The Colonel nodded, true.
“He,” drawled Carter. “Singular. If this missive were truly from General Lee, which it is not, would it not make reference to two boys? After all, there are two boys here.”
“That’s so.” The Colonel nodded.
Miri looked helplessly at Molly. What were they to do? But Molly’s eyes only reflected her own desperation.
And then Ray spoke. “Hello? Look at us. We’re identical,” he said casually. “That’s the whole point.”
Miri saw Robbie’s eyes flicker to Ray’s. Then he said, “Yeah. We’re interchangeable. That’s why he picked us. Even if we are thirteen.”
Miri stared at them in astonishment. They were brilliant.
“That doesn’t explain a thing!” cried Carter. “There’s still two of them and one pass!”
Ray looked at him calmly. “One of us is supposed to get caught. And then—well, that’s the secret part. And you know, pal, we’re actually supposed to be somewhere else right now.”
“Yeah,” Robbie said, shaking his head. “The general is not going to be happy about this.” He pointed to the gash on his head. “Or this. Now they can tell the difference between us.”
“What a screwup,” Ray sighed.
“Not our fault,” Robbie said. He jerked his head in Carter’s direction. “His fault.”
Carter looked uneasily between them. “Nonsense. Lies.”
There was a pause. Miri held her breath.
The Colonel plucked at his shirt collar for a few moments, finally bursting out, “I do wish you’d managed to keep those prisoners alive yesterday, Carter. If they hadn’t died in your care, I’d never have needed replacements. And it looks like you’ve caused us a peck of trouble in finding them. I’ll write my apologies to General Lee, but you’ve made a serious blunder and dishonored all of us by it.”
He believed them! The four children exchanged lightning-quick glances of joy.
Carter tried to regain his lost advantage. “Now, sir,” he said with a wink, “wouldn’t you say it’s something of a stretcher, these small fry playing a big game for the Command? Look at ’em—”
“Silence! It’s not for you to question the workings of your betters,” snapped the Colonel. He turned to the boys, and Miri gave a small, involuntary bounce on her toes as he handed the safe-conduct to Ray. They’d done it! They were safe! They were free! But the Colonel was speaking, “Please accept my apologies and proceed under your orders from General Lee. I’ll write to him at once to explain the cause”—he glared at Carter—“of your tardiness.”
“Okay,” said Ray. Robbie inclined his head graciously.
“And you, young ladies,” said the Colonel, nodding to Molly and Miri, “your service to the Cause will not go unnoticed in my letter. Accept the humble thanks of the Confederacy for your swift and loyal action.”
Eww. Miri didn’t want to accept the thanks of the Confederacy. The Confederacy stank. They were the bad guys. The slave owners. Boo! She was tempted to yell something like “Long Live the United States!” or “Hooray for Abraham Lincoln!” Maybe she should start singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” But she couldn’t. They’d lose everything they’d just won, including Robbie and Ray. No, she had to be strategic and mature and controlled. It was hard. It felt wrong. Shouldn’t she do something for the side of right and justice? Here she was, in the middle of the Civil War, a time-traveler! She should do something good and brave and wonderful and patriotic. Wasn’t magic for setting things right?
Ray and Robbie gave the Colonel something that looked vaguely like a salute. “So long!” said Ray.
The Colonel nodded, dismissing them.
Molly renewed her innocent-little-girl smile. “I guess we’ll be going now,” she said, taking a step toward the door.
Miri stood frozen where she was. If she didn’t do something good and brave and patriotic, she didn’t deserve to have magic happen to her.
“I guess we’ll be going now,” Molly repeated, looking at her sister.
It would be setting something right, no doubt about that. It might save someone’s life.
“Miri!” whispered Molly.
Miri ignored her. “Sir,” she said. The Colonel raised his eyes. “Sir, you should know, the prisoners yesterday didn’t die.” She didn’t dare look at Carter as she said it. She’d get too scared. “We saw it all. Carter let them go in exchange for three hundred dollars in gold.” She left Hern out of it. He’d saved her life. Or at least not ended it. “Those men you fought yesterday were guards. Railroad guards. The two wounded guys had a lot of money, in gold, and Carter took it and let them go. I bet he’s got it hidden here somewhere.” Miri waved her hand at the room.
