Dactyl Hill Squad

by Daniel José Older

  “Listen up everyone!” a familiar voice called out just as the simmer of excitement in the Bochinche reached its boiling point. “We got a lot to talk about and not much time, as usual, so gather round and keep the heckling to a minimum.” It was David Ballantine, looking exhausted and bedraggled but still somehow dapper.

  “How we sposta have a meeting if we can’t heckle?” someone yelled. Someone else bapped him upside the head and everyone chuckled, but Magdalys could hear the nervousness creeping around the edges of their laughter.

  “Was a long night; been a long day,” David said. “The rioters still have control of most of the city.” A general murmur of disappointment and anger. “Feds sposta be sending reinforcements, but you know … well, you know.”

  “Told ya,” someone said, but no one knew or cared what it was he’d told.

  “Plus they kinda busy with the whole dealing with a violent secession thing. On the plus side, I’m told the siege of Vicksburg is finally over — General Grant’s raptor riders took the city early this morning after —” A huge cheer went up. David smiled, waiting for it to finish. “After a forty-seven-day standoff. Also a Negro division of mounted trike commandos apparently repelled a Confederate attack at a supply station called Milliken’s Bend.”

  That was the fight Montez had been wounded in. “Did …” Magdalys started once the cheering had died down, but she realized she had no idea what to ask. “Have you heard … anything about what happened to the casualties?” Of course he hadn’t. The whole thing was a big impossible void. The need to simply run out of there and just head south, south, south rose up in a frantic pulse through her body.

  David shook his head. “Sorry, Magdalys. That kind of intel hasn’t reached us yet. But if we hear anything at all, I’ll let you know.”

  Magdalys nodded, trying not to let the tears well up and spill out of her.

  “The assault at Milliken’s Bend was the Rebs’ last hope to get reinforcements to Vicksburg,” David said over the excited chatter filling the Bochinche. “And the city fell shortly after, which means our boys dealt a decisive blow, fellas.” More cheering. “We lost a lot of folks though. Seems they executed a number of prisoners and sold the rest into slavery.” Moans and angry shouts. David unfolded a scrap of paper from his pocket. “Secretary of War Stanton apparently feels that, and I quote: ‘the slave has proved his manhood.’”

  The room seemed to let out a collective sigh of exasperation.

  “Manhood?” someone grumbled.

  “They said that a month ago when our folks got massacred at Port Hudson,” someone else pointed out.

  “How many people gotta die to prove to these fools what the rest of us already know?”

  “I know,” David said, shaking his head. “I know. And I don’t know the answer. I just know we gotta keep fighting, on all fronts. Meanwhile, closer to home, dozens of our people been killed in the riots, and that’s only what we know so far.”

  A collection of moans and gasps rose up.

  “Details are still sketchy: Two down at the docks. At least five in midtown. Three in the Claw.”

  The room got very quiet. Magdalys thought of the sorrow she felt for Mr. Calloway, who she didn’t even know that well, and tried to multiply it times a hundred and then again by eight. A well of rage and fear opened up inside her, bigger than anything she could imagine or understand, bigger than that brachiosaurus that had helped them, bigger than the world. She closed her eyes, felt Amaya’s hand on her back, put her head on the older girl’s shoulder.

  “Mr. Napoleon is still looking into the situation at the Colored Orphan Asylum,” David said after a few moments of silence. “From what he could gather, most of the orphans got away before the fire started. Seems an older gentleman who cleaned there held off the mob so the kids could escape.”

  Magdalys didn’t realize she was crying until Amaya squeezed her shoulder.

  “He was killed by the rioters,” David said. “To the young folks we got here who knew him, I’m so sorry. We’re doing what we can to make sure he receives a proper burial.”

  “What happened to the others?” Two Step asked. “You said most got away.”

  David shook his head. “We don’t know. Yet. We’re working on it. Dr. McCune Smith and Frederick Douglass already housed the ones that did make it out. Anyway, Louis is on it, so wherever the rest of the kids are, we’ll find ’em. And he got lil’ what’s-her-name helping him out.”

  “Marietta,” Magdalys said.

