by Marino, Andy
Samuel sat dumbly at his desk, gaping at the drawing. He had a brief, horrible vision of the Dakota compound in flames, his men rushing from their barracks in shirtsleeves to fling buckets of water at the inferno as it engulfed the—
“Mr. Dakota, sir!”
Samuel placed the bottle and the note into a drawer and slid it closed. “Come in!”
One of his assistants cracked open the door. The tip of a long nose poked inside. “General Grant’s asking for you, sir.”
Samuel sighed. “Thank you.”
The nose withdrew.
Samuel strode across the low-cut grass of the testing ground toward a small white tent. General Ulysses S. Grant had arrived this morning to field-test the new flying weapons against Stonewall Jackson, the Confederate general whose army was camped a few miles away at the edge of the Shenandoah Valley. Through the half-open barn door of the main hangar, Samuel could see his chief builder performing final inspections on the eighteen sky-canoes they’d managed to churn out in frantic anticipation of Grant’s arrival. Each canoe was fully steerable, thanks to Pembroke’s billowy sailcloth oars that locked in place on either side like oversized lawn-tennis rackets.
Samuel had spent much of the past week aloft, paddling through patches of dead air to find the gusty space where he could lock the oars and let the sails harness the wind. At first he’d been hesitant to ride the stronger currents, but after a few more test flights, he began to crave the sudden stomach-flipping glide when the ship dropped from stillness into a powerful airstream. He began to imagine that he could actually see the currents winding through the empty skies, like shimmering paths to new worlds. Samuel Dakota lost himself in these happy moments. He even managed to forget that the true purpose of his joyful experiment was to make Lincoln’s Northern war machine all but unstoppable. General Grant’s arrival was an abrupt reminder, like waking from a delicious strawberry-rhubarb dream to find himself once again camped out in the mud.
He stood at attention just outside the flap of the tent, waiting for his invitation from the general, who was sitting with his two aides at a small table strewn with maps and a bottle of bourbon. When one of the aides cleared his throat and said, “General, Mr. Dakota for you,” Grant looked up and waved his hand dismissively at Samuel’s upright military posture.
“At ease, beetle man. I don’t much care for formality.” Grant paused to sip from his glass. “Make yourself at home.”
Samuel stepped inside. Grant flicked his wrist idly in the direction of the tent flap.
“Give us a moment, gentlemen.”
The two aides left without a word. Samuel sat down at the table.
Grant cleared his throat and spit in the grass next to his chair. “I understand you have the magic moonshine distilleries here, Dakota.”
“That’s right, sir. If you like, I can have a sample brought over for you.” He noted the dark hollows around Grant’s eyes, as if they’d been shaded with charcoal. The general was clearly exhausted, or drunk, or both. Even his beard looked droopy and tired.
“I drink bourbon,” Grant said, and for a long time, neither man said anything. Eventually, Grant drained his glass and refilled it, and with a startled grunt filled an empty glass and slid it across the table to Samuel.
“Where are my manners? There you go.”
“Thank you, sir.” Samuel took a tentative sip, wishing desperately to be alone in the sky.
“What do you think of all this…” Grant made a circle with his forefinger over the topmost map, a mess of squiggles and jagged lines pockmarked with blue and gray dots. “All this … war?”
“Well.” Samuel considered for a moment. “I suppose I want it to end as soon as possible.” General Grant raised an eyebrow. “With a victory for the forces of emancipation and reunification, of course,” he added hastily.
“As do I, Dakota. As do I. But have you given any thought to what an ending means?”
“I’m sorry, sir—I’m not sure I understand the question.”
“What will you do after the war?”
“Well, hopefully Dakota Aeronautics will expand…” Samuel thought off the top of his head. “Maybe into, I don’t know, commercial transportation.” It was a good idea. The war had already displaced millions of people. The postwar travel industry could be a gold mine. Proud of himself for thinking of a new business plan on the spot, Samuel smiled. Grant drained his glass once again and let it slam down upon the table. His next words came out thick and muffled.
