The Conductors

by Nicole Glover

  “These gifts, of course, are probably credit against the future,” Benjy said. “The honey certainly seems like it, since Mr. Owens has hives in his room.”

  “Hives,” Hetty asked, turning her attention to the swirl atop her porridge. “As in more than one?”

  “I was surprised he managed to keep them at all.” He tapped his spoon against the side of his empty bowl before he spoke again. “I’m sorry about last night.”

  “Penelope will forgive you. You often tease her after all.”

  “I mean you. I should have told you about the boxing.”

  “I am not angry,” she said, and there was a dull lurch in her stomach as she now realized what her muddle of feelings last night meant. “I’m just surprised. I would’ve gone to the matches if you’d told me.”

  “You would have?”

  “Even if it meant Charlie would be my only company. Plus I probably could have won money—” She noticed the alarm in his face. “Not by betting, but by playing the onlookers’ false. I’d make a show of it, by acting worried or concerned at the right moments.”

  “You would have told people you were my wife,” he said as he caught the trail of her words. “You would have used that to make them change bets. That’s the most duplicitous thing I’ve ever heard!”

  Hetty didn’t know what that word meant, but his soft and thoughtful smile was more than an adequate answer.

  “It’s not just a possibility,” Hetty said as she picked up her spoon. “I can start at your next match. It’ll make sense that for such a big match your wife will be there. I’ll introduce myself as Lottie Ross and I’ll be there to cheer you on when you win.”

  “I can’t win that match,” he began, and then stopped, more than slightly aghast. “You picked Lottie for a name?”

  “Yes. Doesn’t it sound like the name of a successful dressmaker with an established shop in Baltimore? Lottie posed as a dressmaker for Confederate ladies during the war, listening in on all the gossip related to the Lost Cause. The person she passed important military plans to was the man that would become her husband, Ben Ross. A name,” Hetty added rather pointedly, “that doesn’t sound like someone who gives up so easily.”

  Benjy pretended to glare at her. “I’m not giving up. It’s just not worth the trouble.”

  “Of what? Messing up people’s bets? Or do you really think there will be a riot?”

  “I want to make a quiet exit,” he protested, not answering her question directly. “If I win, it won’t be. My only other option is not to show, but I can’t. With the bets Charlie placed, I have to be there, if only to see if the murderer will be there to collect.”

  “So you’re going to lose. I don’t like that.”

  “I lost matches before.”

  “Oh, you have?” Hetty said, deliberately prodding him. “Now I understand why you never told me. Lottie Ross doesn’t like being married to someone who loses.”

  “Like I said, it’s not worth the trouble. And can’t you pick a better name than Lottie?” He squinted as if the name had personally offended him. “It’s not that interesting.”

  “Said the man who just cut his name down a few more letters.”

  “It’s for Benedick,” he said, rather dramatically, “from the play we did before Thomas left for Texas?” When she stared at him, he recited: “ ‘When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.’ ”

  “Oh, that play!” Hetty nodded, recalling it properly now.

  After Oliver complained that his house had too many empty rooms that weren’t being used, Thomas got the idea to stage plays. The ludicrous idea brought all their friends together to take part, plus others that were mildly curious. The scripts were mostly what they could afford, which meant most were old plays from England, although they did manage to find a few that had traveled up from Haiti. With Thomas directing the overall vision of the plays, they picked a set of rooms to be the stage, chose parts, decided on which illusions to set the scene for the play of choice. A little play called Much Ado About Nothing had been the last one they put on before Thomas left. And while it was very humorous at times, a particularly strong bit of laughter erupted from Oliver, Thomas, George, and Charlie at the lines Benjy recited for her just now. The interruption had actually stopped the play, because Benjy refused to continue until his friends brought the laughter down to a reasonable level. Hetty learned later that Thomas had picked the play as a rather pointed jab at Benjy, due to similarly asserted claims of perpetual bachelorhood right up to the day he asked Hetty to marry him.