  “Right! Thanks! That’s it for now, folks. If you want to help, talk to Bernice at the bar; she’s coordinating stuff right now. Kids …” David scanned the room, made eye contact with each of them. “Meet me in the back room when you’re done eating, if you don’t mind.”

  Amaya and Magdalys exchanged a glance. What on earth could David Ballantine want to talk to them about? Amaya squeezed Magdalys one more time and then let her go.

  At the far end of the table, Halsey Crunk burped loudly. “Woe, destruction, ruin, and decay,” he mumbled, nursing a beer. “The worst is death, and death will have his day.”

  “LOOK,” DAVID SAID, once Magdalys, Amaya, Sabeen, Mapper, and Two Step had all filed into the dim room across from the kitchen. The muted laughter and piano playing from the bar could still be heard through the wood-paneled walls.

  “What’s wrong?” Mapper asked.

  Instead of finishing his sentence, David just sighed and shook his head as five pairs of eyes stared at him. “I just … I didn’t want it to come to this.”

  “What can we do to help?” Magdalys said. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

  David nodded. “Of course it is. Because this ridiculous world has made soldiers of even our babies.”

  “We’re not babies,” Two Step said.

  David smiled, sadly at first, then wider. “I know, it’s an expression. One I just made up. And babies sounds better, right?”

  “Sabeen’s basically still a baby,” Mapper said.

  “Nuh-uh — I’m almost eleven!” Sabeen pouted. “I’m just small.”

  “Look,” David cut in before anybody got rowdy, “we need your help. I hate asking you, because you should be playing with sticks and balls or whatever it is you young folks do for fun nowadays. But this is the world we live in, and with the riots, well … everything got a lot more dangerous and our resources are stretched way thinner. Every black New Yorker is in danger right now, and we need as many eyes on the street as we can get. You’ve all been given jobs, and yes, those are to earn your keep here at the Bochinche, but they’re also important, um, strategically speaking.”

  “You want us to keep an eye out,” Amaya said.

  David looked relieved. “Exactly!”

  “Holy crow!” Mapper yelled. “You want us to be spies!”

  David, Magdalys, and Amaya all rubbed their eyes and groaned at the same time. “I mean …” David said. He adjusted his top hat and looked out the window; his hands moved in circles to explain better, but no words came out.

  “Yes,” Amaya finally said. “But if you yell that you’re a spy, that means you don’t get to be a spy anymore, because you’ve automatically failed the first test of being a spy.”

  “Aw, man!” Mapper said.

  “This is the thing,” David said, “here are all the people in this world you can trust.” He held up both hands, palms out.

  “Ten?” Two Step said. “Only ten people? Who?”

  David shook his head. “That was meant to show that my hands are empty, Two Step. No people. You can trust no people in this world. That’s how you have to act if you’re going to be working for us. Understand?”

  “We gotta trust you though, right?” Sabeen said. “Otherwise, what’s the point? And who will we tell our information to once we collect it?”

  “Okay, yeah, you got to trust me.”

  “Nice one,” Mapper said, high-fiving Sabeen. “For a baby.” Sabeen punched him in the shoulder and he snickere
d.

  “We trust Cymbeline,” Magdalys said. “She saved our lives.”

  “Well, yeah, I think Cymbeline’s pretty trustworthy,” David admitted. “And Louis and Bernice are definitely okay. But no one else! I mean it!”

  They all stared at him.

  “Except,” he allowed after a moment, “and this is important: You have to trust each other. If you trust each other, it means you also have to be trustworthy to each other. You can’t keep things from each other, not important things, not things about the work we’re all doing. You can’t be sneaking off, can’t be lying. Not to each other. You are now the most important person in the world to four other people. That’s all that matters. That’s the only way this is going to work. You’re a team.”

  Mapper perked up. “We’re a team, you guys! I’ve always wanted to be on a team!”

  “We need a name,” Two Step said. “Teams have names.”

  David chuckled. “And that is my cue to exit! I’ll leave you to it.” He shuffled out of the room shaking his head.

  “Dactyl Hill is where we’re based out of,” Magdalys said. “So we should be the Dactyl Hill something.”

