Lincoln's Wizard (20 page)

With that she curtsied and left them alone.

Braxton took out a light blue shirt and immediately tossed it to Laurie. Blue had been Sarah’s favorite color. The remaining shirt was brown and plain, but it fit. The pants were cotton and nicer than the shirt, but he doubted anyone would notice or care. With the war raging into its eleventh year, people had been forced to make do with whatever they had.

Laurie was just pulling his boots back on when Hattie returned.

“I hope you’re all decent,” she said, entering without waiting for a response. Gone were her dark shirt and pants, replaced by a ruffled green dress and matching jacket. The color complimented her coloring, but it hung lose on her whip-thin frame, especially across the chest. Braxton guessed it was one of Annie’s.

He cleared his throat and quickly shifted his gaze.

“What do you think?” she said.

“You look like you were born in Raleigh,” Laurie said with a smile. “I studied medicine at Duke.”

Hattie turned to Braxton and appraised him with a practiced eye.

“Not bad,” she said. “We’ll have to get you something more appropriate, but for now it will do.”

“What about me?” Laurie asked.

“I’ve arranged for you to stay here,” Hattie said. “After a week or two, the Rebs will give up looking for you and you’ll be able to make your way north.”

“I thought it was dangerous for me to be here?” he said.

“It is,” Hattie said. “Annie is taking an enormous risk, but there’s a secret room under the cellar where she can hide you if they search the house.”

“You aren’t leaving me behind,” Laurie said. “I’m not putting these people at risk.”

“So you want to put Braxton and me at risk instead?” she said.

“I spent years in North Carolina,” Laurie said. “If anyone questions us, it’s Braxton who will stand out, not me. Besides, I’ve seen how you operate. If you keep going the way you are, you’re going to need a doctor along.”

Hattie’s face grew angry and she stepped close to Laurie.

“I … do … not … need you.” she said in a dangerous voice.

“Maybe not,” Laurie said, unintimidated. “But you certainly can’t afford to leave me behind. After all, I know where you’re going, and where you’re going after that. If the prison guards find me here, how long do you think it will take them to torture it out of me? And what if they don’t break me? What happens to Annie and Jeremiah and Eliza if I don’t talk? Are you willing to risk them by leaving me here?”

Hattie ground her teeth so loud Braxton could hear it. He suddenly became aware that he couldn’t see her right hand, and he doubted she’d left her slender dagger in her old clothes.

“Fine,” Hattie said at last.

“All set then,” Annie said, entering with a small basket under her arm. “There wasn’t time to cook anything, so Jeremiah put together some cold chicken with bread, butter, and honey.”

After weeks of nothing but army food, Braxton’s mouth watered.

“Thank you, Missus Slaughter,” Braxton said, accepting the basked. “We appreciate your generosity.”

“Take care, Hattie,” she said, giving her a hug. “You’ll have to come and see us after the war, when there’s time to sit and talk.”

Hattie smiled. It wasn’t like the smiles she favored others with, nor like the ones she’d cast at Braxton. This had a genuine, almost vulnerable, warmth behind it. Braxton suspected it was her real smile, the one she used when she wasn’t being a spy. He filed that image away in his mind.

“All right,” Hattie said, pushing out of the embrace at last. “We should go.”

“I’ve arranged for Jeremiah to take you in my carriage,” Annie said. “He’ll meet you around front.” With that, she departed.

“Shouldn’t we go out the front door to meet the carriage?” Braxton asked.

Hattie shook her head.

“We don’t want anyone to remember us as having been in Annie’s house,” She said. “We’ll meet Jeremiah a few houses down. So, if you boys are ready,” she cast Laurie an irritated look. “Let’s get going before we pick up any more strays.”

Braxton turned, but before he could so much as take a step, a knock sounded at the door.

Chapter Sixteen
Following

Everyone stopped as the sound reflected off the stone floor and the plaster and lathe walls. It seemed to roll on and on, like thunder, heralding a coming storm.

Braxton held his breath, straining to hear anything that might enlighten him to the nature of the caller. Had they been followed from the prison?

