Jessie's War (Civil War Steam)

by Connors, Meggan

  Whitfield’s eyes shifted from her to the door and back again. “Until we get the order telling us where to take you. This was supposed to be a simple questioning, with the possibility for retrieval. But with Agent Bradshaw’s gram from Fort Clark, the whole mission got knocked into a cocked hat. Higher ups all atwitter about how one little woman could cause so much trouble, and with the shelling of Virginia City, they’re not taking chances. So it could be a day. Could be a month. I’m really hoping it’s sooner rather than later.”

  She took that to mean he was bored, too. Good, she could use bored to her advantage. “Where is he?”

  His eyes clouded for a moment before he graced her with an insouciant grin. “Don’t have any idea who you’re talking about.”

  “Sure you do. The man who brought me here.”

  “To the house?” he asked.

  She rolled her eyes at his deliberate misunderstanding.

  He caught her and grinned again.

  “Can’t you tell me if he’s well?” she asked.

  Whitfield looked at the door again. “He’s fine. His disposition is as surly as ever. He’s awake and growling, last I heard.”

  Relief nearly overwhelmed her, and she fought the urge to sag against the couch. “Will you take me to him?”

  “You already know the answer to that.”

  “But I’m his wife.” She folded her arms, as if she could keep her heart from bursting free of the confines of her chest. Her voice wavered with tears she refused to shed.

  Whitfield’s easy laughter filled the room. “Now I know you’re lying, honey. He ain’t got no wife.”

  “Why would I lie?”

  He stood up and crossed the room, moved aside the heavy curtains and peeked out the front windows. “Ain’t got no idea,” he said, and there was something affected about his speech, something that struck her as false, like a rich boy pretending to be a Wild West cowboy in the papers. Tales of daring, of heroes on horseback, and the women brave enough to love them.

  The miners used to pay Gideon, Luke, and Jessie a penny to read them. Everyone wanted to listen to those stories, if only because there weren’t any heroes left in Virginia City. All their heroes went to war and died there.

  Jessie’s had, anyway.

  “Please,” she whispered. “He’ll want to see me. Take me.”

  Whitfield dropped the curtain back into place. “I would, but I can’t,” he said. “Look, I’m not even supposed to talk to you—I’m told you’re trouble, and, if the last few days are any indication, they’re right. Go back to your room, now. Get.”

  “It’s git, with an i,” she said.

  Whitfield’s eyes lit up. “Thanks. No one ever corrects me.” He grinned again, and something in the way he rounded his vowels sounded vaguely British. He looked her up and down for a moment. “You know, I always wanted to meet a real live Indian.”

  Jessie laughed. He obviously hadn’t been out West long. “Well, I’m here now. You let me stay out here, and I’ll make you breakfast. You can ask me anything you want.”

  Whitfield made a face as he considered her offer. He gave her a truncated nod. “But no funny business. We clear?”

  “Absolutely.” She moved into the kitchen, found a cast-iron frying pan, and lit the stove. There were no knives to speak of, other than a dull butter knife, nothing she could use as a weapon save the knife hidden in her skirt. Though, honestly, she didn’t want to hurt Whitfield. A part of her even liked him.

  She put some butter in the pan and cracked a few eggs.

  He leaned against the doorjamb. “So, what tribe are you from?”

  “I speak Bannock, Paviotso, and Paiute. Shoshone, too. I can probably understand Comanche if I try hard enough. The languages are all related.”

  “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.

  Chapter Eighteen

  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 s
everal 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?”

  Jessie sighed, but even she could tell Elizabeth had no intention of harming her—not unless she thought Jessie deserved it, anyway. “Fine. Tell me something only Luke would know.”

  “Well, he was pretty put out when he found out you weren’t in the house with him,” she offered.

  “Anyone could guess that.”

  “He said he knew you a long time ago.”

  “That’s not much of a secret in my hometown. Doesn’t take a spy and a saboteur to figure that out.”

  “Oh, is that how we’re described? Splendid.” Elizabeth grinned, as if she thought the label was a compliment. “He says you’re married.” At these words, she appraised Jessie with her eyes. “Married by a shaman, even. My brother will be fascinated.”

  “I said as much to the men at the house. Try again.”

  “Oh, all right,” Elizabeth groaned. “He said you wouldn’t believe any of that. He said to tell you he heard the voices in the mine too. He said you don’t belong to them yet, so get your ass in the coach and come home.”

  Jessie started to laugh, hearing Luke in those words.

  He was alive. He was well. Nothing else mattered after that.

  Elizabeth smiled. “I do apologize for my language. But Mr. Bradshaw said I needed to say it in just such a way or you wouldn’t trust me.”

  Jessie laughed until tears ran down her face and her sides ached, and when Elizabeth led her to the coach, she climbed in without complaint. They sat together on the plush leather bench, and Jameson deposited a blanket onto her lap. Elizabeth gave her a little pat on the leg before she moved over to sit next to her husband, who put his arm around her shoulders in a way that spoke of intimacy.