The Golden Minute

by John Birmingham

  A light breeze was gathering strength, becoming something harder and colder. Dead leaves whipped across the muddy ground, some of them sticking to Cady’s boots. Rain felt close.

  “I have to find my… husband,” she said. “I don’t know what happened to him. Or where he is.”

  It wasn’t a total lie, but it wasn’t the truth either. More like a little from column A, and a little from column B.

  Mary’s face, already lined and drawn, looked almost spectral in the pale light of Michael’s lamp.

  “Your husband killed many good men. And I did hear tell of his… disappearance. It is passing strange.”

  “Smith killed the men who were shooting at us,” Cady replied, clear and level. “And I have heard tell that you changed into a magic boar and flew through the starlit night, Mary. We both know that did not happen.”

  After a moment, the older woman nodded.

  Cousin Michael was all but hopping from toe to toe. Smith would have said he was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. The driver, de Klerk, not having offered to help Cady, now climbed into the wagon next to Mary. He carefully draped another heavy blanket over her, protecting the old lady from the elements, but also hiding her from hostile view. He pulled the brim of his hat down, retreating into anonymity for himself.

  Cady was desperate to get back to Smith. She could think of only one way.

  “We were on our way to Boston,” she said. “We intended to overnight there at a tavern where he had stayed before. The Red Lion. I have to get there. I think he slipped into the woods when I was knocked out. If so, he would go there and look for me.”

  Mary frowned. “He would not come for you?”

  Cady smiled as she shook her head. “Smith knows me. And he knows I would not long be held by a simple cage.”

  “To that I will attest,” the older woman conceded. “But if you will not venture north with us, allow us to speed you a jaunce from Salem Village. Share our wagon to the waterfront at the least. Mister de Klerk will secure passage south for you, before we ride north.”

  The grumpy Amish seemed unimpressed by that, and huddled lower under his ugly wide-brimmed hat, but he dared not contradict the word of his master, this Captain Bradbury. He did push back when Cady said she needed to get her bag back from Corwin.

  “All my... goods… and things are in there. And monies. I have monies.”

  Mary and de Klerk exchanged a few sharp words in a foreign tongue. Some dinosaur version of Pennsylvania Dutch, Cady assumed. Mary won out, of course.

  “Michael. Fetch Goody Smith’s luggage from the jailhouse. Quick now!”

  “But, madam,” the boy protested, almost wailing, “I have the watch tonight. If the baggage disappears, I will stand accused for the loss.” He glanced about, nervously. “There are strange artifacts. The magistrates…”

  Mary’s voice became a lash. “The magistrates are know-nothing bobfools! Get the luggage.”

  “But I cannot!”

  Cady could see this kid was shitting his pants. She was getting anxious, too. They couldn’t stand around here, arguing. She had to bounce and fast.

  “Just get the money,” she said. “There are ingots. Silver and gold. They’re rolled into a sock, a stocking, at the bottom of the bag. I can make do with them.”

  She desperately wanted access to the phone or iPod, and the information stored on it, but this kid would probably faint if he picked up one of those devices and activated the screen. She was sure she’d powered them all down. But…

  “I will! I will then!” Michael conceded. “But no more than simple argent to be sure.”

  She wasn’t sure what that meant, but the kid hurried away. He was even smart enough to hold his keys so that they didn’t jangle and attract attention.

  “Climb on,” Mary said. “You are younger than I, Cadence. You will require no help from de Klerk.”

  She didn’t, although there was no easy way to get up into the tray of the wagon. By the time she’d scrabbled up the wheels and over the side, Michael was hurrying back.

  He tossed the rolled-up socks into her lap as though they burned with Satan’s own hot sauce and he couldn’t get rid of them quickly enough.

  Cady could feel from the weight that the ingots were still in there.

  She was surprised, but if everyone was as nervous around the uptime gear as this guy, perhaps only the magistrates or even that priest had touched her things. And they probably had a big hot holy water bath right after.

  The ingots were all there. She had no idea of their worth at this time and place, or of how she might barter for whatever she would need in the way of food and shelter.

