallway was dark and
dingy, even though this building wasn’t more than five or ten years old. The
bare floor was stained, the hallway reeking of stale urine and vomit, and the
walls were damaged in a way that looked suspiciously like bullet holes. The
sounds of a couple arguing and children crying filled air. She reached the end
of the hallway and skidded to a halt, searching for an exit.

A dirty boy, in ragged
clothing and soot-streaked features, stood outside an open door. Just inside
the apartment, a woman screamed obscenities at a crying child.

“Is there a way out of here?”
she asked the boy.

He pointed back the way she’d
come.

“Is there any
other
way out of here?”

This time, he pointed to a
closed door. Jessie threw it open, ran down a dark flight of stairs, and burst
into bright sunlight. Wash hung from the line, fluttering gently in the winter
wind. She pushed her way past the sheets and let herself out the gate into a
garbage-strewn alley, and ran toward the street, a busy boulevard cluttered
with steam-powered cabs for hire and horses and private carriages.

“Stop right there!” a man’s
voice bellowed.

A pretty blonde woman leaned
out of an expensive carriage. The picture of a Victorian lady, she wore a
feathered hat precariously perched atop a mass of bright yellow curls.

She disregarded the blonde
woman and pushed her way through the crowded street.

The coach rolled slowly after
her. “You should come with me.”

Jessie didn’t answer. She
didn’t even slow until she heard a gun cocking over the clattering of the
wheels against stone.

No one else seemed to notice.

“I hate to do this, Miss
White, but you’re not safe here. Come with me.”

Jessie stumbled to a stop,
put her hands up in the air, and turned slowly. “Says the woman who’s pointing
a gun at my back.”

“Now I’m pointing it at your
front. I can be civilized. Get in the coach.”

Jessie set her jaw. The woman
had what looked to be a small derringer in her hand, which only carried two
shots. But given that Luke carried a clockwork carbine in a bag across his
back, and Jessie had had a revolving shotgun at home, how was she to know what
the weapon was capable of?

“If you’re gonna shoot me,
then do it.”

“Mr. Bradshaw would flay me
alive if I did,” the other woman replied. She made a show of decocking the gun
and opening the coach door. “Get in.”

Someone grabbed her around
the waist, and she didn’t even have the chance to scream before she was thrown
to the ground. Stars burst behind her eyelids as a heavy knee pressed into her
back. Screams erupted from the passersby as she went down, but no one made any
move to help her.

Why should things be any
different here?

Jessie lay in the dirty,
half-melted slush, the cold and the wet seeping into her clothes.

Rough hands grabbed her arms
and pulled them behind her, clamping iron shackles around her wrists.

“Teach you to run from me,
girl.”

The man pushed her down into
the mud and the mire, and Jessie was unable breathe around the weight of his
knee on her back. He searched her and pulled Whitfield’s gun from her pocket.

“That is quite enough,” said
an unfamiliar voice.

She craned her neck to see
who had come for her this time, but she could only make out expensive black
crocodile boots before her face was pushed down into the frigid earth.

“I said,
enough
!” the man shouted. A booted foot met flesh, and air rushed
back into her lungs as her attacker was thrown from her back. “Release her.
Now.”

“You... you told me to detain
her.”

“
Detain
her, not manhandle her. Release her.” A gun cocked.

Someone grabbed the cuffs and
hauled Jessie to her knees. She turned her head and saw a constable in a black
uniform.

She blinked up at the owner
of the crocodile boots, a tall man dressed in a black suit and long black
duster. He had dark hair and dark eyes, his features strong and ruddy, as if
burned by wind. His dark moustache curled at the ends, and he had a small,
triangular patch of hair below his lower lip. If he hadn’t been dressed like a
western lawman, he would have looked like a dashing pirate.

Jessie wondered if maybe he
was a bit of both.

He pushed the duster back to
reveal two silver revolvers with ivory handles. Jessie didn’t miss the long,
matching knife strapped to his thigh, and neither did the constable.

The man with the crocodile
boots extended his hand and helped Jessie to her feet. “I’m Mordecai Jameson,
and this is my wife, Elizabeth.” He motioned to the blonde woman, who pocketed
the derringer as she descended from the carriage. She gave Jessie a jaunty
wave. “I apologize for the mistreatment you’ve received at the hands of this
brute.” He motioned to the constable, who went red with anger.

“You don’t have the
authority—”

Jameson cut him off. “But I
do. Now, go back to your post.”

“I—”

“Go back to your post before
I kill you, cut off your hands, and send them to your widow,” Jameson said
coolly

She knew the truth when she
heard it.

The constable seemed to as
well, so he turned and left her in the company of these people who had just
threatened to kill him.

Some
lawman.

“You’ll be wanting to get
into the carriage.” Jameson bent and retrieved the gun Jessie had been
carrying, emptied it of bullets and handed it back to her without a word.

She accepted the weapon,
crossed her arms across her chest and shivered.

“Oh, the poor dear. You’re
soaked through.” Elizabeth took Jessie by the elbow. “You must be just
freezing. Mordecai?”

Jameson scowled at his wife
and took off his duster, depositing it on Jessie’s shoulders. It was still warm
and smelled like leather and musk and man. It felt heavenly.

“The things I do for you,
woman,” he grumbled.

Elizabeth winked at him. “You
know you love me, husband.”

“I surely do, even though I
am sometimes hard pressed to figure out why.”

“Do you need a proper reminder?”
The suggestion was clear in her chocolate brown eyes.

Jessie edged away from them,
toward a dark alley leading only God and her ancestors knew where, but it had
to be better than here.

Elizabeth turned to her. “You
aren’t considering running again, are you, dear? I’m afraid Mordecai would be
sorely put out if you did. You’re wearing his favorite coat.”

Were
these people kidding?
They couldn’t expect her to just go with them because they knew her name and
spoke of Luke. Yet they acted as if they were all standing around talking about
the weather and Elizabeth hadn’t just been pointing a gun at her and Jameson
hadn’t just threatened to cut off a man’s hands.

When Jessie didn’t answer,
Elizabeth said, “Oh, come now. We’ll take you to Luke. All you have to do is
get in the coach.”

“I… No.” She didn’t even know
how to voice the protest dying on her lips.

Elizabeth tapped her chin. “Hm…
What could I say to make you believe us?”

“For the love of God, woman,
get in the coach,” Jameson snapped. “It’s freezing out here, we’re exposed, and
this will be explained on the ride.” He poked Jessie roughly in the shoulder. “Get
in.”

Elizabeth folded her arms
across her chest and tapped her foot impatiently. “The poor dear has been
through an awful ordeal. We can spare a moment to allay her concerns, don’t you
think? They’re legitimate, after all.”

“Maybe so, but we’re the ones
with the bigger guns,” he complained. He climbed into the coach and leaned out
the door. “You’ve got five minutes.” He turned to Jessie. “And don’t even think
about running. That really is my favorite coat.”

He slammed the door, leaving
the two women alone.

“So,” Elizabeth said. “What
could I possibly tell you to make you believe we’re just honest folks trying to
take you to Mr. Bradshaw?”

“Not pointing a gun at me or
threatening to cut off a man’s hands might have been a good start.”

“Had to be done, though I do
apologize for my husband’s bad manners. He can’t abide a woman being
mistreated.”

“And your pointing a gun at
me wasn’t mistreatment?”

Elizabeth grinned, a bright
ray of sunshine spreading across her delicate porcelain skin. “Certainly not.
That was just to get your attention. You weren’t hurt, were you?”