“And then there’s the question of my own what’s next, which I’m having to ponder much sooner than I expected, thanks to you and kindly old Mr. Gatling over here.” He jerked his thumb at what seemed to be a blanket tossed over a large telescope.
“I’m sorry,” Samuel said. “Mr. Gatling?”
“Yep,” Grant said sharply. “Brought down Gatling and fifty of his brothers to arm your flying machines. You did build fifty, yes?”
“Er … we got very close.”
Without leaving his chair, Grant whisked away the blanket.
The telescope was a gun with a barrel the size of a small artillery piece mounted on an axis between two wheels. It looked like a miniature cannon. Samuel had heard of Mr. Gatling’s fearsome spinning crank gun, but had never seen one up close. He imagined a terrified Confederate soldier crouched in a ditch, staring up in disbelief as rapid-fire death rained down from a fleet of flying canoes. For a paralyzing second, Samuel felt the imaginary soldier’s fear as if it were his own.
What have I done?
The answer, he knew, was that he had changed the world, and there would be no going back and canceling what he had created. He had made good on his promise to President Lincoln and created a weapon to destroy the Confederacy. He should have been deeply satisfied. But now, sitting next to the huge gun in the pungent haze of General Grant’s bourbon breath, his achievement seemed cruel and sad.
Grant read the look on his face.
“What did you think we were planning to do once we were up in your air boats, Dakota? Pelt the rebels with pebbles?”
The general fell into a sort of halfhearted laughing fit. Samuel stared at his glass and suddenly felt very ill.
“The attack begins tomorrow morning at 0500 hours,” Grant said. “That should give you enough time to choose your flagship and perform final inspections. And may I suggest quoting some mighty-sounding hogwash in your speech to the pilots before the launch?” He nodded in the direction of his aides, who were waiting outside the tent. “They can find you some Tennyson or something.”
“Speech.” Samuel sounded out the word as if he were learning it for the first time. “To the pilots?” He looked stupidly at Grant, then all at once he understood. He shook his head, finding his voice. “With all due respect, General Grant—”
“Save it, Dakota; my mind’s made up. They tell me you spend most of your time in the sky. Who better to lead the attack?”
Samuel swallowed the lump forming in his throat. He thought quickly. “Someone with command experience. An officer. I’m just a civilian.”
“You haven’t been discharged from your duty as a soldier.”
Samuel was incredulous. “My duty? I’m … I was just a private. I slept in the mud.”
“Congratulations,” Grant said with a grim smile. “You’ve just been promoted.”
“To what?”
Grant ran a finger along the ragged corner of a map and thought for a moment. Then he stood up and assumed a formal pose with his chest puffed out. Samuel noticed for the first time that the general was wearing a long sword attached to his belt.
“Gentlemen!” he called to his aides, who hurried back inside the tent. “I’m pleased to introduce the commander of the Union Air Cavalry, Sky Captain Samuel Dakota.”
15
“THIS SHOULD DO YOU just fine,” Maggie said as she slid a piece of loose wood away from a rough-hewn hole in the wall.
“Thanks,” Delia said, rummaging in her bag and handi
ng over the Cosgrove Immobilizer, which Maggie hefted expertly, sighting down the barrel with her good eye. This girl has fired guns before, Hollis thought. Maggie nodded good-bye at Delia and turned to make her way back down the half tunnel.
“Been a pleasure, Maggie,” Hollis called after her.
“Piss up a rope,” she called back before disappearing around the corner.
“Here.” Delia handed Hollis a handkerchief. “You still got…”
Hollis wiped flakes of dry, crusty blood away from his lips. He pictured the back of Rob Castor’s head climbing up onto the catwalk, getting smaller and smaller, disappearing from his life forever. He felt like he was driving people away simply because he was born a Dakota.
“You know what happened at the launch?” Hollis asked as he wiped away the last of the blood. “I did the christening, with the dirt and everything.”
Delia shook her head. “I was already belowdecks.”
“Yeah, well, I screwed up.”