  Mapper jumped to his feet. “The Dactyl Hill Dactyls!”

  Everyone shook their heads.

  “We’re a squad,” Two Step said slowly. “Remember what Miss Bernice said about dactyls?”

  “That they’re not very smart and can’t carry you very far?” Mapper suggested doubtfully.

  “That their poop takes forever to wash out of your clothes?” Sabeen tried.

  “That to survive,” Magdalys said, “they travel in a group.” It was kinda corny, but Two Step had a point.

  He looked at her with the biggest smile she’d seen on him since he found out about his parents. “Right! That there’s big dactyls and minidacts and the tiny micro ones —”

  “Like Sabeen,” Mapper added. She shoulder-punched him again, this time hard enough to make him yelp.

  “But the way they make it through the world is by sticking together. That’s why they stay flocking on the building edges in those big clusters.”

  Mapper, still standing, held his hands out to either side, smile ecstatic. “So we’re the …”

  “Dactyl Hill Squad!” everyone yelled at the same time. Even Amaya.

  “WOW, WHAT’D I miss?” Cymbeline Crunk said, walking in with her eyebrows raised.

  David came back in a few moments later, still shaking his head. “What indeed.”

  Cymbeline handed him a beer and propped herself against the table next to where he stood. Magdalys forced a smile. She had let herself get swept up in all the excitement, but not too much. She couldn’t get attached. At least it wouldn’t be them leaving this time, it would be her. Still, she could try to have fun in whatever little time she’d be around for.

  “We a squad, Ms. Crunk!” Two Step yelled.

  “The Dactyl Hill Squad,” Magdalys added.

  “And,” Mapper said, “Mr. Ballantine asked us to —”

  “Kyle Tannery!” Amaya snapped. “How are you so smart in almost every possible way except this most basic of things?”

  Mapper’s mouth dropped open. “You think I’m smart?”

  “Anyway,” David said with a chuckle, “Cymbeline already knows. I had to ask her permission before I spoke to you guys about it.”

  “Darn right,” Cymbeline said, clinking her own bottle against David’s. “I’m responsible for you guys now, I figure.” Cymbeline was taking responsibility for them? That was pretty much the best thing Magdalys could imagine happening. “So anyone who wants to reach you has to get through me and my shotty first.”

  Everyone cheered.

  “Alright, alright, guys,” David said. “Let’s get down to business for a sec, then you can go back to your squad party.”

  Folks got quiet in a hurry; being a squad, with a name and everything, had changed the game. They weren’t just abandoned orphans anymore — they were part of something. They all felt it; Magdalys could tell from the focused hush that fell instantly over the room.

  “The basic idea is, you each have your jobs — Magdalys, Mapper, Sabeen, and Two Step are on chimney sweep duty; Amaya is working the Bochinche. So that makes you the eyes and ears of the Vigilance Committee. If you see anything out of the ordinary or hear anything, you send word to Bernice via minidact. If you come across someone who looks like they are on the run, you let us know. If you see some unusual gatherings of folks, you let us know. I want complete coverage. A triceratops shouldn’t be able to fart sideways without a message about it flapping its way back to the Bochinche. Clear?”

  Amidst stifled laughs, the Dactyl Hill Squad nodded in unison.

  “Now, thing number two is this: A lot of the Kidnapping Club’s shenanigans go down in Manhattan, particularly by the docks. And by shenanigans, just to be perfectly clear, I mean they snatch African New Yorkers off the streets and send them down south to slavery. I know you’ve already had a run-in with the Club’s boss, Magistrate Riker, so you know, as does Cymbeline, just how dangerous a group we’re dealing with. This is not a game; it’s not a joke. Lives are on the line, including every single one of yours. Is that clear?”

  “Sir, yes sir!” the Dactyl Hill Squad responded as one.

  The other orphans, Magdalys thought — they were out there in that cruel city somewhere while these monsters stalked the streets, waiting to snatch up anyone they could.

  “So, we’ll be taking shifts doing work in Manhattan; it’s important right now because any kidnapped victims will probably be transported out through the docks. That’s extra dangerous work, for obvious reasons. Unfriendly territory, and especially after the riots, we have fewer contacts there to get you out of a jam.”

