Fiddlehead (The Clockwork Century)

by Priest, Cherie

  “Enough, I hope.”

  “That’s a miserable answer.”

  Wellers sighed. “Fine. It’s … a stack of sheets about a foot thick. Each one is about … I don’t know. Twenty by thirty. Lincoln said it was all Smithy could scare up on such short notice, so it’ll have to do. I’m sure it’ll cover the machine.”

  “The machine, yes. The floor above it … that remains to be seen.” He performed some rough calculations in his head, and guessed the square footage he could cover. “We can deploy the sheets and weigh them down; might be able to save a few things that way. But we won’t be able to waterproof this lower level. Rain will drain down and pool in the mechanisms. Ice or snow will be heavy, and melt. Then the water will freeze, and smash it apart from the inside.”

  “Always a ray of sunshine, aren’t you, Gideon?”

  “A very practical ray of sunshine, yes. We should start at the southwest corner,” he directed.

  “Is that where the worst of the damage is?”

  “No, it’s where the machine is. The worst of the damage is at the other end of the room, but we’re running out of time.”

  “We’ll do the best we can, and it’ll be enough,” Wellers said, insisting to himself—or maybe to Gideon, who couldn’t see him and only halfway believed him. “I’ll start unloading. Wait.”

  “What?”

  “Wait,” he said again, low and quiet, directed down the hole above Gideon’s head. Then, to someone else: “Who goes there, eh? What can I do for you fine gentlemen this … afternoon, I suppose. Though it looks rather like evening, more so every minute.”

  “That it does,” came the response. Gideon didn’t recognize the speaker. “We’re looking for Gideon Bardsley, and have reason to think he might be here.”

  Wellers hesitated, but only for the briefest of moments. “Gideon? No, he’s not here right now. He’s back at the Lincoln place, I believe.”

  “You believe wrong.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” the doctor said coolly. “What do you officers want with him? If you don’t mind my asking.”

  Officers? Policemen, Gideon assumed. Couldn’t be good. Why were they here? Could they be charging him with libel, over the editorial he’d written? He smiled darkly, thinking of the piece’s reception; he’d heard that countereditorials were being drawn up and printed up even as he stood there. He’d already read one or two. But more than rebuttals, he saw calls for action. Statements of concern. Demands for answers. And the demands were growing louder with every passing hour, much to his grim delight.

  “He’s wanted for murder.”

  Ah. Something else then. Something untrue. More untrue than libel, anyway. They weren’t supposed to convict a man who spoke the truth, not that it necessarily stopped anyone. And as for murder? Innocent men were convicted every day.

  So Douglass had been right. They were disgracing him, since they couldn’t silence him any other way. He might’ve been flattered if he didn’t feel so inconvenienced.

  Nelson Wellers replied with a similar disbelief. “Murder? You can’t be serious. Gideon never murdered anybody, and I’d very much like to see whatever evidence brings you out here to arrest him.”

  “Two witnesses have independently and confidently identified him, and the dead man himself wrote ‘GB’ in his own blood, right beside his body. Besides that, part of his laboratory coat was found at the scene—a pocket, torn off in the victim’s struggles.”

  Laboratory coat? Gideon shook his head. He almost never wore a coat in the lab, only the occasional apron or belt for his tools. To call the charges trumped up was to give them more credit than they deserved.

  “That’s preposterous!” Wellers said with exasperation. “You have no way of knowing whose coat, whose pocket…”

  But one of the policemen snapped, “The specifics are none of your concern, unless you’re giving quarter to a known fugitive. In that case, it’s absolutely your concern, because it’s evidence against you, as well. Now, where is he?”

  “I surely have no idea.”

  “According to our sources, he left the Lincoln household with you. To come here. To do … what are you doing, anyway?”

  “You don’t care, so what does it matter? You’re looking for Gideon, and I haven’t seen him. We parted company in town when we realized we didn’t have enough supplies to perform our task. You might stop by C. T. Helman’s shipping supplies.”