“Colonel!” Carter exploded. “This wretched brat has gone too far—”
But the Colonel cut him off. “Charlie.”
“Yessir.” Charlie, Miri saw, had eased a pistol out of some pocket or other and was now pointing it at Carter. “Just you hold still, Nick,” he advised. As his eyes circled the bedroom, he began to speak softly, “And now’s when you ask yourself, if I was Nick Carter, where’d I hide gold eagles? And you answer yourself pretty easy, ’cause Nick Carter, he don’t just think he’s smart.” Charlie moved toward the dresser. “Nick thinks everyone else is dumb.” He reached for a small chest sitting atop the dresser and flipped it open. “If he had any sense, he’d a hid it,” he said calmly. “But Nick here is so smart he’s stupid.” Charlie pulled a leather pouch from the chest. “He thinks no one but him has any brains atall. Especially if they don’t talk fancy.” He shook the pouch open with one hand, and ten gold coins rolled out. “Aw, Nick. You’d sell your own mother, wouldn’t you? There’s a hundred.” He picked one up and looked at it carefully. “United States of America. 1864. Eagle.” He flipped it at the Colonel, who caught it easily and inspected it.
“That proves nothing!” gasped Carter. “Lies! All of it! I won those eagles, fair and square, in a game of chance! This was no prisoner’s gold! The girl is in the pay of the enemy, don’t you see it? She’s lying through her teeth, devil take her, and I’ll—”
“Quiet!” roared the Colonel. It was the loudest sound Miri had ever heard him make, and it silenced the room. There was a long pause. Finally, the Colonel spoke: “Once again, and for the last time, you’ve gone too far.” He glared bitterly at Carter. “As if it weren’t enough, fighting Northerners. Is it too much to ask that you should not make war on your own country? No, it’s insupportable. You are herewith discharged from the Forty-Third Virginia Cavalry. Dishonorably.”
Carter’s face flushed dark. “Sir, you can’t do that—”
The Colonel cut him off. “You shall take the place of your prisoners, Carter. Count yourself lucky that I don’t require you to take their place in the noose tomorrow morning.”
Carter drew himself up. “You do me an insult I will not bear—”
There was a click that Miri realized came from Charlie’s pistol.
“Charlie, please accompany Carter to the brig. Tell Williams, with my compliments, that I present him with a prisoner to replace the two I took.”
Carter stared at the Colonel in disbelief. “How can this be? I’m to be ruined on the word of a child?”
“Looks like it!” called Miri gleefully.
“Boom-roasted!” agreed Ray.
The Colonel reproved them with a look and turned to Carter. “Out of the mouths of babes hast thou ordained strength, that thou might still the enemy and the avenger,” he recited.
Carter glared furiously at the children and stalked out the door. Charlie followed him, an enormous grin under his black mustache.
Silence fell over the room. Miri could hear a clock ticking in the hallway. After a moment, Molly set the basket of eggs on the rug. “You can have the eggs,” she whispered.
The Colonel sighed. “Thank you, miss.” He glanced down at his hand. “Never let it be said that the Rangers plunder the honest citizens of Virginia.” He
held out the gold coin. “Payment for ten eggs.”
Molly took it. “Thank you.”
“The pleasure is mine.” He ran his hand through his thin hair. “Dismissed.”
The four children backed quickly out of the room, trying not to run. In the gloomy hall, they raced for the stairs—what if he changed his mind?—and scuttled down, slipping past the roomful of now-sleepy soldiers, scooping up the energy bars, and decamping as quickly as they could. Only when they reached the lawn, pale in the moonlight, did they allow themselves to pause and stare at one another in amazement.
At last, Molly spoke. “I can’t believe you guys.”
“You were incredible,” Miri said. “You were geniuses.”
“Yeah.” Ray nodded.
“How’d you figure out what was going on?” asked Molly. “About the safe-conduct and everything.”
They gave her blank looks. “We just did.”
