Day Nine

by Clayton Spann

Monday, June 29

  Naylor was in the library when shots rang in rapid succession. Shouts followed. Both noises originated near the quarters.

  It was one in the morning. She had not been able to sleep and had slipped from bed down to the library. She had been reading Flaubert by candelabra when the gunshots started.

  Immediately she heard footfalls on the floor above. She tightened her robe and hurried to the library doors. The two soldiers at the stairway—instructed not to leave their post unless ordered by General Ewell—thankfully remained in position. They had rifles at the ready. A wall oil lamp cast their wavering shadows against the stairway.

  “Stay where you are,” she reminded them anyway.

  They sneered. The bearded teenagers did not like a woman telling them what to do. Too bad. She would have them in ball and chain if they took a step away from the stairs.

  “Mrs. Wallis, what has happened?”

  Her eyes jerked to the top of the stairs. Sandie Pendleton stood shoeless in trousers and undershirt. Campbell Brown immediately joined him. Then McGuire and Lacy appeared. All were armed except for the reverend.

  Good, they were staying upstairs as directed. She was also glad to see Aaron had remained at his post in Thomas’ room. Aaron would keep the lamp out and Thomas away from the windows.

  Then Richard Ewell, in nightshirt and missing his wood leg, thumped in on crutches from the parlor. He carried an enormous horse pistol. Ewell shrilly demanded to know what the hell was going on.

  “Heard shots, sir,” said one of the soldiers.

  “Goddammit, I know there were shots. Why were there shots?”

  “Can’t say, General. The lady won’t let us look.”

  Ewell now scowled at Naylor. Before he could hurl surliness her way, the front door opened. The soldiers leveled their rifles.

  “Holy Jesus, it’s me,” said another soldier. He held his rifle in one hand. “Don’t go blowing my head off, Louis.”

  “You’re supposed to knock and be granted entry, Moss.”

  “Enough!” shouted Ewell. “What the devil was that shooting about?”

  The entering soldier saluted the bald man in drawers. “It was a nig, sir. He was prowling.”

  “You kill him?”

  “No, sir. He got away.”

  “Anybody hurt?”

  “Nig was trying to strangle Private Welch. Think he’s all right.”

  “Where’d this take place?”

  “Right out back. Someone spotted him choking Welch, then he ran. That was the firing. Sorry we missed, sir.”

  Another soldier appeared at the front doorway. He held something in his hand. He did a double take at Ewell, saluted, then entered.

  “What you got there, Rufe?” asked Louis.

  “Welch grabbed it off the nigger. Stocking cap, I guess.”

  Ewell thrust out his arm. “Give it to me!”

  “Sure, General.” He handed over the black object.

  It was a navy type watch cap. Naylor’s breath froze. As did her whole body. She fought to stay upright.

  “What you want us to do, General? Send out search parties?”

  “No, boys. You’ll never find him in the dark.”

  Moss snorted a laugh. “Sure ‘nough, General. Can’t find a darkie in the dark.”

  “Musta been looking for somethin’ loose,” said Louis.

  “That’s what my maw always said, they’s born to steal.”

  Naylor had regained her tongue.

  “You say it was a Negro. Can you be sure? It is pretty dark around back.”

  “There’s some moonlight. And ma’am, I know a nigger when I see one.”

  “You will use the word Negro in my presence. How was he dressed?”

  “In clothes, ma’am. How’d you expect?”

  The other privates snickered. Even Ewell smiled.

  Her temper stirred, but she kept her voice calm. “Tell me exactly what he wore, private.”

  The soldier looked to Ewell. Ewell nodded.

  “He—the clothes were real dark. Smart thing to do, I reckon, for night stealing.”

  “So he was completely in black.”

  “Looked like it…ma’am.”

  Naylor turned to Ewell. “General, please let me inspect the cap.”

  She fingered the knitted black cloth. It did not feel like wool. She turned the cap inside out and saw a trace of white cloth at the center. Certainly the remnant of a label. Knives pierced her abdomen.

  “General Ewell, have men scour the camp and beyond for the intruder. I fear he is a Union agent.”

  Ewell looked dubious.

  She whispered in his ear. “This man has come to kill General Jackson. Do as I ask, and quickly, for he can ruin everything.”

  The general pursed his lips. He too was finding it hard to take direction from a woman. But take them he must, since Thomas had told Ewell and the staff to act on her words as if they were his own.

  The voice of Old Baldy again shrilled. “Pendleton! See to the lady’s…suggestion.”

  “Yes, sir.” Sandie flew down the stairs. Naylor caught him before he could get outside.