  “I miss those nights,” Hetty sighed. “It was fun. So much laughter, silly arguments, and no one thinking any of the others might be a murderer.”

  Not taking the bait, Benjy leaned back in his chair. “I think it helps prove it. Weren’t you paying attention to Fire at Dawn? George is a poor actor, but he was the vision of a cruel tyrant king.”

  “Wasn’t he annoyed you kept correcting his lines?”

  Benjy waved a hand about. “Details, details.”

  He liked this theory too much, and Hetty thought it best to hold back an observation of her own. Thomas often cast them as lovers, from feuding fairy royalty to revolutionaries in Haiti. What Benjy had to say about that was not something she wanted to know at this moment.

  Instead, Hetty turned back to her food. “Not that this hasn’t been pleasant, but why aren’t you at the forge?”

  “I’m not going in today. Oliver needs our help.”

  The spoon, halfway to her mouth, fell back to the bowl. This breakfast wasn’t an apology—it was a bribe!

  Oddly enough, that put her at ease. Tallying up favors was much better than dealing with grand gestures.

  “I thought he was taking care of things on his own?”

  Benjy went on to explain, describing the scene at the house, where preparations were in every sense thrown together. Although Oliver had put on funerals before, they had not been often, the deceased less well known, and there hadn’t been a rush to observe all the proper rites.

  “Did Oliver ask for my help?” Hetty interrupted.

  “No, but I need you. I can’t do this without you.”

  Benjy said this easily, the same words he said when he teased her about doing some chore that needed doing. Hetty usually rolled her eyes, unswayed at these lighthearted words, but this time . . . this time, she hastily asked, “What can I help with?”

  ORION

  Interlude

  September 1862

  DUSTY COUNTY, ALABAMA

  HETTY SHUT THE DOOR to the safe house, one ear listening for gunshots. They were distant, and growing more so. She ran her hand along the weathered wood of the door, over the dipper carved there. They would be safe for now.

  They had to be.

  She glanced over where Lou lay on the ground, a hand pressed to his shoulder. His older brother, Cassius, hovered nearby, distracting Penelope as she pulled bundled leaves from pouches in her dress.

  Hetty had initially considered leaving the younger girl behind. Penelope had wasted precious time muttering prayers over a stub of a candle before they slipped out of the quarters. But when bad luck had them stumbling into the guns of men eager to get their hands on coin, Hetty was glad they hadn’t left Penelope behind. Without her quick thinking, the younger boy would have bled out by now, and his brother would have lost his head.

  “We stay here long enough to get him settled and not a minute more,” Benjy said.

  “Not through the night?” Hetty asked. “That wasn’t the plan.”

  “Plans change. The supply cache is low and the sigils have been copied instead of drawn with skill.” He gave her a sharp look. “Someone’s been here since the last time we came through.”

  “You’d know all about that.” The scarf tied around Hetty’s face hid her smirk and made her words harsher than she meant them to be. Benjy didn’t appear to notice. Although he could read well enough to make sense of tightly pac
ked words filled with denser meanings, he copied the star sigils she made without knowing how they worked, and it was a miracle that before he finally admitted this to her he hadn’t gotten them killed.

  “If you’re worried,” Hetty said, “poke fingers around and see what jumps out of the corners.”

  “I’m more afraid about who’s outside. Might be One-Eyed Jack out there with his boys.”

  Hetty resisted the urge to box his ears. If he simply thought it, that would be one thing. Speaking it aloud meant it was true. Suddenly she knew why he’d insisted she wear trousers. It wasn’t to make it easier for them to travel—it was to disguise her. One-Eyed Jack was mighty sore she’d put a gun to his head and left him trussed up to a tree stump like a young chicken. “We just got to keep ahead and not get ourselves tripped up by anything. Then we can—”

  Hetty stopped speaking as she recognized a ringing noise. She felt it more than she heard it, and without thinking, she strode forward and placed her pistol at the base of the older brother’s skull.