Delia laughed. “Doesn’t matter. It’s just a dumb ceremony.”
“But what if it does matter?” Hollis asked. “What if I caused all this?” As crazy as it sounded when he said it out loud, it felt good to tell someone. Maybe that was the true nature of a curse: secrecy gave it power.
“There’s nothing you can do about it now,” Delia said, “except try to put it right, which is what we’re doing anyway. But listen, about setting you up like that…” She hesitated.
Hollis’s eyes went to a dark knot in the board over Delia’s shoulder. “I get why you wanted me to see it down here. I do. It’s not lost on me, okay?” He wasn’t ready for a face-to-face conversation about something he would need a long time to sort out. “But I can’t do anything about it at the moment.”
“Please look at me. I’m trying to apologize.”
“I accept your apology. I just don’t want to talk about this right now.”
“You’re going to run things someday, HD.”
She was using her logical problem-solving voice. Its matter-of-fact tone made Hollis want to scream.
“Delia,” he said as calmly as possible, finally meeting her eyes, “if Jefferson Castor goes through with this, if we let him take the ship, there will be nothing left for me to run. No steerage-class accommodations for me to improve. Surely the smartest girl at St. Theresa’s Industrial School can grasp that.”
Her stone-faced gaze was fixed on Hollis.
“I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “I didn’t mean to say that. What is an industrial school, anyway?”
“We should get going.”
“Is that where you learned electronics?” She didn’t answer. “So what, then? What happened to you that you can’t talk about?” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I didn’t mean that, either. I don’t know what’s wrong with me right now.”
Delia spoke as if she were gradually easing her thoughts into words and didn’t want to get them wrong. “If you were anybody else … I mean, if you were still you, still Hollis, but just not Hollis Dakota … well. Dakota Aeronautics is you, and you’re Dakota Aeronautics, and there’s no way around it. It’s all tied up together. Like I said, you’re going to run this place one day. You’ll be my boss.”
“Why don’t you just come out and say that you don’t trust me?”
“Why don’t you take me to Sunday dinner at Il Bambino’s? Why haven’t you ever had me over for tea in your stateroom? Because there are parts of your life that can’t involve me. I accept that. And I’m just asking you to understand that it works both ways.”
It occurred to Hollis that he already had what he needed: the name of her old school. When this was all over, he could make inquiries and find out everything he wanted to know. He was sure that Delia had already realized this. Maybe this was her way of asking him not to do it.
“You know,” he said, “I could bring you something from Il Bambino’s if you want to try it. I don’t recommend the rabbit.”
Delia rolled her eyes. “Come on, Hollis.” She grabbed his arm and began pulling him into the dark passageway beyond the hole in the wall.
“Okay, okay, just promise me one thing,” Hollis said, thinking of Rob’s parting words and nearly losing his grip on whatever emotional blockade was holding back a flood of tears. “Promise me we’ll stay friends, whatever happens.”
She let go of his arm briefly, but only so she could take his hand and give it a squeeze. He swallowed hard and felt the stinging ache from his throat to his nasal cavity that meant the dam was as good as broken. He distracted himself with a quick mental list of things he would rather do than cry in front of Delia, like eat a bowl of minced glass or hammer his front teeth out. Then tears leaked out anyway. There was nothing he could do about it. He let her lead him through the passage.
Once they rounded a bend and the hole in the wall finally disappeared behind them, Hollis lost track of his own feet. Delia didn’t try to say anything to make him feel better, and for that he was grateful. When he’d recovered enough to speak, he kept his voice to a whisper.
“You got a lantern in that bag?”
“I got the second Cosgrove Immobilizer, the sky map, some linseed oil, a few pencils, Rob’s smelling salts, and a little bit of salted pork jerky. And some other stuff, probably.”
Hollis’s mouth watered at the thought of spicy, smoked meat. “I wouldn’t say no to a piece of that jerky.”
A thumping noise up ahead made him hush. Together they waited, silent and still, listening to muffled voices in the dark.