Surely not.

Prison guards wouldn’t knock in any case, they’d break the door down. Could this be a neighbor, coming by? A courier with a telegram?

No, they’d use the front door.

An escaped slave, perhaps, following the Underground Railroad and just happening to arrive now?

Possible, but not likely.

He opened his mouth to ask what to do. He wasn’t sure how long it had been since the knock sounded. Before he could speak, however, it came again, booming against the heavy door like the trump of doom.

“I’ll handle this,” Jeremiah said, entering the room and taking down his shotgun. “You folks better get back in case there’s trouble.”

Hattie stepped back into the hall, and Braxton and Laurie stood shoulder to shoulder in the frame. With seeming unconcern, Jeremiah stepped to the door, and opened the sliding panel that would let him see outside. After a moment, he said something Braxton couldn’t hear, then closed the panel and opened the door.

A man in ragged clothes and a wide straw hat stepped inside, and Jeremiah shut the door behind him. Despite the ill-fitting clothes and bloodstains, the man seemed to move without any apparent injury. When he removed his hat, Braxton started. At first it appeared as if he were wearing a cloth bag over his face, but when he turned to face the room, Braxton recognized the frozen pattern of wax.

“Stan,” he said, relief flooding through him.

“Hello, Braxton,” the Tok said. “I’m gratified that my diversion allowed you to escape. I trust you are uninjured.”

Braxton didn’t know what to say. The thought of Stan rotting away under a pile of broken Toks, alone and forgotten, had made him ill. Now all the weight of that worry vanished like dew under the sun.

“You!”

Braxton turned as Hattie pushed past him. She stood facing the Tok with her hands on her hips.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “I thought you were destroyed, or I hoped you were.”

“You know Stan?” Braxton asked, then flushed. Clearly Hattie had some history with the automaton.

“This walking scrap pile is the reason I was captured,” she said, whirling on Braxton. “It’s because of him that I spent the last two years rotting in prison instead of trying to win this war.”

“Who is Stan?” Laurie said. He pushed past Braxton and stepped up to Stan. “That’s not skin,” he said, reaching out to touch the Tok’s face. “What are you?”

“Stan is a Tok,” Hattie said. “One of my boss’s toys. One that I thought was broken.”

“I was broken,” Stan said. “Braxton found me with the other Toks stored in his cell. He repaired me.”

Hattie and Laurie both turned to him. Laurie had a look of absolute astonishment on his face. Hattie looked as if she were willing the powers of Hell to rise up and consume him where he stood.

“What could possibly have possessed you to fix this thing?” Hattie demanded.

“Divine providence, I’d wager” Stan said. “‘He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.’ Psalms one oh seven, verse twenty.”

“How did he get you captured?” Laurie asked, still fascinated by Stan’s wax face. “I bet with a veil no one could tell he wasn’t a man.”

“It doesn’t matter how we got captured,” Hattie said, her voice steeped in irritation. “What matters is what we’re going to do with him.”

“Debris hit me when a train car exploded,” Stan said.

“That’s what made that hole in your chest,” Braxton said.

Stan nodded.

“And when the surgeon tried to take a look at you, they found out you were made of metal,” Laurie said, running his practiced fingers over the edges of Stan’s chest plate.

“And thanks to the fact that we’d been seen around town together, everyone knew I was a Yankee spy within minutes,” Hattie said. “If I’d had a regular, human partner none of this would have happened.”

“Except your partner would be dead,” Braxton pointed out.

“And that would be sad,” Hattie said. “But how many have died while I was a guest of the Rebels?”

“Hattie is right,” Stan said. “If I had been a man, instead of a reasonable facsimile of one, I would not have been able to step in front of Hattie fast enough to shield her from the explosion.”

“Nice try,” Hattie said, shaking her head. “But you couldn’t have known that train was going to explode.”

“It was a military car carrying munitions,” Stan said.

“They usually don’t explode,” Laurie said.

“They do when they’re on fire,” Stan said.

Braxton turned to Hattie.