  But for the first time since they’d dropped into that shitty paddock, Cadence McCall felt like she had some options.

  The wagon ride took longer than she expected. She lay on bare and splintery boards in the rear bed, under a horse blanket. It was uncomfortable and stifling. Every bump jolted through her. She gagged more than once at the smell, and about ten minutes before they pulled up, it started to rain, soaking through the blanket. When it became obvious they had stopped, Cady peeked out from under her cover. Before Mary swatted at her with a riding crop, forcing her back into hiding, she got a sight picture of the Salem waterfront. No moonlight revealed the ships at anchor, but lamps like the one Michael had used hung from a small forest of masts, which swayed and creaked on the tide. She had a quick impression of sailors at work here and there, and a bell rang to signal a change of watch or maybe the turn of an hour. Otherwise the waterfront was quiet.

  Quiet was good.

  She’d had enough of being chased by mobs and crazy fucking witch-hunters. Cady pushed down the fear that Smith would somehow return to the village and find her gone. She had to trust that he would know to look for her at the tavern in Boston.

  That was the smart move, right?

  To just go where they’d intended to go and wait for him there.

  And if he never arrives?

  She couldn’t deal with that shit just now. She had to have faith in him. Even so, a tiny voice kept telling her she was crazy. She should go with Mary. Hide out in Maine. Eat some lobster and kick it on the down low. For now at least. This Captain Bradbury was obviously a superhero. And Mary and she were tight now. They’d done time together.

  Maybe I should just go to Maine?

  The blanket disappeared, pulled off by de Klerk.

  “We must part,” Mary said. “Mister de Klerk has arranged passage to Boston on the Herald, under Captain Garvey. He has previous commissions from my husband and Sir Ferdinando Gorges. He will see you safe to your destination, Cadence.”

  Cady climbed out of the wagon tray. Her Doc Martens crunched down on the wet, wooden planks of the boardwalk.

  “I can pay for passage,” she offered, but Mary flicked the suggestion away with the riding crop.

  “You shared that sweet and foreign chocolate with me,” she said. “Of itself, it was a wonder, but I will tell you true, Cadence Smith, I was at my lowest ebb when you offered your kindness. I had not heard from Captain Bradbury in some long weeks, and while I am not afeared to meet the Lord my God in judgment, I did fear to lose my mortal life to profane accusations of which I stand blameless. You did lift my spirits then from the darkest trough. I cannot come off that debt, but Captain Garvey has a promissory note in your interest from me now.”

  “You paid for me?” Cady asked, not quite understanding what Mary was getting at, other than saying thanks for the chocolate.

  “The note covers the cost of your passage and deliverance by Garvey to the inn of your choosing. Were I you, I would indeed tarry at the Red Lion. It is the best of the mercantile houses.”

  Cady reached up and took Mary’s hand, squeezing it gently.

  “Thank you. Good luck on the road.”

  Mary’s fingers tightened around hers.

  “And to you, mistress, on the waves.”

  Mister de Klerk, still n
ot looking at her, cracked the reins and the wagon lurched forward. Cady let go her grip and felt a terrible loneliness overtake her. It did not come riding in on a shockwave of fear and grief, as it had when she was separated from Smith, but the desolation felt just as powerful in its own way. The wagon rumbled away, before turning to climb a gravel path back up the main street of Salem. Mary Bradbury did not look back.

  Cady was alone again.

  The rain was falling harder and she hunched into her sheepskin coat, feeling so desperately forlorn and out of her depth that the irrational notion of sneaking back to the village and trying to reclaim her backpack nearly overwhelmed her. The only things she had in this whole world were in that bag, and although she recognized the temptation to have them back as being dangerously, even lethally stupid, she actually took one and then two steps back the way they had come.

  “Mistress Smith?”

  Although she’d been pretending at being Mrs Titanic Smith since her capture, she did not respond so much to her ‘name’ as to the lone voice, calling out on the solitary dock front.