  893 Mulberry Street, Magdalys’s file had said. Manhattan. That’s where Harrison Weed lived, the man who had dropped her off at the Colored Orphan Asylum and stolen away her sisters. Her only hope of finding out more about her family.

  “So,” David said, “who wants to volunteer for the fir —”

  Magdalys’s hand shot up. “I do.”

  Everyone turned to stare at her.

  “Well, alright,” David said. “Good. We have contacts in a building down on Lispenard that can set you up to sweep some chimneys tomorrow morning. Who will join her?”

  Magdalys elbowed Mapper. “Ow!” he snarled.

  Sabeen raised her hand. Magdalys loved Sabeen, but she wouldn’t be much help with what would have to be done.

  She elbowed Mapper again. “What the heck?” he whispered, and then it dawned on him. “Oh! Uh, I’ll go!”

  “Alright,” David said. “Magdalys and Mapper, then. Sabeen, you can go on the next run.”

  “Yes!” Magdalys said, trying to contain her excitement. She’d go to Manhattan, find Harrison Weed, and somehow get what she needed to know about her family from him. She’d have to figure out the how when she got there.

  “But listen,” David said, his voice turning stern again. “It’s bad enough that we need to put you kids in the middle of this mess. So: You stay by the docks. You keep your eyes peeled for danger. Any trouble or if you get separated, you send word via microdact immediately. Clear?”

  Magdalys and Mapper nodded.

  “We have a few other agents embedded down there, including Napoleon. If they hear you’re in trouble, they’ll get to you. The hand sign is this …”

  “Secret code hand signs?” Mapper squealed. Sabeen shook her head. “Could this possibly get any cooler?”

  David rolled his eyes, then brought his left hand close to his chest and made a V, then a C with his fingers. “Got it? For Vigilance Committee.” Everyone tried it. “Good. Look for it. Now Magdalys, Mapper, you head out in the morning after breakfast. Be extra careful and no unnecessary risks. Understood?”

  “Completely,” Magdalys said, gritting her teeth behind pursed lips.

  That night, Magdalys lay in bed staring at the dark ceiling, her fingers laced beh
ind the silky headscarf Miss Bernice had lent her. The caws of dactyls flying overhead mixed with Cymbeline and Sabeen’s snores. Tomorrow she would have answers. They would be incomplete, surely, but they would be more than nothing, and nothing was basically what she had now, all she’d ever had.

  She would find out something, and then, armed with that, she’d somehow get herself south, to New Orleans. She’d find Montez. She’d make sure he was alright, stay with him until he healed, and then together they’d go to Cuba and find their parents and sisters. They’d find them. The world might be broken, like David said, but maybe they could create their own sense of wholeness if they could pull their shattered family together again.

  “You neither?” Amaya said, rolling over and lying on her back beside Magdalys.

  Magdalys shook her head. “Too many thoughts.”

  “Same,” Amaya said. “Everything got so real so suddenly in the past two days.”

  It wasn’t like Amaya to admit that anything overwhelmed her, Magdalys realized. She almost never let her vulnerability show. “I feel like we’ve seen the best and the worst of this world in a very tiny amount of time.”

  They let the words sit in the dark air between them for a few moments, then Amaya said, “My father is a general.”

  Magdalys stayed quiet. If she prodded or acted too interested or fake in any way at all, Amaya would slip back into her shell like those little hermit crabs she’d read about and probably never come back out.

  “He worked at a military school called the Citadel ever since I was little. And, of course, they didn’t let me train. Everyone thought I was just cute. A little girl, and half Apache to boot, though they didn’t really know what that meant. To them I was just a savage. But I was also the daughter of the great General Cuthbert Trent, and besides being a hero of the Mexican War, he was a head instructor there, so they couldn’t mess with me too much. And my father trained me in secret, raised me a soldier, kept me on a strict military regimen, even taught me tactics and strategy, weapons … everything. And I knew, because I was who I was and because I was his daughter, I had to be good, so I wasn’t just good; I was the best. Better than the best. And they had no idea …”