  “Give me one good reason not to drop you like a sack of hay.”

  “What are you doing?” Penelope said, her voice rising over Cassius’s protests and his brother’s weaker cry.

  “I’ve done nothing.” Hetty slid the pistol down until it reached the tarnished silver collar. “He, on the other hand, is going to get us killed with this collar around his neck! Don’t you know they can find you with it?”

  “It’s been quiet,” Cassius protested.

  “Well, it’s not quiet anymore,” Hetty growled, “and once it starts it won’t stop until you’re dead.”

  “Don’t hurt him,” Lou cried out, struggling against Penelope’s hands. “Leave him alone!”

  “Sparrow isn’t going to shoot your brother.” Benjy approached, giving Hetty a mild look of reproach. He had a nail file in hand, and a smaller tool she didn’t recognize. “It’ll be too loud. We just need to take it off.”

  “We don’t have the time for that! We need to get out of here,” Hetty said, keeping her arm steady. She never shot anyone before and wasn’t keen to start with a spineless coward.

  “We don’t leave anyone behind.”

  The snap in Benjy’s voice cut through all the protests in the room and even Hetty’s best argument.

  Leaving people behind was not an option for Benjy, even when it was the most troublesome path.

  “They will find us here,” Hetty protested. “We got an injured boy and we’re too far south to cross the river—”

  “You can cross it.”

  The new voice that entered the room got Hetty’s pistol pointed at it.

  The man seemed unbothered by it as he stepped out from the shadows that clung to the corners of the room. He was older than Hetty by at least ten years. The right side of his face was a wrinkled mess of burned flesh that extended from just below his eye to his chin. A deliberate meeting of the wrong end of a candle to rid himself of something nasty. A runaway brand, most likely. He was not the first Hetty had seen to take to such drastic measures to hide that mark of shame, nor would he be the last. His clothes were as rough and threadbare as the other three, but he was much thinner than what suited his broad frame.

  So someone did sneak into the safe house after all.

  “There’s a boat,” the man said. “When the moon hides her face, I take it to get fish.”

  “Why haven’t you taken it further upstream?” Hetty demanded.

  “It’s not mine.”

  Benjy shrugged and turned the nail file to the collar at Cassius’s neck.

  Gunshots were growing louder now, and as much as Hetty wanted to fight with this man, she made a choice—the only one she could make.

  She lowered her pistol.

  “Show me the boat. You two come with us,” she added to Penelope and Lou. Penelope looped an arm around Lou’s shoulder, helping him up. As they scrambled off, Hetty glared at the stranger. “If you’re lying, this will not end well for you.”

  He spread out his hands. “I got nothing to lie about.”

  “There’s always something,” Hetty said, and urged him forward.

  The boat was exactly where he said it would be, tied up near a farmhouse with a set of knots that fell away as Hetty ran her sewing needle along them, her magic giving the needle a sharper edge.

  She and the man carried the boat to the closest part of the river, where Penelope shivered with Lou’s arm slung across her shoulders.

  “Is the boy still alive?” Hetty asked, sliding the boat into the water.

  “I think so.”

  “Keep him like that.”

  Gunfire sounded much closer now.

  “They’re coming!” Penelope squeaked.

  “Quiet.” Hetty put a hand on Penelope’s shoulder. “You’re safe with Sparrow and Finch.”

  Something like a laugh escaped her lips. “Are those really your names?”

  “They weren’t my idea,” Hetty said. “Get the boy in the boat. You,” she said to the man, “stay where I can see you.”

  “I have a name,” he interjected. “It’s Thomas.”

  “Well, Thomas,” Hetty said. “Stay put.”

  Gunfire blew the bark off the top of a tree, followed by the telltale flare of wand light.

  In that light, Benjy and Cassius came running to meet them.

  “Go!” Benjy called out, shoving the boy forward. “Both of you get in! They’re not far behind us!”