“And then the thing about how being identical was part of the plan.” Miri turned to Robbie. “It was like you were reading Ray’s mind.”
He shrugged.
“Were you?” she pressed.
Her brothers’ eyes met and veered apart. “None of your beeswax,” said Robbie.
Ray looked at the energy bars in Molly’s hand. “Gimme some of those.”
“Why didn’t you bring more?” demanded Robbie. “I’m, like, about to die of starvation.”
Miri and Molly rolled their eyes. So much for geniuses. Back to their regularly scheduled brothers. “At least you’re not dying of hanging,” Molly reminded them.
Neither brother replied, but as they walked across the moonlit grass, Miri felt Ray’s hand pat her lightly on the head. And while he was shoving her to get another energy bar from her pocket, Robbie squeezed her arm. “What?” she asked, looking up.
“You know,” he muttered.
“I know what?”
“You know, thanks.”
She reached out to hug him. “Ew, girl cooties,” he said, batting her away.
Chapter 17
On the dirt road leading away from Paxton, the four children tried to walk in a purposeful, soldier-like way, but the boys, loopy with freedom, dizzy with relief, and restored by energy bars, soon began to run. “Let’s get out of here!” urged Ray, galloping forward. “This place gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
“No!” Molly called. “Stop it! You’ve got to act military. Disciplined and serious.”
They groaned, but they also stopped running. Robbie straightened, glanced at Molly, and tried to match his pace with hers. Ray fell into step beside Miri. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll be disciplined and serious, but you’ve got to tell us what the heck is going on here.”
So they did. They told about the house and the window and the battle and Jamie and his uncle and Carter and the gold. They talked for so long and the boys asked so many questions that they were halfway through the woods by the time they were finished.
“But wait. I don’t get who’s in charge,” said Robbie, interrupting for approximately the twentieth time. “I thought it was the Colonel.”
“The Colonel’s in charge of his regiment or battalion or whatever it is,” Molly explained, “but General Lee is his boss. General Lee’s in charge of the whole Confederate army.”
“So they’re bad guys?” Ray asked. “The Colonel’s a bad guy?”
“Of course he is!” Molly said. “He’s fighting for the South, isn’t he? They’re for slavery.”
“But the Colonel seemed okay. And that guy Charlie didn’t like Carter any better than we did.” Ray frowned, confused.
Miri stopped in her tracks. “The Colonel was the one who wanted to hang you, not Carter,” she reminded him. “But he’s not bad. Just ’cause they’re fighting for something bad doesn’t mean they’re bad. Not all of them and not about everything. They’re just people.”
The boys contemplated this. “Huh,” Robbie grunted.
Ray spoke up. “Where’d you get the safe-conduct?”
Miri glanced at Molly. “We know someone who had it. She gave it to us.” The boys couldn’t know everything, and most especially they couldn’t know the secret of Molly’s past.
To change the subject, Molly leaped atop a rock. “You know, you guys have to give us anything we want, forever, because we saved your lives!”
The day before, Ray would have argued, pushed her off the rock, declared himself king. But now, he just smiled. “I can deal with that.”
“Yep,” Robbie agreed. And they walked on.
The woods had lost their creepiness. The creaks and sighs of the earlier journey were gone—or drowned out by the boys—and now that the moon had risen, its blue light gleamed occasionally between branches. Every once in a while, Miri’s hair snagged on a leaf, but it didn’t hurt much. She’d stop to uncoil it and gaze at the silvery glints of the creek. They had done it, she thought proudly. Ray and Robbie weren’t going to get hanged in the morning. Molly was still in the Gill family. Maudie and Pat Gardner were in love. And Carter was in jail, chained to a boulder, she hoped. He wouldn’t be able to shoot anyone, beat anyone up, or steal from anyone for a good, long time. I did that, Miri congratulated herself.
She dawdled a little on the dark path, thinking about magic, thinking about her place in it. Maybe she wasn’t as quick-thinking as Molly, or as practical, but she’d done all right. And, she reminded herself, her drifting mind had actually been useful. She had drifted her way into remembering Flo and the safe-conduct, for instance. …
“Miri! Hurry up!” came Molly’s voice from somewhere ahead.