  Cady turned to find a short, bearded man in baggy canvas knee-length pants, dark woolen socks, something that might one day evolve into leather deck shoes, and a long dark blue coat. He dipped his hat towards her and she was certain it would topple right off. The thing looked like a hairy ornamental shrub growing to a ridiculous height from his head.

  “Mistress Smith,” the man said again, “I am retained in your service by the Captain and Mistress Bradbury, and we must away with all dispatch, aye.”

  Cady stood, staring at him for a moment.

  He spoke in a rapid, guttural burr that was almost impossible to unpack for meaning.

  “Ma’am?” he said, but it sounded more like ‘Mum’.

  She shook off her confusion. He’d caught her free-falling through a tumble of irrational thoughts and feelings.

  “Captain Garvey?”

  “Aye, mum. And the Herald be that way if ye would buskle to accost.”

  At least that’s what she thought she heard.

  He turned and stomped off up the boardwalk with an exaggerated gait that set his enormous hat rocking from side to side. In a flicker of recognition, Cady realized where she’d seen that stride, or something like it. When Smith stood up after he had been sitting for a while, he sometimes walked as though he’d just climbed off a horse. Garvey’s feet described an almost graceful gliding motion, which was different to the cowboy’s solid step, but both men had a similar, bow-legged way of walking. Smith from years in the saddle; Garvey from a life on a pitching deck.

  He was not slowing to wait for her, though, and with the spell that had fallen over her now broken, Cady hurried on after him. With her back to Salem and her boots clocking on the boardwalk, she was suddenly eager to get as far away as possible from this Puritan jihad.

  17

  Smith was enjoying a fine jamboree with Dittrich and his fellows when the Gestapo fetched up at their table. Way it went was, he bought a round of beers. The SS honcho bought another round. A whole passle of sizzlin’ sausages and fried taters arrived in need of washin’ down with more beer. He told them how much he liked German beer. They avowed a great love of American movies, especially westerns, of which he had seen precisely one, in the hotel room while Cady did her shopping, and then they all looked up and discovered their gathering was being overseen by an undertaker, a feller with an aspect of the Reaper about him.

  He was a month-long streak o’ misery in a leather duster, with a face as mean as cat meat. Two big dumb brutes rode shotgun on him. Both of them was dressed just the same, but they bulked out at least twice as wide.

  “Obersturmführer. Herr Professor,” the undertaker said, addressing Dittrich and Koffler. “I am Director Klaus Gerhard from the Berlin office of Department E. If I might interrupt, I have a few questions for your guest. Herr Smith.”

  He said each other word of Smith’s name carefully, looking at him as he did so. It was like hearing the date of your own death whispered to you in the dark.

  “If this is about the SA scum who were in here earlier, Director,” Dittrich said, “I can vouch for Herr Schmidt. He was defending himself against Röhm’s street thugs.”

  “I am sure,” Director Gerhard replied coldly. “I can confirm those men, and the pervert Röhm for that matter, have been dealt with this very night. But my investigations into the earlier disturbance have led me to a cache of materiel that looks very much like the equipment of a foreign spy.”

  The beer buzz Smith had been enjoying soured and curdled.

  “What equipment?” he said.

  Gerhard snapped his fingers, and the bruiser at his left shoulder reached down behind and picked up a pack.

  Smith’s possibles bag.

  Tightly packed with all manner of doodads and gadgetry he could not possibly explain.

  He felt Koffler stiffen beside him and heard the professor swear softly. So softly nobody else heard him over the music and the hubbub of the crowd.

  “Hey! That was in my room,” Smith protested.

  Gerhard looked surprised.

  “Yes,” he said. “It was. You do not deny it then?”

  Smith felt Koffler’s hand on his arm, squeezing hard to shut him up and forestall precipitate action.

  “I am sure this is simply a misunderstanding,” he assured Smith before turning back to Gerhard. “Mister Smith is a traveler. From America. A commercial traveler. He has many samples of the newest products of American industry and ingenuity.”

  Gerhard’s frozen face did not crack or warm up in the slightest.