  “And why would we do that?”

  “Because,” Nelson said with an exaggerated note of impatience. “That’s where we got the waxed canvas over there.” He must have gestured at the cart. “And I’ll answer your other question truly and on the house: We’re trying to prevent damage to the basement level, where some very sensitive scientific equipment is presently exposed to the elements. If you take a look at the sky, you’ll see we have some elements pending. Any minute now.”

  “You’ve got a point. Maybe we should take a look at all this … sensitive scientific equipment while we still can. It could be important to the case.”

  “I assure you, it isn’t.”

  Gideon thought fast. Getting out of the basement, that was the first priority. On the one hand, he wanted to swear at Wellers for bringing up the machine, but he couldn’t stay there anyway, so the sooner he was out, the better.

  He glared at the Fiddlehead, source of and solution to so many problems. Could it survive the night without being covered? Maybe. It’d held on this long, hadn’t it? A week, plus a couple of days. But there had been no rain, no ice. Water might be the end of it. Simple moisture destroying the most complex machine a man had ever made. He was certain that said something about Mother Nature, or God, or fate, but he didn’t give a damn about any of them, so he seethed without remorse and didn’t wonder after a deeper meaning.

  But he couldn’t save the machine if he was imprisoned or dead, now could he?

  He seized a bit of waxed cotton canvas—the only bolt he’d brought down. He wrapped his hand in one corner and used it to snap his lantern in half, removing the simple circuitry from the bulb and examining it.

  He frowned. The lantern was newfangled twenty years ago, before the electrical models hit the market; but now it felt like a Roman artifact in his hands. No matter. He’d work with what he had.

  He popped off the bottom, removed the metal base, and then extracted the glass canister of fuel that rested within. There wasn’t much, but it’d have to be enough.

  Ducking under a fallen plank, he scooted into the next room over, where it was almost pitch black. That made it hard to see, but even harder to be seen.

  He worked fast, using his teeth to tear off the cuff of his shirtsleeve. He stuffed it down into the fuel, making a wick that he hoped was long enough. It had to be long enough, or he’d incinerate himself and the Fiddlehead alike.

  There, crouched in the utmost darkness, he pulled a box of matches out of his pocket and struck one. He looked up at what used to be the ceiling, and targeted a pair of feet he could barely see, very near the edge of the basement pit. They weren’t Wellers’s feet—Gideon was pretty sure that Wellers was facing the other direction.

  He listened to the voices for another moment. Yes, he was confident.

  With a deep breath and a steady hand, he lit the scrap of cotton. It burned too bright, a beacon that would reveal him if he let it. The wick wouldn’t last but a few precious seconds, and Wellers couldn’t stall the men forever, so he chucked the tiny, sloshing bomb up through the floor as quickly as he could.

  It shattered and the fuel ignited, spreading across the beams that remained. But it also spread out across the grass, a shallow pool of fire that chased the officers backwards while Wellers barked out something in surprise. A laugh? A cry?

  Gideon wasn’t listening. He was leaving.

  Out he went, up the broken stairs and over the wall while the commotion blazed behind him. He hunkered down low, trusting the coagulating shadows and his grandfather’s Revolutionary W
ar coat to disguise him. He twisted his scarf around his neck, making it snug so it wouldn’t flap or snag. And while Nelson Wellers and the officers stomped and tamped the flames against the damp grass, Gideon ran back out through the woods.

  Yet again.

  He was sick of it, but what else could he do? There were two kinds of help he could offer Wellers: one, he could physically assault the officers in question, thereby negating any murder defense; or, two, he could prove Wellers a truthful man by getting as far away from the premises as possible.

  The last vestiges of Wellers’s protest faded in the distance. Perhaps they’d arrest him, but it wouldn’t be for murder—and there wasn’t much Gideon could do about it either way. He had to trust the Pinkerton agent to manage the situation.

  He hated trusting other people to take care of things without him. He’d much rather do everything himself.