“Wait! Wait for me!” she yelled, bursting into a run.
And there they were, Robbie, Ray, and Molly, lined up at the edge of what would be, a hundred and fifty years later, the far corner of their front yard. Up ahead, the small, mangled silhouette of the house was black against the blue night sky. A few crickety chirps sounded.
Robbie peered at the house. “What happened to it?”
“It got shelled,” Molly said. “And it’s smaller. But the door’s the same, and that’s the part we need.”
“We did it,” said Miri thankfully. “We’re home.”
Ray grinned at her in the pale moonlight. “Last one there—”
“Is a goober-butt!” sang Robbie, shooting off through the grass.
Miri dashed forward—home, home, home—but of course, they were all faster than she was. She didn’t care—home, home, home—Molly and her brothers were already on the porch waiting for her. They weren’t even calling her a loser for being last. That’s nice of them, she thought, racing to the stairs. We’ll all go in and face Mom together. Whatever the punishment is, at least we’ll be together and—
“And here I was beginning to think I’d never see you again!”
In the shadows of the front porch, a figure was reclining against the door, long legs stretched out before him.
“The last little duckling makes an arrival, returning home after a long day of dispensing justice. Tired but happy.”
It was Carter.
“No,” Miri said, frozen at the bottom of the stairs.
“Oh yes. It’s me,” he said. “Restored to liberty. Risen from the tomb.”
“But you’re in jail,” said Miri blankly. This couldn’t be. The magic wouldn’t allow it. They had done everything they were supposed to do. Robbie and Ray. Molly. Maudie and Pat. They had set things right. Carter wasn’t allowed to ruin what they’d done. “I saw Charlie take you away.”
“Charlie’s a fool,” Carter said, rising to his feet in one smooth movement. “But he’s not such a fool that he’s going to die if he doesn’t have to. And he was generous enough to provide me—after some persuasion—with a horse and his very own pistol. Loaded.” He lifted it until she could see it glinting in the moonlight. “Get up here.”
Miri’s heart began to thump in her chest. She joined Molly and her brothers on the porch.
“So you’re going to shoot us?�
�� said Ray after a minute.
“Yes, you nit, I’m going to shoot you,” hissed Carter. “But not quite yet. Eventually. It took you grubs a long time to get here, and I had plentiful leisure to imagine your lingering and painful ends. I have great plans for each of you. …”
He talked on, but Miri stopped listening. Her heart was pounding in her throat. My poor heart, she thought sympathetically. It’s had a hard day. A hard week. I’ve been scared so many times this past week. I’m tired of being scared.
She watched Carter’s mouth move. Something about how she had tarnished his honor. Whatever. Her mind was drifting—which, she told herself, was not a bad idea under the circumstances. She wished her body could follow. She would drift through the front door.
“… maggots, gorging on the corpse of the Carter name …”
What was he gabbing about? She didn’t know, so she looked, instead, at his narrow yellow eyes. She’d never seen anyone with yellow eyes before. Like a cat. She wondered if he could see in the dark.
“… and you dared to play the innocent—you!” he went on angrily. “You, a spying mudsill, and to have my reputation fouled by the likes of such a—”
With calm surprise, Miri realized that she was not actually feeling fear. Her fear seemed to have moved a few feet away from her. Maybe she had been so frightened for so long that she was hardened to it. She felt light and free. Can’t scare me, she said silently to Carter, even if you are about to shoot me. She glanced over her shoulder at Molly and Ray and Robbie and hoped that fear had left them, too.
Carter bent over her, his face twisted with anger. “… and you will be the last to go, you devil, because I’ll have you see the damage your wicked tongue has wrought.”
He hates me so much, he’s gone a little crazy, she thought, watching him. His face in the moonlight looked dark, almost purple, and little pieces of spit flew from his mouth as he thundered at her. He hates me so much he can’t even think, she realized. He can’t concentrate on anything but hating me.
A fleck of spit landed on Miri’s arm. Revolted, she quickly rubbed it off and took a tiny step sideways to avoid more. Carter, without noticing, did the same.
Magic in the Mix Page 15