Eventually they crept forward on tiptoe, feeling their way along the unsanded wall with their fingertips, barely skimming the surface of the wood to avoid getting handfuls of splinters. The passageway turned sharply and ended at the bottom of a crude staircase. Dim light floated down from the top, along with the voices. Hollis nudged Delia and held up two fingers that were barely visible in the gloom.
Delia listened for a moment, then shook her head and held up three fingers: three men at the top of the stairs. She reached into her bag and pulled out the second immobilizer and the bag of salted pork. Then she rummaged quietly at the very bottom of the bag where the odds and ends lived, producing a novelty three-dollar bill, a metal ring overcrowded with keys, and a bag of marbles. Hollis motioned for the marbles and very gently took them from her hand. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to do next—maybe fling them up at the men to create a distraction? Then Delia leaned so close that her mouth brushed against his ear. With a whisper as soft as a shallow breath, she told him to set them along the bottom steps and get out of the way. Hollis got to work. Delia brandished the immobilizer and melted into the shadows alongside the staircase. Marbles in place, Hollis cupped his hands around the sides of his mouth and made a loud, ghostly WOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. It sounded exactly like an invitation to a ridiculous trap. He winced.
Someone muttered, “Damn steerage rats,” before heavy feet clomped down the stairs. Hollis pressed back against the wall opposite Delia and waited, heart pounding. The first man fell sideways as marbles skittered everywhere, sounding like a thousand rather than the handful Hollis had placed. The second man pitched forward, tripped by his companion. Before either man could right himself, Delia sprang from the shadows and gave them both a jolt of jagged lightning. They lay crumpled in a heap at the bottom of the steps while Hollis and Delia, breathing hard, glanced nervously at each other.
Where was the third man? The marbles had scattered to new places and stopped. The passage was silent once again. Hollis and Delia climbed over their unconscious victims and hurried up the stairs, which brightened as they ascended. At the top, a flickering lantern hung on the wall next to a door marked CENT COMM. The air was thick with the smell of lamp oil and sawdust.
“See?” Hollis pointed to the sign. “I knew exactly where we were going.”
He pushed open the door, and the fine hairs on the back of his neck started to prickle. He turned in time to see a squat, bullet-headed man lock a meaty forear
m around Delia’s neck and lift her up off her feet.
“Oopsy-daisy,” the big man said.
Delia let out a strangled yelp as he tightened his chokehold.
16
THE ELEVATOR to the command post at the top of the main prop tower was a rattling metal box. There was barely enough room for Rob and his three escorts, and they stood silently, pressed against each other like toy soldiers in a tin. The limited air was humid with whiskey breath and sweat.
“If you’re lying—” warned one of the men.
“I’m not lying, you dunce,” Rob said for the hundredth time. His captors were reluctant to bother Jefferson Castor with the ravings of a crazy—though remarkably well dressed—third-class kid. But they seemed at least a tiny bit scared that he might be telling the truth, which was enough for them to escort him to his father, who was supervising something in the prop tower. What, his captors wouldn’t say. They were also frustratingly mum on the subject of who they were and why they were on the ship, despite being half drunk and annoyingly forthcoming about Alabama women and a host of other subjects.
The elevator bumped to an abrupt halt. A guard with a pockmarked face pulled a lever. The door slid open to reveal a metal grate. He pulled another lever, the grate clattered up, and the men pushed Rob out into the command post. The air wasn’t exactly clean, but the metallic tang of combustion was preferable to the gamy stink of the guards. In the hollow of the tower beneath his feet, the great motor churned, spinning the main propeller with the kind of turbine-driven force that disintegrated unlucky birds on impact and dragged the enormous airship through the sky. Rob was no math genius, but he figured this propeller to be roughly a gazillion times the size of the chocolate replica he’d been solely blamed for stealing (despite the abundance of melted evidence on Hollis’s face and clothing). Here in the command post, cutting-edge soundproofing dampened the operational noise. Only the dense baritone whoosh of the rotation vibrated through the steel-reinforced walls.