  But aside from absenting himself, the most helpful course of action he could take was to get to the Lincolns’ homestead. Old Uncle Abe would probably know what was going on—he had ears all over the District, and Gideon had a feeling that these murders were already far from secret. Murder never stayed quiet for long.

  As he dashed through the trees along the main road, he glanced at the sky. Was the air on his face wet, or merely cold? Was his nose running, or just freezing?

  Whoever had thought of a murder charge was brilliant, really. When the facts align against you, loudly misdirect. Wonderful strategy. You could undermine anyone by calling them a lunatic or a murderer, especially a colored man whose respectability was precarious under the best of circumstances.

  Even though the sentiments expressed in his editorial sounded outlandish, they were based on rock-solid, irrefutable facts. But all the proof in the world only mattered if it were known and accepted, which was rather unlikely if the proof came from a man accused of murder, especially what sounded like gruesome murders. Vicious, appalling, cruel, sick acts, undoubtedly—with the added lurid detail of a dead man’s accusation, written in blood. How else would they call him a lunatic in the papers?

  And on what other grounds might they take away his credibility? That he was colored? That he’d been a slave?

  That was meaningless in the broad sense, but there were still fools who thought it mattered. Then again, such fools would dismiss him regardless of a murder accusation. No, this ploy was meant to sway the middle masses, the men and women who might otherwise be inclined to panic about this creeping leprosy that spread through the soldiers and into the cities.

  This was a much easier panic, to be sure: a colored man on a murdering rampage. A bold headline! One that would push smaller, more dangerous headlines like “Evidence of Walking Plague’s Association with Warfare Weaponry Mounts” down the page.

  He’d become a point of gossip among the fancy set, just like the Charleston Caper or the Macon Madmen in his father’s time. Oh, beware and behold the danger of letting negroes have their freedom! Ignore the facts, believe the manufactured story with its tidy villains and convenient foes. It’s easier that way.

  Gideon’s chest hurt and his feet were going numb, but he kept running. It was only a couple of miles, not far at all. He could’ve walked it in an hour, but now was not the time for walking. Only when he thought his lungs would burst and his knees quaked from crashing through the underbrush beside the main thoroughfare did he slow.

  He longed to reach out into the road and ask for a ride—he had money; he could buy one, certainly. But with the police on his heels, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. If Nelson Wellers could convince them he was elsewhere, they’d look elsewhere. They’d already tried the Lincoln place, apparently … unless that was a lie and they weren’t policemen at all, which was always a possibility.

  A nasty possibility. But one he couldn’t ignore.

  He let his mind race when his feet couldn’t do so anymore.

  No. The safest thing would be to find Lincoln, and then … it depended.

  He might have to pack up and leave. In which case, he could ask after Kirby Troost and his family, then meet them outside D.C. Troost could get anyone or anything out of anywhere, anytime.

  Then again, if these were merely police, merely ordinary civil servants with a job to do, then they could be reasoned with. The very nature of their duties required them to assess evidence and weigh proof, did it not? Of course, that only applied to the upstanding ones—a policeman can be bribed as easily as anyone else. No, there was no one he could trust. No one but the men he’d already trusted this long, and if he couldn’t count on them, then he was damned regardless.

  While he caught his breath he watched the road, hunting for some sign of help, or, barring that, any suggestion that there might be a manhunt in progress. At one point he watched two official vehicles with side-mounted sirens wailing through the bitter evening wind, charging in the direction of downtown.

  Of course, they might’ve been intended for someone else. There could be a fire, or lightning strike damage from the shifting sky throwing its weight around like a hurricane. It might not have been a response to murders, contrived to blame a blameless man in order to silence him. But he doubted it.

  Gideon was grateful for the small things, that the rain and ice held off, and the wind worked with him. It shoved at his back and urged him onward despite heavy boots and hot, labored breathing. There was nowhere to go but forward.