  “Also double—no, triple—the guard around these quarters. He may come back for another try.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Sandie would have no trouble following her orders. He had witnessed her pull Thomas back from the abyss. He tore outside.

  Naylor called to McGuire. “Hunter, please send down my husband. And make sure our baggage stays safe.”

  McGuire nodded knowingly before turning away.

  Price watched as Allison paced before him in the library. Beyond the closed doors the piping voice of Ewell still griped and swore, and his crutches still banged around the foyer. Old Chrome Dome was worth the price of admission on his own.

  But they had other problems.

  He fingered the watch cap again. It felt like synthetic fiber, which they sure as hell didn’t have in 1863. No doubt about it, the “prowler” had been an agent sent through Transit One.

  “We better hope they catch this guy,” he said.

  “They won’t, Aaron.”

  He supposed the soldier boys wouldn’t. The agent would be proficient in escape and evasion. Price did not think the man would try again tonight, as Allison feared. He would regroup. Regroup with his partner.

  “He has to be accompanied. If he came through soon after we did.”

  “Yes.” Allison bit off the word.

  Price had always been able to think clearly in crisis, even when bullets were flying at him. This time it was different. Right now he was fighting borderline panic.

  That agent had somehow found them, then come within an ace of getting in the commandant’s quarters. Two guards had been found killed, and that private Welch was on his way down. It was bad luck for the agent that another soldier came back to take a leak.

  “I’d like to think me and you were the target,” said Price. “Not Jackson. I’d like to think the agent and partner didn’t remotely suspect he was alive.”

  Allison groaned. “If only.”

  “Yeah.”

  There was no other reason to be in Carlisle now, the most logical place for Jackson to reassume command. The agents sure weren’t after Ewell. Ewell had about handed victory to the Union by his dithering that first evening at Gettysburg.

  “What’ll we do, Aaron?”

  Before April of this year Allison would have never asked him that. In office she was the very model of a self-confident leader. Since April she had not lost any of her brilliance, but she solicited him more and more him for operational advice. He wished she had in the matter of Susannah and Peggy.

  “Well, good news is they didn’t get Thomas. Bad news is we still have to get him to Gettysburg.”

  “One agent is probably an expert sniper, too.”

  “Stands to reason.”

  “Where wou
ld they find two agents emotionally enough attached? They’d have to be, to last more than a couple weeks here.”

  Price shrugged. “Might be married agents. They must have some. Or even an agent and his civilian wife.” Of course, it could be two gay agents who were lovers. What was for sure, they had found a suitable pair.

  Allison finally sat down. She put her elbows on the desk and her head in her hands.

  Then she looked up at him. The circles under her eyes were darker than ever. It had been a tough bunch of days for her since that last night at the farm.

  “We can’t lose him now, Aaron.”

  “We won’t.” But they almost had.

  “Maybe we should move Thomas now. While that agent’s still on the run.”

  “In the dark wouldn’t be such a good idea.”

  “Waiting gives them time to plan another attempt.”

  “Let’s wait until morning. And use a decoy. We take a fake Jackson with us.”

  Price and Allison had planned to leave mid morning anyway. They were to travel the Cumberland Valley under cavalry escort all the way to Hagerstown. From there the two of them were to proceed alone. They should reach Transit One by noon of July 1st.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “The opposition would have to follow if it looks like Jackson is with us.”

  “Would they swallow that bait? Isn’t that what they’d expect us to do?”

  Price clasped his hands. “You have a point.”

  Allison sat up straight. “Oh, God.”

  “What is it?”

  “Aaron…do you think they sent Jack Mauer after us?”

  “Huh?”

  “He’s who I would send. He’s the best they’re got.”

  “Jack’s bound for supermax. Where he can commiserate with his equally wacked out buddy, Tony Meda.”

  Both had gone far off the reservation, brutally killing left and right. No way any president—even a dull knife like Hightower—would use them for such a critical mission.

  “They’d be desperate.”

  “Not that desperate. There are plenty of experienced people they could send through.”

  “What if Hightower gave Jack and Meda blanket pardons? They were great friends, comrades in arms. It doesn’t have to be romantic love that sustains people once through the transit.”

  That would be a nightmare, facing those two. He fought off a shudder.

  Price frowned. “It’s not them, but say it is. We just plan for that worst case. The problem is the same. We have to get Jackson to Gettysburg alive.”

  She looked despairingly at him. “We’re so close.”

  “We’ve overcome everything so far.”

  Allison sighed, then stood.

  “Well, let’s go consult Thomas. He’s the master strategist.”

  “If we can wake him,” said Price.