“What were you doing milling around a boxcar full of gunpowder while it was on fire?” he asked.

For the first time since he’d met her, Hattie actually looked flustered.

“Fires are a good times to gather information,” she said at last. “Everybody’s busy watching the fire and no one pays attention to you. I was trying to steal a copy of the Rebel train schedule from the station master.”

“It sounds to me like you took a stupid chance and Stan saved your life,” Braxton said. “I think you owe him an apology.”

“Stan isn’t alive,” Hattie snapped. “He’s a windup toy, not a man.”

Jeremiah suddenly cleared his throat and all eyes turned to him.

“When you and your friend were here before, I didn’t know he was a machine,” he said. “But he seems to be a man, and as someone who has had experience with people thinking he’s less than a man, I’m inclined to give Stan the benefit of the doubt.”

“And in any case, I would appreciate the sentiment,” Stan said.

“And don’t forget that army of Toks that tore up the prison,” Braxton said. “Stan was originally built to repair damaged Toks. We have him to thank for our escape just now.”

Hattie opened her mouth and shut it several times. She looked for all the world like a goldfish, though Braxton was wise enough to keep that observation to himself.

“Fine,” she said at last, her voice filled with all the warmth of glacial ice. “Stan, I appreciate your saving my life and your facilitating our escape. Now, since Pinkerton sent me a new partner, you are free to go.”

Braxton felt a wave of panic that he quickly suppressed. He couldn’t allow Stan out of his sight again. He had to study him, to figure out how he worked. Laurie had been right, an army of Stan’s could end the war, not by force of arms, but by taking away one of the main reasons for it. He had to protect Stan and keep him out of the hands of the inept Rebel engineers. They’d tear him apart to study him, destroy him in the process, and learn nothing of value.

He shuddered.

He had no idea if the Tok had the skills to make it back to Pinkerton without aid, but even if he did, Pinkerton only saw an asset in Stan. If he got his hands on the Tok, he’d just send him back out on some equally dangerous assignment with a high probability that Stan would end up in a Rebel scrap pile anyway.

That had to be prevented.

Braxton struggled to find the right argument, the right tack that would give him a line on Hattie. She hadn’t wanted to take Laurie, but Laurie and Braxton had left her little choice. Here, she could rightly assert that this mission was hers and that she wasn’t taking anyone else along.

Drawing a blank, Braxton opened his mouth, hoping to stall for time. Stan beat him to the punch.

“You are correct,” he told Hattie. “I realized when we were captured that my service to you were no longer required. Fortunately,” he went on. “I have recently been given a new purpose.”

As if he were on a fast moving elevator, Braxton felt his stomach drop and Hattie whirled on him.

“What did you do?” she demanded in a voice that clearly indicated that however innocuous the answer, she would take offense.

“Braxton is the reason I facilitated your escape,” Stan said, no doubt wanting to help. “I asked him for a new purpose and he asked me to help him get home. Therefore I will be accompanying Captain Wright from now until he is home.”

Hattie took a deep breath and rubbed her temples with the forefingers of each hand. After a tense moment, her anger seemed to ebb.

“Braxton,” she said. “You know we can’t take this walking scrap pile with us. Please give him some other purpose.”

“I should point out,” Stan interrupted before Braxton could speak, “that whether or not I accept a new purpose is entirely at my own discretion. My father built me to act and not be acted upon.”

“Braxton—” Hattie began, but he cut her off.

“No.”

The fire that had burned low in her eyes leapt up again, but Braxton held his ground.

“Stan is the most remarkable machine I’ve ever seen, and I helped design the tall guns,” he said. “Stan must not fall into Confederate hands, and, quite frankly, our own people didn’t recognize the genius of his design. There was no sane reason for Pinkerton to send him behind enemy lines.”

He shook his head and met Hattie’s steely gaze.

“He comes, or I stay.”

If there hadn’t been three witnesses right there in the room, Braxton believed that Hattie would have murdered him. As it was, her hand twitched like it longed for the slim hilt of her little dagger.