  Slowly, cautiously, a horse-drawn carriage rumbled close to the ditch at the road’s shoulder. So close Gideon could almost make out the furtive driver—and, indeed, that’d been the point.

  “Nelson!” Gideon barked as he flung himself through the trees.

  Wellers grabbed his hand and yanked him up over the step and into the back. Gideon dropped down low and soon felt the weight of a canvas sheet down over his head. Wellers didn’t say a word, and Gideon didn’t ask any questions.

  Within another five minutes they’d reached their destination, and by then, he’d almost caught his breath.

  Mary was out on the front lawn, her dress billowing ominously in the whipping, driving wind. She held an electric lantern, its false white light beaming wildly as it swung in her hand, tossed about like everything else that wasn’t nailed down. Polly stood beside her, another light in her own hand, equally out of control. Together, they flagged down Wellers.

  He drew the cart up in a stop that left skid marks in the gravel. Polly grabbed the horses and said, “I’ll take them, ma’am—you take the doctor!”

  “Come back inside as soon as you’re able,” Mary commanded, yelling at Polly over the wind. Then, to Wellers: “Doctor, have you heard? Where is he? Is he all right? Did they take him?”

  “I’ve heard,” was all he replied.

  Gideon threw off the canvas covering and rolled over the cart’s side, nearly spraining an ankle on the landing. He shouldn’t have tried it—it was too high—but he was so tired from running that it was the only dismount he could manage. He leaned forward and put his hands on his knees, then straightened up and said, “They’ve accused me of murder.”

  “My, yes—they certainly have! Please, hurry inside! Before they come back!”

  “I can’t hide forever,” he told Mary, even as he let her guide him inside, luring him forward with the unspoken promise of a fire and a friendly ear, of someone he could trust while the world burned down.

  “No, and you won’t have to.”

  “Where’s Lincoln?”

  “Inside, waiting for you. I’ll … I’ll make tea,” she said as she shut the door behind all three of them. Gideon was quite sure that no one wanted tea, but it was the most normal, civilized thing she could think of, and these were uncivilized times.

  “In the library?” Wellers asked, before she disappeared around a corner. She nodded without looking back.

  “The coppers said two people had been killed,” the doctor told Gideon as they paced swiftly down the hall. “An elderly colored couple. They worked in the White House. That’
s all I know.” They rounded the corner and joined Abraham Lincoln in a library that was almost too toasty.

  “Not just two,” the old man said, overhearing. “Three.”

  “Three?” Gideon exclaimed. He untangled his scarf and let it hang limply around his neck.

  “Indeed. A very kind old couple in Grant’s employ, and a housekeeping girl.”

  “My God, I’ve been busy. How did I do it?”

  “An ax in one case, and an excess of bullets in the other. My sources say that the girl had performed a bit of casual treason at the president’s request—and at Katharine Haymes’s peril.”

  “You drew that conclusion rather quickly,” Wellers noted, settling onto the edge of a chair and leaning forward to warm his hands at the fire.

  “I’m not an idiot,” Lincoln said wryly. Then, to Gideon: “All this happened while you were out with Nelson, naturally enough. Or perhaps you’re some kind of witch and you performed the first round of killings immediately before you brought the paper back from Smithy’s.”

  “A witch?” Gideon chose not to sit. He was wound up too tightly, a watch that’s been cranked but not set. Tired as he was, he could scarcely lean, much less be seated. “I’ve been accused of worse.”

  “Don’t say that; there’s far worse to come. The young woman was assaulted. Reports suggest she was ravished, though even if she wasn’t, you can bet that’s what they’ll say.”

  A prickling sensation scaled the back of his neck. “A white girl?” he guessed.

  “If she weren’t, they might not care.”

  A quiet moment fell between them, filled only by the crackling sizzle from the fireplace logs and the hollow, whistling gale howling down the bricks and against the windows. Finally, Lincoln spoke. “It’ll be in the papers. If not tomorrow, then the next day. How optimistic do we feel this evening, gentlemen?”

  “Marginally,” Wellers confessed.