  Thomas didn’t need telling twice. He bounded forward, shaking the boat with his efforts.

  “You got the collar off ?” Hetty asked.

  “Part of his neck, too,” Benjy said with a grimace, handing her his bag of tools. “Those things are tricky.”

  “I’ll make sure he doesn’t die too.” Penelope appeared at Hetty’s elbow.

  With her help, Hetty brought the stumbling Cassius into the boat, then jumped in herself. She held out her hand to Benjy.

  He stepped back.

  “I’m going to lead them in a circle, get them off our trail.” He held up the broken pieces of the collar. “Or they’ll be waiting for us.”

  “That’s a terrible plan.”

  “I know.” Benjy shoved the boat into the river. “You know where to meet me.”

  “I’m not waiting for you,” Hetty called. “I’ll be gone at dawn!”

  If he heard her, Benjy didn’t show it.

  He was already running along the muddy banks even as something bright whizzed through the trees.

  In that flare of light, Hetty saw men astride horseback with flaming torches. The ones not firing guns spat out curses that blew chunks of earth into the air.

  Hetty yanked the scarf off and ran her fingers along the fabric’s stitching. At her touch, Pegasus escaped. It flew at their pursuers on the riverbank, bringing with it a rush of wind as it went in a direction opposite where Benjy had fled.

  Yelling split the group apart, as some went east and others west.

  “Are you all still alive?” Hetty called back into the boat.

  “Mostly,” Penelope said as she tended to the brothers. But her simple answer was overshadowed by a gasp.

  “You’re a woman!” Thomas stammered, pointing at Hetty as if this was the most remarkable thing he’d seen all night. “But how—”

  “Spells sewn into the cloth to mask my voice,” Hetty said, retying the scarf around her neck. Hetty tilted her head backwards, studying the stars and trying not to look at the coast. “We have other worries. Pick up an oar—we need to row to shore while we still got cover.”

  “Or you’ll shoot me?”

  “You’re not worth wasting a bullet on.”

  Thomas and Penelope took turns rowing with Hetty, neither complaining as she steered them along the river. There were some complaints when they banked near some shrubbery and left the boat behind for the hard-packed road. Low grumbles about how they should stay in the boat the whole way.

  Hetty ignored her charges, and in tim
e they grew quiet once more.

  Their detour had taken them a roundabout way that diverted them from their destination, but thankfully not too far. Once they got back on the road, it wasn’t too long before she spotted familiar landmarks. Her stride became more purposeful as she grew confident that her path went to safety instead of danger.

  Pushing through the brush and bramble, she spotted the doctor’s house, set back some distance from the road. A light in the attic window danced like the rest of the stars in the sky. The sight the first good thing she’d seen all night.

  Hetty went up to the back door and knocked once, and then twice.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Sparrow with four.”

  The door opened, and light framed the only person who could help them that night.

  “You’re early,” Oliver grumbled.

  “Plans change.”

  “I see that.” Oliver opened the door to let them in. “Where’s Finch?”

  “He’ll be here. We leave at dawn.”

  “Dr. Gardner is out delivering a baby, so you can stay up here instead of the cellar. I’ll bring up some spare clothes.”

  Oliver peered at the others. His eyes moved from the injured brothers to Penelope and then lingered on Thomas. His frown deepened. “You said three in your last message.”

  “Plans change,” Hetty repeated. “This one was hiding in the safe house.”

  “Smart move if he meant to catch a ride going north,” Oliver said. “But I think he was planning to hide until the president makes good on his threat to free slaves.”

  “Is that what you plan as well?” Thomas shot back.

  Oliver coolly turned his way. “At least I’m doing some good. Have you helped any of the people that came through there, or did you just stay hidden the whole time? Don’t say you helped tonight,” Oliver said. “You’re only here because you’re riding with good people.” Thomas staggered backwards, but Oliver was sniffing about for a kill. “Are you the reason we’re one conductor short?”