“All right,” she said at last. “This mission is too important and I need
you
to finish it, so I’ll lead this parade of misfits all over the South if that’s what it takes. But,” she went on. “No more demands. From this point on, I’m in charge. You do what I tell you, without questions or second guessing. I say hop, you ask how high. Are we clear?”

Three heads bobbed in response.

“Good,” she said, a bit more forcefully than was strictly necessary. Braxton didn’t blame her. This day wasn’t working out at all the way she’d planned.

“Jeremiah,” she said, turning to him. “We can’t have Stan walking around in those clothes. Would you ask Annie if she has any more spare clothes?”

“Right away,” Jeremiah said.

“And see if she has a dark veil,” Hattie called after him.

“Not to be impertinent,” Laurie said with a roguish smile. “But isn’t it time you told us all about this top secret mission we’re now on?”

“Not yet,” Hattie said. “Right now, all you need to know is that we’re headed for Raleigh, North Carolina.”

“That’s where we were captured,” Stan said. “Aren’t you worried someone will recognize us?”

“You, yes,” she said. “That’s why you and the good doctor will stay at the rail station while Braxton and I go into town. There are lots of wounded men coming back from the war. With any luck you’ll fit right in.”

“Why are we going to Raleigh at all?” Braxton asked. “You said our destination was Morehead City.”

“It is, but my supplies are in Raleigh.”

“The Rebels would have gone through wherever you stayed,” Laurie said. “Anything you left behind is long gone.”

Hattie favored him with a look that clearly expressed that she thought him a fool.

“Whenever I go anywhere,” she explained patiently. “I always store the gear I’m not using in a trunk, somewhere out of the way. In this case, it’s in a warehouse by the docks, stored in a disused loft.”

“And you’re sure it’s still there?” Braxton asked.

Hattie nodded.

“The proprietor likes his drink. I had him tell me all about his business one night in the local saloon.”

“How did you get into a saloon?” Laurie asked, the roguish look back on his face.

Braxton wondered that, too. No respectable woman would be caught dead in a saloon, they were strictly for dance hall girls and prostitutes.

“Never you mind,” Hattie said. “The point is, I know where he keeps the things no one wants, and that’s where I stored my trunk. So, first we get my gear, then we go to Morehead City.”

“What happens when we get there?” Laurie asked.

Hattie’s face turned grim.

“With any luck, we find a way to end the war.”

O O O

Colonel Beauregard Fuller was usually the first person to arrive at his office in the Confederate Engineer Bureau. He enjoyed the quiet of the early morning. It afforded him time to think. In Colonel Fuller’s opinion, there was far too little thinking being done in the world.

This morning, like all the others of his tenure as director of the CEB, Fuller entered his office in the pale light of predawn. This morning wasn’t like the others. The glare of the gas lamps turned the rail yard and forges and machine shops below into islands of day in the pale, morning light. Everywhere he looked men were working. Most had been there all night, pressing ahead in an effort to overtake the damage the Federals had done to Jackson and the Tennessee River Bridge. A hot, damp mist filled the air as dozens of steam engines chugged away inside several of the buildings, and Beauregard’s shirt already stuck to his skin by the time he reached his office. As he entered and shut the door behind him, the cacophony of steam engines, hammering, shouting workmen, and the ever present gurgling of the Distillery dulled into a murmur.

Fuller stood in the dark of his office for a long moment, listening to the diminished sounds from the yard. The sound was hardly conducive to thought.

With a sigh, he lit the lamp on his desk, trimming the wick down to a low glow. He sat and considered the mountain of documents stacked neatly on the right side of his desk, away from the lamp. Ever since the Federals had cut the supply lines to the Gray soldiers along the western front, his life had been one emergency after another. His aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Whitney, took to calling it the Paper Mountain, in honor of the CEB’s home at Stone Mountain.

For all his pretense about being early to think, Fuller just sat, staring at the stack of reports and requisitions awaiting him. He knew he should plow forward and get it done, but the more cynical part of his brain pointed out that as soon as it was gone, Whitney would be in with a fresh stack. Maybe if he didn’t do this stack, the next one wouldn’t come.