  “Then he will not mind telling us of them, I am sure. Come along now, Mister Smith. We will not detain you longer than is necessary to explain the contents of your luggage.”

  Smith looked to Dittrich for support, but the SS men were no longer allied to him in kindred merriment. Their expressions were now arranged into blank slabs and blocks of granite indifference, even hostility.

  “You had best go with the director, Schmidt,” Dittrich said. “The Gestapo does not make mistakes. And tonight they must be especially vigilant in securing the state from subversion and threat in all its forms.”

  Smith weighed the odds of fighting his way out and dismissed them immediately.

  He was already badly dinged up from the fight with the brownshirts, and he was man enough to admit he’d only survived that thanks to intervention by Dittrich and his posse. A feller’s gotta know his limitations. Add their numbers to the three Gestapo and he was not getting out of this booth, let alone the Wild West Bar, in one whole piece.

  His eyes fell on the possibles bag, still held aloft by Gerhard’s thug.

  What in tarnation had these Bavarian hoopleheads made of all the mysterious tack and equipage in there?

  “Go,” Koffler said quietly. “I will sort this out.”

  They did not chain or hogtie him in any way, which was a wonder, until Smith attended to the faces of everybody they passed. For in truth, he did not really see their faces. The great mass of people turned or dropped their heads and averted their gaze, and the three Gestapo men moved through the crowds thronging the main concourse of Haus Vaterland as though their long, black leather coats made them invisible… and Smith along with them.

  He had been some hours in the peculiar environs of the Wild West Bar, and during that time it appeared as though all of Berlin had gussied themselves up to take in the night airs. Many thousands of them strolled to and from their dinners, or shows, or to the innumerable nightclubs such as Smith had just left. The summer night, now late, had come upon the city without any appreciable glooming. Indeed, Haus Vaterland and the streets outside dazzled the eye with even brighter radiance than he recalled from high noon. A twinkling galaxy of electrical lights held back the darkness and glimmered from the polished glass and silver trim of shop displays.

  And yet Smith slipped through it all like a footpad through the shadows.

  He judged
himself a little drunk, but not ruinously so. Enough to dull the aches and throbs of his most recent affray, and to loosen the nuts and bolts holding him together just enough that he was confident he could move with effective speed against these Gestapo scalawags should it become needful.

  And it would, and soon. Of that Smith was sure.

  The pair of thickset flunkeys, each maintaining a two-handed grip on his elbows were not so much restraining him as guiding him. Smith was fine with that. It tied up all of their available punching equipment. Impossible to lay a fist on a feller when your hands was all a-tangle in his coat sleeves. Smith knew about a dozen ways to make that pay for him. The smaller, meaner rodent in charge of this little rat pack, though, he was surely gunned up and would dig for his cannons at the first sign of any trouble from his prisoner. He was also smart enough to stay at least two long strides aways, puttin’ him beyond the reach of Smith’s boots, just in case he were fixin’ to punt that skinny derriere of his out into traffic.

  The traffic was just as heavy, possibly more so, but now the motor-driven vehicles, countless thousands of them in Potsdamer Platz, were all shining torchlights from in front of their carriages to illuminate the way. The low, constant roar of so many motors, and the ruckus and hubbub of a great, seething ocean of people afoot and about their evening diversions was, with the beer and the surprise and the fuzzy-headed fog that often wrapped itself around a feller after a dust-up, it were all enough to befuddle Titanic Smith so that, afore he knew of it, the Gestapo heavy men had bustled him into the back of a motor vehicle.

  One held the door while the other pushed Smith’s head down, but not far enough. He banged his noggin on the steel framework of the vehicle, and his head filled with fireworks. A few well-placed rabbit punches and perhaps a knee or two encouraged him into the prison wagon. For that’s what this thing was. He were sure of it. Even without iron bars and chains, Smith recognized a carriage meant for hauling captives to confinement. The heavies sat on a fold-down wooden bench on either side of him, all of them facing away from the wagon driver, but towards Director Gerhard in the rearmost seat. Out of public view at last, the thin pretense of cordiality died in the space between them.